“First Father, may I gather a few of your lines?”
“Of course little one,” First Father replied, dipping his antenna in fond gesture at his child.
She stiffed a bit at the words. He could see her objection to being called little one in the curl of her long graceful antena but she chose not to respond. It was very mature behavior, the behavior of one who had long ago molted out of being called Second Daughter and was very solidly Second Sister to a thriving hive.
“I was observing Human First Father Gordon at the dairy farm,” she said, her frill settling from mildly offended to the droop of perplexity.
“That will set ones antenna twitching,” First Father observed as he bent over the garden lines he was weaving into a wall shrub.
“Human First Sister Susan had been meaning to discuss her medical reactions with him,” Second Sister went on, stooping to help him almost absently.
First Father gave a sympathetic flutter of his psudofrill.
“The way her outer membrane reacts to his favorite foods?” he asked.
Second Sister flicked her antenna in confirmation.
“She tested her sensitivity level recent and simply wanted to inform him of the results,” Second Sister went on. “She told me she was concerned he would feel guilty so we discussed how she should approach the subject with him. She put quite a lot of effort into being soothing but he still reacted badly when she confronted him.”
“Badly how?” First Father asked, very curious now.
“He cringed away as if she had struck him,” Second Sister said. “His pheromones simply flooded the air with stress, and his membrane changed color so dramatically that even I could see he got pale.”
“And what exactly did Human First Sister Susan say and do that frightened him that badly?” First Father asked, tilting his triangular head to the side.
“She walked straight up to him, put her hand on his shoulder, looked him directly in his vision cone, she can do that as she is taller than him, and said ‘I want you to know. You did nothing wrong and I am not angry at you.’” Second Sister explained. “I know it is unusual for a human sister to be taller than her father but why would something so deliberately soothing frighten him?”
First Father felt his mandibles twitch in amusement at the utterly perplexed set to Second Sister’s legs.
“Quite the mystery,” he murmured.
Audio Narration and Animation -
https://youtu.be/xICYAdDy4y8
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