Ttaa 32) Otherworld horrors.
Returnees often bring stuff back with them.
Wealth, tools, books, and other gear. And sometimes friends, lovers, and even children.
A guy I’m going to call Farmer John from the Worldsfair brought back a lot of seeds, and even cuttings and potted plants. Some of which he was able to grow to seed her and I got some of those plants growing in my back yard, which are not only tasty but are raising the background amount of magic in my neighborhood according to Aza.
But she assured me that it wouldn't do something like create a spirit from the oak tree down the street or anything else like that.
Not for years from now at least.
But carefully chosen domesticated plants are one thing, animals are another.
Yesterday I attended the grand opening of the Little Shoppe of Harold’s.
They have dragons, for sale.
The owner held up a tiny winged lizards in the palm of his hand, it looked up from where it had been gnawing on his thumb up at me and let out a few chirping sounds.
The older looking man with solid blue glowing eyes smiled. "They aren't real dragons, or at least dragons claim they aren't. They are only about as smart as an ape, and other than hoarding, they make great pets. Very popular where I come from, but you do want to get their venom sacks clipped if you don't want them spraying other animals or people they don't like."
Venom. “How dangerous is it?”
He set the dragon back in a large fish tank with about another dozen similar creatures in a variety of bright colors. Sort of like beta fish but are able to mix in and play fight around the old Fisher Price castle play set in there with them.
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The owner shrugged. "About the same as pepper spray, so painful, but no permanent harm. Other than to fabrics, it can bleach colors out if you don't wash them quick."
Harold Abelard is pretty cagey when it comes to talking about himself. The store isn’t in his name on the legal papers, but that of a holding company, which is about as far as my skill set or curiosity was willing to follow up on him.
He won’t say if he’s a returnee, of an immigrant. Instead, he only admits that he has spent time on Earth and several other worlds. And that he’s collected pets from all of them.
He does in fact have pets for sale even from Earth. Some actual Beta fish, along with transparent slugs keep their tanks clean without the bred to be psychotically violent fish getting triggered to attack them.
While those are on the back shelf, and the dragon, or dragonets as I suggested, are the main attraction, he had several other types of animal for sale.
Kittens with feathered wings that he calls Spinxes, for which I suggested Kitty Hawks. Brightly colored fuzzy spiders the size of small dogs, and as playful, even playing fetch when Harold took one of them out of their enclosure and had me play with it.
"The Octibles are great pets, a lot like dogs and much tougher than tarantulas, but I haven't had much in the way of sales, no matter how much some of the kids fall in love with them.”
I hate the name he came up with, but I don’t have a better suggestion.
Although I am tempted by the Ursins, small guinea pig sized bears with blue fur, I had to pass despite Harold’s offer of taking one for free. I can’t really commit to taking care of a pet, and…
"I don't see how anyone can count on keeping any of these. Invasive species are a big issue, and if a breeding pair of any of these guys gets loose… Well, I think they might all get rounded up soon and I'm not sure how much longer it's going to be before you get shut down."
Harold's eyes narrowed as he gave me a grin. "Ah, but that's why I called you in Mr. Brenner and offered you a free pet. Your post about how the top level people of your world were warned has already begun trickling down the ranks of power, and now the word is out on all levels.”
“I don’t believe anyone is going to interfere in my business anytime soon. And these are all very well behaved pets. I doubt there will be any problems.”
I did take home a sort of plant. It’s more of a service animal that can move around a bit, slowly, as it pretends to be a flowering vine that puts out a faint smell of blood, and then feeds on the mosquitoes and house flies that settle down in the mouths that look like flowers. You have to bring them indoors for the winter when they go dormant, but you don’t have to feed them, just put them in a sunny spot.
Harold calls them Venus Fly Hunters, can’t argue with that.
The only issue with them is that I might have to carefully pull it away from its perch and carry it back to my yard if it slowly creeps off of my property, but since the only ones he's selling are the males, I don't have to worry about…. Puppies? Poppies? Podling?
Imo later found the catalog Harold sent along with me and now she wants a Minicorn, a beagle sized pony looking thing the color of a golden retriever with a single spiral shaped horn.
"Are you going to clean up after it, because you know I'll walk around whatever it drops for days at a time rather than get bothered enough to clean up the mess?"
Imo glared, rolled her eyes, and stomped off to complain about me to her girlfriend, who didn’t want the responsibility of a pet either.
She knows me, and that I would ignore the stink, she was in the house before I cleaned it up for her to live here, and she knows what I consider good enough to call it clean.