Humans are Weird - Skritchie
Doctor Seventh Chirp extended a winghook to turn the page in the book he was reading. It was a fascinating artifact; smelling of forests long dead and the museums that had housed and preserved their harvested bodies. Fragments of pages were missing. The material rustled soothingly as he laid one ancient page down over the other. Which was probably a good think he mused as he stared in slightly horrified fascination of the printed image capture of what happened when a rapidly spinning blade made contact with a human forelimb. He felt the urge for a juice nodule and carefully closed the book and slipped its protective cover over it, feeling the electro-magnetic field crackle into existence.
He hopped away from the reading station and the massive tome built for alien appendages and hesitated as twinges ran through his wings and his feet. He heaved a sigh and began rolling his wings to get the blood flowing again.
“Getting old and smooth is not a pleasant experience,” he muttered as he thrust one leg and then the other out, letting himself rock backwards with the motion until he found himself tucked into one of the wall alcoves.
The light from the setting sun outside was slanting through the atmosphere and filled the space with a soft golden light. Continuing to roll his wings Doctor Seventh Chirp made his way to the launching window and sniffed the warm air appreciatively. He was about to spread his wings for take off when a sudden movement below him caught his attention and his nose frills wrinkled in annoyance. He craned his head around to get a better look and felt a few vertebrae shift.
“And what are you hiding my massive mammalian friend?” he muttered.
Security officer Alexei Drover was moving carefully from one outbuilding to another in a path that could only be designed to shield her from view from the main enclosed quad where most of the campus’s population would be recreating at the this time of day. It would have no doubt been very effective if he hadn’t been lingering in the reading rooms at the back of the library. A set of rooms that most humans did not have a good mental map of as they couldn’t fit in them. The human reached a rear entrance to a room that held low-security medical supplies and waved her security fob at the smooth surface. As the door swung open she braced it and glanced around cautiously, remember to look up into small-Winged sized alcoves he noted with a grim smile. As she did this her hand holding the fob dropped as one massive leg folded up and she vigorously scratched at her shin, grimacing in both anger and pain before slipping into the storage room.
“I doubt she will be in there a short time,” Doctor Seventh Chirp muttered as he debated approaching the door from outside.
His fob did have the proper clearances but opening that door would instantly alert Drover to his presence and furthermore would not give her time to properly begin what she was doing. Instead he chose to hop leisurely along an inner path of the building until he found a much smaller door that led into the pathway that wound around the inner ceiling of the space. Drover had apparently gotten access to the large cold packs, one was laying across the bare skin of her right leg, the adhesive bandages, she was currently applying one to a snout sized lesion on her left leg, and a good sized tube of antibiotic cream. Doctor Seventh Chirp stared in perplexity at the wingspan of bandages she had already applied to that leg. Under the center of each was a rather disturbingly large lump. She finished applying the last bandage with a grunt and reached over to move the cold pack from her right leg to her left. She released a hiss and her face relaxed with relief and the cold mass covered the bandages.
Doctor Seventh Chirp examined the newly exposed chilled skin with growing irritation. A curved line of welts ran from Drover’s toes, up her pale skin in bright red dots, ending about halfway up her shins. The pattern would suggest some terrifying large creature had given her the most gentle of bites but the marks were clearly mammalian skin reaction to some insect bite. What made his nearly smooth head bristle in annoyance was the alternating raised blisters and, small open lesions centering linear abrasions that indicated that the human had been ‘scratching’. Clearly the human had yet to apply the self selected medications to the other side.
Doctor Seventh Chirp heaved an audible sigh and let himself tumble noisily into the air. Drover started, glance over at him and then twisted her face into a scowl. He landed on the cold surface of her toes and glared at the nearest dot, this one had not been abraded, nor had it produced that bubble of fluid, showing only the tiny puncture wound in the center of where the human’s immune system was overreacting.
“You going to snitch?” Drover demand in a voice that was deep, even for a human.
“That is hardly the main thermal of this flight,” Doctor Seventh Chirp replied, deliberately trying to drop his voice into a tone a human would hear as an irritated growl. “You were bitten by some insect with piercing mouth-parts.”
Drover rolled her eyes and muttered a mild profanity to the effect that his observation was obvious. Doctor Seventh Chirp moved to the next lump. The core of inflamed flesh was there but the center was a raised blister, thicker than the length of his winghook. He prodded at the firmer flesh around it and got a wince from his patient and then at the blister getting none.
“Filled with interstitial fluid,” he commented eyeing the pale amber color, “no infection. How did this happen?”
“My footwraps,” Drover growled, shifting the leg he was perched on, but not enough to dislodge him so he ignored the movement. He stared calmly into the wide, concentric circles of her eyes, letting the ‘back depths’ of his own convince her to keep talking. “The skin,” she went on with a frustrated wave of her hand, “it was quite inflamed already. Just the abrasion of the foot wraps, and they are good silk, was enough to cause,” she gestured at the amber blisters with annoyance in every joint, and her face contorted in that odd mix of pain and irritation.
Doctor Seventh Chirp moved on to the next bump and the open sore the diameter of his ear. This one had ruptured ever so slightly deeper than the thick layer of dermal cells and there was a crusted layer of capillary blood seeping slowly out. Doctor Seventh Chirp gave it an aggravated glare and then turned his eyes on the equally aggravated Drover.
“It itched!” she snapped,narrowing her eyelids at him in a glare. The seconds stretched on between them and she faltered first. “I scratched!” she declared, half resentfully, half defiantly. “Like the ancient American, Barbara Pritchie.”
Doctor Seventh Chirp snorted, and held out a wing for the tube of ointment.
“Frietchie,” he said as he examined the contents and grudgingly admitted to himself that Drover had, in fact chosen the correct treatment on her own. He squeeze the proper amount onto the lesion.
“What?” Drover asked, confusion masking the irritation on her face for a moment.
“This great saint of therapeutic scratching that you humans are so fond of quoting,” he explained. “Her defiant virtues were extolled in the poems of one Ogden Nash.” He glared up at the human. “There is no actual evidence that she scratched when itchy, and her name was Frietchie, with an f.” He deliberately forced the difficult sound, one had to tuck ones lips around the back of ones teeth.
Drover’s face wrinkled between amusement and disbelief for a moment before breaking into a wide grin and laughing.
“Adhesive bandage,” Doctor Seventh Chirp snapped but couldn’t quite keep the amusement out of his own voice. “As admirable as personal courage might be,” he went on, “it is still inadvisable to scrape off layers of skin at the behest of instinct.”
“Says you,” Drover commented, but she kept her hands a respectable distance from her abraded skin so Doctor Seventh Chirp decided to leave it at that.
He hopped away from the reading station and the massive tome built for alien appendages and hesitated as twinges ran through his wings and his feet. He heaved a sigh and began rolling his wings to get the blood flowing again.
“Getting old and smooth is not a pleasant experience,” he muttered as he thrust one leg and then the other out, letting himself rock backwards with the motion until he found himself tucked into one of the wall alcoves.
The light from the setting sun outside was slanting through the atmosphere and filled the space with a soft golden light. Continuing to roll his wings Doctor Seventh Chirp made his way to the launching window and sniffed the warm air appreciatively. He was about to spread his wings for take off when a sudden movement below him caught his attention and his nose frills wrinkled in annoyance. He craned his head around to get a better look and felt a few vertebrae shift.
“And what are you hiding my massive mammalian friend?” he muttered.
Security officer Alexei Drover was moving carefully from one outbuilding to another in a path that could only be designed to shield her from view from the main enclosed quad where most of the campus’s population would be recreating at the this time of day. It would have no doubt been very effective if he hadn’t been lingering in the reading rooms at the back of the library. A set of rooms that most humans did not have a good mental map of as they couldn’t fit in them. The human reached a rear entrance to a room that held low-security medical supplies and waved her security fob at the smooth surface. As the door swung open she braced it and glanced around cautiously, remember to look up into small-Winged sized alcoves he noted with a grim smile. As she did this her hand holding the fob dropped as one massive leg folded up and she vigorously scratched at her shin, grimacing in both anger and pain before slipping into the storage room.
“I doubt she will be in there a short time,” Doctor Seventh Chirp muttered as he debated approaching the door from outside.
His fob did have the proper clearances but opening that door would instantly alert Drover to his presence and furthermore would not give her time to properly begin what she was doing. Instead he chose to hop leisurely along an inner path of the building until he found a much smaller door that led into the pathway that wound around the inner ceiling of the space. Drover had apparently gotten access to the large cold packs, one was laying across the bare skin of her right leg, the adhesive bandages, she was currently applying one to a snout sized lesion on her left leg, and a good sized tube of antibiotic cream. Doctor Seventh Chirp stared in perplexity at the wingspan of bandages she had already applied to that leg. Under the center of each was a rather disturbingly large lump. She finished applying the last bandage with a grunt and reached over to move the cold pack from her right leg to her left. She released a hiss and her face relaxed with relief and the cold mass covered the bandages.
Doctor Seventh Chirp examined the newly exposed chilled skin with growing irritation. A curved line of welts ran from Drover’s toes, up her pale skin in bright red dots, ending about halfway up her shins. The pattern would suggest some terrifying large creature had given her the most gentle of bites but the marks were clearly mammalian skin reaction to some insect bite. What made his nearly smooth head bristle in annoyance was the alternating raised blisters and, small open lesions centering linear abrasions that indicated that the human had been ‘scratching’. Clearly the human had yet to apply the self selected medications to the other side.
Doctor Seventh Chirp heaved an audible sigh and let himself tumble noisily into the air. Drover started, glance over at him and then twisted her face into a scowl. He landed on the cold surface of her toes and glared at the nearest dot, this one had not been abraded, nor had it produced that bubble of fluid, showing only the tiny puncture wound in the center of where the human’s immune system was overreacting.
“You going to snitch?” Drover demand in a voice that was deep, even for a human.
“That is hardly the main thermal of this flight,” Doctor Seventh Chirp replied, deliberately trying to drop his voice into a tone a human would hear as an irritated growl. “You were bitten by some insect with piercing mouth-parts.”
Drover rolled her eyes and muttered a mild profanity to the effect that his observation was obvious. Doctor Seventh Chirp moved to the next lump. The core of inflamed flesh was there but the center was a raised blister, thicker than the length of his winghook. He prodded at the firmer flesh around it and got a wince from his patient and then at the blister getting none.
“Filled with interstitial fluid,” he commented eyeing the pale amber color, “no infection. How did this happen?”
“My footwraps,” Drover growled, shifting the leg he was perched on, but not enough to dislodge him so he ignored the movement. He stared calmly into the wide, concentric circles of her eyes, letting the ‘back depths’ of his own convince her to keep talking. “The skin,” she went on with a frustrated wave of her hand, “it was quite inflamed already. Just the abrasion of the foot wraps, and they are good silk, was enough to cause,” she gestured at the amber blisters with annoyance in every joint, and her face contorted in that odd mix of pain and irritation.
Doctor Seventh Chirp moved on to the next bump and the open sore the diameter of his ear. This one had ruptured ever so slightly deeper than the thick layer of dermal cells and there was a crusted layer of capillary blood seeping slowly out. Doctor Seventh Chirp gave it an aggravated glare and then turned his eyes on the equally aggravated Drover.
“It itched!” she snapped,narrowing her eyelids at him in a glare. The seconds stretched on between them and she faltered first. “I scratched!” she declared, half resentfully, half defiantly. “Like the ancient American, Barbara Pritchie.”
Doctor Seventh Chirp snorted, and held out a wing for the tube of ointment.
“Frietchie,” he said as he examined the contents and grudgingly admitted to himself that Drover had, in fact chosen the correct treatment on her own. He squeeze the proper amount onto the lesion.
“What?” Drover asked, confusion masking the irritation on her face for a moment.
“This great saint of therapeutic scratching that you humans are so fond of quoting,” he explained. “Her defiant virtues were extolled in the poems of one Ogden Nash.” He glared up at the human. “There is no actual evidence that she scratched when itchy, and her name was Frietchie, with an f.” He deliberately forced the difficult sound, one had to tuck ones lips around the back of ones teeth.
Drover’s face wrinkled between amusement and disbelief for a moment before breaking into a wide grin and laughing.
“Adhesive bandage,” Doctor Seventh Chirp snapped but couldn’t quite keep the amusement out of his own voice. “As admirable as personal courage might be,” he went on, “it is still inadvisable to scrape off layers of skin at the behest of instinct.”
“Says you,” Drover commented, but she kept her hands a respectable distance from her abraded skin so Doctor Seventh Chirp decided to leave it at that.
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