[Adelie]

Consider, if you will, the unfortunate situation of one Chi Mirzakhani. It is a fine evening in February, on the cusp of a holiday known for exciting and romantic escapades between lovers and more-than-friends, and she is sitting on the floor surrounded by not the comforting embrace of a significant other, but rather the decidedly uncomforting result of her own hubris.

Theoretically, it's not her fault. Theoretically, she's signed up to assist two classes in one semester before and completed her responsibilities with ease. But theoretically, too, she should've realized that the two professors she was working with this semester had an unfortunate knack for assigning long problem sets full of proof-based questions - and required handwritten answers, to boot.

[Adelie]

It wasn't that she was missing out on anything, not exactly; she didn't have anyone to spend her Valentine's Day with in the first place. By choice, according to her. Because no one would put up with her neurotic personality for long enough, according to her friends.

But she could've at least celebrated something. Like, taking a day off to love herself, for example. Or gorging herself on discount Valentine's chocolate the day after, or whatever. Instead, though, she was spending her beautiful February morning rolling around on her floor, squinting at inkblots on paper, and wondering if this was all just an advanced ploy by some psychology graduate student.

Maybe these were just Rorschach tests instead of actual student answers. Maybe that was at least a more comforting thought than the sad reality that she'd be dealing with this chickenscratch for the rest of the semester. Maybe she should just give up, and hope that none of the students reported her for inappropriate conduct if she just gave them all 0's.

[Adelie]

A loud knock at the door fortunately interrupted her rather unfortunate spiral of anxiety - although it only sent her into another spate of questions. Who dares approach the mighty Chi's lair? Don't they know she's busy? Don't they know she's having a crisis about being sad and alone on Valentine's Day?

She considered the options and comes up with only one possibility for her unexpected visitor - which in itself is a rather depressing fact. It's not like she doesn't have friends - she does, she swears - but most of them aren't the visiting type. Mirny lives halfway across the city and hates humanity too much to ever make a social call. Professor Pascal - and yes, she's counting her professor as a friend now, sue her - is too shy to show up at her home unannounced without a prior letter of invitation, preferably notarized. Most of her other friends don't live in her city, and definitely wouldn't make a special visit just for her.

That left only Ven - but didn't Ven say some girl in her class asked her to hang out for Valentine's Day?

[Adelie]

"Stop deliberating about your tragic lack of friends and let me in," said the voice at the door. The voice at the door does not sound like Ven. It also does not sound like Mirny, or Professor Pascal, or any of the likely suspects - but it does sound terribly familiar.

"What are you doing here, Aster?" Chi demanded, opening the door just a crack to stare at a face she definitely hadn't expected to see. It's not everyday that one of your online friends shows up on your doorstep; it's certainly not everyday that one of your online friends who happens to live an entire continent away visits you for Valentine's Day. A girl could get the wrong impression from this kind of thing, y'know?

"Visiting a friend?" he offered, like that provided any more context to his suspiciously convenient timing. Seeing that the door remained adamantly closed to him he relented, "Okay, fine. My sister's in town but it's Valentine's Day and I'm really not interested in third-wheeling her and her date, so I figured you'd appreciate the company."

[Adelie]

That was a reasonable explanation for his presence, but it still didn't make her particularly inclined to actually let him in. Her apartment was a mess of ungraded problem sets, she hadn't cleaned her room in two weeks, and she was pretty sure the oranges on her kitchen counter were rotting but had yet to work up the courage to investigate them.

"Oh," he said. "I brought chocolates, too."

"Now you're talking," she said, swinging the door open. "Chocolates on Valentine's Day? Now that's a romantic gesture I can accept. What's next, a confession?"

"Gross," he told her, rolling his eyes. "They're secondhand from my sister, too. Apparently, the company that sells these doesn't let you choose the flavor, so she just bought a couple different sets hoping she'd get a good one. Lootbox design, but chocolates."

"Gross," she echoed. "At least we get to benefit from it, I guess."

[Adelie]

"Anyways," she said, returning to the business at hand. "Not sure if you still remember from the last time you were here, but there's the couch. You can use my laptop too, if you want to browse Twitter or something. Or, if you really want to impress me, you can help me grade these homework assignments."

"Who'd want to impress you?" he grumbled, but quickly scooted over to pick up one of the various pieces of paper strewn around the floor. It wasn't like there was much else to do in her apartment - she didn't have a television and her bookshelf was reserved exclusively for textbooks. "You know, I feel like I've seen some of these symbols before in the ancient texts library. Based on my rudimentary analysis, I'd date these to perhaps around 2000BCE. Maybe a little older, if we consider the possibility that early Barakkan hieroglyphs might've proliferated due to trade relationships between nations at the time."

She couldn't help but laugh at that. "Hate to disappoint you, but these are just what my students are turning in in lieu of their homework these days."

[Adelie]

"Disappointing," he said, picking up another wad of student handiwork. This person had helpfully bound their collected scratch papers together with a flower-patterned binder clip and included a bright-pink post-it note with their name and student identification number. "Now this one resembles one of the magic diagrams commonly found on old structures located near Basantha Shrine. Research suggests they were supposed to drive away malicious spirits that allegedly haunted the shrine. Their presence here likely implies that your student is trying to drive out some kind of malicious presence, like a particularly angry homework grader."

That drew another chuckle out of her. Admittedly, her standards for humor weren't particularly high right now, considering the monument of work she'd built in front of her - but it was nice to know that at the very least, she wasn't the only one being frustrated. "You know, sometimes you remind me of this one history professor we have here. Nice guy, but he's always got this really mysterious air about him and if you ask him anything, he always manages to turn it into some strangely specific anecdote about history."

[Adelie]

Maybe there's something Aster wants to say about that, or maybe he just wants to act mysterious about the whole thing - but either way, he doesn't get a chance to because their deep and insightful conversation about cryptic college professors is interrupted by a strange squeak.

"Did you hear that?" Chi said.

"Did I hear what?" Aster said, which seemed quite suspiciously like a lie - because there was that squeak again, much clearer and louder than the first time.

Well, if he wanted to be difficult then so be it. She scanned the room, looking for anything out of place - and suddenly noticed that the pen she'd left on her kitchen table had mysteriously vanished. In its place lay what seemed to be ... fluff.

[Adelie]

Bright pink fluff, to be exact. Which was concerning because she would definitely remember if she owned anything in that particularly bright shade of pink, but also because it didn't exactly look ... natural.

Like yeah, there were definitely a lot of things she didn't know about - and didn't want to know about - lurking in her room; it was a perfectly natural consequence of being a particularly overworked college student. You just got used to having your various spiders or insects or the occasional pigeon you'd accidentally locked in your bathroom as a roommate. But this? This looked like something you'd get from the store for Valentine's Day. Like a feather boa you got to impress your boyfriend or whatever normal people did for the holidays, or something.

[Adelie]

"...are you looking for this?" An unfortunate reminder that she isn't alone in her apartment cuts through Chi's thoughts. God, maybe she needs to go outside more. Maybe she needs to invite Ven over more so she doesn't jump halfway out of her skin at the voice of someone who she was literally talking to a minute ago.

She turns back to Aster, an excuse halfway out of her mouth, and - okay, maybe she's in the right to be surprised because he's awkwardly holding a protesting little bundle of bright pink feathers. It perfectly matches the pink fluff she's looking at, and as if she needed more evidence, it's holding her missing pen in its mouth.

And as she stares at it, it lets out a very plaintive squeak.

[Adelie]

"What," she says in lieu of anything that could possibly be useful to describe this situation. Then, because she has finally gotten the very slightest handle on the situation and begun to recognize exactly what she's in for, she adds, "Why is there a penguin on your lap."

Aster shrugs, tilting his head slightly as he inspects the tiny penguin trying valiantly to scoot its way out of his clutches. "I don't know? You're the one who lives here, you tell me."

The penguin finally wrestles itself out of Aster's grasp, makes a dash for it - or the best imitation of a dash it can muster with its stubby little legs - and promptly falls onto the floor in a fit of sad squeaks.

"...it's kind of cute," Aster offers helpfully.

[Adelie]

"Yes, but," she begins, and then stops because she has no idea how to continue her train of thought after that. Yes, the unnaturally pink bird currently attempting to eat her friend's fingers is kind of cute. Yes, it's round and adorable and the way it squeaks is awakening some kind of weird mother hen instinct in her she didn't even know she had.

But there's a million other things she needs to think about here. How did it get here? Why did it get here? What's she supposed to do with it now?

"You could raise it," Aster offers helpfully, and she frantically checks her memory in case she'd also developed a tendency to nervously speak her thoughts out loud. Nope, she hasn't. Probably just another one of those weird things he does, then. "Congratulations, you have a kid now. A bratty little bird child, from the looks of it. Mom probably didn't raise this one right."

[Adelie]

The bratty little bird child in question is still valiantly trying to nip at Aster's fingers, which - credit to him - he's keeping just slightly out of reach. She's kind of rooting for the bird at this point, honestly. "It only showed up when you were here," she accuses back. "How do I know it's not your illegitimate bird child?"

"Maybe it's from both of us," Aster compromises. "Immaculate conception. We end up in the same room and presto! We get a Valentine's miracle, delivered right to our very lap. Kid got your personality, that's for sure."

She's definitely rooting for the bird. "And what did he get from you? Your fashion sense? Your magpie tendencies?"

[Adelie]

"That was one time," Aster grumbles, stroking the little fluffball on his lap. "Also, I think he's hungry."

"What do these guys even eat?" she asks, mentally tabulating the contents of her fridge. If this were earlier in the week, she might've had some fish for the penguin chick - but right now, she's desperately trying to stretch out the remaining ingredients in there so she can procrastinate on going to the grocery store a little while longer. There's nothing in there except some half-wilted vegetables, leftover pasta to reheat, and a few eggs. "I've got ... eggs."

"Somehow I don't think that's a good idea," he says.

"Yeah, neither do I."

[Adelie]

In the end - and after a serious discussion about whether a penguin eating the egg of a non-penguin was considered cannibalism or not, and whether cannibalism was even a moral consideration for a penguin chick, and whether any of this really made sense as the subject of discussion - they concluded that the best course of action was to offer up some of their chocolates to their needy penguin child for now, and perhaps consider going to the grocery store for something more suited to penguin dietary needs.

"So," Aster announces, desperately attempting to feed half a bourbon-filled chocolate to a rather beaky bird without getting his fingers snapped off. "Are you going to the store, or am I? Because I have no idea where the grocery store is around here, but I'm pretty sure you don't trust me alone in your apartment, and there's no way we're leaving this little guy unattended."