Zea tipped a hollowed gourd over a pitcher, straining fruit pulp and maté stems out of the beverage through a few layers of loosely-woven cloth. It wasn't exactly cold, but it was more refreshing this way than it would be hot, at least in Zea's opinion. She squeezed the cloth-wrapped lump of fruit flesh and prickly wet yerba maté, draining the last bit of liquid out between her fingers into the pitcher.
"Glad you like it," she called back. Whether Xala kept it or sold it wasn't Zea's problem, but it would have been a shame if it had gone to someone who'd wanted to kill it. She'd worked so hard in her boozy intensity to keep it alive.
She rinsed her hands, shook the pulp out into her fertilizer sack, and then pinched two cups between her fingers to bring them with her. With a quick grip and twist of dextrous toes, Zea pulled the door aside and then slid it shut behind her. There was Xala, and there was the tonguebird. It had been handled a fair bit by Zea in its short new existence, but never by anyone like Xala. Zea was pleased to see it so docile.
"I gave it a tree frog tongue, and it figured out how to use it almost immediately. It doesn't want anything to do with flowers anymore. Just wants spiders." She laid the cups down next to the tonguebird's abandoned jar, and poured the yellowish juice-tea into Xala's and then her own. The maté itself was a little bitter, but the fruit juice was sweet enough to balance it somewhat. "Here, let me show you."
She clicked her tongue, and the little chimera looked at her. Zea dipped a finger into her cup of maté and then hung it downward so that the creature could see the drop hanging heavily from her fingertip. It blinked once, then snapped its stretchable tongue out to snatch the droplet back into its narrow curved beak. Zea had not been entirely precise before; she'd actually given it three tree frog tongues. "I've just been calling it Tonguebird but I don't think birds care what their names are."