Humans are Weird - Gourd Day
Liftssignificantly leisurely stretched out her appendages as the temperature in her sleeping cove rose rapidly, lowered suddenly, and then evened out at a comfortable swimming temperature.
“Why did you set the alarm for so early in the sleep schedule?” grumbled Plopsin rolling away from her and tucking his appendages tightly in.
“Today is an important human festival,” Liftssignificantly said as she selected a moisturizing package from the wall of the sleeping cove. “I am attending it with Human Friend Freddy.”
“Oh yes,” Plopsin murmured as he extended a single gripping appendage to adjust the temperature to a more comfortable resting environment. “The celebration of the gourd species being ripe. Bring me a taste please.”
“For scientific study or to eat?” Liftssignificantly asked.
“To eat,” Plopsin said. “Gourd flesh is delicious and almost the perfect texture if you soak it in the water the right length of time.”
“I will try,” Liftssignificantly assured him, “buy you know how many abrasive points humans have about sharing food with sapients after it has been once gifted to non-sapient species.”
“That a matter of justice to them?” Plopsin asked, actually stirring with curiosity.
“No,” Liftsignificantly said as she pushed towards the surface. “It’s a matter of pathogen paranoia.”
“Just tell them that the scary germs won’t hurt me,” Plopsin said with an amused hum.
“I will do that,” Liftssignificantly assured him as she swam away.
Liftssignificantly reached the portal to the main corridor of the habitat and shuffled out into the dry, unnatural space, all ninety-degree angles and distant echos of sound, save for the soothingly organic but very alien swirl of sound and motion several unds away.
“Underneath the harvest moon! We, I mean the harvest moons! We spin and laugh and dance and croon-” Human Friend Freddy was singing as she tumbled around some invisible vertical axis.
Human posture language was very expressive when they danced, but the utter lack of conversational training in most of the population meant that all it actually communicated was a general emotional tone and energy level. Human Friend Freddy apparently felt full of delight to bursting, and full of energy. Liftsignificantly idly wondered how many injuries there would be today.
“Underneath the harvest – Ooop!” Human Friend Freddy caught sight of Liftssignificantly and ended her song and dance with a cry and a gesture that declared she had lost her balance with her concentration. “Lift! Baby! Sweety! Are you ready for a show?”
“Reaching the Lumberback enclosure in time for the ceremony is the reason I agreed to meet you here at this time,” Liftssignificantly assented, lifting her gripping appendages in the standard request for ‘uppies’.
Human Friend Freddy swooped down and snatched her up, staggering and grunting a bit under her weight, but her face, what little of it was visible around the ‘beanie’ and ‘scarf’ was flushed with the colors of delight still, and her stripes pulsed with health and well-being.
“You are feeling well,” Liftssignificantly observed as they mutually shuffled around so that Liftssignificantly could wriggle down into the space between Human Friend Freddy’s coat and her inner insulation layers.
“I am!” Human Friend Freddy agreed, her mass swaying as her feet, appendages so far from her body that the local cultural mythos claimed that they were controlled by a separate awareness concentration somewhere in the human spine. “The sky is clear, the weather report is good, and the lumberbacks are fully healthy and acting eager for the gourds today!”
“All prosperous signs,” Liftssignificantly agreed as they left the protection of the building and stepped out into the pre-dawn starlight.
The third moon was just abandoning the sky, and was a dim blur of light. The chaotic star-song filled most of the sky still but the sun-song was just beginning to compete. The night air was dry as bleached coral and cold enough that Liftssignficiantly only left her two gripping appendages out to observe, and laid them tightly against the warmth of Human Friend Freddy’s neck as the human shuffled about, pulling on gloves, adjusting her scarf, and generally managing her thermal gradient. That done the human puffed out a few clouds of warm air, deliberately forming them into rings and orbs before laughing softly and setting out on foot for the lumberback enclosures.
They reached the open ‘paddock’, a flat area enclosed by poles, easy enough for an Undulate, or a human to get through but impenetrable to the lumberback’s it restrained, just as the sun-song began to overwhelm the star-song.
“We’re in time to see them bring Big Bertha in!” Human Friend Freddy called out in delight, jostling her way to the front of the small crowd of humans who had also gathered to watch the show.
Liftssignificantly eased more appendages out to get a clearer view of the scene. Two humans were guiding an anti-grav transport into the enclosure from a gate in the far side. Already several massive fruiting bodies were placed around the central area of the space, brightly colored and reflecting in a way that suggested they were hard as old coral. However the one that the humans were bringing in now was easily more massive than a human and lumpy in that way that terrestrial plants did get from fighting gravity their entire existences.
“Those would probably be a more pleasing shape if you grew them under sufficient water to support them properly,” suggested Liftssignificantly.
Human Friend Freddy laughed at that and climbed up the fence to elevate them for no reason that Liftssignificantly could discern.
“What would be a more pleasing shape?” the human asked as the giant fruiting body was rolled onto the ground and its attendants left the space.
“Closer to a natural sphere,” Liftssignificantly said.
Before Human Friend Freddy could respond however the doors to the structure that made up one wall of the enclosure opened with a rush of warm, animal smelling air and four giant forms lumbered out. The human fell silent as the quadrupeds with their long-thin appendages, joints bent high above their thick backs, slowly swung their heads from side to side. Four eyes, spaced evenly around their boulder like heads blinked in the slowly growing light. Long slits of nostrils, running from their wide moths to the backs of their skulls flared and sealed as they scented the cold air, sending out little puffs of moist vapor. The calm moment was finally broken as the largest lumberback suddenly swung its body towards Big Bertha and gave a bellow of excitement. There was a matching murmur from the humans, as it charged towards the fruiting body, paused over it a moment, and then raised one long appendage high above its head before bringing it down on the fruiting body with a loud crack. There was a wild cheer of delight from the humans, that only grew louder when the lumberback shoved its entire head into the mass of pulp and began to loudly grind the material between its wide teeth.
The rest of the herd of animals attacked the remaining gourds to the cheers of the human crowd and Liftssignificantly shifted to get a better look at the crowd of humans.
“These animals are well fed in general,” she observed. “There is nothing unusual in them eating publicly.”
“True that,” Human Friend Freddy agreed.
“Humans have no animosity towards these fruiting bodies.”
“Nope.”
“So why,” Liftssignificantly asked, “do you take such joy in their destruction?”
Human Friend Freddy only laughed and waved at the spectacle that was still engrossing the humans.
“Look at them go at it!” she declared. “Who wouldn’t cheer that on!”
Liftssignificantly quietly divided her attention between the crowd of humans and the feeding lumberbacks as she tried to form a question that would get Human Friend Freddy to explain whether it was the destruction of the giant, misshapen ‘gourds’ as she called them, or the feeding of the lumberbacks that was the attraction of the scene.
“Why did you set the alarm for so early in the sleep schedule?” grumbled Plopsin rolling away from her and tucking his appendages tightly in.
“Today is an important human festival,” Liftssignificantly said as she selected a moisturizing package from the wall of the sleeping cove. “I am attending it with Human Friend Freddy.”
“Oh yes,” Plopsin murmured as he extended a single gripping appendage to adjust the temperature to a more comfortable resting environment. “The celebration of the gourd species being ripe. Bring me a taste please.”
“For scientific study or to eat?” Liftssignificantly asked.
“To eat,” Plopsin said. “Gourd flesh is delicious and almost the perfect texture if you soak it in the water the right length of time.”
“I will try,” Liftssignificantly assured him, “buy you know how many abrasive points humans have about sharing food with sapients after it has been once gifted to non-sapient species.”
“That a matter of justice to them?” Plopsin asked, actually stirring with curiosity.
“No,” Liftsignificantly said as she pushed towards the surface. “It’s a matter of pathogen paranoia.”
“Just tell them that the scary germs won’t hurt me,” Plopsin said with an amused hum.
“I will do that,” Liftssignificantly assured him as she swam away.
Liftssignificantly reached the portal to the main corridor of the habitat and shuffled out into the dry, unnatural space, all ninety-degree angles and distant echos of sound, save for the soothingly organic but very alien swirl of sound and motion several unds away.
“Underneath the harvest moon! We, I mean the harvest moons! We spin and laugh and dance and croon-” Human Friend Freddy was singing as she tumbled around some invisible vertical axis.
Human posture language was very expressive when they danced, but the utter lack of conversational training in most of the population meant that all it actually communicated was a general emotional tone and energy level. Human Friend Freddy apparently felt full of delight to bursting, and full of energy. Liftsignificantly idly wondered how many injuries there would be today.
“Underneath the harvest – Ooop!” Human Friend Freddy caught sight of Liftssignificantly and ended her song and dance with a cry and a gesture that declared she had lost her balance with her concentration. “Lift! Baby! Sweety! Are you ready for a show?”
“Reaching the Lumberback enclosure in time for the ceremony is the reason I agreed to meet you here at this time,” Liftssignificantly assented, lifting her gripping appendages in the standard request for ‘uppies’.
Human Friend Freddy swooped down and snatched her up, staggering and grunting a bit under her weight, but her face, what little of it was visible around the ‘beanie’ and ‘scarf’ was flushed with the colors of delight still, and her stripes pulsed with health and well-being.
“You are feeling well,” Liftssignificantly observed as they mutually shuffled around so that Liftssignificantly could wriggle down into the space between Human Friend Freddy’s coat and her inner insulation layers.
“I am!” Human Friend Freddy agreed, her mass swaying as her feet, appendages so far from her body that the local cultural mythos claimed that they were controlled by a separate awareness concentration somewhere in the human spine. “The sky is clear, the weather report is good, and the lumberbacks are fully healthy and acting eager for the gourds today!”
“All prosperous signs,” Liftssignificantly agreed as they left the protection of the building and stepped out into the pre-dawn starlight.
The third moon was just abandoning the sky, and was a dim blur of light. The chaotic star-song filled most of the sky still but the sun-song was just beginning to compete. The night air was dry as bleached coral and cold enough that Liftssignficiantly only left her two gripping appendages out to observe, and laid them tightly against the warmth of Human Friend Freddy’s neck as the human shuffled about, pulling on gloves, adjusting her scarf, and generally managing her thermal gradient. That done the human puffed out a few clouds of warm air, deliberately forming them into rings and orbs before laughing softly and setting out on foot for the lumberback enclosures.
They reached the open ‘paddock’, a flat area enclosed by poles, easy enough for an Undulate, or a human to get through but impenetrable to the lumberback’s it restrained, just as the sun-song began to overwhelm the star-song.
“We’re in time to see them bring Big Bertha in!” Human Friend Freddy called out in delight, jostling her way to the front of the small crowd of humans who had also gathered to watch the show.
Liftssignificantly eased more appendages out to get a clearer view of the scene. Two humans were guiding an anti-grav transport into the enclosure from a gate in the far side. Already several massive fruiting bodies were placed around the central area of the space, brightly colored and reflecting in a way that suggested they were hard as old coral. However the one that the humans were bringing in now was easily more massive than a human and lumpy in that way that terrestrial plants did get from fighting gravity their entire existences.
“Those would probably be a more pleasing shape if you grew them under sufficient water to support them properly,” suggested Liftssignificantly.
Human Friend Freddy laughed at that and climbed up the fence to elevate them for no reason that Liftssignificantly could discern.
“What would be a more pleasing shape?” the human asked as the giant fruiting body was rolled onto the ground and its attendants left the space.
“Closer to a natural sphere,” Liftssignificantly said.
Before Human Friend Freddy could respond however the doors to the structure that made up one wall of the enclosure opened with a rush of warm, animal smelling air and four giant forms lumbered out. The human fell silent as the quadrupeds with their long-thin appendages, joints bent high above their thick backs, slowly swung their heads from side to side. Four eyes, spaced evenly around their boulder like heads blinked in the slowly growing light. Long slits of nostrils, running from their wide moths to the backs of their skulls flared and sealed as they scented the cold air, sending out little puffs of moist vapor. The calm moment was finally broken as the largest lumberback suddenly swung its body towards Big Bertha and gave a bellow of excitement. There was a matching murmur from the humans, as it charged towards the fruiting body, paused over it a moment, and then raised one long appendage high above its head before bringing it down on the fruiting body with a loud crack. There was a wild cheer of delight from the humans, that only grew louder when the lumberback shoved its entire head into the mass of pulp and began to loudly grind the material between its wide teeth.
The rest of the herd of animals attacked the remaining gourds to the cheers of the human crowd and Liftssignificantly shifted to get a better look at the crowd of humans.
“These animals are well fed in general,” she observed. “There is nothing unusual in them eating publicly.”
“True that,” Human Friend Freddy agreed.
“Humans have no animosity towards these fruiting bodies.”
“Nope.”
“So why,” Liftssignificantly asked, “do you take such joy in their destruction?”
Human Friend Freddy only laughed and waved at the spectacle that was still engrossing the humans.
“Look at them go at it!” she declared. “Who wouldn’t cheer that on!”
Liftssignificantly quietly divided her attention between the crowd of humans and the feeding lumberbacks as she tried to form a question that would get Human Friend Freddy to explain whether it was the destruction of the giant, misshapen ‘gourds’ as she called them, or the feeding of the lumberbacks that was the attraction of the scene.
Hidden Fires - A Novel
From ghoulies, and ghosties, and long-leggedy beasties, and things that go boomp in the night; Good Lord deliver us.
Traditional Scottish Prayer
A cavern bathed in fire.
A world of the cusp of change.
A threat from beyond the stars.
Bard has led his pool of outcast warriors across the stars to this strange new planet with its cold, nearly dead surface. For years they clung to each other in the magma caverns only going to the surface to humor the curiosity of their hosts,until the day a young alien wandered into Bard’s song and resonated with him, and gave his pool a hope of something more.
Now a dark threat from Bard’s homeworld threatens the fragile connection he has formed with this alien family, and the stars sing of war.
https://igg.me/at/HiddenFiresBook/x/20737048
From ghoulies, and ghosties, and long-leggedy beasties, and things that go boomp in the night; Good Lord deliver us.
Traditional Scottish Prayer
A cavern bathed in fire.
A world of the cusp of change.
A threat from beyond the stars.
Bard has led his pool of outcast warriors across the stars to this strange new planet with its cold, nearly dead surface. For years they clung to each other in the magma caverns only going to the surface to humor the curiosity of their hosts,until the day a young alien wandered into Bard’s song and resonated with him, and gave his pool a hope of something more.
Now a dark threat from Bard’s homeworld threatens the fragile connection he has formed with this alien family, and the stars sing of war.
https://igg.me/at/HiddenFiresBook/x/20737048
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