Aleko wanders in and helps himself.

A few minutes later, so does Sarelle.

"Fantastic. Non-soapy," pronounces Aleko around a mouthful.

"Great," giggles Loel. "Just what I wanted to hear."

It is well after breakfast, and in fact nearing time for lunch, when Patience arrives, alone and without a carriage, just on a horse with a big fluffy copper-furred dog following. She ties the horse to the nearest appropriate horse-tying object and heads up to the door, on which she knocks.

Loel's desire to meet Patience by himself first is generally known, so no one else is nearby when he opens the door.

Patience opens her mouth, pauses like that for a second, and then says, "What the heck?"

"Hi, Patience," he says. "It's complicated. Do you wanna come in?"

"Yeah, because what the heck?"

He steps back to let her in. "Your dog is really cute."

"His name's Mud, don't ask why, it's a long and stupid story. What the heck."

"I'm totally going to ask you why your dog's name is Mud," he says. "I go by Loel Lalindar now, but I'm pretty sure you know me as somebody else. Don't tell anybody, it's a secret, I ran away for a reason. As far as anybody who's not you, me, Kiri, or Aleko should know, I'm just a guy they found in Thiyec under a herd of lost rainclouds."

"Yeah, I recognize you, of course I recognize you, come on. Is there anybody besides us and Kiri and Aleko here right now?"

"Sarelle and Ekador. They're all playing cards in a different part of the house. So why is your dog's name Mud?"

"It's a long stupid story, my uncle breeds dogs, I wanted one, so did one of my cousins, we went and she asked our other cousin whether they named the dogs and - it is a long stupid story, stop me whenever."

"No, keep going!"

"And the cousin who is the daughter of the uncle with the dog breeding thing decided it sounded cooler if the answer was yes, only there's dozens and dozens of dogs around, this breed is for herding and guarding so they breed lots of them. And only the ones they keep as adults actually have names so the other cousin called her on it, and she started coming up with more and more desperately obviously made-up names until they got to where I was settling on this particular puppy and then the puppy was named Mud. Following littermates named, I don't even remember them all, Milk and Pinetree and Bubble. And it stuck. So, Mud."

"That's adorable," giggles Loel.

Loel sits down on the floor and hugs him. This seems like an appropriate way to greet such a cute fluffy dog.

Mud licks him on the face messily, still wagging.

Awww. He giggles again. Fluffy hugs!

"I can get you one if you want one. Sounds lonely being out here if you haven't even hired anybody, yeah?"

"Nah, I don't want a dog. But I'll cuddle yours while he's here. You are cute and fluffy," he informs Mud.