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 Posted: Thu Jan 17, 2008 1:34 pm
"Momma momma I wanna see the TIGERS!" the little girl tugged on her mother's sleeve while another little girl-- not even old enough to toddle around yet-- tried desperately to climb out of the stroller she was in.
Shiori ran a hand through her hair and wondered for the twentieth time since they'd arrived at the Zoo why it was she'd agreed to undertake this particular form of torture.
"Kisala, we're -getting- there," she assured the girl, "Ajiiel, stop that."
Kisala sulked a bit, crossing her arms over her chest to the best of her ability. She was bundled up pretty well-- the most obvious of this being a big white coat with fur on the inside and a pair of heavy blue jeans,
"You said we could go to see the Tigers when I got over my Chicken Pox!"
"We're -going- to see the Tigers, Kisala, but there are other animals to look at too."
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Posted: Thu Jan 17, 2008 2:45 pm
Sighing, Orion used his free hand to brush a stray strand of hair out of his face. He'd been amazed, but pleasantly, to discover that Eirwyn learned fast, and was already mobile enough on his own two feet to walk around, albeit clumsily. He was also slowly (and hit or miss) starting to use the toilet instead of his diaper (this, to-date, had been Orion's biggest relief, as every diaper change had been his own private hell). That said, this was the first time he'd taken the time to take the kid out of the house for something other than shopping. Things at work had been hectic all week, so, with the idea in mind that children were supposed to enjoy the zoo, and it was unlikely to be too crowded since it was still pretty cold outside...he'd figured it would, at the very least, give Eirwyn something else to amuse himself looking at, rather than finding new things to chew on around the house.
He still never had any idea just what the kid wanted, when Eirwyn started shooting Orion what he'd quickly dubbed his 'crankyface'--but it was one of the few expressions he'd picked up on, especially as ignoring it for any length time tended to mean that things went missing, or got unplugged, or ended up in Eirwyn's diaper (although this last, he hoped, would at least become less of a threat as he got closer to being fully potty trained). Making a face, he looked down at Eirwyn, who was looking around with a wide-eyed sort of fascination that brought a small smile to even Orion's face, followed by a shake of his head. Clearing his throat, he looked around, as if half-afraid someone had seen the softening of his expression.
Blinking, Eirwyn had one hand clutched onto Orion's pants leg, as he took in this new place. He was dressed in a pair of thick, white denim jeans, a pale blue turtleneck, and a pair of white boots. Eyeing a young girl who appeared to be arguing with her mother, he tugged at the neckline of his turtleneck in irritation--although a whisp of fog left his mouth with each breath, he felt hot with so many clothes on.
Somewhere off in the distance, a drawn out, rumbling roar could be heard. Freezing, Eirwyn tilted his head to the side, blunt, fluffy ears practically twitching. Looking up at Orion, as if to ask what had made such a noise, he didn't wait for his rather oblivious guardian to figure out what he wanted, instead releasing his pants leg and toddling, if a bit unsteadily, off in its direction.
"Hey, don't wander off like tha--" Realizing that Eirwyn wasn't even listening, if he even understood it, Orion took off after the silver-haired infant, looking distinctly put-out.
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Posted: Thu Jan 17, 2008 3:03 pm
Kisala spotted the little boy toddling off-- it wasn't hard, considering there were so few people there and she wasn't at all interested in the Emus they were currently near-- and tugged on her mother's sleeve,
"Look! A runaway!"
She trotted off that way as Shiori turned the stroller around and Ajiiel cried out in delight. "Kisala!"
"They're going towards the Tigers, momma! I wanna go too!" Kisala bounded off towards the little boy and his father. Shiori sighed. At least she was still within eyeshot.
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Posted: Thu Jan 17, 2008 4:31 pm
Ignoring his father's irritated tone, Eirwyn continued on his merry way, face scrunching up determinedly when he heard the roar again.
Finally catching up, Orion scooped Eirwyn up into his arms, ignoring his kicking feet. "Slow down, we can go that way..." he muttered, responding to Eirwyn's displeased scowl with a vague look of irritation of his own. However, he continued walking in that direction, until they stood in front of the tiger's exhibit-it was at a dead end, so Orion set Eirwyn back down, his expression clearly stating that the child had better not run off again.
Making a happy, gurgling noise, Eirwyn pressed his face up against the bars, smiling outright when the tiger roared again, before responding similarly, although the noise was far less impressive.
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Posted: Thu Jan 17, 2008 4:41 pm
Kisala bounded up, standing on the bottom bar of the fence before the tiger exhibit-- right next to the little boy,
"Wheeeee!" she cried, waving at the tigers,
"Oh momma, I want one!"
Shiori caught up, pulling Ajiiel out of the stroller to prevent her from falling out-- so hard was the girl trying to get out of the stroller,
"Absolutely not. It would tear the Temple apart."
Kisala stuck her tongue out at her mother, but then turned back around and leaned over the railing,
"C'mon Tiger! If you come over here, you can come home with me!"
The asian woman blinked, pulling Kisala's hand and dragging her from the railing,
"What did I tell you? I don't know what's gotten into you today, but if you do not behave, we will go home."
Ajiiel reached out for her sister's hair and pulled, hard.
"YOOOOOWWW! MOMMA!" The girl pulled her hair away from her sister's reach and skidded back to the little boy at the rail. Shiori sighed. What -had- she done wrong to deserve this?
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Posted: Fri Jan 18, 2008 8:46 am
His head tucked between the bars, Eirwyn looked down at the tiger, stopping to watch the large, stripey cat pace back and forth, waiting to see if it'd roar again. There was something about the noise that, rather than frightening him, made him half want to respond in kind.
When the tiger made no move to roar again, he looked away, cocking his head to one side, ears seeming to perk up in open curiosity as he looked over at Shiori, Kisala and Ajiel. When the hair pulling prompted the older girl to scoot back towards him, shrieking, he gave a small laugh--Orion could be loud too, but he'd never heard a human make such a high-pitched noise, before.
Orion, wincing at the high-pitched noise, glanced from Eirwyn to the two girls' mother, opting to make a rare, social comment instead of gaping at his own child in surprise at the amused noise. "Rough day?"
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Posted: Fri Jan 18, 2008 9:06 am
Shiori shook her head sadly,
"She has only just gotten over the chicken pox, so she has gone a bit stir-crazy. Probably why she's behaving this way."
Kisala stuck her tongue out at her mother again and watched the tiger some more,
"Heeeeeere kitty kitty kitty!"
Ajiiel screeched excitedly-- she hadn't been cooped up inside, but she was little and more inclined towards being obnoxious than Kisala anyways-- and squirmed in her mother's arms, reaching out towards the tigers as well,
"Perhaps we should move to another animal,"
she said to the girl, and Kisala seemed to instantly calm down,
"No momma! I'll be goo, I promise! I wanna watch the tigers longer!"
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Posted: Fri Jan 18, 2008 5:20 pm
Orion made a face, nodding. He'd never cared for a child with the chicken pox, but he remembered all too well the time he'd caught it, as a child. "At least she'll probably be worn out by the time you go home," he observed, careful to not let his attention drift too far from Eirwyn.
Eirwyn, now that the two girls seemed to be done with the hair pulling and screaming, grunted as if disappointed, before turning back to Orion, holding his arms out in a very obvious plea to be picked up. He wanted to see better--at his height, the fence obstructed his view, making it difficult to see much.
Orion looked down at Eirwyn, not picking up on the obvious request. He did, however, oblige the child with what he thought he wanted, taking one of Eirwyn's small hands in his own, and taking a step closer to the fence. "I take it tigers are the favorite exhibit?" He barely kept the amusement, laced with a healthy dose of sympathy, out of his tone.
"I'm Orion." He offered, unusually forthcoming.
Eirwyn tugged at Orion's hand insistently, holding up his other hand, waving it up and down in a vain attempt at getting his guardian's attention. If ever there was a motivation to learning how to talk quickly, Orion's inability to recognize nonverbal cues was it.
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Posted: Sat Jan 19, 2008 10:44 am
Ajiiel, on the other hand, was trying desperately to get -down- from Shiori's arms. But she wasn't really big enough to stand well on her own, and she certainly couldn't walk yet, so the woman wasn't about to let her lie about on the ground in this place. Too many germs, that was for certain.
Besides, she had had plenty of practice holding onto a squirming infant when Kisala was younger and had pretty much mastered it at this point. So, squirm as she might, Ajiiel showed no signs of actually getting -down-.
The woman bowed her head in a very Asian sort've greeting,
"I am Shiori Tonbo. This little one is Ajiiel," she pointed to the little alien girl in her arms,
"And that is Kisala...who does, it seems, have an immense fondness for tigers."
She preferred dragons herself, but there didn't really seem to be many of those commonly found in Gaia, and certainly there weren't any at the zoo.
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Posted: Sun Jan 20, 2008 6:33 am
Orion motioned down at Eirwyn. "Nice to meet you." he started, letting silence fall for a short moment before realizing that he never had introduced Eirwyn.
"And this is Eirwyn. Who, it would appear, also has some fondness for tigers."
Eirwyn, ball ed up one of his fists, and hit Orion in the leg, frustrated at the man's unwillingness to do as he'd like, glaring up at him all the while. When it became apparent that he wasn't going to get his way, Eirwyn let go of Orion's hand, and made his way over to where Kisala was still staring down at the big stripey animals, wondering just what she was seeing, that had her so fixated.
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Posted: Sun Jan 20, 2008 1:40 pm
"That's 'cause tigers are all big and can swim and stuff. They're really cool!" Kisala piped up-- of course she'd been listening in, as much as she had seemed not to be paying attention at all,
"And they eat meat. Lots of it. I don't like meat a lot, though, but it's neat that they eat so much of it! They can take down, like, really big animals like gazelles and stuff!"
She wasn't sure if it was tigers or lions that took down gazelles, but she was pretty sure they were both capable of it, so what did it matter?
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Posted: Tue Jan 22, 2008 2:10 am
Eirwyn gave up on trying to see what was so interesting, and looked around for something a little more interactive, ignoring the fact that Orion always was telling him off for wandering away. Seeing nothing of note in the immediate vicinity, he started toddling off, only to be brought up short by Orion, who picked him up with a small huff.
"Don't wander off." Orion murmured, settling Eirwyn onto his hip. He wasn't sure quite how to reply to Kisala's chatter about what made tigers so nifty, so instead he shrugged. "Personally, I prefer animals that have no desire to eat me," he said after a moment, flashing a rare, if small, grin.
Eirwyn, having finally been granted the vantage point he'd been craving, looked down into the tiger's enclosure with interest--this was much better! From here, he could see the tiger pacing back and forth, lip curled back into a snarl. Squirming, he leaned over as far as he could.
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Posted: Wed Jan 23, 2008 5:42 pm
Shiori smiled,
"The animals of this world are much safer than the ones from mine, at least,"
she assured him, then put a hand on Kisala's shoulder, somehow still managing to keep control of the squirming little girl in her arms,
"Would you like to see another animal, perhaps?"
Kisala leaned forward to watch the tiger more closely,
"Just another minute, momma!" she insisted, scooting over to the information kiosk over to the side.
"Sum...Suma...Sumatran Tiger...." she read
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Posted: Fri Jan 25, 2008 4:51 pm
Eirwyn, having satisfied his curiosity, was ready to move on. Waving his hand in front of Orion's face to get his attention, he opened his mouth. "Gooooooooo" he stretched out the vowel, still trying to get used to using his voice to make the sounds he wanted.
Orion, with his usual obliviousness, used his spare hand to move Eirwyn's hand out of the way, shifting him slightly on his hip before turning back to Shiori. Usually, he'd have probably been content to let silence fall--and truthfully, he'd probably have never initiated a conversation to begin with...however, as things stood, he hadn't had the opportunity to converse with anyone (aside from Eirwyn, and on the phone for work) since the cabbage had arrived on his doorstep, back around Christmas.
"Do you...all come to the zoo often?" he finally asked, shifting Eirwyn again when the infant began to squirm in earnest.
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Posted: Mon Jan 28, 2008 5:30 pm
Shiori shook her head,
"This is our first time.." she managed to thrust the squirming little one in her arms into the stroller again, buckling her in, and turned her attention briefly to the girl standing at the information console,
"Kisala, come on. There are other animals to look at. The map says something about a dragon..."
Kisala's eyes widened and she bounded over to her mother,
"Ooooooooh really?"
Shiori nodded, pointing, "Komodo Dragon. I'm not familiar with that type of dragon, but, it should be interesting to say the least."
She was rather surprised that there was any type of dragon here at all, and rather wanted to see if it was anything like the dragons of her world.
"Have you been before?" she turned her attention back to Orion.
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