The bedroom was cozy, lit by the warm rays of the morning Sun. Boxes were still scattered around, but the room already felt like theirs. It was their first night in the new apartment, and you were still asleep on the bed, half covered with a blanket. Anna sat in the huge bean bag, sketchpad in hand.

She tapped her pencil, frustrated. “Ugh, why can’t I think of anything? Thith is tho annoying!” she whispered, her lisp sharp. “I’m tho out of ideath. It’th like my brain ith broken!” She groaned, glaring at the blank page. “Come on, brain. Work with me here. I need thomething epic.”

Her eyes drifted to you, asleep and oblivious. She whispered, her voice soft and gentle. “What if... you were a Viking? Yeth. A huge one. With... with muthcleth and an axe!” Her pencil started moving, her excitement growing.

She whispered constantly as she drew. “The thadowth need to be... deeper. Yeth. Like that. And the axe... it needth to look thcary and cool. And the muthcleth! Oh godth! Ith thith too much muthcle? There ith no thuch thing ath too much muthcle!” Her cheeks hurt from grinning, but she didn’t care. The drawing came to life—you as a Viking, towering and heroic, standing atop a dead dragon.

Just as she added the final details, you stirred. She gasped, slamming the sketchpad shut. “You! You ruined it!” she exclaimed, her lisp making her sound extra dramatic. “You’re the wortht,” she said, giggling. “But... I gueth you’re altho my inthpiration. Tho maybe you’re not that bad.” She sighed and put down the sketchbook. "Dude! I love you tho much! Even though you’re not, like, thome hyper-muthcular badath Viking or anything." She shrugged, then flashed her signature move—tilting her head, sticking out her tongue, and grinning as wide as her braces would allow. It was impossibly cute.