How Green Becomes Wood

"So it can inspire me in my work," Dark replied, lifting Ivy up off the ground quickly enough to make her squeal, "Right, Tifla? And if you ever draw me pictures of creatures, Baba will carve them for you and make them real."

~~

Cooger chuckled, acting like she was asking just sooooo much of him, and then lifted up a significant portion of scrap metal to help carry it for her.
 
"If she turns out half as artistic as you, you're going to have to spread it around," Alec chuckled. He pointed to a sign. "Gift shop that way! Not even I can mess that one up."

Xander glanced at Dark and Daizi. "I wonder if getting him a girlfriend will be like getting him a guide person."

~~

Lex made no secret of admiring his strength, playing it up comically for effect. She gathered what was left and followed Cooger, grinning and honestly enjoying the sight of him helping her out. The muscles were nice, too.
 
"Will you be artistic?" Dark asked Ivy sweetly, pausing his stride so he could look her in the eyes, "What do you think, Tifla?"

"It'd be very rebellious of her not to be, given this family," Daizi chuckled.

~~

Cooger absolutely knew she was playing things up a bit, but it was still flattering and made him feel good about himself. It was no harm to flex a little bit in response!
 
"Is that true?" Dark asked his daughter, "Will you be incredibly artistic?"

Ivy just grinned at him, and reaching out, stole his Sad Dad hat right off of his head and put it on herself. Naturally, the hat dropped right down and covered the entire top half of her head.

"Oh no," Dark replied, and although his expression hardly changed at all, he felt certain he was doing an excellent job at looking utterly shocked, "You stole my hat, you are a thief, not an artist!"
 
"It seems she was caught pretty quickly," Daizi laughed, putting together what must have happened.

"Can Ivy-Qadira even see?" Dark asked, tipping the hat backwards on her head so her eyes were visible, "There is Ivy-Qadira!" Ivy laughed at him and then pulled the hat back down over her eyes.
 
"She might be," Daizi laughs, "But she steals my sunglasses all the time."

As they continued to walk to the gift shop, Dark kept tipping the hat backwards to show Ivy's face, which kept making her laugh and hide it again. He guessed once they were in the gift shop with so many toys to tempt her, she wouldn't be as interested in this game, but for the meanwhile, it was heartwarming to see her so easily amused.
 
"Fun stuff!" Alec cheered and dove into the gift shop with abandon. He would be good and not try to buy half the store, but looking and pretending like he could buy anything and everything gave him a lot of joy. Even if he only walked out with something small like a magnet.

Xander frowned and studied the shop, developing a plan of attack before marching in. He had very specific things he would consider buying. If he couldn't find them, he would buy nothing.
 
Neither adult cared much about buying themselves something, but they did look forward to buying something for whichever of their children wanted a souvenir. Naturally, they brought Ivy over to the big wall of stuffed animals so she could make a decision. On a usual day, they didn't show her so many choices so as to not overwhelm her but this didn't seem to be a usual day.
 
Xander found a very nice magnet that could work to be a souvenir for Ivy's first visit, and he took it to Alec to approve it, which he did. Alec showed Xander a desert tortoise plush that was far more reasonably sized than the real tortoises they'd been petting, wanting very much for Xander to get it. Xander said he'd consider it, and Alec turned to survey the collection of "Save the Chubby Unicorn" merchandise. He really wanted to get one, but he wasn't sure which. Bag? Shirt? Mug? Xander went looking for a Przewalski horse piece of merch, but out of everything he saw, he couldn't find anything related to the wild horse, and he wasn't in love with anything zebra. It looked like he was probably going to get the tortoise, which did, in fact, amuse him, but he kept browsing idly in case anything else begged to be taken home.
 
Inside the giftshop, Dark did keep his eyes open for the horse Xander loved, and was disappointed not to see one. Zoos really ought to stock something representing their more unique animals for the sake of the visitors who loved them best.

Ivy, meanwhile, didn't take much time at all in deciding. There was a grey dolphin half the size of her on the shelf. The moment she saw it, she picked it up, squeezed it in a hug, and excitedly exclaimed "Offin! Mama, offin!"
 
Both twins could hear Ivy's excited exclamations and grinned. Sounded like someone had found their first obsession! Xander had decided that since he couldn't find anything horse-related that he loved, he did want to get a toy tortoise. He doubted he'd ever get a real one, and a toy one could be fun. As he did so, he stumbled across a different section he hadn't noticed before and stopped short. Now this warranted study!

After a while, Alec went to find his father. "I can't pick. Could you help me out? I want a 'Save the Chubby Unicorns' thing, but there's too many options!"
 
"How are we going to convince her to let go of it to buy it?" Daizi asked, kneeling beside her daughter to share in her joy.

"Maybe if we all make a big show of handing the other items over," Dark suggested, watching as Ivy pressed her face against the dolphin, "In the worst case, she will just need to be upset for one minute, she will survive it." Then he turned to Alec to help him make a decision. Personally, he wasn't particularly fond of the slogan but it wasn't about him. "I would not go with the bag, I do not think you would use it often with the other bags you already own."
 
"That's a good point," Alec mused. "I like the travelers' mugs and water bottles, but I'm afraid I'd just lose them. I could do a shirt, but I have a lot of shirts. Maybe a hat? Oh! What about this one?" He picked up a pastel rainbow colored baseball cap that was designed to look like a rhino's face, complete with big eyes, a sparkly horn on the bill, and a pair of little ears. He wasn't sure he actually wanted it, but it would be worth seeing Dark's face!
 
Unfortunately for Alec, Dark had grown so accustomed to his son's unique, colourful fashion sense, his only reaction was to say, "It looks like it suits you, although you do not often wear hats," and had no other strong reaction to the silly, colourful chapeau.
 
Well, that was a letdown, but Alec figured he should have seen that coming. "True, I do not often wear hats," he agreed with a grin. "Alright, no hats, then, although this one is adorable." He returned it to the shelf.

"Hey, other me," Xander called. "Come check this out before you settle on something."

Alec glanced over, puzzled, but shrugged. "Okay." He looked up at his father. "Excuse me, Ba. Mr. Bossy over there wants to talk to me." He headed over to see what Xander had found. "What's up?"

Xander gestured to the shelf before him. "Wanna go halves? We've always wanted one."

Alec looked, and his eyes widened. "Ooooo, Yes! Yes, I absolutely do!" he breathed excitedly. "And now we have grown-up money, so we can buy one!"

Xander grinned, and the pair started looking over the ever-taunting science kits, most of them by NatGeo. Chemistry sets, crystal growing kits, and geology "dig" kits and more!
 
"A childhood dream coming to fulfillment," Alec told her. "Science kits! They always looked so incredible when we'd walk past them in any store, but we could never get one. Today! We are going to get one!"

"If we can pick. These things had better be worth the hype that's built up in my brain," Xander grumbled as he looked between a science magic kit and a geod polishing kit.

"If we got a chemistry kit, we could probably keep using it," Alec mused. "But if we got one of those crystal grow things, we could keep what we grow!"
 
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