Well that explained it. She was an acting amateur. Not even a full-fledged amateur. “Well if it’s criticism you want, I took some notes that I can give you,” Zek said as he pulled a scroll case out of an inner pocket. “I’ll just need something to write with. Gimme a sec.” Zek started patting himself down. He usually kept a few different writing implements on him at any given time - you never knew when you were going to be asked to sign an autograph.

When he felt himself up and down, his feathered hat gained a visitor. Zek had no way of noticing.

Oh, and now she was asking him stuff. “Hmm?” he said as he pulled a slinky out of his pocket and tossed it behind him. “Oh. Well, you were doing an okay job until you started running. Like, that’s more a workout than entertainment.” And then a light bulb went off over his head!

Zek threw the blown-out battery-operated bulb behind him as well.

“You could always help me exterminate the demons they’ve got here,” he said, remembering why he’d come there in the first place. “I brought lots of holy water.”

And he still couldn’t find a writing tool, although he did have an inkwell. “Hey, be a pal and sang me a feather from one of those birds in the cage behind ya, m’kay?” He opened the scroll case and pulled out his scroll so he could jot down his notes.

"Demons?" She tilted her head. Exterminate them with holy water, too. Sounded insane and fun.

She watched the assortment of items dug from the coat and tossed and it was entirely too fascinating. How had he gotten such a large eclectic variety of things? How had he fit them all in there? How did he not rattle louder when he walked?

Questions for another time she supposed.

No writing instrument to be found in the coat, but one perfectly fluffy feather atop his head. She pondered on telling him but decided against it. Instead, she directed the spider to grab ahold of the feather and try to wiggle it out of his cap.

"The toucans?" She glanced up at the long-beaked birds hiding in the trees above them, on the other side of the secure netting.

"Hmm. I don't think I am nearly qualified for a task such as that. That sounds like something someone of your caliber would be capable of pulling off. From everything I have seen you are obviously the most talented here."

Ther spider with hat-feather in tow, dropped down onto his scroll and casually tucked it in his grip.

"Would you please clarify which 'demons' need exterminating?"

She got started making a dinner plate-sized Huntsman spider on her back, lower left ribs, Safely tucked away from harm by her torn clothing and a cage of pointy legs.

“Eh, toucans, ostriches, flamingos. Just about anything pen-sized or bigger should work,” Zek said absently. Hmmm, she was working on finding a feather, he had his scroll out. He put the case back in one of his inner pockets. Something was missing...oh! A writing surface!

Zek started patting himself down again. He stuck his free hand into his coat again looking for his clipboard when he remembered that he’d lost it when he and Juniper had to rescue those tacos from the evil truck driver during that parade-fight. Hmm, what else would work..oh! Hallelujah!

He pulled a red light out of his coat and it flashed into an empty ten-gallon tank, formerly containing holy water, now serving as a stationary clipboard.

And a spider brought him a feather and thoughtfully put it in his hand. “Why thank you, good sir-and-or-madame-other,” he said. Hmmm. The girl wasn’t that great but that spider had that it factor. It was an arachnid that got things done. “I could use ten more just like you,” he said to his eight-legged assistant. And he grabbed the feather (What kind of toucans had big, pink, ostrich-like feathers? Weird collection, this zoo) and flick a knife out of a sleeve and began carving the end into a pen.

As he whittled, he answered, “Oh you know, demons. Four legs, fur, pretend to be man’s best friend but are just waiting for him to lower his guard. Argue with the moon. Hellhounds. Abominations. There’s an exhibit of them in the North America section and I wanna exorcise them.” And the feather was done. It wasn’t his best work, but it would do.

“Now where were we? Ah yes, first, your posture…” And Zek dipped his new pen in his inkwell and squatted down a bit so he could comfortably write a performance critiques on his scroll on top of a depleted tank of holy water in the middle of the forest in the middle of a zoo.

This could take awhile.

Megan liked to think that, if nothing else, she was polite.

Most of the time.

.... When people deserved it.

She watched as Zek went through the motions of... whatever it was he was doing, politely waiting for him to finish. It would probably take hours for them to pry the web ball off of Becky's face, so she wasn't exactly worried about being tattled on right away.

"Ten more?" She could manage that. A mental call went out, beckoning whoever was close by to come. She continued waiting.

"They all use she/her pronouns." She supplied helpfully. They were cut from her own DNA and as far as she was able to tell she was only capable of birthing more female arachnids.

The man explained more about what exactly he was after and she'd be lying if she said she wasn't surprised to hear it was wolves. Maybe dogs in general? How unique.

"Sounds do-able."

And then they were onto his list of many critiques. She once more fell silent, content with listening and enacting some of the advice he imparted on her. The posture thing was confusing and her back didn't naturally want to bend the way he suggested, so she declined that one.

Minutes ticked by as he wrote, stretching into a long wait that she rightly should have gotten bored with, but Megan was hooked. This was like watching some newly discovered species out in its wild habitat, doing what it normally did.

"I don't actually think my voice can get that low, actually. I suppose there will be many roles I simply cannot play due to physical inefficiencies." She wondered how his brain worked. Did jump erratically between thoughts, or stick to one and try to flesh it out in a completely insane manner?

She also found herself staring at a bit of exposed wrist, where just a hint of muscle could be seen poking out, and got lost wondering what fresh, warm meat-

She blinked.

Oops. Almost got lost in the urges again.

By the time he was wrapping up she had one large huntsman spider stationed on her shoulder, was closer and squatting down to peer at his list with him, and nine other spiders had snuck onto his hat with the original hitchhiker.

"I shall endeavor to take all of your advice to heart so that I may become a better actress someday, hopefully."

What time was it? She fished her phone out to check.

"...We have been squatting here for three hours."

The Zoo was closed.

And it did take awhile. A very long while. But it was worth it because dead gods that girl was terrible!

Zek finished his last critique, “....otherwise you’ll have to wash it, because nobody likes pickled battery-burgers.” And that was it. He did have to admit, the girl was good at taking notes. She did get angry and while she clearly didn’t agree with some of them, she was still polite and professional about it all. Good. Maybe there was some hope for her yet.

Although he still believed that voice thing was really going to take her acting to the next level, but hey, he wasn’t her manager.

And he blinked at her. Three hours, huh? “Three hours, huh?” He swiveled his head around, revealing nice supple neck-flesh unknowingly. He swiveled back. “So it seems. It’s gotten pretty dark out, wouldn’t you say?” Zek fished a stick of gum out of the tiny pocket on the inside of his coat’s collar, unwrapped it, dumped the wrapper on the ground, and popped the gum in his mouth where he proceeded to chew loudly.

“Well, we managed to cover all the basics,” he said as he flicked his wrist and the pen vanished. A pass of his hand and the now-empty inkwell vanished too. A razor was held instead and he neatly sliced off the scroll where he’d stopped writing. It was only about six feet long, the section that was for her. He rolled the rest up and popped it back into the scroll case and returned it to his pocket.

Then Zek spat his gum into his hand, rolled the critique up and used the gum to seal it. “There you go,” he said as he handed it to her. Then he went to stand. “Oh blimey, I feel it now. Yep, that’s a three-hour burn alright!” His thighs were going to hurt for days! And he had neglected to bring his four wheeler or scooter. Oh, it wasn’t going to be fun walking back to the entrance like this.

Then again, he did have his hammock and there were a bunch of good-looking trees right here….