#illyan

“Very well.” Isildur reached for one of the holes in the ceiling and scrambled up to the second floor. Illyan, realizing rather belatedly that there went her source of entertainment for the afternoon, put her head through another, smaller hole to watch.

Cypress was sleeping, curled up against the tree trunk in a nest of blankets. Isildur picked her way delicately across the floor to him and placed a claw on his shoulder.

“You’re really sparkly,” Cypress said, blinking groggily. Illyan bit down on her claw to keep from laughing. All her hopes for amusement had been answered.

“Yes, I am.” Isildur’s tone dripped with disdain. “I am here about your newspaper. It’s wrong.”

Cypress’ feathers flared and he stood up, the sudden movement making Isildur step back. “What do you mean, it’s wrong?”

“It’s full of mistakes. Misspellings, syntax errors, style inconsistencies.” Isildur handed Cypress the paper she’d shown Illyan. “I’ve noted some of them, though I would not swear I have them all.”

“Oh …” Now Cypress’ feathers drooped. “I didn’t realize. I – Illyan?”

Shade. They’d seen her watching; it was too late for Illyan to duck back down and return to her press. “Yes?”

“What do we do about this?”

“You’re asking me?” Illyan sounded almost as doubtful as Isildur looked.

“You’re the printer.”

“You’re the writer.”

“Illyan.” Notes of disapproval entered Cypress’ voice, which was a bit rich. She hadn’t been his nursemaid – it wasn’t her fault that he couldn’t spell.

“Well, no one else has complained,” Illyan said. She had a deep suspicion that the lack of complaints stemmed less from the paper’s quality and more from its tiny audience. Honestly, she was a bit surprised to learn that anyone was even reading the thing. It wasn’t like they’d put much effort into distributing it. Cypress had personally delivered copies to Aridatha, Lioska, Frip, and Bartos, but other than that, there was just a big pile of them sitting outside Illyan’s print shop, with a rock on top to keep them from blowing away in the afternoon breeze. Maybe they should remove the rock – the afternoon breeze could be a means of distribution.

“Bartos has,” Isildur said, with considerable self-satisfaction.

“He has?” asked Cypress.

“I believe his exact words were ‘I can’t possibly be bothered to read this if they can’t take the time to proofread it,’ before he tore it up to use as bookmarks.”

“Oh.” Cypress’ feathers drooped even further. He looked positively deflated.

Illyan supposed she ought to come to her new comrade’s defense. “Look, if you spot all these mistakes, why don’t you fix them? Before they’re printed, I mean, because after’s really no help.”

Isildur tapped a talon on her chin. “An interesting proposition. But I already have a job that occupies much of my time, even if I have found it rather more … monotonous than I intended.”

“How unfortunate,” said Illyan.

“Isn’t it?” Isildur said. She turned away. “I suppose your paper will simply have to remain … riddled with errors.”

Cypress watched the other skydancer leave with a hangdog look. Illyan poked him in the side. “Hey, you can’t let one uppity bird get you down.”

She left off the rest of the sentiment – that if their project ever did take off, they’d have lots of readers to pounce on every little mistake – as she didn’t think it’d be helpful at this juncture.

“I guess you’re right,” Cypress said, but he still sounded discouraged. He picked up the edited copy Isildur had left them. “I’m going to go look over the latest drafts.”