It only seemed fitting that Sota busy himself with tidying the courtyard, given that he had a tendency to litter its walkways with flowers in seasons when they bloomed most heavily. Of course most of them were long gone by now, carried away by the winds or left to decay and become one with the earth, but still - there was plenty of weeding to do now regardless. Bustling about the outskirts of the courtyard, Sota scoped out what needed to be done before getting to work. Kaito, his faithful lemur companion, had decided to assist him today. His dexterous little paws made it quite easy to pluck some of the more stubborn weeds out of the ground and so idly he hopped about, making himself useful when Sota requested his assistance. The small man hummed a soft tune to himself as he started near the far walkways, beginning to tear out the stray weeds growing at the edges of the paths.

As usual, Dusk was out punking about, seeing what sort of trouble she could get into or what sort of interesting things were going on around the castle. Most had caught on to her ways by now. She didn't mean harm, but she seemed to screw up a lot of things when she tried to help. This had earned her a stern talking to more than once. Still, the girl was bored, and she needed to find something to occupy her time.

The dark inkblot of a pup made her way outside and began meandering around the courtyard. Though she had zero affinity with plants, the girl could see that the various beds and gardens were in need of some attention. However, she didn't know what to do. What was a weed? What was a flower? What needed to be plucked and what could be left? Thankfully, the child's fire opal eyes landed on the tiny form of Sota. Perfect!

With a hop, Dusk landed loudly right behind the man's lemur companion. She gave a little puppy howl, her tail wagging furiously as she took a step closer. "Hi! Can I help? What are you doing? I was going to pick weeds, but I don't know which things are weeds." Excitement faded and a little bit of rare bashfulness showed in the girl's dark face. "Could you show me?"

"Dusk Carpathius"

Sota had been so engrossed in his thoughts that he struggled to notice the arrival of another before she was right up on him. Spinning around, mouth full of weeds, he spat them on the ground on the walkway and gave a bit grin. Kaito the lemur was considerably less impressed by the dark-furred girl's arrival, nearly jumping out of his skin before slinking closer to Sota and weaving beneath his paws. The look he flashed the girl spoke of quiet distrust, but he was naturally a wary creature, unlike Sota who thought nearly everyone should be trusted at face value until they gave him reason otherwise. Of course, a child was no exception. "Hey! I'm Sota. What might your name be?" The small grin that touched his lips only grew wider when Dusk expressed her interest in helping him. "I'm doing just that myself. You're more than welcome to help me. Let me show you," he gestured to the weeds he'd plucked so far, using a paw to spread the pile out just a bit, enough so she could see that the weeds varied slightly. "Anything that looks out of place, really. Like these," he took a few steps off the path, finding a cluster of short little sprigs of something that jutted out from the grass. "See, this don't really fit in here with all this grass."

Sota, as he gave his name, wasn't all that scared of her surprise, but the little lemur was. It shot the girl a distrustful look and Dusk beamed at it toothily, her long tail swishing back and forth. She was quite pleased with herself, little trickster that she was. The pup had been working on her stalking and pouncing and believed that she was rather good at it, if not the absolute best in the entire castle. The smile was still on her maw when she gave her own name in return, "Dusk Carpathius."

The small wolf said that he was picking weeds too and moved to a pile to show her visually which plants were weeds. The child's brown furrowed as she inspected the pile. They... all looked the same. Just a big wad of green with dirt and roots sticking out. Sota then told her to pluck anything that looked out of place before showing her a wad of different shaped plants in the middle of the grass. Dusk nodded slowly and looked around, fiery eyes scanning the garden until they landed on something that she thought looked out of place. "Like this?" With a little head tilt, she looked for Sota's approval so she didn't kill anything useful.

"Dusk Carpathius"

Kaito continued to watch Dusk from a distance, eyes narrowed though visibly relaxing since Sota didn't seem at all displeased with the large child's presence. His trust tended to be earned slowly in general, so it wasn't at all a surprise that he shied away from the stranger for now. Sota was far different though, returning the friendliness just as readily as it was received, his own grin wide and friendly. "Pleasure to meet you, Dusk," he said, giving one of his characteristic sweeping bows, head hanging low to the ground for a moment - to his lemur friend's slight displeasure, who recoiled and shrunk smaller below him. He watched Dusk as she searched for a weed and nodded enthusiastically when she found one. "Yep! Exactly like that. Good job." There wasn't really much that she could get wrong, unless she started tearing at the grass itself, which would be an impressive feat if she managed to dig up more than a small section of it. Either way, it'd grow back, no harm done. He beamed at her, watching as she worked before he set out to find more weeds off his own, not far from Dusk.

Sota approved of the greenery that she'd pulled, saying that they were indeed weeds. With a nod, the girl continued picking the weeds away from the grass. Red and orange eyes scanned the grassy area and Dusk grimaced. "I... don't think we'll ever be done picking weeds." There were patches of the... whatever this was... all over the place.

Dusk noted the hesitancy that the lemur showed and she chucked a little grass and weed clump at it playfully. She was a puppy after all. Pushing buttons was her job. "You don't haaaave to be afraid of me, you know. I won't hurt you." Dusk was pretty scary though. At least she thought so. Terrifying, in fact. Scariest wolf in all The Hallows.

"Dusk Carpathius"