Humans are Weird - Important
A human was the perfect place to relax on a day like today. Liftssignificantly lifted one appandage tip after the other off the ground in an attempt to keep the biting cold of the rocky ground from creeping up to her core. Somewhere, in this crowd of bustling strangers, was a human who would sit down on one of the stone benches, let her climb up their legs, and then nestle into their lap. She could almost feel the welcoming aura of warmth emitting from the mammal’s massive core. A faint taste of human spices, a familiar taste of human spices pulled her attention to a cluster of humans tumbling out of a cottage nearby. The usual cinnamon and nutmeg they favored in the cold times, but also the strong flavor of anise. Liftssignificantly spun around and began shuffling quickly in that direction. As she suspected she soon heard the bright, cheerful voice of Human Friend Freddy, like morning sunlight filtering through the waters of a shallow home-reef.
Human Friend Freddy’s sister, a very round, rather short human was wrestling a bundle of cloth while her eldest offspring, a girl still pleasingly Undulate sized was tugging at her skirt and chattering happily.
“Moos and big in the middle and gots down legs! Umbers are long in the middle and gots up-down legs!”
The mother made a sound of agreement and Human Friend Freddy came out of the cottage carrying a basket that clinked with the sound of tool-grade metals. The human suddenly increased her pace and tossed the basket rather carelessly into the transport they were loading. Then wiggled herself in-between the mother and child, carefully prying the child’s hands off of the mother’s skirt.
“Mommy’s working Pip-squirt!” She said. “Why don’t you tell me about that?”
Human Friend Freddy guided the little one to one of the benches and Liftssignificantly heard the mother give a soft word of thanks.
“Umbers are not Moos!” The little human announced, now pulling Human Friend Freddy towards the bench. “Umbers are big, and Moos are big, but Moos got {long} noses! Umbers got {wide} noses!”
The human child, seemingly unsatisfied with mere sound words began gesturing with her hands to indicate shape and comparative size with gesture words. It seemed at first that Human Friend Freddy was entirely focused on the little human in that single-focus way that many humans often were, but then her hand came out to the side and she rapidly gestured without moving her eyes from her little pod-mate.
“Come on over and scrambled up on my lap Lifts! Pip won’t stop talking for awhile but she won’t mind you getting warm while she does.”
“Oh thank you!” Liftssignificantly said, first in gestures, then in sound when she remembered that Human Friend Freddy couldn’t turn her main cone of focus on her.
She climbed up in Human Friend Freddy’s lap and the little human Pip reached out to gently pet her in a wordless friendly greeting without pausing her disjointed description of the differences between the ‘Moos’ and the ‘Umbers’. Liftssignificantly had been around humans long enough to recognize the shortened name of the lumberbacks, the giant native herbivores the humans were attempting to domesticate with much success. She did not recognize the ‘Moos’ however she was getting a round description; hand fewer legs than a lumberback, had ‘down’ legs, and other details flowed from the little human Pip for several long minutes while Liftsignificantly basked in the mammalian warmth of Human Friend Freddy.
The elder human was completely focused on the younger and every angle of her appendages, every tone of her voice, the way her pair of bi-focal eyes focused on the little one, even the way the loose outer membrane of her face creased showed that she was treating this monologue seriously. However her pheromone profile was light and pleasant and Liftssignificantly was fairly certain she saw the humans lips twitching in a way that indicated suppressed humor more than once. Finally the little human Pip seemed to draw down like the tide rather than truly conclude the monologue in any way and ran off to play chase with her sister.
“And so now you know the main differences between a Lumberback and a Moose,” Human Friend Freddy said, leaning back with a laugh and raising a hand to set it companionably on Liftssignificantly’s dorsal side.
“I do,” Liftssignificantly agreed. “What is a Moose?”
“Oh some critter we half-domesticated at some point,” Human Friend Freddy said with a vague gesture to the north. “They are setting up a herd near Far-point to compliment the lumberbacks.”
“May I ask a potentially offensive question?” Liftssignificantly asked.
“Oh! Please do!” Human Friend Freddy replied, sitting up straight with eagerness.
“Were you treating little human Pip’s conversation seriously or not?” Liftssignificantly asked.
Human Friend Freddy opened her mouth and the shut it, her posture language went slack and she leaned back as she processed the question. Several long seconds passed and she took a deep breath before answering.
“I was trying to,” she finally said in a slow, serious tone.
Liftssignificantly let the silence wear down on the idea like the waves while Human Friend Freddy stroked her gently.
“You know,” the human finally said. “When I was a kid, Dad would say to my little sister, ‘Life’s tough when you’re only two feet tall.’, and you know? I always thought he was mocking her for complaining, because she didn’t have any chores then. She got lots of toys and treats, and she was showered with love.”
The human drifted off and began letting her eyes wander over the cold, winter landscape. The trees that had dropped their leaves, the crackling layer of ice that was scattered over the slow river.
“He was being dead serious though,” she finally said in a soft tone. “It’s a tough time. You don’t get to make any real decisions. People are always picking you up and doing stuff to you, and the thing is, you, I mean a human then, is getting just old enough to understand about fair and not fair, but their not really old enough to understand consequences and they have no idea about schedules and things outside of their small world.”
The silence fell again and Human Friend Freddy turned her eyes to where her little pod-mates were calling to each other as they dashed around some large sunning rocks in their garden.
“It’s really important that the adults teach the little ones to respect other peoples’ time and attention,” she said. “You can’t let a kid like that monopolize an adult who has an important task to do. They have to learn to respect other people’s boundaries or they grow up into … well we’ve had a lot of different names for it over the centuries but humans who grow up getting their way all the time don’t turn out well.”
The human fell silent again and her hands stilled.
“That is why you told little human Pip to let her mother work?” Liftssignificantly prompted.
Human Friend Freddy nodded.
“But then,” the human went on in gestures now, as if her hands could express the thoughts better. “It is tough, so tough, to be pushed around and told that your thoughts aren’t more important than doing the chores. It has gotta be so frustrating to feel like no one cares what you have to say.”
“But I have seen your sister interact with her children,” Liftssignificantly gestured back. “She spends much time talking to them, and listening to them. Surely this doesn’t apply to your pod?”
Human Friend Freddy gave a soft laugh.
“That’s what’s so tough about being two feet tall Lifts,” she gestured with a rueful pressure to the movements. “Your brain doesn’t keep all those threads in a grip. When a human is that stage it is really only the now that exists. It doesn’t matter that Mommy listened to you for an hour this morning, if she isn’t listening now it’s just as frustrating as if she never listened. It doesn’t matter that the difference between a moose and a lumberback is a boring fact of life to everyone around you, to you it is the biggest, most important revelation of your little life and you need to share it with everyone, and when they don’t want to be cornered and talked at about water being wet for a quarter of an hour, well its tough on a kid.”
Liftssignficantly hummed a slightly uneasy note, and Human Friend Freddy gestured an encouragement for her to express her thoughts.
“So when you spent so much time listening to her were you not interfering with intended family
discipline?” Liftssignificantly asked with some hesitation.
She was treading close to very serious taboos and she knew it, but the currents around such things were always turbid when dealing with other species and she was fairly certain that Human Friend Freddy would not take it seriously amiss even if she shoved an appendage right in it. However this time Human Friend Freddy only threw back her head and laughed.
“Nope!” she answered in both sound and gesture. “I got the Auntie rules. I am sill young, well rested, and unmarried! It’s both a duty and a privilege to spend time with the kiddos doing things like taking their important revelations seriously. My sister is the mom and has to handle all that discipline stuff. So Long as I don’t contradict what she says I can indulge Pip as much as I want. You heard how I pulled Pip off of her mom?”
“Yes,” Liftssignificantly said.
“The lesson there was to not interfere when someone was working,” Human Friend Freddy said, “and I keep Pip from interfering with her mom’s work. Pip knows that so the discipline holds, but then she gets to pass on her very important information and show off how much she knows, so she gets to feel like an adult is taking her seriously.”
“It sounds like it is useful for your sister that you live so close,” Liftssignificantly observed.
“I try not to make them regret my proximity,” Human Friend Freddy said with a grin.
“Would you mind loosening your coat a bit?” Liftssignificantly asked. “It is rather cold out here and all that excess mammal warmth is going to waste under there.”
Human Friend Freddy’s sister, a very round, rather short human was wrestling a bundle of cloth while her eldest offspring, a girl still pleasingly Undulate sized was tugging at her skirt and chattering happily.
“Moos and big in the middle and gots down legs! Umbers are long in the middle and gots up-down legs!”
The mother made a sound of agreement and Human Friend Freddy came out of the cottage carrying a basket that clinked with the sound of tool-grade metals. The human suddenly increased her pace and tossed the basket rather carelessly into the transport they were loading. Then wiggled herself in-between the mother and child, carefully prying the child’s hands off of the mother’s skirt.
“Mommy’s working Pip-squirt!” She said. “Why don’t you tell me about that?”
Human Friend Freddy guided the little one to one of the benches and Liftssignificantly heard the mother give a soft word of thanks.
“Umbers are not Moos!” The little human announced, now pulling Human Friend Freddy towards the bench. “Umbers are big, and Moos are big, but Moos got {long} noses! Umbers got {wide} noses!”
The human child, seemingly unsatisfied with mere sound words began gesturing with her hands to indicate shape and comparative size with gesture words. It seemed at first that Human Friend Freddy was entirely focused on the little human in that single-focus way that many humans often were, but then her hand came out to the side and she rapidly gestured without moving her eyes from her little pod-mate.
“Come on over and scrambled up on my lap Lifts! Pip won’t stop talking for awhile but she won’t mind you getting warm while she does.”
“Oh thank you!” Liftssignificantly said, first in gestures, then in sound when she remembered that Human Friend Freddy couldn’t turn her main cone of focus on her.
She climbed up in Human Friend Freddy’s lap and the little human Pip reached out to gently pet her in a wordless friendly greeting without pausing her disjointed description of the differences between the ‘Moos’ and the ‘Umbers’. Liftssignificantly had been around humans long enough to recognize the shortened name of the lumberbacks, the giant native herbivores the humans were attempting to domesticate with much success. She did not recognize the ‘Moos’ however she was getting a round description; hand fewer legs than a lumberback, had ‘down’ legs, and other details flowed from the little human Pip for several long minutes while Liftsignificantly basked in the mammalian warmth of Human Friend Freddy.
The elder human was completely focused on the younger and every angle of her appendages, every tone of her voice, the way her pair of bi-focal eyes focused on the little one, even the way the loose outer membrane of her face creased showed that she was treating this monologue seriously. However her pheromone profile was light and pleasant and Liftssignificantly was fairly certain she saw the humans lips twitching in a way that indicated suppressed humor more than once. Finally the little human Pip seemed to draw down like the tide rather than truly conclude the monologue in any way and ran off to play chase with her sister.
“And so now you know the main differences between a Lumberback and a Moose,” Human Friend Freddy said, leaning back with a laugh and raising a hand to set it companionably on Liftssignificantly’s dorsal side.
“I do,” Liftssignificantly agreed. “What is a Moose?”
“Oh some critter we half-domesticated at some point,” Human Friend Freddy said with a vague gesture to the north. “They are setting up a herd near Far-point to compliment the lumberbacks.”
“May I ask a potentially offensive question?” Liftssignificantly asked.
“Oh! Please do!” Human Friend Freddy replied, sitting up straight with eagerness.
“Were you treating little human Pip’s conversation seriously or not?” Liftssignificantly asked.
Human Friend Freddy opened her mouth and the shut it, her posture language went slack and she leaned back as she processed the question. Several long seconds passed and she took a deep breath before answering.
“I was trying to,” she finally said in a slow, serious tone.
Liftssignificantly let the silence wear down on the idea like the waves while Human Friend Freddy stroked her gently.
“You know,” the human finally said. “When I was a kid, Dad would say to my little sister, ‘Life’s tough when you’re only two feet tall.’, and you know? I always thought he was mocking her for complaining, because she didn’t have any chores then. She got lots of toys and treats, and she was showered with love.”
The human drifted off and began letting her eyes wander over the cold, winter landscape. The trees that had dropped their leaves, the crackling layer of ice that was scattered over the slow river.
“He was being dead serious though,” she finally said in a soft tone. “It’s a tough time. You don’t get to make any real decisions. People are always picking you up and doing stuff to you, and the thing is, you, I mean a human then, is getting just old enough to understand about fair and not fair, but their not really old enough to understand consequences and they have no idea about schedules and things outside of their small world.”
The silence fell again and Human Friend Freddy turned her eyes to where her little pod-mates were calling to each other as they dashed around some large sunning rocks in their garden.
“It’s really important that the adults teach the little ones to respect other peoples’ time and attention,” she said. “You can’t let a kid like that monopolize an adult who has an important task to do. They have to learn to respect other people’s boundaries or they grow up into … well we’ve had a lot of different names for it over the centuries but humans who grow up getting their way all the time don’t turn out well.”
The human fell silent again and her hands stilled.
“That is why you told little human Pip to let her mother work?” Liftssignificantly prompted.
Human Friend Freddy nodded.
“But then,” the human went on in gestures now, as if her hands could express the thoughts better. “It is tough, so tough, to be pushed around and told that your thoughts aren’t more important than doing the chores. It has gotta be so frustrating to feel like no one cares what you have to say.”
“But I have seen your sister interact with her children,” Liftssignificantly gestured back. “She spends much time talking to them, and listening to them. Surely this doesn’t apply to your pod?”
Human Friend Freddy gave a soft laugh.
“That’s what’s so tough about being two feet tall Lifts,” she gestured with a rueful pressure to the movements. “Your brain doesn’t keep all those threads in a grip. When a human is that stage it is really only the now that exists. It doesn’t matter that Mommy listened to you for an hour this morning, if she isn’t listening now it’s just as frustrating as if she never listened. It doesn’t matter that the difference between a moose and a lumberback is a boring fact of life to everyone around you, to you it is the biggest, most important revelation of your little life and you need to share it with everyone, and when they don’t want to be cornered and talked at about water being wet for a quarter of an hour, well its tough on a kid.”
Liftssignficantly hummed a slightly uneasy note, and Human Friend Freddy gestured an encouragement for her to express her thoughts.
“So when you spent so much time listening to her were you not interfering with intended family
discipline?” Liftssignificantly asked with some hesitation.
She was treading close to very serious taboos and she knew it, but the currents around such things were always turbid when dealing with other species and she was fairly certain that Human Friend Freddy would not take it seriously amiss even if she shoved an appendage right in it. However this time Human Friend Freddy only threw back her head and laughed.
“Nope!” she answered in both sound and gesture. “I got the Auntie rules. I am sill young, well rested, and unmarried! It’s both a duty and a privilege to spend time with the kiddos doing things like taking their important revelations seriously. My sister is the mom and has to handle all that discipline stuff. So Long as I don’t contradict what she says I can indulge Pip as much as I want. You heard how I pulled Pip off of her mom?”
“Yes,” Liftssignificantly said.
“The lesson there was to not interfere when someone was working,” Human Friend Freddy said, “and I keep Pip from interfering with her mom’s work. Pip knows that so the discipline holds, but then she gets to pass on her very important information and show off how much she knows, so she gets to feel like an adult is taking her seriously.”
“It sounds like it is useful for your sister that you live so close,” Liftssignificantly observed.
“I try not to make them regret my proximity,” Human Friend Freddy said with a grin.
“Would you mind loosening your coat a bit?” Liftssignificantly asked. “It is rather cold out here and all that excess mammal warmth is going to waste under there.”
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