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 Posted: Tue Aug 22, 2006 4:42 pm
"Woooaaaah."
That, in and of itself, seemed to sum up a majority of Etain's thoughts concerning the aquarium. Fish. Everywhere. Up the ceiling with 'em! Nevermind the fact that the water went up, up, up - unnaturally, ming bogglingly high. Without realizing, he'd repeated his first sentiment at least twice before Tovar had purchased them tickets and they'd each gotten a brightly colored wrist band for admittence.
Once they were actually inside the aquarium, rather than simply the brightly decorated lobby, Etain floundered forward to the shallow pool immediately opposite of the entrance. He was easily tall enough to see over the faux rock wall down into the wide, but shallow, tank, and could definitely see what was swimming around in there. Odd, flat creatures with thin elongated tails and --
"Stringrays," Tovar explained, without waiting for the question that would inevitably pour out of Etain's mouth.
"Ooooh. Wooooah."
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Posted: Tue Aug 22, 2006 4:57 pm
"Fish one, fish two, fish three...what's after three?" Raisa asked as she looked back at Pika.
"Four. One, two, three, four," she smiled down at the ladybug girl as they passed through the ticketed entrance. Teaching Raisa to count wasn't as direct as Pika thought it would be. The child seemed to enjoy saying the numbers in random order before trying the basic sequence over and over.
"What's in that pool over there?" Pika asked her, spying an interestingly pale looking boy watching the stingrays.
"Fish I bet," Raisa said surely. She ran over to the edge of the faux-rock tank. "Lift me! I can't see!" she said, grabbing the edge of the pool.
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Posted: Tue Aug 22, 2006 6:34 pm
After a copious amount of ooo-ing and aaah-ing, Etain did the next thing any little boy would logically attempt to do given a tank full of living stuff that was low enough to reach into: he stuck his hand inside and attempted to touch one of the string rays as it came sweeping by. Tovar squaked indignantly, managing to haul Etain back a half second after he'd come in contact with the string ray: the creature sweeping lightly under his fingertips, seemingly without being remotely phased by the brush with the unicorn. Etain, however...
"Squishy!" he squeaked happily, shaking his hand out and rubbing it on the leg of his shorts to dry it off. "Like Medusa!"
Tovar grimaced slightly, glancing quickly around for any aquarium staff. "Etain, you're not supposed to put your hands in the tank. It's not, er, good for them?"
Etain blinked, cocking his head backward to peer up at Tovar. "Oops."
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Posted: Tue Aug 22, 2006 11:11 pm
Pika sighed and lifted her little ladybug girl till she could see over the edge of the tank. "What are those?" Raisa asked as she pointed at the dark kite-like shapes gliding through the water.
"Stingrays," Pika said just as the boy nearby stuck his hand in the water. "Ok you're getting heavy!" Pika exclaimed and put her down. Hopefully Raisa hadn't noticed what he'd done and try it herself. "Now remember what I said on the bus Raisa?"
Raisa rolled her eyes and scuffed one foot, "Yeah I do." She knew mama wanted her to repeat it but Raisa didn't feel like it. Catching sight of the pale boy she noticed he had a... tail? Running over she energetically said, "HI," right behind the child.
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Posted: Wed Aug 23, 2006 12:26 am
Having been set down only a few seconds prior, Etain hadn't really been expecting to be addressed. He jumped slightly, spinning around to face whoever had spoken out. He blinked slightly at the brightly colored little girl, long ears flicking forward in a motion not unlike a horse's. "Hi," he chirped back. That fine features face quirked slightly to one side, the boy's large brown eyes blinking curiously.
She was definitely...different lookin'. He'd never seen someone with that many arms. "You've got four arms," he remarked, rather needlessly. As if to illustrate the point, he flapped the both of his up and down. "Does your mom gotta make your clothes to fit over them?" Alright weird question, but to him it seemed like the logical thing to ask!
Tovar watched with mild amusement, a slow smile twitching across his face. Etain seemed to have a knack at meeting people everywhere - not that he was complaining; that was a good thing, right?
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Posted: Wed Aug 23, 2006 1:43 am
She giggled as the boy whipped around, startled. "You're pretty!" she said. Shyly she reached out one hand to touch his hair. "Curly," Raisa said surprised, "You have doll hair!"
She eyed him quizically as flapped his arms. "She cuts holes in dem," Raisa nodded, as if this were the most logical thing. "Some come in the mail that I wear," Raisa said again as if clothes always got mailed to your house on a regular basis. "They come from D but I don't know how cause D is a letter. Want to sing the alphabet?" Raisa said smiling.
Pika came over as she heard her ladybug babe talking up a storm. "Uh, hello," she said the the man accompaning the pale boy. "My name is Pika and this is Raisa," she said, resting a hand on Raisa's head.
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Posted: Wed Aug 23, 2006 7:29 am
Doll hair? Etain wasn't sure what he thought of that. He didn't have dolls, but he knew what they were. He was under the impression that mostly just girls played with them; though, he wouldn't have minded having one to throw around or send down the side of hills in a wagon... In the end, he decided not to comment on that particular point - he didn't exactly have time, anyway. The girl talked fast enough for the both of them, and it was easy to get swept away under her chatter. Like dust under the rug or right out the front door onto the porch.
"Alphabet?" He repeated. "You can sing it?" Tovar, for all his good points, wasn't really a singer. He'd avoided it like one avoids catching a cold by wearing sweaters outdoors, and muddy streets after it's rained (which was to say, he did it occasionally but not enough to bother anyone or cause dogs to howl on a regular basis).
Speaking of, Tovar glanced up to peer at the little girl's guardian. Smiling slightly, he offered out a hand out to shake. Formal, maybe, but habit. "Tovar," he said in some semblance of an introduction. "And this is Etain."
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Posted: Wed Aug 23, 2006 10:36 pm
Taking the grownup's question as an invitation, Raisa began to sing in a sweet high voice, "Aay, bee, see, dee, ee, ef, gee -! Aich, ay, jay, kay, el-em-en-oh-P ~! Kyu, ar, ess, tea, yoo, vee, dubbl-yoo, eks, wai and zed! Now you know your A~B~Cs, Next time won't you sing with me~!" She grins and grabs Etain's hand, "You will sing it too, right?"
"Come on Raisa, we have to look at more of the aquarium if we want to be done before it closes! Er, would you like to come with us?" she said looking at Tovar and Etain.
She wondered exactly what it was this messy-haired man did. His clothes were hard to place employment-wise, but the man must have been quite cold to wear that number of sweaters! "So have you been looking after Etain often?" she asked. This man couldn't be his parent could he? Babysitter perhaps. Crazed uncle more then likely.
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Posted: Thu Aug 24, 2006 1:08 pm
Etain nodded, linking arms almost immediately with the little girl (it took some doing and a little sloucher considering their differences in height, but it was accomplished). "Yeah, I can sing it too!" he chirped happily. Apparently, Etain had already decided to take up the woman's offer of accompanying them through the aquarium, seeing as he was already tugging Raisa cheerfully on to the next giant tank filled with brightly colored fish.
Tovar smiled brightly, apparently happily unaware that he looked like The Crazy Uncle. After all, Etain's real crazy relatives were probably far more eccentric and off balanced, so why should Tovar ever suspect he was being pinpointed for the role? "Apparently we will - I hope you don't mind."
Wait, how long had he been...looking after Etain? Tovar blinked, glancing after the unicorn who currently had his face pressed up against the glass of the fishtank. There were probably rules against that sort of thing. "A few months, I suppose?" he offered, beginning to gravitate in the direction of the two children with the intent of peeling Etain's face from the tank.
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Posted: Thu Aug 24, 2006 11:19 pm
"Oooh rainbow fishies," Raisa observed through the glass. She pressed her two lower set of hands against the glass as the other pair clasped Etain's tightly. Turning to see how he liked the fish, she was delighted to see the boy pressing his face to the glass. Well, as much as he could with the horn protruding from his forehead. "Hey, what is that?" Raisa asked.
Pika smiled as the kids discovered a floor-to-ceiling sized tank filled with fish. "That's good of you to take him in for that long. By the way, my name is Pika," she said, starting after him as he took a step towards the children. "Raisa, don't put your mouth on the glass!"
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Posted: Sat Aug 26, 2006 8:47 am
"Hey, Tovar, my hands leave fingerprints; coo--"
"Etain, if you fingerprint the glass you won't be able to see the fish."
The unicorn promptly dropped his hands, rubbing the oils self consciously on the front of his striped shirt, rather than all over the front of the tank. After a bit more ooing and aahing, Etain roped Raisa's arm with his and set off to the next tank.
Jellyfish.
"HEY IT'S MEDUSA!" Etain screeched, loosing Raisa immediately so he could run over to the tank. "Tovar, Tovar! Look!" Waving his arms excitedly, bouncing slightly up and down, Etain waved at the two adults excitedly, beckonging them over. Smiling, he looked to Raisa and pointed at the tank full of hypnotizing, wiggling jellyfish. "Have you met Medusa? She looks like that."
Tovar snickered slightly, rubbing the back of his neck absently. "It's nice to meet you," he said, glancing to Pika. "Sorry; he gets a little excited. Ah ha..."
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Posted: Sat Aug 26, 2006 1:55 pm
Raisa pouted as soon as Etain took off towards the next tank. Running up after him she stopped as soon as she saw the...floating bubble things. They has trailing dangly bits like ribbons spilling off a present. "What's a medusa?" she said, not taking her eyes off the jellies. "What are those?" she said stepping forward to the glass. The soft, round forms were semi-translucent and pulsated gently through the water.
Pika smirked as the horned boy started yelling over the jellyfish tank. "Ah. I love jellyfish. I always wondered if I could get some for a tank in my home, but not this big of course." Turning to look at Tovar she asked, "Who is Medusa?"
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Posted: Sat Aug 26, 2006 3:12 pm
"She's my friend," Etain exclaimed, explaining to Raise rather than to Pika (who he had, in fact, not even heard). "She's a jelly like these. She has a gold fish in her tummy," - he poked his to illustrate the point - "That you can see. She let me poke at it, and her tummy is all squishy and weird and slippery. An' she has to stay in water alot or she'll shrivel up like a raisin, y'know, like how I get when I sit in the water too long. Jellyfish shock people with their tentacles."
Clearly, Etain had been doing some research (or at least, pestering Tovar incessantly) since meeting the other little girl.
Tovar bit his lip to stifle his laughter. "There you go," he managed after a moment in answer to Pika's question. "She's his friend. He talks about her...quite a bit, actually."
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Posted: Wed Sep 06, 2006 1:27 pm
Raisa's eyes widened as Etain went on about jellies. She pictured a giant, kid-sized jelly named Medusa floating through the air, sucking up little fish as she passed open tanks, plunking herself in when she started to feel dry. "Who mops up all the water?" Raisa asked, confused. "How does she talk to you?" she asked as well. Her forehead was furrowing again.
Pika stiffled her laughter as she heard Raisa speak to the boy. "Medusa is a jellyfish like Etain is a unicorn right? Not actually a giant jelly," she said to Tovar, biting her tongue. Pika knew that one of the worst feelings for a kid was that of feeling stupid and embarassed and there was no way Pika was going to cause those feelings for Raisa.
"Raisa has a friend she talks about alot too. A girl who's part lobster. She's mainly blue and has claws for hands too. Those are what Raisa goes on about. She has really good empathy and seems to relate everything she's doing to whether or not Azoc can even though she hasn't seen her for a week or so."
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Posted: Wed Sep 06, 2006 2:32 pm
Etain blinked at Raisa, clearly a little confused. Water? Well, Medusa probably did track some water around, huh? Even so, he hadn't noticed it too much. As for talking... "With her mouth?" he suggested, tipping his head slightly to the side. Was there another way to talk?
Tovar smiled faintly, his hands quickly finding their way into his pant pockets. "Yes, that's right. She's not like...dragging herself across the floor and leaving a trail of ooze or anything like that," he said, voice pitched similarily low - though whether Tovar had percieved the reason for their half-whispering or not wasn't completely obvious. "Etain chatters quite a lot about a little boy, Anoki...I think..., he met some time ago too. I think it's because they both have horns." Nevermind that Anoki and Etain's horns actually differed quite a bit from one another. Etain hadn't seemed to notice at the time.
"Etain," Tovar called lightly, the little boy's attention flicking around. "Maybe you should go to the next tank, hmm? You can't spend all day putitng your fingerprints all over the jellyfish's glass."
"Oh," said Etain, pulling his hands away. "Right." Beaming, he looked back to Raisa. "Wanna go to the next one?"
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