A Supermagnet, A Doctor, and A Twin Walk Into A Bar

[iamnotpolaris]

Milliways. Oh, bless.
Dr. Xavier could have finished her shift, made it home, and buried her head in a pillow if she had to. But this is much easier.
"Hi, Bar, can I have a stimulant that won't interfere with my judgement or dexterity or anything like that?"

Comments

[roc_on]

"Fair enough. ...That is so many beetles. Counting everything that has as a component any kind of beetle we probably have a few thousand, it's a good design, but that's just ridiculous."

[iamnotpolaris]

"I think beetles are one of the more numerous kinds of animal on the planet, yeah."

[roc_on]

"Rocs are an unusually streamlined animal. I think they're eagle/ospreys but they're one of the animals that gets their own name."

[iamnotpolaris]

"Well, they're a specific thing in my world's mythology. I think the fictional version eats elephants or something."

[roc_on]

"I mean, rocs are big enough that they could probably eat most of an elephant-rat, maybe even an elephant-rhino if they took their time, but they prefer fish."

[iamnotpolaris]

"...Rats are tiny. Rhinos are not tiny but significantly smaller than an elephant. I suspect that elephant-rats and elephant-rhinos are smaller than just plain elephants."

[roc_on]

"I don't actually know how big any of these things are as isolates. An elephant-rat is yea big -" She gestures a size that's a bit bigger than a regular rat. "I say 'most of' because it wouldn't have fish bones and the roc wouldn't be able to swallow it whole, it wouldn't be much of a meal really... An elephant-rhino is huge, though."

[iamnotpolaris]

"Hey, Bar, can we have pictures of an elephant and an elephant-rhino on approximately the same scale?"

[alicornucopia]

They can get a spread of all the elephant crosses, including the elephant koi, which is the biggest. The elephant-rhino is second-biggest, about the size of an Earth elephant.

[iamnotpolaris]

"Okay, that's about the size of an Asian elephant. African elephants are bigger, but I don't remember which one rocs were supposed to eat, so."

[roc_on]

"I couldn't tell you."

[iamnotpolaris]

"Bar?"

[alicornucopia]

The mythology is not quite clear.

[iamnotpolaris]

"Well, fair enough, mythology does that sometimes."

[roc_on]

"Oh well."

[iamnotpolaris]

"She sounds nice, anyway, I have a friend who has wings and he took me up once instead of my going under my own power. It was different."

[roc_on]

"I like having a roc. The traditional Air Avatar animal companion is a flying bison but they're a nightmare to keep and feed in an urban environment. A trained roc can be half-wild and still take passengers."

[iamnotpolaris]

"How does a bison fly? Are they a cross with some kind of bird or bat or something?"

[roc_on]

"No, flying bison are actually crossed with manatees; they fly with airbending. There's one kind of animal that can do each kind of bending except for some reason waterbending - I guess you could count the sacred koi as 'doing waterbending' but really they don't."

[iamnotpolaris]

"What are the sacred koi?"

[roc_on]

"There are two koi in a pool at the North Pole who represent the moon spirit and the ocean spirit. But the actual fish don't do any bending, they just swim in a circle."

[iamnotpolaris]

"Ah. So what does...fire bending and earth bending?"

[roc_on]

"Dragons do firebending and badgermoles do earthbending."

[iamnotpolaris]

"Dragons are another thing we have legends of! And some kinds of mythological dragon can breathe fire, so that makes sense."

[roc_on]

"Dragons do totally breathe fire. There aren't many isolate dragons left, though, which is sad."