"It could have," Anna pointed out. "They could have locked you up rather than just taken my word and let you come with me."

Tessa just made a vague noise and settled on the seat. She wasn't going to admit that she might possibly have been wrong this time around.

Anna drove them back to the hotel and ushered Tessa inside before anyone could see her. Then she went and grabbed some clothes so Tessa could change back.

"Decided to run with the local Hellhound pack for a few days?"

"They know the territory best," Tessa said as she accepted the clothes and got dressed. "I was exploring the area."

"And didn't realize they weren't as well behaved as your average pack, and got into trouble with them." Anna sighed. "Well, there was no way to know, I guess."

"It didn't help that we got picked up by the dog catchers," Tessa said as she got comfortable on the bed. "I was just fine running with them before that."

"I figured. Apparently this pack has caused problems in the community, so people were talking about just tossing them all." Anna shrugged.

"Looks like they got what they wanted," Tessa said, stretching a bit. "So what's going to happen to them now?"

"I train them, get their temperaments, see which of them can be trained and sold off to private owners, which of them need to be rehomed in other ways, and which of them just need to stay because they're going to keep causing trouble." Anna shrugged.

Tessa nodded, considering the individuals in the pack.

"Half of them will be able to be trained," she said after a moment. "Most of the rest can still be re-homed."

"We'll see how long that takes." Anna shrugged. "I've got time, fortunately."

Tessa nodded and sprawled out on the bed.

"At least I got to explore," she said. "I may go out again at some point."

"Once things have calmed down a bit, so in a few days," Anna agreed. "Then you can go out exploring again. Just no more Hellhounds."

"Maybe that dragon I ran across the other day?" Tessa suggested, grinning teasingly.

Anna snorted. "You'd probably be the friendliest dragon ever," she said with a grin.

"I can be," Tessa teased, grinning brightly. "No problem. What color?"

"Dark green, that'll make you very distinct from any that are local, or have been in the area recently," Anna said. "Or dark blue, whichever you'd prefer. There's a lighter green one at the menagerie, and I know there's a silver-gray one local."

Tessa grinned.

"You really want me to?" she asked. "I can, once we have a place. Wouldn't that be something, though, just showing up at your job covered in green scales."

Anna snorted. "Oh that would be fun. Maybe we should one day. Oh, and speaking of places, there's an apartment not far from here that I think we should go check out. Tomorrow maybe."

"Sure," Tessa said, nodding. "Let me know when you want to go and I'll make sure I'm around."

Anna nodded. "We'll plan for tomorrow afternoon," she said. "Should give us plenty of time to look and all that."

"Sounds good," Tessa said. She stretched. "Going to settle in?"

"Yeah. Get some dinner and settle in for the rest of the night." Anna yawned briefly. "Might do a bit of reading, not sure yet."

"Well, I'm just going to stay right here," Tessa said with a sigh. "This bed feels really good."

Anna chuckled and read for a while.

The next day was a little more tense back at the menagerie, but not as bad as she'd expected.