milliways_bar | Happy Hour, Cubefall Edition!

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Happy Hour, Cubefall Edition!

It's been a pleasant enough month. After all the hullabaloo of the Shindig cleared out, Kate took some time to herself to relax. She's been around, in and out of the stables as usual, but mostly sticking to the libraries and her room.

She's pleased when she comes downstairs and gets a reminder of just what the date is.

The familiar screen pops up:

Hello! Welcome to Milliways. Today, Milliways marks the Cybertronian holiday of Cubefall, the anniversary of the day upon which the Allspark first landed on the rocky world that would become Cybertron. Would you like to sample some possible reconfigurations? (y/n)

Kate grins, taking some time to pore over the choices. The robot is a little unsettling; the horse is tempting. She was a fella two years back for the holiday, and she actually quite enjoyed the experience. Folk always like to compare what a woman can do to what a man can do. Getting some actual idea of what the differences really are...

She chews on her lip, and hits the series of buttons it takes to reconfigure her. Hell if she won't have some more fun with this.

When it's done, a napkin pops up on the Bar.

"Y'jus' like askin' me when I'm tall 'nough t'reach the shelves, don't you?" 'he' grumbles, not without amusement.

He leaps over the counter spryly, and quickly scribbles up a few specials.

Happy Hour Specials:

Robot Cocktail
Fluffy Duck
Gender Bender Shooter
Bourbon
Ice Cream
Bourbon Ice Cream

Build something for half off your drink, and an extra shot of good luck.

"Bar's open! Yeehaw."

[ooc: Open until the next Happy Hour post, or until it scrolls off the front page. All are welcome, threadhopping is encouraged, zaniness is practically required. Have fun! ^__^]

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What on God's green Earth —

"Dug?!"

"Yes!" Dug the horse stretches his neck out as far as it will go, pleased with the extended reach. He could, he thinks, make use of this. Much easier to get food, for one thing. And toys! He could grab toys out of the air! Which technically he can do as a dog too, but it's harder. He has to jump.

...can horses jump?

Luckily for all, he decides not to find that one out indoors and concentrate instead on the fine art of walking. "I am a horse! It is very hard to be a horse. Do you know how--"

Mid-sentence, something interrupts him. Namely the fact that he is learning quickly about horses, and one of the things he is learning is that they have a decent sense of smell. Not the same as a dog, but not bad. Certainly good enough to smell the fact that this bartender smells a heck of a lot like...

"Kate?" Big brown eyes widen. "You are a man!"

There's something rather unsettling about a horse doing a double-take.

"You're a horse!"

In case the obvious hasn't been stated enough tonight.

"I am a horse!"

Horses can't flail half as well as dogs can. Dug manages a sort of full-body shiver, a stomp of his front hooves, and his ears pinning themselves flat to his head before shooting forward wildly several times in a row.

"You are a man." This is very confusing! He is very confused! "You were not a man before!"

Probably, anyway. Most likely. He's...90% sure.

"Y'weren't a horse before!"

They're getting nowhere.

Kate pinches the bridge of his nose, and tries a different tack.

"It's Cubefall, Dug. I didn't think animals could reconfigure."

He isn't a bad looking horse, per se. Just a bit ... fidgety.

"I'll go back t'the way I was in a few days."

Dug understood pretty much nothing of her first sentence, but luckily pretty much all of the second one. He blinks curiously at Kate, nosing around at whatever bits of body he can reach from his current standing position. He's not planning on moving until he figures out how horses walk.

Maybe this is normal? He has never seen his at-home master turn into a man, but to be fair, his at-home master is already a man. Maybe he will turn into a woman? Or maybe it only works the one way. Either way, is he going to stay a horse forever? Because so far he is not very sure about it. It seems more awkward and also no one has come up to pet his belly yet and that's pretty weird.

"Will I be a dog again? I do not know if I like being a horse!" His ears droop. In a horse, it looks pretty weird. "I do not know how to be a horse yet. Maybe I will like it if I try it more."

A thought occurs to him.

"Maybe I will like it if I have a treat?"

LOGIC, THY NAME IS DUG.

Kate clamps his eyes shut, taking the muzzle to the face like a champion. In the process, Dug knocks his hat off his head, and leaves a shimmering trail of snot down the side of his face.

If this isn't love, I couldn't tell you what is.

"Yes, you'll be a dog again. Day after tomorrow."

Kate despairs of Dug's appetite, truly. Just never you mind the hapless crinkle of his brow as he starts to laugh.

"Horses get different treats than dogs do. Y'might find your tastes have changed."

Tastes don't change, Kate! You may be a man but that is no reason to be ridiculous. Bones are bones, right? Delicious! And maybe the only reason horses don't eat steak is because no one has ever offered it to them.

Dug hangs his head and neck over the bar for a moment, questing after the lost hat, but it's a little too far away even for his newly prehensile lips and he gives up, lipping contentedly at Kate's sleeve instead. His tail is swishing happily back and forth like he's trying to swat a particularly persistent fly as he continues to test the limits of dog body language in horse body.

"Can I have a treat anyway? A bone?" Or, ooh! "Or a horse treat? What do they eat? I have never met a horse before."

"Carrots."

He watches him with no small measure of amusement, until his left sleeve is practically soaked through. He offers a few light cheek-rubs to that problem area behind Dug's massive jaw.

"Apples. Oats. How 'bout some alfalfa?"

Oooh, and apparently horses have exactly the same itchy spots. Dug closes his eyes in ecstasy and tries not to knock Kate over as his body involuntarily leans into the scratches.

"I have tried carrots! And apples! They are not very good. I have never tried oats and I do not know what alfalfa is. Is it good?"

The Bar creaks in response to Dug's lean, and Kate does his square best to keep both himself and the horse upright. At least Dug isn't trying to kick with one of his hind legs.

That could be disastrous.

"Hold yer horses. Er, so t'speak."

This is just getting outrageous now. Kate takes a step back, and pats his pockets until he locates his stash of stable treats. Dug is presented with a rather green, pill-like treasure.

"Catch!"

You really think that's the best idea, Kate?

Luckily it's not a very hard throw, but Dug still throws himself sideways and forwards in a spirited attempt to catch it in his brand-new giant horse teeth. Unfortunately, horse jaws (especially in the care of a dog brain) are not quite so good at catching alfalfa cubes.

The little green pellet disappears under a table and Dug immediately drops to his knees, snuffling after it with his lips. These are amazing lips. He is starting to think that there are some perks to being a horse after all!

Eventually he reappears crunching happily, mouth now dripping in greenish saliva as he awkwardly tries to shuffle close to Kate again. "That was a very good treat! Do you have any more? What is an alfalfa? Is it a bird? I know some birds."

Seemed like a good idea at the time, if we're being honest.

Kate valiantly manages not to laugh, save for the fact that he completely breaks down in undignified giggles while watching Dug pursue the runaway treat. He isn't sure why exactly, but he's got a feeling Miss Bar's gonna blame him for any damage his pet horse might cause.

Best be sure all the green saliva's wiped up before then.

"I guarantee y'ain't eatin' bird, friend or foe. It's a plant, Dug. Horses eat plants. Y'might've noticed that your new teeth ain't exactly fit for chewin' meat."

Considering that he's a hundred-pound retriever in a fourteen-hundred pound horse's body, the damage has been pretty minimal so far. Dug may not have a particularly good grasp of human social graces or even, in fact, human concepts of property and possessions (vis-à-vis all food and toy-like items automatically belong to him) but he has the rather dim idea somewhere in his that if he breaks any furniture inside the bar, he may be in for some quality Cone of Shame time.

And he certainly does not want that, especially if he's still a horse while wearing it. He wants to be a horse while he's a horse!

...or does he? He gives Kate a surprised look, snorting out hard though his nostrils at her words. "Horses do not eat meat?"

WHAT.

"...do they eat bones?"

Kate had picked his hat back up.

'Had' being the operative word there.

As soon as Dug snorts, the hat goes cartwheeling off his head again, lost in a maelstrom of snot and surprise. Kate's face, gathered in a protective grimace, slowly relaxes; beginning with him cracking one eye.

"Nope."

He tugs a handkerchief out of his pocket, and wipes off his face.

"For the next three days, Dug, you're on the wagon."

Dug sulks. His head drops almost to the ground, lower lip sagging as he does his best to flop his ears down. The best they do is go sort of back and his tail can't actually clamp between his legs, but he does his best to make it hang down with the proper amount of emotion. Being a horse is starting to be less fun than he had thought. Okay, so the alfalfa-thing was pretty delicious, but plants? Plants? He'll nibble some grass here and there if he's feeling like it, but he doesn't live on them.

He also has a sneaking suspicion that Kate is going to be less than sympathetic, especially given the way he's not wearing his hat any more and also seems to be sporting a little more saliva than is strictly necessary. And it's hard to sulk as a horse. Time to break out the big guns!

It takes a moment to figure out how all four legs work, but once he puts it together, Dug drops himself to the floor (shaking everything within a fifty-foot radius) and curls up with his nose in his front hooves.

It's...it's been a long day, okay?

Kate hasn't heard a thunder crack like that since last summer in Texas, during a particularly awesome storm.

Only, this ain't thunder.

This is fourteen-hundred pounds of pure cut sulk.

Once Kate has his sea-legs under him and is sure none of the bottles or glasses are in danger of breaking, he hops on the Bar, bracing himself on his arms. Dug's gone like a limp noodle — roughly even the same color.

This is about the point where Kate would normally conjure the subject's full name, but since Dug doesn't have one he's just going to have to wing it.

"Douglas The Melodramatic Dog, are you givin' up?"

"...that is not my name."

Dug lifts his head long enough to pin his ears at Kate, twisting his head sideways to get a decent view of her with this weird new one-eye-on-either-side vision he's gotten. He wonders if being a man has made her a little confused.

"My name is Dug," he tries. His ears do a complicated little dance if he tries to decide if he's still sulking or if he's trying to help out his man-master. "I am usually a dog."

Beat.

"I am a horse now."

"I can see that."

They've come full circle.

"Right now, you ain't actin' like either. Not the Dug I know. The Dug who's brave, and a good tracker, a helper, an' a good boy."

Maybe he's trying to appeal to his ego, but that doesn't mean he's lying.

Much.

"You are a horse."

He resists facepalming, and marches on.

"So act like one."

...Kate has a point. Even though Kate is a man, Kate is still pretty much one of the smartest people Dug knows, he thinks. Smart enough to know how to keep cats and also how to play fetch and okay, most people can do that, but Dug can't so that's pretty impressive in his books.

His tail tries to wag briefly before giving up in defeat, because apparently horses just don't do that. Instead they make funny little snorting noises with their nostrils and put their ears forward. Dug does both. It is true! He is a horse now, and he is big and majestic (mostly) and he will act like one!

He tries to bound to his feet, skids a little, and ends up slightly wobbly on four splayed legs. But up again! He shakes his head vigorously. "Yes! You are right! I am a good boy!" And then, because the situation seems to call for it, he tries for a loud, deep bark full of bravery.

...oh. So that's what horses sound like.

Sorry about your ears, Kate.

Majestic. Yes. Kate can just picture him now, mane and tail caught in the breeze, running through pregnant fields of amber and lavender; dancing through snow capped mountains, his golden coat dazzling the eye; bounding through foam and wave, while a turquoise ocean beats the shore at his hooves.

Only, he's much too overweight for any of that, and his coat's more of a beige and eggshell than a gold. He's also pretty sure the horse couldn't run to save his life after he ends up, spread eagle, in the middle of the floor.

"HOW 'BOUT I TAKE YOU OUTSIDE WHEN I'M DONE HERE AN' GIT YOU SOME SUPPER?"

Is he still nickering, or are Kate's ears just ringing? He can't tell. He also can't hear a damn thing.

"THEN Y'CAN GO FOR A RUN."

Dug will just have to work at being majestic while spread-eagle on the floor, then.

His own ears are ringing a bit. He twitches them back and forth, enjoying their newfound freedom, and very carefully gets all four feet solidly underneath him. He may be standing a bit like a foal -- all wobbly and not a hundred percent sure where the ground is in relation to him -- but all seventeen hands of obese palomino are finally resembling a horse instead of a collapsed puddle of limbs. The idea of getting some food (even if it is horse food) and then going for a run sounds very appealing.

Maybe they can play fetch!

"I WOULD LIKE THAT VERY MUCH PLEASE!"

"WHY ARE YOU YELLIN'?"

"WHY ARE YOU YELLING?"

"I'M YELLIN'?"

Happy Hour, Cubefall Edition!

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