[Lo-W4] Light Bean Eel I

"I still think we should've named the Light Bean Eel to Crazy Fish instead!"

Appearance:

Light Bean Eels are actually not full eels, they are more like a mixture of eel, normal fish, and axolotl. They mostly have the shape of an eel and also this very long back fin which starts at right where the head stops and goes down almost all the way to the tail fin.
But unlike eels, they have their side fins not directly at their heads, but much, much later. Light Bean Eels (which will be shortened to   LBE    from here on out) also seem to be able to use them in a similar way to paws, aka they can grab things with them. They only have gross motor skills though, meaning they can only grab bigger things and have difficulty grabbing smaller things. For example, they would struggle with picking up pebbles, but could easily grab another fish. Their fins - that the Grifix have dubbed "paw fins" - are not that strong though, so that fish could easily get away.
Their most interesting feature, however, has to be their "whiskers" that end in a glowing light that is strikingly similar to a Grifix's light bean. There are three longer and two shorter "whiskers" to each side of their heads. In actuality, these "whiskers" are actually their gills and they do breathe over those things. They function exactly like gills, even though they look the part even less like an axolotl's gills. The light beans can come in any shape possible.
Their size depends on the body of water they live in and could probably reach the length of Enchanted's hair if they lived in an ocean or something, but usually, they're much, much smaller (about 1/8?).

Colors:

LBEs are generally pretty brightly colored and often feature reds and oranges to tell their predators that they are poisonous (which they aren't, but camouflage is what counts here). The fins are usually in the same or a slightly darker color than the body. Sometimes, the body also features markings that look like the funky spots that sunlight draws on the ground of a river (or think it simimarly to sunlight falling through the trees and the art that it creates on the ground).
Their light beans come in any color imaginable, but will usually take on the color of the Grifix's magic that they came in touch with.

Habitat:

You can find LBEs around pretty much everywhere around any Grifix settlement, except for the Empire. They can adapt to any body of water easily and could even survive in a puddle if they wanted to. The only problem is that puddles disappear so fast...
They do not care how shallow or deep the water is, they care about how close the water is to a Grifix settlement.

Diet:

These lil creatures are crazy. They do not eat anything. They just need one thing to survive - magic. They usually stay alive with the Everfree's magic alone, but Grifix magic as well as Timberwolf magic and whatever else is out there with magic (they even tried to get Zecora's magic). Next to Everfree magic, Grifixes are by far the easiest source of magic.
But! Again! Do note that these axo-fish-eel combinations (/aff) do not EAT the magic. They do not eat anything. They don't even have a mouth.

Hunting:

Then how else do they get the magic? Simple!
They breathe in the magic. Technically, they wouldn't even need to live in water to survive, but water is the most convenient for them since the Everfree magic is ligated differently in water and it's the most convenient way to breathe that magic.
Just like axolotls, they have two ways to breathe in magic: they can breathe over their skin, and they can breathe with their gills. Their entire skin is able to bind the magic in the water and convert it to all the nutrients the LBE needs. They even have actual, albeit very simple, lungs, although Grifix are not sure how exactly they use them.
But if the Everfree magic is not enough for them, these creatures can actually fucking go on land. They move in a mixture of jumping and how caterpillars move. If they spot a creature with magic, they jump to them and cuddle up to them, sucking out their magic that way. If they had a mouth, they would literally suck the magic outta you, but luckily they don't.
They honestly love Grifix the most because of their magic flowing out freely and it's much easier to breathe that. Almost as easy as sucking the Everfree magic out of the water.
They only go for Timberwolves if they are absolutely starving because Timberwolves tend to attack and eat them.

Miscellanea:

Somebody explain why they are so op? XD
Some of these notes only fully make sense after you read the whole thing, so read that first before you come here lol
I added my thoughts here as I was filling out the other sections xD

• They can store magic in the light beans at the tip of their gills and release that in times of scarce magic. (Usually in winter)
• They release the magic in the water because it can't disappear as easily there. The released magic is not visible, but the LBE is instantly more relaxed.
• The chance of an LBE hatching from a light bean used to be 20%. Nowadays, it's 40%.
• If you pluck a light bean from an LBE, it doesn't hurt them and they have a new one within ten days
• their population EXPLODED when the Grifix came into the Everfree Forest
• do they even have a childhood?
• have the Grifix ever witnessed a natural death?
• Timberwolves, Manticores, Hydras, and Grifix are their main predators
• the color of the light beans is dependent on the percentages of Grifix magic. Essentially, they work the same way as mixing colors. If they breathe in purple Grifix magic the whole time, their light beans become purple. And if they start to breathe in yellow Grifix magic, then the light beans would start to become yellow. But they are not picky, so their light beans always have funky colors. The mixing works like analogically mixing colors.
• sometimes, their light beans are shaped, which is caused by a mutation. Their beans can also be shaped in any way possible and is not restricted to the Grifix's light beans. However, if a parent uses Grifix magic to fill the egg; if that Grifix had shaped light beans, then there's a very high possibility of the LBE also having such shaped light beans.
• fun fact: the magic boost is the greatest if you eat an egg where the LBE is almost fully completely formed
• I swear, for originally having no idea what to do with them, this feels like it's competing with the Batterfly info
• though my brain only started spinning after I looked up what those things on the axolotl's head are (yep, they are the gills) and then looked up how fish breathe and then looked up how axolotls breathe and after that, my brain overflowed with ideas XD
• I usually keep the info of each section in accordance to what Grifix know, but it was super hard to do here because of all those ideas lmao

reproduction and aging:

LBEs reproduce asexually and they technically don't even need a second EBL to reproduce. All they need is two kinds of magic that they store in their light beans. They need a specific amount, enough that the light bean almost bursts, and then, they plug that light bean off and lay it somewhere safe in a magic-rich area in the water. The light bean is able to suck in some magic for a short amount of time and once that's not possible anymore, it was hopefully enough for the magic to form a new baby EBL. Sometimes, it goes well, sometimes it doesn't. If it doesn't, then the parent either didn't fill it with enough magic or filled it with too much magic which caused the light bean to burst and release all the stored magic into the water.

LBEs have the shortest childhood in probably the entirety of the world.
It takes about a month until a teeny tiny baby LBE hatches. The parent usually looks after their egg then and again, and when the new LBE hatches, the parent takes them to learn how to move on land. After that, the parent leaves them and the new LBE is considered an adult :D
Breathing comes naturally with them and even that cuddling comes instinctively with them, so they don't need someone to show them that.

These creatures are solitary creatures. They do not live in groups, they live on their own. They tend to ignore other LBEs they come across within the water, but they can become aggressive and start to fight others if they happen to try and breathe from the same source. They fight each other with their paw fins and from an outsider's perspective, it looks kinda adorable. They don't really hurt each other, this is purely a fight about who has more determination. The one who loses determination first, leaves.

Their light bulbs, in which they store their magic, seem to lose that ability over time which means that new LBEs have a lesser chance of actually hatching from those. Their ability to adapt their size to the body of water seems to be a skill they naturally develop after they switched to a different body of water, but they also seem to lose that ability with age.

Since they have this rather unusual way of "hunting", they often die young.

History:

If Grifix had observed them from the moment they settled in the Everfree Forest, they would've noticed that with their arrival, the LBE population exploded.
There are always a ton of LBEs around.
They even followed the Grifix to the Frozen North, but they couldn't cope with the much colder environment that well, so they started to become extinct. Ironically, very shortly before they became fully extinct, the Grifix learned that while an LBE does not have a mouth, they have a nose, exactly one like a Grifix had. That also explained the lungs they have. But they noticed that on like the last ten LBEs, so that information didn't help at all.
They became extinct right about the current era of the Empire. The grandparents still remember them, and maybe some of the parents, but the children have definitely never seen an LBE and will also never see one.

What Grifix Use Them For:

Quite simple - they eat them.
Generally, Grifix find LBEs rather adorable with their bitch fights and how they're just laying around close to them, trying their best to look cute. They would probably think differently if LBEs would cuddle up to them as well. It even goes as far as when a Grifix sees an LBE cuddle up to a deer that they first think that the deer has a special bond to the LBE and are confused when the deer tries to shake them off. Most come to understand when the deer explains the situation.
But with them randomly laying around like that, they are often also easy prey. They are not as easily catchable in water, but as soon as they are a good chunk away and cannot flee into water that quickly, Grifix can catch them fairly easy. They have a rather fishy taste, more a mixture of eel and salmon.
Since the light beans grow back (and losing them doesn't hurt the LBE), when young Grifix venture out into the Everfree and get hungry, they love to snack on the LBE's light beans.

The light bean eggs that didn't have enough magic to form a baby LBE harden over time and become pearl-like. Grifix love to use them for decoration and finding light bean pearls in rarer or even completely impossible colors (for a Grifix's light bean) are said to bring some luck. Interestingly enough, you could eat them if you wanted. They'd be similar to rock candy.

The Cycle of Life:

These things create a whole eco system.
Eating the light beans of an LBE (idk, would Grifix actually eat them?) gives the Grifix a temporary boost in magic, and the pearled eggs even more so due to all the condensed magic inside. This in turn attracts more LBEs which gives them more magic to breathe in and fill their light beans with. That makes it easier for an LBE to lay an egg and more eggs are laid. The possibility of an LBE hatching is 40%, but if in the time before the Grifix arrived 555 eggs were laid by all LBEs in an entire year, then it is 29,415 eggs by all LBEs in an entire year nowadays (nowdays = Queen Selenara's time/current point in the Everfree Village). In other words, in ancient times, about 222 new LBEs would hatch every year, whereas it's 11,766 new LBEs each year. And the number is still growing. Putting that differently, this also means that there are more dead light bean eggs that further add to this cycle.
There's a reason why LBEs followed Grifix to the Frozen North and actually evolved instead of becoming extinct.

Legends and Rumors:

There's a legend about an uber powerful Grifix somewhere, but it's not actually referred to as a legend, but as a fairy tale instead.