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Study study study... It was safer than thinking about the events of the past few weeks, and infinitely more productive. Which was why Jove had taken a sudden interest in the library and the near-infinite source of reading material and distractions it provided.

When he had first learned to read, back at his caretaker's home, he had been amazed at how much information could be in even a tiny book, and his voracious interest had sped up his learning and vocabulary development. He didn't read novels and fiction, the pup would go through dictionaries and textbooks, references and encyclopedias, and might not have understood half of what he was reading at first, but he learned quick. It was how he made it into the academy, after all.

So now with classes back underway, he returned to this reading pastime to keep the unpleasant memories at bay.

That afternoon the pup sat in a quiet corner of the library, having found a table securely nestled between the wall and a shelf stacked with encyclopedias. His sweater sleeves were too long, since he was wearing something 'borrowed' from his brother, but at least he had avoided having to keep brushing his bangs out of his face. He had also 'borrowed' a plain silver hair clip from his brother's ghoulfriend. Surely Alessa wouldn't mind, it had been sitting untouched in Ren's room for a good week now.

All in all, he was as comfortable and distracted as a student had any right to be after recent events.

When Jove first heard an older voice speak up in front of him, his good ear perked. And then almost immediately flattened down when he finished that sentence with a pet name that could have rivalled any of his brothers names. The indignity, of being called "Darling" by a complete stranger!

He glanced up with a scowl in the making to see if he was at least somewhat familiar with the boil, but then his nose caught a faint scent. The pup's face paled. This was a scent he was familiar with, and not in a good way. When he finally looked up, it was an expression of fear on his freckled face, his glowing eyes wide.

That scent reminded the pup of that frightening time he now knew to be the days immediately following his death, where everything had blurred into one headlong dash as he ran to get away from... something, and had wound up being chased, terrorized, and eventually set loose in the Halloween realm where he continued to run. Even after he had been taken to the realm he belonged in, the terror had continued, he had run from every noise and every attempt to catch him or help him. It was over now, but that scent brought back every last frightening memory.

This boil smelled like a Reaper. And he had Jove cornered.

Jove sank back in his chair, not letting up on the scared eyes in the slightest. It was all too easy to say he meant no harm and thus the pup could take no reassurance from those words. His being new and Jove's being harmless only made him that much more anxious. This Sparrow reaper guy could be anyone, of any temperament, and Jove would be unable to effectively fight back...

The smile seemed to put Jove even more on edge and the hand thrust forward had him shoving back his chair so quickly it seemed he might topple right over backwards. His throat seemed too tight to reply with his own name.

Jove settled slightly, warily, as the reaper lifted his hands up, and then settled a bit more as he leaned back in a casual posture. Now he was making an attempt to not be threatening, but Jove was still on alert. His good ear swivelled at the slightest noises around them and he kept his focus on that Sparrow character.

Finally he nodded once, his brows furrowing as Sparrow did a thing Ren did while thinking, that finger-tapping that indicated speculation and deeper thought. The pup startled when he realized the behaviour had distracted him from his original goal, watching out for foul-play.

A long pause stretched out as the little ghost fidgeted, his chin dropping closer to his chest in what could have been shyness. "Jove," he finally said in a near-whisper. Hopefully the other would actually be able to hear his timid introduction.

Jove startled again ever so slightly when Sparrow dropped his hand, as though the movement really signalled a dangerous lunge in his direction. The reaper who had transported him to Halloween had come out of nowhere, and the pup clearly harboured similar expectations from his current company. But when no sneaky attack came, he settled down. And only then continued to process the boil's next question.

The pup's head tilted slightly. An accent? He didn't think he had an accent, but he didn't speak much, and he didn't even think in words half the time. He imagined Calder's scottish accent, and Levi's country speak, but it only made his head tilt more. He didn't speak like either of them, the precious few times when he made the effort, so what did Sparrow mean?

It didn't even occur to the pup that he might have picked up his caretaker's accent in the process of learning how to speak. He was so used to the inflection and tone in the elderly British gentleman's voice that it didn't even register as something different.

Jove's good ear flattened downward. He was not used to being urged to speak like that, and he wasn't sure he wanted to speak if it was only for the purpose of pointing out that he sounded different. Did he speak poorly? He had tried so hard to learn the skill back at home, and his caretaker had seemed pleased... But what if he was speaking badly even despite all that?

The pup froze up, running over those worries in his mind for a second before shaking his head. He couldn't speak now, the more he thought about it, the more he knew it wouldn't happen. It was like telling someone with a case of the hiccups to hiccup in front of an audience, but in that case getting rid of the hiccups was the goal. Not encouraging them to come out more fluently.

Jove began to blush brightly, his lingering fear of the reaper the only thing stopping him from just walking away. With friends that was his best reply to an unpleasant situation, but he didn't know what the reaper would do if he stood up.

Jove relaxed, glancing down at his own book and then up to Sparrow much the same way a dog would when they may have disappointed a person. The blush on his cheeks marked it as a sheepish, almost apologetic look.

His blush only got worse when the reaper claimed that the accent was nice. Jove wasn't used to such vague compliments, he knew he had to scowl at being called cute, and shrug off being called smart, but... what did he do if someone said he had a nice voice? He certainly wasn't going to talk more.

But it seemed the reaper was determined to hear him speak again.

Jove eyed him warily, and reached out to turn the book around. It was about dragons. And not a fairytale, an actual book about dragon species and whatnot. His good ear perked as he read the first sentence, and then the next, getting a little too caught up in the book himself to be of any help to the other student.

The pup made a mumbling noise, something that sounded like mild displeasure. He shoved the book back so it faced the reaper, and leaned forward to point at the little picture to the right of the text.

It was a representation of a brilliant green dragon in the process of gobbling up a man. That poor dragon had been the victim of a human rumour mill, when the stupid man's fanatically religious brother, George, belittled him by spreading the word he had bested the dragon in combat. Which had eventually grown into a tale involving slaughtering the dragon in the name of his gods, etc, etc.

It may not have helped the reaper any, but Jove was clearly indicating that the first sentence was about the dragon who ate George's brother.