"I can forage my own cobwebs, don't worry."

"Good to know," he says, a little faintly, and then — Leo hasn't seemed to mind so far — picks him up and hugs him and presses him against Sasha's cheek. 

Leo is very soft and cuddly and nice to pet!

"We should probably figure out what other magic they created me with. They didn't tell me."

Sasha unlocks his phone again. 

"Heel isn't really applicable right now, neither is Come, I don't know what Sing is supposed to mean, I don't have a crate and I wouldn't put you in it if I did." 

"Some of them might do something unexpected, I think. They're dog commands because I'm a dog but you wouldn't want a princess to be limited to, like, fetching me."

"That... makes sense." Insofar as any of this makes sense, which it doesn't, which Sasha will deal with later. 

"Sing." 

Leo sings. 

The song isn't English, or in any language Sasha recognizes; some of the sounds sound difficult to make with a human throat. The song is quiet and gentle and beautiful. It says: this puppy is so soft, he is so soft and warm and nice to pet, you're safe, you're okay, you don't have to do anything, all you have to do right now is lie here and hold this puppy, he's so good, the most important thing to do in the whole entire world is to snuggle the puppy and feel warm and safe and okay. You really want to focus on every detail of what the puppy feels like, how soft his fur is, how warm he is, the way his tail wags. You don't want to do anything else at all. Everything is okay.

...oh. 

💙.

Leo is very soft and very warm and very good, and Sasha is warm and safe and okay and everything's going to be okay. It's a little hard to move. He's not sure why he'd want to. 

The song finishes and Leo snuggles up with him. 

"So. Mind control music. That's useful."

The warmth dissipates, but slowly. And Leo is still snuggling him. 

"I probably should be freaked out by that." He's smiling, dreamy. 

"Why? It's not like I can use it when you don't want me to."

"Yeah, but —" and he pushes the last wisps of dreamy floaty warmth aside — "you said you were made for a purpose, right? And if I'm making a servant for the Princess, and one of the abilities I give him is mind control singing, that raises a lot of questions." 

"Possibly for the princess to relax, and possibly for her to destroy her enemies?"

"...I guess that tracks," he says, and lets himself sink into the mattress. "Leo. Sing." 

This time the song says:

Everything in the world is terrible. There is no point to doing anything, because anything you might do is doomed. There is no action you can take that will cause any positive effect. Happiness and joy and love are lies. Everything is suffering and misery and sorrow and hatred. The only solution is to lie down and rot.

Sasha curls up into a tiny ball and whimpers. 

"...okay, so, apparently I have more than one mind-control song, and some of them are awful."

"I am now about one hundred times more concerned about the thought process that went into your magic." He still sounds like he's about to cry. 

"...I can't sing the happy one unless you tell me to."

"I don't know how many you have, and it seems like you can't control them," he says, but after a pause he follows it up with, "Sing." 

The song says:

Your homework is incredibly easy. Here is a brilliant idea for the essay; the evidence you need will be here and here and here in the book, and this is a witty turn of phrase to use in paragraph three. Math is fun, it's just puzzles, and the puzzles aren't at all difficult to solve. Chemistry makes total sense, and social studies is fascinating. You can't wait to get started. Why are you still in bed? You should get a pen right now and write.

This literally never happens but he's up from being curled in a ball on his bed going through his backpack and then being almost immediately stymied by the fact that hearing a song that makes him motivated does not in fact cause him to understand chemistry — whatever he'll just write the essay first and then — 

Leo stops singing. 

"What I meant was," he says, "I think you can give more specific orders, like 'don't ever sing that depressing one again', or 'sing something happy', or 'keep singing until I tell you to stop.'"

"That sounds less like a dog-type command but — hold up I gotta write this down before I forget —" 

Leo really wants to make suggestions but 'hold up' is an order!

He compromises by bouncing in an agitated fashion.