THE PEN GRANDPA ALPHA GAVE AWAY

Mr Tegan's private lounge was connected to his office on the top floor of the stone building, which put us on the third floor.

This was pretty high considering that it was a stone building that was at least a century old.

The lounge had sofas on one side of the rectangular space and a large mahogany table on the other side. This table had no chairs and was higher and narrower than the usual desk, but it was furnished with very desk-like things: Two wads of paper in different sizes, a jar of ink, a couple of trays, one empty and second one with a row of fountain pens on display.

The sofas were all arranged to face this counter as if it were a piano or fireplace or television.

The wall behind the counter was a glass display cabinet for various fountain pens, and the rest of the walls were framed calligraphy.

"My personal collection." Mr Tegan said of the fountain pen display.

"What an extensive collection!" Delta Felicity praised.

"Many notable wolves have come to purchase a pen from my establishment." Mr Tegan gestured to the wall of framed writings, "I often ask my VIPs to write a quotation for my wall."

Which was the purpose of the mahogany table - for these VIPs to pen a few lines. Now that I was aware of this, I noticed the smaller pad was the size of all the framed calligraphy.

I looked at the wall because there was some kind of magic... A very faint scent, I think someone like River would have been able to see actual magic strands in some of the words. Someone like Sabre might be able to point out which words were prettier.

Me... Well, it would look weird if I went up to the wall and sniffed at all the frames, so I decided I didn't actually need to know which ones stood out.

"Were they all written by the same pen?" I wondered if the difference in magic behind the calligraphy was due to the pen or the writer.

"They were mostly written with the pens bought from my shop." Mr Tegan said proudly. Mr Tegan didn't only sell one single type of pen, although his tech could only produce one type of pen at a time, he also had a few craftsmen who specialized in penmaking.

Besides producing pens, Tegan was known as the leading dealer in the collector trade and the second floor of the workshop had a store floor for buying and selling pens of exceptional craftsmanship and history.

"We are the first choice for pen dealership across the continent." Mr Tegan boasted.

When he said pen dealership, he meant fountain pen dealership, specifically, magical fountain pens.

I might be wrong, but Mr Tegan's shop might be the ONLY magic fountain pen shop in the plains, so yeah, I guess if you were the only choice, you'd also be by default the first choice.

"We carry the largest collection of fountain pens." Mr Tegan continued, "All pens have been rigorously inspected and our Tegan Certification guarantees every pen be genuine to its description and free from defects." 

We all nodded.

"Very impressive!" Delta Felicity verbalized on all our behalf.

Mr Tegan decided that he should show us the crown jewels of his workshop. This was the pen he inherited from his father and was a gift from Alpha Silas before the war. It was just a magical and mysterious item that Mr Tegan and his team took most of his adult life to re-engineer it. It was also the master pen that the current production was replicating.

"Although functionally, the pens we produce are comparable to the original, you must see the art in the original's barrel. It is breathtaking." Mr Tegan told us, "It was impossible to replicate. Please wait here for a moment."

"What a rare treat!" Delta Felicity exclaimed to his departing back. 

The pen was so breathtaking and magical and mysterious that Mr Tegan had kept it in a safe in his office. We were left to wait. I took the time to look at the framed quotations. I wondered if I might find something from anyone I knew?

"So… these are…" Delta Bernard squinted at one of the quotations and found the name of the calligrapher printed in very fine print at the bottom of each frame, "Alpha Gunter Donovan."

Oh, Alpha Gunter was here? I went over to look. Alpha Gunter had very elegant cursive penmanship. It read, "The first snow is like the first love."

It was just a quote, and he was a snow wolf. But I was still surprised that of all the quotes in the world, Alpha Gunter chose to write this one. It was so cheesy.

"Oh, how romantic." Delta Felicity sighed.

Uh, yeah.

"Why are we even here?" Ben grumbled to Oscar on the side.

Oscar shrugged and gave his cousin a wincing smile and admitted, "Mr Tegan is my Dad's old acquaintance, so most official tours would pass through the Tegan Workshop."

Ben narrowed his eyes, "Are you wasting my alpha's time?"

Actually, he meant, "Are you wasting MY time?" Because I think it was pretty obvious that I didn't mind this excursion. It was quite interesting… mostly because it had these traces of magic floating about.

When I imagined magical artifact shops as a pup, I think I was thinking of someplace like this. It even had nooks and crannies and weirdly shaped shelves and corners at every floor. I think it might be fun to see the second floor later.

"Chill out, Ben." I told him, "This is pretty fun."

Ben raised a brow at me.

"We can pretend we're adventurers and we have come to a magic shop." I said because just for the moment, I forgot we weren't puppies anymore.

Ben shook his head, "Sam…"

I laughed. I was feeling really happy… maybe it was the magic in the shop. It was a happy magic - like the kind dreamed up stories kind of magic. I walked over to the display cabinet and wondered if this was the kind of magic pens held… or if it were just a particular pen.

As I looked at the rows of pens, it occurred to me how pens really all looked alike. The ones Mr Tegan collected all had beautiful designs on them, but after a while, all the designs and colors were just variations of the same thing?

I looked carefully, but because they were sealed behind the display case, I couldn't smell them or sense the magic beyond the glass… hm… weird. Was the glass special?

Mr Tegan reappeared with a wooden lacquered pen box on a gold tray. It looked extremely fancy. And it smelled like very, very, old magic.

I can't believe my Grandpa Alpha gave such a treasure away.

Mr Tegan placed the tray carefully on the mahogany table and we all gathered closer to take a look.

The only thing I knew about fountain pens were that they were fancy things that sometimes leaked. In lieu of my ignorance on the subject, I had in every way meant to just give it a polite glance, and leave the active admiration to the likes of Ki and maybe Delta Felicity.

But the magic! Even before the lacquered box was opened to reveal the pen, I knew there was something incredibly fun inside of it. Not that I knew very much about magic either, but there was something very familiar about the scent of this one - even though I was sure I had never met this kind of magic. It wasn't the icy watery scent of snow magic. It wasn't the inky chemical smell of the tygers' curse. It wasn't the wild and earthy smell of the warlock lands… I couldn't explain it, but it smelled very old - ancient even.

I waited with bated breath. I was the only one though. Ben raised a brow and commented over the beta link, {Look lively guys, Sam's wolf has surfaced.}

I had not! Oh wait, yeah, Boo was out.

"Open it." Boo said. She said it silkily but the alpha command was undeniable.

Mr Tegan looked startled, and then he bowed, "Yes, of course, Alpha… I mean Princess… Alpha Princess…"

His hand trembled but he managed to open the lacquer box to show us its treasure. At first glance, it was a smooth glossy black pen with crushed pieces of pearl embedded inside to form a picture - but when Mr Tegan took it out, I realized it was a very dark blue. The picture on the pen was very interesting too. A white cat and a full moon.

"How cute!" Delta Felicity exclaimed.

"The design changes depending on who looks at it." Mr Tegan explained, "But this is the first time… the first time it has shown such a… ah… cute design."

What was my Grandpa Alpha thinking to give such a pen away?

Was it just me, but did that cat look A LOT like Edelweiss?