[Synopsis: BDay takes his buddy Sheriff to a travelling petting zoo. Things seem to be going alright...until the two llamas start to make mischief.]

[Location: A petting zoo, duh. 😂]

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"I cannot believe I let you talk me into somethin' like this," Sheriff muttered to the blue crewmate beside him as they approached the fenced area.

"Oh, come on, Sheriff!" BDay said to him. "The Ranch Bros. Travelling Exotic Petting Zoo only comes once every two years! Besides, I thought you loved farm animals!"

"Yeah, but isn't this kinda thing mainly for kids?"

"Nope! Read the flyers, and it said that it'll captivate any adult just as much! It's not just farm animals they have, either! They've got stuff like camels and deer, too! When I took Rose here the day before yesterday, she was mesmerized!"

The tan crewmate hummed thoughtfully as they approached the gates to the petting zoo. Since BDay was the one treating his companion, he took it upon himself to pay for both of them, and they each got a plastic cup of mixed oats, corn and pellets to feed some of the animals with.

"Come on, Sheriff! You'll have a blast, I promise!"

BDay eagerly lead the way through the open gate, Sheriff following a bit less ecstatically.

"Now, you look like someone who's got a thing for animals! Bet you'll enjoy yourself!" the cashier said to him as he walked passed. Sheriff tipped his ten-gallon hat forward on his head, shielding the embarrassed pink blush on his face as he walked into the pen full of animals...Even in spite of BDay's reassurance, he felt so childish going in here.

"Sheriff, look! This mini goat still remembers me!"

He looked up to see BDay already interacting with one of the animals in the pen: a salt-and-pepper-coated pygmy goat kid no bigger than a small dog was romping around him, making tiny little bleating noises.

"You've met this one before?"

"Sure did! Look how friendly he is!"

"Huh..."

Sheriff bent down to get a better look at the baby goat, and saw that it was eyeing his food cup.

"What? You hungry?"

As though to respond, the kid bleated at him, looking right at the tan clad crewmate with its big blue eyes. Sheriff decided not to disappoint it, and he tipped the cup slightly forward, making sure it was low enough for the goat to reach, with it being so tiny...The kid stuck its snout into the cup and started munching away, and Sheriff kept it like that for a few more seconds before gently pulling away.

"A'ight, that's enough," he said to it. "Hungry, ain'tcha?"

"Maa."

"Figured you'd say something like-"

Out of nowhere, Sheriff felt a hot puff of air shoot right into the back of his neck, sending a startled shiver down his spine as he tensed up.

"Uhh, Sheriff...Looks like someone else smells your food," BDay said to him, not seeming particularly alarmed.

The tan crewmate slowly turned his head around, and quickly found himself face-to-face with a grey-coated, equine face. At first, he thought he was looking at some kind of small horse, but then he noticed the long ears.

"Oh."

The intrigued smile fell from Sheriff's face; he'd had a pretty unpleasant experience with a donkey before, and even though this one was far to small to trample him, that didn't stop it from bringing back bad memories...BDay, however, didn't know of said memories, and thought his friend was merely surprised.

"Here, check this out!"

The blue crewmate poured a small amount of the food from his cup into his palm, then lowered it down for the donkey to see, and it gently licked the food out of his hand, being careful not to bite him by mistake.

"Hm...Guess that's nice," Sheriff remarked.

"Why don'tcha pet her? She was following Rose around almost the whole time the other day, wanting more attention."

"A'ight, fine..."

Like he would have done with any horse, he rubbed up and down the middle of the donkey's snout and patted her cheek a few times before turning away, glad he'd gotten it over with; even if this one wasn't much of a problem, he still didn't like donkeys.

"You wanna see the capybaras they have here?" BDay offered.

"Well, alright. Whatever the Sam Hill those are..."

"Biggest rodent in the world! They're from South America. I'll show ya!"

"So, they're...Giant vermin?"

"Oh. come on. They look like big ol' guinea pig goats! They're over here!"

He followed BDay to the area of the petting zoo the capybaras were at, and raised an amused eyebrow when he saw what the animals actually looked like.

"Well, THAT'S somethin' to behold, if I do say so myself."

"It's crazy to think that they're related to mice," BDay chuckled. "Come on, I'll show you the deer next!"

"Well, alrighty, then..."

Sheriff's mood seemed to improve from that point on, and he gradually forgot all about his worries from earlier. It was true; even a fully-grown adult like himself was impressed by how tame the young axis deer and elk does were, and the sight of a giant tortoise and a vibrantly-colored peacock were mesmerizing...He reminded himself to thank BDay for bringing him here when they were done.

And maybe apologize for actin' so hesitant when we first got here, he added.

"Uh-oh."

The hint of concern in BDay's voice as he stared a furry white llama dead in the eye caught Sheriff's attention, and he turned to observe the situation himself.

"These guys," the blue crewmate said to him as he pointed at a second, tan-coated llama standing fairly close to Sheriff. "They like to mess with people."

"How so?"

"So the owners say, they're unpredictable. They don't let these guys out all the time, and they've been meaning to sell them to a farm in exchange for better-behaved ones, but since they haven't done that yet, they might chew some of your clothes, or spit on you, or...well...One of them even said they're pickpockets in the making!"

Sheriff stuck his hands into the pockets of his tan suit to make sure the similarly-colored llama beside him didn't take anything from him, and breathed a small sigh of relief when his wallet and phone proved to still be where they belonged.

"Sounds like they're a bit of a handful," he said to BDay. "Let's just mosey on back over there so they don't-Hey!!"

"What the-!?"

BDay looked over to Sheriff, and he saw the tan llama running away from him...with his precious ten-gallon hat in its mouth.

"Git back here with that, you varmint!!"

The tan crewmate started to chase after it, running around the perimeter of the pen to try and catch it, but with no success.

"Hang on, Sheriff!" BDay called out to him. "I'll help you get your hat-HEY!!'

The white llama that'd been staring the blue crewmate down plucked the balloon off of his head and ran off with the string in its mouth.

"Now the other one stole MY hat!"

"Let's take care o' mine first! It can't do much harm to a balloon, can it!?"

"Well, let's hurry, at least!"

Sheriff managed to predict the llama's next move, and he managed to get it to stop running and back into a corner. BDay closer in on it from the other side, each of them slowly stepping closer to it.

"Thaaat's right...Just gimmie the hat back," the tan crewmate said to it, slowly reaching out to grab his hat. "Eeeeasy there, that's right..."

The llama looked at Sheriff, then at BDay, and then at the small gap of space in between the two of them, and it made a mad dash towards it, charging past them and racing away, still carrying the hat in its teeth.

"Now what do we do!?" BDay hollered as they chased after them again.

"I dunno, pard'ner. Maybe git one of the owners of this place over here and see-"

"HAAWWW!"

The ear-splitting bray made not just the crewmates, but the llamas stop dead in their tracks, and they all looked ahead of them to see the same miniature donkey from before approaching the two troublesome llamas, her eyes narrowed.

The two llamas backed away from her, seeming intimidated. She tilted her head up to look at the towering animals and snorted at them. The victims of their theft were bewildered; they expected the llamas to either ignore the donkey or display dominance over it themselves, but they were apparently too afraid to do so.

Guess I ain't the only one who's had a bad time with them donkeys before, Sheriff said to himself.

They were even more amazed when they saw the two animals lower their heads and release the hats from their mouths. Sheriff's ten-gallon hat was set gently on the dusty ground, and BDay's balloon floated up towards the metal covering of the pen when it was let go of. The blue crewmate grabbed it by the string, tying it back onto his head, and Sheriff picked his precious hat up off the ground, dusting it off before putting it back on his head where it belonged...And the moment he lowered his hands back down to a resting position, the donkey plodded over and nuzzled one of them.

"It could just be me," BDay remarked. "But something tells me she's had to handle these llamas before...She's so small compared to them, though; what do you think made them so afraid of her?"

"Well, if there's one thing I know from my experience with donkeys, it's that they can kick. Just about as hard as a horse its size, and probably more often. I tussled with one about four times as big as this mini back when I was workin' at another ranch out o' state, and when it decided it didn't wanna listen to me, it made a 180, slammed its back hoof into my stomach, and...well...That paired with the trip to the emergency room was what made me go lookin' for another ranch to work at."

"Oh, ouch. I've heard donkeys can be stubborn, but that sounds bad."

"That it were. But, ah..."

He looked down at the mini donkey again, and she seemed to look up at him at the same time, locking her gaze with his.

"...Guess this one seems alright."

"Yeah. They're smart, aren't they?"

"No doubt about that."

He scratched the donkey's head again, earning another, quieter bray of satisfaction.

"Well, thanks for the intervention," he said to her. "Whatever you're doin' to keep those llamas from goin' bat crazy, keep it up."

The donkey snorted lightly again before turning around and heading over to another group of people...The llamas had departed as well, having begun to mind their own business instead of getting into others'.

"Yeah...I've decided that I don't like llamas that much," BDay said to his friend.

"Same. Be glad they didn't decide to spit in our faces on top of that."

"I like the alpacas they have here, though."

"They've got alpacas here too?"

"Yep! Right over there! They're smaller and fluffier. And they don't steal peoples' hats!"

BDay lead him over to the pair of brown and grey alpacas, which were far more pleasant than the llamas...They stayed for a while after that, admiring the other exotics present...Sheriff never thought he'd ever get such a close encounter with a camel, much less a zebra or a wallaby.

They stayed until closing time, and Sheriff had a satisfied smile on his face as he and Bday headed out the gate.

"Hey, before we hit the road, I just wanna apologize for actin' so weird when we first got here," the tan crewmate said to the blue one beside him. "At the time, I thought somethin' like this was mainly a kid thing, but I guess I was proven wrong."

"Oh, that's alright! Just glad you weren't embarrassed the whole time."

"Yeah, well...Just hope nobody was starin' when the llamas stole our hats."

"Well that wasn't your fault. It was the llamas!"

They both laughed heartily about the llama incident for a solid minute.

"Heh heh...Say, BDay. What say we make a stop at DQ and git ourselves a couple o' Hunger Busters and Blizzards? On me."

"Sounds awesome! Thanks for that, Sheriff!" he chirped happily. "So, what'd you think of today? Fun, wasn't it?"

"Darn tootin'. I'm gonna remember this day for a long, long time..."

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Why yes, I DID name the one-shot that on purpose. XD

Okay, now that the story is over, who wants some free nostalgia?

https://youtu.be/kZUPCB9533Y