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And so the days passed, with Rhea spending every possible moment with her fluffball, talking to it in every language she knew (which was more than most people). She did her lessons as quickly as she could, spent her evenings talking with the fluffball, and at night it was common to hear either Shael or Adonai calling out, "Go to sleep, Rhea!" in the middle of the night.

The excitement never wore off, and at last the day came when the fluffball ... was no longer a fluffball.

Rhea was in the middle of her lessons with her mother, down in the study, when suddenly there was a crash from upstairs.

"Uh oh," she murmured, her brow furrowing with worry. "I hope nothing happened to Cindy ..."

Since as far as she knew her teacher was up in her room, doing whatever it was that she did while Rhea was in her lessons.

Rhea's bedroom door was wide open (as usual), and on the floor near the desk was a shattered flowerpot, a pile of dirt, a broken branch, and one fluffy blue kitten with white swirls and a pale crescent moon on its chest.

The kitten was in the middle of the mess, standing gingerly on three paws, and holding one forepaw high as if trying to find a way out of the mess without stepping on any of it. She reached forward, trying to reach a clear spot, but she was too small to reach, and she pulled her paw back again and sighed softly.

Shael looked towards the ceiling worriedly. "Perhaps we should check," she murmured, rising from her chair. "We can finish your lesson later."

Rhea was off like a shot, already bolting out the door and towards the stairs.

"Cindy!" she shouted as she ran on all fours up the steps as fast as she could go without tripping. "Cindy! Are you okay?"

The kitten spread its wings and flapped them slowly, testing them out - but at the sound of Cindy's voice she looked up and tilted her head slightly to one side.

"Help im?" she asked in a quiet voice. "Im naun stuck ..."

Rhea was the first one up the stairs, and she ran up behind Cindy, her eyes wide with excitement. "She grew! She grew!" she squealed.

"And if I heard correctly," Shael frowned, coming up the stairs slowly, "is speaking three different languages in one sentence."

"I can help her!" Rhea beamed, darting forward. She knelt just beyond the mess and held both arms out to the kitten, talking to her softly in a mixture of languages.

Shael arrived then behind Cindy, and she smiled, looking at the scene over Cindy's head. "I can only hope this means an end to her midnight chattering," she murmured softly, "though I wouldn't bet on it."

She watched as Rhea coaxed the kitten into her arms, safely away from the broken shards of pottery. "Why don't you take her outside," she suggested, "and I'll clean this up for you?"

Rhea nodded brightly, stroking the kitten's head and hugging her gently. "Can you come with us, Cindy?" she asked, her eyes filled with hope. "I want to make sure I'm doing everything right so I don't hurt her or anything!"

Rhea giggled and headed towards the door once more, nuzzling her kitten and still murmuring softly to it under her breath.

Shael laughed. "You three have fun."

"We will!" Rhea promised as she started down the stairs.

Rhea blinked at Cindy over her shoulder. "Why?" she asked blankly. "Was there something Papa wanted to research or something?"

That was the only reason she could think that he would want to know what the kitten first said. It wasn't as if her words hadn't made sense ... she had been trapped by the mess, and she had wanted help to get out of it without hurting herself. It was that simple.

Rhea giggled and nuzzled her kitten's nose. "Common tongue and High Elven and Common Elvish," she grinned at Cindy. "She got all mixed up, I think!"

The kitten purred and said something quietly, once more in a mixture of the languages.

Rhea giggled again. "You're so quiet," she murmured softly to her, stroking her pale blue wings. She led Cindy outside and towards the rope swing that hung from the tree near the forest, and sat down on one side of it, leaving the other space clear for Cindy to sit. It was wide enough for three people, though there was rarely three people on it.