Where Woofs (18+)

After Pancho's face has been fixed, you take your paw back and bop her nose until she's persuaded to wrestle with you. You're bone-tired from all the work your body's put into healing, but you've also been lying around for a week or more, ages and ages spent on sleeping and you're full to bursting with a restlessness that's damn well going to be everyone else's problem for awhile.

 

Disgruntled, you go groom Logan instead. She's a squirmy idiot, but at least she's appreciative. Plus she's ridiculously fluffy and needs a lot of work. Her leg fluffs are absolutely full of tiny green prickles that are an absolute bitch to get out. After a while you petition Helen for a comb, because when you use your teeth the prickles try to stick to your tongue. Yech.

 

Helen's hair is cropped close to her scalp, and when she finds and tosses Bel a cheap plastic comb it smells strongly of unknown red wolves and, for some reason, lavender oil.

"You're one smart cookie, aren't you?" she says thoughtfully, watching Bel investigate and then manipulate the tool.

 

You manage a modest shrug despite not having the anatomy for it. You're actually feeling sort of brainfoggy, but you're used to working past that kind of thing.

Clamping the comb delicately in your teeth by one end, you use the other to pick out the nasty stickers, occasionally pausing to wrestle Logan back down and sit on her because combing makes her wriggle. When you've finally got them mostly out, you wipe the sticky plant goo off the comb on a cardboard box, then deposit the comb on Helen's lap with a nod of thanks.

 

Helen pulls out a paper tissue to clean the rest of the comb off.

"Hey, spell and define 'querulous'" she says, casually.

 

W H Y ? you tap out, tilting your head. You're trying to figure out if that's a joke or if she actually wants you to do it.

 

She looks pleased at the question. "I'd like to see how sharp you are, if you don't mind."

 

Now that you've run out of dog to comb, you suppose this will do to pass the time, though you've never been fond of the Performing Monkey Genius Child game.

Q U E R O U you begin, then pause. Q U E R U L U -- no, that's not right. F U C K M O R S E W H E R E S M Y T A B L E T. Once you've got your notepad app open, you carefully type: Querulous -- grumpyface whinerpants. Data point, spelling is hard rn if I can't see it written down.

 

"That's actually the particular capability I'd like to test," Helen says. "Can you concentrate well enough to spell, say, 'exquisite' in morse, or only written down?"

 

"Hmm. Concentration's usually the problem, we lose a lot of brainpower at the Agency on full moons just from that, even before the working memory issues kick in. Tap out 'conference', turn three times in a circle counter-clockwise, tap out 'confluence', and turn twice clockwise. Can you do that?"

 

You do it easily -- or think you do, until you realize you tapped 'confidence' instead of 'confluence'. W E L P, you comment. M O R S E I S T O O F A S T. I T R I P O V E R M Y O W N B R A I N.

 

Helen gets out a little notebook and pencil from her jacket and starts jotting down notes.

"You also turned around three times the second time, too, though you remembered to rotate different directions. It's hard for you guys not to turn around three times, I've heard. We're seeing how much you can carry in your head before it gets scrambled, though it's interesting enough that you can still write. Can you add twenty and seventeen, minus three, times three, divided by two? Then rotate counter-clockwise again twice."

 

5 1, you tap confidently as you turn the wrong way. Three times. G D I. You sit down with a sigh. I W A S D O I N G T H E M A T H W H I L E U W E R E T A L K I N G & L O S T T H E S T A G E D I R E C T I O N. Since she seems genuinely interested, not just messing with you, you resort to the tablet and try to explain: I have lots of practice w focus in distracting situations. That's probs helping here. My working memory is total pants rn tho.

 

"Hm. How would you define 'working memory' as opposed to 'concentration'? How many operations could I ask for at a time before you start having problems?"

She waits until Bel's started typing, then goes and gets a can of spam and deliberately opens it right next to his tablet. Across the room, Erskin perks up.

 

Well, obviously i'm having trouble with just two, if you count that math problem as a single oh very funny Helen, argh. Stupid dog nose. Yes, I lost track of my sentence. Didn't stop typing, tho, make of that what u will.

You glance at Erskin, and laugh at his expression. N O W U H A V E 2 F E E D H I M O R H E L L S U L K 4 E V E R, you point out. To Erskin, you explain, "She's giving me concentration tests for some reason. That was a distraction. Now I'm distracted."

 

"Is that a treat? Can I have have a treat?" you ask hopefully. Helen gestures you over.

She says, "Watch," to Bel for some reason, then goes and gets a bowl of water and brings it back. She snaps her fingers at you when you try to get your nose into the open spam container, and keeps snapping until you pay attention to her notepad.

"Draw these shapes on the floor and you get the spam," she says slowly and clearly, gesturing at some pen lines and then to the bowl of water. You are skeptical. The spam is open. You can definitely get the spam without doing anything.

"Otherwise your boyfriend gets the spam," she adds, and that galvanizes you. That is your spam. You limp quickly over to the water and stick your nose in, then remember you'd drawn last night with your paw, then take a drink because you might as well while your nose is in there, then get your paw wet, then realize you've forgotten what shapes. You go back and look at the shapes. Then your paw is dry.

You go, get your paw wet, and draw a triangle (mostly), a circle (kind of), try to carry the spam off and are stopped by a traitorous Bel, check the notebook again, and draw a very passable square with corners and everything. Then you sit down, wagging proudly.

Helen gives you the spam and you cram your nose right in there, sporfling with delight. You did a thing. You earned this spam.

"I'd say he's about on target for a fur-born werewolf, though it's not unusual for even bright turned-humans to drop to that level this close to the moon. Certainly on the full moon," Helen is saying to Bel, though you don't care enough to parse most of the english past the delicious taste of meat and chemicals.

 

It's not exactly news, you were with him last full moon as well, but you do remember how hard he was to talk to then in kind of a new light given this information. Last month, you tell her, I wanted to talk to everything, and he just wanted to run and chew and groom. I mean, I wanted to chill too, and I know I'm not as smart as usual rn. But did you know ravens are hilarious bullshit artists? I didn't! You tilt your head, regarding Erskin fondly. To be fair, I am really really gd smart as a human, & at the mo I could probs not pass freshman algebra.

 

Helen laughs at him. "The Agency's full of really goddamn smart werewolves, three weeks out of four. You've got something extra going on. Here, let's try you out on some Pythagoras, tell me the length of this side..." She jots a right-angled triangle on the ground with the water and gives values for two sides.

 

She uses small integers, so the answer just... happens. You blurt it out in a burst of tapping, then give an excited bounce. "Puzzles!" you bark. Rephrase it on the tablet: Give me puzzles! Give me all the puzzles! If I don't have to remember things, just follow each step to the next, I can do it!