'Lady Ilyra seems to hold you in low regard,' he informed the man expressionlessly.
Yes, he was being petty.
More importantly, though, he was also curious.
The tower master, of course, seemed entirely unbothered by the revelation. 'Lady Ilyra?' he asked, still smiling pleasantly.
'That High Adjudicator I'd mentioned. When Siel brought up whether we might be allowed to speak of the truth with you, she'd scoffed at the very mention of your name,' Arin said.
'What a good thing that child spoke first, before you could swear away your right,' the white-haired man said lightly. 'To think, what a dull morning this might've been... Unless... Had you also managed to notice the nature of their scribe's parchment?'
'I'd wondered about it,' Arin shrugged. 'But not as much as I'd wondered why she might have felt that way about you.'
The white-haired man twirled the apple in his long, slender fingers.
Oh. It had come back.
'As you already know, I've been rendered near useless outside of these walls,' he said at last. 'Does that not tell you why they wouldn't fear my knowing the truth? It's not as though I could ever go and rally the masses against their dishonesty. Intention aside, I'd have neither the authority, nor the power, to effect even the slightest change.'
'Sure, yeah. I got that,' Arin agreed. 'I was more concerned by the... well... disdain.'
'Ah,' the tower master's smile widened. Still unruffled, he nodded. 'I see, I see.'
'Well, Arin, you needn't worry yourself. I have not wronged her in any manner to be deserving of such contempt. I believe that child was merely influenced by hearsay, and nothing more.'
'So, it's just that you have a generally bad reputation,' Arin said. 'I get that...'
...
?
Arin blinked.
'Uh... Lady Ilyra,' he suddenly emphasized.
The man raised an exquisite brow. 'What more about her?' he asked gently.
'Lady Ilyra was the name of that High Adjudicator I'd mentioned,' Arin repeated. 'The one leading the group of officials who'd arrived. Lady Ilyra.'
'Yes...?' The tower master tilted his head slightly.
Arin cleared his throat. 'I think you're mistaken about something,' he said. 'The person I'm talking about wasn't a child. Obviously, there were no children amongst the officials. I'm pretty certain the lady was at least middle-aged. Definitely older than you.'
At his words, both of the tower master's brows shot up. 'Older...? Oh.'
He bit his lip, and Arin suddenly realized that -
- The man was, once again, trying to hold back his laughter!
Why!?
Looking at him again, the white-haired man seemed as objectively stunning as when Arin had first beheld him.
He was definitely a man with decades of life under his belt; the smile lines on his cheeks, and those crinkles at the corners of his unique eyes, were testament to that. But those only served to add character to his visage.
He had a full head of white hair, of course, but that almost certainly came from something like albinism, or some similar genetic mutation that he probably had.
All things considered, there was no reason to believe him to be older than that High Adjudicator lady.
No reason...
Not unless...
'Is the way you currently look also an illusion!?' Arin blurted out in disbelief.
The man hid his growing smile behind a hand.
'That's fake? You're fake?' Arin gestured to the whole of him. 'You're just - you're just pretending to be this striking, ethereal person, when it's not actually what you look like!?'
The tower master wasn't even bothering with hiding his laughter anymore.
'My appearance isn't false, Arin,' he said. 'This truly is the face that I was born with. I must, however, thank you for the high praise.'
'Oh...' Arin froze. 'But then...'
'I was born with this face, and I aged with it for years, until -' the white-haired man shrugged lightly, '- until I decided I wished to age no more. And so it has been ever since.'
'Oh.' Arin finally nodded as understanding slowly dawned on him. 'It's not fake. You're just vain, and didn't like the thought of getting affected by ageing like the rest of us...'
'And so, I did not allow its effects to show on me beyond a certain point,' the white-haired man agreed cheerfully.
'...Fair enough.'
Arin suddenly remembered the conversation they'd had when he'd first returned from Lullwater. The tower master had already told him then that his exile had happened some twenty-eight years ago.
He'd had too many other questions at the time to have followed up on that. But thinking about it now, it made sense for the man to have been at least an adult already, when he'd done whatever it was that had led to him being ousted like that.
And maybe the fantastical things he'd seen since coming to this world had influenced his subconscious tolerance for these things a bit. Maybe he'd just come to assume that there might be powerful bloodlines that didn't age like the rest, or that the people here just typically lived longer lives, and were youthful for longer in general.
After all, wasn't that the kind of stuff that happened in some of those fictional fantasy worlds? Even if that wasn't the case here, he couldn't be blamed for having had the thought, right?
Maybe that's why he hadn't immediately latched onto the white-haired man's words back then, choosing instead to focus on the more pressing issues at hand.