Ai Lemur Seeks Sanctuary

“Oh yuk, Psycho! What is that? Don’t bring it in here!”

Psycho Motor Dabrowski, one of the five canine writing companions of Little Plump Jo had just strutted through the door of Malory Tennyson’s Cloudbank Cabin for Arthurian Studies, with a bedraggled lump of thick brown fur in his mouth and deposited it on the floor in the middle of the lounge room.

“I found it on the doorstep. Can we keep it? Please! Please!” Psycho Motor had a habit of bringing his smelly, wet, ‘strictly for outside’ toys inside. But this did not seem to be a shredded tug-o-war rope or a chewed tennis ball.

“No, it’s dripping all over the carpet. Take it outside!”

The furball began to vibrate and unwind and a long tail unwrapped from around it and spread out behind it. It sat up on its haunches, its orange eyes blinking, wringing its bony fingers in a manner reminiscent of Dickens’ Uriah Heep.

“It’s Morganette Lafaye’s Ai Lemur!” exclaimed Intellectual Dabrowski, another of Jo’s canine writing companions. “What is it doing here?”

Ai Lemur reached into its furry middle and produced a white tissue attached to a small stick, which it waved in the air.

“Oh look! It’s asking for sanctuary!”

“It could be a trick. We would not ever encourage anything AI in Cloudbank Cabin. I don’t trust it! It gives off bad vibes.” That was Sensual Dabrowski, the writing companion responsible for helping Little Plump Jo to identify sights, sounds, smells, and tastes to add colour to her stories. Sensual was also acutely aware of ‘vibes’ which were not tangible or accessible to the physical senses.

Emotional Dabrowski put back her lovely Spaniel head and howled.

“It looks so sad. Don’t just send it away. Give it a feed and towel it dry. Find out why it has come here.”

All the dogs sat in a circle watching as Jo towel dried the Ai Lemur; but giving it a feed was more of a problem. “They eat grubs and larvae which they dig out of tree trunks” Intellectual informed. Emotional went out to fetch her Therapy Dog coat and stood patiently for Jo to put it on her.

“Why did you come here?” asked Emotional.

Ai Lemur started to wring its long bony fingers again. “Morganette Lafaye threw me out because I could not write a romance story for her starring Sir Lancelot and herself. I wrote one for Sir Gawain and Lady Ragnell and that worked out just fine. And Morganette made a good amount of money from that story. I could have made her a pot of money by writing a romance story for Lady Charlotte-Elaine, the Lady of Shalott from Charlotte’s Web Weaving with Sir Lancelot du Lac. But when Lady Charlotte- Elaine was asking me to write the story for her, I felt that I had to warn her that, if I did write it, she would end up dying like Elaine, the Lily Maid of Astolat.

We Ais can do that, you know, tell when people are likely to die soon. So, we point to them and point out the danger. It is usually really obvious, something like a tree about to fall on them or a bandit sneaking up behind them. But the Malagasy people think we are causing the deaths rather than just giving warnings. They say that if an Ai points its long middle finger at you, you will die. We are considered to be harbingers of death and doom and the Malagasy people literally kill us as soon as look at us.

Anyway, Morganette wanted me to write her a romance with Sir Lancelot; and I could not foresee any danger for her. So, I did. But when I pointed to Sir Lancelot and told him he had been chosen to be the love interest in a romance story about Morgan Le Fey, he had the same sort of superstitious reaction that the Malagasy people always have! He recoiled from me and held up his sword hilt in the sign of the Cross in front of him.

And he refused to fall in love with Morgan.”

“That was because he had already experienced The Moment – his Love at First Sight Moment with Lady Guinevere in this iteration of the Fog Lake re-enactments and now he is immune to approaches from any other ladies” explained Emotional in a sympathetic tone. “You could have written the best story ever and he still would not have fallen. So Morgan should not blame you!”

“So is Morganette Lafaye the same person as Morgan Le Fey then?” asked Intellectual.

“Yes. I might as well tell you now because I do not intend to go back to her. Morgan Le Fey posed as Morganette Lafaye, an Artisan in Residence, to infiltrate Cloudbank Cabin and attempt to direct the Arthurian stories in a way that suited her ambitions.”

“What will you do now, then?”

“Can I change my name to ‘Heh-heh’ and stay here with you?”

“Well, no, not really! Little Plump Jo does not use AI. What would you eat for a start?” That was Intellectual, practical as ever.

“We could order Gourmet Grubs and Luscious Larvae from the Madagascar Menu at Pet Breakfasts Online!” suggested Imaginational Dabrowski.

“There is no such thing, you airhead!” grumbled Intellectual.

“Well, there should be!”

“And what would you do? LPJ does not use AI and she would not be allowed to keep you as a pet.”

“One more pet wouldn’t hurt. Jo already has five dogs, when she is only supposed to have two” pleaded Emotional.

“Even if she could sneak in one more pet, she would not be allowed to keep an Ai Lemur” barked Intellectual firmly. “They are an endangered species. It would be illegal to keep one as a pet. I have no idea how Morganette managed to get one!”

“She saved me because I saved her” said Ai Lemur. “She came to Madagascar to purchase dark magic supplies. I saw that an angry crowd was descending on the dark magic supplies shop and pointed it out to her. The crowd saw me point and descended on me. Morganette scooped me up and whisked us away from there.”

“Do you miss your home and Ai friends and the familiar food?” asked Sensual Dabrowski. “Do you want to go back to Madagascar?”

“Not really!”

“Very well, here is a practical, suitable solution” suggested Intellectual, who had been doing some quick research on the topic. He read out “The conservation of this species has been aided by captive breeding, primarily at the Duke Lemur Center in Durham, North Carolina which has been influential in keeping, researching, and breeding aye-ayes!”