Story time was Cressidor Blan-Virgine's favorite time of day. This was something that she was not embarrassed to admit, even though she had reached the advanced and mature age of seven. Mind you, her mother Amoretta would have been disappointed in her had she been embarrassed to admit it, since Amoretta put a very high priority on honesty. But more than that, her mama Lillet was a really good storyteller, who knew just how to make her laugh with a funny story or keep her on the edge of her seat with an exciting story or make her shiver with a (very rare, for special occasions) scary story. And she was really sneaky about the "mom" part, since she wouldn't just come out and say what the moral of a story was when it had one, so sometimes it'd be a couple of days before Cress realized that there was a lesson in there.
Lillet, for her part, loved it as well. Some of her favorite childhood memories had been when Grandpa Blan would lean back in his chair, light his old, cracked briar pipe, and treat the kids to one of his seemingly endless stock of tales. The old man hadn't just attracted the children, though—Lillet's parents, her Aunt Ginny, and the occasional guest often would stop and bend an ear when Grandpa got going.
She couldn't help but be a little bit proud of herself, because she was able to achieve the same effect. Amoretta joined the two of them nearly every night when she wasn't working at the theater, of course, as did her cat Grimalkin, but on most nights the gallery that ran around the library's upper level attracted a few of the servants, human and elven alike, who found that by some coincidence the job they were doing there took them until just after the words, "The End." Lillet never bothered to chase them off, though on certain occasions where she wanted it to just be family she'd save the story for Cress's bedtime.
However, it was the most common guest that caused the problem that night. Lillet and Cressidor were just getting settled in on the couch, when Cress's dog Shuck came bounding into the room. As perhaps fitting for the daughter of the kingdom's Mage Consul, Shuck was a barghest, a fire-breathing Black Dog of legend who, now nearly full-grown, had his back come level with the top of Lillet's head when she was standing. Tongue lolling happily at the sight of his mistress, he leaped into the air and landed full-length on the couch.
"Ooof!" Lillet and Cress grunted together as the breath was driven from their bodies, but they were drowned out by the snapping of wood and the grating of nails being pulled free. All four legs of the couch broke as one, and the piece of furniture dropped six inches to the rug with a jarring impact.
"Shuck," Lillet groaned, "I hate to have to be strict, but you are officially too big to be a lap dog."