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oneofyatosfollowers · 3 years

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Yatori Week 2021- Day 2

@yatoriweek2021

AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/32090953/chapters/79500055

Fanfiction: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13905660/1/Yatori-Week-2021

Most other creatures that walk the Earth didn’t know this but pigeons were a very proud species.

Being adopted from a long line of pure-blooded carriers and messengers, he had been given the very honorable names of Coo Phone, Smart Phone, and Smart Ho. After a spirit with glass over his eyes tied on his uniform- a white piece of cloth- he was handed off to another creature of the other side. One of the native existences of the other side who was brimmed with natural and unnatural power. When Coo Phone was first handed off to this existence, there had been another tiny spirit at his side with a similar power and a regular human female.

When Coo Phone had first settled in the large wooden bird house, it was clear he would have to serve two powerful spirits and two human souls. With ruffled feathers, Coo Phone carried out his job with pride. The tiny female spirit with the curly hair, the one called Kofuku, would often send letters to spirits on other pure lands. Hers often came in envelopes with many stickers that would fall off if the wind was too fast. Her human kin, called Daikoku, did not send letters very far, in fact he only sent them to her. At first Coo Phone was wary around this one’s massive size and booming roar, but he quickly proved to be a gentle soul. The spirit of the young human child was Coo Phone’s favorite. His name was Yukine and he was a sweet thing that actually appreciated Coo Phone’s services properly. Like the rest, he often sent messages to other pure lands and spirits in the metal and glass forest. The boy was also the only one who gave food on a regular basis and a snack after every hard mission.

It was his actual master that Coo Phone could not figure out. For starters, this powerful spirit was similar to Kofuku in that his existence was more sinister. Only instead of simply bringing misfortune, this being was made up of bloodlust and death. He was the one the others in the nest called Yato and he was typically loud and often moved with frantic, grand gestures. There were times Coo Phone sensed the underlying predatory instincts of his existence, but it was rare and he never acted on it. As such, it was Coo Phone’s duty to deliver the messages of this peaceful creature.

Despite receiving the majority of the messages, Yato only wrote one person: the human girl that frequented the nest. The others called her Hiyori. She would come, sit with Yukine, pet Coo Phone’s head and shoulders, then be on her way. As she walked away at the end of every day, the evil spirit was already leaning out the hole at the top of the nest, watching her closely. Being the brilliant messenger than he was, Coo Phone would start ruffling his feathers and prepare for the trip to Hiyori’s nest. Personally, Coo Phone found it rather normal, birds were often chittering in the tree until they fell asleep. It was odd the female just didn’t move it but it was possible she didn’t like Yato’s voice. Coo Phone should teach him to properly sing and dance so that they wouldn’t have to keep sending presents back and forth.

Especially since, at first, Hiyori didn’t seem to enjoy the messages Yato sent her. Once Coo Phone delivered the paper, she would glance over it as she gave Coo Phone some of her seeds. It didn’t take long for her to drop it. Even Coo Phone knew that if the present was not taken into the nest, that meant it wasn’t desirable. She would avoid Yato when she came to their nest during the day but she didn’t attack him when he approached so that was a good sign. At least, that was how it was at first. Eventually, the human didn’t look as irritated by his presence as she used to. Communicating with less of a growl than before, letting out a noise of joy and contentment more often at his chatter.

“I’m serious, Hiyori!” Yato was crowing, “I’ll show you if you don’t believe me!”

“I do believe you can do it! I just can’t believe you can!” She chirped back. They continued to twitter with each other, sometimes touching as they swayed back and forth. It was like they didn’t even notice Yukine had left ages ago. Meanwhile, Coo Phone watched from a comfortable spot in the opening, cocking his head at their strange swaying, trying to find the rhythm in their mating ritual.

That was around the time she started accepting the gifts he sent. Looking over the thin white leaves and their markings with careful attention to detail. Coo Phone remembered how delighted he was when she sent one back. Not only did it make the trip worthwhile but it showed the two were having somewhat of a proper correspondence. Hiyori didn’t answer often- Yato was always the last to send something anyway- but it did become more frequent. It eventually got to the point where Coo Phone would be tired from flying back and forth and have to spend the night in her nest, much to Yato’s annoyance.

“Hey Smart Ho,” the dark being suddenly approached. Coo Phone startled, wings fluttering as he hopped away. Being surrounded by so much evil made Coo Phone’s natural senses weak to it but he refused to fly away. Even though Yato seemed more jittery than usual.

“Can you send this letter for me?” He offered it kindly instead of just signalling Coo Phone like he normally did. Yato didn’t need to say where he was supposed to go, it was already implied. Either way, Coo Phone hopped forward and prepared for the trip to the human female’s nest. But Yato didn’t put it on right away, instead the letter was lowered and it stayed there. Coo Phone stared at it with one eye.

“I messed up.” Yato continued, “she must really hate me now. I promised her I wouldn’t leave but,” with a sigh, he stared out the window with a longing expression. Coo Phone glanced out the window to ensure there wasn’t a threat before he looked back at Yato. Perhaps the being was thinking of going on a journey again, as he often did. He was a migratory creature, Coo Phone’s come to realize, leaving for one natural reason or another and coming back after some moon cycles. When that happened, the nest seemed to dim and grow quiet. The others were not migratory and did not travel with him. Therefore they were rather lonely when he was gone, Yukine and Hiyori even more so. Coo Phone had tried his best to sing- to fill the house and cheer them up- but his song was hardly as loud, nor did it seem to help.

Recently, Yato had come back from his migration brutally injured and it had greatly upset Yukine and Hiyori. It was the most aggressive Coo Phone had ever seen them. However, this flock was strong, and they eventually lulled back into their routine. This was the first message Yato had sent since then and Coo Phone was ready to continue on supporting their courtship. With another ruffle of his feathers, and the gift secure, Coo Phone took off into the winter air on the usual route. But alas! Hiyori had locked all her windows and closed the curtains. Coo Phone had taped his beak on the clear barrier, but she did not answer, despite the fact he could hear her moving around. This wasn’t the first time Coo Phone was not allowed in the nest. At least she didn’t put up those wretched metal thorns again. Untying the letter, Coo Phone left it on the upper entrance to her part of the nest, then returned to a disappointed Yato. He didn’t send another gift after that.

Days later, Coo Phone was on his way back from delivering a message from Kofuku to one of the older spirits when he spotted his master and Hiyori along the stone path of the metal forest. Their tweeting was raised in pitch so Coo Phone had no choice but to stop and listen, alert for any danger to flee from. Hiyori attacked Yato- a common occurrence- and was prepared to walk away when Yato reached out and grabbed her. Coo Phone flapped his way towards a closer tree, hopping along the branch as the members of his flock squabled.

“Hiyori, please, I just wanted to protect you!” Yato squawked.

“No, you just wanted to take the easy way, where only you would get hurt!” Hiyori answered harshly.

“Exactly! That way no one else would need to get hurt! Ever!”

“You would!”

“That’s okay! I would reincarnate. Neither you or Yukine can do that. It’s for the best!”

“I didn’t make you that shrine so that you could reincarnate!” Hiyori’s shriek echoed throughout the area. Coo Phone flinched and ruffled his feathers at the sound. Water was leaking from the girl’s eyes and she appeared to stop fighting, realizing Yato wouldn’t let go of her skinny wing. When he noticed she stopped pulling, Yato took another step.

“I’m sorry. I just wanted- I was just trying to-!” another step “I didn’t want anyone else to die because of me.” He sounded so miserably sad, the type of sorrow only someone who lived forever would know. Hiyori turned to look at him, but only slightly, her wet face quickly turned to the ground.

“It was not for the best. You reincarnating is not for the best. You- this you- dying, will never be for the best. Yukine and I keep telling you it’s not okay when you get hurt, we don’t care if it’s for our sake or someone else's. We don't like it. We are not okay when you get hurt and we will not be okay if you were to die.” She cried, “I would not be okay.” Turning her body fully towards him, Yato’s hold on her loosened as the space between them closed even more. More water fell to the stone beneath them and she sniffed loudly a few times.

“I’m not okay.” Hiyori said. There was a long pause as Yato looked at the water splotches by his feet.

“I’m not okay either.” He admitted quietly after a long pause. When Hiyori finally looked up at him, his hair was covering his eyes. Instead, Coo Phone watched their wings drop slightly.

“Hiyori, I’m sorry, I messed up. It's my fault. Just-”

“It’s not your fault,” she clucked sharply, “well, it is and it isn’t but I know you learned your lesson.” She watched his head bob. It was unclear who stepped closer this time, but Hiyori’s head was just barely brushing his chest.

“And remember what you promised us?”

“Don’t kill anyone.”

“And?”

“Never to wander off again without asking.”

“We’re stronger together,” she nodded, “we’re safer together.” By now her head was fully resting on his chest and Yato watched the sky. Keeping watch for danger like a proper mate, Coo Phone was proud.

“You know, I wouldn’t be okay if you went away either.” Yato let his wings wrap around her gently, waiting for her to take the final step forward instead of pulling. She let her wings do the same.

“I know,” Hiyori sniffed, “please just stay with me.” She had her face buried as he took in a deep, deep breath and let it out slowly towards the sky. Coo Phone wondered if he wanted to fly away again, but he most likely wouldn’t anymore. Finally, after enough time had passed where Coo Phone was able to get comfortable, Yato looked down at her. The tips of his wings brushed under her hair and tried to wipe away the water. He nudged her eyes up and she blinked.

“I want nothing more.” He cooed. Yato continued to do his best to preen her face, eventually helping it to dry while she worked to stop sniffling. The air seemed lighter around them.

“But you know, I get mixed signals when you say things like that, then cry when I’m around,” Yato eventually clucked. She huffed and whacked him. As he warbled- considerably weaker than his usual noise- Hiyori looked back at the ground under them.

“How about I make it clearer then?” Before Yato could reply, she rose and let her beak rub against his, their mouths connecting. Coo Phone’s feathers fluffed up in embarrassment as he sunk his head into his shoulders. His eyes shut just as Yato’s did, Hiyori already in the moment. Coo Phone wondered why Hiyori accepted Yato’s advances without any sort of dance or song, the creature of darkness was hardly colorful, but some things were just meant to be.

“Does this mean you’ll let me in your room whenever?” Yato chirped when they separated.

“No it does not.”

“What about accepting gifts? Or going on dates every night instead of studying?”

“No, no, Yato, if you push it, not only will I jungle savate you but I’ll ignore all your messages.” At Hiyori’s call, Coo Phone got up and started to stretch. It seemed pointless for them to continue to share gifts when they were already together, but a proper carrier never questions the mission.

“What? All of them?” Yato whined, “even from our adorable precious baby Smart Ho?” He summoned Coo Phone again and the bird spread his wings and took off towards his master.

“Yes. Even them, if you take it too far,” Hiyori glared at him. They stared for a second before Yato let out a snort and twittered something at her, which she happily replied. As Coo Phone approached, Yato had her head in his wings again, his stubby beak preening her lovingly. She let out that same noise of happiness, louder and stronger than before as she covered his wings with hers. Their mouths pressed a couple more times, but it became difficult with their loud warbling. Yato managed to grab her, lifting her up in the air and spinning her around as she continued singing. Happy for them- and unable to properly land on his master- Coo Phone circled above them and cooed in celebration. He was so happy, in fact, that his insides clenched with joy and rippled with excitement.

“Oi bird brain!” Yato cawed from below. Frightened at the tone, Coo Phone looked down to see his master glaring up at him and waving his wing, a new spot of white dripping off his black head. With the threat in the spirit’s blue eyes, Coo Phone frantically flapped his wings away, deciding it was best to leave the two lovebirds alone.

#noragami #Noragami yato #yato noragami #yatori #yatori week #yatori week 2021 #hiyori #iki hiyori #hiyori iki #noragami fanfic #noragami fanfiction

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apothecarinomicon · 3 years

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Spring week 3, part 1

I felt much better this morning. I suppose whatever sickness fairy visions impart is strictly transient—or maybe dealing with reagents has given me a good immune system.

When I went outside, I found that I’d somehow managed to plant the foxsocks in the garden. I don’t know how I could have done it in my feverish state and I certainly don’t remember it, but there it is. The foxsocks seem to be thriving already, or at least to have a solid foothold. As I’d hoped, they should be reliably available from here on out.

As I stood there, sleepily puzzling over the garden, I heard a screech from above. Looking up, I saw what at first appeared to be a large bird circling down towards the ground. When she landed, though, I saw she was a woman with wings instead of arms, talons instead of legs, and a feathered tail, wearing a khaki uniform—a postal harpy. She greeted me while balancing on one leg and asked me to confirm my name. I told her and she introduced herself as Liùsaidh. She indicated I ought to retrieve my mail from her talon (it’s polite to wait for their permission). She asked if I might be sticking around and I said I thought I was. She said she’d see me next time I got mail and flew off.

What she’d brought was a letter, with a return address listed as “The Gleoclas J. Ledgerwood Muſeum of Magicke.” It was a single handwritten (actually, impressively calligraphed) page. The spelling and grammar was, shall we say, characteristic. It’s easier to just stick the letter in between the pages than copy it down, so that’s what I’ll do.

To whom it may concern:

It has come to our attentionne at The Friends of The Gleoclas J. Ledgerwood Muſeum of Magicke that ye are a practicing vvitch reſiding in the hamlet of Greanmoore. We would like to congratulate ye on your appointmente and hope you find the positionne both fulfilling and rewarding. We had brief correspondence with your predeceſsor and were glad to learn of yovr presence.

The Gleoclas J. Ledgerwood Muſeum of Magicke is among the premiere magical muſeums in northweſternne High Rannoc. It has one of the moſte exhauſtive collections of magical materials, svbſtances, and hiſtories native to High Rannoc in the vvorld. Academicks, travelers, and school field trips regularly reference and reſearch the Muſeum’s collections in their purſuit of more compleat knowledge.

As The Muſeum of Magicke does not have a repreſentative in Greanmoore or the surrounding areas, we have a requeſte to make of ye if you are willing to fulfill it. We pride ourſelves on the compleatneſs of our Magickal Components collectionne, but we are miſsing many of the species native to Greanmoore and its svrrounding locations. We humbly ask that ye help vs remedy this deficiency. If you are willing to do so, we woulde requeſt that ye send one of each magickal componente available in the area to the Muſeum, at the returnne addreſs listed above. Should you do so, ye will receive compenſationne.

We hope ye will partner with vs in this endeavor. Your contributionne to societal knowledge shall be greatly appreciated by generationnes of reſearchers, thinkers, and touriſts.

Eagerly avvaiting your reſponſe,

The Friends of The Gleoclas J. Ledgerwood Muſeum of Magicke

[A plain text accessible version of this letter is available here.]

Obviously, the spelling is horrendous. This might have been forgivable a few decades ago, but the shape of the ‘s’ (that is, it not being that odd ‘f’ looking thing sometimes) and the distinction between ‘u,’ ‘v,’ and ‘w’ have been standardized since before I was born. Not to mention, the Ledgerwood Museum is associated with the University of Arcbridge—so there must be someone there who knows better.

The thing is, for a long time the only people who could write were those who received higher education, so the vast majority of documents that exist throughout history have to do with academia. So, even as reading and writing became more accessible and spelling and grammar more standardized, that outdated irregular styling retroactively became associated with education, with decorum, with genius.

I’ve never really had much respect for that kind of posturing—I think that if you’re brilliant the content of your writing ought to speak for itself. You shouldn’t have to so explicitly climb on the shoulders of those who came before you, especially not by intentionally making the mistakes they made or using the outdated styles they used.

I sent back a letter inquiring about the specifics of compensation along with a sample of my foxsocks.

I’m going to the library.

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The Greenmoor Public Library is near the center of town, not quite in the square but on Market Street directly off of it. It has some interesting architecture: it looks as if it was originally three separate buildings the size of single-family houses, that were all connected up at a later date by a circular addition between them so that the final building looks like a cog with three spokes. Each section of it is made up of a different material—exposed stone, lime render, and brick for the original houses, and cement for the central cylinder—but it all works together in a quirky, oddball way.

There are no internal walls in the library—even where there must have been external walls in the original houses. They must have knocked them down (I don’t envy that job). Every wall is lined with bookshelves from floor to ceiling, and in each of the spokes there are many close-set freestanding shelves besides, with only narrow aisles left between. At the center of the center is a circular desk, and around this are scattered tables with benches and clusters of armchairs for convenience of reading and research.

The library is owned and run by Donella and Saundra Glasford, an older couple. Saundra is actually the schoolteacher, but she helps with reshelving and organization on weekends. I know this because Donella explained it to me in detail. As soon as I walked in the door she stood from behind (within?) the circular desk and approached me, insisting that she give me a tour of the library. In addition to a survey of the entire space and what kinds of books it contained, this ‘tour’ involved a hefty amount of insight into the daily lives and routines of the Glasford family.

They have a kid named Muiredach, who’s very interested in ancient things at the moment—giant skeletons and the like. Donella has lived here her entire life but Saundra moved here forty years ago. Saundra’s expertise is in thaumatology (specifically thaumatozoology, the study of magical animals), in which she has a degree. Meanwhile, Donella has extensive knowledge of literary and epistemological history, though she received no formal schooling past twelve.

After she finished showing me all the different sections and layouts of the library, Donella told me I should feel free to poke around as much as I wanted. She added that I wouldn’t find any secret passages or hidden rooms, and that they had nothing to hide.

I hadn’t realized before she said that what this was all about.

I told her that the rumors weren’t true, that I wasn’t some Government spy or anything like that (I heard Saundra mumble something like “well you’d also deny it if you were a clype, wouldn’t you?”). Donella quickly assured me that she believed me, but then said “better safe than sorry,” so I’m not quite sure she actually did. I told her I didn’t understand where all the suspicion was coming from. Saundra piped up, saying that I was a stranger who came to a small, isolated town I had no prior relation with to fill a position whose previous occupant had mysteriously disappeared, and asked if I understood how that looked (not in quite those words—her accent and dialect was rather strong). I told her I’d been summoned directly by Mòrag McKinney, and had the paper trail to prove it. I asked if she thought Mòrag was involved in some conspiracy, too. She shrugged and said she was just saying how it looked.

Donella said regardless that I should feel free to use the library—it was for the public, after all—and pointed me in the direction of the section on rune magic. Thus, the conversation ended, but my uneasiness didn’t entirely abate. Still, I’d come to the library for a reason.

The rune section was limited, but I didn’t need to know any more than the basics. I’d only ever been taught one way to create runes, and it was clear my predecessor used a different one—all I needed to do was to figure out which and I could reverse engineer the runes’ meanings.

I found that she used a combination of the witches’ circle and magic square methods, which are both apparently very popular. I wonder why I was never taught them. Both systems derive the shape of the sigil directly from the letters of the intentions they’re meant to invoke. It’s traditional to remove the vowels before doing so, but luckily for me my predecessor chose not to do that.

So, with a bit of work I was able to determine that the sigils I copied down meant: life, autonomy, gentleness, congeniality, and empathy respectively. It was clearly built to be a very kind golem. Now that I know that, I’m going to try to create my own sigils and charge them, and see if that helps.

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While I was at the library, I also collected a few of the greatest works of modern literature—Lord of the Midges, Beathag’s Choice, To Kill a Gull-Drake, et cetera. The next morning I packed the books into the rucksack I’d used to travel to Greenmoor and set out to take them to Morna, heading to Hero’s Hollow by way of Moonbreaker Mountain.

As I skirted the base of the mountain, I heard a voice call out from above me, crying “hey, you! Groundling!” It was clearly far above me but somehow also quite loud. I looked up and saw, blotting out the sun, a great hot air balloon. I’d heard vague stories but had never seen one in person before. The most striking part of it was the balloon itself, made of canvas patterned beige and blue and larger than a house. The top half of it (as I was informed later) was enclosed by a net, which had metal rings on its edges attaching it to a tangle of myriad ropes and cords. These in turn held aloft the basket, which was not the simple platform I’d seen described in books but rather looked like a small sailing boat, complete with railings, rotors, and a steering wheel.

The voice announced that it hadn’t seen me around before and that I ought to climb aboard. A ladder with metal rungs unfurled over the side of the boat, just low enough that I could reach it if I jumped. I did so after making sure my rucksack was firmly on my back and shut, and climbed up to reach the aircraft.

The man onboard was only slightly taller than me. His white shirt was rumpled and stained with oil, and his left suspender was fraying. The thick goggles on his forehead, held together with large bolts and screws, were the only thing keeping his thick black hair from whipping in all directions with the wind (mine, in contrast, had already become hopelessly tangled). His sleeves were rolled up, but his forearms were covered by brown leather fingerless gloves, with metal studs that flashed in the sunlight as he hauled the ladder back onto the balloon. He wore a mask over the lower half of his face, with a cylindrical chamber marked “O2” sticking out from each cheek. Directly in front of the mouth was a clear window, so that I could see his lips moving when he spoke. He offered me a similar one and I accepted—the air was rather thin so high up. I could see him say something that was drowned out by the wind, and then he beckoned me towards a door. Given the shape of the craft, I wasn’t surprised to discover that it led to a kind of captains’ quarters.

Inside, the wind wasn’t quite so brutally loud and I could actually make out what my host was saying. He introduced himself as Captain Akash Majhi, aviator extraordinaire, and asked if I needed a lift. I said it might have been a bit late to ask since I was already on the balloon, which made him chuckle. I said that since he’d offered, I was headed to Hero’s Hollow, and he replied that that would be no problem. I noticed as we conversed that he only made eye contact when he was speaking—when I spoke, he instead watched my lips.

As Akash turned to pull a lever on the wall, I asked where he was from. He didn’t respond. With the lever pulled, a large strip of the ceiling rotated so that a piece of what had been the floor above—the piece to which the steering wheel was attached—became the ceiling of this room. Akash then tapped what seemed to just be a wooden accent covering a swath of the metal wall above the desk and bed. The wood slid to the side, revealing a bay window through which he could see.

He took his place at the wheel, positioning me in his field of view, so I asked again where he was from. He told me he was a proud resident of the Cloud Isles. I told him I’d never heard of such a place, and he said I really must be new to the area. Belatedly, I told him my name and that I had in fact only moved here a few weeks ago. He told me that the Cloud Isles were just that: islands in the clouds, with wildlife, ecosystems, and culture. At the center was a great city that, yes, was attached to the clouds, but had mostly been built flying between and amongst them by generations of architects, donors, engineers, artists, and aviators like himself.

I asked him where the city was located and he vaguely waved his hands. “Here and there.” He said that as the clouds drifted so did the Isles, but that the city itself never strayed too far from Greenmoor—otherwise, mapping and resource-gathering from the ground below would be difficult or impossible.

I asked him how I might visit the Isles, and he told me I’d need to be able to fly. He said the general ethos of the residents leaned towards mechanical solutions, but he had heard that there were magical ways of flight as well. I said I would have to look into that. He handed me a business card with his name, “balloonist | engineer | aviator extraordinaire,” an address, and a smoke signal pattern to use to contact him. He said if I was ever in the city he’d be happy to show me around. Then, he announced that we’d arrived.

We went back onto the deck and he unfurled the ladder over the edge. I went to hand him the oxygen mask back but he told me to keep it—they were expensive, but he had plenty and I’d be needing it when (and he did say “when”) I visited the city. I thanked him, shook his hand, and started descending the ladder.

────⊱⁜⊰────

I made it back to the ground (the hop down from the ladder was smaller than the hop up had been), and smoothed my hair down before setting off into the Hollow. I’d only barely made it into the skull when my plans for the afternoon abruptly shifted.

It was just around midday, so the guards must have been on break or between shifts. Hurrying out of the dungeon was a group I recognized—it was the Lows, the mining family. Angus was carrying the son in his arms. The boy was clutching his thigh, and even from a distance I could see blood seeping through his fingers.

Crystal spotted me and immediately called out to me, thanking the gods for my arrival. I hurried to them and guided them back to the cottage, where I knew I’d be able to better determine how to treat the issue. Morna would have to wait—I had a patient to tend to.

⇦●〇●⇨

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nitinsingh43-blog · 5 years

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10 Fun Facts About Charles Darwin

Everyone knows about Charles Darwin and his theory of natural selection, but did you know that he once ate an owl, just for kicks? Or that he almost didn’t make it aboard HMS Beagle because of the shape of his nose? Behold Neatorama’s 10 Fun Facts About Charles Darwin:

1. Darwin Once Ate an Owl

Darwin was an inquisitive man. Sure he was curious about nature and all that science stuff, but he’s also a guy. So when he saw strange animals, he often wondered what they would taste like. The difference between Darwin and the rest of us is that he actually ate ‘em!

While he was at Cambridge University, Darwin joined the “Gourmet Club,” which met once a week to eat animals not often found in menus, like hawk and bittern (a type of wading bird in the heron family). His zeal for weird food, however, broke down when he tried an old brown owl, which he found “indescribable.”

But that one episode didn’t end Darwin’s weird gastronomic proclivities. During the voyage of the Beagle, he ate armadillos and agoutis (the rodents were “best meat I ever tasted,” he said).

In Patagonia, South America, Darwin ate a puma (it tasted like veal) and an ostrich-like bird called a Rhea. Actually, Darwin had been looking for this particular species of Rhea, only to find that he had been eating one all along. He sent back the uneaten parts to the Zoological Society in London, which named the bird Rhea darwinii after him!

In the Galapagos, Darwin ate iguanas and giant tortoises. He liked it so much he loaded up 48 of them aboard the Beagle, to be eaten on the journey back!

Sources: Darwin’s Dinner at Quite Interesting | The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin by Charles and Francis Darwin

2. Darwin Wanted to Be a Doctor, But He Couldn’t Stand the Sight of

Blood

Darwin attended Edinburgh University in hopes of becoming a physician like his father, but soon abandoned the idea because he couldn’t stand the sight of blood. So he decided to study divinity instead and become a rural cleric, which would fit his hobby of being a naturalist just fine (Source).

3. Darwin’s Nose Almost Cost Him The Voyage on the Beagle

The Captain of HMS Beagle, Robert FitzRoy, was about to embark on a survey expedition to South America, but he was afraid of the stress and loneliness of such a voyage (indeed, they have driven the previous captain of the ship to commit suicide). So FitzRoy asked his superiors for a well-educated and scientific gentleman companion to come along as an unpaid naturalist whom he could treat as an equal. The professors at Cambridge recommended then 22-years old Charles Darwin for the trip.

At first, Charles’ father Robert objected to the appointment — after all, such a voyage would take years and would get in the way of him being a clergyman. But Darwin’s uncle was able to persuade him not only to let his son go, but also support him financially.

Darwin and FitzRoy got together well, but later Darwin found out that he almost didn’t get picked for the voyage … on account of the shape of his nose!

“Afterwards on becoming very intimate with Fitz-Roy, I heard that I had run a very narrow risk of being rejected [as the Beagle’s naturalist], on account of the shape of my nose! He was an ardent desciple of Lavater, and was convinced that he could judge a man’s character by the outline of his features; and he doubted wheather anyone with my nose could possess sufficient energy and determination for the voyage. But I think he was afterwards well-satisfied that my nose had spoken falsely.” (Source: Charles Darwin: His Life Told in an Autobiographical Chapter, and in a Selected Series of His Published Letters, by Charles Darwin — 1902)

4. Best Birthday Gift Ever: a Mountain!

For Darwin’s 25th birthday on February 12, 1834, Captain FitzRoy named a mountain after him. Yup, Mount Darwin. It is the highest peak in Tierra del Fuego.

A year earlier, Darwin and his shipmates were on a small island in the Tierra del Fuego archipelago when a huge mass of ice fell from the face of a glacier and plunged into the ocean, causing a huge wave. Darwin ran to the shore and saved the ship’s boats from being swept away. For saving everyone from being marooned, FitzRoy named the area Darwin Sound.

And as if one mountain isn’t enough, Darwin got three more named after him: There are other Darwin Mountains located in California, Tasmania, and Antarctica.

5. The Full Title of “On The Origin of Species”

Larger photo: University of Sydney

You probably know that Darwin’s most famous work, outlining his theory of evolution, is On the Origin of Species.

But what most people don’t know is the full title: On the Origin of Species by means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life. It was published in 1859, twenty years after his epic voyage (yes, he took his sweet time in publishing his work, which he only did because Alfred Russell Wallace came to the same conclusion of evolution and Darwin didn’t want to be left behind). A total of 1250 copies were printed and it went on sale for 15 shillings. It’s now valued at around $23,000.

In the 6th edition, the title was changed to The Origin of Species.

6. Darwin Didn’t Invent the Phrase “Survival of the Fittest”

That was Herbert Spencer, a philosopher and contemporary of Charles Darwin. After reading Darwin’s On the Origin of Species, Spencer wrote Principles of Biology in 1864. He coined the phrase “survival of the fittest” and extended Darwin’s theory of natural selection into the realm of sociology, ethics, and economics.

Darwin himself used the phrase in his 5th edition of The Origin and gave full credit to Spencer.

7. Darwin Married His First Cousin

Darwin was a logical man, and he approached the important issue of marriage like he would any problem. In The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, Darwin made careful pro and con list of marriage to his first cousin, Emma Wedgwood:

Image: Cambridge University Library — The Complete Work of Charles Darwin Online

Under the title “This is the Question,” Darwin wrote in the “Marry” Column:

Children — (if it Please God) — Constant companion, (& friend in old age) who will feel interested in one, — object to be beloved & played with. — — better than a dog anyhow. — Home, & someone to take care of house — Charms of music & female chit-chat. — These things good for one’s health. — Forced to visit & receive relations but terrible loss of time. —

W My God, it is intolerable to think of spending ones whole life, like a neuter bee, working, working, & nothing after all. — No, no won’t do. — Imagine living all one’s day solitarily in smoky dirty London House. — Only picture to yourself a nice soft wife on a sofa with good fire, & books & music perhaps — Compare this vision with the dingy reality of Grt. Marlbro’ St.

… and in the “Not Marry” column:

No children, (no second life), no one to care for one in old age. — What is the use of working ‘in’ without sympathy from near & dear friends — who are near & dear friends to the old, except relatives

Freedom to go where one liked — choice of Society & little of it. — Conversation of clever men at clubs — Not forced to visit relatives, & to bend in every trifle. — to have the expense & anxiety of children — perhaps quarelling — Loss of time. — cannot read in the Evenings — fatness & idleness — Anxiety & responsibility — less money for books &c — if many children forced to gain one’s bread. — (But then it is very bad for ones health to work too much)

Perhaps my wife wont like London; then the sentence is banishment & degradation into indolent, idle fool —

He concluded that he should marry, and wrote:

Marry — Marry — Marry Q.E.D.

It is ironic that the man who gave rise to the importance of genetics in natural selection chose to marry his first cousin (Darwin wasn’t alone in this — Einstein also married his cousin), but one thing is for sure: Darwin cleverly avoided adding more relatives to visit!

8. How Darwin Lost His Faith in Christianity

Darwin was actually quite a religious fellow when he began his voyage on the Beagle (he was fresh out of divinity school). Aboard the ship, Darwin was known to quote passages from the bible to rowdy sailors on board.

But something happened during the trip that made him less religious. Darwin saw slavery firsthand as well as the wretched living conditions of the natives of Tierra del Fuego and wondered why God allowed such inhumanities to happen (Source). Darwin became skeptical of the history in the Old Testament, yet still believed in the existence of God.

Darwin lost his faith when his daughter Annie caught scarlet fever and died at the age of 10. He wrote “We have lost the joy of the household, and the solace of our old age … Oh that she could now know how deeply, how tenderly we do still & and shall ever love her dear joyous face.” The heartsick Emma filled a small box with Annie’s small treasures and kept it until her own death. (Source)

From then on, Darwin continued to help the local church with parish work, but would go on walks while his family attended church on Sundays. When asked about his religious views, Darwin denied that he was an atheist, but called himself agnostic.

In 1915, Lady Hope claimed to have visited Darwin and witnessed his deathbed conversion back to Christianity. This was refuted by his children, who noted that his last words were to Emma: “I am not the least afraid of death — Remember what a good wife you have been — Tell all my children to remember how good they have been to me.” (Source)

9. Darwin was a Backgammon Fiend

After his return from South America, Darwin developed a life-long illness that left him severely debilitated or bed-ridden for long periods of time. Darwin consulted with more than 20 doctors, but the cause of his disease was never discovered (Wikipedia has an interesting list of possible illnesses).

Over the years, with the help of Emma, Darwin developed a strict routine that seemed to help in alleviating the symptoms. AboutDarwin.com has an interesting glimpse into what everyday life was like for Darwin.

Of note is Darwin’s strict schedule for playing backgammon. Every night between 8 and 8:30 PM, Darwin would play 2 games of backgammon with Emma. He even kept score of every game he played for years!

10. Church of England Finally Apologized to Darwin

When Darwin’s work on the theory of evolution came out, the church attacked him vociferously. Now, 126 years after his death, The Church of England has apologized to Darwin:

Charles Darwin: 200 years from your birth, the Church of England owes you an apology for misunderstanding you and, by getting our first reaction wrong, encouraging others to misunderstand you still. We try to practice the old virtues of ‘faith seeking understanding’ and hope that makes some amends. But the struggle for your reputation is not over yet, and the problem is not just your religious opponents but those who falsely claim you in support of their own interests. Good religion needs to work constructively with good science — and I dare to suggest that the opposite may be true as well. (Source)

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THE PAST YEAR has been a rough one for conservation. Since last January, the Trump administration has handed the Environmental Protection Agency over to its avowed enemies, brushed aside the United States’s commitments to the fight against climate change, and announced an unprecedented rollback of federal wilderness protections. But as bad as these attacks were, a smaller-scale salvo that arrived in their wake was, in some ways, much more stinging. It came from behind our own lines.

Writing in the Washington Post in late November, biologist R. Alexander Pyron declared that efforts to prevent the extinction of endangered species are a sentimental waste of effort:

Species constantly go extinct, and every species that is alive today will one day follow suit. There is no such thing as an “endangered species,” except for all species. The only reason we should conserve biodiversity is for ourselves, to create a stable future for human beings. […] Conserving a species we have helped to kill off, but on which we are not directly dependent, serves to discharge our own guilt, but little else.

Telling a biologist that “extinction is natural” is like pointing out to a climatologist that the Earth has gone through periods of warming in the past, or explaining to a physician that smokers will die whether or not they quit — narrowly accurate, but ignorant of the scale and pace of the damage in question. Pyron’s colleagues in ecology, evolutionary biology, and conservation science were, predictably, aghast. Science Twitter erupted. Biologists took to every available outlet to refute the piece. More than 3,000 scientists (including your humble correspondent) co-signed a response letter to the Post stating, bluntly, that Pyron’s position was “at odds with scientific facts and our moral responsibility.” Pyron himself seemed surprised and dismayed by the response, and he disavowed most of his own op-ed in a statement he posted to the front page of his professional website: “In the brief space of 1,900 words, I failed to make my views sufficiently clear and coherent, and succumbed to a temptation to sensationalize parts of my argument.”

Whether or not 1,900 words is insufficient to express his views, a generous read of Pyron’s essay might find in it an attempt to grapple with the fundamental problem facing people who study the diversity of living things in this era: although we have unprecedented tools to identify, describe, and catalog them, plant and animal species are losing ground to humans at an alarming rate. As often as not, the formal description of a new species is immediately followed by its designation as “endangered.”

The issue is broader than the danger of extinction. Even species considered relatively secure have seen sharp declines in abundance since the beginning of the 20th century, and many others will likely be reduced to precarity as changing climates render their habitats inhospitable. The entomologist Alex Wild, an expert in one of the most diverse groups of animal species, has said that “being a naturalist in the 21st century is like being an art enthusiast in a world where an art museum burns to the ground every year.” Faced with the scale of the problem, the temptation to triage — to define achievable, if painfully pessimistic, conservation goals — is understandable.

The Plant Messiah, a scientific memoir by the botanist Carlos Magdalena, is a resounding rejection of that temptation. Magdalena works at Kew Gardens, the world-renowned English botanical institute, and he has built a career coaxing hope for endangered plant species from tiny samples of seeds or parsimonious cuttings. Kew stewards an enormous living collection of plant diversity in its greenhouses and gardens — and its even more extensive seed stocks. Magdalena splits his time between traveling the globe to identify and collect rare plants for Kew’s collections, painstakingly propagating them, and working with local partners worldwide to reestablish and protect endangered plants in their native habitats.

Magdalena grew up in northern Spain, where he became fascinated with the living world by working on his family’s finca, a tract of forest and bog in the mountains outside of town where they kept a cottage and small farm. After a lackluster experience with structured education in school, he worked short-term conservation jobs and did stints in pubs, restaurants, and landscaping until he found his way to Kew Gardens and fell immediately in love. He talked his way into an internship and then an entry-level position in plant propagation, enrolled in the Gardens’ rigorous Diploma in Horticulture, and went on to become permanent staff.

One of Magdalena’s first projects at Kew involved the café marron, Ramosmania rodriguesii. Native to Rodrigues — an island in the same Indian Ocean archipelago as Mauritius, the former home of the dodo — café marron is a close relative of the coffee tree. It was thought to have been lost to the destruction of Rodrigues’s native forests for farmland, until a schoolboy rediscovered a single shrub in 1980. Kew’s horticulturalists acquired a handful of cuttings from this sole survivor, got one to take root, and propagated a small population by dint of careful cutting and rerooting — but though these captive cafés marrons flowered profusely, none would set the seed needed to revive a wild population, even when pollinated by hand.

Magdalena suspected self-incompatibility. In most flowering plants, a pollen grain alighting on the receptive surface of the stigma, at the very tip of the pistil, must grow a root-like tube down into the length of the pistil to convey genetic material to an ovule, with which it fuses to produce an embryonic plant and the supporting and protective tissues of a seed. In self-incompatible species, a plant’s own pollen will fail to take “root” in the stigma. Magdalena bypassed this response by slicing off the stigma, then applying pollen directly to the wounded tip of the pistil. Over hundreds of such surgical pollinations, on plants kept in different temperature and light conditions, he zeroed in on a protocol to produce viable café marron seeds. From these, Magdalena reared seedlings for “repatriation” to Rodrigues.

Much of The Plant Messiah is pretty well summed up as “James Herriot, but for ultra-rare plants” — a string of stories from Magdalena’s travels to collect plants, teach plant propagation techniques, and promote conservation. In one chapter, Magdalena arrives late at night in a Bolivian village, exhausted and dirty, only to be dragged from a cold shower to demonstrate grafting methods for an eager class hopped up on coca leaves. In another, he loses half of a hard-won supply of seeds from the last surviving Hyophorbe amaricaulis palm to a lab staffer who happens on them in an unsecured refrigerator while looking for a snack.

The punch lines to these stories are sometimes more tragic than funny. Late in the book, Magdalena sets out to raise the tiny waterlily Nymphaea thermarum, which has been found only in waters warmed by a single Rwandan hot spring. Magdalena works his way through his supply of seeds to determine that the young plants need higher than normal concentrations of carbon dioxide to survive to flowering — and only then, when he has a working protocol and a healthy captive population of the little waterlilies, does he discover that their home hot spring has been drained, and the species is extinct in the wild.

Magdalena responds to the logic of biodiversity triage on virtually every page of the book. Much of his argument is the kind of thing R. Alexander Pyron dismissed as sentimentality — Magdalena loves plants and takes their losses personally. “I will not tolerate extinction,” he declares, point-blank, in an early chapter. The Plant Messiah’s storytelling structure and loving descriptions of rare plants are an unabashed appeal to emotion, attempting to light the same passion for the living world in Magdalena’s readers. But under the bubbling enthusiasm there is one rock-solid fact: we don’t know which species we can spare. As Magdalena writes,

We still know so little about what they are capable of. It is like finding a library where the books are written in Chinese, then taking someone to visit who can read only English and Spanish to decide which books are relevant. Or perhaps going into that library and burning the books based on whether you like the cover or not.

The world’s plants (and other living things) are a repository of evolution’s mechanical, material, and biochemical innovations. A rare plant may hold the key to the next invention as universally useful as Velcro, or a molecule to cure human disease, or an adaptation to drought that can be bred into crops. This is, however, not quite an argument for restoring near-extinct species in the wild — the world’s plant diversity can, in principal, be saved in seedbanks and botanic gardens. By the time a plant is as vanishingly rare as café marron or Nymphaea thermarum, its contributions to the living community in which it grows are proportionally tiny. Restoring the plants of Rodrigues means not just planting a bunch of café marron, but also rescuing many other species and clearing out a myriad of introduced invaders that have overrun the island.

Kew assists with just such projects, and when Magdalena exhorts his readers to become “plant messiahs” in their own right, he suggests they join local conservation societies, plant rare native species at home, and campaign against climate change and deforestation — workaday efforts that lack the glamour of the near-resurrections he performs in the greenhouse. But if they differ qualitatively, they also differ quantitatively. Global collective action is what will stem the tide of extinction; not a talent, even a miraculous one, for saving individual species from the brink.

Magdalena attempts, at the start, to deflate his own title by quoting the mother of an inadvertent prophet in Monty Python’s Life of Brian: “He’s not the Messiah, he’s a very naughty boy!” Even so, The Plant Messiah aims to ignite a movement. Even if the species Magdalena rescues may not be significant building blocks in the larger project of putting the planet’s living communities back together, they can be mascots, symbols to focus and motivate the broader, more difficult work.

A messiah doesn’t serve only, or even primarily, as a single-person source of salvation. A messiah is also an inspiration and a model. The plant messiah’s gospel is simple: we may not be able to save every species from extinction, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try.

Jeremy B. Yoder is an assistant professor of biology at California State University, Northridge. His writing has appeared in Scientific American, The Awl, and McSweeney’s Internet Tendency. He also edits The Molecular Ecologist.

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