Boula worked the door open between her larger fingers and carefully entered, every step a resounding clop on the old wood flooring. The hire-ee looked up at her briefly, saw her, and then looked back down at his book. He was spinning an autoquill around in his left hand. The glowy tips of the filaments flickered between his fingers and over his knuckles, inexplicably. As always, he wore a ridiculously humongous scarf, made of some dense wool and stuff. It looked like it wrapped several times around his neck, and it covered his face up to the bottom of his nose and draped over both shoulders besides.

She hesitated — started to approach him — then made for a neighboring stack instead, as if that's what she meant, and milled around there, picking up the nearest book and pretending to read it. She maneuvered the thin pages easily with a guitar pick she held against her hoof with her thumb. Where was Gavra?

Just do it. Just do it. Just do it.

"I..." she started, and trailed off, and — without looking — the hire-ee said, "Gavra's off today."

"He's...off?"

"Yeah. Takes off about every couple of weeks, does his own thing."

"Oh...I...didn't know." Golems had their own things to do? Probably the hire-ee meant that Gavra had an appointment when his shaper. She scuffed the ground with her foot nervously, then stopped. It had made a horrible hhhrrunk noise.

The hire-ee looked up at her, then sighed and set his book and autoquill down, looked at her with an expression she couldn't mistake as irritated despite the fact that her only visual cue was the narrowing of his (already perpetually narrow) eyes.

"If you need something, I'll help you find it."

"Could you?" She felt nervous and yet hopeful and also a little skeptical. How could a skyling like him navigate this place, so soon after being hired?

"Yeah. What's up?"