That little dog was so filthy, the bath water had turned black... more than once. But, she was finally clean and Jay could swear she was sparkling a little... as he rubbed his eyes he realized he was beat. No, he was exhausted... and it was time for a nap.

Jay stood up, leaving the tub room in shambles. Towels all over, puddles of black water and 3 empty shampoo bottles. It wasn't an exaggeration to say that he could have used another bottle, but even a fellow as unobservant as Jay might notice a fourth bottle appearing where only had one before... well, maybe not, but don't forget, were in story here, so the number is fairly arbitrary. All this is really just to make the next bit feel a little bit more normal. Don't worry! You're not a frog and the water is not getting warmer.

Jay went straight to the bedroom, stripped off the outer layer of his clothes and fell in to the bed. He had barely pulled the blanket over himself before he was out cold.

DD followed just moments away. First she found a spot, circled around about 4 times and as she lay down, her eyes could no longer stay open, she fell in to a deep sleep.

***

An unfamiliar voice called out "DD?". It was friendly and knew her name, but she was comfortable and warm and didn't want to move one little bit. "Deee Deee?" it called out again, this time it was a little more sing song, but she was warm. "DD, I need to talk to you", this time it was right next to her, but the was comfortable.

She pretended to be asleep and gave her best impression of a snore. It backfired. A little bit of phlegm went down her wind pipe and she sat up coughing. She thought "no point in hiding now" and the voice replied "you were never hiding", this time it sounded like it came from her own head.

Startled, DD looked behind her, under her and above her looking for the source of the voice, sniffing the air carefully and listening as she looked. There was no one here and she didn't see any "here" either. She was standing on some unseen surface and there was a whole lotta nothin in every direction.

"Okay... I can see this is going to take a moment." DD was looking for the source and had both eyes pointed at her nose and head tilted to the left. The voice was still talking, "... having a disembodied voice talk to you is probably not the easiest way to take this all in, so tell you what. Picture yourself in an endless grass field or a road that heads off in two directions further than you can see. Anything really, just something that you can picture"

Steam rose from around her and 'poof' she was still standing in the middle of nothing, but now it smelled like flowers and popcorn.

"Tell you what, we'll work on that together.... later." The nothing faded into a field of flowers and a popcorn machine fell from the sky landing with 'whump' but it was miraculously unbroken and still making popcorn. It was pink popcorn with little blue dots on it.

The few clouds in the sky clumped together and grew larger and from the center came a voice, "I've always wanted to do this." In the center, a figure began to form. It was pug, or rather it looked a lot like a pug, but it wasn't.

With a boom "I know, I know, I look like a pug, but I'm not, so don't get all weird on me". The giant pug head in the sky coughed in to it's paw, leaned over and grabbed a folder and opened it in front of him.

"Let's see what we have here."

DD could see the giant pugs eyes reading and flipping through pages.

"Hmm, I see." He studied one page a bit longer than the others. "This is certainly something." He rubbed his face with both paws and furrowed his little brow. "I suppose there really is no other way around it."

He made a motion that must have been him closing the folder, took a big breath and sighed.

The giant pug head rubbed his face again and then his expression became much more regal and a little cosmic. There was even an aura around him now. "DD, you've been chosen to guide this 'man' on his path to ... uhh... " the aura blinked, but came back strong, " goodness, so that he doesn't become an utter shit bag... and you know that line about great power, so, um yeah."

DD straightened a gave a little snort (it was a snort of approval, don't worry, the cosmic dude got it).

"Good. Now protect him and go be a good girl".

The clouds faded.

DD was so happy, she got the zoomies. She was running through the fields with so much joy that she felt light and warm inside. She was happy, she was smiling. The wind in her face was the best.

She was flying.