open

[heavyhead]

who: Noctis and open
what: various open prompts including baby animals at the petting zoo
when: throughout May??
where: the zoo, other miscellaneous places
warnings: nothing

A. zoo/this is technically 2 prompts

[For someone who's only ever held down one job (and not for long), Noctis is doing pretty well at this petting zoo attendant thing. He gets to sit around and pet cute animals for most of his shifts? What's not to love? It almost makes up for having to clean up after them at the end of the day.

He has zero complaints about the uniform, complete with nametag, either. Actually this is probably the best part of this job.

What's not so great is how many people he has to talk to and supposedly educate, because damn, he is not great at that. The little kids are easily entertained enough, aside from the precocious ones who keep trying to correct his Animal Facts(tm), but it's a lot harder to remember everything he has to say about the various animals in the petting zoo area when there are actual adults around... He has petting zoo stage fright.

But he tries. Mostly, to varying degrees.

If you come by the petting zoo in the morning, when he's giving it his best shot, you'll probably catch him holding, at the same time, a bunny and a rough-looking, folded-and-unfolded-too-much piece of paper. The bunny is quite literally tucked into the crook of his arm, while he frowns at the paper and flounders.]

Okay, so this type of bunny— rabbit, this type of rabbit usually lives in, uh... [please save him, ask a question or something.]

[ORRRR if you come by later in the day, when he's just tired and wants to clock out and go, he'll hold up what looks mostly like a baby alligator, but for some reason, orange, and sigh.] You want to hold a lizard?

[professional.]

B. not the zoo

[When he's not at work, Noctis can be found loitering in public spaces like shopping centers and food courts, minding his own business and playing on his phone... or buying too many fishing lures at a time, or actually standing around looking like he might want to talk to someone.

The thing is: he had shit to do at home and it was pretty dang important, and now he's here and as much as he'd like to stay in his room and sleep all the time, there are people there and so he needs something else to keep busy. Which is dreadful in and of itself, but finding something to do besides mobile games? Even worse. He's compromised and gone back to the only thing he knows how to do: favors for other people. So while he loiters, there's a little sign set next to him that just says 'ODD JOBS' on it in marker. Hire him to pick vegetables or something.

He's still wearing the lion hat.]

C. etc?!

[plotting available @melodrama!]

Comments

[heavyhead]

You'd be surprised. [It's part of the job description to stan for all lizards, so please, come with him to the lizard tank to hear his lizard talk. There are indeed three more, two tiny, palm-sized ones that are red and green, respectively, and one bigger than Lizzy that's striped black and brown and cares even less than she does.

Noctis will helpfully point them out, starting with the red,] I didn't name any of these, but this one's Flame and that one's Leafy, and the big guy's—Spot.

[it's striped. he's ashamed by proxy again.]

[followhim]

[he laughs at spot's name with all the glee of someone who genuinely enjoys shitty puns.] Spot? That's awful! [he's still laughing tho. but it's ok, he calms down after a second.] I guess ... something like this, it's for kids, right? The names are supposed to be funny to kids. [and grown adults like poe dameron.]

[heavyhead]

[Honestly, Noctis can't tell if that laugh is genuine enjoyment or genuine mockery of the other staff's naming abilities, but he doesn't really care. Someone is getting some joy out of Spot the striped lizard.]

Don't worry, the kids love yelling that he doesn't have any spots, too. Over and over.

[followhim]

[teasing, but good-naturedly] Sounds like you've got your work cut out for you around here. Think you can handle it?

[heavyhead]

[He's capable, he swears...] Haven't gotten in trouble yet. I'm so reliable it hurts.

[followhim]

Yeah? I'm glad to hear it. Reliability's something I look for in members of my crew.

[lmao he is not living the delusion that he'll be able to get a ship and go into space around here anytime soon, but that's not gonna stop him from keeping the dream alive with someone who humors him about it ok!!!]

[heavyhead]

[Oh- that. Noctis laughs a little sheepishly, kind of embarrassed about how excited he got about space... but,] Thanks. I'm fighting the good fight, I guess.

[against zoo animals and elementary schoolers]

[followhim]

[i mean ... poe is still excited about space and space is literally his life so. it's fine. NO EMBARRASSMENT NEEDED.] That's the spirit. We're just putting in time until we can get to the things we really want. It'll all work out in the end.

[heavyhead]

Yeah. Something like that. [He just- won't stop and think too deeply about what things he'd really like to get to, since none of them are here. Hm.]

So, you like- goats? [He has a job to do, okay.]

[followhim]

[oh right. goats. the whole petting zoo thing.] Sure! I'd love to see some goats.

[heavyhead]

Right, then— [He holds out his hands. Time to give up Lizzy, bud.] I'm gonna need my lizard back. You can visit her some other time.

[followhim]

Oh, right. [he gently picks lizzy up off his shoulder and hands her back to noctis.] Until next time, tiny friend.

[heavyhead]

[Lizzy is free of these nerds now, and Noctis will lead the way to the goat pen. There are about seven of them - or six, they're excitable and hard to count as a result, so he doesn't immediately try picking one up.

Instead, he shows Poe a hand-crank machine full of feed pellets. Behold.]

I'll be honest, I don't know any of their names. But they love to eat.

[followhim]

Ha! Who doesn't? [that said, he cranks out some pellets into his hands and gets ready for this goat feeding experience. he holds his hand out into the pen, and one of the goats starts ravenously devouring the pellets. UNTIL another goat comes over and nudges the first goat away like hey fuck you these are my pellets now. poe thinks it's hilarious, it's fine.]