:Uh - you can buy bathtubs but you can't install them in rental houses, it'd involve ripping up a lot of the wall to get the plumbing connected. There might be a plastic kind you can put in the shower cubicle? Or some kind of outdoor hot tub situation you can fill with the hose that'll heat itself up. I'll look:

:I would really appreciate that! Thought I might look for non-bath ways of staying clean once I have the laptop back, since your world seems to have hundreds of options for sale on the internet for everything I could imagine existing and a lot of things I couldn't. I bet your world has amazing hair care options and I should look into them later: 

Not just for Leareth's sake, either. Melody isn't that vain of a woman, but it would be neat to get her hair to behave more nicely. 

:There's probably a quiz for it! I can help you find one next time I'm over:

:Thanks!: Aaaaand that is pretty much the limit for using her Gift at range. :Talk later: 

Leareth snuggles 448 for a while and listens to music before eventually remembering that 448 is a dog and needs to occasionally be let outside to relieve herself. Moving seems very hard so he Mindspeaks Melody to ask if she can do it. 

Sure. Melody will try to summon 448 to follow her downstairs with the 'follow' command (which Leareth has to remind her of). She is going to wear shoes for this. And make sure a towel is right by the back door for later paw-wiping if necessary. 

448 is very grateful that it is go time at long last.

Yep, they clearly need some kind of reminder system for this! Melody is not used to being a dog owner, and Leareth is only inconsistently functional. 

The house isn't dirty exactly, but the floor is definitely making it known that various people have been in and out of here over the last few days. It's still too early for dinner, so after returning Leareth's dog to him, Melody is going to investigate the 'vacuum cleaner' and find out how good it is at cleaning. (The language tutorial has clarified for her what it is and what it's for.) 

The vacuum cleaner is very good at cleaning!

It is also loud. 448 flees to Leareth's side.

Poor 448! Leareth will let her come under the blanket with her and snuggle her tightly. (Leareth himself is not especially startled by the vacuum cleaner sound, Melody warned him first and it's predictable sort of loud noise, a steady low roar that doesn't especially remind him of anything bad.) 

Melody LOVES her vacuum cleaner! She was expecting to end up at least slightly resentful about not having servants or staff to help keep the house clean, on top of not having food cooked for them, but the vacuum cleaner is almost BETTER.

She sings to herself, badly, and vacuums the entire downstairs. Upstairs is probably fine for now, it's seen less foot traffic, and she doesn't want to bother Leareth. She will, however, track down every single cleaning-related object or product in the house and have a go at the bathroom. 

It's weird. She hasn't cleaned her own house since she had small children, and she didn't think she missed it, but here in another world, with only one person she knows - who is also a two thousand year old immortal mage who is arguably a mass murderer, and until a couple of years ago the greatest threat to her kingdom's future - it's oddly soothing to just immerse herself in cleaning a house. 

(Probably a significant contribution to this is that Melody is somewhat under-occupied right now, and bored, and she does not handle boredom well.) 

Eventually things are clean to her satisfaction and she makes them more boiling-water-soup for dinner, a different flavor this time. 448 can have dog food in her bowl. 

This soup is chicken flavored rice with carrots and celery and corn and lentils.

Leareth eats his soup and thinks about naming 448. 

The problem is that he's now really used to her name being '448'? Which he was initially parsing more as sounds than as the number, since he got comfortable recognizing and using the written number system well before he had any good sense of the phonetic pronunciation. Also 448 is presumably used to her current temporary-not-really-name, and it might be easier to transition if he finds something similar? 

He eats his soup and hunts around with the search engine and eventually manages to find some sort of internet dictionary of words that start with the same sound as the spoken pronunciation of the number 4. 

...Ooh, that might be a good one. 

"I think maybe I want to call her 'Forgiver'," he tells Melody. "It - seems appropriate? She does not care that I have done terrible things before, and she is endlessly patient even when I am not very good at having a dog..." 

"Hmm." Melody has so few opinions on dog-naming. "It sounds nice? I hadn't learned that word yet." 

"Neither had I, until now." 

"Well, if you like it then that works for me! Not sure how much she even cares about what her name is. I'm also not sure how to convey to her that she has a new name now? I guess maybe just say it a lot when you're calling for her or want her to do something." 

Leareth will try doing that, then! He thinks he has the energy for a bit more dog-training before getting ready for bed, so he's going to work on clicker-training Forgiver to 'go find Melody and bring her to me', which Melody cheerfully participates in by hiding in various other rooms of the house, and he can use her new name a lot when praising her and giving her treats. 

Forgiver is game to learn this new task. It's not clear how much she's acclimating to the new name.

Well, it'll probably take a while. Leareth isn't in a huge rush, it's not like it seems to be bothering Forgiver not knowing her name. He runs out of energy after half an hour or so anyway, and goes up to bed. 

Melody repossesses the laptop and laboriously tries to find the search page and type in 'hair care'. 

Would she like FIVE HUNDRED PRODUCT ADVERTISEMENTS none of which she can see clearly because they have images that the extension is blocking?

That's kind of inconvenient! Melody starts out squinting at the written descriptions to decide what she wants to click on to see the image, and then eventually gives up and just clicks on everything. What sort of things do people here do to their hair? 

Lots of things, apparently. There are so many kinds of shampoo, and conditioner, and more exotic substances.

Ooooh what is 'conditioner'? If there are videos then Melody is absolutely going to click until she figures out how to watch the videos. 

There are videos! Advertising videos where people wash their hair on screen, or wash other people's hair on screen, and put stuff in it, and then show it when it's dried!