Winter
London Zoo
Early morning

Dido Tansi is a witch. This must be distinctly understood or nothing that follows will seem at all strange.

It's morning at the London Zoo and the zoo keepers are doing their morning work of feeding all the animals. The giraffes' high-hung baskets are filled with green hay and roughage. The penguins form an orderly line for one fish after another, happy in this cold weather. The omnivorous bears get, perhaps, the most interesting fare. The keepers supply them with caches of zucchini, tomatoes, and apples, as well as chopped chicken and whole legs of a calf.

But one of the bears is not waiting for the door to slide open like the others, who've grown accostomed to the routine. Because this bear is not truly a bear, but a witch run afoul of some malformed magical spell.

That bear is Dido Tansi, and waking in the London Zoo, she'll discover this soon enough.


Heliotrope LeJean and Tadhg Ó Briain have to very different reasons to be heading to the London Zoo this morning, both reasons unusual but nonetheless have them on the move.

Heliotrope has been sent by the Beast Division to confirm that there are no selkies among the sea lions, because she would know best.

For Tadhg, his young cousin had written and asked for photograph of a 'real life bear' for her latest project. It should have been an easy request to fulfill for the Londoner, if his camera cooperated.

For thousands of years, bears had roamed Ireland. They were huge and fearsome and best avoided, but for those with the kind of bravery that these days might be confused for madness, they were a lure and a challenge to a warrior's strength. Modern study revealed that the Irish bears were an intermediate between the brown bear and the polar bear, meaning there had been some interesting relations going on during the Pleistocene. Wolves, too - they'd once been numerous on the island, and they'd lasted almost two thousand years longer than the Irish bears. The last Irish wolf had been shot in Co. Carlow in 1786; that hunting spree merely another short-sighted decree from the bloody Cromwellian conquest of the land.

Eva Ó Briain was doing a school project on the magic of a land changed but not forgotten, and Tadhg could not deny his young cousin his assistance. He had been meaning to visit the famed London Zoo ever since he'd arrived in the city; but as always, his work stole him and his time away. It was with a smile that Tadhg wandered alone, stopping now and then to read some literature outside a habitat, or to take a picture with his camera. Wrapped up in a warm, woolly hat, scarf and thick coat, he was dressed for the occasion, and only felt the need once to secretly cast a thawing charm. When he finally reached the bear habitat, he was pleased to note that it was breakfast time, and that they were entering their space proper.

Quickly, not wanting to miss a good action shot for Eva, he raised his camera and captured a few shots. One, two, two perfect pictures of the brown bears falling upon their feast. Tadhg lowered the magical device again, relying on his own eyes to frame what would be his next picture. It was then he noticed some movement in the background, near the release gates that separated what he presumed was the indoor section of the habitat, from the outside. He narrowed his eyes, trying to focus on the fuzzy blur in the short distance. He brought his camera to his face once more, wondering if the zoom would help.

He activated the flash, but instead of that satisfying, tinny click he was so used to hearing, the device made a different kind of sound. The kind of noise a punctured party-horn might make. It was sad. It was the sound of failure.

Tadhg muttered some creative curses in his native tongue and tried again. And again. "Ah, shite," he grumbled, in time with the pooped little horn.

"It should have only taken 15 minutes or less," Heliotrope grumbled as she rounded the bear enclosure. "No more than 90 seconds per specimen and I'd be done. Then whatever else I'm meant to do to not arouse suspicion."

The dispatch to the London Zoo to check for selkies among the sea lions should have been an easy one. Emphasis should. Besides being loaned a very expensive camera for long distance shots, Heliotrope had been issued credentials for a junior veterinarian here for on the job training. Which was supposed to let her get closer to the animals. She had been told to play it cool and do whatever the zookeepers told her. Level Four had not wanted oversight from Level Three, so the rule was don't do anything that warranted obliviation.

But now the mission was in uncharted waters. Heliotrope knew best about recognizing fully pelted selkies, or what sort of fish was fed to the penguins, but not acting! Her junior veterinarian persona was held up by a Deborah of HR who "wanted to make sure all the paperwork is in order, dearie. Why don't you have a stroll about the zoo and we'll get back to you."

The scowl etched into her face made her mood obvious, another reason she wasn't good at this mode of pretend. This wasn't acting like a stage musical, another kind of storytelling. Certainly not like the oratory traditions of her home colony. At Loch Lomond the teller of the tale of Murchlug, Tamer of the Great Sea Wyrm, was obviously not Murchlug herself. Because she had died centuries ago and you didn't see sea serpents enter freshwater lochs these days.

"Always have an exit in mind and you won't get bit anyways." She took a measured look into the bear enclosure, to prove her own strategy, as she tugged a double folded knit beanie over her blonde hair catching the breeze. She looked partially dressed for winter, with only the hat and a ski jacket over a thin sweater. From Helio's perspective, the quickest way to check for selkies would be to clamber into the enclosure for up close observation. Which, as she had discovered, was not condoned behavior among land-dwellers for going past the barriers. Hence her lifetime ban from the National Marine Aquarium in Plymouth when she was fourteen.

What was she supposed to be doing as she waited? What was that guy doing? Heavily bundled up taking pictures of bears. A few steps away Helio followed suit, with only a minimal understanding of how the camera worked. She lined up a shot has he swore in old Irish. Then that incessant noise continued. She looked his direction.

"Whose sad birthday is it supposed to be?"

There were a lot of things you could blame on a night of gillyweed and cheap wine - things like impulse purchases, tattoo appointments, badly straightened hair, the wrong kind of wix in your bed...

But Dido was pretty sure she couldn't blame this on the Billy Goat. In fact it was totally useless to blame it on anyone. She wasn't at the blaming stage yet. Dido was still stuck on the I'm-a-fucking-bear stage and she dared anyone to move on from it speedily.

Dawn had greeted her at what was first a comfortable prospect: surrounded by softness, enclosed, warm. The rest of it came quickly and without mercy. The hard ground beneath her, the smells.

"What the fuck," the witch had said, but all the bear managed was something closer to a whining growl.


Bewildered as she might be, Dido had not been idle since waking. She had tried at first to communicate with the bears in the enclosure - maybe they were also similarly unfortunate wixes - but nothing had come of it, save for one of them swiping at her. The human keepers weren't much help either. What the hell could a no-maj do?

So she had paced the enclosure and finally, tired, plopped herself into a hunched over seated position by the release gates. The sun felt nice on her fur. Really, she didn't feel cold at all.

What she needed to do was think. And in the meantime, she watched the people trickling past the bear enclosure, staring in. It was annoying.

Dido never minded being looked at as a witch: she was hot! And a little attention was nice. This was, like, a whole different ball game. She briefly considered returning to the indoor enclosure while the other bears were eating.

That was when she saw them. It was fish girl, from Four! And she was talking to some guy, who also had a camera.

Perfect!! Cheered by the prospect of someone actually magic in the vicinity, Dido rolled onto all fours (which should NOT feel so easy to do) and clambered onto a flat basking rock that gave her a better view of the people looking down on the bears.

She lifted both her paws, balancing precariously on her hind legs, waving. A group of no-maj kids started laughing, grabbing their phones to take a video. Ah, fuck.

Dido growled in the direction of the two presumed wixes, waving more vehemently.

Tadhg looked over at the blonde, his face expressionless for a moment as he registered her question. Then he grinned ruefully, offering a huff of a laugh and a shrug of his shoulders. "It sounds like how I feel, so it does," he joked, then lowered the device. It really was like a sad birthday. He was about to ask the other zoo visitor if she had any experience with cameras, but then he stopped himself just in time. She was likely a muggle, and he didn't want to bring any unnecessary attention to a magical object.

Turns out, Tadhg didn't really have to search for a distraction, because one of the bears was waving at them.

It was a little strange. He knew that bears in some countries were trained to do tricks, and then there were those horrible circuses in America, but he wasn't sure the scene unfolding before them was quite that.

The bear was standing on their back legs and waving both giant paws. It was ignoring the breakfast feast and looking directly at them. The growl broke his silence.

"I think..." He began, risking the briefest of glances at the lady next to him. He didn't really want to take his eyes off the bear. "Is... Is that bear saying hello to us?" He raised his hand in a little wave.

"Merde," a word borrowed from her mother's muggle tongue, as Helio practiced with the camera. She hadn't gotten the aperture straight before she took her shot. She had limited film to work with, as most was to be saved for documenting the suspect sea lions. Although expensive looking it was a film based camera, entirely muggle tech for the sake of avoiding recognition. But the film could be developed through that one potion which brought back the motion. Which was a much as Helio knew of the process, outside of the ministry Philo was the only person she knew who was into photography.

Heliotrope looked back to the other man, he looked almost 10 years older than her. "Well, happy birthday I guess, if it's really going that sadly for you," she replied, forgetting she was the one to start this strain of thought.

He sounded like he could act, being sad on the inside but laughing about it, like those performers in the thick caked makeup. Buffoons she couldn't remember the name of but the fear of them sounded colorful.

Her next utterance of astonishment in French carried more of a Scots accent than her usual manner of speaking English, which was somewhat dour. She almost didn't believe what she saw in the camera until she lowered it. The guy saw it too, the bear up on its hind legs waving at them.

She stiffly waved back, fingers closed as to not emphasize the webbing of skin between her bare fingers. It seemed the polite thing to do. "Do you know any bears?" There was an intent to the bear's actions she couldn't place. "I only saw bears along the coasts of the Baltic sea and the Adriatic sea."

They were waving back! They were waving back!

Dido was so thrilled that she shifted from one hind leg to the next, affecting a dance as she growled more happily. Growled. More. Happily. Merlin, she needed to get back to being human, like, now.

Neither fish girl nor her friend (boyfriend?) seemed to be doing anything except waving. What was it going to take?? The no-maj visitors seemed happy, anyway, watching her.

"Hey!" she tried yelling, and out came a gravelly groan instead.

Dido thought of the YMCA dance. Maybe she could try that. She did ballet but being a bear didn't really lend itself to ballet, much less on an uneven basking rock with the world's worst audience.

Raising her paws into a Y, she started humming the tune to YMCA in her own head, wobbling unsteadily on hind legs. Behind her, some of the other bears were moving away from their breakfasts to stare.

"Not personally," Tadhg answered the unusual inquiry from the lady beside him, his expression showing some amusement. He had never met any bears. He supposed he might like to, and he found himself wondering about their magic potential. The bear that was waving at them certainly seemed somewhat special.

The strange movements even looked like dancing. Even the other bears seemed a bit stumped. "I don't think that's normal," he said, raising his hand to his forehead, shielding his eyes from the low but bright sun. The way the bear had zeroed in on them in particular, ignoring the cheering, unsuspecting muggles, was also something that struck Tadhg.

The bear raised their arms, almost making a 'Y'.

It's fun to stay at the...

There were certain songs that always played at an Ó Briain clan get-together. Rock the Boat by The Hues Corporation, Saturday Night by Whigfield, and... YMCA. He thought he had finally lost that final marble because for a brief bar or two, he was convinced the bear was moving in time to that song.

He didn't even second-guess himself, he just raised his arms and made an 'M'.

Okay, this was no longer normal. Or what passed for normal when you translated Mermish records and help wrangle aquatic beasts for a living.

The movements like dance, the rhythmic rumbles...music? Heliotrope realized that the bear had been looking their direction during this whole display. Specifically, towards her.

"Why the motions from the People of the Village?" The tune didn't carry the same cultural impact for her from a life half spent underwater. She looked towards the man quizzically, then narrowed her gaze towards the bear itself. It seemed to recognize her, but she hadn't worked with any bears on Level 4. But as for the workers...

She gripped the railing tightly. Intuition leapt to instinct. The sudden realization that the bear might be a ministry wix of some kind, however improbable. And Helio could just dive in there to try to assist, the bear was signalling to her. Her stance shifted, muscles coiled to vault over the barrier...until she remembered the importance of keeping secret.

"I, um, C. See you!" That was the next letter. "Back there, inner chamber," she pointed in return, towards the opening the bears used to enter the enclosure. Her mind was already tracing the route towards the workers' only area of the zoo she'd seen during orientation.

"Sorry, I've got some interning to do," Heliotrope said as she brushed past him, gathering her things. Although in her rush, she picked up Tadhg's camera by mistake![1]

1.	Approved by Lissa!

They got it! Or one of them did anyway.

Dido slumped in relief as she got back onto all fours, which was regrettably more comfortable than being on just her hind legs. She made a low, growling noise in the direction of the guy who'd been with fish girl. Weren't they together??

Now wasn't the time to be thinking about that. Dido clambered off the basking rock, much to the disappointment of muggle onlookers. That's right, she thought, show's over!

The other bears swiped lightly at her as she passed, making what she can only assume were puzzled noises. Dido shrugged them off and headed back into the covered enclosure.

It didn't smell great in here but, to her horror, she was getting used to it.

Tadhg turned a quizzical look toward the blonde lady. "Ye mean the Village People?" He asked, though he didn't really require an answer. She said odd bird things, his fellow zoo-goer. Not that Tadhg could judge. He was also very odd. He was dancing the YMCA with a bear.

The blonde made a 'C' and Tadhg hurried to complete the set, and brought his hands to a steeple above his head, making the 'A'.

"Sure 'tis no bear." But the blonde was going, rushing off and saying something about an internship. He looked after her, then back over at the bear. The large animal was moving, too, toward the back of the habitat, seemingly at the direction of the blonde. He decided he wasn't going to leave, though. Not until he'd figured this out. He moved to pick up his things, camera included, so he could use the lens to get a closer look, when he realised the device was gone.

It occurred to him that the blonde might have swiped it. But even as he took off after her, he thought he was being too uncharitable, and would have to give her the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps it had been a mistake.

"Hey! Hey, Miss!" He called, making a lot more noise as he chased after her than she had. When he realised where she was going, his tone took an edge of warning to it. "Hey, psst! I don't think we're s'posed to go in there!"

Ministry protocols had been lite on what to do if someone on Level Four was transformed into another animal. Maybe Heliotrope should bring up the issue to Fournier, who led Beast Division. Or maybe she hadn't been paying attention, if it was an on-boarding instruction that had yet to crop up again in her time working with aquatic subjects.

But particulars were the furthest from Helio's mind at the prospect of getting from point A to point B. Nope, only determination powering her swift strides as she found her way to the employee restricted building. Once inside, she'd have to descend to the level of the enclosures and find the one for bears.

She tried the handle. "Locked. They never told me the code." A door with numbered pins for a keypad. If analogue an Unlocking Charm should still do the trick, although it would take her a few tries. In reaching for the back of her neck, towards where she stashed her wand, she noticed one of the windows wasn't fully sealed...

"Hey! Hey, Miss!" Heliotrope paused, mid-reach behind her head. More attention from the other guy by the guardrail. "Hey, psst! I don't think we're s'posed to go in there!"

Another complication, even if there was something about him she couldn't place. "It's fine, I'm a junior veterinarian, LeJean," she swallowed. Taking a second to fish out her credentials she grimaced at the alias she'd been assigned. "Jean, Peggy-Jean Barton. Who can't remember the door code."

Somebody on Accidents & Catastrophes was probably having her on approving that cover for a muggle facing assignment. And she still had to examine the sea lions after this. "Look," Helio sighed, "You must think there's something unusual about that bear too. I'm only trying to help."

Tadhg relaxed somewhat when the blonde lady claimed she was zoo staff. He certainly hadn't had that impression when they'd spoken outside the bear habitat, but Tadhg was often wrong about things, especially people. The odd thing was the face she pulled when she looked at the name on her own identification.

Truly, an odd one.

But what better was he? He'd thought the bear was sending him messages via 1970s muggle American disco ensembles. "Well, Ms Barton?" He waited a moment for her to confirm, for she didn't seem all that certain herself. "I believe you took my camera."

She had a point about the bear. Tadhg looked away, focusing on the gated back entrance to the habitat, eyes moving over the electronic panel and then toward a window, which was cracked open. "I cannot claim to know much about zoological matters, but I can agree that the bear was acting peculiarly. I mean, for a bear. Not that I know any bears."

He stopped rambling for a moment and then slipped into problem-solving mode. "Perhaps you could have a look in through that window and see if you can catch a glimpse?" He considered using magic to short the panel while she was distracted.

Now the other guy had followed her, seeing him face on rather than side profile brought about...some sort of peculiar recognition. Helio didn't always recognize people by accent.

"Your camera?" That took her by surprise. In her haste she hadn't been as attentive in checking. It wasn't a shoddy camera, by any means, although it looked slightly archaic compared to the model she had been given, which was intended to look similar to muggle technology. "Then you must have mine, sorry."

Handing it back, her glove-less hand with a bit of webbing between her fingers would be visible for a moment. "You can say Peggy-Jean, close enough. And yes, that bear isn't very bearish. Something strange is going on." If Helio had the foresight to take an outsider's perspective, she would be the pot calling the kettle black. Black wasn't a common pigmentation for the full kettle of fish, so another idiom was lost to her.

"Not knowing the code doesn't help, they forgot to tell me. But if I can get inside," she looked towards the window with a similar line of problem solving. "How about a boost, Mister with the funny camera."