revenance_rpg | She Blinded Me with Science

Entry tags:

She Blinded Me with Science

Characters: Nepeta and Even
Content: Nepeta is an alien. Science occurs.
Location: Even's place
Time: ~~Evening~~ Midday
Warnings: None at the moment

All things considered, Nepeta didn't think much of the fact that she'd shared certain details about her species with Ienzo. After all, it wasn't like she'd been trying to keep it a secret. Not when she didn't look particularly human in the first place. She might not have expected the word to get around, but well. It didn't do any harm for it to get about.

Thus, she simply continued on much as she always had. If even wanted to ask further details about how trolls worked, he'd have to come to the room she considered hers and ask in person.

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"Ah." Even scribbles this information in the margins. Said margins are probably not going to last long. "That would make you roughly twelve years old...late pre-adolescence or early adolescence, in terms of developmental stages?"

She doesn't strike him as equivalent to a child of twelve - not a typical one, at any rate. But then, people and circumstances vary widely. Ienzo - Zexion - at twelve...is the surest cure for nostalgia Even can think of.

"Well," Nepeta answers after a considering moment, "it wouldn't be all that many meowre sweeps befur we got conscripted, but I don't know how that would measure up."

Adolescence, or the dawning of same, is a little harder to gauge when your life is more akin to an insects than anything particular human. Still, she's willing to do her best to help, even if science isn't really her thing and comparison to humans are even less so.

"Conscripted? ...Regardless." Social and cultural questions can be left for another day and someone more interested in them. Nevertheless, he jots 'Ienzo - military society?' in a convenient margin. "In growth terms, have you reached your adult height at this point? If not, how much taller do you expect to grow?"

She has a curious speech irregularity as well, which he notes down for reference at such time as he reaches related issues. It may be cultural rather than biological, or for that matter personal. It doesn't do to generalize too much from a single case.

Nepeta nods at the comment of conscription, but given that Even doesn't seem to want to talk about that in detail just yet she's quite content to let it simply fall temporary to the wayside. Perhaps fortunately, the next question is a simple one to answer and she shakes her hand.

"Not yet. I won't efur be as tall as some of the highbloods but that's only beclaws they all get huge. But I should be at least as tall as you once I get old enough, if not maybe taller."

Which would translate to about middling height, for trolls, but only because of the aforementioned highbloods and their absolutely preposterous heights.

"...Interesting." In terms of growth, then, she's still distinctly preadolescent as humans would measure it. 'Highbloods', Even assumes, refers to aristocracy of some kind - possibly a quantifiable subspecies, if their sizes are uniformly greater, but that could also be the result of differences in diet along class lines. Even mutters some of this to himself as he takes further notes, including an estimated adult height.

According to standard xenobiological procedure, there are several more routine questions he could be asking - habitat, diet, sensory input and so forth. But Even wants to get to the fun part. "Do you have any objection to my taking a small blood sample for study?" His tone conveys that such an objection would be extremely silly. Still, some people...

A thought occurs to him. "Do you have blood?"

Given that she's bled on any of a number of occasions prior to Even's asking for a blood sample doesn't bother her in the least. Still, it's the second question that gets answered first, mostly because it seems like the sort of thing that everyone should have. Or at least everyone who isn't one of the Dream Eaters.

"Of course I have blood! Doesn't efurrybody?"

A moment later she addresses the first part of the question, since admitting that she has blood isn't quite the same as actually agreeing to having a sample taken.

"And I suppawse I don't mind if you take a sample."

"No, actually," says Even didactically as he putters around getting out the necessary tubing, vial, syringe, et cetera. "Fundamentally animal lifeforms generally have, in their default state, but plant-based ones hardly ever do, nor do mineral ones, including gaseous, who are increasingly common. And that applies only to the natural state; artificial beings may function on some other fluid in place of blood, or forgo it entirely. The Heartless, for one example, have no internal organ structures to speak of. I suspect Dream Eaters of being similar." He doesn't have the equipment to do a vivisection, if he could achieve a live-capture of a Nightmare, and he's beginning to suspect that his Spirits would interfere if he did.

"Roll up your sleeve - non-dominant arm, if you have a measurable preference. Unless you know of some better location from which to draw blood for your species?"

"That's not what I meant," Nepeta answers, pulling a face that can only be described as unimpressed. If Even is an example of what scienterrorists are like, then she suddenly doesn't regret not knowing any. It's bad enough putting up with the friends she already has, sometimes and adding this sort of thing isn't something she can say she would have much enjoyed.

She does offer her left arm though, after shoving up the sleeve of the coat she wears. For all that she is not at all impressed by his comment, there's no reason to not continue on with the rest of it, especially when she's already agreed.

Even is unimpressed with Nepeta's unimpressedness. To be precise, he's used to being the only one in the room who understands how fascinating the oxygenation needs and carrier methods of widely differing species can be. His is a lonely burden. But it occasionally includes blood tests.

It doesn't take an undue amount of poking and prodding to locate a vein (or something that does an excellent imitation thereof). He deftly inserts the needle, applying pressure to hold it in place, and watches as -

"Either you have been deliberately misleading, or you are extremely misinformed as to the substance typically referred to as 'blood'," he says, staring as a green liquid begins to seep into the testing vial.

The comment catches Nepeta a little off guard, and she turns to peer at the liquid in the vial. It's only after she's checked to make certain that it hasn't changed color for any unknown reason that she remembers that humans don't seem to have quite such a wide variety of colors to choose from, so to speak.

"No, that's the color it's supposed to be. It's not a bad color to have either, although it could be better too."

Even is quick to seize on the implications of Nepeta's statement. "You mean to say that it isn't atypical for your species to have not merely green blood, but multiple shades or hues as well? How does that work, I wonder...I shall have to do more extensive testing than I'd planned." He barely remembers to extract the needle before the vial overfills and applies a small bandage with an abstracted air and too tight a grip.

"What precisely constitutes a preferable color? Do you know anything about the chemical composition of different colors? How does this affect blood transfusions, or do you not have those?"

"You mean like giving someone else your blood?" The surprise in her voice - which is overlaid with hints of something that's almost revulsion - should say plenty about whether or not blood transfusion exists on Alternia. Of course, most trolls can lose an awful lot of blood before dying, but Nepeta has a sneaking suspicion this may not be quite the best thing.

"But there are twelve diffurent blood colors people can have. The higher on the hemospectrum the color is the better it is."

"Just so, under a variety of circumstances. It isn't particularly difficult, as long as you're advanced enough to recognize blood typing - though perhaps trolls don't have more conventional blood types. That remains to be seen." Even holds one of the vials of blood up to the light and smirks at it. Such scientific fun he shall have!

"What colors exactly? Are they all shades of green, or is this a more wide-ranging spectrum? For that matter, does a 'better' color carry any objective benefits - beyond the social, I mean."

"Oh no," Nepeta answers, shaking her head. "There's only two of them that are really green. Um, furom the bottom up it's rust, brown, yellow, olive, jade, teal, cerulean, blue, indigo, purrple, and fuschia. There used to be a lime one too, in between yellow and olive, but they were all killed off long ago."

Naturally, none of the stories really explain why. Just that they were and that it was somehow important that they be removed.

"Also, the higher up you are the closer to royalty you are, and the longer you live."

"Fascinating. This will require extensive testing." Even is visibly looking forward to said testing to a degree that might disturb someone other than a biologist.

"Moving along," he says regretfully, tucking the vials into storage with the utmost care, "of what does your typical diet consist?"

If the way Nepeta side-eyes him in reaction to the comment, it's at least disturbing to her. Still, she figures it's probably best to not ask what Even is planning to do with it.

"Whatefur I could catch for us, of course!"

Even has seen far too much to assume this implies anything about the nature of the things Nepeta has caught. "Is that an exclusively carnivorous diet? That is to say, meat? Or does it involve plants, insects, fungi, nuts, or any combination thereof?"

"I know what carnifurous means," Nepeta answers, pulling an entirely unimpressed face. "Trolls can eat meowstly anything, but my lusus liked meat best, so that was what I was hunting for."

Admittedly, it was occasionally supplemented by insects, but that's still meat, generally speaking and that's good enough for Nepeta.

Even pulls an unimpressed face right back. It looks just like his normal face.

"Omnivorous diet...What is a 'lusus'? Some kind of pet?"

At least they can be united in being unimpressed, for all that Nepeta is perhaps a little hard pressed to tell that Even actually is unimpressed. But this doesn't stop her much. She's got a question to answer, because Even is definitely wrong about what lusii actually are.

"Not at all! Um... I don't know the human words fur them. But a lusus is a ... caretaker? They make sure we grow up right meowstly, and they look after us. You don't get one until you make it out of the brooding caverns though."

"Like a parent, then? Or a guardian, I suppose, if you're assigned one. Not that you can't acquire additional parents later in life..." Even wrenches himself back to the matter at hand. "Another troll, you mean? An adult?"

Nepeta blinks at the question, not hiding her surprise in the least. An adult troll is about the furthest thing from what you want taking care of a newly hatched troll.

"Of course not," she answers, just as soon as she's gotten over the surprise. "My lusus was the best and meowst purrfect kitty."

Which... explains a lot, really.

That...really does explain more than it doesn't, once Even picks his jaw up off the floor and processes it.

"And this is...typical," he says, not a question since Nepeta just told him so. "Why? Is it some kind of - cultural exchange program? They raise your young, you raise theirs for some reason?"

Nepeta shakes her head at the question of cultural exchange program. Lusii do take care of trolls, yes, but she's not once heard of adult trolls doing likewise. Not that she hears - or heard - much about what the adults were getting up to, but that sort of thing certainly seems like something that should be common knowledge.

"I think it's meowre that there aren't any adults on the planet anymeowre. Efurryone gets conscripted once they're old enough."

Or culled, but that's a little less important at the moment.

This is definitely getting more into cultural anthropology than the intended xenobiology, but Even's fascinated despite himself.

"What, all of them? What purpose does that serve?" A fully militarised society that leaves its childrearing to a client species? How odd.

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