Tea Time

Cici checked her reflection before getting out of the car and slamming the door behind her, spooking herself as she hadn't actually meant to close it that hard, and locking it to head into the park.

She was in one of the nicer areas outside of the city, the grass a lush green and the ceiling high enough for there to be fluffy white clouds floating overhead, streams of light coming through from the luminous materials covering the underground. The greenery crunched underhoof as she made her way through the park to where she was meant to meet with Dove, having made friends with the cherubun after seeking advice about virtues and how they mix with the culture within burrowgatory. The thoughtful cherubun had been extremely helpful, as though Primrose was the one to introduce the concept of and explain virtues to Cici, Dove had a much better understanding of succubuns and burrowgatory as a whole, with a far less extreme ideal of purity.

Not that Cici couldn't still see the effect Melangel's parenting methods had left on them with the way the light-furred bun still got flustered at any swears or mentions of sex or other pleasures, but that was more just a fun thing to playfully tease them about than the heated debate topic it was with the stuffy head of the Heavenly embassy, who Cici imagines would act horrified if he'd heard Dove tell Citron it's fine to show generosity for the self-gratification as opposed to pure selfless charity, as it's still a good thing she'd be doing even if it were for the 'wrong' reasons.

The two of them occasionally meet for tea time, and this time Dove suggested having it outside, Cici not seeing an issue with it even if she knew it was at least partially Dove's polite way of telling her she should really spent more time outside the office. She knew she should, having been told plenty of times by plenty of people, but it was still difficult to not worry about her business when away from it. The way Dove had reacted during the last tea time when Cici had admitted through a mouthful of cake that she'd only had two meals within the past week had the pink succubun concerned the cherubun would borrow Jackal's methods of solving problems and personally break into her house themselves to fix her eating habits.

It was easy to spot Dove through the sparse amount of trees, settled on a nice cream coloured blanket with a selection of pastries already set out before them along with tofu sandwiches and a bowl of fruit.

Dove noticed her approaching and waved, Cici waving back to them with the hand not holding the bag of thermoses of tea, bottle of ambrosia and box of turkish delights, greeting her friend once she got within a distance that wouldnt require yelling to be heard. "Good morning Dove. That's a lot of food for just two buns having tea time together, isn't it?"

Dove didn't make eye contact as they tried to come up with an excuse for all the extra food they'd brought, "ah, well, I had some leftovers from yesterday's lunch?"

Cici let out an exaggerated gasp, "did the Dove just try to lie to me? How scandalous! I'm sure Jackal would be proud"

She'd met the envy bun during her second meeting with Dove, the dark-furred bun having stuck around for about half the conversation before leaving. They hadn't spoken much to each other, but it seemed that Jackal just wasn't the talkative type, so she wasn't offended.

Kneeling on the picnic blanket, Dove spluttered. "I! Well you barely eat! You need food that isn't just snacks! How much have you eaten this week?"

It was Citron's turn to avoid eye contact, staring down at the blanket as she sat down cross-legged. It's not that she was bad at lying, she'd done it plenty and done it well, but it always just felt wrong trying to tell a lie to Dove specifically. It should logically be easier to lie to them than anyone else, but since getting to know the naive cherubun, Citron just felt a deep pit of guilt at telling them anything but the truth. The vindicated look Dove had when she looked up had her turning her head away again in embarrassment.

"Now you have to eat properly! Well, I won't, ah, force you, but... you should eat properly"

"Yeah, yeah, don't worry, you got me. Thanks for the food, Dove, it's very sweet of you." Citron took a sandwich, biting into it as she set out the contents of her bag. "I made some turkish delights- no idea what a turkish is, Merry didn't know what the word means either and she's the one that gave me the recipe, but they're delicious- and got you some ambrosia, since I was at the embassy yesterday"

"Oh, thank you so much, you didn't have to! And I'd love to try the turkish delights, I haven't had them before- you were at the embassy yesterday?"

"Yeah, one of the cherubuns staying there is writing a book about life in the meadows, and asked me to proofread to see if it's understandable to succubuns, so I was returning it. It was actually pretty good, but there was this one detail I didn't understand at all if you could explain it to me since Primrose just rolled his eyes at me since he was apparently too busy-"

The tea time passed pleasantly, Cici sipping at her fruity mixed berry tea as Dove enjoyed their much inferior green tea, and by the time the two parted ways all the food had been long since been eaten and the tea all drank. Citron's first instinct once she got behind the wheel of her car was to drive directly to her office to get more work done, but she considered her options and realised she'd actually much rather not ruin her perfectly nice day with boring paperwork, so she pulled out of her parking space and drove down to the beach instead.

She needed to spend less time in the office anyway.