Daine grumbled to herself, scowling while on her tiptoes. Straining her arm as far as it could go, she gave a little hop. She still couldn't reach that elusive book. Who do they make shelves this tall for? And I'm not even short; I'm average. Heck, I'm a bit taller than average! Looking around, Daine saw that there still wasn't anyone else around. Few people wandered this far into the Astronomy section of the library.

There was only one thing she could try. Deciding it was safe to do what could potentially get her banned from the library for life, Daine looked around for the thickest books she could find. Gathering them in her arms, she carried them back to the spot she was at and set it down. Dumped her bag on the ground next to it, she neatened up the stack and squatted down to take off her boots.

"Um, what are you doing?"

Daine fell back in surprise. Frowning, she whirled around to face the voice at the end of aisle. Catching his abashed stare, she blushed furiously and huffed in frustration. No one was there a second ago!Giving her a confused yet still disapproving look, he raised a brow as she stayed silent.

"Well. You can probably guess, now can't you?" Daine said, gesturing wildly at the high shelves and hiding her embarrassment with a scowl. Zipping her boot back up, she stood herself up, shaking her scowl off with a half smile as he snorted and started chuckling, confusion giving way to amusement.

He shifted his many books to one arm. Gesturing a the top shelf, he asked "So, which one do you want?"

"The Introduction to the Sun and Stars. The mostly black one. Next to that… other black one I guess."

"Oh, I've read that one," he said, immediately picking out the right one. Daine straightened out her shirt as she watched him easily reach it. So, the shelves are made for storks like him… What is he, 6'5"? 6'6"?

Daine took the book with a smile. "Thanks," she said. Remembering his initially disapproving look, she hastily tried explain the initial situation. "There wasn't anyone else here and I honestly couldn't think of any other way; I wouldn't have done it if there was any other option! I hate when others misuse books, truly! And there weren't any chairs when I first walked in-"

"It's fine! At least you were taking your shoes off I guess…" Numair slightly shook his head with a wry smile. Gesturing to the book he asked, "Are you taking astronomy? I don't know any professors who use that book."

Daine shook her head. "No, it's just for fun. The lectures coincided with one of my major's required classes so I couldn't take it. I really, really want to study astronomy though, so I figured I might as well learn some more in my free time!"

"Did you read this one then?" He grabbed another tome off the shelf. "It's a bit older but covers far more topics. I started with this and then focused on whatever I found interesting."

"Oh did you study astronomy then?" she asked, taking the book he offered.

"I actually minored in it. I'm a research assistant at an astrophysics lab here too and I do some other work in the department."

Daine looked up from the book she had begun leafing through. "That's neat! What type of research are you doing?"

"I'm mostly working on finding new galaxies and studying their formation and maturation, but the lab's also looking for other inhabitable planets and examining dark matter and other... stuff."

"I just saw a paper on that! I didn't understand very much," Daine laughed. "Are you using redshift or something too? I remember they mentioned that but I didn't really get what it was."

"A redshift is basically the Doppler effect on light. So the further away a light source is, in this case galaxies, the more the shift increases. We use it to track galaxies' movements away from here. So yes we do use it! Which paper was it, by the way?"

"I only glanced at it, but I think it was published here sometime this year? It was pretty recent."

His face broke into a boyish smile. "I think that might have been mine! I'm Numair Salmalín, by the way."

Daine recognized the name. "It was your paper then! Sorry I didn't understand it at all, but it seemed great! I'm Daine," she said, flustered. An actual astro-nerd, nice… But that was his paper, wow did I have to mention that paper when I didn't understand any of it?! What were the chances of that? Well, that was idiotic.

"Nice to meet you, Daine," he replied, grin still in place. "And don't worry; there were some astronomy grads that didn't get it either. But I'm a TA for one of my research mentor's beginning classes, so if you can't go to the lecture maybe you can come to the discussions? You could just sit in once a week whenever and we review what happened in lecture so you'd get the gist of it. And if you have any questions in your self-studying I'd be more than happy to help!"

Daine looked up at him, surprised. This is great! "I could do that? Really? You wouldn't get into trouble or anything?"

He laughed. "No, not at all! You wouldn't have to take the quizzes or anything either so that's a plus."

Daine grinned up at him. "That would be wonderful!"

"Alright then, why don't you just give me your number or email or something?" Numair tried to pull his phone out from his back pocket, struggling to keep a hold on his books. He, however, failed. Daine leapt forward to stop the upcoming avalanche of books, managing to catch a few.

"Hawking, huh?" She mentioned, reading the titles of the books she held.

"Ah, yes. He's truly a genius," Numair handed her his phone.

Daine took it with a smile, "I haven't even started on his work!" She punched in her phone number. "Mind if I text myself?" Onua would never let me live it down if I gave away my number to a stranger with no number in return… Oh, the lectures I'd hear.

"No go ahead," he waited patiently. Daine texted a quick 'hi' to her number and handed back the phone just as it started to buzz.

He took it with a glance at the time on his screen. "I should get going. I'll see you in class? It's either Thursday or Friday… Just check the registrar."

"Alright thank you! I'll be there!" Numair waved bye with another grin and disappeared behind the aisles. Daine picked up the large books she'd collected and balanced her other stuff on top. Yes, astronomy here I come!