Foxbox maaaay have dropped off to nap. It seems social things really tire her out.

Awww. Valid of her. Extra reason not to do normal school, then.

Sable putters through grilling the salmon, with some spices and lemon, and cooks up some rice too. The desk arrives at some point during the process, and she sets it by the stairs to go up later, then back to the kitchen. She cooks up a few safe veggies, too — and some unsafe ones, but only puts those on her own plate, just because she needs to get through 'em — and then goes to check on Foxbox.

She leans down with a soft kiss to her forehead and nudges her shoulder gently.

"Food's ready, sweeties."

Foxbox startles - 

- then giggles and hugs Sable and hops down off the couch to come eat. 

"Love you," she croons.

Awwwww!

She squeezes Foxbox close as they head to the table, pressing a kiss to the top of her head.

"Love you too."

Everything's hot and fresh and plated up. She grabs them each a glass of water.

And noms proceed! It's tasty as heck. 

"So," Foxbox says after supper. "Could you help me set up my desk in my room? I'll probably need it for studying, and I don't like leaving the laptop lying around." 

"Yeah, that's a good plan."

Off to the utility closet, where she grabs a small toolbox and hands it to Foxbox. "Can you haul that up for me while I bring the desk itself?"

"Sure!" 

And up the stairs she goes, leading the way up to her new room.

Sable follows cheerfully, carrying the long box of the desk. "I'm glad we're getting you set up properly, sweetheart. I'm new to this whole raising a kid business, but I wanna make sure to take good care of you."

Down the box goes with a thump, and Sable pulls a pocketknife out to start opening it, setting various parts out and organizing them.

Foxbox grabs the assembly instructions and the bag of screws and Allen keys and puts them both on the bed where they won't get buried under parts. 

"Wow, it's surprisingly large spread out like this. That is a lot of real wood to see in one place." She shakes her head. "All the stuff you can get these days for a reasonable price is engineered wood made from wood chips, particle board mostly - sometimes better quality stuff will have densified wood components, but that's more expensive. Anything that preserves the grain like in this piece here -" She raps the unassembled desktop with a knuckle - "is a luxury product." 

"Yeah, we have some industrial tree farms, and we're not exactly taking care of our forests, either."

She starts assembling things, one piece at a time.

Foxbox does her best to hand Sable each new piece from the stack and provide her the screws and tools when she needs them.

"Helpful daughter!"

The desk steadily takes shape.

"I try! I'm not exactly a handy person but I'm good at handing people things."

Sable smiles and tightens the last few screws. "I certainly appreciate it."

"You don't have a chair yet, but we can bring one up from the dining room until we go hit the office supply place for the really good chairs."

"Okay!" Foxbox exhales and runs a hand through her hair. "I feel tired just watching you do all this work, so please, no rush if it takes a bit to get a proper office chair in. And also -"

She squeezes Sable firmly. "Good mom."

"Aww, thank you." She hugs Foxbox warmly. "What would you like to do with the rest of the night?"

"I think I mostly want to settle in and spend some time alone," Foxbox says after a little deliberation. "Not everything has to be super fun and interesting." 

She sighs and stretches. "Shame you don't have children's conspiracies here, but I suppose it was a tall order with how this world sees children. And I'm too old to join any of them honestly, even if I was back on my home world."

"Children's conspiracies? I'd love to hear about those when you're feeling up for explaining, but extremely valid to settle in and relax."

"Secret social groups for kids between the ages of usually six and twelve, sometimes as late as sixteen but I'm not actually younger than sixteen so it'd be lying to join one. Usually they're where you get your real education from - there's classes online for school, but conspiracies are where you get practical experience solving real problems. Some of them are kids only forever, some feed into adult branches of the same broader organization. The larger ones that accept teens tend to have a certain amount of political pull, and the ones for smaller kids often have a good amount of material resources even if no-one in them can strictly vote yet. A lot of them work as children's advocacy groups as well."

"Gosh. That sounds amazing. I would've had so much fun with those if we'd had 'em when I grew up."

"Yeah, I had a ton of fun with them too, they're part of the reason I wish I could go back to being a kid."

"Well maybe we we could make our own," Sable suggests with a playful smile. "The Conspiracy for Interdimensional Contact, maybe?"

"Maybe, yeah," Foxbox says with a giggle. "Not sure you could manage it on this planet, but maybe!"