"Perhaps... next time?"

The employee nods, still smiling, and says, "We'll be glad to see you both and your sisters again," and wanders off to bother some other unlucky couple.

Bellona covers her still very red face with her hands.

Ellie grins as she walks past, bumping her hip into El. "Yeah, sister. We can bring them back here again."

"Uh."

Ruby is definitely not helping by patting Bellona on the head.

"It has been a fun date."

"Very."

El's brain still hasn't quite rebooted.

Bellona makes an embarrassed noise. 

Ruby giggles.

"C'mon, let's get checked out - so you two can have your gay panic in a bit more privacy."

"-Right. Okay."

Ruby handles paying, being the one with local currency. She also cheerfully takes charge of steering Bellona out of the shop, and - "Back to the hotel, or just sit in a little nook for a bit until your brains reboot?"

"A nook, I think," Ellie judges. "We can stand guard."

"Simpler than braving public transportation, too," she says. Luckily, the zoo is replete with tranquil little side paths and seating nooks, where the only witnesses will be thoroughly disinterested zoo animals. She pushes Bellona into one such sheltered nook, with a long bench running by a hidden view port into one of the enclosures - not visible from the other paths. 

"Have fun, you two," Ruby says, whistling and going to just out of easy ear shot (pretty close, given all the greenery; she can still stand guard effectively). 

"Um," Bellona says, staring at her feet.

"Uh," El agrees.

It had somehow never occurred to her that someone might assume she and El were dating!!! Despite that probably being not an unreasonable conclusion watching them next to Ruby and Ellie...

She hugs the stuffed cat ferret.

"...Sorry?"

"I... don't think you need to apologize?"

Shrug. "For. Uh. Awkwardness?"

"Oh."

"Still not your fault."

Small smile. "Though I didn't - contradict him..."

"That's. Um. ...Maybe not a problem?"

Blush!

Still looking at her feet: "Yeah, I - don't think I mind too much, if people assume we're dating... If - you don't mind." It actually gives her a weird almost glowing feeling in her chest, that probably everyone in this world's looked at them and thought girlfriends.

"I don't. Um. Think I would start dating anyone. But. You're already here? So that's... better."

This is so hard to say coherently, but - "I don't - want to date - other people? Because they wouldn't be - as good as you - but. I don't - want to make things awkward? Because - want to be your sister, more than anything else..."

"That's never going to stop. No matter what else we do."