Leaning into his hand for ear scritches is such a priority that she actually ends up overbalancing and losing her footing. She catches herself with a paw before she goes toppling over, but the stumble itself is pretty hard to miss. Whoops, that's embarrassing.

Awwwww. He scoops her up onto the bed with him and kisses the top of her head and pets her good soft ears some more.

She giggles, boops his nose with her own at the kiss, and then settles in for snuggles and pets. He has earned little happy chirping noises and little wiggles, she hopes he is proud of his achievement.

Yes. So, so proud.

Excellent. Then all is right in the world.

Unfortunately, she cannot indulge in the hedonistic pleasure of ear scritches forever.

...

Ahem. She said, she cannot indulge in the hedonistic pleasure of ear scritches forever.

...

She cannot indulge in the—

—Oh, fine, she'll embrace hedonism for a little while. Ear scritches are compelling.

Ear scritches are important.

They are. How else would he get a liquid fox? Ear scritches are an important part of this process. He can see the results of it for himself.

Oh! A foxpuddle! The best and softest foxpuddle!!!

Also the happiest. Mmm being a foxpuddle is so nice.

... But she missed him. Not just for his ability to scritch her ears, but for everything else. She cracks open an eye to gaze at him fondly, then makes a little tiny encouraging yip and noses him languidly.

"Yes?"

Yip-yip!

... She tried to make that sound like 'talk more,' but it probably wasn't very communicative. Damn. Does she have to get up and go to her letters to say anything? She likes being a foxpuddle so much. Let's see if leaning up and bapping his mouth with her nose will communicate the thing.

...He giggles. "Really? All right, if you insist. Should today's lecture be on magical theory, the failures of the wizarding education system, or some new interesting subject I haven't discussed before?"

Hm! She considers this, then:

Single yip! That probably means the first thing.

"Hmmm, let's see, what magical theory shall I discuss... ooh, I know! Dragons! Dragons are a fascinating example of something everyone thought was true for a really long time and then fairly recently someone put together a sufficiently compelling case to overturn the consensus. First of all that's fascinating because hardly anyone ever manages that, and second of all it's fascinating because I have no idea if they were right or not. No one's found any evidence of them in the last hundred years, and in most cases if you can't dig up any conclusive signs that something exists, that in itself is a fairly conclusive sign that it doesn't, particularly when the thing in question is the size of a house and breathes fire. But eight or nine hundred years ago when everyone was pretty sure that dragons existed, all the accounts of what they were like were remarkably consistent - and included details implying alchemic correspondences that hadn't yet been discovered at the time! Poison is such a little-used element that its association with the Crown Star was only proven a couple of centuries ago, but green dragons are reliably depicted with poison breath. On the other hand, if dragons do exist, then where in the world have they all run off to?"

... Gosh. Yes, that's an interesting question. Just from Isfain's explanation, she's inclined to think they do exist, but something happened to them to cause them all to disappear. That seems like a sensible compromise that follows both sets of evidence. On the other hand, though, she hasn't personally read either case, and is hesitant to weigh in so soon. Hm.

She gives a little thoughtful whumpf, and noses Isfain affectionately. He is a good wizard, and she likes him.

He grins and pets her soft ears.

"For a while when I was fresh out of school I toyed with the idea of setting off on a quest to find the dragons, but then I decided there were plenty of interesting questions to answer a little closer to home, and I'm much more of a theorist than an adventurer."

She's certainly glad he didn't run off to find dragons, even if the answers would be fascinating. How would she have shown up on his doorstep to be defoxed? Clearly it would have been much more difficult, which sounds terrible. She would have been wandering in the woods as a fox even longer. Instead, she can giggle a little fox giggle, then nuzzle him affectionately, in this nice comfy bed with this nice wonderful wizard.

"Maybe someday, though. After I've run out of more convenient notions to pursue."

He gets a very wry look. Uh huh. Somehow she expects that will take a while.

... But then, he's a powerful wizard, he probably has a while. By the stories, he's got to be at least twice her age, if not more so. She tilts her head thoughtfully.

"Are you doubting that I could possibly have such a limited store of notions as that? You might be right."

She gives a little affirmative yip and nuzzles his hand affectionately. Ear scritches and Isfain lectures, yessssssss.

Pet pet pet. "You're so soft. I apologize, that wasn't about magical theory at all."

She giggles, then playfully nibbles his hand. Very gently.

—he cracks up.

Nibble, nibble... Boop! She has taken advantage of this distraction to boop his nose.