A concept knocking around in my head; a flier who wishes to visit the Overland, suddenly having a chance encounter with someone from topside. Of course, getting back up there is easier said than done, as the access point their human acquaintance unwittingly utilized is in very unfriendly territory.
But her father knows another way to the surface. And with a human accompanying her, surely Regalia won't raise a mighty fuss over a flier transiting through one such passage?
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(human point of view)
"Henry! Ares! The Overlander is escaping!" Ares? Who the frick is Ares? My gut was sinking faster than the Titanic as my mind whirled, pattern-matching… wait. Ares. Greek god of war. Most of the bats down here seemed to have mythological names; Nohsia was the only exception thus far. Whoever this Ares was, they were either built like a brick shithouse, or their parents had… exceedingly high expectations that might not have been met as the lil'batty grew up. Yeah. That was probably it. Hopefully. I tentatively released my grip on Nohsia's neck fur and retrieved one of the road flares from my pocket. "Just gonna get a little light on the situation," I informed my chiropteric companion, before igniting it and throwing it into the darkness below. "Wait- what are you doing?!" Nohsia cried out. "They will see us!" "They already know we're up here!" I watched as the flare plummeted, descending… possibly ten meters? Twenty. Thirty. Forty. Fif- oh what the actual f- If Nohsia was the size of a small car, and Palaestra was a Winnebago; then Ares was a freaking semi-truck! Dude definitely ate his spinach growing up! Washing it down with the blood of his enemies, of course. "HoAAH SHIT," I shrieked, scrambling backward and almost falling off Nohsia, who promptly slowed down and leveled out to prevent such a consequence from occurring. Not good. So not good! "Don't stop! Keep flying up!" "But you'd have fallen!" "That's the least of our worries! Where the hell is it!?" "Where's what? What did you-" Her voice stilled. I felt her muscles twitching. Then she fell out from under me, twisting wildly, and it took all of my barely-adequate strength to hold on as she careened about. I felt the beast's passage over us, the wind from their beating wings doing just as much to enhance her evasive maneuver as her own creativity had. A series of clacks and clicks cut through the darkness almost directly above my right shoulder. The enormous bat - Ares - had just either tried to pluck me away in his claws… or in his jaws. Given how quickly they had passed by, and there was no imminent second attempt, it was probably - hopefully - the former case. Then again, I had hoped that Ares was a hilariously misnamed runt of a bat, and look how that turned out!
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Oh. Guess not.
note: Nohsia's name is actually spelt 'Gnosia'; [human POV character] doesn't know that at this point, and so is assuming based on pronunciation. It doesn't fit the canonical naming pattern, as she's named after a star instead of someone from Greek mythos... but there's still a tentative connection? According to said mythos, the constellation of Coronae Borealis was created/placed in the sky after Bacchus married Ariadne... or something like that. Inspiration for the bat's name was from an alternate name for α CrB; Gnosia Stella Coronae.
'Gnosis' also translates to 'knowledge', so... a rather apt name for a very curious bat.
As for her appearance... Lasionycteris noctivagans.
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Meanwhile, Palaestra? Greek goddess of wrestling. Figured that name would be suited for a hypercompetitive individual who also wishes to break with authority and explore the world above. Appearance: Lasiurus/Aeorestes cinereus.
WUH-OH!
If you're reading this, that means you just got sniffed by a bat! Share and tag your friends to totally sniff them!
Just a bat hangin out on your dash.
The fucking posts i see from people all like "why is the federal government funding research about snail sex this is stupid" piss me the fuck off. There's lots of reasons, Harold.
1. Understand how snails reproduce so we can learn more about the world around us and maybe learn more about ourselves or how things work.
2. You literally never know what could spark the next great scientific advancement. Snail sex hormones could be a miracle cure for cancer but you won't fucking know that unless you study the snail sex.
3. Hate to break it to ya pal but snails are still worth researching even if you think they're "useless animals." They feed larger animals, they eat plants and shit, they exist and quite frankly that's marvelous. Just because they are useless TO YOU does not mean they aren't worthy of attention.
Like genuinely quit focusing on going "ew!! Icky useless animal having icky sex!!" or whatever, you sound like the people who demonized Gregor Mendel, the father of genetics, for wanting to study how plants reproduce.
The Next Generation Delivery Vehicle that the USPS ordered is legit the most fucked up thing you'll ever see in your life.
Tailed Tailless Bat, photographed by Irineu Cunha, (source)
Vampyrum spectrum
Source & Photo credit: Jennifer Barros
RANGE: Central & South America
CONSERVATION STATUS: Near-Threatened
HABITAT & DIET: Like so many bats, we still have a lot to learn about this species. But we do know a few things about their diet and roosts. First, they are carnivores. This species is particularly large (see below) and thus they will eat birds are large as doves and cuckoos, as well as rodents and other bat species. They have even been observed eating bats right out of researcher's nets!
They live in smaller groups that are most often found in hollow trees. One of their unique traits is that they appear to form monogamous pairs, which is very unusual for bats.
Fun Fact: With a wingspan of about 1 meter, the spectral bat is the largest bat species in the western hemisphere and also the largest carnivorous bat in the WORLD!
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