Humans are Weird - Bad Touch
Rollsleisurly deliberately rubbed several lagging appendages together, critically examining the textures of his outer most layer. The friction felt exactly right and he raised his appendages to get a good look at Human Friend Robert who was circling above him in the mineral rich water. The water around them rumbled with the constant influx of cooler water into the thermal vents and onto the hot magma below them making sound useless for communication with humans in this situation. Rollsleisurly pushed off the hot bed of the bay and swam against the pull of gravity with firm strokes, by the time he reached Human Friend Robert’s level the human was some distance away and Rollsleisurely kept up his steady stroking to hold level as the human returned.
Rollsleisurely waved his appendages for attention. A directionless endeavor as it turned out. Human Friend Robert’s normally limited vision was further impaired by the device he work to protect his fragile vision organs from particles in the water, and possibly the tonic differences, Rollsleisurely wasn’t entirely clear on where human organs fell in the aquatic, semi-aquatic, terrestrial dynamic. It seemed to vary for each organ. With a mildly amused hum Rollsleisurely swam towards the approaching human and successfully impacted the broad surface of his chest before the human, fascinated by the view of the vents below them was even aware of his approach.
Human Friend Robert gave a startled noise, warped by the rebreather that covered his mouth and nose, the water which he was not used to correcting for, and the sounds caused by the flailing of his arms. Rollsleisurely experienced the peculiar sensation of feeling a wash of nonsense chattering, just barely not words, as human hands grappled frantically with him for a moment before Human Friend Robert apparently remembered they were in a more natural environment than the thin atmosphere that was dominated by gravity and friction alone, and closed his arms in a loose circle allowing Rollsleisurly to snuggled up to the best exposed surface, neck and speak comfortably.
“Thermo check?”
Human Friend Robert gave a grateful sounding grunt and wriggled around in the water until he could see the read out on his wrist. Rollsleisurly held an appendage out to double check that, yes, the giant mammal’s core temperature was well within the absurdly narrow range their metabolisms required.
“I’m well!” Human Friend Robert replied in human gesture language. “This atoll is amazing!”
“It is,” Rollsleisurly agreed in fully comparable delight. “It is so rare to find a such a geologically active site that is actually stable and safe enough to-”
Something, somewhere else had caught Human Friend Robert’s attention and the long mammal began the giant, exaggerated strokes that they used when traveling any distance. Rollsleisurly changed directions to follow him, wondering what had attracted him. They were, perhaps worryingly, moving towards the one truly dangerous location. A less stable pocket of the underlying bedrock sometimes cracked here, sending up the occasional burst of lava bubbles. However the danger zone was clearly marked, not only by the fallen fragments of cooled lava, oddly shaped by their passage through the water, but by clear interspecies warning symbols placed on and sometimes carved into the rock, and, somewhat to Rollsleisurly’s surprise Human Friend Robert stopped well short of the danger zone, treading water perpendicular to gravity and his posture oddly curved opposite to how it usually was. Rollsleisurly decided he was looking at something in particular, and that required the odd position. This idea was made more likely when Human Friend Robert angled his motion to reach up and position his hand as if to catch something falling from above. Rollsleisurly marveled at the human ability to predict vectors of even the minutest object's and intercept them. The object in question, a mostly cooled cinder from the dangerous geothermal resolved to where Rollsleisurly could identify it only when it finally fell within the contrasting paleness of the human’s hand.
Rollsleisurely was actually quite proud of himself for reacting before Human Friend Robert started cursing and flinging his hand back and forth. Of course there was nothing Rollsleisurly could do to prevent the damage at that point, but by the time Human Friend Robert had worked his way through the majority of humanity’s best profanities Rollsleisurely had built up enough momentum to push hims towards the colder water outside of the geothermal active area.
“Get your flesh to the cold stream!” Rollsleisurely ordered as firmly as he could while bodily shoving Human Friend Robert in the correct direction.
It took several long second for Human Friend Robert to gather himself through the pain enough to understand but once he did he began swimming, in a clumsy, uncoordinated way towards the colder water. They rounded the reef that protected the geothermal active area and Human Friend Robert caught the rock with his damaged hand, gave a howl of pain, grabbed it with his undamaged hand, and thrust the burnt hand out into the comparatively cold water of the currents that surrounded the area. Instantly the relief was obvious in ever fiber of the human’s body as the water, roughly half of normal human internal temperatures, stole the heat away from his fingers. Rollsleisurely scrambled up from Human Friend Roberts back where he had been holding on and moved forward along his arm into the cold water to examine the damaged flesh.
“You are going to have some spectacular blisters,” Rollseleisurely said, letting a bit of delight show in his posture as he determined that the human had done no serious damage to himself.
“Yeah,” the human said, and then gasped, the rebreather complaining at the strain, “yeah.”
“I have a question Human Friend Robert,” Rollsleisurely said, leaving the damaged but stable hand in the cold current and rejoining the majority of Human Friend Robert’s mass in the warm shelter of the reef. “Did you realize what that was before you went out of your way to catch it in your bare hands?”
Human Friend Robert gave a weak laugh and flexed his damaged hand in the old water, wincing.
“Yeah, I knew it was a live cinder,” he admitted.
Rollsleisurely made sure that he was in Human Friend Robert’s line of sight and ‘let the silence eat into his soul’ as the psychologists advised. Human Friend Robert squirmed and then pulled his hand back into the warmer water to examine it, winced as the pain instantly renewed, and shoved his hand back out in the colder current.
“It was shiny,” he finally said, “and there was a texture, and I guess, I guess I forgot, or wasn’t thinking about how hot it was.”
Rollsleisurely waved his appendages for attention. A directionless endeavor as it turned out. Human Friend Robert’s normally limited vision was further impaired by the device he work to protect his fragile vision organs from particles in the water, and possibly the tonic differences, Rollsleisurely wasn’t entirely clear on where human organs fell in the aquatic, semi-aquatic, terrestrial dynamic. It seemed to vary for each organ. With a mildly amused hum Rollsleisurely swam towards the approaching human and successfully impacted the broad surface of his chest before the human, fascinated by the view of the vents below them was even aware of his approach.
Human Friend Robert gave a startled noise, warped by the rebreather that covered his mouth and nose, the water which he was not used to correcting for, and the sounds caused by the flailing of his arms. Rollsleisurely experienced the peculiar sensation of feeling a wash of nonsense chattering, just barely not words, as human hands grappled frantically with him for a moment before Human Friend Robert apparently remembered they were in a more natural environment than the thin atmosphere that was dominated by gravity and friction alone, and closed his arms in a loose circle allowing Rollsleisurly to snuggled up to the best exposed surface, neck and speak comfortably.
“Thermo check?”
Human Friend Robert gave a grateful sounding grunt and wriggled around in the water until he could see the read out on his wrist. Rollsleisurly held an appendage out to double check that, yes, the giant mammal’s core temperature was well within the absurdly narrow range their metabolisms required.
“I’m well!” Human Friend Robert replied in human gesture language. “This atoll is amazing!”
“It is,” Rollsleisurly agreed in fully comparable delight. “It is so rare to find a such a geologically active site that is actually stable and safe enough to-”
Something, somewhere else had caught Human Friend Robert’s attention and the long mammal began the giant, exaggerated strokes that they used when traveling any distance. Rollsleisurly changed directions to follow him, wondering what had attracted him. They were, perhaps worryingly, moving towards the one truly dangerous location. A less stable pocket of the underlying bedrock sometimes cracked here, sending up the occasional burst of lava bubbles. However the danger zone was clearly marked, not only by the fallen fragments of cooled lava, oddly shaped by their passage through the water, but by clear interspecies warning symbols placed on and sometimes carved into the rock, and, somewhat to Rollsleisurly’s surprise Human Friend Robert stopped well short of the danger zone, treading water perpendicular to gravity and his posture oddly curved opposite to how it usually was. Rollsleisurly decided he was looking at something in particular, and that required the odd position. This idea was made more likely when Human Friend Robert angled his motion to reach up and position his hand as if to catch something falling from above. Rollsleisurly marveled at the human ability to predict vectors of even the minutest object's and intercept them. The object in question, a mostly cooled cinder from the dangerous geothermal resolved to where Rollsleisurly could identify it only when it finally fell within the contrasting paleness of the human’s hand.
Rollsleisurely was actually quite proud of himself for reacting before Human Friend Robert started cursing and flinging his hand back and forth. Of course there was nothing Rollsleisurly could do to prevent the damage at that point, but by the time Human Friend Robert had worked his way through the majority of humanity’s best profanities Rollsleisurely had built up enough momentum to push hims towards the colder water outside of the geothermal active area.
“Get your flesh to the cold stream!” Rollsleisurely ordered as firmly as he could while bodily shoving Human Friend Robert in the correct direction.
It took several long second for Human Friend Robert to gather himself through the pain enough to understand but once he did he began swimming, in a clumsy, uncoordinated way towards the colder water. They rounded the reef that protected the geothermal active area and Human Friend Robert caught the rock with his damaged hand, gave a howl of pain, grabbed it with his undamaged hand, and thrust the burnt hand out into the comparatively cold water of the currents that surrounded the area. Instantly the relief was obvious in ever fiber of the human’s body as the water, roughly half of normal human internal temperatures, stole the heat away from his fingers. Rollsleisurely scrambled up from Human Friend Roberts back where he had been holding on and moved forward along his arm into the cold water to examine the damaged flesh.
“You are going to have some spectacular blisters,” Rollseleisurely said, letting a bit of delight show in his posture as he determined that the human had done no serious damage to himself.
“Yeah,” the human said, and then gasped, the rebreather complaining at the strain, “yeah.”
“I have a question Human Friend Robert,” Rollsleisurely said, leaving the damaged but stable hand in the cold current and rejoining the majority of Human Friend Robert’s mass in the warm shelter of the reef. “Did you realize what that was before you went out of your way to catch it in your bare hands?”
Human Friend Robert gave a weak laugh and flexed his damaged hand in the old water, wincing.
“Yeah, I knew it was a live cinder,” he admitted.
Rollsleisurely made sure that he was in Human Friend Robert’s line of sight and ‘let the silence eat into his soul’ as the psychologists advised. Human Friend Robert squirmed and then pulled his hand back into the warmer water to examine it, winced as the pain instantly renewed, and shoved his hand back out in the colder current.
“It was shiny,” he finally said, “and there was a texture, and I guess, I guess I forgot, or wasn’t thinking about how hot it was.”
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