Eeeeee! She makes a little happy chirp, and wiggles closer to snuggle him. Her tail goes fwishfwishfwish. Yes, excellent.

Awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww soft fox soft fox soft fox!! With soft fwishes!!!!

She giggles at his delight, fwishes her tail a little more, and then leans up to boop his nose! Boop. Good morning, Isfain, Astea missed you, can you tell?

He can! He can tell!

Oh, good! This is important to communicate. His presence has been missed, because he's very great. While she was fine without him and perfectly capable of amusing herself, he's a positive in her life, and she noticed his absence. It's good to see him again. She indulges in more happy wiggles and happy tail fwishes, because aaa he's so great.

Then she carefully inspects him now that he's awake. Being buried in books has not been bad for him, right? He has not shrunken to skin and bones or shriveled up into a raisin or collected strange fungal growths or anything? He's probably fine, he has successfully made it this far in life without anyone to remind him that time passes and he should maybe eat something, but she's invested in his welfare because she cares about him.

He looks fine. No dark circles under his eyes or mushrooms behind his ears.

Good, good. It'd be alarming to find mushrooms behind his ears. He may have a little boop of fox approval. She's glad he's taking care of himself, he is important and should keep it up.

Pet pet. "Aww, were you worried about me?"

Amused huff. She nudges his hand affectionately, then hops down to her letters. He fixed them at some point, probably when he got her the hundreds of letters for tedious messages.

Not worried, exactly. I don't think you'll burst into flames if I look away. Amused tail swish. But I care about you, and want to make sure you're taking care of yourself.

"I disappear into piles of books pretty frequently, and they haven't yet managed to set me on fire!"

Giggle. Good job!

He scoots to the edge of the bed and leans over to pet her.

She leans into his hand and gazes fondly up at him.

Soft fox!!!

She should probably ask him how long he expects he'll be buried in books, or about his progress, or for breakfast, or about something else while he's actually here, but gosh scritches are so compelling. Especially when he pets her ears. He should pet her ears, they are very soft.

They are! She has such good soft ears!!!

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.