"Which are the Thamari again?"

"Due to complicated historical reasons, months tend to alternate between 30 and 31 days long except for one month that is 28 days long except every four years when it is 29. A year is 12 months and 365 days long."

"That sounds like a disgusting system, gotta say," says Itaruko. "Eight months of forty days, plus a new year's day, plus a leap day every five-ish years. Thamari are the– uh, more heavyweight ones with the shoulder stripes."

"The extra day every four years is a leap day and I can't say is properly designed, no."

"Okay, I will try remember the name Thamari while we talk, but I am going to pretty much label them tiger-people in my head."

"I don't even know what a tiger is so I don't know if that's an accurate comparison?"

They get Bar to produce a book with pictures of various megafauna from Earth.

Itaruko is invited to do the same.

Itaruko does so! There are definitely some similarities between species and they have a few that look practically identical but which are given different names, but most of the species are different while seeming like vaguely plausible Earth-like animals.

"I would probably not call them tiger-people, just because they're not– quite like that? But yes, they do have stripe things, look kind of like large, particularly-shaped birthmarks?"

Martin looks through the book.

"Heh, it is the most obvious thing to think when you described them. I supposed there are zebras too, but I don't really associate them with heavyweight."

The triplets looks over Martin's shoulder, what kind of interesting things they have in the land of Luna, tiger-people, and the-third-kind?

Well, the-third-kind are called Rhunes, and they're the ones with the colored sclera, are slightly taller than regular humans, and have slightly pointy ears as well as apparently better hearing.

Other animals (all non-sapient as far as they know) include: kutsiar, which are a sort of small fox-like creature, slightly smaller than foxes are and typically found in the regions that Luna historically come from; farsurils, which are small jungle cats! They're fast at running, can be dangerous if provoked, but will typically leave you alone if you're not actively trying to goad them into harming you, have quite long and sharp claws so beware; namanth, which seem to be… basically like manta rays; keiros, which is a herd animal that has been historically farmed by the Thamari for food. Looks larger than a cow, doesn't seem to produce edible dairy products like a cow does, and is apparently no longer found in the wild.

There are lots more along similar veins, and while most of them bear resemblance to regular Earth animals, only a few seem to be identical, though they seem to fit in similar evolutionary niches.

Felix will shamelessly point out which animals he finds cute.

While Trevor is quite vocal about what animals he thinks are awesome.

And Fenris is curious about the evolution of sapient life in this world.

There isn't much in that book about it! Itaruko can get another one, though, which explains that the three sapient species had a common ancestor not too far back and then took different evolutionary histories after they split up in location. The terrain between the different areas was apparently quite difficult to traverse, and might have got that way quite quickly, resulting in the different routes.

The ancestor species probably also had lumen – there are some copies of various archeological findings that would suggest they had knowledge of it, at least – but this knowledge doesn't seem to stretch back much before them.

"Having fun there?"

"It is very interesting! Most other patrons are from worlds without knowledge about evolution or they're from worlds with humans, so the evolution is likely the same."

Nod. "We probably had similar evolution at least to a point – seems quite coincidental that we'd have such similar-looking species – but I'm not sure what would cause us to diverge?"

"It is more likely that Milliways has a bias for humanoids, it also has a bias towards worlds with Earth. You could pass for a human with unique aesthetic choices."

"So, Martin, how are you handling all these impossible things?"

"I am… kind of continuing to be surprised, but it doesn't really matter if I'm hallucinating or dreaming or it's real since I plan to act the same way, for now, anyway?"

"That sounds like a very stressful mindset."

He shrugs. "I'm just basically acting as if it's real but being prepared to wake up and find it's imaginary, so, sort of stressful I guess? But not too bad."

"Do people usually have dreams this vivid?"

"Nope, but usually while I'm dreaming at least things seem vivid even if they're not, until I wake up. And I can seem totally lucid, act like I think I'm lucid, except when I wake up I go 'wait, no, I wouldn't have done that if I were awake, how weird', so, yeah. Provisionally accepting this is real, background awareness that it might not be."

"Still you haven't woken up yet, despite questioning the dream and doing things like reading, which is supposedly impossible in a dream."