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lightdancer1 · 3 years

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Azula goes to the Zoo Part V of VI

The Australia exhibit was on the whole the smallest, and the quickest to visit in some ways. Less from disinterest, more from the reality that next to the splendid creatures of Africa Australia's were bizarre, but not nearly so grand or enduring in memory. Especially in a first visit.

And yet it was not a place without wonders of its own. There were creatures on trees called eucalyptus, vaguely ursine in appearance with black button noses and hints of wickedly sharp claws. Azula folded her arms in front of her chest watching these creatures sleeping, head tilted.

"They're either happy in boredom or just having a good time," she mused.

Ami-chan shrugged. "Bit of both, maybe?"

Azula tilted her head.

"Maybe. They are cute, though."

Ami-chan nodded.

"That they are."

Her lips pulled into a small smile.

"Funny thing, they're called bears but they're not bears. All the actual bears right now are in the Asia exhibit."

Azula nodded.

"Let me guess, they're called bears because of the ears and looking vaguely like them?"

Ami nodded, her smile broadening to genuine amusement.

"Yep."

Azula tilted her head. "Not the worst reason."

Ami nodded. "Nope."

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The goannas, Azula admitted, were impressive. They were part of a set of creatures called monitor lizards or varanids, and much larger than the geckos that she knew of from the Earth Kingdom (and as it turned out this world also had creatures that went by that name and which were not appreciably different, a factor that gave Azula a bit of chills).

Lizard was the term for them in practice, but in reality? She could have seen how people looking at these creatures could think of them as this world's version of dragons (and insofar as it had had them, she thought some of the extinct monsters were more likely candidates. The ones called Tyrannosaurus rex and Allosaurus fragilis in particular but that was an opinion of herself alone).

They moved at a brisk pace, without any of the awkwardness she associated with lizards in her own world and in the Fire Nation's territories. They also seemed far more intelligent than most of the creatures that she associated with reptiles. For a moment a mixture of nostalgia and regret that in her world she would never see a live dragon, only the bones of them maintained as cold trophies by Sozin and Azulon spiked through her.

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But above all else, the most memorable creatures in the Australian exhibits were the various kangaroos. These were strange beasts, sitting on two legs with faces that reminded her of deer, to a point, hands that could and did move with a surprising amount of flexibility. Their tails were long and rested on the ground as they stood upright, their motions not quite like any other creatures she'd seen.

"Spectacular," she breathed.

The giraffe and elephant she'd seen had seemed too large and strange for her to accept absent some kind of spirit-influence, the gorillas and chimpanzees had their own strangeness about them. These creatures too were strange, but not in a way that led to the same kind of awe so much as an appreciation of life and its complexity. Or maybe, she mused, she was becoming used to this kind of strangeness and able to appreciate it the right way.

It didn't entirely matter, in truth. What did was seeing that the world she was in now really was as strange as her own. That the animals were every bit as strange, and welcoming in that strangeness. They did not need to be hybrids to show that.

-------

For a time they stopped and ate junk food from a vendor in the Australian exhibit, Chibiusa and Hotaru sharing cotton candy, Michiru and Haruka popcorn. Azula got a corndog, a treat that she looked at dubiously, ate, decided the chemical aftertaste was not for her and that this would truly be a once in a lifetime experience. Setsuna-mama had a small amount of popcorn for herself as well.

Azula admitted it, Setsuna-mama had a point. The Arcade, the Zoo.....

She looked at her.

"You're right."

The crimson-eyed woman looked at her with a kindness neither Ozai nor Ursa had ever done.

"Oh?" Her question was soft, a small edge of amusement to it as if she knew what Azula was about to say.

"Fun is good."

Her lips formed a gentle smile.

"It is."

There was a moment between them of a kind she was still new to, still grasped greedily to herself. Zuko had had this with Ursa, and no doubt had it with Uncle Iroh. Zuko had been deemed worthy, had done whatever Ursa wished for love.

In the family of her bloodline love was a conditional thing, cold and cruel. If Uncle Iroh believed her dead, as he probably did, he had disregarded her memory and thought nothing of her. Zuko still less.

In the family of her choice love was a very different thing and she could feel it, could feel the old scars smoothing out. She didn't have to fight for something she would never get, she didn't have to do things she had seen were wrong to get what passed for love from Ozai. These people, who had wealth and money to spare, and places of no small importance in Japanese society had taken a day to take her to the Zoo.

For a moment she looked at her mamas and her papas with a smile so warm it was almost as if her fires blazed from it, not the hissing things of combat and strife, but reaching a new fuel. For a moment her eyes widened and she closed them. An insight, and a lesson....if time and space allowed chances to use it.

No words were said at the tables around the vendor, none needed to be. Glances were enough.

-------

They stood up, after that, and went to the last exhibits, both from the broader continent of Asia and specifically from Japan itself.

Azula took a deep breath and went in with the rest of her family, a smile on her face.

#atla aus #atla/sailor moon crossover

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animalids · 6 years

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Black tree-kangaroo (Dendrolagus ursinus) Also known as: Vogelkop tree-kangaroo, ursine tree-kangaroo, white-throated tree-kangaroo

The black tree-kangaroo has the dubious honour of being one of the ‘tastier’ marsupials discovered by early Dutch explorers on the island of New Guinea, and even today one of its two main threats is being hunted by humans for food. The other main threat is habitat destruction as forests are cleared to provide farming land. The black tree-kangaroo is nocturnal, solitary and lives mainly in trees, though it can descend to the ground where its gait is bipedal, hopping rather clumsily on its hind legs. It is much more agile among the branches of trees, where it feeds on fruit and leaves. Breeding is thought to take place at any time of year. Being a marsupial, a tiny neonate is born about thirty days after conception, and wriggles through the fur of the mother's abdomen to the pouch. Here it attaches to a nipple and develops for about three hundred days.

Classification Animalia - Chordata - Mammalia - Metatheria - Marsupialia - Australidelphia - Diprotodontia - Macropodiformes - Macropodoidea - Macropodidae - Macropodinae - Dendrolagus - D. ursinus

Images: [x] [x] [x] Sources: [x] [x]

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