Something drew Eden back to the river, in the end.

Part of her thought that it was a bad idea to come back here. Part of her thought that it was a very bad idea to come back here, to this place where the swans had screamed and cried and flocked after the dragon with all of their ivory teeth.

Part of her couldn't resist. She doesn't know why, exactly, her paws are finding their way back to the grass, to the spot where in her mind the flock might still be, floating politely down the river until something (someone) got too close.

Maybe it's just because the spot is always in her mind, just like what happened is always in her mind, and she can't help it.

Maybe it's just because she knows this is probably the best place to find feathers. The tailor back in the palace had asked for some, after all—they had asked for a great many things, but the feathers were what came to mind first. Feathers sounded easy. She could do feathers, better than she could do collecting any of the white deer's fur or wandering back through the garden to find the shards of Cyneweard's chrysalis.

Well, she could find his chrysalis. But she felt that wouldn't be polite.

Nose down low to the ground as she approaches the bend in the gentle river where she last saw the swans, she's careful to place her paws on the bank just so, as to not fall in. The swans are nowhere to be found, right now, but the thought sends a shiver down her spine anyway.

The feathers aren't so difficult to find, in the end. They're a stark, sharp white against the green of the grass and the deep browns of the riverbed. Her little eyes spot them nearly as soon as she puts her nose to the ground, nestled among the clean-sheared greenery.

There's just one problem: the feathers are across the river. Because of course they are. Because she remembers the dragon approached the river from the opposite side she was on, swooping in as fast as a minnow to grab a swan by the throat and fly off before any of them could even touch him.

Eden knows she needs to get across, too; but for a moment she can only stand there paralyzed at the thought of having to get all the way into the river and then all the way out again. The river is gentle as it always is and she knows the water will be soft and cleansing against her fur, but she can't help but feel her ruff rise at the thought of going in to the same place the swans go. In her mind, the ground is safe from the swans. The water is not.

…but she said she'd help, right? She feels like going back on her word would be worse, somehow, than confronting the swans.

And they're not even here.

Mind made up, she takes a deep breath and takes one tentative step into the water.

Splish, the sound goes, and her head is up in an instant, nose sniffing for any sign or scent that the swans might be rounding the river this way.

No sign of those pristine, pure feathers on the horizon, though, so she takes another step. Splish.

Splish, splish, splish, the river goes, as she finally makes up her mind and quickly—but daintily, like the deer she's watched walking around Cepheus so many times—she crosses it and makes it to the other side.

And there the feathers are on the ground, just like they were when she spotted them, ready to be picked up.

She's… not sure how she's going to carry them all. Very carefully in her mouth, she guesses, but she should probably find more than this little collection she's discovered on the riverbank.

More feathers, trailing off from the riverbank. Maybe these had fallen out when the dragon snatched the swan into the sky. She puts her nose low to the ground once more and pads after those little flashes of white in the greenery to get a better look at them.

...oh. One of the feathers is marked, quite clearly, with a red stain. Blood.

She's overcome with the sudden urge to sit down in the grass, staring down at the little feather with the innocuous, darkened stain. She's seen blood before, yes. Blood is the stuff that comes out when she bites down on mice for her morning meal. But there's a difference between a mouse and a swan, isn't there? At least she's quick. At least the mice don't struggle.

Is there a difference?

Maybe the difference that makes her feel so uncomfortable is that the mice don't fight back. The dragon was so pretty in the voidlight, a sharp orange she'd never seen before and hadn't seen since. But he would have been red, red and—other things, if the swans had got to him.

But he was fast, and nimble, and he wasn't.

And she was fast, and nimble, and no swans came around the bend of the river to bite her when she splashed her way to the other side.

Her little world, the little life she lives in the gardens, is safe, and placid, and quiet. The swans are only two of those things, and then only sometimes.

She's spent all this time trying to mimic the herds of deer which graze quietly on the grass, with their elegant movements, their beautiful antlers, their dark eyes. They seem so deliberate in their movement she can't help but want to be like them some day.

But, perhaps—perhaps... perhaps she should be like the swans, instead.

This is a thought that comforts her more than she expects as she finally stands again, nosing the new feathers she's found back into the small pile of them she's made at the riverbank.

What now?

She seems to remember the tailor saying something about dye.

Eden herself has... no idea how to make dye. No idea where to even start. She can kind of guess that dye is something colorful, something you put on clothes to make them equally as colorful. But, well; even if she did know how to make some, she doesn't have anything to carry the result!

What can she make, anyway?

...she can make flowers...?

She hasn't experimented with making flowers much at all. She has done so about once, twice...? She'd been exploring the gardens as she liked to do and was struck with the sudden thought that she'd like to be like a garden bed, carrying flowers to show to the world, beautiful decoration to be looked at.

And then there had been... something, from her stone, a strange sensation that she can't really put to words, and then for a few minutes she was carrying flowers.

The flowers had fallen off before long, but the memory remains, and Eden wonders if, maybe, she could carry flowers to the tailor, as well. Then they could pick the flowers right off of her and make dye from that!

Mind made up, she settles down in a spot next to her small bounty of swan feathers and... pauses.

She shifts around a little, settling closer to the river water so she can see her own reflection.

Then she closes her eye, and thinks very hard about the many different flowers blooming in the palace gardens, and the elaborate flowerbeds, and how she is a very pretty wolf, too, and she should host flowers of her own... something red, perhaps, to match her stone...

A gasp.

It doesn't hurt, exactly—but there's that feeling from her stone again, and a sharp tingling that's spreading out somewhere behind her ear. Eden's eye flies open to stare down into the water just in time to witness a single red rose begin to bloom, unfurling its petals around and around and around to match her gemstone eye.

She tilts her head this way, that way, this way again. Her tail wags a little, thump, thump, and she hums something pleased.

It's pretty! It's a pretty flower, just like the gardens! She matches!

She should try some other colors, too. Maybe... purple?

Once again, her eye slips shut, and Eden thinks very hard, purple, purple, purple, purple...

...purple, purple, purple... purple...

Nothing's happening. Is nothing supposed to happen? She felt it the last time her stone made the flower. Did she miss it?

Slowly, she opens her eye, peering into the water and craning her neck to see if any new purple flowers have popped up along her brown coat. Nothing.

Eden huffs. Flowers are easy, aren't they? They're not supposed to be this difficult.

Maybe purple flowers are more difficult. Hmph. She's not gonna let her coat not have any purple on it just because the flowers are being difficult.

"Come on. Work," she says aloud, flatly. In her mind, the thought starts up again: Purple. Purple. Purple. Purple.

Ugh. It's not working!

Now thoroughly frustrated, Eden leaps to her feet. She stares intently into the water, her nose just an inch from the flow of the river, as if being closer to her reflection would somehow make it easier to see the nonexistent purple flowers on her coat.

Fine. So purple isn't working. What's another color that's good for dye?

She stares into the river, the blue, blue river, and thinks about it for a while. Maybe... maybe...

...yellow! Yellow matches red, right? She likes yellow!

With that in mind, she sits down once more, staring her own reflection in the eyes as if daring it to let the magic fail this time.

The reflection gives no reply: just looks faintly frustrated when the magic doesn't take, as she feels when, again, the magic doesn't take.

"Ugh!" she cries, leaping to her paws. "It worked the first time! What am I doing wrong?!"

Her reflection, as expected, gives no response.

She sighs, feeling a bit ashamed of herself. The deer don't get frustrated. The swans don't get frustrated. The flowers don't get frustrated. Who is she to get frustrated, too?

Okay. One more time. One more time, and this time, if it doesn't work, she won't start yelling about it. That's not 'pretty' behavior.

She's not going to sit down again, though, out of defiance for—something. Caves know what, she's too busy focusing on the reflection of the stone in the water and trying one more time for a flower.

A faint tingling. She nearly misses it. She would have missed it if she had her eyes shut: but as she doesn't, Eden barely catches the sight of another, tinier rose blossoming out from her fur. It's a bit small, honestly. The first rose wasn't all that big compared to her stone, either, but this one's even smaller. She doesn't think it's grown all the way.

But that doesn't matter, because that's a flower, and she grew it, and the magic isn't completely broken after all!

The thought of trying over and over again for another flower next to the first two sounds like a lot of work, though. That's a lot of work Eden isn't interested in trying for. Something in her feels... empty, she guesses, kind of like when she wakes up in the morning hungry for a fish, but also kind of not. She used a lot of something she doesn't use very often, and all that for two whole flowers.

Why does magic have to be so hard? Why can't it be easy, like the deer make everything look?

...oh, well. At least she got her feathers, and the two red flowers that the tailor can pick off of her fur to make dye out of. That counts for something, right?

She's going to pretend like it counts for everything. She's going to walk back into the palace, as confident and elegant as the deer, and she's going to give the tailor those feathers and she'll have helped.

She likes the thought of that.

Today is a good day, she thinks. Especially since she hasn't seen the swans again.

With that in mind, she leans down and carefully—so carefully—scoops up a mouthful of collected swan feathers by the shafts, making sure not to let her teeth mess up their soft bristles.

Off Eden goes, padding down the length of the river. She'll take the long way, this time, but only because she wants to keep the feathers safe, rather than any lingering fear.

;;exit Eden