Abby had borrowed one of her classmate's laptop for her evening. She helped them with their homework for letting her borrow it a few times. She wanted one of her own but had no money to buy one. Though with her new friendship with Panu... Anything could happen.

Her day had been really strange but in a good way. She made some friends, had fun, ate ice cream. It was a good day. Strange, but good. Now though she just wanted to watch one of her favorite movies. Treasure Planet was a movie her Daddy had liked. They had watched it a lot before.

Looking around her room as she walked backwards to her door, she counted what she needed. She had her blanket fort set up in the unoccupied corner of her room. The laptop was waiting with the movie menu already loaded. There were plenty of pillows and blankets in the fort. Now all she needed was snacks. She was wondering if she should find some candy to go with her popcorn as she opened her bedroom door.

Silly salt softy was too trusting and was going to get herself hurt if she wasn't careful. Fortunately, Adder had a solution.

He waited until she went into her room for the night, after keeping a distant watch on her in whichever form he thought would draw the least attention ever since he made sure she'd made it back to the mansion okay. And then he lay down in front of her door, and growled at anyone who went past and seemed to think it inappropriate for there to be a wolf lying in the residential hallway of the mansion.

So what if it were supposed to be the girls' hallway. This was where salt softy was, and so he was going to lie here and make sure she didn't sneak out and do anything else dangerous. And then he'd watch her in the morning too, until she grew out of this dangerous wandering nonsense.

Or at least learned to be less trusting about it.

In the meantime, he was going to have a nap.

Abby just stood in her doorway. There was a wolf outside her door. It was a familiar wolf too. The shifter from before. The one she had dried off and had a meal with. She crouched down to look at the wolf. He seemed to be sleeping.

"It's a good thing doors open inwards," she mumbled. There was something itching at her brain, but she ignored it. "Well, would you like to watch a movie with me? It'd probably be better than sleeping in the hallway."

Adder's ears shot up at the slight sounds of the door behind him opening, and salt softy's voice. He twisted over to look at her, one foreleg draped over his chest in the awkward angle. Watch a movie? Er.

But she was inviting him in, and that meant he could keep a closer eye on her. Yes. Yes, this would work quite well.

He hauled himself to his feet, giving himself a little shake to wake up that mostly fell asleep itself and ended up just moving his shoulders and tail. He bumped her a little bit with his shoulder, squeezing through the doorway, and did a quick investigatory loop around the room. Had to make sure there was nothing dangerous, right? Plus he was curious. He hadn't really ever been in someone else's room unless you counted those times where people left their windows and doors open and had money just lying around.

Oh hey, fish!

Abby giggled as her wolf friend moved into her room. Seemed he wanted to spend some time with her. "I'm going to get some popcorn for the movie. Want to stay here or go with?" she asked. She kept an eye on him as he moved around her room. Most things were put away so she wasn't too worried.

Popcorn? Up went his ears and tail. He liked popcorn. Popcorn was good. And as if he'd let her go wandering unwatched this soon! He hurried out of the room, casual investigation forgotten, and stood waiting in the hallway, watching her.

Were they going to go or not?

Abby giggled as her friend raced out of her room and to the hall. She kept giggling as she followed and closed her door. "Let's go get the popcorn. Then we can watch the movie. Have you ever seen Treasure Planet?" she asked as she headed for the kitchen.

He didn't care what the movie was, and the name didn't poke at any distant memories as far as he could tell. He wanted the popcorn and the salt softy guarding! The second part he could at least do now, and he was! By walking right beside her, just a bit ahead so his head and shoulders went around corners before she did and he'd see anyone or anything coming first.

Like that person! Glaring at the scaly, spiky kid who was one of the ones who liked to try to sneak up on him while he snoozed outside, Adder leaned against salt softy to move her over and away from the brat. And when the brat grinned and reached out a shiny hand, he got wolf teeth in challenge to dragon teeth. And did a satisfactory job of shrieking (if not in abject terror) and skittering along down the hallway.

Adder was satisfied. On to the popcorn!

Abby hummed a tune as she walked with her wolf friend. It was nice to be able to just spend time with someone. She was a little shocked when he pushed into her. Looking around she spotted a reptile like kid grinning at them. She tilted her head as he kid tried to touch her wolf friend. Her friend didn't like that. He snapped at the reptile kid.

Laughing, she smiled down at her friend. "Aren't you all warmth and cuddles," she teased. There didn't seem to be a good reason for her friend to be her friend, but she was happy to have someone who spent time with her at the school. Even if she had only gotten that one glimpse at his human face.

She went back to humming as they finished their walk to the kitchen. She went straight for the lower cabinet with the popcorn bags, then moved to put the opened bag in the microwave. Then she went to what most students called the "candy cabinet" which held several different large bags of the most common candies. "Can you have chocolate? Ya know, being canine and all right now?" she asked as she pulled down some Reese's and m&ms. She liked mixing them with her popcorn.  Once her candy was on a counter she turned back to the cabinet. "Any candy you want me to grab?"

Warmth and cuddles? Why would he be warmth and cuddles? Although he did like being warm, as long as he wasn't too warm since it was summer and all. Warm was better than cold but it was harder to escape. Especially with fur. He sneezed, eyeing salt softy.

When they made it to the kitchen, Adder held back and stood by the door to watch. It was nice that there was no one else in here, but people could still approach while they were here. She was asking him stuff, though. Chocolate? He'd had it before but never a lot. He didn't think it had hurt him? So he shrugged, then glanced at the doorway again before plopping his furry butt on the floor. He didn't know what different kinds of candy were. Maybe he had once upon a Before, but now? Bah.

He shrugged for that too.

Abby's friend gave her non-answers mostly. Since she wasn't sure about the chocolate, she grabbed a packet of Twizzlers and some Laffy Taffy. The microwave went off and she grabbed a big bowl and the popcorn bag. She poured in some m&ms after the popcorn, leaving the Reese's out in case her friend shouldn't have too much chocolate. She gathered her bowl and the other bags and turned to her friend, who was still by the door.

"Ready to watch the movie?" she asked as she carried her prizes out of the kitchen. Going upstairs with her loot would be interesting. She didn't usually have her arms full like this. "When we get to the stairs, could you stay behind me? In case I fall?"

Not talking as a wolf was really starting to be limiting. Salt softy had seen him as not-wolf now, sure, but he still remembered her first reaction. She didn't feel comfortable seeing wolf-as-not-wolf. So it was better for his to stay like this, even if he had to fight against smell-headaches and noise-headaches to do it.

He rose to his paws when she turned away from the counter, arms full of food-smelling stuff. Sugary stuff. Should be good stuff. Not filling but he didn't need filling right now. If she was concerned about falling while carrying so much stuff, he really could help. If he had hands right now. He huffed but fought back the shimmer trying to twist at the back of his neck. No shifting.

Without hands, the best he could do was lean against her, very gently, to keep her upright and balanced. It was honestly very awkward to walk like that, and it kept him to her pace, which wasn't exactly a pace he normally moved at in any form, and he couldn't just go ahead and wait for her or fall back and catch up.

He would be glad when they reached her room and stopped moving.

Abby took the route back to her room slowly. She didn't want to fall. She had learned to take her time with things, like homework. This would just be one of those things. She didn't see the reptile kid on her way to the stairs. He probably wouldn't show up again. Or maybe he would. Abby wasn't sure.

She took the stairs one at a time. It was slow but safer. She rocked a little, but she didn't fall or hurt herself. She was happy her wolf friend was with her though. Once on the correct floor she fastened her pace. She wanted to watch her movie. And now she had a friend to watch with!

"The movie's all set up in the back corner," she informed her friend. "You can go ahead if you wanna." It wouldn't take too long for the little blonde to get there herself. Less than five minutes. Then they could watch the movie!

Stairs, stairs were awkward with four feet. But Adder was getting lots of practice, and he had to keep salt softy upright and stable. It wasn't a perfect job, and she still wobbled a little bit in place, but he was good and supportive and they got through it.

And then they were back to her room, or close enough, and she was telling him to go on ahead. Was she sure? She would be okay on her own? Okay, then he would go get settled, and also make sure no one had snuck in while they were gone!

He sprang away and into the room, and inhaled deeply while he did a quick investigation. No intruders. All was well. He pushed himself into the blanket fort and stretched out on his belly with a bit of a wiggle, settling himself down on the fluffiness. This was vaguely familiar, but he certainly hadn't done anything like this recently. Hm.

Had he stopped just because his parents had died and all?

Abby giggled a bit when she saw her friend inside the fort. He looked comfy. That was good. Still giggling a little, she plopped down beside him. She ended up leaning into him a bit, but for whatever reason his fur didn't hurt like skin did. She thought it might be like how grass didn't hurt. She wasn't sure though and didn't really want to test her theory.

"Shall we watch the movie now?" she asked as she put down all of the snacks.