Rogeiros presses his lips together, and lets out a controlled breath. "Go back to your mistress."

That does get him to go, though with an annoyed twitch of his tail first.

Rogeiros closes the door rather firmly behind him.

The next few days pass much the same, with little changing, although One starts to be a little less tense around Phantasm and Figment, although he still won't speak around Deka or Rogeiros, and his behaviour is still, on the whole, very timid, and although he's eating more, it perhaps still isn't enough.

Rogeiros meanwhile is...somewhat dismissive of One, and of Phantasm and Figment, and while he obviously tries to restrain himself from snapping at Phantasm and Figment, he does seem perhaps a little irritable about their presence, especially around One.

With Deka he is still a little distant, slightly aloof while being perfectly pleasant. He does instigate a couple of trial lessons, where he proves himself meticulous and focused, and definitely in favour of getting things done right rather than quickly, and he shows rather more patience with Deka than his dealings with One and the griffons might suggest.

Deka likes Rogeiros as a teacher, though his treatment of the griffons and mystery creature is worrying, to say the least. She continues to make sure One's food bowl is full and hay trough is stocked, trying different things on different days to see if anything catches his attention but always including a few of the griffons' treat balls, since he seems to like them. She spends time with him, too, when Figment and Phantasm don't object; they do, often enough, but she doesn't seem to mind, and never pushes him to talk to her, just tries to tempt him into trying some new kind of food or sits and plays her recorder or offers to pet him.

After a few days, when it won't raise suspicion that she's heading back too soon, she goes into town to ask their cleric about Rogeiros.

Deka's presence near him makes him relax some, and he'll start to come near to greet her when she enters, is less hesitant about trying the new foods she offers, and will curl up just withing arm's reach when she sits.

The cleric can only tell her so much - Rogeiros keeps to himself mostly.

He's lived near the town for many years, and while he doesn't particularly involve himself in the town's affairs, he is willing to help if it's needed, sometimes even to his own detriment. Was there something more specific Deka wanted to know?

"I have - " she nods at Phantasm, who's accompanied her in. "He talks, he's a person, right? Not allowed to - do anything I wouldn't to a humanoid. Rogeiros has - little creature, he made - smart - doesn't talk to me, but - same kind, I think. Scared of everything, very thin."

The cleric frowns a little. "You're correct about him being a person. And that situation does sound worrying. And there's no underlying reason you can see for him to be thin? Or scared? Perhaps his nature?" (He's not disagreeing, he's just looking to make sure he has all the information.)

"Said the elf hurts him. Wuk."

That gets a serious nod. "I think I might need to... I don't think I can deal with this. I'll send a message to the nearest city, as fast as possible. They might have a better reach for help than I have."

"Thank you. Not - sure he knows - doesn't talk to him, I think."

"If he doesn't know, there's a reasonable chance it's because he's done something that made the creature scared enough to not want to tell him. And either way, it should be investigated to make sure one way or the other. You did the right thing bringing this to us."

Nod nod. "How long to -?"

"I can't say with any certainty. I would expect at least a week. I'm sorry."

"Should still be there in a week. Don't want to - I'm there to try apprenticing; feels wrong to stay on a lie, past that."

The cleric nods. "I'll try to impress the urgency of the matter on them."

She nods. "Anything else?" she asks Phantasm.

    "Wuk. He needs -" he preens a lock of Deka's hair, thoughtfully. "Needs help."

"Can come with us, if he wants to."

   "Good. Good Deka."

The cleric gives a slightly wry smile. "If he does go with you, I never heard you were intending to ask him. If I can't get someone to you before you have to leave, and you can't convince him to leave, someone will still check on him."

"Thank you."

She hangs around in town for a bit, letting the griffons play in the marketplace for a bit and following up on some questions she had about selling wool or yarn from her goat if she's somehow still around that long, and heads back.

It's a somewhat tense few days, after that; Deka keeps busy, asking for lessons in spell design once she's got Ventriloquism copied into her spellbook and spending the rest of her free time with One, or her other animals, or in the woods around the house.

And late in the afternoon of the fifth day after her trip to town, Figment comes back early from an insect-hunting expedition to tell Deka that there's a cleric coming up the path, and she goes to see.

He's an older man, human, dressed typically for a cleric of Fharlanghn and wearing a holy symbol that confirms the impression. He starts hurrying, a bit, when he sees her - "Hello there! Are you - what was it - Deka?"

    "Am," she nods.

"Good, I wasn't sure I had the right place. Is this the creature?"

    "No - Figment, mine. Creature is a little - like a racoon, not quite. Named One."

"All right. Can you bring him down?"

    "Probably not. Can try."

"Don't upset him over it, I don't think. I'm going to need to talk to Rogeiros in any case."

    "Okay."

She leaves him waiting on the path and goes to see if One can be coaxed into letting her bring him down.

Probably not without making him very stressed. There's an indication that he wants to obey and be good, but also that he doesn't think he's allowed to leave, and he's more worried about what Rogeiros might do if he does.

Well, she tried, and also that's pretty reasonable, really. She leaves Figment with him - they're still awkward with each other, a bit, but still get along much better than One does with either humanoid - and brings Phantasm back down with her. "Scared to come," she reports.

    "All right. And the message said - he's thin and anxious, and speaks but not to you or Rogeiros - to your griffon - griffons, is that the same one? - to them, anyway, I assume - and reports being hurt by him. Has he said he wants to leave?"

        "I'm a different one. He didn't understand when I asked."

    "Okay, I can try to work with that. Can you give me some examples of why you think he's smarter than an animal, if he doesn't usually talk?"

"Understands when we talk. Animal, can train them, but you have to - show, what you want, first times, not just say. One, can just say."

        "Gets scared when we talk about scary things. Wuk. And keeps secrets."

    "Mmhmm. And what's Rogeiros like?"

        "Rude."

"Polite to me, rude to them. Doesn't - talk, social, much. Patient, about magic, lessons, again not to them. Not - interested, in One, really? As - person, or pet. As tool some."

    "All right. Would it make sense for me to say you've asked me here to check on One's health, if he's thin?"

"Yeah."

    "I'll do that, then." And he goes to knock on the door.

Given that the knock was unexpected, it does take Rogeiros a moment to reach and open the door. He regards the cleric for a moment, as though he isn't quite sure he's seeing right.

"Can I help you?" he asks eventually.