multiversallogs | new beautiful things come in the first spit of snow on the northwest wind

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new beautiful things come in the first spit of snow on the northwest wind

Who: Any and all Hellsing Staff & guests they invite.
What: Fall dinner.
Where: Hellsing Guild Hall
When: Shundi evening.

At some point during the week, Sebastian posted a brief notice up on the staff bulletin board:

Autumn Dinner
Sunday Evening. Dining Hall. Potluck. BYOB.

When Sunday rolls around, Sebastian has brought along a tray of fruit, cheese, some preserves, and fresh bread.

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Getting organized to get out the house of an evening is more complicated when you're dealing with a child, even just the one child, and throwing Conan (the Corbarian, and Sol anticipates hearing this joke approximately a thousand more times before Liesl gets tired of pointing it out to him) into the mix as well after his fruitless efforts to argue that maybe it would be better if the sporgi stayed home...well, that's life. He thinks briefly most people's daughters don't fall in love with dogs that have six legs and eight eyes, but on the other hand, most people's daughters probably don't have the opportunity, and he's willing to bet Dotty's kids would love Conan.

Richard's going to pay for the corgi agenda, one of these days. In the meanwhile, it's Sol who gets to hold the little monster's leash - in the same hand as he holds onto Liesl, with a large tupperware container of fresh garden salad (mostly out of their garden) under the other arm.

He looks slightly less harried than that sounds.

If he'd like a hand, Sebastian is nearby and moving over to intercept either dog or salad. It's a dangerous run through dog and space-dog filled territory, but he'll do it for Sol, Queen and Country.

Or something like.

"Hey- thanks," with a grin, surrendering the salad and keeping a grip on Conan's leash. (He's on a harness, as Liesl occasionally still is when Sol takes her out into the city - she's getting bigger, though, and better at not wandering off, and he's phasing it out.)

"No trouble and that's a lovely dog you've got, is he new?" Velcro seems a little bemused, but generally willing to go with it -- dogs are dogs, space corgis or otherwise.

"His name is Conan," Liesl interrupts, holding onto the length of Conan's leash beneath Sol's hand with both of hers, swinging on the balls of her feet while Sol attempts to direct both dog and child with his feet, away from turning him into a human maypole. "He's the Corbarian."

"We got him this week," Sol confirms, long-suffering.

Lucius and Narcissa had arrived earlier; he'd let her take care of the food, and had selected a bottle of wine to contribute. Though they'd started the evening together, eventually they broke apart to mix and mingle and work the room in their separate ways.

Lucius' smile is warm as he comes upon Sol and Liesel. "Good evening, Mr. Koening. Miss Liesel, it's very nice to see you again." He may not be fond of children as a general rule, but he misses his son, and he'd found Liesel charming. The dog, so far, doesn't seem to have thrown him.

Sol's greeting is equally friendly - probably slightly moreso, being the one of them a bit better at this 'connecting to other people' thing - and with the salad since surrendered, he lifts his free hand amicably. "Malfoy, you too."

"This is Conan," Liesl says, tugging on Lucius's sleeve to draw his attention down to the little monstrosity she's clearly smitten with. "Conan the Corbarian."

Above her head, Sol's expression is frantically telegraphing 'find this funny'.

Lucius smiles gamely, even if he doesn't get the joke. "Hello, Conan. Can you tell me about him?" he asks Liesel, in the grand tradition of grown-ups who don't get something a child is enthused about.

"He's a corgi from space," she says, looking as though she'd been bursting to say exactly that. He may not be a hellhound, but space is (apparently, after some coaching) the very next best thing ever.

"He'll live longer, the breeder said," Sol contributes, with the air of someone who has resigned himself to this.

"Well, that's certainly an advantage." He considers Conan. "Are you training him yourself?" In real terms, this probably tracks as 'Is he behaved, probably Sol's doing?'

"Yes," Liesl says, promptly; more accurately, Sol is training Conan and teaching Liesl what to do and not to do in order to keep their new pet on the straight and narrow. A case could be made for both child and corgi being trained, actually, and they're not doing too badly. They seem to more or less equally adore each other, too.

"We're working on it," he says, dryly.

"And making good progress, I'm sure," he says, smiling. "I've been debating whether to give my son a dog of his own." He wasn't sure yet, at home; Draco was the opposite of "outdoorsy," and his dogs were definitely outdoor sorts.

To his credit, Sol doesn't visibly entertain the notion that any of them might not get home to absent family members; as much as he can think, from here, that he might rather Liesl were safe with Cal or his parents...in practise, he's not sure he'd hold together as well as the Malfoys if he were parted from her the way they've been separated from their son.

"Give it some time," he advises, keeping an eye out as Liesl and Conan lose interest in the conversation of adults (even interesting ones that look like Uncle Richard only with a weirder dress sense) and start investigating the much more interesting game of 'how far can we get under this table before Daddy yanks us back'. "You're going to do the bulk of the dog-bothering either way-" with a sardonic glance at where a small black backside is wiggling just beneath a table.

"Isn't that the truth. I've a few hounds, and my father 'gave' me one when I was about her age, but in truth, about all I did was proudly claim the thing was mine whenever anyone would listen." He smiles. "She seems to be settling in, though."

A little later on, after he's dropped his contribution off, Hellboy makes his way around to mingle... and double-takes as he sees the new addition to the Koenig family.

"Whoa. Now there's something the likes of which I never thought I'd see again."

There's a pause, before Sol settles on what he feels is the only necessary response: "Again?"

Maggie's still posted up in the corner, not moving very much except to get a cup of soda or two, but that thing gets her attention. She could easily ignore the man and the little kid (though she can admit some kids are cute), but the dog or whatever looks like a dog plus a few extra eyes and legs. Not something she sees often back home.

"What the actual fuck?" Cover the kid's ears, Dad. Her language will only get worse.

"That's a bad word," Liesl declares, with the self-importance of a clever nearly-five-year-old; she also likes to hold forth on her father's smoking habit and her grandmother was teaching her to object when people startle with a 'Jesus' or 'goddamn'. (Sol's training her out of the last one.)

"And that's a corgi, allegedly," Sol supplies, glancing at Maggie with a wryly raised eyebrow. "A, uh, pretty unique breed thereof."

"Oh my god, he is the cutest thing." Mabel's definition of acceptable pets tended to fall on the side of 'anything horrific that didn't also try to rip her face off,' so Conan gets a pass.

"...you're a unique woman, Mabel Albans."

She's also Liesl's new favourite person.

"Some people," Mabel explains very calmly to Liesl. "Don't know cute when they see it."

For Sol, she gestures at the varied crowd. "Can you say he doesn't at least fit in with the place? He should be the mascot."

"What do you think, Liesl?" Sol inquires, giving Mabel a briefly cock-eyed look. "Does the Corbarian make a good mascot?"

Four year olds shouldn't be that good at looking at adults like they're stupid. "Duh."

"Your cousins are a bad influence," he reflects, with a brief pang for Dotty.

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