Burnt Out

This is fanart of Pagan Kidrouk, for the Pagan series by Catherine Jinks. It's 2/6 of a series of fanart.
The character does not belong to me.

Pagan had been desperate to escape that night. Roland had been busy, and the room too loud, giving him a pounding headache and a feeling of not fitting in, yet again. Probably just feeling lonely because he was tired, he told himself. It had been easy to slip into the shadows and into the corridors, to an abandoned and slightly draughty room. Now, what to do... his eyes caught hold of a book. No one would mind. No one would really be wanting to come and read it tonight. Almost no one could *read*. He lit a candle (expensive! But he was beyond caring) and settled down to read. Before long he was rubbing his eyes, and the words were swimming on the page. Wouldn't hurt to just shut his eyes for a few minutes...

It was like this that Roland found him, several hours later.