“Come on girl, it’s showtime.”

Brienne wondered if Sparkles understood her, or if she had just come to recognize the rhythms of their days. Brienne knew it was natural to anthropomorphize in these situations. She wouldn’t be the first trainer to think she had some unique bond with an animal and start to ascribe it intelligence it could never actually attain. And that could be dangerous — the day you started thinking about an animal like a person was the day before it took your arm off.

But, on the other hand, who knew with Sparkles? It wasn’t like a bear or something that had been part of human culture since time immemorial. Sparkles had been caught on a voyage a year ago, and had spent most of her life since then with Brienne. Brienne supposed that made her the world’s leading expert on whatever species Sparkles was, so she had more right to anthropomorphize it than anyone.

And Sparkles really did seem to know what was about to happen. It shifted a bit on its paws, pulled its wings together behind it, and lowered its head. It was impossible not to read it as thinking, “Ok, here we go again, let’s get it over with.”

Or maybe Brienne was projecting.

She tried not to grumble. The Expedition of the Seas was actually a pretty good gig. It paid well, especially given that your expenses were essentially nil. But because it did such short cruises and always came back to Bermuda, it was possible to actually have a bit of a life, comparerd with the 9-month terms of workers on traditional cruises, or even the ones that did the New York to Bermuda to Triangle to New York loop. See friends between voyages, have a bar where you were a regular, that kind of thing. Sure, you had to do it in Bermuda, but there were enough weirdos like her working for someone to make that workable.

And she had a role to fill, as did Sparkles. Pretty much as soon as the Triangle opened, someone had the idea to ram a cruise ship through it. They would have regardless, but the fact that it was literally in Bermuda was too convenient. And consumer demand was huge.

But there was an obvious problem with a Triangle cruise: you had no idea what was on any of these weird islands. You couldn’t just let people down onto a beach if it was going to be filled with poisonous crabs or predatory seaweed. Cruise ship passengers could barely handle a buffet without hurting themselves. LEtting them wander untamed shores was just a complete nonstarter.

So Triangle cruises didn’t actually let the passengers off the ship. They would look around, enjoy their meals, swim in the pool, take some photos, and so on. And people were pretty happy with that, mostly. But they needed something. They didn’t need to actually explore, but it wasn’t going to be enough to just see a landscape.

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

That’s what Brienne and Sparkles offered them. Along with a bunch of others, of course — Triangle sourced food in the extra-fee restaurants, some fancy cocktails using Triangle-distilled liquor, and a gift shop where you could by shells and fossils from Triangle expeditions. But the showstopper, the thing that they all showed photos of when they got back, were the animals. And Sparkles was a star.

Her music finished playing, and Brienne walked out to applause and gasps at Sparkles sitting on her shoulder. They performed on a small, outdoor stage. Other shows with other animals would use the bigger theater on Deck 5, but Sparkles wasn’t that big and benefited from a more intimate audience with more space to perform.

Brienne waved until the crowd quieted, and then said, “Wow, what a great welcome! Thank you all! I’m Brienne, and I’d like to introduce you to Sparkles!”

Sparkles leapt up into the air at that, and the crowd went wild. Brienne watched her do the loop and reflected on what a tremendous find Sparkles had been. Any cruise animal needed, first and foremost, to be safe, and Sparkles could barely break the skin if she bit, which she didn’t. And it needed to be able to digest conventional food, and Sparkles seemed to eat everything without issue. To be so trainable was an incredible plus.

And she was beautiful. She looked like a silver-furred fox, but with white wings that came off of her back and two shiny patches beneath her eyes. Beyond photogenic, even if Brienne was biased.

Brienne had her patter automatic by now, and didn’t even bother listening to herself talk about the variety of Triangle animals and the made-up nonsense about how Sparkles had tagged along with the humans who visited her island. Instead, she looked at the island they were docked near and thought about what she wanted to do for dinner and if that cute barista might be available.

The audience didn’t notice that Brienne was going through the motions, mostly because they didn’t care about her. They just wanted to see Sparkles fly, and eat treats placed at the top of little poles, and use her little nimble hands to open boxes.

It was maybe because Brienne wasn’t paying attention that she noticed the sound. The cruise wasn’t exactly a quiet environment, but they did their best to limit the ambient noise in the immediate area while Sparkles performed. That’s why Brienne was able to hear the low whooping sound.

But she would have caught it anyway, because of how Sparkles reacted. Her ears shot straight up over her head, and she froze in the middle of her trick. The audience grew silent too. And then Sparkles leapt straight up in the air, way above the crowd, higher than any routine called for.

For a second, Brienne thought Sparkles was leaving. And there was an impulse to let her go, even if Brienne would have been out of a job. But then Brienne noticed the sharp turns Sparkles was making. It looked — and again, she was anthropomorphizing but — it looked like she was scared.

So Brienne blew the whistle she hadn’t had to use regularly since their first months of training. Sparkles looked down at her and began to make short, high-pitched barks that Brienne had never heard before. And then Sparkles dove, head first, onto Brienne’s shirt and clung to it.

The audience gave a standing ovation at what they apparently assumed was a planned dive move. Brienne decided that was as good a chance as any to take a bow and call it a day, leaving before the applause faded.

Sparkles settled a bit once they were back in their room, but she kept chirping all night and didn’t stop until the engines turned on and they left the little island behind.