In Elyen, or at least on Drendast (or rather in Drendast, given how most Drendains reckon their orientation to the planet that birthed them, even though, like us, they live on its surface), there are those of the synthetic variety who keep viruses as pets for themselves. You might think that that would be a bad idea.

Sometimes, you’d be right.

Mostly, however, the worst thing that ever happens is that the viruses, or viria as they are known as here, get misplaced. Sometimes, that can cause a great deal of harm, other times, a great deal of hilarity. In one case, there was one Synthetic Intelligent entity (SI for short) that had a pet virus called Mamissamus, and… well… It got lost somewhere in a physical domain populated with animal kind. If memory serves me correctly, I believe that even the ancestors of your human kind were among the affected. 

For what it’s worth, this is approximately what Mamissamus looks like when rendered into a physical manifestation:

A medley of images from:
–http://fc02.deviantart.net/fs70/f/2011/296/1/9/teefaw_the_bacteriophage_by_chillyblackdwagon-d4dovr8.jpg (by chillyblackdwagon at http://chillyblackdwagon.deviantart.com/),
— Monocle, Moustache and Top Hat from http://www.mysoti.com/designer/sachie63/product/554268/Sachie63–tshirt–Monocle-Mustache-Top-Hat,
— and a sweet rendition of a bacteriophage hosted at http://api.ning.com/files/8antoLsocpz74nKgzZ3LAyb7ahxwSOQ6YXnXVwywalbhhkVbMz4XJ–VwehVi42OA0WnVvj1s5X3YcEbopMhFfyEsXxvHIJS/171602_sAK1A2iQepuMbynz8RVhbQXuM.jpg

            Don’t let the classy act fool you, Ma’am is one cunning strain, and not
                                        to mention totally into cross-dressing.

For the life of me, I still don’t know what the big draw was, but apparently Mamissamus (or, as you may have gathered already, Ma’am for short) had a particular penchant for mammalia DNA specifically. Without getting into too much detail, it wound its way right up there into the ancestral roots of warm-blooded, sexual vertebrates and latched on. Though mostly harmless, Mamissamus’s occupation within the mammalian lineage triggered a biological response that ultimately resulted in what is known today as “menstruation” — a rather messy business, from what I understand.

I should be honest with you, when I say “was” and “had” and otherwise treat this little anecdote as though it all took place a long, long time ago in the distant passed, the fact is that Lynic, the SI alluded to in the above, has been in a real tiff for the passed few days, which is about how much time has passed since he realized Ma’am was missing. How did a virus that only went AWOL a few days ago come to be responsible for eons worth of bleeding and serious discomfort, you ask? Well, being of Drendain origin, it has the ability to time travel. Obviously.

So anyways, it’s fallen to me to try to locate and retrieve the poor, lost virus. With any luck, Lynic and Ma’am will be re-united before long (and you warm-blooded folk will hopefully go back to not bleeding in strange places periodically). But please, whatever you do, don’t get your hopes up. Honestly, I really do have better things to do, and if I can’t track it down within the next day or two, I’m writing it off as being gone for good. If it comes down to that, you’re just gonna have to keep putting up with the after effects of Ma’am’s tampering until you figure out a way to adapt all on your own, mkay?

Have you tried, I don’t know, not letting yourselves be on biological autopilot? Really, going through the reproductive motions only when you actually want to reproduce is the way of the future. Just saying. Anyways, good luck with that!