She places a cardboard box over Ace's head. "Entertain yourself for a while. Mom's reading her romance novels."

There is the sound of angry clattering and cursing from far inside the house.

Matron raises a mug, threatening to throw it, when she sees Dust flitting downstairs, giggling like a schoolchild. "No giggling in the house! Didn't you read the rulebook!?"

"Ahhhh, screw YOU." She grumbles, turning back to the stove, four mugs lined up nicely on the counter next to it. "....ten marshmallows or twenty."

"Ten it is, then." She dumps an indeterminate, but more than twenty for sure, amount of marshmallows on top of the powdered hot cocoa she just mixed in Kaeda's mug and passes it across to her, followed by a very chocolatey cup for Dust. "What are you girls doing up and about."

"I saw. You have split ends." She smiles behind her cup.

"Hm. Restless? You?" She waves a hoof. "Well have some cocoa and try and be less restless. It's almost winter, it's hibernation season. That's the opposite of restless. You suck at this game, don't you?"

She snorts. "You /are/ kind of a sin against nature. No wonder you're all weird and...feeling-sy all the time. It must be the wiring. You probably have some emo kid in that weird head of yours, knocking around." She takes a sip of her cocoa and fumes at the fourth cup. "Mas."

"How dramatic." Matron rolls her eyes. "Dust don't let her bitterness harden your heart. I was just about to play a cavalcade of repetitive songs sang badly, to start the holiday season out right."

"Thank god. Maybe then I'll get some damn peace and quiet!!" She laughs.

"Oh thank christ. I wouldn't do well being dead. It would do horrible things for the upkeep of this horrible house." As if on cue, a pipe bursts upstairs. "Ah crap. Gotta go. Finish up and wash your hooves." She gallops upstairs, which is now flooding.

Having already sensed her dumb daughter got sick, she's been brewing an incredibly peppery soup in the crock pot for hours. "It's almost done. She'll be floating in cartoonishly any minute now..."

Matron glances at her over her sudoku. "It isn't called Thanksgiving."

"I dunno. Gluttony?" She grimaces at the bread slabs. "Is that real butter? Or is that margarine?"

"Isn't that super bad for you."

She sighs loudly and rubs her temples. "Okay Jesus. Carry on."

"ACE she's saying symbols again!! Ace get down here!!!!"

"did you send out the invitations?"

><

"Quiet, Mas, I'm watching my stories."