clannish [2] | Glowfic Constellation

headunbowed

Zeviana grins brightly. "Thanks!"

kindestgarden

Eventually, they reach Salt Lake City. Ranata shows Zeviana the pretty temple.

headunbowed

It is quite pretty! "Ooooo. Yeah, that's pretty, all right," she pronounces. "Also, really, really tall."

kindestgarden

"It is! They build them big and pretty. We can fly over three more if I take the right route away from this city, they're all a bit different. Do you want to go to the zoo?"

headunbowed

"I'd love to! I bet it has animals I've never seen before. Should be pretty cool."

kindestgarden

"I wonder how many of the same animals besides humans you have where you're from. I guess we'll see!"

headunbowed

"I'm hoping you have really cool things! We didn't have a lot of animals in New Kystle, but there were some."

kindestgarden

Ranata flies them to the zoo, lands, has a brief consultation with a new-hire teenager at reception who doesn't know what buttons to push on her computer to admit a witch or how to recognize an Olympic tattoo, and eventually gets them in.

Here is the zoo! It is full of animals. There are some loose, both wild (magpies) and domestic but harmless (peacocks, turkeys).

headunbowed

These are birds she hasn't seen before! She snickers at the peacocks. "Those are the most flamboyant birds I have ever seen. In my entire life. But they're pretty!"

kindestgarden

"Aren't they just? The parrots are colorful, too!"

headunbowed

"Heh, yeah. There are so many colorful birds here! Do people sell the fancy feathers, do you think I could get some? If not, I'll let them be or like - try to scrounge. Attacking them for pretty feathers seems mean."

kindestgarden

"The gift shop probably has peacock feathers, but probably not parrot ones."

headunbowed

"I'll have to look. They're colorful and pretty and I think I like them," she declares.

kindestgarden

"What are you going to do with a peacock feather?"

headunbowed

"I haven't the faintest idea. Maybe wear it, I dunno."

kindestgarden

"Braid it into your hair."

headunbowed

"Ooo! Sure! That sound cool, I'll do that."

kindestgarden

"All right then, we can swing by the gift shop on our way out."

First, elephants!

headunbowed

Elephants indeed! Zeviana 'Ooooos' and 'Awwws' at them. "How in the world do they do anything with those - long nose-things? Snouts? I don't know what to call them. They seem to be treating them like hands. On their face?"

There is no word for an elephant trunk in her language.

kindestgarden

"Trunks," supplies Ranata in English. "Elephants are the only creatures that have anything quite like them!"

headunbowed

"Huh. Thanks! That's really weird and kind of cool! I suppose that's one method to deal with a really long nose. Just treat it like another limb and become an elephant."

kindestgarden

"Elephants are very smart, too. Some of them have been taught to paint."

headunbowed

"Oh? What do they paint?"

kindestgarden

"Mostly abstracts, I think. The ones here don't do it. The paintings are mostly popular because elephants make them, you see, they're not artistic triumphs."

headunbowed