The first time it happened, Satoshi didn’t think much about it. It was barely a pat on the head. Still, this Greer Smith didn’t seem the type to do something like that.

The second time Sato witnessed her actions, she kept her hand on his head a little longer. Soon he noticed that every time she saw Dewi, she greeted him in the same manner. She petted the shapeshifter on the head as she talked to him, and each time she seemed to get bolder as the hesident action became more steady and purposed within days.

Dewi seemed just as surprised by her actions, so he probably didn’t tell her to do that. Then, whose idea was it? She only did it to Dewi, so it didn’t seem like a common greeting action for her. It wasn’t long before his curiosity got the best of him.

Finally he decided to just ask her. "Miss Smith, I was wondering, what is with the way you greet Dewi?"

Greer acted like she just got caught doing something highly inappropriate. "It's weird, isn't it? I thought so, but Blake told me…. I wouldn’t do it except I thought it might be normal since he told me to do it. You guys didn’t do the same thing when you first moved in?”

This just confused Sato more. “Did we do what when we moved in?”

“You know…” She looked guilty. “pet Dewi. Blake, I mean Cronos... he said I should do that to get on Dewi’s good side. Something about it being comforting because of his more animal-like instincts due to being a shapeshifter. I said something that upset him, so I just wanted to make it better. I promise I wouldn’t normally do something like that but Blake and Dewi are dating, so I figured his boyfriend would know him best.”

The scientist thought in silence for a minute before responding. “Well, that would add up. I have known Dewi to have some animal like tendencies. Though to my knowledge neither I nor Luce have ever… well… pet him. I believe the only one who has done that is Blake.” Greer was mortified. The only one who pets Dewi was his boyfriend and she had been doing that even though they were practically strangers. She wouldn’t be surprised if it made him hate her more. The why did Blake say ...?

“Why did Blake tell me to do that? He made it sound like you guys had all done it early on so Dewi would be more comfortable around you guys.” Maybe Blake hated her and wanted to ruin any chance she had of making up with Dewi.

“What exactly did Cronos tell you?”

She thought for a minute. “He told me, if I wanted to make it up to Dewi, to pet him on the head as often as possible because it would make his day. That everything would work out between us if I did. But now I’m starting to think that it might actually be something intimate if Blake is the only one who does it.” Oh, now that was interesting.

“Not necessarily.” Satoshi didn’t want to alarm the young woman before him. “There might be something to it, though Luce and I just never thought to try petting Dewi to get closer to him.”

“Still, I’d feel awkward doing anything like that now, just in case.”

“Well, that’s your choice. I just figured I’d ask while we’re both available before I have to get back to my research.” He soon went through the door to his personal research lab. It was currently sparse since he was the only one who could use it and he didn’t have many personal projects at the moment. Going to the computer, he opened up a practically empty document. Under ‘speculations’ he put the new information.

Cronos told Greer to pet Dewi’s head on a regular basis. Did this mean she had powers that Cronos knew about? Maybe he knew how they worked and was using them to give his boyfriend extra luck or something. It wouldn’t be the first time the time traveler used his knowledge to benefit his soul-bonded. It made sense if that was the case, but there was no way to prove it since Blake would never admit to such a scheme. Satoshi guessed he would just have to leave it a theory until he could prove it one way or the other.