Juniper Visits the Zoo

The team headed through the gates. Nora jumped around waving her ticket in the air. Ren walked casually by her side and opened a map. Pyrrha and Jaune followed a few feet behind.

"This will be a great bonding experience." Pyrrha smiled. It was her idea for the team outing and she was proud that it went over so well with all three of them.

"Do you think they have penguins? I bet they have penguins." Jaune looked around pretending his aura

could scan the park and point them in the correct direction of the small black and white birds.

"Make a left, Nora." Ren grabbed her shoulder and pulled her to the left, then dropped his nose back into the map.

"Where are we heading to first?" Pyrrha inquired.

"SLOTHS!" Nora couldn't contain her excitement.

"Make a right up ahead." Ren pointed right and Nora ran left, only to run back after ten seconds.

Nora's eyes widened as she crossed by her friends and ran to the right. "This way, guys!"

Ren followed his partner at a more reasonable rate. He memorized the rest of the directions and tucked the large map into his pocket. He looked out into the other enclosures as he passed by. Anteaters. Armadillos. They were getting close. Nora ran circles around him and sang, "We're gonna see the sloths!

We're gonna see the sloths!"

"Yes, Nora. Soon, Nora." Nora created a mini windstorm around Ren causing him to have to constantly readjust his sleeves.

"I wonder why Nora loves sloths so much? What do you think, Jaune?" Pyrrha tilted her head to indicate to Jaune that she was asking him a question.

Jaune stopped. "What? Huh? Oh my god, baboon! We have to check out the monkey section later!"

Pyrrha sighed. "You mean the apes."

"Did you say something?" He looked at her in the face.

Pyrrha shook her head slowly.

"Oh!" Jaune grabbed Pyrrha's hand and pointed toward a sign off in the distance with an arrow that said "penguins." Pyrrha flinched at the sudden touch. Jaune looked at her in confusion. "Something wrong?"

Pyrrha blushed and looked at the ground. "Nothing."

"Good because Ren and Nora are getting ahead of us and if we lose them, we won't know how to navigate!" Jaune, still holding Pyrrha's hand, pulled her along and raced to catch up with their teammates.

They turned the quarter and found Nora halfway over the railing to an enclosure. Ren held her back by the collar. "Just a little bit closer, Ren!"

"No."

"Just a tiny bit, I can almost... Boop! I got his nose!"

Ren pulled Nora back. "Nora! What did we just talk about in regards to touching the animals!"

"I forget."

Pyrrha had to conceal her laugh behind her hand. Jaune walked over to look at the sloth's fact sheet.

Jaune smiled and turned back to his friends. "Hey Nora, these guys are just like you! They sleep 15 hours a day, too!"

"Hey! Yeah, well, I bet you don't know what sloth's say, Mr. Wise guy."

Ren smacked his palm to his forehead.

"Krrrraw! Krrrraw!"

Ren walked over to Nora and pulled her back from climbing a tree into the enclosure. "I still don't think that's what a sloth sounds like."

Nora grinned.

"Can we see the penguins next?" Jaune grew anxious.

"But, but sloths!"

"We can revisit the sloths later, Nora." Ren gently pushed her towards the exit.

"I'd like to visit the lions, if that's okay."

Jaune grabbed Pyrrha's shoulder. "Pyrrha, you can visit every single animal in the park if you want to. But first, penguins."

Pyrrha's eyes widened. A sudden warmth filled her. "Oh?" was all she could mutter.

"This way to the penguins." Jaune pointed to the sign and began to waddle his way over, like a penguin, to the aquatic section of the park. Nora followed her leader and waddled behind him. Pyrrha looked at Ren for what to do. Ren shrugged, got in line, and waddled. Pyrrha looked over at the people around them. They were watching her team. Surely judging. She took a deep breath and waddled in line too.

As they approached the penguin enclosure, Jaune stopped. Nora, who wasn't paying attention didn't notice in time and waddled into Jaune. Ren and Pyrrha followed suit and soon they all bumped into Jaune three different times.

"What? What are you guys doing?"

Nora and Ren shrugged. Pyrrha, embarrassed, pointed toward the tank. "Look penguins!"

"Ooooooh!"

Pyrrha sighed.

Jaune put his face close to the tank. Six penguins inhabited the tank. They swam around, dove to the bottom, jumped up to land and waddled around. "Pyrrha, Pyrrha, this one is named Buttons! Get it? 'Cause he has three black spots down his..."

"Yes, Jaune, I get it."

A big frown formed on Nora's face. It grew larger the longer she watched the tank.

Pyrrha looked over in worry that her teammate was not enjoying herself. "What's wrong, Nora?"

Ren raised a finger in the air. "Eh, uh. Hm. She kind of gets upset when it comes to penguins. It makes her sad that they're birds with wings, but they cannot fly."

Jaune looked puzzled. "But Nora, that's why they're so cool. They don't fly because they swim!"

"I know," she sobbed, "But I just, I want them to fly, okay?"

Ren looked helpless. "I wasn't going to say anything, but last time Nora and I saw penguins, she tried to launch one of them into the air. She kept telling the little penguin to, 'go, be free!' The keepers weren't pleased with us. We were banned from that zoo for a while."

"And, I think we're done with the penguins for the day." Pyrrha dragged her teammates to another section of the park.

Pyrrha grabbed the map from Ren and whispered to herself, "Safe, think safe. This. This has to be safe."

They were already in the aquatic section so it didn't take long for them to arrive at another tank. This tank was 20 times larger than the one the penguins lived in.

"Hippos?" asked Jaune.

"Woah, they're so fat!" Nora squealed in joy.

Pyrrha sat back on the bench near the glass and heaved a sigh of relief. Ren sat down next to her and the two of them watched as their partners each claimed one of the hippos and argued over whose would win in a fight.

"Mine has a stronger jaw."

"Yeah, well, mine has, mine has, bigger ears!"

"Okay, Nora."

Soon they tired of their game and joined their partners on the bench. Pyrrha lay her head on Jaune's shoulder.

"Good day so far?" asked Pyrrha.

Jaune leaned his head back against Pyrrha's. "Best day ever, right guys?"

"Oh my god, this day has been so amazingly awesomely cool. I saw sloths, and penguins, and hippos, and did I mention sloths?"

Pyrrha smiled. "Where to next?"

"Lions," said Ren.

"And then sloths," added Nora.

"Rawwr," whispered Jaune.

The lion enclosure looked empty when they arrived. Pyrrha tried her hardest not to look upset, but she couldn't hide her disappointment from Jaune.

"Don't you worry, Pyrrha, I'll lure them out. They probably lounging around in the back of their cave and just need a good wake up call."

Jaune readied himself, puffed out his chest, sucked in a breath, and committed to his mightiest roar.

"Jaune, don't be silly, that's not going to..."

"Look! Look! He's coming out!" Jaune had never looked prouder.

Pyrrha was too shocked to say anything. She watched the lioness slowly stretch and climb down from her cave. She was closely followed by three rambunctious cubs.

"They're so cute!" Nora and Pyrrha said in unison.

They watched the mother walk down to the pool below and take a drink of water. The three cubs, uninterested in the pool, rolled around in the grass. When their mother returned and she lay down in the shade next to her cubs, they proceeded to attack her tail. All she wanted was to fan the flies away from her, but every flick of the tail received another bat from a paw.

Nora turned to Ren and batted him playfully on the shoulder. "I'm a lion."

"I thought you were a sloth?"

"Oh. Yeah, that too. Boop."

Next to the lion enclosure were the bears. Team Juniper stared out at the solitary black bear that paced his enclosure. Like all the large animal enclosures, this bear had a cave, a pool of water, a horizontal trail, and then a steep drop that maintained a safe distance between the animals and the viewers of the park.

Jaune pulled out his scroll and pressed record. The bear stopped pacing. He looked over at Juniper and slid down the steep drop below, out of sight.

"I caught it! I caught that! I'm going to call it the 'bear slide.' Click. I just sent it to Ruby." For the next five minutes, Jaune replayed the 10-second video, laughing harder every time.

The team carried on. They headed toward the elephants. The road forked winded down to a large expanse on one side. Pyrrha motioned her teammates over and they all gazed out to the left at the safari zone below them.

Nora pointed to one section. "Look at the giraffes, they're so funny looking."

"So says the girl that loves sloths," laughed Jaune.

Nora stuck his tongue out at him.

*Beep* Jaune looked at his scroll and laughed. "Ruby says she accidentally spit her milk out on Weiss when she watched the video."

His team chuckled.

They turned to their right and hiked down to the bottom. Six elephants roamed a large habitat.

Pyrrha turned to her teammates. "Would those guys be fun to ride into battle against ancient grimm!"

Nora grabbed a loose tree branch off the ground and jumped onto a nearby bench. With one foot on the seat and the other bent leaning on the top, Nora pronounced herself Queen, Slayer of Grimm. "With those tusks, our elephants would make the best battle companions." She turned to Ren. "Ren, can I have one?"

Ren considered this. "Maybe. I'd kind of like one myself."

"There's enough, so each of us could have one." Pyrrha smiled. She didn't normally let herself get into silly ideas, but this was too much fun. "What about you, Jaune, do you want one too?"

"Yes, and I will call mine, Biff."

"Bifffff!" cried Nora, "What kind of name is that! You have to give him a badass name, like Ragnarok!"

"Pffft," blew Jaune.

"Ren what will yours be named?" asked Pyrrha.

"I like that female elephant over there. I'll call her Emperor Wu Zetian after the only female to become Emperor in over four millennia.

"Pyrrha," Jaune narrowed his eyes, "what will yours be called?"

"Hercules."

"God-da..." Jaune sighed hard. His teammates looked at him expectantly. "Nope. No. Nuhuh. No way. Not changing it. Biff it is. Yeah, see look, Biff likes his name, he just snorted in approval."

Pyrrha, Ren and Nora laughed. Jaune initially felt bummed, but soon laughed too. It had been a long day. They headed back to the sloths, to have one final look before they said their goodbyes to the park.

"Just one little boop, Ren, I promise I'll make it quick, no one will see me!"

"No."

Ren restrained Nora, and as they exited the sloth area, Nora walked away with slumped shoulders and a frown on her face.

Near the exit to the park, Ren excused himself, saying he had to use the restroom. His teammates found a table near some food stands and sat down to rest their feet. Ten minutes later, they began to wonder if their teammate got lost.

When Ren returned he apologized for the long wait. He held something behind his back.

"Whatcha' got there?" asked Jaune.

Ren held out is hands to Nora. Her eyes widened. She snatched the toy from his hands.

"You can boop him all you want," said Ren.

Nora hugged the small stuffed sloth close to her chest and skipped along toward the park exit, her teammates close behind.