<HTML>"New dress and allâ€¦ she does not want me to see it until she's ready." Kayla nodded with a smile, self consciously smoothing out her own dress. It was not new, but she had only had perhaps one or two other opportunities to wear it in the past. "Ah, I would like to see how she looks in something other than leather leggings with a sword on her hip." She said as she shifted slightly in the deep embrace of her chair. "So, shall we do this now, before she summons you?" Muri glanced down at the long velvet case laid across the table with a sheepish smile, "Well, uh, yes." His voice dropped an octave as he glanced back up, whiskers angled back against his muzzle. "Who goes first?" "I guess I will," the skunkette volunteered after favoring the socially ungainly male skunk with a cheerful laugh. She picked up the velvet case and turned it in her hands, offering him the end. He took it gingerly with one hand, his eyebrows raising as he felt the shifting of the contents. Once he had a good grip on it, he felt around the long, slender lengths within the heavy fabric for a few moments, as if trying to discover what it was before opening the drawstrings at the end of the case. "You can open it." Kayla giggled warmly, causing Muri's fur to rise and fall at the collar of his shirt, his ears flattening back in a brief moment of embarrassment. The knotted end of the case was a simple task for his nimble fingers. Kayla idly noticed that he had trimmed his claws at some point, and had them polished to a high gloss. He raised the velvet and let one of the slender shafts within slip out into his hand. She suppressed a giggle at the way his eye ridges shot up his forehead, his ears coming up as he drew the separate shafts into the light. It was, at first, quite a quandary to him. The detailed carving at the butt of the thick shaft and the brass fitting at the narrower end with a threaded hole in the center not immediately clicking home. "A staff?" he quarried as he examined the end of the second length. The other piece had a screw set into a brass fitting, continuing the taper of the thicker piece. "No, not quite." "Just two pieces of wood, then?" he asked in jest, his brows furrowed and a confused frown crossing his muzzle. That is just what they were, two lengths of stout imported bountifruit wood from Phil's homeland. Kayla laughed at that one. "Not quite," she said, her voice light with mirth as she watched the male skunk's confusion working itself out. Her tail swished about her ankles as she leaned forward, resting her arms on the edge of the table. "Look at it a little differently; it's not a weapon." Muri's muzzle formed a grimace and he nodded, assembling the two lengths of pale wood. "Oh!" he gasped in surprise as his eyes traveled up the length of the entire shaft of the assembled product. "A pool cue!" His eyes widened at the sight as he turned the shaft horizontally and looked down its length. "This is a wonderful surprise, and it's balanced perfectly for me!" He looked up at her, his eyes bright with his elation. "How, by all the gods, did you know I used a seventeen ounce cue?" Kayla laughed. "I asked Copernicus." Muri held it close with one hand as he stood from his perch on the arm of his chair and crossed over to give her a strong, warm hug with his free arm. "It's absolutely marvelous." Kayla returned the hug, her tail switching out from around the legs of her chair to pressed against the sides of his long pawshanks, "I am glad you like it, Muri," she murred softly into the warm fur of his shoulder. Grudgingly, he broke the hug and retreated, leaning the shaft in the corner of his chair as he walked over to a large shelf stacked haphazardly with several thick, dusty tomes. Setting several aside, he lifted out a wooden case from where he had apparently cached it for this occasion and carried it over, setting it on the table before her. "I fear what I have created for you cannot compare," he churred, his voice a husky rasp. He sat back on the arm of his chair and picked up the cue again, running his fingers along the length of smoothly polished wood. He had no idea what manner of wood it was, either, for the grain was far too dense and wavy to be any wood he knew. Kayla stood from her seat and looked the case over. She knew almost immediately what it was, for she had seen many, many such similar cases in her many years. This one was highly reminiscent of the one her grandfather always used with her. Alas, that set had been lost in a fire during the Battle of the Three Gates. She unfastened the clasps, which she was rather surprised to find made out of a polished silver steel rather than brass or bronze. Opening the case, she laid it flat, her eyebrows rising at the carefully wrought stone surface. "You created this?" she whispered as she ran the tips of her fingers across the polished stone chessboard. The dark squares were of inlaid garnet, or solid garnet where he was able to find a piece large enough, and polished to a mirror shine. The pale squares were of milky quartz. Both minerals were difficult to find, but quite common in the mountains surrounding Metamor. The male skunk smiled and nodded. "Open it." Kayla blinked, looking back down at the board. She had assumed by its thickness that it was designed to hold a set of chess pieces, but had not realized that it already held them. She grasped the satin tab on the closest side of the board and lifted, the hinged chessboard folding upward in the center to reveal a set of intricately wrought chess pieces of a pale rose quartz. "You made these, too??" she gasped. She stared at the pieces nestled in the gray velvet lining of the case. There was something naggingly familiar about them, and she couldn't figure it out until she lifted out the king. It was Duke Thomas! "How?" she squeaked as he found herself looking into the chiseled quartz visage of the Lord of Metamor Keep. Muri leaned across and turned one hand to her, palm up, flexing his fingers so that his polished claws caught the muted light from beyond the windows. She furrowed her eyebrows at his hand, then looked up at him. "I can work stone, Kay." He smiled, his voice soft and quiet. "I've been working on these for a little over a month now, while studying the books you see around you." Kayla was struck speechless, the detailed working of the stone not the work of a master artist, but highly skilled nonetheless, fashioned by his claws and nothing else. It was almost too much to believe. Looking down at the translucent rosy stone figures she could only chuff in surprise. Muri reached over and picked out the queen, holding it up into the light and smiling. It was herself. The King's bishop was Raven herself, the queen's bishop Hough. The knights were Saulius and Andre, with the king's rook being Misha and Rickkter her own. Kayla turned the board to open the opposite side, finding herself looking upon an enemy horde carved from dark black granite. The King and Queen were human mages she could not identify, the bishops heavily robed clerics. The knights were Lutins on dire wolves, while the rooks were giants. The pawns of the enemy horde were Lutin regulars, no two alike, while the pawns for the allies were various kneeling representations of Keep denizens. "This isâ€¦" She placed one hand over her breast as she gingerly placed the king back in its nest, Muri doing likewise with the queen, the representation of herself. "I don't have the words, Muri, I just don't," she whispered as she looked back up to meet his gaze. She then surprised the male skunk by wrapping her arms around his neck and pulling him to her in a tight embrace. He actually let out a brief animalistic squeak of surprise when her body collided with his. More to his surprise was the fact that his own arms slipped around her mid back to return the hug as she nuzzled into the soft fur of his neck. "Thank you so much for being a friend, Muri," she said, her voice muffled into the side of his neck. "You don't know how much that has meant to me. Thank you so very much." Muri blinked, taking a few seconds to form an answer. The tender embrace had been about the last thing he had expected from Kayla. "Well... you're welcome, Kay. But if truth be told, I should be thanking you. You were one of the first people here to accept me." Pulling back a little, Kayla looked up at the male skunk with those vibrant, still human, blue eyes of hers. "Naturally. We skunks have to stick together, you know." And then she did the most shocking thing yet. She kissed him. It wasn't a large kiss, nor a passionate one; it was a small kiss, her lips pressed against the side of his muzzle and her tongue drawing up in an affectionate lick. Yet the... intimacy of the whole action absolutely stunned him. When the skunkette fully pulled away from him he was unable to resist. He bowed his head and shuddered as she ran her paw along the fur of his cheek and jaw line, his arms slowly dropping. "Well, I think we both need to get back to our prospective loves, Muri. Thank you so much for your gift. I'll find someplace special for it as soon as I have the time." "And I'll... I'll be sure to make use of yours at the first opportunity." He smiled, his black lips raising to show most of his teeth, as he tried to quell the quaver in his voice. "Who knows? I may even beat Cope with this." Kayla turned back to him, her lush striped tail swishing against her skirt. "Then I wish you the best of luck. You'll need it." They both shared in the laughter. "And the best to you and your mink. I know she doesn't like me, but I know what she means to you. Happy Yule, Muri." End part 8ab</HTML>