She woke to the feeling of something caught.
The room was still dim. Dusk's breathing was slow and even beside her. And her tail—the newest, most catastrophically independent of her five tails—had wrapped itself fully around his leg sometime in the night, comfortable and settled and absolutely refusing to be embarrassed about it.
Wish froze.
Okay. Okay. I can fix this. Slowly. Carefully.
He was asleep. She began to ease it back—
His hand closed around the base of it. Gentle. Complete. Firm.
"What are you trying to do."
Not a question. The drowsy, certain voice of someone who had been awake longer than she'd known.
"Retrieving my tail," she said. "Common knowledge, really."
"Leave it."
She stared at him like he had decided to grow a second head—and was proud of it. Blinked. Once. Twice. "...I'm sorry?"
