Tae'loren gently dipped his head as a show of welcoming Elariel's civility. Despite what many beings would like to believe, their adversaries did indeed have feelings, ambitions, families, and hopes. As ancient as the hunter was, he understood these commonalities early on in his adulthood. Perhaps it was the solitude of traversing the lands with only his various animal companions, watching them interact with other creatures, watching them hunt, watching how they paused before each time they ended the life of another, as though acknowledging that their target was a living being, but their action was necessary.<br/><br/>The hunter growled softly, frustrated by the inane banter by political figures to try to justify the hate between the different races, attempting to force individuals to believe that hate was necessary for their survival. Despite the circumstances, his situation proved that hate was but a tool, and not an end product. Elariel and her colleagues could have killed the hunter, or at least made the attempt, but she alone had come to his defense, masking it as her own. Perhaps the hunter was not alone in his beliefs.<br/><br/>He smiled up at Elariel as she handed him the tomes, tomes he had not seen in centuries. He took them up in his hands, hefting them, gauging their weight, smiling. He remembered the first time he'd seen them, before the division of the elven races, and had overheard a discussion regarding the tomes by a few mages, “With one of these, I should consider being a warrior or a rogue; all I'd have to do is hit someone with this and it would likely render them unconscious, if not render them comatose entirely!” He skimmed them a few moments, glancing at particular passages, but ultimately he gently set them aside, for he had been alive to witness and endure the topics of the tomes; he did not need to read about them as well.<br/><br/>Tae'loren did pause, gazing casually over at Elariel, and indeed he did entertain his mind; with her. She seemed different than her colleagues, in that she seemed to understand, at the very least, the benefit of debatable alliances. He made his resolve there that, should the situation deteriorate and result in lethal confrontation, she would not taste the fury of his blades. He knew that she did not simply display physical beauty, but she had somehow retained mental beauty as well.<br/><br/>The hunter rose then, ensuring that Elariel could see him, lifting the tomes and placing them back next to her pack, then moved toward her, stopping only ten feet away, and seating himself, offering her another polite nod before crossing his legs, resting his forearms and hands on his legs face down, and slowly closing his eyes to join her in meditation.<div class="messageTextEndMarker"> </div>