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parchment and tomes and pamphlets, most of these her own writing.

The book she held currently was the Manifesto. The book barely showed the wear she had put on it, and refused to show its true age. It outlived many of her other tomes, and remained her favorite above all others.

On one of the papers laying nearby, she quickly scratched:
poison + flora = poisonous plants
poison + fauna = snakes, spiders, wasps etc.
She read this to herself, nodded, and went back to reading.

"Saure..." Fred yawned. "Dusk has come anon... and with it bitter cold. Wouldn't such studies be better read and written in the warmth of your chambers?"
"Hush. Making a breakthrough." she dismissed him.
"Fie. You have but one friend and you won't speak even to him anymore. Shall you have done with me?" the cat rose, placing his forepaws to the cushion of her chair, pawing lightly at her thigh.
"Whatever floats your proverbial boat, sweetheart." she tugged her robes tighter around her, away from his touch. "Really don't want to talk now. I have too much of this..." she fanned a handful of parchment at him, "on my mind right now. I know you understand, so stop being mopey."
"Do I now? Mayhap I understand more than you know." Fred dropped to four paws and began to slink toward the door, several yards away. "Mayhap, there is much you do not."
She heard this only with half an ear.
Saure scribbled:
air+water= weatherwitch
air+water+lightening= stormchild
survival of a lightening blood with other elements to balance-?
And then-
balance of elements? What is a good balance?

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Fred willed a spell upon himself, regaining his natural size once within the safety of Saure's modest scholar's chambers. He took up a quill of his own- with much difficulty- and dabbed it in an inkwell. He dwarfed her small writing desk, and the quill's shaft was all but lost in his giant paw.
He wanted to remember... and he knew from learning right alongside his lady that to write is to remember. That one thinks best whilst letting thoughts flow from mind to parchment.
He tried to think back... it was difficult. He remembered little of his life before he met the girl. He had lived as an exiled beast in his cave. He ate, he drank, he slept, he evacuated his bowels. What more is there to the life of a wild animal?
'Well, yes, there is that...' he thought, of course, once again dwelling on seasonal mating. He didn't even remember partaking in that. Yet, he knew how it was to be done. Not as if in animal instinct... but...
A flash of color in his mind. He began to write.

Saure,

Her name was the first thing he had taught himself to write. It felt as a re-teaching, as if somehow he had known how to write with another creature's appendage in another creature's life. He felt, though, that to get to that life, he must address his mistress. For it was through her that he had truly discovered cognizance.

I tried never to keep secrets from you. I always tried to tell you the absolute truth. However, in light of recent events, I have had to keep more and more truths to myself.
I have honed the ability to perform the size spell on myself without your assistance or presence. And, as you can see, I have taught myself to take up a quill, and have made my paws dexterous thus.
Just as you are feeling lost, so am I. Just as you feel trapped in this University you once loved, I feel trapped in this cat's body I once accepted as my own. I never told you- and it never came up- that I remember little or nothing of my life before I met you. I have tried just about everything to bring it back, and have only had glimpses- flashes of pictures. I