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 am a weirdo!" he agrees happily.

[alicornucopia]

Zeus whuffs out wolf-warm air in Harley's direction.

After a moment, he unfloofs and he's just himself, maybe a little taller already, lounging naked on the forest floor.

[pythbox]

Harley giggles.

"Aww, no more floof," he says. "Can I still hug you?"

[alicornucopia]

"Yeah," sighs Zeus, sitting up. Wolves are, of necessity, pretty casual about nudity.

[pythbox]

Hugs!

[alicornucopia]

Hugs!

"So uh," says Zeus, "I don't really know how to change on purpose yet? So if I don't figure it out at about when we wanna go home we need to call Dad, or the Princess, to come get us."

[pythbox]

"Okay," shrugs Harley.

[alicornucopia]

Zeus sets about Trying To Floof On Purpose.

He does not get anywhere, although he makes some entertaining faces while he fails at it.

[pythbox]

Harley laughs at him. In a friendly, affectionate sort of way.

[alicornucopia]

Zeus shoves him in the shoulder, not hard. "You don't have to figure it out," he snorts.

[pythbox]

"Nope! I get to watch you do it. And it's hilarious," he says, grinning.

[alicornucopia]

"Right now I'm trying to be floofy, not hilarious," snorts Zeus. He chews on his lip, trying to replicate the mental state he occupied right before he floofed the first time. "...This is hard."

[pythbox]

"Yeah, I bet!" says Harley.

[alicornucopia]

"Mrrr. Hmm. Can you, like, pinch me or something?" Zeus holds out his arm.

[pythbox]

Harley pinches him.

[alicornucopia]

"Ow-" The exclamation is cut off by abrupt refloofing. [Okay cool let's go home! And HOLD ON this time!]

[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.