It was a quiet day in the library.

The sun hung low in the sky, only recently risen, the oranges and pinks that had painted the air floating and slowly giving way to a brilliant blue. Beams of light streamed through what windows there were, lighting up all the dust particles that were inevitably kicked up, illuminating the unmaintained shelves and unused leather-backed tomes that lined its hall. One could, hypothetically, get lost in the rows upon rows of words, practically ancient history given how out of date the collection was, and only realize how much time had passed when the sun had set and it was engulfed in total darkness but for the stray candle.

In the structure he practically called home at this point, Abathur could be found, limbs bunched up on top of one of the tables that the previous occupants used to use, gazing down at his book with a fervent intensity. He found himself here, most days, not wanting to bother with the mysteries of social interaction, leaving all the world behind to escape into a book - not in the typical escapist fantasy way, but instead getting lost in facts upon facts, learning and absorbing all he could, ravenous for information as if starved from it his entire life (which he kind of was).

Any day that started out with him alone, not having to worry about other people for now, any day he could sit in and ignore the wind chill and slowly piling snow on the ground, was a good day, especially when he could sit down with his wonderful encyclopedia on the feline life of the new world; to read up on jaguars and ocelots, on animals of any sort, was, oddly enough, a bit of a pastime for him. It may be odd to some people, to read up on the species of those around you with pure, clinical interest, but Abathur didn't really mind. He never made an active effort to humanize people, frankly - though recently, he was getting a feeling that would change.

In his quiet solitude, the spider flipped another page, completely glued to the guide. It was a sort of focus that one achieved easily when indulging oneself in things you loved, but was easily broken by a stray noise, fragile and delicate, almost as if he was had built a web and was waiting for a fly.

tags - "speech"

And the silence broke.

The door opening was enough to break Abathur out of his reverie, making him glance up, even though he was facing away from the entrance. Quietly, the spider braced himself for some dialogue - it seemed more likely than not, since every time someone else waltzed into the library they wanted to have a nice chat with the giant spider. He couldn't understand why, but he also couldn't understand a lot of things people did. They were so strange, he thought to himself, listening to quiet pawsteps and trying to figure out the owner of them.

They were familiar, but he couldn't quite place them. So soft and quiet, but not quite silent, until they were almost silent, as if they had seen something they were trying to sneak around and avoid. Three guesses as to what that was, he glumly thought.

The conversation never came, though. He felt someone settle down very close to him, but ultimately, he wasn't approached. That was good, at least, though it left him with a tense feeling of anticlimax in his thorax. It felt off, given how the clan's inhabitants normally operated.

Perhaps he should stop complaining, and just enjoy the silence.

So he did, for a time, letting the discomfort float away - but that discomfort was quickly replaced by a new feeling, a sixth sense that rang out in his brain. He felt like he was being watched. Truly, he didn't believe in that sort of thing; sure, there might be people who could manipulate fire or any other sort of ridiculous magical thing, but the idea of a psychic ability to notice certain things didn't agree with him. And yet he was still disturbed by that feeling. Just paranoia, he told himself, no real cause for concern. Try as he might, though, he just couldn't shake that urge to look behind him - if only spiders had been gifted some sort of neck, then he might be able to do it inconspicuously. Instead he was stranded, forced to formulate a plan to somehow get up and turn around enough to look at his strange visitor.

Abruptly, the spider arose, closing his book (which the keen eye would notice he wasn't near done with), and crawling down off the table, back to the shelves. A good enough excuse, he assumed, to conceal his motivations while still allowing him to get a good look at this person - and upon looking at them, he was left feeling a bit silly as to all his paranoia and discomfort and other such silly emotions.

It was just Roy.

He settled back atop his table, now with a new book that he didn't bother checking the name of (it was by the same author, but strangely was about the purpose of fungi in ecosystems), this time turned so that he could keep an eye on both Roy and his book, and heaved out a quiet breath he didn't know he had been holding. Now, Abathur could settle back down, returning to the comfortable silence of before, and reading about some mushrooms, a topic he truly did not care that much about.

tags - "speech"

In a way, the two were very similar in their internal monologues, both trying to talk themselves out of a gaping pit of anxiety-filled indecision - one of them was certainly struggling with it more, admittedly, but the resemblance was still there. He never considered himself an anxious person, but if you showed him the evidence? Well, he might have to reconsider that and start working on some things.

A gross exaggeration, of course; Abathur's indecision was far more temporary, less paralyzing and more caution-inducing. It wasn't the spiraling thoughts of self-doubt, of inadequacy, of being unacceptable for speaking out of turn or asking questions. He didn't struggle with any of that, besides the struggle of being a giant spider in a cat's world. Roy did, however, and he even knew some of that information, from their very first interaction. He still found it despicable that anyone could apologize or feel insecure about their natural instinct to explore the world and its internal mechanisms.

Curiosity was all that separated them from the beasts, after all.

All eyes, suddenly, were on the boy sitting across from him - he let out a quiet 'um,' nothing more than a mumbled plea for acknowledgement, but Abathur felt it. The shaky quality of his voice was intense, to him, something that made the ugly little defensive glob of knowledge want to defend its ideals once more. Some may think it noble to stick to your guns like that. Abathur simply didn't want to deal with that right now. He had a philosophy on how to handle his personal issues and any troubles in life, and that was all he needed to share with anyone, ever. Ranting to a small child about the need for asking questions because said child couldn't get a sentence out without starting it over 3 times? That was... not something he wanted to do.

The urge was still there, though, a rage directed at whoever hurt the poor little boy.

After the question was asked, silence reigned for a few moments more, tense as always, before Abathur responded with his own eloquent reply: "Um." He hadn't expected an interest in his interests, of course, and as such he was certainly unprepared to answer a question about a book that he selected apropos of nothing other than proximity. The small 'um' was a moment to buy time, to try and remember what the book was that, combing through his memory with some level of desperation, so as to not blow his cover.

After he spent way more time than was acceptable sitting there silently, he suddenly piped up once again, not moving at all from where and how he was when the question was asked. "Ecological effects of mushrooms, general role in food web, potential modern scientific applications of them," he said, the memory coming to him in a flash. When he said 'modern,' though, he meant 'modern as of the early 20th century' - an unfortunate side effect of being annihilated via nukes was that the ex-human ex-population didn't have much opportunity to update the public library. A shame, truly.

tags - "speech"

A sudden guilt coursed through him, as he analyzed quietly the facial expressions of the young lad, realizing his gathering of thoughts had an impact on him. Small though it may be, it was still an impact, and he could feel his general apathy towards people and their actions wavering. How could one be apathetic to this, to this boy's wide eyes looking at him with fear and excitement combined into one ghoulish ball of anxiety? How could anyone look at Roy and say, with any genuine feeling, that he wasn't worth worrying about? Sure, Abathur wasn't going to change his whole life, but he still felt a little dagger of empathy twist its way into his heart. It was good to feel, yes, but sympathy was a hard thing for anyone to deal with, especially discussing sympathy towards trauma.

Perhaps Abathur saw something of himself in the young man - a scared, curious little thing, hardened by the world into something else. With Abathur, however, he came out of those experiences somewhat stronger - and with Roy, Abathur could tell that the experiences broke him down. He wasn't one to theorize, but he couldn't help his mind's racing as he wondered every sort of question to ask the child eventually. The biggest was "who did this," and after that, simply "why." It took him a moment to realize that he was doing it again, the whole drifting off in thought thing, and he did some equivalent of shaking his head (which looked strange considering his head was directly connected to half his body), letting out a quick "apologies."

"Self has been lost in thought. Did not mean to take time responding - will do better." There was a certain steely determination that could be felt in those last three words, as if he had signed a blood oath, not given the Abathur-equivalent of a sheepish promise to improve. "No," he would respond to his librarian peer first with, "have never considered fungi with much reverence, interest. Only wanted to read, and happened to select this book." Not a lie, necessarily, though he wisely left out all the details as to why he was selecting it in the first place, assuming that explaining that the boy's looking at him had put him on edge wouldn't help take Roy off of that same edge. "But," he would continue, a pedipalp moving to rest on the page he was on as he shifted his weight to get comfortable, "do find them fascinating. Find everything fascinating. Not reading to research specific topics - read to learn. Learning, knowledge, both are only true valuable things."

tags - "speech"