Bar time cont. (1)

When Sydney returns with the drinks you notice she has her ears backward and slightly flattened against her skull. You let her put the tray on the table, and when everybody has taken their drink you ask, “OK, so what’s up?”

She looks slightly conflicted and finally says in a flat and matter-of-fact tone, “It seems you have an admirer…” while nursing her drink and drooping her tail.

It suddenly clicks in your head. “Oh, so that’s what this is about! The bartender likes me…?”

“ Yeah,” she adds, “she thinks your cute…”

"And now you're afraid I'm going to nab myself a cat for the night?" you say dropping a pause and looking straight at her seriously. "Hey, I've known you since you were a kit. Both of you for that matter. I'm not gonna drop my vixens. You’re stuck with me.”

“You wanna ear-scratch too?" Scarlet pipes up. “I can guarantee Jack is really good at it.”

“No, I’m good. Save them for your brain vixen. She is more prone to grumble than I am,” Sydney says with a little smirk starting to form. “I did hear that right? You're gonna do a double major…” she continues, staring straight at Scarlet.

While Sydney says that, you see her tail and ears perking up again. “Yeah about that,” you say, joining the discussion, “a double major is quite ambitious.“

“I know,” says Scarlet, “but when I arrived here I did an assessment at the college because I wasn’t sure what to take. And after that, they were sure I could handle it.”

“But why these two?”

“Well, when both of you had left for college I picked up an old interest of mine again: Ancient Languages. When I was smaller they used to have these discussions about languages and history among themselves. When later on it turned out I had a knack for ancient languages, each time we all gathered for dinner or lunch there would always be a banter over languages and history. That was always such fun.” Scarlet says drooping her ears a bit and staring nostalgic before her.

“Wait,“ you say snapping her out of her reverie “ with ... they ... you mean your parents I guess?”

“Yes,” she replies shaking her head a bit to get back into the here and now “my father is a linguist and my mother a historian. I guess I kind of picked up from them.“

“OK, now I get it too,” Sydney nods.

“And the rest … “ she continues, “is as they say history. OK, who’s next?”