ORIGIN - we can always find the words

There was nothing quite like laying in a patch of sunshine with a good book.

Well, orb-shine, but... who was he to care much about the difference? One was yet undiscovered, but both were warm and pleasant on his scales. Strangely enough, it was also the most natural-seeming thing despite his sequestering himself in the library for days on end. He quite enjoyed the stale scent of his tomes, but the sting of a cool morning's fresh air in his lungs?

After making the short trip to Draco with a Master—a Master!—one could consider Menkheperre enthralled by getting fresh air.

Besides, the lighting was better; he didn't have to strain his eyes quite so much to peer at the presumably handwritten journal laid before him. The swirling, meandering script stood far starker against the yellowed, stained paper, and consequently jumped further out of the metastatic sort of... heap of understanding inside his skull. Less thought spent plain discerning this account of some (presumably) fantastical misadventures, he supposed.

The draconic Valkhound looked the picture of idyllic comfort, loafed on a bench with his tail hanging off the end in the Palace's gardens. A platter of dinosaur-shaped chunks of breaded meat sat at the foot of the bench, forgotten in the wake of his eager reading of each page.

Every once in a while, he'd pause and his fangs would worry at his bottom lip. Having lost his place, he'd have to set a clawed finger on the margins and let it trail downward as his reading began anew.

One the lesson had ended, and everyone had wandered off, Bentley had been left alone. Confused, and alone. It didn't really bother him, he just didn't know where to go: was he supposed to go somewhere..?

He'd waited while the rest of them had cleared out, and eventually realized that no, no one was going to give him any directions. So he'd set back out the way he'd come, a little relieved to leave Draco. Tiny black nose worked, searching for a hint--something, anything, to give him new direction. It was Menkheperre's scent that he picked up, and that he followed it. It was a sort of mixture of animal and of old paper, like the smell of the reading lesson as a whole, and Ben bounded along with his nose weaving around to find it.

The weird light in Cepheus was just as weird as that in Draco: not as harsh, but still very dim, and the colors seemed all wrong the farther in he got. This place is weird, Bentley thought, very accuratedly. His own magic rose to compensate, a faint golden-white glow shimmering around him.

Oh-!
His gait--slowed with weariness to a walk--broke into a race as he recognized the golden creature off ahead in the gardens. He gave a single yip, wholly unaware of what he was interrupting, and bounded toward Menkheperre. The rush of a glowing puppy was probably odd enough, but Ben was already barking his excitement, too. "Hello! Hi!"--and then he'd reached the dragon, racing around the poor creature's reading spot, jumping up an down. "I saw you-! Before! I'm Ben! Bentley! Can I come here? Can I watch? What are you doing-?" he asked. There wasn't too much frenetic energy in it--childlike questions, to be sure, but a moment later the exhausted pup had dropped with a dusty huff into a legs-splayed sploot, panting.

"This place is far," he declared, staring at Menkheperre.

The puppy paused. Nostrils flared. Head jerked toward the breaded nuggets, and he tensed.

A single tendril of drool dropped from his open jaws.

@Menkheperre

Pollen made her way back a little bit behind Menkhe, eager to be home. With everything available to her at the Palace, and the lesson imprinted into her brain, Pollen was excited to put everything into practice. Plus, she needed to put her gift somewhere! She had a few plans for it- she'd already been thinking about carrying a sack of seeds with her, just in case she could find a use for them, and putting it on the necklace behind her bandana. She could put the rock there, too- its glow could be shielded by the thick fabric, and brought out when she needed it. Would the magic still hold up if she put a hole through it..? She'd have to ask Zoey.

Actually, she'd just do it later. For now, Pollen had gathered up a few of the books she'd left outside in the garden shed, ones with pictures to look at with plants on them. Maybe she could practice reading those?

Pollen took one look at the word 'hydrangea' and decided against it.

Maybe she'd let her brain relax a bit, turning to her typical job- gardening. The books were returned to their hidey-holes in the shed, and she went to work, caring for the plants and trimming off excess and sick bits. It was average, mundane work for her, but something comforting after an excursion. She'd notice Menkhe enter, felt his footsteps on the manicured lawn as he walked through the gardens. It was stowed away in the back of her mind as she focused her magic like a beam onto a few flowering plants around her. Ah, there- a little speckling had gathered at the edge of a leaf. The offending limb was quickly shorn and cast away onto the stone, left for a deer to clean up.

Her ears perked at the distant, cheerful voice of someone else. Huhm. Did Menkhe have a friend? Ears leaning forward, Pollen stood straight and stretched, the sundress she still wore sweeping at her knees. Her thick gardener's gloves clapped together to knock the dirt off, and she gathered the hovel and shears in one hand, stepping around a few hedges to sate her curiosity.

Oh. It was one of the Gembound from the lesson, right? Watching from a distance, Pollen took in the scene, Menkhe lounging peacefully as the puppy- Ben- introduced himself. ... heh. Ben and Men. And, Len, if you considered her, too. A smile grew on her face at the internal realization.

"It's not too far," Pollen spoke up, a warm expression in her eyes as she regarded Bentley. "You were at the lesson, right?" The muta's free hand went to her hip, dirtying the part of sundress she touched, but- oh well. She didn't have to clean it, and it's not like she had to look nice for anyone anymore.