Harley attempts to console him anyway. Hugs? Hugs are good, right?

Hugs are (damply) received. "You're gonna leave! And you can teleport but I can't and I won't be able to knock on your door or leave frogs in your bed or put a scary paper face outside your window for you to see when you wake up or anything!"

[Well, we don't have to travel with the capitol, if you'd rather stay.]

[Let's stay, then!]

[All right. I'll tell Jake.]

"Elsie fixed it," Harley announces. "We're gonna stay here instead of moving away with the coven."

"You can just do that?" asks Zeus.

"Yeah," shrugs Harley.

"Wow. Cool," says Zeus, scrubbing tears from his face. "Okay! Now you can just stay here and it's great and we can go see the new Robin Hood movie. We should wear costumes and see if grownups give us free candy for being cute!"

Harley giggles. "Yeah!"

"I'll be Robin Hood," adds Zeus imperiously, "but you can be whoever else you want."

"I'll be Marian!"

"Okay! The trailer shows her costume so you can be her even if we go to the first showing," nods Zeus. "I bet the Princess'll conjure it for you. Mom will make mine, I bet."

Harley beams. "Awesome!"

"I wonder if she'll make me a bow and arrow, though," muses Harley. "Do you think the Princess will make you that dagger thing that Maid Marian has?"

"I dunno!" he says. "We'll see, I guess! It'd be fun to have a dagger thing."

Zeus nods. "And you can be all, hwa! Yargh!" and he gets up and starts flailing around in clumsy imitation of the Maid Marian action scene from the trailer.

Harley giggles at this display.

"And I'll be all," and he shifts posture to mime a bow and arrow instead. "Yeah. It'll be great. I'm so glad you're staying!"

"Me too!" says Harley, and he hugs Zeus again.

Zeus abandons his mime to return the hug. "And you'll be here when I floof and I can give you wolf rides and stuff!"

"Floofy snuggles," giggles Harley.

"Sure!"

"I love you," Harley declares, hugging him some more.

"I love you too," says Zeus comfortably, "and you should live here all the time, next door forever."

"That'd be awesome!" says Harley.

Zeus nods importantly. "Yes. All of the things that I want are awesome, is why I want them."

"You know," he says, "I bet Aedyt would make us costumes and stuff!"

"Ooh, maybe! And then my mom won't drag me to the fabric store. I don't like going to the fabric store."

[Sure,] says Aedyt. [How involved do you want to be in this process?]

"Do you wanna help Aedyt make them? I do! I bet it'll be really fun!"

"I could try it," allows Zeus. "If it's fun."

"So fun," Harley promises. "I love making stuff with Aedyt!"

"I should tell my mom and dad," says Zeus, and he runs into his house. He's back out a minute later. "Okay!"

"There is a lot of stuff here," says Zeus, eyes big as saucers.

"There is! I like stuff. Do you like stuff?"

"I like stuff! I don't like the fabric store but just fabric is okay." Zeus pets some fabric.

Aedyt laughs. "What don't you like about the fabric store?"

"It's full of weird people."

"What kind of weird?" says Harley.

"People who sew," says Zeus. "I don't sew, so they talk about sewing a lot, and they think I should sew, and I'm only ever there because of Mom, and I guess if I sewed it'd be okay."

"I like sewing!" says Harley. "It's fun!"

Aedyt ruffles Harley's hair.

"What's fun about it?" Zeus wants to know.

"Dunno," he shrugs. "It just is!"

"Well, I can try it," shrugs Zeus.

"Yay!"

So Aedyt sets them both up with conjured reference material and appropriate fabric and so forth, and she shows Zeus how to sew. (Harley already knows.)

Zeus keeps pricking his fingers and he makes impatient childish stitches, but he does not give up.

Aedyt is very encouraging! And she has plenty of coins with which to heal small ouches.

Sewing sewing sewing. Zeus accidentally sews one of his sleeves to his project.

Aedyt giggles. And then she fixes it.

Zeus tries it on!

"That doesn't look like the outfit she had," muses Zeus. "Are you being Marian or just somebody in period costume?" (Zeus's mother says things like "period costume".)

"Well, I was being Marian. But look how pretty I am!" he says, twirling.

"You are very pretty," says Aedyt. "I could make it more like Marian's, if you want."

"It looks fine, it's just not Marian-y right now," shrugs Zeus.

"Okay, you can make it more like Marian's," says Harley. "But only if it stays pretty!"

Harley twirls.

"More Marian-y," pronounces Zeus approvingly.

"And still pretty!" says Harley. He tackle-hugs Aedyt.

Aedyt is untackled, but very hugged.

Zeus giggles.

Harley giggles too.

"You have a lot of stuff," observes Zeus. "Can you make bow-and-arrows?"

"Yes I can! The question is, will I regret it afterward?"

"...No?" tries Zeus.

"Then I will make you a bow and arrow."

"I want a dagger!" says Harley.

"I'm sure you do," says Aedyt.

"Maid Marian has one!" defends Zeus. "He's being Maid Marian."

"And I won't stab anybody with it," Harley says virtuously.

"All right," says Aedyt. "I will make you guys some weapons. Do you want to watch?"

"Yeah," says Zeus, grinning.

Zeus immediately starts shooting at things.

"Careful, please," says Aedyt.

Zeus reaches for his arrow. When it won't go, he says, "It's stuck!"

"Yes it is," says Aedyt. "And it's going to stay that way until you can take it somewhere with fewer fragile things it might accidentally break."

"I can't take it anywhere. It's stuck," objects Zeus.

"I will unstick it when I take you home."

"Oh."

Back to the dagger!

Zeus shoots mime-arrows. He shoots them much more indiscriminately than he did with the foam one.

Harley giggles.

Presently Zeus has invented a game according to which he must rescue Maid Marian from the telekinetic witch who has stolen her dagger, and hauls Harley out of the basement of stuff in search of an escape route.

Zeus is fascinated by the visible curvature of the asteroid and runs around with wild abandon.

Harley runs around right along with him! Running around on Aedyt's asteroid is fun.

Wheeeee!

Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.

"Snacks!" exclaims Zeus approvingly. "Yes. That's next."

Harley is enthused about the muffins.

Om nom nom. Zeus eats like a puppy, which is to say a lot and enthusiastically.

Harley cannot keep up in volume, but he can keep up in enthusiasm!

And Aedyt can keep up in quantity of muffins.

After they have demolished the muffins, Zeus says, "I want my arrow back."

"Please do not fire it inside my house," says Aedyt, and she hands it to him.

"I want my dagger!" says Harley.

"Please do not stab anyone or anything that somebody might not want stabbed," says Aedyt, and she gives Harley the dagger.

Zeus considers his instruction, and then fires the arrow at her house.

It bounces harmlessly off a wall.

Zeus barks, and wags harder.

Zeus licks his face with a tongue about the size of the face it's licking. Slurp!

Harley cracks up. And hugs him more.

Wag wag wag wag. Zeus cannot talk, so he cannot suggest anything.

Cuddle cuddle cuddle! Zeus is so floofy. It's awesome.

Zeus has brand new quadrupedal super-speed, and he wants to use it, and there will be all the time in the world for floofy hugs later! He stands up, crouching on the porch, and backs away, wagging more slowly. If Harley wants a ride he can have one.

"Hey, you can't talk like this, can you," Harley observes. "I should get Elsie to put you on the brainphone! Want me to?"

Zeus nods; it's awkward but he can do it. (He can talk to the other wolves in the Imperial pack who are wolfing at this time, but that's not the same thing.)

[Elsie, Zeus is floofy and he wants to be on the brainphone so he can talk to me still!]

[There you are, then,] says Elspeth, to both boys.

[Thanks! Harley, Harley, I wanna run, running's amazing like this, come with me, come on,] and he crouches low, so Harley could vault up onto him if he wanted.

"Okay!" says Harley, and he jumps onto Zeus's back and hangs on tight.

Zeus bolts at once, like a bullet, legs eating up yards of empty Québec wilderness with every stride. [I'm so fast!]

[You aaaare, it's awesome,] giggles Harley.

[It's better than roller coasters! Aren't I, huh?]

[You're a fluffy roller coaster, oh man,] cackles Harley.

They're approaching forest; Zeus doesn't slow down, although a few times he pushes a paw off a tree instead of the ground to maneuver. [That's meeee!]

[This is so awesome, I love you,] says Harley, clinging to Zeus's back.

[I love you too! And running! And being a grown-up wolf!]

Harley giggles happily.

[It's weird being able to hear what everybody else is thinking. It's not anything too interesting all by itself, just it's strange.]

[I bet!] he agrees.

[My dad's coming,] he adds. [I wanna see if I can outrun him!] And he puts on a burst of speed, runningrunningrunning.

Harley giggles and clings.

Bartholomew does catch up to them eventually and falls into step beside them. [Dad says I have to be careful not to drop you, but, duh, of course I don't wanna drop you,] says Zeus.

[Duh!] agrees Harley.

Running running running running it's the best thing Zeus could run all day long!

Running is awesome! Zeus is awesome. Harley loves those things.

Harley clings to him and giggles intermittently.

[I bet you can jump it! Try!] he says gleefully.

[Harley! Harley Harley Harley are you okay call the princess tell her to fix you Harley Harley,] whines Zeus, digging his claws into the earth to arrest his movement and doubling back. [Or I can, I'll do it, PRINCESS - did that do it - how does it work -]

[What's the matter?]

Zeus sits hard on the ground, tail between his legs, and howls.

[I hit a tree and Zeus is sad!]

Elspeth tries a healing pentagon. [Did that do it?] she asks.

She spends another. She doesn't bother admonishing him to be careful.

Zeus makes another whining noise and noses at him. [Are you sure? All better, honest? You could've died! I shouldn't've jumped it.]

"I'm fine," he promises, hugging Zeus around the neck and kissing his wolfy nose. "And no I couldn't, I'm immortal! It was fun."

Zeus flops onto the ground. [But you could've died if you weren't immortal!]

"But I am immortal," he says, "and I didn't die anyway, I just broke some bones, Elsie fixed me up fine, it was fun, I'm fine, it's fine!"

Zeus can make some very impressively whiny noises in wolf form.

Harley gives him scritches. It just seems like the thing to do.

Zeus lays his massive head down on the ground and accepts scritches, making dismayed whuffly sounds.

"Awwwwwwww," says Harley. "I'm sorry you got scared."

[How was it fun?]

"I liked the jumping over the river part! And I've never been hurt that bad before, it was really - itself. I think I wanna do it again," he says consideringly. "But not with you if you're gonna get scared." Snuggle-hug!

[You wanna do it again?] asks Zeus incredulously.

Harley giggles. "Yeah."

[You are a weirdo. I know I'd heal with or without magic if I got beat up like that and I still don't wanna try it.]

"I am a weirdo!" he agrees happily.

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

Hugs!

"Okay," shrugs Harley.

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

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

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

"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."

"Yeah, I bet!" says Harley.

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

Harley pinches him.

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

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

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.]

"Ooh, what stuff can you smell?"

[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.]

[I like pineapple!]

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

[Awesome.]

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.

It also involves hug! Lots of hug.

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

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

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

Zeus sticks out his tongue at Harley.

Harley giggles.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

"I'm really hungry," says Zeus. "I want pizza. Let's go get pizza."

"Sure!"

Zeus manages to floof on purpose, to be transportation to the village cafeteria. (The village doesn't have many of its own establishments, when they can just travel to the capital compound or farther to town, but it's full of wolves: it has a cafeteria.)

Pizza is obtained! Harley does not eat it, but he derives great joy from watching Zeus do that.

Zeus eats six slices of pizza. Then he is done. With pizza. He gets a bowl of ice cream after that.

Harley giggles at him.

"Now," says Zeus, when he finishes his ice cream, "I am not hungry anymore."

"Are you sure?"

"Well, I'll be hungry in an hour, but now, yeah."

Harley laughs.

"Come on, let's go see how much floofing sometimes messes up one on one basketball," suggests Zeus, "while I'm still not that much taller than you."

"Okay!" he agrees, giggling.

And off they go.