"From your lips to the rift's ears," Daine scolds lightly, rearing up to plant a forepaw on his chair and press her cold, wet nose against his cheek. Then she gets back down to the floor and trots over to his door.

"I'm going to change," she informs him. "Then I'll be back. You might check and see if your thing works no matter what you draw with. Maybe you can still use pens or markers and it's fine." Or maybe it won't matter, but they'll never know if he doesn't experiment, and at least now he knows to stick to things that aren't alive.