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 Posted: Tue Jun 26, 2012 10:06 am
Shane had decided to take Miles to the large Island Aquarium out in the city today. He'd invited Espen but he had decided that he found fish to be boring that day, and Yiska would have come but was instead recovering from a particularly nasty nightmare. That was fine though, Shane figured that it was a great place to spend a little time with Miles and that the boy would feel comfortable being near so much water in such a different way. He really took to the place, constantly running around, fascinated with how different animals swam and also found many of them to be cute and scary. There were many exhibits and pavilions with seals, dolphins, otters, whales and even sharks.
They'd seen a fair number of them before Shane decided to take Miles to the centrepiece of the aquarium, a giant tropical fish tank that housed a few hundred different species of fish in a long and cavernous glass tank that curved up to the ceiling and formed a large blue softly lit building of small tunnels of fish. One would hope that such a building was planned properly or a ton of water would come crushing its patrons, but fortunately a lot of maintenance was constantly done on the tank, in addition to many signs that specified to not tap on the glass. In addition to the warning signs, there were also many plaques all over the pavilion that attempted (poorly) to categorize every species of fish that was within it.
Miles was instantly enchanted that so much aquatic life could be seen by so many people without them even needing to know how to swim. He began to point out to Shane just how many species of fish he had seen or thought he had seen before, despite not knowing what any of their names were. After thinking that he'd pointed out all the ones he knew, Miles knelt down on a nearby ledge and just stared.
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Posted: Tue Jun 26, 2012 10:59 am
It was not often that Gus was left to his own devices in places that weren't his home or school. Usually the hybrid boy stayed near his father due to lingering separation anxiety, that or Rex himself insisted it wasn't safe for Gus to be alone in a crowd of strangers. Today was unique though, Gus had been dropped off at the aquarium to do research for a school project and told to meet his father back at the entrance in two and half hours. Assured that Rex had a deadline to return to him and wearing a charm around his left wrist that would give an alarm should he become distressed Gus felt comfortable being alone. Well as alone as one got in such a busy place anyways, there were people milling about everywhere.
Gus himself was situated near the giant tropical fish tank, dark eyes staring intently at what appeared to be some sort of strange lionfish except something wasn't quite right about it. The blue skinned boy grinned before diverting his eyes for a moment to take notes on both the creature and how the tank's other inhabitants were reacting to it. Gus was pretty sure he'd picked the best animal here to have to do a report on, and he was determined to do the mimic octopus justice.
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Posted: Tue Jun 26, 2012 12:14 pm
Miles also caught sight of the mimic octopus and was facinated by its strange ability to change its shape and move both like a fish, an octopus, a person and...something else. Thinking on it, he realized that his legs worked almost in the same way and decided that the mimic octopus worked just like magic. The day had put him in such a good mood that he decided to play along with the octopus and followed it along the glass, trying to walk like whatever it was it was pretending to be at any given point.
Unfortunately Miles was too busy looking at the creature instead of where he was going and came dangerously close to bumping into a boy with fish ears, huge horns and even bigger glasses. If Miles knew a thing or two from books, it was that people with big glasses knew more than most people about most things. He noticed the boy was also intently looking at the strange creature and feeling like he needed to say something after almost bumping into him, started to ask a question.
“Hey,” he said, pointing to the octopus and feeling oddly social “why does it do that?”
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Posted: Fri Jun 29, 2012 4:33 am
Gus had been paying such close attention to the subject of his project that he hadn't noticed the other boy's approach. He was thankful that the grey skinned toddler hadn't ended up stepping on his tail. The appendage was useful for many things and one his his more favored mer blood traits but it could be problematic at times. It wasn't so much the length these days but the large sensitive black fins at the end which people always seemed to want to touch or poke or stumble upon. Gus curled his tail a little closer to his body to prevent random passersby from accidentally hurting him before he addressed the strange boy who'd just posed a question at him.
"It's a mimic octopus" he explained as he put on his 'teaching' voice and adjusted his glasses to look more serious and grown up. " It tries to look like other creatures to help make it's life easier. So if it wants to just swim around in peace it will try to look like a poisonous lionfish that nobody wants to eat." Which was pretty sad really in Gus' opinion, you shouldn't have to look threatening just to go on a little swim or to travel to a new place. Sealife didn't exactly have the same morals as regular people though and while some animals were smart they weren't people smart and so they lived by a harsher set of rules. For all Gus liked swimming in the ocean he'd never want to live there and he was awed by the mer people and water dragons and general sentient beings that did.
In the tank itself the mimic octopus seemed to have sensed that no predators were located in it's current local and became normal shaped again as it drifted downwards to land on a coral covered outcropping. The complex creature had no idea that what came as second nature to it was a source of great mystery and discussion for the noisy shapes beyond the boundary of the tank.
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Posted: Thu Dec 20, 2012 11:48 am
"Oh! That's very smart." Miles exclaimed, thinking about the boy's answer and staring after the octopus again and absent-mindedly said "Sometimes when I swim I try and look like a dangerous fish too." Then he growled and tried to show off how pointy his teeth were. Then he gasped and remembered that he in fact wasn't underwater. Blushing and looking at his toes, he remembered that it was rude to make faces, especially around smart people.
Fortunately, Shane was around to help Miles break the ice a little bit more, seeing that he was having trouble. He placed his hand on Miles' shoulder for encouragement. "Hey Miles, that looks like a project he's working on." he said gently and pointed to the notes and books Gus had.
"Oh? Is it a project about water or fish?!" Miles piped up, suddenly excited to perhaps hear something new about one of his favorite things.
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