Books. Cole smiled. "Books are good," he said. "And guilty pleasures are important. Life would be a lot more boring without them." There was something indulgent in the way he watched her. It wasn't patronizing, but there was a hint of entertainment there. Cole couldn't help it. Willow had caught his interest, and his attention was largely only ever held by those things that entertained him. He enjoyed her youthful energy, the curiosity and thirst for knowledge that sparkled behind her eyes, the innocence that held her in its embrace. At the same time, however, he could tell that there was more to her. So much more. He was drawn by the urge to discover her secrets, and held at bay by the singular desire to preserve her as she was. To not mar the very things that he enjoyed about her.
"I do find pleasure in reading," he told her, "though very rarely do I feel guilty about it - regardless of the subject matter or style." He had rooms filled with ancient scrolls that depicted everything from historical events to salacious tales of sex and magic. He possessed actual stone tablets that had been painstakingly carved to convey a single message. And books. His libraries were beyond compare, filled from floor to ceilings with first editions from the first printing presses - some of which he'd tracked down and others which he'd come by honestly - as well as copies of classics in every language known to mankind. For Cole, reading was a bit like meeting an old friend for coffee and spending a couple of hours regaling each other with stories from the good old days. It filled him with the nostalgia of memories.
Her optimism, while perhaps not entirely contagious, made his smile deepen. She believed what she was saying, was passionate in her belief, and that appealed to Cole. That didn't mean he wouldn't continue to offer a counter point of view.
"A balance of good and evil, hm?" He turned to face her more directly. "What if I said there's no such thing as good or evil? What if I said those are just moralistic manmade constructs designed to institute some illusion of order and superiority? People define themselves, their acts, as much by what they're not as by what they are. It's why we live in a constant state of Us versus Them. Humanity is obsessed with this duality of power. The great tragedy of war - or any argument - is that both sides consider themselves to be in the right. We're all the heroes of our own stories...or so they say."