Tewaðup

The Tewaðup are the series of teeth that line the Vanýst of an Ibrófeneð, and are so built for the simultaneous collection of nutrients and energy. They consist of ten individual teeth, arranged in five pairs, which each possess a cylindrical hole through the middle that funnels nutrients into a comprehensive vasular system. In their biting motion, they are the main actors in the entire digestive system, and the only way for essential nutrients and energy to permeate the body. However, they also serve essential roles in communication, namely the Ïfon-Wë and Ïfon-Kaðút, owing to the tremendous vibrations (both audible and non-audible) that can occur when two teeth are smacked together.

Anatomy and Physiology

The Tewaðup consist of 5 sets of teeth, with each set consisting of two teeth that face towards each other. These teeth are positioned such that the motion of bringing them together creates an airtight seal in the Vanýst at that point.

Tooth Anatomy

The individual tooth is made of a dense matrix of silicon, making itself one of the densest and, combined with its extensive use, the most frequently repaired body part in the entire Ibrófeneð. It is around 3-5 cm wide and 7-9 cm long, and is in the shape of a rectangular prism, although the corners and edges are very rarely a perfect 90 degrees due to wear, slight dissolution, the regenerative process, and conditions during adolescence. In the confines of the Vanýst, only about 1/2 of this length is visible, the other half containing the various implements used to connect with muscles and filaments of various kinds.

The tooth itself is not entirely solid, but has a circular hole running through the length of the tooth that connects to the body's vascular system at the very back. When the teeth bite, these holes core out a cylindrical slice of the food and hold it there; successive bites can cause the food to break down and thus flow through the tube, but external tools are usually used that help to push the food through.

Muscles and Filaments

The biting motion of the tooth is controlled by a set of two muscles that run parallel to the tooth and connect it with the surrounding walls of the Vanýst. Upon activation, a surge of energy coarses through the muscle, causing it to sharply contract, pulling the tooth forward until it crashes into the other tooth. There is no muscle that restrains the tooth, but rather another set of muscles that connect the back of the tooth with the wall of the Vanýst immediately behind it, such that, upon contraction, the tooth is pulled back out of the Vanýst. Both of these movements involve powerful impacts between the two surfaces, and thus generate powerful vibrations. Given the Tewaðup's proximity to the Súro, or the brain, of the Ibrofeneð, these vibrations have the potential to cause serious damage to mental faculties.

With these muscles are also 5-8 extra filaments that also take position between the tooth and the Vanýst, and these mainly assist in dampening the massive vibrations that occur when the bite happens by spreading them out across a larger area (the entirety of the Vanýst) or store them through designated chambers in the Vanýst. If the vibrations grow strong enough, they have the potential to cause the Vanýst's innermost layer, the Оö-Vanýst, to shatter as part of an additional safety measure. Although the individual has no real control over these filaments, they act as the main safety feature against brain damage.

In a typical digestion process, tiny hairs at the top edge of the Vanýst detect when food has left the Matošu and is entering the Vanýst, and electrical signals running down the length of the Vanýst time the bite such that, given gravitational acceleration and other factors, the food is caught perfectly by the teeth. This impulsive motion can be overridden by signals from the brain itself, such as during the cleaning process, when one desires to close the teeth prematurely as a way to steady the Žömgüp before actualy biting.

Regeneration and Maintenance

The Repair Process

The Tewaðup incur wear simply through the collisions that they participate in with other teeth. This wear is most often in the form of chippings and dents on the face that is most directly involved in collisions, and this type of damage is usually repaired as a natural byproduct of the digestive process. As the teeth collide with and pulverize the food, the powdered chunks thereof are squeezed between these faces of the teeth and often pressed into these dents.

Being a homogenous matrix of silicon, the teeth also go through rearrangement, which is a gradual process in which the atoms of the matrix move around in ways that best stabilize it. This process starts at the outside, in which the atoms' rearrangements fill in any dents and cracks that occur on the sides, before the chain reaction of rearrangements travels further and further inside the tooth. As it reaches the inner cylindrical hole through the tooth, there are no more silicon atoms that can replace these dents. Instead, upon the next time the individual ingests food, the nutrients that are brought in through the cylindrical hole naturally fill in the holes of the matrix and 'repair' the tooth, with the rest of the nutrients being funnelled away to other parts of the body.

Unclogging: The Žömgüp

One of the major problems encountered by the teeth is that, once the tooth bites down and the cylindrical hole cores out a slice of the meal, this slice may be too dense to be moved easily, and without immediate action, the matrix of silicon within the tooth itself will start spreading into that slice itself and eventually block off the hole entirely. Of course, successive bites of food will routinely replace that slice with a new one, but when a meal is entirely finished, and the individual has finished eating, a slice may still be inside the tooth and thus pose a major risk to overall health. This is solved through a device called a Žömgüp, a cylindrical object with small tabs sticking out at the middle, that is sent through the Vanýst. For each set of teeth, biting down on it at just the right time will push this cylindrical object through the hole in the teeth and thus empty that hole of any residual food. The tabs at the middle are positioned such that, if the Žömgüp is rendered stuck in a tooth, the bringing back of the tooth will make a tab contact the Оö-Vanýst, thus allowing the Žömgüp to be pushed back out.

The tab also works to reposition the Žömgüp in order for its two ends to exactly face the holes in the teeth. Once the Žömgüp's initial adventure in the Matošu ends, it is almost certainly going to come into the Vanýst vertically; To fix this, the teeth are closed prematurely, and the Žömgüp left to fall and rest upon that platform, with a small gap in the middle for the tabs to sink into. Successive adjustments, like the tilting of the body, should be able to place the Žömgüp in the optimal place, before the teeth are opened and closed in quick motion to get the Žömgüp into the holes for cleaning.

Generally, it takes 3-6 passes through the Vanýst for the Žömgüp to achieve a full cleaning of all teeth. The diameter of the cylinder is almost always adjusted to be several centimeters thinner than the hole of the teeth in order to avoid getting stuck.

Development

Ýyorhïsïb

The Tewaðup are formed during the Ýyorhïsïb process after the creation of the Vanýst, Súro, and Оö. At this point, the Vanýst is not the fully-fledged self, but a thin shell only a few centimeters thick that is to be the outer layer. Thus, the Vanýst as it is at this point is actually a couple centimeters wider than it will end up being.

The holes in the Vanýst in which the Tewaðup reside are formed first, being bored through by the acidic products of the residual materials left in the making of the Vanýst. There are six main acids produced in this residual mixture, and due to differences between each one (mainly polarity), they travel to different points in the Vanýst. There, they begin reacting with the edge of the Vanýst, and the quantities of these acids are such that when all are spent, the holes are of a size just about equal to that of the tooth. This process of boring brings forth a large quantity of silicon, which are free-floating in the liquid during the boring process.

Upon the boring of these holes, the liquid on the outside of the Vanýst comes flooding in, and this liquid swoops in and dilutes the residual silicon within itself. Just on the outside of the Vanýst are the various body parts that were formed previously, namely the Оö-Ëtavú, Súro, and Оö-Ŋüžtú organs, which are respectively adjacent to the first/second, third/fourth, and fifth/sixth sets of holes. Upon coming in contact with these residual silicon molecules, the still-newly-formed organs thus start to incorporate them in further development. Because the holes bored into the Vanýst were adjacent to these organs, the surfaces thereof that are now exposed thus serve the optimal place to attach these residual silicon molecules. The first molecules to contact it are chemically modified on impact, and thus become part of the organ in itself and protrude outwards in the shape of a circular tube. However, subsequent silicon molecules merely adhere to the outside, and form the tooth body itself. There are slight differences between these teeth; namely, those formed from the Súro incorporate trace amounts of brain material (due to the more volatile nature of these compounds), thus giving the I and O teeth a slight greyish hue.

Due to the chemical structure of silicon, these new additions, the teeth themselves, are formed as roughly-cuboid in shape. Growth occurs through the adhesion of silicon molecules to the outside of the tooth body. Thus, while the vast majority of growth occurs in the direction that points inside the Vanýst, a slight widening of the tooth causes it to eventually contact the un-bored tube sections, cutting off the Vanýst from the outside. Concurrent to all this is the formation of the Vanýst's inner layers, which form around the base of the teeth and finally stop growing when they have totally submerged them. This submerging cuts the remaining silicon off, halting the growth of the teeth. The inner layers actually bind to the sides of the tooth, which will form the muscles and filaments that control tooth movement.

Ïšlhóšïb

The Ïšlhóšïb is where full motor control is developed in the teeth. Slight molecular differences between the parent organ and the tooth outgrowth mean that, with enough jostling, the tooth does detach from it by sliding off of the cylindrical stem (thus giving it its characteristic 'hole' through which food enters). This is the 'activation' moment of the digestive system as a whole, since the tooth in question does begin to exhibit much more motion simply from being free. In addition, the Оö-Vanýst is formed for the first time, and this first formation (an extension from the Оö-Ëtavú) is made of a mixture of silicon, boron, nitrogen, and phosphorus (trace materials from the formation process in general). This mixture is very reactive, and these extra molecules seep into the layers of the Vanýst and eventually reach brain matter; the exposed paths left by these molecules is encroached upon by the still-growing brain, forming tendril-like connections to each tooth. These connections later evolve secondary paths that connect each tooth with the others. While the primary deal with manual control towards and sensory input from the teeth, the secondary paths concern involuntary biting that is activated by the hairs at the top of the Vanýst. Further dissolution of these volatile molecules that originated from the Оö-Vanýst results in the attacking of nearly all parts of the Vanýst's layers, including the protruding cylindrical stems of the organs. This results in an inundation of nutrients in the liquid.

Next to form are the muscles. These, like the connections, are formed as outgrowths of brain matter, but what makes them unique and capable of movement is the incorporation of stray minerals in the liquid that distort the individual brain cells and render them all interconnected. Of note is the first muscle that connects the Vanýst's outer layer and the tooth's back end; this latches onto and rips open the former, providing the outside vascular systems, which had been growing in numerous other parts of the body, to enter and latch onto the hole of the tooth. This also voids the liquid that had been in the Vanýst, spreading the various nutrients that were there throughout the entirety of the creature, with most simply being discarded at the Üpal, or scales, where they are displayed as colorful discolorations and a sign that this individual has passed the Ïšlhóšïb stage.

Role in Communication

The Tewaðup is known for its role in the Ïfon-Wë and Ïfon-Kaðút modes of communication. In the Ïšrhot-Mëtaŋ, the phonetic alphabet that uses Latin characters to each represent a particular action, the actions of the teeth constitute the vowels (a, e, ë, i, ï, o, ó, ö, u, ú, ü, y, ý), with each vowel letter denoting the exact set of teeth (out of the five) that is in collision. The diacritics denote the use of other teeth to modify the sounds or vibrations created from the collision of this set of teeth. Other consonants that use the teeth include the T and V consonants, which denote the simultaneous collision of multiple teeth, and R, which constitutes the silent clenching of teeth that dampens the sound and vibration across the entire body. Although this paragraph chiefly discusses both sound and vibration, the two modes are not interchangeable, and each hold the main focus depending on the mode of communication. However, the actions denoted by the phonetic alphabet do not change dramatically from Ïfon-Wë to Ïfon-Kaðút.

Ïfon-Wë

The Ïfon-Wë is the most frequently-used form of communication, consisting of using the actions as denoted by the phonetic alphabet to create audible sounds. That is, almost all of the energy spent on these various movements is devoted to making sound, and this is done through large movements that have a greater effect on the surrounding air molecules and thus the sound created. For the teeth, this consists of using large amounts of force to ram the selected set of teeth together, but most individuals limit the force they apply to minimize the risk of brain damage and/or the breaking of the Оö-Vanýst.

The Vanýst as a sound chamber has two distinct openings, the Matošu and Matrüka, which are respectively located at the top and the bottom of the Vanýst. The nearest a set of teeth are to one of these two openings, the less force needed to make an audible sound.

The Matošu itself is not a singular hole but a long tube that makes up the esophagus of the Ibrófeneð. Any and all sound waves traveling through this tube must go the entire length, thus meaning that the top sets of teeth (A, E, I) must exert much more force to get the same amount of volume. However, its flexibility allows these sound waves to be pointed in a specific direction, from which spot the resultant sound is perceived as clearer and more distinguished.

The Matrüka is the anus of the Ibrófeneð, and consists of a singular gaping hole that simply marks the bounds between the Vanýst and the outside world. It is nearly adjacent to the bottom teeth (O, U, Y), but their sound, lacking not only the tubular clarity of the Matošu but also sufficient room beneath the Matrüka (the Matrüka is only ever around 0.3-0.5 meters above the ground), is significantly more diffuse and unclear. Generally, this diffuseness is one of the factors that aid in the receiver's comprehension of the message, especially in telling the top set of teeth from the bottom, but specficially which sets of teeth in either of these two sections is frequently unclear. However, in the practical world, this is not a major problem as most words do not differ from one another by one vowel.

Ïfon-Kaðút

The Ïfon-Kaðút uses the same motions as the Ïfon-Wë, but does so in a manner that converts nearly all spent energy to vibrations instead of audible sound. This takes advantage of the relatively loose skeletal system of the Ibrófeneð, which is only connected to the flesh through a very flexible gelatin layer. Different parts of the body are able to store vibrations for different amounts of time, depending on how insulated they are by the gelatin.

To produce vibrations, one prioritizes an efficient jostling of the material within the teeth instead of the air around it. Thus, one only needs to bring the indicated set of teeth close to each other and apply a very sharp and brief force that, due to momentum, allows for some rebound and inundates the teeth with vibrational energy. The simplicity of the motion means that the resultant wave produced by these teeth is surprisingly regular, leading them to be dubbed as 'Tonal' Motions.

Once a tooth has a vibration, the filaments transport it away from the tooth itself and into the Оö-Vanýst and the Оö-Ëtavú. This umbrella-like bone is the repository for all vibrations produced by all teeth; those farther away have a greater distance to cover and thus result in a smaller vibration. Because only the Ýyr-Üpal, an extremely thin layer, separates the Оö-Ëtavú and the outside world, the vibrations here only last 2-2.5 minutes. To preserve a cluster of vibrations beyond the Оö-Ëtavú, a leg is brought up and contacted with the Matošu, which is itself connected to the Оö-Ëtavú and thus shares in its vibrations. This motion empties the Оö-Ëtavú and Matošu of vibrations, leaving them clear to receive the next batch thereof. Within the leg, the vibrations are kept within the innermost layer, the Vëtiš-Húrobü, whose flexible silicon-carbon material is able to store vibrations for 10 minutes. However, the vibrations are not exactly impervious; both forms of the foot, the claw and suction cup, are directly attached to the Vëtiš-Húrobü, and contact with any surface results in impurities being introduced into the vibration. This is exactly what occurs in some motions, called Filter Motions, that modify the 'pure' vibrations of the teeth in ways that are understood by others through the resultant impure wave.

Note that Ïfon-Kaðút does not work if the Оö-Vanýst is broken.