[dragonflyINN]

Muse chuckled at the group - they all seemed quite attached to one another, even if they didn't show it openly. Muse admired Terran's independence and chivalry. "Have you lived here all your life?" Muse asked the Radill, picking a dry wisp of grass from his beak and flicking it into the breeze. He found the tall grass somewhat uncomfortable to lay in, but ignored the itchy scratches the stalks of grass gave him and settled down, fluffing out his wings and positioning them comfortably at his sides.

Typhon, unsure of what Toelespi wanted from him, stared blankly at the deeply colored wing before giving it a cheeky hi-five. "This is the beginnin' o' a beautiful friendship, mate."

[Feint]

Terran looked up from his doodling. "I haven't lived out here all my life, no, only for about a third of it. But that's long enough, isn't it?" he said bitterly. Terran erased the scene in the dirt with a single swipe of a paw and set to making a new one. This one was of a rather large rabid rabbit with carrots in both ears like piercings. "I used to live in the mountains, deep enough to be far from the cold," he said, almost mournfully. Terran erased a long rabbit ear and redrew it without carrots. "I like it better here, I can get some sunlight every day without worrying about freezing to death," he added untruthfully, and swiped away the rabbit harshly. "I know you travel often, but have you stopped at one place for a longer time than anywhere else?" he asked. His voice sounded stern from stifled bitterness.

[Freezair]

"We have a home!" Krii said, creekily. Then he gave me a wary look. Good--I was giving him a threatening glance. "Err. Technically," he added.

"I don't really remember it," Avani admitted. "I was too little."

"I do imagine Muse has a place to go to sleep when the winds start blowing," I said.

Toelespi was grinning, in his Seraphant-ish way, at Typhon. He bobbed his head thoughtfully and began grunting rapidly in Pet. Sky rolled her eyes.

"What?" I asked her. "What's he saying?"

"...What is it with men and fart jokes?" she sighed.

I admit, I had to shrug. I don't know either. I was tempted to ask, "Is Typhon at least telling a FUNNY, non-Avani-grade one?" but didn't--both to avoid her wrath and Avani's.

[387, 52, 27]

[dragonflyINN]

<sub>Muse nodded. "I do sometimes stop by the Nu'san Temple when I'm taking a break from wandering. I only stay for a month or so before I keep going. My real house is amongst my six other brothers and sisters in the foothills of the Fe'gan Mountains. I only stop by for holidays, though." He shuddered at the thought of his chaotic home, with everyone running about. His annual visits were exhausting. "I drop Typhon off at the Nori Volcano at this time, too, where his pack is."

Muse glanced over at Typhon, who was chortling loudly at Teolespi. He wiped at his eye socket, giggling. "That t'was a good 'un. Now 'ow 'bout -" and then he began to chatter loudly in Pet, then erupted into a fit of laughter. "It's funny 'cause...Gorgeel can't walk!" He pounded on the ground with a paw and sighed.</sub>

[Feint]

ooc--srry I vanished... again.

Terran was tempted to ask Krii where their home was located, but caught Jimmy's glare and decided not to. He had opened his mouth to ask them why they didn't go home more often, but said something else entirely. "Nori Volcano? Isn't that dangerous?" he asked in shocked concern. Terran recalled movies and documentaries where volcanoes exploded without warning and burned everything for miles around. He looked Typhon over and failed to imagine him outrunning fast-flowing lava.

[Freezair]

"I've always wanted to go to Nori," Krii admitted. "I've never met my family, but I suspect they probably came from there. I am a BLAZE Rengosett, after all..."

"Didn't you find him wandering out in the jungle?" Sky asked me. True, in a fashion--it had been long before her time. I explained.

"Sort of," I said. "Something happened to us. I think he was hurt. He was really little when I--well, I was really little. I think I was further out in the jungle than I was supposed to be, since I was, like, four. I remember being really scared. I brought him home to Mom and Dad, and they helped take care of him. We never found his mom and dad."

"Scary," Avani said. "I'm glad my mom and dad--well, I'm guess I had you to take care of me," she said. "Weird families all around!"

Toelespi sighed mournfully.

"Don't worry," Sky said. "We can e-mail your mom next hotel we visit."

[388, 53, 28]

[dragonflyINN]

"E-mail? Yer lucky - I can't even send messages to my folks, 'cause they can't even read!" Typhon snorted, shaking his massive head. He grinned up at Terran. "It's not that dang'rous, really. The Chombones up on Nori Volcano have tough lungs that can inhale lotsa sulfur without damagin' us, our fur protects us from the ash 'n stuff the Volcano throws up, 'n there are lotsa big rocks there we can climb on to escape the lava." Muse chuckled. "I've seen those rocks when there's an eruption - they look like giant fuzzy red lumps when many Chombones climb onto them."

[Feint]

"Oh," Terran said in relief.

"You can email your parents?" he asked, glancing from Sky to Typhon. "I don't even know mine! I barely even see my. . . " his brow furrowed as he sought for a fitting word. "Penmates," he announced after a brief pause. "Yeah, penmates. Mostly it's just me and Master, but she's still off working for those priests whose temple I ruined." Terran grinned deviously. "That's cool, though," he said.

[Freezair]

Toelespi said something reassuring to the Chombones. He patted him on the back of the head with a wing.

"Penmates, huh?" Sky said. "So you came from one of those families too, huh, Toel. Well, at least your parents have a nice owner who can read your letters for them. I have to admit, we're amassing a weird caravan that almost looks like a pen... I wonder what living in pens is like."

"Terrible, I'll bet," Krii snorted. Then he looked at Terran. "Erm--but nothin' against your folks, 'o'course! It just... ain't the life for me, neh?"

"Nori sounds exciting!" Avani said. "We should go there next!"

I sighed. "Sure, sounds fun to YOU... But it'd probably fry me."

"Eh, no worries, Jimbo," Krii said. "I'll use my Controlled Immolibationy-thing to protect you! Or something."

[389, 54, 29]

[dragonflyINN]

"Thanks, mate. It's nice t' know some'un cares," Typhon said to Toelespi, sniffling.

"Living in a pen? It would be awfully messy in there..." Muse thought, imagining himself stuck in a ballpoint pen, drowning as the ink crashed upon him like waves. He would never be able to get the stains out of his feathers. He looked at them and was relieved that they  were still their glossy black-and-orange color."Must be awful smelly, too," Typhon sneezed. "Once Muse knocked over a whole bottle o' ink on me head, and it smelled like -" Muse clapped a paw over Typhon's mouth before he could say anything offensive, sighing.

[Feint]

Terran blinked, then burst into actual laughter. "No, no! Not a writing pen! A pen, most of the time, is a large fenced-off area for pets. I don't really live in that kind of pen," Terran said. He started to say something else, but rose abruptly, for his leg had gone numb without his notice. "I hate this sensation," he grumbled, stomping his foot to relieve it of the sharp prickles of pain. "I should've known not to sit on my feet. Just another lousy thing to add about this place. What was I saying? Oh, right. To answer your question," he started, and nodded at Sky. "Living in a pen, for me at least, is pretty lax. Master has an apartment in a big city, but she also has a semi-rural house thing out in the mountains. It's like taking a vacation to a family cabin," he said.

[Freezair]

"As of late, I've been hearin' people call any collection o' critters a pen," Krii said. "Be it a house, a cave, a field, even a whole other little pocket dimension squeezed off on its own--if a whole bunch o' pets live there, they call it a pen!"

"I think it's something sanctioned by the Evelon Preservation Zoo," Sky said. "If you have a lisence to own a 'pen,' it doesn't matter what it looks like so long as you can safely care for all the animals under your care. Or they can fend for themselves," she added.

I sighed. "Well, for us, it's more like... We'd prefer not to be home." I gave a heavy look at Krii, Sky and Avani.

Avani gave it right back. "You know, for someone who doesn't 'want to talk about it,' you sure are talking about it a lot," she said snidely.

Toelespi said something. Even if I couldn't understand it, I was sure it was something along the lines of "too true." I crossed my arms grumpily and looked away.

[340, 55, 30]

[dragonflyINN]

"I like my home, but I prefer to be on the road," Muse said, plucking a blade of grass from the ground and inspecting it. Typhon nodded. "Aye, being the smallest o' my pack, I'm usually left outa e'rything. That's why I left home." He looked quite forlorn, and Muse gave him a sympathetic pat on the back, which nearly flattened the small red Chombones. He muttered something beneath his breath and gave Muse the evil eye.

[Feint]

ooc--I never got an email saying you'd replied. my apologies.

"A separate dimension could be a pen?" Terran asked. He imagined his master with a portal in her pocket that was the only door to another world just for him . . . "I want mine to have mountains in it," he said dreamily, watching the huge snow-capped titans spread before him like spilled water.

He awoke suddenly from his dreamworld. "Why wouldn't you want to be home? Terran asked curiously. "Is it just as boring as these grasslands?"

[dragonflyINN]

Typhon and Muse both turned to look at Jimmy and her gang. That was what they were wondering about, too, but Muse was to polite to inquire, and Typhon had been caught up momentarily in his own thoughts, but now was craning for a bit of gossip like an old spinster. "It can't be much worse than...I dunno, the Craiss Caverns in which I had t' eat disgustin' things that crawled."