Once the shop was locked and shuttered Paul ushered Cozy towards the back with shoos and grunts. Turned out he lived behind and above the place, who knew?

As she was so ushered, Cozy’s stomach growled and growled loudly enough to be utterly impossible to ignore. She grimaced internally. Hated those little giveaways. Never good having someone know more than you wanted them to!

“Hungry?” Paul asked without any obvious hint of sympathy.

It had been a lean few days. Ponies kept a lot closer eye on their snacks around these parts, getting food hadn’t been quite as easy as she had initially hoped. As if to underline this Cozy’s gut piped up again, somehow louder this time. Cozy winced, this time just from the unpleasant sensation of being extremely hungry.

“L-little bit,” she admitted.

“Hmph,” Paul said, jerking his head to the side. “Kitchen. This way. Come.”

And to the kitchen they went, Paul already busying himself by the time Cozy followed up behind him, standing in the doorway and just watching.

Everything in the place had been built to pony dimensions so Paul often had to stoop and bend, something which wasn’t always easy for him, Cozy noted. Possibly of some use later? If nothing else, if she kept out of arm’s length (which, for him, was admittedly pretty long) then he would be pretty easy to slip away from if she had to.

Paul, incongruously brandishing a wooden spoon, turned and saw that Cozy was lurking.

“Sit,” he said, pointing to a chair by a table. Cozy sat. Cozy waited. Paul did kitchen-related things. All was uncomfortable, frosty silence, barring the sound of spoon-in-pot and knife-on-board.

Some few minutes later a bowl was set in front of her with a clinking sound, the spoon within swinging about and coming to rest - quite coincidentally - right in front of her. Whether she’d need it was another question, but still.

“Dinner,” Paul said.

Cozy was going to say thank you (always a clever choice to be seen to be polite) when her eyes strayed and actually caught what was in the bowl, at which point she did a double-take and had to sit up properly to get an actual look.

What she saw was not promising.

“This is dinner?” She asked.

Paul nodded, his arms folded.

“I eat this every day. Good for you. Help you grow! Hah.”

Cozy elected to ignore that jab (recognising that he had in fact made a jab) and looked again at ‘dinner’. She gave the spoon a gentle nudge which disturbed the surface, though did little for the consistency. The whole thing remained a gloopy, unappealing grey mass. Difficult to work out if what she was seeing were lumps or clumps, these two things being distinct, and neither being especially good.

She looked up at him again.

“...what’s in this?” She asked, dreading any and all answers he might be about to give her. In the event he just frowned.

“If you do not want, I will eat,” he said, moving to take the bowl back.

The merest suggestion of no food was horrifying, and Cozy immediately wrapped both legs around precious dinner to bring it in protectively, lumps and clumps and all.

“No, no! Thank you. It’s, uh, new, that’s all,” she said.

“Hmph. Thought so.”

Paul then served himself some and got stuck in immediately, balancing against one of the kitchen counters. Cozy imagined - rightly, not that she had confirmation - that he found the pony-sized chairs uncomfortable and difficult to sit on.

She looked again at dinner. It was hard to shake the feeling that it was looking back at her.

Still, she was extraordinarily hungry and at times when one is extraordinarily hungry it can often be surprising where one’s standards end up. Taking the spoon somewhat awkwardly in hoof, cutlery not being something she had a whole lot of experience with, she carefully loaded it up with as few lumps or clumps as possible, and gave it a tentative try.

The most she could say was that it was an acquired taste. One she rather hoped she would not acquire. And if nothing else it filled a hole.

Paul had finished far ahead of Cozy and so was ready to take her bowl when she finally scraped up the last clump (or lump), dump both hers and his into the sink and giving them the once over. He then pointed out the room.

“Bedtime now,” he said.

This involved going upstairs.

He made her climb the stairs ahead of him, partly because she was faster, partly because he wanted to keep an eye on her. Cozy made the conscious choice to be a little clumsy on one step, just to gauge his reaction. He did not do anything other than glare. Not positive. Oh well! Good to know.

Once up top Paul grunted and pointed again and Cozy led the way through the door indicated, into a...room.

“Is this the right one?” She asked, peering in.

“Yes. In here. Bedroom, they tell me.”

It was good that he’d told her, too, as otherwise she would have had some trouble working it out as the room lacked something of a key element of what one normally expected in a bedroom.

“You don’t have a bed?” She asked, looking up at him. He shook his head.

“No, no bed.”

“Is there a guest room?” She asked, utterly confused. She’d kind of thought this was the guest room, but he seemed to be suggesting it was the bedroom. But there wasn’t a bed. She was clutching at straws.

“No. No beds. No beds in house,” Paul said.

This did beg quite an obvious question.

“Where do you sleep?” She asked.

Paul jerked a thumb his shoulder, down the hallway.

“In bath.”

“You sleep in the bath?”

She honestly wouldn’t have seen that one coming.

“Habit,” he said, then pointing to a cupboard in the corner of the ‘bedroom’. “You are only little. Pillows, blanket. In there. Will do good for you, yes? I will sleep in the bath.”

And with that he just left her to it.

There were indeed a variety of pillows, cushions and blankets crammed into the cupboard in the corner, all in various states of age and dustiness, all just-about adequate. The moment she’d opened the door, all of them had also all fallen out on top of Cozy, burying her completely.

Clawing her way free and gasping once her head had broken the surface (so to speak) Cozy flopped across the blankets and such and panted breathlessly for a second before gritting her teeth.

This indignity too, shall pass. This was all in aid of the grand plan.

The grand plan being her life, really, and everypony and everything in it just being a part and component of the greater whole. Like clockwork! All fitting together perfectly! Always just a question of finding what should go where, then hah! Everything would work.

Once she’d recovered from being buried alive she wriggled free and dusted herself off. She had no intention of sleeping, anyway, at least not yet. Rather, she intended on waiting until Paul was asleep - he was kind of old, she shouldn't have to wait too long, she reckoned - and then going out for a sneaky, covert poke around his shop.

Being little, she was very good at sneaking. Being a pegasus helped too. Lighter than most!

And so she waited. Waited until the sounds of Paul shuffling about had stopped, then she waited a bit longer, perhaps an hour or so. That seemed long enough to her. Time to make her way downstairs!

Rather than risk an errant gust from a flapping wing disturbing a door she instead opted to creep along on hoof, taking care to avoid any floorboards that looked like creakers, taking her time and not rushing and, in so doing, moving in almost complete and total silence.

The idea was not to ransack, that would be too obvious (and risky). Rather, the idea was just to have a small poke around, see if she could learn or find anything useful. Plans, perhaps. Something she could memorise or copy, maybe. Any stray bits he might have dropped down behind something and forgotten about. Anything really. Every little helped!

She’d made it almost all the way to the stairs when a voice came through the partway open door to what she assumed must be the bathroom.

“Go back to bed or I tell village boss.”

Cozy froze, hoof hanging in the air for the next step she’d been about to take.

“How did you-”

“Go.”

“But-”

“If you make me put leg on I will be unhappy. Bed. Go.”

Defeated, Cozy slunk back, muttering darkly to herself.

“S’not fair…cheated...”

Continuing to mutter she dug back into the pile from the cupboard until she was properly hidden, curling up into herself and plotting how, once she was back into the swing of things, Paul would suffer too, for styming her.

Weirdo, bath-sleeping alien thing. Who did he think he was?!

In my head, the slop is something he just got used to over the years and now doesn't see the point in ever making anything else. Think bread is involved. Maybe.

I do think about these things, you see, I just never tell you lot. Hah!