It almost made him want to do something to see if maybe there was some sort of reason for the llamas. He might've if he was one of these kids running about. Pitfalls of being an adult and all that, couldn't quite get away with mischief anymore, and certainly didn't want to set a bad example for Lola, who noticed so much and emulated everything.

"Well in a way it means that if you choose to spend time with anyone, it almost means more, because its a conscious choice." Rusty responded. Maybe a slightly different view to most people? Hmmm. He didn't really agree with that last sentiment though, that not being able to look after yourself meant not being worth looking after, but that was because he had Lola. Obviously a kid needed looking after, it was kind of the point. Maybe more that if you couldn't look after yourself, you sure couldn't look after someone else.

"Oh trust me, she'll make it perfectly clear if you grind her gears." Rustin answered, a big smile breaking over his face. "And I'd say she's near sick of me, its about time for some new faces."

Speaking of Lola, she came back over, half-skipping, half dragging her feet, her backpack bouncing as she walked.

"I got the food." She held up the bag of pellet-like things for her dad to inspect. "I got food for llamas." She added, perhaps unnecessarily. And then, "If we feed the llamas, it will make them fat." And then the dragons would get even more llama to eat.

"I don't know how to do it."

"Well, Emily here is a llama expert. Maybe she can show you how." Rusty said with a completely straight face as his daughter turned an expectant look on Emily.

Conscious choice. Choice. Emily smirked at this, Rusty had a point, though more often than not most meetings were haphazard and unintentional. A few she kept around though. Rustin for example, he could stay. "You have a point... yet again." Why she was surprised, she didn't know. Unlike most people their age, Rustin was very mature and sharp, she admired that about him. No doubt Lola had something to do with that, keeping him on his toes and all.

"I see," Emily replied, grinning at the thought of being berated by the girl. It would be rather impressive if it happened, she liked kids with guts, something Izzy's twins were slowly developing. No doubt Wes had a hand in that.

She hadn't gotten the opportunity to say what was next on her mind, but Lola's return amused her. Making the llamas fat... heh. Yep. The girl had guts.

Emily's look of amusement soon turned to confusion. What? Since when was SHE an expert on llamas? Mer-lin!
She eyed the creature again, then peered down at Lola and her feed. Rusty would pay for roping her into this.

Dropping her bag on the floor, because she didn't want it swinging around and hitting the girl in the face, Emily bent down at the knees. "It's fairly straight forward," she started, holding out her own hand. "Just lay your hand out flat like mine, and try not to curl your fingers up... or he might want to nibble on those too." And then she sprinkled a bit of the feed on her own palm, modelling how to hold the feed out.

Yeah...Yeah...She heard him laugh at the scene in which she was collided with a niffler by the arm. Had it been anyone else, she wouldn't have allowed it and probably made sure that their head went into the cage...accidentally. But Forrest could laugh, they were friends now right? And come to think of it, it was funny. Her flailing her arm to shake off the niffler. Yeah, funny.

And she was glad he stopped laughing afterwards, he had good intentions. And he was a good listener. Cassia liked those. Because she was a talker and a talker always needs a listener. Everyone knew that!

A proud grin spread on her face as she saw his reaction. It was cool! Back then, Cassia kept bragging about it for a while, afterwards. Then it just kinda faded. Only because they found other cool stuff to pursue. "Yes, it was wooden, of course. We gathered branches and all borrowed big chunks of wood." They didn't really borrow. Because they never gave them back but yeah, unimportant details. "Nope we didn't get help. We just improvised and it actually worked." She remembered them putting the woods together and tying and all. Though now that she thought about it, it was accurately a boat. "It was more like a raft, you know. And we were small so we fit." And they probably were lucky that they hadn't sunk.

She grinned at him saluting her. Didn't he learn fast? "Why thank you.I'd prefer lady," She winked at him proceeding to the other cage. It did sound cute though.

"I don't like their shaggy hair," Simple as that. "You can pet them if you want," She nodded as she stood by the bard. "Though, perlocks hide from people." But they couldn't really hide now that they were in a cage, could they?

Astrid wouldn't let go of the zookeeper until the latter would. The soon-to-be fifth year just wanted someone to hug and cling to, since good ol' Leprecorn Tag wouldn't let her hug him. Like, was there anything wrong with hugs? Astrid liked hugs, especially if it came from cool people. Miss Pretty Zookeeper lady was a cool person so the Beauxbatons girl liked her hug. See? Gotta have awesome zookeepers you know. They were always comforting and pretty. Those two traits worked well together.

Uhm. What? Upset? Astrid blinked a bit and then glanced at Tag. Did he make her upset? HEHE. "No... he didn't upset me. He won't let me hug him, which is why I was hugging you. So that means I like you." Told ya, awesome zookeeper was awesome. "We won't scream again. Promise." She then raised her pinky, to make that an official thing. That may or may not have been a lie, but Astrid would try her best not to break her promise. C'mon, zookeeper! Wrap yo' pinky around hers.

But then Tag. The Beauxbatons girl just staaaaaaared at the Leprecorn dude. Huh? Excuse you, mistah. "But he wouldn't let me hug him... when I was scared," she said in her defense. "And I was thiiiiiiiis close to crying, did you know that?" Astrid had measured at least a millimeter with her pointer finger and thumb. See, Tag? Gentleman, puh-lease.

Ariel made her way over to the petting zoo not long after stopping by the donation table. Ordinarily, she wouldn't have been so thrilled about a bunch of magical creatures on display. And while there was nothing particularly grand here, she was very excited to be out and about on her own, and even more so since there was a festival going on.

The girl made her way through the stalls, glancing quickly over each one before... THERE. One had caught her eye. Grinning, she slipped around the crowd of people over to the displays of winged-horses.

Oh, weren't they beautiful?

And just far enough away too. As a child, she hadn't liked horses much. She thought they were big and menacing looking things, and they tended to attract flies. Not to mention that the one time her mother tried to take her horseback riding the horse bucked her off its back and threw her to the ground, breaking her right arm in the process. But as she got older, she found that she did like to watch them from afar. And then the wings added a certain amount of desirability as well... most likely because they reminded her of butterflies. Though butterfly wings were much more beautiful and incredibly delicate. Still...

Ariel gave a sigh as she watched over the gate. They were nice, but she wouldn't care to get any closer than this.

There was a cuuuute little girl with her mummy and daddy over there, which Rozanna especially loved about being in charge of this zoo. Little kids appreciated these critters much more than adults, she had observed. Adults were rarely impressed by flobberworms and wanted stuff like DRAGONS. Well, no dragons here, I'm afraid. They seemed to have the whole feeding thing under control, so Rozanna didn't want to disturb them. She was just here to help!

Rozan did notice a new girl roaming around by the winged-horses alone. She offered her a beam, and was gonna go right over there as soon as she was done with these two...

........ and after she saw what those four kids were up to with the abraxans.

Big groups made Rozan nervous because it was JUST HER here to control them all.



Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhh....

So she had completely misread the situation, then. Rozanna smiled warmly at them both just to reassure them a bit more that she wasn't being a big scary boss lady. The girl was scared of unicorns? Who could be scared of unicorns? Especially when they were behind a big fence.

"Oh, I see. Honey, there really is nothing to be scared about." And she certainly didn't need to scream about it. "The unicorn is harmless when it is secured behind a fence for you guys. You can even feed her, as long as you are very gentle." Why did she feel like she was speaking to a pair of three-year-olds? Rozanna smiled again, then edged a little closer to the girl.

"And did you know, unicorns prefer a woman's touch?" WINK WINK.

"But if you are really feeling unsure, then we have plenty of other animals that you might love!" Rozanna raised her around and waved it around the zoo area. The llamas and the winged-horses were her personal favourites... if she was allowed to have favourites.

SEEEEE. Tag hadn't made Astrid upset. She had made herself upset. "I like someone else, Astrid, its okay. Shhhhhh." He said with a slight smirk. When Astrid continued to say that they wouldn't scream again all Tag could merely think was that, he had only screamed because he had seen Astrid. Shudder! Oh, pink promise. Tag lifted his hand and wrapped his finger around Astrid's. You know, just for laughs and all.

La la la la la. Astrid was always close to crying when it came to unicorns. She really should learn to love them. "Exactly, nothing to be scared of. They're harmless. In fact, they're more scared of you, than you really are of them." Was that reassuring to Astrid? No. But it was to Tag. Heh. "Yeah... let's go see the llamas!" Tag said excitedly. Saxon would be proud of him!

Forrest had some more questions, but he didn't ask them not to bother her. He nodded silently instead, and started to prepare a speech to get Asher, Tobias and Charlie help him build a boat. It would be hard to find smooth woods, but if Cassia had, so could they. Yeah... they had to build it.

Deep in thought, it didn't occur to him to comment really. And it took him a while to remember what they had been talking about. "Oh, lady. Of course." He smiled. Silly of him. She was just what, fifteen?

Well yeah, they didn't have anywhere to hide now. He saw them as clear as then sun, but he didn't try to pet them either.

"If you don't pet them, I won't too." She definitely knew better than him. He wasn't going to offend her. In fact, he was getting kiiiiinda bored with animals. Maybe. His stomach also growled.

"Shall we check the food section?" Please?

So Cat had spent most of her afternoon hanging out by the food and the Wiley, but when she wandered off again, she'd come across the petting zoo. A PETTING ZOO. Who was the best person to visit a petting zoo with? Marcus Branxton, obviously. So, running away like a little crazy person, Cat had gone to owl Mo and very excitedly request his presence.

Now she had him hostage, holding on to his arm and tugging him back in the direction of the animals. "LOOK." Her tone held the idea that he hadn't believed her or something of the like, but she was just EXCITED.

Mo was more than willing to be dragged around by a Cat. Not just because he was delighted to be invited to join her today, but because it was a petting zoo. With all sort of creatures... including flobberworms, which no one even cared about. But also including winged horses, which happened to be a favorite of Mo's.

And Cat's.

"I'm going to take more pictures of you with the horses again, I think." He released Cat's hand and climbed the nearest fence to lean into the enclosure with a hand outstretched. "Quick... buy me some food for 'em."

Cat was back to skipping. She'd been doing that a lot lately and it had almost gotten to the point where she didn't even realize when she was doing it. She was certainly not paying attention now because she was thinking about Mos and animals and Mos. She was not surprised when he headed straight to the horses. "I'm down for that. I look cute today." So pictures could happen. She would encourage animal pictures ANYWAY.

"Okay!" Cat skipped over to the machine thing that held the food. She dug out a knut and gathered up the bits before more carefully walking over to where Mo was. "Lookit, little loves, FOOD for yoooou." Cat made a kissy face at the animals, too.

Mo turned from his perch on the fence and took pictures of Cat - getting food, skipping like a little girl, looking adorable and cocky, and then returning to him. No horses in those pictures, but they made him grin. "You're always cute. Stop fishing for compliments and go be friends with the Granian."

Since the Granian was always his favorite. He climbed over the fence and into the enclosure, hand outstretched and eyes flitting between Cat and the horses. She was fine, safe even, and Mo took some of the feed from her hands to offer to one of the nosiest of the horses.

As she walked towards the perlocks cages, Cassia's eyes swept the area and tried taking a distant look at most of the cages around. She noticed a couple of cool creatures they didn't get near but figured they should save them for later. You don't do all the fun things in one day and one time. Maybe some other day. Enough creatures for the day. She smiled at Forrest, as he walked with her towards the cages. Cool, now he knew her official title in Hogwarts.

Here they were!

Cassia stood by the bars then glanced at the younger boy, "There's not really anything interesting about them, anyway," She nodded. And that wasn't accurate. All creatures had something interesting. Especially that those ones, stayed with horses and all that. But you see, the fifteen year old here obviously judged by the looks. Tsk...tsk..tsk.

Did he say food?! He sure did. How very smart of him. "Yup, we could use eating a sandwich." Maybe two? Depending on the sandwich size actually. "Let's go," She said to him turning her back on the hairy creatures and heading towards the food section. Hopefully, the food was good here.

Being the only girl and the youngest child, Cat was super used to having pictures taken, really, it almost felt like she didn't even notice anymore. So while Mo was doing that, she just carried on with what she was going. Dull or not, a good photographer could find the magic moments. She had faith in him. In the mean time, she tossed him a grin, "It's always a good thing to hear you say it though."

With a giggle, Cat shuffled the remaining food into one hand and offered her hand to the horses. When she glanced over at Mo, she noted what he was up to and gave him a look that clearly said 'dont get us kicked out, boy.' But then she had to quickly look away again because her hand was getting nuzzled by a hungry horsey. "Helloooooooooooooo." Cat coooed.

There was a slight bounce to her walk as Delphinia, attached to Nathaniel's arm as if something might jump out and eat them, explored the summer festival. With a small, distracted yet excited smile on her lips, the former Ravenclaw eyed things here and there, people mostily - people she was fairly sure were running this big event, and kept walking at a somewhat slow pace with the man beside her.

She was in no rush.

That is, until she saw the petting zoo. "Come on, Nathan." Her smile grew wider as she turned to look at him, before giving him a silly look. "Let's go pet some creatures.. maybe get an idea of what creatures are family friendly, you know, so Philia will have a friend." Because Philia would love that, wouldn't she? Maybe a niffler.. but definitely not a flobberworm.

Nathan was glad. Delphinia was smiling - something which she was resisting these days, ever since Callidora had made her way to their lives.

Hand gripping hers, Nathan followed the excited Suvari.

"More pets?" he questioned - eying some really weird creatures.

Wasn't their apartment a little too small?

Philia with her attention-seeking needs, Nathan wasn't sure if she would approve of another creature sharing her territory.

After a small thought, Nathan touched the subject he had planned not to touch - but you know .. "So, I think .. Callidora would have enjoyed this, don't you think?"

More? What was one more pet? They only had Philia, after all. One more wasn't that crazy.

Truthfully, Delphi wasn't really determined to bring home another pet, especially not to keep Philia company. It was doubtful Philia would enjoy her companion, and she was just playing around. "Sure, why not? You know.. maybe a flying monkey, or something."

Or maybe something less high maintance, like a rock.

Walking through the pastel gates, Delphinia was considering which creature they should see and pet and feed first, when Nathan brought up her. "I wouldn't know," She sort of mumbled, freezing in place near the gate, hand still in his. "I don't think she likes Philia much, so I doubt she would like a petting zoo full of creatures."

Yes, she knew what he really meant by that. Her smile had fallen a bit, and she forced it to return.

The Granian seemed very interested in eating Mo's camera, and he tucked it down the front of his shirt before offering it the food instead. He was definitely going to take more pictures, but it was distinctly difficult when there was horse slobber all over the camera. Said horse nosed hungrily at Mo's hands, and Mo patted the velvet-soft patch of skin on its nose.

He wanted a Granian for his birthday. For real. "You're the... second prettiest in this whole pen, aren't you? Can you show Cat your wing? Can you?" He held out an arm, and the Granian unfolded a wing. Wait... was it really listening to him or was that just a coincidence? "D'you think he knows what we're saying?"

See? Astrid will be a good kid. So will Tag, she thought. Well, if Tag wasn't going to be a good kid then the brunette saw no reason to be one. It really just depends on how one person acts towards and around her. Maybe all she needed to do, and hopefully she would be able to do it, was to keep calm and ignore the horned horse. Yep. It seemed like a good plan.

But then she eyed Tag with his comment about... that thing. Liking. UHM. Astrid eyed him a bit more before she laughed. "Very funny, but no," she said and stuck her tongue out at him. Sorry but, she wasn't interested. No boys and crushes for her yet because Sir Tye said so. The little brunette believed that she was a biiiiiit too young for those stuff. PFFT.

"Okay, thanks Miss Pretty Zookeeper," Astrid said with a grin. No screaming anymore, she got it. Though she was still sending side glares to Tag for his comments. HMPH. Really now? Unicorns didn't hate her. They were probably just jealous of her prettiness. How conceited of her to think of that. Plus, unicorns didn't like her even so her 'female's touch' wasn't going to be any help. They had horns and that was creepy. "Llamas?" she asked. "............ But they're not magical." What in Merlin's beard was it doing here then?

Cat snorted in Mo's direction as the creature attempted to nom on his camera. If anything happened to that thing, he'd be so sad, but probably not too sad on account of it being a Granian that ate it. Silly boy loved horses. Cat could understand why, too. She continued to feed hers until the food was all gone and then she was able to pet him too.

She glanced over when she heard him talk and grinned, "Dunno, but that was pretty impressive. Wouldn't it be soooooooooo much fun to take a ride on them?" Oh yeah, it would be. Maybe some day they could. Maybe. MAYBE. Hers was getting jealous though and it nuzzled at her hand. Cat leaned closer to place a kiss on his head. OR her. Was it a her? Hmm.

It hadn't taken Addison much to see that the happenings of the school had really effected his other half. The communications between them during the end of the year and an earlier run-in with her at the start of summer had clearly show him that. Which in turn bothered the cursebreaker seeing as he played off her feelings. Not to mention he had plans for this summer...for them...and he would like to have her happy for them.

And everything else of course.

And so, he had made the decision to have fun with the summer and their time together when Fina at least was free from her job obligations. Addison had invited her to the street festival for an afternoon, himself free after a morning at Gringotts. On a lark, he had suggested meeting by the animals for lack of another idea coming to mind. Besides, animals were cheerful...right?

Dressed somewhat between work and casual, Addison made his way through the crowds to the meeting place. His gaze passing briefly down to look at his watch to check the time.

Tag just stared at Astrid some more and shrugged his shoulders at her. They were teens, (was Astrid a teen?) but they could surely act more mature than this. Of course they could. Well, at least Tag could. Maybe just not around unicorns. No more childishness for Tag here. No siree.

"Don't be jealous, Astrid. You're still... nice looking though." Those words came out very strained from Tag. Why he was going on about this? Probably just to annoy her and the stuff.

Waving at this zookeeper lady Tag slowly started making his way out from the unicorn's presence. Sigh. "Thank you for the help.... I think." Tag gave the lady one final word. Was she trying to help them? Not really. More like control them. "Llamas.... are just as awesome! But that's my sister speaking, not me. Come on!" Yep. Tag liked unicorns and Saxon liked llamas. The Kildares were weird like that. Pushing his way through the crowd Tag finally ended up by where the llamas were.

The Granian continued to butt at Mo's camera, and he caught the amused expression from Cat. Hmph. Fine, Cat. Fine. He pulled the camera from around his neck and hung it on the post behind him before traipsing off to the food dispenser. Two handfuls this time - one for Cat and one for Mo.

"I wish we were allowed to ride these, but I feel like they'd think we were stealing them or something. Plus it's sorta dangerous, right?" Mo poured feed into Cat's hands and circled back to his own horse. One hand up, and the Granian spread his wing again. The other hand up, and both wings were in the air. "I'm a Granian whisperer, Cat. Do you see this?" The Granian got ALLLLLLL the food.

"I'm so sharp with all my points." Rusty quipped, amused that she was so quick to concede things. It was nice really, that she wasn't all.... difficult. Some women were disagreeable for the sake of it he noticed, Emily wasn't at all like that. It was probably why something resembling a friendship had developed. She didn't really do drama did she? He liked that.

He was watching the interaction with a small smile on his face, pleased with himself for putting Emily on the spot a bit with Lola but hey, it didn't hurt to keep people on their toes, and she seemed to be handling it well enough.

"Llamas eat fingers?" Lola asked, entirely fascinated with the demonstration. She put some of the pellet things on her hand and tried to keep her fingers straight. "If the llama ate fingers then it would be a menace and it would need to get punished. Maybe punished by dragons." She knew about menaces. Her dad sometimes said that she was one.

... but Lola didn't even eat fingers though.

She held her hand out, caught somewhere between brave and nervous.

Ascanius was attractive.

It was something he had been pretty cognisant of since the time he could look in a mirror, which had been a long time. And for many years, he had been hitting markers of greater attractiveness. His ever growing height was one, the filling out of his jawline, his just face in general...it was all part of his package. But for the past few months he had been stuck. There wasn't much more he could DO to get any more good looking, just wouldn't be fair, yeah? Smirk.

Then it hit him. A beard. It was manly too. And he was one of those, so a beard he would grow. As soon as he could figure out HOW to grow one. Nothing too rustic, but some light hair...oh yeah. Smirky smirk. He'd rock that.

And that was what he was thinking about as he leaned on the llama cage. More like loitering 'cause he could. A beard. Hmm.