milliways_bar | (no subject)

(no subject)

*Snow enters the bar with Wade and Millie, and stops by Bar for dinner. Because Bar(and the mun)forgot previously, two small gold bracelets appear for Snow and Millie along with their order and a one-word note from Bar. Snow smiles and takes everything to the usual booth before settling the twins down and feeding them*

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Ray, who is making his way amongst the tables with a plate of what might be steak on a bed of fiddleheads, catches sight of a familiar face and heads that way. "Snow! Hi there. Long time no see."

*Snow smiles. The twins wave at him with little grins*

Good evening, Ray. How have you been?

"Busy," Ray says truthfully. "But things've let up a bit, so I'll be starting on the Quidditch league again soon- sorry about that, things got a little overwhelming. How's it going for you guys?"

*Snow nods*

It's all right. Things keep busy for everyone, so I don't mind the delay. We've been all right. Been better, but considering recent events, things have been down.

"Yeah," Ray says sympathetically. "Hopefully the Dark and Hungry Gods of Drama've had their fill and moved on to greener pastures for a while. We could all use a break. Hey, have any of you guys met the dinosaurs?"

Svava's still recovering, and there's no word yet on how things will turn out for Tim, but otherwise we've settled down somewhat.

*Snow blinks, only slightly surprised*
Dinosaurs? No, we haven't seen any dinosaurs around.

"Good. On both of them. Barry told me a little bit about Tim, but I'm staying out of that whole mess until things settle down, detective appointment or no."

He nods. "The Bar's let several of them in these past few weeks. Four little ones that can talk- herbivores, very cute, very friendly- and, uh, one non-speaking family of meat eaters. I don't suppose you know what a Velociraptor is?"

I'm trying to help Ace through it; she's having a tough time.

That's. . . interesting. The herbivores should get along well enough. . .

*Snow nods* I've seen Jurassic Park, though I won't claim to know a lot about dinosaurs. They're the smaller carnivores, right?

"I can imagine," Ray says. "Is there anything I can do?"

He nods. "They're really, really cute. Cera, who says she's a three-horn, Spike, who looks like one of the armored types and tried to eat my pants instead of talking, Petrie, who's some kind of pterodactyl, and Littlefoot, who looks like he might be an apatosaurus, although I'm not really up on my sauropods. They've already met Wash, so they tend to ask people if they're human-pilots." Ray smiles. "My nephews would kill to spend five minutes with them."

"Okay, then, you know what these guys are generally like. The other dinosaurs are from the real-life species that inspired Stephen Spielberg's depiction of the velociraptors. The mother is taller than I am and weighs around four or five hundred pounds. She's got three chicks with her. No sign of a father in the bar, so far as I can tell, but Red- that's the mother- seems to come and go okay on her own. I named her and the chicks after I found out that offering her meat means she'll treat you as something friendly instead of a potential food source."

If you see Ace, try to reassure her that at the very least no one thinks she's at all to blame. It's sinking in, but she still seems a bit nervous.

*the twins perk up. They've likely been read a book or two on dinosaurs at some point* I'll keep an eye out. I'm sure the twins would be interested to see them, too.

*Snow nods* Utahraptor, I think I recall hearing. I'll definately keep that in mind, but I'll be staying away if the option's there . . . *she glances to the twins nervously. They can defend themselves, but still not a good idea to have small children around predators*

Ray blinks. "Why the heck would... never mind, I'm better off not knowing. Someone can tell me later."

"And, yeah, that's the genus, all right. I'm pretty sure these guys are Utahraptor ostrommaysorum. I'm working on trying to tame one of the chicks, if only because they seem to be able to come and go independent of their mother. If there's going to be a man-sized carnivorous reptile around here, I want it to understand that 'food that talks is not food'. Or at least to accept orders to the effect of 'no, bad, stop' from a human."

*a small shrug from Snow* She said something about how some cultures blame the wife of a traitor for the crime as well.

That's an ambitious goal. If it works, I can see it doing a lot of good. Might be a good idea to train it away from the nonverbal cats as well, since most of them don't have the defenses that the speaking ones usually do.

"Ah. Well, some cultures also cut off- um, never mind."

Ray may not be Mr. Tact, but he's not Egon, either. He knows better than to say summat like that in front of the wee ones.

"Cats, right," he says. "I thinK I can do that. I'm starting with water guns and noisemakers, but I may have to ask Raven or someone for a little magical supplementation, just to be on the safe side. She already recognizes her name, though- Scribble- and she knows what 'drop' means. So that's a start." He smiles as he says it; he's inordinately proud of the itty bitty Mesozoic death machine's progress.

*Snow thinks a moment*

They're reptiles, so would water really have any effect? Something that irritates them would be good, and if you've already progressed to 'drop', it'll be safer to have them around the bar.

"It's not so much the water itself," Ray says. "More the fact of being hit in the head by a shot of something unexpected...." He stops, staring off into the distance, and suddenly grins. "Even better. I need an airzooka. They fire a mass of fast-moving air up to thirty feet and have the impact of a football thrown by a skilled athlete. If that doesn't shock her when she does something bad I don't know what will."

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