[Closed] @eidxiety🧜‍♀️🔬

[winterbolt]

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[eidxiety]

[You fool, it's Ain. This is not enough calories to sustain an Ain. He... has tail weight to maintain. The banana goes in a tentacle for now, and following what the humans are doing, he picks up a tray and waits very politely in line until he can get to the front and point through the glass at what he wants.]

Aa... aa!!! Aa... aaaa.

[That is, in order: Two waffle. Tiny cup of fresh fruit. Bacon. Scramble egg.

Largely not the worst thing to eat. Besides the chocolate. That might not be too great, but Ain has gone to regions with cacao beans before. Same shit, right?

The cafeteria lady asks Add if Ain can have any of the drinks they offer here like milk, or if that'll be bad for him. Add clearly knows, right?]

[dyn4m0]

Uhh...

[Hm. He'll have to make a judgement call on this one. He's, yet again, SHOCKED Ain is being normal and ordering like? A normal human person amount of food??? He figured he'd just try to put his noodles into the back of the glass to grab things.]

He can try one. We'll know later if they don't sit well or not.

[Again, this is a special treat one-time sort of thing, so it should be alright just this one time. As far as he's aware, dairy shouldn't be toxic for a Siren or anything.

And...after some not-too-subtle coaxing from the other cafeteria ladies, Add finally relents and gets breakfast too, getting himself an omelette and a couple waffles.]

[eidxiety]

[Ain will be given a little plastic bottle of milk. Recyclable, you know the drill with these places. Ain holds all the things in his tentacles and the tray in his hands, says "bye bye" to the lunch lady because he has no idea how to say thanks, and then big steppies off to sit down like the people do. He's mimicking, that's the only reason he's being normal right now.

Unfortunately normal stops here because he doesn't know what forks are.

The first thing he does when he's sitting down is open the banana with his tentacles and take a bite. These bananas taste sweeter than the ones he's used to, and he makes a confused face like... what. What is this. He does not understand farming unfortunately.

...

Nom.]

[dyn4m0]

[One thing Add wanted to try to avoid when studying Sirens is "domesticating" them too much. If Ain were to learn the complete ins and outs of being a person, would that diminish from his skills as a Siren? He doesn't know for sure. But since he's already out and about in the facility, he's not just going to leave him completely to his own devices, especially if there are new things for him to learn. This is supposed to be stimulating his brain and enriching more than anything, after all.

So, while Ain munches curiously on his banana, Add picks up his fork and shows him how to use it.]

Here. You can use this to pick up your food so your tentacles don't get all sticky.

[He'll even cut a piece of Ain's waffle for him, then spear that piece with his fork before holding the fork out for him to take.]

[eidxiety]

[?? Fork???

Ain leans forward and takes the bite from Add's hand, but

the fork unfortunately goes with him. Thank god for metal dishware or else he would have bitten it completely off, but he sure is trying to chew on it??? Like. Darling.

You can't do this.]

No.

[He doesn't like how the fork tastes and gives it back to Add.

His tentacles lift the waffles up and he folds one of them into a burrito and noms.]

[dyn4m0]

[Yeaaah he was worried that would happen-]

No, no.

[Add picks up his own fork this time to demonstrate, picking up a piece of his omelette with it. He shows Ain then how to take the food off the fork with his mouth without eating the hard, metal part.]

You don't eat the fork. The fork is just to get the food to your mouth. See?

[Fork...extension of tentacle, more or less.]

Guess you can eat it like that though, I won't stop you.

["That" being just grabbing it in his tentacles, which is what he'd be doing in the wild anyway.]

[eidxiety]

[Tilts his head. He pretends he doesn't understand Add, but he Super hears him. He's not sure why you'd eat with these things if they don't taste good... Ain's assumed this whole time that the eating sticks tasted good since they were in people's mouths.

He chomps his waffle and his banana. He likes these together. Nom, nom, nom...

The people in the cafeteria are giving him no shortage of stares, like awww what a baby he's eating him food :) cute creature :) this man is sentient but he's creature enough to where no one knows better.

Ain will get through most of his breakfast while looking around at how other humans eat and occasionally sniffing the air. There's perfume, cologne, hair products... laundered clothes, labcoats with chemicals spilt on them, chlorine scents, food food food...]

Mmm.

[Contemplating, Ain finishes off the sweet parts of his breakfast before shovelling eggs into his mouth with his hands, finding them difficult to lift with his tentacles. He eats that, and then the bacon, and he thinks he likes the bacon almost as much as the waffles. He wants more bacon.

There's a bunch of grease and syrup and stuff left behind on the plate, though. Ain doesn't like being wasteful, so he goes to lick the porcelain clean, and then

lo and behold

there's this horrifying crunch as he takes a bite out of it.]

[dyn4m0]

[Surprising everyone, but especially Add, Ain is downright polite as he eats his meal. He's eating more-or-less like you'd expect someone to, and he's not making a terrible mess as he does it. Add expected nothing and was rewarded for it, it would seem.

Of course, now that Ain is mostly done, he figures he'll start asking for more food. Such is the way with this Siren, the bottomless pit that he is...at least, until Add watches with muted horror as Ain picks up a plate and happily takes a bite out of it. The porcelain, as you'd expect, shatters immediately under his teeth into several large pieces, one of which Ain is trying to eat oh my GOD-]

No-! Bad! Spit that out, no!

[If Ain doesn't spit it out himself, Add will risk cuts on his hands to try to pry his mouth open to get the porcelain out, because the last thing they need is Ain cutting his tongue or worse, swallowing that. He's pretty sure Ain does NOT want to have to have surgery to have what is essentially glass removed from his system.]

[eidxiety]

[Luckily he understands and blehhhs the porcelain out onto the tray like ??? while some people look on in muted horror. Someone mutters "poor baby" while Ain's just completely clueless over here. What did he do...? Don't eat that? It didn't taste good anyway... is it not food? Why serve food on plate if plate not food?

He looks so sad and wet. He hasn't drank his malk, though, so he cleans his waffle-tentacle off and noodles the bottle...

...

There is a cap on this. How does he remove this.]

Help.

[Thrusts the bottle at Add like how do remove lid?]

[dyn4m0]

[God Ain you're shaving years off his life, he swears to god.

But with that crisis averted...Add will talk aloud as if explaining to Ain despite knowing he "can't understand", when in reality it's for his benefit so he WILL understand. Nobody else has to know this-]

Plates aren't food. Glass isn't food. You'll cut and hurt yourself if you try to eat that. It's for holding food, not eating.

[As he explains this, he'll open Ain's malk for him. He'll even hold the bottle up and show him how he uses his hands to grip and pop the top open to get the lid off.]

[eidxiety]

[Ooh... he is learning.

What he's not learning is how to drink out of a bottle, though. He drinks this much like a cat. Schlorp schlorp schlorp schlorp— wait, someone over there is drinking their milk normally. Hmmmm.

Mimicry is his friend still, and so Ain tilts his drink back and slowly sips. This seems marginally easier.

...

Anyway he chugs it. He's guessing plastic also isn't food.

God, humans are weird.]

[dyn4m0]

[Okay, well. Not eating the plastic is good. Chugging isn't so good, but hopefully since it's just a small amount he won't get sick doing that or anything. Good lord.

Add sighs as he gets up from the table for a moment so he can grab a trash bag and carefully put the pieces of the broken plate into it, apologizing to the staff for his fish having tried to eat it. They seem understanding- he doesn't know any better after all, he don't know things- so it's not that big of a deal. He'll also take the empty milk bottle and throw that away as well, along with picking up his dirty plate so he can put it with the rest to be washed.]

Come on A- er. Bluhen. We'll get you some of your regular diet to eat later if you're still hungry.

[Read: He will still be hungry]

[eidxiety]

[But he wants bacon...

Ain "aaa"s and gets up to big steppy after Add, plap plap go his feets. He doesn't know where to go from here. He waves and says "bye bye" to the whole cafeteria before they're back out in the hall with the elevator and all the people.

Sniff, sniff.

He veers off to the right, following his little heart (and lots of sounds). Where do the sounds lead? How many doors can he get away with opening—]

[dyn4m0]

[If you're extra good he will get you a second helping of bacon he promises-

For now though, it's time to leave the cafeteria with everything still intact, though not for strong lack of trying. Add just has to keep a sharper eye on him before he puts something else dangerous into his mouth. Sighs.

Just outside of the cafeteria is, you guessed it, even more hallway. There are a couple doors that are completely off limits, like the various labs and things...but there is a door up ahead that leads to the rooms with their tanks for other, non-sentient creatures. Fish, penguins, seals...there are quite a lot of them, actually.]

[eidxiety]

[Oh boy now's a good opportunity for Add to discover he can talk to fish. Not penguins and seals because they're not quite underwater enough, but fish?? Yeah buddy it's fishin' time.

Ain trundles on into that room and gasps because he knows where the pets are now, and if not stopped he's going to try climbing right into where the penguins are stashed while eagerly chirping. Add will understand this as "HI HI HI HI HI HI".

He is going to try patting a pengwing.]

[dyn4m0]

[Add very vaguely remembers Ain mentioning something about talking to fish. He had forgotten about it until just now.

Now? He's very suddenly wishing he couldn't understand the fish, because it's like he's just walked into a packed auditorium of noise with no single voice managing to come through and make any sense. This is probably something he can manage, or even turn off, but does he know how to do that? Lol-

It means, while Add is trying to contend with the many fish speaking, he isn't fast enough to stop Ain from climbing right into the penguins' enclosure. These penguins, funnily enough, are familiar with Sirens and don't particularly have a problem with Ain being here, though they might if he looked more like a leopard seal or something. Please to not be eating them thank you.

Add manages to enter the room fully eventually, enough so that he can call to Ain:]

Bluhen! You're not supposed to be in there! No-!

[eidxiety]

[Ain lifts a penguin gently by the torso.]

Baby!

[The penguin's little flippers go up and it honks. Ain puts it down after that and patpats it, then reaches over to patpat another, then another... he is in der. He is being Naughty, but at least he's not doing anything other than patting the penguins? They sniff his fingers like have food? Fish?? But Ain does not have food for them. After every penguin gets a little pat, Ain will climb out of the enclosure.

He veers toward the seals. This enclosure is a lot higher, so he can't just get into it. If he could figure out which door leads to the back of it, though... hmm.

Crimes are being considered. For now he will bonk his head into the glass observation area and run back and forth with a seal who is Super Excited to chase him back and forth.

The back door to this enclosure opens, and Ain sees A Person in there, and then suddenly stops and turns to Add and points at them. His eyes are huge. There is passage into the seal enclosure.

He wants to be in the seal enclosure.]

[dyn4m0]

[It takes Add a moment to collect himself enough to catch up to Ain and his crimes, and by then he's already patpatted all of the penguins and is outside of the enclosure. Okay it's fine, nobody saw, no big deal...

But now Ain is specifically vying for the seals, and Add shakes his head firmly.]

I was given permission to let you wander the facility a little, not go into every creature's enclosure. You can play with them through the glass.

[At least Ain will get to watch the seals be fed? It's their feeding time, and the employees who work with them always get them to do tricks for their fish.]

[eidxiety]

[One day he's going to break out and be found within the seals and it will be Your fault for not letting him play with them this one time.

Of course, watching them be fed is giving Ain more ideas for how to weasel food out of the others. Is this really all it takes for humans? He just has to clap his fins together and do a spin and a flip and sound off when they want him to and they'll give him food? Interesting... and if they give him a hoop to jump through, even more interesting... Hm. Much to consider here.

Ain chirps and clicks again, and to anyone who might enter the room, this is clearly him trying to communicate with the seals. Sirens make these noises, this is normal. Add, though, is getting full sentences again.]

The enclosures are in the facility, so I'm not doing anything bad.

[He'll watch the seals for a bit, spend about fifteen minutes playing with them through the glass, and then move onto the fish. This is where the pets are :)

Ain points to a bunch of eels and in click language again says:]

Are these pets for me?

[you are SO spoiled you think EVERYTHING is for you]

[dyn4m0]

[Just like how Ain can't make it obvious he understands Add, Add can't do the same in reverse. He has to be careful here...so even though he knows Ain is straight up asking for garden eels in his tank...]

Those are garden eels. We brought a small colony here because their environment was affected by an oil spill a few months ago.

[Right now, they're still trying to figure out if it would be smarter to relocate them entirely, or wait until the oil spill has been cleaned to take them back. It takes a long while, as expected...

Add steps a little closer to Ain so he can whisper where nobody can hear:]

You keep these as pets?

[eidxiety]

[Ain is smoothing his face to the glass, and the only reason he's not undoing the tank lid right now is because he knows he can't hoist little guys and have them be okay afterwards. Ain is chirping at them though, and they're saying back "HI? SCARED? FOOD? HI? HI? FOOD? HUNGRY? HI? FRIEND? FOOD?" so clearly it's about to be fish lunchtime too.]

We keep lots of things as pets. Bigger eels too, and some fish, and octopi and squids. I like jellyfish too, but they don't have brains, so they're kind of just there to look at. Haha, but they're cute.

[Someone comes by at this point to feed the eels, so Ain has to back up, but he does wave hello and cutely point to the tank.]

Have? Pets??

[Again: he is so spoiled. Everything is for him, this is Ain's world and we're living in it.]

[dyn4m0]

[The employee looks helplessly at Add. It's not their job to decide if he can have pets or not, please help-

Add sighs...shaking his head a little as he gestures for them to hand him the food bag for the eels. After they hand it over questioningly, he'll hand it to Ain.]

Here. Why don't you try feeding them? Show us you can take good care of them, and maybe we'll consider it.

[eidxiety]

[Ain purposely stares a bit too long to not break the illusion that he doesn't get it, but after that, he carefully noodles the tank lid back and scoops the food into his fingers. From there it's a matter of reaching down into the tank to feed them out of his hand. He could just throw the food in and let it float down, but this does not come to mind for him. It's not like food floats down from the surface in the ocean all the time either.

He will continue to scoop food for little guys until the bag is empty. His tail is swaying... He loves these little freaks, eels are So weird every time.]

Babies.

[Points with a tentacle at the eels through the glass. These are babies.

He will hand the empty bag back to the employee and close the lid after this.]

[dyn4m0]

[A couple other workers wander through as this happens, and they can't help but cluster nearby to watch. Ain is so careful and gentle when he feeds them, and even though the eels are a little nervous (they're used to people, but they don't often feed them by hand this way), they quickly realize Ain has the food and eagerly eat what he gives them. Whenever he finishes and politely puts the lid back on, some of the workers even clap for him. What a good boy!! So smart, so polite.

Add props a hand up on his hip and watches the workers disperse to get back to their other tasks on checking up on the tanks, which gives Add the freedom to talk to Ain frankly for a moment, still low so nobody can overhear.]

I was going to keep it a surprise, but it'll probably come out regardless, assuming one of my colleagues doesn't blurt it out. We're getting a new, bigger tank installed in my office. I might be able to convince my boss that having some eels in there would be good enrichment for you.

[eidxiety]

[Why are they clapping... Is it because the eels need an audience to feel loved? Much to think about here.

Anyway, Add says that, and Ain's pupils dilate to the size of saucers. Ooh... Big tank? Finally?? He can fully flatten himself out and take up the whole floor like a dog in the summer trying to keep cool? Oooh.]

Mmhm!!!

[Because he thinks if he gets too excited, he'll be too loud and call attention to them, he leaves it at that. Mmhm. :) Finally, more room to throw a tantrum—

Into the hall they go. It looks like Ain is headed off toward the back courtyard, which is luckily fenced in and full of pools for seals and such to get some sunshine and rehabilitation. Thank God for that fence because Ain would wander into the city if it wasn't there. They'd find him in a McDonald's dumpster with a raccoon eating old food.]