Ahhhhhhhh

Hutch glanced up as the bell over the door to the shop jingled and a familiar face entered. They smiled seeing Eros make his way over to the counter, a pile of Erose in his lap, his own perched on his shoulder. “Welcome, Eros. I see you've brought along a handful of friends.”

Eros nodded, pushing himself close enough that he could move them all up onto the counter. “I need your help with something. A friend of mine is putting on a show and wanted to have a handful of Erose dancing with the actual dancers as part of the performance. Since I taught Rosie to dance, they requested my help teaching these little guys, but… Well…” Eros glanced at the playful rose shaped imps playing about with each other on the counter. “These ones are a bit more rambunctious than Rosie ever was…” One of them knocked a jar of sample treats off the counter and seemed to giggle to itself.

Hutch let out an exasperated sigh. “...point proven.” They adjusted their glasses and nodded. “I can help with behavioral training. No problem. They can't be worse than that pack of Remils…” They shook their head. “Follow me.” Hutch stepped around the counter and motioned for Eros to follow them to the back, pausing when they realized how narrow the way to the door was. “Well… hold on.” They pushed aside a few boxes that would get in Eros’ way and made sure the pathway was clear before motioning them to follow again.

Eros thanked them, scooping back up the mischievous little flower imps and following Hutch onto the backroom and out the backdoor into a small garden that doubled as a training “park”.

“The easiest way to train imps is positive reinforcement.” They pulled out a bag of small treats and a clicker. “When they follow directions you click and give them a treat. Eventually they associate the click as a reward, and obeying commands as rewarding.” They motioned for Eros to put down the Eroses, clicking to get their attention. He gave a few basic commands, trying to gauge how well trained they all were already, nodding along as they all seemed to understand extremely basic commands, though they didn't seem very interested in following the commands until they realized there were treats… “Alright, with some coaxing and a little bit of help from your Erose Rosie, we should be able to start teaching them.”

“Alright! Here, Rosie, let's show them!” Eros slowly stood up from his chair and moved to sit on the ground, setting Rosie down in front of him. He accepted the clicker from Hutch and got the rest of them to pay attention, twirling his finger over Rosie and simply commanding, “Spin, Rosie.”

The rest of the little flower shaped creatures watched on as Rosie twirled around, a few of them slowly following in the imp's actions and spinning along, more of them joining when they heard the clicks from Eros, until all of them were twirling and dancing about, obeying each command as Rosie did, following the leader. Within no time at all, between Hutch and Eros, they had the troupe of Erose all dancing along with each other in harmony, making soft little noises as they all delighted in spinning around each other to the tune Eros hummed.

“Good job!” Hutch praised both Eros and the various imps. “With more practice and training sessions you'll have them performing flawlessly.” Hutch smiled down at Eros and offered their hand to help him up, keeping him steady as he eased back down into his chair.

“Thank you, Hutch, you've been a tremendous help.” Eros smiled as Hutch helped him collect them all, nestling them all back in his lap and making his way back into the shop, through the back room, and out to the floor, thanking Hutch once more and waving as he made his way out of the shop, thinking to himself how lucky he was that Butrowgatory had individuals as helpful as Hutch.