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⟨⟨Why Grace scratch self, question?⟩⟩
“Hm?” Grace broke out of his thoughts, looking up from his laptop over at Rocky in his little xenonite tunnel above him. Then he realized that he was, in fact, scratching his face on the stubble along his jaw. “Oh, I don't know.”
⟨⟨How Grace not know what he is doing, question?⟩⟩ Rocky tilted his carapace to the side, looking for all the world like a curious puppy.
He shrugged.
“It's just a reflex. I wasn't consciously doing it.”
⟨⟨Grace hurt self without thinking, question??⟩⟩ Rocky's legs straightened in alarm and Grace blinked in surprise.
“What? No?? Why would you think I'm hurting myself??” He asked, genuinely baffled.
Rocky rocked side to side a few times before saying ⟨⟨Grace say human skin fragile, easy to break⟩⟩
“Oh,” Grace relaxed as he realized the misunderstanding, “It's not that fragile. I'm not rubbing my nails against it hard enough to break, here watch,” he held out his bare arm and demonstrated scratching it like one would scratch an itch, “See? No hurt.”
⟨⟨Oh, ok⟩⟩ Rocky relaxed visibly at that before straightening again ⟨⟨What purpose of harmless scratching, question?⟩⟩
“Just itchy I suppose,” Grace said with another shrug.
⟨⟨New word⟩⟩
“What, itchy?” He asked, and Rocky tilted his carapace in an imitation of a nod, “Uhh, itchy is like . . . it's like when your skin feels weird and scratching it makes that feeling go away. Orrrrrr sometimes makes it worse depending on what caused it.”
⟨⟨What cause skin feel weird?⟩⟩ Rocky asked, moving closer to the xenonite barrier, sounding genuinely interested. Grace couldn't blame him. To Rocky, Grace was literally an alien, so even the most mundane of human experiences were probably fascinating to him.
“Iritants mostly,” he said, “Something that your skin doesn't like or is allergic to or maybe something poisonous or a bite from something venomous but not deadly. Sometimes you're just itchy for no real reason though, I'm not sure why.”
⟨⟨Many new words⟩⟩ Rocky hummed, and Grace winced. Whoops. He really needed to get better at remembering to use more general terms.
“Sorry, um, an allergy is when the human immune system reacts to something that isn't dangerous, so like you could be allergic to a food or a plant or a certain material or things like that,” he started to explain.
⟨⟨Inefficient⟩⟩ Rocky interrupted ⟨⟨Why waste energy fighting things that are not problem, question?⟩⟩
Grace shrugged again, he was doing that a lot today he realized.
“I don't know, some people just have trigger happy immune systems.”
Rocky gave him the clearest blank look he'd ever seen something without a face give. He resisted the urge to facepalm. Right. Idioms.
“Uh, that means having a strong urge to attack something basically,” he said quickly.
⟨⟨Violent⟩⟩ Rocky commented, before continuing ⟨⟨Define other new words⟩⟩
Grace paused, trying to remember what else he'd said before.
“Um, so poison and venom are . . . basically the same thing,” he was absolutely not going to get into semantics right now, “and they're basically just something that either can kill you or make you really sick if they get on or in you. So like your atmosphere is poison to me and mine is to you.”
⟨⟨Ah, yes. We call this ♬♫♬⟩⟩
Grace pulled up the translation software to add the word, just typing in poison for now. He had no idea if creatures on Erid had the ability to bite things and inject venom, and he wasn't going to ask right now.
⟨⟨Why Grace skin irritate just now, question?⟩⟩ Rocky asked, and Grace figured he'd defined all the words Rocky didn't know, which was good because he did not have nearly as good of a memory as Rocky did.
“Just my stubble. It gets itchy sometimes,” he scratched his face again as thinking about it made the itch come back.
⟨⟨New word⟩⟩ Right.
“The little hairs on my face, like this,” he ruffled the hair on his head before pointing back at his cheek, “Only shorter.”
⟨⟨Why, question?⟩⟩
“Cause I shave—er, cut it shorter.”
⟨⟨Grace cut self, question??⟩⟩ Ah. Ok. And he was back to panicked Rocky again.
“No, the hair is dead, it doesn't hurt,” he explained quickly, “I've got these special cells under my skin in different places that make the hair. It's just strands of dead protein that grow continuously, it's very normal to cut it shorter if it gets too long.”
Rocky hummed in a tone that sounded unconvinced, but he didn't push the issue so Grace counted that as a win.
⟨⟨So Grace weird face strands make skin irritated⟩⟩
“Yeah sometimes. But like I said, sometimes you just get itchy for no reason. Sometimes just thinking about being itchy makes you itchy,” he said, absently scratching his arm as he did so. This whole conversation was making him itchy actually. That was annoying.
⟨⟨Humans strange⟩⟩ Rocky grunted, and Grace snorted softly.
“Oh yeah pal, I agree with you on that.”