"And me you can quiz as you like, I keep worrying I'm bugging you with introductory questions about local stuff way below the level you work at and not reciprocating."

"I expect you to be significantly more competent to meaningfully answer my questions once you understand the basis from which I derive them."

"Makes sense!"

"I try."

Maurabel continues to study magic and eat local food, some of which she brings to Penumbra. She doesn't stay up as long this time; deciding to aim to wake up noonish and overlap with a couple of the humans' meals and still have plenty of time simultaneously awake with Kanimir for ~magic tutoring~ in case she gets stuck with books. She solicits notepaper. She receives borrowed outfits.

Notepaper is provided. The books are extremely clear and straightforward, but do not contain the sheer depth of understanding that someone who's been practicing for centuries accumulates; tutoring is still valuable.

The second afternoon Maurabel wakes up in this house, a new but familiarly-structured woman all but waltzes into the library before Kanimir has woken up. "Hello! You must be Maurabel."

"...yes, hello."

"My name's Jaromira, I'm Kanimir's sister. I take it my brother isn't awake yet?"

"I have not been loitering where he sleeps to catch him the moment his eyes open but I haven't seen him yet today."

"He doesn't spend much time out of the library he doesn't need to, if you haven't seen him yet it's a good bet he isn't."

"Yeah, that was my guess."

"He's a pretty straightforward person."

"He's been a really great person to have landed on!"

"He wouldn't have been a bad one even if you hadn't had an interesting magic system. He dislikes the idea of being something people are justified in being afraid of."

"It's not like I was personally basing anything on his reputation but that makes sense."

"True enough. I, mm, don't have a good handle yet on what kind of information you will and won't want."

"...most of it? Maybe not the entire fashion history behind your shoes, that would probably be irrelevant, but I like information? Why?"

She sighs.

"I was hoping to come up with a more graceful way to explain this. My brother and I have lived long and, for the most part, difficult lives. And he shielded me from the worst of it, at his own cost. My brother was never very social even as a child, but he--burned out on it, very badly. He hasn't enjoyed the company of another person besides me for its own sake in over half a millenium.

After you went to bed, that first night, he called me in a panic because he had experienced a mild positive emotion connected to you separate from your magic system and he had no idea how to handle it."

"I'm not sure what to do with that, honestly."

"You don't have to do anything with it if you don't want to."

"He panics very discreetly."

"Lots of practice," she sighs.

"Well, I'm enjoying being here and do not plan to vanish."

"It does have a pretty great library."