Arjun was nervous.

    Being nervous generally meant that some part of him wanted to please someone else. It was why he usually refrained from that sort of thing.

    In this case, it simply couldn't be helped. Someone had been injured on his island, under his watch. Someone had committed what could only be called an awful crime.   

    In that light, sitting in the room of the victim and working on rebinding old books seemed like a poor solution. But she had said, Sophiana, that she wanted him to bring her books. Wanted him to read to her, if he could. Wanted him not to leave her alone, though he'd left her with servant girls to help as they could. Fortunately for Sophiana, the King of Muskaptilo did not actually have all that many responsibilities. The benefit of a low population. Not that she knew he was the King.

    He was going to need to work on that, at some point. She was going to find out eventually, and the longer he waited the more embarrassing it would be for everyone involved.

    The King did not, technically speaking, need to knock. But he chose to knock regardless, because Kingship was no excuse for being rude, a truth long believed by the Kings of Muskaptilo. He waited, then, for the servant girl who would surely come to the door as Sophiana continued to rest.

    Arjun squinted at the servant girl, but could not place her face. One of the many waifs that Circe had brought, they all tended to blend together in his mind, pale faces once bruised. Girls with no particular skill in a trade were the ones who wound up working in the castle, and they tended to learn quickly to give him a wide berth.

    It wasn't as if he was deliberately cruel. He was only, occasionally, prone to impatience.

    He thought about asking the girl for oja, but it was a bit early for that kind of thing even if the girl hadn't been trying to avoid eye contact with him. "I should be fine," he said, though the girl was already gone. "You're feeling better?" he asked, books stacked neatly on hands covered by the black wool of his sleeves. "You have not needed the doctor since I saw you last?" He looked her over with a hint of suspicion, the way he might a book he suspected had been mishandled.

    He came nearer to her bedside, silent in the soft embroidered slippers that were worn indoors.

    "I believe you said you wanted a few books," he said, holding them slightly higher to demonstrate that he had retrieved them for her.

    "Good," he said with a slight nod of his head. "I'll be glad to see you well." He chose to believe it was a selfless preference, rather than a desire to be rid of his sense of guilt. But would his guilt truly dissipate with the healing of her injuries? It was doubtful. "I have been well, yes, thank you," he said automatically, because it did not even occur to him to actually tell her about his week. Political trivialities and tedium, the busywork of the library and things explicable but nonetheless difficult to explain.

    Arjun tried to minimize the amount of time he spent speaking to people as much as possible, and pretending to do and feel nothing was generally the easiest way to accomplish that.

    He was slightly startled when her skin met his, gentle and fleeting though the touch was. He recovered quickly, but still found himself holding his forearms inside his sleeves, formal and distant. The habit was born mostly of a desire to keep his hands warm, a habit shared by any number of the natives for whom the shaking of hands was a foreign gesture. There was a certain intimacy about it as a result, but he didn't expect her to know that, nor did he plan to explain it.

    "I hadn't considered that," he said, chagrined. "There may be better books to read as your first," he admitted. He had chosen them based on her stated preferences, but also based on their relative lightness, nothing to make her overtax her mind or emotions. It seemed like a person's first book ought to be more meaningful than that, though it made no sense the think so. The first book most people read was something in large print with bright colors and small words, less than a trifle.

    "I will stay as long as I can," he said, though this was not specific. Cautiously he sat in the chair beside her bed, his legs slightly too long for it and his spine straight, hands still hidden in his sleeves. "Don't let me interrupt your rest," he added. "I don't want to overexert you."

    There was the slightest welling of panic in his throat as she admitted she'd been asking after him. And yet she wasn't behaving as if she'd realized his lie of omission. It was possible they hadn't mentioned it, those servant girls. Though if they knew what he had done…

    Oh, this was all getting a bit bigger than he'd intended, as lies went. It wasn't even meant to be a lie. If the castle was full of girls who thought he was lying about his position, that would lead to rumors and that would lead to… nothing good, he was sure. "I was not trying to stay away," he assured her. "But I do get… busy. Sometimes. I apologize if I've been negligent." He bowed his head in apology, and said nothing about her asking after him. He did not want to forbid it, but he did not want it to continue, either.

    She held the books almost possessively, and once again he felt guilt, this time for making her feel as if he might take them from her. He was a librarian; taking books before they'd been read was not his job. "You do not need to thank me for doing my job," he said, though he realized quickly that this may not have been a kind thing. "And I am not your lord. But you are very welcome," he added, an afterthought.

    He twisted the rings on his fingers, the bracelets around his wrists, the fidget hidden beneath his sleeves. "A guest owes nothing," he said, "not even to the King." He nearly smiled to her whispered joke, though it was rueful. "We have only books," he continued, "and it does not take a thief to read them."

    That was a terrifying thought, being responsible for making sure she didn't hurt herself in the halls. She was easy enough for him to carry, so it shouldn't have been, but he worried still. "I would be happy to join you," he said instead of voicing his concerns, "if you will have me."

    He would not have trusted any of the girls to bring her the books in question, because although they were from the lending library, and thus intended to weather abuse… that did not mean he would put them in danger deliberately. There were a few members of the castle staff who he might trust, who he knew to have a certain care for books, but in general he disliked having books outside of his protection.

    "It is not a phrase we use often," he explained, still fidgeting beneath his sleeves. "Rarely for the King, perhaps," he said, though few of his subjects actually bothered treating him with such respect, "but on Muskaptilo it is… strange. A very possessive word. Someone formal would call me by my title – Librarian, or Mirza." Or King. "You may call me Arjun, if you wish."

    There was a faint tug at the edge of his mouth as she teased him. "There may be a few," he admitted, "but you would need to be a very clever thief, indeed, to get off this island with one." The low population and lower number of visitors meant there was very little crime to speak of, and getting off the island was a difficulty all its own. No more than getting on the island, but nonetheless.

    As she shifted to get out of bed, he immediately stood, though he wavered on the matter of how near to stand. He hardly wanted to ogle her as she got out of bed, nor make her uncomfortable. Still, it was difficult to miss the strange nature of her clothing, not anything he would have expected Anya to send for her. Something of her own, or something more familiar a serving girl had offered?

    When she placed a hand on his shoulder to brace herself, his hands went automatically to her waist to steady her, resisting the temptation to pick her up and set her down. It seemed safer, but he did not want to be assumptive or patronizing. Carrying her around didn't seem like it would do a great deal to aid her recovery. "Did the tailor not send you anything better?" he asked, because though he didn't want to make her self-conscious, he did very much want to know. "I can ask her to make you mainland clothing, if you would like." He kept his hands on her, as if at any moment the act of looking for her shoes would cause her to tip over.

    "Ah – no, do not trouble yourself. If you are comfortable as you are, that is fine. I only wanted to be sure." He was not of a mind that could understand worrying about clothing, the care or the keeping of it. If she were uncomfortable, he might have insisted, blood be damned. So long as she was happy as she was, that was all that mattered.

    "You do not have to…" He trailed off as he took her by the wrist to stop her retrieving a change of clothes, and his fingers could almost encircle her forearm without touching it. She felt very frail for any number of reasons, like she'd blow away in the breeze if allowed outside. "Here," he said instead, "I have found your slippers." He would have guided her out barefoot, if he were not worried that the stone floors would be too cold for her.

    Picking her up by the waist, automatically, he set her down atop the shoes in question, in such a way that she could easily slide her feet inside them. If they were not so easy to get on, they would not be slippers, after all. "There," he said, somewhat awkwardly. "Is that… good?" he asked, because he would not lead her to the hall until he was sure that she was ready.

    She looked faintly baffled, and it occurred to him that this was a rather familiar thing for him to have done. That was twice now he'd picked her up without asking first, enough to almost be a bad habit. Then again, perhaps it was a gesture entirely unfamiliar to her. Adults had regularly picked him up to move him out of the way when he was a child, and even when he had grown too large for it, it had continued to happen to Circe. And Circe, in turn, had a tendency to climb on people who got in her way. Muskaptilians in general were impatient in ways mainlanders might find unspeakably rude.

    "My apologies," he said with a slight bow of his head, though she had claimed to have liked it. "I will not do that again without asking." Whether this was true had yet to be seen, as he had impatience and absentmindedness in equal measure. The giggling reminded him of Circe – Circe more than the serving girls, because it did not irritate him unduly.

    "Arjun Mirza," he repeated slowly, which may have been patronizing, "of the librarian house of Mirza. You… do not need to trouble yourself with it, if it is difficult for you." He stiffly patted the hand that had wrapped around his elbow, but almost immediately his hands retreated back into his sleeves. He left his arms far enough from himself that she could still hold onto him, but his own hands he now tried to keep to himself.

    "Here – tell me if I am going too fast," he said as he led her to the door, pushed it open to lead her into the hall. He took short steps, because he knew his legs were long, and he was anxious with the fear that he would misstep and cause her to trip.

    "You need rest," he reminded her, "not excitement." He had no experience with children, but he imagined this anxiety must have been similar, watching her take shaky steps and fearing at every moment that she would fall. He would absolutely blame himself if she did, and his self-flagellation was likely to border on excessive.

    Bad enough she'd been hurt so badly in his Kingdom, worse still to imagine him delaying her recovery with incompetence.

    He didn't have a chance to delight in her appreciation of his title, because she froze, her face going still as her fingers dug into his sleeve. Immediately he stopped, put his hands to her waist again as if to catch her before she could fall. "Are you sure?" he asked, tilting is face lower to try and better see her expression, trying to decide if he should take her back to her bed and abandon the whole endeavor. "You can lay back down and try again later, if this isn't working."