Gwenaëlle comes properly into the room, then, sitting down on the end of her bed beside the bear as they trade places—Hardie taking the cue of her ease to follow her in, and therefore meet Abby, a not-unfamiliar face. His mistress is at ease, so he only casts a look toward her for permission before submitting to well-deserved good boy rubs.

“Not all of them,” she says, “the pair of birds are Brianna and Celeste which is plausibly deniable,” Briala and Celene, “and the falcon is named A Favour and one of these days I'm going to do someone one and regift him. And this little fuck—” she fishes around under the bear pelt for a moment and coaxes out a nug wearing a ribbon, “—is named Leviathan, which I think has something obscure to do with some long-gone rifter that Thranduil was friends with.”

Leviathan, who is about the size of Small Yngvi, regards these goings on very sleepily; when the fuzzier of the pair extricates himself from Gwenaëlle to rejoin his nug friend, they settle in a circle with the apparent intent to go directly back to sleep. “Percy—my horse—is named Persistence, properly. My lord chose her because her mane matches my hair, if you can believe it.”

It's true.

“But the cat is named after Yngvi. Small Yngvi. Who'd have been fine if I'd attacked him,” with a laugh, “I'd never held a weapon in my life, back then.”

Ordered someone's death, yes. Carried it out personally, not yet, not then.