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It took him a while to find Elliot. Part of that was the fact that Elliot was a much quieter individual. Spotting Suvi in a crowd was comparatively easy, since sooner or later he would hear her making a ruckus. Or, that's how things had been going, anyway. It was how he found her in the bakery, listening for the sound of her chatter. Elliot, on the other hand, didn't seem to talk much when not given a reason to.

He was actually beginning to panic a little when he finally spotted Elliot. The boy was crouched low among some Diosol and the Mocha Pichu he had pointed out earlier. His grey clothes blended in well with the animals, and he was sort of a small kid to begin with. Curled up and tucked into a corner like that, it was easy to see how Dante had missed him the first few times.

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Dante breathed a sigh of relief; it was good that he hadn't left the area. He'd trust Elliot to know not to split up, of course, but they had never actually come to a formal agreement about anything. They were just three separate kids who met up at the same event and sort of hit it off.

He was about to say something to Elliot when a yelp from Suvi's direction caught his attention. He turned around quickly, heart leaping into his throat. Had something happened? But no--- Suvi was giggling now, and it was only that the Torken had endeavored to start licking her face. “Hey, stop that, silly,” she said, but her attempts to push its nose away had no real strength in them. It just nudged her hand aside and continued to lick. She backed away one step, but it just closed the distance by taking another step forward. Dante couldn't help but smile at the sight.

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“Looks like he's tasting crumbs on your face,” he said aloud. Suvi turned slightly to look at him, forcing the Torken to shift its angle of attack.

“Oh yeah? You should come here then. You've got way more crumbs on your face,” she said, pointing a finger at him. Dante raised a hand and rubbed at his cheek self-consciously, while Suvi laughed. “Ha, made you look! Ack!” The Torken took advantage of her distraction to bowl her over, and was now licking her face all over.

Dante laughed. “I think it likes you,” he said.

“Oh no! Doomed by my own irresistability!” said Suvi. Her attempt to swoon dramatically was thwarted by her uncontrollable giggling. Well, that and the fact that if she leaned back, the Torken leaned into her, making for rather precarious swooning conditions.

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Hearing all the commotion, Elliot looked up from where he had been preoccupied with the smaller animals. He had quietly bought a bag of feed with what little change he had. He knew the animals were fed and taken care of regardless of what they did, but he couldn't quite say no to their begging eyes. “Alright,” he said to a Diosol, who was nibbling insistently on his fingers. “Just a moment. Be patient.” The Diosol ignored him, of course, and persisted in its nibbling. Still, he had to admit that he was evidently doing better than poor Suvi. If she didn't do something soon, there might not be much left of her but a pile of Torken slobber.

“But you wouldn't do that to me, would you?” he said to the bunny in his lap. It shoved its nose into his outstretched hand, and he idly fed it a bit of dandelion green.

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The Diosol nibbled at it delicately, content for the moment to let Elliot stroke his hand along its back. The bunny had been slow to warm up to him at first, but as soon as it had seen the food in his hands, all pretences of shyness vanished like smoke in the wind. Now it guarded its spot on his lap with a great deal of enthusiasm.

That didn't mean he wouldn't feed the others, of course. Whatever the Diosol in his lap might have thought, he was determined that the food got around. He left off petting the bunny to hold out a piece of carrot to another. This was the only way to feed the animals who weren't currently king of the Elliot mountain. If he tried to feed any of the rest while the Diosol in his lap wasn't occupied, it would immediately try to go for the piece of food he was holding.

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“You're just a little glutton, aren't you?” he said to the Diosol. “You won't be little for much longer if you keep eating like that.” As it had done before, however, the bunny ignored him in favor of eating more.

He thought he had only been occupied with the bunnies for a little while, but Suvi and Dante nearly startled him by walking up. “Elliot!” she said, waving from a distance. He jumped up slightly in his seat, and all the attendant animals picked up their ears, set on edge.

“Shhh, it's okay,” he said to them, petting one and then another to soothe it. “I was just a little surprised, that's all.” They did subside, though some more slowly than others. They weren't wholly welcoming of the newcomers when they drew close, however. Maybe it was because they were prey animals, but they didn't see a lot to trust in these two. Or maybe it was just that they had come without offerings to share.

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Suvi took a gander at the gathered Diosol. “Wow, they really like you, huh? Oh, nevermind. You just have food. I was about to ask how you made friends so quickly.”

“Speaking of,” said Elliot. “Help?” He picked up the Diosol on his lap and held it out to either of them beseechingly. Suvi looked at Dante, not really sure what Elliot wanted. Dante shrugged and held out his hands, taking the bunny from Elliot. Smiling in relief, Elliot said, “Thanks. That one's real greedy. I haven't been able to feed the others as much as I want because he keeps trying to take their food.”

“She, actually,” said Dante, peering at the underbelly of the bunny. It squirmed in his grip, apparently offended by his scrutiny. “I'm sorry, milady, to have offended your delicate manners.” He stroked the Diosol's ears, and it calmed a bit, happier to have attention at least, if not things to eat.

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Suvi piped up: “Oooh, do you think it's pregnant? Pregnant ladies always want to eat everything, right? Maybe she's going to have babies!” She looked askance at Dante, who frowned at her.

“Don't look at me. I don't know how to tell,” he said.

“How come? You could tell she was a girl,” Suvi retorted.

Dante shook his head. “That's easier. I can probably tell if she's heavily pregnant, since she'd be a lot bigger than the others and her abdomen will show the signs, but she's not like that. If it's an early stage of pregnancy, I'm just as clueless as you are.”

“Did you study Diosol? Is that how you can tell?” Elliot asked. He was pulling the Mocha Pichu into his lap, having tempted it closer with a morsel. This was his true scheme in getting Dante to take the Diosol off his hands. They were cute, but he had wanted to feel the fabled softness of the Mocha Pichu fur. He hadn't had much opportunity to do so until just now.

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Dante smiled and said, “Not exactly. I'm apprenticed to a medic. They were short-staffed at a livestock healer's place once, and we pitched in for a while. I wasn't actually allowed to do much, since I barely knew the craft about people back then, let alone animals. I learned a lot though,” he mused.

It had been a hectic time, and he had been amazed at how his mentor had been able to keep his composure. Animals were, at least at first, much more daunting to Dante than people. People could tell him this or that, while he had to learn to read each animal's particular signs of distress or relief. But he did learn how to sex Diosols, in the midst of that. Mammals, allowing for a particular size threshold, weren't terribly challenging compared to some of the other things he saw.

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Suvi was crouching down to get a better look at the bunnies. They shied away from her hands, and after a few attempts at nabbing one, she eventually gave up. “I don't think they like me,” she said. “Here, give me one of those.” She held her hand out to Elliot, who obligingly handed over a dried clover bloom. One of the nearer Diosol slowly crept closer to Suvi as she held the tidbit out to it. Her gaze was intent on the bunny, her tongue sticking slightly out of her mouth. Just a little closer... A little more... There!

Only when she had secured it in her arms did she turn her attention back to Dante. “Did you have to deliver a lot of baby animals? We've got someone like that back at the Estate.” She didn't know them personally, but occasionally there were stories passed around about a particularly risky birth. Sometimes an animal died, but not very often.

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Neither boy batted an eyelash at her mention of an estate. Dante was another case of someone who had grown up with a great deal of luxury and seclusion, so it hardly seemed unusual to him. Elliot, for his part, had suspected for some time that she came from money. There had been something about the way Sivain had spoken and held himself, and the fact that they had hired help, even if it was just a cat.

Dante nodded in response to her question. “Not me personally--- it was mostly my mentor. But yes, that was a lot of what we did. The horses are the most intimidating, I think. They're so large.” Despite himself, his face scrunched up a bit in disgust at the memory. His mentor had told him he would get used to things like that, but he wasn't there yet. “Apparently human births are messier,” he said, quoting what Kenric had told him to try and quell his apprehension at the time. It hadn't helped back then.

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“I believe you,” said Elliot. “I saw pictures of newborn kittens and puppies in a book once, and they're all so small compared to the mom. Human babies are pretty big.”

“Guys, can we talk about something else?” Suvi said, a slight whine creeping into her voice. “We're here to have fun, not to gross each other out. And I'm trying to pet a bunny, you know?”

“Alright,” Elliot said. “What do you want to talk about, then?”

Suvi had to think for a moment on that. She hadn't had a topic prepared. She just wanted them to stop talking about births. The bad birth stories were almost inevitably gross, and she didn't want Dante to get into any grisly details.

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Speaking of Dante, she remembered something he'd said to her before when they were standing in line. Turning to him, she said, “You said before that you came alone, right? How come? I don't think Rhodes or Sivvy would let me come here without anyone to look after me, even though it's safe.” She had thought it was a rather restrictive way to live. Maybe if Dante told her his secrets, she could convince them to let her do stuff on her own once in a while. Then she'd have somewhere to go, at least, the next time they decided to take a long trip without her.

Dante's hand paused where it had been stroking the bunny, and his shoulders went tense again, like they had before. Even the Diosol in his arms shifted restlessly now, sensing his unease. “Oh, um. Well... My mentor was busy. It's the season where kids get sick, so he thought he would watch the practice... He sent me out to take a break,” Dante said.

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His words made sense, and Suvi would have accepted them without suspicion otherwise, but there was that same awkward stiffness she had heard earlier in line at the bakery. It wasn't the first time either. There had been several incidences already in their short acquaintance where she sensed that something was off about what he was saying.

She gave him a long, considering look before finally speaking. “Look, you don't have to tell us things if you can't, or really don't want to. But we're not the police or anything. If you... ran away from home or something and you don't want to go back, we won't tell anyone. Pinky promise.” She held out her pinky solemnly, the picture of seriousness. She wasn't the type to make these promises lightly. As far as she was concerned, pinky swears were sacred--- something her little family had done its best to preserve.

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Dante was visibly taken aback by her words. He hadn't thought himself so obvious in his deceptions, but in retrospect he supposed he ought to have anticipated this. He was never a very talented liar. He had thought fellow children should be easier to fool, but Blue had told him that those with clear consciences sometimes saw through falsehoods much more readily than others. He opened his mouth to say something, but he hadn't yet decided what he meant to say. The result was he simply stood there with his mouth agape, unable to formulate words, for several seconds.

They waited for him anyway. Suvi had said what she had wanted to say, and Elliot was the kind of child who understood the importance of silence. Eventually, Dante found his train of thought again, and cleared his throat to hide his embarrassment. “... Yes... thank you. I, um. I'm sorry to have... It's a little like what you guessed, but more complicated. I ought to tell you what I can, I suppose--- it is only fair.”

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