Author's Note: Really weird idea that popped into my head. So this is sort of a crackfic, but more likely just a very strange AU. Despite all the cast except Light and Sayu being animals, I tried to make sure no one is OOC, if that makes sense. Also, if you have a problem with Lion/Zebra, then you may be uncomfortable reading this.
Light wasn't quite sure exactly why he had applied for a job at the zoo, but his sister already worked there, and he needed more money to buy the miniature televisions he was collecting. So now the brown-haired teen found himself in front of the zoo's gates, waiting for his sister to come and give him the tour.
"Light!" her voice finally called. She unlocked the zoo gates, and explained the situation.
"It's after business hours, so I'm supposed to feed some of the animals in the process of giving you a tour around."
"Okay," he agreed.
Light followed Sayu into the zoo as she locked the gates behind them, and felt a sense of excitement at the thought of seeing everything after all of the patrons left. He briefly entertained the notion of animals throwing secret parties when no one was around, but quickly dismissed the thought. It would be a perfectly normal tour.
"As you know," she said, "our zoo is kind of small. Which means that in a lot of exhibits there's only one of each animal. Also, the cages are spaced pretty close together."
Light nodded, listening to the information she told him. They went in through the back entrance, (the one only zoo personnel were allowed through), and Light marveled at being able to see the places he had never been before. He'd visited often, but never behind the scenes.
The brunette was brought back to reality when Sayu slammed the door of some sort of storage room, exiting with a large slab of meat. She then led Light through a door, and he noticed they were in the wolf exhibit.
Unfortunately that was the only thing he had time to notice, because almost immediately he was knocked over by a large, black-furred wolf.
"Agh! Help me Sayu!" he cried as the wolf licked his face. But his sister just stood there, giggling uncontrollably. Meanwhile her brother's face was quickly becoming coated in saliva.
"Awww, he likes you," she cooed. Light struggled a bit more before finally yelling,
"Get off!"
To his great surprise, the wolf complied with his orders. Light stood up, wiped off his face, and looked at the creature in front of him. It was currently wagging its tail happily, eyes lit up from being in his presence.
"I'm getting out of here," he declared, leaving the cage to go into the back. Ugh, there was still wolf slobber on his face.
While Light dried off, his sister had apparently finished giving the creature its food, and returned to guide him to the next exhibit.
"Our second stop is the panda. He's one of the zoo's star attractions," Sayu told him, getting a bucket of what Light assumed to be the panda's food.
"Although giant pandas usually eat only bamboo, this one really likes it if we add some sugarcane to the mix." She whispered the words as if this were some sort of great secret.
Light entered the cage, and saw that the panda was staring at him. Its coal black eyes made what would have been a thoughtful gaze downright creepy.
"Hmm," he remarked, shifting his eyes to look around at its habitat, "At least it's not..."
He broke off as the creature glomped him into a literal bear hug.
"Nevermind..." he said, still being hugged by the panda bear.
"You know Light, it's actually pretty amazing that both of them like you. Usually they're fairly awkward around people. Maybe you're just good with animals?" Sayu suggested.
"Maybe," he muttered. Interestingly enough, it was not quite an uncomfortable position. The panda's fur was quite soft.
A growl came through from the cage on the other side, and both Yagamis turned to see the wolf from before, looking angrily through the bars of the cage at the panda. While the former was fervently trying to get through, the latter sat calmly in the odd position pandas sat in, looking rather smug.
"Ooh, I think someone's jealous. Come on Onii-san, let's get out of here before they start fighting over you," Sayu said, dumping the bamboo and dragging her brother out from the panda's grip. It looked at him for a moment as he walked away, then turned to munch on a piece of sugarcane.
They again walked through the zookeeper-only area, and to Light's surprise, arrived at the next exhibit without getting any food. Raising an eyebrow as Sayu opened the next door, he was startled to see a raccoon.
"Dammit," his sister cursed, "he killed another squirrel."
"Why do you keep a raccoon here? Aren't they common scavengers?" Light asked.
"Oh, he needed a home, and we had an empty cage. Plus, he's easy to feed; we just give him our lunch scraps." She demonstrated this, pulling out her half eaten PB&J sandwich from her lunchbox for the creature to eat.
Light watched as the raccoon scurried over to lick the jelly part off of it, and looked up to see the glowing eyes of a panther in the cage across from them. The thing was, the panther wasn't looking at him, or even Sayu. Rather it seemed to be watching the raccoon, an odd look of suspicion in its eyes.
"Let's go," Light told his sister. He shivered as they reentered the building portion of the zoo. The animals here were weird, and seemed strangely intelligent.
The siblings walked silently onward, pausing only as Sayu grabbed a bucket of fish. When she opened the next door, Light saw that they were in an aquarium exhibit.
The inhabitants, otters, simultaneously made noises that sounded like a cross between a squeal and a bark. While all clearly excited for the food, they behaved in different ways. For example, one was goofing off in the water, doing flips and such to attract their attention. Another was sitting fairly silently on a rock, just looking at them in expectation. Still another actually looked angry to not already have the fish. Light outright laughed at this one. Apparently it had dried off the wrong way, because the fur around its head was standing up.
Light gazed in amusement while Sayu tossed the fish to them. He decided then and there that otters were fun to watch.
But soon enough, they had to leave. This time, to go behind the next exhibit, they would have to walk through part of the normal zoo area.
"We're going to feed the flamingo next," Sayu told him casually, strolling forward before noticing that Light was gawking at the zebra exhibit.
"Light, we have a schedule to uphold here," she said, tugging his shirt.
"Li...zebr...wha..." Light stuttered. Sayu turned to see what he was gaping at. One of the lions had somehow managed to get into the zebra pen, and with a paw around the zebra's neck, was apparently grooming its ear.
"Oh that," Sayu laughed. "You know, when I was I newbie here and I noticed that that lion had snuck in with the zebra, I thought the lion was trying to hunt it. But it turns out, those two are the best of friends!"
"In fact," she continued, whispering in her still awestruck brother's ear, "the lion sometimes climbs onto the zebras back, and if they weren't different species, and both male, I'd think they were trying to mate."
"That is completely disturbing," her brother informed her.
"Well you should see them sometime. You'd draw the same conclusion."
"Wait a second, how did they even get in the same exhibit in the first place?" Light questioned.
"Oh, I'm pretty sure our feline friend over there can pick the lock on his cage," Sayu explained.
"And this doesn't scare you at all?" Light shouted.
"Well," his sister admitted, "the other two lions do. But they aren't smart enough to get out."
"It's kind of funny though," she mused, "because while Zebra-lover over here is the youngest and smallest of the three, the other two are absolutely terrified of him. One of them nearly mauled a zookeeper, but all he has to do is glare at them and they shut up."
Light peered more closely subject of the discussion. The lion was still grooming the zebra, while the black-and-white-striped equine had its nose in the feline's golden mane.
The older of the teens stepped to the side, looking at the two animals from a different angle. It might have just been the lion's young age, but its mane was quite short. In fact, from this angle it might even be mistaken as female. Surprising indeed that it had established dominance over the others.
"Okay, now we have to go to the aviary section. Tsk, tsk Onii-san, we're behind schedule," Sayu chided, dragging Light away from his thoughts.
When they got to the flamingo exhibit, Light was actually not very surprised to see what appeared to be a swan and a flamingo tearing each others' wings off.
"Is that normal too?" he asked.
"Yep. But we still don't want either of them to get hurt. It's important to feed them both at the exact same time, since they're so competitive. I'll take the shrimp for the flamingo, you take the water plants for the swan." With this Sayu handed Light a bucket of wet plants, which also had some dead bugs in them. He suspected this was also part of the swan's meal.
He was startled when instead of eating the shrimp that was the main part of its diet, the flamingo came over to Light, who had the swan food. But instead of fighting over who got what to eat, like he expected, both birds randomly started playing tug of war with his pant leg.
"Not again... ouch that hurt!" he cried, trying to swat the creatures away from him as Sayu unhelpfully giggled.
He eventually managed to detach them, but the birds then immediately began squawking at each other. Ugh... just hearing them, especially the flamingo, was enough to make his eardrums bleed.
Light wisely left the exhibit, hands covering his ears as he made his way over the petting zoo, at which point he was far enough away to finally relax. One thing was for sure. He'd take the panda, maybe even the wolf, any day before those two.
Eventually Sayu caught up to him, and he noted that she was carrying a large bale of hay. He turned his attention to the petting zoo animals, and immediately noticed a white sheep in the center, sitting down apathetically.
"Is it sick or something?" he asked, not so much astonished as curious, "I thought ungulates always stood up while they were awake."
"Nope. He always sits like that. I've never once seen him stand. Not even to eat. But the other animals will bring him hay and stuff," Sayu reported.
At that moment, the sheep gave a baa, which a nearby yellow-colored llama apparently understood, because it quickly brought a medium sized rubber ball over for the sheep to play with. Meanwhile, a black miniature horse went over to the hay barrel that Sayu had just refilled. It grabbed a large chunk in its mouth and brought it over, demonstrating the behavior that Sayu had previously told him about.
Although most people would immediately run to get their cameras at such an occurrence, Light just stood there, wearing an expression as bored as that of the sheep he was looking at. By now, nothing about this messed-up zoo could surprise him.
"Hey Light," Sayu said, glancing at her watch, "Our tour time is up. Do you want to come back tomorrow?"
The brunette pondered this. Part of him was extremely freaked out by this entire place, and just wanted to go home and eat potato chips in peace. But the other part of him was intrigued by the craziness of it all, and wanted a chance to see more.
"Sure. I'd love to get a chance to meet the rest of the animals here," he responded.
Plus, another part of him just wanted a chance to see that panda again.
Author's Note 2: Well, that was weird. This was a bit mashed together, since I wanted it to be done for Zena Silverwing's birthday, but I'm fairly happy with how it turned out. Hopefully you could guess the identities of all the animals! I'd be a bit disappointed if you didn't get ones like the sheep... By the way, here's an actual picture of that Lion/Zebra love I mentioned: www(dot)motifake(dot)com(slash)?id=65429 You can ignore the caption on it.