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Post by Alma on May 16, 2021 20:15:33 GMT -6
The man had seemed polite enough, answering the few questions she had and giving her the proper forms so that she might adopt a handful of beasts if she so wished, but she found her eyes sliding back down to the seeker as they talked. What sort of place kept an ancient seeker, one of the few blood-mad species of the labs, in an area with many caged beasts?
Well, the answer appeared to be that the area was kept very clean. She had been showed to the cages, and each animal she walked by looked healthy, their cages clean and devoid of the blood or deformities that Alma assumed could convince someone to hand over their creatures freely.
Well, the first creature she stopped by showed no signs of physical issues. Well, the izer was a bit small, and it looked odd compared to-
“Wait, yer not a vee-two, are yah? You’re an original!”
[1]
[Attempting to adopt:
Species: Frost Izer Age: Adult (Anti-Growthed)
Species: Golden Izer Age: Old (Revived)
Species: Grey Slynk Age: Juvie (Anti-Growthed)
Species: Hydro Salaves Age: Old (Revived)
Species: Cyclone Izer v2 Age: Baby (Anti-Growthed)]
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Post by Alma on May 16, 2021 20:16:20 GMT -6
The white izer was less interested in her words than the seeker watching from its resting place by a wall, and she lowered her voice as it raised its head. “It’s not the noise that makes them go all rippy and teary,” she told the izer, the bird picking through a feathered wing with its beak, “but let's not risk it, aye?” The izer pulled out a small tuft of what might have been a cloud, releasing the feather to float down to the bottom of its cage.
Alma had never really gotten into izer, especially not after the majority of them keeled over like the labs had hit an off switch. She had a few of the replacements, but they had all died within the week, the labs gleefully announcing over the radio that the cold, unmoving ball of feathers in her hands had died because the little bird had failed to bond or something while it was young.
[2]
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Post by Alma on May 16, 2021 20:16:32 GMT -6
She had dumped the body to the side with the rest, a bucket of bright feathers and pale flesh as they had then gone on to say that only through hand raising the little buggers through their newly-hatched stage would they ever be truly loyal. Seeing as lab-made beasts were dangerous enough already with whatever bonding thing the labs put into their heads, Alma had decided to skip out on the izer entirely.
But here was one now, alive and doing its level best to not look directly at her. She was not sure if that was a bird thing, or really how birds in general worked beyond the mixed gallor, but she kept chatting it up in hopes of it warming up to her. “Not that I’d expect you to warm up. Probably make you sick, you bein’ a blizzard izer and all.” Her eye caught the little label attached to the cage, and she amended her statement as the izer continued to ruffle its feathers. “Frost izer. Right. Says yer an adult too, not gonna grow up.”
[3]
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Post by Alma on May 16, 2021 20:16:45 GMT -6
“Honestly, fine with that. You look big enough already, hah.” Alma chuckled, tapping the pen against the clipboard. “But seriously, do I want a bird? Yer not known for being, well,” Alma hesitated, “useful? Got a messenger, got cold pets. Would be kinda cool to have one of the original izer.” Alma laughed. “Course, doubt you care what happens as long as you get yer food. Probably meat, if my gallor are anything to go by. I’ll have to look it up later. You know, if I take you. If they,” she jerked a thumb in the direction of the closed doors, “let me take you. I know he said its free and all, but I doubt anyone would just give up one of you.”
The izer continued to pluck at its own feathers, twitching its head as it did so to look back at Alma. It pulled at one of the feathers, halted, then snipped at it with its beak.
[4]
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Post by Alma on May 16, 2021 20:16:55 GMT -6
The feather fell to the floor of the cage, joining a few others the izer had plucked free. Alma watched it drift towards the bottom of the cage. She looked back up at the izer, and it squawked loudly, fluttering its wings as it edged away from her on its perch. “Bit of a rude one, ain’t you?” Alma giggled as the izer squawked in response before ducking its head down to worry away at another feather. “Whacha doin’ all that for? Are yah,” Alma searched through her memory of bird terminology, settling on what she had heard about the growing chiryma v2 so long ago, “molting? Did yah guys molt when adults?”
The izer had nothing more to say to her, seemingly focused only on adding a new feather to the slowly growing pile below it. She watched it for a few more seconds, feeling torn, then scribbled the information on the cage onto the first of the forms.
[5]
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Post by Alma on May 16, 2021 20:17:06 GMT -6
“There, I’ll figure yah out later. Don’t rip out all those pretty feathers though, wanna pretty frost izer, not a plucked cod.” She laughed at that, leaving the izer to wage war on its feathers for whatever reason it hated them. She’d look into what was wrong once she had it in a fancy new cage at her kennel.
The next critter that caught her eye was smaller than the izer, so much smaller that she mistook it for a feeder grubble someone had left in an empty cage. The prospect of adopting a grubble, of maybe getting a laugh or two out of the staff and a cute, healthy little ball of fur and fat led her to kneel next to the cage for a better look at the inhabitant. It was on the large side for a grubble, and the little curled up ball looked like it was grey and brown rather than the usual cream and brown of a common feeder grubble.
[6]
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Post by Alma on May 16, 2021 20:17:17 GMT -6
“Oi. Little guy. What’re you doing in a cage all yer own, huh? You a custom grubble?” Alma asked the little ball, tilting her head one way and the next to try to find its head. All she could find was a weird loop of fabric encircling its body with the same colors as its fur. Had the man specially made the blanket for the grubble then, making sure that the colors matched?
The little sleeper slowly began to stretch awake, the ‘fabric’ encircling it pulling away from its body to reveal it to be a ring-patterned tail. Alma felt her heart sink as she leaned back from the cage, resting her butt on her heels as she recognized the vermin in front of her. No cute little grubble, with a jiggly body that brought to mind a marshmallow and too small legs jutting out, no face that always looked so content with tiny rounded ears.
[7]
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Post by Alma on May 16, 2021 20:17:48 GMT -6
Where the grubble had cute, rounded little ears, this creature had long tapering ones that were being lifted from the floor. Where a grubble had no real tail beyond a nub, this one had a long furry worm of a tail stretching out behind it as it yawned. And where a grubble had markings that made her thing or coffee and cream, this one’s formed a bandit’s mask over its eyes, a built-in warning by the labs for any who came across one pilfering their stores.
“Now you, you I get.”
The slynk yawned, showing off its long incisors, the loop of metal on its ear glinting in the light. “That explains why you’re here and not in some tanner’s shop.” Alma muttered to herself, holding a hand to her forehead as she watched the slynk give up on stretching and roll onto its side. “Being cute won’t help you, yah know?”
[8]
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Post by Alma on May 16, 2021 20:17:58 GMT -6
“I’ve had to deal with a ton of you things. Heck, even you marked ones when yer owner’s not in the mood to pay another fine.” She glared at the slynk, and it waved its paws at her. Purely as a matter of her moral code, Alma refused to admit it was cute. The damned things were always stealing things, ranging from hay to actually valuable things like jewels. The unmarked they were allowed to kill on sight, encouraged to do it even as a shopkeeper would yell about the damned rats eating into their profits, but the banded ones were just a headache. Nearly all citizens, and plenty of her colleagues, would kill a pilfering slynk without a second thought, but they were not supposed to kill any that were owned.
They had owners complain for their beloved, clearly innocent pets being killed. Of course, most of those curses and threats died off when they were informed how large the fine was for what the slynk had taken, the owners suddenly never having seen the vermin before in their life, but some demanded revivals and that came out of a paycheck.
[9]
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Post by Alma on May 16, 2021 20:18:09 GMT -6
Slynk were nothing but a pain in the ass and in the wallet, and Alma cursed the little thing in the cage as it stood up to stare at her. Then it caught sight of it’s tail flicking away at the edge of its vision, and Alma was forgotten as it launched itself at its tail, catching it in its tiny claws. It chittered madly as it fought its tail, Alma’s glare and admonishment that, “You can act as cute as you want, you stupid slynk, no one is fooled,” did nothing to slow it down.
Alma stood up with a grunt, looking down at the slynk one last time, and at the cage label. With a sigh and a muttered, “Cause I’m an ijit, that’s why,” she clicked the pen and began to fill out the second form. For a juvenile of the vermin literally made to steal things. Alma shook her head as she finished filling it out. She would have to see to it that it learned not to steal unless she told it to. If it so much as touched her collection, she’d follow the lead of so many other collectors and simply keep the hide.
[10]
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Post by Alma on May 16, 2021 20:18:19 GMT -6
She left the slynk to its play, wondering if she could train it to pull find misplaced gems near the mines. Not like it would be a crime to find the gemstones that carelessly fell out of the carts transporting them back, or spilling out of threadbare sacks.
Then the next creature caught her eye, and she forced images of the slynk gnawing on an opal out of her mind. This one was another izer like the first, but where the first had been a snowy white fitting its breed of frost, this one was a warm yellow. “Well,body’s yellah.” Alma muttered, picking out all of the other colors that seemed to radiate out from it. The larger feathers on its wings were a soft blue, a crest of pink running from its head and down its long neck, an even brighter shade of the pink capping its antenna. It’s long tail feathers were a wake green compared to that.
[11]
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Post by Alma on May 16, 2021 20:18:37 GMT -6
There was no question of this one being a second variant, or even a younger stage. This was a full grown izer, its colors bright and its form graceful and long. “Yah kinda look like corn some worms got into though.” Alma shrugged, looking back down at the clipboard of forms. “Still pretty ‘spite that.” She tapped the pen against the paper a few limes, then looked up to the izer.
While the other one had been molting, at least, that was what she thought it had been doing, this one’s beak was nowhere near its feathers. Instead, it was using it to repeatedly flip some plastic rings that had been attached to the cage’s bars. As Alma watched, the golden izer flipped one a tiny bit, then tugged on it a few times, only to move onto another part of the rings, spinning this color before pulling it, and then that color and so on.
[12]
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Post by Alma on May 16, 2021 20:18:50 GMT -6
Having never seen anything quite like the toy the izer was playing with, assuming it was even a toy and not the remains of something accidentally left behind, Alma struggled to figure out the point. Her gallor had balls and fake prey to bat around, she had used laser pointers and thrown balls for her houluh to chase, but who would have put the strange rings there as a toy? There did not seem to be anything special about them.
Yet they did look familiar. “What’s so special about those, huh?” she asked the izer softly, glancing back over her shoulder at the seeker. Looking back at the izer again, she continued, “Not much of a toy, but what do I know about birds? Don’t even bother with jibiji usually.” It continued to twist one of the rings, then yanked it. A previously unnoticeable seam popped open as the ring was ripped free of the bars, and the izer twisted it’s neck to turn and meet Alma’s eyes. The ring fell from it’s beak with a stream of meaningless chatter, the izer tilting its head a few more times before returning its attention to the other rings.
[13]
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Post by Alma on May 16, 2021 20:19:00 GMT -6
The izer grabbed another ring firmly in its beak, this one a neon green that somehow did not clash with its golden feathers, and yanked that one free after a short cycle of rotating it. With the new ring in its beak, it did not immediately drop it, but did a waddling sidestep down its perch to be closer to Alma. It never looked entirely away as it moved, twitching its head one way and then another so that she could always see one emerald eye. “Wha’chu doing now, you weird little bird?” Alma asked, the izer now close enough that she could reach through the bars and brush it with her fingers if she so wished.
As Alma rather liked having fingers, she settled for reaching for the ring toy the izer held instead, the bird pressing it against the bars. Her fingers brushed against the ring as she spoke to the izer, and with a shrill cry, the izer pulled its head back and dropped the ring.
[14]
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Post by Alma on May 16, 2021 20:19:12 GMT -6
The beak collided with the cage hard enough to rattle it, and Alma yanked back her hand as she hopped a step back. The izer glared at her through the bars, then seemed to calm back down, making the same chattering noise as before. Well, at least she hoped it was meant to be a calmer noise and not some grave warning that her habit of skipping over the izer section in the guide made her ignorant of. It was a much more pleasant sound than the horrible shrieking it had done.
When another look at the seeker showed it was not interested in biting off a limb, she picked the pen and forms back up from the floor. The izer was preening as it chattered, and Alma would have sworn it was proud of the way it scared her. “And, just for that, think I’ll be taking yah. Need something so witty for a good messenger bird, though I hope you don’t taunt something less understanding than me.”
[15]
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Definitely loving all those tiny updates that where made with the rest as well! <3