“You wouldn’t need to fully go inside. Only your arm and perhaps your upper body.” He measured the cabinet opening with his hands. “Your shoulder. And your head. The upper chest area.”
Carol stared at him.
Laina pressed her fingers over her mouth.
“I’ve performed this exact method with six different creatures,” Drogar said, completely serious. “You lower your body, you slide one arm, head, and chest inside, and you make a very calming sound. No extra movements. No eye contact. You simply exist in the space until she decides you’re not threatening.”
“I simply exist in the cabinet?” Carol asked.
“Yes.”
There was a long pause in which Carol Mercer, who had arrived in white pants and diamond earrings, considered the logistics of being partially inside a supply cabinet in a creature rescue facility in rural Maine while an orc explained the finer points of small animal extraction.
She lowered herself to her knees.
“If this ruins these pants,” she said, “someone is paying for the dry cleaning.”
“I will see to it myself,” Drogar said. He was already guiding her into position with care, his hands hovering near but not quite touching her shoulders, directing her like she was a creature being coaxed into a new enclosure. “Now. Arm extended. Palm up. You’re not grabbing. You’reoffering.”
Carol’s upper body disappeared into the cabinet.
A shuffling sound echoed from inside, followed by her yelp. But she inched inside farther, her arm extended. The twin’s small dark nose appeared in the gap at the back of the cabinet, sniffing the older woman’s fingers.
Carol didn’t move.
The twin crept toward Carol’s hand, still sniffing, her ears pricked forward.
“Don’t move,” Drogar breathed.
The twin took one step toward Laina’s mother, then another, her front hooves thudding on the base of the cabinet. She lowered her head and pressed her nose against Carol’s palm.
With a bleat, she scampered toward Carol, jumping up onto the older woman’s back.
Carol yelped again. The snugglethorn bleated, prancing around on Carol’s back. Fortunately, baby snugglethorns were born with soft, pliable hooves. They toughened as they grew older.
Carol made a sound I’d never heard a human make, half-strangled laugh, half-disbelieving wheeze. Her silk blouse had rucked up, showing a pale strip of back, and dirt streaked her formerly pristine white pants. The snugglethorn stood between her shoulder blades, its hooves planted wide, surveying her new territory.
“This is not how I expected to spend my day,” Carol said, her voice muffled by the cabinet.
The twin leaned down and sniffed her hair.
“Don’t stand up yet,” Drogar said. “Let her decide she’s finished.”
“She’s on my back,” Carol croaked from inside the cabinet.
“Yes.”
“There is a goat on my back.”
“She’s a snugglethorn. A completely different species than a goat.”
“There’s a goat-adjacent creature on my back, and I’m half inside a cabinet and this is—” Carol laughed. “This is oddly fun.”
Fun?
Laina and I exchanged a raised eyebrow look.
The twin leaned down and sniffed Carol’s hair again.
