"Cargo! I'm home! You won't believe everything I saw!" Cowboy enters his home, ducking under the door frame that was far too small for him.

"Maybe I'll be able to buy some improvements for this house with the money I got. Would be nice to live inside a pen that's my size."

Cargo peeks her head out of her room cautiously. She takes a look around to make sure no one else had entered the building.

She does smile and approach Cowboy once she's absolutely sure the coast is clear.

CARGO
Subspecies: Pedigree Snail
Status: Alive and physically healthy.
Social name: While I believe she has a social name, only "Cargo" is used for her, and by her.
Temperament: Cute "bored" personality, sadly extremely traumatized.
Genetic Future: Female. Extremely low fertility. Attempts at encouraging or medicating for breeding behaviors has failed due to extreme paranoia. See notes for more information. While animal has a mate now, which is encouraging, the lack of willingness to take fertility medication points to a dire outcome for her genetic future.

Notes:

• Shows extreme affection towards ancient shells, but does not collect them. Baffling.


• Fears going outside. This is saddening.


• After noticing an increase in anti-social behaviors after multiple health checks, it has come to my attention that this animal has inherited a rare resistance to tranquillizers from her father. (This hints that she is also resistant to our blood.) Unlike her father who is entirely resistant, she still enters a paralyzed state, but is fully aware of her surroundings. As such, these health checks, which were meant to ensure the safety of the animal, have been extremely traumatizing.


• Attempts at domesticating her like her father has failed. Disappointing as her past extremely friendly interactions with one of the prisoners had me hopeful that domestication for the sake of giving her health checkups without incident would be possible. Sadly, as these attempts have only caused even more trauma, I can no longer interact with this animal in good faith, and as such will only watch it from afar. A shame, as her gorgeous coloration and personality was as close to her father's as possible.

"While I was out, I got a ton of money, and then brought some treats with them, would you like some?"

Cargo silently stares at Cowboy, slightly tilting her head.

"OH YEAH! THE REASON I WENT OUTSIDE, RIGHT, RIGHT! SCARPE GOT CULLED!"

"..............................................."

"Yeah, I tried to stop it but I kind of realized fighting the sun just isn't in my blood, so I kind of figured it wasn't worth it."

Cargo rubs her shoulder, obviously stressed out by this information.

"But on the upside, the sun threw all this money on the floor for no reason! Really ain't able to tell you why." Cowboy tries his best to hold the money, but his elongated hands aren't built for the task, causing some of it to slide down his wings and onto the floor.

Cargo walks over to nab some of the coins off of the floor for Cowboy, knowing he has to pick up most things with his feet.

"Woah........"

"Your hair is out of order, fella! Let me fix that!"

Cargo had thought she was going to die. She thought this was finally it. That all the stories she heard about eagles being cannibals to help prisoners learn how to kill and eat animals and her ignoring it for ages was finally going to get her-

She sighs and calms down, holding her tongue. She can't believe she let her paranoia get to her like that. Cowboy would never do that to her. To anyone.

Instead she leans into Cowboy, allowing him to groom her hair. She ignored all the warning signals in her head telling her to worry because "Who knows if Cowboy will just move out of the way and let you fall and then crush your head" or "Maybe he didn't kill you this second but WHAT IF HE KILLS YOU THE NEXT SECOND!?!?!" It was safe. She was safe here. As safe as one could be.

After awhile, Cargo pulls away from Cowboy, grabbing a wing, and pulling him forward towards something in the corner of the living room. "Your pony?" She questions with a head tilt and point.

"Oh man, there she is!!! Awww Miss Bald Pie!" Cowboy picks up the small horse. "Whose been giving birth in the walls of the house? You did! Who nearly caused a critical infestation? You did! Ya dumb pony!"

Cargo looks back at the boxes she packed the other ponies in, worried.

Cowboy takes a moment to decipher what Cargo is thinking on this one. "Hmmmmmm, no I think the ponies are ok."

"Ponies are more intelligent than us! The gov says if a pony didn't want us doing something to them, they'd stop us."

Cowboy nods his head sagely. "Everything you do to a pony is all part of its master plan."

"And if I......?" Cargo mumbles half a sentence, knowing Cowboy would pick up the rest.

"Well first off, don't kill a pony, that'd make me rightly sad. Secondly, I guess the pony wouldn't care, cause it "planned for its death to happen just like this thousands of years ago" or something."

Cowboy checks his device after one of his chat pings him. "Oh! Yu is on!~" He speaks in a chipper way, but his body and expression betrays him.

"Going to be a ton of fun playing a game with Yu today! Hoping we get a lot of good done today.~" Cowboy switches to singing his words out of stress. After all, it's what birds did to calm and distract unruly guests.

Cargo grabs Cowboy's wing and tugs slightly on it. "We don't have to."

"You don't gotta, but I do! I got this, I'm all good! We'll work together to fix Yuuuuuu!~"

Cowboy pauses, realizing he's singing. "It's ok. No matter what happens today, I'm handing over Yu to your mother. Like I said, I was an idiot for thinking I could do this alone. I just feel bad cause it felt I should have done more for Yu, for the island. If Yu just ate me, none of this would have happened. Yu likely would have been graduating out of this place and the residents of the island would have been able to relax at least until another prisoner is dumped in."

"She hurt Naut bad."

Cowboy takes a deep breath and sighs. He might be an idiot, but even he's sure the tales of Cargo's mother taming the prisoner of her island had some.......downsides.

"Yeah, well maybe that's what Yu needs. I was supposed to be mean, but they picked the wrong gosh darn eagle for the job....."

"Speaking of which, your mother ain't give you any trouble while I was gone, right?"

Cargo shakes her head.

"I'm sorry I went silent through that, I really didn't know what to say, but hopefully now that you both had a scratch at each other, we can rebuild from there?"

"......................................................"

"We are not done yet."

"Well, whenever you get tired of her, you tell me, and I'll cut her off from you. Frankly I'm surprised you're still coming to the game after dealing with both Yu and your mother. They ain't being very kind to you."

Cargo closes her eyes to think for a moment. While typing came easily for her, talking was hard. She had to think over every sentence, worried she'd blurt out the wrong thing. She could delete and edit messages online, but once something was spoken, there was no undo.

"I do this for you." Cargo finally settles on while pulling Cowboy in for a hug.

"Well ain't I the luckiest guy in the world to have a fella looking after me like this!"

"Maybe in the universe?"

"Ah! You're right!"

"I don't care what those aliens think with all their fancy efficiency and all that! There ain't nothing better than just some good ole fashion love!"

"Got all that smart in their brain but they ain't thinking about what really matters."

"Having someone real cute by your side to hold!" Cowboy lifts Cargo up and gives her a quick kiss.