Library Fun Times! Closed

Ruka had spent a lot of time in the library since his arrival.
Really, books were the only thing making him feel comfortable about anything magic - aside from the impromptu flying lesson Donny had given him a couple days ago - so he wanted to learn as much through reading as he possibly could.
As far as he was aware, he was a disaster with a wand, chaos waiting to happen if he wasn't prepared enough.
That was why he found himself tiptoeing through the library again, twirling around himself like he was doing one of his dad's performances, while skimming over the book titles on the shelf.
He had to look for a while, but finally one caught his eye: The Magic of Astrology. He bit his lip, eyes glinting in excitement, and he was just about to grab it, when a girl snatched it off the shelf, clearly not even noticing him from behind her pile of books.
He felt deflated for a moment, just watching her walk over towards a table, before his mind and feet seemed to work again.
He put his hands in the large front pocket of the hoodie he was wearing combined with his Gryffindor robe, and walked over to the girl, carefully sitting down on one of the chairs by her table.
"Hi," he said casually, biting down on an amused smile. "I noticed your big collection of books there and was wondering... well, I was really interested in the Astrology one you just took and I thought... since you can't read more than one book at a time... Maybe I could flick through that one until you're done with the rest of your pile?"

She looks up, it takes a split second for her to register what he says, then she grins. "Yeah, go ahead and take it." She adjusts her glasses as she looks back down at the book, marking the page with a loose piece of paper before closing it and looking back up again. The young lady takes the requested book out of the stack with as much carefulness as she could muster. It was at the bottom, and for a moment it looks like the books are going to fall, and they come close to doing so. She takes adjusts the book in her hand, then hands it to Ruka with a smile on her face.
"My name is Aleksi Bennett and I'm a first year Ravenclaw, by the way. You can call me Alek, if you want. Do you mind telling me your name?" As she asks this question she fixes the books in the stack to where they look neater. She's listening, but she just finds it hard to focus without doing something with her hands. When she's done fixing the books, she looks up at him while folding and unfolding her hands and twirling her thumbs. A strand of hair falls out of place on her head.

Ruka was a little surprised by the way the girl responded to him, with kind of a far off expression, like he was here and she knew that but she simply wasn't able to focus on him properly.
He watched as she took out the book he had askes for, the pile on the table wobbling dangerously as she did so.
He could see the Ravenclaw sigil on her robe, and thinking about the stereotypes he had heard about them, it suddenly made sense that she seemed so distracted and caught up in all of these books at the same time.
He listened as she introduced herself, her words sounding much posher than he had heard before, the introduction strangely formal, as if they were politicians meeting for the first time.
"I'm Ruka," he answered lamely as he took the book from her and opened it on the first page, skimming over a map of the solar system. "I'm a Gryffindor. First year too." He bit his lip, not really sure what else to say, but he also didn't want to just leave. He liked talking to people, and just because Aleksi seemed a little lost in her own mind, constantly fondling with something like she needed it to keep her focus, didn't give him reason to just walk away.
"So... why exactly did you take the whole library with you?" He laughed lightly to show that he was only bantering and not judging her in any way, his green eyes twinkling in amusement. "I mean... even if you are a quick reader, it's gonna take you quite a while to finish all of these books!"

Alek fixes the hair that fell out of place. She mumbles something to herself about how it would take a while to read all of the books, and how she should probably check some out. She then explains to Ruka about why she has so many books. "Well, I really, really just wanted to learn as much about magic as I could." Was the answer.
In addition to this, she also adds, "I also really want to know about how magic works, and why it works. I mean, I understand potions and stuff, but but things like transfiguration are so weird!" She suddenly stops herself, as she realizes she was beginning a ramble. Rambles were something she needed to work on stopping. She murmurs an apology for starting to stray into her own thoughts.
"Sorry about that." Aleksi bites the inside of her cheek and looks down at her hands, which were still folding and unfolding in front of her on the table. After a second, she shakes her head and straightens herself. She looks back up at Ruka with a smile. "So, what's the Gryffindor place like? Is it cool?" This was primarily said to create conversation, and because she was curious about the different habitats of the people of different houses.

Ruka skimmed over a few pages of the book Aleksi had given him, landing on a page that spoke of stars and their roles in divination.
He hummed noncommittally as Aleksi spoke. It wasn't like he wasn't listening, just that he got a little distracted by the book. "I get that," he said, nodding a little bit. "I try to learn as much as I can about it as well. I feel like I'm already behind everyone because I didn't grow up with magic, so I at least want to read as much about it as I can." He looked back at Aleksi with a little smile, shrugging a bit when she asked about the Common Room.
"It's alright," he said, eyes going back to his book to read over the accuracy of horoscopes and what your star sign could really tell about a person's personality. "It's all in red, there's a fire place and... lots of plants." He frowned a bit as he thought about the amount of plants they had in the common room. There really were a lot of plants. "But it's comfy." He leaned back a little and looked over at Aleksi. "What about your Common Room? Is it nice? I heard you guys need to solve a riddle to get into your dorms, is that true?"

"The Ravenclaw common room is pretty nice." Aleksi begins. "And yeah, we do have to solve a riddle. There's this eagle-shaped door that gives you the riddle you need to solve. . . I don't always get the riddle right." The young woman admits and then continues, "The ceiling has stars painted on it, it's really blue-like, really blue- and it's pretty big, and there's lots of places to study. There's also a statue of Rowena Ravenclaw. It's really nice if you're into books and blue."
She runs her finger along the spine of the book in front of her. "I like the dorms more, to be honest. It reminds me more of home. Plus I can listen to music there while I read, which is really nice."
Aleksi looks over to the page Ruka was on. "Do you believe in the zodiac? Just wondering, is all." Aleksi didn't entirely believe in astrology and the zodiac, but thought it was fun to share one's star sign and fun to see how one's personality matched up with the sign's personality description. In Alek's opinion, using it to predict the future was really dumb. "Mind if I ask what your sign is?" She asks lightheartedly.

Ruka frowned a little bit, looking at Aleksi with slight confusion on his face. "But if you don't solve the riddle, then what do you do? Do you have to sleep outside?" He couldn't really imagine that; afterall, there were Prefects and Professors patrolling the corridors and they would surely disapprove of a bunch of Ravenclaws sleeping outside their Common Room.
He smiled at the description of the Ravenclaw living quarters, nodding a bit, his eyes still drifting over the pages of his book. He kind of imagined the Common Rooms to all be a bit similar to one another, except maybe the Slytherin Common Room, which he assumed was just a dark, damp dungeon.
When Aleksi asked him if he believed in the Zodica, Ruka looked up, eyes fixed on her for a moment. "I don't know," he said, biting his lip in thought. "But I like stars. And I want to know what significance they have in Magic. The Universe is so big, and the sky full of wonders. I want to know all i can about them!" He smiled and looked back down at his book, dingers gliding over a chart of Pollux and Castor. Having grown up under the stars, he really couldn't help wanting to know more about them, no matter what.
He chuckled a little when Aleksi asked for his star sign, maybe the only topic he managed to be a little cynical about; his birthdate. "Leo," he said slowly, cheeks turning red. "Probably. Maybe Cancer. I was born sometime in July or August. My dad celebrates my birthday on the second of August but that's really just a guess, so... I'm probably a Leo. What about you?"

"Well, normally somebody else gets the riddle, and so anybody waiting to go inside gets to go inside when the riddle gets answered." Aleksi says as she reflects on all of the times this has happened to her. The longest she was stuck outside was an hour, maybe an hour and a half. But it always seemed like much longer to Aleksi. Much, much longer.
She leans back in her chair with her eyes cast towards the ceiling in thought. Her hands played with the end of her long, blonde braid. "I don't think the stars have that much significance in magic, to be honest. Maybe a little, but that's about it."
Aleksi looks over to Ruka as he tells her his sign. She smiles a bit at his blush. She do that to be mean, though. After hearing that the celebration of his birth was a guess she frowns, making an attempt to connect the dots. However, Aleksi doesn't say anything about it. She didn't want to pry into personal stuff that could potentially sour the conversation. Instead she just answers the given question, putting a cheerful smile on. "I'm a Gemini! Born in June on the sixteenth."

Ruka hummed at Aleksi's words, pulling a bit of a grimace as he looked at her. "I don't think that's very fair," he said sincerely. He had always had a strong sense of justice, and he just couldn't fathom some students having to wait outside what was supposed to be their home just because they weren't able to solve a riddle. "I mean, none of the other Houses have something like that, right? It's all just passwords to memorise, so why do you guys have to risk having to wait outside your dorm just cause you couldn't figure out a riddle?" He shook his head in disbelief. "Also, how is it supposed to be keeping out other students? You don't need to be a Ravenclaw to be able to solve a riddle, right?"
Ruka seriously questioned the security setups of the castle, knowing about the strange system of the Ravenclaw tower now.
Deciding that it didn't really matter much in the end since he wasn't able to change it anyway, Ruka concentrated a little more on the topic of stars. He bit the inside of his cheek as he listened to Aleksi's opinion, eyes still focused on the pages of his book. "I don't know..." he said tentatively. "I mean, there's a lot to our skies. A lot of our stars have been named after Greek Mythology, and a lot of Greek Mythology could have its roots in magic. Cassiopeia and Andromeda could have been witches for all we know. Knowing that, who's to say that there's no magic to stars? A skilled Seer, a real Seer, might be able to make something out of that. Some ingredients for potions only grow with the moon in the right phase and the planets in the correct constellations; why would they if magic has nothing to do with our stars and planets? And even if you don't really care how it's connected, you would still need to learn about constellations to make sure you pick your ingredients at the right time. Werewolves only turn during the Full Moon, but what's so special about the moon during that time? At the very least it's good to be able to chart the moon phases so you can be sure not to run into a Werewolf when you're taking a late night walk, right?" He almost ran out of breath talking about this, eyes twinkling like green stars themselves in his enthusiasm about the topic. He looked up at Aleksi and smiled sheepishly. "No matter where you are, you'll always find stars. It doesn't hurt knowing as much about them as possible, right?"

When he talked about his presumed star sign, Ruka could see Aleksi frowning, clearly trying to figure out more about his backstory without asking. Instead she just told him her birtday and star sign, and Ruka nodded in acknowledgment before turning to his book for just a second and then back again, taking a deep breath. "You can ask if you want," he said, trying to sound as casual as possible. "I could see that you wanted to. It's not a big deal, really. I never knew my mum; she left me at my dad's, no note or anything, so my dad doesn't know when exactly I was born, just that it had to be some time before he got me." He smiled encouragingly at Aleksi to show that this wasn't making the conversation awkward; he was very self conscious but if there was something he wasn't embarrassed about it was how he had grown up with his dad. "I still get to celebrate my birthday, I just can't be sure it's really my actual birthday."