.011 [Video]

[grace_optional]

[Anna is walking along the outskirts of the marketplace. She has a basket on her arm, and she looks...nervous.]

[She stops walking and glances behind her, then carries on. Behind her, visible in brief glimpses, are these, waddling after her in a line as she moves and crowding to a halt when she stops again.]

[In an apprehensive undertone,] ...

Comments

[;Video]

[godlessblossom]

[She simply stares for a good thirty seconds.]

Those are so cute.

[Video]

[grace_optional]

[Anna starts walking again, at a rapid clip, and the ducklings pick up their pace, waddling after as fast as their little webbed feet can carry them. She glances back and stops again as they start to fall behind, making a frustrated sound.]

Yeah, but they're evil. They have to be. The whole town's being overrun with cute and it never ends well. They'll wind up attacking people or molting spontaneously combusting feathers or turn into Velociraptors or something horrible. But I can't just leave them here...

[Video]

[godlessblossom]

[It is a moment before she actually comprehends what is being said. She is too busy thinking of how adorable the ducks are and wanting one.]

Right. Of course they are. The other problem is that I do not see anybody willing to kill a cute animal before it does attack.

[Video]

[grace_optional]

No. I'm sure that's all part of the plan. [She glares at the insidious balls of fuzzy doom as they crowd around her feet with a chorus of plaintive peeping quacks.] Great. I think they're hungry. What do ducklings eat?

[Video]

[to_rebel]

[Dryly:] They might.

[Video]

[grace_optional]

[Helplessly] I don't know what to do with them. They won't stop following me and I can't just leave the poor things out here. But I'm afraid they're gonna turn into tiny harbingers of downy yellow death the minute I let my guard down.

[Dammit Hades, this is your fault, you sadistic sonofabitch. Can't even squee over the cute without having a nervous breakdown.]

[Video]

[to_rebel]

[There's a very simple solution.] Don't let your guard down.

[Of course, he says this while idly scratching his own kitten.]

[Video]

[grace_optional]

[Thanks Cas, that's ever so helpful.] Easy for you to say, you already know yours isn't booby-trapped. Hi, Leppard.

...whoa! [The tablet suddenly drops with a clatter as she dodges back toward the ducklings, and is picked up a moment later to show Anna, looking thoroughly disgruntled and holding one of the baby birds carefully.] Sorry about that. He almost went down a street grate.

Re: || Video ||

[grace_optional]

[She eyes the ducklings and pig-things alike worriedly.] Or sprout wings. (Well, working wings.) Or grow. I don't know whether the law of conservation of mass applies or not...

|| Video ||

[grace_optional]

Probably...

Oh. Sorry, it's a rule where I come from, supposed to be one of the immutable physical laws of how the universe functions. Basically it means you can change the shape and size and density of a thing, but not the actual amount of stuff that's in it. Like how if you blow a balloon up, you don't actually get more balloon, it just stretches?

But magic and godly powers tend to trump the laws of physics, so there's no telling whether these things could suddenly be fifty times as big with razor-sharp beaks and wing-mounted cannons or...gosh, I don't even know. Be careful of your piggy things, anyway.

[Video]

[neverabard]

[They are adorable... but he tries to keep a straight face.]

They don't look like they're going to eat you, why would you think that?

[Video]

[grace_optional]

[Morosely, resuming her walk (but slow enough for the ducklings to keep up)] Because everything down here has a dark side.

The flufflumps were adorable, too, and they made everybody happy and calm and didn't hurt a soul, but they ate every speck of food in the place. And broke Cas's coffee pot. We get plants, and they possess people and turn them into killer zombies. It rains, and it turns into a hurricane and we get a cave full of monsters. Nothing nice ever happens here unless it's going to go horribly wrong somehow.

[Video]

[neverabard]

[Oh, that last part flipped his angst switch to 'ON']

That's the way life works...

[ video ]

[clairedanvers]

I don't think there will be any face eating. They're really cute.

[ video ]

[grace_optional]

I hope you're right, but it's never a good idea to turn our backs on anything this place throws at us. It always goes south somehow no matter how nice it starts out.

[ video ]

[clairedanvers]

You have a point. [She looks at the baby turtle in her palm warily.] But I'm kind of hoping I'm right too. Cute things shouldn't be dangerous. That's not playing fair.

[ video ]

[grace_optional]

Tell me about it. [Anna has to smile at the turtle.] Hard to see how that little guy could be much of a threat. But keep a close eye on him, anyway.