All the while she's murmuring random words.
Her voice is nice, though. He likes her voice.
Eventually she wakes up. She yawns. "Is it just me or is it warmer in here?" she asks.
"Here's hoping that's the only trick up its sleeve." She slides out of his lap. "Maybe it'll give me a longer dress now. And then I can just keep it on until I'm satisfied that's the last time the castle pulls this." She runs up to her room to check.
Excellent. She changes out of her three summery ones and comes back downstairs in a nice burgundy number, ankle- and wrist-length. And she sets about reading. "I'm sorry if any of how I reacted to that was - rude, or callous, or something," she says.
"I resented having to snuggle you," she points out. "I wasn't being subtle about it. Some people would take that personally, even though it had everything to do with the having to, not particularly the you."
"I resented having to snuggle you too," he says. "Even though I liked it. Actually, especially because I liked it."
"There are few things worse than being forced to do something I would have wanted to do anyway," he says, "and one of them is when someone else is being forced to help."
"If I have to be forced to do things I'd just as soon they be things I'm in favor of doing. If someone powerful commanded me to - say - study magic, that's my cue to see if they'll help me accomplish that more efficiently, not resent them for it. But I hear you about the someone-else-being-forced-to-help part."
"Mm," he rumbles. "Being forced to do something I don't want to do is another of the worse things."
After a little while, he gets out of his chair and curls up on the floor at her feet.
Study study study study oh there's a furry thing there pet pet oh wait that's not actually just a cat but if she stops now she might have to explain how she forgot that he was a person pet pet.
This is one heck of a mane. Inches deep. She can put her hand in halfway up her forearm to scritch his scalp. Might as well, at this point.
She goes right on doing it. She only needs one hand to turn pages.