Mist and Silver Sun

Rain pelted down outside the Repository in a satisfying thrum on the windows. Sitting at his desk, piled high as it was with tomes that needed correcting and amending, black journals that awaited his thoughts and memories to be catalogued within their pages, maps that needed traced and noted, scraps of paper here and there with errant bits and to-dos from other people, pots of ink that were carefully stoppered as to not be knocked over by a stay hand. It was the desk of a chaotic mind, though such things never showed on his face. There, most would only ever find order and composure and cool gray eyes that seemed to bore straight into the soul. 

That day the gloom of his study was illuminated by both lanterns that were typically only used in the depths of the night that saw him still hard at work, both captive flames born of his hand dancing within the glass, alive and beautiful, casting their golden rays across the small room. He spoke to them as if they truly were living, sometimes they were the only words he would speak in a day if there were none in Arlathan that were seeking him out for some menial task that they needed, typically those individuals needed pointed in the direction of a particular tome and nothing more. Very occasionally someone would ask him a direction question where it pertained to a history. Those individuals were given what they required and notated in his mind with a slight fondness. 

But that do, no one had seen fit to pester the archivist, and so it was to the flames that he spoke. It is right here that the prior author was wrong. I'm not quite sure where he got the idea that vallaslin were an all encompassing pain. It honestly wasn't that bad. It's these little things in these tomes that need corrected, even if the information is available at large now if one knows who to ask. It is the tomes that are likely to outlast us at this rate. Of course, there was no answer from the dancing flames of his lanterns.