Ember was a quiet and studious listener when Nikodemus was teaching, always, but even moreso as he described what he remembered of his Durance, her expression seemed to darken a little. Not even quite realizing she was doing so, she crossed her legs at the ankles and drew her knees up and in. Memory of a bright and crowded room flashed through her mind a moment and stole her breath, followed by another, dark and cavernous, that left her briefly in shivers. But that was just the story in the book she'd snuck into his Library to read... wasn't it?<br/><br/>Nikodemus did not dwell upon his own Durance, however, and somehow Pylea's seemed to be unexpectedly bright and cheerful in comparison, just as the girl herself was unabashedly the brightest thing in the room aside from the candleflame still burning steadily between them. Her personality burned out of her, it seemed, and Ember could have sworn that flame lived for a moment in the old goat's cheek, seeing the way he reacted to the young girl's blatant teasing.<br/><br/>Ever onward in his teaching Nikodemus pushed, and Ember dragged her mind away from thoughts of whirling dances and encroaching heat to listen to him, trying to take in all the information that he was trying to impart and make sense of it in her own mind. There was so much, it seemed, to categorizing and delineating all the different creatures of that other world, and she despaired a little bit of ever having quite so much a handle upon it as he did.<br/><br/>Seeing him shiver made her frown, her head tilting aside, but as he pressed on she didn't want to interrupt, though it bothered her to see the kindly satyr taking a chill.<br/><br/>Being called Fairest did not seem in the least to be as pleasant as the word itself might have implied, and Pylea's arms snaking around her were a silent comfort for which Ember was grateful; she leaned her head upon the other girl's shoulder, her strange eyes still upon their teacher while one warm hand lifted to rest upon Pylea's forearm. "I have no questions so far," she said, and that was only half-truth. The more he taught her, and the more he cautioned her against learning of her Durance, the more she felt the restless need to know, to understand what it was that had been so terrible that she'd fled to this cold world, in spite of the damage it had done to her mind, and in spite of the way it had made her a strange nomad, without a past even among outcasts.<br/><br/>"Ogres, Beasts, Fairest... will you please go on? Or... or perhaps you should rest now," she suggested, her worry at seeing him shiver like that overcoming for now her very real drive to learn and to understand, and to find a way to anchor herself in their moving world.