Once again, I found myself waking from a dreamless and not particularly refreshing sleep the next morning. Time turned fuzzy and meaningless after I ran Antic off the night before, so I'm not sure when I drifted off or for how long. The magical lighting I'd hastily installed in my chamber didn't really give any clue on what time it was either, since not much sunlight made it this deep down. That meant I was restless and unable to go back to sleep when I woke up, since I didn't want to sleep the day away. I had important business to take care of as soon as possible. Not to mention I was hungry again, and not accustomed to sleeping that way.
Zeal was right where I'd last seen him, laying sprawled out on one of the few dry patches of stone in the main chamber and sleeping far more heavily than I would have thought possible under said conditions. He was still recovering from keeping watch most of the previous night in the woods and too sleepy to pay much heed when I told him I was leaving. He didn't even care when I said Antic and Revelry were nowhere to be seen. They could watch each other, he'd said. Suited me.
The trip to Fealty's cave was longer than I'd expected, even accounting for the fact that we had traveled who knew how far into the woods away from the mountains. Flying was much faster than walking of course, but even that took several hours by my best estimates. The path took me close to our old home, but the temptation to drop by didn't last long. For one, I knew that there was a nontrivial risk that there would still be ponies snooping around. More importantly, part of me really just didn't want to see it ever again. I was starting to come to terms with the fact that it was gone. Getting even a close look at it would be... counterproductive at best and deadly at worst. Best to just avoid it altogether.
From the air, Fealty's cave looked completely unharmed, so I allowed myself a tiny flash of hope as I set down and trotted toward the entrance. It occurred to me right then that he might have installed the sentry spell that I'd shown him, but that wasn't why I stopped in my tracks at the entrance. I ran my hand down a gash in the stone, trying to remember if I'd seen it before. It was certainly large and deep enough to have been made by a pony's axe... but it looked old. No dust or debris around it. Surely I'd seen it before. There wasn't any blood or anything around. Fealty was fine. He was smart. He wouldn't let the ponies catch him by surprise. But why wasn't I triggering any early warning spells?
I swallowed and forced myself onward. Inside was dark, but I knew the layout well enough to avoid stumbling around too much. I only kicked over one small, unidentifiable thing on my descent into the main chamber, but by then it was just too dark to continue on. Was he not home? “Fealty?” No response. I waved my hand through the air, conjuring a ball of light that shed enough brightness to pick out most of the features of the chamber. Dozens of small objects of all sorts on shelves and boxes reflected back at me as I stepped along. “Fealty?” I repeated again, louder.
Shuffling and scuffing noises echoed through the cave, and I spun in place and panned my ears around to find its source. One of the side chambers? I edged closer and angled the light toward it, trying not to imagine ponies hiding in ambush. A little magic and they'd get me before I even knew they were there. Instead, Fealty emerged from the shadows, shielding his face against the glare. “Huh? Cantrip?”
I didn't waste an instant. Before he had finished registering that I was there, I had him in my arms, squeezing him hard enough that he choked and recoiled. “You're alright!”
“Whoa, hey!” He nudged me, trying to pry me loose enough that he could breathe properly. After he'd regained his breath, he gestured to light the room up. “What's the matter? Everything okay?” he asked as the darkness receded into the side chambers. He rubbed his right eye and yawned widely. “I wasn't expecting you this early.”
I stepped back and nodded, resisting the urge to jump straight into a long dump of everything. “Now that I know you're okay, yes.”
He cocked his head and furrowed his brow, studying me for a few moments. “What happened? You look exhausted...” He ushered me further back into the chamber and paused halfway toward another doorway, looking distracted and confused. Another muffled yawn left his mouth as he shook his head and turned to hear my answer.
“Ponies ran us out of our home.”
“What?” He dashed back to me, eyes wide. “You mean-but when? What happened? Are you hurt?” He circled around and stretched my wings out to scrutinize every inch of my body.
Not physically hurt at least. “No, no I'm okay. It happened the day before yesterday. Ponies from that new little settlement found us.” I neglected to mention the still unbelievable circumstances that led them to follow Antic back.
He stopped in front of me and took me by the shoulders. “What about the others? ...and our eggs?”
“Zeal, Antic and Revelry are alright...”
“...our eggs?” When I merely shook my head, his mouth hung agape. “No... don't say that...”
“I couldn't save them,” I said, shaking my head again. “I tried! I tried so hard! It-it just wasn't good enough!”
His mouth worked silently as his hands fell away from my shoulders. “No...”
“I-I did everything I could... y-you've got to believe me!”
He shut his mouth and nodded. “I... I know you did. I don't doubt that for a moment.” He pulled me into a hug and patted me on the back. “It's going to be okay. Just... just tell me everything. Where are the others? Where have you been?”
We ended up slinking to the floor at some point during my deluge of explanation and the flood of emotions that surged back to the surface. Fealty kept an arm around me as told him everything: what Antic had done, how the ponies followed him home, how I'd whisked us off to safety and lost our eggs, then how we'd moved on to the forest to find the new cave. I did a better job of keeping myself together through the story than I expected, but even still I had to pause a time or two to wipe my eyes and level my breathing.
Fealty just listened and nodded along as I talked, mostly staring down into the floor. When I was finally done, he gave me a little squeeze and said, “It's okay. As long as you and the others are alright, everything's okay.” He drew me into another hug and brushed a hair out of my face. “No need to worry anymore.”
For a moment, I really felt better. Being with Fealty always made me feel that way, but I was amazed that it could help me get over something so life shattering so easily. In fact, it made me feel... warm. And fuzzy inside. More than usual. When I realized I was also feeling the faint tingle of magic flowing through me, I twisted my head to find the source. A wispy red glow covered Fealty's hands that flowed against my sides like thick fog, and where it touched me the calm and tingly sensation was strongest. “What...?” I asked dumbly, pushing back to get a better look.
“Don't worry, it's just something to help you relax,” he explained, withdrawing his hands and the magic. Without a moment spared, the tired, lost and hopeless feelings returned. “I read it in a spell book last week,” he added, pointing a claw off to a new looking book sitting atop a crate in the corner.
“Wh-what? You... but...” I wanted to feel better. Nobody wanted to feel like their life was over. But I didn't want to just magic it away like that! That... that wasn't right! And where had he found the book? If he took it from ponies...
“What's wrong? Is it not helping?”
“It... it just, I don't want to just ignore or forget what happened.” I thrust a claw toward the book. “And where did you get that? Please, Fealty, Antic nearly got us all killed just by going near the ponies. Y-you're not stealing from them, are you?”
The awkward pause that followed told me everything I needed to know. Finally, he said, “I thought it was another book of healing spells. Something like that, well, I thought it was worth the risk. And it was. In a way. A book about healing minds or something... that will be useful once I figure out more of it.” He no doubt read the intense disapproval and worry I was harboring, and said, “Don't worry. No ponies saw me, and I didn't hurt anyone.”
I placed my face in my hands and tried to shove the thoughts of him being murdered by ponies into a dark corner of my mind from whence they would never return. “I don't need this right now... please...”
He wrapped his arms around me again and held me close. “Forget about all of that. None of it's important right now. You're safe, and that's all that matters.”
I nodded and returned the hug. Things could be worse, and I didn't want to dwell on that a moment longer. Mental magic or not, I felt a little better just being there with him and didn't want to ruin what I feared would be the last reprieve I had for some time.
We held each other silently for some time, until the moment was rudely interrupted by my stomach growling. Somehow, I'd managed to forget how hungry I was. I hadn't even bothered to stop to find anything to eat on the way there that morning.
Fealty released me. “Are you hungry? When's the last time you ate? What about the others?”
“It's been a little while...” I admitted. Oh, I hoped he had more fish around, but at that point I believe I would have settled for even the most bland greens that ponies seemed to be so fond of.
The rest of my stay with Fealty turned out to be surprisingly similar to any other. We spent a little while talking about the unimportant small things that had happened to us, ultimately ending with him trying again to convince me to move in with him. The offer was more tempting than ever, but I had even greater reason not to. My brothers and sister were going to need all of the help they could get right now, and abandoning them was the last thing I wanted to do. He did offer for all of us to move in with him until we got back on our hooves, and if anything at all went wrong I think we'd probably have to take him up on that. Even if Zeal didn't like it.
Leaving him behind to return home hadn't left me in a great mood though. I wanted to stay with him so badly... even if I had obligations elsewhere. I also really didn't want to come back to the shattered pieces of our lives that we were still trying to put back together. Especially Antic. After what I'd said to him the night before, I had no idea what to say to him, if I should say anything at all. Part of me just wanted to drop the whole affair and never speak of it again, even if I knew I would have a hard time just forgetting it.
I sighed and continued to stare at the hole amidst the clearing that lead to our new home. How long had I been standing there, trying to work up the courage to face Antic, and to a lesser extent, Revelry? Too long. I scooped up the box I'd brought back with me, spread my wings and fluttered down into the dank depths.
“Hey, you're back,” Revelry's voice called to me as I set down. I looked up to see her hovering near the ceiling, examining a stalactite and tapping it with a claw. Four of the larger stalactites hanging from the roof of the cave were glowing, and I then realized that things were considerably brighter than when I left. Good to see her taking some initiative. She drifted down to the floor with a faint clack of hooves against stone, and strolled toward me. “So, how's Fealty?”
“He's fine, thank goodness. He hasn't seen any ponies or griffons.” I set the crate down and eased into a seated position on a dry patch of stone. Flying back with that in tow had really drained me.
She smiled. “That's good. Say, what's in the box? Did you go back by the old cave?”
“No, Fealty had some extra food.” Really, I was pretty sure it wasn't so much extra as most of what he had stocked up, but we had nothing so it didn't take much convincing to get me to take it. “Some smoked birds of some kind and a little fruit.” Not fish, but it sure beat nothing.
She popped the lid off, and her eyes lit up. “Oh, great! Zeal hasn't got back yet and I'm starving. Make sure to tell Fealty thanks for me.” She reached in and withdrew a piece of the cooked bird meat, the species to which it originally belonged impossible to discern now, and popped it into her mouth. “Mmm... oh, that's so much better,” she said, sinking to the ground across from me.
“It should be enough to last us a day or two, if we ration it,” I said, placing the lid back on. “You said Zeal was off looking for food?”
“Mmhmm.” She smirked and mimed swiping something around. “He took that sword and everything. He'd get a lot farther hunting with magic, but whatever. I figured I'd try and brighten the place up a bit while he was gone.”
“Right. Where's Antic?”
She took a deep breath and shrugged. “I don't know for sure. He said he was 'heading out for a while' when he got up this morning. Didn't say where or when he'd be back.”
I couldn't help but feel pretty guilty about him wanting to be away from me for a while. If someone had said to me what I said to him, I'd want to avoid them too. I'd probably rerun the scene in my head two dozen times since I woke up, picturing and hearing his response over and over again. Maybe when he got back I could set things straight. Right now, maybe I could set something else straight. “Hey, Revelry?”
She tore her eyes away from the stalactites above to meet mine. “Hmm?”
Apprehension fluttered in my stomach and my heart skipped a beat. Why was this so hard? “I... I'm sorry about yesterday.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Huh? What about it?”
“For snapping at you back at the stream. Sorry, I, uh, know you were just trying to help.”
“Oh!” She waved a hand at me. “Don't worry about that, I'd forgotten about it already.” Her ears lowered a bit. “I know you were upset. We all were. Still are I guess. I'm just glad you're looking better today.” She smirked. “A little talk with Fealty helped, eh?”
She didn't know the half of it, but looked like she was reading an awful lot more into it than there really was. What, did she think I only went to see him to be intimate with him or something? “Yeah, I suppose so. Finding a new cave helped more than anything.”
“Yeah, no joke. It's going to take a while to get it cozy, but I think we'll like it more than the old one once we do.” She grinned. “Maybe when the ponies and griffons start trading some they'll 'lose' some stuff for us.”
“Don't start that, we're just getting resettled.”
She raised a hand to her chest and mocked surprise. “What? I never said a thing about stealing anything. Remember the other caravan that broke down? Might get lucky.”
I was starting to doubt luck really existed, but we did just stumble across this cave by blind chance. It had taken us years to accumulate everything in our previous home, but in time we'd rebuild here. Luck or no. “Yeah. Well, I hope they 'lose' some pillows and blankets soon. I don't know if I can get used to sleeping on bare rock.” I flexed my back to pop a few achy vertebrae to punctuate the point.
“You said it.” She tapped a claw to her lip. “We could probably improvise something with some leaf litter in the mean time. It would be a lot softer at least.” She stood and stretched her wings before floating gently into the air. “Why don't we go take a look?”
That sounded better than just waiting around doing nothing, so I followed her up, out and into the warm sunlight above. One thing you could say for sure about the new location: the view was a lot more interesting than just rocks all over the place. The nearby stream left a constant calm trickle hanging in the air, and fruit trees and bushes were all around. Maybe we could gather a bit while we were out?
“Hey, what do you know, it looks like Antic's on the way back,” Revelry said, pointing at something winged and headed our way. “Wait, no, I think that's Zeal. Looks like he found something too.”
It was then that I noticed something large and limp in his grasp, though it wasn't until he was landing next to us that I recognized it as a boar of some kind. I had no idea those even lived around here. Zeal set down heavily, dumping the lifeless animal at our hooves and breathing heavily as he recovered from hauling it all the way here. It was a fairly small one by the looks of it, probably the only reason he could fly with it at all, and covered in stab wounds. Sure enough, the sword hovering in the air next to him was smeared in dry blood.
“Dinner for the next week,” he said. “Hope you like it, because I don't know if we'll be eating it again. These things fight like monsters.”
“You're hurt!” Revelry said, trotting over and crouching next to him.
There was a shallow gash on his left forearm and what looked like a deep stab wound to his right thigh. One look at the boar's tusks told me all I needed to know to guess where those came from. “Hold on, let me take a look at it,” I said, joining Revelry at his side. Fealty was a lot better at healing magic than me, but after practicing it a few times I was good enough to fix this. I raised my hand to cover the hole in his leg and concentrated, bathing the blood drenched wound in golden light that slowly closed it. As I feared, it left a large scar, but that was infinitely preferable to getting an infection or bleeding to death.
When I repeated the motion to fix the cut on his arm, he sighed in relief and rubbed the thin scar. “Thanks.” He brought his sword up and glanced at the blade, then the hog. “No idea how I'm going to butcher this thing with this, but I'll figure it out.” He rolled the carcass over and drove the sword into it in a seemingly random spot. “Antic home yet?”
Revelry shook her head. “Nope. We were hoping we might see him, but we ran into you.”
He nodded and prodded at the now leaking body. “Figures. If you're heading out, keep an eye out for him. And try not to stay too late, I'd like to get this frozen before too long.”
Which meant me, since I was the one who knew the spell. I had no intention of staying out all night of course. If Revelry and I could gather some food, and maybe some large leaves to start some bedding, I'd be happy enough. That couldn't take too long.
As it turned out, making the cave cozier didn't take as long as I feared it would. It was still a long way from being 'home,' but the leaves we'd gathered made surprisingly good bedding when the alternative was cold stone. I was astonished at how durable the leaves were, especially if they were fresh, and if we had some thread of some sort we could probably have even sewn them together into blankets. I was tempted to try making some out of hair, but even though I knew ponies did that sometimes I didn't have a clue how. We'd probably find some blankets before I figured that one out.
The new cave did have one enormous advantage over the old one at least: the mana spring. I'd spent the last three days working out ways we could use it to make life easier, and I was finding more every day. The second night we spent there was already much more comfortable than the previous, since Revelry and I worked out how to warm each of the chambers on demand. Something like that would have been far too demanding to keep powered on our own supplies of mana, but the spring made it trivial. We could probably even magically cool it once the warm season finally arrived in full force. There were so many nights I wished we could have done that at the old cave...
I was still trying to work out a solution the problem of being unable to determine how bright it was outside, and thus what time it was. Revelry and I spent the better part of a day fiddling with spells to adjust the ambient light to mimic that of outside, but it was proving elusive to both of us.
If Antic was around a third opinion and take at working the magic would have been welcome, but for three entire days I never even saw him. He'd always get back after I was asleep and leave the next morning before I was awake. At least that's what Revelry told me. Zeal hadn't seen him either, and by this point he was starting to get a bit nervous about it. Something was going to happen to Antic with him spending so much time away and alone, and every day made me feel even more guilty about it. I'd resigned to tell Revelry to talk to him if I didn't see him before sun down. Or even go looking for him myself.
In the mean time, I was busying myself with another magical project. We never kept much meat around before, because the best we could do to preserve it was smoke it and eat it within a couple of days. Zeal gave me an idea when he suggested freezing the boar though, and I was almost done making a magical icebox of sorts. We didn't have any actual ice, although with the river just a few steps away we certainly could have, but it didn't matter. I'd tapped into the immense magical potential of the mana spring to make one of the unused side chambers permanently cold enough to freeze any meat or other food we wanted to save. Keeping the cold restricted to that room was taking a little bit of work, but I was sure I'd have it figured out by the end of the day. I cast a glance to the hunks of boar meat lying in the corner that Zeal had hacked off of its body, thankful that defrosting it was simpler at least. Maybe I'd even take some back to Fealty as thanks for sharing with us earlier.
We might not have been cold blooded dragons, but standing around in the freezing temperature was growing very uncomfortable, so I left it to return to the main chamber and warm up a bit. Zeal must have still been in his chamber asleep, since I only found Revelry there. She was lying on her back in the shaft of light from above, dangling a hoof lazily in one of the small pools of water and humming to herself. “Get the freezer working?” she asked.
“Mostly. Had to come warm up before I finished it.” I joined her at the pool and dunked my hooves in the water, which I was thankful to find was at least as warm as the air. “You know, maybe we should heat one of these too. A warm dip every now and then would feel nice.”
She propped herself up on her elbows and grinned at me. “Hey, now that's an idea. I could go for that right now.”
Well, why not? It was a simple enough spell, so I waved my hand over the pool and poured magic into the shallow water. The water wasn't deep enough to really bathe in, but the warmth was most welcome either way.
Revelry sat up and dipped her other hoof and tail in the water. She chuckled and asked, “What, not enough magic in that spring to power this?”
“Oh, I'm sure there is. Just need to find a better spot. It's a shame we can't just use the spring's basin itself.”
“Yeah, wouldn't want your head exploding or anything like that,” she said, waving open hands around her ears.
I was pretty sure that wouldn't happen. It probably wouldn't even kill you so much as make you wish you'd die, but the point stood nonetheless. “Maybe we could dig one of these pools out a bit. Make it deeper, then enchant it.”
“Mmhmm. Maybe we can get Zeal to help with that rather than sleep around all day,” she said with another chuckle. She shrugged. “I guess we're all tired.”
He was spending an awful lot of time snoozing, but then there wasn't a whole lot else to do other than go scavenging. After doing that pretty much constantly for a couple of days, I didn't blame him for wanting to relax a bit. The cave wasn't going anywhere and we had enough food to last another three or four days easily. “Yeah, maybe taking a day off wouldn't hurt anyone.”
We chatted for a few more minutes, musing over some of the more outlandish things we could do with all of the magic. Her idea to project the illusion of a dragon in the main chamber was actually pretty good. Something like that would keep even the craziest pony or griffon out, but we'd probably need Antic's help with that. Even if I knew the spell, he seemed to do a lot better with it. There was a certain... artistic touch to it that I seemed to lack. He'd catch a hundred tiny details I wouldn't.
Just as we were moving on to a different topic, the flapping of wings above drew my attention. I looked up in time to see a draconequus gliding down through the hole, turning and compensating awkwardly from the load in their arms. “Revelry! I found something!” he said, looping overhead and dropping down with a heavy thump. Antic!
“Found what?” I asked.
You'd have thought he just noticed a hydra in the room from the way he jumped back. Something shifted and thumped in the box in his arms, threatening to spill out altogether as he juggled it to regain his grip. “C-Cantrip... I, uh, didn't see you there.”
Was he really that scared of me? I sighed and slouched. “It's okay. What did you find?” I said, trying to sound as nonthreatening as possible.
Revelry was already up and peering into the box when he set it down and retrieved a book from inside. It looked awfully familiar... “I... um, w-well, I know you must miss your old books, s-so I, uh, went and got them.”
Eeee! I jumped up and darted over to the box. Sure enough, there were dozens of my old books in the box. I couldn't believe the ponies hadn't taken them all, especially by now. Without a thought I threw my arms around him. “Antic, how did you get these?”
He fidgeted in my grip and said, “Well, I just went back to the old cave, and they were there.”
“Were there no ponies there? Was anything else left?”
“Most of the stuff was gone, but your books and some other stuff were packed up like this. I couldn't carry it all.”
Revelry produced a large book with a simple leather cover, devoid of any writing. “Huh, don't remember this one.”
Neither did I. I released Antic to grab and page through it. Nothing inside looked familiar either. “Was this with the rest of them?”
“Well... not... exactly,” he said sheepishly. I shot him a questioning glance, and he backpedaled a step. “Th-there was a pony there. A unicorn. He was digging through our stuff, so, I, um, took his spell book.”
I dropped it back into the box. “What? Antic...” Really? He'd really do something like that? Take that kind of risk after what just happened?
Revelry interposed herself between us. “Wait, Cantrip, don't be mad at him. This was my idea!”
“What? How was-I don't...” I growled and kicked the box. To think I was going to tell him I was sorry! What if that pony saw him? What if he was on his way here now with soldiers? What-
Antic whimpered something and flew off almost faster than I could track. Revelry followed a moment later. “Antic! Wait! It's okay, come back!” she cried after him.
I watched them vanish through the hole in the ceiling, then snarled and kicked the box again. When were they going to stop doing this!? How many times was I going to have to tell them? They weren't going to be happy until one of us got killed. That was it, huh? Smash my eggs and we'd get over that in a few days. They were just eggs, right? What were they going to do when one of us were next?
A warm dip was the last thing on my mind at that point. I spun around and stormed back to my chamber. I needed to be alone for a while.
If anything can be said about me, it's that I'm a creature of habit, and one of my habits that I thought was gone forever had just been dumped back on my by Antic. It couldn't have been more than an hour after he and Revelry flew off to who knew where before I found myself back in the main chamber. I'd intended to just drag the crate of books back to my room to read through them, but after I picked up that new book I found myself just standing there, staring into it. Then I found myself on the floor staring into it.
Not too long after that, Zeal shuffled in, yawning and generally making enough noise to jar me out of the pony words in the spell book. After I explained to him how the books got back and where Antic and Revelry were, he flopped down on the other side of the box to retrieve a random book and page through it. Not that it would do him a lot of good; he couldn't read pony at all and had an almost equally bad comprehension of the spell notation itself. At length, he dropped it back into the box and said, “You know Cantrip, maybe you should lighten up a bit.”
What was that supposed to mean? I cut my eyes to him and asked him precisely that.
He snorted. “Antic did you a huge favor you know. Did you have to yell at him?”
“I didn't yell at him.” I slammed the new spell book shut with a crisp slap. “I wasn't even that mad at him. I mean, it was extremely reckless. Even being there was reckless. But I was... I don't know, just angry at the whole situation.”
Zeal shrugged. “I am too, but Antic's really sensitive you know. He's pretty messed up right now.”
“And I'm not?”
“I didn't say that,” he said, looking up to the hole in the ceiling. The afternoon sun wasn't providing much light anymore, but at least Revelry's efforts gave us plenty to work by. “But you're made of tougher stuff than him. I'm not worried about you.”
And what was that supposed to mean? I crossed my arms and stared into the wall away from him. Sure, whatever. Antic screws up big time and doesn't learn from his mistake, and Zeal blames me. Fine, whatever. I was just going to shut up. If that made them happy, that's what I'd do.
“Don't take it like that, you know what I mean.” He knocked against the stone between us when I didn't respond. “We need to all be working together here, okay?”
“I know,” I grumbled.
“Serves the pony right anyway,” Zeal said, leaning against the crate and peering inside again. “He was stealing our stuff this time. It wasn't like Antic was digging around in some pony's home.”
“I know.” I kicked a pebble away and watched it bounce into a pool of water. “Look, can we drop this?”
“Fine.” Zeal took a deep breath and twitched his tail a few times. “What's in the book anyway?”
I shrugged and glanced back down at the well made but blank cover. “Haven't got a clue. Whoever wrote it was obviously way too fascinated with big words over readability, so I can barely tell what they're going on about.”
“Sounds like pony wizards. Can't tell by just reading the spells?”
“Not yet. His writing is surprisingly neat, but I can't tell much of anything just looking at the spells. I'd probably have to try casting them to really know, and I'm not about to do that.” If Antic was here, he might be able to read it...
Zeal nodded and grunted something I took to be agreement. He rose to his hooves and stretched all six limbs. “Right. I'm going to get something to eat. Hungry?”
I shook my head and scooped the book back up. Maybe after I read a bit more I'd join him. Antic shouldn't have taken the risk of snatching this book from that pony, but since he did I might as well make good use of it. I blew some grit from the cover and opened it to a random page of the same nonsense. Maybe if he got back I could apologize and he could help me decipher the gibberish.