Work Text:
Dr Captain Ryland Grace had spent the past week as a devoted student of the written Eridian language, Eridani.
Eridani appears as a sort of textured braille; the reader will interpret an alphabet of Eridiani symbols, starting from the bottom of the page and working upward.
Grace was taught the language by his devoted friends, Adrian and Rocky, which is to say that he has been learning Eridani from Adrian, whilst Rocky stole his writing materials– because this 254 year old had the maturity of his middle schoolers.
The writing materials were another can of worms, after much experimentation, as unfortunately Grace could not indent thin metals with the touch of his finger like the Eridians, it was decided that crayons would be the ideal writing material, due to the thick, waxy substance they produced. To the Eridian vision, the waxy coating of crayon-writing created a sparkling effect, essentially leading Grace to writing permanently in glitter gel pens.
Further, to allow his Eridian-made crayons to be visible to his vision, a pigmented rock was incorporated into the blend.
Dr Captain Ryland Grace, saviour of two planets, felt somewhat infantilized by writing official statements to the public with a hot pink crayon. The pink part had been the fault of Rocky, as he had insisted that the mineral mixed with the wax be rhodonite– a dark stone with a beautiful, pink pigment– the rascal couldn’t even see colour, but the unstoppable urge to piss off one’s best friend transcended planes of perception.
The urge to learn Eridiani had been at the back of Grace’s mind since he first saw Rocky reading, what he now knew to be a steamy, erotic romance novel, on the journey to Erid. The symbols were not unlike nordic runes, and Grace had been in a Dungeons and Dragons club for the entirety of his college career, thus he was definitely nerdy enough to appreciate a real-life, fantasy-style language.
This desire had been prioritised when, after being informed by Adrian, who was tired of getting rid of the damn stuff, that Grace had a large accumulation of fanmail, gifted to the Centre for Human-Eridian Friendship, and addressed to Saviour-Grace himself.
Grace was no egomaniac, but he blazed through basic Eridani language exercises with a fierce enthusiasm, and when he passed his final Eirdi-Spelling-Bee, he begged Adrian for the mail:
“Please, I can read it now, Adrian please.”
“No. I know what Erid is like. I don’t want to hurt your young, innocent light-sensing-organs with what they give you.”
“But Adrian, I’m not young and innocent, I’m a middle-aged man, I can handle it.”
“Grace can not be middle aged, not acceptable” Rocky interjected “Grace is far too young, has barely lived at all.”
Grace leaned against Rocky, and in a final, K.O blow to Adrian, pleaded:
“It’ll make me happy, please?” raising his voice to a higher pitch that he knew reminded his friends of a young, confused pebble.
Adrian shifted between their legs, they rattled an arm, and finally
“Fine, alright. But Grace must report what the public are sending him to us. So they don’t corrupt you”
Grace cheered, punching the air in excitement.
“Why is Grace trying to fist the air, question? I thought that fisting was a special activity for Rocky-Grace-Adrian?”
God, he had to get them to stop calling it that before Earth made their way to Erid.
Jewellery, to Grace’s utter joy, was a common gift from the public.
Erid had swooned when Grace emerged from his home covered in various rings, necklaces, and shoulder plates.
He gave Rocky a shimmy.
“How do I look?”
“Grace looks like he is ready for a big, big, big party.”
Grace promptly added an ornate headpiece to his ensemble.
A collaborative project, spearheaded by the Elderly Eridian Craft Association, had been to create a back-piece for Grace, it appeared much like a bird’s tail feather, and was worn as a belt around the waist.
The elderly Eridians spent their meetings gossiping and creating intricate metals, completed with various mosaiced stones that sparkled and swirled in the Eridian vision.
“Oh, Amethyst, that line of silver is simply beautiful.”
“Thank you, dearest Di. By the way, have you heard that the human has taken a recent fascination to celebration jewellery?”
“It has? Well isn’t that delightful, and exceptionally well timed.”
“I heard that it enjoys the jewellery so much that it mutilated its body to attach more to itself.”
“Oh, it is so devoted to Erid. It is so adorable the efforts it goes to.”
Grace had requested, to the horror of Rocky and Adrian, that he receive ear piercings to account for his influx of jewellery; he had achieved this with a syringe. The health-science thrum had been intensely interested in the concept of cartilage, the anthropological-thrum was simply euphoric with the new insight into human culture this granted.
After weeks of painstaking work, they delivered the back-piece to Saviour-Grace’s gift box at the Centre for Human-Eridian Friendship.
Grace had been delighted upon receiving the piece, and exited his house with it snugly secured around his waist.
“Rocky, look at me. I’m like a peacock!” He exclaimed, shaking his hips in what was, unbeknownst to him, an extremely sensual maneuver common in Eridian foreplay.
“Grace looks beautiful!” Rocky proclaimed.
Now, sat in the centre of the Elderly Eridian Craft Association, was a sheet of A4 paper, encased in a shock-proof, fire-proof chamber to ensure its security. Written upon it, in hot pink crayon, was “thank you for the amazing gift!” in barely legible Eridani.
It was the most precious possession held by the Elderly Eridian Craft Association.
Another popular gift Grace received were sculptures. They were mostly abstract works entitled “hope”, “love”, “joy”, and “squishy”.
Grace adored every sculpture he was granted, however was quickly running out of space in his biodome.
He turned to Iggy, a leader in management at the Centre for Human-Eridian Friendship. Thus, an art gallery was established in the centre, with 80% of the space, as per Grace’s request, being dedicated to pebbles’ art.
Once a month, Grace would equip a xenonite suit and embark on a rare journey outside his biodome, where he would tour the first intergalactic art gallery, and individually thanked each artist for their donation.
As the selection process for the gallery became more intensive, he found himself with an artwork he just couldn’t part with. It was a strange, shapeless blob created by a pebble who had finished their art class early, and was looking for a way to kill the extra time.
Objectively, it was ugly, even by the standards of Eridian art. It lacked the symmetry sought after in their sculptures, and was made from a dull, unassuming material.
Grace adored it. The amateur art reminded him of the objectively hideous, and seemingly purposeless gifts his students on Earth would leave him, thus, the artwork entitled “How I See Saviour-Grace” became the only piece that never left his biodome, and instead sat safely on his bedside table.
Lately, Grace had been unboxing strange, smooth black rocks. They were relatively light, and fit comfortably in the palm of his hand.
None of them had come with any sort of note attached, thus leaving Grace to guess the meaning for himself.
After close examination, he determined that they were unimportant, likely left by some pebbles wanting to give something to Saviour-Grace, but not having sufficient means to create said gift.
No matter, Grace had found a superb use for them as excellent stones for skipping water. His current record was four bounces, but he had all the time to improve his skill, and was determined to make it to five.
Grace, eager to impress Rocky, called to him:
“Rock, watch this!” he skipped a stone that bounced exactly four times, before sinking into the water.
“Pretty cool, huh?”
Rocky stood frozen. Slowly, he moved toward Grace, and then, horrifyingly, stood back onto two of his legs to achieve an extremely intimidating form.
“Grace will retrieve the Astrostones from the water immediately, demand”
“Astrostones?”
Rocky let out a garbled, frustrated chirping noise.
“Retrieve them. Now.”
Grace, unused to such firm demand from his friend, stripped to his boxers and dove into the water– that, unfortunately, was only 50cm deep at its furthest point– retrieving around 20 smooth, black Astrostones.
Rocky, upon seeing the collection of stones that Grace had thrown into the water, shrieked.
“Grace!”
He began to chase his friend.
“Bad, bad, bad. Stupid Grace. Stupid, leaky human, did your brain leak out?”
Grace fled in desperation, blindly running toward the border of his biodome, plastering himself against the glass in his attempt to escape.
“Rocky, stop, I’m shirtless against the glass, I thought you didn’t like how perverted your species was? Now you want me to just plaster myself all over them?”
Rocky was relentless.
“Those rocks are one of the most valuable items on Erid!” He poked his friend in the shoulder.
“Rocky stop! You’re pushing me into the barrier.
My ninnies are on the glass
Wait– Valuable?”
Rocky, a creature without eyes, stared dumbfoundedly at his friend.
“Astrostones come from Erid’s outer moon, extremely rare, it is a great honour to receive one.”
Grace clenched his teeth. Oh god, Erid probably thought he was some anarchist, rejecting their sacred cultural customs.
Fortunately, the Eridian public had been too far from the water to observe that Grace had been disgracing an integral cultural gift.
Unfortunately, they hadn’t been too far from Grace when he pressed himself against the glass, and had assumed he had displayed a unique human greeting.
Consequently, hundred of Eridians began to press their carapaces against the xenonite barrier to his biodome, and proclaim:
“Ninnies on the glass.”
Grace, to improve his fluency in reading Eridani, without having to read Rocky’s extensive erotica collection, had been spending his afternoon lazily flipping through the mail addressed to him.
For the most part, the mail proclaimed their complete adoration, and gratitude toward him. Not unexpected, but certainly still awkward.
One letter, however, had caught his eye:
“Esteemed Saviour-Grace,
We are writing to you to humbly request a sample of human biological material. The strict biosecurity measures put in place by Saviour-Rocky have made acquiring human samples impossible.
We request a sample of human biological material for study, if Saviour-Grace will be so gratuitous as to grant us one.
Sincerely,
The Eridian Science Thrum”
Grace, forever a scientist, decided to oblige their request immediately.
Getting around Rocky would be the harder part.
Grace cunningly assembled a small box, hidden in his bathroom sink, containing a sample of his hair, saliva, and hopefully blood. He just had to nick himself without Rocky realising.
If Rocky were able to do so, Grace was sure that he would spend his life on Erid wrapped up in protective bubble-wrap, his feet never to touch the floor, and with absolutely no risk of injuring himself. Rocky was quite the helicopter parent.
Rocky accounted for all injuries on his body with intensity.
Grace’s initial plan had been to nick his cheek whilst shaving, unfortunately, Rocky watched this activity to ensure that Grace did not accidentally harm his "precious face.”
This led to Grace sneaking into his own lab, to extract 5ml of blood from a spot on his ankle, completely imperceptible.
The plan had almost worked, he had even signed off on the sample-box in his hot pink crayon.
As he went to hand it over, he was busted.
“Grace, Rocky smells blood.”
“Green beans and casserole!” Grace exclaimed "You scared me there, bud."
“What is in Grace’s hand, question?”
“Oh, it's um, it's nothing, just a little thank you present to the Eridian-Science-Thrum”
Rocky snatched the box off Grace, who foolishly hadn’t accounted for the fact that Eridians could easily see through the cardboard exterior he had planned to ship his DNA off in.
Bugger.
Following Grace’s attempt to send little samples of himself to the first person who asked him to, Rocky had become intensely involved in the vetoing process of the mail Grace read. Unfortunately, mistakes slip through even in the most efficient systems.
Grace opened a small xenonite container, inside, cushioned by mud, was a small, light blue, egg.
“Hey, Rock, why was there an egg in my mailbox?”
Adrian and Rocky stilled, before rushing toward Grace, and examining the product.
Both of them fell flat to the ground upon seeing the egg.
“Disgust, disgust, disgust” Rocky cried.
Adrian’s body trembled, “Knew that we couldn’t trust Erid, disgusting, perverse Erid.”
Grace was becoming increasingly alarmed about the object he held in his hand.
“What, what does it mean?”
Rocky and Adrian shifted awkwardly.
“It is… an Eridian egg.”
“Well, I gathered that much, but which animal created it?”
“An Eridian laid it.”
Oh dear god.
“Is it… fertilised?” Grace asked nervously.
Adrian shivered, “no.”
“Grace… they want you to... become involved with it.”
Grace paled, the contents of his stomach rising up his throat,
“I don’t want to be an incubator!” he exclaimed.
Adrian and Rocky ushered Grace into his home, rubbing his back in support. Leaving the horrified maintenance team of Grace’s biodome to dispose of the egg.
Since the eggcident, Grace had become far more wary of the “gifts” delivered to him from Erid.
Thus, he had not checked his mail, and had not seen the insurmountable number of Eridians begging to watch him sleep. This in turn had led to a rally at the Centre for Human-Eridian Friendship. Signs, songs, and slam-poems filled the centre, as they demanded to watch their special saviour sleep.
Grace looked through the double sided section of the xenonite, saw the signs waving through the air, and decided to host the universe’s first intergalactic slumber party.
And as Grace prepared for sleep on the shore of his biodome, wedged snugly between Rocky and Adrian, gazing upon the planet that adored him, he smiled.
It was nice to have friends, especially a whole planet of them, who loved you back.