Pet Merely a Pebble from the Cave of Caerbannog solo

22.07.2022
Magical Menagerie, Diagon Alley, London

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Oh, this was exciting. Exciting! For all that the whole shopping for school stuff had already been exhilarating enough, and this was technically over half a year overdue, Glenys was practically bouncing around her dads as soon as they told her that they would now be going to the Magical Menagerie for her very late birthday present.

She'd gotten the promise of a pet if she wanted one to take to school on her birthday back on November. And for all that she was eager to have one NOW - she always wanted a pet and Merlot didn't exactly count - she hadn't wanted to just go into the next pet store and buy one. Nor had she wanted to go an animal shelter to pick one there, not when she had the chance to choose one in Diagon Alley. Granted, it was still more likely for her to get a normal animal than a magical one, but she was going to Hogwarts! Besides, they still had Merlot but if she wanted a post owl, that wasn't something you could get in a normal Muggle place.

She hadn't expected it to take quite that long, though, in all honesty. Back when she said that she wanted to wait for the trip to the alleys, the plan had still been to go in January. She couldn't have known that that plan would fall through due to what her papa would call outside influences. But she had said so and she had been determined to stick to that decision.

(On the plus side, getting a pet late meant she didn't have to explain what would happen to it once she went to school. Lou's boarding school certainly did not allow pets to be brought along.)

That was the one thing she hated about going to Hogwarts: the facts that she couldn't talk to her friends about it. She understood the need for secrecy on am abstract level but these were here friends and it sucked to have to keep so much from them.

But this wasn't the time for bad thoughts, she was about to finally get her pet(!) whatever it might turn out to be. Part of Glenys hoped for something really colourful but since that often meant said thing to be poisonous/venomous/toxic, she wasn't really holding out that much hope. And she knew that she did not want a pygmy puff at least even if she didn't really know what she wanted yet.

She had thought about it long and hard but hadn't come to a final conclusion. A cat could be cool but on the other hand she was familiar with their neighbour's cat, too, and that one was a b... Not all of them were great companions. A fish or something equally as boring was also a no go. Sure, fishes could be amazingly colourful and look super super pretty but she wanted a pet that she could ... pet, pun notwithstanding. A spider wasn't really on her list of potentials but she also wasn't scared of those so she hadn't completely discarded the possibility. Still not really something to pet, so unlikely.

But she was getting ahead of herself. She had thought long and hard about it before, yes, but now was not really the time to reminisce about all the options. It was time to go and see! Time to check out what the shop had in store.

Grabbing her dad's arm, she excitedly dragged him to the shop and her papa followed along chuckling at her enthusiasm. Glen barely restrained herself from throwing the door open, but despite her fervour she didn't want to startle the animals inside.

They weren't the only people inside so Glenys could spend some time browsing without interruption aside from stepping around some other customers. She took her time taking in all the options, and offered her hand to a few of the animals to sniff. She petted a cat or kneazle or two, scratched some dog behind its ears, even slid her finger down a snake's back but none of them stood out to her. Many, many of them were great but since she couldn't have all of them ...

"What about this one?", her papa asked about one of the (baby) bearded dragons that was currently climbing over the back of his hand, making her dad chuckle: "It seems to like you more than her, love." Silently agreeing with her dad, Glen only shook her head. "Ach, I suppose you're right. Still 'tis a curious fellow. "

Glenys was in many things a pretty decisive person but evidently not when it came to choosing pets. (Could she really not just have the whole stock? Oh, who was she kidding. She wasn't naive enough to think that that would actually be a good idea.)

"What about - oh, never mind." Her dad had been pointing toward a small kitten but just as he had begun to ask, the kitten had gotten picked up by a boy maybe three or four years her senior, and carried to the counter.

The kitten was adorable but no longer an option and so Glenys only shrugged. "There are too many options!", she groaned.

The longer Glenys took to find the best possible companion, the more it looked like they'd be leaving with not one but two animals, as her papa kept circling back to that one bearded dragon. And her dad's rejection of the idea was less and less obvious in his demeanor. He hadn't said anything, but when he first noticed papa circling back, he seemed really adverse to it to Glen's eyes.

But whether or not her dads were getting a pet did not help her, at all. Ugh. By now she had narrowed it down to either a cat or a rat or a ferret or a rabbit. Something with fur that was not a pygmy puff. Probably. If her grandma was here, she'd most likely vehemently veto both the rat and the ferret idea. But they were so cute, too. She was really lucky that they weren't in a time crunch and her dads didn't urge her to hurry, either. They'd probably already spent a truly unnecessarily long amount of time in here.

In the end, it wasn't really Glenys that made the decision to pick a pet, more like the pet kinda picked her. She was in the middle of contemplating a gorgeous lionhead thumper, when she heard an angry cat-sounding hiss to the side and as she turned, a small dark blur came leaping at her. It was mere reflex that made her somehow catch the tiny rabbit that had apparently judged her to be safer than an annoyed cat. She also had a cat now angrily hissing at her feet instead of the bunny, but she was too distracted to really take notice.

The thing was adorable. A teeny tiny rabbit. In the dim-ish light of the shop, it was an anthracite grey colour, almost dark enough to be mistaken for black fur. It seemed completely unbothered by her, and sat relaxed in her arms. Its nose was twitching slightly, twitching again, and then it raised its front paws to its clean itself.

Glenys froze.

She was scared to move wrong and accidentally dislodge the darling. Sitting as it was on her arms couldn't be the most secure position and only on his hindlegs?? While slightly wobbling from the cleaning motions? Glen was almost scared to breathe too deeply. She wasn't internally panicking at all. Nope. Not at all. Everything was fine and dandy. Yep.

Phew. It seemed the little one was done cleaning itself for the moment and settled back down. Very, very carefully, Glenys moved her arms into a more secure hold and went to seek out her parents who were --- checking on a tortoise?? It looked kinda like one, at least that was the closest descriptor that came to mind.

"Did you find something, love?", her papa asked once he noticed her approach. She half-nodded, half-shrugged. "Found something a much as it found me, kind of. But look!" Glenys carefully showed off her new treasure. Soon-to-be treasure?, no matter. "OH, that is adorable.", her dad commented as he slowly - so as not to spook the bun - reached out to softly pet it. "So this the one?" Glenys nodded frantically, while still trying to hold still otherwise. "Yep!"

Greg slung an arm around her shoulder and steered her toward the counter, where he spoke with the shopkeeper about purchasing the apparent 'mist hopper' and the 'requisite supplies', but Glenys wasn't really paying attention to the details, too enchanted by her new friend. She would have to think of a good name for it. "Is this a girl or a boy?", she blurted into the middle of her papa's conversation. She needed to know! How else could choose a proper name?

"May I?", the shopkeeper asked kindly, before reaching over and taking the rabbit from her to give it a quick check over to make sure everything was fine with it - and to check the gender. "It's a male.", he handed the bunny back over and Glenys promptly stopped paying attention again, going through names in her head.

Once they left the store (her papa having handled the purchasing and her dad now carrying most of the supplies) her dads also provided ideas. Things like Nebel¹, Usagi or Kanína², were momentarily considered and almost immediately discarded, the same with things like Misty, Roger the Rabbit and many more. The name Glenys chose in the end came from a joking comment from her dad: "If it weren't for the ears one could almost mistake it for a pebble, albeit an adorable one, tiny and grey that your friend there is."

At some point - probably because the noise of the alleys became too much - the mist hopper migrated from Glenys' arms to the pocket of her dress.

Her dads had not bought the bearded dragon. (Yet.)

¹German for fog or mist
²Japanese and Icelandic for rabbit respectively; the latter was suggested by Greg

WC: 1675

OoC note: Despite what I named this thread, Glenys' mist hopper is in no way a killer rabbit.

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What animal do you wish to purchase? Mist Hopper (Bunny)
What do you want to name it? Pebble
Is this a boy or a girl? boy
What is your pet's date of birth? 25.05.2022