Who?

Fred, however, looked at her quizically. "What's a velus?"

"What?" said Astra, unable to believe her ears.

"I mean, it's not a word in Hespan or something, is it?"

"You mean you have no idea?"

Fred shook his head. Astra was stunned! She could've sworn her knowledge of the name had come from Fred, but now that she thought about it, she seemed to have no memory of him telling her so.

Astra's eyes came to rest on Velus again. Velus was jumping excitedly! Astra knew his name!

"It... it's the name of the dog."

Fred turned to look at him as well. "You mean you named him? How was I supposed to know that? How do you know he doesn't have a name of his own?"

"No."

"No, as in you didn't know if he had a name of his own?"

"No, I mean 'No, I did not name him'."

Fred looked completely lost.

"But that's your name, isn't it, Velus?"

Velus yiped affirmatively, still lost in his excitement.

Fred still said nothing, so Astra asked him, "You didn't know?"

"...No... I didn't."

"But what do you know about him?"

"Well... he's..."

"A dog?" suggested Astra.

"Well, yes, that's obv... I mean no! He's a human being. He was turned into a dog by the dragon's magic."

"And how did you find this out?"

"We set up a system of yes-or-no questions. A yip is a 'yes' and..."

"And you didn't have the decen...?" Astra stopped: she was losing her nice again. She sighed. "You didn't ask him for his name?"

"No... well... I thought of it, but I didn't get around to it."

"Why?"

"There was this strange, short flash of beconing light, coming from this direction. You probably saw it too, it was quite strong."

1. Astra did indeed remember the light...
2. Astra stared at Fred as if he was crazy.
3. Velus stared at Fred as if he was crazy.

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