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 Posted: Wed Apr 04, 2007 10:46 am
Chana sighed as she moved half-eaten fish around on her plate. The air outside was incredibly humid, but the rain hadn't come yet. Either way, it was damn uncomfortable to be outside in fur as thick as a beaver's.
And then there was the fact that she hadn't even seen Stewart in a while. She was trying not to worry...but it was difficult. What if he found someone else? There were only so many people on the island, so there was a good chance she'd know the new girl, which always made it worse...
The beaver was oblivious to the rest of the cafeteria as she played with her food, lost in thought, letting the carefully baked fish cool into tasteless lumps on her plate.
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Posted: Wed Apr 04, 2007 11:07 am
It had been a long while since the octopus had made his way into the cafeteria. Usually, he didn't bother. He liked his fish raw and still kicking, predominantly. Maybe it was the hunt that made it taste better, maybe it was the fact it wasn't cooked into a heavy mass that sat in his stomach like a rock. Maybe it was just a change of taste and opinion. Regardless, when he had ventured into the center of the village in an attempt to do more research, the cafeteria had been a lot closer a wheel-chair ride than the lake, and far less effort. Good, great, he could try reading the plays he had dug up from the library that sat in a short stack on his tentacled lap. It was an off enough time that the cafeteria should have been somewhat empty, but as he wheeled his way in through the double doors in a carefully orchestrated movement of limbs, he caught sight of a brown hairy figure and internally groaned. Ah well, he'd just keep to himself. Turning his hairless, beaked head away from the beaver, he wheeled his way to the rows of bottled water to give himself a refresher before finding something to eat.
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Posted: Wed Apr 04, 2007 11:14 am
Chana was still lost in thought as Billy rolled in. The fish was now totally inedible though, and her stomach was informing her that she hadn't eaten quite enough for this meal. With a sigh she got up to trash the remains and find something...fresher.
It was then that she saw the wheelchair and the tentacles manuvering it around. There was something about him...
Bah. It wasn't coming. Might as well be polite then.
"Good afternoon," she said, coming over to add more freshly baked fish to her tray.
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Posted: Wed Apr 04, 2007 11:38 am
The octopus-man had unscrewed the cap on his water bottle, pouring it into the ear-like divits on either side of his head, spiny fins flickering as he approached the beaver in the "fish section" of the buffet. He watched the baked fish with a distasteful look, the remnant lips around the beaky protrusion of his teeth twisting into a grimace, "This all they got?" The voice was familiar, but quieter than memory- hushed by shrunken lungs. "Wha' if we don' want... 'em bloody cooked. Wha'd'they t'ink we are?"
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Posted: Wed Apr 04, 2007 11:45 am
Chana blinked. She'd almost had it...ah well.
She shrugged in response. "If you really want to eat it raw, just ask for it. Fish doesn't keep for long, so they always have a small stock on hand."
The memory wasn't coming in clearly, but something made the beaver add "But if you really want it raw, alive and wriggling, go hunt it yourself."
Hmph. First the dust all over her precious books and now this. Why did she want to be mean to him? He wasn't a certain dragon after all. Or an annoying coyote.
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Posted: Wed Apr 04, 2007 12:12 pm
"Oh, yeah?" He shifted, lifting his head to try to see over the counter from his chair in hopes of catching Delia. The woman had been working there long enough to guess what the cepholopod was after, and already several gasping, twitching silver critters were on a plastic dish for him. "Ah! Thank y'lovely," He cooed. The breed they kept as "Feeder" fish looked a heck of a lot more appetizing than the scrawny things he managed to catch in the lake. To the beaver he grunted, "I do, usually. O' y'makin' remarks on' me bein' a cripple?" His fins twitched down his head and back as he shifted the plate to rest it on top of his pile of books, "Jes' cause M'in this chair ain't mean I can't catch me own food."
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Posted: Wed Apr 04, 2007 12:17 pm
The beaver looked him up and down appraisingly. "I doubt you're a cripple in the water," she pointed out, "and you're far more likely to get privacy out there too."
She refrained from doing the direct contrast with the octopus' present situation as she took her own food back to where she'd been sitting. Oddly enough, the banter was lightening her mood somewhat, even if the man was being infernally annoying. What was his name now? Ah, she had it. Billy. Annoying and obnoxious.
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Posted: Thu Apr 05, 2007 9:22 am
"Well, aint you jes' th'most welcomin' thing," He chuckled, rolling his way after her if only to annoy at this point. "Fers' time aboo' th'place in a long while an' yer tellin' me t'leave, I see how it is." He feined sounding hurt, but it was difficult to hide the bitter chuckle. He didn't really care, not really but it was still unnerving that strangers always seemed so bitter towards him without him even trying. At least often enough for him to notice. What did he ever do to this shaggy fatty?
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Posted: Thu Apr 05, 2007 10:04 am
The beaver raised a barely-visible eyebrow at him. "Go where you want, it makes little difference to me. Just don't complain so much or take your verbal ooze elsewhere."
Honestly, he was about as bad as those people who kept trying to think of ways to escape! (She wasn't going to think on that wretched dragon's conversation--no way was she going to allow herself to break down and cry in front of this insensitive idiot!)
Then another thought struck her. Maybe this complaining was just a way for him to deal with his life now. If so she couldn't really begrudge him.
"I'm...sorry," Chana said at last. "It's the humidty getting to me. Fur's not the nicest thing to wear at the moment."
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Posted: Thu Apr 05, 2007 10:23 am
His fins flickered and he gave an uninterested shrug, setting the load from his lap down at the table that had been Chana's. Well, if she was going to speak to him like that then she'd just have to put up with him eating in front of her. "I wouln' know," He chuckled, "Bu' th'air aint so great... fer thems wha' don' breath it." Once the stack of plays were set aside, his limbs all wormed up and about to get more comfortable as he bit into the still struggling fish. "Sorry, lad, no escape fer you," He murmured to it right before digging his beak into it's stomach to pull back with a mouthful of meat.
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Posted: Thu Apr 05, 2007 10:30 am
Chana ate her fish daintily, patiently cutting it into bite-size pieces. The beaver wanted to chow down like the octopus was doing, but Chana wouldn't let it. Damnit, she would not surrender her humanity so lightly!
She shuddered at his words. "I'm...it must be rough, to suddenly be unable to survive outside of the water." She could only understand it in part, for the beaver craved water, craved being near it, but was still an animal of the land and air for all that. She could live away from water if she wanted, and she did.
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Posted: Thu Apr 05, 2007 10:40 am
With another mouthful of fish, the octopus gave another shrug, "We find ways t'keep busy though. It ain't so much th' water t'ing t'begin wit'...." He wheazed, and reached to freshen himself up again with another dribble from his water bottle, "More th'.... face m' a bloody sea creature an'... can' step foot- er, tentacle in th'ocean tha's th'real bugger."
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Posted: Thu Apr 05, 2007 10:44 am
This struck Chana as being incredibly sad. She didn't miss the ocean...a beaver was a river creature after all!...but she'd never once given thought to the plight of most of the water creatures on the island.
"That...must be horrible," she replied. Awkwardly, she reached out to give the octopus a comforting pat, ignoring the fact that he'd been incredibly obnoxious both this and last time and that he smelled slightly and that his skin was...odd. He seemed to need the gesture to her mind.
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Posted: Thu Apr 05, 2007 11:20 am
He gave another dismissive grunt, as though it didn't bother him as much as it really did. While two of his limbs were occupied with the water bottle and the fish, a third snaked up to the pile of scripts he had spent a better part of that morning digging out. He hadn't actually read most of them, only vaguely aware that they were actual plays for the stage by the fact many of the volumes had "compiled scripts by-" or something similar in the titles. "Y'know anythin' aboo' theaters an' plays?" He wasn't about to mention his reading difficulty aloud to a stranger, especially a stranger who seemed annoyed by the mere sight of him.
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Posted: Thu Apr 05, 2007 11:26 am
"Theaters and plays?" she repeated blankly. Then Chana glanced down at the stack of scripts. "Oh! Um...I know some...mostly I've adapted parts of popular plays into shticks," she admitted. "I'm no expert though."
What on earth was he doing with those, the beaver wondered. She'd been curious about the papery stack, but hadn't asked--she didn't want her nose bitten off for mere curiosity. It was intriguing though.
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