Kid thought she could outrun him, did she?

Well, she certainly had a better chance in here than in an open space.  All the water had softened the pads of his feet and taken away much of his traction, plus he was still a little stiff.  And he'd never been the best at taking corners at full speed.  He slipped and nearly crashed into more than one wall before he gave up and slowed down, and mostly just ran beside salt softy.

He was also following his nose to find the kitchen again, since this wasn't his usual route, and that meant he had to go slow enough to actually scent the air rushing into his face.

None of that meant that he was going to let her get there before him, though, so he reclaimed his sprinting speed for the last stretch.  That was the kitchen, he was going to get there first, he was going to win!

And then he hardly slowed as he shot into the room and continued his beeline for the fridge.  That was where meat like chicken was kept in places like this.  Most of the easily eaten food was in the fridge.

Then the only thing she focused on was her feet on the floor and the turns she had to take to get to the kitchen. She was very happy she wasn't wearing shoes. She was faster without them. She slide around a corner and into the wall, bouncing off to make it the last stretch of the little race.

She was very happy the door was propped open before ten because she would not have been able to stop to open it. She was even happier for it when DR (Drowned Rat) got there first because that could've hurt. She was laughing as she made it into the kitchen. DR was at the fridge, looking very excited.

"Does it count as a win if you can't actually get the food out?" she laughed at him. She pushed him away from the door so she could open it. "So chicken- wait chicken bones break easy. Is that a good idea for you?" she asked turning to her friend for some sort of answer.

Adder huffed at her. He won, and that was the end of it. And he could too open the fridge! Shifting was super easy, but he could do it even without shifting if he had the patience. He'd just have to hook either a paw or his muzzle through the handle, then pry it away. He wasn't some dog who couldn't figure out how to use his own body to do things he needed to do.

And that included not impaling himself on bones!

Okay, maybe he'd had to learn that one the hard way as a kid, but it was by getting a shard of bone very stuck in the roof of his mouth. That had been awkward. And painful. And shifting to human had made it worse. But he had learned! He could peel the meat off the bone without crushing the bone itself, so he shook his head at salt softy to reassure her.

And then pushed his way back to the fridge and jumped halfway up, resting his front paws on a shelf to peer at the contents. He didn't even really care if it was chicken he ate. He just wanted food.

Abby stood back with her arms crossed. Her friend was very amusing to watch. And her question had been a legitimate one! Chicken bones broke on her if she wasn't careful. She had a right to be worried about him choking on them.

"Okay, I get it. You win," she laughed when he jumped up into the fridge. "Are you just going to pull out whatever? If so, can I grab my chicken first?"

She didn't want to try to push him around now that he was half inside the fridge.  They might break something that way.

HUFF. Of course he won. That was the whole point. He won whether she liked it or not. He won because he was getting food and getting food justified spending energy.

But she could get her chicken. That was okay. Wait, was that it? It looked like it. Plastic containers blocked a lot of smell, but really that was good because otherwise his nose would be exploding right now. It would be exploding in human form. It would be more than exploding in this form.

Internal chatter aside, Adder hooked his nose under the plastic lip of the container and pulled it off the shelf, redirecting it with his head and shoulder so it gently slid over to salt softy. Now, for him...

Which container had the most in it? That one! He hooked it forward as well, and then seized it in his teeth before pushing himself back and neatly twisting around to set his front feet on the ground again. He had very little idea what was in the container, something grainy and brownish with vaguely coloured chunks in it, but it was a big container and there was a lot of food in it, and that was what mattered.

Abby watched in fascination as DR passed over the chicken container. She wasn't too sure how he did it. A combination of smell and practice, maybe? Either way she giggled as she took it. With a grin still on her face, she sat down with her back against the counter. Opening her prize her stomach rumbled at the smell. "Yum."

She wasn't worried about heating the chicken. Chicken was chicken. It was already cooked so it was safe, at least by her standards. Raw chicken was a little weird to her, but she liked most other raw meats. It was raw chicken with its sliminess she didn't like. She probably ate more raw-ish meat than was healthy actually. She did try to remember to cook it, but sometimes she just didn't care.

"What'd you find?" she asked while pulling some meat off the carcass. There wasn't a whole lot left of the bird so she'd probably finish it all.

Opening the container was more difficult than acquiring the container, but after a few seconds he was able to get a tooth between the lid and the container itself, and then held the other side down with one oversized paw and pulled.

He left more than a few tooth marks in both pieces of plastic, and a few scratches from his claws along the one side of the lid, but the container was open and his nose was filled with a salty-tangy head-spinning scent that meant FOOD and he dug into that food without ever stopping to wonder what it was.

It happened to be soggy fried rice, dripping soy sauce and staining the fur around his mouth brown-black instead of its usual white, but even if Adder had a name to put to it he wouldn't have cared. Food was food was food was food, and food was good.

"Fried rice? Yeah you can have all that. Rice does not sound good right now," she told DR.

She licked her fingers clean of juices and seasoning. She kept having to clean her fingers since the chicken was still juicy. She probably should have grabbed a napkin or towel or something before sitting down. She looked over to see DR wasn't much better off. He would probably need a bath after their meal. Not that she was much better. She licked at a long line of fluid on her arm.

"Want a bite?" she offered after peeling a long piece of the breast area.

The 'fried rice' was probably substantial enough to feed a mid-sized family, but Adder set himself to eating it all. Maybe he'd be here long enough to not actually eat all of whatever he could. Probably not. He still meant to leave before weird things like that happened.

... she was sharing food? She was so soft.

But chicken. Adder pawed the container to the side so he'd still be standing over it while he reached for the chicken, then carefully took the strip between his front teeth. No need to accidentally bite salt softy. He tossed his head back and chomped through the piece of chicken in a few quite bites, then let his tail drift to the side in an almost-partial-wag while he went back to his food.

The chicken was better than the 'fried rice' but there was more of the rice here, and the chicken was salt softy's. Besides, food was food.