You see, in the Mind Palace, the Sides can have whatever they want. They have rooms. They have clothes. They have a kitchen and a common room, plus any other room they wanted. It wasn't physically real which allowed them to do anything they wanted.

This included pets! Thomas was a known animal lover, a trait that was passed onto the Sides. Of course, they each had their own take on what animals they preferred. Deceit had his snakes and Virgil had his pet spider; both of those didn't particularly appeal to Patton, who had a couple of dogs himself. Logan preferred animals of intelligence and had an owl that kept him company while he worked. Remus had the most unusual pet of choice, an octopus that he'd named Hentai much to Patton's disgust.

However, none of them knew of what Roman's pet was. He never really talked about it. It was often a topic of speculation among the other Sides.

"What do you think Roman has as a pet?" Morality wondered aloud one afternoon. He was petting his golden retriever named Cookie in the common room and the other four Sides were sitting in the room with him. "Do you think it's something dangerous?"

"Well, knowing Roman, it's most likely something unbelievably extra," Logan pointed out. "He's Creativity. Such a Side is almost always going to be over the top so to speak."

Remus cackled as he tossed his octopus in the air. "I take that as a compliment, nerdy wolverine!"

Logan shot him a glare and rolled his eyes. "Honestly, it's probably a dragon knowing Princey," the anxious Side commented without looking up at his phone. "Either that or some kind of unicorn or other mythical creature."

"I say, a mythical serpent of some kind would be quite remarkable," Deceit added, humming thoughtfully.

Though they had many ideas, none of them could say for certain what Roman had as his pet. They each tried asking him in their own ways, but he dodged all of their questions and avoided the topic with such skill that they didn't even realize he had until a few hours later. The only one who didn't try to pry was Virgil.

He knew what it was like to have a secret and didn't want to be a hypocrite by hounding Roman about his. Perhaps that was why he was the one to discover the answer to the other Sides' questions.

Virgil needed the prince's opinion on a few lyrics he'd written for a song that Thomas had been brainstorming about. While it mostly fell on Creativity's shoulders to write lyrics and scripts, sometimes he felt himself pulled towards doing so as a coping mechanism or way of expression. The anxious Side didn't have a problem lending a hand with the work when it was something he could be himself about and be told he did a good job, but he always checked with Roman before making a final decision.

This led him to wander into his room one afternoon with his face buried in his notebook. He hadn't knocked, but Roman never usually minded. "Hey Princey, I've got something I need you to look at-"

As he looked up from his notebook, his voice trailed off. The prince was laying stomach down on the floor and looking up at him with wide and shocked eyes. Virgil's eyes shifted and landed on a bunny the color of butterscotch sitting a few inches away from the creative Side's face. He was absolutely speechless.

"That's your pet?" he asked, blinking in surprise.

Roman sighed and began to sat up, looking self conscious. "Yeah, go ahead, make fun of me cause it's a silly little rabbit instead of something cool," he said as he pouted. "I'm sure one of you will have won some sort of bet about what my pet was."

"Whoa, I literally don't care what pet you have," Virgil said. He sat down next to the prince with an arched eyebrow. "If you like bunnies, you like bunnies. Why the hell should I care?"

"Oh, I just thought... I thought you would make fun of me or something," the creative Side said, looking down at the rabbit. "I know everyone's curious about it, but I just couldn't bring myself to admit that I didn't want a giant fire-breathing dragon. I wanted something soft and cuddly to pass the time with."

Virgil nodded in understanding, a small smile spreading across his lips. "You won't tell the others, will you?" Roman asked.

"Of course not," he replied with a shrug. "It's not my secret to tell. Of course, if you'd like me to throw them off the scent, I can always tell them that this little guy was totally a giant, threatening creature."

The prince grinned. "Thanks, Virge."