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Meeting your best friend's partner shouldn't be this stressful. At least, that's what Grace assumes. He hasn't had to do it too often, an expected consequence of keeping people at arm's length for as long as he can remember. The handful of times he's met a friend's significant other they'd been young enough that the relationship wasn't serious enough to worry about or it had been just a casual acquaintance that he wasn't too worried about impressing. This is nothing like that. This is Rocky.
Not only is this Rocky's partner. it's also meeting another Eridian. On Erid. A planet lightyears from his home. Where he's not only the first human being they're meeting, but also the first alien life form. With incompatible languages that Grace has only really cobbled together over the years. That he still can't really speak, because again, alien life form with a radically different biology. Not to mention different cultures and social norms that Grace is only just beginning to understand. And, truly, he can't stress enough that he's going to be doing all this on a different planet.
He should probably stop thinking about it or he'll make himself sick.
Grace is in a temporary shelter on Erid, waiting while his more permanent home is built. It's, to be entirely honest, a downgrade from the Hail Mary. It's small, dimly lit at all times, and his entertainment is limited to a handful of books he'd found stashed away in DuBois' personal belongings. He misses having enough space to walk more than ten steps at a time, the lights of the Hail Mary that were programmed to follow Earth cycles, his simulation room, his cozy bed. The Hail Mary is up in orbit, only a few hours away on the Eridians' space elevator, but entirely inaccessible to him.
He can't leave this room without dying in Erid's atmosphere and any EVA equipment that can survive it is in the hands of the Eridians. It's a bleak place to be. Grace trusts Rocky and, by extension, the rest of the Eridians, with his whole being, so if they say having him on the surface in this temporary shelter makes it easier to find a solution for his malnourishment, he'll trust them. But he's not going to be ecstatic about it.
Meeting Adrian is supposed to be something fun to get his mind off the wait. Unfortunately, Grace's anxious little human brain has decided to turn this into a catastrophic event. An excellent tactic at making him forget the horrors of being trapped in a glorified jail cell on an alien planet while he maybe slowly withers away and dies, but sort of inconvenient when he's trying to put his best foot forward.
When he hears Rocky knocking to announce his arrival, Grace thinks he might throw up from the nerves, never mind how precious every calorie in his body is right now.
He pulls back the bed sheet he'd put up as a curtain on the room's barrier - yes, he'd explained countless times, he understands the Eridians can see right through it, but his primitive human brain needs some sort of barrier to feel like he has even a shred of privacy on this planet - and finds Rocky waiting with another Eridian by his side. Adrian.
Rocky can't seem to contain his excitement. Grace can see how his whole body vibrates as he stands there and he suspects that if he had an Eridian sense of hearing, he'd pick up on a constant hum coming from Rocky. Adrian is quiet, still. Grace is still learning to pick up on Eridian body language, especially when it comes from anyone other than Rocky, but he'd wager they feel as nervous as he does.
Grace has a difficult time differentiating between Eridians, but he trusts that it'll get better. Even if it never does, he's determined to at least recognize the ones closest to him. Rocky comes with no effort after years spent living together, but everyone else blends together. Adrian is important to Rocky, though, so they're important to Grace and he's determined to commit them to memory. They're roughly the same size as Rocky, just a few centimeters wider and with skinnier legs and sharper edges. Just like Rocky, they have emerald gems encrusted along their body. Adrian’s gems, however, almost blend in to the mottled green color of their stony flesh. Grace grins as he thinks back to Adrian the planet and how fitting the name really was.
As soon as he grins, Adrian tenses and falls back on their hind legs. They don't go as far as to raise their other claws defensively, but Grace has seen Rocky startled enough to recognize the fear response. He'd forgotten that smiling, especially a wide toothy one like he'd just done, is unlike anything they have here on Erid. As far as Adrian can sense, Grace had just flashed thirty-two bony knives in their direction. Off to a great start, clearly.
Rocky jumps in quickly to ease the situation. "Grace, this is my mate Adrian! Adrian, this is my best friend Grace. If it weren't for them, I would have never made it home to you and Erid would have been lost. Grace is a hero to all of Erid, but especially to me. To us."
Grace can feel his ears redden at the praise. Rocky has never been shy about how highly he regards Grace, but it had taken a whole new level since reaching Erid. Grace suspects it's a combination of sheer joy at finally completing their mission and wanting to really sell his alien friend to the Eridians. "Aww, c'mon, Rocky, you had just as much to do with saving our planets. I wouldn't have been able to do any of it without you. You're a hero, too." He shares a fist bump through the xenonite barrier and then turns to Adrian. "It's nice to meet you, Adrian. Rocky's told me so much about you."
"They cannot understand English," Rocky reminds him. He tilts towards Adrian to indicate he's speaking to them now, a habit Rocky has quickly picked up upon arriving to Erid, entirely for Grace's sake. "Grace says they are happy to meet you. You can speak to them directly. They will understand you."
It's only as new as their arrival at Erid, but Grace has gotten used to hearing Rocky using what is best described as they/them pronouns for him. Somewhere on the trip, Grace had been bored enough to read up on all the humanities he'd thought himself better than on Earth. He's ashamed, in retrospect, to realize how much he'd overlooked in his pursuit of hard sciences and somewhere in the third dozen articles on gender and language, he'd realized he might have been too quick to just call Rocky a he.
The conversations had hurt his brain, especially in translation, but Grace had eventually pieced together that in formal settings, pronouns were fluid class signifiers to Eridians. One for the higher ranked Eridian in any conversation and another for everyone else. That's been difficult to wrap his English speaking human brain around, so though it's still new and intimidating for him, Grace had been glad when Rocky agreed that a neutral they in English would fit just fine for the neutral Eridian pronoun that was more often used in daily conversation.
Rocky is still he in Grace's mind - done with Rocky's blessing, of course, who still struggled to understand human gender but was happy to be whatever his best friend was - but Grace has been working hard to internalize that other Eridians, like Adrian, and even himself would typically be neutral in Eridian.
More important to the situation at hand, Grace notices that Rocky neglects to translate Grace's praises, but he tucks that away for later. He has the rest of his life to make sure everyone on Erid knows how brilliant Rocky is. For now, his biggest goal is getting Adrian to like him. He smiles again, no teeth this time, and gives them two thumbs up. Hopefully Rocky already explained to them a few of Earth's friendly gestures.
Adrian shifts nervously between their legs, but braves a step closer to the barrier, coming as close to Grace as their atmospheres will allow. One of their claws comes up to rest against the xenonite and the rest of their carapace tilts low to the ground. It's a sign of respect, similar to bowing on Earth. It seems that making oneself vulnerable is a universal language. Grace has seen it plenty since arriving on Erid, but it still makes him squirm.
"Thank you for saving Erid. Thank you for bringing home my Rocky. You will be my North until my last sleep."
And if Grace was squirming and flushing before, he's a lost cause now. Tears well in his eyes and when he tries to speak, he chokes on his words. He's spent a good bulk of the trip to Erid learning Eridian language and culture. Much of it is still a mystery to him, something he'll have to learn through trial and error as he lives here, but this he knows. It's one of the first things Rocky taught him and even if he hadn't, he's heard it plenty since arriving.
Eridians are like little living compasses. The magnetic field of Erid is so strong, they had evolved with a strong sense of direction. No matter where they are on the planet, they never lose track of where North is. To call another being their North was the highest form of praise the Eridians had. It wasn't something they shared lightly. Some Eridians never called anyone their North. Some saved it for the end of their mate's life. Some only ever used it for their religious figures. Traditionally, it was only awarded to one other being and once given, couldn't be retracted.
Grace had become a lot of people's North since arriving on Erid.
Try as he might, the tears escaped him and he had to pause to collect himself. He could only imagine how disgusted Adrian must be, seeing Grace in all his leaky human glory. He can hear Rocky explaining tears and crying to them, followed by Adrian whistling out a few soothing chords, equivalent to a gentle shushing from a human. When he's sure he won't burst into sobs, Grace continues.
"Thank you, Adrian. That's... That's really kind of you. I don't know if I could ever put into words what it means to hear that. What Rocky means to me." Grace sniffles and wipes away one last tear. He glances at the keyboard in the corner of his room, a rough prototype that he and Rocky have been developing over the last year. If he can't express himself in English, doing so in Eridian will only be more difficult, but he feels he owes it to Rocky and Adrian both to at least try. "Do you think Adrian would mind if I practiced my Eridian with them?"
"Adrian will love this!" Rocky exclaims. His voice shoots up a few octaves, obviously ecstatic at the suggestion. Rocky's excitement whenever Grace practices is what keeps him pushing through the frustration of his pieced together Eridian. Rocky explains as Grace goes to take a seat by the keyboard. "Grace is learning to communicate in our language. We built that machine together and it allows them to mimic our language. I am still working on the design, so please, be patient. Any mistakes he makes are probably flaws in my work."
Typically, Grace tries to warm up with a few scales and a run through of the Eridian alphabet and base numbers, but hearing Rocky downplay his work is motivation to just jump right into the deep end. Knowing Rocky, he wouldn't translate accurately if Grace tried to set Adrian straight in English, so he has to take matters into his own hands.
"Rocky too humble," Grace plays, slow and careful as he struggles to stretch his fingers out along the keys. "Rocky machine perfect. Grace not perfect."
Spending a few years on the Hail Mary with no one but Rocky for company had made Grace more proficient at understanding Eridian than he ever thought possible. Really, when they'd first met, Grace thought they might be lucky to pantomime their way to a solution for their mutual Astrophage problem. Seventh grade Spanish was the only class Grace had ever failed and he's sure Sra. Mendes would be in absolute disbelief to learn that Grace had not only become fluent, but also single handedly created a translation dictionary and software.
Just like in middle school Spanish, though, he's been finding that producing language is infinitely harder than just understanding it. He relies on strung together pidgin reminiscent of what Rocky had sounded like to Grace when they'd first met. Thus far, the Eridians have been far more patient with him than Grace had been with Rocky in those early days, but he still finds himself fighting embarrassment when it comes time to play.
If Adrian finds Grace's Eridian embarrassing, they don't show it. Their claws dance in the familiar jazz hands and their whole carapace wiggles. "You are very good! Humans must be very clever if you've picked our language up so well. I love my Rocky, but he's not a very good teacher. Not enough patience."
Rocky chirps his outrage. "I was a very patient teacher! I used human grammar for Grace's slow human brain and made more puppets than anyone has ever made. No one has ever been a better teacher."
"Rocky good teacher," Grace agrees. He shimmies his shoulders to mimic how the Eridians' bodies move as they laugh. He wishes his keyboard was better at jumping between pitch and tone, but he's sure Adrian will be just as quick a learner at human body language as Rocky had been. "Human memory bad. Must repeat many many time to learn. Rocky repeat many many many many time for slow Grace brain."
"Human brains are perfect if they found a solution to save our star," Adrian decides. "I can't believe Rocky managed to go out and find the one alien as humble as themself."
Grace laughs, the human way this time, too amused to feel self conscious. Rocky had told Grace all about how quick and clever Adrian is, but he hadn't expected to be thoroughly read so quickly. "Grace happy happy happy to meet Adrian."
"I am happy to meet you, too. I hope Rocky didn't tire you out with too many questions during your travels. There's so much I want to learn about humans!" they exclaim.
"Adrian will be lead scientist in charge of designing your habitat!" Rocky interjects. His voice warbles with pride. "Adrian will design and I will build. It will be beautiful for you, Grace."
"Oh!" Grace exclaims in his normal voice. This is the first he's hearing about Adrian's involvement in the project, but he can't deny he's relieved. He still has his doubts about how well they'll manage to pull it off, but he feels in better hands. "Ask many question. Grace happy to answer. Grace have many question about Erid also."
"Erid is not as exciting, but I will teach you everything I know. And what I cannot teach, I will ask my colleagues to teach. Everyone is eager to meet you," Adrian says.
"Eridian have good..." Grace hesitates, struggling to remember how to play his next word. He gives up after floundering for close to a minute. "Sorry, Rocky, I've got to tap you in. Hospitality?"
Rocky happily chimes in with a translation and adds, "That would be tricky for human hands to play. On the next version of your instrument, I'll fix that."
"Do all humans have only two hands? And Rocky said your bottom limbs aren't functional as hands. Is that true?" Adrian asks.
"Yes. Lots Earth life have four limb." Grace pauses his playing to wiggle all four of them in example. "Work little harder but work okay."
Adrian tilts their carapace back and forth to mimic Grace's nods - as quick a learner as Rocky had been! - and moves on. They gesture towards the lamp in the corner of the room. "You see light? Rocky said without light, you can't navigate at all, but Rocky also has a habit of telling fanciful stories. Surely humans don't rely entirely on light."
"Earth atmosphere very very very different to Erid. Lots of light for humans," Grace explains. He'll have to get better at this so he can really get into the nitty gritty of it all, since Adrian seems eager to learn, but for now, he stumbles his way through a pieced together explanation of human eyes and the other animals on Earth who'd evolved in darker environments and had senses more similar to Eridians.
They continue like this for a while, Adrian with an endless stream of questions and Grace happy to answer as best he can. His playing gets better as they continue, flowing more naturally. He's a far cry from sounding fluent, but he can at least keep up enough for their conversation to have a natural rhythm.
Rocky helps when Grace struggles with words, but mostly, he seems happy to just witness his alien best friend and his long missed mate together and interacting in the same room, against all odds. If Grace had anyone waiting at home, he probably would have been just as excited to watch them meet Rocky. Eventually, though, no matter how exciting this all is, Grace's body starts to catch up to him.
His answers come slower, his movements drag, his eyes feel heavier. They've been at this for hours and he already has less energy than usual, struggling to get by with limited calories as he is. He'll need to get some rest, no matter how much he wants to keep this up. If it were up to him, he'd keep going until he slumps over on his keyboard, but Rocky knows him well enough to intervene.
"Grace must sleep now," he says, placing a loving claw on Adrian's carapace.
"Can wait," Grace tries to insist. Since he knows his makeshift keyboard isn't the best at getting tone across, he adds, "Exclamation."
"No, no, no. Humans become very stupid when they don't sleep. Adrian will see you behaving stupid eventually, you don't need to make a bad first impression," Rocky whistles with the undertones of teasing.
"One more question?" Adrian pleads, almost at the same time as Grace.
Rocky's carapace shakes with laughter. "I don't know how I planned to survive with two of you! One more, but they really do need to sleep."
"Your name, Grace, is also a word. Are all human names words? Is it not confusing?" they ask.
"Some human name word. Not all. Grace family name. Grace Earth word and Grace Erid word. More simple. Grace Earth name Ryland," Grace speaks the last word out loud for them.
Adrian rumbles pensively and sits quiet for a moment. "You gave Rocky and me human names to speak in your language. Why don't you have an Eridian name to speak in ours?"
"Oh." Grace frowns. Shrugs. Glances at Rocky. Shrugs again. "Did not think to ask. Want to respect Erid."
"You saved Erid! You are Eridian now, you deserve an Eridian name. You traveled together for years, Rocky, and didn't think to give them an Eridian name?" Adrian's voice still holds a gentle, loving tone, but Grace can pick up on the exasperation beneath the surface.
Rocky is bashful, doing a few spins. "We were busy! It never came up and calling them grace seemed like a perfectly good solution to our name problem."
"They saved our planet. More importantly, they saved you. They deserve more." Adrian takes a few steps towards Grace, standing right up against the barrier again. "Would you like that? I don't want to overstep on Earth culture, either, but I think you have more than earned an Eridian name. If it's agreeable to you, it would be my honor to name you.""
Tears are already threatening to spill. "Yeah. Yes, sorry, um, I mean yes. Would like much much much."
Adrian only has to think for a moment. They sing a long string of notes, followed by the shortened, more personal version that will be used more often. Rocky had taught Grace about this. "♩♫♩♪. Ryland. That will be your Eridian name. Erid owes you a debt we can never repay, Ryland. Thank you for saving us."
Rocky repeats the collection of notes, testing out Grace's new name. Like all Eridian names, it comes with movement. Rocky mimics what Adrian had done as two of his claws come close to the center of his carapace, probably a close estimate to where Grace's heart might be. "Ryland. Beautiful! This is why I waited. I would have never been able to pick such a beautiful name for you, my friend. You deserved Adrian's touch."
Before the wild adventure that had become his life in the last few years, Ryland had never had much of a musical ear. Sure, he'd enjoyed music as much as any other human, but ask him to analyze it and he'd fall flat on his face. Meeting Rocky and learning his language had forced him to grow past that. He knows more about scales and pitch and harmony than he ever thought possible. He'd be willing to bet his ear is as finely tuned as the grandest conductor back on Earth.
He's glad he's learned as well as he has, because it makes it easy to distinguish the individual parts of the name Adrian has gifted him with. The pitch used solely for family and loved ones, the scale reminiscent of North that starts out his name, the brightness of D major, and to close out his name, the warm embrace of the same notes in Rocky and Adrian's family name.
To the average human ear, it would probably just sound like a random collection of musical notes and trills and whistles. But Ryland has been around Erid long enough to recognize it for the love it is.
It takes him a while to respond. He's too busy wiping away tears and collecting himself with shaky hands to play out a response. He doesn't know how to even begin to express his gratitude in Eridian, but it feels insufficient to just rely on Rocky to translate, so he settles for Eridian's more childish tactic of repetition. "Love love love. Happy happy happy."
"You're welcome, Ryland." Adrian's whole body emits a pleasant hum. "It's my pleasure. I could give you everything I have and it would never be worth what you gave me in bringing my Rocky back."
"Ryland must sleep now. The more tired they are, the more they leak. And they're already leaking more than usual," Rocky notes.
Ryland laughs. There's still a few tears escaping him, but he's grinning as he plays, "That true. Humans leak much, but Grace much much."
"Sleep now, Ryland. Rocky and I will watch," Adrian promises.
The only place Ryland has to sleep down here is a worn, old sleeping bag he'd brought down from the ship. When he goes to get settled in it, though, it might be the happiest sleep anyone's ever gotten on Erid. He drifts off, Adrian and Rocky ever vigilant, with a smile on his face. Life on Erid is uncertain and scary, sure, but he thinks he's going to fit in just fine.