"I'm not in the mood," she muttered, arching a brow in warning. The quill froze. Possibly for the best—she'd never quite figured out how to discipline a rebellious writing implement.
With exaggerated care, she pushed aside the quill and rummaged through the clutter, eventually extracting her battered research ledger from beneath a half-unraveled spool of arcane thread. The ledger's corners were bent, its spine cracked from too many long nights flipping pages, but it was the only place she'd diligently recorded every fleeting insight and half-formed idea for her thesis. She brushed a bit of dust off its cover, taking a moment to feel the reassuring weight of it in her palms. It was disorganized, contradictory, sometimes nonsensical—but it was also entirely hers.
"Found you," she said under her breath, to the ledger or perhaps to herself.
