Jedao

After their conversation about honesty, Jedao veers between affectionate and capricious. Some days he barely leaves Peter's lap, tucked into a red and gold orb, occasionally twitching his ears. Some days he takes off after stealing bits of Peter's breakfast - apparently a new tradition - and doesn't turn up again until after nightfall, sometimes alighting on Peter's windowsill after he's already in pajamas. He takes tentative and then almost vicious delight in declining to answer any questions about perambulations; sometimes he declines to speak at all.

But he always comes back, and only rarely places himself entirely out of reach. Sometimes he waits for Peter to pet him, sometimes he slips into the little pine marten form to curl around Peter's neck. The man appears less often, with Jedao using the raccoon whenever he needs hands for a small task. If Peter ducks his head into the aerie that's become the center of Jedao's information network, though, he'll see the human appearance taking down a spoken report as often as the fox pouring over maps or a ledger. For a week Peter barely sees him, and he stops sleeping in the bed with Peter, stretching out on the floor below the window instead. He'll take a pillow if Peter insists, but won't discuss his reasons for the change.

( And then. )