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Here, in a place where she is quite an unexpected sight, is:
an eight year old girl with brown-flecked white wings, looking dismayed and lost.
pen_is_wow
Well.
Eventually, Pen's food will arrive.
It's a bread thing with tomato sauce, cheese, and various meats and vegetable. The breadsticks are warm, soft and garlicky.
Eventually, Pen's food will arrive.
It's a bread thing with tomato sauce, cheese, and various meats and vegetable. The breadsticks are warm, soft and garlicky.
The rest can go in the fridge for later. It's at about this point that Gloria wanders out of the bedroom, stretching.
"Good evening, darling," she says to Klaudia. "Good evening, Pen. Sorry it didn't occur to me that you were probably diurnal."
"Good evening, darling," she says to Klaudia. "Good evening, Pen. Sorry it didn't occur to me that you were probably diurnal."
She takes a moment to parse this, then: "That's probably why you were awake when we met, then. It might be worth doing to see if you can get on a nocturnal sleep schedule while you're here, but it might not: Klaudia and I both work, so having someone around to take care of you would be a tricky proposition anyway."
"You're your own boss, you can give yourself emergency family time off."
"I don't like to abuse power, but you may be right. I'll see if anyone can cover for me for tonight and rearrange the schedule from there."
"You're your own boss, you can give yourself emergency family time off."
"I don't like to abuse power, but you may be right. I'll see if anyone can cover for me for tonight and rearrange the schedule from there."
"Better to end up taking more time off work than necessary than to leave a small child unsupervised for weeks at a time. Anyway, we can afford it; Klaudia's father is rich and terrible at expressing his affection in ways other than money."
Gloria can find someone to cover for her tonight.
She can also take Pen grocery shopping, after suggesting that she hold her wings still and pretend they're part of a costume; feeding an eight year old nothing but takeout is a terrible idea.
She can also take Pen grocery shopping, after suggesting that she hold her wings still and pretend they're part of a costume; feeding an eight year old nothing but takeout is a terrible idea.
"Not saying costume, exactly, but letting people assume it. People can be remarkably oblivious to strange things going on around them, and forcing them not to be oblivious ends up wasting a lot of time on things like screaming and calming people down and convincing them that they're not hallucinating, dreaming or the subject of a strange prank."
"Not secret exactly, but not well known either. No one's going to jump on you for telling someone, but we try to be reasonably discreet."
"There's a difference between flying at night, in the dark, when people who are likely to make a fuss can just assume they're hearing or seeing a vulture or something, and in a brightly lit grocery store."
"Of course you're not. I only mentioned it as an example of a large bird someone might mistake you for--it could as easily be an eagle, people like eagles, they might think of that first."
"I mean, I dress up as a stereotypical member of my kind and many of my employees do the same, I know from sacrificing dignity in the name of not making a public disturbance."
So they go to the grocery store! What kinds of things does Pen like to eat, it's been a while since Gloria's had solid food but she's had liquefied forms of many things so she can make recommendations if Pen doesn't recognize things.
pen_is_wow
Pen recognizes a lot of the produce, and likes fruit. She is confused by the packaging but can identify some legumes and grains in the bulk section as good and is amused by "angelhair pasta". She likes eggs and bread and cheese and seems to find the meat selection inadequate but likes poultry and beef.
Gloria will purchase a subset of these things that she remembers how to prepare from when she was human or feels confident in finding recipes online for.