Skylar crammed themselves into a seat in biology, clicking quietly as they read the board. Reproduction Lessons- Day One.
There were many other clicks as the students came in, reading the board. The professor stood on four long tentacles, a pot belly having them lean forward as they paced in front of the board.
"Despite your first thoughts, and the upperclassmen’s rumors, these lessons will strictly focus on the cellular biology of reproduction. So snap out of those mopey beaks, you'll be plenty embarrassed when you get the lecture you are dreading in a couple months."
The professor gave the students a moment to process this, and then five of their tentacles jumped into action. One quickly erased the announcement, and the other four grabbed the light pens. A flurry of colors filled the board, points being drawn long before the professor addressed them.
Skylar copied furiously with their own light pen. They had yet to master the art of having one eye point at the front of the room and have the other trained on their tablet. So their gaze had to flick back and forth quickly, until things started getting blurred together. Then Skylar tried drawing without looking down, hoping they had enough muscle memory and familiarity with the tablet to draw the lesson in a comprehensible manner.
"We've covered DNA," the professor continued, "and chromosomes. We've covered DNA duplication, which ends with the doubled up chromosomes splitting to form two cells with even and identical DNA." The professor paused and pointed at their two cells.
"Cellular meiosis, does the same until this point. Now, instead of the cellular DNA compressing back down and continuing regular function, they stay lined up in the center, sometimes genes even cross over before they once again get yanked apart by the centromeres.
More arrows were drawn and with a flick those cells were pushed towards the ceiling so the Professor could draw more cells. "Now, the DNA is split into four groups, two that contain the DNA, mostly, from one parent, the other two containing most of the DNA from the other parent. These cells, containing half the DNA of a regular cell, are called gametes."
Skylar took advantage of the Professor's latest pause to look down at their own notes. The drawings on their tablet were crooked, overlapping, and the colors mixing together when they should not. Multiple steps were layered on top of each other making the whole process a garbled mess.
Skylar sighed, and cleared their tablet screen. Since they already knew the first part, they would just focus on this new cell division.
"Now, when two gametes fuse, they form the zygote. With a complete set of DNA, this cell starts growing and dividing within the eggshell until a young Qwortarian is fully developed."
Skylar drew some fresh diagrams, feeling much better about the state of their new gametes. Just in time, as with a wave of the light eraser, the professor's diagrams were wiped away.
Word count: 499
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