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Furnado Animal Shelter, Tuesday

Zack was quiet today as he came in for his Furnado shift. Not upset, not really. Just... thoughtful. He went through all his usual chores in relative silence, occasionally pausing to murmur to a bird or a bunny or whatever as he cleaned out their cages, but when all of that was through, it was right back to sitting at the desk, letting the baby varactyl nap in his lap again.

It was just something about a comforting presence and feathers, today. There'd been something about a stone this morning that he couldn't quite piece together and really couldn't shake.

"Maybe we'll name you Dream," he murmured thoughtfully to the sleepy little repatavian. "Or Honor."

[OOC: Open!]

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Fenris had been wandering and finally found his way to the animal shelter. He saw Zack inside.

He strode through the door, announcing his presence with, "I am here to play with the small and not at all woodland creatures you have in here." A beat, "Also, hello Zack, it's good to see you again."

Zack blinked up from the tiny lizard thing he was quietly scratching behind the feathered crest and smiled a little at that introduction.

"We have a lot of those, you came to the right place," he replied. "Hi, Fenris. Are you looking for any particular not-at-all-woodland creatures today?"

"No. Mostly I was bored and out for a walk when I saw you in here." He looked at the tiny lizard bird thing, "Who's your friend?"

"This little girl is Honor," Zack shared, nudging the tiny varactyl, who game a chirrup of protest before lifting her purple head and blinking beadily at Fenris. "Or Dream. I haven't decided which, yet. She's from another galaxy, apparently. No clue how she ended up here. We're looking to re-home her somewhere in a reality like hers, right now."

Honor-or-Dream stared at Fenris a moment more, and then yawned, her little beak opening wide, before she deposited her chin back on Zack's knee.

Fenris reached out a finger. Wary of the beak, he kind of wanted to pet the weird little lizard bird thing.

"Maybe she's supposed to be here," Fenris mused, "though she seems awfully little to be away from a nest."

For what it was worth, she gave a content little honk at the petting.

"The vet tells me she's going to get a lot bigger," Zack agreed. "I think maybe she's like her world's equivalent of chocobos. Or, uh, horses. Something large and smart, with a strong back. But she's pretty dependent right now. I wish I knew what happened to her family, but I have this feeling it'd just make me angry."

"Animals are animals, Zack, it could just be nature that happened to her family," Fenris pointed out quietly. He continued to pet the little thing. "She's safe now and has good caretakers and that's what matters."

"It's almost a shame the island's not set up for riding beasts," he mused, "She's pretty. She'd make an impressive mount."

"Could just be nature," Zack agreed, "but that wouldn't explain why she's here, and with us."

He smiled down at her anyway.

"Wanna hold her?"

"Most of the people here have no idea why they're here or how they got here," Fenris pointed out, "Perhaps it's not so different for animals."

He smiled at the little thing and said, "Yes. I would."

Zack smiled and carefully gathered her up, a little ball of scales with a ridge of feathers behind her head and another running down her tail, and held her out to Fenris.

"She'll probably try to stick her face in your armpit. It's a warm quiet place. Safe, you know?"

"I wouldn't consider someone's smelly armpit to be safe," Fenris said dryly. He reached out to gently take the HonorDream and cuddled her against his chest. "She weighs so little."

"I think she's built for climbing," Zack offered, smiling a bit at the pair. Aww. "Her toes are funny, see? Kind of squished out with the little ridges?"

He was mostly just parroting back what the vet had observed, yes. Of course he was.

"So I guess being too heavy would probably make that hard."

Fenris examined HonorDream's toes to see about that climbing thing and totally not because they were adorable baby birdlizard toes.

"A mount that could climb would be very useful. Do you think you could handle stairs?"

Yes, he asked the birb. Seriously, as though he expected an answer.

In reply, mostly she just tried to bury her face in his armpit.

"She can handle the shelving," Zack laughed. "Stairs are probably boring by comparison."

Fenris adjusted her position so she could cuddle against his neck if she wanted, with a completely fake put-upon expression. "Armpits are not places you want to stick your face," he informed her.

He gave the shelving a critical look. "She able to fly at all yet?"

"Fly, no," Zack said, tilting his head at her. "She doesn't really have wings or anything, but she's quick when she wants to be. And jumpy. I mean, she can leap like nobody's business."

She kind of was the living definition of 'leaping lizard.'

"So you can climb and then leap onto your prey," Fenris said approvingly. "That's a good tactic. Especially if you get bigger than this."

"I bet she's happy there are less people running around the island," he offered, "I am."

Zack gave his own little nod.

"Even on the days we weren't open to the public, it was loud out there," he agreed. "She's used to... jungle sounds, I guess. I mean, she seems to like listening to the crickets, at least."

Which weren't quite jungle sounds, but they were the ambient sound of life, which was something he missed considerably about his home in Gongaga. Had missed, even when he was still happy in Midgar with SOLDIER.

"Do you play sounds for them?" Fenris asked curiously, "That seems a kind thing to do for animals."

He had not enjoyed the weekend. He had spent most of the time in the room hurting his eyes by trying to puzzle out the language. Reading was hard. It was good that Fjord was patient. Fenris..wasn't.

"If it helps them stay calm and happy, sure," Zack replied. "But mostly she just seems to notice the sounds around here that remind me of the jungle back home."

A pause.

"Maybe I'm just projecting a little."

"You could play the sounds for you, too?" Fenris said, "I mean, if that's something you miss hearing?"

"I could," Zack agreed. "Not all the sounds are quite right, though." He ducked his head and laughed a little. "I'd want to go looking for frogs in the woods or something."

... Never go looking for frogs around Gongaga. Just don't do it.

"There are woods here, and there are frogs," Fenris pointed out, "You could do that. What would you do with them when you found them?"

Zack laughed.

"Be really really disappointed that frogs here are just frogs, not monsters with magic," he admitted. "Home's... pretty different from here."

"That would be quite a disappointment, yes," Fenris smirked at him, "So you're bored here, you say."

"Bored out of my mind."

And not afraid to admit it, no.

"Me too," Fenris admitted, "Everything's so quiet here."

"Too quiet. And then when it gets loud, like over the weekend, it isn't even the right kind of loud. Sometimes there are things to fight, but they're so rare..." Zack sighed. "I miss being SOLDIER. I miss having a purpose. Here is nice... pleasant enough... but it's not what I'm built for."

"I feel the same. I'm a warrior. I've been in some form of fight my entire life and now? I'm on an island where people get along and there's nothing to fight," Fenris frowned and idly scritched HonorDream. "Someone told me about portals. Would that be a way to find somewhere to fight?"

"It might be," Zack agreed, pausing a moment. "I'd want to be fighting something for a reason, though. If I'm going to use my sword for more than sparring, I want to be making someone's life better when I do."

"That's a harder order to fill," Fenris admitted, "Do they have some sort of mercenary board anywhere? Sword for hire sort of things?"

"Not on the island," Zack sighed. "I've looked. I'm close to just walking to the trooper station and seeing if there's anything they need me to take a sword to, but let's be real. Around here? Not likely."

"Probably not around here, no," Fenris admitted, "It seems very quiet. Except for the big ..car..things.. across the bridge. They're kind of awful."

"Big car things? Bigger than the regular car things, or...?"

Zack was from a jungle in a magical fantasy world, but at least he knew his way around cars.

... Even if theirs tended to only have three wheels.

"Much bigger," Fenris sighed, cuddling HonorDream a little. "At least twice as tall and three times as long. Very loud. It had a thorax. Most cars are in one part but this had a head and a thorax."

It was a semi.

Zack blinked.

"A... thorax." He had to glance over at some of the insects and mentally dissect one before he ventured, "was it loud enough to pretty much drown out your speaking when it went by? Maybe the back half was shaped like a big box?"

Fenris nodded. "It went through me. It was annoying."

BLINK.

"It went through you?"

Fenris nodded. "I was looking at the..road. The..tar stuff. I couldn't get out of the way in time so.."

It was easier to show than to tell. He held up the hand not cuddling HonorDream and let it phase out. It became a glowing white Lyrium mist.

Blink.

Blink blink.

"Oh, that's neat."

Zack Fair, the island's most easily distracted killer.

"It is," Fenris said solemnly, "neat. Also extremely useful, especially in combat."

"And," Zack added, "when you're about to get totally flattened by a semi truck. Please don't get flattened by a semi truck. That's what crosswalks are for."

"Is that what they're called? A semi truck? I can only get flattened by a ..crosswalk?" Fenris was confused. He didn't really want to get flattened by anything. That sounded like a bad thing.

Zack winced a little.

"No, I mean, crosswalks keep you from...." He waved his hands around a bit. "Here, I'll tell you what... if you want someone to give you lessons in street safety, I can take you across the causeway sometime and just talk you through it all."

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Furnado Animal Shelter, Tuesday

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