Syd pondered her answer by draining the last of his pint. "It's like having dozens of live-in patients, all with different needs, care requirements and responsibilities. He rationalized. "Even having the excellent team that I do, I have always liked to be involved in whatever it is I'm doing. Plus I have the administrative and financial situations on my shoulders." He wasn't that great at it, but he'd gotten better at it over the years. "Which thankfully Eavan helps me with." She had a good head for business, even if she wasn't always that good with people.

"Just the sheer size of it means something is always going on." He chuckled. Containing Stephen the emu, or making sure none of the creatures have fallen ill or injured, feeding and cleaning up after all of them. It was non-stop, which was good, Syd hated to be bored. But it also did make him feel like the responsibility of it all tethered him there and left him unable to step away.

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I wasn't sure it was possible, but he's even more yummy, by MJ ♥
Podmore Zoological Gardens - Irvingly

Emilia watched him as she listened to his answer, which was quite thoughtful. She'd expected thoughtfulness from Mr. Podmore, but it was still pleasant to listen to him explaining his day-to-day to her. "That makes sense," she said, with a small smile, "And I suppose it's also complicated that most of your charges can't just tell you what's going on with them."

Not that people would always explain what was wrong with them, either — but at least they had the option.

  

"That is the hard part. Fortunately most of my staff have been working with creatures for so long they can usually figure it out and then we have an excellent pair of creature healers." Syd had been able to fix what animals did to humans, working on the creatures themselves was a far cry from that. He could do minor cuts and scrapes on the animals, but anything beyond that and he simply didn't have the anatomical knowledge to be useful. Fortunately he didn't have to.

He shrugged, realizing he was waxing poetic about his job. "Regardless, you can see why I don't feel like I can get away for any length of time." As much as he would, Syd practically lived at the zoo and at this point in his life, he was perfectly content with it. He didn't have a family to share the time with; the zoo was everything. It certainly wasn't how he envisioned his life going, but he was surprisingly comfortable with it.

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I wasn't sure it was possible, but he's even more yummy, by MJ ♥
Podmore Zoological Gardens - Irvingly