2022-04-28 - Nothing Like Lemonade

Oak street.

Today, it's cool rather than cold. High above in the sky, clouds flirt with clumping but never get to actually doing as such; stray streamers instead, they bode no rain, but also keep much of the warmth from the air. It means as Ariadne walks her Silken Windhound, Samwise, down the street towards the smaller-numbered houses, she's in her coral-pink windbreaker and he's in what counts as a thin sweater. The dog himself is not actually cold, not by any means, but his thirty-three-pound build is derived from greyhounds and Borzoi ultimately, dogs known for thinner skin and less ability to retain heat. He's red-and-black brindled with a white tuxedo chest which blazes up across his face, tucks down through his belly to the underside of his feathery tail, and white socks. His sweater? An argyle in teal, blue, and black.

He's not sniffing, but he is watching for squirrels. Evil little shits. Ariadne herself appears to be in no hurry, on her way to stop by and knock on 5 Oak Avenue. It's familiar territory. Una's going to teach her about making petit-fours any time now and the barista's application of dye, cobalt-blue to iris-purple, is visible with her naturally deeply-auburn hair pulled up into a standard messy bun. Una was responsible for this hair coloring as well.

She's probably fairly easy to see in her windbreaker, but she still pauses outside on the sidewalk to wave at the house in general before turning to meander up the sidewalk towards the door. Her phone comes out.

The text flies:
> > Hey Della, here on the front porch!

Be right there!

Not, 'Come on in!' -- unlike her friend-and-landlady, Della doesn't leave doors unlocked.

Although, Do you like lemonade? isn't so unlike her: hospitality!

It won't be long before Della shows up at the front door, rather taller than the Dream-self Ariadne saw last, with a completely un-pebbly forehead, immaculate eyeliner and a smile. The lipstick, an even deeper red than her airy linen skirt, has worn off a bit; her creamy blouse is short-sleeved: no sweater, no windbreaker, no nothing. "Welcome!" She has a tray, nothing on that either, and the barest of sandals. "Nice to see you again! And your Sam. Shall we head on back?"

> Ooh, yes please for lemonade!

Pocketing her phone again, Ariadne then gestures at Samwise. He plonks his butt down on the porch and looks expectantly at her, his triangle-flop ears lifted. <<You are my very good boy, yes you are,>> the barista croons in Hungarian at him while she leans over to give him a gentle kiss on the head; one ear gets scritch-smushed and he leans into it with a soft groan. That's wonderful, don't stop.

Straightening up as she catches the sounds of approaching footsteps, Della gets a twiddly-fingered wave. "Good to see you too! No kazoo on me today, no worries," the redhead immediately quips with a grin. Samwise remains sitting with his ears lifted towards Della. Oh, hello, new human. "I can go around the side of the house with Sam if you want? We did walk a little bit here and he doesn't know to avoid puddles. I'd hate to track mud on the hardwood and carpets."

"Exactly what I'm thinking," Della assures. She gives Ariadne a long up-and-down look, smile deepening before she turns her attention to Samwise; "I meant to ask: did you manage to come back with your feather? Or the kazoo? You look about the same." The words are for Ariadne, her tone for the dog, though she doesn't offer scent-introductions just yet; there's the door to lock and the key ring to return to her pocket, before waving them before her towards the side and then the backyard.

"...you can come back with things?" Ariadne looks plainly surprised at this information. Samwise glances between the two women, eyebrow-hairs moving about, but otherwise doesn't break his sit until gestured by his owner. He then stays at her side when she pats her own leg twice. As such, they travel as a unit along the front and then along the side of the house.

"I mean, that probably answers your question right there. I didn't come back with the feather or the kazoo, no, and damned if I didn't want that feather. A Jubjub bird feather. Who would have guessed." A shrug; truly, nobody could have guessed until some serious extrapolations (and tea table confirmations) were had. "I thought it looked dashing in my hat anyways. I'm sorry you had so much trouble with your goat though. Like...geez. It was a flighty thing." Another glance at Della. "And we're lucky to have all come out relatively unscathed. I remember other Dreams."

And doesn't she. Somehow, the hospital staff still never figured out how her own leg healed so quickly.

"Yes?" If Della's surprised, it's only for Ariadne's surprise; "That time it was just the bridle, of all things, for me. Not very useful, or pretty," unlike that feather! "but I've kept it all the same. The feather would have been wonderful. Better, the whole hat!"

There are three chairs set in the shady warmth, not two, but Della explains the situation by putting the tray on the center like a table, and then there's the back door to unlock. Della doesn't make a big deal of it; it's just about as simple as opening it to begin with. Two short trips later, supplies: bottle of cool still water and one of sparkling, another unlabeled bottle of syrup, lemons (with knives and paper towels), and... "A bowl of water for Sam? It's all right. It worked out. And we are lucky. I've wondered where the other villagers went."

"I wouldn't have said no to the whole hat, that was a gem of a thing," the barista agrees with a little laugh. "The bridle though. Wow."

Thoughtful as she makes her way over to the triad of chairs, it takes Della briefly departing inwards for Ariadne to come up out of her brief introspection. She glances at Sam and then shrugs; he lifts ears back before looking to the back door. What is the new human doing? "Here, let's have a seat, good boy. She's probably figuring out the lemonade. None for you though, it'd be too tart. You wouldn't like it," she assures the dog after she's sat down. Sam takes up a sentinel-sit between her knees and leans back. Human, use your hands for slow cheek scritchies.

"Absolutely, that bowl for Sam, and thank you," she tells Della warmly upon the woman's return. Sam leans out with his long nose, this twitching away towards Della's hands and the water bowl both; he still remains sitting. "I've got my fingers crossed they all made it out alight. It would...honestly suck quite a bit if it turned out we replaced one head only to have that thing go rampaging. A well-meaning evil done. But...the Dreams are like that sometimes, from what I can tell. Bastards." A beat. "Pardon my language."

"Happy to." Della crouches to set down the bowl where the dog might be able to reach it comfortably enough, but not so close that it seems likely to crowd him or get too much in Ariadne's space. Glancing upward, "Is it all right to let him sniff my hand? Any dos and don'ts?" precedes, "It would. And don't worry about it." The language. "We had one last night. They died anyway." And if closer inspection finds Della looking tired beneath her genuine pleasure at meeting, perhaps that's why.

"...oh."

One can see Ariadne wilt. It's not that she knew the townsfolk well in the Dream, it's the premise of the thing: loss and guilty extrapolation of potentially enabling it. She leans an elbow heavily on the chair in order to pinch the bridge of her nose. "Well...fuck," she mutters to no one in particular. "Oh, god, right, um." Yanking herself out of an impending brood-fest as she sits upright in the chair again, face visible, the redhead explains, "Sam's CGC-trained with ribbons in luring coursing, he won't mind you at all. If you offer your knuckles out, he'll sniff and maybe lick them and leave you alone. He's a sighthound, not a lab. Yakety Sax doesn't play in his head when he meets anyone. It's not how his brain works. The breed tends to be reserved."

Sam continues leaning out and sniffing without pulling on the leash and slip-collar he wears. It's almost deer-like, the brown of his eyes and the delicacy with which he does all of this, those triangle-flop ears lifted in easily-communicated curiosity.

"Yes, pretty much that," Della murmurs, her mouth compressing. She doesn't look away until suiting her actions to her guest's words, offering Sam her left hand's knuckles. Look at you. Aren't you beautiful. Those eyes, those expressive ears; she's charmed. "What's CGC?"

There be knuckles on offer. Samwise leans out more until he can start sniffling over them; little pufflets of breath in quick pattern break over Della's knuckles as he goes. His short whiskers might tickle, more prickly than a cat's whiskers in turn. He looks from her knuckles to her face as he does so, head slightly tilted and doe-brown eyes interested. A head-tilt back the other way and he licks Della's knuckles with a little blep of pink tongue. It comes back to her, pleasant if reserved indeed, the sense of greeting.

"The CGC is..."

Just for a second, there was a wave of...something? A foreign emotion washing past her like a breeze. It was sweet, warm...fuzzy? The warm fuzzies?

Unable to figure out where it had come from, Ariadne blinks and continues instead, "Canine Good Citizen. It's basically a formal exam for 'can your dog be A Good Dog' in public. An AKC title pretty critical if you want to do any serious sports or therapy or service work with the dogs. Sam does lure coursing. He's a sighthound, it comes naturally to him. He did a little bit of therapy work too, but he's also just a little too busy for it."

Those pufflets. Della doesn't actually make a pleased noise, does she? Well, maybe a murmured what-a-good-dog, good-dog, barely-breathed. Maybe she shouldn't meet Sam's eyes, or maybe that's just not an ordinary dog's, but she doesn't know better; she does look, and receives that look and lick in turn, and warm-fuzzies back. And she stands.

Making a show of dipping a paper towel in the still-clean bowl, she wipes that hand before starting to handle the drink-makings; "Busy in the sense of busy-minded, or you all have too many things to do? I don't know enough about lure coursing, but that CGC sounds like the sort of training I'd wish any dog would have." Della adds, "This is assemble-your-own. Ice, no ice, sparkling water, still water, lemon syrup -- it's sweet, but real lemon -- and fresh lemon in the proportions you like. Have at," before taking her own glass to her seat. "And what about you, any Dreams since then?" Teasing, "Any dresses like Ava's since ever?"

Della's first question makes the dog owner laugh quietly. "Busy-minded, though you're not wrong. We've been a little too busy lately for much of anything except runs and lessons around the apartment -- right, bubby?" Samwise, watching Della, breaks from doing this to throw back his head in a ridiculous twist of neck-spine. His ears invert-perk. Yes, owner? It nets him a fond giggle and some jaw scritchies -- yes, please, more of this. "And yeah, I wish the CGC was required for dog ownership in general. It stems a lot of problems really early on with troubled dogs."

She listens to lemonade instructions and smiles despite herself. "Oh, well, cool. I've never made my own lemonade with stuff like this. If you have any suggestions, please share them." Sam is left to sit while she reaches around him, space-taking furry dork that he is, to see about firstly the fizzy water. Della gets a crooked grin at the mention of the Dreams and their contents. The gloom of earlier seems to have been set aside for the moment and company. "No Dreams since then...knock on wood. That was a helluva dress though, wasn't it. Gravity-defying. I'm not sure I'd ever be brave enough to wear something like that without some serious fashion tape going on. I have worn a dress in a Dream before, yes, it was very...Casino Royale? If you've seen the 007 film? It was an off-the-shoulder number, merlot red, appropriate for the casino if I'd wanted to vamp somebody up for their money," the barista explains oh-so-drolly.

That neck-twist. Della doesn't even try to conceal her fascination as she sits back. "Almost like an owl," she imagines, twisting her own head back and forth but not nearly as far; her nod for stemming problems is much more somber.

But as Ariadne continues, Della knocks on air, conjuring back an increasingly teasing smile of her own. "Were you in a casino? Tell you what: you can have Bond, and I'll dibs playing Q."

As for suggestions, "Just what you'd imagine: try 'to taste' in small amounts, figure what you like, expand from there. Mine was..." she gestures: about this far with the sparkling water, that much with the syrup, plus the wedge of lemon squeezed and then dropped into the mix. Plus stirring: that's the rest of what that knife is for. "Also, Una's got mint over there, and lemon balm, if you like that sort of thing."

Ariadne follows the directive words to glance at the pots containing the plants in question. "Ooh. I can see the mint muddled up in it, maybe...we'll see what madness I concoct here," she decides, giving Della another quick grin. Looks like it's going to be sparkling water, yea-much syrup, a lemon wedge, and yet another considering look at the mint plant in particular. A squint. Undecided thus far.

"You know, I've made lemonade with limoncello liquor before and muddled basil in it for excellent results. One of my mother's recipes," she notes. Ultimately passing on the mint leaves, she then takes up a utensil for stirring. "And I mean, I wouldn't be a half-bad Bond, but that's my pride talking -- unless you meant have Bond, in which case, yes. Tuxedos are delightful things as are accents. But now, Q...? I'm intrigued. People rarely claim that they want to be the one fussing with the gadgetry and grumping at Bond when he comes back with yet another wrecked widget. I was in a casino though, an honest-to-god casino -- the one out here, actually, on the island."

She settles into her chair again, dedicating one hand to squishing up Sam's head (much to his obvious appreciation). "Sam ended up being my tiger on a gold leash in it," Ariadne adds with a shrugged grin.

"That's tasty too," Della agrees with real enthusiasm. Beat. "And there's always parsley," that last completely deadpan before her smile unveils itself again. "More seriously, have you also tried rosemary, or lemon thyme? Wish I had Una's green thumb... but it would probably at least help if if I got out and worked."

"As for Bond..." Della's is an open, inviting shrug. "Whatever floats your speedboat, right?" Her eyes are laughing all over again. "I don't see why they wouldn't have fun coming up with the toys. Better if their tester would behave, but what can you do. So what else happened? Other than with your tiger," your good, good tiger, yus.

A snort-laugh. Ariadne catches the lyrical reference and lifts her drink to it. "I don't have Una's green thumb either, so we can be jealous together."

Yet another little laugh. Speedboat. "Ahoy-hoy," she agrees, her own eyes holding an echo of her smile. She sips at her lemonade and finds it to her liking with a squeeze of the wedge of lemon. Squish. Back the half-crumpled slice goes, disappearing beneath the float of ice itself, and another sip deems it quite good indeed. "If I were Q? Somebody else could test the toys and then Bond could have them. Seriously. But what else happened?" Samwise gets another round of head-squishing, this time with light short if manicured fingernails, and he melts a little in his slouch against his human's shins. "Sam here ended up being a point of love and contention both -- because he's such a handsome boy, yes he is." Yes, brief baby talking, check. Dog tail wags against the grass, thump-thump. "I guess someone else was bummed they couldn't trot their leopard out. I think we were there to stop an assassination...or a theft. I honestly couldn't tell which. It was me, Ravn, Una, and Dita -- Perdita Leontes, if you know her? God, Dita looked like a centerfold as a countess and Una was a popstar. Went by 'Una', like Sting." The barista grins. "Ravn? In a tux, of course, looking like a million dollars. Just..." Lip fret. "Man can wear a tux."

Ahem. "Anyways." Sobriety takes over. "Somebody was shot, yeah, so...I don't think we stopped the assassination attempt, but the theft? Yeah. We stopped that. Dita literally brought down a chandelier and then Sam was roaring and I woke up in bed in a cold sweat."

"There's lab-testing and then there's actual user in the wilderness testing," Della points out with a suddenly-gleaming grin. "Bond's a walking, talking edge case if ever I saw one." But then Ariadne would have to get back to talking about Samwise, not to mention making with the pettings, which makes her own gaze soften, lingering.

Given the question about Perdita, though, the dark-haired woman does reply: "I've heard of her. I don't think I've talked to her in person, mind. You all get chandeliers and glam, we got to be maids-of-all-work." Which would explain Della's own nails, unusually short and shorter despite their otherwise immaculate this-morning, get-back-to-herself polish. "Countess Dita! Popstar Una! Did you and Ravn have roles like that?" And since the redhead's mentioned the tux, Della adds with such faux innocence, "I even hear he has an accent, too."

Ariadne seems to recognize the importance of what she's gone and said. Cue faint pinking at her cheeks in the midst of her faux innocence in return.

"Ah...hah-hah, yyyessss, he happens to have an accent. Crazy how that works, huh." There's a shrugged tilt of her lemonade which makes the ice cubes chime in the cup and thankfully doesn't spill any of the drink within. Samwise just happens to tilt his head in the other direction at Della in the process. She's still being observed, though it's with true canine nonchalance; nothing nefarious lurks behind the dog's eyes. "I, uh...never figured out what I was doing there, honestly. All I had was my dress, my lipstick, and Sam, and I never figured out the lipstick. Ravn was a Count, yes. But, wait." Her eyes shift from Della's hands to her face again. A short squint, curiosity rearing its head. "Maids-of-all-work?"

Blushes are delightful, when they're other people's. Still, Della doesn't appear to make much of it, trialing a sip of her own with aplomb. Aww, dog! "And you're positive that your lipstick wasn't a secret spy camera or weapon or the like? That doesn't sound very Bond-ian. Bond-y, Bond-ish, whatever... You should at least have gotten to draw messages in code."

As for the latter question, Della even holds out her near hand so Ariadne can see the un-matching nails, the chafing, even a blister or few. "Do you know the Alfred Noyes poem? Not to be confused with Alfred E. Neuman. It turns out that the innkeeper's daughter's father needs maids to clean the place, so that's what we did. At least, when he was looking."

Leaning in, the barista marks the nails and the...ow, geez, the blister or few. A sympathetic wince as she then settles back into her chair again, sipping at her lemonade. "Alfred Noyes..." One can see the gears turning behind Ariadne's darkly-lashed golden-hazel eyes. "Innkeeper's daughter's father. Cleaning an inn? An inn." And a beat. "About the lipstick, while I think: I'm...somewhat certain the lipstick was a weapon? Didn't kiss anyone, so we never found out." Ariadne lifts a shoulder like, whatcha gonna do?

But then it clicks.

"...Bess, the landlord's daughter, plaiting a dark-red love-knot into her long black hair...?" She speaks the first half of the line normally, but then slips into something just shy of singing for the second half. Her brows lift in wonder. "Holy shit, the Highwayman. You and Una got sucked into a Dream about that?"

There are more on Della's other hand, but while she's not hiding the evidence, she isn't showing it off either. "That's disappointing," she says first. The lack of kissing? No; "A little knife or missile-thrower would have been much more entertaining," but she shrugs, too.

"Exactly that. First Jabberwocky, then the Highwayman. We thought, well, we hoped we'd fixed it... but back to the 'she died, he died, everybody died.' Have you ever gone back to the same dream, to give it another go?" Della's been curling and uncurling her toes in her sandals -- the pedicure coordinates -- and now toes them off to do the same in the grass.

Yet again, a soft iteration of earlier's sentiment of, "Holy shit." The Jabberwocky and then The Highwayman. Ariadne is no Lib-Arts major, but she can recognize a pattern as quick as anybody else -- poems.

"I haven't ever had a repeat Dream, no, but I also haven't been in many of them to start with." Her brows quirk again in empathy. "As we'd say in my field, the testing group is too small to draw conclusions yet. That...god, who would know that answer. Somebody who's been here a long time. I mean." A little eyeroll at herself and faint chuckle. "Ravn, of course, but maybe someone other than him. Itzhak. Rosencrantz. Itzhak Rosencrantz," she strings together for a full name. "He's been here longer than Ravn, I think. I've been told to ask him a few things too about what I've experienced around here."

Della doesn't resist a slow smile for the testing group; but, "Of course. Do you happen to have his number, would he take your text? I've been referred that way too, but," again she shrugs. And drinks, quite as though it were a 'drink every time someone verbs' reference, or possibly a bingo card. While she's at it, she dips her fingertips in to grab that lemon and squeeze it just a little more. Briefly, "Not many Dreams for me either, I was going to say, until these last two."

"I'd be asking Ravn for that number. I don't believe I have it. I mean...clearly, I need to do the same thing, ask Ravn for it." Ice cubes clink as she sips at her lemonade again. Her hand is busily scratching under Sam's collar at this point, near the nape of his neck; he looks dozily content for it. "I've been lucky enough to run into Itzhak of my own accord so far."

Comfortable in the lawn chair, Ariadne stretches out one sneakered shoe a little farther from the furniture itself. A little sigh and shake of her head before she murmurs, "I'll never get used to the Dreams. I've probably cursed it now, saying I haven't been in too many, just from what you've said." Della receives a rueful half-smirk.

Della sits up enough to eye the yard next door, as though Ravn would appear during broad daylight. "What's he like, Itzhak?"

But then she's looking back... and then sliding a half-smirk right back to Ariadne, naturally not the same half-smirk but perhaps its complement. "Maybe. It's harder to worry on a day like today," this lovely summer's day.

"It's true." This admission comes after one of those lingering scans of the back yard itself which certainly gravitates inevitably towards the fairy ring. Ariadne still gives the direction almost a warning look before she sighs. "Harder to worry." Harder to stay cool too, what with the warped atmosphere of the back yard mimicking true summer. Her lemonade is set upon the middle makeshift chair-table briefly in order for her to shrug out the windbreaker. Beneath, a matte-crimson t-shirt sporting white cursive font stacked centrally down the center-front: You had me at WOOF. The windbreaker gets slung over her lawn-chair's arm.

Lemonade collected up, she leans back once more. Sam gets to sniffing at the air idly; something interesting is nearby, though what, he hasn't identified yet. "Itzhak. Hmm. Ah, easy, one word: attitude." Her grin contains fond elements. "I most recently saw him in the park when I was jogging. He was keeping an eye on one of his neighbor's kids...I think it was? Hunter's the kid's name. I can't remember precisely who he belongs to, but he's unrelated to Itzhak. Itzhak is tall though, good lord, like...what, six-three or something. Dark hair, big nose, apparently plays the violin. He's got wisdom if you don't mind some rough edges."

The t-shirt gets a glance, a chuckle; Della takes the opportunity to add more sparkling water, and another squeezed-in lemon wedge, to her own glass. "Plenty of tall sorts around here," she says. "Helping out the neighbor, now, good for him. I'm fine with rough edges, better than fine with learning, so long as they don't go too far down the mansplaining road; at that point, it's 'give me the slides and go home.'" Glancing at Sam, she wiggles her toes more deliberately; "Would he like to be petted?" That's 'beautiful dog' tone, not 'nosy man.' "And if he's Samwise, who are you?"

Tilt of a deeply-auburn haired head back and forth, hmm-hmm. "Don't think I've ever seen him mansplain. I get the impression he's allergic to that kind of thing anyways and thank god for it. Sometimes, you just get a sense for people. I'd hate to be wrong, but you tell me if I'm wrong."

Ariadne glances down and beyond the rim of her glass as she sips. "Oh, yeah, Sam wouldn't mind it at all. He prefers his chest being gently scritched more than anything else. If you do it long enough, he'll get sleepy." Samwise seems to eye his owner somehow as he turns his head to look down the yard, but he doesn't do anything to dissuade the opinion or the potential for scritchies. "And..."

Resting her elbow on the arm of the chair, the barista considers her dog while she seems to want to rest teeth in a knuckle; not just there yet, the digit rests against her mouth. "Honestly, probably either Pippin or Merry. A well-meaning troublemaker at heart." Della is glanced up at and then grinned at. "I'm not angsty enough to be Frodo, not wise enough to be Gandalf, not noble enough to be Aragorn... Maybe Faramir, but I'd still have to be more brooding."

"Glad to hear it. Glad to hear whatever it is, mind, but especially that." Della's relaxed about it, but still: this is a person for whom character references matter.

She considers, then, and temporarily sets down her glass in favor of slouching down off her chair to sit on the grass. It's plush grass, grass that's green as grass ever was, but she doesn't seem to be bothered for her skirt; sitting cross-legged, with the fabric tucked over her knees (but not those bare toes), she turns to Samwise, sidelong. "Hey," she says softly. Her near hand's right there, on her knee.

As though to the dog, in that same tone -- and a low laugh for the brooding -- "No preference between those two? I just want to get to ride Shadowfax." After a moment, still smiling low-lashed at Samwise, "It's good to have my normal voice back, though I still slip into that one once in a while. And the walk."

Sam observes with the same dignified curiosity as evinced thus far as Della rearranges herself. It's a thing of wonder, how openly expressive his face is, from those triangle-flop perked ears to the way his nose twitches. Once the woman is settled, he then leans over to start sniffing delicately at her elbow. Looks like it'll be down to the fingers first and then back up towards the shoulder. Ariadne keeps half an eye on him while she muses aloud.

"Now, I'm not going to disagree about Shadowfax at all, that horse was badass. But let's consider Thrandruil's mount, eh? That elk with the antlers. Like, how cool is that. Jelly." She has to laugh to herself. "If I absolutely had to pick between the two Hobbits, it would probably be Merry. I'm not quite as impulsive as Pippin. Some of the things he does, even I wouldn't do if I were suddenly dumped into that reality and had no idea how to tell between a short sword and a long-dagger. Merry, though...yeah. The enabler. The instigator and tag-a-long, heh. Your walk was impressive though. I like to think I'm pretty sharp of hearing, but you were just...really damn stealthy."

Samwise now leans in a bit to see about whiffle-sniffing in Della's ear. "Sam, bubby, gentle," his owner says softly. "Sorry, that's why he's not good as a therapy dog sometimes, he's too friendly. Personal space is sometimes difficult for him." The sighthound shuffles over in his sit and then sticks his head beneath Della's elbow with a lift of nose. Human. Hand. Pets.

It's a thing of wonder, and Della visibly wonders, her eyes limpid and warm. She straightens her arm, slowly, so he can sniff the crook of her elbow; there's no bracelet on this wrist, but the other bears a watch's metal. So long as he's delicate, he may sniff away... though she might squirm if it tickles.

All that makes it a little hard to focus on the rest, but... "The elk was pretty great," Della concedes. "Wouldn't want him running through the forest, but from what I remember, he took a lot of them out." She tilts her head back, back, so she can give Ariadne a smile. "It was Merry who took care of the ponies, who planned, didn't he? I'm afraid we've about reached my LotR lore. I," Della falls into a whisper, "fell asleep sometimes during the movies." Perhaps that tilt's what makes her ear so accessible, what in turn makes her laugh. "Oh, Sam. Oh, Samwise."

Yes, the dog gets pets. She savors the feel of his fur, of his attention-seeking, of his attention-getting. "Thanks. I wish I could do more of it. I can walk quietly enough not to clomp..." that ear, that doggy ear! "...but not like that. Have you gotten to learn anything, take it back? Even if you didn't get the hat."

"Merry did take care of the ponies, yes, along with Samwise. On behalf of Tolkien, I'm slightly offended that you weren't immediately enraptured by the films," Ariadne tells her hostess with a teasing laugh at the idea of falling asleep during the movies. She then shakes her head at the obvious demanding from the Windhound; he got his pets, he seems pleased with himself, all doe-eyes and long sighthound face and velvety-soft angled-flops of ears.

Movement in her peripheral makes the barista glance over from keeping watch over the dog. Ah, a Stellar's Jay, black beak and head blending through to a matte cobalt-blue in turn through the body and tail. It jeers at them from a pot before taking off again, probably annoyed at human beings near to a seed cache or the like.

"Have I gotten to learn anything..." Her musing murmur isn't too loud as her eyes rise, following the bird's departure up into the treeline near to the house. "Well. How to wield a bo staff, sure, though that wasn't the most pleasant of Dreams. I can't fly still, even if I was Osprey for a while, but...scars, yeah, I brought those back." Della is given a muted, knowing smile; the fingernails and blisters are proof enough of the physical baggage sometimes brought back. "Maybe next time I'll get a hat, you never know."

"Tolkien," Della teases right back, "or Peter Jackson?" Pause. "Imagine how different they'd be with Samuel L. Jackson." She ignores the jay; there are soft ears, after all. Soft ears! Her eyes are soft. What a good dog.

Following up, "How to wield it, the quote-unquote 'real' way?" she asks Samwise (and his ears). "Or just as a big stick? Maybe there's some way I can keep the quiet walk after all, though ideally not looking like I'm being sneaky... I'm sorry about the scars." Della rumples Sam's fur, so long as he seems good with that, part feeling whether the texture changes with the color and part just... feeling. "Osprey. It seems like such a long time since that Dream. Who'd have thought."

"Right? Time flies and yet, it doesn't." Another squish of her half-dented lemon wedge seems best; Ariadne does this while Samwise collects his dues. He is a good boy, he deserves all the pets (in his biased opinions). Fur rumpling doesn't seem terrible. His fur seems to be softer up around his head and neck; otherwise, the feeling of a 'rain coat' of thicker, more water-proof fur seems to start at his nape and go down his body centrally along his spine.

"And I wouldn't assume that particular Dream...or Dream set is down for the count. More than once, we got sucked into it. There's something...maybe something that needs to be resolved there...?" the barista questions. Her outstretched foot idly twitches back and forth on the green grass, balanced up on its heel. "I'm going to assume the Dream with the bo staff is -- and I'm sure as hell not going to claim that I know the real way to use a staff. Maybe just a few more moves than somebody off the street. I'll stick with what I know from kick-boxing first and foremost."

A nonchalant shrug lifts a shoulder. "I don't mind scars though...not in the long run, after they're healed, because that's the point. Something tried to take me out and I won. They're markers of survival. Badass, in a way."

"'Time flies like an osprey'? Better than a banana." Della considers the 'rain coat' with her fingers, but winds up going back to Sam's chin, his chest that his Ariadne had mentioned earlier. That leads into, "Osprey's dream, you mean? For getting sucked into it more than once?"

"And as for those staff moves..." It's not the woman's customary quick grin, but something a little dreamier-lowercase-d. Good dog. "Fair enough. Ditto scars... Kick-boxing, though, that's great! Which reminds me: heard you're a lock-picking apprentice? What do you think of it? Also heard there might be group lessons, barbecue, tightrope walkers for all I know."

"Right, yeah, the Dream where I was Osprey. I'm assuming we can return to them based off of this. Watch me be wrong though." Again, she shrugs. About a third of her lemonade has disappeared at this point though frugal sips. In no hurry, Ariadne, to finish the drink or leave this balmy backyard. It's delightful. Samwise apparently feels the same about the fact of his chest being scratched; he blinks slowly, dozily more yet. Good human.

Della snares her semi-wandering attention quickly enough. The barista had been considering the flock of chickadees working its way through the nearby bushes with soft 'bee-bees' and chitters. "I am in fact a lock-picking apprentice, it's true," she reveals with a soft laugh. "Ravn's a good teacher -- and group lessons can easily be a thing, I'm sure. It's part of helping me figure out what I can do as far as what...abilities? Powers. Shine. Whatever it's called, the things I can do. I told him about knocking over a case of colored pencils when I was younger and not knowing why it happened. He recognized it as my being able to...move things with my mind. I had to overcome my disbelief, we'll put it that way. Did you want to learn to pick locks? You talked to him about it?"

"Mmm." Della, speculative. She hasn't refilled her own glass, but then she's seated on the ground with the dog; it's not as though there aren't plenty of supplies to do it with. And she surely would follow up further, but --

"Excellent. Yes, we talked; I got the impression we might have the whole block before we're done. Possibly a whole 'Things Useful in Dreams, and Also Kind of Fun in This Life' curriculum. Certainly he's good at, hm, normalizing things happening... but you, 'younger.' As in, a little kid who doesn't know her own mental strength? Tormented adolescent escaping a love triangle?"

Ariadne flashes a droll grin. "No, not a love triangle. I wouldn't count screaming at my little sister while we were both teenagers as a love triangle. She's about five years younger than me, so that age gap made teenagerdom a little tumultuous, to say the least." Another tilting of her drink makes the ice cubes swirl about atop the lemonade and the lemon slice fruit-shards swirl below. "I had no idea what it was when the colored pencils box jumped off the desk. Like...nothing near it, nothing around it, no wind, nothing, Della. My sister and I just stopped yelling and stared at one another and never brought it up again."

She sips at the lemonade once more. "I mean...I brought it up in front of Ravn and like I said, he recognized it for what it was. He just had to convince me that rocks could move first. I'm behind this idea of teaching things that would be useful in Dreams though."

And, looking quite pleased and cheeky with herself, the barista reaches up to pull out and display a single bobby pin from the thick hair at the nape of her neck. "Prepared."

"I can imagine," Della murmurs -- and then, after doing the math, mischief glints in her dark eyes. More important in the moment, though: "Do you happen to know if it runs in families? Your sister, my sisters." While she's at it, "And do these powers always work? Barring just goofing up like with anything else."

Then, then she can gaze upon Ariadne's implement with the solemnity it deserves. If she and Ariadne and Ava had shared a different Dream... but as it is, "All hail the Dread Bobby Pin, Holder of Hair, Opener of Locks."

It seems Ariadne catches on to the undercurrent of dry amusement beneath the solemnity. Her grin, dimpled to one side, doesn't fade as she attempts to broadcast more humility and fails.

"Hey, it's not a kazoo, but it'll do." Twitch-twitch, back and forth, the bobby pin is shifted in her pinch-grip, and then slid away back into her hair once more, perfectly hidden. "I don't know if it runs in families though. I haven't figured out if my sister ever did anything or my parents. I don't know a ton about my mom's side of the family though, so...maybe it comes from there. My mom was born in Budapest and raised there," the barista reveals. No doubt, this is the reason for the faintest Hungarian accent beneath her otherwise American lilt. "But I've never met my grandparents on my mother's side, or any of her aunts and uncles. They're all over in Europe still." She shrugs; this is an accepted fact, even if the distance and unknown saddens her at heart.

But there was another question. "My powers work most of the time, yes...? But I think...in my case, it's a thing like... They work when I believe they can work. I think my hiccups are because I'm a science major and the laws of nature are laws for a reason. Rocks moving by themselves? No -- until yes, they can, and I can do it."

Della says not word one about the kazoo: no tempting fate one way or another, not about that. No, she just listens, periodically nodding with interest, though mostly she's looking down at Sam for her neck's sake. Budapest, though, that's the exception.

As for the rest... "Science major, represent," says she, raising her free hand. "Worst comes to worst, call them psionics. Or -- actually, Ariadne, maybe that's what I need to do: start quoting The Little Engine That Could." It makes her smile, though the smile soon fades.

"If you don't mind my asking, is your mother still around, to ask whatever you might want to? It sounds hard for her, growing up behind the Iron Curtain... unless she's younger than that, just in its shadow?"

"Hey, science major, represent." Ariadne's quick to shoot her hostess a grin. "And I'm down with psionics. Very X-Men." A nod of approval to echo the opinion on matters. Her free hand shrugs in a spread off to one side of the chair's arm: might as well quote that particular book, because really, why not?

Her own smiles softens too, though it doesn't disappear entirely. "My mom's around for me to ask, yeah, it's...you know how you get older and you realize that your parents haven't told you things? And you realize that you've asked before when you were far younger or maybe just...not thinking and they haven't totally answered? My mom got out from its shadow in the late eighties. She made it to America and then met my dad. I guess I don't ask in the same way I wouldn't ask my Army friend out in Montana about his tours. It's not my business, not stuff like that. But..." she sighs, looking down at her lemonade for a second. "You never know. I might get more pushy since the...psionics and the other powers cropped up." Her smile returns in passing, grateful at Della for the offered term.

As engrossed as she also is in Sam-tending, partway along, Della swivels so she isn't leaning back against her chair any longer; it's easier to look up at Ariadne, now, at Ariadne's expression. "The way you put it... yes, it is like that," she says finally. "I'd supposed part of it is that, well, my older sisters are quite a bit older than Sofia and me; but that's not all. Maybe she will want to talk now. Or even -- it's your family too, you know? Maybe you will make it over to Europe one day, if that's what you want to do."

"Not going to lie, I do want to make it over to Europe, but right now? I'm a barista in Grey Harbor. I'm too proud to ask my family for money for something like that, not when I can take my time and save up," Ariadne explains. "I've got my apartment all figured out now. It's time to exist for a while and accrue paychecks over time. I can see about talking to my mom too, if I get up the gumption to get nosy."

Della still gets a small smile. "You can ask your sisters too. If they tell you it runs in the family, tell me too? It'll give me more information to talk to my mom about. But you're asking because you can do some things too, yeah?"

Della's nodding. "Stable on your own, that's a big step. My sisters, though..." she pulls a face, and pets Sam some more, stealing fingertips beneath the edge of his sweater to smooth out any rumpled, pressed-down fur. "I'd rather not. They're busy being perfect." And then she pulls another face, skewed the opposite direction, because, "Well, not quite. But more or less."

"As for me? I've been bitten by a letter, kicked by a ribbon -- those were psychometry, apparently, though the second one was in a Dream and I don't know how much that counts, and it's not as though there was a control -- and I yelled at goat-creatures in our Dream to get moving. Which they may have done out of sheer fright because of the scary voice? I don't know."

"How about you, though? I remember that contact lens bubble you did, though not exactly details. It happened so fast." There was so much.

Sam seems appreciative of how his fur is brushed back into place; Della gets a little lick of the back of her hand before he returns to watching the yard nonchalantly. Humans gonna talk.

Ariadne watches this and smiles a rueful little smile to herself. The perfect child. How well she knows that half of the sibling equation. Della is the younger sister indeed; empathy flashes through the redhead's expression before she sips her lemonade, listening to the experiences had by her hostess in turn. Her brows meet mildly. "Yeah, the bubble. I haven't asked Ravn about that one yet. He may not know, but like you said, he's good at explaining the weird down to normalcy, so I figure I'd start with him. I think it was like your stuff, how you've just done it and not framed it in any point of reference. Psionics, right? Frame of reference. Maybe if you decide how you want to file it away, it'll help you focus it? It becomes...substantial, not just an idea or something which only happened in a Dream."

Della's good with that little lick, even pleased, the way she wouldn't be with a tsunami of them; she reaches for her own glass with her free hand and drinks in turn. "Do you have any idea what the bubble was doing, exactly? Are we talking force field? Making us invisible? A really huge guardian fingernail? And what were you trying to do?"

She adds more slowly, "Frame of reference makes sense. For what it's worth... I don't have a problem believing that it happened; I just need to not forget the variables. It's been useful to think back to various speculative fiction books I'd read, especially as a kid, to look for ways to think about it all. Of course, I don't want to give myself the idea that, say, garlic would stop me from performing my magic if it doesn't have to." Della as vampire: who'd have thought? Then again, she does favor lipstick that's saturated red.

"Goodness, I might have to razz both you and Ravn about garlic if that's the case. He's just shy of looking the part of a vampire from Forks and here you are using the spice as an example," Ariadne funs good-naturedly. "Also, you can tell him I said that so you can watch him splutter. It'll be amusing, I promise."

More seriously, she adds, "I think it was a force field, yes, because I wanted everything to stop before it got to us. A shield, maybe? I don't think we were invisible, the Jabberwork seems to know where we were. It didn't react like we'd suddenly vanished. If it was a shield? I mean. That's cool as hell, right? And nifty. Imagine if...if I could influence the...constitution of the shield. What it blocked and what it didn't." She looks so thoughtful now.

"I'll keep that in mind," Della teases back. "Right before I eat garlic right in front of you." She waggles her brows: "Raw."

After that, after listening, it's her turn to suggest: "Block the rain out like an umbrella, but still let in the honk that keeps us from getting run over," never mind blocking the car out. "Lots of good things with shields. Shield yourself when you're about to do a faceplant. Shield yourself some air kept on the inside when you're swimming... Figure out whether it takes the same amount of oomph to block any old thing, or really big versus little tiny things, or what?" Pause. "Could you shield your knee from an ice cube melting on it? Just to see."

Raw garlic! "Uggggh-bluh-guh!" Most of her amusement hides in her lemonade glass.

Ariadne then tilts her head back and forth consideringly. "All of those are amazing options and god...so many things related to them, right? The only limit is imagination itself if this can be applied to the concept of shielding. I think we should try this though, for science. Yes, let's see if I can keep an ice cube from melting on my knee."

Sam glances over at his owner as she sets aside the glass in order to reach for one of the cubes collected in a container on the tray. Plucking up a square, she then sighs and frowns at her own knee. The ice cube is cold when it hovers barely above her jeans. Is it like speaking via her mind? Or moving things? Not move, but...shield?

It's there, brittle and barely anything more than a pane of frost on a window, but the ice cube seems to be resting now sans Ariadne's grip above her jeans.

It makes Della laugh, dark lashes fanning, before she gets back to the real challenge. She watches, just as silently as she can so as to keep from interrupting Ariadne's focus before -- "Look at that." Which moves right into, "Want to compare how that feels -- 'shielding' -- to when you think of what you're doing as 'holding' it just above your knee? Or," after a speculative glance at said knee, "compared to how it feels if you 'shield' it from bare skin, like your hand? Or maybe just a shield-bubble around it to keep out the warmth so it never melts."

"Sorry, boyo," and she ruffles Sam's chest fur one more time, "Back soon." She needs both hands. She has to get out her phone. She has to take notes.

Alas: no more chest pets for the near future. Sam lifts his ears and watches Della retrieve what she needs, which appears to be one of the square thin boxes his own human uses all of the time. Weird humans, weird. He takes the time to stand and then drop his head to lap up a good portion of the water offered to him a while back.

Distracted enough, the 'shield' collapses into gossamer nothingness and Ariadne makes a soft sound of surprise -- boop, there goes ice cube, bouncing off of her knee. She leans in the chair to pick it up and hold it again between thumb and forefinger. "Yeah, let's figure out those things. I think maybe the bare skin, like my palm. That'll tell me if it has substance to start with, in the sense of blocking things like temperature, and if it doesn't? I can try to play around with blocking temperature. Or other things." Does the barista look a little giddy-excited? She do. Science.

"Okay, bare hand. Uh." It takes a moment for Ariadne to decide, but then she's holding up her other palm. It looks like an attempt to rest the ice cube on the shield above the left palm. A squint and she sighs, lips wrinkling up a bit. Shield. It's again nebulous, more a concentrated line of desert mirage unless looked upon from above, but she's able to set the ice cube atop it and thus the ice cube sits. "Huh."

Tap tap tappity, catching up -- along the way, Della glances after Sam and the water, pleased -- and tap tap some more, caught up. "Perfect. All the things." Then --

"Well? How's it feel?" She tries not to put too many question marks into it, too many exclamation points, but -- but --

"So..."

Trust a fellow science major to hedge on describing what's happening because where to start?

"...I'm assuming this is all from my brain. Like, my personal interpretation of what's going on. I have no idea how verifiable it is at all due to this because...well...rocks weren't supposed to move and now they move." A short sigh and Ariadne tilts her head slightly, as if she might get a different viewpoint. The ice cube scoots on the surface slightly and she holds her breath for a second as her concentration wavers. Shield stay. Amusement bubbles in her mind: apparently, yelling at her constructs like the Hulk is how it's going to go.

"Okay. The...shield itself appears to be solid enough. There's no damp, but there is a little cold leaking through. I can...sense...? I'm going to use 'sense', like you'd feel sunlight on your skin. -- sense where the shield is above my hand. It's not static, it's not heat, it's...sort of like knowing where your ear is on your head even though you can't see it. I can feel the cold leaking down from the ice cube, but only a little." Now it appears that the melting of the cube is puddling atop the shield construct. "So right now, it's not blocking temperature, but the moisture isn't seeping through yet. I can...sense the weight of the ice cube."

A glance over at Della, she taking notes on her phone.

"Right, right, and your doing one might affect the next one, it's not as though you're a machine."

Della, so many notes: not just summaries of what her compatriot says but, in rough form, her expressions. She's leaning forward, too, with the intent to take a picture here and there. Distractedly, "Proprioception."

"I can see it melting a little. Do you feel like it's getting more difficult at all because of form factor, not just duration?"

"Maybe? I can't tell really well yet." Ariadne's squint at the shield narrows more. "If it's getting difficult, it's like holding your arm out horizontal. I think I can keep doing it, but not forever. It's going to get shaky soon."

Water melting around the ice cube's base already minutely shifts about to echo her very sentiments on matters. "But I wonder..."Shield thicker -- and immediately, there's a marked decrease in her ability to feel the cold seeping down to her palm. "Oh." A little sound of surprise and skip of her own heart. "I told it to be thicker and I think it did it. I think. I didn't say to block temperature."

Samwise lifts his head from drinking to turn and look in interest at the ice cube. Ice cube?

Tap tap tap, complete with occasional timestamps, though Della barely looks at her phone; her attention is on Ariadne and the ice cube. "So thicker could just mean spatially, or it might have meant more encompassing," this while she cranes to try and look for a change in distance, a change in anything.

"I wonder if you could shield an ice cube on my hand, or shield my hand from it... Stop when you feel the shakes?"

How hard Samwise eyes the ice cube. So hard. Like it was suddenly raring to tempt him by growing legs and running off. But -- this time, the sighthound simply flops down into the grass next to Ariadne's chair to watch, brown eyes alert and ears lifted. This Shine is something he can see in action clear as day. It's still weird to him.

"Yeah, I should take a breather." Shield vanish. The ice cube drops down to her palm and she instinctively twitches in surprise, if only because it's no longer floating. Fingers close around it before she relaxes them and laughs. "I think it might have been more encompassing, the concept of 'thicker', but at the same time, we're missing a lot of ways to measure various things here. Mad science!" laughs the barista. "But let's try it. You grab your own ice cube. We'll see if the distance from me in this reality is harder for any reason."

The ice cube is spared! Spared from a quick death by crunching jaws! Now it just gets to melt.

Della laughs -- that twitch! -- right before Ariadne does, and then she's nodding in response to the redhead's summation. "We're just starting out," she says, and shifts position so that, while she's still sitting on the ground, she can stretch out her legs and wiggle her toes through the grass. Maybe towards Samwise's toes. Just a little.

After that, and after claiming a last sip before she sets her glass down, Della intones in a lower and far less fluid version of her usual contralto, "And now... the subject ladles a single, fresh piece of ice out of the bowl. Said ice appears to be roughly a full cube, with a small corner knocked off but otherwise intact. The subject sets down her phone," in her lap, "and then rests her hand palm-up upon the chair. The subject tips! the ice cube into! her palm. The experiment begins!"

Wiggle wiggle.

Give Ariadne a minute, she's busy chuckling at the thespian elements of the pseudo-experiment. That there are too many unknown elements is pushed aside for the sake of simple trying in turn. Fine details are for the birds right now. That ice cube of hers?

-- makes it into the sighthound's water bowl anyways and why not? It's going to melt there and Samwise can play Bob for Ice Cubes, one of his favored summer games. The long and pointed nose gets to sniffing at the sudden interloper to his water.

"Okay, let's see...do I, like..." It feels silly to think aloud like this, especially since neither of them appear to be proficient at much of what they've recently learned and are learning. "Hmm. It's so out-there to think about adding a gesture to something like this, but it helps focus and god, all those years of running a Bard needing to gesture spells makes so much more sense now." The barista lifts her hand towards the ice cube on Della's palm and squints. Shie --

BOOP. The bumbliest, fuzziest of bumblebees then...well, bumbles right into the middle of their work. And off of Ariadne's cheek in the process. She yelps in surprise while the little winged insect falls to her lap and wiggles about before uprighting itself. Rubbing at her cheek, the barista looks down at the bug with a mild scowl. "Ouch. Excuse you," she tells the wee fuzzy thing. "Seriously, around my head. Gimme a second, I'll relocate it to the flowers," Della is informed while Ariadne borrows the sleeve of her coat in order to entice the confused bumblebee to climb up onto something.

Bob for Ice Cubes. That's going to go on Della's 'adorable!' list, just as soon as she notices. Because right now? Experiments. "That makes complete sense," Della agrees for the gesture spells, and then shuts herself right up because Ariadne's working, she's going to do it, she's...

Bee-BOOP. This garden just might get its own jazz band.

Once the redhead recovers composure, Della leaves off with the 'are you all right' and 'it didn't sting you, did it' dance, and while Ariadne's handling the relocation, she plops her no-longer-pristine ice cube back in Sam's bowl to go with the other one. "I'm hoping Oak is going to be helping the various bee populations all by ourselves. Meanwhile, though, gestures seem really smart, especially for learning, and easy -- easier to potentially move past from than a physical crutch like a matrix focus. Decades of speculative fiction can't be wrong, right?" For all her humor, that last gets a wry twist in her tone: SF has had, has, its own problems. "Also! Do you know of anything these glow powers can do to prevent hair dye fading? Yours is just beautiful. Or for nails, so manicures don't chip... though not so much that they can't be trimmed after. You know, the practical things." More wryness, but less twist.

Another ice cube! Samwise now gets to lazily bobbing for cubes indeed, the bowl nestled between his legs. He's in no terrible hurry about it and couldn't be anyways; his front teeth can't get a good grip on the floating cubes, which is half the challenge as it stands. Also, cold.

Bumblebee is deposited over in one of the many flowering bushes and seems much more oriented for it. Thus, Ariadne returns to her chair, brows lifted questioningly at Della in turn. "Oh." Reaching up, she touches at her dyed hair. "Um. I mean, you can preserve hair dye pretty well by washing a few degrees cooler than you might usually in the shower and using color-safe shampoos and conditioners. And really, my hair just holds dye well. Even my professional colorists in the past have told me this. My fingernails are just luck at this point. I'm due to break one of them at work on one of the machines," she notes drily, sounding rueful too. "So no, I unfortunately have no idea if these shiny powers can help with anything like general upkeep. I think that'd be way too useful. No way the Veil would let us do that." Little eyeroll as she sits again and finds her lemonade for a sip.

"Lucky," sighs Della of the Dream-worn-down Hands, wistful as can be, although now that her gaze has traveled back to Sam... she's smiling again, can't help it. But! Back to Ariadne of the Delightful Hair: "Better to break a nail than a finger, of course. But... but... speaking of useful: imagine having nice strong nails shaped like various devices at the ends of one's fingers, Swiss Army knife style. Although they'd probably catch on clothes and things, wouldn't they. Hmm."

"So the Veil won't let us have nice things? It's all still really new to me."

"I mean...those are ideas, nails shaped like that...but you're not wrong. They'd probably get caught all to hell on things." Another longer sip of her lemonade and the drink is set aside. "But it's all new to me too, it is, even if I talk a big game about it. I'm just extrapolating and really? I could be wrong. Maybe the Veil does let us have nice things and I'm not seeing it because my experience is so short-term. Maybe long-term? I'll spot the nice things."

Ariadne still smiles half-heartedly. "Not that I super fantastically want to deal with the Veil fuckery long-term, but...I mean... I'm here now to stay for at least a while and I'm nothing if pragmatic. Here, let's try the shield thing again with you holding the ice cube? Hopefully no bumblebee this time."

She glances around for rogue bumblebees nonetheless.

"Maybe," though Della isn't so certain, only wishful. "I'm all for extrapolating when we know that's what we're doing. The faerie circle has seemed great so far, for what it's worth; but maybe it's just bait for the trap, isn't that a cheerful thought. If the tools could be retracted, Wolverine-style without the pain... maybe, maybe."

As she's gathering the ice cube, "Why are you thinking you'll stay?" As explanation for more than just simple interest, "That's a question I'm struggling with too. ...Not as an everyday struggling, just, it keeps coming back." Palm out: she's ready.

"Oh, um. Well..." Ariadne ends up laughing softly at herself after a moment or two of obvious consideration. "I mean, I rented an apartment for a year, so pragmatically, that. I have a job here. Sam seems to like it. But also...the people. Ravn, Una, Dita, Jules, Ava, you...everyone I've met and will meet at the café while I work -- we all live here and we all are touched by the Veil weirdness. We're all drawn here for a reason, even if we're figuring out why. I've got family back in Seattle, sure, but you guy are all my family here. Or will be, I guess, given enough time. I dunno." She suddenly goes visibly sheepish as she realizes how she's waxed broad in her answer.

A little sigh. "I just feel like there's something more that I need to do here and I have to figure out what. Vague but true."

Then, shield. Suddenly, there's a minute layer of buffering between Della's palm and the ice cube. It's not as strong as before, thinner, but still present.

"Oh! I can feel it! Or, feel it less!" Impulsively, Della lifts her hand up to her mouth and blows on the ice cube: will it skid?

It's afterward that she adds, with a low laugh, "That is pragmatic of you. Mine," her lease, "isn't that long." Before she even gets to the people, all the people, "How can you tell that Sam likes it?" Which of course means looking over at the sighthound again, twist her arm, even if she daren't do it for long because ice.

Ariadne almost loses the thin shield to her own sparkling of intrigued delight, but it holds. Della's blowing on the ice cube? -- it moves slightly on the skim of its own meltwater in turn.

Sam, hearing his name, looks up from his game of attempting to pluck the ice cubes from his water. He lifts triangular ears and looks from Della to his owner in turn, inquisitive in his own canine way. Ariadne seems to smile to herself. "I've had Sam since he was about ten weeks old. Call it an owner's intuition." And if she gives Della one of those nearly secretive glances, it's there and gone again. "Instinct. And he only really likes it because I'm here, if we're being honest. If he had his way, he'd be off chasing squirrels and deer until his tongue hung so far out of his mouth, he'd never find it again."

She squints at the shield more narrowly now. It quivers. "Do you feel more or less cold now? I can see the water's not leaking through like last time."

"Ten weeks! And he's, what, a few years old?" is purely a guess. Della's dark eyes drink in those glances, canine's and owner's, but then she's laughing: never finding his tongue again, indeed. "It's hard to imagine him now, romping off like that."
She holds her palm further out to make Ariadne's perusal easier, too. "Mmm. More, I think, but that might be the increased surface area with the cold water, even if it isn't touching me directly. If we had power to waste, and if you could set your shield to keep going without your focus, imagine the possibilities for keeping a water bottle from leaking inside your bag." There's a slight pause. "Not that mine does particularly now that I've switched brands, but the last time was memorable."

And before they move too far past, "I appreciate what you said about people, too. Community. Having each other's backs, for as long as we're here, and all."

Her hazel eyes lift from considering the shield and its perched ice cube. Della gets a grin, albeit one indicating attention divided. "Ravn named his organization HOPE for a reason, even if it sounds a little cliché. If the Veil's going to fuck with us all? In my case, maybe it's spite...or helping protect everyone in this town, friends and the unknowing alike, but...power in numbers, right? And that means having each other's backs, like you said, even if all we can do is coexist in the same room politely. Turns out that something threatening humanity is a good way to get humanity to bond. Who would have known?"

A beat and she adds drily, "I mean, every comic book writer knows this." Her laugh is quiet. A glance over at Sam. "He's three now, give or take. A baby still around the edges. Aren't you, my good boy?" Sam lifts his head from attempting to eat ice cubes out of his water bowl. Me? Yes, me. I am a good boy. Yay. Tail swish-swish on the grass.

Her distraction means the dissolution of the shield after another second and suddenly? Ice cube falling.

He is a good boy, that's written all over Della's face. A good, good boy. And she catches the ice cube, afterwards slinging it easy and underhand towards the bowl again, as long as Sam's head is lifted. "Nice," she says for Ariadne's keeping it going as long as she did, but not just for that.

"Comic books, check. So, what, bonding over the greater Big Bad, only to be dramatically torn apart by shifting loyalties? Conflicting outfit color combos? Romance? Lust for power? ...Which admittedly seems harder in this small pond, when even the Bermuda Triangle gets more attention from the rest of the world."

Bloop. New ice cube in the bowl and Sam tilts his head down at it. Interloper! New mission: remove this and all the ice cubes from the water. It's quite amusing to him.

Della's dry commentary makes Ariadne put a hand over her mouth to stop from laughing loudly. It seems too interruptive to the general dozy comfort of the backyard otherwise. "Oh my god," she manages, giving her hostess a smirk. "We've got all that already here because we have humanity here. Like, seriously. Give me a week and I promise you, between my regulars and my coworkers? I've have an example for all of those."

"Deal," says Della, lifting her a lazy smile in return. "But only a week. After that," she waves her fingertips in the air, "something else happens, poof." Maybe a finger-snap should go there, but the dark-haired woman can't be bothered. "Do you want to try anything else, or are you tuckered out? There's more lemonade to be made if you want to put that ice to its original use."

While she's at it, "I'd forgotten how lovely it could be, petting a dog. They're happy to show they enjoy it."

"Deal." Maybe there's not a snap, but Ariadne nods. The café: never a dull place to be. What is a boring shift? "And...yeah, a break, I think. I have this feeling I'll get a nasty headache otherwise."

Attention returns to Samwise, he busily attempting to chew the interloper ice cubes from his bowl. He seems content to do this, not annoyed, given he's settled down with his hind legs off to one side. His owner smiles at him. "He's a sweetheart, yeah. I made sure when I was looking into his litter that his parents were certified therapy dogs as well; that they weren't bred for prettiness, but for personality." Her attention returns to Della and she asks curiously if still gently, "Did you have a bad experience with a dog then?"

"Follow your gut," Della agrees. "At least," this last more teasingly, "when we don't know enough to collect proper data."

For the rest, for that little snippet of the story of Sam, she rests her arm on the chair by which she's seated and rests her cheek on that. "His parents too. And here you got prettiness anyway. How did you get into it? The therapy idea."

All that lets her consider Ariadne, too. "For my part... not a bad experience, not beyond the neighbor dogs who'd sniff everything and bark at everything else; it's just, hmm." How much does she want to know? How much would Della like to share? "We always had cats. But I haven't had a pet for a few years now," is her initial foray.

Della is considered back in turn, though again with the reserved curiosity rather than anything outright. Sensing this could be a more fraught topic than hope (and HOPE) or the charming actions of Samwise still chasing ice cubes, she listens and then appears to weigh options.

"Well...therapy always appealed to me because dogs know. Or, most of them do, at least, about how to help people. Sometimes, it's just sitting next to them. Sometimes, being on their laps. Dogs were bred to be with humans. Why not take advantage of their innate nature while giving back at the same time?" She shrugs up a palm before rotating it back to rest down on her thigh. "That's why Sam tends to be calmer than maybe others of his breed. He was bred to be calm to start with. He's...sort of cat-like," she admits in lieu of Della's own revelation. "Are you thinking of getting another pet?" Innocent enough question.

Something of what Ariadne says brings out Della's smile all over again: not vivid this time, but quieter, even as she plays with the bit of all-too-green grass growing nearest one knee. "How does he get along with cats?" she wonders before adding, freely, "I've been thinking about it, depending on what the other two have to say. It's a big house. Not many bathrooms, though." A moment later, "For a litterbox, most likely."

"Fair. The cat would also like a room to itself, if you ended up getting one," Ariadne notes. "As for Sam? He's actually fine around them if about as awkward as a freshman at the senior prom. He wants very badly to play with them, but end up making a fool of himself or spring-boarding so violently away from paws that he bounces off objects."

Samwise looks up. Hey. I am right here.

"He's never hurt one of them at all. If anything, they've popped him in the nose enough times where he'd give way. I thought I heard Una talking about getting a cat once...?"

"You think? That's a little disappointing. The cats we've had have all liked to be around us, though yes, they've preferred us to be in a room with a great deal of warm sunlight, or possibly a roaring fireplace," or both! suggests the pull of a near-smile.

"But that comparison, that's adorable. I can just see it, with his bowtie already coming undone," and Sam's the recipient of yet another fond look just for that. "And how you describe him, that's reassuring. It's possible an indoor-outdoor cat might be fine all the way out here, but I worry that a less nicely-behaved dog might snap it up, or a Veil creature even. Or when I move.... In any case, it's come up briefly, but not a real talk, you know? Maybe when Jules gets back." Della keeps combing the grass with her fingers, gently, not pulling. She follows up, "Is that your field, were you working with animals?"

"Your concern about the cat is valid. I guess...if it's going to be indoor-outdoors, make sure it has some escape routes. Or just keep the cat inside with proper toys, y'know? You...are pretty close though." Della's guess earns her a grin.

"I wish I'd been directly working with the creatures I studied: the orcas. But, thing is, they're best observed at a distance. It's disruptive to have boats chasing after the pods or encouraging them to interact with the boats because they're big. Like...they get big. A proper sized research boat is going to withstand some curious bumping, but not anything smaller like a sailboat and sure as hell nothing like a dinghy. Ravn's told me they've seen orcas here, out in the bay, so...I'm just keeping my fingers crossed for now."

"Oh, absolutely." Della might have elaborated, but instead --

"Orcas." No more grass-playing, though Della does glance briefly Samwise's way: no, haven't forgotten you. "How did you get involved in that, Ariadne? There weren't orcas off Naxos, were there?" That's back to teasing again, not pensive at all now. In any case, "That makes complete sense. How do you manage at a distance? Cameras? Tell me more," is a gilt-edged invitation.

Another laugh from Ariadne. "Orcas off of Naxos. Oh my god." She ends up putting her hands to her mouth in order to stopper louder sounds up for a second. "Oh my god -- you -- you and Joseph both, with his zinger about Theseus." It must be lauded: she offers out a fistbump to Della.

"Christ chex," the barista wheezes before she gets hold of herself. Ahem. "Cameras, yes, underwater and on-board both. Thing is, you can identify many of the whales by their dorsal fins. They're triangular in shape, yes, but over the years, they gets scars and chunks removed from dealing with other orcas and defensive prey. The whales sport these identifying markers for life. It's a bit like...braille? Or a fingerprint, that's a better way to describe it. You have this laminated book of pictures of dorsal fins. Snap a pic, hold it on the camera's viewing screen, double-check -- that whale is J8, Speidan. Or J1, Ruffles, he's a kick. The pods are named for letters. The J pod is the most famous around here, for Granny. She's estimated to be over a century old, which is, like...pretty fucking amazing, right?"

"'Joseph'--?" Della returns the favor: bump! (Bee-boop!)

And... her expressive eyes have gone wide. "So basically QR codes for orcas-spotting. Go technology! But what's so exciting about Potato Chips Orca? Granny I understand. That seems ancient. Especially with all the trekking she has to do." She pauses for a sip of lemonade, a fond glance at Sam, before resuming her attentive chair-leaning.

"Granny's the matriarch of the J pod. Females lead them," Ariadne further explains, her eyes alight. This is, in fact, her jam. "And the J pod is one of the local pods since they stay in the Salish Seas other than following the winter salmon runs south. There's also the K pod and the L pod, but again, because of Granny, the J pod is at least the most well-known by those who don't study the whales on a regular basis. General society. Ruffles has a personality, from what I've been told. I only got go out on one of the NOAA research ship runs, but I did get to see Ruffles in action. He's sassy for an orca. Playful. The good news is two new calves have shown up here, so the pods are still stable if a little low in numbers."

Samwise gets one of the ice cubes out and gets to contentedly chewing on it with soft crunches. Ariadne glances over. "Oh, good boy, well done," she lauds him, earning a feathery-tailed wag. "Joseph Cavanaugh. One of the locals. Sam and I met him down by one of the fire pits on the beach about two weeks back or so. He seems like he's good people. Funny, in a droll way. Southern."

'Droll' gets a smile from Della, unless that's just Samwise again. "Good to know. 'Cavanaugh,' hm. Haven't heard many Southern accents around here."

But back to Granny and company: "'Salish Seas'... what counts as that, beyond 'local'? Or, you know, I can get my phone back out," she teases: no hardship if her visitor doesn't want to play Google. "Sassy, playful... so more interactive? At least, that's how I'd imagine an orca: coming by, teasing, none too serious."

Della adds, and that's more serious, "Good to hear about the calves. I'd heard," hadn't everyone heard? "about the one mother, in her mourning."

Ariadne's smile is easy if sad about its edges. "Salish Seas is the ocean around the Strait of Juan de Fuca and up towards B.C. and down through the Puget Sound. And you're talking about J35, yeah. Tahlequah. That broke my heart. It still hurts thinking about it. I mean...what more proof does anyone need that these are beautifully intelligent animals who know how to grieve? I just."

Palms are uplifted and then slapped to her thighs. "I don't get it. It infuriates me to see people write them off otherwise."

"Yes." Della draws her knees up, wrapping an arm around them. "Grief if I ever saw it. And you hear about the military sounds that can impair how they move, hunt, see the world. It's just not right."

"A woman could wonder what sort of... intervention... might affect those jets, those drones and subs, in a very undramatic sort of way." Her gaze is steady, taking Ariadne in. "No explosions, no loss of life, no stray equipment contaminating waters. Nothing that attracts much attention. But, over time, effective."

Ariadne meets her hostess's gaze just as evenly in turn. Her smile doesn't entirely vanish, but it takes on this wisp of guiltiness, there and gone.

"Believe me...if I was very certain I could get away with things like that...I might. I just might do it. But the last thing I want is to... From what everyone's told me, Grey Harbor somehow makes the folks without shininess here forget. I don't know about the outside. Beyond Grey Harbor. I'm helping nobody if the government's suddenly very interested in why their stuff breaks down and I'm conveniently nearby, one way or another. Correlation might not always equal causation and all, but in this case...it would."

"Mmm." There's a sparkle in her eyes. "And if we were very certain -- and I could do anything productive! -- I just might help you."

"It would be interesting if Gray Harbor could expand its Bermuda Triangle effect. ... It would be effectively impossible for the orcas to just stay here year round, right?" Though Gray Harbor has its own attitude towards 'impossibilities.' "Biology and all that?" Della hasn't let go of her knees, but she is leaning forward, into them.

"Yeah, it would be impossible. The pods, all of them, even the transient ones which prefer to come in out of the deep ocean from time to time, are at least eight in number and each animal is several thousand pounds. Not enough food in the bay here, even if the seals are fat and happy undisturbed. They'd wipe out the food supply quickly. Still...like I said. My heart's set on seeing them again out there in the bay, even in passing. Or maybe out on the water, if Ravn's brave enough to take his boat out that far. It'd be a time of the year kind of thing. They're busy thinking about mating and calves right now," the marine biologist explains.

"Dunno about extending the Bermuda Triangle effect out, but...if there was a way to carry it with? That could be...potentially awfully useful, depending on if anyone abused it," Ariadne muses, her mouth slightly twisted.

"Of course. That makes sense." Della grimaces. "Even if there were a way to up the fish... that would really throw off the whole cycle, wouldn't it. Complicated."

She sighs. "I do really like your portable BT idea. And, yes, someone would likely try to abuse it, someone always does, but if there's a way of tracking or reducing or the like, that would help. Really, conceptualizing what abuse of it would look like would be an early step."

"As to what they're thinking about..." Della's tone gets a little more cautious. "I don't suppose you're able to tell directly, are you? -- things I wouldn't have thought I'd ask! -- because if you could, if we could ask them what they thought would matter the most... not that any random human is necessarily a good judge for what the human race needs, but still. For their pod, or what have you. You'll have thought about all this already, I imagine, so it's more a matter of my getting caught up."

"What's your plan?"

Ariadne shakes her head. "No, I have no idea if I can speak to them or not. I'd love to try, right? But it's a matter of even finding them first. It'd be better if I chartered some boat up to the Juan de Fuca islands or something, more of a chance to see them. Here? In the bay? It'd be just...sheer stupid luck if they showed up again. But if they did? I'd be hauling ass for the marina and shouting at Ravn to get the sails up post-haste, there's orcas in the bay."

A laugh at the imagery. How confused poor Ravn would be. "I have no plan otherwise for anything. I'm still too new in everything I'm learning for me to think about being a big-time mover and shaker yet. Once I learn more? You never know."

Della's nodding; definitely try. And her, "Road trip!" for the San Juans is much lighter. "Still, sometimes 'Luck happens'..." Sometimes, it's even good luck.

And the last part, the last part she takes seriously enough to say -- after a moment of deciding whether to say it -- "I'm new too, and I can't do much at all. Not like your TK! But, Ariadne... we can still make a difference. It's just a matter of how and when it's applied. Off-balance a motor and it'll take itself apart."

And then she smiles, dark-lashed eyes luminous, and stretches before moving to stand. "Sam, do you need any more ice cubes?" Which is to ask: is he allowed more ice cubes?

Ariadne's on the same page. Her smile is turned upon Samwise in turn, he busily looking between the two women. I heard my name, what?

"You want more ice cubes, bubby?" Feathery tail wags. Ooh, yes? His owner gestures off to one side. "There you go. Maybe two more for his bowl. They'll keep him occupied more. I'm kind of glad that rabbit hasn't shown up." She dares a look down the yard just in case Gray Harbor's reality decides to pull an asshole move and have the little cottontail hop out into plain sight. Nope, nobody nibbling through clover right now. "Still." Golden-hazel eyes find Della again. "Good example, with the engine. I do what I can at the moment, how about that?"

A beat and she adds, more quietly if no less gratefully, "Thank you for doing science with me earlier. With the...psionics, right. You were a brave soul, holding that ice cube. I hope you got good notes? Like you said...we're all new to this. Notes could be handy in the future."

"Two it is," after Della's looked for the rabbit too. She's using the spoon to pick out the very nicest ice cubes for these purposes, as massive as possible so they might last even a little longer, when her gaze returns to Ariadne's.

"More than fair." Della says quietly in response. "And -- while I can't say I was so brave to hold an ice cube, I didn't think you were going to light it or me on fire, I'll take it. I enjoy it," just in case there was any doubt whatsoever. "Happy to pick it back up another time, even, when you're in the mood. Which reminds me..."

Sorry, Sam, wait just a minute; she has to get out her phone and tap-tap-tap and here go the notes Ariadne's way, including a picture or two: as precise as possible, but only when justified, clear about what are observations and what's speculation. "Edit however you want to, to make the Veil not modify it. Maybe it would be bored by a textbook, numbers and the odd diagram."

Now Sam can get his ice cubes, and attention, and petting if he seems good with that; he has his ice cubes, so Della stays back from his head, just his shoulders in mild encouragement. "It seems as though you've trained him wonderfully," she says to his human. "I've read about people being touch-starved, of course, but this really brings the difference home."

Taking the offered phone, Ariadne brings up one leg to tuck beneath the other. She frowns thoughtfully to herself as she looks at the screen. "That's an idea. Not sure how I can wing a graph without more than one or two variables, but maybe I can make something up and it'll pass muster." Her thumbs get to moving.

Samwise seems quite pleased for his two more ice cubes and wags his feathery tail in gratitude towards Della, Purveyor of Cold Squares. If the petting of his shoulder bothers him, he doesn't show it in the least -- and given how transparent he is as a whole, it doesn't bother him in the least. He keeps nibbling and nipping at the cubes, short whiskers dripping beadlets of water. Della's words bring the barista's thumbs to stop moving. She blinks at her hostess. Eyebrows quirk. "Geez, Della, I'm so sorry." One can see her mouth form a few unfinished thoughts before she decides on, "Sam's happy to lie around and be petted. That was his job I intended with the therapy dog training. You're calm and you're gentle about it, he's not going to sidle off on you. Though...okay, weird thought."

A short sigh. "So, back in college, my gal pals and I used to cuddle up beneath a blanket to watch movies. It was all platonic, shoulder to shoulder, and sometimes, half of us would fall asleep. Is that...not a thing with you and your roommates? I know, it's...well, actually, I feel kind of dumb asking that now, never mind, what a heavy-handed attempt to be helpful," she grumbles at herself before going back to the phone.

"Nothing to be sorry about," and Della's look is genuinely quizzical, though she does beckon for her phone: "Tell you what, I'd figured I'd text the info to you if you liked; how about I do that now, and you can text your updates back to me? That way we have the history preserved." And her phone!

For the rest, she doesn't sputter or jump in, listening with evident interest (and petting Sam while she's at it, continuing to keep a distance from those drips). "Mmm. That sounds so familiar; that was a great part of college for us, too," she readily admits, dark eyes bright on Ariadne despite the sunshine. "I wonder if most people did or do? Although ours wasn't always platonic." Which leads into, "So, no, we don't pile up like puppies in the here and now." Warm fuzzy adorable puppies who gnaw on shoes.

"Actually, that's a better idea," agrees Ariadne as she hands back the phone. "I made one or two little addendums, but I can do more later when I'm not too distracted. My number's..." She lists it off aloud. Her eyes still continue resting on Della. "Text me the info and I'll get back to you with more changes if I think of any. Or more things I've observed."

Della's phrasing makes her laugh quietly. Pile of puppies. "Ah, okay, well, I wondered and now I know. I'm still sorry though. Touch deprivation is a very real thing and it's not comfortable. Seriously, pet Sam all you want, he's good for it," she gently insists, knowing it's not the same but maybe it can stand in enough.

Della doesn't actually clutch at her phone, taking it back, but more tap-tapping is quickly involved: first to get Ariadne's number in -- "Pose?" is a request, not a demand, for a picture -- and text her the information, and then to undo enough that she can think she has the original and then save that before recopying the texted version to a second file. Data secure! Modulo Veil-interference, at least. "That would be wonderful." Other changes; other observations.

Regarding touch deprivation, Della lifts a shoulder before letting it fall, with a concomitant, "Eh." She's a big girl; everyone should know that. "Not that I won't pet him a little more, now, as long as you're here. Since he does enjoy it." And she does. After a little while, she adds, "That's one of the things I enjoy most about pets: being able to make them happy. You can usually tell when they need something, if not always what; and you can tell when anything's too much; and the more you know them, the more you know the kinds of things they'll enjoy... or grow to enjoy. And they openly show it. ... Which doesn't not apply to people, but animals can often seem more... straightforward, you know? Or am I being a... hm, what's it called. Not someone who thinks animals are like humans, or saintly, but..." maybe Ariadne will know.

Pose -- a quick smile clearly practiced and professional, something one might see on the walls of the café. Ariadne looks at her own phone for the counter ping and nods when it arrives.

A glance from the screen. Her smile goes back to the quiet and patient of before, someone who seems to understand how much good a dog can do. Her head tilts to one side slightly as she thinks. "So...not anthropomorphizing, because that's assigning human attributes to animals. You're talking about a type of personification regardless? Unless you mean misanthropic, which...I think all of us are to some extent, some more than others. I work public retail. You develop a little bit of a tic after a while," the barista observes drily. Sam continues appreciating the pets to his shoulder; he's not ignoring them as proven by the way he glances over at Della now and then, as if to acknowledge her, but the lure of those ice cubes is much. Each time, he returns to mouthing them around in the water.

She receives a copy of the photo, too, while Della's at it.

And Della smiles, quick and angled: "No, not misanthropic, though I understand that... It'll come to me, probably right after you walk down that sidewalk. Someone who imagines animals are all noble creatures, that they don't pick on each other or, for that matter, pick their own noses -- gorillas, anyway -- and eat it." Her fingers linger in the brindled fur, avoiding the sweater, but she's mostly looking at Ariadne.

And then, and then a squirrel chitters and dashes across the lawn. After that jay's cache, perhaps?

"I'm the same way." Ariadne's shoulders lift and fall in a self-effacing shrug. "It'll come to be at 3am and I'll be lying going, oh, duh, right, that's what Della was going f -- "

Going for, she meant to say.

But between the bannering fluffy tail of the squirrel and the length of Samwise's leash and the sudden flip of the water bowl (filled with ice, so consider the temperature there), the Sighthound is suddenly in her lap.

And then mostly up on her shoulders while she tries to quickly and carefully stop him from clambering higher -- too bad. He's now perched on her shoulders, front feet on one and back feet on another, making chattering weeble sounds like he's dying to know where the goddamn squirrel went!!!

Ariadne? She's cursing in Hungarian under her breath, head and face mostly disappeared under a curtain of Windhound fur.

Della? She's torn between sudden (a) giggling, (b) a mad case of the 'Are you all right?!'s combined with (c) 'How can I help?!' and (d) just plain gratitude that Ariadne is the vantage the furry mountain-climber has chosen. And yes, maybe some giggles escape, but mostly she's murmuring questions that Ariadne may or may not have answers for: is she-Ariadne all right, how can she-Della help, and the non-question (e) "Your cursing, woman!" At least, that's how she's interpreting it; her own tone may be translated as, Impressive!

Oh, and it might be a good idea to secure the rest of the lemonade-makings before they all go squish. She tries, she really does.

Probably a wise idea to secure the lemonade-makings; they are at risk of a back-kick of long sighthound leg or swish of excited tail.

"Sam...wise! Alright! Enough! I saw the squirrel," his owner insists as she manipulates him enough to bring him down onto her lap. Now he's standing on her thighs with her hands beneath his armpits, still weeble-chattering -- but hey, there's Ariadne, emerged from the former curtaining of Windhound fur. A 'pfffft' of up-puffed breath to get rid of a stray hair on her nose and she leans to look around the dog. "I'm actually fine, yes, he's clawed me up a lot worse before. We actually practiced that as a trick for a while when he was a puppy, but his balance wasn't good. Apparently, it's improved," she notes drily with a glance up at the dog.

Squirrel? No more squirrel? Samwise lets his ears fall. Aw. No more squirrel.

First thing: make sure everything's capped that can be. Second thing: move the chair-tray back. It's out of the way for now, then, though it's not as though sighthounds don't travel.

"What trick?" Della inquires, with a quick scan to make sure 'a lot worse before' doesn't equate to 'bleeding now.' "Jumping onto your lap, or something specifically squirrel-ly?" While she's at it, sidelong and teasingly sly, "And have you ever been tempted to dye some of his fur, to match?"

Thankfully, 'a lot worse' does not equate to 'bleeding now'. Much more Hungarian cursing would have applied along with Bandaids.

"Oh, the balancing on my shoulders like he was briefly there." Like a toddler, the Sighthound is handed down to the ground via his armpits where he weebles a few more times before huffing in frustration. Ice cubes. Whatever. Ice cubes don't scale trees. Back to the water with its floating enticements. Della gets a quick little grin for her question while Ariadne fusses her t-shirt back into proper place out of its wrinkled state. "And yes, I've actually dyed his fur before in places with dog-safe dye, just to test it. His feet were ice-blue for a few weeks, it was...a bit startling. It washed out after a few washes though. I don't know that I'll do it to match my own hair, but..."

Her eyes return to the Windhound now crunching on an ice cube. "...maybe. Just maybe. Or maybe it's that I need to do some black streaks through my hair to match him."

"That would be dramatic. And it should grow out so well, given your natural color, as long as the black stays black. Mine, I'd have to bleach the hell out of it before I got anything more than overtones -- which are pretty in their own way, but not generally worth it -- so when I want lots of color, extensions it is." Della doesn't quite sigh, but she does consider the shoulder-balancer, the shoulder-balancer-owner, all over again. "And I'll be so glad when the one side grows out." The side lost to Fire.

"Now what I really want to know," she teases with one lifted brow, "is why ice-blue? To look like water? Favorite color? Sportsball affiliation? And did he seem to notice? I imagine everyone else did."

"Why not ice-blue?" Rhetorically, Ariadne responds before she finishes her glass of lemonade. The empty container is set upon the middling table after a stretch. "Though if I had to pick reasons, it looked amazing. Color contrast, warm to cool." She's ticked off two fingers now. Three: "White or pale fur shows the pale colors easily, like what you said about needing to bleach your hair verses overtones." Four: "It was the only color available at the time when I went to order from the manufacturer online. So maybe it's really only that," she laughs.

Samwise is considered again. "I should paint his toenails sometime next." Her eyes return to Della. "What color would you do your extensions then?"

Della crinkles her nose at that why not -- not a real complaint, just humor, the more so when Ariadne does go on to list reasons (possible reasons: good scientist). She leans on the back of her chair with a smile that becomes laughter. "Makes sense to me!" Reasons, toenails, both. "As for colors..."

"Generally I do clip-ins, so it's fun to go with a wild streak. Burgundy, very occasionally golden blonde, or raven shimmers that are like my hair color but with that iridescent edge. Ombré is fun. Most of mine, the ones I kept, are in storage; it's not like they take up much room, but I wanted," needed, "to pare down, you know? Does your apartment have room for everything you want?"

"Actually, my apartment does, and I'm grateful for it. I'm not...somebody who needs more than what they need, if that makes sense. Couch, check. Bed, check. Clothing drawers, check. TV, check. If there's anything else around which isn't a necessity, it's something I'm deeply attached to or part of a hobby. Otherwise, things like...glass vases and artwork, things like that? Eh." Ariadne shrugs the concepts away. "I'm not hosting people often. I don't need to impress anyone either because frankly? Barista between unconfirmed stints with Fish and Wildlife or research trips? Not much money there to brag about." In this, the redhead is brutally blunt.

"But things like hair color? Again, why not? It's a simple happiness and all it takes is a bottle of dye -- or extensions. You could even go burgundy and golden blonde next time. Combine colors. You only live once, have fun, right?" the barista opines with a shrug of her hand off the chair's arm in turn.

That description warms Della's smile; she might have followed up immediately, but then there's burgundy and blonde and she doesn't resist a laugh. "Orange. That would make orange, which I can wear, but next to my face... maybe when I need a warning," she jokes. "But I agree with you about having fun. Sometimes simpler can be a little too safe."

"Simpler in terms of colors, anyway, or staying in one's lane." Della glances back at the house, but only for a moment.

"I like how you describe your space, Ariadne. It sounds like you know what works for you and you go for it," though the slight tilt of her brows double-checks: does that sound right? "It's not as though people can't accumulate detritus even without spending much -- I'll leave what a pair of broke physics students came up with to your imagination." Her tone's sweet rather than bitter, however underlaid with something more complicated still.

But, "'Unconfirmed,' you said. What does that mean, in this context?"

A blink. Ariadne then shifts in the chair and rolls her eyes at herself. "Geez, that was bad wording on my part, 'unconfirmed'. I should have said 'not yet pursued'. I meant unconfirmed for me in particular, like I haven't made up my mind about it yet. I know there's a connection or two around here, but...I guess maybe it's not time yet? For me? I'm still getting settled. It's past ninety days and all with the gig at the café, so I must be doing something right, right?" Little shrug of shoulders and self-recriminating smile. "But I want that really firmly established before I try to break off into any forays into research. I don't have any grants. I don't have a boat...I mean, not one of my own. Don't have the materials or the instruments. It's something that's going to take some time to get all...accumulated."

She seems to realize she's borrowed Della's word from earlier. "Two broke physics students, huh? Physics is your jam? I should have guessed when you said 'psionics', but...yeah? Applied physics? I was always a huge fan of the demonstrations in physics lectures back in college," the marine biologist shares with a grin. "You and your roommate then?"

"Oh! Oh." She tilts her head; her lips part; she shuts her mouth again, and smiles. "I see, I think. You've got your feet under you. Regular enough work to keep you in room and board -- and dog food!" Sam gets his very own smile, then, "but freedom enough to swap shifts if the orcas come in?"

It's in a lower voice that Della adds, "A lot of people don't understand how hard it can be, getting work in one's field, especially when it's not in the private sector. I hated writing grant proposals. And for all that people are more concerned about climate change than they had been, I don't imagine that they're lining up to fund all that needs doing and," she cuts herself off, mimes zipping her lips. "Detour, detour, how about we save that for another day? But applied physics, yes. And Bella, my ex."

"That was after the 'four bedrooms, eight-to-ten people' life, so it felt positively palatial."

"Yeah, can't forget the dog food." Ariadne too glances down at Samwise. He's happily crunching the last ice cube; as they melted, they became more accessible to his teeth, it appears.

Her attention returns to Della and soon enough, another smile crops up. God -- grant proposals. She can't help but laugh at the proverbial key tossed away from locked lips, the sound a sympathetic one. "Positively palatial indeed. Yeah...college. It was like sardines in a can sometimes," the barista muses. "Though I'm sorry to have accidentally brought up the ex. My bad." She then mimes zipping her own lips. "Not my place to pry. But if you can think of any cool demonstrations of your applied physics, like what I used to see in lectures? I'm so game to be an audience."

Samwise rises to his feet and then indulges in one of those spine-lengthening bow-stretches. A back leg each stretched and then he comes over to nudge at Ariadne's hand. "What, good boy?" A glance at her phone. "Ah. It is, in fact, dinner time -- at least for him. Della, this was wonderful." Her hostess gets a dimpled smile. "Thank you so much for having me over."