What They Think Of Us

Author: Useful_Oxymoron
Rating: PG-13. Some swearing, some cynical examples of walrus behaviour making fun of stereotypes.
Disclaimer: Well, I don't own Willow or Tara. And if I did, I'd set them free.
Feedback: Is cool. It's always nice to know somebody likes the crap I write. Viernadevir@hotmail.com
Summary: Two of the inhabitants of the walrus pen at Seaworld San Diego comment on things in general.
Notes: Influence for this story: a reply from Taralicious. My insanity did the rest.


Tara crawled out of the private walrus habitat and made her way into the pen she shared with the others at Seaworld. In front of her lay her penmates, twelve of them minus one, on the artificial icy beach and past them, a large basin of nice ice-cold water. Three small artificial islands lay strategically placed in the pen.

Tara let herself slide into the water, loving the feeling of the coldness as she swam towards the smallest of the three islands. She picked up speed and almost launched herself out of the water, right next to the other walrus that was already lying there.

"Hi, sweetie," Tara greeted merrily while the other walrus lounged around on her belly, generally making a 'lazy, sunbathing sea animal'-impression on the visitors walking by and looking down into the pen.

"Mrff," responded Willow.

"You're lively today," Tara blew some air through her nostrils, plopped down next to Willow and scooted up against her.

Behind them, from the rest of the herd, a loud bellow sounded. Looking up, they saw a huge male walrus was throwing his weight around, bellowing to the heavens and showing off his huge tusks.

"Riley again," Willow snorted. "I bet Buffy's rolling over already."

A second male approached Riley, matching his bellow. "Oh, there's Angel," Tara said. Immediately, the two males slammed their blubbery bodies together, ramming tusk against tusk and generally bellowing as loudly as their raging testosterone demanded. From the sidelines, a smaller female walrus looked on adoringly.

"Buffy's loving this," Tara chuckled.

Willow snorted. "So there they are, all 'oh, look at me, I have the biggest tusks here. Wow, look how great I am. I have big tusks to compensate for the 5 seconds making love with me takes'. Yeah, we're all very impressed, guys," Willow rolled her eyes.

"Yeah, we don't need to have big tusks to feel good about ourselves," Tara added.

Willow shifted slightly. "Your, um, your tusks look really nice today, Tara. Clean and white and sharpy."

Tara looked away nervously. "Um, t-thank you. I, um, h-have been s-sliding them along the b-bars of the c-cage underwater. Just for y... Uh, I mean, t-thanks."

A class of schoolchildren passed by, a few of which hung over the railing and pointed at the two walrusses closest to them... which happened to be Willow and Tara.

"Oh, they're all looking at me," Willow pouted. "I hate that."

Tara sighed. "I suppose we should get to work."

"I thought we were already working," Willow replied.

Tara, in the meantime, rolled onto her back and waved a flipper to the now squealing children. After a few moments of waving, Tara rolled back to lie next to Willow.

"There," Tara said. "That ought to hold the little SOB's for a while."

"Now who's being lively?" Willow chuckled.

Just that moment, a girl holding an ice-cream cone who was wearing Daisy Dukes and a very short tank-top passed by the pen. The two young walrusses watched her walking along for the moment and frowned as much as a walrus could.

"Sheesh," Willow muttered. "Human females are so repulsive."

"Hm, you said it," Tara replied.

"I mean, just look at her! Those overly long legs, that silly pink skin, hardly any blubber at all... She's a walking skeleton and what blubber she has is concentrated in those two lumps underneath her clothes," Willow said. "It's silly! You'd better never go to the Bering Strait, missy, because, oh guess what, you'll freeze to death in 10 minutes while we sit nice and pretty with our perfect body-coverage of blubber."

"Say, did you know some human females paint their hair yellow?" Tara said. "It's true! I heard it from Billy the Polar Bear over at the ice lounge."

"But... why do they do that?" Willow frowned.

"That's just it, I don't know," Tara shrugged. "And... some human females, and males too... they ram a huge metal spike through their tongues for no reason at all! They think it's pretty."

"Really?!" Willow snorted. "And they call us cows."

"That's what you get when you have so little blubber you have to wear fabric around your body just to keep warm," Tara added.

"Hey, those lumps I mentioned? I've heard that the human males, and some other females, go crazy about those lumps. Completely crazy," Willow said.

"Why?"

"No idea," Willow replied. "But you know, some human females even make their lumps bigger by putting bags with plastic inside of them."

"They get fake blubber?" Tara blinked. "Why don't they just eat more, like everybody else?"

"Because human males apparently like walking skeletons with big lumps," Willow shrugged.

"It's hard to believe they're the dominant species on this planet," Tara shrugged.

"They're on their way out," Willow nodded. "They just don't know it yet."

Tara scooted a little closer to Willow. "W-willow? Y-your flippers are so s-soft."

"It's the protein rich fishy-diet," Willow replied.

"What's on the menu today?"

"It's wednesday today, right? Herring-day."

"Oh, I like herring."

The two walrusses sunbathed for another while, enjoying the calmth until another batch of those annoying humans passed by to look, point and shout at them. After enduring a verbal assault, the two walrusses continued talking.

"How rude," Willow said. "Did you hear what he said? 'Come on, fatties, move, do something spectacular, go swim, go gut each other! Just do something already! I paid 10 bucks to get in'. Sheesh, get a life, pal."

"Well," Tara replied. "At least it was interesting. The most exciting thing to happen here is when a kid throws french fries at us. Tell me again why we should miss the Bering Strait?"

"Because the most exciting thing to happen here is when a kid throws french fries at us," Willow stated. "There's no chance of ending up in an orca's belly or getting speared by a drunk eskimo in here. Uh, wait, I'm so sure about that last one..."

A splash of water slammed down on top of the two walrusses. The maritime ladies yelped in surprise while Shamu the killer whale in next pen popped up. "Uh, sorry. I, uh, was kinda jumping around trying to impress the crowd and got carried away."

When the now-wet ladies recovered, Willow turned to Shamu. "'S okay," she said. "No biggie."

"Asshole," Willow muttered under her breath when Shamu was out of earshot.

"Willow?" Tara asked. "I'm glad you're here. At least I've got someone nice to talk to and lounge about with."

Willow blushed slightly, as much as a walrus could blush, of course. "Uhm, wanna go for a swim? We could hide underneath the underwater-window, pop up suddenly and scare the bejesus out of a couple of schoolkids."

Tara thought a moment. "Okay."

And so Willow and Tara slid underneath the surface of the water for a few laps of synchronous swimming, they set in motion their master plan to frighten the cub-scouts gathered around the underwater window. Today was a great day to be a walrus.


THE END


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