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[Karai is in the library today, as she has been for several days this week. In a quiet corner, carefully looking up certain legends. Why she agreed to do a favour for her pig of a neighbour comes down more to repayment of a debt than any genuine concern for his welfare, but she supposes this is a step up from brooding and doing nothing at all
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... Which of course is very bad.]
I had never heard of "dragons" before Luceti... [Granted, there are komodo dragons and the gliding lizard Draco genus, but Robert's only ever heard of the former as komodos and the latter was Latin he didn't connect the dots on.]
... But I met one, here. Or at least, that was what his friend referred to him as.
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A dragon living in the village?
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Yes. His name is Toothless; from what I have seen of him, he is a relatively sizeable reptilian creature, with a blunt triangular muzzle, a set of short protrusions on his cranium, and leathery wings. He also had the interesting peculiarity of having retractable teeth, which is the apparent reasoning for his name.
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Do you know much about this Toothless? Beyond the physical.
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... Uses indeed. And Karai might be pleased to note that Robert is painfully easy to manipulate.]
Unfortunately, I do not. I only had the opportunity to speak to his friend briefly, and he himself has a gesture-based language. [Thoughtfully, more to himself than Karai:] Though I would certainly enjoy the opportunity to collaborate with him again...
... Is there some reason you are curious, if I may ask?
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... I have seen some very strange and nigh-inexplicable things here, of course. But that would be the first time I have heard of a spontaneous physical change of that sort.
[Robert muses out loud to himself.] I wonder how such a transformation would not kill the person transforming... the physical strain would be enormous, to say nothing of rapid skeletal structure and organ shift, or hormonal spikes...
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... Though I am of the opinion that there may be methods to study magic scientifically, as a subset of physics in some worlds. My thesis on the paranormal physics of people in Luceti shows some promise in that regard.
[Robert hums thoughtfully a little.] At any rate, though, it does seem like quite a fascinating - though perhaps disquieting - state to be in. Being ectothermic was not too uncomfortable when I was, though... that was an interesting experiment.
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...ectothermic? [Never heard this term. But combined with what they're talking about...] You... became a dragon?
[Sue her, she's not a scientist. >_>]
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Oh, no. Though a friend of mine did. But I did become a reptile - an anthropomorphic red-eared slider. Trachemys scripta elegans, mutatens.
[This isn't a bad discussion topic to bring up with Karai at all. Though Robert's easy segue into it means that he obviously doesn't realize anything would be odd about it.]
... It was quite fascinating, actually.
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I see. What was it like?
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... And there was learning to operate objects with a reduced digit count. Fascinating, but somewhat frustrating, particularly with my nanocomputer keyboard. [No wonder Don prefers his own oversized keyboard.]
... But as far as experiments go, it was not particularly unpleasant. Merely... awkward, at points. Uncomfortable. But nothing that was beyond dealing with, especially with all the help that I received during that period.
[Karai might recognize those that helped... considering they're the only other anthropomorphic turtles in the place. Including a very certain turtle with a purple mask...]
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You are referring to the turtles, are you not? I wonder that they would take in a scientist such as yourself.
[Her tone is still utterly polite.]
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Ah, you know of them yourself? [Understatement of the century.]
... And I have proven to be quite unlike the scientists that they are familiar with. [Namely, he is light-years away from the strap-the-turtles-down-and-torture-them type of scientist.] Though I cannot blame them for their aversion if the only examples they have of scientists are similar to the Malnosso here. Abominations against science that they are...
[Karai, you could nearly snap at Robert and chances are he'd still not notice.]
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...we have had dealings. [She begins to think all scientists are totally oblivious.] How are they faring now that Raphael has returned to them?
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