View Flat HTML
View Metadata
Search Post
The news is grim today. A self-driving software glitch caused the first Republic City car accident in the last four years, uptown; someone has a concussion and someone else has whiplash from their own car swerving to avoid. The company is swearing to have the software patched as soon as possible. There was a food poisoning incident at the Flame Festival in one suburb, and a fireworks accident out in earth country, but these have resulted in no deaths. Death has resulted from what appears to be a murderer - it's hard to explain natural causes leaving a corpse with most of its bones missing.
The news doesn't speculate. Chali, however, does; Beila brings it up with him once he's home, and he says that out in a little town called Hirakyo there was a graverobbing incident - missing bones. They don't have hard evidence on it yet, but they think the same person may have escalated to taking his trophies from living victims, that this could be a serial.
Disquieting. To say the least. But Chali has no reason to believe that it's Avatar business - no spirits, no geopolitics, no heavy-duty bending. So Beila reads another chapter in the autobiography of Avatar Meixing and goes to her firebending lesson.
+ Show First Post
roc_on
roc_on
"Are there any more weird things like 'bears' that you have encountered in your trivia hunting?"
thinklikethis
"Yeah, there's a bunch of - I forget the real biology word, I just think of them as factored-out. Cats, hawks, spiders - there's polar bears at the south pole, but they're different from bears like Bosco, I don't think there are any regular animals that have a plain-bear and a polar-bear kind, like there's polar bear dogs but no bear dogs and lynx bears but no polar lynx bears. But Bosco was a one-off as far as anybody can tell, and cats and hawks and spiders and polar bears are all real established species."
roc_on
"What kind of spiders? There's lots of kinds of spiders. I saw one yesterday with a dragonfly butt."
thinklikethis
"I dunno. It's hard to describe what kind of thing a factored-out creature is. Like, it's not a spider snake or a spider wasp or a - a dragonfly spider, I guess, or a goat spider or a monkey spider or a spider cat or a spider rat or a spiderfly. Actually there's a whole bunch of different kinds of factored-out spider, apparently, but I didn't read about them all because the pictures of Bosco's skeleton were way cooler."
roc_on
"Boo! The dragonfly spider was easy to catch and take outside. Ranyi doesn't like to kill bugs if she isn't startled when she finds them."
roc_on
"I kill spider wasps. I won't kill a monkey spider. Depends on what the pest is."
thinklikethis
"My weird problems again. Talk about it when we're, like, on the ground?" he says/suggests/asks.
roc_on
In five more minutes, Liqing lands, Beila feeds her a roc treat, and she leads the way up the hiking trail.
thinklikethis
Dao does not immediately begin discussing his weird problems. Well, the hiking does take some attention. And the wilderness is very pretty.
roc_on
It's quite pretty.
"I learned a new trick," Beila mentions, when he doesn't lead with his weird problems. She jogs ahead a little, streaming fire.
"I learned a new trick," Beila mentions, when he doesn't lead with his weird problems. She jogs ahead a little, streaming fire.
thinklikethis
"Ooh. Not only do I have the best girlfriend, I also have the best secret celebrity affair."
thinklikethis
Giggle!
"But between the two, I like the girlfriend better. She's so convenient! And cute and smart and good at catching snakenewts and apparently very talented at wilderness selection, good job."
"But between the two, I like the girlfriend better. She's so convenient! And cute and smart and good at catching snakenewts and apparently very talented at wilderness selection, good job."
roc_on
"I know, right, this is like the best hill. I'm supposed to meditate on it, but also, hiking trail."