québécois

[her_imperial_radiance]

The Golden Coven stays in Québec for one year.

When Harley is eight and a half, they start packing.

Zeus is inconsolable.

Comments

[pythbox]

"I will!" he promises, climbing back onto Zeus's floofy back.

[alicornucopia]

Zeus makes a much gentler lope over the river, and trots, fast but not blindingly so, back towards the village. [I can smell everything,] he remarks. [It's pretty amazing.]

[pythbox]

"Ooh, what stuff can you smell?"

[alicornucopia]

[Everything! You and the trees and myself and the water and all the other plants and even some village stuff even way out here. I think someone's making something with pineapple in it.]

[pythbox]

[I like pineapple!]

[alicornucopia]

[Me too! We can have some when we go home, I'm hungry.]

[pythbox]

[Awesome.]

[alicornucopia]

They arrive home. Zeus hangs out in the front yard for a while, trying to figure out how to defloof, and even when he manages it, his mother doesn't want him near the knicknacks till he has himself under better control; this means picnic. It involves pineapple.

[pythbox]

It also involves hug! Lots of hug.

[alicornucopia]

Hug.

Zeus's father presents him with a magnetic uniform, in Imperial pack brown.

It hangs loose on him, but he'll grow. (He's eating a ridiculous amount, more than when he was just a puppy.)

[pythbox]

Harley noms on pineapple and giggles at Zeus in his uniform.

[alicornucopia]

"I'll get bigger!" says Zeus, fiddling with one of the magnets.

[pythbox]

"Yeah, and then you won't look as funny, so I better enjoy it while I can!"

[alicornucopia]

Zeus sticks out his tongue at Harley.

[pythbox]

Harley giggles.

[alicornucopia]

Om nom nom nom nom picnic, oops, floof, wait wait wait, unfloof, snap uniform back on, om nom nom nom.

[pythbox]

This description misses a vital step! The step is 'be hugged'. It goes between floof and unfloof.

[alicornucopia]

Very well; amendment accepted. [You are super huggy,] Zeus remarks fondly while hugging is ongoing.

[pythbox]

"I am!" Harley agrees, hugging him. "I like hugs. Hugs are nice."

[alicornucopia]

[They are,] agrees Zeus, and this is when he unfloofs.

[pythbox]

Mid-hug!

Okay, back to nomming.

[alicornucopia]

Om nom nom. Zeus was a hungry puppy. Now he is a ravenous wolf. He will turn it all into floof and an extra two feet of height and lots of muscle over the next couple months.

(His mother is taking a lot of pictures of this picnic; wolves' parents do this in the time between first floof and the cessation of growth.)

[pythbox]

Nomty nom!

"Okay, I'm done," Harley announces. He curls up next to the picnic blanket.

[alicornucopia]

Zeus isn't done. He finishes the pineapple, and the whipped cream Demeter put on it, and the leftover hamburgers she warmed up for them, and the green beans. He doesn't even like green beans.

[pythbox]

"You don't even like green beans," observes curled-up Harley.