6682824
Not if it was a one-way portal. I want to be back in the Hive again, be with other changelings again...but not so much that I'd give up what Equestria has to offer.

6682734
Okay, OOU-question. is 'Newspeak' a 1984 reference?

6684097
Of course! Though Protean is the one that actually looks like Newspeak. I think that Protean used to be a proper language, but over millennia of utter focus on survival, it’s atrophied.

The Equestrian language is the one called Newspeak by the changelings because it’s new to them, comparatively. It’s actually replacing Protean because it’s more expressive, and because Chrysalis and the hivelords in the know want changelings to be able to speak it.

Is crime a big problem in the hives? Do you have things like police and judges?

6684207
Just a second. Snails? I think I know what a "judge" is based on the word "judgement", but what's "police"?

...

Snails?

Do you really not know what a friend is?

Uh...I mean, I think I do. I've been in Ponyville long enough to get the idea, anyway. A friend is a pony who does stuff for another pony and that other pony does stuff for them and neither of them expects anything from the other in return immediately, instead what each expects is to be able to call on the other when needed. Long-term mutual aid.

You sound like what my sister says Vicereine Puissance sounds like.

I don't know who that is -

I thought we were friends!

Aren't we?

I thought we were! I didn't think we needed a reason. But you'd rather go off to some pony zoo than stay in Ponyville. You wouldn't even miss me!

Snails...I can taste you're angry and upset but -

Stop doing that! Just because you can taste what I'm feeling doesn't mean you know what I'm feeling!

What? That doesn't make any sense.

Do you even like me? Or do you just like what I can do for you?

Hhhzzzkkk...that still doesn't make sense! Of course I like how you help me. I'd be dead without you! I'd still be trying to think up ways to safely hunt in Ponyville or get a library card or a dozen other things without you! I need you. And...and I don't know what you get out of it, but it must be something, and if you need my help then I'll help you!

But what if I couldn't do anything for you like that? What if you didn't need anything from anypony, and I didn't need anything from you? Would you just sit in your burrow all day?

I...I don't know! What kind of question is that?

A friend is supposed to be a pony you just like being around and just like doing things with. Not because you get something out of it or they do. You're supposed to like the pony!

...I don't understand...but I can tas - tell that it's really important to you. But changelings aren't like that with changelings, Snails. We live. We work. We try and stay alive another day. There isn't room for anything else on Protea.

But you're not on Protea, and I'm not a changeling. I just liked hanging out with you, Ocellus. Nopony's ever asked me for help before, really. Everypony always knows stuff before I do. I guess that's what I "get" out of being your friend. But I know it's not gonna last forever, you're gonna know everything I do about Equestria real soon. But I'll still want to hang out with you even when that happens.

...I don't get it. But...but I want to get it. I...I don't think I want to see you upset, or mad. Not just because it tastes bad, either. I just...don't like seeing it.

So you're sorry?

Yeah. I'm sorry. I'll...I'll try and figure out what you meant, about friends. Then maybe when I really understand what it means, we can be friends.

Why can't we be friends now?

But...I don't know what you mean by "friend!" Wasn't that what this entire argument was about?

Yeah...but fight's over now. So we can go back to being friends.

Hhhzzzkkk! I'm really tempted to see if I can make a pod for you right now. Dinky melted her way out, can you?

...I kinda' want to try.

Fine, hold still. Oh, and tell me about judges and police while I do this. Hhhwwwkkk...ptagh!

6684207
If anyone is curious, Snails is hanging upside down right now trying to melt his way out of a pod. I'm not going to lie, it's not going well for him. Fortunately I can spit out an ooze that'll dissolve calcified ooze so he won't be stuck there. Oh, and it's not a full pod, his head is still out in the open. More like he's wrapped up.

Anyway. "Crime" exists, in the sense of "you did a stupid thing and now you have to suffer for it". A degree of infighting is expected to keep changelings alert and active, but injuring another changeling badly enough that they can't work is grounds for reduced food rations or being sent off to do a filthy or degrading task, like tending the solid food. Or for being killed or being turned into a podling, depending. We generally prefer to pod changelings, but the Hive Lords and the Queen have final say (the Queen's say is more final, of course), so if they decide on execution, then it's time for execution. Usually the Hive Lord or Queen attends to the matter personally. The Hive Lords tend to favor slitting the throat open. The Queen instead drains the changeling of all their love. Between the two, I'd prefer the former.

Corporal punishment is pretty common retaliation to messing up, too, like what happened to me when I accidentally brought a tatzelworm to the hive when trying to hide my molt.

There aren't any police. Changelings keep an eye on each other and report wrongdoings we see to our Hive Lord.

Uh oh. I don't think Raindrops would like Snails being stuck in a pod, even if he can breathe.
What are your opinions on the six Element ponies, anyways? Has Snails told you a lot about them? Are there any you think you might want to be friends with, or any you are scared of?

6684341
Raindrops is the one I've encountered the most. She seems nice, but I can taste that she's angry a lot. But like I said earlier that anger mixes with a lot of other emotions in her, flavors almost everything, so if I catch her at just the right time it's really tasty! Like spicy food, it hurts but in a small, neat way (and anger is distinct from hate so it's not a poison - the difference is that most negative emotions hurt to eat but hate not only hurts, but lingers in our system until we can get love to replace it). I think that if I was going to try and be friends with any of them - that is, me, not "Sprite" - then it would be Raindrops. Snails could introduce us. I think she already has a positive opinion of me, especially since Snails gave me his scarf.

I've met Lyra a few times as well. Lyra and Bon Bon are both good, easy sources of love when I come to town, and when they're together they tend to distract each other a bit so it's easier to feed without being spotted. Of course I have to be careful as well because Bon Bon is Twists' older sister, and Twist knows better than anypony how to hurt me. I don't try and feed when she's around.

I haven't really met Ditzy, Carrot Top, Cheerilee, or Trixie yet, though I think I've fed on all of them at some point. And yes, Snails told me a lot about them. He said that as long as Raindrops was okay with me then they all probably would be, but I don't know...they're Knights of the Realm and it's apparently their job to fight monsters, and I'm a monster.

No you're not!

I'm a scary otherworldly predator that feeds on ponies if given a chance to. I'm a monster.

You're more like a parasite than a predator.

And you're still upside down.

Almost got it!

6684362

As you don't appear to do significant harm (or even any) to the ponies you feed from the relationship may be more commensal rather than parasitical.

6684749
That's really only because I'm trying not to by eating love very slowly so that nopony notices and so doesn't fight back, and I can only get away with that because Ponyville provides so much love. I'm nibbling a little here and a little there throughout my time in Ponyville from a number of different ponies. And I can only do that at all because I've got no competition at all. It's commensal because basically all of Ponyville is the organism rather than any one pony. But if I could only get my love from a single pony, my feeding on them would eventually kill them as a result of them being enthralled and so lacking the desire to perform basic tasks, like hygiene, or eating, unless ordered (and even then not very well).

I'm sure Snails has mentioned it but a series of major pony festivals are coming up soon. First there is the longest night where we celebrate the Princess's ability to move the sun and moon, then Hearth's Warming where we celebrate the founding of our nation and the unity of the tribes and finally the new year where we celebrate, well, being alive for another year.

From how you've described your culture if doesn't sound like you would have many festivals in the way we ponies do, you don't have the spare food and resources to celebrate, although I suppose a more contemplative holiday might be possible but you couldn't just all stop given your precarious position. Is there anything you do celebrate? An anniversary of the hives founding? The end of the war? The queen's birthday?

On that note do changelings celebrate their own birthdays? You seem to be aware of your age so they are at least recorded. Maybe your own moulting is the closest you have to a celebration or birthday.

6686744
Changelings time things so that batches of eggs hatch on the same day every year. The Queen uses magic to ensure that all brood mothers’ eggs develop at the same rate as her own while gestating, and then once lain brood mothers use more magic to make sure that the fetal larvae inside the eggs develop at the same rate too. The magic isn’t perfect, though. On hatching the first thing most larvae do is eat their eggs. Then they look for more solid food, starting with other hatched eggs that other larvae haven’t eaten yet. This causes the first fights between larvae as the somewhat later-hatched larvae defend their meals. Once there’s no hatched eggs left, the larvae will turn on any remaining unhatched eggs. Usually this ends up helping the larvae who haven’t hatched yet and properly probably needed another day or two, though hatching early in this way usually isn’t a problem for their development. Some of the larvae in eggs at that point actually aren’t fully developed, though. The brood mothers’ magic just didn’t take or they were defective to begin with. So they get eaten by any larvae still hungry.

There’s one hatching day each year. It’s sort of like a holiday, I guess. Extra changelings are pulled in from around the hive to tend to the larvae and make sure that they don’t eat each other if it can be avoided (excepting the undeveloped ones, of course, plus any that did hatch but have observable major defects. Different carapace color? That’s fine, no problem. Missing limbs or too small? Food. But mostly we let the larvae judge that themselves in their own larval way). It lasts for a few days until the larvae have finally calmed down. The Queen herself takes part, too, and it’s kind of funny to see her having to deal with larvae, since they don’t know she’s Queen, really, and will bite her as much as anyling else, especially her hair. She also sees to the disposal of any defective larvae that the other larvae themselves missed.

Larval bites don’t hurt that much since they can’t pierce an adult changeling’s carapace, and you’re in the crèche so there are podlings everywhere to feed on. Changelings look forward to Hatching Day and hope to be selected since it means pretty easy work and extra love rations. I’ve been selected twice since becoming an adult!

We do have a “start of the new year”, but it’s not a holiday for most of us. It is the day when selected-as-worthy Hive Lords mate with each other and the Queen, however. Eggs are laid a hundred days later, and Hatching Day is a hundred days after that.

Since all changelings hatch on the same day, we don’t think of it as being that special for us as individuals. It’s about the hatchlings. And when we molt it’s kind of nice since there’s a big solid food meal coming but also nerve-wracking since we know we’ll probably have to fight off other changelings.

(Oh, also if you’re curious, Snails wasn’t able to escape on his own, he can’t heat up his magic the way Dinky could. I had to free him)

6684097
Oh, hey, you’ll definitely like this: Ocellus will probably sing in the next chapter of her story, and even if I can’t find a way to work it in I’ll still post the lyrics.

It’s a Queen song, or based on one anyway. The song is entirely sung by Ocellus-as-Sprite, but some backup vocals are instead sung by a figment of Ocellus’ natural form, which nopony but her can see or interact with. She’s not going crazy or anything, it’s just a visual gag. It’s one of Queen’s more upbeat and “pop” songs.

Last hint: it’s one of the few Queen songs where Brian May doesn’t play on his Red Special. The song called for a Telecaster, the Red Special is a Stratocaster. He was going to use the Red Special anyway and even showed the band how he could get it to sound like a Telecaster, but one of them said “Brian, if the song needs a Telecaster, just play a fucking Telecaster.” And there wasn’t really much of a counter-argument he could make to that, so he did.

6686937
Hmm... Crazy Little Thing Called Love?

6686937

6686948
Probably fits, although I think he used the Red Special for the ending solo on at least some live gigs.

'I want it all' might also fit the changeling mindset.

6686948 6686988
Nah, RK got it in one. Here's a preview of some rewritten lyrics:

This thing called love
I can’t get enough of it
This thing called love
I’ll sink my fangs in it
I’m so ready
Tasty little thing called love

This thing (this thing) called love (called love)
Its scent (so good) it drives me wild
Its taste (so sweet) on my tongue (so nice)
Fills me up each and every night
And I like it
Tasty little thing called love

6687018
...

That is fucking brilliant.

6687023
The Equestrian tendency to burst into random perfectly choreographed song and dance finally catches up to Ocellus. The song will end with her wondering what the Hell just happened, though.

It's also just been too long since I had a song in one of my fics.

6687027
The funny that Ocellus sorta answers her own WTH... just a crazy thing called love indeed, enough to get "drunk" on even.

What do changelings use for money? If you do a really good job, how (if at all) do the Hive Lords reward you?
If a Hive Lord is screwing up, is there any kind of impeachment process?

6692245
We don’t have money, just rations of solid food or rationed time feeding on podlings. If a changeling does a very good job then they might be given more of either, but it’s rare. We’d have to do something really exceptional, and, for example, a worker drone who’s mostly just repairing the Hive doesn’t have many opportunities to really stand out. I guess when I saved Thorax it counted, Lord Pharynx could have just given me easier work while my hoof regrew, but he instead moved me to be a brood mother for two weeks. So I got extra food, extra love, and easier work. Well, less physically demanding, working with larvae and nymphs is tiring in other ways.

Hive Lords are subject to all the same rules and punishments as drones. Actually they tend to be punished worse, since more is expected of them and they have more responsibility. If I mess up my section of the wall I might have to do it over or be denied my ration of food for the work period. But if Hive Lord Pharynx directed us workers to do something, and we did exactly what he told us but it ends up bad (like we have to build a support column but it’s in the wrong place because he didn’t read the plans right), he might have his love drained by the Queen, or even be demoted to drone rank for a time, or killed. The Queen makes all final decisions there, but a group of Hive Lords might punish one themselves so the Queen doesn’t get involved.

Also...and you didn’t hear this from me...but sometimes, it’s really apparent that a Hive Lord is a bad leader, and he or she does nothing but blame the drones, but he or she is really good at making it actually seem like it’s our fault when it’s not. And then sometimes when that happens that particular Hive Lord might decide to go on patrol to investigate something weird he or she saw, and he or she took a bunch of his or her drones with him or her. And then we never see that Hive Lord again because a tatzelworm or hexarachnid or chasme or ankheg or something got them, honest.

But only sometimes.

I don’t know what she’s being so coy about, if they were so incompetent even the drones could notice and couldn’t own up to their own failures, they deserved to be eaten, and I’m certainly not going to punish drones for acting in defense of the Hive, which is basically what’s happening here. Saves me the trouble.

Any thoughts as to what kind of job you'd like when you grow up, assuming you remain in pony society? You could probably be a pretty good actor or entertainer!

6695633
I...don’t know. I haven’t thought about it. I’m a drone, I do what I’m told by my Hive Lord and the Queen. And I assumed that ponies got told what to do as well by somepony. Maybe their parents? Is that not how it works?

6695648

Parents can give their foals advice, but ultimately it's up to the individual foal to decide what to do. Sometimes they even pick careers their parents don't like at all.

Unrelated question--do you plan to go to college? Do changelings have anything like college?

6695854
No, nothing like college. Changelings are trained by their superiors, other changelings who were doing the job before them. I asked Snails and he said it was most like an apprenticeship program. When we’re nearing the end of our nymph stage, the brood mothers assign us to where we’re needed, wherever our skills lie. The Hive Lord then pairs us with a drone who they think would be good at teaching us. If we don’t screw up then when we become adults and move out of the crèche we’re assigned to that Hive Lord permanently. If it turns out we have more skills somewhere else and whatever we were assigned to has enough hooves at it already, then we’re assigned elsewhere.

The drone who taught me how to build properly was named Colulus. He was only a few years older than me - it’s usually the young drones who get stuck with the nymphs. He was mean and spent half the time looking for a chance to steal my molt since as a nymph I was still molting more than an adult, and I had to hide from him when I did molt, which I got in trouble for and was left outside the crèche for three whole days as punishment, unable to eat love (I wasn’t the only one, though, a lot of drones target nymphs like that). I used to wish that a hexarachnid would eat Colulus. It ended up actually being a huge swarm of stirges last year instead that drank him dry, but that’s okay.

Oh, stirges are these small creatures, about the size of an Equestrian sparrow. They drink blood and fly in swarms of hundreds or thousands. They actually mostly target tatzelworms, but when they can’t find any they’ll go after the Hive. One swarm was once so big that it nearly wiped out the entire West Colony before the stirges were all killed.

You said earlier that Snails told you about Puissance. Has Snails told you about all the other adventures the Elements have gone on? Are there any adventures you wish you had participated in, or creatures they met that you'd like to meet?

During the various adventures, the Elements and their friends have come across creatures like Octavia with extremely good hearing, and creatures like the Diamond Dog Wolfgang who have extremely good senses of smell. Do you think your disguise as a pony would be able to fool such creatures, or is your disguise just a visual one? E.g., could Wolfgang smell something off about you, or Octavia hear something weird in your heartbeat or gait?

6697005
When I become something, I am that thing, inside and out, save for my magic, which also lets my mind work normally even though I might look like a cat or a rock or something. I suppose the scent of anything I've been on or near might linger, like whatever my burrow smells like, but there shouldn't be any way to see or hear through my disguise as far as I know, and my own scent should change to match that of whatever I've turned into. If I'm a skunk I'll smell like a skunk.

Wait...but Miss Trixie has a spell that lets her see magic. Does that mean that she could see your changeling magic?

Um...I don't...maybe? I am using unicorn magic when I look like a unicorn. But I also still have my changeling magic. It...might look different? Can you cast the spell?

No, I've tried. But Miss Trixie does say that every unicorn has their own personal color to them in addition to the normal color for unicorns, which she says is pink. So maybe it'll just look like that.

I hope so...I think I'll avoid her just in case. Oh, as for adventures, I've heard about a few of them. They all sound awfully dangerous. I don't think I'd want to go on any, especially not that Tambelon one...if Snails' sister is right and that Tirek character is pretty much literally hate given form, then just being near him might kill me. And Grogar didn't seem like he had a lot of good feelings either. And those Windigo things sound almost like anti-changelings as well, so I definitely don't want to get near them.

Hum, I do wonder if Changelings are actually naturally hive dwelling beings or if they have been forced into this behaviour by their current situation. Certainly usually have dwelling creatures tend to become more specialised at their roles where as although your powers allow this you natural shapeshifting actually makes you the most generalist species possible, apart from your dietary needs. Likewise your culture seems to be forcing you, rather unwillingly to work together and you actually prey off of each other rather than working together as a true hive society would.

This would all make a rather interesting paper for the Equestrian Journal of intelligent life forms!

6697144
We prey off each other because we don't have any other choice, at least where love is concerned. The alternative is love-starvation, since nothing else on Protea provides sufficient love. They're all animals, and a lot of Protean creatures don't feel any love at all.

As for if we're supposed to be hive creatures or not...I dunno. Snails has described how ants and bees work, and that's pretty different from changelings, since natural males and females are born in roughly equal balance among changelings, and we're not all sterile the way bee drones are (though only the Hive Lords and the Queen get to reproduce normally). Then again Stormy Squall has said that pony social organization is very different from the social organization of "actual ponies" in the "real world", whatever she meant by that, so maybe it's just because we're intelligent creatures? I don't know.

So I think I'll raid Hasbro properties to populate Protea's ecosystem. Here's a list of some creepy crawly monsters we can use if it comes up in Season 3. We don't need to use all, most, or even any of them, and we can change them quite a bit from what they're originally from or like if it suits our purposes, with a big emphasis on the fact that none of them are sapient creatures anymore, though they might be kind-of smart in the vein of MLP animals.

My Little Pony
Bugbear
Flash bee
Fly-der
Parasprite
Star spider
Tatzlwurm
Twittermite

Dungeons & Dragons
Ankheg
Aranea
Carrion crawler
Chasme (demon)
Chuul
Ettercap
Gelugon (ice devil)
Phase spider
Remorhaz
Rust monster
Stirge
Thri-keen
Umber hulk

Magic: the Gathering
Acridian
Adephage
Cickslither
Krotiq
Lithophage
Scute
Solifuge
Viron
Xantid

Don't forget the tarrasque! :-)

Ophiocordyceps unilateralis

It's a fungal parasite which alters ant behaviour to make them move to a more suitable location for the fungus to grow before the fruiting body breaks out of their heads to produce spores.

I'd imagine something similar would be fairly scary for Changelings, if they live in a crowded hive any form of communicable disease would be a problem. Of course it would be even scarier if the fungus was some sort of hive mind which controlled it's hosts but that would break the not sapient rule.

6697573
I could see that being something like your Legion from Time after Time. Also I think in the case of something like this it'd be okay to break the non-sapient rule.

6697522
Bit more of a giant ornery turtle than an insect, though then again the original StarCraft did have a "hero" Ultralisk in the campaign editor called the Tarrasque.

I can see how the windigo would be a problem. Although I think you might be able to befriend Ice Heart if you'd met him... though eating his emotions might give you a brain freeze.

6697332
I had parapsrites show up in season one's Ill Communication. I don't think they come from Protea.

6697965
Well, there’s rabbits on both EqG Earth and MLP Earth, and ponies exist on at least two worlds in Lunaverse canon. The same species can evolve independently on different worlds.

Hodgkin’s Law on Parallel Planetary Development at work.

6697990
Yeah, you just forgot about my fic, didn't you. :p

6697996
No, I remembered. It’s just that that is my actual excuse. That or maybe some parasprites came over to Equestria a long time ago, or vice-versa, if we even use them.

6698007

They're pretty clearly a r-strategist species which normally work well in unstable or unpredictable environments so I think they'd do well on Protea. They even seem to reproduce a-sexually so even if only one of them makes it to a somewhat habitable area they can grow their numbers, sure 999,999 out of every million probably get eaten by some monster but that's only 20 cycles of production for them or about a few hours given what we saw on the show.

6698951
Probably we could presume something like tribble reproduction speeds. Ten parasprites per twelve hour period per parasprite, which quickly results in nearly two million parasprites in as little as three days.

I would assume they’re like locusts, though, in that eventually they exhaust all other available food and so will turn on each other. Also very short lifespans normally, though maybe they can enter some kind of starvation hibernation when there’s no other available food, and they can live for a very long time in hibernation.

6699016

Maybe a carnivorous version? When there's no prey around they dig into the ground and hibernate then pop up on mass to eat anything which gets near, it would make something like a mine field. They'd be something like the Flesh Moths from this years season of Dr Who.

6699055
Sounds basically consistent with what we saw in the show. If we use them, which I doubt we will. The whole point of the changelings is they want off of Protea, so I doubt we’ll tour it much. I’d be willing to lay down money that even Chrysalis Herself has difficulty in getting changelings to come back to Protea after they’ve gone through the two-way portal she’s made, no matter how much she threatens them. It’s usually easier to go and meet them, or use magic to communicate.

They’re not even disloyal, per se. With 100% honesty and loyalty they’ll swear eternal fealty to her and refuse to budge. Chrysalis has probably even stopped trying. Lost too many good infiltrators to disciplinary action.

Which is one of the potential conflicts for Thorax, as well. Even after he becomes Queen, even after the changelings have reformed and their invasion is called off, they are not going back. Even Thorax is adamant about that.

Good potential Season 4 plot. Which is the first time I’ve ever thought about Season 4...

6699196
Huh... yeah, given how much more politically focused the Lunaverse has always been, and mixed with us making Changelings invading outsiders from another dimension, the establishment of an entire Changeling nation could be a very tense running theme in a hypothetical season 4. They're gonna need to build a new hive somewhere and wherever that is it's gonna displace land that technically already belongs to someone else.

Since our changelings don't need much in the way of solid food, and presumably after Thorax's revolution literally transforms the entire race they'll be self sustaining where love is concerned. So they can probably settle down in some remote badlands, much like we see on the show, which might belong to some one else but not really be actively in use by them... or at least not by ponies. I could see the new changelings coming into more frequent conflict with other "fringe" groups that tend to live in the outskirts ponies don't use, like dragons or the Diamond Dogs.

But we've not even technically started season 3 yet, so best not to get ahead of ourselves to much.

6699055
Anyway, it seems to me that as far as wildlife on Protia goes we wouldn't really need some dark carnivores counterpart to parasprites, or rather we might already sorta of have one. Somewhere further back up this thread I think RDD already established the use of stirges as swarming blood suckers.

You know I must say, RDD, you've done a magnificent job giving Ocellus her own 'voice'.

6700354
Thanks! I expect we’ll want to get a lot of use out of her, so establishing her seemed important.

I plan on putting the same amount of work into Thorax.

Happy Hearth's Warming Ocellus!

Sorry I didn't tell you yesterday but well what with Sprout waking up so early and the in-laws visiting things were a bit busy. I hope you managed to do something special for the day and didn't spend it all in your nest.

6707225
I actually did. I don’t have family to spend it with, and Snails was too busy with his family, and it would have been strange for Sprite to travel all the way from Hoofington to Ponyville on Hearth’s Warming rather than being with her own family.

It’s okay, though, I didn’t mind. I did go to Hoofington on Hearth’s Warming Eve and finally got my library card, so I can stop stealing Cream Soda and Shaken Cola’s mail. Though this “paper-colt” hat I got from Shaken’s aunt Cold Cola was nice even if it’s a little big for Sprite.

Oh, I did use Hearth’s Warming to finish my chimney! I got some books on masonry and read them and got good enough to build a basic chimney out of stacked stones and packed dirt. I’ll improve on it over time, but for now my burrow is warm, warm, warm! Warmer than a whole day among the podlings! A bit of my ejecta around the fire-place did melt, but I’m working on it. Snails got in contact with the cinderflies through the giant water beetles (or giant ice beetles this time of year), and talked to them through a snow beetle (which is just a normal insect that can live in cold temperatures - so jealous), and...well, basically, I’ve got a small colony of cinderflies living in my burrow to light my fires for me. They don’t talk to me, but Snails says as long as I feed them ash they’ll be fine, basically clean my chimney for me. I just have to make sure to not give them too much ash so they don’t overpopulate and burn down the forest.

I also saw Cantata, Chorus, and Allegro the other day and helped them track down another boar, a sow this time. They actually could have had the piglets too but they told me something about letting them live since they were basically adults and could survive on their own, so this way they’ll go off and breed more boars so they don’t run out. Or something, I didn’t really get it, I don’t turn away food like that. Must be a siren thing.

They said that someone they know named Steven Magnet is making his way downriver, coming back from visiting family in the Sea of Tranquility. It’ll be fun to meet another siren.

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I also saw Cantata, Chorus, and Allegro the other day and helped them track down another boar, a sow this time. They actually could have had the piglets too but they told me something about letting them live since they were basically adults and could survive on their own, so this way they’ll go off and breed more boars so they don’t run out. Or something, I didn’t really get it, I don’t turn away food like that. Must be a siren thing.

Basically, you don't want to kill all the prey. if you do, you have no food for later. Kill all the baby boars, no more boars are born. So you have no more boars to eat, and you go hungry. Or something like that. Sorry, it's late here for me on Earth.

They said that someone they know named Steven Magnet is making his way downriver, coming back from visiting family in the Sea of Tranquility. It’ll be fun to meet another siren.

He's not a siren. he's a water dragon. And he has a Mustache of Epic Coolness +1.

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Snails, what’s a “dragon”?

...Oh, okay.

...wait, he’s a what?!

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Oh, don't worry! He's a nice guy! friendly, articulate, well-groomed. Here's a pic of him.

See? A real friendly sort.