"Dinger" by Angela ´thedustyphoenix´ Apilado

Dingers are birds from Yakkirra.

It's said that after the 3rd moon crashed to Yakkirra to join the sea and her sisters came to visit and left, there was a race of humanoids from Xylon that where so desperate to stay with their cherished 2nd moon that they sprouted wings and tried to fly to her. But they were foolish and did not understand the sky. They flew so high that thier lungs where deprived of air and thier muscles grew taught with exauhstion. They all came crashing back to Yakkirra, scattered about by the wind, now stupid and unable to change thier forms back to what they once where. Forevermore they will be trapped between human and bird, keening when the moon glows brightly in the night.

Baby Dingers are hatched from large eggs and are about the size of human infants. They grow at about the same rate as humans with only a slightly longer lifespan (usually 100-120 years). And as they mature thier proportions continue to resemble humans of about the same age.

In some areas it's not uncommon for baby snatchers to sneak into homes and steal a child from it's cradle, temporarily fooling it's parents by replacing it with a dinger chick. It's also not unheard of for childless couples to go into the woods and return with a stolen baby dinger to raise as thier own. Wild Dingers are considered quite stupid and are not very protective of thier nests, so as long as one can climb high enough it's not hard to get ahold of Dinger chicks.

If captured young enough and properly raised a tamed Dinger can actually grow quite intellegent. Some have even been known to manage slight human speech. Others may inherit and run a family business, none have ever been known to start thier own business, or even on occaision marry into society.

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Dingers where another work doodle invention. These little guys where inspired by a little girl who came into the fitting room. She was probably about 3 or so. She had some sort of super long bright green straw hanging out of her mouth and she was bouncing around happily flapping her arms as she skipped. I remember thinking the straw or pixie stick or whatever kinda looked like a beak. Next thing I knew I was scribbling out a dinger.