[Survey] Kai and his favorite animal

Kai loves the animals on Owai-6. He loves walking through the forest, spotting groups of Teropita in flight. He loves looking for sleeping Volans, their wings curling around their young. He loves crouching to watch Beebles march along, occasionally moving them off the paths to the safety of the bushes.

He’ll gleefully point out any sleeping Ascadon, trying to catch photos of them sleeping in any funny pose while calling them adorable. 

He’s swam with Kogi before, his gills giving him plenty of time to watch them swim, do their mating rituals, and even raise their young. He’s looked for abyss Alonas, fascinated with their tentacles and their speed in catching prey. 

He’s even found a few Boolew accidentally washed up on the beach. Depending on their condition he’ll help them back in or take them home to build their strength in a recovery tank before releasing them again.

You could ask him his favorite, but the mute Xero will shrug, the universal sign for “I don’t know.” His house provides no clues. His eclectic collection of feathers, bones, shells, fossils, gems, and plant life are all things he’s found while scouring for the elusive animals.

But if you see into his room, there’s a large tank, full of salt water, temperature controlled, with little ceramic sunken ships, fake plants that almost blow in the gentle current, scales that shine the colors of the rainbow and fragments of coral carefully maintained. 

In it is a tiny Boolew, no larger than a hand. There’s pictures of when she was an egg nearby, and a frame dated to when she hatched. There’s photos of the first time Kai held her, blurry and out of focus as if a small child took them. There’s photos of Itsy bee holding her, her hands comically stiff holding something so small and delicate. 

Kai will tell you all about her, how he feeds and takes care of her, what her favorite food is, when she likes to nap and when she likes to be held. He knows the minute she hatched by memory, and exactly what temperature the water was when she hatched. He religiously checks the water temperature, once when he wakes up, once before bed, and every hour on the hour he’s home. 

He’ll almost laugh telling you about the time she had a stomach ache, and he rushed her to the vet thinking it was something more serious. The wait in the waiting room was nerve wracking, he almost threw up with worry. Itsy bee held his hand the whole time. And the vet came out and said it was just a stomach ache after Itsy snuck her too many treats. The relief was short lived when he got the bill for all the tests, but she was worth it.

So Kai can’t tell you which species is his favorite. He has plushies of every animal decorating his house. Yet the way he treats his Boolew is a pretty good sign of which one he loves the most.