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Princesses, Dragons, and Cupcakes

Oh my!

Dramatis Personae

Jeremy, Jackson, Lia, Ducky

23 March 2014


The X-kids /sorely/ need some baking classes. But Jax gets cupcakes and a puppy!

Location

<XS> Gardens


From indoor gardens to outdoor, though without the protective greenhouse glass the back gardens do not last all year round. Still, the gardens out here are well-tended and well-worth spending time in, as well. The paths wending through the beds of flowers and herbs and vegetables spread out through the school's back grounds, tended by students as a credit class. Benches offer seating and a small pond is home to koi and turtles, as well as a few frogs. At the far back edges of the garden, a droning buzzing marks a few stacked white boxes as beehives.

The garden looks like it has been prepared for a picnic, or at least a budget picnic made from things scrounged together from various rooms at the school. A tablecloth reserved for the outdoor tables during the summer has been co-opted for a picnic blanket, which is probably a good idea considering the spattering of plates strewn across it. There is a safely closed box with the happy cakes label on it, but there is also three other plates that seem to be strewn with Colorful mess. Cupcakes of various levels of icing and sprinkles and shiny glittery sugar coloration sit on plates, and plastic reusable cups and bottles of juice and soda are sitting at the edge of the cloth, partially to hold it down from wind. Jeremy is bouncing a little in the grass, wearing a green hoodie from a college presumably in new york, but the exact college has stains and color over top of it and his jeans are holey but only partially grass stained. He also has carefully designated a small spot a bit aways from the picnic zone with a little paper sign saying "Cellphone Safety Zone!" in black sharpie, which is where he has his own bag situated.

It's cold outside, unlike yesterday, but after days of sleeping in bed mostly-dead while people get him steadily un-dead, even Jackson's normally cold-averse Southern proclivities are braving the chill just-above-freezing temperatures in order to soak up the /sunlight/. Hopefully he's properly bundled up against the cold -- it's really hard to /tell/, though. It's fairly certain that whatever he's /actually/ wearing isn't, at least, what he appears to be wearing at the moment, because when he returned from church a few hours earlier he was in a crisp faintly sheeny suit and /that/ transformed with out any pause for changing into boots and skinny jeans and 'All my heroes have FBI files' t-shirt that most definitely got burned to cinders in the explosion. /Now/ he's, to all appearances, in black denim miniskirt and teal thigh-high velvety-soft boots with platform heels, 'believe in faeries' t-shirt with blue butterfly wings on the back, the usual ink on his arms replaced by a brilliant tattooed array of dragonfly wings in a /shiny/ metallic sheen that tattoos should not be able to manage and his chimaera adorning his shaved head.

He has a sketchpad from the art room tucked beneath his arm and he's twirling a charcoal drawing pencil between his fingers but stops halfway down the path to tip his head at the sight of the picnic. His smile quirks quicker-brighter-wider and where, before, his steps had been a little bit tired-dragging, now they perk. "Oh, gosh. Oh, wow. You got a /feast/, those are -- /bright/."

Lia is currently pulling out items from a canvas shopping bag: four separate Thermoses full of cocoa and chai, mint, and Assam teas. All four are /heavily/ sweetened and the first two made with almond milk. Conveniently, each Thermos also has a mug-lid that people can drink from and there is also a package of bendy straws! Probably this was intended for Jeremy. The girl has her hair half down and half done up in an assortment of tiny braids, fixed to various places on her head with small, glittery butterfly clips. She wears a violet corduroy jacket over a lilac baby doll T-shirt and black jeans with black slip-ons over purple-and-grey striped knee socks. "Mr. Fairyjax! We made you cupcakes! They have no animal things in them, so you won't get sick." She nearly topples over the Thermoses she had /just/ set up in leaping to her feet so quickly.

Panting heavily from his flop-spot in a navy blue fleecy dog bed decorated in rainbow paw prints and cartoon bones is a very worn out Obie. The rubbery Kong ball sitting mere centimetres from his lolling tongue might reveal the source of puppy exhaustion. He is sporting a new collar done up in what appears to be autism awareness ribbon, interlocking rainbow-coloured puzzle pieces going along its length. He has new tags on them, including a red rabies heart and a circle with his name and a blank spot at the bottom waiting for a new address. Yet another canvas bag sits next to the dog bed, containing a leash that matches the collar, a brush, an opened bag of food, two opened bags of training treats, food and water dishes, and a small assortment of balls and chew toys. Apparently someone let Lia go /shopping/ for Obie supplies while he was visiting the vet.

The adventures in the kitchens have left Ducky's attire somewhat splattered by baking ingredients, in theory. The pale blue hooded fleece vest that she wears is smeared with a rainbow of colors, flour and powdered sugar dusting the sleeves of her black long sleeve shirt, as well as the dark skinny-jeans she wears. Her pigeon is absent for once, and the birds are being kept oddly at bay for once - although there is a crowd of them a good three feet away from the little gathering on all sides. She's been working on setting out plates, and an additional tray of bright red cupcakes, these somewhat burnt looking with uneven icing - vegan red velvet cupcakes, that are theoretically edible. In theory. Ducky paces around the outline of the picnic area, tongue sticking out the side of her mouth in concentration as she makes shooing hand gestures at the birds, "C'mon. Move back. Move... back. Little bit further. S'not cupcakes for you, not gonna share. Seriously... no. Stop looking at me like that. They aren't yours." Amazingly, they seem to begrudgingly obey her after a few circuits, though only buying another foot of space. Upon seeing Jax, she bounces slightly, concentration on the birds slipping so that at least one smarmy raven takes a step forward. "Hello Mr. Jax! We... we made cupcakes", she greets, bouncing again, "Or, um, /tried/ to make cupcakes. They're cakes, in cups, but I sorta kinda question how cupcakey they are. So we brought some stunt cupcakes, too. Just in case." She nods emphatically, smiling a bit lopsidedly and looking sheepishly at her sadly flat looking red-velvet cupcakes.

Jeremy offers a brilliant smile and a wave as Jackson shows up, then tilts down to try and shift the thermoses to more safety before returning to waving. 'We hope that you will like it,' he signs, nodding at Lia's commentary on it being vegan. He eyes the smarmy raven, shaking his finger at it to let it know not to steal anything before turning his attention back to Jax. 'We thought you may need some. We heard you were hurt, and since you make stuff for us, we wanted to make stuff for you.' He points to one of the ones coated in about three layers of blue sparkles and smiles. 'I tried to make them blue flavor. Which would be blueberry, but I couldn't find any. So it's blue raspberry. Like the popsicles. I think,' he bites his lip as if he is not sure if it will taste right. 'We tried.'

"Ohmygosh/Obie/howdidyougethere." Jackson's eye opens up huge and wide and for a moment he forgets the feast of cupcakes all around, darting over to drop to his knees and fling his arms around the beagle. He rolls the beagle onto his back -- it doesn't take much /work/, Obie is already lazily flopping over for belly rubs, obligingly rubbing at the dog's stomach with both hands. He looks up, smile brighter still and a sudden cheerful yellow glow around him as he watches Jeremy's signing, brow slightly furrowed as he tries to follow along with the words. "Oh -- oh /gosh/," he says again to all of them. "Oh gosh thank you. An' they're vegan too an' /everything/ oh /gosh/, you guys, that's -- oh -- /wow/, I --"

There is, admittedly, a little bit of a choked tremble to his voice. "I was. Hurt real bad. If Jim hadn't protected me I don't think I'd -- an' even then I -- I um, there was some folks with healin' -- they helped out a lot but it was --" He lifts a hand away from beagle-belly-rubs to press the back of his wrist against his eye. "Oh /gosh/ you guys musta spent ages on all this /thank/ you an' where did you even /find/ Obie an' oh my goodness they /glitter/ y'all are sweet as pie." He folds himself cross-legged on the blanket beside Obie's dog bed, still scritching at the beagle with one hand.

"I went with the teachers to the building, when people couldn't see or move safe in it anymore. I sent an angel in and found people. Most of the people were bodies, but some of them weren't. Then there was a bathtub with Obie in it. His fur was singey and the vet shaved it off in a few spots. He had a cream I put on the spots for three days, but it is all gone now." Lia kneels next to Jax, pointing out the bald spots on the /blissfully/ happy puppy. "I told the teachers that you had found me and rescued me and kept me until I found a new home, so when I found Obie and rescued him I wanted to keep him until /he/ found a new home. The nice vet lady told me what things a puppy needed to stay safe and I bought them in the store." She pauses, head tilting as she looks at Jax with slightly-narrowed, then widened eyes. "Mr. Fairyjax. There is a chimaera on your head. Did it eat your hair?"

Ducky nods, sitting quietly while Jax reunites with his missing dog, a cheery grin on her face. The wilful raven from before takes this opportunity to spite both Ducky and Jeremy and flutter over to land on her shoulder defiantly, squawking in greeting. Ducky sighs and shakes her head, mumbling quietly, "So that didn't quite work." She grins brightly at the thanks, tilting her head curiously at the glow around Jax, grinning happily. "It was totally worth it to make all of them, I mean, you make us sugary stuff all the time, so obviously we should make some for you. Though, um, I think we scared the librarian. And the cook, maybe. But the cupcakes seem to have turned out 'kay, I think, maybe," Ducky is just a rousing well of confidence over her baking skills. She reaches up to scratch the raven on the head, falling quiet at the mention of help offered to the rescue efforts, having remained at the school, rather useless. The question about hair gets a head tilt in the opposite direction, and she ponders for a moment, "Or just ready for summer already like last year? Kinda wishful thinking with all the snow and cold and snow? Or chimaera noms. Totally works too."

Trying to be helpful, Jeremy puts one of each kind of cupcake they had made on a plate and puts it in front of Jax, then thinks a moment and slides the box from Happy Cakes closer to Jax as well. 'If you don't want ours, these are professional. It is hard to cook vegan things, some of the ingredients did not make sense. Like applesauce.' He eyes the cupcakes then shrugs and settles into a seat around the blanket, then pauses and thinks. 'Oh, Safety zone. Did you have stuff that would break if I eat?' he points over towards his paper sign to explain better. 'Shane had said you were light, and I might eat you, and I don't want to eat you so I can move and eat if that helps.'

"Oh -- the fire ate my hair." Jackson lifts his hand, skimming his palm across his smooth-bald head. The dragonfly-wings on his arms are fluttering, also rather unlike normal tattoos. "But it's alright. I usually shave it in summer /anyway/. Was jus' a season early this year." His petting moves from Obie's belly to his head, scritching between the puppy's ears as one leg starts to shake. "This chimaera don't eat much 'cept bad dreams. Thank you for keepin' him safe for me, honey-honey, I been worried, I didn't -- think there was no way he coulda survived that --" He shakes his head, looking down at the bald patches with a slow drawing in of breath.

He grins as he looks down at the cupcakes, and then back up at the teenagers. And raven. "Scared Mal? With cupcakes? But cupcakes is the /least/ scary thing. Jus' sugar an' /delicious/. Who's the raven? Where's Kushi? An' applesauce is -- well, vegan baking tends t'need things to replace the eggs so there's a lotta different substitutes you could use. It /does/ make sense, y'kinda --" His brow furrows as he considers an explanation. "Maybe jus' gotta think'a it like chemistry 'stead'a baking. Needs somethin' to bind it -- an' oh gosh no I don't got nothin' that'll break all my stuff got kinda 'splodey. An' there's enough sun out here /I'll/ replace anything you eat anyhow." He bounces happily on the ground, reaching down for one of the blue cupcakes first because /ohmygosh/ so much glittery sprinkles.

Lia sidles over a little bit and gives Jackson a gentle hug. 'Sorry,' she signs, "that your house and your hair got burned up. People do Bad Things. I was happy Obie was okay but I did not find your kitty." Her dark little eyebrows draw downward at that, signing 'sorry' again. "Eating bad dreams is good. I have bad dreams a lot. Maybe I should get one of those, too." Releasing the teacher from her grip, she moves back to the blanket, picking up one of her own cupcakes. It is chocolate, probably, and covered in a massive swirl of pink /and/ green icing that is barely visible under a host of rainbow sprinkles and every colour of glitter-sugar she could fit on top. It /crunches/ a bit when she bites into it. Crunchcrunch. "I like applesauce. It is sweet and appley. Why wouldn't you want it in cupcakes?" The fluttery tattoos don't seem to faze her in the least. Fluttery wings belong on faeries, after all.

"Sorry," Ducky offers in Spanish, quietly continuing, in English again, "About your apartment and all. And your hair." Settling down at a seat on the mat, Ducky pulls out a small bottle of hand sanitizer for herself and cleans up her hands before picking up any cupcakes. Her eyes track to the box of baked goods, as opposed to the trays of baked bads around it. "Not supposed to have birds around food stuff or kitchens, so Kushi is over there," she points, the little dappled pigeon actually sitting on her backpack in the "Safe Zone" like a little pudge guard bird, "Other birds are listening. Just... this one's stubborn. And wants a cupcake, for some reason. And won't listen. So he's here. Hasn't said a name yet, though, so he's just Stubborn for now." She reaches over to pick up one of the red velvet cupcakes, poking at it curiously as though uncertain of if she trusts it - it's a thick, dark red that only seems to fill about halfway up the bright yellow cup it is in... the rest of the space made up for with the vegan cream cheese icing and red and pink sugar sprinkles. "Something 'bout chemistry. And then cookbooks. Lots of cookbooks. So we made recipes," Ducky nods and offers with a slight grin, peeling the wrapper that is stuck gooey-well to her cupcake. "I feel like I forgot something in this," she mumbles, still looking at the cupcake.

Not particular picky about crunchiness, sugariness, or sprinkle things, Jeremy is just happy to be able to eat and talk. The permission to go ahead, actually has the young man Speak in the company of the others, perhaps for the first time they remember hearing. "We are glad you are alright," manages to get out as the darkness starts to settle around his mouth before he plugs it with cupcake and cronch cronch cronching. With mouth full, he signs 'Oh. I am bad at this baking.' He shrugs and cronches away anyway, after all it is already in his mouth, and probably won't hurt much. He does seem to be fairly happy over all as he opens up one of Lia's thermoses and pours himself something steaming hot to drink.

"People do a lotta bad things," Jackson agrees, but he sweeps his hand outward to the cupcake feast with a warm smile. "But they do a lotta pretty wonderful kind things too." The mention of Lia's bad dreams and thought of getting her own chimaera makes him tilt his head slightly to one side. The colourful monster on his skull shifts, lifting its head and then lifting /off/ entirely, peeling off his skull into 3-D to march over through the air and climb onto Lia's shoulder, growing longer as it wraps itself around her neck.

Jax peels the wrapper off his cupcake, crunching down into the glitter-frosted top. His eye -- widens, slightly, the glow around him shivering a little brighter and then back to its previous state. Crunch. Crunch? He finishes his bite, licking sugar off his lips with a small laugh. "Oh /goodness/ that's -- definitely not short on sweet. Gosh. Wow. What's in those thermoses?" His chin tips towards them curiously. "Recipes is good. If any'a you /like/ cookin' I teach a class on bakin', y'know. In this semester, too. S'pretty fun. Kinda like chemistry only but it's sugary an' you get t'eat it all."

"Ducky is a princess," Lia explains to Jax with some tone of authority. "It is hard for her to keep the birdies away, even if she isn't singing, because she is very pretty and they like her." She smiles brightly after this. "Jeremy might be a prince, because there was a birdie who liked him very much and landed on his finger." She looks pleased at Jax's...maybe-praise; she certainly /takes/ it as such, regardless. "We put in a lot of sugar. And the glitter is sugar so that you can eat it and not have metal in your stomach. Which is bad." Someone may very well have had to explain this to her so that glitter from the /art room/ didn't end up on top of the cupcakes. "There is cocoa, chai, mint tea, and Assam tea. The teas have the agave syrup sugar in them. Not honey. No bees!"

Lia's eyes widen at the idea of a whole /class/ on baking. "Oh! I would like to learn baking. But my classes are full. I am taking /required/ classes now. And dance, which is not required, but it is my favourite. The health class and the writing class and the brain class and the language class are all required. I am still taking hand-talking for my language. And I am taking a math class with the middle school so that I can take real required math later. They said I could still do the gymnastics like a club without it being a class, since I didn't have space for more classes. Is there a baking club like that?"

The girl's mouth forms into an 'O' as the chimaera migrates to her shoulders, but looks confused at its lack of substance as it gives no sensation of weight or touch. Lia moves to pet it with equal lack-of-substance found there. “Ohwow. I don't have any bad dreams to feed you now. Only bad cupcakes. Probably there will be dreams for eating later, though.”

Ducky actually jumps slightly when Jeremy speaks aloud, looking over at him with a startled look, blinking a few times as she processes him actually speaking, but she grins brightly. The assessment of his baking skills, along with Jax's reaction make the girl look between the cupcakes and the others, then at her cupcakes with an even more critical eye. She suppresses a giggle at the audible crunches, and takes a bite of her own cupcake, her amused grin immediately fading. Forcibly chewing on the pastry, Ducky's face tells the story well enough, as she struggles to gnaw through the rubbery confection, her nose crinkling at the flavor-or-lack-therof. Swallowing, she reaches for a bottle of juice, pouring herself a cup and attempting to wash the residual cupcake out of her mouth. She blushes and looks at the birds around outside the 'safe zone' she tried to make, shaking her head. "Pretty sure princesses are s'posed to know how to bake. Those... those are not cupcakes. They are chocolate-ish chewtoys in disguise," she admits guiltily, ruffling her hair and setting the "cupcake" down again, "Don't eat those. I... I think it's probably a bad idea."

Deciding that he is quite willing to be the first to go for the tasty professional grade cupcakes, Jeremy wiggles over to unlock the safetynet of Happy Cakes. "These should be good at least," he mumbles a bit to prevent too much world consumption and he extricates one that looks kinda more chocolateyish. Pausing to pet the puppy with the cupcake far away from it, he smiles then scoots back over to his spot. "Maybe I am a dragon and not a prince. Inverse breath weapon. one dee twelve void damage." Making a soft rawr, he chomps the cupcake, ferocious dragon Jeremy, slayer of cupcakes.

Jackson tips his gaze over to Jeremy, kind of reflexively drawn that direction as the boy speaks again, a crooked-small smile on his face and a greater widening of eyes for the novelty of it. He sets down his very /crunchy/ blue cupcake, reaching out a hand to hover by each thermos in turn as Lia explains their contents, eventually taking the cocoa happily and pouring himself some. Toootally not to wash the taste of cupcake out of his mouth nope. But he does gulp his first mouthful kind of fast. "There's a -- food club, yeah, ain't only bakin' but they do all kindsa cookin'. You could join that'n, it'd be fun. Culinary Society." He's reaching for one of Ducky's cupcakes next when he's warned away from it. "Don't princesses have folks t'do their bakin' /for/ them?" he answers her, amused. He does brave one of Lia's pink-and-green-and-glitter cupcakes next because /ohgosh/ they went through all the work of baking him a cupcake feast. "Can't you be a dragon-prince? Though y'might not want t'be a dragon if Ducky's a princess, I hear dragons kidnap princesses all the /time/. Though -- s'pose it wouldn't be no kinda useful kidnappin', you do sorta all live in the same place." He keeps his cocoa on /hand/ as he unwraps the Liacake.

Lia actually finishes her cupcake. Mouth empty, she moves to pour herself a lid-full of chai. "Uh-oh. It's okay, Princess Ducky. I think it is because usually princesses have their own personal chefs. Maybe princesses don't usually learn cooking because other people do it for them." She nods as Jackson comes up with a similar thought. Her eyes widen at the mention of Jeremy being a dragon, though her expression rapidly becomes /stern/ at Jax's warning to Ducky. "Jeremy. You better be a /good/ dragon-prince. No kidnapping Princess Ducky!" Then she catches up on something that Jeremy said. "What's onety-twelve? Is it like when Bilbo had an eleventy-first birthday? That one makes sense, because it is one hundred and eleven. Hobbits live a very long time, but not as long as Elves." She glances over at her messy cupcake pan. "Does the cooking club mind if you don't know how to make anything but cocoa and tea and cereal and noodles?"

Ducky signs 'sorry' and looks down at the plate, nudging it away from the edible foods, "Um, maybe I should take the baking class. Probly be better at it than I was at Chemistry, most likely." Not that that was a particularly high standard. She giggles at the thought of Jeremy being a dragon, grinning, "As long as you're a good dragon-prince. Shiny dragon, maybe? If you're a bad dragon-prince, I'm going to repel you with my horror-cupcakes. Because those things are kinda scary." Taking another sip of her juice to eradicate the lingering taste of sad-cake, Ducky shakes her head, "Cinderella and Snow White and Rapunzel all had good kitchen skills. Granted... two of them actually had helpful woodland creature friends. Maybe that's my issue," she ponders for a moment, crinkling her nose, "Maybe cooking club too... I think I can make ramen? And mac and cheese. Yup. Probably need that club, too."

With tasty cupcake and icing firmly ensconced in his cake hole, Jeremy shakes his head in the negatory as he signs 'Not kidnappy dragon. Chompy dragon. Horde of gold. Smaug.' Nodding as he licks icing off his lips, he continues signing to alleviate confusion of onety. 'One D Twelve. Dungeons and Dragons stuff. Is a game. But you don't get to be dragons,' he offers up a shrug as he looks at his chai, inhaling with a sucking motion over it as steam dissipates. 'I can make ice cream. And popsicles. It is easy when you can cheat,' he signs then ponders Ducky's animal companions. "They don't seem very helpful. But pudge birds are cute."

"Cocoa an' tea are pretty much two'a the most important food groups so I don't know as they /would/ mind. But I think if you join the food club they might teach y'to make /new/ things? I ain't sure," Jackson admits, "on account'a I never joined. But I imagine they'd teach all kindsa things. How long do dragons live? Middle Earth has so many birthdays." He presses his knuckles to his lips, stifling a laugh at Ducky's threats. "Ohgosh. Maybe that's what you can be instead. Warrior-type princess. Fight off folks with terrorcake? -- Whoa could you teach birds t'bake? I guess, um, hands are pretty helpful in that though. Sometimes." He's slower to answer Jeremy, head tilting to follow his signing. "B likes that kinda game a lot. Though I think he likes the, um. I forget what the one is called it's all. Techy. He likes to be a thing where you get to puppet robot-drones around which -- I guess actually ain't different than him in real life. -- hm." 'Kidnappy'? He signs this word uncertainly, but adds, "Ducky comes with her own hoard'a -- /oh/ I should talk t'you about -- if y'ever caught up with Professor -- oh I'll catch up with you 'bout that later," he says with a blush.

"Cinderella wasn't born a princess. She had to learn how to cook to take care of her dad and then when her evil stepmother made her do all the things in her house after her dad died. She married a prince and became a princess after. So probably she had to spend a long time learning princess things after she went to the castle." Lia giggles for some time at the warrior-princess dragon imagery continuing. "Oh, Ducky, you can be a princess more like Mulan. She fought with a sword and was friends with a nice dragon. Her dragon talked all the time, though." The 1d12 explanation doesn't seem to clear things up much for the girl. "I like games! I like to play Dixit. It is pretty and I like to tell stories for the pictures."

Ducky giggles and shakes her head, "Sometimes helpful. But birds don't go in the kitchen normally. 'Specially my flock. I... might be able to teach them how to. Kushi's smart enough to do it I think, maybe." Her eyes drift to the pigeon, mumbling quietly, "He's prob'ly a better baker than I am." She flails the half nibbled cupcake about, laughing lightly - a sound sort of unnervingly echoed by Stubborn the raven on her shoulder, "Oh! Ducky: Warrior Princess! Like Xena! I... am pretty sure I could throw one of these like a chakram, and it would bounce back to me eventually. Leaving a wake of destruction in its path." She grins, nodding to Jax, "Yeah, but it's not /that/ much. I mean, I can't sleep on it. S'enough coin-thingies now to let Kushi sleep on it though. He complained. Was gonna talk to you earlier, but... I'll catch up with you this week?"

Raising up from the picnic, Jeremy wipes his mouth off with his hoodie sleeve. "I will go find the book and show you. It has dragons and elves and swords," he says, and glances towards his bag with the safe zone paper. Letting out a sigh, much of his amusement fades as he places his fingers to his lips, and goes over to grab his bag, slinging it over his shoulder, careful not to bother Kushi too much. 'Be back soon,' he signs then gives a wave as he scampers back towards the school on mission to locate the tome of nerdliness.

"Oh I /do/ like Dixit." Jackson smiles bright-happy at this. "I'm bad at most all the games but that one has pretty arts." He startles slightly at the harsh raven-laugh from Stubborn, the glow around him flickering again. The half-eaten cupcake in Ducky's hand restyles itself, a sharpened outer edge, a hollowed-out inside, chakramcake in her hand now. He flops backwards as Jeremy gets up to scamper off, resting his head happily on the edge of Obie's dog bed and reaching up to scritch at the beagle again. "Yeah," he agrees, quiet-happy. "We can catch up 'bout it later." For now he seems pretty content to soak up the sun. And badly-baked sugar. Even if it's cold outside.