Stella followed the words which were vivid and ebullient despite the restraining tiger and tried to picture it. The prep required for settling in the bulk of one shift and waking up another. The quiet in-between when this lifeless vessel would be even more lifeless. She shivered despite the warmth of the bodies in her lap. She smiled as one of the kittens lifted a paw past the bottle and playfully batted at a hanging curl, narrowly missing her face with claws that could maim and blind, even at such a young age. She didn’t bat an eye, she didn’t so much as twitch in reaction. 

She caught what she assumed was sarcasm in his voice when he spoke of the longer shifts. She couldn’t imagine the scenario of being awake for longer times being a bad thing. Settling in for Cryo-sleep would have been the hardest thing she’d ever done if she hadn’t just watched her whole world burn. She’d been one of the many who had required sedation before being put into cryo-sleep. She’d panicked when faced with the bed even though rationally she’d known why and understood the need. But then she’d stood before it and hadn’t been able to get into it. She was embarrassed to recall the way she’d stood there before it, shaking like a leaf as if she’d been caught in some delayed reaction to the whole mess. The tech in charge of settling her in had called her name and tried to coax her with a gentle touch to her elbow to get in. Had it been Mr. Eadoré? She felt a panic wash over her at the thought he might have been there to witness her near animal reaction. But no, she seemed to recall the voice had been feminine. Stella had snarled, she recalled that vividly, snarled and run off down the halls. She remember impacts as she bumped into people and things. She remembered running until she was somewhere warm and green. A garden she supposed. It wasn’t the sanctuary she thought and she was cornered and caught though by then she’d largely calmed down and went willingly. She’d spoken to someone, a counselor she supposed, she hardly remembered anything past the burning humiliation she’d felt at the time. So when they’d offered her something to ease into the cryo-bed in a way that suggested it wasn’t altogether optional she agreed. She’d made enough of a fuss and no one needed more trouble on top of everything. Then she’d gone and woken with more ease than she’d went down. It was absurd. 

Her own two charges finished their meal moments after Mr. Eadoré’s charge. She pulled the bottles out, set them aside and rubbed the now full tummies, deftly dodging their claws and set them onto their feet. She straightened up and brushed back her tiger tousled curls. 

“Shall we go see to the lynx’s?” She asked her companion trying not to wonder if med-techs told stories of amusing sleeps and wakes and if so, if her story made the rounds. She turned stepped over one of the kittens who was eating her shoelace when something caught her eye. A bright slash of blue on the ground outside the tiger enclosure.

“What’s this?” she said and stepped outside, the shimmering in the air not stopping her though it did make her curls crackle with something like static. She moved across the thick loam and bent to reach under a lush fern. She pulled out a small, blue feathered body. It lay limply in her hand, lifeless and cool but not cold. There was no blood, its neck was not at a funny angle, it just seemed dead. 

“Huh.” She said, her mouth twitching as she moved back to the enclosure, her and her handful slipping through with no more trouble than before. “I wonder what happened here.”

She pulled her eyes from the little mystery on her palm and onto her guest. As she looked at him, his normally bright eyes and smiling mouth she wondered if holding dead animals was something odd or understandable in her line of work. If it was weird it was too late to be anything but weird and she could, on occasion be professional.

“I’m afraid the Lynx’s are going to have to take a rain check Mr. Eadoré.”