So the shadows can't catch up

[Tobias Xayarath]

Tux let himself into the Brown Ribbon Apartments, glancing around briefly at the common room before he made his way towards the stairs. No one was there, so no one should mind if he and Fred hung out for a while, right? He didn't want to be in his apartment, not really. He wanted to see people, although he wasn't too particular on them talking to him. No, just signs of life other than himself and his dog would be nice. It would probably keep him from falling asleep, and missing when he had to return to the barn.

After he'd grabbed the sandwich he had prepared that morning, he did up Fred's leash. Once more he had to stop and smile at the patch that he'd now been able to attach to the nylon. Of course, he could take no credit for Fred's training, but they had worked together as a team, and now the dog was once again TDI certified. So far, Tux had found no use for them, and no time to do anything anyway, but that would come in time. For now, just having the option was nice.

After giving the husky mix some time outside to relieve himself, Tux took the dog back inside. Once they were behind the door of the building, he undid the clasp on the dog's leash, knowing that the dog would stay close by anyway. After taking a seat in one of the armchairs, he turned on the television and unwrapped his sandwich, leaning back to watch the news, which had been the first thing to come up.

[Katherine Carr]

It had been a busy morning, but Katherine wasn't going to complain; as she had spent most of it in the saddle. She hadn't been exercising her own horses, but the Academy horses were just as much fun to ride around while the student's were in their academic classes.

However, now that she was headed back to her office, the annoyance she had felt behind her eye while she was riding had grown into a full-on headache. After searching her office and coming up blank on painkillers, she gave up and headed back to the staff apartment in search of something to help her head, knowing that she had at least a small amount of time before the students would finish their lunch and begin to invade the barns to get their mounts ready for the equestrian classes.

As she walked into the apartment, she frowned as she tried to remember when she'd last had a non-caffeinated drink that day, knowing that she'd had at least one coffee.

Not quite wanting to face walking up the stairs, she turned toward the lounge instead, knowing that there was a well-stocked first-aid cupboard in there and surely that would contain a packet of Tylenol. She paused at the door as she could faintly hear the TV, and she hoped she didn't look half as bad as she felt.

Walking in, she headed straight for the kitchenette and took a bottle of water out of the fridge, she would deal with her head first and then get to pleasantries. Katherine looked up at the cupboard that held the first-aid things and groaned, thinking of having to reach up there to look. She wasn't exactly short, she just didn't want to lift her arms above her head.

[Tobias Xayarath]

The first hint that someone was coming that Tux got was a motion at his feet, as Fred began to look towards the door. However, Tux ignored the urge to turn and look, knowing that, as it was lunch time, any number of staff members could be returning to the building for lunch, or a break, in the case of the academic teachers. Their classes were over for the day, after all.

However, as someone entered the lounge, Fred rose and trotted to greet them. Chagrined at the dog's behavior, Tux rose to recall him, surprised to see Katherine in the building. She seemed to nearly live at the barn, especially during the day. That wasn't a bad thing, of course, but it was still a surprise to see her in the staff apartments at this time of day. Luckily, Fred had turned back upon Tux's own motion, and hadn't disturbed the woman, and instead, Tux walked over to where she was standing, now at the first aid cabinet.

"Are you looking for anything in particular?" He wouldn't go so far as to suggest that Katherine couldn't reach anything, but the first aid cabinet was relatively high, and he could see where it would be hard to get a look at the bottles in the back.

[Katherine Carr]

Katherine jumped as a voice spoke behind her, and she lifted a hand to her temple as the pain in her head grew a little more persistent. "A cleaver?" She deadpanned as she blinked a couple of times. "No, I think I already have one of them in my head." She looked up at the cabinet, actually pleased that it had been Tux that had been watching the television. "Is there anything up there that looks like Tylenol, or anything that will extinguish this fire that seems to have ignited in my head." She knew that she was possibly being a little dramatic about it, but she was suddenly gripped with the worry that she might be coming down with something. "Sorry I interrupted your lunch."

Aside from the pain in her head, her mind was busily working through everything that needed doing that afternoon, as things were beginning to get a little pressured as the end of the year approached. There were coggins tests that needed to be faxed to the new establishments that the horses belonging to the graduating students were moving to, there would be horse transporters to deal with, stalls that would need to be completely cleaned out and disinfected so that new occupants could move into the stalls as they arrived; and they sometimes arrived before their riders so it wasn't always a three month break between one horse and another.

She sighed as she tried to quieten her thoughts; once again wondering if her headache was caffeine withdrawal.

[Tobias Xayarath]

Tux frowned as he saw Katherine's reaction, regretting his approach, although she seemed to take it in stride. He smiled faintly at her joke, then turned to the medicine cabinet, turning his head slightly to the left so that he could scan the bottles until he found the one that Katherine wanted. Reaching out, he grabbed it, then undid the cap before handing it over to Katherine, "I would suggest taking those with at least a glass of water." As that tended to be a common cause of headaches, he knew. Re-hydration would help just as much as the medicine in cases where dehydration was the case, but it was good form to take pills with water in any case.

As she apologized for interrupting his lunch, Tux shrugged, "It's all good. I should probably have been getting ready to put Fred back in my room and head back to the barn anyway." He wasn't late by any means, but at the same time, he didn't want to push the time he'd been allotted to take the dog out... Since he wasn't really doing anything, just spending time with the dog. That was necessary too, but Tux rather liked his job. Didn't want to lose it over ten minutes a day. "Rough day?"

[Katherine Carr]

Katherine smiled past her pain as she managed to get Tux to smile at her joke; though there was always the chance that he was just humouring her. She laughed as he opened the bottle of pills for her, then regretted it for it just made her head thump. "Thank you, saves me from struggling with the lid." She said as she gave him a kiss on the cheek. Forget child-proof, the lids of any human medicine container tended to be Katherine-proofed.

At the mention of taking them of taking them with a glass of water she looked at him with a pout that she was sure would impress her daughter. "Not coffee?" She asked as she tipped two pills onto the palm of her hand before filing a glass from the water filter on the bench. Yes, she normally consumed her pills with caffeine, but right now she didn't have the time or patience to wait until she got back to the barn. Popping the pills in her mouth, she held them on her tongue and then swallowed them back with a mouthful of water, and then finished the rest of the glass. Hopefully they would at least have started kicking in by the time she got back to the barn.

She looked at the canine in question. "Have you thought about leaving him with Lee during the day?" She asked. She knew that the small animal vet didn't run a canine-day care, but he had the room that Fred could run around and still be contained, and the dog was well enough trained that he would become a pain and start whining when he wanted attention.

She shook her head, a movement she regretted as soon as she made it as her forehead pinched in pain. "Not rough, just busy." She replied. "And I may have been spending more time keeping busy than I have in making sure I'm drinking or eating enough, thus the headache." She shrugged. "How's your morning been?" Working in the broodmare barn, she knew that he'd be busy, but she was interested in the details.

[Tobias Xayarath]

Tux smiled as she thanked him, "No effort is too large." He was just the slightest hint surprised at her quick gesture, although not in the slightest bothered by it... No, rather the opposite. As she questioned the instructions, Tux smiled, "No, not coffee. I don't know if a diuretic is the best idea for a headache." Unless it was, of course, due to a lack of caffeine. Too many people were addicted to the stuff to discount the possibility, although Tux wasn't completely clean on that front either. It didn't interfere with life, after all. Not that much.

As Katherine asked about Fred, Tux shrugged, "I don't know, I'd feel bad about sticking him with Lee. He already has two to deal with, and he's not a dog daycare, I wouldn't want to bother him." Truth be told, he enjoyed being able to come home to the dog at lunch... And plenty of dogs did stay crated for hours while their owners worked, and Fred got the run of Tux's apartment. It wasn't ideal, but it wasn't terrible, either. "Maybe I'll sneak him into one of the stalls." A joke, of course. Even if the dog was completely trustworthy, as much as any dog could be, Tux didn't think it would be much better for the dog to be hidden in a stall, with people and horses passing by and him still locked up.

As he heard how Katherine's day was going, Tux nodded, "I would guess your barn is busy, with all of the comings and goings soon." He had been around last summer to see the amount of equines that moved through the barns as students fluctuated... And was very happy to not have that problem. Of course, they would be losing most of their horses as well, this year, but that was different. It took a moment for Tux to realize that he'd been asked a question in return, and he looked back up, guiltily, "Sorry. My morning? It's been busy as well. We spent the morning figuring out new homes for some of the mares." He wasn't sure how much Katherine knew about the reshuffling going on at Evening Primrose, and he wasn't sure how much he could say... But anyone with an account on any horse classifieds webpage would be able to find the mares and foals that they had listed to get the word out.

[Katherine Carr]

A blush coloured Katherine's cheeks when she realised that she had kissed him. Sure, it hadn't been romantic, but it was still rather brash for her. She just hoped that he took her embarrassed blush as a result of her headache, not regret for what she had done.

She nodded, his answer understandable, and it wasn't like Fred was suffering was lack of attention. And part of her wondered who had more ownership over the apartment upstairs. She arched an eyebrow at the joke about hiding the dog in one of the stalls of Evening Primrose, and then tipped her head to the side as she studied the dog. "You'd have to teach him to wear a costume, but you might be able to tell people that he's a new breed of pony. Unless of course you have a stall with an underground bunker and he had an alarm light that lit up whenever anyone got too close." It seemed that the headache was already starting to lift, so maybe she should have just had a drink of water.

She shuddered dramatically when he made his comment about the time of the year being busy. "It is the busiest time of the year." She agreed.

She chuckled as she seemed to catch him off guard with her question and nodded when he answered. She knew about the mares and foals being sold. She didn't know anymore than that, as she hadn't asked, but she had been told enough so that she knew the transport vehicles at the broodmare barn weren't in the wrong place. Though with that thought, she was just waiting for a new student's horse being dropped off at that barn now.

She cursed inwardly as her pager sounded. "Work calls." She said with a sigh. "Thank you so much for your help, and I'll need to make sure that I keep an eye on what I'm eating and drinking." Or at least try and remember to do both of those things.

[Tobias Xayarath]

Tux chuckled as he heard her option, "Well, that might be worth considering!" He could imagine the dog watching assorted screens, setting off alarms as things appeared on the radar. Most of those things would probably be squirrels, though... So perhaps not.

As a pager started sounding, Tux glanced around, thinking at first that it was an alarm from the oven or the like, although he was sure that it had been off earlier. As Katherine reacted, however, he realized where the sound was coming from, and turned his vision back to her, "I'm glad that I could help." He glanced down at his watch, "I should probably be heading back as well." He gave Katherine a last smile before he turned from the kitchen, calling Fred to come along with him.

After he'd put the dog back into his apartment, Tux walked down to the lounge to turn off the television, something he'd realized he hadn't done while he was upstairs. After glancing around to make sure that everything else had been put away again, which it had, Tux left the Brown Ribbon apartments and headed back to the Evening Primrose barn, although his mind was elsewhere, considering assorted possibilities from the conversation he'd just had.