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A Place In This World (Collector of Rarities x Nobodysangel)

Desmond's hands locked like a vice around the saddle bar. It had been a long time since he'd had trouble keeping control of his anatomy, but with all of the adrenaline flowing through him at the moment, it was a real struggle to keep himself together, as it were. Talking to the handler helped significantly, though. "I'll have to ask her about it once the ride's over," he said, giving the handler a nervous smile. "I met her in some online classes and decided to pay her a visit. All in all, I'd say things turned out pretty well. Can't say I expected to be on the back of a camel today, but I'm not complaining."

Desmond was able to work up the courage to pet Othello a bit just before the ride was over. He climbed down and stroked the camel's head a bit once the ride was over before catching up with Ris. Honestly, the more he got to know Ris, the more adorable she became. Honestly, he was surprised people had such an averse reaction to her: simply watching her go about her business felt like he was peeking in on the world of a Disney Princess or something. He almost wished that he could hear what she was chattering away to the camel about. He waited for her to finish her conversation before letting her lead him on.

"So, I heard you've named all of the camels," he said, smiling. "Mind telling me about it while we go and see the penguins?"
 
She was waiting for him with a smile when he got off the camel, grinning as he mentioned that she had given all of the camels names. She blushed a bit and looked down, reaching down and taking his hand shyly, starting to lead him towards the tram that would take them to the aquatic bird house. "Well, I asked the workers one day what their names were. After all, if I'm going to ride on someone's back, it's only polite that I address them by name. And they told me their names and well...they were dreadfully silly names. So, I started renaming them." She smiled back over her shoulder. "The one I was riding was Ariel. Everyone thinks I named her that for that Little Mermaid movie but I didn't. I named her that because of Ariel from the Tempest. You know, the sprite that the witch trapped in the cloven pine, that Prospero freed? Well, it seemed to fit, since well...she's stuck here all the time and I think she'd rather be running across the sands and all. Spitting, things that camels like to do. But unlike Prospero, the zoo gives her days off. So that's nice."

She paused a moment, looking back to make sure she had the right camel. She was able to recognize them mostly on sight but sometimes it was hard to tell Othello and Orsino apart. But no, she was certain on a closer look that it was Othello. "And yours I named Othello because he bit Desdemona when she hadn't done anything wrong. Ohh.. Desdemona's another camel. I was calling them Romeo and Juliet, but Othello and Desdemona seemed to fit better, what with the biting and all. There are others of course. There's Iago, he's always stirring up trouble...spits and bites a lot, so they don't have him out very much. And Hermione...not from Harry Potter, but the queen in A Winter's Tale. A stupid little boy said she bit him and she got in trouble but they found out finally that she hadn't really bit him at all and he was just being a brat." She pointed ahead and smiled. "Ohh! There's the tram, it'll take us to the bird house. Then we can go to the butterfly gardens, yeah?"
 
Desmond couldn't help but laugh mirthfully as Ris chatted away about naming the camels. She was very well-read; he supposed he should have been surprised, but she kept finding new ways to impress him. Each of the names made perfect sense, so Ris must have been a huge fan of Shakespeare, but it also proved at how observant and empathetic she was that she could pick up on the interpersonal (interanimal?) relationships between the camels from her time at the zoo. He knew then and there that he'd done the right thing offering her the job; honestly, he felt like he should be the lab assistant, not the other way around. Still, he had no doubt that her work would shine through in the lab and she'd get the recognition she deserved.

"Whatever you want!" he said when Ris asked him about the butterfly gardens. "You know the zoo better than I do, so you can show me all of the best spots. Now, let's not miss the baby penguins!" With that, Desmond hopped on the tram, excited for the birdhouse. Ris's excitement was contagious, it seemed, because Desmond didn't remember the last time he'd been this energetic.
 
It was a wonderful loop of energy; his excitement fueled hers, which fueled his, feeding on each other. She was more than happy to follow after him onto the tram, settling down on the seat beside him, and grinning brightly. "You'll love them! They're so cute! Sometimes when it's just me around, they let me hand the babies food! Of course they can't let me do that when there are lots of other people around, or everyone's going to want to do it. And...well, Lissa says that I'm special, because she knows I won't be too rough with the babies or give them pieces that are too big." People that didn't get to speak to Ris seemed to be the ones that didn't particularly care for her. Anyone who spent the barest amount of time with the girl tended to become quite attached to her.

The tram took them through the park, slow enough to let them catch glimpses of the other animals and she pointed out the ones that she liked best. The tigers were pretty but she always felt bad looking at them, because they seemed so angry to be stuck in their habitat. Tigers were very smart, she explained, and they knew that they weren't really in their home and they hated the fakeness. After all, she reasoned, if she knew she was in a habitat and getting stared at by people, she'd be upset too. The rest of the trip was full of little facts about penguins, like the fact that the males actually hatched the eggs and that they keep the egg warm while they all huddle together while the females go and eat to replenish their blubber supplies after laying the egg. The males don't leave, not even to eat, and instead snuggle close to other hatching fathers for warmth and protection. And even after the babies hatch, the father actually produces food for the babies to eat and protects them from the cold until the mother returns.

She sighed wistfully at that, thinking about penguin families with an odd, sad little smile. "You know...when the mother comes back, even amid thousands and thousands of other penguin fathers and babies, she knows her family. She can walk right to them. I think penguins make very good parents. Everyone should have penguin parents if they can manage it."
 
Desmond listened as Ris talked. He knew a few tidbits here and there, but for the most part, Ris was providing him with entirely new information. He'd always been more interested in human behavior and biology, but Ris managed to make facts about animals very interesting. While he listened, he pictured Ris starring in her own show about animals, which mostly had he spouting of interesting facts while playing and snuggling with various different species.

Desmond couldn't seem to stop smiling around Ris. She was so energetic, so youthful, so genuine that he was amazed that she wasn't friends with everyone already. It was incredible that this homeless girl had essentially become the unofficial mascot of the zoo. He could see why she didn't want to leave: she had a lot of friends she'd be leaving behind and she had a very nice setup here at the zoo. The staff at the Franklin Park Zoo and the Boston Aquarium would likely need some time to get warmed up to her, and even then he didn't know if they'd bend policy like they did here. He'd certainly be giving her a better quality of living, but he didn't know how much she'd enjoy herself at first. He'd have to spend a good deal of time introducing her to his friends and showing her around the city for her to feel like she fit in in Boston as well as she did here.

"It certainly sounds like a very close-knit group," agreed Desmond. "Reminds me of my parents. We were always very close: even when I was going to college. Heck, they took my friends and I out to lunch every weekend. They both decided to take a vacation after I graduated: I think they're in Washington state right now visiting my grandparents. I'll be sure to introduce you to them when they get back. They'd love to meet you."
 
Ris blinked a little, looking a bit uncertain as he mentioned having her meet his parents. "Are you...are you sure they'll want to meet me?" She said, biting her lip slightly and tracing her fingers in slow, complicated patterns on the panel of the tram cart, something that he was starting to see that she did when she was nervous about something. Not nervous in the jittery, frightened way, but more of a sense of unease. Her own parents...she'd always been a burden to them and they'd never bothered to hide it. Her therapist was expensive, and their insurance hadn't covered autism treatment. The school did their best of course, but there were so many children worse off than her, and she was functional enough to be integrated into regular classes by fourth grade. And at that point, they'd just sort of...forgotten her. Her eighth grade teacher had been very nice though, had tried to give her extra time and show her books and movies that she thought that Ris might like and had worked with her tirelessly to give her a part in the eighth grade play.

She was playing the part of the Nurse in Romeo and Juliet, and she'd loved it. Her teacher had been so kind to her, had stayed after class with her to practice her lines and Ris adored the woman for taking so much time and paying such attention to her. She'd never had someone pay so much attention to her before. Her parents had been busy with the other kids, the ones that didn't have to arrange their vegetables in careful patterns and they simply couldn't touch, or who went for an entire month refusing to drink anything except Ovaltine and threw up when they tried to give her anything else, or when she had screamed and sobbed and hid in a closet when they tried to make her wear clothing that wasn't corduroy. They never quite understood, and didn't really want to understand, why these things were life or death for her and she didn't know how to explain it. Her teacher listened though, listened to her babbling recitation of all the known genus and species of the Nymphalidae family of butterflies or to her rambling quotes of movie lines and song lyrics, through her precise ordering and reordering of the books in the classroom library, using a classification system that only she knew and she couldn't even describe adequately.

And then, the night of the play. She'd been so excited...and it had turned to sick fear as soon as she stepped out onto the stage. In a pretty costume, with a wig and fancy shoes. And she'd seen all those people and she had just...froze. And then she wasn't there, she was floating above it all, seeing the shrieks and uproar that it had caused. She was just a soft mist floating in the hot lights of the stage. The teacher had never gotten to speak with her again, but she was sure that the woman didn't like her anymore either. She was scary and dangerous, a monster. She hadn't protested when her parents refused to take her home, and hadn't said a word to anyone when she was placed in the home, then moved to the Facility. If Desmond knew, he wouldn't be so eager to introduce a monster to his parents.
 
"My parents love everyone," chuckled Desmond. "Well, okay, not everyone, but I know the kind of people they like and I know they'll like you. You're smart, you're fun and you're wonderful to talk to once you get past that initial bit of nervousness you have." He leaned in and dropped his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. "You'll have to watch out for my mom, though: she'll see how skinny you are and won't leave until she's put some skin on your bones." He chuckled and returned his voice to normal. "Don't worry, though: she'll ask you what you like to eat first."

If Desmond had known about Ris's abilities, he would have been more insistent that she come to Boston with him. After all, he had powers of his own. Fortunately, they manifested themselves when he was at home rather than in school, so his parents had time to come up with the cover story that he had kidney stones and needed to be out of school for a while to recover. During that time, he'd learned enough about his powers that he wouldn't use them by accident around other people, but he'd spent the next several years learning how to get them mostly under control. Unlike Ris, Desmond could only manipulate his own body. He had a lot more mass than his body-type suggested since he could eat anything and turn the fat into muscle and various other things as well. Besides keeping himself in peak physical condition, he wound up converting all excess material into various proteins and chemicals that made his body and mind run much more efficiently than his largely sedentary lifestyle suggested.

Of course, this had a downside: when startled, Desmond's body would radically alter itself to deal with a perceived threat. This had saved his life once during a car crash, but it was often more dangerous to him for risk of exposure than actually helping him with the situation at hand. He'd been lucky when everyone had just assumed that he'd gouged cuts in the climbing wall at school with his fingernails rather than someone taking a closer look and realizing that the cuts were each an inch deep.
 
She smiled a bit wanly but kept her gaze on her hands, not wanting to contradict him but wondering if he'd still want her to meet his parents once he found out about...well, that. Eventually he was going to ask about why she hadn't gone to high school, and if they had to do a background check for her to work in the lab, things were going to come up that weren't exactly...normal. Maybe it would be better to just come out with it now rather than move to a new city and start a new life, only to have it ripped away from her when he discovered what she was. But how did one bring up that subject? How did one start off a conversation about the fact that she could change things into other things? How did she explain to a rational, intelligent human being that she could touch a roll of toilet paper and turn it into a hummingbird? That she could change and manipulate matter in such a way that she could change the very atomic structure of something?

"They...sound very nice. And...I've always been thin. I don't know why. My parents are both short and kinda chubby. I don't look much like them. But..but I'd eat what she gave me. I wouldn't want to be rude or anything." She said softly, playing with a frayed thread sticking out from the hem of her tee shirt. It seemed too good to be true. Desmond liked her, thought she was smart and fun and liked talking to her. He wanted to work with her, to give her a job and a home. He...he wanted his parents to meet her! No one had ever wanted her to meet their parents. She didn't have many friends in school but even the ones she did have never wanted her over at their house. There were always good reasons, like her having to go to her therapy programs on the off months that her parents could afford to take her. Most of the time they just dragged her up in front of the church and had people pray over her, that the 'sickness' in her would get cast out. No one wanted to hang out with the girl that everyone thought was touched in the head. She didn't blame them. They had a right to not want to be around her. But it did lend itself to a very lonely life even before the Facility.
 
Desmond honestly couldn't think of anything more to say at the moment. Ris seemed to be closing herself off and he didn't want to make her uncomfortable, so perhaps giving her some quiet time would be good for her? On the other hand, maybe simply changing the subject would work? He wasn't so sure about that, but Ris seemed to be much more comfortable talking about things she knew a good deal about, so maybe prompting her in that direction would help.

"So what kind of penguins are we going to see?" he asked. "Is it just one species or do they have several different species in the same enclosure?"
 
She perked up a little when he asked about the penguins, becoming slightly more animated as she began to list off the different kinds of aquatic birds they'd be seeing at the bird house. "Ohh! Well, the penguins there at the aquatic bird house are Magellanic penguins. They look very similar to the emperor penguins that everyone recognizes but they don't have the gold around their throat that emperor penguins do, and the black portions of their feathers are broken up with bands of white, so they have patterns and designs like stripes that go down their backs!" She sat up and turned to face him, gesturing with her hands as she spoke. "They live in South America, actually! Not even in the snowy regions but on the coast, and have been seen as far north as Rio de Janeiro!"

She wasn't done being excitable yet though. "And they have other birds too, like flamingos and kookaburras and puffins and cranes....ohh the cranes are so pretty, very graceful! And a scarlet ibis! Just like from that story by James Hurst, about the boy and his brother and the scarlet ibis. It's a very sad story...I always feel a little sad when I see the scarlet ibis here. But I have to visit them, otherwise they'd feel left out with me visiting all of the other birds, you see."
 
Desmond smiled at Ris as she began talking about Magellanic penguins. "I'd heard that there were some penguins who live in warmer climates," he said. "I suppose it makes sense that they chose those to be part of the exhibit rather than the ones that need a colder climate to live, since it'll be easier to take care of them during the hotter months. I didn't know that the ones with white stripes were called Magellanic penguins, though, which is strange because they're usually the ones I picture when I think of penguins."

He needed to stifle a chuckle when Ris talked about the other birds in the exhibit. "You know, I'm surprised that they never offered you a job here," he said. He wanted to reach out and ruffle her hair, but he restrained himself, unsure of how much she'd like it. Most of the people he was on good terms with would have been rather cross with him for ruffling their hair, so he figured it was best not to take any chances with Ris. "You know so much about all of the different animals, I think you could probably start your own zoo if you ever got the chance. You could even put a bathtub in the penguin exhibit for the little baby penguins!"

The tram began to slow as they neared their destination. It wouldn't be long before they got to witness the penguins feeding.
 
Ris grinned bashfully and ducked her head. "I...well, I like animals. They're...they're a lot nicer than people sometimes. And well, they would have offered me a job, but the only thing they could do is let me volunteer, since...well, the whole school thing." She sighed a little wistfully. It would have been lovely to be able to get a job here, to work with the animals and all, and just about everyone was so nice to her at the zoo...but without her GED, she didn't have a chance. Besides, the human resources person would be the one to determine whether or not she'd be able to have a job there, and she'd never met them. So that might not even work either. She didn't...tend to do well with being questioned by people. She got nervous and well, that was kind of what got her into this mess to start with. Still, the idea of baby penguins in a bathtub was enough to make her practically glow with happiness.

When the tram slowed to a stop, she smiled at Desmond and motioned to the building just a little ways away. It was surprisingly large and beautifully designed, a sprawling complex that housed a multitude of different species of exotic waterbirds. The woman at the gate grinned as she saw Ris, opening the gate for her. "I didn't think you'd be here today. And you brought a friend! Well, hurry up, the babies are waiting." She nodded to Desmond as Ris grabbed his hand and pulled him into the building, down hallways and towards the large penguin exhibit. "We'll come see everything else later, but the babies have to eat on schedule!" She said, glancing back at him as they hurried.

The babies were adorable, squalling as they were fed tiny bits of fish, and then the adults were fed as well. Ris was plastered to the divider, watching and squealing with delight, pointing out each of the babies, telling him how old they each were, what she called them and other little odd facts, like that Antigone was a bit of a glutton and always came back for seconds (or thirds) when she fed them, and how Josephus had hurt his wing a few weeks ago but it looked like it had healed up nicely.
 
Desmond couldn't help but smile just as brightly as Ris had when she was thinking about baby penguins in a bathtub when he watched her talking. It was great to see her happy and it was fun to hear all of the little tidbits she knew about the birds. He was particularly impressed how she could distinguish between each and every animal in the zoo and remember all of the names she gave them. Desmond didn't think he could keep that many people straight, let alone any particular group of animals here. He was already having a hard time keeping the penguins straight, but he'd nod and smile as Ris pointed one out and share an interesting piece of information about them. It wasn't that he wasn't enjoying watching the penguins, he loved watching them waddle about and get food from each of the handlers, but Ris's reactions to the penguins was just as entertaining as the birds themselves.

It was sad that Ris couldn't work with the animals like she wanted to, though Desmond supposed it was very fortunate for him. If Ris already had a job here, he doubted that she'd have even be willing to consider his offer is she'd been working with the baby penguins on a daily basis.

"Do they all stay in their enclosure?" he asked. "Or do they ever take them out when doing a demonstration or something?"
 
The penguins could be seen flocking to the handlers in squalling, chirping masses and Ris giggled a little, her face pressed to the glass, watching them with an expression that was both childish wonder and motherly pride. "Mmm, the babies stay inside until they're older, and then the ones that show the proper temperament might participate in demonstrations. The penguins are really popular; they're cute and friendly, so it helps. The other birds are much more shy, so they tend to stay in their enclosures. Babies especially, if they get stressed out, can have heart attacks and seizures, so they try to keep the babies especially calm."

With a little wave, she led him down the hallway towards the other exhibits, talking about the various birds they passed by, such as the fact that flamingos will stand on one foot to keep from losing body heat through their feet in the cold water, or that kookaburras mate for life (as well as doing a surprisingly good imitation of a kookaburra's laugh) and that the reason that scarlet ibis and flamingos have such brightly colored plumage is from all the carotene in their diets and how the first discovered fossils of the ibis was some 60 million years ago.

"Ohh, and the ancient Egyptian god Thoth had an ibis's head in all of the depictions of him. He was the arbiter of the gods, and judged the souls of the underworld. Everyone credits Anubis with that, but he was the guardian of the underworld, while Thoth was the one that actually said how good or bad you were. According to mythology, he was the one who developed higher level mathematics like calculus and trigonometry to be able to plot the movements of the heavens and the earth. In fact, both Egyptians and Greeks credit him with being the founder and creator of every branch of knowledge, both mortal and divine, in the universe." She smiled a little, watching the ibis as they waded gracefully through the water.

"Astronomy, medicine, botany, math, physics, all of it was Thoth. He was called the Scribe of the Gods. He was the one that found all the pieces and put Osiris's body back together and taught Isis how to resurrect him. He did the same when Osiris and Isis's Horus was killed, taught them the magic to resurrect him as well. I always liked Thoth. He always seemed rather nice for a god. Then again, the Egyptian gods always seemed rather nicer than all of the Greek and Roman gods, what with their turning to bulls and fathering the Minotaur and punishing poor Medusa and turning Arachne into a spider. Ohh! And Orion, I always felt bad for Orion!" She babbled on as they walked, seemingly an endless font of strange facts and trivia.
 
"I haven't really followed mythology too much," said Desmond, "but I always felt like a lot of Greek mythology was invented in taverns. Not all of it, but I think that Zeus impregnated far too many women for alcohol not to be involved in the creation of at least some of those stories. I don't know too much about Egyptian mythology, but from what you're saying, it sounds like they were a lot more careful with what they let into their mythology. Though, I suppose I get where the Greeks were coming from: the gods become a lot less intimidating if you humanize them. If a god is just as fallible as a person is, then it means that the only difference between a god and a mortal is power." He paused, thinking for a moment. "Though I suppose that, depending on the god, it's actually more terrifying to think of them as a normal person with god-like powers. I can think of a few friends that I wouldn't trust behind the wheel of a car, let alone with god-like powers. So maybe the Egyptians had the right idea. I mean, Zeus had all of this power and he just used it to get laid. If it were inventing a mythology, most of the gods would be like Spiderman: they'd understand that great power comes with great responsibility."

Desmond silently watched the ibises moving in slow, beautiful movements for a while. "It's amazing to think that they emerged so long ago," he said. "The ibises, that is. They've been around for sixty million years." Suddenly, he realized that he didn't know how long they'd been around in comparison to other species. "Umm... is that particularly long compared to other animals? It occurs to me that this isn't my area of expertise."

Honestly, Desmond just wanted another excuse to get Ris talking again. It wasn't like she wouldn't anyways, but he liked seeing her happily chatting away. Besides how adorable she was when she was talking, it was educational to listen to what she had to say in a rambling, scattershot way. It wasn't a replacement for a formal education, but Desmond had learned many interesting tidbits from her.
 
She smiled a little and nodded, continuing along the halls. "Well, the dinosaurs are generally accepted to have died out 65 million years ago. Now, the Eocene epoch was very interesting due to the fact that the poles were actually quite nice, almost tropical in some cases. In fact, most of the earth was covered in forests during the Eocene period. It was the beginning of seasons as we know it, so mammals really had a leg up, so to speak. So did deciduous trees, which started overtaking the prior epoch's evergreen trees in terms of land coverage." She trailed her fingers along the glass, pointing out the different species of ibis. "That one there, the black and white one? That's the African Sacred Ibis. Now that one was considered just what it's name suggests; sacred. In fact, even accidentally killing one in ancient Egypt was a crime punishable by death, and they were mummified just as meticulously as the most famous pharaohs."

She looked up at him a moment, blushing at the mention of Zeus using his powers to get laid. It wasn't something she thought very much about, to be honest but her only real experience with...such matters...tended to stay firmly in the PG-13 realm of things. "I like some of the stories about the Greek gods, but for so many of them...well, them and the Norse gods and the old Celtic gods and all, they don't seem to do anything...well, godly. They seem very silly, to be honest. Ohh! Ice cream!" She squealed, train of thought derailed entirely in favor of the snack bar and the display of various ice cream bars for sale. "I like the Mickey Mouse ice cream bars. You always have to eat the ears first though, which seems a little cruel." She frowned slightly. "That's a bit like eating animal crackers from the legs up. Unnecessary suffering, in a way."
 
"Those gods all seemed like people," said Desmond. "I figure that if you gave any random person god-like powers, they'd use if for three things: getting out of doing work, showing off to others and getting back at people they don't like. If none of them stepped up and made the others behave morally, then they'd all just go about screwing around. I think that was the problem in a lot of those mythologies: no one was willing to stand up and tell the others when they went too far. No one punished Artemis when she turned a guy into a deer and hunted him, or Hera whenever she did something horrible to a woman for one petty reason or another. The only person who ever really stood up to the gods was Prometheus, and look how he turned out. I mean, the Greek and Norse myths are entertaining, but if I had to choose an ancient pantheon, I'd probably go with the ancient Egyptian gods: they seem to understand that they've got a duty to their followers."

He smiled as Ris walked over to the snack bar and pulled out his wallet, ordering her a Micky Mouse bar and getting a Hulksicle for himself. "You know, I never really thought of it that way," he said as Ris finished talking, "but I suppose you're right. I always ate the ears of my chocolate Easter bunnies first. Of course, my mom would never let me eat the whole thing in a day, so I had to cut off little sections to eat each day. I'd eat the ears on the first two nights, then the head and the body would last me at least three more days after that. I guess I just never thought about why I ate them that way, but I suppose if I were made out of chocolate, I'd want whoever ate me to start at my head as well."

He unwrapped his Hulksicle and chuckled. The ice cream rarely looked like the character it was trying to portray beyond the color scheme, but that had always been something Desmond had liked about it. He took a certain smug satisfaction in telling himself that he could design a superhero-based ice cream better than the candy manufacturers, even though the more realistic part of his brain told him that he knew nothing about candy design and would probably wind up making an inferior product. "See, whenever I have a Hulksicle," he said, holding up his own candy for Ris to see, "I like to eat my way down to the candy eyes rather than just plucking them out. Most of my friends would go right for the eyes, but I like to save them for a little while. Besides, they taste best when you mix their flavor with the ice cream."
 
Ris nodded in agreement with his statement; a person that had power had to be very, very careful or they would do awful things and never even think about it. With her own powers, she supposed she should be doing more things for the good of other people, but at the same time, it was a bit hard to do that when you had to be very, very careful about what you did and who you did it around.

She took her ice cream and smiled, thanking him as she began to nibble at the chocolate covering the ears, nodding as he spoke about the chocolate bunnies and sighing a little sadly. "I always felt very bad for the chocolate bunnies. I wish they'd make...chocolate tulips. Or chocolate daisies. That doesn't seem so cruel to me. I always feel bad, like what if the chocolate bunnies are alive but can't talk or move? Paralyzed, but able to feel the teeth biting into their ears and gobbling them up." She shivered a little and looked down at her ice cream forlornly but continued to eat it. After all, Desmond had been so kind as to get it for her, and it wasn't his fault that she'd essentially talked herself out of the enjoyment of it.

Talking about plucking out the Hulksicle's eyes didn't help her feel any better either. "Aah, I've never had a Hulksicle. I wasn't so sure about green ice cream. It looks very tasty though. What kind of candy are the eyes made out of?" She asked curiously, getting through the hard chocolate shell of the ears finally and starting to work on the actual vanilla head of the Mickey Mouse popsicle.
 
"Chocolate flowers would be nice," agreed Desmond. "Especially if you mixed different kinds of chocolate into it. So you could have some milk chocolate petals, some dark chocolate petals and some white chocolate petals. That way, if the dark chocolate ever gets too strong for you, you can eat some of the milder chocolate to clean your palette." He thought for a moment about the chocolate bunnies. "Well, if they were at all sentient, I don't think it would be legal to sell them. There'd be a pretty big scandal if it got out that the chocolate bunnies were being sedated so that children could eat them. But that still doesn't keep them from looking really cute."

Desmond smiled at Ris as she asked about the Hulksicle. "Well, I've always liked green candies," he explained. "One of the earliest candies I can remember eating was a green apple Jolly Rancher and I've been hooked on the color ever since. So, when I found out that there was a green super hero, I was all over it. As for the candies, I'm not really sure. To be honest, they're kind of chalky, kind of like Neco wafers, so maybe they're made from the same stuff? I think they put more effort into the ice cream part of the ice cream rather than the candy eyes, honestly."

The Hulksicle was just green ice cream in the vague shape of a head with a black blob along the top to signify the hair, two hard, M&M-shaped candies for eyes (though, unlike M&Ms, they did not have a chocolate center) and a lumpy white oval where the mouth should be. It didn't look anything like the grimacing Hulk on the wrapper, but Desmond had been hooked on them as a kid and he'd still chase down an ice cream truck to get one whenever he heard the music playing near his apartment.
 
She smiled a bit at the thought of chocolate roses, sighing slightly. "Ohh! And they could make them flavored chocolate! Like...ohh, like those raspberry and orange chocolates at Christmastime! I love those!" she grinned excitedly. The idea of sedated sentient chocolate bunnies being eaten by children made her suddenly find herself imagining a whole hidden kingdom full of chocolate bunnies and marshmallow chicks, engaged in warfare with the evil candy corporations who were kidnapping their citizens to sell as sweet treats for Easter. "Ohh...ohh no! It would be like...like the Matrix! But...but people are the machines and the chocolate bunnies and marshmallow Peeps are like the free people of Zion! And every Easter it's like D-Day in Easter Land!"

Of course then he distracted her with mentions of candy like Necco Wafers for eyes and green apple Jolly ranchers and she was pacified, not thinking about poor chocolate bunnies in military costumes clashing with humans who were trying to eat them, throwing Cadbury Creme Egg grenades and such. She was a bit subdued though as they made their way through the rest of the bird house, arriving at the exit out into the zoo proper once more. "Where would you like to go now? Do you have a favorite animal we can go see?" She asked curiously, carefully throwing away her trash and washing the sticky remnants of her ice cream off of her hands at a little outside sink at a food stand.
 
Desmond couldn't help but burst out in gleeful laughter as Ris started talking. He had no idea what thought process had lead her to think about chocolate bunnies and marshmallow peeps fighting against a human menace in their own D-Day, but he was sure that he'd love to see the movie that was playing inside of Ris's head right now. He finished up his Hulksicle, licking the stick clean of the last vestages of ice cream before tossing it into the garbage and licking a dollop of melted ice cream off of his thumb.

"Well, I've always liked otters," he said, after a moment of consideration. "But you also said that you wanted to take me to see the butterfly gardens, so we can go and see that too, if you like. When does the zoo close? If it's not for a while, then we're not in any rush and we can take our time and see everything." Desmond was actually looking forwards to spending more time with Ris. Ever since his roommate moved out, he'd felt a bit lonely. Most of his friends from college lived out of state, so he could only communicate with them via Skype. He'd had very little direct human contact for the past couple of weeks, so spending time with Ris was a breath of fresh air.
 
He was laughing at her, but it wasn't a mean laughing, and she rather liked hearing him laugh. He seemed a bit lonely, and he had mentioned that all of his friends had lived out of state and his roommate was gone now. Well, it was no wonder he was lonely then. Well, it was her job to make certain that he had a nice time and wasn't feeling lonely. Besides, the butterflies weren't going anywhere. They could come back and visit them another time, after all. Surely they'd understand; butterflies were very sociable creatures too, and much smarter than anyone gave them credit for.

Ris hesitated a moment, glancing towards a clock mounted on a lamppost nearby. They had about forty five minutes until the zoo closed. She smiled, looking back at him. "We could wait and see the butterfly gardens another day. The otters aren't far away and we should go see something you like, since we spent the whole afternoon seeing things I liked." She dried the wetness from the sink off on her jeans before offering her hand, now clean of any trace of sticky ice cream. It was only fair, really, especially since he'd bought her lunch and come to visit her and been so nice. A good host always did what their guests wanted to do, and he was pretty much her guest. She didn't have a guest room or anything and couldn't take him out to nice restaurants or plays and such but it was her responsibility to make sure he had a good time.
 
"Well, you know the zoo better than I do, Ris," said Desmond, taking her hand and allowing her to take the lead. "It stands to reason you know the best parts to show me. I dare say that you're better than any tour guide I've ever had: most of the time they just tell you the stuff you could read on the little plaque in front of the exhibit, but you know each of the individual animals and their idiosyncrasies. I've never gotten to know the animals like that before. I liked seeing everything you wanted to show me."

As they walked over to the otter exhibit, Desmond started thinking about what they'd do for dinner. They'd spent most of the day at the zoo, something Desmond never thought he'd be able to claim to have done, and he was wondering what a good way to end the day was. His offer to share his motel room with Ris still stood: he wanted some way to thank her for being his tour guide and giving her a comfortable bed to sleep in was the best way he could think of doing that. There was only one bed, but he was fine taking the bath tub or a chair so that she could get some good rest. "So, do you have any fun facts about otters?" he asked while they walked. "All I really know about them is that they're cute and live in the water."
 
Ris smiled a little at his explanation and shook her head, laughing. "Well, if you're talking about sea otters, you'd be right about them living in the water. River otters actually spend a good deal of their time out of the water. The zoo has both river and sea otters; the difference is that sea otters don't have as long and muscular a tail as river otters do, since they don't have to worry about river currents and such. They're really very smart; they use tools like rocks and stick to break and pry open the shells of the clams they eat, and not only that, but they'll wrap themselves and their pups up in kelp to keep from floating away while they sleep." She pointed towards the sign indicating the otter exhibit up ahead. "Ohh, and you'd think that from the way they look, they'd be more closely related to beavers and such but actually, they're more closely related to ferrets, weasels and badgers; even skunks are closer to otters than beavers."

She pointed to the sign for the Children's Zoo, taking special note to point out the petting zoo portion of it. "The otter exhibit is here, since it's especially popular with kids. We can't pet the otters of course but..." She bit her lip and glanced towards the northern portion of the park. "If...if Rita is working today, they MIGHT have some baby otters in for their checkups...and if I ask very nicely, she MIGHT let us pet one." She puffed up her chest proudly. "I got to help give Mordecai and his sister Erzbet their shots; they were the newest arrivals before the most recent pups came along. And if we're lucky, we'll still have time to walk through the butterfly garden to the parking lot...and...maybe ride on the Bug Carousel before we leave." He'd only bought a one day pass, so Ris wanted to make sure he saw lots and lots of good things before the zoo closed for the day.

The otters were just as cute in real life, if not cuter, than they were in pictures and videos online. There was a whole squeaking, bouncing mass of them, tumbling in the water and playing with each other, swimming like sleek little wiggly missiles through the water. Not unlike the other animals of the zoo, Ris had named them as well. Mordecai and Erzbet were pointed out, as were their parents Matthaeus and Oleander. Stavros was at the health center, she explained, because he'd gotten into a fight with Lorelei a few days ago and she'd bitten his foot. Honestly, she confided to him, Stavros deserved it, he wouldn't stop biting her hindquarters and pulling on her tail. If nothing else, she assured him, they could go to the Wildlife Health Center and say hello to Stavros, even if he was a very naughty, bitey sort of otter, since in Ris's opinion, even mean, bitey people deserved to have people visit them when they were sick or hurt.
 
"I always thought they looked a bit like ferrets," said Desmond. "So sea otters sleep floating in the sea, then? What if there's a storm? Though I suppose the storm would just wake them up, so that's not really a concern." He listened as Ris talked about the health center and how she got to play nurse to the baby otters. He made up his mind that he'd take her back to New York the first time they had a vacation, though that might not happen for a while, so that she could come and visit all of the animals again.

Desmond enjoyed watching the otters frolic in their enclosure. They were so full of energy and really didn't care who was watching. He could see why they weren't part of the petting zoo: they were so squirmy and energetic that kids would have a hard time picking them up in the first place, and if they were able to get their hands on one, they might accidentally injure or drop it while trying to keep a hold of it. Still, the thought of being able to pet an otter was very enticing, as was the idea of seeing what the medical center was like. "That sounds like a great plan," said Desmond. "Medical center, butterfly gardens, bug carousel and then we can figure out what to do about dinner. Lead the way!"
 
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