Affirmative, slightly amused yip! And then over to Isfain she goes, leaning up for scritches.

Scritch scritch. "And how have you been enjoying your adventures in herbalism?"

Happy squeak! Followed by excited tail swishes.

Oh no she's so soft. "Well, do let me know if you'd like me to leave you to it, or alternately if you'd like to come back inside." But in the meantime, he shall scritch the soft fox.

Hmmmmm she thinks her map of the surrounding area is accurate enough to be getting along with, and she has a few ideas of things to go running off to look up in the library. Probably best to go back inside before she starts digging things up and needs another bath, which she was... definitely thinking about doing. Ahem.

She stands on her hind legs to put her paws on his leg and give a yip that's probably asking to be picked up. Then her nose points tower-wards.

Scoop! And off he strides on his improbably long legs, with friend on shoulder, back to the tower.

Being scooped is great fun! Especially by a cute wizard she has a crush on. This is a happy fox! Who is on her way to not being a fox, so that she might perhaps do something about the aforementioned crush!

As it is, though, she just gives him a friendly boop. On his ear. Because she's aware her nose is cold, and his reaction will probably be funny.

Squeak!!

See! Such a cute reaction!!

She will give him an apologetic nose boop on his cheek, though.

"I look forward to the day when your nose is not so damp," he says, but he's also still petting her.

Her, too!

Also oh goodness he's flirting back, that's exciting and also furthermore eep. Happy eep, but! She will nestle her head into his shoulder and totally not think about what precisely they will be doing once she's human shaped again.

Many soft pets for the soft friend.

And here they are at the tower again. "Where to?" he asks his passenger as he starts up the stairs. "Sitting room, your room, somewhere else?"

Hmmmm. She thinks she'd like some variety in scenery, spending too much time in her room is going to make her feel like a shut in.

One yip!

Sitting room it is! A cozy little one with a red-grey colour scheme.

Excellent! Then she can snuggle him and get scritches and presumably he can work on making her not fox shaped anymore!

He does indeed work on that. With scritches. They're very important scritches.

Sometime in late afternoon, he exclaims "ah—ha!" and flops delightedly into a new bizarre configuration on the sitting room's very comfy couch. "All right, I have, so to speak, found the end of the rope. It would be faster to flip it than pull it off entirely, but it's looking to be a difference of hours or days and not many days if any, so I presume you'd still rather be completely defoxed?"

Astea has, by this point in time, had a nap, some snacks, and has solicited a chew toy to nibble on while snuggling and getting scritched. She looks up from her mangled curtain tassle and gives an affirmative bark.

"Understood." Scritch scritch. "I'm off to disappear completely under a pile of ritual magic books; I will be returning at unpredictable intervals to check my work against the reality it is meant to affect."

Affirmative yip! Then she pauses and jumps down from the couch to tap the floor twice with a front paw. Sort of how she points to the letters.

"Hm? Aha—" He flicks his fingers and conjures a letter-set for her.

Food and sleep reminder?

She looks very wry, for a fox.

"...I would like to say I won't need them, but, alas, you know me too well for that. Yes please."

Affirmative (and amused) yip! Then she bounces back onto the couch to give him an affectionate noseboop, grabs her chew toy, and waves a front paw before heading off. Probably to investigate his library some more, but she hasn’t decided yet.

Isfain, as promised, vanishes upstairs to make a huge mess among his books on ritual design.

He is very cute.

But she should leave him to be a nerd in peace, with only minimal interruptions to remind him that he has a mortal form that needs some kind of care. And also for snuggles, because he does actually need to check his work, and snuggles and scritches are great. They still sleep snuggled together, because that's just nice, and it seems obvious for them to fall asleep together when she's the one reminding him to sleep at all. She hangs around him and occasionally points her adorable fluffy charm at him, but she is actually perfectly comfortable giving him space to work.