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Ara had decided to take a break from work to spend the day with Sonja, the poor girl had had a rough night and needed some cheering up, she hadn't really protested putting on a t-shirt and shorts. She could think of no better day then at the local zoo, Ara had loved it as a child and thought Sonja would too. It was a small zoo, in fact the most exotic thing it had was a red panda, but it had an excellent petting zoo and even a small train ride that would take you past some of the gentler herbivores.

Sonja for her part was still mopey and a little bit clingy after her nightmare but the zoo was helping. There were so many animals! True none of them looked like her but there were kangaroos and they had pouches like her animal had, but a quick check of her tummy showed that she did not aquire that part of anatomy. The best though was the train ride, the wheels and chugging sound her mommy let her ride it four whole times, and she got to see giraffes and deer and other animals with horns it was neat but not as awsome as that train! But mommy said that it was almost time to go and that she wouldn't want to miss the petting zoo where she could actually touch the animals. So with a big grin she grabbed Ara's hand and started to pull.

"Come on mommy I wanna pet a monkey!" Ara gently directed her in the correct direction. "Alright honey slow down. I don't think they have monkeys for you to pet but I bet they have a llama, they're even better all soft and fluffy even more then you," Ara had never seen the child so loud before normally a quiet girl, this was a seldom seen side of her though no less welcomed.

Reaching the petting zoo Ara paid for some feed and openned the gate to the pen where a large assortment of goats, chickens, potbelly pigs, rabbits, ducks, and one very fluffy surly looking llama lay in a shady spot. Sonya looked about, eyes so wide Ara swore they would pop out, and then pointed at a pig rooting about. "I wanna pet that one mommy."

"Alright but you have to not run and be calm or you'll scare it ok?" Last thing Ara needed was a small stampede of scared animals.

Sonja giggled as the pig snuffled all the cracked corn from her hand and onto the ground grunting happily, its curly tail wagging. Ara was crouched next to her gently telling her to be nice and pet the pig gently. “It’s all bristly and pokey,” Whispered an awed Sonja, she smiled up at Ara. “can I pet another one like a goat?”
“Sure honey I’m sure they’re not hard to find, we’ve been stalked by them the whole time,” laughed Ara glancing back at the goats behind them, she noticed a new woman with two new little fuzzy people with her. “Looks like we’re going to have competition for the goat’s affection,” she mused light-heartedly. Smiling in their direction she gave a short waved before showing Sonja how to feed the greedy goats without being pushed around.

Sonja jumped a little not expecting anyone else to come up beside her, she shyly smiled at the boy and shook her head no.

"No I just got here, but we could name them if ya want?" She said softly. "My names Sonja, I'ma quoll. What's your name?" Tha goats fur was not as prickly as the pigs but it was still wirey, mama had said that there was a really soft llama around heremaybe after the goats were fed she'd go pet it.

It was neat how there was suddenly others like her around. She hadn't met many other kids like her and the family down the hall back home while nice kinda gave her weird looks. At least the ids were nice even though the baby liked to pull her tail. "Zat your brother? He looks different then you. How come he isn't white and fluffy too?"

The goats were starting to get a little pushy, but it was exciting that there were two foxes, and they were boys! That means they play better than the girls, this could be fun. "Oh, nope I dunno their names, but I'm namin this one Steve," she said petting a black and white goat with little horns.

She smiled sweetly at the brother, "Hi. Did you see the rest of the zoo? I saw the monkey's they were so funny." Giggling at the thought, she pushed the head of a particularly aggressive goat.

"The zoo's great I love it and all the animals. They didn't have any foxes though. Billy goots? Maybe that was just the goats in the book. H-hey!" The goat she named Steve butted her gently when she turned from him to feed another goat this one red and white she had secretely named Zoey. "Stop it Steve, you had yours already!" The goat merely bleated at her and pulled at her shirt. "No that's not yours my mommy will be mad if you eat it."

Thankfully Steve had decided that shirt was not as tasty as feed and that maybe the other two two-leggers would have more on them. Zoey was much more well behaved she was an older goat and understood that food would come to them all day no need to push, and risk not getting any food at all.

"We saw the Elephant first the monkey's were too crowded." She said petting another goat. "I'm going to go pet the llama. Wanna come?"

Sonja so excited to pet the surly looking animal, so she missed the perturbed look it sent her when it realized she was coming towards it. It knew it couldn't bite or kick but spitting was another matter. If the little thing tried anything it wasn't going to be happy.

"Mm hmm really really soft, mama is making a sweater out of it's fur. I don't think I'd mind it so much if my clothes were that soft," She said petting the Llamas fur.

Grunting the llama tried shifting away from the hands, it wanted to be left alone.

With a grunt the llama got up and looked don on the little furry things with thumbs, rumbling at them in annoyance before sighing and standing still. Well at least it wasn't at eye level with them.

"H-hey! Come back down here Mr. Llama I can't reach you!" Called Sonja reaching up on tippy toes only to brush it's belly barely. "Awwww s'not fair."