To him it was unfathomable.

For a long time, he hadn’t touched his books, the old pages a reminder of his ultimate failure. Veritas was a dedicated teacher, a scholar to the very core and that had become more than obvious with the passing of time. Joining the Genius Society had merely been a stepping stone in his pursuit of knowledge, a means to seek out the approval of the Celestials far, far in the stars. And yet it never came. Not even a single glance was spared, not a single sign. Nothing. He was as insignificant as dirt.

But that all changed with you.

When you came into his life, he had been torn for the very first time, faced with a riddle, an enigma that he could not solve. Suddenly, years of preparation, of studies seemed useless in the face of a person such as yourself, so beautifully written, yet undoubtedly odd, much like an unfinished character in a book, left to collect dust until the final draft.

Nous’ approval became a secondary need, shadowed by your peculiarity — no divine intervention could even begin to match what Veritas was certain had to be an otherworldly mystic creature from a realm different from his. You weren’t perfect like a sculpture, you weren’t made of marble, quite the opposite. Just like him, you weren’t made of flesh and bone and blood, so human and yet so different, knowledgeable and clueless all in one.

Your debates ended in discussions that contradicted everything he stood for, your blatant defiance seemingly an aimed arrow meant to pierce his heart and mess with his brain. You questioned him. Often. And many times he found himself without an answer that could satisfy you, without a logical explanation. You weren’t logical either. He couldn’t put a label, he couldn’t read you like the books that lay dormant on his shelves, he couldn’t tell what you wanted unless you told him, and even then, he didn’t know if your words rang true or not.

“I didn’t think you’d be up so late,” his steps echoed in the candlelit library, his crimson eyes soon spotting your figure high above, peering down at his from the second level.