Sometime in the morning.

He had a date to the Yule Ball. He never thought someone would actually ask him. Yes, it was Winifred Oliver. Yes, she was weird. Yes, she sort-of kind-of coerced him into asking her when she was going to ask him anyway. Yes, it was impossible for Zel to say no to her, despite her special brand of crazy. Despite the fact that it was Winnie, Zel was actually a little bit proud. She was cute, she was enthusiastic, and she was someone who would probably have fun at the dance, no matter how boring he was. She had a mouth that ran faster than she could think, so it wouldn’t be like they’d run out of conversation topics at the dance.

Zel’s number one concern was finding robes that would match her dress. That is what dates did, right? The man made sure his robes and tie matched the lady’s dress, and he bought her some sort of flower… Thing to put on her wrist. The only person he could think of to ask about finding robes was of course, Tapendra Trishna.

The Astronomy professor was only an inch taller than the prefect,  though his build was drastically different. Zelig looked like a starving Ethiopian child when he stood next to his muscular professor. But still, maybe he could give Zel some advice on how to find some robes that would fit him properly. He took a deep, nervous breath, knocked on the door to his office, and waited.

"You're not the Master here! Gerroff!"

The voice was, clearly, Tapendra's - but addressed at someone or something else. The someone, in this case, was his cat, which had chosen to curl up stubbornly on his stack of term papers. Kepler merely opened an eye at Tapendra's accouncement and, rather pointedly, rolled over and stretched ot across even more of his paperwork, digging claws into some of it.

Kneazles! Sometimes Tapendra wished he had a normal cat. At least with a normal cat, you could pretend they weren't doing it to spite you.

Unceremoniously, he picked up the Kneazle and dumped the fluffy grey cat onto the office floor right as Zel's voice came through the wood. Tapendra flushed and muttered, before clearing his throat. He knew the voice well enough, at least - Trumble had a rather distinctive waver.

"Do come in, Mister Trumble," he said. "Don't mind the cat, he's in one of his moods today," he added, as Kepler did the cat equivalent of storming out of the office between Zel's legs. Tapendra frowned at him, and then shot a smile to Zel as he tried to clear some of the paper off his desk. "What can I do for you?"