I've been working on a personal project where a supramundane shell planet about the size of Saturn is seeded during the early Miocene. In the modern day there are now many isolated pockets of unique life on this enormous planet that I have fleshed out.
One of them is a basin in the middle of a desert that occupies the interior of a hypercontinental landmass. It is tens of thousands of km from the nearest coastline of the Greater Panthallassic, and was dry during the seeding event. Over millions of years of climactic change, rains and meltwater from mountain ranges surrounding the basin filled it with a volume of water comparable to the Mediterranean. It is analogous to a huge Caspian Sea in terms of salinity, depth, and surrounding environment (however, the Caspian was connected to the rest of the global ocean quite recently). Think of it like a reverse island.
For some reason I'm having trouble really picturing how an environment like this would be colonized over time. I'm assuming that the early stages would be filled with algae blooms and explosions in population for small invertebrates with no predators. Is it even plausible for fish to somehow reach this body of water even if it is surrounded by impassable true desert? As in the desert is larger than the entire surface area of Earth. Maybe as eggs stuck to migratory birds?
After this, what do you think would be the first clades to fill vacant aquatic niches? Birds would of course be the first to reach it and probably exploit the abundant food. The desert surrounding the region is vast and inhospitable but I'm sure that animals analogous to camels, fennec fox, jerboas, etc as well as reptiles could eventually reach it as well. Which of these do you think would be best suited to adapt to the new environment and diversify?

Reblogging from entitledparents, with an addendum.
As requested, more 'Tales from Whipsnade'
As many of you so kindly pointed out, both in this, and the previous subreddit my stories were posted in, (modesty aside), I can be quite entertaining, and because of this, combined with the dearth of decent children's entertainers in the South Yorkshire area at the time, (don't even get me started on Wakko The Jakko) I did the entertainment for most of my daughter's birthday parties, along with several of my daughter's classmate's parties when their parents realised just how good/competent I was, at least compared to the 'proper' entertainers.
Obviously, considering the fact The Whipsnades were present, this event happened at someone else's party (Mr & Mrs P for short), because I have more than my fair share of good taste, common sense, and my brain hasn't been removed. Tell the truth, the only reason the Ws were invited was because Mr & Mrs P had only recently moved to the area and didn't know better until it was too late.
Anyway Mr & Mrs P had booked a community centre, 'Bouncy Castle', and one of the local creepy weirdos children's entertainers, but fortunately (for everyone) the entertainer cancelled at the last minute, and I was asked to stand in, at the suggestion of several other parents.
Now this happened when small hand held camcorders were still fairly new, and Mr P had one, and was intending on filming the party. Although it wasn't a mobile (cellular) phone, if you weren't looking closely enough, you'd think it was.
Funnily enough, although only Gift Shop had been invited, the entirety of the Whipsnade horde turned up, including the eldest, Bicycle Ride (yes, her) , and her son Baboon Hut, then aged 3 or 4.
First I organised a few games, like Musical Statues, etc which most of the Ws tried cheating at, naturally, then, before serving the food, because I'm not stupid, the 'Bouncy Castle' was set up. Now the instructions left with it said "no child under 5 allowed" or words to that effect, and this restriction was explained to the guests. Did I mention that the Whipsnades don't take to well to being told 'no'? I noticed Mrs W 'encouraging' Baboon Hut toward the BC, because of course I was keeping a 'weather eye' on as many of the assorted horde as I could. When he tried to climb on, I guided him off, this repeated several times, then to distract him, I said "Has your mum got something?" (or words to that effect) and surreptitiously motioned Mr P to me, then said "I'm going to speak to Mrs W about Baboon Hut, can you film it and film what is said afterwards?" Having already realised the magnitude of his error inviting the Whipsnades, Mrs P said "Oh God Yes".
So I took Baboon Hut back to the 'adult' Whipsnades, because of course he was trying to get back on the BC, and said "Please keep Baboon Hut away from the BC, he is too young for it, and could get hurt, I won't warn you again!" left him and walked away, meanwhile Mr P filmed me warning them, and caught Bicycle Ride telling her younger brother Reptile House to "Get Baboon Hut on that BC, no matter what!" after I walked away. Needless to say, as the food was being got ready, Reptile House put Baboon Hut on the front 'porch' area just as Aquarium bounced really hard against the wall next to Baboon Hut, sending him flying. I don't think he got too hurt but he was seriously shaken up and screaming like someone passing a cricket bat. Sideways.
Obviously this was my and Mr P's fault, they were going to take Baboon Hut to the hospital, and would sue us for every penny, they would have the shirts off our backs. Obviously I've left off all the f*cks, bl**dys, and c*nts. A lot of f*cks, bl**dys, and c*nts. Then Mr P asked if they wanted to see the video of them being warned to keep him away from the BC, and Bicycle Ride instructing Reptile House to put Baboon Hut on the BC. Ever eloquent Mrs Whipsnade said "That's never a fookin' camera" but Mr P just showed Bicycle Ride giving her instructions, and they realised they were on a hiding to nothing, and almost looked like they were collectively deflating.
Can you lovely people guess what they did next, after proclaiming their intention to take Baboon House to hospital, and cursing Mr P and I to high heaven? Mr Whipsnade actually said, "all right then, let's get fed" to which Mr P said "Firstly, what happened to the urgent medical treatment Baboon House needed, and secondly, after your foul-mouthed outburst, I'm going to ask you all to leave immediately, or I'm calling the police!".
All the other parents actually cheered at this point as the horde slowly filed out with faces like absolute thunder.
This next bit is new, and a bit too short/incoherent to be a separate story, so it's addendum time.
This didn't happen to my family, we didn't fall for it, but they tried with most of the families who went to school with the Whipsnade children, even us, and had enough success to keep doing it.
The Whipsnades find out where you are going on holiday, and book somewhere cheap (I assume) nearby. In our case Blackpool.
They then suggest 'meeting up' for a drink somewhere local, they even suggest a time & place, usually just after the pub in question opens. Spoiler Alert! It's always a pub, at least from what I've been told. In our case, the 'Laughing Donkey' on Central Pier, on the Wednesday at opening time. Like I said, we ignored them and went to Blackpool Zoo instead, and yes I realise the irony.
Then, once the victims guests turn up, the Whipsnade parents ask them to look after the Whipsnade kids for a few seconds while they go to the babog/whatever, then disappear, leaving the victims guests to look aftefeed the Whipsnade Horde. Usually for the rest of the day, I've heard rumours they were left overnight on some occasion, but it was at least second/third/fourth hand. Anyway, Not My Circus, Not My Monkeys.
Hope both these titbits are amusing.

Background info: I am a current 3rd-year (pre-med) undergrad, senior. Assuming all goes well, I will graduate in May 2025 with a B.S in Biomedical Sciences. I have been in a reptile physiology lab at the university for 2 years now, working not only with amazing (and well-cared for) creatures, but also a wonderful professor and have made life-long friends through the lab. I am also in an accelerated medical acceptance program, meaning that I will graduate with a B.S and then join the COM cohort in the summer of 2025.
Reason for question: spring 2023, I began to become very invested in my research. My project nearly failed multiple times, but with much dedication and lots of trial and error, I have now presented the project at multiple conferences and will be publishing next year. My project was in comparative physiology, essentially studying snake metabolism. I have always enjoyed reading and writing research, designing projects/ ways to test a research question, and especially analyzing results (on the good days when you manage to get data, of course :) It is such a small speck in the world of science, but I am proud to call it my own and I am excited for what other students may benefit from my project. Ideally, I would like my career to be centered around contributing to the world in a similar way.
In a normal situation, I would have chosen to take more classes at my undergrad institution, continue with research, shadow, and given myself more time to explore my interests and possible career paths before making this decision. However, being in the accelerated acceptance program, there would be no option for this without losing the seat in medical school.
What I would like to know:

• If I do maintain my current track and attend medical school, what could research-based outcomes look like? Are their avenues within COM that would allow me to pursue research-based/ academic medicine?
• If I pivot to grad school, I have no idea what the heck I would specialize in or what timeline I would follow. I feel like I have not done enough exploration or taken enough science classes to know what particular disciplines I would be most interested in, and I am not sure where to start? Both are completely unchartered territories, as nobody in my family is in medicine or academia.

I would like to end by saying I am extremely grateful to be in the accelerated program, and I want to be absolutely sure of what I am doing before I make the decision to leave the program. This is part of the reason why I held it off for so long, as I wanted to make this decision during the summer, without the stress of exams and being away from home possibly contributing to it.

Hello,
In the future I will be getting at least one, possibly more, bigger snakes. I've heard from a local breeder that a boa would be sweet and inquisitive whereas a reticulated python (probably dwarf not super dwarf though) would be, "more of a jerk."
Having never had any reptiles larger than ball pythons, I truly can't compare them to one another, so I would be very interested in the experiences of people who keep one or both of those species.
Thank you! I look forward to tales of different snakes!

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I’m back, still alive!
So, I saw another animal, but first, let me talk about my discussions with Andrew. He seemed relieved that I wanted to stay on after meeting Miss Giant Spider. There were several occasions that she was the reason a new night security person had quit, mostly because she was often the first to come say hello once we were able to see her. She was social, or at least the version of social that things like her could be.
At that, Andrew told me he’d decide to resume tours. Apparently I’ve been doing so well, and I’d handled meeting Yui with such grace (I didn’t tell him I almost pissed my pants) that he figured I’d be sticking around. He was right, of course. And it was encouraging enough to hear it from him that I got a little boost of self-confidence. I know y’all are probably older than me, but this is my first real full-time job, so that was really cool to hear from him.
I know continuing to work here does make me the world’s biggest hypocrite considering my pet peeve of people who lack common sense, but it seems the universe found my weakness. I can’t help it. I’m a wildlife biologist at heart and these animals are devastatingly fascinating, and if I quit I wouldn’t be able to learn all about them. I’m hoping Andrew will eventually let me ask Suzanne for books about them, from wherever they’re from. Plus, the scariest thing I’d ever seen in my life didn’t kill me, so maybe I can put this in the ‘common sense win’ column, hm? The spider wanted to eat me, she didn’t eat me, therefore the wards are solid and she can’t eat me. Right? I’m going with that.
Apparently Roger, the last guy who ran the night shift, ran a tight ship. He interacted with the animals on a purely basic level, never falling for their tricks, never getting killed or even hurt. Some of his job, and therefore what was becoming my job, was ensuring that the animals were doing well. This meant he needed to be able to see all of them, and so once they realized he’d reached his limit at eight, Suzanne did some wand-waving (no, I don’t know if she has a wand, I’m being facetious), and he could see the rest. According to Andrew, that had something to do with letting our minds stretch and reach its natural limits before stretching it further.
Most nights I arrive early, just before Andrew leaves, and I ask him questions I have. After seeing Yui’s human form, I did ask Andrew about her intelligence, but he just smiled and shook his head. He explained that there were dogs smarter than any the animals at the zoo, at least when you were comparing them to levels of human intelligence. Her appearance was just a disguise and her polite words to me were intelligence of an impressive border collie the filtered through the skill of a parrot. I wouldn’t be able to converse with her on any real level.
However, saying all of that lacks accuracy, because comparing animals to humans always leaves out quite a bit. For example, humans realized ants can figure out where they are and where to go from the position of the sun, while humans would need trigonometry for that. It doesn’t mean ants are capable of learning trig.
Something notable that I brought up with Andrew was enrichment. The layout of the zoo isn’t exactly typical, because for most of the animals, it backs up quite a ways into the forest that surrounds the zoo before ending at a tall fence. That means there’s more of a natural existence for them, and with a lot more space than even the most generous zoo, it likely feels to them like they’re still out in the wild, and they don’t get bored too easily.
That was the reason Andrew gave for having so few enrichment ideas, that they already had space to roam and engaged with plenty of animals including some that burrowed, various birds (and snatching eggs from nests), and climbers like racoons, opossums, and squirrels. The big thing my boss considered enrichment was putting specific live prey like goats or turkeys into the enclosures for some variety, which made sense. But I couldn’t help thinking that it was still important to make like any other zoo and give them some bonus fun occasionally.
When it came to Yui, I asked Andrew if he knew whether she’d prefer something to play with in her human form or her tarantula form. That’s when I learned the human form was a disguise, to get prey to come closer, which was exactly the honey trap of death that my subconscious had imagined it to be. (Yay.) So, she remains a tarantula most of the time.
On that note, did you know many pet tarantulas like ping-pong balls? Check it out on YouTube if you’ve got some time to kill. On that note, I thought it’d be worth a shot to see if Yui liked it.
My first image was of that meme of George R.R. Martin in a giant hamster ball, the person who’d shared it giving the photo a caption that scolded him from goofing off when they wanted him to be writing the next Game of Thrones book. The thing is, that was approximately the right size, but most of those are inflatable. Yui has little claws at the end of her feet, so I needed something plastic. That meant making some calls around to manufacturers (by email, since I was doing this in the middle of the night) for something custom made.
I do have to say, looking to have a giant plastic ball for a huge tarantula to play with had not been on my list of likely things to happen at my new job, but it was highly entertaining. I wish I could have told the people I was emailing, but at least I can tell all of you.
I wrote a list of other enrichment possibilities in my phone, and one morning when I arrived early, I spoke with Andrew about them. It wasn’t much of a list yet, but I’d gotten started from what I knew about Yui and figured I’d throw some other things at the wall to see what stuck.
Andrew did seem iffy about introducing new things, saying, “If it ain’t broke, I don’t like trying to fix it.” But part of my job was allegedly enrichment, according to the job posting. It just seemed like over the decades of the zoo’s existence so far, they counted on prey to be that enrichment. Not that I’m saying they were neglecting the animals, of course; honestly I still have a lot (or rather, everything) to learn about them. But I figured doing the kind of enrichment I’d been taught in my college classes could be great.
“By the way, this might sound stupid, but does Leila need any enrichment?” I asked with a grimace. “I don’t know a lot about ghosts, but I would assume it’s a boring existence. I can only go on stories, and a bored ghost gets into trouble, according to the popular culture.”
Andrew smirked and nodded. “Yeah, they do in films, but this isn’t that kind of situation. With Leila…her soul isn’t actually here. The ghost is more of an echo of her, left behind, imprinted when she was attacked,” he explained.
“Her soul isn’t here,” I repeated. “That’s…interesting.”
“I’m not in charge of the afterlife,” he said with a shrug. “Gratefully, Ripley, I only have to manage this one business. Whatever goes on with that side of things must be more stress than I can imagine and I’d turn down the job if offered, no matter the pay.”
Once I received an email confirming a company’s ability to create a lightweight but solid plastic ball, much like a super-sized ping-pong ball, Andrew approved the purchase of the toy. I was eager to get started on stuff for the other animals, but until I got a good look at them, I felt I didn’t have enough info to go on. And Andrew still didn’t want to educate me on things I hadn’t seen yet, calling it learning on a ‘need-to-know basis,’ since I’m human, so he’ll be waiting before spilling all the weird, freaky beans. I’ll have to be patient.
What he had done was given me a summaries that Roger had written down, but actually they weren’t much help. This was because Roger had a background as a security guard rather than being educated in wildlife, as I did. Andrew said the man had been extremely capable at his job, but looking for someone with a degree this time was a choice he was happy with.
Roger was concise, I’ll give him that. On this list of his, taking Yui as an example, it said ‘spider woman - enclosure 7 - Yui’, along with the animals she liked to hunt. It hadn’t taken him that long to figure out what our animals most enjoyed hunting, mostly from wildlife cameras that were installed in the forestry. They were all omnivores (or rather, you could say they had degrees in being omnivores with a specialization in being a carnivore, because Andrew said they could eat almost anything someone might toss into their enclosure), but some of them had special preferences on top of that.
Another description for animal I hadn’t seen yet was, ‘centaur - enclosure 10 - Arnold’. For any animal that didn’t have a given name (Yui was able to introduce herself, since she’d been named before, I was told), Roger made one up, and Andrew told me that Arnold was named after Arnold Schwarzenegger because he had incredible muscles. Also notable was that he was not a centaur, that was just the closest approximation that Roger’s mind was able to label him, because his most notable feature was that he had no skin. The part of my brain that was a biology major crawled all over that fact, but couldn’t make sense of how it could be beneficial to survival. Then again, since they came from another world, I had no environment on which to base my evolutionary ideas.
Yui has looked out at me from the forest on two more occasions so far, both times in her spider form, though she didn’t attempt communication again. I was extremely grateful, because even as I reminded myself that she hadn’t so much as attempted to hurt me, and that there really was an invisible wall there, I still wanted some more time to get used to her appearance. There was a near certain chance she would love to have me as a meal, just as any predator might, so my hindbrain trembled whenever I saw her. But each time, I reminded myself that this was why I’d been hired, because I showed a healthy amount of fear for the animals. Then I took a deep breath and moved on.
However, I did see another animal on the cameras, and then on a walk, a few days ago. This one wasn’t as terrifying as Yui (though that’s a high bar), but it was freaky. I saw it when I passed the area that led to the small lake, where I’d been told several animals had access from their enclosures bordering it. I zoomed in to get a better look, the cameras doing the impressive job of making the animal many times bigger and perfectly crisp on the screen.
At first glance it seemed like some sort of dog-possum hybrid, the size of a Doberman. Most notable was the hand at the end of its tail, like that of a racoon but larger and with claws. I recall thinking that the animals in our world with prehensile tails have nothing on that. It had small ears and black and grey fur covered its body, but the animal had shaken itself after coming out of the water, and when it had done so, its hair stood up on end like it was infused with static electricity. The thing was, having done that, it looked like the hair down its back had become a mohawk of spines. Wondering if it had the skills of a porcupine, I mentally took in as much information as I could about its appearance.
Later that shift, on another walk through the zoo, I thought I heard an animal crying. I say animal, but if I hadn’t been a major in wildlife biology, I would’ve said I heard a human baby crying. There are a surprising amount of animals that sound like humans shrieking or crying, which can make for a disturbing experience if you live in rural areas with lots of forestry. If someone grew up there, they got used to it. If they were unfamiliar with that weirdness, however, they might get worried some psycho had left a baby in the woods and went looking for the source, but those folks were probably candidates for a Darwin award.
This was definitely an imitation of a human baby crying, and it was spot on. It was coming from Spike’s enclosure, but I just stopped a couple yards from the fence for a long, thoughtful moment before moving on to walk the rest of the zoo, ignoring the sound. Two hours (and therefore two laps) later, it gave up trying to draw me in.
Anyway, the first time I’d seen the animal, I’d returned to the security room, double-checked, and confirmed that this animal was named ‘Spike’ (no points for originality, Roger). Apparently its food of choice was fish, but musing on that didn’t give me many hints as to what it might enjoy as enrichment. Clearly the sound imitation was a form of drawing in prey, so that didn’t help much either. What did give me hints was the fact that, according to Roger’s notes, it was known to not just kill the fish and eat the meat, but also the scales.
In addition, it didn’t just eat fish, but also turtles, lizards, and snakes, and if it killed a human, it had been known to specifically go for our nails and hair before making like a carnivore on the rest of us. That meant keratin was an important element of his diet. So, any fish or reptile made nutritious prey, which was convenient since the lake was stocked regularly and the reptiles were plentiful throughout the forest.
Determined to find something for it to enjoy, though, I considered what its instincts might prompt it to appreciate. That’s the way to go with all enrichment, even for humans. Just think of all the games we play as kids. Hide and seek. Tag. Red light, green light. All things that tested our ability to avoid predators and catch prey. We play these games since we enjoy them, and we enjoy them for a very good reason: our brain gives us happy-hormone feedback because it’s good training for our ongoing survival.
With that in mind, I considered possibly giving it foods that were difficult to eat, to mimic the difficulty of pulling nails and hair out of corpses. I know, it’s a gruesome train of thought, considering I was one of those animals that he’d probably be delighted to snack on, but that’s what happens when you’re in charge of animals like these. I considered things like pomegranates, artichokes, avocados, or pineapple, but definitely nuts like pistachios, pecans, peanuts, and hazelnuts. Its claws were made for attacking prey, but they could also be useful when opening nuts. And I didn’t get a good look at its teeth, but I figured it was similar to a squirrel in that way.
Those items were easy to fetch from a big grocery store, and there was a Walmart on my commute home, so I stopped in to buy some. The cashier was probably confused as to why I was sampling a bunch of things, but I was using the zoo’s business card for this, and didn’t want to overdo it.
I’d asked Andrew if he wanted to get them himself or reimburse me, actually, and he’d just handed me the card. “I doubt you’re the type to head to Vegas,” he’d said with a smile. “Keep it in your wallet for the future and I’ll get another. Just bring me the receipts from your purchases and I’ll file them in the system.”
The diet of the zoo’s animals didn’t wholly consist of animals they hunted. Some was delivered, and near the dumpster was a pile of boxes that had been broken down, so I grabbed one of those and taped it back together to bring the food out to Spike. I put the fruits in, and then a handful of each of the nuts. Then I folded the flaps closed, walked through the zoo over to enclosure four and, from two yards away, lifted the box to my shoulder and chucked it as hard as I could.
The box landed with a thud, and I waited around for a minute but Spike didn’t show, so I headed back to the security room. He’d emerged from the trees shortly after I’d left, wandering over to the box. I pulled up the view of the camera and enlarged it on the screen, zooming in, watching hopefully as he prodded at it. It didn’t take him long to open it, though he used his claws rather than following the strategy of simply unfolding the flaps like a human would have done.
Spike was definitely curious of the variety of new, potentially edible things splayed across the ground. He took a minute to look through them before settling on the pineapple. The spikes seemed to intrigue him, and he used his claws to open up the fruit, carving out a slice. Eating it, I couldn’t really decipher his reaction through facial expressions, but he dropped it and backed up at step before swiping at it with a hand, flinging it yards away, as if it had insulted his mother. So, it seemed he was not fond of it.
The same thing went for the pomegranate and avocado, unfortunately, and I slumped in disappointment, but I was happy to see that the artichoke was one in the win column. He looked like he was enjoying peeling of each leaf individually, and then ate the heart last. By that point I felt like I’d gotten a small sense of reading his body language, and I think he enjoyed the heart.
The smaller foods came next, and I leaned in closer, folding my arms on the desk. The pistachios are what Spike went for first, presumably because the gap between the shells let him get into it pretty quickly. Those were a no-go too, unfortunately, which wasn’t that surprising to me considering their distinctive taste. But when he tried the pecans next? Holy crap, he bounced from foot to foot in an undeniable happy dance, finding the others and gathering them all in a pile.
Cracking each shell open with his claws, he went through every single pecan, one by one, often opening several and eating them together. I leaned back in my chair with a satisfied smile as I watched him go through all of them. After he’d finished them, he moved onto the peanuts, which weren’t appealing, but the hazelnuts were.
My eyes widened when put the nut in between his teeth and chomped down enough to crack the shell. I swore under my breath. Those shells are tough, so that was terrifyingly impressive. And again, the hazelnut was more appealing to him, whatever quality of taste it had prompting him to go through each of them just as he had the pecans.
“So, that was a job well done,” I spoke to myself out loud.
Taking my notepad from my pocket, I added in Enrichment: artichokes, pecans, hazelnuts, on the page that I’d titled Spike and mentally patted myself on the back.
I know it’s unlikely that I can find enrichment items for every animal at the zoo, and Andrew was right that they don’t have typical enclosures, since they have their own little forests. But it was fulfilling to finally use my degree for something, to add something to the life of an animal that didn’t get to hang out with others in its species, as was typical for animals. Or at least was typical for animals on Earth. I figured these things at least had a drive to mate. These things might be terrifying, dangerous cryptids, but they are starting to feel like my terrifying, dangerous cryptids.
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/storiesbykaren

like how far back does finding dino bones go? and why werent they discovered to the extent they were now or at least 100 years ago compared to then? Ur telling me like ppl around jesus day never found any bones and if they did never connected it to a extinct ancient species? like ik bro thought he had bones of a giant human when he found dino bones in like the 1600s but when was the whole understanding of giant reptile/bird bois roaming the earth millions of years ago world widely accepted then? kinda two questions but yeah

Now for Godzilla this youtuber (cas3yart) compared Godzilla to a Penguin Y'know Bipedal,Semi-aquatic Reptiles and I think that could happen a type of penguin evolving to go into deeper waters and growing larger to rival predators could happen And he thinks of Godzillas dorsal plates as Sail Fins (likely evolved to have better mobility) that have been covered in calcified salt formations due to being exposed to lots of radiation in sea water
Sooo what do you think about Penguin Godzilla ?

Most of the posts and pictures are from America. I guess it’ll be roughly the same. Just I would see a variety of different things compared to you guys.
Never been. Avid animal lover. Reptile enthusiast. Possibly going soon as a date/friend date with someone.
Is there a handbook or how to? I don’t want to seem completely incompetent. I’m also a bit of an amateur photographer too so I feel the two could overlap.

TODAY'S RECAP

Sheila loves that she got to spook Li and delights in anticipation of revealing herself to the Forresters. We see the aftermath of Steffy, Ridge, and Liam accepting the truth. Neither Finn or Deacon knows their partners as well as they think they do.

Deacon and Sheila at Deacon's

Sheila: I'm glad I went to the hospital. Nothing was more fun than scaring the bejesus out of Li! 😄 (Sheila can't stop giggling). It couldn't have been more perfect -- Li being there. Hahaha!
Deacon: She was furiously attacking you, tryna send you to the grave, for real.
Sheila: I know! It was so much fucking fun! More fun than I've had in a long time. 😆 Poor Li, she was just jealous that Finn couldn't let me stay dead and felt compelled to save me! Hahahaha. Li couldn't take it! (💭 Suck it, Li!)
I know. I know. People wish me dead all the damned time. IDGAF. I'm used to it! 😏
Deacon: This is going to keep happening if you keep popping up 👻 and surprising people. 😛 You're going to get a similar reaction to Li 🤯😡😤💥 Hey, how about trying subtle?
Sheila: Fuck that. I like to go BIG! 😆 I expect people to react like Li. I'm looking forward to it. 😏 I can't wait! Hahaha. 😂🤣
Who will be most shocked? Brooke 😫 or Ridge 😡? Oooh, I sooo wanna roll on up into Eric's place. 👏👏👏 Whoooey! Fun! 🎉 Donna is a screamer! 😮 (💭 These bitches will all freak out beautifully in a perfect combination of shock 😳, fear 🫣, loathing 😠, and disbelief 😦. Hahaha. Yay! 🤸‍♀️).
It was so perfect how Li was just there. How can I orchestrate my reveal to the Forresters for maximum shock? 😀 I can pop in at FC and be the model who walks in to see Ridge for alterations! Hahaha! HAAAA! 🤭
Deacon: Does "changed'" Sheila just wanna shock people? (💭 Sheila Sheila Sheila. Gotta try to control the crazy 😵‍💫).
Sheila: OMG! You're no FUN! It's just a little SHOCK 😱. Not HARM! 😏 (💭 I'm not going to chop up 🪓, hang or tie up ➰, stab 🔪, drown 🌊, or shoot 🔫 anybody. I'm not going to set anyone's house on fire🔥 or chain ⛓️ them up in a dungeon ⛓️! I'm not going to kidnap any babies or children 👦👶👧, or trick anyone into getting my face 🙂. I'm not going to break in to anyone's home 🏠! That was the old Sheila! No one will end up murdered, kidnapped, bloody🩸, or otherwise injured 🤕, ffs! Gah! Calm down! It's just a little mischief 🙄😏).
I just want to have a little fun 🥳. Come on! Nothing nefarious 👿. Just prankster fun 🤪😝!
Deacon: So remember the nice, chill, mellow, 😌 happy, calm, quiet life we discussed? (💭 Imagine being a stoner and our biggest stressor is getting the munchies 🍕🥪🍚🍪🍰🥯🍟🥨when we're out of snacks and our favorite places are closed.) No fantasies about scaring 👻 people and getting reactions from the Forresters. Let's get back to us, our engagement, and our nice, quiet life. (Deacon, Reddit wonders if you actually KNOW Sheila 🤔).
Sheila: Ppffrrtt. (💭 Alright, fine, we'll seeeeeee😏.)
(Sheila and Deacon laugh 😄😀 and smoochy smoochy kissy kissy 😍🥰. Then Sheila is snuggled up with Deacon getting a shoulder massage.)
Sheila: I missed this. 😍 I missed you and thought about you the whole time. I didn't think I'd be back here. I was thisclose to 💀.
But, here I am! With you and my imaginary ring. 👋💍 😀 WOW!
Deacon: 🙄 No more pretending. I want everyone to know how in love 😍💕 I am with you. 🥰 (More smoochy smoochy 😘🥰.)

Hope, Ridge, and Liam at FC

Ridge and Liam: Sheila! Changed? 🤨 Wha? 😦Nah. Nope. No. No fucking way! 😠 Is Finn crazy? 😵‍💫 Delusional? Stupid? Wtf is his problem? 😤
Ridge: You must have gotten it wrong. It can't be.
Hope: No. Sheila is--
Ridge: NOOOOOOO! Grrrr. 😠 Gah! 😦 Not about SHEILA. I know. I KNOW. 🤨 I get it. I heard you. Sheila's alive. Fuck. But whatever. No. I mean about the other thing -- Finn idiotically thinking this is GOOD news. Growl! Huff! Puff! 😤On what planet could he POSSIBLY believe this is good news? How clueless is he?
Liam: (quickly hopping on the anti-Finn train 🚂) Yah. Yah. I mean, seriously. Hope. How could Finn POSSIBLY think,💡🤔 with NO ❌ evidence, that psychopath Sheila 👿 is reformed 😇? Wtf?!
Hope: He has reasons. He--
Ridge: REASONS!? REASONS?! 😮 Snarl! 😡 What fucking REASONS?!
Hope: He says she's changed. He's seen her growth. 🌱 He's seen her sprout angel 😇 wings 🪽. He's seen a new and improved Sheila.
Liam: Give me a fucking break! It's pure foolishness 🥴 and personal bias! 😦 Gah! Just because the BABY MANCHILD has a childish need to have a relationship with his birth mommy, he's latched onto a fantasy that this demon 👿 psycho has reformed. (💭 Don't worry, Steffy 💕. I'll be your fall back guy.).
It's NOT REALITY! (💭 I'm really postering now, showing off to Ridge, matching him huff for puff! 😤).
Ridge: Yah! Grrrr. Harumph! 😤😡 What's gotten into this guy? 🤨 Growl! 😦 Sheila is an ANIMAL! Grrr! 😦 Animals don't change! Snort! 😤 Spiders 🕷️, snakes⚕️, reptiles 🐊, monsters 🧟‍♀️👺👿 like Sheila never change!
Hope: I felt the same way. (💭 I even gave up on a relationship with my dad ☹️ when he wouldn't break it off with Sheila.) But after seeing 👀 them together 💕, maybe we should keep an open mind 😐. People said the same thing about Thomas, that he--
Ridge: 🤨 You DID NOT. You DID NOT just FUCKING GO THERE (💭 bitch!) Growl! 😡 Snarl! 😦 Snort 😤! Grrrr. You DID NOT just COMPARE my TALENTED, KIND, LOVING, REFORMED SON (some Redditors say you forgot enabled, entitled, obsessed, dangerous, and consequence free son) to that PSYCHOPATH SHEILA?! OMFG! 🤬
Hope: I'm not saying they're the same. 🫤🙄 (💭 Gah. Eye roll. Patience with the neanderthal. Deep breath.) I'm just saying people can change. So we could just possibly, maybe open the door a teeny, tiny 🤏 bit and entertain the possibility that Finn could possibly be right.
Ridge: You AGREE with (💭 the loser idiot) FINN about that psycho 🫨 Sheila?! What the fucking fuck, Hope?! (💭 Are you crazy and stupid too? Where's Brooke? I can't deal with you, ffs.😠)
Look, Finn has a weird ass connection to Sheila. But WTF, Hope. What's up with YOU? 🤔
Liam: 🤨
Hope: I explained. Sugar was planning to harm 🪓➰🔪🩸 Steffy. Sheila tried to stop her.
Liam: Hearsay. This story of Sheila fighting Sugar came from the least reliable source -- Sheila! (💭 Reddit hates to admit it, but Liam has a point). Sheila told you this story. You, Finn, and Deacon just accept it at face value.
But all we know for sure is that SHEILA didn't attack 🔪 Steffy. Sugar did. That doesn't mean Sheila has changed. It just means there were TWO psychos! 😵‍💫🫨 (Reddit really doesn't want to give Liam credit but kinda gotta suck it up and admit, he's making good points.)
Hope: Deacon and Finn think she HAS changed.
Ridge: Hope. (💭 Whooo boy. I have no patience under normal circumstances. 😑 This is WILDLY FRUSTRATING AF! 😡). Everything Sheila says is a LIE! It's all for show. Gah! 😦 Come ON!
Hope: For--
Ridge and Liam: FOR FINN! FOR FINN! OMFG! 😨
Ridge: She's feeding him the fantasy HE WANTS! Now, she's supposed to be mother of the year, ffs?! Growl! Snarl! 😡 Nah!
Hope: I'm not saying we just accept it. I'm just asking that we keep an open mind, for Finn's sake. (💭 Reddit wonders why Hope doesn't just wrap it up and extricate herself from this whole thing! She should just say ' I gave you the news. Talk to Finn. Byeeee.' Reddit says get out of there, Hope. It's been a looooooooooooooong af day!)
Look, I'm starting to see Finn's side. If indeed Sheila has changed, why shouldn't he want a relationship with her?
Ridge: NOT gonna HAPPEN. 🤨 😡 (Reddit thinks Ridge must have taken a few pointers from Victor Newman only Ridge is way louder.) Finn wants Sheila in their lives. Steffy's not gonna allow it.🫸❌ Absolutely not. ❌ No way. ❌ No how. ❌ Never. Ever. Gonna happen. ❌ Nope. ❌ Nah! ❌ Forget about it! ❌
Liam: Ohhh. Yah! Righ! After what she's endured being MARRIED to this guy who has some bullshit, primal connection to his psycho 🫨 birth mother. Now he wants to invite Sheila into her life? Well, he doesn't GET STEFFY! Steffy will NEVER allow it. She'll draw a line ➖in the sand. The stop 🛑 sign will go up. The hands will push 🫸 back 🫸 hard 🫸.
FINN DOESN'T KNOW STEFFY -- like AT ALL! (💭 Not like I know Steffy and love 😍 Steffy, and will protect Steffy 👩‍❤️‍👨.)
Ridge: 🤨
Hope: 🙄

Finn and Steffy at their home

Steffy: (it all sinks in) It wasn't Sheila I stabbed 🔪. 😣 It was a look-a-like, Sugar. 😖 I stabbed Sugar -- some woman who was tricked into plastic surgery to look like Sheila. What?! 🤯
Finn: Yah, babe. Isn't that a good thing? 🙂 Isn't that GREAT? 😀 Isn't that a relief? 😀 Isn't that a HUGE weight lifted? 😃 Aren't you thrilled 🤩, happy 😁, and bursting with joy 😊? I know I am. We thought you killed my birth mother, but you stabbed a totally different psycho! Pretty cool, huh? 🙄😃
Steffy: 🥺😠😡 (💭 Wow. OMG. Finn thinks I should be relieved? WTF?!)
Finn: Sugar kidnapped ➰⛓️ Sheila. If Deacon and I hadn't gotten there to SAVE her, she might not have survived, honey! This is SUCH AMAZINGLY AWESOME 👍 NEWS!
Steffy: So YOU think I'm supposed to be THANKFUL this monster 👿 is alive?! Are you fucking serious?! 😖😟
Finn: Nah. But yah. Isn't a small 🤏 part of you thankful? 🙄
Steffy: No. 😕
Finn: Relieved? 😀
Steffy: No. ☹️
Finn: Happy for me? 🙂
Steffy: No. 😣
Finn: Honey, babe, sweetheart, listen. We were struggling with the fact that you killed my birth mother, but we don't have to anymore. (💭 I know if I reframe this the right way, Steffy will have an ah ha 💡moment 😀 and feel relief. I just have to find the right words. I have faith 🙏 in us. I'm not even a little bit delusional.🥴 I know Steffy has a good and forgiving heart ❤️. She's just in shock 😳 and horrified 😱 and her mind is blown 🤯. But this will subside. 🙂 I'll just keep talking in a soothing voice. Yah!)
You killed someone who hated Sheila. Sugar was crazy. She wanted to hurt YOU to hurt HER. Get it? (💭 Sugar was the REALLY bad 👹 one. Sheila is a RECOVERING psycho! Big difference! 😀)
Steffy: So I'm supposed to be ooooh all happy and shit that psycho A is dead and psycho B is alive? 🤔 Nah! Finn, I'ma speak slowly so you can understand me when I tell you, NO I'm not happy or relieved or whatever tf you want me to be -- because the DANGER IS BACK! (💭 This man has the THICKEST, HARDEST HEAD! Fucking hell. He's freaking me out so badly that Dawn can't even find any emojis to express the emotional wreckage on my face! Anger, disbelief, confusion, fear, stress, anxiety, frustration -- all the feels!)
Finn: Nah. It's not back! That's the glorious, wonderful, amazing, beautiful, exciting, magnificent 😀😃😄😁 thing I'm just not adequately conveying to you, my love! No fear or danger! Sheila tried to PROTECT YOU. She tried to SAVE YOUR LIFE! She's your best friend ever! She wants to get pedicures together, not shoot us and leave us for dead! She's past that nonsense now. No more danger, honey! ☺️💕
She offered her own life to save you! She tried to fight Sugar. She loves us!
Steffy: Look. 🤨 Sugar's scheme was to blame Sheila. So, Sheila was just selfishly protecting HERSELF from getting blamed. That's all it was! (💭 If I just reframe this the right way, Finn will have an ah ha 💡 moment. He has to! I just have to find the right words to get through his thick skull and penetrate his delusional thinking. He's really worrying me and pissing me off. Wow. Just wow.)
Finn: Nah. She offered her own life! She cares more about us than her own life. SHEILA'S A HERO! Super Sheila🦸‍♀️ to the rescue, only she was chained up ⛓️ and fighting at a disadvantage, but she tried!
Steffy: Hero? HERO? 🤢🤮 You're calling SHEILA fucking psycho CARTER a HERO? Are you on crack? 😮 She tried to KILL🩸us. (💭 He's gone off the deep end into LA LA land 🤪.)
Finn: When Sugar told her--
Steffy: (Angry 😡 and frustrated 😖, Steffy Slams a chair 🪑💥 hard on the floor.) I DON'T GIVE AF ABOUT SUGAR!!! I don't CARE about her!!! 😦😣 She means NOTHING TO ME!!! (💭 STFU Finn! OMFG! Ahhhh! I have NO PATIENCE LEFT for his delusional BULLSHIT! I can't seem to get through to him! Why tf won't he LISTEN??!! 🤬)
WE'RE TALKING ABOUT SHEILA! 😠
S H E I L A !! 😡
We've been over this a ZILLION TIMES how she had terrorized my family for generations! How do you not GET IT?
Finn: I do. I underst--
Steffy: NO YOU DO NOT FUCKING UNDERSTAND!!!! 😡😤 GENERATIONS! GENERATIONS! That vile bitch is a LUNATIC! 😵‍💫🫨😈
(Steffy pleads 😫 with Finn in frustration 😖😣 to comprehend.)
She tried to KILL ME! And my MOTHER! And my GRANDMOTHER! 😩
I lost TIME with my mother! 😩 I lost TIME with YOU! 😫😣
She's tried to POISON people. So, even if she did try some feeble attempt to get that other stupid psychopath friend not to hurt me, SO FUCKING WHAT?!
NO! NO! NO NO NO NO! 😡 She's NO HERO! I NEVER want to hear you say that AGAIN! (💭 La La La La I can't hear you! I won't hear you! NO!)
Finn: 😑😞 (shakes his head. 💭 She's not getting it.)
Steffy: 😡😖 (shakes her head. 💭 He's lost his mind.)
Steffy: Do you hear me? She's vile. She is in no way a HERO! 😠 She left us in an ALLEY to DIE! What are you thinking? 😩
Finn: Yah yah. I knoooow. I know her past sins. She's made some mistakes 😒, some bad judgement calls🙄, she's been kind of a mess 🫤. She hasn't always put her best foot forward. She hasn't always been super thoughtful. Sure, she's wanted a lot of people dead 💀, but that was THEN and this is NOW! She's been working on herself. She's very into self help these days, and yoga and shit. The fact is she tried to save you!
Steffy: Don't CHALLENGE ME on FACTS ABOUT SHEILA! I'll give YOU the fucking FACTS Mr. Man! 😡 You will lose.
Finn: How about the handy dandy fact that she's alive and you didn't kill my birth mother? ☺️ That matters to me! I'm your husband (takes Steffy's hand). You're the most important person 💕 in the world 🌎 to me. But my birth mother was a mystery. I almost lost her. I just want to help her. I don't want to turn my back on her. 😟 (💭 She's kind of a hoot too, and stubborn and strong, kinda like someone else I love! ❤️)
Steffy: (looking miserable 😖) But you have to. I love you. 😢God, I love you! ❤️ (💭 And my heart is breaking 💔 right now.) You are SO GOOD! But Sheila is EVIL 👹. You are naive (💭 delusional) to think she'll change, that she won't devestate our lives.
Sheila is NOT going to be IN OUR LIVES, no where near Kelly or Hayes.
You can't have BOTH. 😟
It's either HER.
Or ME. 😐
Finn: 😕I hear you. Of COURSE it's YOU. It will always be you. ❤️ (Steffy and Finn share an emotional embrace, both with weary 😞, teary 😥, worried 🥺 expressions. They hold on to each other, emotionally spent.)
The end.

I've been volunteering at a reptile rescue for a few months now and I really would like to get a reptile of my own this would be my first reptile so I have a few questions my other reptile I'm interested in Is a bearded dragon if anyone can compare btw before I choose I'll do a lot more research so this post isn't my final decision or anything. Anyway I have some questions
I know there nocturnal but how nocturnal becuase I can't find anything on it and I'm wondering if they're only out at 2am in which case I may reconsider or 5 or 8 or 10 which is fine
Another thing is how handle able they are like I know you need to be careful and I would be but what is it like compared to say a bearded dragon
Any other advice would be appreciated

The challenge is to make the best summoning-type cursed technique, the rules are as follows:
No Ten Shadows rip-offs
Don’t make the summons super strong, perhaps city level is best?
At least 2 summons
You don’t have to attach an OC but it would be cool and help others understand the technique better
You can make extensions off another summoner technique from the show but I think it would be difficult
My Idea: Take 5 This technique technically has infinite summons since it copies and edits the opponent, but the user can only save 5 created summons at a time to quick summon, the technique at all times has one beast saved that was built into it. For this I’ll do 5 examples based off some characters

1. Kaze-ō An edited version of Jogo that uses disaster winds, I kinda used this as an example because I always thought it was dumb there was no disaster curse of wind. He resembles Jogo except taller, gray sukuna-type robes, more humanoid and also there’s a tornado ball thing over his head hiding his face but his yellow glowing eyes can be seen.
   
2. Meha Gave up on Japanese names, Meha is the built-in beast mentioned earlier, it does not ever return to the saves though. It is a cloud in the sky always inconspicuously following its user, it strikes lightning on the users opponent when needed, it can also be used as a suit of armor in dire times.
   
3. Briar Edit of Kaichi, Briar is a tangle of vines that when not tied together can cover a whole mile, its thorns are its eyes and it speaks telepathically, it shoots out of the user’s arm (like covering the forearm down) and it mostly used for punches or whipping opponents. Briar has a form where it looks mahoraga-like, its body made of the intertwined vines and looking buff, in this form it has a lance which is the collective thorns formed into one big one, this form makes it blind but extremely strong.. unless fire is involved :P
   
4. Lupus Edit of divine dog black + naoya, Lupus black and yellow furred wolf with the strength of Hercules, it has green eyes and the intelligence of like a 7 year old, it uses its claws to slash clean through anything weaker than titanium, it kinda uses projection sorcery is what I meant, its physical claws are constantly burning, searing hot.
   
5. Indominus An edit of a dinosaur, Indominus is a reptile with 8 legs and a barbed tail, it is the size of an 8-wheeler truck and really doesn’t have special powers compared to the other example summons, it crushes people with its weight, it bites people in half, it stabs people with the tip of its tail and slams them up and down repeatedly.
   

I know I said this was only 6 BUT this is a passive only known to the first user of the technique.
???. Agana Agana is the blood of the users of this technique, if a user of this technique is fatally wounded as long as they have atleast 30% of their normal blood amount they rapidly heal, Agana also gives users of Take 5 crazy durability and it pools up then hardens when it senses a devastating attack, this makes the user nauseous but it’s helpful, Agana COULD allow someone to survive Malevolent Shrine but the user would faint from nausea, Agana would capitalize on this though and stop flowing through the body making the user appear dead till Sukuna walked away, Agana has its own consciousness even after the fainting, it can’t sustain the body while not flowing though so it can only stop moving for about 7 minutes before Agana and the user both die.
That concludes Take 5, I hope to be outdone in the comments!

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About half of the student body was blinded by the sudden and intense flash of light that blanketed the room.
The other half seemed to have reacted in time to shield themselves from that unexpected assault on the senses.
I was part of that latter half.
And what I saw during those precious few seconds of visual overstimulation was nothing short of remarkable.
The walls that had resembled Mal’tory’s dark and dreary office quaked and quivered in place, as if the whole room was a living organism, and we were somehow nestled within its guts.
Each of the ornate wooden panels began dislodging from one another, their formerly flush surfaces cracking, revealing seams where there had been none before. These seams too began expanding, as each of the panels started wobbling, wiggling, then eventually disconnecting from one another entirely; moving independently of one another as if freeing themselves from a long-dormant state.
For a moment, they looked almost like a reptile’s scales when put under magnification.
Then, and without any warning, they began disappearing, each panel violently pulled back and into some dark anomalous void that existed behind the walls themselves; sending the EVI into another fit of spatial error reports.
We were, for a split second, completely wall-less. But not a second after the old walls had been… for lack of a better term — banished to the literal shadow realm, did a set of new walls suddenly take their place.
And quite dramatically too.
As an entirely new wallface suddenly emerged darkness of the void, one that was earthy in tones, and reminded me more of those old teakwood heritage buildings back on Earth. There were fewer embellishments to them compared to the previous Victorian-styled walls, less patterns and ostentatious designs, instead simply going with this less is more approach that left vast empty gaps where decorations and patterns were previously present. It was almost as if they were left empty and bare for a reason.
ALERT: LOCALIZED SURGE OF MANA-RADIATION DETECTED, 475% ABOVE BACKGROUND RADIATION LEVELS
Out of nowhere, dozens of pots, planters, and trellises suddenly embedded themselves through the wall, decorating what was no longer a blank canvas.
Plantlife soon followed this open invitation for a free home, as hundreds of flowers bloomed all across the wall, carefully trimmed and perfectly appointed to the lattice structures they coiled on, with not a single one of them looking too wild or out of place.
The sudden and abrupt remodeling completely threw me off.
At least, until the source of it all suddenly made themselves known.
“Welcome, first years, to Mana-field perception and Light Magic theory.” The voice continued, as through the literal haze of change came a female figure that the EVI had little problem assigning a name and identifier to.
ENTITY IFF CONFIRMED: A109 Apprentice Larial Essen - NEXUS [CORDIAL]
Yet strangely, the metallic footsteps that I’d heard just before she crossed the staff door’s threshold didn’t seem to follow her. Instead, only the apprentice emerged from the door behind the lectern.
She continued towards the lectern with a forced and somewhat stiff poise and gait, her general demeanor identical to how she carried herself prior to the whole crate saga. Which was of course, stern, tired, and completely unyielding; a fact supported by the impeccable posture she used to walk into class.
Though the class’ focus certainly wasn’t on her demeanor, or her posture, nor even on the room that had completely morphed into a completely different space.
No.
It was instead almost squarely focused on the apprentice’s cloak, which was most certainly not black.
This prompted the entire room to erupt into a frenzy of whispers, tempered only by those daring enough to deploy privacy screens.
But before those antics could evolve any further, and before my mind could even catch up with this turn of events, a loud, high-pitched, and unbroken — SHUSH — erupted from the front of the class. Emerging from a certain gorn-like lizard, who’d stood up to face us rather than the apprentice currently manning her podium. “ALL STUDENTS RISE!” He commanded.
To which the entire class followed, with the only two tentative parties being myself and a certain bull.
“ALL STUDENTS FORWARD AND BOW!” He continued, prompting the whole class to follow suit, and from there, receiving a head-tilt’s worth of praise from the apprentice.
“Thank you, Lord Qiv.” The apprentice spoke appreciatively, before setting her sights on the rest of the desks and chairs—
ALERT: LOCALIZED SURGE OF MANA-RADIATION DETECTED, 200% ABOVE BACKGROUND RADIATION LEVELS
—which were subsequently transformed into brighter-toned variants of their formerly dark and depressive selves. “I understand that there may be quite a few lingering questions amongst the crowd that quite a few of you wish to be addressed. In the spirit of ensuring that these needless thoughts and senseless rumors do not come to cloud your mind throughout the rest of class, thereby rendering these lessons moot, I wish for them to be addressed here and now.” Larial announced tacitly, but with a severity that was clearly modeled off of her mentor.
The mood of the room quickly changed following that.
But instead of shifting to the deference and submission in Articord’s class, or the tentative acceptance of Vanavan’s class, there was instead an overarching tone of outright confusion.
It was as if the whole class didn’t know how best to handle the situation.
But whilst the rest of the room remained undecided, with a few shaky hands rising up one by one, a sense of relief quickly washed over me as my emotions finally managed to catch up to the rapidly developing turn of events.
I couldn’t help but to immediately activate the in-armor positional readjustment mode in the suit, allowing myself to just… slouch; as I took in the class with a renewed wave of reprieve.
It was that same feeling you get when you arrive on the day of the test, only to find it delayed by a week. Or that feeling you get when a notification arrives in the dead of night, on the eve of a presentation, to inexplicably announce that the whole project was now put on hold due to some unforeseen event.
But unlike those situations where the why of the situation didn’t really matter… here, it most certainly did.
Which prompted me to listen in, as the questions began flying towards the apprentice.
“If I may be the one so brazen as to offer myself as the voice of the year group, Apprentice Essen?” A certain Auris Ping took the lead, having been chosen by the apprentice amidst a sea of equally inquisitive hands.
“The floor is yours, Lord Ping.” The apprentice proclaimed.
“Thank you, Apprentice.” The bull responded curtly, eliciting a particularly intense glare from the likes of Thalmin. “Where is Professor Mal’tory?”
The apprentice’s features shifted somewhat at that question, as if she wasn’t expecting something that blunt and straightforward right out of the gate. “The professor’s whereabouts are the business of the Academy’s faculty and staff.” She spoke firmly, yet with an authority that she was clearly under equipped to wield. “If you wish to inquire as to the nature of this class going forward, I will be more than happy to-”
A series of hands were raised even before the apprentice had even finished her sentence. Which prompted the overworked and exhausted elf to switch over to another student before she even had time to finish her own thoughts. “The floor is yours, Lady Ladona.”
“Thank you, Apprentice. Now, to clarify, are we to expect you to be teaching us for the rest of this class?” The being, which I could only describe as a butterfly with most of their insectoid-traits toned down, asked politely.
“That is correct, Lady Ladona.”
“And is this expected to continue for… the rest of the month?” Ladona continued, her features shifting if only to show her growing sense of confidence.“The semester perhaps? Or maybe even the rest of the school year?” She continued at a rapid-fire pace, making a point to catch the apprentice off-guard before she could even respond to that first point.
“The responsibility of tutelage has been deferred to me on the basis of Professor Mal’tory’s current inability to fulfill this particular aspect of his responsibilities owing to his current engagements. This will remain so, until the Professor returns from said engagements.” The apprentice responded in that same jaded, no-nonsense tone of voice she’d used during our pre-life debt interactions.
It was, however, woefully inadequate in dealing with the likes of a vicious social predator like Ladona, who immediately waded through the tepid waters towards the first sign of weakness. “So when can we expect his return, Apprentice?” She pushed further, her polite tone of voice acting like a velvet cloth, barely concealing the sharp mandibles beneath it.
“That is something I cannot answer.” The apprentice replied sternly, taking a stand against the shark that had now tasted blood in the water.
“Is this because of a lack of correspondence to the faculty?” The butterfly-person shot back quickly with an innocent cock of her head, her antennae swaying as she did so.
“I am not at a privilege to divulge such details, and that is most certainly not the case, Lady Ladona.”
“My apologies, Apprentice.” Ladona spoke in a calculated show of apologetics. “In any case, am I to assume then that in addition to the responsibility of tutelage, that the responsibilities of proctorship, examination, and evaluation, have likewise been deferred to you?” She shifted gears once more, this time, her question garnered quite a few murmurs to emerge from the rest of the class.
Murmurs which, as the EVI’s little picture-in-picture subtitles hinted at, were all in support of Auris Ping’s right-hand.
“That’s right… are we to assume that an apprentice of all people will be responsible for the evaluation of our performance?”
“I mean, she is an elf, that should count for something right-”
“Have some dignity! Just because she’s an elf, doesn’t mean she has any right to be dictating the fate of our academic progress!”
“That’s right! This is an insult to our titles! How dare they relegate the tutelage of a class to a mere pitiable apprentice! What do they take us for, the dregs of society?”
These hot-takes continued escalating further and further, until finally, and seemingly out of nowhere, several of those voices began dying down seemingly mid-sentence; something had distracted them from their little outbursts.
In fact, as the seconds ticked by, Thacea, Thalmin, and Ilunor turned towards each other knowingly, as if sensing that something was amiss.
That something was soon made clear to me by a sudden uptick of mana that rose from two, to three, to four hundred percent above background radiation.
At which point, several warnings suddenly slammed my HUD.
ALERT: LOCALIZED SURGE OF MANA-RADIATION DETECTED, 400% ABOVE BACKGROUND RADIATION LEVELS
CAUTION: Concentrated Heat-Energy Surge Detected!
CAUTION: Localized Temperature Surge Detected!
Those caution reticles quickly formed just behind the apprentice, hovering ominously over that void-filled doorway, right before a stream of concentrated flames surged forwards towards her.
However, instead of dodging, ducking, or leaping out of the way, she stood firm; her features not even shifting even a little.
As right before the flames made contact, so too did they suddenly stop, as that surge of mana radiation fluctuated wildly—
ALERT: VARIABLE FREQUENCY FLUCTUATION OF MANA-RADIATION DETECTED 200 - 400% ABOVE BACKGROUND RADIATION LEVELS
—before suddenly disappearing.
The room was left stunned.
Any remaining conversations were halted mid way, with many of the more chatty students barely even registering what’d just happened.
So for those who lacked situational awareness, and were still very much looking around for the reason why the rest of the class had gone silent, there was a round two to these attacks that erupted as suddenly as the first.
ALERT: LOCALIZED SURGE OF MANA-RADIATION DETECTED, 650% ABOVE BACKGROUND RADIATION LEVELS
This was signaled at first by the cracking of rock and the quaking of the entire room, followed closely by four distinct sinkholes forming along the floor at the very front of the lecture hall. A gurgling, churning noise echoed ominously from deep within the newly-formed holes, like an ancient concrete mixer dialed up to eleven.
Eventually, it stopped.
And soon after, four humanoid earthen behemoths erupted from those sinkholes. Each of them easily towered over the apprentice, whilst each of their fists were at least a full Ilunor in size.
A tense confrontation followed, and a silence that could be shattered by a pin drop soon descended upon the formerly whisper-filled room.
Yet despite it all, the apprentice didn’t move a single muscle, and to top it all off her eyes were closed shut as if in deep thought.
Seconds passed.
Then finally, the four cobblestone golems made their move.
All four moved in sync, their first steps caused the whole hall to shudder, prompting me to instinctively flinch towards my sidearm as the events of the second day hit me harder than a sack of bricks.
The first golem was poised to strike her side—
ALERT: VARIABLE FREQUENCY FLUCTUATION OF MANA-RADIATION DETECTED 300 - 650% ABOVE BACKGROUND RADIATION LEVELS
—but found itself crumbling before our eyes, as local mana radiation spiked and shifted erratically.
The second golem reached down with its fist, poised to grab the apprentice through the lectern—
ALERT: VARIABLE FREQUENCY FLUCTUATION OF MANA-RADIATION DETECTED 250 - 700% ABOVE BACKGROUND RADIATION LEVELS
—but like the first, it found itself reduced to rubble, falling where it stood; as rock by rock, it collapsed under its own weight.
The third and fourth golems charged forward together, lunging down fast towards the lectern—
ALERT: VARIABLE FREQUENCY FLUCTUATION OF MANA-RADIATION DETECTED 350 - 725% ABOVE BACKGROUND RADIATION LEVELS
—but like the first and second, they too found themselves victims to the great equalizer that was gravity, as whatever magical glue was holding them together just up and failed, reducing those humanoid forms into harmless piles of rock.
A few stray rocks did reach the lectern, but were effortlessly swatted away by an invisible barrier, leaving the apprentice and her immediate surroundings completely unharmed.
Silence once more descended on the entire class.
But just like the silence from before, that lull period wasn’t destined to last, as a loud, boisterous, and jolly series of bellowing laughs emerged from behind the void of that door.
I could tell, with immediate certainty, who that voice belonged to.
I didn’t even need the EVI’s tag system for this one.
ENTITY IFF CONFIRMED: A110 Professor Sorecar Latil Almont Pliska - NEXUS [CORDIAL]
“Spectacular work, young apprentice! Spectacular work indeed!” The man came marching through the door, walking up and towards the apprentice.
“Thank you, Professor-Armorer Pliska.” The apprentice responded softly, prompting the armorer to reply with a sharp and brisk bow of his own.
“You can reserve your thanks for after class, I have plenty more exercises where that came from, and each and every one is going to be tougher than the last!” The man proclaimed not-so-discreetly, eliciting a worried expression to form on the apprentice’s face, highlighting the seriousness of the otherwise lackadaisical tone of his voice. “Needless to say, I don’t think you’ll be thanking me much after I’m done with you! The Academy’s gotten a bit softer over the years, and I’m about to make up for lost time before they toss old-Sorecar Latil Almont Pliska back into the workshop!” He paused, before shifting his tone towards a more menacing one. “And that applies to your understudies as well, Apprentice.”
“Now!” The armorer quickly shifted his attention from the apprentice, and towards class, his gesticulations wild, as if making for the apprentice’s slower, more sluggish demeanor. More specifically, he maintained this sort of “Y” posture, with both arms high above his head as he spoke. “For those of you wondering exactly what just happened… well, perhaps it would be best for you to leave the class considering this is exactly the sort of thing we’ll both be expecting of you following the conclusion of this school year! And for those of you who openly doubt the qualifications of our dear apprentice here… just know that she was hand-picked by Professor Mal’tory himself for a reason.”The man paused, before bringing his arms back down to his sides, if only to emphasize his point, before resuming the posture from before. “And until I see a single one of you being personally selected by a black, red, blue, or white-robed professor… I don’t want to hear a single peep of doubt from you lot. At least as it pertains to the apprentice’s ability to teach these classes! And if you need an extra guarantee of such? Well… know that the Academy does not allow an apprentice to teach without supervision from an appointed Professor of the Magical Arts.” He paused, as if for dramatic effect, before pointing both hands down towards himself. “Which just so happens to be the only Professor otherwise free from the burdens of stringent schedules — yours truly!”
To Sorecar’s credit, the murmurs born of inflated egos, and the whispers of dissidence did not once dare to interrupt, or follow-up on the man’s proclamations.
If anything, that entire… display was enough to keep the critics at bay, and the ones on the fence to fully hop back on the side of respect.
At least, until one group decided to tempt fate, deploying a privacy screen.
ALERT: LOCALIZED SURGE OF MANA-RADIATION DETECTED, 350% ABOVE BACKGROUND RADIATION LEVELS
If only for that privacy screen to suffer the same effects as the rest of the spells casted throughout class thus far.
ALERT: VARIABLE FREQUENCY FLUCTUATION OF MANA-RADIATION DETECTED 100 - 350% ABOVE BACKGROUND RADIATION LEVELS
“Bold! Brash! And indeed, cheeky, if that word still holds true in this era’s vernacular!” Sorecar announced with a laugh that radiated deep from within his armor. “Unlike other classes that prohibit the casting of magic save for practice or demonstrative purposes, I fully allow it, nay, I say, I encourage it! You youths should be free to cast magic whenever and however you like!” The man paused soon after, and once again shifted gears towards a more severe timbre, yet never once losing that lackadaisical personality I knew him for. “But just remember, while you may freely practice these magical gifts you have and hold so highly, doing such in this class is to be considered a direct challenge by yours truly! This is the study of Light Magic and Mana-field Perception, after all! And thus, in the spirit of scholarly competition, I shall take every spell cast as a chance to prove what’s what!”
The man paused, before gesturing towards the apprentice. “Now, for those of you still quite confused with the definition of Light Magic as it pertains to the Nexian vernacular, I shall defer the right of tutelage back to that of our dear Apprentice. The floor is yours, my lady.”
A brief exchange of bows between the teaching duo was had, before the apprentice finally started, now with all doubts and concerns fully addressed not just by words alone, but through action as well.
“As all of you may have already discerned, the demonstration Professor Pliska had so graciously provided, was an attempt to illustrate the most visible effects of Light Magic — that being the detection and subsequent dispelling of active and pre-active spells. The subject of Light magic, thus refers to the study of the detection, dispelling, counterspelling, and disarming of all forms of other magics.”
“And by that definition, it is the single most combative field of magic there is.” Sorecar promptly chimed in with a nod towards the apprentice, almost like he was tag-teaming this opening statement with her; establishing a precedent for the dynamics of the class. “For in order to practice Light Magic, one must be in the presence of an active spell. And in order to truly practice Light Magic, one must be in the presence of active danger, as unlike most forms of magic, unevenness and intensity in casting is key to the successful destabilization of an offending spell.”
“So THAT’S what the fluctuations were.” I thought to myself outloud inside my helmet.
“Moreover—” Sorecar continued, raising his arms into the air once again as if to emphasize his points. “—to the seasoned and the wise, Light Magic as a field is known to be the single most versatile field in existence. For if implemented correctly, it has the capacity to bring all other forms of magic to its knees.”
“Versatility and adaptability are core elements of Light Magic, so while not capable of much harm by itself, it is capable of incredible feats of defense if used correctly.”
To say that I was pleasantly surprised would’ve been an understatement by this point. Because not only was Mal’tory completely out for the count, and not only was he replaced by two of my only cordial relations within the Academy thus far, but the class itself was refreshingly straightforward. There was no mincing around words like Vanavan’s class of lectures, there was also no overt signs of blatant propaganda and indoctrination like in Articord’s class. Instead, this whole class started out with a practical demo of all things, followed up essentially with a breakdown of exactly what we were studying.
“What you observed during the start of class, were just two out of a near-infinite set of examples demonstrating counterspell and dispelling measures, a rather dramatic one I might add but one that you may very well one day use.” The apprentice continued following yet another exchange of nods with Sorecar.
“And indeed, while they may have seemed trivial to the keen-eyed observer, the execution of their dispelling is anything but. Because despite what most misinformed minds may believe regarding counterspelling — dispelling isn’t simply a matter of overpowering an offending spell with a burst of mana, but instead, more akin to the unwinding of a knot, or the picking of a lock. You must act to untangle a spell, until the spell itself falls apart at the seams.” Sorecar continued, before once again swapping the baton with Larial through an exchange of nods.
“Which is exactly why Light Magic continues to be a field forever expanding in its domain.” The apprentice continued. “Because as every other field develops more and more convoluted forms of spells and artificing, so too does Light Magic have to adapt, improvise, and overcome these advanced and oftentimes eclectic means of casting.”
So an arms race… I thought to myself.
“It is, in essence, a pure magic field. Yet it is applied as if it were an applied magical field of study.” Sorecar surmised, prompting me to actually listen in with genuine intent, this marking the first moment I was truly engaged with a class with none of its politics.
“And as for the Mana-Field Perception class?” The apprentice continued with an inquisitive tone of voice. “It’s effectively an extension, or rather, a foundational element of Light Magic depending on how one wishes to view it. Because in order to become proficient in Light Magic, you have to first understand and hone your abilities in order to detect the nuances within mana-streams and mana-fields. It is only through the detection of disruptions and the accurate understanding of a spell being cast, that you are able to apply more advanced abjurations in an attempt to counter these spells. Sometimes even before they’re cast if you’re so inclined to.”
“Now, how many of you can genuinely say you noticed the shift in the room’s aura prior to the casting of that Firestream?” Sorecar asked the crowd, prompting almost every hand to be raised.
“Well that’s just a blatant lie now, isn’t it?” The man retorted bluntly. “I can tell by your reactions just before the Flamespear hit, you know. So please, honestly now, I’m giving you one more chance to answer.”
About three quarters of the class lowered their hands, leaving only the gang, Auris Ping and Qiv’s group, as well as a few other scattered students to maintain their raised hands.
“Alright, that’s about exactly the number I counted from behind the veil! Rightio then!” Sorecar proclaimed through what I could only imagine would’ve been a grin if it wasn’t for his armor. “This is exactly why mana-field perception is necessary. Because to most mages, it is a learned skill rather than an inherent trait. Which, of course, is by no means a demerit! But moreso, a wonderful little oddity in the grander tapestry that is the magical arts and pedagogue!”
The apprentice quickly followed that up with a series of talks once more summarizing the expectations of the class. Mana-field perception was, unsurprisingly, divided into practical and theoretical assessments. Which, at first, seemed to be a potential roadblock, until I realized one fundamental way this class could actually benefit my aims.
“EVI?” I spoke inwardly, as Larial started her lectures on mana-field perception.
“Yes, Cadet Booker?”
“Is there any chance you can maybe interpolate and extrapolate on the Apprentice’s points? As in, is it possible to… visualize magic, as opposed to just alerting me to bursts of it?”
“The mana-radiation visualization project, or MRVP, has been in development for some time, Cadet Booker. The research and development teams however, were unable to create a reliable model for field-use that wouldn’t have been a liability to operations.”
“So it wasn’t field-deployable because of the variance and accuracy issue.”
“Correct, Cadet Booker.”
“Alright, and you said all they needed was more data to create a better model for it, right?”
“Correct, Cadet Booker.”
“Could you… do that with this? Is that within your mission parameters to do so?”
“It is indeed one of the many ongoing projects taking up the bulk of my processing capacity, Cadet Booker. However, proper implementation of this will require additional hardware to be developed, tested, and then field-deployed for testing. The success rate of which is yet to be determined. I cannot guarantee this operation will yield the desired results inferred, Cadet Booker.”
“Alright, that’s good enough for me.” I acknowledged, before turning back to class with a renewed sense of invigoration.
The lecture continued, only stopping about midway as the apprentice realized she’d yet to elaborate on the whole Light Magic class side of things.
Which, it turns out, was more or less similar to Mana-field perception in its assessment criteria — that being a mix of practical and theory assessments. A combination of written exams and practical counterspelling would be expected in tests, midterms, and finals. This would mark my first true hurdle… but then again, perhaps I could balance out the rest of my grades against the practicals which was more or less an impossibility given my obvious human limitations…
“As with most of the classes in the first year, I will treat both periods as one. As both subjects are intertwined, we may see glimpses of both within the same period.” The apprentice continued, before shifting gears towards something else. “And on the topic of periods, since we’re nearing the conclusion of the first, with lunch quickly coming upon us, I believe it to be necessary to inform everyone now of what awaits at the end of this second period.” The apprentice spoke ominously, as she made the effort of meeting every one of the students’ gazes. “By day’s end, I intend for a pair of you to perform a practical demonstration of the fundamentals of light magic. So I expect everyone to pay close attention after lunch.”
A small pause punctuated the room yet again, before Sorecar, after several hours of silence, came to complete the apprentice’s thoughts; his faceplate squeaked to form a shape that just barely gave off the feeling of a smirk.
“Be prepared, and be ready, for your first real brush with magical dueling.”
“First being the operative word here, I must add.” The apprentice quickly clarified. “Within the bounds of demonstrative purposes.”
I could just about hear the band rounding out the corner outside the hall, and I could just about see a few students ready to pack up their things for lunch.
However, before the band could arrive, Thalmin unexpectedly stood up, raising his hand in the process.
“Yes, Prince Thalmin Havenbrock?” The apprentice acknowledged.
“I wish to volunteer as the issuer of this duel, and to designate the other party for this duel as well.”
The apprentice paused, considering this carefully, before nodding. “Granted, though I warn you Prince Havenbrock, this is an introductory demonstration, and will be treated as such. In any case, who would you wish to designate as the other party?”
“Lord Auris Ping.”
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(Author’s Note: And there we have it! Light Magic Theory and Manafield Perception classes are both now in session! This is probably the most fun and engaging class I've written yet, and this is a sentiment that Emma shares as well! I do hope you guys share the sentiment haha as I still think that action is something I still am quite lacking in, in terms of my abilities to properly write and convey it. I hope you guys enjoy! :D The next Two Chapters are already up on Patreon if you guys are interested in getting early access to future chapters!)
[If you guys want to help support me and these stories, here's my ko-fi ! And my Patreon for early chapter releases (Chapter 80 and Chapter 81 of this story is already out on there!)]

Before I even start, I know I made mistakes, Im actively trying to fix them, please dont be keyboard warriors
Anyway, a fee years ago I purchased “Wizard the Lizard” my gargoyle, from a local reptile store. Ill admit the tank she is in now is completely unacceptable and would be hated on compared to other tanks. I received the gecko as a birthday present and just really didnt understand how to create a good space for her. Now that I want her to he happier, Ive been planning out how to make her tank actually decent for her to live in and was wondering if making such a drastic change would be bad for her mental/physical wellbeing. Also, my father was concerned about isopods and springtails getting out of the tank and infesting our house, is this something that can/will happen?
Thank you

The House of the Undying has been puzzling readers since 1998. The "slayer of lies" portion has fermented countless theorizing:

Glowing like sunset, a red sword was raised in the hand of a blue-eyed king who cast no shadow. A cloth dragon swayed on poles amidst a cheering crowd. From a smoking tower, a great stone beast took wing, breathing shadow fire. . . . mother of dragons, slayer of lies. (Daenerys IV, ACOK)

Today, I propose a new interpretation for this storied section. These three portions of the "slayer of lies" vision do not refer to three separate, individual lies, but rather three incarnations of one central falsehood, repeated on three different people: each man in the vision seeks to be a dragon, both the reincarnation of Aegon the Conqueror and his heir and successor. However, all three men are false dragons. Daenerys is the true dragon; her destiny is to be Aegon the Dragon, come again, to bring Fire and Blood to Westeros. These three men's false claims of dragonhood stand in her way in pursuit of her fate.

Here Be False Dragons

Let us set aside any consideration of the identities of who is specifically is being referenced the Undying visions for a moment, and focus on the text and context of the visions themselves and their imagery.
Dragons are at the core of the events at the House of the Undying. Daenerys is in Qarth because Pyat Pree, Xaro, and Quaithe seek dragons, and she goes to the Undying to seek their counsel, inevitably involving her dragons. Drogon accompanies her, helps her find the way to the Undying, dragons appear in the visions several times (and Daenerys is often called “mother of dragons” in them), then Drogon fries the Undying. But not all dragons are the same:

"Dragons. Dragons old and young, true and false, bright and dark.” (Tyrion VIII, ADWD)

Much has been written about the dragons Moqorro sees in fires. Dragons “true and false” is of most interest for us. What actually constitutes a "false dragon" and a "true dragon" is broadly ambiguous, but the text does have some suggestions. In AGOT, there is a juxtaposition between Dany’s unborn son Rhaego and her brother Viserys, the former literally called a true dragon…

She was lying there, holding the egg, when she felt the child move within her … as if he were reaching out, brother to brother, blood to blood. "You are the dragon," Dany whispered to him, "the true dragon. I know it. I know it." (Daenerys IV, AGOT)

…and the latter naming himself a dragon often, only for his death to prove the falsehood of those claims:

He was no dragon, Dany thought, curiously calm. Fire cannot kill a dragon. (Daenerys V, AGOT)

The idea that there are “true dragons” and “false dragons” is interesting in-and-of-itself, and the fact that Moqorro sees them in his fires means that they do, in fact, exist. Where do these true and false dragons be found?
Disregarding — for now — the intricacies of what makes someone a figurative “dragon,” no character in the main series comes close as to being “true dragon” as Daenerys. She is the last Targaryen, the mother of dragons, the rider of Drogon. This is known. She is a true dragon. But what about the false dragons?
In the House of the Undying, the Undying call Daenerys the “slayer of lies” after showing the three visions to her. In a vacuum that may mean that Daenerys a) will slay whatever or whomever the three lies represent and/or b) she will prove the lies false by her actions. That suggests that Dany represents the truth opposing the falsehood of the three lies.
So have the fact that Dany is a true dragon and that the Undying vision suggests Dany is true and the three lies are, well, lies. Let’s merge those ideas together — Dany, a true dragon, is the slayer of three false dragons — and see whether the visions themselves support this marriage. In the chapter after the visit, Dany describes the “cloth dragon” as a “mummer’s dragon”:

"A dead man in the prow of a ship, a blue rose, a banquet of blood . . . what does any of it mean, Khaleesi? A mummer's dragon, you said. What is a mummer's dragon, pray?"
"A cloth dragon on poles," Dany explained. "Mummers use them in their follies, to give the heroes something to fight." (Daenerys V, ACOK)

Dany’s description of the mummer’s dragon suggests that the vision represents one that uses trickery and mummery to appear as a dragon. The mummer’s dragon is no real dragon, but it serves for the purposes of the performance. In other words, a mummer’s dragon is the metaphorical representation of a false dragon.
Now consider the "great stone beast”, a flying stone creature that lurks near smoke and breathes shadow fire. As described, the beast sounds awfully like a dragon — but moreso like an imitation of a dragon, a gargoyle, mayhaps — and an imitation is inherently false. Shadow fire is extra fake because "[s]hadows only live when given birth by light" (Davos III, ASOS). The stone beast is another representation of a false dragon.
If the two parts of the vision are false dragons, it would suggest the blue-eyed king is too. On passing glance, it does not seem like it is. However, consider this quotation from Maester Aemon:

"The sword is wrong, she has to know that . . . light without heat . . . an empty glamor . . . the sword is wrong, and the false light can only lead us deeper into darkness, Sam. Daenerys is our hope." (Samwell IV, AFFC)

False light leads to darkness. The blue-eyed king’s sword is “[g]lowing like sunset”; sunset heralds the arrival of darkness. Moreover, the king casts no shadow. As we noted for the stone beast, shadows cannot exist without light, meaning that the king creates no light. Dragons, on the other hand, create light and shadow by their mere existence. The blue-eyed king is figuratively a false dragon.
Therefore, Dany being the slayer of lies means that the true dragon Dany is the "slayer of false dragons" makes sense. While most popular interpretations of slayer of lies put each lie as separate from each other (i.e. the blue-eyed king being a false Azor Ahai, the cloth dragon being a false Targaryen, etc.), it makes just as much sense — arguably more sense — that the three lies are all incarnations of one central falsehood.

The Dragon: Aegon the Conqueror, Come Again

But what exactly is a dragon? Dragons are flying fire-breathing reptiles, sure, but the word “dragon” is used figuratively extensively. One of its most popular uses is to mean a Targaryen or Valyrian, those with “the blood of the dragon.” What that phrase means is under dispute — some think it means that Valyrians are literally descended from dragons. The word "dragon" is also often incorporated in nicknames, like Daemon Blackfyre’s "the Black Dragon". However, there are only two characters referred to as The Dragon: Aegon I Targaryen and Daeron I Targaryen.
The Dragon is a fitting epithet for Aegon I, the man known as the Conqueror and Aegon Dragonlord, he who (mostly) conquered Westeros atop Balerion the Black Dread through fire and blood. Aegon I chose the three-headed dragon as his banner, married his sisters in Valyrian fashion, and with an ancestry full of incest to keep the blood of the dragon pure. He seemingly even had dragon dreams. He wore a crown and bore a blade of Valyrian steel. Dangerous to his enemies but fair to vassals, Aegon embodied everything House Targaryen aspired to be — a true dragon — and many, some bearing his name, attempted to be Aegon the Conqueror, Come Again, a true dragon too.
Daeron the Dragon was amongst the most ambitious of the Targaryens who sought to be Aegon the Conqueror, Come Again. He worn the Conqueror's crown and bore his sword. He was determined to finish what Aegon I started in Dorne. Daeron named himself a dragon:

Few foresaw that Daeron, the First of His Name, would cover himself in glory as did his ancestor Aegon the Conqueror, whose crown he wore. (His father had preferred a simple circlet.) Yet that glory turned to ashes almost as swiftly. A youth of rare brilliance and forcefulness, Daeron at first met resistance from his uncle, his councillors, and many great lords when he first proposed to "complete the Conquest" by bringing Dorne into the realm at last. His lords reminded him that, unlike the Conqueror and his sisters, he had no more dragons fit for war. To this Daeron famously responded: "You have a dragon. He stands before you." (TWOIAF, The Targaryen Kings: Daeron I)

And yet, Daeron failed, just as Aegon did, and at much greater cost — while Aegon lost a wife and a dragon, Daeron lost his own life, and 50,000 others. His conquest accomplished nothing; his successors’ diplomacy bore fruit and it was, very pointedly Daeron II, who shared a name and little else with Daeron I, who welcomed Dorne under the Iron Throne. Was Daeron I a false dragon? In-so-far as that he attempted to and failed at capturing Aegon the Conqueror’s legacy, yes, he was.
Daeron is not the only character compared to Aegon the Conqueror or hyped up as his successor who failed to reach his heights. Numerous historical figures — mostly Targaryens — were compared to Aegon I including Baelor Breakspear, Daemon Blackfyre, and Rhaegar Targaryen. None lived up to his legacy. Several main series characters are compared to Aegon or described as his heir — Drogo, Joffrey, Robb, Renly, and Rennifer Longwaters — but their claims to be Aegon the Dragon false. Just sitting the Iron Throne, having Targaryen ancestry, or being a warrior-king doesn’t make Aegon the Dragon:

"King Joffrey sits where Aegon the Dragon once sat, in the castle built by his son," Ser Arys said. "He is the dragon's heir—and crimson is the color of House Lannister, another sign. This comet is sent to herald Joffrey's ascent to the throne, I have no doubt. It means that he will triumph over his enemies." (Sansa I, ACOK)
"She gave their son the bastard name of 'Waters' in honor of his father, and he grew to be a great knight, as did his own son, who put the 'Long' before the 'Waters' so men might know that he was not basely born himself. So I have a little dragon in me."
"Yes, I almost mistook you for Aegon the Conqueror," Jaime had answered. (Jaime I, AFFC)

Stannis, Aegon, and Euron as False Dragons

Returning to the House of the Undying, I believe the three false dragons referenced in the House of the Undying are Stannis I Baratheon, Aegon VI Targaryen/Young Griff, and Euron III Greyjoy. The reader consensus is that the blue-eyed king is Stannis and that the mummer’s dragon is Aegon. The stone beast is speculated on far more contentiously. Euron Greyjoy is probably the most popular option for this, but Jon Snow and Jon Connington are also often raised. I believe it is Euron because of what kind of character is he and because the dragon has three heads.
Recall earlier that the slayer of lies vision was not three separate lies, but three incarnations of false dragons. If that interpretation is correct, then all three of the lies should have things in common, and Stannis, Aegon, and Euron share quite a few similarities, too many to highlight here. But there is one key one: All three seek the Iron Throne through fire — dragons — and blood — Targaryen heritage — and in doing so draw inspiration and comparisons to emulate Aegon the Conqueror. All three want to become king and dragons. This is known. But realizing that “fire and blood” is basically the foundation of their claim is subtler.
How do they seek the throne through blood? Well, the blood of inheritance is intrinsic to their claims. Stannis does so as Robert’s heir, and House Baratheon's claim to the throne is based on its Targaryen heritage. Aegon does so as House Targaryen’s heir, reinforced by marriage to his (alleged) aunt Daenerys. Euron, as far as we know, has no Targaryen blood, but like Aegon, via marriage to Daenerys, Targaryen blood is the means to the throne. In effect, all three men are seeking to use blood to justify their claims as the heir to House Targaryen, the blood of the dragon.
How do they seek the throne through fire? All three are dragon-seekers. Stannis covets a stone dragon to win his kingdom, his temptation to commit a horrible evil to wake one only tempered by Davos for now. Aegon and Euron seek Daenerys for her dragons, for her dragons will allow them to complete their dreamed conquests. Through dragons, these three men will bring fire to Westeros and claim their throne.
*But these men also *plan to use blood to get fire, and then fire for blood, following the cyclical mantra of Blood for fire, fire for blood. * Those words are written on Euron’s Valyrian hellhorn, Dragonbinder:

Moqorro pointed to the band of steel. "Here. 'Blood for fire, fire for blood.' Who blows the hellhorn matters not. The dragons will come to the horn's master. You must claim the horn. With blood." (Victarion I, ADWD)

Stannis’s (near) use of blood to get fire is obvious: Melisandre and her followers push for him to sacrifice those with kingsblood — Edric Storm, Mance Rayder and his son — to wake a stone dragon. Aegon’s is subtler: his case to marry Daenerys and thus claim her dragons is because of his blood, as her nephew. In order to claim Dragonbinder, Euron must have claimed the horn with blood in the past to fit its instructions of “blood for fire”. Whatever sacrifice seems to involve blood he has planned at Oldtown as well. That blood will unlock fire, and with the dragons they will conqueror Westeros and bring blood to it.
Now, let us briefly look at how each man parallels or is compared to Aegon:
Stannis Baratheon is a direct descendant of both the Conqueror and his bastard half-brother Orys Baratheon. Both Stannis and Aegon are described as tall and broad-shouldered. Both were Lord of Dragonstone and shared the same original bannermen. Stannis sits at the same Painted Table that Aegon used to plan his conquest of Westeros. Aegon was the middle child, as is Stannis. Like Aegon, Stannis has “two queens”, one whom he sleeps with far more often than the other. While Visenya was rumored to practice dark arts, Melisandre does, in fact. Aegon was a solitary man, just as Stannis is: both of their only true friends are men of uncertain birth who were their Hands of the King and who each had their hands permanently damaged. Aegon and Stannis both invaded Westeros from Dragonstone. Aegon’s first defeat during his conquest (though he was not present) was a naval battle that destroyed his fleet, as was Stannis’s first defeat during his conquest. Aegon followed the Faith of the Seven for political reasons as Stannis does for R’hllor. Aegon had a dragon dream that inspired his conquest — to protect Westeros from the Others — while Stannis saw in Melisandre’s fire the Others’ attack at the fist of the First Men, inspiring his sail north. Lastly, both have famous swords, dark Blackfyre and bright Lightbringer.
There are a number of times where characters directly compare Stannis to the Conqueror, and specifically how he needs dragons to finish the comparison and become Aegon the Conqueror 2.0:

"Look out your windows, my lord. There is the sign you have waited for, blazoned on the sky. Red, it is, the red of flame, red for the fiery heart of the true god. It is his banner—and yours! See how it unfurls across the heavens like a dragon's hot breath, and you the Lord of Dragonstone. It means your time has come, Your Grace. Nothing is more certain. You are meant to sail from this desolate rock as Aegon the Conqueror once sailed, to sweep all before you as he did. Only say the word, and embrace the power of the Lord of Light." (Prologue, ACOK)
Ser Axell went to one knee. "On bended knee I beg you, sire. Wake the stone dragon and let the traitors tremble. Like Aegon you begin as Lord of Dragonstone. Like Aegon you shall conquer. Let the false and the fickle feel your flames." (Davos V, ASOS)
"Lord husband," said Queen Selyse, "you have more men than Aegon did three hundred years ago. All you lack are dragons." (Davos V, ASOS)
"It glimmers prettily, I'll grant you, but on the Blackwater this magic sword served me no better than any common steel. A dragon would have turned that battle. Aegon once stood here as I do, looking down on this table. Do you think we would name him Aegon the Conqueror today if he had not had dragons?" (Davos V, ASOS)

Aegon “Young Griff” Targaryen, no matter if he is truly Rhaegar and Elia’s son, a Blackfyre, or a Brightflame (just not a random kid) is also a direct descendant of the Conqueror, who is his namesake. Like the Conqueror, Young Griff had a sister named Rhaenys — both associated with Dorne — and a bastard brother. Aegon claims the Iron Throne as a Targaryen, heir to the dynasty that Aegon created, and displays the Conqueror’s banner. He seeks to practice the Valyrian tradition of incest as Aegon did, becoming a dragon-rider together with his bride. Like the Conqueror, Young Griff’s Hand of the King is a great lord and warrior of the stormlands, one who had to seize their seat. Jon Connington and Orys Baratheon both have hand infirmities that call into question their suitability for the office of Hand. Young Griff invades Westeros by sea, as Aegon did, and the Conqueror’s forces (but not the conqueror himself) fought a battle north of Storm’s End, which Aegon seems poised to do in TWOW.
A number of characters compare Young Griff to the Conqueror, even calling him (or him calling himself) a dragon. But, like Stannis, Young Griff still seeks dragons to become Aegon the Conqueror 2.0:

"Do you want to wager your throne upon a woman's whim? Go to Westeros, though … ah, then you are a rebel, not a beggar. Bold, reckless, a true scion of House Targaryen, walking in the footsteps of Aegon the Conqueror. A dragon." (Tyrion VI, ADWD)
And then Prince Aegon spoke. "Then put your hopes on me," he said. "Daenerys is Prince Rhaegar's sister, but I am Rhaegar's son. I am the only dragon that you need." (The Lost Lord, ADWD)
"The first Aegon took Westeros without eunuchs," said Lysono Maar. "Why shouldn't the sixth Aegon do the same?" (The Lost Lord, ADWD)
"Storm's End." Lord Mace Tyrell grunted the words. "He cannot take Storm's End. Not if he were Aegon the Conqueror." (Epilogue, ADWD)

Also, it is worth noting that Aegon is directly called a “false dragon” at one point:

"Then let me prove the truth of them with my sword." The light of the torches made a fiery blaze of Ronnet Connington's long red hair and beard. "Send me against my uncle, and I will bring you back his head, and the head of this false dragon too." (Epilogue, ADWD)

Euron is (apparently) not a direct descendant of the Conqueror, but he does seek to marry and breed with one, putting himself into Aegon’s line and ruling with Daenerys’ dragons. Aegon and Euron are both the second child of their mothers. Aegon the Conqueror was the sovereign ruler of Dragonstone and a number of other islands. Euron Greyjoy is the sovereign ruler of the Iron Islands. None of that is especially compelling, but what is significant is that the Conqueror (and his sister-wives) were the last dragonlords, and Euron all but states that he intends to be the next dragonlord, having gone to Valyria, armored himself in Valyrian steel, wielding a Valyrian hellhorn, and soon riding a dragon. While Euron seeks dragons, he does already have a “mount” even without them: his ship, the Silence, which has a red hull and black sails, the Targaryen colors. Aegon’s mount, Balerion was a black dragon with fearsome black wings; the sails of the Silence make men pray in the same way Balerion’s black wings made men dread. His personal coat-of-arms of the Crow’s Eye is of a black flying animal, just as Balerion. Aegon had two sister-wives. Euron (falsely) tells Falia Flowers that she will be his salt wife and that Daenerys will his rock wife, with Falia believing the “two of us will be as close as sisters” (The Forsaken, TWOW). Aegon was generous to those who joined him and vengeful to those who defied him; Euron is much the same, giving wealth and honors to those who follow him but brutal punishments for those who oppose.
Euron has only physically appeared in four chapters (if including TWOW’s The Forsaken), so there is less to say about him. Still, the kingsmoot speech conveys Euron’s ambition to be the Conqueror 2.0.:

"Crow's Eye," Asha called, "did you leave your wits at Asshai? If we cannot hold the north—and we cannot—how can we win the whole of the Seven Kingdoms?"
"Why, it has been done before. Did Balon teach his girl so little of the ways of war? Victarion, our brother's daughter has never heard of Aegon the Conqueror, it would seem."
"Aegon?" Victarion crossed his arms against his armored chest. "What has the Conqueror to do with us?"
"I know as much of war as you do, Crow's Eye," Asha said. "Aegon Targaryen conquered Westeros with dragons."
"And so shall we," Euron Greyjoy promised. "That horn you heard I found amongst the smoking ruins that were Valyria, where no man has dared to walk but me. You heard its call, and felt its power. It is a dragon horn, bound with bands of red gold and Valyrian steel graven with enchantments. The dragonlords of old sounded such horns, before the Doom devoured them. With this horn, ironmen, I can bind dragons to my will." (The Drowned Man, AFFC)

Stannis, Aegon, and Euron may seek to be Aegon the Conqueror, Come Again, but they are false. The House of the Undying vision tells us as much, and our interactions with them suggest their fraudulence. Stannis particular is just as much a blue-eyed king as he is a mummer’s dragon and a beast that breathes shadow fire because of Melisandre, the de facto mummer and shadow-binder, false in many ways. Aegon may be false because he is not even Aegon, he claims to be a dragon that he is not. Euron’s falsehoods are harder to discern at this point in the story, but there is simply no way he is a true dragon. There is only true dragon, whose claim and destiny conflicts with all three of these men; she must prove them false to complete it:

Daenerys: Aegon the Conqueror with Teats

Daenerys is the true dragon, the rightful heir and successor of Aegon the Conqueror through fire and blood. Dany is a direct descendant of the Conqueror, born on Dragonstone, as he was, and is the rightful heir of House Targaryen and thus the throne that Aegon forged. She was the only daughter of Aerys and Rhaella as Aegon was the only son of Aerion and Valaena, and each had two opposite-sex (full-blooded) siblings. She is the mother of dragons, three dragons as the three-headed dragon on the banner that Aegon designed. Her mount. black-scaled Drogon, is “Balerion, come again." (Daenerys I, ACOK). Her destiny is to invade Westeros and complete Aegon’s dream of defending it from the Others.
Daenerys is often compared to the Conqueror, both as his heir and blood and as the Conqueror 2.0. There are too many to list all, but here are some choice ones:

I am blood of the dragon, she told herself. I am Daenerys Stormborn, Princess of Dragonstone, of the blood and seed of Aegon the Conqueror. (Daenerys II, AGOT)
No one was calling her Daenerys the Conqueror yet, but perhaps they would. Aegon the Conqueror had won Westeros with three dragons, but she had taken Meereen with sewer rats and a wooden cock, in less than a day (Daenerys VI, ASOS)
The dragon has three heads. There are two men in the world who I can trust, if I can find them. I will not be alone then. We will be three against the world, like Aegon and his sisters. (Daenerys VI, ASOS)
"Must?" Tyrion made a tsking sound. "That is not a word queens like to hear. You are her perfect prince, agreed, bright and bold and comely as any maid could wish. Daenerys Targaryen is no maid, however. She is the widow of a Dothraki khal, a mother of dragons and sacker of cities, Aegon the Conqueror with teats. She may not prove as willing as you wish." (Tyrion VI, ADWD)
Part of her would have liked nothing more than to lead her people back to Vaes Tolorro, and make the dead city bloom. No, that is defeat. I have something Viserys never had. I have the dragons. The dragons are all the difference. (Daenerys III, ACOK)

Dragons are all the difference, and that is fundamentally why she is true and everyone else is false. That and one other thing: everyone else is a man, Daenerys is a woman. In their sexism, people in Westeros see the next Aegon as a man, but fail to realize the truth:

"No one ever looked for a girl," he said. "It was a prince that was promised, not a princess. Rhaegar, I thought . . . the smoke was from the fire that devoured Summerhall on the day of his birth, the salt from the tears shed for those who died. He shared my belief when he was young, but later he became persuaded that it was his own son who fulfilled the prophecy, for a comet had been seen above King's Landing on the night Aegon was conceived, and Rhaegar was certain the bleeding star had to be a comet. What fools we were, who thought ourselves so wise! The error crept in from the translation. Dragons are neither male nor female, Barth saw the truth of that, but now one and now the other, as changeable as flame. The language misled us all for a thousand years. Daenerys is the one, born amidst salt and smoke. The dragons prove it." (Samwell IV, AFFC)

TL;DR The slayer of lies in the House of the Undying is about three false dragons whose claims to the Iron Throne as Aegon the Conqueror’s heir conflicts with her own. Dany, through her true fire and true blood, is the true dragon, a worthy successor to Aegon destined to repeat what he did.

While the mother fussed over the child - their son as they found out soon enough - the father profusely thanked the human, who politely accepted his thanks, but gently refused any monetary compensation, stating that treating the child to a snack would be all the thanks they needed. After the family left, the Ambassador offered to treat everyone to lunch, to which the suun’mahs had to refuse, as his shuttle was leaving soon; after bidding him farewell, the human scooped up his pup, and simply *jumped* over the railing, landing easier than one might expect; but, considering his natural gravity is a Class *12*, it shouldn’t have been so surprising. The other humans followed suit, and they entered the eatery.
They must not have been in there for very long - as they didn’t seem to have eaten yet - when the A.I. that traveled with the Ambassador proclaimed that a ‘Kah’Ri’ was stalking him. This soon turned out to be another drahk’mihn, a beautiful purple woman who seemed just as entranced with his makeup and hair color as everyone in the bar was with her. As she crawled up on the table and over to the human, she had one of the drahk’mihn’s and suun’mahs’s - and apparently *humans* as well, it seemed - signature smiles that flashed her teeth; which for everyone else was a sign of aggression.
At one point, one of the humans made what appeared to be an offensive joke, as the Ambassador wouldn’t even let him finish it, and the other humans looked at him in clear disapproval. Some time after that, they all engaged in a song, with the Ambassador leading. The one who tried to make the joke earlier got up towards the end of the song, after which it was revealed he walked off towards the restrooms. That was when Kah’Ri checked the wrist-mounted monitor she had, and her face fell. After showing the Ambassador, he got up, heading straight for the restrooms, while the other humans convinced her to show them what was wrong. It was apparently a rude message that was blurred out, but the humans reacted with disgust upon reading it - even calling the other man names - so it was pretty easy to guess what it might be about.
About the time that the human Ambassador was having a tense standoff with the other human in the restroom, a brown galan’zhee walked into *his* bar, a mischievous grin coming to the ursid’s face as he saw what everyone was watching; he sat down at the end of the bar farthest from the monitor, ordering a drink and turning his attention to the screen. As he turned his own attention back to the show - after a quick scan to make sure no one else wanted anything - he saw a predatory grin come to the Ambassador’s face as he backed out of the - slightly larger - other human’s face, pulling up his wrist monitor, stating he was calling ‘Vera’, which was the first A.I. they discovered, if he remembered correctly.
After a brief discussion between him and the hologram of a human-looking woman, the other man was instructed to pack his things and leave immediately. After he left, the scene cut to the Ambassador standing outside the restrooms, looking visibly quite angry; he motioned to Kah’Ri that he was going to get a drink at the bar, and had just sat down to wait for the barkeep to get done with their current customer when a large brown-furred hand planted itself in his midsection, forcefully throwing him backward off of the stool, as a familiar-looking galan’zhee took the now-empty seat.
But the human was already back on his feet, hands balled into fists at his side, when he suddenly lunged forward, wrapping his arms around the galan’zhee’s waist, obviously trying to pull the larger man off the seat as well but obviously not really getting anywhere with his efforts. That was until he kicked the connecting bar between two of the legs of the stool, providing just enough leverage to start the galan’zhee to fall; and though he grabbed for the bar to steady himself, he just issued it, toppling over backwards, his head hitting the ground after the rest of his body, but still enough to visibly knock him out for a few seconds.
The human was on his feet immediately, having taken the fall with the ursid, and when the latter didn’t try to move, he turned away dismissively, angrily righting the barstool, and climbing back up. Just as he was gaining his seat, the galan’zhee behind him began stirring, slowly rising to his feet. The human visibly tensed up, obviously ready for a fight, though the other man simply asked,
“What *are* you?” There was no real heat in his voice, it was mostly genuine bewilderment, mixed with a bit of amusement, though before the human could answer, the voice of Kah’Ri spoke up behind him, methodically listing off the stats of the human home world, and how it was 12’s across the board; she finished it up by stating quite clearly that he belonged to her and - stalking past the towering ursid as if he weren’t several feet taller than her - climbed the stool to sit by her human, rubbing the back of his head, and asking if he was alright.
The galan’zhee repeated himself, only with much more amusement, to which the human replied that he was quite lucky, ‘considering’. The barkeep warily came up to the group, where the human ordered drinks for the two of them, and even bought him food, offering the larger man to even come sit at their table. He accepted, and they all made their way over to where the rest of their group were sitting, where the ursid received a rather warm welcome from the humans, considering that he’d basically just attacked their Ambassador; the others at the table were rightfully wary of the larger alien, but welcomed him well enough, seeing as the humans weren’t reacting negatively to him.
And so they sat there for a while, obviously enjoying each other’s companies, when a white vell’prah approached their table, flanked by two suul’mahr bodyguards. After addressing everyone, asking what was happening, the smaller man had one of his guards show security feed from inside the bar which showed their earlier altercation; to which the human denied that it was even them. That drew a few laughs from his *own* patrons as the others at the Ambassador’s table struggled to disguise their laughter on the monitor. The vell’prah asked for the human to join him in private, where he basically pleaded with the larger man to let him arrest the galan’zhee; to which the human was flippantly dismissive about, though the vell’prah was obviously too full of himself to notice the dangerous undercurrent that subtly hid beneath his calm demeanor. Finally admitting defeat, the station leader - as he identified himself - let the Ambassador get back to enjoying the company of his friends.
Later, the scene cut to him talking with the human doctor that had come aboard the station with the others, and he mentioned the Ambassador’s genetic modifications, which were apparently commonplace for humans. They went aboard the ship right then, giving the human and drahk’mihn their own genetic modifications, while uplifting the canine to sapience. During a timelapse video, the ‘blaschko's lines’ he had requested showed up on his skin, a light peppering of brown spots showing up on his face, while his arms had what almost looked like healing injuries, some old scrapes up and down his arms, though they didn’t look particularly unsettling, as they weren’t *exactly* the same color as dried red blood; his stomach and back presented an interesting swirl pattern however, as if they were being ‘drained’ into his core from the outside in.
From there, it showed the now-famous, *unedited*, though still censored version - that had already been released, of course - of his marooning on the primitive planet with his team, and how he readily sacrificed himself - and the team - telling the Captain to get out while they could, and to leave them behind. His team members didn’t voice their objections, which showed either extreme trust in their human compatriot, or their utter terror at the prospect.
Once they got further into the atmosphere, they began picking up a distress signal from an escape pod, which they landed nearby, in a clearing. Once they were down, the human ordered the others to stay in the shuttle while he went to check the pod, leaving his now-sapient canine to protect the others. At the crash site, he found a trok’lade who was quite panicked, and obviously thought he was there to harm her. After a quick standoff, the uncommon ‘explosion’ of a sonic boom - as no one entered atmosphere at such great speeds anymore, after getting the technology to *enter* an atmosphere, instead of simply *falling into* it.
Looking up, he told her to get back into her pod, and made his way back to the clearing, where he dispatched the slavers - with the help of his canine friend - and then ordered them to go hide in the escape pod. He then went into the shuttle, where the vell’prah tried to enter his mind, and was killed. Then to the call between himself and the slaver captain, possibly not having to act *too* hard to seem as insane as he did. Then… nothing. There was no attack, no ‘invasion’; the slavers seemed to have left. So, coming to the same conclusion, the human on screen moved back to the shuttles, where he first washed his face and hands, then went to retrieve his friends.
It was here that they received a massive shock, one bigger than the fact that the humans didn’t have a Gift; they *did* have a Gift, and it was to absorb the Gifts of others. That was how he’d killed the vell’prah in the shuttle, and he stated that he could feel the slaver’s Gift within himself. After clearing the bodies away from their campsite, they went to bed, and the next day he and his canine companion were attacked by a large reptile that the human named a [dragon]. He and the canine were stuck in the trees, until he made a spear out of one of the branches and his knife. The battle which followed was one for the ages, with the human delivering the final, killing blow on the dragon, though he lost his eyes in the process.
After the shuttle landed and he woke up - having passed out from shock - he instructed the A.I. to transplant the dragon’s eyes in place of his own ruined ones, which she was able to easily do after they made it back to their camp. He woke up in the middle of the night, the healing gel he’d stolen from the mahn’ewe enhancing the natural healing process immensely, so that his eyes were already usable, though the gashes in his flesh were still healing, colored black from the soot he’d added long before. After discussing the problem with ratios, they heard a commotion outside, where the Ambassador quickly dispatched another of the ‘dragon’s that was trying to enter the other shuttle, him having claimed the slavers’ shuttle as his own.
They cleaned the dragon, and got it smoking, or preserved in cold storage, after which the canine - Cheshire, he recalled - offered to let the human see if it was possible to receive the Gift of someone without killing them, which proved to be possible. And though he was tired for the entire day, the process seemed to have no ill effect on Cheshire, with his ability to shapeshift returned to full strength by the time he had his general energy back.
Though, they soon had to deal with the problem that they didn’t have enough sugar to feed the trok’lade, with the human stressing over it so much that at one point he snapped at her for offering to skip a meal or two, stating that he was ‘already starving’ her, asking her not to make it worse; though, his guilt immediately attacked him, and he walked away to get a handle on his emotions. It wasn’t long after this that he got the idea to search the entire planet for *some* kind of sugar that the A.I. Kay’Eighty could process into a usable foodstuff for the trok’lade.
Unfortunately, their search turned up fruitless - or ‘*sugar*less’, in a more general sense - and so after a quick rest at their base camp, he went to the other habitable planet in the system, using the slavers’ shuttle, which - being a military vessel - had minimal subspace capabilities. Upon reaching the planet, they immediately found a large hot spring that the A.I. stayed behind to test for acidity - of which they also couldn’t find a trace on the other planet, which would have helped them convert cellulose to glucose - while the others went to examine the crystals that were growing not too far from that location.
Upon getting there, they discovered crystals that apparently amplified the strength of one’s Gift, while also being nearly indestructible. Along with this, they found a cave that the Kay’Eighty reported contained a crystal of solidified light, the intensity of which would literally be blinding to biological races with no eye-coverings. They took samples of both new crystals, and continued their search for sugars, Kay’Eighty informing them that while the geyser was acidic enough to be used if needed, they still had time to search the rest of the planet if they worked as quickly as before.
And so it was that they eventually did find a sugar to use, a thick syrup produced by a flying insect that they determined was on the verge of sapience by a few centuries, at most. Working out a deal with the queen of the hive, he had Kay’Eighty construct a hive out of the white wood that they’d discovered on the other planet, complete with a cage around the crop out of which they made the sugary syrup. They even made a compartment where any overflow would be directed, so as to not bother the hive in their day-to-day dealings. After they had moved the majority of their hive into this new structure, the human was allowed to take what was left in the tree that was their previous home.
From there they left the planet, where the Ambassador took a huge - comparatively speaking - bite of one of the [honeycomb], as he called it; and though Kay’Eighty tried to stop him, she saw him too late, having already taken a bite. After about an hour, his eyes took on a vacant appearance, and he was near-catatonic for several hours, the THC that was present in the ‘honey’ being at equal levels to the sugar contained, as well. But luckily it didn’t prove to be fatal, though many of his patrons expressed a desire to try some of that goop.
They made it back to the original planet with no more incidents, Kay’Eighty processing a good amount of the honey to filter out the THC for the trok’lade to have a normal meal, sealing the pure THC away into vials that she hid within her mass of nanobots. Upon landing, the human was still high, though he had become ambulatory enough to walk out of the shuttle under his own power, having been obviously annoying his companions, shown through a timelapse of him gaining ‘consciousness’ on their trip back.
It was later on that they began discussing uses for the crystals they’d found, and what they suggested had everyone in the bar muttering in excitement: suits made of the enhancement crystal, run on stellar-spheres made from the ‘light-crystal’. It wasn’t long before Kay’Eighty began working on said suits, with the intention of them enacting a self-rescue, and though the time lapse showed that it took several days, all of the biologicals had suits, leaving only Kay’Eighty to construct a full-sized body of her own, the Ambassador firmly stating that it didn’t matter what the rest of the Federation thought of her, the humans would stick by their A.I. brethren against anyone.
It was -of course - during the time that she was constructing her own body that the ship that had been forced to leave the team behind returned, with human and suun’mahs military ships as an escort. The reunion was short and sweet, after which was a quick communication with the Federation Council wherein they merely relayed that they had survived, and the Ambassador informed them of having found the trok’lade. The clip then cut to the Ambassador making a call to the ory’lagus in charge of the black hole mining company, wherein he informed her that he’d found the original pendant of their company. After a brief explanation as to the history of said pendant, he was invited to return it.
Before he was able to get around to that, however, he was informed by the human Admiral that had been with him every step of the way since arriving that a mahn’ewe had been found, alone, and before he could say any more than that, the Ambassador interjected with,
“Bob?”
Apparently he knew this one, and it had helped him to escape captivity; he gave a brief description as to how he was able to slip that fact past the so’jahl who’d interrogated him. After a quick clip of them seeing the smaller alien in the interrogation room, the to Admiral went into a side room - that the Ambassador had declined wanting to go into - where they saw security footage from the mahn’ewe ship of the Ambassador’s captivity, and escape.
Around the time that this was ending, the Ambassador decided to go into the room with the mahn’ewe, speaking with him like old friends. At one point, the mahn’ewe mentioned something about gravity, causing the human to go very thoughtful. After bidding a quick farewell to the smaller alien, the Ambassador went out to the Admirals, describing his plan to use the ‘crysthril’ to help the ory’lagus enhance their Gift, to then follow the gravity trails from pretty much anyone in the Federation to find the slavers’ homeworld. This could also - of course - be used to find the mahn’ewe, since ‘Bob’ wasn’t giving up the location of his home system, but his main concern was in finding the slavers.
From there, it cut back to the suun’mahs presenter, who announced that the Federation had indeed - through a joint effort of all species having been directly affected by the slavers, with the humans adding in their support, as well - found and successfully invaded the slavers. The people who had been rescued had been sent to the second planet that the Ambassador had been a part of surveying, and which he had donated to a joint effort by all species to help rehabilitate those who needed it. The presenter announced that while all peoples involved had agreed to keep it quiet for the time being, they had found extensive lists of all the Federation traitors who were supplying the kath’loo with slaves, and no longer needed to rely on them slipping up and revealing themselves, one way or another.
The way he said that last part kind of ominously, after which the scene cut to a human space station, in which a gah’rahtoe and a suul’mahr walked down a hall, discussing something about children working. It soon became clear just what kind of ‘massages’ theses children were to give, and he couldn’t deny that it actually looked quite appealing; their nimble little fingers were working their ways into the cracks where the backs of their ears joined their heads, a rather troublesome spot to try to scratch - unless you had those tiny, flat-’clawed’ fingers to work with. Indeed, it didn’t take long for the suul’mahr’s leg to give occasional twitches, an involuntary muscle twitch from their ancient ancestors.
Though the alarms soon started going off, and after the gah’ratoe - ambassador, it seemed - and her husband were rushed to a safe room with the children and their caretakers, they all found out why: pirates had come to take as many humans as possible to the auction block. As the ambassador’s husband was given permission to be part of the defense, they saw the humans gearing up for war, a hard expression mirrored on every primate face in the complex. And then the attack happened, completely one-sided in a way the slavers had obviously never experienced.
Their anti-Gift darts had no effect on a race that had lived their entire *existence* without ever feeling it in the first place, but as stated in its description before, the ‘crysthril’ overpowered that effect, making it so that when they made direct contact with the slavers, they would go down almost instantly, most left unmoving as their human counterparts decided not to hold back, and took it all from them. It didn’t take long before they had subdued - lethally or not, but mostly *not* - the slavers, and had launched craft of their own to board the slavers’ vessels, freeing the people already captured, and taking the crews prisoner; those that *lived*, anyway.
The presenter came on to announce that they would leave on a lighter note, so would show a series of clips from the official First Contact between the humans, and the Federation. First was their actual meeting, a pleasant, formal affair. Then was a trip through the human space station they had landed on, with images of bustling ‘streets’ lined with shops and restaurants the likes of which seemed little different than what one might see anywhere in the Federation.
There was a quick clip of the group playing with one of the human domesticated animals they called a [dog], which ended with a declaration of a dinner. This wasn’t shown, but what *was* shown was the suul’marh’s day at the beach, wherein the humans - most of them young children, by the size of them - practically *flocked* to the aliens, the children even wanting the hulking canine to throw them far out into the water. After some time of this, there was a buffet of food laid out for them all, coupled with music and alcohol. It looked like a good time, and it was easy to forget that these little primates were a Class 12 aggressor species.
Until the last clips, which were of the competition the suun’mahs loved to challenge other races with, the humans obviously taking them up on their offer of hand-to-hand fighting. Though he wasn’t sure what to expect, he was somehow both surprised, and not surprised when the human female effortlessly dispatched her opponent, making use of her feet in a way that - though she couldn’t actually *grip* with them - hinted at her primate ancestry. The way the suun’mahs woman’s arm was twisted couldn’t have been all too pleasant, which was probably the reason she began tapping the mat with such force.
The next match between the men lasted much longer, the suun’mahs obviously having watched the round prior, taking note of the human’s agility and quick reflexes, doing his best to not make any rash actions. This fight actually timed out, both combatants trading heavy blows, and massive slams to the mat. But it was the suun’mahs who won in the end, the human officials agreeing that he landed slightly more blows than the human. And so - as the trophy was being presented - the human stepped forward to take it, only to turn and present it to his opponent, giving an admirable show of respect, and sportsmanship.
As the program ended, he noticed the vell’prah at the bar trying to get his attention, which turned out to him wanting to settle his tab; as he went about that transaction, the galan’zhee spoke up.
“*Heh*,” he started gruffly, though his amusement was obvious, “Yeah, those humans can be pretty crazy, sometimes. That was me, by the way, that Kyle - sorry, *Ambassador Redding* - threw to the ground in that bar. Obviously he had a bit of leverage in kicking the stool out from under me like that, but he didn’t hesitate to take the problem head-on, or in deploying the ‘if I go down, I’m taking you with me’ approach. And as you saw, they’re also quick to forgive, given the right circumstances. I’m proud to call that little ape my friend, and that was before he gifted me and my crew some of *this*.”
Here, he held up his left hand, around who’s wrist was a band of what looked like crystal, colored a gunmetal gray.
“‘*Crysthril*’ as he named it; you saw the effects on the screen, but allow me to give you a demonstration here: observe.” With that, there was a loud explosion of glass as all of the alcohol on the shelves behind him destroyed the bottles they were housed in, all rushing to surround the vell’prah who was almost to the door at that point, and then they did the impossible: the alcohols all froze into deadly spikes, all pointing at some point on the vulpin’s body.
“You *really* should’ve paid more attention to the *planets* of that backwater ‘shortcut’, rather than the ships flying through it; then you would’ve been privy to a prize worth more than you could get for an entire *planet* of drahk’mihn, no matter *who* you sold it to. But instead, you gave it away to Ambassador Redding - who sends his regards, by the way. But don’t worry, I believe that the humans want to put you on trial, rather than kill you by draining your Gift from you, the way Kyle did to *your brother*.” This last part he said with vindictive pleasure, and as he did, many of the other patrons began reaching for their weapons… only to stop with surprised looks on their faces. At the confused one springing up on the vell’prah’s face, the galan’zhee laughed.
“*Enhances*. *Gifts*. So that people who would normally need to make direct contact to utilize their Gifts, can now do so remotely. Like you; like the *keen’yhong*…”
As he said that last part, a good many people became visible around his bar, and not just one per person who had reached for their weapons before; the galan’zhee seemed to have three people for every one that seemed to be working for the vell’prah, and only three of the galan’zhee’s crew were keen’yhong.
“They entered with me,” the galan’zhee continued in a breezy manner, nonchalantly inspecting his claws as two other vell’prah - one solid black, the other of the slightly smaller, tan subspecies - each pointed what looked like smaller copies of the human’s rail-rifle, “Been scoping you and your crew out the entire time. And don’t worry: we already took your ship into our custody; wouldn’t want to skimp out when completing my first job for a new species - first impressions, and all. *Alright everyone*,” he called out, looking around the bar, “Cuff ‘em and stuff ‘em: get this trash to the brig.” As his crew began filing out, he tossed a credit-transfer chip to Par’Lo, who caught it easily; even as this happened - and the vell’prah was being cuffed - the alcohol all flowed back to the shelves behind him, still frozen, but in the shapes of the bottles they had occupied before.
“That should cover my tab, plus the damages, there. You should pour those within the next hour, or so; don’t know exactly how long it’ll last. Just pour ‘em out like you normally would, and they’ll unfreeze as needed. Until then, *drinks are on me!*” He called this last part to the bar in general, which was met with resounding cheers; and after he checked the amount on the credit chip - which contained more zeros after a solid number than he had ever seen actually *coming his way* - he put on his best service smile, pouring drinks out to all the people suddenly crowding the bar. And as the crowd closed in, he saw the bounty hunter and his crew filing out of his bar.

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I’m back, still alive!
So, I saw another animal, but first, let me talk about my discussions with Andrew. He seemed relieved that I wanted to stay on after meeting Miss Giant Spider. There were several occasions that she was the reason a new night security person had quit, mostly because she was often the first to come say hello once we were able to see her. She was social, or at least the version of social that things like her could be.
At that, Andrew told me he’d decide to resume tours. Apparently I’ve been doing so well, and I’d handled meeting Yui with such grace (I didn’t tell him I almost pissed my pants) that he figured I’d be sticking around. He was right, of course. And it was encouraging enough to hear it from him that I got a little boost of self-confidence. I know y’all are probably older than me, but this is my first real full-time job, so that was really cool to hear from him.
I know continuing to work here does make me the world’s biggest hypocrite considering my pet peeve of people who lack common sense, but it seems the universe found my weakness. I can’t help it. I’m a wildlife biologist at heart and these animals are devastatingly fascinating, and if I quit I wouldn’t be able to learn all about them. I’m hoping Andrew will eventually let me ask Suzanne for books about them, from wherever they’re from. Plus, the scariest thing I’d ever seen in my life didn’t kill me, so maybe I can put this in the ‘common sense win’ column, hm? The spider wanted to eat me, she didn’t eat me, therefore the wards are solid and she can’t eat me. Right? I’m going with that.
Apparently Roger, the last guy who ran the night shift, ran a tight ship. He interacted with the animals on a purely basic level, never falling for their tricks, never getting killed or even hurt. Some of his job, and therefore what was becoming my job, was ensuring that the animals were doing well. This meant he needed to be able to see all of them, and so once they realized he’d reached his limit at eight, Suzanne did some wand-waving (no, I don’t know if she has a wand, I’m being facetious), and he could see the rest. According to Andrew, that had something to do with letting our minds stretch and reach its natural limits before stretching it further.
Most nights I arrive early, just before Andrew leaves, and I ask him questions I have. After seeing Yui’s human form, I did ask Andrew about her intelligence, but he just smiled and shook his head. He explained that there were dogs smarter than any the animals at the zoo, at least when you were comparing them to levels of human intelligence. Her appearance was just a disguise and her polite words to me were intelligence of an impressive border collie the filtered through the skill of a parrot. I wouldn’t be able to converse with her on any real level.
However, saying all of that lacks accuracy, because comparing animals to humans always leaves out quite a bit. For example, humans realized ants can figure out where they are and where to go from the position of the sun, while humans would need trigonometry for that. It doesn’t mean ants are capable of learning trig.
Something notable that I brought up with Andrew was enrichment. The layout of the zoo isn’t exactly typical, because for most of the animals, it backs up quite a ways into the forest that surrounds the zoo before ending at a tall fence. That means there’s more of a natural existence for them, and with a lot more space than even the most generous zoo, it likely feels to them like they’re still out in the wild, and they don’t get bored too easily.
That was the reason Andrew gave for having so few enrichment ideas, that they already had space to roam and engaged with plenty of animals including some that burrowed, various birds (and snatching eggs from nests), and climbers like racoons, opossums, and squirrels. The big thing my boss considered enrichment was putting specific live prey like goats or turkeys into the enclosures for some variety, which made sense. But I couldn’t help thinking that it was still important to make like any other zoo and give them some bonus fun occasionally.
When it came to Yui, I asked Andrew if he knew whether she’d prefer something to play with in her human form or her tarantula form. That’s when I learned the human form was a disguise, to get prey to come closer, which was exactly the honey trap of death that my subconscious had imagined it to be. (Yay.) So, she remains a tarantula most of the time.
On that note, did you know many pet tarantulas like ping-pong balls? Check it out on YouTube if you’ve got some time to kill. On that note, I thought it’d be worth a shot to see if Yui liked it.
My first image was of that meme of George R.R. Martin in a giant hamster ball, the person who’d shared it giving the photo a caption that scolded him from goofing off when they wanted him to be writing the next Game of Thrones book. The thing is, that was approximately the right size, but most of those are inflatable. Yui has little claws at the end of her feet, so I needed something plastic. That meant making some calls around to manufacturers (by email, since I was doing this in the middle of the night) for something custom made.
I do have to say, looking to have a giant plastic ball for a huge tarantula to play with had not been on my list of likely things to happen at my new job, but it was highly entertaining. I wish I could have told the people I was emailing, but at least I can tell all of you.
I wrote a list of other enrichment possibilities in my phone, and one morning when I arrived early, I spoke with Andrew about them. It wasn’t much of a list yet, but I’d gotten started from what I knew about Yui and figured I’d throw some other things at the wall to see what stuck.
Andrew did seem iffy about introducing new things, saying, “If it ain’t broke, I don’t like trying to fix it.” But part of my job was allegedly enrichment, according to the job posting. It just seemed like over the decades of the zoo’s existence so far, they counted on prey to be that enrichment. Not that I’m saying they were neglecting the animals, of course; honestly I still have a lot (or rather, everything) to learn about them. But I figured doing the kind of enrichment I’d been taught in my college classes could be great.
“By the way, this might sound stupid, but does Leila need any enrichment?” I asked with a grimace. “I don’t know a lot about ghosts, but I would assume it’s a boring existence. I can only go on stories, and a bored ghost gets into trouble, according to the popular culture.”
Andrew smirked and nodded. “Yeah, they do in films, but this isn’t that kind of situation. With Leila…her soul isn’t actually here. The ghost is more of an echo of her, left behind, imprinted when she was attacked,” he explained.
“Her soul isn’t here,” I repeated. “That’s…interesting.”
“I’m not in charge of the afterlife,” he said with a shrug. “Gratefully, Ripley, I only have to manage this one business. Whatever goes on with that side of things must be more stress than I can imagine and I’d turn down the job if offered, no matter the pay.”
Once I received an email confirming a company’s ability to create a lightweight but solid plastic ball, much like a super-sized ping-pong ball, Andrew approved the purchase of the toy. I was eager to get started on stuff for the other animals, but until I got a good look at them, I felt I didn’t have enough info to go on. And Andrew still didn’t want to educate me on things I hadn’t seen yet, calling it learning on a ‘need-to-know basis,’ since I’m human, so he’ll be waiting before spilling all the weird, freaky beans. I’ll have to be patient.
What he had done was given me a summaries that Roger had written down, but actually they weren’t much help. This was because Roger had a background as a security guard rather than being educated in wildlife, as I did. Andrew said the man had been extremely capable at his job, but looking for someone with a degree this time was a choice he was happy with.
Roger was concise, I’ll give him that. On this list of his, taking Yui as an example, it said ‘spider woman - enclosure 7 - Yui’, along with the animals she liked to hunt. It hadn’t taken him that long to figure out what our animals most enjoyed hunting, mostly from wildlife cameras that were installed in the forestry. They were all omnivores (or rather, you could say they had degrees in being omnivores with a specialization in being a carnivore, because Andrew said they could eat almost anything someone might toss into their enclosure), but some of them had special preferences on top of that.
Another description for animal I hadn’t seen yet was, ‘centaur - enclosure 10 - Arnold’. For any animal that didn’t have a given name (Yui was able to introduce herself, since she’d been named before, I was told), Roger made one up, and Andrew told me that Arnold was named after Arnold Schwarzenegger because he had incredible muscles. Also notable was that he was not a centaur, that was just the closest approximation that Roger’s mind was able to label him, because his most notable feature was that he had no skin. The part of my brain that was a biology major crawled all over that fact, but couldn’t make sense of how it could be beneficial to survival. Then again, since they came from another world, I had no environment on which to base my evolutionary ideas.
Yui has looked out at me from the forest on two more occasions so far, both times in her spider form, though she didn’t attempt communication again. I was extremely grateful, because even as I reminded myself that she hadn’t so much as attempted to hurt me, and that there really was an invisible wall there, I still wanted some more time to get used to her appearance. There was a near certain chance she would love to have me as a meal, just as any predator might, so my hindbrain trembled whenever I saw her. But each time, I reminded myself that this was why I’d been hired, because I showed a healthy amount of fear for the animals. Then I took a deep breath and moved on.
However, I did see another animal on the cameras, and then on a walk, a few days ago. This one wasn’t as terrifying as Yui (though that’s a high bar), but it was freaky. I saw it when I passed the area that led to the small lake, where I’d been told several animals had access from their enclosures bordering it. I zoomed in to get a better look, the cameras doing the impressive job of making the animal many times bigger and perfectly crisp on the screen.
At first glance it seemed like some sort of dog-possum hybrid, the size of a Doberman. Most notable was the hand at the end of its tail, like that of a racoon but larger and with claws. I recall thinking that the animals in our world with prehensile tails have nothing on that. It had small ears and black and grey fur covered its body, but the animal had shaken itself after coming out of the water, and when it had done so, its hair stood up on end like it was infused with static electricity. The thing was, having done that, it looked like the hair down its back had become a mohawk of spines. Wondering if it had the skills of a porcupine, I mentally took in as much information as I could about its appearance.
Later that shift, on another walk through the zoo, I thought I heard an animal crying. I say animal, but if I hadn’t been a major in wildlife biology, I would’ve said I heard a human baby crying. There are a surprising amount of animals that sound like humans shrieking or crying, which can make for a disturbing experience if you live in rural areas with lots of forestry. If someone grew up there, they got used to it. If they were unfamiliar with that weirdness, however, they might get worried some psycho had left a baby in the woods and went looking for the source, but those folks were probably candidates for a Darwin award.
This was definitely an imitation of a human baby crying, and it was spot on. It was coming from Spike’s enclosure, but I just stopped a couple yards from the fence for a long, thoughtful moment before moving on to walk the rest of the zoo, ignoring the sound. Two hours (and therefore two laps) later, it gave up trying to draw me in.
Anyway, the first time I’d seen the animal, I’d returned to the security room, double-checked, and confirmed that this animal was named ‘Spike’ (no points for originality, Roger). Apparently its food of choice was fish, but musing on that didn’t give me many hints as to what it might enjoy as enrichment. Clearly the sound imitation was a form of drawing in prey, so that didn’t help much either. What did give me hints was the fact that, according to Roger’s notes, it was known to not just kill the fish and eat the meat, but also the scales.
In addition, it didn’t just eat fish, but also turtles, lizards, and snakes, and if it killed a human, it had been known to specifically go for our nails and hair before making like a carnivore on the rest of us. That meant keratin was an important element of his diet. So, any fish or reptile made nutritious prey, which was convenient since the lake was stocked regularly and the reptiles were plentiful throughout the forest.
Determined to find something for it to enjoy, though, I considered what its instincts might prompt it to appreciate. That’s the way to go with all enrichment, even for humans. Just think of all the games we play as kids. Hide and seek. Tag. Red light, green light. All things that tested our ability to avoid predators and catch prey. We play these games since we enjoy them, and we enjoy them for a very good reason: our brain gives us happy-hormone feedback because it’s good training for our ongoing survival.
With that in mind, I considered possibly giving it foods that were difficult to eat, to mimic the difficulty of pulling nails and hair out of corpses. I know, it’s a gruesome train of thought, considering I was one of those animals that he’d probably be delighted to snack on, but that’s what happens when you’re in charge of animals like these. I considered things like pomegranates, artichokes, avocados, or pineapple, but definitely nuts like pistachios, pecans, peanuts, and hazelnuts. Its claws were made for attacking prey, but they could also be useful when opening nuts. And I didn’t get a good look at its teeth, but I figured it was similar to a squirrel in that way.
Those items were easy to fetch from a big grocery store, and there was a Walmart on my commute home, so I stopped in to buy some. The cashier was probably confused as to why I was sampling a bunch of things, but I was using the zoo’s business card for this, and didn’t want to overdo it.
I’d asked Andrew if he wanted to get them himself or reimburse me, actually, and he’d just handed me the card. “I doubt you’re the type to head to Vegas,” he’d said with a smile. “Keep it in your wallet for the future and I’ll get another. Just bring me the receipts from your purchases and I’ll file them in the system.”
The diet of the zoo’s animals didn’t wholly consist of animals they hunted. Some was delivered, and near the dumpster was a pile of boxes that had been broken down, so I grabbed one of those and taped it back together to bring the food out to Spike. I put the fruits in, and then a handful of each of the nuts. Then I folded the flaps closed, walked through the zoo over to enclosure four and, from two yards away, lifted the box to my shoulder and chucked it as hard as I could.
The box landed with a thud, and I waited around for a minute but Spike didn’t show, so I headed back to the security room. He’d emerged from the trees shortly after I’d left, wandering over to the box. I pulled up the view of the camera and enlarged it on the screen, zooming in, watching hopefully as he prodded at it. It didn’t take him long to open it, though he used his claws rather than following the strategy of simply unfolding the flaps like a human would have done.
Spike was definitely curious of the variety of new, potentially edible things splayed across the ground. He took a minute to look through them before settling on the pineapple. The spikes seemed to intrigue him, and he used his claws to open up the fruit, carving out a slice. Eating it, I couldn’t really decipher his reaction through facial expressions, but he dropped it and backed up at step before swiping at it with a hand, flinging it yards away, as if it had insulted his mother. So, it seemed he was not fond of it.
The same thing went for the pomegranate and avocado, unfortunately, and I slumped in disappointment, but I was happy to see that the artichoke was one in the win column. He looked like he was enjoying peeling of each leaf individually, and then ate the heart last. By that point I felt like I’d gotten a small sense of reading his body language, and I think he enjoyed the heart.
The smaller foods came next, and I leaned in closer, folding my arms on the desk. The pistachios are what Spike went for first, presumably because the gap between the shells let him get into it pretty quickly. Those were a no-go too, unfortunately, which wasn’t that surprising to me considering their distinctive taste. But when he tried the pecans next? Holy crap, he bounced from foot to foot in an undeniable happy dance, finding the others and gathering them all in a pile.
Cracking each shell open with his claws, he went through every single pecan, one by one, often opening several and eating them together. I leaned back in my chair with a satisfied smile as I watched him go through all of them. After he’d finished them, he moved onto the peanuts, which weren’t appealing, but the hazelnuts were.
My eyes widened when put the nut in between his teeth and chomped down enough to crack the shell. I swore under my breath. Those shells are tough, so that was terrifyingly impressive. And again, the hazelnut was more appealing to him, whatever quality of taste it had prompting him to go through each of them just as he had the pecans.
“So, that was a job well done,” I spoke to myself out loud.
Taking my notepad from my pocket, I added in Enrichment: artichokes, pecans, hazelnuts, on the page that I’d titled Spike and mentally patted myself on the back.
I know it’s unlikely that I can find enrichment items for every animal at the zoo, and Andrew was right that they don’t have typical enclosures, since they have their own little forests. But it was fulfilling to finally use my degree for something, to add something to the life of an animal that didn’t get to hang out with others in its species, as was typical for animals. Or at least was typical for animals on Earth. I figured these things at least had a drive to mate. These things might be terrifying, dangerous cryptids, but they are starting to feel like my terrifying, dangerous cryptids.
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