The Enchanter went to the library first thing in the morning, barely managing to remember his shoes before he left his bedroom. There were too many mysteries turning around in his head, and the events of the previous night still turned over and over in his mind. He still wasn't certain that he made the right choice, and it bothered him. He truly thought that it shouldn't bother him. Choices weren't usually bothersome things. You made them, and then you lived with them, and that was that.

"What exactly were you doing in here all night?" he asked, glancing at the stack of books on the table.

"Reading— at least, what I could understand. I looked at the pictures when I couldn't make out the words."

"Don't you ever sleep?"

"Not well, and getting up is a pain," Aoife said, rubbing her eyes.

The Enchanter sighed.

"Did you have anything you used to do for fun? Drawing, telling stories, knitting— anything?" he asked, taking a seat beside her on the sofa.

"I... well..." she paused, brow furrowing like she couldn't quite remember. "We didn't really have spare paper lying around for me to draw on, but I enjoyed sewing, when I had time. I didn't really need to once I took up residence at the estate, but when I was younger, we sewed our own clothes, and I thought it was relaxing."

"Really?"

"Is something wrong with that?" she asked indignantly, eyes narrowed.

"No, no," he said, holding up his hands in a placating manner. "I just... wouldn't have guessed." There was no way in the world he would let slip that he hadn't thought of her as a classically feminine woman. As much as he liked seeing the occasional spark of fire left in her flare up, she might actually hit him for that.

"It's been a long time. I'm not sure the knowledge is still in my fingers," Aoife admitted, staring down at her hands like they were foreign objects. "Though, I did embroider a little at the estate."

"Follow me," he said quietly.

He took her down the hallway to the left, towards one of the outermost rooms in the house. It was nothing more than a simple storage area, really, but he knew which items were kept in every room of the house. In here, there were piles of old drapes, bedsheets, towels, a few wooden crates filled with old decorations from the heyday of the house, and tucked away in the corner there were bolts upon bolts of Fae-made fabric.

Aoife's eyes went wide as she took in the expanse of fabric. There were bolts in all the colors of the rainbow, and possibly a few in colors that didn't exist in the human world. They shimmered in the light when the sun hit them the right way, gleaming and glittering. She hesitantly reached out to run her fingers over a bolt of deep blue velvet, like she was afraid it might decay if she touched it the wrong way.

"It's old, but Fae-made fabric doesn't decay and become weaker anywhere near as quickly as ordinary cloth. It could last hundreds of years with ease. You're welcome to use whatever you want if you would like to make something."

"I can use this?" she asked, eyes still locked on the pile of fabric as her fingers ran over the velvet.

"That's what I just said. Didn't you hear me?" the Enchanter said, shaking his head. How dull was she?

"No, I just mean... thank you," Aoife said quietly, turning back towards him with a small, genuine smile on her face.

She didn't smile often enough, he thought, and it was rarely genuine when she did. The corners of her eyes never crinkled like they did now, her cheeks were never pink and her small dimples never showing. It was nice to see her like this for once, less like a shell and more like an ordinary human girl.

"You're welcome," the Enchanter said, and he felt himself give a very rusty, unpracticed smile in return.