They started with optimism, which is to say, they didn't know better yet.
Day one, the Hall of Petals looked more like a cathedral. Sun laid itself over the mosaic spiral, students run through like stream you couldn't shut off, and the eight of them built a fortress of chairs, carts and stubbornness around an enormous table.
Hikari stacked by subject. Lynea stacked by source. Arashi stacked by aesthetic, which he swore was secretly a system. Esen stacked by how funny the title sounded said out loud. Keahi took the thin, mean-looking manuals that felt like they'd cut you. Feris claimed anything the margins had scribbled, saying that fate brought all of those small notes together. Ichiro simply set down a book no one else had found and then another and then another, like silence was a language he spoke. Raizen ran a finger down the list like checking a pulse and nodded once when he saw that most things were in order.
