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Eki hated the mainland, for the most part. There were seasons here that just didn't occur on the island the Estate resided on. Like winter--sure, the calendar said it was winter, but there was no bitter cold, no freezing wind...and certainly no snow. It was the snow Eki hated the most; being cold-blooded, the chill made him want to do nothing but sleep, and unfortunately, he had a job to do before he could go home and do just that.

He must have looked quite ridiculous, swaddled in several layers of clothing with only his tail and head sticking out and a bulging bag strapped to his back. He had been wandering around this section of Barton for nearly an hour and had had little luck finding the address he had been given. It was getting darker--colder, too--and the loss of light brought with it an end to Eki's reserves of patience. A streetlight came on, illuminating a buildingfront he had passed a few times. It was as he paused to shift his backpack that he noticed the address matched the one on the paper he'd been given. With a sigh and a few muttered curses he entered the building.

Once safely inside--it was warmer here, but that didn't assuage the crankiness the cold and pointless trip had created--he withdrew the slip of paper he had been given, studying the address once more before ascending the stairs. At length he reached a hallway, and eventually a door. With a sigh to reign in his temper (as it wouldn't do to scare off prospective parents), he knocked.

It was a normal evening in the little apartment behind the door Eki knocked on--which is to say, Ambrus was flipping through paperwork and Ameretat was sprawled on the couch, alternating reading a picture book with counting the stains on the ceiling. Neither one moved at the first knock on the door, or the second. (Ameretat was, perhaps, excusable in this case--he hadn't had much experience with knocking on doors yet. Ambrus, on the other hand, was simply hoping the person with the wrong address would go away.)

It took Eki's third knock to stir the assassin out of his lethargy, but--of course--when he got up, there was Ameretat glued to his side like a white-feathered limpet. It was a condition Ambrus tolerated for as long as it took him to get down the hall to the door, at which point he gently pried Ame's fingers off of his hand so he could rest it on the doorknob as he squinted through the peephole at their visitor.

The guy didn't look like a deliveryman. He also didn't look like he was likely to be armed; but on the other hand, he was also a walking heap of clothing, and Ambrus's long experience with the various homeless wackos that roamed his neighborhood was that you could hide anything given enough clothing to wrap it in. On the other hand, the clothing looked clean, and any move the guy made would telegraph a weapon before he could get it in hand.

Ambrus shook down one of his knives anyway before edging the door open enough to talk comfortably without looking ridiculous. Ameretat poked his head out from around the assassin's leg, totally ruining the "not looking ridiculous part".

"Yeah?" Ambrus inquired.

Eki would have kept knocking all night--he wasn't about to turn around only to have to come back the following day, not after schlepping around in the snow for a good chunk of the day. At the sound of the door opening he withdrew his hand to bring it to the strap of his backpack, pausing for as long as it took for the door to open--with another moment spent regarding this new-guy and his rather unfortunate attachment--before carefully swinging it around to the front. He didn't answer Ambrus; rather, he opened the bag with a far-too-cheerful zip! and carefully dug around for a moment before producing a very round, very strange-looking bottle.

It was somewhere between the size of a softball and a volleyball, filled with a liquid somewhat thicker than water that refracted pastel-rainbow colors in the dim hall light. Within appeared to be a smaller circle; it was too dark to make out the markings that adorned it. Wordlessly, he held it out to Ambrus. "This is yours now. Don't open it, don't shake it, don't break it, don't freeze it, don't stick it in the microwave, and don't give it funny nicknames, because it won't thank you for it later," said in a rather bored tone, as if he was reciting horrible poetry instead of entrusting the life of one of his own kind to some stranger. His tail gave a twitch and a thump behind him, an outward sign of his eagerness to be done with this and go home.

If there was a sound for precisely the silence that meant Eki's announcement, human language had not invented the proper word for it. Ambrus's first urge was to pin Eki to the other wall with a knife the instant he swung the backpack around; he suppressed it, and instantly regretted that. Hot on the heels of regret was the sinking feeling that he had just been assigned another child for Jenner to make threats at. "What is it? And who the hell are you?" he asked, making no move to take the object.

Ameretat was quite happy to fill in where his father wouldn't, and reached out to take the ball from Eki's hands with a visible excitement that might make one think he'd just been handed the keys to Gambino Mansion. Despite the weight of the ball, he held it up high enough to smush his face against it (as much as his beak would allow) and peer in at the little dark creature inside. A moment later he--managed somehow not to drop it, instead cradling it against his chest with both arms wrapped around it, trilling happily.

"It's a fetus in a bottle." Obviously. "Be careful with it," he cautioned Ameretat, now-free hand diving back into the bag to come up with a slightly battered envelope. "Thylacoleo carnifex, female," he read off the front, reaching out to carefully balance the envelope on Ame's head. "Inside there are some basic facts on...something-or-other. There was this whole spiel, but I forgot most of it. It was stupid anyway. You're better off."

Twitch-thump. He'd stay long enough to make sure the guy wouldn't chuck the kid out the window--they were pretty high up, it looked like--and then he'd leave. "Anyway, I'm just the delivery boy." Purposefully obtuse? Maybe.

"I didn't order a fetus in a bottle."

So maybe Ambrus had a sense of humor left. He reached out to capture the envelope before it could lose its precarious perch among Ame's headfeathers, giving the front of it a cursory glance. "--Thylacoleo carni--those things are extinct," he said, a moment later. Then, after another moment for it to sink in: "You've got to be kidding me." A third moment: "Let me guess; this has an invitation to a mysterious island in it, too."

Ameretat burbled his amusement at Ambrus's dismay, trilling to himself. Most of it was in that weird mix of Avestan and music that passed for his native tongue, but Ambrus caught the word "sisterrr" in there in between all the noise. The little bird looked so completely enraptured that his Author was caught momentarily off-guard when he turned around and offered up the bottle with a polite request of, "'Old, please?"

Ambrus had learned after a month with his Tale not to deny a reasonable request; it only led to sad birdy eyes, which he didn't enjoy. He took the ball, rapping his knuckles against it gently to test the strength of the glass. Ame, meanwhile, leapt across the space intervening between himself and Eki in an attempt to attach to the Boundless in a gleeful hug. "Thank you! Thank you, thank you, thank you forrr sisterrr!"

Oh boy, thought Ambrus. They wouldn't be sending this one back for a rebate, either.

A craggy brow arched upwards. "You're pretty good at this. I'm thinking of a number between one and ten..." He'd never done this before, but if this was the kind of reaction shoving a bottled fetus at people garnered, he might not be adverse to doing it again. In the spring, when it wasn't cold. He was still cranky, but...did someone have a heater going?

He had started zipping up his bag now that he had no more goodies to bestow upon the pair when he was thoroughly pounced by the young Tale. His expression went from irritated boredom to horrified disgust in no time flat. Eki's hand immediately went to detach the bird before thinking better of it--his nails were long and sharp, and bird-boy didn't appear to be wearing any clothes. Well, that was just disturbing. And he didn't want to actually have to TOUCH the little guy. "Get off of me. If I had thought this'd warrant a hug, I would have brought a taser or something. Really."

"Three and a quarter," Ambrus said, and then: "You'll have to excuse him. He's a little clingy."

No, really? Although at the very first sign of dismay, instead of limpeting on--as he appeared quite prepared to do--Ameretat let go with a flip of his wings and a particularly confused expression. "No hugs?" that expression seemed to say, though he apparently knew better than to voice it aloud. Or--maybe not. "No hhugging?" His wings drooped, and he schooled his expression into a mask of seriousness. "O-K. Don't need a taserrrr."

Not that he was quite sure what a taser was, but it sounded bad. He retreated a step or two, back behind the half-open door--disappearing entirely after a moment, before poking his head back around the edge to repeat, "Thank you."

Shifting the globe over to one hand, Ambrus rested the other on the door. "Don't fall in too many snowdrifts on the way back, kid," he said, making to close the door.

"I noticed," Eki snapped, fingers still doing a little dance as he kept them firmly away from the bird-boy. Avians always looked so fragile. He took a step back as Ame released him, cold eyes narrowed at the younger boy. "No. No hugging." Though he might still need a taser, just for shits and giggles. "And you're welcome," he said as he shrugged his backpack back on, giving Ambrus a two-fingered mock-salute before ambling away.

Ambrus didn't stick around long enough to see the salute, pulling Ame back and cradling the ball in one arm as he closed the door. Once it was closed, though, the globe was immediately turned over to the Tale. "Got a name for her?" he asked, forestalling the little bird's oncoming low mood.

Hefting the ball with a small huff of effort, Ame looked up at his Author, then back down at the bottle--and the fetus within it. The serious look in his bright eyes intensified with thought, before he pronounced: "Anahita." Undefiled.

"Anahita." It lent a somewhat creepy alliteration to their little household, but it was better than Ambrus's attempts at naming things. "Fine. Let's go find someplace to put your new sister."

"O-K!"

Damn it, and he'd just gotten used to the idea of having one kid.