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 Posted: Sun Feb 10, 2008 1:32 pm
Of all the mortal child-rearing practices Aurrek had read about, one of the oddest was taking the kids to the zoo. The hourglass god failed to see the appeal in walking around and gawking at animals in cages, but the parenting magazine he had delivered to his mailbox once a month said that children loved it. And really, Aurrek had nothing better to go off of than that, since, you know, he had never been interested in raising mortal children in the first place.
And so today, he took both of the kids to the zoo.
Kelreid was walking on his own, now - praise the Wise Gods - and so he held his father's hand while Tahirah occupied the pram.
Tahirah's interest in whatever was going on was... well, she looked interested, at least, as she sat propped up on a pillow in the basket of the pram. As usual when she was out, she gnawed on a rawhide bone, which Aurrek had purchased especially for this trip to prevent her from chewing on the pram itself. The perambulator already bore some teeth-marks along the edges from the girl's already-rather impressive set of pointed teeth.
As they approached an enclosure filled with tall bamboo stalks, Kelreid toddled ahead to grasp the bars, peering intently into the space. What lived in here? It looked like nothing, which disappointed him; he stared intently at the bamboo fronds, looking for any hints of movement, or any signs of a living thing, really.
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Posted: Sun Feb 10, 2008 2:16 pm
It had been several days in which Maxwell had found himself unexpectedly saddled with his bizarre little baby, and he had finally decided to visit one of the places that would perhaps give him an answer or three regarding little Brisby- the zoo. Yes, the mansion in the letter would probably be a better place to attend to first, but Max had decided it would perhaps be a better idea to visit the zoo first. If Brisby shared any characteristics with the oriental bears he resembled, what better place to visit then a place that had a pair of pandas?
And so it was that Max had Brisby bundled up and placed within the confines of a battered old stroller on loan from a neighbor whose children were too old for it. The baby was asleep for the time being, which was probably a good thing. Little bugger could be loud when he wanted to be.
The panda exhibit had not been a hard one to find. As one of the zoo's highlighted exhibits, the area was far larger than most of the enclosures Max has passed, and far more crowded. getting up to the information-laden sign had been a struggle, though thankfully it was not as bad as it could have been. He was sure things would have been a lot harder if a few zoo visitors had chosen to coo and fuss over Brisby. After all, he looked like one of the pandas here, and Max had done little enough to hide the fact.
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Posted: Tue Feb 12, 2008 5:11 pm
After just a few moments, Kelreid's attention span had been exceeded and he had not seen anything within the enclosure below. With a disappointed sigh, he turned to complain at the lack of animals to his father, but instead found himself facing another baby stroller containing a little white-and-black-spotted kid. The youngster looked about Tahirah's age - and any resemblance to his sister gave the toddler pause - but he seemed interesting nonetheless.
Forgetting about the empty pen for the moment, the water elemental stepped cautiously towards the stroller, glancing between the child and his apparent guardian. Since he was not admonished right away, he figured it would be alright to talk to strangers, and waved at them both.
"Hiya!" he offered in greeting.
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Posted: Sat Feb 16, 2008 7:00 pm
It was when the waker kid approached when Brisby finally began to stir, his bright green eyes fluttering open. The panda baby blinked, paying the little translucent kid in front of him only the briefest amount of attention. Too many curious things to look at now.
At the friendly childish greeting, Max's head turned, smiling. When he saw the kid offering the greeting, however, he froze.
...Another weird space baby-thing.
The smile faltered, though only for a moment. How odd. Max hadn't much noticed to date, but these odd children were rather common, weren't they?
"Hiya yourself," he offered back.
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Posted: Sun Feb 17, 2008 5:21 pm
Seeing that Kelreid was talking to strangers, Aurrek rolled the pram to join him. He highly doubted the guy pushing the other stroller was going to abduct his kid, but the hourglass god figured he should at least look attentive. The panda in the pen did not seem to be out, anyway.
"Hello there," Aurrek said, nodding to the other man. "This little guy is mine. Let me know if he's bothering you and I'll remove him from your presence."
Kelreid got next to nothing out of what his father said, so he settled for just nodding a little. He was still young enough to know that his daddy was always right, so there was no need to argue anyway.
Then he turned around to glance over his shoulder, then back at the two men with strollers. The water elemental pointed back towards the pen and, with a pout, stated, "Empty!"
With a squeal, Tahirah dropped her bone and wiggled around, trying to get a better look at the people everyone was talking to. She blinked her bright green alligator eyes and smiled as she finally squirmed into a position that allowed her to see Max, at least. Her smile, of course, showed off her nice little teeth, of which she had entirely too many for someone her age.
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Posted: Sun Feb 17, 2008 6:19 pm
"Nah, he's fine," Max said with a dismissive wave of his hand. "Kid's not buggin' no one." The pilot's grey eyes flicked briefly to the empty panda pen. Heh. Wasn't like they'd have much else to loot at anyways. A little conversation might be good until the pandas came out.
Upon glancing back at the man with the pram, his friendly smile once again faltered. Now THAT kid was just plain creepy. He made a mental not to let that one near Brisby. Ever. He didn't like how those teeth looked.
"EEEE!" Brisby imitated the point and shout of the little water boy, not quite knowing what he was pointing and making noise at. But hey, it was fun!
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Posted: Sun Feb 17, 2008 7:13 pm
Tahirah wiggled her arms in an uncoordinated baby greeting for Max.
Glancing at the little girl, Aurrek smiled weakly and picked her bone up between two fingers, to avoid as much contact with the drool covering it as possible. Then he set it gently down on her chest, where she wrapped her arms around it and resumed gnawing.
"Got a lively little one in there," the hourglass god commented, leaning forward to peer into Max's stroller at the tot making noise within it. "Oh, and he looks like a panda, too. Kelreid, take a look at the baby. The bears in the pen over there are supposed to look kind of like him." As he was still wiping the hand he had used to pick up the bone on his robes, he used his free hand to usher his son a step closer to the stranger's baby carriage.
Kelreid looked into the stroller. He looked up at Aurrek. Then he looked back at the panda pen.
"EMPTY!" He did not give a darn about another baby right now. He came to see animals! His pout now a bit more angry-looking, Kelreid grabbed the plush-lined sleeve of his father's robe and tugged on it.
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Posted: Fri Feb 22, 2008 9:39 am
Doing his best not to stare at the little fanged horror gnawing on a bone, Max chose instead chose to look at the squealing Brisby. "Yeah. Usually not this noisy, though. Probably excited from all this."
Daddy's voice! Brisby's green eyes blinked as he looked around, finally glancing up and seeing his father. "EEE!" one small finger pointed upwards at Max.
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Posted: Mon Mar 17, 2008 6:58 pm
Kelreid started to sniffle, pointing at the little boy in the stroller and then into the panda enclosure. "He belong there?"
Aurrek winced and gave the man with the stroller an apologetic look as he ushered Kelreid over to the fence. He pointed at one of the signs with a faded photo of a panda and some information. "No, he's a panda baby. The pandas live in here. No panda-babies. They're not the same. They just... look the same."
And then, as though summoned by higher powers to spare Aurrek any further embarrassment in front of either his child or the stranger, one of the pandas wandered out of its cave and plodded into view.
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Posted: Mon Mar 17, 2008 9:09 pm
Max couldn't help but stifle a laugh at that. Though truth be told, sometimes it felt like Brisby should be in a zoo. Was it like that with all kids? Probably.
"Oh Brisby, look! There's a panda."
Brisby didn't get what was being said, but looked in the direction of the panda regardless. OOOH. "AbabababapreeeeEEEEEH!" He squealed excitedly, waving his hands at the panda. OOOH.
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Posted: Wed Mar 19, 2008 11:32 pm
Catching sight of the creature - finally! - Kelreid gripped the bars and peered at it wide-eyed. The cage was not empty after all! And the creature looked so much cooler than in the picture! Grinning from ear to ear, the water boy laughed and pointed excitedly into the pen.
"There we go," Aurrek said, the relief evident in his voice. "That's called a panda. Can you say 'panda', Kelreid?"
He watched the creature for a moment, then leaned down to pick Tahirah out of the pram so she could see, too.
Well, duh, Kelreid was growing up already. "Panda!" he chimed.
There were exciting things happening. Tahirah responded by laughing and waving her arms, weakly clubbing her father in the face as he held her. She did not notice that part, at least, since she was too busy watching the creature walking around its enclosure. She could say 'panda', too!
"ABWAAAH!" the toothy girl squealed.
"First time for yours seeing a panda, too?" Aurrek asked of Max; his head was turned away from the panda enclosure for the moment so that Tahirah would be less likely to hit him in the eye or something, so he figured he might as well converse with the other father and son standing beside him.
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Posted: Fri Mar 28, 2008 4:16 pm
"PADA," Brisby chirped, wanting in on the fun too! "Pada pada pada!"
"Yeah," Max replied. "It's his first time to the zoo, actually. Thought he'd like to see the pandas." Because since he kinda was one. That was good enough reason in itself.
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Posted: Sun May 11, 2008 8:35 pm
Aurrek nodded. "First time for both of mine, too." He glanced down at the panda out of the corner of his eye, and smiled faintly at Tahirah's rather energetic enthusiasm. "I've actually never seen a live panda in person myself, long as I've been around, so I guess it was worth it for me to come out here, too. All those parenting books said that the zoo is a good destination with kids anyway, so I figured why not."
Clinging to the bars with both hands, Kelreid jumped up and down. This was the best idea ever!
"More animals?" he asked, glancing between his father and the panda. The panda was pretty awesome, and Kelreid was entirely unsure if it would be cooler to keep watching the panda or see other stuff, too. But he might as well ask. His dad knew everything about animals, so he would know if there were any cooler ones!
Laughing a little, Aurrek shrugged, and deferred to Max to answer that one. "Have you been here long today? Are there any other things wandering around that look interesting here? We just got here, and I've never been here before."
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Posted: Fri Jun 06, 2008 7:59 am
Max shrugged, digging in his jacket's pocket for the little colorful zoo map that he'd picked up on arrival. "Nope. We've been hanging around for the panda to show up. Lessee..."
Disentangling his map from the thick leather of his jacket, Max smoothed it out so that the two could pour over the thing, ignoring Brisby's excited screeches. "Well, I think the big cats are nearby. I remember passing them on our way in..."
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