http://i40.tinypic.com/jrqkvp.png); background-repeat:repeat; padding:15px">
Her spirits rose as they hurried up the steps of the house, knowing that the trip was almost at an end. As they landed upon the threshold she was struck with how badly she wanted to shake – to get on all fours and revel as droplets exploded from her body in a halo of water. It was not her house to fling water on the walls of though, and she respectfully passed beyond the threshold with only a self-conscious flick of her hair.
Once completely inside, the woman placed her sodden hindquarters immediately on the ground, letting the water pool at the floor, but invade his home no further than that. The protective grip on the painting was loosened, and she rested it in the cup of her crossed legs, deciding to keep the pearls there too in the folded furs. A thoroughly grateful gaze sought out his as she rearranged her things. Her smile returned, but it was for once not accompanied with a teasing flair, her overall countenance had been humbled by the weather.
“I cannot thank you enough for this ‘Arvey.” Her tongue flashed out occasionally as she spoke, the pink velvet catching droplets as they fell from the trembling of her diminutive whiskers. “I will do my best to ‘elp as you need of me, of course. I can clean, even sing if it will make a difference. Beyond that, and you ‘ave my word that you will not even know I am ‘ere.”
She naturally assumed that he would want his privacy, and would be just as complacent herself with a place to stay, as she would a place to stay and willing company to share it with. A hand brushed across her chest in a sign of honesty, from there another hand rising parallel to it, going past and above her neck and head to finally meet as she simultaneously stretched out her tensed limbs.
The pose left her feeling vulnerable and exposed. She realized that place was chilled and dark, and her arms swiftly fell to hug her shoulders as she huddled in the cold shadow.
