Hello again.

“Gustav, my friend, why so glum?”

The penguin in question looked up from his half-eaten sprat, shaking his head in disgust.

“Not glum, Sebastian. Affronted, outraged - I had the most perturbing encounter with one of the Beakless Ones.”

Sebastian nodded solemnly. “Yes, they are often perturbing. What happened, my friend?”

Gustav sighed heavily, looking up to the sky and holding his flippers wide, as if to ask the gods “why?”, before mournfully retelling his experience, “I was on the beach where the Beakless sometimes wander, contemplating names for this year’s chicks, when one of them approached. It seemed harmless enough to greet - they’re cute, in a strange, bald and flat-faced way, are they not?”

“Oh Gustav, you kind-hearted fool.”

“Such a fool, I am!” Gustav’s moans had gathered a small crowd already - the only thing penguins love more than a bellyful of fish, is a story. A good storyteller was always guaranteed a warm spot to huddle in the winter, surrounded by bored friends longing for entertainment.

“What did it do, Gustav? Did it kick you?”

“No! When it got close, I called out to it, ‘hello, friend!’. It stopped and returned the greeting - awkwardly, but it was rather sweet, like a chick learning it’s first chirps. ‘Hollow fren,’ it said back to me. I was charmed, but not wanting it to learn poor pronunciation, I repeated the greeting, and so did it! Getting clearer each time, till it could almost pass for a true penguin itself.”

“Gustav is a wonderful teacher,” Adelina, his mate, stated with a proud nod of her lovely blue head. “You remember how well our chicks could enunciate, before they even caught their first fish.”

“But what of it, Gustav? What happened to sour this experience so?”

“We went back and forth, till I was satisfied. It lowered itself near the ground, and I moved closer, carefully, not wanting to alarm it. I was just about to tell it how pleased I was, that it learning so quickly, when all of a sudden, it looked me right in the eye and said ‘Fuck off, freak.’”

There were avian gasps all around.

“Oh no!”

“How rude!”

“I was so appalled, I could not bring myself to even chide it.” Gustav bowed his head in shame. “I turned and left without another word.”

“It said that to you? Oh dear.” Sebastian tilted his head in a piercing glare towards one of their fellows, focusing on the only one who was slapping his sides and chortling. “Björn, you scoundrel! What have I told you about yelling obscenities at the Beakless?”

So I’m walking around the backyard calling for him, because usually he comes right back, and then I spot it. A slightly paler patch of brown in the thick brown winter underbrush of the woods. Oh no, I think, there’s no way he’s that stupid.

And then the pale patch moves, and I realize ah, I underestimated this asshole, and I started calling for him as I walk that way. He picks up his head, sees me, and waits. I get about 15 yards away, and he does the excited flappy wings, and takes off running. He thinks we’re playing Chase.

god dammit.

So I resign myself to walking to the back edge of my property, because I know that’s where this is going, and start picking my way through the spiny underbrush and brambles. Stan patiently waits for me to get close, and then DASHES away, stopping when he’s not quite out of sight to wait some more. He’s having the time of his LIFE. I’ve almost tripped and fallen to my death by impalement four times. He finally accidentally corners himself between a fallen tree and a brush pile and since he can’t fly, he can’t get over it and he doesn’t figure out how to go around it before I reach him.

I stomp over and pick him up, and he just looks at me like ??¿¿?? and there’s absolutely zero chance that I’m going to walk all the way back to my house through the woods, we’re acres deep in it by this point, I’ve been walking through woods for 3 years and that’s without having to contend with getting his train safely through the bramble without him freaking out.

So I weigh my options and head sideways to one of the properties that borders mine and has a clear backyard, and into that backyard I emerge from the dead wood like some kind of forest spirit, carrying a slightly confused and very tired  winter-woodland-colored peacock on one hand. The person who lives there was in their garage revving the engine of some small vehicle, probably a fourwheeler, and the revving doesn’t stop so I can only assume they didn’t see me stomping through their yard to the road.

Cue me walking down a very long dirt road in BFE where thankfully no cars went past us either way and I think only three or four of my neighbors noticed us. I had to put Stan up on my shoulder for most of it because he’s like 10lbs of dead weight plus wind-resistant plumage. Thank goodness he cooperated and sat there quietly watching everything pass us by.

BUT we made it home safely. He’s not even sorry.

That’s a croc, not a gator—specifically, it’s a big ol’ saltie.

Further random thoughts:

The trains are capable of incredible top speeds and punch right through nearly any obstacle placed on the tracks, so efforts to block or redirect them generally fail,

They also take their role as public transit seriously, and seem to actively resist attempts to control access to them; if a station is secured against public access, the trains will simply pick a new stretch of track nearby and begin to stop there instead.

The trains will forcibly eject anyone who attempts violence against another passenger, so the interior of the cars is an enforced neutral zone. Creatures that would ordinarily be wholly inimical to humanity can be encountered safely while riding the rails – though the trains won’t stop them from following you off when you disembark!

The attendant difficulty of forcibly removing passengers from the trains renders them something of a sanctuary. Fugitives sometimes end up living on the trains full-time as a result, bartering with regular passengers for their daily needs; it’s whispered that even those who’ve offended the gods may find safety on the trains.

Owing to the trains’ apparently prescient ability to anticipate public demand, efforts have been made to predict the future – or at least the flow of commerce – from the patterns of the trains’ schedules; this typically meets with limited success.