=)
Word Count → 317
It was a warm, lazy day, the still air perfumed with the changing seasons -- spring rains fading into summer heat. Hati was curled comfortably in the corner of the common room, resting a heavy book on his knees, every so often delicately turning the page. Father had taken Lottie along his patrol again, and Skoll was off who knows where doing who knows what. Probably riding his beautiful horse, or exploring the land beyond the Court, or any number of things that Hati could not do. Instead, the midnight-furred wolfdog had opted to remain indoors on the sunny day, perusing a dusty old reference book he had found pushed to the back of the shelf. He had always prided himself on being good at reading, at least, but this tome was filled with technical jargon and he could not understand most of it. It was some sort of encyclopedia, and he was mostly looking at the little ink illustrations, trying to glean what some of the big words meant. The humans had a much wider vocabulary than the Luperci, who discarded advanced technology to focus on survival. It was still interesting to see the knowledge the extinct society had gathered, even if it went over Hati's head.
He traced his claw along the shape of a sailboat diagram, recognizing the vessels from the old port in Lunenburg. At least that was one technology they could share -- wind power. The sound of the front door swinging open made Hati's ears perk up, trying to guess who it was by the sound of their footsteps. Whoever it was walked on four paws, so it couldn't be Mother -- but the light, prancing gait could certainly not be Father. "Lottie?" he guessed aloud, setting the ancient book down on the floor beside him. Maybe his sister would be interested in the encyclopedia too, though probably not for long.
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