[BOND]

[luckyheart]

Who: lucky + unfortunate bystanders
When: day 43, afternoon
Where: the dining area

[SO TRAINGOERS. You may still be having water gun fights or you may have gotten bored of it, but if you're heading into the lounge to relax (or the kitchen to refill your water gun), you'll have to get past Lucky! He's taken over the table nearest the entrance to the car, dangling fairy lights from the ceiling and sprinkling silk rose petals on the table and the floor around it. There's a hand-scrawled posterboard hanging from the table's edge:

KISSING BOOTH
FREE
for good luck!!

If you try to pass he'll call out, so good luck trying to escape. But hey, if you play along you'll get sparks...

Or, y'know, you could be doing something totally unrelated in this post.]

Comments

[daydreamshimmer]

... [Looking down, tapping her chin with the side of her knuckles.]

I...still don't see it? What did I give you?

[bowtiedbones]

Social interaction. You met me.

Really, that's enough. It's not like a transaction or a trade.

[daydreamshimmer]

Isn't it?

[bowtiedbones]

It's bonding, not bartering.

[daydreamshimmer]

...

There's really people here who believe that? [More befuddled than anything.]

[bowtiedbones]

[lori

hisses]

There are.

[daydreamshimmer]

[She jumps at the hiss and steps back, watching the Iori.]

What's wrong with your familiar?

[bowtiedbones]

She's just in a mood.

[eliza's mood, specifically, but.]

[daydreamshimmer]

And what kind of mood is hissing? [Gonna take another step back to be out of easy pouncing range.]

[bowtiedbones]

Irritable.

...she's not going to hurt you.

[daydreamshimmer]

Maybe, but I'll keep out of easy pouncing range anyway. From everything I read, I can't tell if humans are exceptionally good at taking damage or terrible, all the accounts varied wildly.

[bowtiedbones]

Her range is that she can fly.

But she's not going to jump at you unless you're a threat to me.

[daydreamshimmer]

Easy range. Like immediate pounce, flying can be countered with a second to react.

Then why is she hissing? Hissing is for warning, I've done nothing dangerous.

[bowtiedbones]

Warnings are for before you do anything dangerous.

[daydreamshimmer]

Nothing to point to danger either.

[bowtiedbones]

Look, she's just a flowerdrake, you don't need to worry about it. It's like a parrot getting cranky because a shoe got moved.

[daydreamshimmer]

Flowerdrake....

[That is a cool name though.]

I'd be more reassured if she was just a pet, but something special is more worrying. Is this just a thing with humans? It's like none of you understand what being face to face with an irate predator does for nerves.

[bowtiedbones]

She's not a predator. She weighs less than three pounds and she's a frugivore.

[daydreamshimmer]

And again, I have no idea if humans are delicate or juggernauts and that is a magical creature acting with hostility. And that's definitely another point of 'humans don't understand.'

...how does a skeleton even eat fruit?

[bowtiedbones]

She ate fruit when she was alive.

And just stop trying to figure out if humans are delicate or juggernauts, we're neither. You could run the same loops about equine species, like have you thought about how delicate your legs are? Or how the only way you can breathe enough when running is by slamming your other organs into your lungs? But you can run for miles at ridiculous speeds and basically nothing can mess with a kick from hooves. Every animal has its vulnerabilities and disadvantages, and you're just working yourself up.

[daydreamshimmer]

Delicate legs? I don't think even an out of shape pony has what would be called 'delicate legs,' not unless there was something really wrong with their health. They might not be able to run, but it takes a lot to break pony legs. And what's this about slamming organs? How well you breathe while running depends on your cardio and being in shape.

[bowtiedbones]

Over half of a horse or pony’s body weight is borne on their front legs, which while the bones are of a significant size they are entirely unsupported by muscle below the knee. Except for some ligaments and tendons, it’s only those bones and those bones alone bearing the stress. This makes your ankles vulnerable to inflammation and stress injuries, and in the unfortunate case that a bone does break, it doesn’t crack, it shatters.

Horses demonstrate respiratory-locomotor coupling, wherein their stride rate at a gallop or canter is the same as their breathrate. A horse cannot be trained to breathe better at a run, as the means by which they do so are wholly mechanical— it’s the weight of your other organs shifting to and fro against the diaphragm that allows for inhale and exhale.

Of course, your world’s species may operate differently, which would be in line with how we have at least four different kinds of humans here. Which would still make trying to research our capabilities and limitations a fruitless exercise in regards to evaluating your own vulnerability and mortality.

[daydreamshimmer]

[This is a look of utter horror at hearing that description.]

How...what's wrong with your ponies? How does anypony even live like that? Could they even balance on their back hooves, how would they even build things? Could they even get their legs to hook right? Or recover from accidents?

[It sounds like a horror story monster of a pony????]

[bowtiedbones]

[oh no

uh oh

how do you tell a horse girl what happens to horses with broken legs, you hecked up eliza]

Um, well... They can rear up, they’re very agile despite their size, but— they don’t build things? The ones I know are animals. Even the unicorns, those are just magical animals.

[daydreamshimmer]

[Absolutely don't tell her, she still has to learn what beef is. Cows are yet another sentient race in Equestria.]

You mean as in...still more wild and feral? Not as sentient as to take care of themselves?