The girls were quite curious, as Ania, Yonka and Sheila hadn't seen the extent of the temple grounds in quite a long time. Sheila thought it would be fun to revisit the library, so the four of them moved towards the rear courtyard to check it out. Immediately upon coming around the corner of the temple, the girls could see Tika and Maulana through the open doorway as they were attentively listening to someone else inside.
Sheila, Yonka, and Alena were making their way towards the library when Ania's eyes were caught on something different. She approached the tree that had been badly beaten, with the bark worn down bare in a large area, and noticed little brown marks of dried blood on the tree's battered flesh. She touched the damage of the tree with her paw, as she examined the uneven ridges in thought.
"Why would someone use the tree?" she quietly thought aloud.
Yonka had called back to her as the three of them reached the entrance.
"Ania, are you coming?" she asked.
"Uh, yes— I'll be right there!" Ania called back as she came running.
Alena seemed happy to be encountering Tika and Maulana again, even after such a short time as she ran in. Hearing her footsteps and breathing quickly approaching, the two girls turned their attention from the young woman they had been talking with to see Alena and friends coming in the door.
"Hi Tika! Hi Maulana!" Alena greeted them with an open smile.
"Hey! There's our girl!" Tika ecstatically exclaimed.
Alena nodded, her paws enclosed, tucked over her chest.
"I've brought some friends I'd love for you to meet!"
Tika and Maulana both smiled at Alena with delight as they went on to greet the small group standing behind her. Tika was the first one to speak up.
"Hi! I'm Tika!" she exclaimed while bending forward slightly. Her head was tilted, while her hands were locking their fingers together behind her hips, "And this here is my companion Maulana!" she stated, raising her hand to gesture out her companion in introduction.
Sheila, Ania and Yonka all nodded to the pair thoughtfully.
"It's a pleasure to meet you both," Sheila greeted.
Sheila turned to Alena, speaking at herattention.
"Alena, would you do us the honor of introducing us?" she asked.
Alena nodded back in agreement, "Okay!"
She turned back to the two and proceeded to give their introductions.
"These are some of my treasured friends; they are Shea-Shea, Aunni, and Yonna. They're like family," she explained. She was all smiles while giving their introduction.
"That's Ania and Yonka, but if you're friends of Alena's, then you can call us whatever you like," Yonka added.
"It's very nice to meet you Ania, Yonka," Tika began to address, "And Shea-Shea was it?"
Sheila lifted her hand to her lower lip, giggling charmingly. She found it so cute how another relatively young girl was addressing her by her given nickname, and felt no need to make the correction.
"That's right," she answered softly, "We came from outside the village to have a visit with our dear Alena, as we've been away for some time now."
"Precisely! And when you get out on your initiations, there's all kinds of things to look forward to. It's brilliant!" Ania exclaimed.
At that moment, Alena ran over to approach the young woman who was standing quietly with her books.
"Hi, I'm Alena! What's your name?" she asked sweetly.
The young woman was slightly surprised by Alena's energetically charming approach.
"I'm Cecilia," she answered softly.
Cecilia, like the others, was a young nekomata, who had previously completed her initiation, permitting her to freely return to the village. She was in the likeness of an American Curl cat, with curling ears and a large, fluffy tail that was wide at the base, and tapers to a point. Her coat is full brown, with eyes that match. Her hands are that of a human's, which isn't the best for defense. At her hip however, she always kept a set of paw gauntlets attached which she could slip on at a moment's notice—this was her preferred choice of defense.
"Well it's very nice to meet you! Do you study here too?" Alena asked her.
"Well actually, I did, but it's been a few years since then. I just pop in once in a while to tend to the library here. It's my way of giving back for Kenrir's guidance. Thanks to his teachings, my initiation went off without a hitch," Cecilia replied, "I couldn't have done it without him."
"Wow! How long was your journey?" Alena asked curiously.
"It was over within a few months," she replied, "I was quite lucky, I think."
"Did you run into any scary creatures out there?" Maulana chimed in, indirectly switching off from her prior subject.
Cecilia shook her head, knowing full well what she meant, "I had it pretty easy I suppose, but I did have to defend myself in a few cases. It was scary at times, but I pulled through."
This left Tika and Maulana to ponder. Perhaps someone older could verify the existence of rouge nekomation behaviors, but who would it be best to ask? For the moment, Maulana and Tika alike, thought it best to keep their prior discussion to themselves. After all, how would someone like Alena react to such news? They didn't want to risk bringing her concern.
"So what brings you all here?" Maulana asked the group, feeling the responsibility to guide the encounter.
"We came to check out the books," Sheila answered, "Alena tells us there's quite an interesting one here, and we figured we could use some to help with her lessons."
"'An interesting book' you say? Is it something I can help with?" Cecilia cut in.
Maulana was opening her mouth to respond, and paused, as she looked to Cecilia, taken aback as she hadn't anticipated she was going to be cut off so abruptly.
"It's the sign book!" Alena announced.
"'Sign book?'" Cecilia repeated back in question.
"Yes, over here!" Alena said, as she guided Cecilia to the locked away shelf.
Following Alena curiously, she saw an old book that had been brought over from the human realm, though Cecilia herself didn't know about that detail.
"Oh, you mean the book of sign language! But that's a human book, why would you be interested in something like that?" she asked.
"Human?" Alena had become quite curious.
It appeared the topic of these seemingly mythical humans were gradually becoming more spoken about, even though she hadn't noticed any mention of humans until quite recently. Alena turned to look at the others, but Ania, Yonka, and Sheila seemed just as surprised that such a book was derived from the culture of a whole other species.
"We used to study a book just like it together some time ago. It was something we did for fun, but we didn't know it was made by humans," Sheila explained.
Some years ago, when Alena was just seven years old, the four of them had received another book, which had happened to come into Madam Cheiro's possession, which illustrated sign language. Sheila, Yonka, Ania, and Alena would enjoy their time together doing different activities, and one of those activities involved practicing sign language together. It was a fond past time for Alena, and this is why she was so interested in the book.
"I see," Cecilia replied, "Well unfortunately I don't have the key to that cabinet, but perhaps sir Kenrir would be willing to share it with you."
The girls all looked to each other, knowing that it would be some time before Kenrir's return.
"Well, there are plenty of other books we can look at," Ania mentioned.
Alena looked down, being a bit disappointed once again, but ultimately she went ahead to browse through the rest of the open shelves as the others agreed, and together, the group scattered about the library in search of a few good books.
"Well I'm all done here, so I suppose I'll be off and leave you all to it," Cecilia told them.
They all said their farewells to Cecilia— even Tika and Maulana, though they still had more questions to ask, as they decided to stay behind with the rest of Alena's group.