"Fair enough; language is a spook anyhow. How much maintenance does this whole tank setup need? Like taking old water out and putting new water in, replacing filter cartridges, stuff like that?"

"That's what the pipes over there are for," he says, gesturing. "They change out the water and filter out the bad stuff, most of which ends up down the drain. I have I swap out the filter every once in a while, which is gross" he makes a face that's half-disgusted and half-delighted "and make sure the salinity and PH is correct and stuff, but most of the time it's not so bad."

"Cool! I don't think I ever had a fancy fishtank myself, but I've heard they're a pain to get into a good equilibrium and then relatively simple to maintain once you're there. Course, I've also heard it's easier if you have cleaner shrimp in the tank and Aristotle would probably eat them."

"Oh, he totally would." He nods in the direction of the shrimptank. "These are for feeding him too, you know. I just figured if we wanted to see him I should pick something that doesn't move around much." He looks a little sheepish when he admits that. 

"Yeah, makes sense. And it worked and he's great. Say, do you actually know he's a boy or did you just pick a philosopher and roll with it?" This is purely an idle question; it's not like Aristotle gives a shit.

"One of his arms doesn't have suction cups all the way down, so he's a boy. That's how you tell a boy octopus from a girl octopus!" He grins. 

"Cool! You learn something new every day."

"...so that's Aristotle," Pugsley says, after a few seconds, his ideas for conversation exhausted. "We can go back down now if you want, he's probably not going to come out for a while right now."

"Yup, makes sense." She makes her way back to the ladder and descends, facing outward with her back to it because it turns out she has that habit from somewhere.

There is a hand waiting at the bottom. As promised, the entire guy is a hand. He has some fairly drastic-looking stitches on him, at the base of his forefinger and along the slope from thumb into wrist, though the most eye-catching is definitely around the wrist stump. He flips up onto his stump to give her a little wave, then signs "nice to meet you" at a speed and clarity that she can just about comfortably follow if she tries hard and believes in herself.

That's mildly disconcerting for reasons that boil down to "oh no he has skin and bones and things" but it would be utterly hypocritical to mind this while also having skin and bones and things herself, and rather more of them at that, so she smiles politely and resolves to get over herself ASAP.

"Hi Thing. Nice to meet you too. I'm still terrible at sign so apologies in advance for all the times I'm going to ask you to repeat yourself."

He spreads his fingers in a remarkably legible hand-shrug, waves at Wednesday coming down the ladder behind her, and asks something that might be "how did you like meeting Aristotle?" if that unfamiliar squiggly gesture that starts with an A handshape is how he renders Aristotle's name.

As long as she has enough context to fill in the gaps with educated guesses she seems to be doing okay. "Aristotle is cool and his aquarium is awesome!"

Emphatic handnodding, thumbs up, a slurred sentence that might be "so glad you agree".

As Wednesday sets her feet on the floor, Thing scuttles over on his fingertips.

She bends down to offer him her hand so he can climb up her arm to her shoulder. "Where to?" she asks him. He responds with indecipherable finger-drumming, perhaps because the angle is a little awkward for her to watch him sign. "Miranda, how would you feel about seeing the conservatory?"

How fortunate for her apparent social competence that she has not been asked to pick anyone up don't borrow trouble.

She answers "Sure!" to seeing the conservatory before realizing she doesn't remember if a conservatory is an indoor garden/greenhouse thing or a music room, but probably it'll be obvious once they're in there. If it has both plants and musical instruments she can inquire further.

Wednesday leads the way through the mazelike halls. She doesn't look back to see if Pugsley is following; that's his own business.

Pugsely has, at least warily, decided to tag along, and is following behind the rest of the group. 

Miranda is trying to learn the layout of this building. She really is. She just sucks so immensely at it that the results are going to resemble those achieved by someone who isn't trying at all. Probably within the next few days she'll have memorized routes between the three locations she sees the most often.

It turns out the answer is plants! A ballroom-sized greenhouse full of plants!

The entrance they use is on the second level, and opens onto a lacy wrought-iron balcony with a little spiral stair off to one side and a walkway proceeding forward along the spine of the room, its floor just a little below the level where the slopes of the glass roof meet the vertical panes of the walls. The walkway is straight, but the far end is obscured by greenery, potted plants hanging from the ceiling and indoor trees growing up from the floor. Most visible flowers are white, but some are red and there might be a few in other hues. All together it's the most colour Miranda has seen in one place in this building.

"Do not eat anything you find in this room," Wednesday instructs. "Most of it is poisonous."

Eeee it's so pretty and verdant and plantsome! It doesn't have the thing that is good about being outside but it has its own thing that is good.

"Roger that; anything I should also avoid bumping into?" If there was ever a collection of people who would keep poison ivy in their greenhouse for kicks it'd be these ones.

"Not up here," she says, with what might possibly be an approving look. "The plants that aren't safe to touch have their own section, on the lower level at the far end."

Thing, from her shoulder, helpfully adds something that might be "it's fenced off but not very well".

"Good to know!" Happy staring at plants. "It must be a lot of work to keep everything looking this nice. Does it have some kind of automated sprinkler system?"

"I helped with that!" pipes Pugsley. "Um. Yeah, most of the stuff is set up to be automatically watered one way or another." He trails off towards the end, looking slightly embarrassed.