ORIGIN - Great British Museum

Surgis didn't waste time scampering (for lack of a better word) throughout the caves, getting her hands everywhere she could. There was so much space to explore; grand mountains, lava lakes, even this, a structure so large she had to sneak in. There wasn't a particular need to hide, but she felt watched here, with simultaneously so much life and yet so little filling her with such a violent curiosity.

Warmth drew her further and further in, because she'd gotten too lost trying to get out. Too many halls looked too similar, and her head spun with how many hallways she'd traversed, unease rising and clutching at her throat. Okay. She had to assess. She was too open here.

And so she slipped into the first room that actually looked different than everything else. Its walls were lined with colors, and there was a heat inside, a fire crackling somewhere within. How..? It was controlled? Keeping her body low, Surgis sneaked beside soft, raised structures, stopping before the flame in its own alcove to stare at it.

She had never seen something like this. She knew it was fire, but it went against her knowledge of it, especially in a room full of papery smells. It seemed a few of them had been left beside those chair, and she turned to nose them instead, pupils mere slits in sheer concentration. It smelled... good. All of it was strange, and she didn't know what to make of it, but it was warm and unlike the rest of the palace she'd wandered into.

Who would blame her for crawling up into the chair and leaving her nose next to the stack of tomes, closing her eyes as she simply enjoyed the smell of them? And what if she drifted off just a little, content and soothed by the sounds of ever-present crackling? It was simply too nice not to.

@Menkheperre

To work by dim candlelight, Menkheperre knows by now, is to dry his eyes out and give himself a headache— but, it's to also give himself a much-needed excuse that works for his easily-fixated mind. If he must require a break for his eyes, then he must also take a meal and stretch his legs in a quest to fetch it from the kitchens down below. More of that bodily ado all at once means more time to sit by the fireside and work through his seemingly endless queue of "to-reads".

He's learned well how to keep the fire in his little hearth maintained at a low roar in his absence. A few books had perished for his earlier efforts, but the Scribe is now more than grown and—

Menkheperre pauses in his three-legged hobbling along, heaping platter of Vargas-shaped poultry nuggets nearly falling from his talons. There, by the fire: A furry beast, curled up in a chair far too large for such a small whelpling; dozing away with her nose stuck against the books stacked against its armrest. No spark of recognition comes to him as he creeps closer for a deeper inspection, but that is quite all right.

Oh, curious little thing, he wonders, magic threading through his paws still planted on the tiled floor. Whereabouts have you been in here?

Feather-light footsteps thrum without aim. They're distant at first, wandering an indecipherable elsewhere in the Palace (Lucky that they were not intercepted!) before thu-thump!ing to here, pausing somewhere by the fire, and dwindling down to the contented nothing that this interloper is now reclined in.

Setting his nuggets upon a nearby reading stand, Menkheperre huffs a bemused, intrigued laugh (How you got here, I must know!).

Then, he lowers his great head and blows on her as if she's a candle to be put out.

@Surgis

It just felt natural to fall asleep here. It was warm, it was quiet, it was a little more safe to her. That last bit could probably be attributed to how cluttered it was here and how enclosed she felt, all snuggled up on something soft with a place to rest her head.

Her hair tussles with their breath, and she stirs, hands clutching as she blearly lifts her head and damn near hits Menkeperre's own. The presence relatively suddenly there elicits a brief, loud bark of shock, every inch of fur puffing up like a feral kitten. "What the shit!" In a flurry of flailing limbs she topples over with the chair and hits the ground. Claws scrabble into the finished wood as she rights herself and arches her long spine in a failure to intimidate.

Every muscle screams at her to get away from this gembound because she'd been caught invading their home, but... he isn't aggressive. No, he's curious? That's weird. She'd chase anyone out, but she's not Menkheperre, so how could she know what was going on in his head? Halfway settling her hackles, Surgis holds her head up to recover any sense of her dignity. Anxious eyes betray the fear thrumming through her spine. He could pounce at any moment...

Her gaze darts away then back, then the fire; she could grab that as a distraction if she had to flee. That would hurt, wouldn't it? Her blue tongue darts out for a moment and laps over her gem, cautious and waiting for the next move.

@Menkheperre

And like the fire burning at the end of a candle's wick, the whelpling jumps and lurches from her seat. Menkheperre lifts his head before theirs can finish the ungraceful path toward collision, then lowers it again with a bemused huff of laughter once he's reasonably certain that she's not hurt herself in the fall.

"Many apologies! An impulse got the best of me." The Valkhound closes his eyes, rather profuse about his sorries; but, it's merely for a fleeting moment, for he's already turning his attention for the hearth. "Though, I once nearly lost all the hair on my tail being careless by this very fire..." Deft talons take a soot-stained wrought iron pole into hand, and he prods at the coals until they're smoldering away at an even lower roar than before— suitable for a minimal possibility of the aforementioned.

Another laugh blusters from him, but it's angled at the floor. "Mm, yes. Let us use that as an excuse: Looking out for this little visitor in the library." Then, it's aimed at Surgis with another apologetic look, "Not being so discourteous to my first guest in quite some time."

With that excuse in mind and fire-poker set back into its holster, Menkheperre turns again to Surgis, bowing his head more graciously. "Welcome, stranger. It would seem that you've wandered into the grandest collection of knowledge in the cave, and found yourself very comfortable in my favorite reading chair." A good second impression to overwrite the first, I hope— "I am Menkheperre, Scribe of the Light Below, and I am truly sorry for frightening you so."

And for a third impression.. ? Goodness, it will be difficult to think of five more. Oh, his eyes wander. Hm—

With a sideways step, he's swept his overburdened platter up from its place on stacked-books high. It's balanced carefully atop his palm, then set upon the standing table at the overstuffed seat's side without a single nugget spilled.

Menkheperre taps both the cushion and the plate before taking a step back. "You're welcome to both the chair and these. Just— careful about the grease and breadcrumbs, if you'll be touching the books afterward." Ah, and: "Woefully, I forgot to bring a napkin or a drink up with me."

@Surgis

Surgis's mouth flaps like a fish. Apologies? Now she's even more confused. Wouldn't the apology, if any, be coming from her? She doesn't feel like giving one particularly. But Menkheperre is looking out for her, with her even twitching her tail closer at his warning.

He's getting himself together, and Surgis backs away her head in sheer confusion. Knowledge? But it just smells like wood. This is all so much, and her head swirls with it all, dacing her into lowering her haunches into an uncertain sit.

The food does smell good. And yet— "Welcome to... your chair," she points out, tipping her head towards Menkhe. "And... your food." She eyes it; there's no reason for it to be unsafe if he was already planning on it. Does she admit defeat? Ask for an explanation? ... Yes.

"I don't understand?" Her voice hitches up in raw youth, cracking at the end. "This place seems really..." Fancy? Not for her? Hoity-toity? "... clean. You're just fine with me... using your chair and eating your whatever-that-is." Her shoulders hitch as she side-eyes him with disbelief. Something like this should be an obvious trick. Nobody's just nice like that, right? Maybe like, Oswald and Phelix, but they didn't live in a clearly homey place like this, didn't have weird-shaped food and chairs that they'd obviously want to keep kids away from.

"What gives?" Actually, she's not sure what that phrase means, but it feels right enough to say here. "You're just... fine with letting people into a uh— a grand collection..?" It did smell good... "You're weird."

Hell, she might as well take up the offer, turning and sneaking one nugget away to gnaw on while still on the floor.

Then another.

"Damn, this is really good, actually."

@Menkheperre