Humans are Weird – Denial
“Whoo, yeah. That is very much a bad sound,” Human Friend Narcissus muttered as she downshifted the engine and steered them, presumably towards the shallower waters in the nearest bay.
Rollsgently spread her appendages to catch more of what was happening on the boat and tightened her grip on the bow of the craft. Human Friend Narcissus called this her ‘reverse figurehead’ position. Narcissus was crossing and angling her jointed appendages to guide the craft while Human Baby Valerian tried to mimic the gestures from his confinement pod. Rollsgently decided that whatever had gone wrong with the vessel was less enticing than the adorable little movements the immature human was making. She scrambled down and over to the perfectly sized human and thrust her primary gripping appendage in range of Human Baby Valerian’s.
After some considerable effort the little human managed to grab her and give a hearty squeeze and a happy little noise.
“Who is a happy little mammal?” Rollsgently demanded as Human Friend Narcissus beached the craft and leapt out to secure a line to one of the local blue-trees.
The human was just splashing back to jump into the boat when a frantic distress cry came from the general direction of the bow of the craft. Both the adult and the immature human started and Human Baby Valerian twisted up his expressive face in the distress shape that generally presaged leaking stress fluids and loud wailing.
“Feel me little human. Aunty Rollsgently is right here,” she crooned as she stroked the brilliant stripes on the pudgy cheeks.
The touch or the sound worked to sooth Human Baby Valerian and he smiled up at her, kicked his legs out as far as he could and began making soft babbling noises. Human Friend Narcissus leapt back into the boat and smiled over at them as she quickly moved towards the comm unit.
“Hey Babe,” Human Friend Narcissus called into the unit. “The repulsors finally went out on old Greensides. Be a dear and bring the replacements out to cove 73f1 on Popup Island.”
“Sure thing Sweetcakes,” the cheerful voice of Human Friend Narcissus’s mate called back. “Everyone okay?”
“I had a little heart attack,” Human Friend Narcissus admitted. “When we landed I heard a baby seal-snake distress call and thought that Josephine had snuck onboard and had been hanging on the whole way.”
“Josephine and Jalopy are both sunning on the dock as I speak,” the mate said.
“Yeah, turns out it was a clutter of wild babies,” Human Friend Narcissus said as she pried open the cover over the repulsors up and glared down at the broken items. “There’s at least three of them, the orange morph. There’s a breeding lagoon to the north. They will probably swim back to their mom. How long til you get here?”
“Bout twenty minutes,” he said. “See you when I see you!”
Human Friend Narcissus heaved a sigh and tugged at the cloth head-cover she wore to protect and contain her hair during these boat voyages as she sat down in the specially shaped cushions humans used to compliment their fat deposits when ‘resting their bones’. Rollsgently unlatched the safety restraints holding Human Baby Valerian and lifted him up over her core and carried him over to his mother.
“Thanks Rolls,” Human Friend Narcissus said with an uneasy smile.
She lifted up her shirt and attached the smaller human to her mammary gland. The rounded protuberance was swirling with healthy colors and glowing with the effort of refining enough fluid nutrients to feed the rapidly growing infant. Human Baby Valerian wriggled with delight and what little was visible of his exposed skin flashed with pleasure signals. However, the adult human was showing signs of unease as well, starting every time the baby seal-snakes gave another distress call. Finally she spoke.
“Rolls,” she said as she shifted her infant in her arms. “Can you go asses the situation and sound out if the mother has been around recently? I couldn’t get a good look at them.”
“That is something I can do!” Rollsgently assured her.
She scrambled up and over the side of the boat and fell into the water with a delicious splash. The scent-path the the baby seal-snakes was clear and even before she could see them it was clear that they had not been fed in some time. Their fur was fluffy and clean but they moved as if they didn’t have enough flesh on their internal skeletal system. Rollsgently circled them at a distance, carefully tasting the land and the water for any trace of a mature seal-snake. She finished her search and climbed back over the side of the boat.
“I would not say it is impossible that the mother will return,” she said. “But can not feel nor taste any trace of her.”
As she expected it would the statement made Human Friend Narcissus dim with stress, her stripes flickering between the joy of having her own baby in her touch and the sympathy she felt with the most likely orphaned seal-snakes. Rollsgently found a comfortable place in the sun to admire the human infant, wait for Human Friend Roberto to arrive with the replacement repulsor, and wait for Human Friend Narcissus to announce that they were going to adopt the baby seal-snakes.
Shortly the thrumming of the homestead’s larger cargo boat announced that Human Friend Roberto had arrived with the replacement repulsors and there was a flurry of greetings. Rollsgently resumed tending to the now sleeping Human Baby Valerian while the mature humans collaborated to replace the failed repulsor. Rollsgently heard enough of their conversation to be reasonably certain that the task would have gone faster had Human Friend Narcissus not been more focused on explaining the situation with the baby seal-snakes to her mate.
As Rollsgently would have expected Human Friend Roberto’s stripes, which were always a bit harder to distinguish than his mate’s due to his greater concentration of the solar radiation protection chemicals, flushed with empathetic concern, however unlike his mate’s they were tinged with an obvious effort to restrict them. A dull periodic flush that indicated a human was trying, and failing to hide their emotional reactions washed over him. That did however add a bit more context when they finished replacing the repulsor and came over to where Rollsgently was mimicking Human Baby Valerian’s noises back to him while he produced epidermal bubbles of saliva.
“We are going to round up those baby seal-snakes and take them back to the homestead,” Human Friend Roberto said. “If we don’t Narcie here will be stopping by this cove every time she passes for weeks!”
The human male shook his head as if he couldn’t understand the forces that drove his mate to such strange behavior while Human Friend Narcissus smiled from behind him. They leapt over the side of the boat and began the process of stalking the swift little creatures and shoving them into a storage container. It was a rather long process as there were plentiful place for the little seal-snakes to hide in the blue-treeroots on the beach, and by the time they were done both humans had multiple laceration injures to their fragile outer membranes.
“I hope you are happy!” Human Friend Roberto declared in a would-be annoyed annoyed voice as he applied an antibiotic ray to his injured skin.
“I am,” Human Friend Narcissus assured him, standing up on her toes to place a kiss on his cheek. “Thank you Babe.”
Human Friend Roberto made several more grumbling noises while his skin flushed with pleasure. He peeked into the box and gently pulled out the smallest baby seal-snake.
“It’s skinny,” he announced. “Hasn’t eaten in days probably. We can give it some goat-milk when we get them home.”
After a little more coordination he returned to the cargo boat and they resumed their journey in tandem with the other vessel. Rollsgently left the sleeping Human Baby Valerian in his safety pod and climbed up beside Human Friend Narcissus who was humming softly with satisfaction.
“Why did your mate seem to wish to place all responsibility for adopting the baby seal-snakes with you?” she asked.
Human Friend Valerian glanced down and her and gave an amused grin.
“So he didn’t look like a soft touch,” she replied. “At least that is what my mom told me when Papa acted like that.”
Rollsgently felt the idea over.
“I think soft touch much mean something else in your culture than in mine,” she said.
“Yeah, I think its easy pry in Undulate word-speak,” Human Friend Narcissus said, freeing one hand to make the accompanying word gesture.
“What current of human thought connects showing empathy to wild animals and allowing oneself to be taken advantage of?” Rollsgently asked with a wriggle of amusement.
“It’s a dad thing,” Human Friend Narcissus said grinning down at Rollsgently. “If they ever let on how soft they really are they think the kids will be bringing home every stray baby bird they find. Gruffing it up is supposed to keep the homestead from becoming an unlicensed zoo.”
“Does that work?” Rollsgently asked.
“Have you seen my Papa’s homestead?” Human Friend Narcissus demeaned.
“It is full of animals that have little to no purpose as far as I recall,” Rollsgently observed. “Most of which he found and brought home.”
“And he blames Ma’s soft heart for every one of them,” Human Friend Narcissus said with a laugh, the wind catching her hair where she had forgotten to reapply the cloth shield.
Rollsgently moved to retrieve the cloth and apply it to Human Friend Narcissus’s hair before she started getting twitchy from the stimulation. She wondered as she did if this emotional denial was something specific to the male mates chosen by Human Friend Narcissus’s genetic line, or if was something found in the wider human gene-pool.
RSS Feed
