#white tailed ptarmigan

[todaysbird]

the white-tailed ptarmigan, also known as the snow quail, is a mountainous-dwelling bird and the smallest member of the grouse family. they are found at high altitudes in the continental united states, canada, and alaska. they have distinct ‘cryptic’ plumage, meaning that their plumage differs drastically throughout the year; during warm summers, they are speckled brown and black, going through an intermediary mottled phase before fully molting into their snow-white winter plumage. they primarily feed on insects and plant matter. their eggs are laid in a simple depression in the ground; the chicks are precocial and leave the nest soon after hatching.

[proton-wobbler]

Semifinals, Poll 5

White-tailed Ptarmigan vs Sickle-winged Nightjar

sources under the cut

White-tailed Ptarmigan (Lagopus leucura)

Lagopus is derived from Ancient Greek, meaning "hare foot". This is due to the heavily feathered legs and feet of ptarmigan.

eBird sightings: 5,809; IUCN Redlist Rating: Least Concern

Also known as the Snow Quail, this is the smallest bird in the grouse family. It serves as an indicator species for alpine tundra, and thankfully continues to fill a large range of western North America. The English name "ptarmigan" is Scottish Gaelic in origin, with 'tarmachan' meaning "croaker", referring to the bird's frog-like call. The p- was added due to a mistaken belief the word was Greek in origin, with the thinking being that the word related to 'pteron', "wing".

Sickle-winged Nightjar (Eleothreptus anomalus)

Eleothreptus, from Ancient Greek, means "marsh bred"

eBird sightings: 267; IUCN Redlist Rating: Vulnerable

There is not a lot of information on this bird, as nightjar are already cryptic and the common distribution of this bird hasn't been fully studied. They're currently found in northeastern Argentina, southern Paraguay, and southern Brazil. The Sickle-winged Nightjar shares its genus with a single other nightjar, which is also sparsely distributed across South America.

Images: Ptarmigan (summer - Garrett Hughes, winter - Josiah Verbrugge); Nightjar (wing - Kristof Zyskowski, body - Martjan Lammertink)

[soren-barnowl]

White-Tailed Ptarmigan

July 1, 2024

Nikon Coolpix P900

[antiqueanimals]

A Brace of Ptarmigan in the Snow. Archibald Thorburn (1860-1935)

via

[birdirectory]

white-tailed ptarmigan (Lagopus leucura) by Greg Lavaty

[rjzimmerman]

Excerpt from this press release from the Center for Biological Diversity:

 In response to a petition and litigation by the Center for Biological Diversity, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service today protected the Mt. Rainier white-tailed ptarmigan as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act.

The agency also said it would reconsider protecting the bird’s critical habitat, providing hope that areas where ptarmigans live may be protected.

“These beautiful winter birds are immediately threatened by our warming world,” said Noah Greenwald, endangered species director at the Center and author of the petition to protect the ptarmigan. “Like a canary in a coal mine, the ptarmigan is telling us that we’re losing the snowpack that keeps Washington’s streams cool and flowing throughout the summer. It’s alarming and we have to protect these birds and the places they live.”

The ptarmigan lives year-round above the tree line in the Cascades from southern British Columbia to Mt. Adams in southwest Washington. In winter, they rely on dry, fluffy snow to bury themselves and stay warm. Climate change is resulting in more rain-on-snow events that create hard crusts unsuitable for the bird. In summer, ptarmigans prefer wet meadows created by melting snowfields and glaciers that are rapidly disappearing.

The tree line is also moving up and threatening to eliminate the bird’s meadows altogether. Ptarmigans are poorly adapted to warm temperatures, showing stress above just 70 degrees Fahrenheit.

The Center first petitioned for protection of the ptarmigan in 2010. It’s taken the Service 14 years to provide protection, when under the law it should have taken just two years.

“Our world is changing and changing fast,” said Greenwald. “The Service continues to move at a glacial pace to protect species like this highly imperiled bird. The agency desperately needs an overhaul to make sure we don’t lose so many vulnerable plants and animals.”

[rhiannatruex]

mountain chicken - white tailed ptarmigan

[b-rke]

White-tailed Ptarmigan; Snowfield; Baby grouse [unidentified species]

North Cascades, Summer 2024

[juustozzi]

here it is - a fan design for the finnish national team in i11 universe!

I tried to add as many references to birds and finland as I could, and I'll put them under a cut if someone's interested!

general team notes:

our actual national soccer team is named Huuhkajat (the horned owls) after a horned owl that one day randomly started to live in the team's home stadium building - hence the team name and bird theme

that owl got named Bubi, and this team's coach is based on him

general team hissatsu are themed after owls or famous finnish things

all the players are based on the official(?) regional birds

Tuoni:

based on a whooper swan (laulujoutsen), which is the national bird (captain status)

hissatsu is named after a famous finnish song (literal translation: a swan song)

name comes from the swan of Tuoni; a swan that swims in the river to afterlife in Kalevala, and anyone who harms it will die

Ukko

based on a wood grouse (metso)

hissatsu is a reference to a famous painting "Taistelevat metsot" which decipts two grouses battling

name means an older man or a guy, and the male bird is also called "ukkometso"

Erne

based on a white-tailed eagle (merikotka)

name is from the first finnish-built space craft part, and the symbol of the project was a white-tailed eagle

Tintti

based on a blue tit (sinitiainen)

"tintti" is a general nickname for tits (the birds), but also the finnish name for Tintin

Pukki

based on Teemu Pukki, probs the most famous finnish soccer player

and his last name literally means a goat (vuohipukki)

that's all

Kopek

based on a willow ptarmigan (riekko)

most grouses in northern finland make a coil/a nest in the snow for warmth and safety from predators, and his hissatsu is directly borrowed from that

name is literally the sound the bird makes (kopek-kopek-kopek..)

Hakkinen

based on a western jackdaw (naakka)

name is an historical name for the bird, and Häkkinen is a common family name here

Apus

based on a common swift (tervapääsky)

name comes from the latin name (apus apus)

Juha

based on a white-backed woodpecker (valkoselkätikka)

name is.... based on a teacher I had, who was called both Juha and literally a woodpecker.... (this is an inside thing for just me sorry)

Suo

based on a common crane

hissatsu comes from an old belief of cranes carrying the weight of the sky, and they're the most notable species that fly in wedges

name means literally a swamp, which has been the best place to spot cranes here

Valokainen

based on a black-throated loon (kuikka)

name is from an old finnish poem singer, Elessei Valokainen. A loon is in an important role in the earth-diver myth that tells the creation of the world, and Valokainen's story of it from 1908 has been recorded

I also forgot to wrote it in the image but want to mention, these birds have the most iconic cry on summer lakeside evenings, so Valokainen has a laugh that kinda sounds like that

[splatixboi]

Follow up for the Hualian Bird Headcanon post (that I’d recommend reading here if you haven’t already!)

Remember how I mentioned I’d probably make a follow-up Poll with the suggestions I got in the previous post? Well, here it is!

I will do the Polls separately, find Hua Cheng’s bird poll here!

First up for the Follow-Up Poll is: Xie Lian!

I've added the birds that were suggested, along with a few of my own choices. Though read carefully: Some of these birds may not seem fitting look-wise, but that's because they're fitting in terms of behavior instead. So if in doubt, look them up real quick. (:

Here's a photo reference for the poll options!

[outofangband]

Birds of Thargelion

After this I just have Maglor’s Gap and that will complete my series on birds in the Fëanorian realms pre Amon Ereb!

Flora, fauna, geography and environment of Arda Masterlist

Thargelion was the realm of Caranthir, located in the north east of Beleriand just north of Ossiriand and bordered by the Ered Luin, the eastern stretch of mountains that divided Beleriand from the rest of Middle Earth

As always this is not a definitive list! Please feel free to ask more or give me a more specific category!

Around Lake Helevorn and the rivers: Red-breasted merganser, mute swan, white tailed dipper, whooper swan, smew, little grebe, red throated loon, common crane, mallard, common white eye, northern shovler, green winged teal, corn crake, spotted crake, black winged stilt

Mountains: bearded vulture, water pipit, golden eagle, kestrel, peregrine falcon, Rock ptarmigan, common siskin, alpine accentor, northern wheatear, ring ouzel, white tailed eagle, chough, spotted nutcracker, Citril finch, griffon vulture, common redstart, common raven, wallcreeper, common jay, boreal owl, white winged snowfinch, crag martin, common redstart, black redstart

Foothills and forests: black grouse, wood grouse, goshawk, grey white fronted goose, hazel grouse, little bunting, meadow pipit, tree sparrow, hedge warbler, Bohemian waxwing, common kestrel, long eared owl, little owl, marsh tit, coal tit, mourning dove, rock pigeon, woodchat strike

World building notes

-Like most of the Noldor in Eastern Beleriand, many of Caranthir’s scouts keep birds of prey. In Thargelion these are primarily peregrine falcons and kestrels. Hunting with birds was less common however.

--There are populations of Green Elves who live in Thargelion, primarily in the mountains and near the border of Ossiriand. Though they also do not use birds for hunting, certain species are kept as companions or messengers.

-Chicken breeding as an art and science developed during the Watchful Peace. Chickens in Thargelion are appraised for long plumage and colorful feathers. Their eggs are eaten but they are not often used for meat.

-Chickens, peacocks and quails were kept by the Noldor of Thargelion, techniques of raising and breeding them were learned from Sindar and Silvan cultures of Eastern Beleriand. Indeed the Noldor of Thargelion were one of the only Noldor populations to keep quails.

-Bearded vultures appear on the crests of some of Caranthir’s lords and were even kept by a few of them

-Feathers of various mountain birds especially eagles and ouzel appear in wood carvings as an architectural motif during the Watchful Peace in Thargelion

-Out of all the Fëanorian realms, water birds appear most often in art and other cultural references in Thargelion as Lake Helevorn and its wildlife are a central facet of life there especially in times of peace. Wading birds like crakes, cranes and stilts are especially Valued.

[dougdimmadodo]

Rock Ptarmigan (Lagopus muta)

Family: Pheasant Family (Phasianidae) 

IUCN Conservation Status: Least Concern

Common in Arctic and Subarctic regions of Europe and North America as well as in cold, mountainous regions of Asia and central Europe, the Rock Ptarmigan is a terrestrial bird that inhabits snowy tundras and mountainsides where it lives alone or in small flocks and feeds on leaves, seeds, buds, fruits and small invertebrates. In order to avoid predation (chiefly by larger birds such as Golden Eagles) they rely heavily on camouflage, and to facilitate this their plumage changes dramatically with the season: during the spring their feathers are largely brown or grey to allow them to blend in with rocks and grass, but as winter approaches they develop a thicker coat of white feathers that makes them difficult to distinguish from the snow around them. Males of this species (such as the individual pictured above) can be distinguished from females thanks to the fleshy red “combs” above their eyes which can be extended upwards to ward off rivals intruding on their territories. During the spring mating season, the eye combs may also be used as part of a dramatic courtship display in which several males gather together and simultaneously compete for the attention of nearby females by extending their combs, stretching out their tail feathers, flapping their wings, bobbing their heads and producing a deep, croaky call.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Animal Advent Calendar - Day 6

Image Source: https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/949-Lagopus-muta

[proton-wobbler]

Round 2, Poll 21

White-tailed Ptarmigan vs Regent Honeyeater

sources under cut

White-tailed Ptarmigan

eBird Sightings - 5,592

IUCN Status - Least Concern

Location: North America - Alaska to Washington, with disjunct populations in the Rockies

“I like their plumage changes throughout seasons and their feathered feet”

Regent Honeyeater

eBird Sightings - 1,375

IUCN Status - Critically Endangered

Location: Australia - extremely patchy in Southeast Australia, in New South Wales and the very southern tip of Queensland

“they are critically endangered, they look like they’re edged with gold, and their eye/beak area looks like a bee to help them camouflage, I mean come ON”

Images: Honeyeater (Liam Murphy); Ptarmigan (Andrew Spencer)

Stats pulled from Birds of the World

[soren-barnowl]

White-Tailed Ptarmigan

July 1, 2024

Nikon Coolpix P900

[antiqueanimals]

Sunset Glow - Ptarmigan in Winter. Archibald Thorburn (1860-1935)

via

[girldragongizzard]

Chapter 13: Terror

Sitting on the small craggy black rock that makes the peak of the mountain we find ourselves on, Ptarmigan is chewing on a toothpick, and she says, “I can’t help you anymore.”

Wentin has settled down into a loaf behind her, curled part way around that rock, tail whipping back and forth.

It led me here, up the slope of the mountain, out of the woods, through brush and rock strewn snow patches that harbored small herds of tiny white round birds foraging for some kind of food only they can eat, and up and up. It’s a dream. We ran right up sheer cliff faces like daring to go up the wrong way on a playground slide.

Either Wentin lied and knew right where Ptarmigan was. Or Ptarmigan entered our shared dream and changed the path we took. Dreams are like that, and I just don’t know and probably never will.

“Why not?” I ask.

She shrugs, “I shouldn’t even be here, but I did stir things up and I like you, so I should at least try to help you figure that out. It’s not a nightmare anymore. It’s outside of my Art.”

“Säure is a nightmare for Fairport.”

Ptarmigan shakes her head and says, “That’s a metaphor, not the truth. Everything works differently now. My art doesn’t apply.”

“But we need to stop Säure before he hurts people,” I tell her. “He must be having nightmares.”

She does nod at that and slowly say, “Yes.” But then she says, “But there’s surprisingly little I can do with that. I can help him escape his nightmares. I can make them worse. I can also try to communicate something to him through his nightmares. But actually getting through to him to change his behavior will work just as well as telling him to go to therapy. People are usually surprisingly dense about things that are panicking them. And he’s losing his self control and his position in the world. He’s losing his sense of self and purpose. He is not in a reasonable state.”

“What is a nightmare?” I ask.

“A dream about an emergency that isn’t actually an emergency,” Ptarmigan says.

“And this?”

“An actual emergency.”

“I feel like nothing you say makes sense.”

“Meghan,” Ptarmigan says. “You are asleep on your rooftop in the middle of the day, having a nightmare about chasing a nightmare to the Artist of Nightmares, and you’re asking me to tell you about how the world works. I’m going to frame everything in terms of nightmares, until I can’t. And then I’m going to be kind of stumped, too. Have you seen the movie Rashomon?”

“Akira Kurosawa?” I ask.

“Yes, that’s the one,” she says. “Three people are involved in a murder. And they each tell a different version of the events that led up to it, because their perspectives are so different. That movie. That’s what you get when you talk to an Artist. We each see the whole world through our Art. It’s part of the reason why we’re not as influential as some people expect us to be.”

“What about the collaboration?”

“Oh, I’d still like to do that someday. Particularly with Chapman. But the opportunity has passed for me,” she replies. “Like I said, this situation isn’t a nightmare anymore. It’s just a very real emergency.”

I ignore how that still doesn’t make any sense to me. I’m not sure it makes sense to Ptarmigan either, now that she’s admitted her limitation. But I latch onto something else she’s implied.

“Are there any other Artists in Fairport? Or the county?” I ask.

She rocks back and turns her head to the side, smirking, “You haven’t felt them?”

“No,” I say.

She nods, “They’ve been quiet. There used to be a lot. You’ve lived here your whole life. You probably remember a comic that was distributed on little brightly colored quarter page handbills. Harmless Free Radicals? One of my siblings was trying something tricky with that and got the attention of quite a few of us. Didn’t work as she planned. But she’s still here, at least.”

I think I do remember that comic. It lasted maybe two years on those handbills before being picked up by the weekly. Then it just stopped, I think in 2008. I was going through some of my worst years then. I don’t remember much about it, except that the cartoonist styled herself to look like a dragon, which appealed to me. But none of it made enough sense for me to follow it.

“You remember the wolf-dragon Brenna that you met in Wentin’s arboretum last month?” Ptarmigan asks. “She and her spouse, Ian, can lead you to her. I think she’s still going by the name of Fenmere. But she’s the Poet. I’m not sure there’s anything she can do for you.”

The Poet made comics? Honestly, I feel like giving up on this angle, and maybe on Artists in general. Ptarmigan is right. I can’t figure out how the Poet’s Art could help us, and if the Artists are so scattered and uncooperative, so bewildered by their own Arts like they are, maybe none of them can.

Ptarmigan watches my discouragement take hold of my body language, and then asks, “How’s Rhoda?”

“She hates you,” I report.

“That’s fine,” Ptarmigan says. “I can be hateable. I probably deserve it.”

“Chapman calls her a Bellwether,” I say. “You call her the lucid dreamer. What is happening with her?”

“I can only tell you this from the perspective of Nightmares and dreaming, Meghan. It’s not going to be the truth,” she reminds me.

“Okay.”

“Imagine that the Earth is a big huge person,” Ptarmigan says. “Only, it’s not a person, it’s a system, like Astraia. And each of us is a system member, a headmate.”

“What?”

“Roll with me here, Meghan,” she says. “Look up DID when you wake up, if you remember. Just listen for now.”

I give her a dragon scowl, which means opening my mouth just a little bit to show all my teeth. I know about plurality and DID, I’m just having trouble adjusting my thinking to this new metaphor.

She ignores my expression, “In some systems, when they dream, one headmate is the dreamer. They can switch out when they dream, just like when they’re awake. Sometimes all their other headmates are the other characters in the dream. Rhoda is one of the Earth’s headmates, just like you and I are, and for some reason her life experiences temporarily brought her forward and made her the frontrunner of the Earth’s nightmare. And I helped her turn it into a lucid dream. Only it’s not a dream, and never was. But it was, functionally, a nightmare up to that point. That’s what happened. And now she’s left with some of the Earth’s conscious power. I’m sorry, it’s confusing.”

“Does she have the power to stop Säure?” I ask.

“She’s bringing him down right now,” Ptarmigan says. “So, I’d say yes, she does.”

“But she’s not stopping him, just holding him at bay. She doesn’t want to do more,” I point out.

“Yeah. I think maybe that’s your job,” Ptarmigan replies. “Look. I’m going to fuck off now. I’ve got some work to do in Finland.”

“Finland?”

“It’s nothing. You don’t need to worry about it. You have a big, beautiful, crypto-fascist neo-liberal monster to quell,” she says. “You’ll figure it out. But be careful. He knows a lot about you. He probably reads your blog.”

—

When I wake up, it’s maybe only three in the afternoon and I don’t even feel like I’ve been asleep or dreaming. I remember that whole conversation pretty well, and that I was on a mountain top, so I know it was a dream, though.

And I’m so frustrated and discouraged.

I can hear cars driving about and people talking, the wind moving through the trees a little, and a train blowing its horn. Across the roof from me, a seagull is picking at the barfed up remains of one of its brethren. There’s nothing nutritious left in that. But the absurd audacity of the seagull doing this right in front of the seagull eating monster that left that indigestible garbage there sort of wakes me up further.

I should clean my roof.

And I realize I’ve lost track of what day it is. Ptarmigan said, at one point, “last month”.

So I pick out my tablet and turn it on to look at the date.

Tuesday, October 1.

Shit. I’ve missed another therapy appointment. There’s even an email from my therapist, but I can’t bring myself to look at it.

Living under the oppressive stress of Säure periodically flying over the city, being a threat but not actually doing anything, while having nothing to do to stop him, and nobody coming to challenge me about anything, I think has taken a significant toll on my mental health.

I want to enjoy my peace and get on with my life, but I’ve been in emergency mode for the past month, and it’s still actually an emergency. Just, nothing’s happening and I don’t know what to do. And that’s no way to rest and recover.

And I know I’m not the only one.

In a way, the local predicament mirrors the national one. And probably the global one.

Despite what Ptarmigan says, now it actually feels like a nightmare.

And it’s too big for me.

Too big for any number of mes. Too big for my family. Maybe too big for the city.

There’s one thing I know I can do right now, though.

I shift into my human guise, then type a sentence into my tablet to get it ready for talking.

Then I go to the access hatch, open it, and make my way through the building to Rhoda’s door.

When she opens the door to answer my knock, I press talk, “Let’s go have tea downstairs with our friends. No business.”

She smiles.

—

I want to tell you about all the wonderful things. All the moments with my friends and family that I get to enjoy. The way that my burgeoning relationships with Rhoda and Chapman are developing positively. And all these things are happening and do exist.

But we are living under the shadow of a monster, and that is taking all the focus. We do need to deal with that first.

It’s not going to save the world when we figure out what to do with Säure, but it could save us and our neighbors, and that has to be good enough. It’ll be a net gain.

In any case, we just have to.

He’s hardly in power anymore, but he’s still a significant danger.

It’s weird, because as his companies disintegrate from his plummeting reputation and draconic temper tantrums, we learn just how much influence he’s had. Business developments and deals all over the county, one after another, start changing hands or closing up shop, or declaring new mission statements. And the local politicians, mostly County and City Council members up for re-election, start changing their campaign platforms, or what they’re saying to the press. And not all in obvious ways, but usually such that they can disavow any affiliation with Säure.

And though the legal process of Säure’s decomposition is going to take years, maybe even a decade or more if other recent examples across the nation are any indication, Säure’s terrifying meltdowns are happening now.

Sooner or later, Rhoda’s newfound magical influence over him is either going to fail, or he’s going to choose to take his anger out outside of her jurisdiction, whatever that is.

And the Artists aren’t going to be much help. 

Chapman says that because sie is here, the others are handling emergencies all around the rest of the globe. And while sie can certainly try to come up with some sort of trap to physically subdue Säure for a few moments or something like that, it might just make things worse if we don’t have an appropriate follow up.

It leaves us with the question, is there anything a growing group of dragons and humans can do to mollify a failing and flailing building sized billionaire?

We have lots of days where none of us talk about this. But the closer we get to election day, which is terrifying in its own way, the more often the subject does come up.

One such night finally yields something.

—

“If he was just a human being, or a dragon your size, someone could walk up and punch him,” Kimberly observes to me. “It’s really not fair.”

“I don’t think I’d ever want to punch Meg, even if I wasn’t friends with her, Kimberly,” Nathan says. “Her teeth are just a little too sharp and…” He waves his hand in the general direction of my head. “Present.”

It’s true. If someone were to try to punch me in the face, their fist would most likely make direct contact with one or more teeth. Even with my mouth closed.

I’m kind of glad that Rhoda is not present. She would not like any of this conversation.

“You know what I mean,” Kimberly says.

“Well, then, technically, whenever Säure is on the ground, and you know where he is, you can still walk up and punch him,” Nathan says. “It’s all about your willingness to accept the results.”

Kimberly sticks her tongue out at him.

“Please,” Kim says. “Can we not talk about punching Säure?”

“He’s a Nazi,” Kimberly gestures at the horizon, in the conceptual direction of Säure. “We punch Nazis.”

“Is he?”

“Well, he’s a billionaire, and a hypocrite about his environmental stances, of course, and Meg witnessed him spouting off Nazi dog whistles, specifically at her,” Kimberly points out. “Also, his plans to coerce dragons away from their neighborhoods are super creepy.”

“I don’t know, it’s just,” Kim screws up her face and tilts her head one way then the other. “When you put it like that, it all sounds so cheap. Like it’s just circumstantial evidence. And!” She punctuates that word to interrupt Kimberly’s attempt to interject. “And, I know that billionaires by their very nature exploit everyone. They’re the focal points of everything that’s wrong with the world right now. But really?”

Kimberly thrusts her head forward and down, raising her left palm up, “I mean. Of course, when I say ‘punch’, what I really mean is –”

“Stop,” Kim says as sternly as she can. “No talk of that.”

“Sure. There’s a reason I’m not actually saying it,” Kimberly admits.

They both look around at the other diners, then they make faces at each other. No one’s paying attention to us. And if you listen in, some of them are having fairly similar conversations, actually. We’re eating street tacos at Maxilar Taqueria. Everyone has chipped in to make sure I have a seagull’s worth of them to swallow, and I really appreciate it.

“Hm,” Chapman sighs, and sie reaches over to grab the Tapatia again for hir next taco.

“What are you thinking, Chapman?” Nathan asks.

“Well,” Chapman says, shaking a few drops of the hot sauce into hir food. “I’m not sure. I’m torn between my usual perspective as an Artist, and in particular the Physicist, and my current perspective as someone living as a human in these current times. And, like, as the mortal human I usually just dissociate from the horrible things and end up thinking like the immortal Physicist that I actually am. So, I want to do that here? But I’m more invested than usual.”

“What’s the immortal Physicist perspective?” Nathan asks.

Both Kimberly and Kim have dropped their face making contest to pay attention.

“Are you sure you want to hear it?” Chapman asks. “I’m not sure it would do anybody any good.”

“Please,” Nathan insists in a light, polite tone.

“Well,” Chapman puts hir taco back down. “Typically, I would just sit back and observe. This is a new phenomenon and I need to see what happens. I also know that it’s all going to work itself out in the end, anyway. Energy will flow downhill, so to speak, and everything will become less interesting. Säure can’t hurt me in any meaningful way, so there’s no emergency. And mass extinctions are old hat. I mean, I think you could probably have guessed all that.”

“Oh, yeah. I guess that makes sense.”

“Obviously,” Chapman says, gesturing at me and then picking up hir taco and showing it off. “I’m invested.”

“As a human, what do you think we should do about Säure?” Kimberly asks.

Chapman stops with hir mouth open and taco about to enter it and furrows hir brows, then holds up one finger.

Kimberly bows her head and makes a rolling gesture.

Chapman stuffs the entire taco into hir mouth and starts chewing it, grinning a thanks.

Chewing looks so alien to me anymore. I don’t miss it. I don’t need it in order to have a full dining experience, either. I taste the food before it even enters my mouth, and the sensations of swallowing it are more than enough for me. Every gullet full is a different experience, too. Everything has a different shape, and it’s fascinating. No two tacos are quite alike, even.

“I’m not human,” Chapman says when sie’s done eating. “But, in having this human body and being invested in this current life, and all my friends in it, well. I’d like the gigantic tree that is Säure to fall the other way. And there are probably ways that we can make that happen. The question is, what do we want him to land on?”

“Does he have to land on anything?” Kim asks.

“Well, in this metaphor, imagine that he is the tallest tree in the forest, and he’s sick, rotten to the core, and he is going to fall over,” Chapman says.

“Isn’t he a person, though?” Kim interrupts.

We all look at her.

She gestures at me, “Meghan’s a person, right? We’ve all worked hard to establish that for her, even though she is also a dragon, she is a person. Doesn’t that logic work the same way with Säure? You can’t reason with a tree. You can’t talk to a tree. But you can do that with a person. Even if he actually is a Nazi.”

Kimberly thinks about this a little bit, and then says, “That’s actually what I meant by punching him. That is how you reason with a Nazi.”

“Sure. But, what I’m saying is that he’s acting out of feelings or reason or something, and we can affect that. It’s not like he’s actually rotting in the middle and going to die. We can communicate with him and make him change his behavior.”

“OK, but that makes me ask,” Kimberly responds. “Why isn’t he actually attacking the town, then? Why is he just terrorizing everyone still?”

“Well,” Chapman says, considering Kim with thoughtful eyes. “Rhoda’s effect as the Bellwether is definitely influencing him, I can see that much every time I scan him. Which I’d rather not do anymore, because he buzzes the city right afterward. But if you asked him, I’m pretty sure he’d say something else.”

“Can your scans tell?” Nathan asks.

“Not specifically. It seems to be less a matter of basic physics and more a matter of something more complex, like psychology,” sie says. “Or I’m just looking at the wrong details.”

“Ah!” Kimberly nearly jumps in her seat with excitement. “That reminds me. I want to know another thing!”

“What?”

“What is he eating?”

“Yes,” I say.

Everyone looks at me in confusion, so I take out my tablet to explain. “Wentin eats agreement, not people or animals,” I tell them as Kim starts to search for things on her phone.

I imagine she’s looking up whether or not there’ve been missing cattle or hits to the local ecosystem that could account for a building sized dragon that could easily eat a whale.

But I keep going and fill them in on some of my own thoughts on the matter, "Säure might not be eating anything physical..."