Setting
The petting zoo - some creatures aren’t so dangerous - is near the entrance, where there is also a café, restaurant, and various other facilities.
Connor heaped several spoonfuls of instant coffee into a mug, and as soon as the water boiled, poured it in and downed the drink in one gulp. The sleep deprived manager slumped into a chair and stared at a screen for a few minutes.
Cedric came running in, some sort of box under one arm and several files in hand. He slapped them hastily in a tray, before making his way to the door-
“Stop. Put whatever that thing is down.” Cedric turned around and grinned awkwardly in response.
“It’s fine, it’s just something I found in the attic-“
“Yeah, I thought so-“
"And I was wondering what it does-“
“It’ll probably explode. The last magic object you found dissolved a hole in the floor, the one before that made a wormhole directly between here and the inside of the chimera enclosure, and the one before that froze the whole room solid. Dude, just put it back.”
“Pfft, it’s not dangerous, look.” He pulled the object out of the box. It was a black orb with golden skull ornaments emitting a dubious purple aura. Some kind of nightmarish chanting was emanating from it.
“See? Nothing dodgy about it at all.”
A small bird perched outside the window was singing. The eye sockets on one of the skulls lit up and a jet of otherworldly energy shot out, vaporising it instantly.
“O…K. I see your point.” Cedric said slowly, placing the orb very carefully in its box. He must have put it in the wrong way because something pressed down on it, and there was a clicking noise. The purple aura intensified and the whole zoo was flooded with ghostly wailing sounds for about 3 seconds. Everyone, including all the staff members, guests and even the monsters would hear this. He slammed the lid on and shoved it behind the monitor and in front of Connor, who looked as if someone had thrown their used gym shorts in his face. Several of the staff members had come running.
“Itsfineeverythingsfine.” Cedric lied very badly.
Just as she rounded the corner, she witnessed a small bird disappear into a puff of feathers and ash. Lestelle, in shock from the sight, tripped over her own feet and crashed to the ground. Her report became unbound and papers fluttered around her. Embarrassment flooded through her. Had anyone seen? She scrambled to her knees and gathered the report, hastily clipping it back together (but not realizing that the front page was now upside-down).
Her cool green eyes found Cedric just as an object in his hands flashed bright purple. Her head was filled with the wails of unknown creatures and, frightened, Lestelle let out a shriek and dove into the corner, hands on her ears. As quickly as it came, the sound disappeared.
For some reason, these occurrences were rather normal. Lestelle, who was easy to fright, did not find them funny.
Still needing to give Cedric her report, but wanting less than ever to have to talk with him, Lestelle inched around the perimeter of the room towards him and Connor. When she got within a meter, she tossed the report onto Connor's desk and scampered back to watch from around the corner of the hall.
“Er, thank you. And er…sorry about that.” Cedric apologized to Lestelle, sitting down and beginning to sort through the files.
“Oh, the new dragon, of course!” he said, eyes lighting up. “The new fella who screams every time he sees a female. I wonder why he does that, perhaps it’s some sort of mating cry for that particular species…” he continued to ramble to himself, regardless of whether anyone was listening.
Meanwhile the cries of the monsters outside had grown louder all of a sudden. The door flew open and a distraught looking security guard - actually, the security guard as they had only found one person reckless enough to take the job - entered.
“What the hell was that?!” he demanded. This was clearly directed at Cedric, as it was pretty obvious he’d had something to do with it, “The monsters’ve all gone crazy, and the Pegasus enclosure’s in crap shape, they’ll break out at this rate! Oh. Mornin', Lestelle.” he greeted the zoologist. He tried to be polite and friendly to everyone although Cedric's antics were just too much for him.
As if the zoo hadn't been loud enough before, it now boomed with the voices of the enclosed monsters. Lestelle jumped like a frightened sphinx upon the entry of the security guard. She had few encounters with him before, mostly because she'd avoided him at all costs.
"M-morning," she replied, breathless. "The Pegasus encl-losure?"
She headed towards the door he'd come through, making a wide, unnecessary arch around the desks in order to avoid getting to close to him, and pressed out into the open air. She'd told the Repairs Department several times about the enclosure, but perhaps calling to them from down the hallway just wasn't getting through to them. Lestelle hurried as best as she could towards the enclosure, though she had to stop several times to veer out of the way of guests and staff.
A long "ummmm" escaped her as she realized that the security guard had been almost right: the Pegasus enclosure was already missing a chunk from the top, just small enough to prevent escapees but large enough to cause a problem. Taking the radio from her belt, she lifted the receiver to her lips. "Um.... C-can someone from the R-Repairs Departm-ment come to the Pegasus encl-losure... please?"
The area immediately in front had been cleared of guests, although there was a rather large, dense crowd surrounding the enclosure about 5 metres from the edge.
Everyone was too busy filming the Incident to actually be scared.
Soon enough, an out of breath looking man with thin mousey hair showed up. He was significantly shorter than an average human - as most of his colleagues were aware, he had partly dwarven ancestry.
“Oh…Oh dear.” He said, observing the damage while scratching his head in thought. “I forgot there was a net. I think I just…reinforced the walls before instead.” He gave a nervous laugh and grimaced.
“I just hope we can sort this out before she turns up.”
She had very little work with this particular species, unfortunately, and her brain began to pick itself for solutions. Carrots? Apples? Was there an equine version of catnip? She shuffled her feet in frustration. Why was it that her brain never worked when it really mattered?
"She?" Lestelle asked, her attention snapping to the man. Boy, he was short. "Who is sh-she?"
There was a crashing noise as one pegasus warped a section of the netting by kicking it. For some reason, the others seemed to understand that continuing with this method would work and soon the netting was stretched and weak.
“Alright everyone, clear away, clear away, it’s not safe here!” He yelled, shooing the guests away from the enclosure. He hobbled forward, taking out an ancient looking hammer. With a needlessly elaborate flourish, he slammed it into the ground. There was a bright yellow flash and iron wrought fencing sprung out of the ground, surrounding the enclosure and preventing the guests from getting too close.
“Hah! Not too shabby if I say so myself!” he seemed rather pleased with himself, despite several of the struts falling over within seconds.
“Hey, is that rusting already?” one very young child piped up, pointing to patches where the surface was reddened already.
“Er…Ahem, well, moving along, we’d better find a way of either calming these beasts down or reaching that tear. I can’t act fast enough from down here, I don’t think.” He explained, referring to the enchanted smith’s hammer he carried.
"Huh. Battery problems. Oh, well!" she spoke to herself, continued humming and locked her car manually.
The big zoo stood with its powerful presence in front of Freda, who was in awe.
"This is it," she whispered to herself. "Monster Zoo. My future workplace. As much as I know, it's not like the normal zoo parks. Which means... higher pay!"
Freda entered the zoo and in a blink of an eye her smile wiped off her face. Her eyes widened in shock and her voice exploded in a shriek, as a unicorn was running in her direction. Freda bolted to her left.
Very soon her legs were hurting and slowing down, as she was gasping for air. Apparently running after a six-year-old child and lifting heavy bags of groceries wasn't enough to keep one in shape. She jerked in a side direction several more times, as her speed had no chance in front of a whole horse power. Finally she fell down on the ground.
But before she could celebrate her full success in infiltrating a zoo ran by a mad man, she was shook with the sound of a large cage erecting around her. Startled with the wild rampaging of the pegasi and the sudden magical fence that had sprouted before her. Sticking her head from the bush she was camping out in, she was amazed to see a slightly wilting metal cage outside of the pegasus enclosure, and a small mousy man struggling to use some sort of magic.
Scarlett knew this man all too well. He had ended many of her chances at becoming a dragon before, chasing her off of the property, but not any more, she would win this round. With a valiant shout, knowing she would be caught either way, Scarlett made a mad dash towards the wilting metal and rammed into it, breaking the fence loose and leaving a large hole behind her as she roared her victory. An honorable, if slightly weird action to take.
"Beware my powers! For I, Scarlett Joanne Penndragon, WILL become a full blooded dragon on this day!" Scarlett bellowed with a loud powerful laugh.
Well, it was more like hobbling. There was clearly no way he’d catch up to her. “Come Back here ya little-” he managed, just in time to trip over the remains of his own fence. His face hit the ground painfully, a muffled grumble escaping. A short moment later, the indignant half-dwarf had pushed himself up, face red with both rage and bruises. He shook his fist in the air and sprung to his feet.
“I’LL MAKE YOU PAY FOR THIS, YA-” the rest of his sentence was a little too unsavoury for me to write, so I’ll leave it up to your imagination. He struck the ground again, sending a line of the same energy as before across the ground toward Scarlett. If it were to actually hit its target, a pillar would shoot out of the ground beneath her feet, launching her into the air and toward some nearby trees.
Meanwhile, Lestelle would receive a call. “Hello?” buzzed the radio, “Calling any members of staff, there is an emergency, several unicorns have escaped, and are rampaging near the entrance!” It was at this exact moment that the net of the enclosure chose to finally give way, three or four Pegasus soaring out of the display and swooping over the crowds below, making a cacophony of whinnying and snorting.
---
The unicorn that had charged toward Freda kept going, until with a thud it buried its horn in a tree. There was a lot of snorting as it attempted to free itself. “No, you will not!” Came a very imperious voice, along with the sound of footsteps. A woman in work attire, but wearing a traditional Nordic helmet of all things, caught up to the creature, grasped it by both the head and the horn, and gently but firmly freed the unicorn. She then gave a maybe slightly unnecessary shove, and the creature whimpered before fleeing back to its own enclosure. She looked very pleased with herself.
“Now then, is everyone here OK?” she asked. The helmet she was wearing looked quite old but well maintained, and while it was decorated with some knotwork patterns, there were no horns or wings on the sides to speak of. There was a rather large axe strapped to her back as well, which a few people had now noticed.
Her ear twitched as she heard a creaking cracking noise from behind her, her legs began to shake as she ran and a tingle up her spine. It was the familiar feeling of magic. She had hardly known the feeling for long, but she knew it when she came here. Like a metal detector, her body tingled at the feeling of magic, like a vibration in the air that shook her core and attracted her closer to it. She was drawn to the zoo with that feeling alone. With the pulsation of magic in her body, she turned to the direction the feeling came from and looked on, seeing a lighting bolt like light coming from the ground. That was weird.
Wait....
Without another chance to react, she was shot into the air by a pillar, launched high into the air and her eyes looked over the park. Time seemed to slow as she was able to see more of the park from the air. As she fell, she reached out with a scream, and with a hefty thump, she felt her body being hit with a large warm mass, her arms curling around it hungrily in search of comfort. When she felt her body lay stable on the mass and the sound of its breathing, she blinked open an eye to see a large blue maned white coated pegasus flying her over the zoo. He seemed calmer than the other pegasus flying around with wild abandon. He snorted and continued his flight towards the center or the zoo as chaos continued below them. Scarlett laughed quietly as she watched them scramble. Victory would be hers, so long as she played her cards right....
"Y-yes!" she finally spoke before getting up. "Thank you. Thank you very much!" she smiled and firmly shook the woman's hand. "I'd like to apply for a position as a keeper. Can you show me the way for that?"
Freda couldn't imagine her son's face when he would hear stories about a unicorn chasing her. Who knows what else would happen.
"Nice axe by the way."
“I s’pose I should get to work on this, since they’ve already broken out.” He grumbled, shuffling toward the cage. He began hammering at the base, sending pulses of magic energy up the side which, slowly, began to repair itself.
Lestelle would hear a leafy crash and snorting. A slightly smaller than average Pegasus with a light brown coat had somehow got itself caught in a tree, and was thrashing around wildly. It seemed younger than the others, and the poor creature was clearly still spooked by the voices from earlier.
Meanwhile, Scarlett might notice several Pegasus following the one she was riding, almost like geese flying in a ‘V’. That, and the rather uncanny colouration of this one meant that everyone in the zoo could notice her very easily from the ground.
---
The helmet clad woman’s face split into a beaming grin as Freda introduced herself. She shook her hand back enthusiastically.
“Perfect.” She said, “We’re currently on the hunt for potential keepers. The name’s Hilda by the way.”
It was painfully clear that more keepers were needed. One thing the staff here had not expected, was how much the zoo had exploded over the first week. They had soon found themselves under siege by more visitors than their workforce could handle, leaving them understaffed and with more spendable profit than they’d expected (i.e any at all).
“Why, thank you!” she replied, replying to the compliment, “I’m afraid you might have to wait a couple minutes, we just have a minor issue that needs to be sorted out,” (it was hardly a minor issue) “I’ll call the manager to come here and see you!” and with that, she whistled harshly, calling down a proud looking Pegasus with a pale golden coat, jumping on its back, and gliding off.
A few minutes later, A very tried looking Connor, wearing slippers and pyjama trousers with his office shirt and tie, came running.
“Uh, is there someone here to apply to be a keeper?” he asked.
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