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Tony was feeling better the next morning, if only because he had a surprise guest with him. He didn't know where she came from, though he had a hunch, but someone had managed to sneak his dog into the room when he was sleeping.

He woke to her whining and bouncing on her stubby back legs, reaching her small paws for him with an expression that told him she had been doing that for some time before he noticed. Of course he had moved to pick her up and help her onto the bed, avoiding the wires sticking in and on him.

Now the young Corgi was sitting in his lap, curled up comfortably.

He smiled when he saw Kyndall come into the room, laughing and nodding his head. He moved to sit up a bit, and Dogby perked her head up. Her big ears scooted forward on her head as she looked at this new friend she had never met before, her dark eyes round and attentive. Her tongue lulled out of her mouth immediately and she began to wag the stump of her tail.

Watching as Dogby introduced herself to Kyndall, who of course fell for her cute charm immediately, Tony slowly realized that he hadn't been greeted. In fact, he might have thought she had come just to see Dogby, though he knew that she could not have known the dog was here. He grinned at her knowingly when she said hello.

"Hello, Miss Rosen. This is Dogby. She's a girl and it seems she very much likes you."

Dogby yipped, as if in agreement, but more because she wasn't getting as much attention as she wanted.

Tony smiled and watched as Dogby curled into Kyndall's attention. It was clear that if she was a cat she would be purring up a storm, though she didn't know how. Instead she kept letting out soft sighs and hums, little whimpers of contentment.

"Kyndall," he said, with a nod of his head. He tried to be respectful and polite, and first names seemed to be something that required a bit of familiarity.

"And yes, she has that habit. I think she's probably up to no good, but I'd be damned if I could fight against her. With that... little face and cuteness..." He smiled, clearly a soppy dog parent if there ever was one. It was impossible to hide, most of the time.

Shifting a bit, he waited for her to move her bad and looked at the texts he could glimpse. Nodding his head, he seemed to approve. He had not been able to swing by the library, of course, for his own books but seeing what she brought it looked like they had more than enough to start.

Not that he was too certain what he would be needed to do.

"Well, I guess we can get start..." he looked at her when she spoke, turning red immediately. It was like she had a remote control and could just press a button to make him blush. "Uhm."

"I'm sorry," he said, shaking his head slowly. He didn't think she was really telling him off but he apologized anyway. He was getting flustered, and that meant things could easily go right down hill for him from there. He didn't want it to, though, and he smiled at her.

He had to keep his nerves down.

"I imagine," he said, shifting to business, "you would do better to avoid that subject entirely. In any case, if you're doing a show it might be a good idea to stick to the familiar subject material and do it in a new way? I'm not... too familiar with theatre. All I can think of is how every time I see Hamlet, it's done differently."

He rubbed the back of his neck, then looked down when he felt her hand brush his thigh. His face was burning again. Had it ever stopped? He wasn't sure.

And the silence wasn't as helpful as she might think. He worried he wasn't offering the help she needed, or that she was bored with him, or worse. Annoyed? He wanted to help her, of course, and felt bad already that he might not be.

But he didn't know what to say.

"Is... are you... uhm."

That wasn't it, at least.

Tony nodded his head thoughtfully, shifting a bit again. He looked at her as she spoke, smiling softly at her words. She seemed passionate about the subject, as he had been. As he was, he amended in his mind, though now things were certainly different. He didn't just enjoy reading about knights and their adventures: he was one.

But that hadn't done much to ebb his interest in the subject, or change it in any way. After all, he had some time now to adjust to all the changes.

"Well then, maybe your answer for an antagonist is Arthur himself," Tony offered thoughtfully. "When you think of a life as long and renown as his was, we don't know that much about it. How far he had to come, sure, but how he did it? Magic aided him, yes, but he was still a strong King who followed a tyrant and had an incredible leap to take."

He laughed, shaking his head as she apologized and waving his hands. Dogby looked up, having settled a bit with Kyndall petting her, thinking that Tony might have thrown a ball or something.

He hadn't, and she put her head back down. She made a soft sound of contentment, like a pigeon's coo.

"I don't feel excluded," far from it, considering, "a-anyway. Maybe Arthur wasn't as widely loved at first as the poems would have us believe. It takes a lot of work and some strong ruling to turn a whole Kingdom to his favor, even if the King before had been awful. If you focus on the people, Arthur, Merlin, and his Knights..."

He wondered about other shows he had heard about, though not seen as he rarely went to the theatre. Spamalot was one. It was about the knights, but a musical comedy.

“Aaaauuuuuccccccckkk-k-k!”

It was a strange sound, to be certain, that suddenly filled the hospital room. For somebody who had grown up in the city, it was likely an unidentifiable one. However, if either of the two present happened to grow up near the forests far outside of the city, they might recognize the panicked cries of the Eastern Gray Squirrel.

How a squirrel might have gotten into a hospital was something that nobody really had time to question as the furry little thing darted quickly around a corner and right into Tony's room. It scampered skillfully up the curtains, pausing only once it had safely reached the top. It perched there, looking down upon the inhabitants as though they, too, might be after his acorn.

And oh, what an acorn he had discovered! The little squirrel clutched the thing to his chest, screeching away at the occupants below. His claws stroked it's smooth, green surface. It was, in fact, so amazing that he didn't even mind having chipped his tooth on it moments ago. Chipped tooth or not, it was his!

Mine! Mine! Mine! He chattered his indecipherable claims at them in rough, curt squirrel tones. He wrapped his tiny arms tighter around the small, shining green object.

Too many things happened at once for Kyndall to be able to keep up with them in the blink of an eye. First that noise and then the squirrel. Dogby launched herself off the bed and caused a spray of Kyndall’s paperwork. A few of the books fell off the bed and their thumps hitting the floor added to the chaos. She saw him trying to get out of his IV drip and batted his hands away.

“What do you think you’re doing?”

But, more importantly, what was the squirrel doing in here and what was in its mouth? The Corgi whined at them as if to proudly announce it had the threat trapped and wanted to finish playing with it though the pup was more likely scaring the thing out of its wits. She felt sorry for the poor thing. She kept Tony in bed, pushing him back down so he didn’t do harm to himself. Dogby wasn’t going to help her catch the thing but as she closed the door to the hospital room at least it was contained.

“What is that?” she asked, getting closer to the squirrel. “It looks like a gemstone of some sort…a green quartz, maybe?”

She picked up the pup and brought her back to Daddy, asking him to keep her still if she was going to catch this errant creature. Then she went back to the squirrel and approached it slowly, crouching low to not frighten it. She slowly held out her hand, hoping to attract the whole animal and coax it off the curtains.

"Wait, Kyndall, I don't think it... it's very safe," he managed to extricate himself from the wires, despite her warning him not to, and stumbled toward her. Walking was difficult. He wasn't feeling pain, the drugs in his system still fresh and potent, but that made his whole leg feel like it simply wasn't there. He near fell when he tried to stand, and had to balance on one leg.

He was almost used to it, though, in a way. His leg had first been injured a long time ago, and walking with a limp was common place to him.

Dogby did not want the crystal: she wanted the squirrel. She bounced up and down relentlessly, scrabbling at the curtains, biting onto them and pulling with all her tiny corgi might. Until Kyndall picked her up, but she was back at the scene quickly since Tony hadn't held on to her in his efforts to escape the bed.

Tony hopped over, thinking that the squirrel might have been a youma, and not wanting Kyndall near it. He put his hand on her shoulder, steering her back from it as well as using her as a way to keep himself balanced. Dogby took more initiative than the humans: she pulled so hard on the curtains that the weak, old structure actually gave way under her efforts.

It fell.

"Dogby!" Tony yelled, half angry, half concerned, though he saw her skitter away from the danger. She was good at that, not much of a fighter. Even in all her excitement, she hadn't growled once. She didn't know how. But at least now the thing would be on the floor. "Kyndall, close the door before it gets out!" he ordered, then added with a flustered look, having forgotten his manners, "please!"

He just hoped it hadn't swallowed the crystal.