It was... winding, honestly, just how much stuff was stuffed in this beast. A lot of the words coming out of its mouth were first-timers in Khavur's ears, and so, a lot of things ended up flying over the Reaver's head. Still, he listened intently, with the patience of a plant with heavy roots and lots of time, and offered silent nods where he... hoped was necessary? It was difficult to tell.

At last, when the creature reached this twisting conclusion, it began to ask questions using words Khavur understood. And they were quite surprising questions. Would Khavur be fetched, or would Khavur do the seeking later? What kind of philosophy was he interested in? What did Khavur think about a lot? Well.

Khavur would respond first with a bemused little ‘teh’ noise, a rather surprising display of humor, and then: “Not all living things.” (Said from the perspective of a similar deathlessness.) “What I… have thought about most often… is purpose. The purpose of living entities.” He arched an almost challenging brow at Menkheperre. “You are familiar with this concept as well, are you not?” Before giving the golden goose enough time for another tirade of an answer, Khavur would address the specifics. “Of this interest, I am very serious. Solemn as stone. And, I would greatly appreciate your efforts to... transliberate the books? The triangles? However, I must return to my own duties soon, so it seems we must wait. You may need time for this... trans-lay-tion, this... conversion of which you speak." There would be other opportunities in the future for Khavur to visit Cepheus. Khavur might have to earn some of them. While Khavur wished very much to learn more, the urge to prove himself capable of his rank and role was more intolerable than the beckoning of curiosity... for now. Perhaps the greater issue was the excitement of the bookwyrm. If Cepheus could contain such knowledge, surely it could also contain such exuberance?

Oh! And one more thing. “I am Khavur… Reaver of the Dark Above, member of the Chaos Forge. Who are you?”

@Menkheperre

If he'd come saddled with ears, they'd have stood at full attention. As it were, his woefully earless form did just as good a job of depicting his state of being enraptured. Not all living things, spoken as a confident statement of fact, and not opinion... and Menkheperre had, in a tangential way, made a correct guess at what kept such a massive mythical beast awake at night, thinking and thinking! He'd merely assumed in the wrong direction—life over death. Purpose.

What an interesting abstraction to consider and study, and discuss now that Khavur had asked him if he was familiar with it—Oh. His parting lips sealed back shut. The figurative egg would not be laid... not quite yet.

Instead, it was his turn to plant himself and listen. Compared to the rootbound mass that Khavur occupied, however, Menkheperre was more like a sapling sunning itself in the rays. Soaking up the specifics and turning them into glucose blueprints and plans in his head, already contemplating where to look and what notes to take (rudimentary as his knowledge was, having mainly read journals and accounts rather than something as heavy as thinking of one's purpose—oh, dear, he's getting ahead of himself again!)

"Oh, that's all right! I have duties too, but I'll work on conversion—that's a good word—when I'm not doing that." Which would be, of course, rather often: Menkheperre took his bedtime story reading to be a task of great importance, keeping with how gravely Isra had presented it to him, but that was a nightly routine lasting however long it took Eggbert to fall asleep. "But come whenever you can?"

Aw... who can resist that shining sun of a face?

"That's a long name!" He remarked not too long after his closing question, not an ounce of derisive sneering. No, there was a little bit of kinship to be had there—"mine's not nearly as, but it's a big one too: Menkheperre." Should I add some more to it? (The thought hung clear as day on his face, lips parted halfway and rigid brows furrowing slightly to mime contemplation.) "Scribe of the Light Below."

... all right. That's plagiarism.

@Khavur

Something about this little sapling, all of its embullience, and its reception to his rays... It felt like a tornado of butterflies turning over the plains of Pegasus that lay firmly at Khavur's base. It felt familiar, but also new. And the creature itself, the knowledge it possessed and its willingness to share in such abundance, inspired an intangible itch that was, again, familiar and new! There was only one way to scratch it, in Khavur's mind, and that was to go to Cepheus as soon as possible and simply know more. A forest of knowledge they would find, or make, together.

"I will be there as soon as I can." Solemn as stone, yes, but there was a hint of a smile peeking at the maw of the small-horned head. If anyone could say no to that shining face, it certainly wasn't Khavur!

Khavur listened for the name in exchange, and felt a humorous quiver rise from one of his throats as he realized: that sounds longer than mine, and also the dark is above and the light is below? Unfortunately, the Valkhound (for, given the fact that it possessed a title and access to Cepheus, it now most certainly had to be one) did not mimic Khavur's introduction completely, and so Khavur would have to find out more about who made the little guy later.

"Menkheperre, Scribe of the Light Below." At long last, the statue moved to twist, to turn away. "We will meet again." With lumbering footsteps (which now possessed some level of unremitting mirth), the Reaver would head for the chalkboard it had left behind. Khavur would gather, and stare for a moment at the board in his claws. The thoughts that occurred prompted him to perhaps make a better attempt at formulating the letters they had been taught.

It seemed as though the inspiration had been the push he had needed.

(For the curious, the word written was "Jee-aw-muh-try". Spelled just like that, hyphens and all. With a little kiki or bouba next to it.)

@Menkheperre (visibility)

Garnet-Epsilon



Epsilon is glad to take a slate - large and awkward for it's size- and some chalk to practice with. The white rock-stick is a bit big for their paw, but they'll figure a way around it. Maybe. Someday- they refuse to let size stop them. Right now they just look like a chunky hamster with the way they prop up to use the utensil.

Asking if there are any questions, though, is dangerous around Epsilon when it wants to truly learn something. They have many, but no way to articulate some, and no confidence for others... so they settle for one.

"Master Astrea, I have one, that is more like me clarifying things... Capital letters are for the starts of sentences, and proper nouns, as you said. Regular nouns, like... he, she, they, and it, are not proper. But would they ever be?"

They sit up and hold the chalk carefully, and try to write out they words they're talking about as they say them.

Nothing? It had been a hypothetical question, sure, but there were about a dozen things right off the cuff that Casimir could name as anywhere from somewhat unsettling to completely wrong about the cave they currently were in. The golden lights strung up about the place to ward off the voidlight and make any reading not a complete strain on the eyes didn't save Draco from being a room that literally breathed.

Casimir resolved to keep his eyes pointed away from the Black Spire that pulsed ominously in the corner as Ampelio picked a relatively clear spot for them to sit.

It was much easier to focus on the rather normal looking, mushroom-laden deer-- Master Astraea. A respectable person, to be certain. (It helped that the Master reminded him so much of his father, though such naive thoughts would probably get him into hot water.) His ears perked as the lesson began, listening eagerly and watching hungrily.

That hunger was to be abated by his clever sibling, who interrupted to offer up a banana: good for the brain. Would definitely keep Cas on track as he was trying to absorb all this new information. "Oh," he nodded and extended an oversized paw, "thanks."

Casimir gnawed on the banana as he often did, breaking the skin of the banana with a claw to keep it from bursting but otherwise eating it whole without so much as attempting to peel it. The magic crept into his system, and soon the two siblings were glittering. This was a side effect of the fabulousness, and one that could only bother Casimir if he wasn't completely entrenched into his lessons at this point.

Now, the white-haired lion was lucky enough to be one of the few in attendance with a pseudo-thumb, so holding the chalk to scrawl on his slate was easy enough. Actually getting these letters down was a different matter, as Casimir found his first attempts to be shaky and uncertain. He was careful not to press too hard, leaving his lines faint and jagged with every jerk of his shaking hand.

As a result, his lettering was... messy. Unkempt. It didn't help that his long, dragging hairs smudged his writing as he went, making it even harder to make out what he wrote. He thought he understood the bulk of the lesson, but like with every new challenge he was met with, he was woefully untalented. Practice would help. He just had to keep writing.

He tried to write his name, slow and shaking: C - A - S - I - M - ... another I?... - R... Did there need to be an E at the end? No, that didn't look correct. He wiped the E away, and glanced sideways at Ampelio.

"... How would you spell your name?" He asked his sibling attentively, staring with his big, ponderous baby blues that-- only in these rare and special times-- resembled their littlest brother's.

@Ampelio

Well, no one had stopped Ashtoreth from doing her pre-emptive reading of the material provided. In fact, no one really demanded anything of Ash, as she dug in and promptly gave Master Astraea only half an ear of her attention, instead focusing more on staring at the letters on the page as though their meaning would jump out to her on their own.

At least, until a stranger sat down next to her, offering just a single hello. She glanced up and nearly jumped out of her skin, needing to do a double take: blinking away the ghosts of the past from her eyes. This wasn't one of her long lost friends-- this was some other leopard. Fine, that was just fine!

Err, wait. Okay, yeah, she vaguely remembered this stranger. She had been one of the gembounds in Leo, learning how to enchant. The winged mustelid's nose twitched with a small sniff. She tried to remember more, but she had kind of swooped in to steal the show and hadn't paid much attention to anyone in any exceptional detail.

"Yeah, hi," the air vibrated around her as Ashtoreth magically offered a reply all the same, raising a paw to swipe at her whiskers, before looking back down at her book.

It wouldn't be long before the stranger-- acquaintance?-- would try again to get her attention. At this point, the letters were starting to make sense, and she could just about hear the words in her mind as she connected some sounds to the shapes.

There was a small huff as Ashtoreth looked up from her reading once more, her tail giving an impatient twitch. She wasn't intending to be rude or even anti-social, but she certainly was playing the part of the cool loner kid at school, even if she had her nose deep in the spine of a book. That whole, "I'm too cool for what everyone else is doing"-- all while trying to soak it in.

Still, her new study partner asked her a direct question. "Sure, uhh..." Legible. It looked kind of like the symbols. Her ears twitched, muzzle scrunching up with concentration. "K--kuh, K-aah... Kahh-eye-mah-nah. Kahi-mana, right?" It was exceptionally difficult to translate symbols to sounds that Ashtoreth had heard other gembounds say, and then play them back using magic, but hey-- she had been a tape recorder for her whole life. What was a little text-to-speech?

@Kaimana

Studying over their brother’s shoulder had turned out to be just as entertaining as Pelly had desired. It was one of those rare, repressed nerd-jock moments where Pelly was actually engaged enough in the learning process to not even think about causing any extra trouble for Casimir. Any social trouble anyway. Munching in Cas’s ears occasionally to irritate him as a buzzing fly might… that was not off limits.

And, speaking of munching - gratitude! Gratitude for banana snack! Gratitude for ONE THOUSAND—! no. Pelly would wink in response, just like— yes, actually, just like the fictional people they kept making up in their head subconsciously. For a moment, the designated-middle-brother’s eyes would glimmer with some kind of glee upon seeing Casimir’s unkempt fur bedazzle itself. ”Look! you’re all sparkly and lovely now,” Pelly would mumble with a gentle excitement, mostly to themself, as they reached out with nimble fingers to fiddle with little strands of Cas’s fur while Cas struggled through the esoteric tragedies of the English language.

The same nimble fingers would retreat into a flamboyantly 'aghast' gesture, drawing toward Pelly’s own puffy chest when Casimir made his inquiry. ”Wuh- me? why,” Ampelio’s smirk would mostly only reach their expressive eyes and eyebrows, but an extra, unwanted smidgen of it would also tug at their lips. ”i’ll show you.” Pelly would reach for the chalk in Casimir’s handpaw with their characteristic overabundance of confidence. If they were not allowed it, and they could not wrestle it away, Pelly would begrudgingly rise and gather a new one just for themself.

With chalk equipped, Pelly would begin to scribble something down next to Casimir's attempt.

P - E - L - Y

Pely's writing was significantly more legible than Cas's, but they weren't going to call attention to what could be plainly seen. Instead, their smirk would tug more insistently at their lips, and their eyes would wane into narrow slits of pride and glee, curled like devil's horns. "And there you have it!" They seemed to be attempting to surpass all logistical limitations on just how puffy and puffed-up chest can be.

Why they had chosen the diminuitive form of their name when they knew that was probably not what Casimir had been asking for, the reasoning would remain a mysterie unless pressed considerably. The truth of the matter was that the look in those baby blues had not escaped Pely's senses, and it was that familiar, familial look that moved them to such... affectionate heights. For Tobie? It was Pelly. For Casimir, like this? So too it shall be. But Casimir didn't have to know that. Not that Pely would mind if he did, but, you know, it was more fun this way.

@Casimir