Chapter 6
Dropping off the biologist at her destination, Fauna drove on towards the control center. She didn't have time to reprimand the secretive doctors yet - the engineers had finally come to their senses and entered the accelerator tunnel after a slow night of ventilation, so there should finally be a damage report in the works.
That should be quickly handled, though, so she'd be back soon enough. Most likely, the helium leak was the reason for the experiment's failure, so she'd just have to order some more and get someone to plug the hole and fix the damaged electronics.
Flora found her way to the lab, and rung the small bell at the reception. Despite waiting a few minutes, there was no response, so she decided to walk in and have a look around. She soon found a man lying in bed, sleeping, but no doctors or animal. She didn't want to wake the man, but she seemed to be a little lost.
"Uhm, excuse me, but-"
"Can I help you?" a voice interrupted her.
Turning around, she found an elderly woman looking at her, suspicious. She still wore outdoor clothing, so she had probably just come in.
"Oh, yes, do you work here?"
"I do, and I don't think you do, so what are you doing in here? Got a medical problem?"
Sure enough, she was changing to a lab coat. Flora was a little fluttered, since the nurse had obviously misunderstood her reason for being there.
"Oh, no, I don't. I was called yesterday to help classify an animal you found here? I think the one I spoke to was called Christine or something."
"Christina, actually, and she should be at work, so if you go wait in the lobby, I'll tell her you're here."
Flora did as she was told, and after about fifteen minutes, two people came through the entrance. They were talking to each other, but as soon as they noticed her, they went silent. Eventually, as they closed in, the female one broke the silence.
"Hello, can we help you with something?"
Flora got up from her seat before replying.
"Yes, I'm looking for someone called Christina?" she explained. "I'm Flora Randell, veterinary and evolutionary biologist, and I was contacted about an interesting animal."
"Ah. Yes, that's me. I mean, I'm Christina, not the animal."
With a short laugh and a couple of handshakes, she was also introduced to her companion, Tarry, who then invited her to join him in taking a look at the animal. As they left Christina at the facility, he explained that they had moved it from the medical bay to his personal lodging in order not to spread the knowledge of it until it was healthy. Flora could understand why they wouldn't present it to the general public, but surely there wouldn't be a problem if some engineers or physicists knew?
She hoped it was just an example of nerds being eccentric, so she wouldn't have to keep everything hushed down.
Tarry turned out to live quite close to the medical station, and though the apartment wasn't very roomy, it was as clean and sanitary as his workplace. She didn't feel comfortable entering his bedroom immediately - especially since it smelled terribly of antibiotics - so she stood outside, observing. There was a small bundle in the bed, covered by a blanket which Tarry soon removed, revealing the animal underneath.
Flora couldn't help herself. In one fell swoop, she stormed in to take a closer look.
Once more, Rainbow Dash's sleep was taken from her, this time by someone pulling on her wings. She felt stronger after eating, but she barely managed to turn her head enough to have a look at what was happening.
What was happening was shocking.
One of those creatures was stroking Rainbow's pin feathers. Pin feathers? Taking another look, she noticed how her wings were featherless, her tail and coat were hairless, and her naked skin was covered in blisters.
Maybe I crashed into a really high volcano or something...
She was pretty sure the one who was pulling on her small patches of tiny, growing feathers wasn't one of the two she had met earlier, but it looked really fascinated by her. It was idly talking to the one behind it, who looked sort of familiar.
Rainbow wished they could understand each other, if only so she could tell it to let go of her bucking wing, since it hurt. Failing that, and being too weak to kick it away, she had to accept her fate as unwilling playdoll.
The veterinary had already made many discoveries about the creature that had slipped Tarry completely by.
He hadn't noticed the tiny blue pin feathers growing in patches on what had now been verified as wings, nor the fact that the skull was remarkably large for such a small animal, nor that the bones were all intact. Tarry felt a little disappointed in himself for not being able to conclude the last one by himself. He supposed he had been a little thrown off by it not being a human, and, as he recalled, the x-ray scanner in the lab had, as well.
She had been even faster than him to conclude the species of the animal, but she rejected the latin classification name Equus Pegasus, which he had suggested, saying that this animal set a precedent for a new Equidaean genus. Her reasoning was that this animal was about as similar to a horse as a rhino would be - other than the hooves and tail, it was far less related to horses than, say, donkeys were.
Clearly, it was a prime example of a Pegasus pegasus.
She also concluded that the reason the animal was so light was that it had hollow bones, like a bird. She surmised that in its natural habitat, it would just use the wings to jump like a grasshopper and escape predators, not fly - otherwise, it wouldn't have needed four legs to stand on.
At least he had gotten the part about it being a herbivore right, so the bowl of apples and water he had set forth wasn't completely wasted effort. Flora did, of course, have a better solution. She was steadfast in that the animal would need proteins to rejuvenate, just like a human would have needed after injuries such as these. With that in mind, she prepared all the beans - one of the vegetables with highest protein content - she could get her hands on, and replaced the apples with them.
The pegasus didn't seem too joyous about the substitution, but it ate nontheless.
"We found it in the remains of the ALICE detector after an explosion happened there," Tarry informed her. "We have no idea where it came from or how it got there, though. How do you think it got there?"
The biologist bore a content smirk. After a dramatic pause, she revealed her grand hypothesis.
"Magic."
Unfortunately, the moment was ruined by the pegasus farting.
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I'm not saying they sedated the concussed man.
But... I'm not saying they didn't.
References for this chapter:
The Equus Genus
Pin feathers
Good show, I say.
Roll the next chapter Steven!
EDIT: NVM, but it's still rather odd to have someone named Flora and someone named fauna in the same fic.
562849
Well, if it helps, think of Fauna Sutler as an anagram of Lauren Faust.
Good way to end this chapter Rainbow Dash.
Nice way to end the chapter, Dash! Well, she is a pony. And horses are notorious for producing lots of gas.
I wonder if Dash will actuallh get to talk later in this story.
Good chapter... now I have a bone to pick with you. The classifications, couple problems 1) A donkey is in the same Genus as horses as zebras: Equus. 2) Subfamily is a very specific thing, what the Doc would be proposing is a new genus.
Overall a good chapter, and the ending is just perfect.
563291
I know a donkey is an Equus. That's why I said it was far less related than donkeys.
I must've confused genus and subfamily though. My bad ;)
563510
You're a physics major, you're allowed to make mistakes on biological classifications. Me on the other hand is a biology major and have been drilled from the the first class on how to do it.
563689
And I'm a high school Biology student who actually understood what you people were saying. I owe it all to AP and studying, as well as a good teacher...
Science is fascinating (it's my job to be Captain Obvious)
encrypted-tbn3.google.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRTNHxqznoETH8QOlKOZvBgz5nv_hf_gCo7c4zaHCwUNniC4_4sPg
great way to end this!!!
563689 Replace the "Me" with "I" and the "is" with "am". It's obvious that you're a biology major rather than, say, an English major.
564883
Screw Pinkie Pie, I'm physics.
Best. Chapter ending. Ever.
EDIT: also, keep up the good work!
YES FARTS
This is the old Chapter 7, by the way. I decided to restructure the story so that chapter 1 becomes a prologue.
Tobbzn are you still alive? When is new Chapter 7 coming up?
711220
Hey, I'm very much alive ;)
My exam period just ended, so now I'm back in the game for the summer! Going to a medieval festival for the weekend, but the next chapter should be up next week. Sorry for the wait!
For the record, I've been editing chapters a bit for the sake of trying to get featured on EqD. If I ever become too "Physics textbook-y", please do call me out on it :)
712037
I don't really mind your "physics textbook-y" approach to your fic; in fact, accurate (so far) physics jargon is what sets this fine novel apart from the hundreds of "Human wakes up in Equestria, with no explanation how he got there." type fics.
Also, if I were you, I won't bother with EqD; with so many fics being featured there, and so much more stuff going on there, you will be disappointed to think you'll get anything more than an "I did it!" bragging trophy for your efforts.
If you want to expand your viewership, you should aim for the fimfiction feature box instead (The little white box at the top of the page.). You'll get far more exposure that way and the longer you manage to keep your fic up there, the more exposure you'll get.
As for the wait, I forgive you wholeheartedly, I am a student myself and I know how easy it is for those nasty papers and projects to gobble up your free time not unlike a malnutrition, starving Zimbabwean kid to a Mcdonald's happy meal.
716995 Are you from 1994? You know, the series running from 1995 to *sob* 2001?
717580 Ah yes "Star Trek Voyager" the allaged Star Trek serries between Star Trek TNG and Star Trek Enterpries we have dismised this claim
715041
While I appreciate your appreciation, I still think I can do better than suddenly writing paragraphs about what properties quark-gluon plasma exhibit, when I could have written the relevant parts into dialogue or exposition.
I doubt I'll get a feature-box feature without EqD readers. This style of fic just doesn't appeal as much to "normal" people to get there on its own ;)
If I actively pursue an EqD feature, I might gain enough momentum to make it!
722336
Voyager has Kes and Neelix, but in return it has the EMH, making it awesome. Good Voyager episodes were as good as good TNG episodes, I would say.
732517 The Doctor was the only good Voyager charicter (him and 7)
732538
In return they were cooler than both Data and Spock.
732517 Oh how wrong you are, I myself found your fic from the short time it appeared on the feature-box. Just think about it, you've got EqD posting so much stuff on top of fiction that no one would blame you if you missed the fiction post; and even then, your fic is in competition with some ten other fics in the same post. I just don't see a huge magic increase in readership should you manage to get featured on EqD. If I were you, I won't actively pursue EqD feature, I would actively pursue fimfiction featurebox.
(p.s. If you want the perspective of a reader, I can tell you I tend not to check EqD for fiction. If I want fiction, I'll start scanning the popular stories section; and I check the feature-box everytime I login regardless of whether I need more new fiction.)
(p.p.s About 4 in 5 stories on the feature-box never made it (or the authors never bothered) to EqD. Though don't take my word on it, your a scientist in training, you should verify this claim by typing down the featured titles into EqD's search box.)
734326
I have been on the feature box? o.O
I concluded it hadn't been there since my friend's HiE romance story has been consistently thrice as popular as mine, but I never saw his fic in the feature-box. I checked the "Feature-box rules" and it seemed to be automatic, based on the influx on readers. That's why I thought a few coming over from EqD would help putting me up there :)
I won't let the EqD chase stop me from writing new chapters, of course!
>get someone to plug the hole
weknowmemes.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/if-you-know-what-i-mean-420x250.png
>Flora was a little fluttered
Fluttered, or flustered? dl.dropbox.com/u/31471793/FiMFiction/Twilight_Sparkle_lolface.png
>I'm Christina, not the animal
dl.dropbox.com/u/31471793/FiMFiction/emoticons/shrug_Rainbow_Dash.png
>she prepared all the beans
a.deviantart.net/avatars/x/a/xalltheyplz.png
>Magic
[youtube=RSf9aEETnvE]
Aww, it sucks for Rainbow not speaking the same language as the humans. :(
My! what a rude way to end a chapter but yet a bit humerus
Here's your helium leak