Stolas had decided to enlist his in relative terms, onslaught of guests to help him get the house back in order. Stella had brought out all manners of crap from storage when she had left and taken the entire staff with her. Some of it would dearly be missed by Stolas, seemingly priceless artworks, none of which pertained to him were missing from the walls, boxes containing what would be treasures and heirlooms to any commoner were strewn about the halls and gaining a thin layer of dust. It was almost as if the air had grown tired by Stolas' sorrows.
Loona and Octavia left to buy more substantial foods for the kitchen, in hope of realizing the use of it in the coming days. Octavia would likely not draw suspicion on her own, Stolas and Blitzo likely being hot fodder for any enterprising tabloid journalist.
Blitzo piled up boxes and brought them back to the rooms which seemingly served no purpose but to be the rumors of the effects they contained.
Stolas ran around dusting and vacuuming, his height being required given that grandeur of the manor, wearing a ridiculous apron for some unknown reason. The grand lobby was quickly clear, owing to the comparatively many hands.
"I don't see the reason behind hanging onto more crap than you can carry, Stolas." Blitzo said, coughing at the dust on the boxes. "It's what we do, Blitzy." Stolas replied, eyeing the box Blitzo was holding.
"Here's a good example." Stolas said as he dug through the box and picked up a lapel pin, a delicate looking platinum piece that had a dull purple gem. "It's a stone that fades in the light." Stolas said, letting the inherantly useless nature of such a piece speak as it's strengths.
"So is that why you kept it in a box for years?" Blitzo said, teasing Stolas for his vanity.
"Maybe it was just waiting..." Stolas said as he pinned it on Blitzo's left lapel, kissing him gently.

Loona and Octavia walked into a small market, the selection was generous, if sparce, creating a more intimate and homely atmosphere.
"I don't exactly know what I'm doing here." Loona said, not working nearly as hard to hide her bashful expression. "You know what rich assholes like to eat, right?" she said, trying to work back up to her usual sardonic stare.
"I did the cooking just to cloud out the yelling." Octavia said, grabbing various produce items.
"Blitz did most of the cooking at home." Lonna said, escorting Octavia around the aisles. "When you're poor, you learn to do a lot more with less." She said, feeling out loaves of fresh bread.
"No, not that one, I have this idea." Octavia said, touching Loona's hand and moving it to another loaf of bread. "This one is better." she said, painting a picture of an elaborate dinner in her mind.
"So what did you eat?" Octavia said, wanting to help keep Loona up to speed.
"He's good with soups, just any kind of crap you can throw together." Loona said, still taken aback by Octavia's growing forward nature.
"Oh, make sure I dont forget the coffee." Octavia said, remembering Blitzo's earlier request.
They slowly wrapped up their shopping, the selection chosen for a much more normal setting than Loona would have been used to, but she felt it more as a token of respect as a guest.

Stolas gestured to Blitzo to follow him upstairs, he still felt almost a complete stranger in these halls, despite his boots having trodden their own path alongside Stolas' footprints in the dust. It sickened Blitzo slightly as this archaeology might have indicated how Stolas was afraid of these upper floors.
He opened the doors to a grand conservatory, every plant was meticulously classed by species and genus. "There should be instructions on each, I'd always prepared in the event I was away for my babies." Stolas said, gesturing to the wild yet well moderated jungle that stood before him.
"Some things in here may bite, sting and claw..." Stolas said, poking Blitzo's nose gingerly.
Blito rolled his eyes, Stolas' come ons were now a welcome gesture, but it still felt as if he had an obligation to feign a haughty incredulity.
"I take one end, and you take the other." Stolas said, handing Blitzo a watering can and a jar of dead insects.
They worked, Stolas by motion and memory, Blitzo by the instructions Stolas had handwritten by each plant. Dangers were clearly outlined, more out of care for the danger itself than those responsible for not heeding it.
Stolas hummed as he worked, the same piano duet they'd done soon before. Blitzo worked in a kind of raw fear of the things around him, even the harmless plants seemed to cloud him out.
They met in the middle of the conservatory, a few fruit trees sat inside, bushes with ripe fruit, and some kind of horrible low lying growth with lobed leaves. "These are what the insects are for." Stolas said, enjoying this far too much to make Blitzo comfortable.
They wandered and watered up the middle of the room. Stolas in his usual motions continued much faster in his task, peeking his head around the raised garden bed.
He saw Blitzo's face stuck in the lobes of a particularly large plant. "Oh, Blitzy, you're so clumsy..." Stolas said as he tickled the lobes of the plant, causing it to reconsider digesting Blitzo's face.
"I was just trying to be nice, let you play the hero." Blitzo said, slightly interested in a plant that was as hostile as he was.
"Fernie's like that..." Stolas said, enjoying the moment as Blitzo flecked the plant's juices off his face.
"Fernie?" Blitzo asked Stolas.
"Yes, Fernie." Stolas said, tossing a handful of insects into it's lobes and patting it gently. "Fernie, meet Blitzo." he added as he slowly traced the lines in the leaves with Blitzo's hand. Stolas' relationship with a plant seemed to fit perfectly with Blitzo's assumptions, he could swear the plant purred at him in response.

Octavia and Loona returned and started restocking the kitchen, it was a completely clean slate for anyone to work from by this point.
"Hey, our dads are working, mind making me a real coffee?" Loona said sitting down and kneeling her head against the countertop.
Octavia obliged the request and sat beside the hellhound. Part of her feeling proud to demonstrate some iota of her talent. "Don't go for the sweet stuff?" Octavia said, presenting a plain black coffee to Loona.
"Usually I take a little booze in it, but this smells just right." Loona said slowly sipping from a fine china cup, not used to the rim of the glass and spilling some on her muzzle.
"Oh, don't make a fool of yourself..." Octavia said as she dabbed Loona's face with a towel. "Like, I know nobody's watching and..." she added, warbling, just like Stolas did whenever he corrected people he cared about.
"I'll make a fool outta you..." Loona said, pulling Octavia in for a kiss, both locked in paralysis for the moment.

Octavia rushed out looking for Stolas and Blitzo, rushing through the hallways kicking through the dust of the abandoned hallways.
Blitzo had gone back to moving the boxes back to the storage rooms. "I'm working with you now." Octavia said, dumping boxes on top of Blitzo.
Blitzo had taken it well in stride, wondering and not asking in equal force what had happened.
"She kissed me, Blitz." Octavia said, from behind a seeming archival shelf of heirlooms.
"Did you like it?" Blitzo said, having partially worn out his ability to endure sap on Stolas' passes at him.
"Are you kidding me?" Octavia said with an obviously false tone of offense.
"Not at all." Blitzo said, staring up at Octavia with glassy eyes through a break in the shelf.
"Fine!" Octavia said loudly slamming shut the gap Blitzo was peering through. "It was, nice." she said, holding her beanie over her eyes.
"Want to talk about it?" Blitzo said, dusting off the boxes and adjusting his lapel pin.

Loona joined Stolas in the hallways, he silently handed her a feather duster from the waistband of his apron. The majesty of the hall returned as they made their way through cleaning.
"I'm sorry, bird-dude." Loona said, Stolas didn't seem to stir nearly as much as she'd expected for a heartfelt confession. "I kissed her." Loona added, sadly collapsing to sit in the hall.
"Don't you worry about what I have to think." Stolas said, standing before Loona. "If she's happy, I'm happy." Stolas said, with a kind of self hugging motion.
"I don't know what she thought! I, geez..." Loona said, breaking from her stoic nature completely.
"Let us just see." Stolas said, laying down and wrapping an arm around Loona's shoulders. "Do you want me here?" he added, with a hint of worry.
"No, I can handle it." Loona said, hugging Stolas gently.
"Don't you ever dare hurt her! I want your word!" Stolas said, gripping the sides of Loona's face tightly before leaving abruptly, Loona sitting abandoned in stunned silence.

"How dare you!" Octavia said, closing on Loona as she was standing in the hallway. "How fucking dare you!" She said, hedging her bets on the anger bestowed upon her by her worse half.
"How dare you not let me kiss you back." Octavia said, jumping up and kissing Loona.
"I had no idea..." Loona said relaxing back on the floor, unable to find her footing anymore.
"Fuck what anyone says, I like having you around." Octavia said, having spent most of her force on the grand show she put on. "And, I'm... Sorry?" she added meekly.
"So, we're good?" Loona said, placing her hand on Octavia's thigh.
"Yeah." Octavia said as she returned to packing away the trinkets in the hallways.

Blitzo saw Stolas staring at a door, bracing himself against the frame. This was the separate bedroom Stella had been using in recent months, the route to it intersected little with Stolas' day to day activities.
"Are you alright?" he asked as he saw Stolas almost scratch at the door. "This is her room, isn't it?" Blitzo had intuited from Stolas' inability to even try the knob.
"Why does it hurt me so?" Stolas said, backed up against the door, tears welling up in his eyes.
"Because you still want to be hurt." Blitzo said. "Just leave it, darling." he said as he hugged Stolas close.
It still hurt Stolas terribly being around this room, he leaned heavily on Blitzo as if to move.
"There's nothing in there that should concern me anymore." Stolas said, drying his eyes and walking away from the room. It would obviously sit there, covered in dust like an uneven scar for quite some time.

Stolas walked to the kitchen, picking up a wicker basket and checkered blanket from one of the cupboards, calling out loudly to everyone to be down within fifteen minutes. Delicately he placed dishes and silverware in the basket, a knife for bread, one for cheese and one for meat.
Leaving the kitchen, he saw everyone waiting for him and they walked through the halls to the rear of the manor. There was a new sense of life to the place, the gloom and tiredness had lifted, the light cut a pleasant figure through it all.
The afternoon air was brisk and warming, Blitzo and Stolas walked arm in arm to a spot by a small pond. Laying down on the blanket, Stolas smiled as the looked around at his company. It comforted him to see people so eager to get along, more to the point, not want to lash out at him.
Everyone ate and enjoyed the light lunch, bread with soft cheese and fruit, plenty of wine which was a granted given the present company.
"You're such a mess." Blitzo said as Stolas sat there, just smiling and eating little bites of his lunch. He slowly dusted off Stolas' face in the backward direction.

Octavia walked to the edge of the pond and sat there, still unnerved at how Stolas seemed to take so many things in stride. She was used to freezing out others, but now she only felt as if she was the one being left out.
Loona walked up beside Octavia and grabbed some stones from the edge of the water and started skipping them along the pond. "You alright?" Loona said, looking down at Octavia as the owl sipped slowly at a glass of white wine.
"Does it ever get any less awkward?" Octavia said, canting her head to the side in a defenseless manner.
"With Blitzo around? You kidding?" Loona said, tossing out stones over the pond and seeing the ripples break the stillness of the surface. Looking back she saw Octavia look at the rings in the water with a slight note of dourness.
"Getting to know him? That's hard. It's more that you have to let him know you." Loona said, sitting down and eyeing over a rock in her hands. "When he cares, it becomes very obvious." She added as Blitzo and Stolas started laughing up on the hill behind them, Blitzo started sneezing as Stolas shook all the dust out of his feathers.

Stolas and Blitzo sat back, both gently stretching as they took in the bright sunshine all around them. Blitzo laid on his side, in a kind of domineering position over Stolas. "Oh, this is just so wonderful." Stolas said as he puffed his feathers up as he always did when he was excited.
Blitzo felt the back of his neck getting sweaty and removed his shirt. Stolas giggled gently taking a handful of ice from the bucket with the wine bottle and placing a single cube in his beak.
"Feeling hot and bothered?" Stolas said, shooting him a look of smug adoration.
"I wasn't feeling bothered..." Blitzo said, playing along in a seductive tone. He moved to lean over Stolas, straddling him on both sides and arching his back slightly, kissing Stolas as they exchanged the ice between their mouths.
Stolas held the fistful of ice over Blitzo's back, enjoying the little jolts he made when the water would drip over his body. "Thanks." Blitzo said, sitting back up and twirling a wine glass in his hands, feeling much more comfortable in the afternoon sun.