"Maybe next time."

"Alright. You want anything in particular after we get that ID card? Today looked like it was hard."

"It was hard enough that trying to figure out if I want anything is difficult."

"Hm. Then we'd better go home and let you decompress and sleep, I think."

She nods.

Once they are out of the building and out of sight of everyone else she hugs him, hard, and starts crying.

Hug. Very hug. She needs all the hug he can give, right now.

Yes good.

She's going to be crying for a while.

He sings something in a foreign language. Maybe Hindi.

Eventually the crying peters out. She does not immediately let go of him.

"Thank you," she says quietly. "For everything."

"It's no more than you deserve. Than anyone deserves."

"Yeah. Thank you anyway."

He disengages from the hug. Slowly, stopping if she resists. "You know what, let's go meet some animals. Dogs will love you no matter who you are."

She does not resist. "That sounds nice."

So they get into van and he describes all the dogs currently in the shelter on the way back.

It's sweet how much he obviously cares about them. She is actually looking forward to it by the time they get there.

It turns out one of the puppies he was going to show her is being adopted. He asks the little boy, "You'll take good care of Roy for me, right?" He nods solemnly. The parents quiz him on dog care, which he happily tells them about.

Awwwwww. That's really cute.

The family walks off happy.

Pawprint shows her a bunch of other dogs, about a third of them puppies.

The more energetic ones are a little bit nerve-wracking but not as much as they are cute.

She can play with them, throw toys, pet them, or just sit and watch. "Dogs need socialization and playtime to be mentally healthy, so don't worry that we're wasting time or getting in the way." He's having a little glowy squirrel run around and be chased by the dogs.

She mostly watches but she will play with them a little. She is delighted by the squirrel, the squirrel is adorable.

"Now might be a good time to practice basic magic. It won't spook them, I think, most of these guys like playing with water and you could experiment with the tripwire."

"Okay!"

She practiced small and discreet before, with her water; now she tries for flashy and attention-catching.

She can imitate two or three strong garden hoses or a smallish ocean wave pretty well, but her maximum power hasn't really increased yet.

The dogs chase and bark at the streams of water, or try to drink from them, playfully enough though.

Hmm what if she wants the amount of water of a garden hose but distributed like a sprinkler?