Adelie

The old farmhouse by the barn had been done up as part of the renovations Phoebe had somehow organised, but Adelie could tell where the priority had lain. Soot's barn was full of shiny new appliances optimally chosen for the care of a young drake. The house was decorated as blandly as it was possible to imagine: beige carpets throughout, magnolia walls, white-laminate doors, no lampshades on any of the lighting.

Most of the rooms were unfurnished. The kitchen had basic appliances – no dryer yet, and no promise that one was on its way – and there was a big fold-out sofa-bed in the main ground floor room, but as she lay on it and tried to focus on her reading, Adelie felt the weight of two and a half floors of emptiness above her. At least there was wi-fi, and maybe if she was going to be based here she could move some of her own stuff in. At least a TV, right?

Reading on her laptop screen made her eyes feel shrivelled after a while. She'd taken courses on care of larger animals during her vet degree, and it wasn't entirely wrong to think of Soot as a bigger version of the larger lizards she treated fairly regularly, but dragons were special, in a few important ways. Unfortunately, that meant that the people who wrote textbooks about looking after them tended to be a bit pompous.

Somewhere in the house, something rattled. Adelie forced herself not to go looking for it. It was probably just the wind, and she had to get used to staying here by herself when Phoebe couldn't spend the night. She rubbed her eyes, then pushed her hands up over her forehead. She probably wasn't getting much more out of this exhaustive chapter on feeding schedules tonight.

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She minimised the PDF and checked Squabble, then frowned. There was a message from Petunia – not in the team server, a DM. The cute little icon of her winking and making a peace sign stood out at the top of the server list with a white '1' in a bright orange circle in its corner. Puzzled, Adelie clicked it.

[PrincessPetunia]: Hey Adelie, has Phoebe said anything about 'backers' to you?

[AnimAdelie]: You mean the people who did up the farm?

[PrincessPetunia]: I guess so?

[AnimAdelie]: What happened?

[PrincessPetunia]: I talked to my boss about maybe sponsoring the team.

[PrincessPetunia]: You know, we're going to need a lot of money to keep us going through the whole season.

[PrincessPetunia]: And she said yes! I told her that this company she hates sponsors one of the other teams and she really wants us to beat them.

[PrincessPetunia]: But when I told Phoebe she yelled at me!

[AnimAdelie]: Yelled at you?

[AnimAdelie]: Like actually yelled or just Phoebe-yelled?

[PrincessPetunia]: I don't know! She sounded really worried, I think I might have messed everything up or something.

[AnimAdelie]: What's she doing now?

[PrincessPetunia]: I don't know. She said she was going to go for a walk and figure out what to say to her backers, whoever they are.

[AnimAdelie]: Did she like mention any names or anything?

[PrincessPetunia]: I think she was about to a couple of times. She said something like 'Mr. Cast' at one point. Does that ring any bells?

[AnimAdelie]: I haven't heard her mention anything like that.

[AnimAdelie]: She asked me a few times about stuff we'd need for the barn but I never had any contact with whoever actually did the work.

[PrincessPetunia]: What should I do? I don't want to have screwed everything up already.

[AnimAdelie]: Relax

[AnimAdelie]: Phoebe's coming up here again tomorrow

[AnimAdelie]: I'll check whether everything's ok and let you know. If it's really a problem then she'll probably tell me anyway

[PrincessPetunia]: Thanks, Phoebe.