Vinur
"This may be a long story."
If Vinur didn't know better, he would've sworn he was dreaming. The centaur was talking to him, in complete sentences too. Just yesterday she'd been all but impossible to communicate with, and now she was effortlessly saying things even he didn't know about; dihydrogen monoxide was water? And when the centaur claimed not to know about draining? That had been a near miss. It at least explained why she hadn't drained his magic for her own. Oh, and the whole plucking 'I learned an entire language in a night' nonsense!
He didn't know what to believe. Was the centaur just playing dumb? Why? What possible purpose could it have for doing that? And if so, why would she tip her talons, er, hand, that she suddenly knew Avian? Was she telling the truth, that a random centaur had the greatest memory in the world? Was it something shared by all centaurs, centaur females, or just the one? Vinur didn't know, and even as she spoke those six words he reeled around, second guessing himself, triple guessing...
"Okay, if it's long then we should probably go to the living room." Vinur urged the centaur to go first; he suddenly felt a lot less comfortable letting her behind him. He followed her, watching the way she walked; he noticed that she didn't wobble on her hooves nearly as much as she had before. He blinked when they reached the living room; about twelve of the thicker books he had bought and then promptly never read were arranged in a circle around a spot before the bookshelves.
Vinur's living room was a nice, welcoming little place if he did say so himself. He'd painted the walls a pale tan and, to compensate for the lack of windows, installed a fireplace and several wilderness pieces by his favorite artists. It was well furnished as well, with couches and soft chairs, covered in leather tough enough to avoid being punctured by talon and claw alike.
"Take a seat, I guess, if you're comfortable that way." The centaur paused a moment, then moved to a brown chair and sat on it. Since it made her equine half slope downwards while her upper body remained upright, it gave her the illusion of being taller than she actually was. Vinur went to rest on his sofa, extending his body like a cat and popping his joints. "Alright, so, whenever you're ready begin with the 'long story'," he declared, keeping an eye on the centaur. If she tried to drain his magic, the plan was to dive behind the sofa to break line of sight. Assuming that even worked.
"You called me a centaur earlier, correct?" He nodded. "This is not my original form. A force I have yet to determine the nature of what took me from my natural form and transformed me into this."
He nodded again. "Alright, that's not out of the realm of possibility. Transformation magic exists, and it's not ridiculous that you could be hexed when your back was turned. But then why dump you in the middle of an alley?"
"All in due time. Now, from what I observed of this place my transformation is the last part of this that may be easy to accept. As for the next, I am not originally from this world. My kind have phenomenal memories, compared to you at least, and it is to my great relief that my mind at least remained intact while my body did not."
Vinur's eyes widened. "You're an alien."
The centaur tilted her head and frowned slightly. "I am not certain, given my true form, that alien is the proper definition, but I suppose it is close enough for now."
Vinur crossed his talons over one another. "Prove it."
"How common are the traits I've displayed among centaurs?"
"Well there's only been one other, so I wouldn't know. Especially since he never stepped hoof in the Griffon Empire."
In response to that, the centaur crossed her arms over one another. "So then how do you expect me to prove my extraterrestrial origins, if any trait I display you can simply write off as a trait of centaurs you are not aware of?" Vinur opened his mouth, then closed it. "Do you believe me?"
"You have to understand that this is pretty hard to swallow. I'm more inclined to believe you're lying to me."
"What motive would I have?"
"I don't know!" he said in exasperation. "It's not as if you'd tell me if it were anything malicious!"
"Then if you don't believe me, I'm sure you'll have no trouble with me telling you what my kind are?"
"Fine, fine, go ahead." No matter what she said, it couldn't possibly be more outlandish than 'I am an alien from another world with impossible memory transformed into a centaur.' Though Vinur did wonder how he'd expected her to prove her story.
"In my natural form, I am a star."
Aaaaand it got even more ridiculous, he thought. Vinur stared at the centaur for a long moment, sighed, and facetaloned. Once done, he said, "Alright, somewhere along the way things have gone terribly wrong. Let's start from the very beginning. Hi, I'm Vinur, and I've decided to take you into my home until we can find out where you're supposed to be living. What's your name?"
The centaur paused for a few seconds. Eventually, she said, "My name, by closest translation to Avian, is Cygnus X-1. It's a poor translation."
What a name. "Okay. Cygnus - can I call you Cygnus?"
"I suppose," she said with no inflection on her voice.
"Great! So Cygnus, you appear to be a centaur. The only other centaur who I know of was named Tirek." He watched for any change in expression on Cygnus's face that would betray connection to Tirek. There was nothing. "He was very much disliked for trying to cause harm to and then conquer an allied species of my species."
"The minotaurs?" she guessed.
"No, actually it was the ponies. He probably would've gone for them eventually, though. He's not a threat anymore, but you're the only other centaur known, so I'm more than a little suspicious about your motives."
Cygnus nodded stiffly. "I see."
He continued. "But that's enough about Tirek, where are you from? I'm from Piercing Sky, which is where we are now. Hatched and raised," he said proudly.
"I am originally a star, from the galaxy around Lord Sagittarius A-star. I do not know how I was transformed into a centaur or brought here," she said.
Aaaand we're back to this craziness. "Well you see, that makes no sense, because stars aren't alive."
The centaur's face changed in a flash, black eyebrows narrowing and her brown spot of an iris/pupil gleaming slightly. "What?" she growled. "I assure you, we are very much alive. Far more alive than your kind, organic," she said, nearly spitting the last word.
Vinur saw three options: Cygnus X-1 was either deep into the lie, genuinely believed she was a winds-damned star, or she... truly was one. "Listen, I can see you feel strongly about this, but try to see it from my perspective. There is literally no evidence that stars are alive."
Cygnus frowned. "None?" She closed her eyes for a moment, then looked at her again. "Well, that's unfortunate for you. To know so little that you do not even realize how we watch the cosmos."
He had the vague impression that the centaur had called him stupid, but besides a slight clenching of his talons and extra bite to his voice he expressed nothing. "Oh? Well then why don't you show me? Explain how something without cells can survive. Explain to me how points of light unimaginably far from the world can possibly think!"
She paused for a few seconds. For a moment Vinur thought he'd gotten through to her, and then, "What happened to Tirek when he was wounded? Did it scar? Heal quickly?"
He had a bad feeling of where the conversation was going. "I don't recall Tirek ever being wounded at all, the stories weren't exactly that detailed - "
"Can you make a good estimate as to what would happen to him, were he wounded?" she asked with no pause.
Vinur sighed, clicking his beak once. "He probably would've bled, or something."
"Then let me show you some evidence." After some fiddling with her legs, the centaur got off the chair and cantered into the kitchen. Vinur got up and followed her, watching as she found a steak knife and faced him. He fanned out his wings, bracing for an attack. "You already saw this early when you pinned me upon first encounter. A reminder seems to be required." She held out her left hand, palm up, and with her right hand cut a shallow gash along it.
Vinur didn't move, he felt as though he'd been frozen. He wheezed out the breath in his lungs and his heart clenched in terror as he gazed upon the long cut on Cygnus's palm, oozing blood and - where was the blood?!
His protests caught in his throat. From the long cut came a dark mist, the same brick-brown of Cygnus's eyes, skin, and fur. It seeped out a fair distance, spilling out from the centaur's hands and wafting down to the ground. However, even as Vinur watched, the mist slowed down its fall and slowly, over the course of a few minutes, drew itself back up and into Cygnus X-1's wound, which healed itself as more and more of the mystery gas sluggishly pulled itself back in. Even as it did, it warmed up the air tremendously, to the point where it felt like summer instead of winter.
He'd seen entrails and freshly spilled blood on his hunts, yet for some reason that display made him want to throw up his stomach's nonexistent contents. Vinur looked up at Cygnus's unnatural, dark eyes with an open beak. "Is this," she asked. "something that anything on this world does? Judging from your books, I doubt it."
"Aaaah," he creaked. "Here's what's going to happen. I need to eat a good, hearty breakfast, and take some time to think over what the pluck I just saw. I don't want you to disturb me so just... entertain yourself or something. Preferably away from my sight, but still within this house. I'll come get you when I'm ready."
While Cygnus X-1 stared at him, long and hard, he took the knife from her, prepared a ham sandwich for himself, then went to sit down at his dining table. Eventually, the centaur clip-clopped her way back to the living room, leaving Vinur to eat in peace.
But while she wasn't actively disturbing him, what she'd just done continued to freak him out. Mist. Cygnus X-1 bled a scorching hot mist. And regenerated. Not too fast, given how it took her minutes to heal what amounted to a large papercut, but compared to others it was still impossibly fast! He was in way over his head. Before, he'd thought he sort of could help her. After all, she'd just been a poor little cub, alone in the world. Now though, Vinur's head spun even as he shoveled food into it.
A star. Cygnus X-1 was a star. Or so she claimed. It would've been so easy to claim she was simply playing dumb earlier, and now that she'd built some sympathy with him she was escalating her plans. That had to be what was happening, except she'd been genuinely curious when he mentioned her not draining him. That at least had been a genuine reaction. Or she was a good actor. It felt like he could do nothing but chase his own tail until he felt lightheaded.
The only way 'out' of the circle was to believe Cygnus's story, but that was... that was absurd! A star. Stars weren't alive, were they? No, they weren't. They'd know if they were.
Despite none of them having ever spoken with one.
Because there was nothing to speak to!
Besides, everybird knew that for life you needed to have, he didn't know, cells and other things like that.
And grounded species had once believed the world to be flat.
That didn't prove anything. And that mist trick could just be some sort of complex magic. Vinur certainly wasn't an expert in thaumatology, so he wouldn't know. But weren't stars made of gasses? The ponies' leader, Princess Celestia, had confirmed that much for the international science community. But Cygnus X-1 wasn't a star. Even if she was telling the truth and had been in the past, she wasn't one anymore, so it was more likely than not some weird magic. Or maybe that was even normal for centaurs.
Or she was just crazy.
Vinur finished eating and let his face fall against the table. Rrrgh! I'm never going to figure this out! All he was doing was going in circles, but by his own he was never going to figure out the enigma that was Cygnus. He needed a second opinion. He needed help. But how was he going to get help if Cygnus was in his house? He couldn't just leave her alone!
... or could he?
Vinur backed away from the dining table with a flap of half-extended wings, wheeled around on his hind paws, and sprinted for the living room. Cygnus stood in the middle and had her hands up to her face and was inspecting the fingers, moving them like trees in the wind. However, she was still the size of the average pony, which was to say, rather short. Vinur easily grabbed her under the arms with his talons and hoisted her up; griffon homes were naturally designed to allow some degree of flight, so he had plenty of room.
Cygnus squirmed weakly in his grip but, as he expected, she was far too weak to actually do anything. Vinur flew to his bedroom and plopped her down on his bed. He winged over to some shelves, mostly empty, and grasped the key at their top in his talons. He landed and, before Cygnus X-1 could leave the bedroom he left, closed the door, locked it, then ran out of his house, closed the door, and locked that as well. He took off to the skies, ignoring the looks everybird else gave him in his rush.
The sky was clear and the sun beat down with terrible intensity, but in spite of - or perhaps to spite it - the air was as frigid as it always was in the mountains. Vinur flew past the aerie square, past his parents' house, and soon came across his sister's.
It was two stories tall - which was more than he could say about his own - and had open balconies where guests could fly in if they didn't want to take the stairs to the second floor. That was all he could see from the outside, but he landed and, key to his house clenched in one talon, began rapping on the door as hard as he could with the other.
The door opened inwards, revealing Gria with a scowl on her beak. "Oh what now?" she demanded.
"Sis, I need your help," he said with deadly seriousness. "Can I come in?"
He must've communicated his distress well, because the sneer melted off her face and she stepped aside. "Yeah, come on in, bro. Don't freeze your tail off." Out of reflex, he flicked his lion tail at the mention. He went in, and Gria shut the door behind him. "Sheesh, you look like Tartarus. What's eating you?" she asked, falling to his side.
"I plucked up," he said simply. "Alright, I'll start at the beginning. So I was out walking, right? I passed one of the cleaner alleys and I heard somebird inside grunt. Figured hey, they're hurt, maybe I should help them out."
"I follow you so far," she said. "Heard somebird in trouble, went to help them. I'm proud of you, bro. Hey come on, lets sit." She led him to her living room. Evidently her tiercelfriend was out, so the house was just theirs. The living room was large and warm, painted with fiery colors of all sorts. Whereas he had well-stocked bookshelves meant to make himself look well-read - to be honest, he'd read some of them in his downtime - his sister and Koril had gone overboard with the paintings, especially the yellow-dominated zebra paintings.
She led him over to a ridiculous looking beanbag chair and urged him to sit, while she sat on the ground.
He flustered a bit. "Right well, the problem is that it wasn't a griffon."
She narrowed her eyes. "Are you being specist?"
"Let me rephrase that; the problem isn't what they weren't, it's what they were." He took a breath to steady himself. "There's no easy way to break this, but it was a centaur."
Gria's eyes went from narrow to comically wide, the irises and pupils collapsed into singularities. "Wait, what?"
"You heard me right," he said. "A centaur. Not Tirek, it was a female and she seemed more or less harmless. I mean, 'couldn't stand on her own hooves' harmless. I figured she was just a child, so I took her home - "
"So it wasn't a hen you had over," she said, then smirked. "Didn't take you for a xeno."
"My love life isn't the point!" he snapped. "She didn't know Avian, just the few words I taught to her like 'rock' or my name, and she repeated whatever I said even though she clearly didn't understand it. So I taught her the basic alphabet, we had an early dinner, and I left her with a dictionary. She said that while I was sleeping, she read all of my books to become fluent in Avian and, here's the best part, she claims that she's a star!"
Gria looked at him incredulously. "Whoa whoa, back up. An entire language overnight?"
He shifted in the beanbag. "Well it's that or she was playing dumb earlier. And apparently she doesn't know centaurs can drain magic. Hey, maybe she really can't and it's just something Tirek learned how to do. But that's not even the deepest this rabbit hole goes! She - she says her name translates to Cygnus X-1, stupid name I know - claims to have been transformed into a centaur by some magical nonsense and then there's the whole 'star' nonsense."
"Whoa whoa whoa, hold up. You mean star like, 'up above the world so high' star?"
"Apparently. The worst part is she put forth some pretty convincing evidence; when she's cut, she bleeds a dark gas, which pulls itself back in so she heals herself. I don't know if she's crazy, or if she really is a star, or if she's just another Tirek playing dumb, but she didn't know about draining, but that could just be her waiting out of some sick sense of 'playing' with her prey, and - "
"Hey hey," Gria said, walking forwards and putting a foreleg around his back. "Easy there bro, easy." He took a deep breath and calmed himself, locking his amber eyes with her similar-colored ones. "Look, what you did was pretty nice... and you were a plucking idiot to do so! She could've hurt you!" He winced. "Listen, let's get back over to your place. I hope you made sure Cygnus wasn't going anywhere?" He nodded. "Okay, great! Now let's go, lemme see her myself."
He stood, his lion paws sinking into the beanbag awkwardly before he pulled them free. "Thank you, Gria. I'm in way over my head with this, so - "
"Hey, it's a centaur right? Gotta check out stuff like this." She headed for the door, and he followed right after her.
Once outside, they took to the air. Since they were headed towards his home, with him as host, Vinur flew forward to let his sister fly in his slipstream. "I don't know if she's crazy, hiding something, or genuine. I've never heard of magic that can change a star into a living being and make it think it always was alive, but I'm no expert on magic! Just be prepared for anything!" he shouted over the wind. He looked back to see Gria just nod.
Soon, they returned to his home and he unlocked the door. As the one with the key, he took the lead and let Gria close doors behind them, approaching his bedroom. "Alright, here she is." He unlocked the door and pushed it in.
He hadn't known what to expect from Cygnus when he returned, but the door bowling her back and knocking a bent line of metal out of her hands was not among it. Had she... been trying to pick the lock?
Cygnus X-1 recovered slowly, but faster than she had in the past. She stood and fixed Vinur with a dead glare. "I don't like you."
"That's nice," he deadpanned, stepping aside to let his sister through. "Cygnus X-1 this is my sister, Gria. Gria, this is Cygnus X-1."
Gria stepped forward. "It's a pleasure to meet you," she said with the same grin she wore to work. Vinur's sister held out a talon and, after a moment of staring at it, Cygnus held out her own skinny hand and shook it. "So Cygnus, my brother came to me because he's rather afraid of you, and can't decide whether or not he should believe what you say."
"He should," the centaur said calmly as she pulled her hand back.
"Well that's the thing, he's not entirely sure if he can take your word on that." Cygnus frowned. "Has he told you about Tirek yet?"
"He has. Evidently it provides a poor baseline for me to be received by your kind, organic."
Gria took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "Right, organic. Now, we're not specists." Her tail flicked sharply against Vinur's back, making him frown. "So there's no innate reason to associate you with Tirek beyond paranoia. But you do have to understand why your claim of being a, um, star is so difficult to swallow."
Cygnus paused for a moment. Vinur tried to see what she was thinking, but her face was more or less expressionless and the centaur's demonic eyes made reading them impossible; if eyes were the window to the soul, Cygnus X-1's windows had been boarded over. "I don't see why it would be," she said. "I've provided sufficient evidence, both in my gasses and in my apparently prodigious memory."
Gria frowned. "Heh heh, right. Those." She turned to him. "Listen, bro, how about you give me some time to work with her? Hen to... female."
Vinur frowned, his plumage drooping slightly. "Fine, fine, I can understand when I'm not wanted." He couldn't believe it, being kicked out of his own bedroom. But the look in his sister's eyes brooked no argument, so he dutifully turned and left, leaving his sister with a supposed star. And besides, it had sort of been his hope that he could dump the whole business into Gria's care and let big sis deal with it.
He made his way to the dining room and started to clean up the utensils he'd left out, setting them in the place he'd dedicated as 'to wash'. As he did, he wondered what they could possibly have been talking about.
***-_***_-***-_***_-***-_***_-***
Cygnus X-1
"So you're his sister," she told the organic once they were alone. She didn't fully understand why they had to be alone, but she supposed it wasn't a big deal. She didn't much like Vinur after he'd locked her in the bedroom. Cygnus didn't know how to get out. She hadn't known if he was coming back. The word claustrophobia came to mind, and she realized she didn't much like confined spaces. If he hadn't come back, would she have died a true death in the room?
"Yes, I am," 'Gria' said. "You know, you're pretty lucky it was my brother who found you, not somebird else. I mean, yeah most of us are touchy with specism given we're the main carnivores in the world, but still." She moved her talons so they caught the light of a nearby candle, flashing. "Centaurs have a terrible reputation."
"That's too bad," Cygnus said. "Tirek intended to conquer the nation of Equestria, however I have no interest in doing so. Conquest does not seem to have anything of use to my interests."
"Huh." Gria moved to sit on the 'bed'. "What are your intentions? I mean, if you're really a star - "
"I am, or rather, I was," she interrupted. "I have ascertained that minimal aspects of my form survived the transformation. You can puncture my hands if you wish to see a demonstration."
"Uh, thanks, but I'll just take my brother's word for it," the griffon said. "So, let's say you're actually a star, right?"
"I am," she repeated. "I have difficulty understanding why it's so challenging for you to believe. Then again, given your status as organics it's overwhelmingly likely you do not have the cosmic insight to know how we work, nor the means to pick up on our neutrino communications."
"Okay, okay," the hen said. "I get it. We puny mortals know nothing of the heavens." Mortal? That was ridiculous, they were all mortal in the end. Why even come up with a distinct term? Puny, however, was dead on. "You never answered when I asked what your intentions were."
"I didn't, did I?" Cygnus agreed. "My priority is to return to orbit around my companion. That is all I am interested in on this world. How I am to go about doing that, however, is uncertain as of now. I do not know what avenues I have open to me to do so, nor do I know where I am in relation to my home."
Gria nodded. "Alright well, do you know what a 'job' is?" she asked gingerly.
"I do, it was in the dictionary and careers were mentioned in many of your brother's books."
"Thanks, but I didn't need the explanation," she said with a light glare.
"I was just making sure you had an idea, I don't know if you're intelligent enough to grasp where I gathered the information from."
One of the griffon's eyelids twitched. "Thank you, for insulting my smartness." Sarcasm. Cygnus and Two-Two had sometimes been sarcastic with each other, or with other stars, and apparently the concept carried through to organics. "Anyway, Vinur has a job, and he's going to have to go back to it soon, whether or not you're here. Plus, you're going to need food and water, both of which cost money. So unless you want to go off into the wilds as a Rougher, you're going to need a job, since we can't keep supporting you for free forever."
"Alright," she said, displeased. A job? Was she truly going to have to lower herself to the organics' competitive way of life? "How long will I need to do this?" Cygnus asked warily, raising one of her hands ever so slightly.
"Until you can go back to wherever you came from," she explained, lowering herself onto the bed and making herself more comfortable. "No free handouts here, Miss Star." Cygnus felt her irritation rise and, bizarrely, her body seemed to bristle with the emotion. Organic reactions to emotion were weird. "So anyway, before we can get you a job, we'll kinda need to get people knowing about you, and knowing you don't mean any harm." As Gria said that, the griffon broke eye contact with Cygnus X-1. Curious. "So we'll need to get you citizenship. Luckily it's a pretty streamlined process and there's hardly any red tape to cut through, so getting it shouldn't be the hard part. It'll probably be everybird else panicking the moment they see you."
"Unless they attack me, why should I care if they panic?" she asked, genuinely curious.
"Nevermind that," Gria said. "Now, in order to be a citizen of the Empire you do still need a fairly good knowledge of our history, so I'm guessing we can just toss you a book or two and come back in an hour. However, you'll also need to be able to prove that you don't have any ill will towards us."
"Why would I? You've - "
Gria hopped off the bed to get in range and cut her off with a talon across the mouth. I don't think I like her either. "Save it for the people who actually need to hear it. Okay, now, changing centaurs back into stars and throwing them up into the sky is not at all my area of expertise, so I'll be little help there. You may find somebird who can help, you might figure it out on your own. Then you can leave and we never have to deal with one another again. But first, we need to get you a job. We can not keep hiding you. And to do that you need citizenship, unless we want to hire you illegally and get hammered once you're inevitably found out."
Well, they could, it would just be inconvenient for them. However, given how she was at the organics' mercy Cygnus didn't push on that one.
"How do we start?" As if conjured by her question, there was a sharp pain in Cygnus's body. She turned around and placed a hand on her lower body's back, frowning. "Curious." She winced. "That's actually quite uncomfortable."
Gria raised an orange-tinted white eyebrow, but then groaned. "Oh, great. I think I know what's going on. Another point for the 'really a star' theory, I guess."
"What?" she asked.
Gria sighed. "Follow me." She opened the door and walked out, Cygnus carefully following after her. She lead her to another room and motioned for her to go in. "I can't believe this is happening," the hen muttered.
***-_***_-***-_***_-***-_***_-***
Some time later, Cygnus X-1 walked out of the especially-small room and closed it behind herself. At some point Gria had left her alone, looking more green than before, and now both she and Vinur stood in the hallway right outside, looking down at her nervously. She looked up at them and narrowed her eyes.
"So," Vinur said at last, sounding nervous and looking interested in his own talons. "Is everything alright in there?"
"Yes." She walked past them and then paused, turning her head back so she could see both of them and her lower body. "Your kind are disgusting." Then the ex-star continued past, heading back for the living room. Her olfactory sense, which apparently organics used to detect chemicals in the atmosphere, still sent annoyingly primitive messages of bad bad get away to her brain, long after she'd left the room behind. She made her way back to the living room and faced the bookshelves, looking at the sixty-seven books she'd yet to read, too high for her to reach.
Vinur and Gria followed after her, looking at each other concernedly. While Cygnus had been indisposed, she'd heard them speaking with each other but couldn't make out what was said. It was likely the result of them looking at each other.
"Please give me those books," she ordered, pointing up. "Preferably all of them."
Gria flew up and took two heavy novels in her talons then flew down. "Here you go, I guess. I gotta see this." Without acknowledging her, Cygnus grabbed the thicker one and set it to the side. She then sat down with the first and cracked it open, flipping through its pages.
"Listen, Cygnus, I need you to focus on me," Vinur said. "This is important."
"I can multitask," she said, not taking her eyes off the book. "My memory is far superior to your own, remember?"
"The whole 'superior' shtick is getting old fast," Vinur deadpanned. Out of the corner of her eyes, Cygnus X-1 saw him taking to the air and crossing his forelegs. "You could show some gratitude for what we're doing for you."
"The superior shtick, as you call it, is truth. And I am grateful for your assistance; without you, I'd likely be truly dead." She flipped one more page and looked at him, raising one of her black eyebrows. "Can't you tell?" She went back to her book.
"Well whether the whole superior thing is true or not, can you cut it out? It's not something people like to hear. Sounds rather arrogant," he said accusingly.
"Very well." She kept flipping through the book, memorizing it effortlessly. "Now what was the important thing you wish to tell me?"
"I'll need to explain this to you first. Now, illegal immigration is a big deal for the griffon empire, however there are also laws in place regarding unintentional immigration due to magical mishaps, which is what your 'condition' sounds like." Cygnus doubted that the interaction they knew as 'magic' was responsible for her displacement, but remained silent. She finished the first book and took up the next. "Now, I'm going to write a letter to the Department of Arcane Displacement. Hopefully they'll come to us and not the other way around, and then we'll be around griffons who... actually know how the pluck to handle something like this."
"Sure." She kept flipping, feeling the breeze of his flapping wings ruffling her black hair/mane. It was an exceptionally odd sensation.
"So little bro," Gria said, still on the ground. "Remember what we talked about?"
He nodded. "Yes, I do. Don't worry, I'll be at work tomorrow, we can talk about it more then." He looked her way. "Cygnus, you'll have to stay here in the meantime. I'll put out stuff for you to eat and drink; don't let anybird see you, alright? Until the government can vouch for you, let's just not take the chance."
Cygnus X-1 finished the second book and nodded, placing it to the side. "I request the other books." She looked Vinur's way, and judging by the way his eyes were lidded and his beak ground against itself he was rather unamused. She sighed. "Very well, Vinur. I will wait here. It's not so long after all, what's the worst that could happen?"
