In Good Hands + short story

My first attempt at Azule fav.me/d5tj5a0, whom AnoOrca will be trading me for Kaleo as part of our NCS-NED exchange. I'll probably write a little short story to go along with this picture, at a later date. But the idea came to me as soon as I learned of the fact that Azule's mother Kahna died after he was born, leaving him to be hand-raised by NED, and later NCS staff.

Referenced from this photo of Halyn: orcahome.de/images/halyn4.jpg

*-*-*

EDIT 2: as of 1.11.206 this story is AU, given changes to Kahna's and Azule's histories. But I'll leave things as they are here for a bit of reading material. Their profiles will be canon-compliant.

EDIT: so this is the little introspective story I came up with to summarize Azule's feelings, being an orphan, despite not knowing any better. It's one thing to become an orphan at birth, versus a few years of age, when the mind is developed enough to recognize what loss is. I'm thinking of doing a small series of pictures featuring short stories of Azule. So, this could be the first of at least two more to come.
Four paragraphs. Hope it isn't too much of a downer.

"There was something truthful to be said of the phrase "ignorance is bliss". Particularly for individuals like Azule. At a shy forty-eight hours old, his behavior was much the same as it had been for all of his as-yet-young life. Despite the calamity he had endured, being forcefully parted from his ailing mother mere minutes after being born, he couldn't comprehend that the few minutes he had spent in her presence were to be sorely numbered. While fate may have shown a cruel hand to Kahna, the caretakers now responsible for her son's life, and that of the other ten other killer whales residing at the New England Dolphinarium, were all the more bound and determined to make sure he did not share the same demise.

A great deal of avoiding that problem hinged on his ability to adapt to what was, for these particular humans, a novel experience. The non-existent handbook on the care of hand-raising newborn orcas was woefully thin, and what past few cases there were to refer to would only be of so much help. The best they could offer amounted to hourly feedings of artificial formula and an around-the-clock watch of the small medical pool Azule had been confined to. Kahna was the first of the park's four, adult female orcas due to give birth. With each displaying varying degrees of aggression, owing to hormones, social discontent, and the overcrowding-stress already present among the pod, none were an ideal match for adopting the new orphan.

All of these complications, Azule was blessedly unaware of. He had no way of knowing what a stir his presence had caused. Far from showing the fear and uncertainty of one who had dour past experiences to judge by, his was a clean slate, and his inquisitive and buoyant behavior now testified to it. Under the supervision of no less than four pairs of eyes at a given time, he had taken to life with a misleadingly cheerful air, porpoising about the surface of the shallow pool, circling its perimeter, and already practicing holding his breath on dives to the floor. His rambunctiousness was only stayed by fatigue and hunger, and he passively allowed himself to be cradled and a bottle held to his mouth whenever his handlers thought it time for another feeding. Were it not for the conspicuous lack of a tending orca cow, one would have never guessed he had suffered such a crippling loss not but two days ago.

But the situation could not be left to stagnate. For all his good nature and innocent ignorance, eventually, Azule's instincts and his growing curiosity would lead him to actively seek out his own kind, and understanding would set in that he was without the close, vital contact only Kahna could have provided. Pairing him up with any of NED's other female orcas was too big of a risk, one not worth taking after what the park had lost in exchange for its newest charge. Something would have to be done, and soon."