Another day had passed and still nothing.
Coruscare found himself losing focus more frequently with each hour that passed. Sometimes reading whole paragraphs without truly knowing what he read, forcing him to re-read it.
"My lord, you sound as though you harbor a bamblebee hive beneath your seat. I think it time for you to break.", Syll said without looking up from her hand written notes.
"I am fine Syll.", Coruscare said, upset with himself for sounding more frustrated than he had meant to.
Syll smiled down at her paper. She had given him a hard time, and truly meant it when she said that she would exhaust him into incapacity in order to keep him safe. But the days had stretched long and disappointing. Their hopes rising and falling with each book that was finished and the next that was found to be a candidate for useful information.
She had to push him very little it turned out. He stayed into the night, often falling asleep at his desk in the early hours of the morning. He would then wake, leave for a couple of hours, and return ready to work.
She could not imagine how he must of been feeling. Wanting to help Caeli because she was a living creature worthy of saving had affected the drake more than he would admit. Now with knowing that she was also the child of two of his dear friends, friends he sent off to war only to die in battle, she could not begin to empathize.
The following days after the great battle that had taken the life of Caeli's parents, Coruscare had been beside himself with heart ache.
Having isolated the mountains to bring a cease-fire between the humans and Folk, he isolated himself as well. He mourned the loss of his friends, but worse yet, he nurtured the guilt he felt for all the lives lost, including the ones he held closer to his heart.
It took years for him to become a shadow of his old self.
Now the wounds freshened anew, with the added pressure of caring for the daughter of those he blamed himself for their death, Syll was sure that he was struggling.
She watched as he threw himself into the work ahead, forging forward relentlessly. Refusing to leave for the night, she knew that he wanted to find a solution as badly as she did. But she also knew that he would be willing to do dangerous things for the girl. Possibly more so now that it was revealed her connection to his past.
Although this fact worried Syll, she sensed a freshness to him that she had not seen in many years. Like the greenery on a hot and humid spring day, his determination fueling something in side of him that had long been lost.
Whether she liked it or not, there was a good chance that Coruscare felt that helping the girl would be his salvation. A repentance for the sins of his past.
Something in Syll corrected her.
*No dear, not just his salvation. All of the worlds.*, it said.
She felt the notion rise from her stomach and swell in her heart.
She clenched her teeth. She hoped that they could help the girl. She hoped so even more, should that small voice be right.
To think that the years long struggle between human and Folk could somehow end, or that there was a chance at true peace between races, it made her hopeful. More hopeful than she usually allowed herself to be.