Humans are Weird – Betwix
Doctor Draft bent over the primary fomentation vat and gave a satisfied prod at a patch of cloth that had billowed up above the clear water. The workroom was pleasantly humid from the steam and he felt a bubble of a thought suggest he might have invited his visiting Undulate colleague to observe this with good results. However he had not thought of that on the forepaw of this day and there was no point in interrupting the visitors day. Currently he would be out poking around the north blood-grain fields. Doctor Draft dropped the lid over the vat and leaned the stick in the sterile corner before turning back to sorting the mineral supplements for freshness. The magnesium had been looking a little oxidized, which should have been impossible –
The giant door to the too-tall room burst open and a giant flailing mass of limbs staggering into the room. Doctor Draft heaved a sigh and carefully pushed the mineral storage sets to the center of the table to minimize spill hazards.
“Yo Dogh,” the human slurred out, the sound mangled by the fact that the human had several of his wide, thin claws shoved into his mouth, something that was highly medically inadvisable to the pathogenically fragile mammals. “Gough som foss?”
Doctor Draft debated taking the time to figure that out a moment and then slammed his tail on the floor to get the human’s roving attention. One helpful thing about the species was that there was no doubt where they were addressing their brain power as long as you could see their bizarre, white ringed eyes. The sound worked and the human turned both his body and eyes on the doctor, one absurdly long finger still prodding at an upper tooth. Doctor Draft raised himself up on his hind legs and mimicked that gesture the human nurse had taught him, crossing the arms they called it, as best he could, while deliberately letting his tail tip lash against the ground. The humans squirmed under the attention and removed his finger from his mouth, though his lips continued to contort oddly.
“Do you have some floss,” the human articulated carefully before beginning to prod at his tooth with his short, stubby tongue.
“What is floss?” Doctor Draft demanded, running a mental tongue over the term.
The human hesitated and his forepaws raised, the long narrow digits working as if they were kneading dough as he presumably formatted a description.
“It’s long, narrow thread,” he said, pausing to tongue at his upper teeth again, and without the forepaws to hide it Doctor Draft noted the grimace of pain with concern. “It’s used for cleaning gunk and stuff out from between teeth.”
Clicking his jaws in understanding Doctor Draft turned and scrambled towards a shelf. “Yes I do keep some of that on hand,” he said. “It is hardly ever needed save for when the old tooth fails to dislodge when a new one grows in, but yes, I can see why humans would need it more frequently now that you describe it. I presume you have some, gunk, did you say? Stuck between your teeth?”
“Not gunk exactly,” the human said, relief in his voice. “I was trying some of that new bird-thing meat and it turns out to be pretty stringy.”
Doctor Draft lunged into the cupboard of minor surgical supplies and pulled out the ball of, floss, the human had called it and he made an effort to ingrain the name in his memory as he handed it over to the human.
“Is this condition causing you pain?” Doctor Draft asked as the human gratefully snatched at the ball that looked tiny in his long digits.
The human made short, frantic work of finding the free end of the string and biting off a length. Then he wound the ends around two of his digits and forced it between the tightly packed mammalian molars.
“Is the condition causing you pain?” Doctor Draft asked again.
One eye rolled towards him and the human made a positive sounding grunt and nodded while working the floss between his tooth and his gums. A thin thread of flesh popped out from between the molars and immediately relief showed on the human’s expressive face. Then suddenly with an audible snap the floss broke. Doctor Draft reared back in surprise. The surgical rated string wasn’t exactly designed to take much of a load but it shouldn’t have been so easily for a human to accidentally snap it. The human seemed hardly surprised and simply took another length before attacking the minuscule gap between to other teeth talking in the moments when his mouth was free of obstruction.
“That one hurt,” he said, “real bad in spurts where the teeth were pinching it.”
Another thread of flesh popped out.
“That one was only annoying,” he said. “My teeth are too big for my jaw you see…”
Doctor Draft blinked slowly as he processed that. The second string snapped and the human reached for another. Doctor Draft made a mental bubble to order more, and possibly sturdier, or thinner perhaps, dental string. Human’s could, as a common thing judging from the casual attitude this one was displaying, have teeth that were too large for their underlying bone structure. That, if it wasn’t the idle misinterpretation of a layman, might be something worth looking into. There was a gurgle and a clink from the fomentation vat as the pressure displaced the lid and Doctor Draft turned back to that cleaning task with a thoughtful hum.
The giant door to the too-tall room burst open and a giant flailing mass of limbs staggering into the room. Doctor Draft heaved a sigh and carefully pushed the mineral storage sets to the center of the table to minimize spill hazards.
“Yo Dogh,” the human slurred out, the sound mangled by the fact that the human had several of his wide, thin claws shoved into his mouth, something that was highly medically inadvisable to the pathogenically fragile mammals. “Gough som foss?”
Doctor Draft debated taking the time to figure that out a moment and then slammed his tail on the floor to get the human’s roving attention. One helpful thing about the species was that there was no doubt where they were addressing their brain power as long as you could see their bizarre, white ringed eyes. The sound worked and the human turned both his body and eyes on the doctor, one absurdly long finger still prodding at an upper tooth. Doctor Draft raised himself up on his hind legs and mimicked that gesture the human nurse had taught him, crossing the arms they called it, as best he could, while deliberately letting his tail tip lash against the ground. The humans squirmed under the attention and removed his finger from his mouth, though his lips continued to contort oddly.
“Do you have some floss,” the human articulated carefully before beginning to prod at his tooth with his short, stubby tongue.
“What is floss?” Doctor Draft demanded, running a mental tongue over the term.
The human hesitated and his forepaws raised, the long narrow digits working as if they were kneading dough as he presumably formatted a description.
“It’s long, narrow thread,” he said, pausing to tongue at his upper teeth again, and without the forepaws to hide it Doctor Draft noted the grimace of pain with concern. “It’s used for cleaning gunk and stuff out from between teeth.”
Clicking his jaws in understanding Doctor Draft turned and scrambled towards a shelf. “Yes I do keep some of that on hand,” he said. “It is hardly ever needed save for when the old tooth fails to dislodge when a new one grows in, but yes, I can see why humans would need it more frequently now that you describe it. I presume you have some, gunk, did you say? Stuck between your teeth?”
“Not gunk exactly,” the human said, relief in his voice. “I was trying some of that new bird-thing meat and it turns out to be pretty stringy.”
Doctor Draft lunged into the cupboard of minor surgical supplies and pulled out the ball of, floss, the human had called it and he made an effort to ingrain the name in his memory as he handed it over to the human.
“Is this condition causing you pain?” Doctor Draft asked as the human gratefully snatched at the ball that looked tiny in his long digits.
The human made short, frantic work of finding the free end of the string and biting off a length. Then he wound the ends around two of his digits and forced it between the tightly packed mammalian molars.
“Is the condition causing you pain?” Doctor Draft asked again.
One eye rolled towards him and the human made a positive sounding grunt and nodded while working the floss between his tooth and his gums. A thin thread of flesh popped out from between the molars and immediately relief showed on the human’s expressive face. Then suddenly with an audible snap the floss broke. Doctor Draft reared back in surprise. The surgical rated string wasn’t exactly designed to take much of a load but it shouldn’t have been so easily for a human to accidentally snap it. The human seemed hardly surprised and simply took another length before attacking the minuscule gap between to other teeth talking in the moments when his mouth was free of obstruction.
“That one hurt,” he said, “real bad in spurts where the teeth were pinching it.”
Another thread of flesh popped out.
“That one was only annoying,” he said. “My teeth are too big for my jaw you see…”
Doctor Draft blinked slowly as he processed that. The second string snapped and the human reached for another. Doctor Draft made a mental bubble to order more, and possibly sturdier, or thinner perhaps, dental string. Human’s could, as a common thing judging from the casual attitude this one was displaying, have teeth that were too large for their underlying bone structure. That, if it wasn’t the idle misinterpretation of a layman, might be something worth looking into. There was a gurgle and a clink from the fomentation vat as the pressure displaced the lid and Doctor Draft turned back to that cleaning task with a thoughtful hum.
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