Azi lana

The Azi lana are a group of hexapodal aliens from the planet Gi. Their front two limbs are used for holding and manipulating objects, and their hind four limbs are used for walking and running. They have a sausage-shaped torso with a large neck supporting a vaguely diamond-shaped head. The spine in their neck is S-shaped and so the neck can squash and stretch like that of a bird.

Their head and neck support two fleshy structures; a flap on the top of their head, which can be moved up and down to communicate mood, and a large frill, which can be spread out suddenly to intimidate other people and animals. This frill flashes blue when spread out because of fear.

They have a thin, flexible tail. The feet on their hind four legs can be described as paws, and have retractable claws, while the feet on their front two legs are in fact hands, with three fingers, an opposable pinkie finger, and a thumb bearing a long, sharp claw.

Though their eyes look like compound eyes from a distance, they are not; in fact, they simply have large pupils that are difficult to tell apart from their extremely dark irises. They do not have eyelids, but a scale over their eyes. Finally, they are covered in tiny keeled scales, which protect their skin.

(Pictured: a naked Azi lana, an Azi lana with proboscis extended, and an Azi lana with frill open)

Azi lana are classified as Xenosapiens alana. They are the only living species in their genus, and one of only two living species in their family. They are in an evolutionary order specialised for predation, and their living relatives are the apex predators of their respective ecosystems. This order is characterised by their catlike body, and front limbs bearing sharp thumb-claws and grasping hands to take down their prey.

The azi lana’s evolutionary family is a branch of these predators specialised for high intelligence. This family has longer grasping fingers and a shorter thumb claw than the rest of it’s order, as well as an opposable pinkie finger. This has historically helped the family create tools; first sharp rocks for cutting meat, then spears and throwing weapons, and eventually computers and spaceships.

Though there are only two living representatives of this family today, they were once widespread and numerous. However, the other sapient members were outcompeted by the azi lana in prehistoric times, and the non-sapient members were hunted to extinction during the industrial revolution.

Only one- the little sword-lion- has survived into the modern day, probably because of it’s small size, ingenuity, and recent conservation efforts.

Despite their cat-like appearance, the azi lana are rather bizzare- they are aliens, after all. Though they are not strictly cold-blooded, they could be classified as reptiles.

They are mesothermic, meaning they are not really cold-blooded or warm-blooded, but somewhere between the two. When they are stressed or excited, their body heats up to about 36 degrees.

Otherwise, they become the temperature of their surroundings, and they spend a lot of time lounging in the sun, under blankets, or above heating ducts to make up for this.

Azi lana do not give live birth, but instead lay strange eggs.

They do not have jaws, mouths, or teeth- instead they have long, muscular proboscises, usually stored inside their skull cavity, that they use to eat.

They first piece their food- meat or eggs of some kind- with a sharp barb on the end of their proboscis. Then, they regurgitate digestive enzymes into their food, which liquifies it. Finally, they suck the liquified food back up into their mouths.

(Pictured: an Azi lana enjoying his meal.)

Azi lana are covered in tiny scales, which they have to shed periodically. Every now and again, their skin goes pale, their eyes go blue, and they shed piece by piece. This can take several days to a week, and they often have to have days off work or school to shed properly.

There are things that can help azi lana shed more effectively. Small or large rubbing posts are some of the shedding items that are often sold commercially. Public saunas are often relaxed at for their high humidity- and private saunas, for the wealthy.

(Pictured: a skeletal and organ diagram of an Azi lana.)

Azi lana are hypercarnivores, meaning meat makes up more than 70% of their diet. In fact, they cannot eat much else, because they can’t digest plant matter.They eat all parts of animals, including muscle tissue and organs. Arthropods and eggs are less common foods. Animals’ bodily fluids, like blood and CSF, are considered sweet treats because they can be swallowed easily without first being digested.

Azi lana do not have a mouth as such, so to speak they instead use their nostrils, which are located at either side of their body behind their front pair of legs. Each nostril leads to a lung, which are connected to each other via a series of tubes.

Between each nostril and lung is a syrinx, which can produce complex sounds without any need for the nostril to change shape or regulate airflow. Though Azi lana have a separate syrinx in either nostril, most of them can only use one or the other, and are left- or right- voiced, as the case may be.

However, with enough training, they can learn to use both syrinxes at once; this is a common skill among Azi lana singers.

Included in the range of sounds that can be produced are some used by humans and some that cannot be pronounced well by humans. As well, azi lana cannot pronounce some human sounds (ie t, k, p). So, communication between the two species is usually fairly straightforward, but with either participant replacing some sounds they cannot pronounce with some they can.

In areas where azi lana and humans live together, accents have developed where only sounds pronounceable for both parties are used. However, like humans, azi lana often have trouble communicating with species who use more unorthodox sounds.

Azi lana have a colourpoint colouration; they have darker colours on their neck, tail, and limbs. They have a blue-grey head and dark brown eyes. The rest of their body is brown, though this colour may range in darkness depending on what climate their ancestors lived in.

Men and women have no external genitalia distinguishing them, however women are almost always significantly larger and men have a pattern of large, blue-grey scales on their back intermixed with their brown ones.

Azi lana do not naturally have sex, neither to have children nor for pleasure. However, most do not object to doing it to please an alien partner. While they are all asexual, they do naturally form monogamous romantic partnerships for anywhere from a few months to a lifetime. Instead of using sex to internally fertilise an egg, a man externally fertilises an egg that a woman has already laid.

Azi lana women periodically lay batches of unfertilised eggs; these are small, clear, pill-shaped things that are laid along with a liquid substance that they must be kept in. To fertilise them, a man must insert the sharp end of his proboscis underneath the membrane of one or more of the eggs and regurgitate semen.

Though dozens of eggs are laid a month, only the ones that are fertilised will develop into children; those that are not fertilised will only ‘survive’ until the liquid they are laid in dries up. However, a fertilised egg will not survive without this specialised liquid either, but it does release pheromones that stimulate the mother into developing more of this liquid.

The fertilised egg(s) is separated from the unfertilised ones and placed into a container full of the nutritious liquid, where it quickly develops.

In the first month, it will swiftly grow in size from that of a human fingernail to that of a globe. It will also become more egg-like in shape, and develop a hard shell. At this point, it can be removed from the container of liquid and will be fed only by weekly yolk injections from the mother’s proboscis.

As this liquid production is only present in the mother of the egg, if the mother dies in this period, an artificial substance must be used instead.

After four months, the egg will finally hatch. A newborn azi lana is significantly more developed than a human baby; they will be able to walk within hours, and start learning to talk in the first few months. At this point, their proboscis will be weak and not able to produce digestive enzymes, so they must be fed with food regurgitated by their parents.

Young azi lana shed their skin significantly more frequently than adults. For the first few years, they will shed their skin once every two weeks. As they approach puberty, this will slow down to only once a month.

At 8-12 years of age, azi lana will reach puberty. This will involve development of sex organs inside the back of their proboscis. Girls will undergo an extreme growth spurt, and boys will develop a pattern of large blue scales on their back.

Though they are now physically mature, they will not reach adulthood until they are 20 years old, when their brain finishes developing.

At this point, and for the rest of their life, they will only shed their skin once every six months. Though they will never again grow at the rate they did when they were children, they will in fact never stop growing.

This is slow, but it is enough that an elderly azi lana may be several feet longer than they were when they finished their teenage growth spurt.

In fact, the health decline associated with old age in azi lana does not come because of cellular damage like in humans, but because of their size. They never evolved to support the massive sizes that they reach at 80-100 years of age, because they never would have lived that long without modern medicine.

As they get larger and larger, a myriad of problems appear, including joint pain and weakness from supporting their own weight, trouble regulating temperature because of their large mass, and trouble getting healthy levels of oxygen throughout their whole body. An elderly azi lana may die of overheating, lack of oxygen in their brain, or in extreme cases, their organs being crushed by the weight of their bones and muscles. However, there are rare cases of azi lana who grow more slowly or even stop growing altogether, and these individuals live much, much longer than the average azi lana.

The longest lived azi lana known to science, Owi alba-paneth Larden, has lived some 679 years- old even for slow-growing azi lana. Recently, however, she has entered an old age not seen before in her species- one like the human old age, caused by cell and DNA degradation.