Light shone through the darkness. It pierced through any slight opening and invades space, never really asking for reason. And this was the problem with mornings. They were never truly wanted, sleep was much too serene. It presented one with thoughts of magnificence and splendour, yet held too much power, and all in one instance, could tear that away bringing forth darkness fuelled trepidation. It in this way could belittle and mock the dreamer, forcing them awake, forcing them into reality. But light also had this forcefulness, yet did so accidentally meaning no harm. Mornings were the worst.

And so those thoughtless daggers nudge him to consciousness. And did not regret any moment. The date was a luxury he could not recall; all but one thought was silent in Henry’s head. Today was no average day, today he was to meet someone, and he was to meet someone he had not seen in quite some time. Amber. The object of his desires. And he had no intention of losing her.

And then he pulled open the blinds, and those daggers melted into molten iron flooding his bedroom, leaving nothing untouched.

`*:;,．★ ～  HENRY POV  ～☆・:.,;*

I gazed over towards the clock, the hands pointing at my unpunctuality. I was thought to be meeting Amber at the Zoo in just above 30 minutes! The unfortunate point of the matter being that the Zoo was thirty minutes away by car. I was panicking, and rushing around to hurriedly, and in the end, left the house ravenous having not eaten a single morsel of food. Left with no other real choice but to text Amber and apologise for my future tardiness.

Amber, I’m sorry but I’m probably going to be late by a few minutes. Traffic and all.

And I almost instantaneously received the reply:

That’s cool. ^^

My deception was, as far as I could tell, successful.  Yet I was still overflowing somewhat with guilty, having lied to her. But it was inevitable. To in such a way, self promote myself to Amber it was a necessity to lie, as it was in such situations. Though I did not aim for that to become a constant occurrence.

And so I entered my car, and simply drove. Unlike my pretence, the roads were relatively clear. And as such, I would only be behind schedule roughly fifteen or so minutes. And my conjecture was correct. However it was to my vast disclosure that Amber was nowhere to be seen. We had organised to meet in the garden at the Zoo’s façade, and yet she was not there. The garden was almost drained of individual presence, except for the faint laughter of children that abounded the area.

I as such began to wonder, where on earth could this woman be? And it was at that unexpected moment, were I became suddenly unnerved, it was almost as short as three seconds, yet it was not any less terrifying.

“GAH!”

A women’s voice screamed. And little to my surprise, it was the exact person I had been looking for all this time. And I unfortunately failed to hold in my scream, much to Amber’s amusement. And so another voice joined the children’s.

Her face was so perfect.

The garden surrounding us was filled primarily with roses. A fountain stood in its centre, and just towards its north, was the entrance to the zoo, a large ‘children’s’ zoo stood to the garden west. But I had no intentions of going there. The roses were particularly beautiful this time of year. I began debating with myself over what animals we should see, the flamingos were the first attraction once you had walked through the gates.

After her laughing, unfortunately, calmed down and Amber had regained her normal expression we began towards the ticket booths. I disregarded the actual pricing and insisted on paying for everything. No expense could be spared to make sure she enjoyed this day. The line was long, but after some persistence in waiting we finally entered.

“Ah, look at the flamingos! They’re so pretty!” Amber exclaimed.

“Standing on one leg all day must be difficult…” I wondered. And Amber raised her left leg, and began impersonating one.

“It’s not that hard.” She laughed, and much to her dismay, she began to lose her balance and fell. Luckily I caught her before she could hit the ground. She blushed slightly.

“It’s harder than it looks.” I chuckled.

She stood back up and said “Thank you… But it really isn’t.”

And we laughed. However now was the time to discuss what animals we were actually going to see. I had no preference, and neither did she. Which made the decision of left versus right very difficult to choose. And after much thought, we decided to head to the animal nursery at the furthest most section of the zoo, and what better way then passed the peacocks and elephants. And so, we headed left.

The first thing we came across was the zebras and giraffes. “They’re so tall!” Since when did she decide to state obvious facts?

“Of course they are. Did you think they’d be short?” And she punched my arm.

“No! Who would think giraffes are short! They’re just taller than I expected…” She replied, and I laughed.

It was at that moment one began to wonder closer. “Wow. They are really, really tall…” I began tilting my head upwards, and so did Amber. It began eating from a bag of some plant hanging just above us, as it shook; some took a valiant decent onto me. And it wasn’t only Amber who laughed; some of the children around us joined her as well. And so did I. Brushing it out of my hair and off of my clothes Amber had begun to calm down.

“You’re rather unlucky today Oppa, you get caught in traffic, scared by a girl, and littered on by giraffes!” Amber commented.

“Ugh, sure…” Only two of those were particularly true, but I could probably substitute sleeping in place of traffic. Maybe this was some kind of divine punishment for lying? Who knows…

After a few more minutes observing the zebras, we continued onward and who should I now have the grace of seeing? Hippos and rhinos. Absolutely nothing could go wrong here!  Amber appeared like a kid in a toy store, so over whelmed by all these ‘exotic’ creatures.

“It’s like you’ve never been to a zoo before?” And with that her expression changed.

“I haven’t…” She sighed. This took me by much surprise.

“Well we’ll have to make today amazing then!” And she looked at me and found her bewilderment again, if I had not already said so, her smile was one of the most beautiful sights I had ever seen.

The rhinos weren’t really doing much of interest, just moseying around. I don’t really know what I expected them to do though, truth be told. Maybe charging each other? But I guess they wouldn’t be allowed to put murderous rhinos in a zoo… what if they were to escape?

I posed this question to Amber, to which her reply was “Oh no! If psychotic rhinos invaded the city, they would almost certainly be killed! The police would come, and end them before they could hurt anyone! And they’d probably close the zoo down too! Then I would be able to see the animals with you anymore…”  And with that she became sad.

“It’s a good thing they don’t hold evil rhinos then!” My words today seemed to have a strange way of lifting her mood. And it was at this time we rotated our attention to the hippos, who as well weren’t doing much of anything.

“I can’t see them.” Amber said flustering her head around trying to catch a glimpse.

“Over there!” I exclaimed pointing at the further section of the enclosure. As I expected, she gazed eagerly in that exact same direction.

“I can’t see it!” She complained,

“Over there, just popping out of the water!” Her face lit up.

“Ah, it’s so cool! I wish it would come out of the water more though…”

“There’s no pleasing you is there?” I joked.

“Babo!” She retorted. “You shouldn’t speak to you girlfriend like that!”

I apologised, “It is true though!” I laughed. And so did she. I was glad she didn’t take that as an insult.

And it was just about that time when it did rise somewhat out of the water. We spent some time standing there watching as more and more hippos decided to show themselves.

An hour or so passed and we had reached the dolphin enclosure. It was 11:25, just in time for the show. “Should we watch the dolphins then?” I suggested, I was a fool to think she would pass down such an opportunity.

We sat in the front row, which was suspiciously empty; it was extremely close to the pool. And as the show began, I finally saw why. Amongst the tricks, the more than occasional splash of water would hurdle itself out of the pools barriers, most of which end up on us.

As the show came to a close, and we all began exiting the pavilion, Amber and I were soaked straight through. Amber was still laughing having the time for her life as the vast majority of the water had ended up on me, in my romantic attempts to keep her dry. There was definitely some kind of other worldly thing happening to punish me for inventing thousands of cars onto the road to cover my own back.

But I would not dare to tell her such.

And we began to encroach on the Peacocks. The most flamboyant of the birds. And by far the most beautiful. Amber was surprised to learn that the female peacocks were the least colourful. I guess she’d always assumed they were the males. I was not in the mood for discussing the phenotypes of peacocks; it didn’t seem like the most romantic of things to discuss.

However, the peacocks themselves were.

“Ah, they’re so pretty!” Amber was as happy as ever.

“They are! You remind me of a peacock…” I mumbled. And she blushed.

“How so?” She questioned,

“They are very beautiful” I complimented. And she blushed even more. I couldn’t hold in my laughing.

`*:;,．★ ～  AMBER POV  ～☆・:.,;*

Henry was wonderful. He had a way with words. He was sweet, kind, and many other things. Because of him I was getting to experience all sorts of new things. That’s when my watch beeped.

“Its lunch time!” I said in shock.

“Oh! It is!” He was as shocked as I was, time had flown by.

It appeared we would be making a detour. We walked back to the dolphin pavilion to seat ourselves in the restaurant on the second floor. We ordered out food. And began polite conversation.

“What have you thought about the zoo?” Henry asked.

“It’s…. it’s…. brilliant!! It so full of wonderful animals! They’re all so cool!” I could hardly contain my excitement. He laughed slightly.

“I thought you’d say something like that!”

We were on our way to the butterfly pavilion. We had seen the nursery, the baby animals were beyond adorable. The day was coming towards an end, but Henry had insisted we see butterflies. What on earth was he scheming?

We stopped to look at the owls on our way there. They were astounding. This day had been perfect, the suggestion of Henry’s to come here was unexpected, but I am enjoying every minute of it.

`*:;,．★ ～  NARATION  ～☆・:.,;*

 They approached the insectarium. The building stood before them, its large grey walls and glass ceiling were particularly grand. Henry had motioned them indoors and grasped the iron handle on the crystal doorway and pulled in open. And Amber walked inside, Henry following behind with haste.

Nothing could prepare them for the sight. Soft rays of light penetrating the glass, streams, tropical plants and flowers adorned the surrounding area. And around them swarmed rainbows, hundreds of butterflies, each on individual and different colours and patterns. Heaven could only hope to compete. Among other things, ducklings littered the streams banks, along with small turtles, and colourful fish. It was either too warm, or too cold. Neither too bright, or too dark. Perfection flowed through the room. Expectations of beauty dashed only to be replaced with the longing to never leave. The couple wondered around the room aimlessly, hoping time had frozen.

`*:;,．★ ～  HENERY POV  ～☆・:.,;*

We came to a halt, and Amber turned and looked at me. Her eyes glinted with some unknown emotion; she appeared just on the verge of crying, but tears were nowhere to be seen, nor would I see them.

And at that moment, a pair of blue wings landed on her cheek. I stared for a moment before brushing it away, and it fluttered away, knowing its plan was to be achieved. I stood there, caressing her face. The following was obvious; all I could describe was a warm feeling inside as our lips touched. And we inevitably parted after what felt like minutes. She smiled her beautiful smile, and we began to exit the butterfly hall. It was sunset, the park was closing, we headed towards the now exit and parted ways. I was sad to leave her side, but I could assume we would be spending more time at the zoo.

“We have to come back tomorrow! We still have so many other animals to see!” She said.