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“Turtle?” Starflight asked hesitantly. He had typical SeaWing paws, meaning they slapped a little more on the floor; he was heavier than Anemone, but smaller than Pike; he had no jewelry, at least not on his talons; he held his tail low, so it swish, swished on the ground ever so slightly.
“Yep. Hi,” Turtle said, confirming his presence. To Starflight’s surprise, Turtle didn’t stop at the desk this time; he wandered into the library, off to the left where the windows were.
It was a lovely, bright day—Starflight could feel the warmth of sunlight on his scales from the large windows—and he wondered briefly why Turtle wasn’t outside, like some of the other students he could hear even from here. But then again, Turtle was one of the library’s biggest fans.
Starflight had been recognizing the young SeaWing dragonet by his hesitant, slapping footsteps, but that had started to change. Not the slapping part—his feet hadn’t gotten any less webbed—but the hesitant part. Turtle walked more confidently since Darkstalker had left; he couldn’t be sure anyone else had noticed, but it seemed impossible to miss.
Starflight had made a mental note of it weeks ago, and was secretly pleased with the development. But he would never mention this to Turtle, of course. Starflight wasn’t sure his students would invite the psychoanalysis, and besides, they might be taken off-guard; no one expected the blind librarian to be observant.
Still, as often as Starflight guessed the right dragon by their steps, he couldn’t shake the feeling that he would never be fully certain who was in front of him. He remembered uncomfortably the incident with Icicle, one of the royal IceWing students; if only he’d been able to see what was happening with his students... not that he was much of a fighter, anyway…
But it didn’t bear thinking of. For now, it was important to keep learning all the students’ footsteps. And relearning, sometimes.
Luckily, that wouldn’t be very hard with Turtle, seeing as he visited the library very frequently. That was also a new development that pleased Starflight. Yes, his friends called him a nerd for it, but he was glad SOME dragonets could appreciate the wonders of scrolls. (He had the sudden and very vivid mental image of Tsunami rolling her eyes at that thought.)
But, well… Turtle wasn’t reading for himself. He never said so, but he wasn’t exactly trying to hide it, either. Starflight was almost sure of it. Because the first few times he’d visited during the weeks since Darkstalker’s defeat, he’d asked for “beginner scrolls.”
“What do you mean by ‘beginner’?” Starflight had asked curiously, already compiling a mental list of scrolls which served as good introductions to various interesting topics.
“Oh, just like… if you’ve never read—if you forgot all the scrolls you’ve read before, which one would you pick to be your first one? Um, as an introduction to scrolls, I guess.”
Starflight pondered the odd request for a moment. He tried to imagine simply “forgetting” everything he’d read in his life, as if that were possible.
After a long moment, he decided to give Turtle four different titles, and he pointed to the three shelves they were currently sitting on. (There’s no way Turtle seriously expected him to pick ONE scroll above ALL the others, right? It was hard enough to narrow it down past ten. Hopefully Turtle would be satisfied.)
And he indeed seemed to be, since he just thanked Starflight profusely and went over to collect the scrolls. Starflight heard him open them and inspect them slightly, possibly to make sure they were up to his standards. He was pleased when Turtle brought all four back to the desk, and he promptly checked them out with Turtle’s stamp. Then the dragonet simply left with another polite Thank you, as he always did.
Starflight was no fool. He was blind, but he wasn't blind. Turtle—the same Turtle who visited the library for scrolls twice a week, and came for blank paper almost as often—picking up scrolls for a "beginner" reader?
He had to be doing it for someone else. And that could only mean two dragons: Kinkajou... or Peril.
And Kinkajou liked to come in to get scrolls on her own by now.
Which left… Peril. He could never be as aggressive as Tsunami liked to be to her, but privately he could never think of Peril as anything other than Scarlet’s ex-champion, Clay’s “crazy girlfriend” (no matter how adamantly he denied it), the most dangerous of their students, and…
…yes, the reason Clay was still alive. Alright, the reason they were all still alive, if you counted the escape from the Sky Kingdom. So Starflight may not like Peril—a sentiment he tried not to share where she could hear, because yeesh, she was scary—but she was an ally to him and his friends.
And she was, apparently, an adult dragon who was a beginner reader.
It hit Starflight with a pang how thoroughly he had failed to consider her in his brand-new dream library. She was older than him and his friends, though only by a year; and although they’d grown up under a rock and she in a palace, they were the ones who had access to scrolls and paper and stories.
Starflight had adamantly banned Peril from the library—which he still stood by—but he hadn’t even tried to work with her outside of that. For the first time he understood, maybe a little bit, why she’d gone crazy-possessive over Clay. Starflight didn’t know how it could be possible to live his whole life without his friends AND without scrolls.
(Technically he didn’t know that no one in the Sky Kingdom had read to Peril, but… it felt unlikely. Call it a gut feeling.)
Why did it take him so long to realize that she might not have had the same opportunities to indulge in reading? Did he really ban a dragon who couldn’t read from the school library? It was kind of obviously the wrong way to handle it, in hindsight.
He should’ve at least tried speaking to her one-on-one.
Starflight hadn’t expected to be feeling pity towards Peril, yet here he was.
The worst part was that she wasn’t the only one: Kinkajou had had the same problem, of course, since RainWings weren’t taught to read at all. Starflight’s approach to the library had been that everyone just needed a place to get scrolls, and he would passively be here to provide that. As if every dragon had the same educational opportunities growing up.
He would have to seriously rethink that approach.
But for now, it seemed Peril had found someone to be her middle man for accessing scrolls. At least if Starflight’s hunch was right. (And secretly he was glad it wasn’t Clay, because he still privately thought the less they saw of each other, the better. Not that he really had any say.)
He didn’t see much of Peril around, but Turtle seemed pretty content, especially on those days he came to the library. And at this point, several weeks after Turtle's initial question, Starflight couldn’t always be sure if the SeaWing was still getting scrolls for himself or for Peril. They were all of a relatively high reading level, and some were about pretty niche topics. He felt a little happy imagining that Peril was reading some of them; he pictured her sitting around somewhere with Turtle, talking about whatever interesting topic the scroll was about, and… maybe being a different dragon than the monster he’d first met her as.
Maybe, just maybe, Starflight would have to admit that Clay didn’t have the absolute worst admirer in the world.
But still. Even with all that mushy, gushy goo about one of his students reading. He still didn’t want to see a single one of her fiery scales in his library.
Though this time, Starflight thought it with a bit of a smile.