Dog Doesn't Bite Man. Hopefully.

[dogbitesman]

The thing about pieces of paper was that it was a bad idea to try and take them home with you, especially when you tended to the organizational system William did.*

Which was probably the downside to the laptop. All the information was inside it, so he could bring it home and work sitting in a chair on the porch

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[dishabille_mal]

"We have a chair?" Maladicta murmured, coming up the steps and dropping her sword off to the side. She had been anxious about auditions, which were two days away, and had Shakespeare's Complete Works under her arm with a lot of bits of paper sticking out of it.

She set the book down, and then from the kneeling position, crawled somewhat up along the side of aforementioned chair, getting entirely in William's way to distract him from his work.

[headline_maker]

Sacharissa had found some rope in the store room, fashioning a length of it into a kind of leash for the dog -- Shenlong, until they came up with something else. He had been well-trained, though, as Duo had said and followed along obediently all the way home.

"I've brought someone home with me," she called ahead, smiling when she saw them.

[dogbitesman]

"Maladicta, I can't work with you in-" William said, then stopped speaking and leaned around her to look down the way at Sacharissa when he heard her approach.

He offered up a half-bemused smile, then looked down the path behind her. It was peculiarly blank. Possibly, whoever she was talking about wasn't as good with hills.

"...and you offered to walk their dog?" he ventured.

[dishabille_mal]

"That's the idea, dumm-" Maladicta started, then stopped and craned her neck. Her expression brightened immediately at the sight of Sax and then sort of foze at the sight of the puppy.

"...Wwwhhhhho's that?"

[headline_maker]

"Not their dog," Sacharissa said cheerfully, coming to a stop before them. "Our dog. He's a gift from Duo. Trained and everything, half direwolf, half Lipwigzer." She stopped just short of asking whether or not they could keep him; she'd already made up her mind on that.

[dogbitesman]

"Half-Lip... trained to do what, exactly?" William said, drawing his feet back so they were under the chair, trying to make the fact they contained bones and other such chewable materials as inconspicuous as possible.

Stephen Colbert hadn't known what he was on about. Bears? Bears were scared of Lipwigzers, and that was the ones that hadn't been crossbred with wolves the size of ponies.

[dishabille_mal]

Maladicta's gaze was round. That was a good word for it. She abandoned William and walked over to sit on the stoop, staring at the puppy.

"...So it's... it's a death machine, basically. With a waggy tail." She didn't sound like she disapproved, necessarily.

[headline_maker]

"A very waggy tail," Sacharissa said, kneeling down beside the dog. "Sit." She looked back up to them. There was a kind of hopefulness in her expression that belied her businesslike tone.

"He's quite sweet. And trained not to go in the house and to heel and to sit and the other usual things, though I'd imagine protection is or will be in his repertoire, as well. Duo meant him for you, William, originally, but he's for all of us now."

[dogbitesman]

"But we can't-" William said, before the inner editor overruled the objection on the basis that, well, it didn't have a basis. He changed tack. "Are you sure you've thought this through?"

He eyed the dog warily. It was apparently imitating Sacharissa's hopeful expression, although the very waggy tail was probably an innovation all of its own.

[dishabille_mal]

"It's your present," Maladicta pointed out, lifting an eyebrow, and then leaning down to reach out a hand to the pup. She caught his muzzle and he licked the pad of her thumb. She made a face.

"And he's part wolf, huh?" she mumbled. Annagovia was all right. At least, the puppy had been fun when Polly was around, and she was sure Duo was as good a caretaker as any.

For a wolf, it was pretty damned adorable. She looked up at Sacharissa, eyebrows quirking up in the center.

"What's his name?"

[headline_maker]

Sacharissa arched an eyebrow at William. "What's there to think about really?" she asked. "It's not as if it'll cost us extra to care for him, he's already trained and it's not like we don't walk enough as it is. Bringing him along for his exercise won't make much of a difference."

She smiled, though, watching Maladicta and the dog together. "Duo called him Shenlong, but he said he'd learned another name readily enough if we wanted to pick something else." It was growing on her a bit, but she wasn't prepared to rule out other possibilities yet.

[dogbitesman]

"I always thought that was an inconsiderate thing to do, gifting someone with an animal," William said, still frowning at the dog. At "Shenlong", apparently. He folded his arms, watching Maladicta traitorously interact with the dog. "They can't say no because it's a gift, and they can't give it away either, so they're stuck with an animal they didn't want."

[dishabille_mal]

Maladicta picked the puppy up, avoiding a thorough licking, and kissed Sacharissa on the cheek once she was standing.

Then she kissed her just beneath the corner of her jaw, since she was already there.

Then, she turned the full power of the puppy on William, holding it up at arms length in his direction.

"You don't want him? I bet we can boot him out. One of the Starks might want him. Though he is only a half-breed."

[headline_maker]

Oh, that hadn't been a fair move at all. It was, however, precisely the kind of foul play Sacharissa could approve of heartily, and she slipped an arm around Maladicta's waist and joined her own wide eyed gaze to that of Shenlong, looking to William.

"I'm sure there are plenty of people who would be willing to take him," she said slowly.

[dogbitesman]

William directed a narrow - to exclude the puppy, because looking that way probably wouldn't help - look at Maladicta. She wasn't meant to acquiesce to small animals. She was supposed to be on his side for this particular issue.

He broadened the look to include the both of them. He, at least, was not going to cave at some wide eyes and shows of solidarity.

"There we go, then," he said bracingly. "If there are plenty of households that want a puppy, who are we to deny them?"

[dishabille_mal]

"Though I'm afraid this is not just your household," Maladicta pointed out fairly with a slight lift of her eyebrows.

"So conceivably, we could ask, why deny ourselves the possibly endless and bountiful pleasures of owning a lowly little mixed blood pup who is clearly-" she added with a slight frown and mildly incredulous once over of the pup who was silently and... well, studiously, sniffing at everything his nose could reach, "-too inquisitive to be tolerated."