MagiStream

Dear Emander Tyris,

You are an anthropologist, you say? That sounds quite fascinating! Myself, I am still just a simple student, learning everything I can about all the creatures that can be found at the Keep.

Summertime can be seen by some as an excuse to take a break from studying, but what good will that do? A lot of new information can be revealed, new creatures discovered, in just a couple of months. While it is a good idea to take a break once in a while, surely it is not good to do so for the WHOLE summer.

So I spend my summers doing much of the same as I do during the rest of the year. Mostly this means many a night spent in the library, poring over books, with only a handful of tylluans for company. They don’t seem to mind me much. They even help me to retrieve books that are far too high for a person of short stature, like myself, to reach. My topic of interest lately has been about hydras. I have been devouring every book about them that I can get my hands on.

Recently, though, I have taken to spending a couple days a week off from studying. Why, you ask? Because the osaths and their babies have arrived at the Keep, and the hatchlings are quite adorable. I like to sit and watch them, occasionally throwing food out for them. Once or twice a young osath has come right up to me, snuggling into my legs, before its mother comes over to carefully herd it back to its siblings. I wonder if I can convince one of the adults to let me keep a hatchling. They are very cute, and I can better study them if I have one here year-round instead of waiting for them to migrate back to us.

Well, I suppose it is time to get back to my studies. I cannot neglect them, especially because I am planning a trip soon with a magi friend of mine, to the Callisto Islands. I doubt I will be able to get much studying done there; I will most likely be having too much fun relaxing and watching leviathans play in the waves. But it is good to take a break every so often, isn’t it? Just not for TOO long…

I wish you luck in your own studies, sir!

Yours sincerely,
Naru

The student carefully folded the letter, placing it on her desk. It was far too late at night to try to send it now. She would be sure to get it delivered in the morning. For now, she picked up a direwolf hatchling from the floor, where it had been dozing at her feet, and carried it off to her bed. Then she lay down her head and went to sleep.

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The next day, the student did not get to send her letter in the morning as planned. She was distracted by chores, and breakfast, and a small ruckus involving a fire that a new magi and his phoenix accidentally set. After this, the letter seemed the farthest thing from her mind, and she wandered into the grounds of the Keep, hoping to avoid the smell of smoke for a while.

The osaths were there, as usual, and she sat down a short distance away from them. It seemed as though the hatchlings were receiving flying lessons, for they were all running around and flapping their wings. Occasionally one would hover an inch or two off the ground.

One of the hatchlings, upon seeing the student, ran over to her and hopped into her lap. It squeaked cutely at her, and she pet its little head and offered it a snack from her pocket. She waited for its mother to come over to retrieve it again, but for a few long minutes nothing happened. When she looked back up to the nearby adults, she saw one looking straight at her. Then it ruffled its feathers a little, and turned back to its remaining hatchlings.

Was it true? Did this mother osath really mean to leave its baby with the student? Cautiously, she picked it up, stood, and walked a few feet towards the Keep, watching the mother intently for signs of anger. The mother osath did nothing.

Grinning, the student held the baby osath up to her face, kissed it once on its head, and carried it off to her room in the Keep.

She spied the letter still sitting on her desk. Putting her newest charge on the bed next to her direwolf, she unfolded the letter, adding a post script to the bottom.

P.S. Before I could send this letter, happy news came! A mother osath has let me keep one of her babies!

She refolded the letter, and stood to take it to the appropriate place to be delivered. On the bed, the osath hatchling had fallen asleep, snuggled close into the direwolf hatchling’s side. Smiling, she left the room to send her letter. She thought that, perhaps, she could forgo her studies for today.