(no subject)

[feminine_menace]

The Door opens. A reddish half-grown standard poodle puppy dashes through, followed by a length of leash, followed by YT. The puppy is totally psyched to SNIFF ALL THE THINGS, and YT has to make a determined effort to avoid being dragged around on the end of the leash.

"Stella! Stella, heel," YT instructs.

The puppy - Stella - complies, albeit with a big dose of guilt-inducing Sad Puppy Eyes. YT gives it a couple of seconds, then starts walking around the perimeter of the room, gently tugging the leash to indicate that Stella should come with her. It's only fair to let Stella sniff things, but she has to behave herself and do it on YT's terms. Which means no, Stella, you can't chew on the elf dolls.

YT herself is dressed festively in - from the feet up - ankle-high faux-fur-lined boots, jeans, and an ugly Christmas sweater with an unbuttoned red trench coat over it. The coat has lots of pockets, just the way YT likes it, but most of them are hidden. YT's also wearing a backpack with various Christmas gifts for her Milliways pods.

[OOC: See this back room post for the people on YT's Christmas list. If you tag this post you will get your gift in person. Otherwise she will leave it at the Bar for you.]

Comments

[angry_friendship_wolf]

"... When did you get a dog?" Yamato asks, with his usual deadpan-and-scowls demeanour, tilting his head at Stella as she and YT pass.

Next to him, Gabumon clambers over him slightly to get a better look at Stella, reaching one claw out towards her carefully.

[feminine_menace]

"I didn't tell you?" YT asks. "Got her just after Thanksgiving."

Stella is sniffing Gabumon cautiously. She's not sure what to make of him.

"She's really smart. I gotta get her to stop jumping up on people before she gets to full size, though."

[angry_friendship_wolf]

"She seems better behaved than her owner usually is, at least," Yamato says airily. "What's her name?"

Gabumon leaves his claw in sniffable distance, although there's not a lot to smell, bar the indefinable scent of winter that Gabumon gives off.

[feminine_menace]

"Her name's Stella," YT says.

Stella keeps sniffing Gabumon. He looks like he's alive, but doesn't smell like it. This is confusing!

[angry_friendship_wolf]

"Nice to meet you, Stella," Yamato says. "Gabumon, make sure you don't spook her or anything."

[feminine_menace]

"Hey Stella. Gabumon's cool, all right?" YT says reassuringly. "I know he looks like a wolf-lizard thing, but he's okay."

She's not sure how much of this is getting through.

[angry_friendship_wolf]

"He hardly ever bites people," Yamato adds solemnly.

[stridersgonnastride]

Dave is sitting at the bar, looking perplexed at the Christmas cookie bar has provided him.

"it was like april last time i checked but i guess it can technically be whatever time you want here

"considering there's basically no fucking time at all"

He philosophically bites the head off a frosted reindeer.

[feminine_menace]

"What up, Strider," YT says as Stella trots up to sniff him. "Or maybe I should say Happy Holidays or whatever." YT shrugs. "This fuzzy bundle of joy is Stella."

[stridersgonnastride]

"whoa," Dave says, pulling his feet up on to the bar stool, away from Stella's questing nose. He looks like he might be ready to take off into the rafters at a moment's notice.

"you uh got a dog i see"

[feminine_menace]

"I guess you're not a dog person?"

YT does not grok how someone could not be a dog person. But it's apparently a thing. So she pulls Stella back, keeps her on a short leash and at minimum safe distance from Dave.

[stridersgonnastride]

"i'm not really an anything person to be honest i live in a texas high rise the biggest animal i see is like tarantulas and those aren't my idea of a good time"

He watches the dog cautiously, but puts his feet back down.

[feminine_menace]

"Yeah, I don't really have anything against tarantulas, like, in principle, but I'd lose my shit if I found one where I wasn't expecting to. Like in my house."

YT's got a thrasher friend who keeps pet tarantulas, and really seems to love them. YT supposes that to him, they're like dogs.

"I mean, you gotta get out of the house and see dogs and stuff once in a while, though. Right?"

[basic_powers]

Stella might not be allowed to chew on those elf dolls, but something about the size of a large house cat is sitting underneath an occupied booth, and it is noisily gnawing on various doll bits.

Look, those things decided that stalking his human and their shared den was a good idea. Winston had to educate them on the matter.

For what it's worth, they taste terrible.

The aforementioned human is seated in the booth with obvious homework spread out in front of him, and for once, Tyler is alert enough to get a hand around the cyber-raptor's collar before Stella comes within fifteen feet of them.

He's grinning because there is a puppy in front of him and he is a ten year old boy. "Hi!"

[feminine_menace]

"Uh...hi."

YT is wary of any children older than toddlers and younger than teenagers. They tend to veer wildly between being totally dense on the one hand and being a lot smarter than you thought on the other hand.

Stella, on the other hand, loves small humans! But she's not sure about that other thing accompanying this human, so she is maintaining minimum safe distance while deciding whether the Weird Thing needs to be barked at.

[basic_powers]

This kid probably exists within the second category. It's a survival skill, honestly to have everyone bigger than you under estimating what you're capable of. To be fair, he's kind of got a similar wariness of anyone bigger than him.

Dogs however are instant ice breakers because he loves canids of almost any species. He learned how to speak Wolf, and Dog is just like the rhyming cant language version of that.

"Winston. Sit, be good." To the command the thing only grumbles softly before giving whatever Tyler is talking about an assessing glance. ... More grumbling and going back to gnawing that Elf into sawdust and regret. "I'm Tyler, nice to meet you and the nice girl dog."

[feminine_menace]

"I'm YT. This is Stella."

Stella pads up and alternates between sniffing Tyler and (with somewhat more trepidation) Winston.

[basic_powers]

Stella is a wise poodle, and this will serve her well in the future. Winston, for the most part smells like lizard and machine got put into a blender with a much larger predator, along with his most recent meals. Wooden elf doll; gasoline and rabbit thingy; dried liver bits; and Science Diet Adult Dog formula kibble.

Tyler smells like a regular human boy, who is all to happy to offer out a hand for her to sniff and giggles with delight at having a wet nose press between a few fingers.

Seriously, if the kid had a tail it'd be wagging.

"Hi Stella," Tyler murmurs softly, looking to YT for permission to pet and scritch before going for that good spot between the shoulders. "She's beautiful."

[feminine_menace]

YT relaxes a bit. She can forgive a lot, for the sake of a shared love of dogs. "And she's got brains too. Yeah, go ahead. But watch it if she gets too worked up, she still nips sometimes." She looks down at Winston. "Is that seriously a robot dinosaur?"

[bringspeopletogether]

There's a new dog in here??

THERE'S A NEW DOG IN HERE.

And, as Fereldans don't believe in silly things like "leashes" most of the time, that means Fuzzy's barreling over to Stella with an excited woof. His voice has started losing the puppy squeakiness that marked it for so long; it's a pretty solid woof.

At his heels comes Alistair, laughing a little -- and keeping a close eye on the situation in case it calls for a quick Fuzzy, heel. "YT! Hello."

That's...quite the outfit she's wearing.

[feminine_menace]

Stella arfs at Brother Fuzzy and happily engages in the typical rituals of friendly canine greeting, such as tail-wagging, play-bowing, and the classic butt-sniffing.

"Hey there," YT calls to Alastair. "Where you been, man?" Busy doing king stuff, probably.

[bringspeopletogether]

Fuzzy, for all his patronage at the tavern at the end of the world, has yet to meet a dog that isn't a mabari. He's making a lot of curious, questioning noises at Stella that -- in canine -- roughly translate as hello you are a very small mabari and your fur is very fluffy! HELLO STRANGE MABARI!

As if reading YT's mind, Alistair says, "Occupied with kingly things, sadly. Very little time for fun as of late. How are you?"

[feminine_menace]

Stella is only small because she's young - in time, she will grow to impressive size, although she won't achieve mabari-level bulk. Her communication with Brother Fuzzy can best be described as hey new kid wanna wrassle?

"I'm good, now that I'm getting a break from Grandma." Don't get YT wrong, she loves her grandma. But in limited doses. "This is Stella. I posted a picture of her on T-Minus a while ago."

[bringspeopletogether]

"That's right, yes!" He grins. "I thought she looked familiar. Hello there, Stella."

He crouches down with all intent to give Stella a hand to sniff -- only for Fuzzy to barge between them, excitedly taking up on Stella's offer to play. LET THE WRESTLING COMMENCE.

(Gently. Sort of. Fuzzy has some idea of how to play with puppies.)

[feminine_menace]

Stella barks happily and jumps at Fuzzy. She's smaller than he is, but either doesn't notice or doesn't care.

"C'mon, Stella! You can take him!" YT says - facetiously, of course. "Oh, yeah. I got Brother Fuzzy a Christmas present that may come in handy." YT goes for her backpack (an operation that's somewhat complicated by Stella pulling on her leash) and takes out a dog tug-of-war toy, which she puts on the ground by the happily scuffling dogs.

"I got a little something for you too, 'natch."