How Green Becomes Wood

Lex paused to think about this. "She grooms... regularly? And I don't know about destructive. She's pretty aggressive with her toys and her scratching post. Oh, and my couch, but we're working on that. Sorry, I don't have a frame of reference. I only know the stories."

Soup started batting at Cooger's beard and trying to bite it.
 
"Hang tight a minute."

Lex stepped out of the room and soon came back lugging the gate she'd made for Dark and Daizi. She'd made it as thin and light as possible, but it was still metal. She set it down carefully to not scratch the floors and tilted it to show Cooger. About half of the spindles were in place across the gate, but several were missing. Three were in her hand. They were delicately curved to give it a bit of elegant flair to match the Dark-Wahid house as much as possible. She shuffled a minute and presented three spindles, each with a different design that complimented the ones already in place.

"I need your opinion on which of these A: suits their style and B: allows a cat to get through without a kid getting stuck," she told him. She balanced each of the three in the slots where they'd go so he could visualize.
 
Cooger looked at the spindles, relieved this was all she wanted to talk about, "I don't know much about decor, but..." He pointed to one, "This one looks like their other gate, so we know it's good for babies. Cats getting through really just depend on spacing, cats can get through just about any space they can fit their head through."
 
"Cool." Lex juggled the spindles so she could set the other two down without dropping them and held the third in place. "Soup! Soup, come here! Let's show him what you can do." She pulled a little baggie that she'd retrieved from the fridge earlier from her pocket and shook it.

Soup heard the rustle of the bag and perked up. She left Cooger and trotted over eagerly, "prrrp?"-ing as she went. She saw the gate and went to one end of it, turning in tight circles of excitement. Lex pulled a tiny piece of cooked chicken out of the bag and held it down by the gate.

"Good girl, Soup! Now, weave! Weave!" she encouraged her.

At first, Soup didn't seem to want to weave, but after a minute, she started weaving back and forth between the spindles with ease thanks to how widely they were set apart. She hesitated at the spindle Lex held, it being only half the distance, but then went through without any trouble and finished her weave to earn her chicken reward.

"Good girl!" Lex praised her, giving her another tiny bit of shredded chicken. "You're so smart!"
 
"I saw it on one of those dog trick course things once, and she already likes weaving just naturally," Lex said, giving Soup a good pat. "Took a bit of luring her with chicken, but she'll do anything for chicken, I've discovered. So, that's her special trick treat now."
 
"Yeah, I think it'd be good for her," Lex nodded. "Taking care of one cat hasn't been as hard as I thought it might be, so let's bring on a second! Which are the two left?"
 
"We have a long-haired grey tortie and a solid grey short haired cat," Cooger replied, taking out his phone and showing her pictures of the two remaining babies. Importantly, he didn't include the photograph of the little tuxedo.
 
"Wow, those two are adorable," Lex cooed, looking between them. She considered for a long moment, glancing between the two. "How about the long-haired tortie?" she finally said. "Did those two get along?"
 
"I remember those hissy fits," Lex smiled. She picked up the gate and carried it out. "Toby? He's fine with her." She disappeared for a bit and quickly returned. "I think Soup confuses him, but she likes him and chases him around sometimes. He's been saying we should teach her how to skateboard."
 
"Really? That's so cool," Lex grinned. "Now... what happened with Alec's kitty?"

Soup wandered back to Cooger and started poking around his knees and ankles, sniffing interestedly.
 
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