Fuyuko found herself partially in the role of hostess for this dinner, as she was in charge of seeing her guests fed, though she had to run downstairs a ged first since she was still wearing her armor. The three of them also had their own table so that they could have their own versations. While she had vague memories of helping in a kit, Fuyuko retty certain she'd never served someone by bringing food to their seat before and the idea made her suddenly nervous.

  Thankfully, her adoptive parents did not leave her on her own. The three of them took advantage of the ability to unicate mentally with her to offer the occasional nudge gestion. Shizoku seemed to notice when Fuyuko hesitated, but she merely g the other table with amusement. Derek didn't seem to notice at all.

  She had to admit that it was kind of fun to py hostess for her friends, even if it slightly deyed her getting to eat. Her family had made sure that almost all the food avaible was stuff Fuyuko really liked, which meant lots of meat and plenty of bread.

  There were also a couple of vegetable dishes for bance, and Shizoku seemed to actually enjoy them. Derek didn't look thrilled at first, but he seemed to find them acceptable. Fuyuko gnced over at the other table but no one was watg her. That only meant so much given that two of them were also dungeon cores. She could just skip the green stuff, Kazue had said Fuyuko could have whatever she wanted for the couple of days and it was really tempting, but after some indecision, Fuyuko sighed and served herself up a small potion of each vegetable dish too.

  Fifteen wasn't an adult, but it was getting close and she should act more like o wasn't like she entirely hated these either, everything was cooked with butter and one of them had lots of cheese while the other one had a spicy sauce that she liked. Just, well, part of her insisted that she shouldn't want to eat them.

  Dinner certainly wasn't quiet, not with three dragon hatgs wound up from having new people staying over, and aside from her issue with the vegetables Fuyuko rather ehe chaos. After dinner she only had to help get the dishes to the kit, her parents took it from there with Mordecai telling her, "The main room is yours, do what you want with the furniture, just leave enough room for everyoo get by." He reached up to rub her head with a smile before sendio be with her friends.

  After sultation with Shizoku and Derek, they decided to make a little fort out of some of the furniture, dragging it into a half circle around the hearth and using some bo cover the gaps. It was childish, but it was also fun to mess around like this. The dragons were curious and quite eager to get involved, though Fuyuko wouldn't go quite so far as to say they helped.

  When things settled down a little her friends g each other and nodded before digging into their bags. "We wao give you our presents early," Derek said as he fetched out a small box, "so this one's from me." When Fuyuko ope, there air of earrings that started with a simple steel hoop and , but off the short , each earring had a transparent, gss-like sphere inside of which floated little multi-colored sparks. "You said you were thinking about getting more earrings so Shizo helped me figure out how to make the baubles. They don't really do anything, but I thought they looked nice."

  Fuyuko beamed at him and said, "Thank you, I love them. They're lightning and fire sparks and such, aren't they?" She stared down at them for a long moment then bit her lip in thought. She wao put them ht now, but she only had the one pierg. Shizoku seemed to have anticipated this though and brought out a silver needle.

  "I saw what Mordecai used, and it didn't seem to hurt you much. Mind if I do it?" She asked.

  "Er, do you know how?" Fuyuko asked uainly.

  Shizoku nodded. "I don't have a lot of experience, but Gran Gran thought it was something I should know how to do. So, um, well, it might not be perfect. But the holes will be and close to even."

  She hesitated only a moment before nodding and then sat on the ground in front of the chair Shizo had moved to. The silver needle didn't sting any more than a steel one would have, but it did dey the start of her healing long enough for Shizoku to get the earrings in pce.

  "There," Shizoku said with satisfa, "all set. Mm, yeah, like I thought, they look cute on you." She gri Fuyuko and then brought out two packages. "So, I got you two things. One of them I got because I think every girl should have some."

  Fuyuko had to fight the urge to sneeze when she opehe first package. It smelled nice, but the st of cherry blossoms and apples was a bit strong at first. Inside was a velvet bag that held a pretty gss bottle. "Um, is this perfume?"

  "Yes," Shizoku said, "I tried to make it not too sweet and I figure that if you wear it there's even odds that you'll also be wearing your armor or something, so I made sure the blend wouldn't fight with leather, oil, and steel."

  "It's very hank you Shizo." Fuyuko's feelings were a little mixed, but she'd never had perfume before and she decided that this was important to her. She was less certain that she'd ever actually use it, but having it was important. She carefully put it bato its bag and put it aside before Shizoku handed her the sed package.

  "I figure these will be a little more useful for you." Inside was a ft box that held a few different hair bs and hair bands each. "You didn't seem very used to having longer hair, so I thought I'd teach you how to use these." They were all made out of dark, pleasant-smelling woods and Fuyuko was quite happy to spend the several minutes learning how to use them. She didn't want to do anything fancy with hair but she did want to let it grow out at least a little more.

  "Thank you both, oh, um, wait a moment." Fuyuko crawled out of the fort and dashed to her room to return with a pair e but lightweight buhat she pushed into the fort before scrambling ba herself. "So, I missed Derek's birthday, and it's early for Shizo's, but I thought you might like these and it's just easier to do both now. I, uh, I didn't make them or anything, but I had to do some extra work to buy them." She retty certain the shopkeep would have givehe handcrafted items if she'd asked, but Fuyuko felt much better having bought them.

  Her friends curiously uned the buo reveal a pair of Zushi-shaped pillows. "They're ented," Fuyuko added hastily, "like a lot of the other dolls and stuff. They're also ented dolls; they get bigger and be animated for a little while every day if you want. But I figured you might enjoy the pillow part the most." She might have also gotten ara one or two for herself because they were super soft and fy.

  Derek looked a little embarrassed at first but Shizoku was more enthusiastic. "Oh, I love it! He's squishable. Hmm, I bet I would look adorable curled up on it in fox form, don't you think Derek?" She fshed him a teasing grin that got him to blush.

  He looked away and cleared his throat. "Yeah, you sure would. Um, thank you, Fuyuko. Zushi does make for a really nice pillow."

  Fuyuko poked him and said, "You don't have to be shy about it just because you're a boy. I heard Mordecai saying to Kazue how much he loved having soft pillows." Shizoku spped her hand over her face with a groan and Fuyuko looked at her with fusion before asking, "What? Did I miss something?"

  The smaller girl shook her head and sighed, "It's nothing important, and it's probably best that you don't worry about it."

  Fuyuko wasn't sure if everyone else here was weird or if she was the strange one, but she didn't feel like pursuing that questiht now. "Whatever. Anyway, now we have more pillows for our fort too! Now we ... wait, I fot snacks!" She scrambled back out of the fort to go fetch food and drinks for them all.

  The three of them spent the night in their little fort, often with the pany of the hatgs who were happy to try and steal a sleeping spot on the cushy Zushi pillows. Fuyuko felt a little cramped when the smell of food cooking woke her up and she had to slowly crawl out in order to have enough room to stretch. Her friends followed after though they didn't look as bad off.

  "Good M!" Kazue called out to them with a ugh, "Now put the furniture bad get ed up for breakfast."

  Put it back? Did she remember where it all went? Oops. "Um, right." Fuyuko muttered then sighed, "Well, let's get started."

  They weren't quite as enthusiastic about disassembling the fort, but it wasn't hard and they didn't have to figure out how to stack things this time. Then she led Shizoku and Derek downstairs to show them their rooms where they could stash their bags and freshen up. When putting away her presents, Fuyuko took the time te them on her dresser with a smile. She still had the earrings in along with a hair band, but she put the boxes o each other for now, along with the perfume bottle in its bag.

  By the time they got upstairs, everyone else was ready for breakfast too, plus the additions of Bellona, Xarlug, and Carmil. This time Fuyuko and her friends had to sit with everyone else because it was officially her birthday breakfast and all the attention was on her. "Food first," Mordecai said with a smile, "and after that we hand over your presents. Shizoku and Derek help yanize if you want, and then you guys do whatever you want. Tomorrow's a free day too, until su. You three need rest before you head out for the ."

  Fuyuko nodded and gnervously at the pile of packages. That seemed like a lot of presents. Well, like Mordecai had said, food first. And Moriko was bringing iant stack of pancakes just for her. That was enough to make Fuyuket about any s for a little while.

  Zagaroth