The repair was lengthy. Briana had sat for the first half hour or so, but as time went on, she occupied herself with traipsing around the sanctuary. It was still a strange place to her; the fact that such a variety of plants coexisted in one limited space was astounding. Within the disorder, there was a slight order. The plants became taller and taller as they got farther from the clearing and closer to the wall. Oddly enough, the plants thrived without much aid from the animals that lived within the sanctuary. There was no need for bees to pollinate flowers or birds to transfer seeds; the foliage was highly self sustaining, rarely requiring the assistance of Mother either.
The few animals that did live in the sanctuary spent most of their time in enclosures or tied up, all in a larger clearing that was off behind the living space. Briana ventured into it. She stayed towards the center of the clearing and with good reason. The creatures around her were strange. Their bodies were distorted. They had odd combinations of parts, their skins changed constantly in pigment and type. Some had feathers while others were bare. Some were hefty while others looked sickly.
They all seemed to perk up as Briana passed, picking up their heads and perhaps extending their necks - the ones that had necks- in an effort to get her attention, all but one. Tied to an evergreen was a massive lizard hybrid. Its skin was a smooth, light blue that shifted to blue on the six, stumpy legs and down to the clawless paws. Two feathery wings hung down, outstretched on either side of the thick body. The tail was, frankly, pitiful, just a ten inch long stump extending off the creature. It's head resembled that of an obese child. The whole being was outstretched on a rock with its legs hanging down limply.
Briana stopped for a moment in front of it, staring. The lizard stared back, and then it stuck out a long, black tongue and swept it over each of its four, orbish, brown eyes. When the tongue retracted, all activity in the lizard ceased except for the gentle expanding and contracting of its sides from breathing.
"Hmph, looks like you have no fucks to give," Briana chuckled.
She turned away from the lizard and continued her self-guided tour.
"You're right, I don't."
Briana stopped. Do I really want to do this, she pondered. She hesitantly turned around to look back at the lizard, but there was nothing to see, just the same slump of creature. She glanced around. There was not another soul in the clearing. She looked back to the lizard.
"Did . . . you just . . . talk?" she asked.
At first, the lizard did nothing. It's eyes moved in Briana's direction at the sound of her voice, but that was it's only reaction. After a moment, it sat up, crossed it two front most legs, looked Briana in the eyes, and spoke again.
"No."
Then it turned away from her, back to slumping again. That was Briana's cue to go back to where she was used to. Her exploring had proved to be interesting, but nothing had prepared her for the four-eyed, flying salamander. When she returned to the main clearing, the operation still had not finished.
"Shouldn't be much longer," she mumbled half-heartedly.
She plopped herself down on the ground and started pulling at the grass, but soon stopped because she thought her actions would upset Mother Nature. Time continued to pass. Briana became ever more bored with her predicament. She lay down on her back, arms and legs outstretched. She looked to her right at the door of the operation room, then she looked to her left at the curtain of vines behind which she had never seen. The light from the rest of the sanctuary didn't go far past the shade of foliage. Briana continued to stare into it, wondering what might be behind, when Botolf and Mother Nature finally came into the clearing. Briana shot up, brushing the grass and leaves off of herself, and approached the two.
