"Us" said Dusk appearing out of nowhere. "You might as well tell us. I was just now comin over ta ask ya what was wrong, Quips just got heah first." she half smiled.

Panda mumbled something that sounded suspiciously like "I'm a no good horrible, utterly rotten person, who is completely and totally undeserving of any love of any kind."and with it came what sounded even more suspiciously like a sniffle.

"Say what?!" asked Quips "Ok, I know your talking through about thirty blankets, so I'm gonna give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that I heard you wrong and when you said something about rotten, you were talking about bad fruit.

"What brought this on?" asked Dusk looking at the motionless lump in the middle of the bed. "Was it that guy Andy dat told ya dat? He ain't got no right ta talk!"

"No"said Panda in a low, muffled voice"he tried to kiss me, my dad said that...and hes right"

Quips snorted, although she tried to cover it with a cough. "So lemme get this straight, Your dad, king of vagrants, told you this and you believe him?" She saw what could have been a nod come from Panda's outline, so she went on "And this guy, what's his name, Andy, isn't it? Kissed you, and you think that your not worthy of love because your father said that if he kissed you, you were a no good horrible utterly (Quips raised her eyebrows at this) rotten person? What was he doing there, I thought he was in prison?"

Dusk looked at Quips incredulously "How can ya possibly get things twisted around like dat? I'm still tryin ta figure out if its a gift or a curse!"

Quips grinned "Its gotten me out of more than one...uncomfortable situation."

"He's not in prison!" said Panda before she even knew she had opened her mouth. She hoped her voice hadn't traveled through her several tons of blankets, and also hoped, both strangely and offhandedly, that no one whos bed was in the near vacinity her's would mind when they tried to go to sleep and found their beds lacking blankets of any kind. She had to get her blankets from someplace, and in her head somewhere, with the "wanna hit something and don't know why" instinct, there was also a "build a nest and ignore the world" instinct going on.

"Hes...not?" asked Quips, then she shot a look at Dusk. "See? Aren't you happy I asked?"

Dusk shot her a look, then glanced back down at the breathing lump on the bed. "Panda" she asked very slowly "What do you mean he isn't in prison?"

By this time, Panda figured the game was up, and more or less, mumbled her story, leaving out the most recent Andy part.

"And you didn't tell us?" asked Quips, looking shocked...for her anyways.

"He said he'd kill you" murmured Panda, in an unhappy voice.

"Ok" Dusk said putting her hands on her hips "Lets get a few things straight here. One, everybody deserves love of some kind, so don't think its any different wit you goil. Two, your not a horrible person, your not loud enough ta be a horrible person, If ya don't say anything, how can ya be horrible, ya don't snub people? And three," here she got a little louder, and a whole lot firmer "If I see dat old drunken slob again, he ain't layin a hand on me, I'll beat'em within an inch of his life, I'll-"

"Alright" said Quips "He might be the lowliest form of pond scum imaginable, but he's still her father, we should be more tactful" she threw a speculative glance at Panda. "Panda gets first dibs, you hold, and she hits, then you can trade."

Something almost like a laugh escaped Panda then, she couldn't define the reason for it, she wasn't amused, and she highly doubted that Quip's dry joke was meant to make her laugh, but she did, then she was silent for a time. Eventually she said "Don't worry about it, everythings gonna be fine." She went to sleep leaving Quips and Dusk utterly unconvinced.