I apologize, there was chaos during the last part of January and all of last month, house flood and sickness, now it's back to the normal chaos with chapters already half written and planned.
Pinkies linked Brittany and Santana let Quinn take the pictures while Tina filled them in on information that wasn't on the placard, Quinn and Santana were amused. "They think the ancient Greeks and Romans found elephant skeletons and that's how they came up with the Titans and cyclops."
Chuckling Santana shook her head mouthing 'Nope.' which got a smirk from Tina and the perfect opportunity for Brittany to snap a picture of her friend.
"They're not really doing much other than messing with the log." Unique pointed out.
"They're picking food out of it." Tina explained taking pictures of her own "They're endangered, sadly mostly people are the cause, from messing up their habitat to poaching, the tiger is it's only natural predator."
"Well that's depressing." Santana frowned.
"It is," Tina agreed "they're on the endangered species list."
"Incredibly depressing." Santana cringed.
"Not depressing is that science has proven out of all the elephants that these guys are the closest relative of the woolly mammoth." Tina gestured back at the elephants.
"There ya go , tell us the cool not depressing stuff." Santana chuckled.
"You can tell the three species apart by their ears."
"Question, three?" Quinn asked holding up three fingers.
"Asian, African Savannah and African Forest."
"There's only three left? Shit, you were supposed to tell us non depressing facts." Santana shook her head.
"Sadly when it comes to elephants there are a lot more depressing facts," Tina explained as they started walking to the tiger habitat "they estimated the world population of elephants to be around 497,000 of that there are maybe 50,000 Asian elephants."
"Damn." Mercedes shook her head.
"The Savannah elephants are the highest in number then Forest, with obviously the Asian elephants bringing in the lowest numbers." Tina continued as they reached the path that took them between the tigers and orangutans.
"That's so sad." Brittany's lower lip quivered.
"Sorry Britt," Tina apologized thinking for a moment "many cultures believe elephants are symbols of good fortune, strength and wisdom, my dad totally does." Tina continued her rambling "The Hindu god Ganesha has an elephant head." Tina looked to Quinn and Santana for conformation but the duo just smirked at her "Look Britt, orangutans."'
"They should have been the smart ones in that movie not the chimps," Brittany tugged Santana over to look into the enclosure "and the chimps should have been the army not the gorillas, gorillas are sweethearts compared to them." Santana smirked at Tina realizing the Asian had just changed the subject so Brittany wouldn't be sad. "Hey Mercedes it says they eat insects." Mercedes nodded with respect.
"Look at you." Unique and Marley stood on the opposite side of the path, frowning when she read critically endangered Unique quietly said "I think everything over here is in varying degrees of endangered. "Smaller than the Bengals, they eat deer, boar, pigs and something called serow." Unique made a face shrugging, she had no idea what a serow was. "And of course people are the reason for there decline in numbers." Taking several pictures she handed the phone to Tina who had her hand out.
"Scoot that way and I can get the tiger in the picture too." Tina indicated to where she wanted them to go. "So is it tigers in general you like?"
"I love them all, I don't know anything about them but they are gorgeous." Unique said before blowing the camera a kiss getting a giggle from Marley for her behavior.
"Oh look more cats." Santana quietly muttered seeing the Amur leopards.
"Maybe they'll leave you alone this time." Quinn suggested then immediately apologized seeing the blue eyed leopard look ar Santana "or not." after looking at the crowd it yawned before dropping it's head and closing it's eyes.
"They climb and swim and like the cold, they live in Korea, northeast China and eastern Russia." Brittany read parts of their information taking pictures as she did so. "They eat all the same things as the tiger...rodents?" Brittany looked back to the tiger, Tina shook her head, she hadn't read rodents on the tiger's information. "Did they eat those?" Brittany pointed to the animal in a near by exhibit.
"I don't think so," Mercedes read the placard it was called a babirusas "this pig is from Indonesia..." frowning Mercedes said "one somebody find me a damn map, I can't keep track of this." Tina chuckled. "And two can't things just have simple names or maybe a button with someone actually pronouncing it's damn name."
"Different languages Wheezy." Santana reminded. "I mean I know what B'alam is, do you?"
"Since you know what it is I'm going to say an animal from the Mayan location," Mercedes wasn't stupid, she knew the ancient languages of her people and what different African animals were called in multiple languages. "if it was food I would have heard it before." Quinn chuckled, the other goddess was not wrong. "So what is it?"
"Jaguar."
Of course it is." Mercedes shook her head giving a an amused chuckle, checking her watch Mercedes said "I hate to be the buzzkill but we should head out so we can all rest up for tonight's show."
"Hit one last gift shop and take one last group photo." Quinn said giving Brittany a smile when the girl took her hand.
The Marketplace was by the entrance/exit of the zoo so they took their pictures there before going into the store, not knowing the store policy on their bags Santana greeted the employee that was walking towards them with "Thank you for letting us bring our items in here, we're just going to buy a few more things and then leave."
"Of course, if you need help come see me."
"Thank you." Santana dismissed them.
"You really have to teach me that trick." Quinn said tugging Brittany, meaning Santana as well, over to the clothes.
"Is one hoodie not enough?" Mercedes asked.
"They have more than hoodies." Quinn called out as she pulled the others behind the clothes rack.
Santana didn't care how much it cost, neither did Quinn, they paid for everything including getting every pressed penny available from every machine they passed for Brittany. The girls tried not to buy a lot but Santana made sure they got something for everyone they wanted to. No having family in New Orleans Unique picked post cards and lightweight things she could send in the mail to her parents, Marley got a few things for her mother. Santana and Quinn ended up buying the girls presents because they didn't pick things out for themselves.
"We'll just take it up to the conference room so we can show Mama Rose, we need to go up there anyway for our chat, two birds, one stone." Santana told Quinn.
"We're back." They'd pulled into the back coming through the courtyard bringing all their items to the conference room before getting Millie, Santana had disappeared to her room to get their lap tops, they hadn't brought them along but that was an easy fix for the goddess.
Quinn nodded to her sister seeing the lap top cases in her hands as she joined them, Millie was seated letting Mercedes show her what had been bought at the zoo. The other girls held up their items when Mercedes said "We all got backpacks," Quinn held up her and Santana's "hoodies and caps." Millie looked to see her daughter holding up the items as well.
It took 20 minutes total to show the older woman what they'd bought, everyone made it quicker by holding up the identical items that the person before them showed off. Marley and Unique were initially going to nap before practice and the show but Tina and Brittany said they wanted to explore the area while Quinn and Santana sat down with Millie.
"We'll go with you, we know the best local places." Unique volunteered herself and Marley "We'll be back in plenty of time to catch a nap."
"Are you sure?" Tina asked.
"Of course." Marley smiled, she liked Tina and Brittany, Mercedes excused herself saying something about checking the books
"We'll take care of our stuff when we've finished up." Santana said pulling her ebony hair back into a quick high pony.
Leaning down Brittany kissed the top of Santana's head "Have fun."
"You too." Santana gave Brittany's hand a quick squeeze.
Santana turned to Millie explaining "Quinn's going to contact our lawyer on her lap top while I show you the business plan on mine."
"You've had this prepared?" Millie asked as the women took seats on either side of her.
Santana wasn't going to lie. "Yes, Quinn and I sat down and figured this out not long after we met."
"So the first time you brought it up to me?" Millie questioned, both girls nodded, Quinn rolled her eyes seeing a waiter with a tray of food and another waiter with drinks.
"Thought she forgot didn't you?" Santana said without looking up from the lap top, she'd heard the light knock and then the door open.
"Miss Mercedes said to bring this up as she didn't know how long your meeting would last." he said quietly.
"Thank you." Santana nodded continuing to type.
"Just put it there." Quinn pointed slightly away from them before returning to her own typing and clicking, she'd sent their lawyer a text when Millie had agreed so he was expecting their video call. The waiter nodded placing the tray down before setting a drink next to Quinn, rolling her eyes Quinn practically chugged the drink before shoving the glass away.
