Daylight

[Stella Ksiezyc]

"What?" she asked, blinking rapidly. She was happy to be in the penguin house, because they were awesome. She loved the chilly air, and how they zipped around like little black bullets in the water, playing and swimming. The only thing better were the otters. "You mean like I got two left feet when I'm human?" Evidently she had followed. "Sometimes. It helped a lot that my mum was a hyena, too. You'd really like her, I think. She'd want to adopt you." She smiled a little.

"Looks like I did it for her, though." She slid an arm through Ebere's, effectively linking them together like a child would. She almost wanted to skip, but she didn't think Ebere would go for that again.

"I hope you don't mind, really, Ebere. It's just that, well, like I said before. I was missing something. I think I found it." She smiled - not a grin, but a small, almost girlish smile. "I'm glad, no matter what."

[Lachlan Williams]

Ebere laughed a little, softly, the sound not quite entirely human, but not truly gone either. She pressed a hand against the glass, splaying fingers wide. It felt odd, looking at her human hand pressed up against the window to a pool, little black-and-white tuxedo pattern torpedoes shooting through the water. "I don't know. Not just two left feet, like you don't belong there, like there's something else but you can't be it." A penguin, after all, couldn't be a fish - they had to come up for air and they had to live on dry land, but their home was the water.

Why did nature do this?

Ebere was partially zoned out when she felt Stella slide an arm through hers, linking the two of them together - her head came around suddenly and she blinked almost confusedly at the other blonde, like she'd been somewhere else and only just come back. Maybe she had. She watched Stella with the same confused, abstracted eyes as she talked about something lost and something found, then sighed and put her head down on the other girl's shoulder.

"No," she said softly. "No, I think I understand."

[Stella Ksiezyc]

Stella laughed when Ebere mentioned two left feet. "I feel like that all the time. I'm the last person in the world to think I belong anywhere, well, except for my mum's, but now havin' you around has seemed to change all that. Just standing here, feels like we're supposed to be here." She nuzzled her, almost a mixed gesture of something a sister would do and something an animal might do - to comfort their companion, in both instances.

"I want a penguin," Stella said very suddenly. "I want like, four of 'em. Actually, I don't have anywhere to put them. I don't think four would fit in a tub." She watched them, mesmerized by how they moved back and forth on the little habitat that had been made for them. "Gosh, they're a lot bigger than I always thought they were."

Like a child, the moment of seriousness had passed, giving way to the zoo itself, and the inability for Stella to be bummed out while she was there. "Let's go see the birds. They got one that can talk," she said. "I bet I can teach it to swear."

[Lachlan Williams]

Ebere didn't just feel like she had two left feet - two left flippers, maybe. Nothing about her seemed to fit in the world, except for those times when they actually did. She was thinking about this - odd thoughts, left and right and sideways (but of course they were odd thoughts - this was Ebere, after all, and sideways was her natural way of thinking) - until Stella nuzzled up against her and effectively shattered any thoughts she was having. Ebere sighed like a child and put her head on Stella's shoulder, her eyes closed and feeling like she was home. How odd it was that she wanted to run away from this, but she had a poison touch. It was like King Midas of legend only worse, because what he touched only turned to gold - what she touched withered.

She just wasn't strong enough to do so, and it made her selfishly glad. It was wrong, but at times like this she didn't really care. She felt... herself. It was almost shocking, because she hadn't felt herself in so long, only something close-but-not.

The moment passed and Stella began to talk again, plans of owning penguins and the housing arrangements she would need to make, and Ebere laughed. "They are pretty big, for birds. And odd too. Birds belong in the air.

"I feel more like a penguin then ever, now. Maybe you can have me." Ebere grinned and nuzzled Stella back, almost her neck, then took her hand from the glass and her head from the other's shoulder.

"All right. Where are they?" Ebere- she... she didn't know the zoo that well.

[Stella Ksiezyc]

  Stella stared at her for a long while, and then smiled, slipping her hand through Ebere's, however reluctant to receive it she may be. "I'd take you in a heartbeat, I think," she said honestly. She smiled warmly to her, and then... like that, the moment had passed. Ebere was asking where the other birds were, and Stella was tugging her along, rushing. They looked like children - well, Stella looked like a 'children'; Ebere looked like a perplexed parent as they raced through the halls to the Aviary.

  "Here! There! Look, there's the Scarlet Macaw. I've been coming here every day since the zoo opened up in spring, and I've almost got it saying 'asshat'." She smiled triumphantly to the other hyena, and then tugged her closer to the red bird that looked like its parents had been Crayola crayons.

  "Pretty bird," Stella called. "Shithead!"

  The bird responded, "Pretty bird! Shit!"

  Stella looked at Ebere like she was expecting a reward.