Orbaru Breeding - done!

For a new month, Lethalia found herself borrowing an orbaru from Jack's gorgeous menagerie once more.

The female she ended up with was a bit of a surprise, even to herself. Nea was a beautiful strawberry-red main coat, striped tail of cream and darker ears and extremities. Neapolitan ice-cream was right, and she was utterly stunning! The surprising part came in where this one was a sloth orbaru, something she hadn't yet encountered personally. Apparently, that breed type made them especially large and lazy - even if she was going to struggle with the carrier a little, it still was likely going to make her easier to deal with than most! Not that these little guys typically put up much of a fuss, but she supposed it was possible.

Dusty, the male was a nice creamy basecoat, with some pretty light grey spots and points. Spots apparently were her weakness with orbaru, funny enough. She figured he ought to be a quite handsome match with Nea's colors! He was one of those stranger breeds of orbaru though - his coat color was pretty enough to make up for it, but the satyr didn't much care for this kind. They had big, kit-like eyes and a chubby body to match.

She'd decided it would be nice to bulk up a little on breeding stock, so that she could get a nice basis for breeding some different kits. Funny how the orbaru seemed to be one of the things she was going to allow herself to go a bit 'crazier' on than she normally would. Mostly, she just wanted a variety available to her - create a bunch of different colors and coat patterns! It was going to be a lot of fun.

Unsure if she wanted any of the sloth or SD type for herself just yet, Lethalia planned on using one of those odd 'v2 berries' she picked up from the store. It was still a tough thing to wrap her head around, really - that simple fruits could have such an effect on the outcome! But she'd try any of it at least once, as long as it wouldn't bring any harm to the critters. She didn't plan on using those marking juices just yet; there was a hope that this breeding was going to result in babies with that barred tail - which shouldn't be too much of a stretch with one parent with it, right? This seemed to be the 'classic' marking, she was willing to bet.

Much like planning on sarane breedings, Lethalia was getting decidedly more and more excited about setting up for her orbaru. It helped too that these ones didn't take nearly the amount of effort than the beastly pseudo-dragons did. Big surprise there. She'd come to realize she didn't make the wisest decisions with those lugs, either. At least with a pair as sweet as Dusty and Nea, there were nearly no wrong choices to make, right? They were cozy and happy in the carriers she brought along with her, and she had a bunch of sweet berry treats tucked away in her bag... today was going to be nice.

Coming to the breeding center was also one of the only times she found herself walking anywhere. Even if Vidarr wasn't still caught up in awaiting the last tournament battles to end, she couldn't terrorize the poor orbaru by taking them in the sky. Mavelle was patient enough she would carry her owner and her charges, but Lethalia had no cart and it wasn't something she was keen to do, grapple awkward carriers astride her equillion. It had to be a good thing for her to walk herself more often, after getting spoiled with critters to cart her from place to place.

It wasn't the sort of thing she'd imagined herself doing, but found herslef enjoying it anyway. It was a wonder that the contest hall wanted people to enter so badly that they would provide creatures just as incentive to come in, but she supposed that was fine. The city was kind of like that, and even if she'd been here for years, the casual use of the creatures within still boggled the satyr's mind a little.

Finding herself slowing to a stop, the satyr wasn't exactly too tired to move on. Though her time spend running nowadays was quite limited compared to her time as an outrunner, it wasn't as if an amble into town was about to wind her. It was just... everything out right now felt so lovely, Lethalia found herself coasting along to take in the young fall weather. Fields around her were mostly picked bare, berry bushes and orchards best to be cultivated before it got too cold. Remaining was the lovely earthen scents of corn and wheat, fields aglow with the many different colors of squash. Even if she wasn't handy at farming up such lovely fields for herself, it was a real treat to live out here.

Well. Glancing around - it was quiet as ever, a low stone wall bordering someone's field of corn neighboring their pumpkin patch. Across the lane, another farm with a lovely dense orchard of older growth trees, knotted and gnarled in their age and maintenance. Orange-red stained the topmost leaves, more blots of color among the twisted branches from the apples left behind. The satyr couldn't have asked for a more scenic place to sit and just enjoy a little bit of the fall weather before she had to be off again. Maybe her pachee project was rubbing off on her, because on second thought of the orbaru she'd brought with her, they matched the autumnal colors around her in quite the lovely way. It would only make sense that her tastes didn't differ that much from that of her d- well, the person the other breedables were intended for. If she thought on the impending visit for too long, she'd distract herself from the beauty around her, so her mind protectively flitted away from the thought. These kits were going to be all her own though, instead of intended for a project for someone else, so that made the day just a bit more exciting.

Lethalia had to wonder if a sloth's laziness would be a problem when it came to breeding the creatures, but that would be something to deal with when the time came. Everything worked out last time, even when she had a hyperactive lady and a somewhat pampered male. She'd been certain that those two would have never successfully coupled, once she'd learned of their personalities, but everything had worked out in the end. It seemed the orbaru tended towards, well, making more orbaru that these things weren't as much of a hurtle as they might have otherwise been. Her concern over them dissolved, and she left the spotted boy to try and get the lady's attention best he could. It couldn't hurt anything.

Mind and attention drifting elsewhere, she began to wonder at what she needed to get done now that Vidarr was soon to not be tied up in the tournament. He would enjoy this little trip of theirs, and it would probably be wise of her to actually teach him some directional cues before they were off outside of the labs. She'd need someone to come care for the other critters while she was away, too - would probably have to pay someone to do that...

Thoughts turning towards the orbaru she had with her, and Nea's markings. Lethalia wondered if the panda-like markings had a similar source. Didn't that happen quite a lot, with some sires or dams being surprisingly prolific? Perhaps the sloth's whiteish panda 'vest' came from a similar lineage.

Interestingly, orbaru don't seem to be as effected by inbreeding as severely as other creatures from the labs were; line breeding wasn't especially uncommon among their histories, she noted. Maybe it was the fact they were smaller creatures. Maybe the other beasts were less genetically diverse, even if that was difficult to believe. Either way, it opened up an entirely different type of line management that denizens of the labs didn't appear to look on too favorably in any other context, in spite of it's normalcy in other places. Even if they've shrugged off all sense of normalcy with beasts that can only be bred by a lab, and those stored genetics were just fine and normal. Like other things, just how people around here were.

With a sigh, she corralled her fleeting thoughts that felt like they flitted between the channels and static of a radio station. Best collect her charges and be on her way, before it got too late.