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After much comical flailing and attempts to get some kind of balance, Oz finally stood up straight, panting a little from the shock. He didn't acknowledge Nita's presence at first, looking about in that typical morning daze. The amount of light was his first surprise, considering it was pitch black when he mounted his post.

He finally turned to face Nita properly, greeted by a big ball of fluff and very pretty eyes.

"Uuuhhh..." he blinked away some more sleep. "What...time is it?" he asked sheepishly, already knowing the answer.

Oz had been oblivious to Nita's presence until this point, so he'd missed her previous comment about not having a watch. His face wrinkled into a grimace and he rubbed the back of his thick neck sheepishly.

"Oh bugger...I fell asleep," he chastised himself lightly, most likley expecting a backlash from Billy or Gaius later should anything be missing.

...oh crap! Oz walked a short way from Nita to just survey the work site and make sure things were okay. Nothing had been done to the site, no tools or materials were missing...and nothing about his person seemed peculiar. He was in one piece at least.

He returned to the fluffy cutie with a relieved smile on his lumpy face.

"Keep this between you and me?" he asked her, pleading with a cheeky grin.

She seemed vaguely familiar...but he couldn't pinpoint where from just yet.

"Hehe, yeah. Personal request from Billy. I made such a balls-up a few weeks ago that I thought I'd try hard to be a good...wait a minute...stuff went missing?" he began, eyes already looking a bit brighter as he started to wake up. Nita's casual comment kind of took him off guard.

"Who'd want to take construction stuff anyway?"

Oz was oblivous as always. Althought now that he thought about it, if Billy had known what had happened, that would give him cause enough to seek out a guard. He'd never actually elaborated on why a guard was necessary, and Oz was just eager to get back to working.

"I didn't know...I've kind of been avoiding this place lately," he replied, his tone a little more subdued. "But its all back now, I've been using stuff at night without any problems."

It bugged him that he knew Dr Duvert as the man who had greeted him when first arriving here, and had now become the subject of his vandalism. Until now, he'd only had suspcions and snatched whispers from Sayuri about Dr Duverts involvement in the Island. This just confirmed it, and now Oz had a name to his tormentor...and victim.

"I haven't seen Gaius yet though, I'm sure he'll be around any time this morning," he offered with a smile, shelving his thoughts until later.

"Zach? Which one is he then?" he asked, again quite unaware that he'd already met the notorious dragon in a name-less exchange of Christmas blues.

It disturbed him to think of an Islander being a 'pet' to the aforementioned evil bugger that was Dr Duvert. Had they gone so far as to literally turn them in a pet animal, like a dog or cat? Must be awful losing all humanity like that...it didn't bear thinking about. Oz gave a slight shudder.

"You know, I had the same feeling," he chuckled. "My name's Osbourne, but its Oz for short. A pleasure Nita."

He gave a gentleman-like bow that looked a bit corny really, but his intentions were sweet all the same. He gave a big yawn and a stretch.

"I don't think I saw you at Christmas...since I was a miserable git and avoided everyone," he laughed. "Maybe Halloween...?"

Zach's the red dragon guy

What the hell... the guy on the crutches he'd seen at Christmas? All of a sudden, some of Zach's rather cryptic comments made a lot more sense, and some of them just made Oz's head hurt even worse. But...a pet? Damn, that was a pretty nasty pet!

The look of shock and slight fear graced his face only briefly as he shelved that snippet of information for greater rumination later too. His mind was far too groggy now to fully comprehend things. It was struggling with Nita's familiarity as it was!

"Oh the bonfire party thing...? Yeah, I was there. The highlight of that evening was some tiger singing to 'I'm a little teapot' and me making an a** of myself..." he trailed off as Nita's distinctive red hair and fur colouring flashed across his memory.

OH s**t!

"Oh god I am SO sorry! I never would have pointed at you if I'd have known you were...umm..yeah," he said, fumbling for an apology, his mouth suddenly not listening to his brain.

Nita's lack of any kind of reprieve or harsh comeback was a relief. In hindsight, the situation itself had been funny, and Oz needn't really have apologised for that. But it was the chain reaction immediately afterwards that had made his gut wrench on that night. Poor Gaius.

It really wasn't any of his business to ask about what happened after that, since he barely knew either of them when it happened. He was curious, but at least he had made his peace now.

"Umm...yeah...that night was bloody awkward from my point of view, still a 'normie' then," he said that puppy-dog look on his face. "Nevermind, eh? First impressions never count anyways."

Oz was blissfully unaware of what took place after he had left.

At least Nita seemed a little more understanding about this whole mess of a life. He didn't want to delve into any thoughts or possible queries about her time here or how she started out. Oz just seemed glad to have found someone who didn't look at his unchanged, or barely changed, status with ridicule, like Billy had done.

"The pleasure is all mine," he smiled warmly at her, grasping her paw maybe a little too firmly than he should have. He was still unable to gauge his strength properly.

"So have you been helping with any of the construction? Or are you gonna be a performer?"