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Rocky and Adrian were rushing towards the dome almost before they felt the first tremors of the quake. Despite the temperature on Erid being the same as it always was, Rocky felt as if the mercury in his carapace had frozen solid. Adrian’s distressed pitch mirrored his own as they took off simultaneously, all ten legs eating up the short distance between their home and Grace’s classroom. Adrian was larger and faster, so they were the first to hear the distressed thrumming of Grace’s pebbles, but it hit Rocky only seconds later, the force of it nearly bowling him over.
Starting or entering a thrum is typically a conscious decision, but in times of high emotion they can start spontaneously. Pebbles especially often at least put out the invitation to thrums when experiencing intense emotions. A lot of the time, the call to thrum is not answered- for example, if a child is upset at losing a game of 🎵🎶🎵-🎵🎶🎵and is having an outburst that the other children do not engage with- or else a parent or guardian may answer it and conduct a small, spontaneous thrum to help their child learn to control and manage their emotions. A particularly good performance may occasionally result in a spontaneous thrum between spectators if the story is particularly exciting or emotional for the audience, but this is rare as it is generally considered impolite to initiate a thrum in a public space without prior arrangements, especially if it may interrupt an ongoing event, although some parts of Erid looked more favorably upon it than others. Grace once compared it to the social attitude around cheering or making noise in a ‘movie theater’ or other public space- it differs across cultures.
In general, however, spontaneous thrumming was rare among adult Eridians, and pebbles’ spontaneous thrumming typically did not extend beyond 2 or 3 Eridians unless there was a highly charged emotional situation. For an entire amphitheater of adolescent pebbles to start a spontaneous, highly-emotionally charged thrum with enough reach to draw in two adults was nearly unprecedented.
Because of the pebbles panicked thrumming, the two knew what to expect, but Rocky refused to believe it until he heard the open airlock and Grace’s unmoving carapace. Even then, he ran up and checked frantically for signs of movement in his thorax, unwilling to touch him in case he would make the burns worse. His entire body now sounded like his left arm had when the scarring was a fresh wound, but Rocky simply would not compute the idea that Grace could be gone. They were supposed to have at least +VV+∀+ more days in his lifespan, and Rocky, Adrian, the Human Biology thrum and Grace’s medical thrum were planning to make use of that time to ensure that they could find a way to expand Grace’s lifespan to that of his fellow Eridians, because he was theirs now and they took care of their own. Maybe Earth had thrown him away, but Erid never would and was willing to move mountains to keep him.
But now he was still, his cane on the ground beside him, the squishy organ around his endoskeleton now textured strangely and making sounds that it simply shouldn’t.
“No,” Rocky hissed, as he was swept into the tide of the thrum. “No no no!” His voice was stubborn and sure and he simply refused to allow this thrum to be one of panic and grief, because Grace would not die. He met Adrian’s own wall of grief with his resolve and pushed it outwards, shoving past the grief that had begun to expand into the city and the planet around them as all of Erid was drawn into the agonized, spontaneous Mourning Thrum for the alien who had given up everything for them out of love for a single one of their number.
This was not a mourning thrum. Rocky would not allow it to be. This was a Solutions Thrum, and Rocky’s love for Grace and his Tenacity would change the reality around them until they fixed things.
Young and old, regardless of what they had been doing, the thrum pushed and pushed and pushed until every Eridian felt as though they were One and All simultaneously. A whisper of an idea from a local Quantum Mechanics Thrum pulsed and spread and met the ideas of Neurology and Biology and Theoretical Physics Thrums. The new Relativity Thrum added their own ideas that melded with those of the new Computational Technology Thrum and soon Rocky’s own Engineering Thrum and Adrian’s Architecture Thrum joined in with the ideas of how to make the burgeoning idea a reality.
Soon it was no longer a collection of different Thrums adding ideas in a larger thrum, but rather a whole planetary Thrum working towards a singular purpose to save their alien no matter what.
The pebbles stayed guarding Grace, watching him sleep (only sleep, only sleep, The Thrum declared, with enough conviction to make it True). The adults put the ideas of their thrum into action, as it was barely Iλ days before a ripple in space time began at Erid and pulsed outwards and outwards and outwards until it had engulfed infinity. Grace’s carapace disappeared as time was rewritten, and the universe changed its shape. Years fell away as the entire landscape of Erid changed, Grace’s dome disappearing along with his body. But the Eridians' memories remained even as the Hail Mary disappeared from her stable orbit and the Blip A was unwritten in all but their memories. The Eridians who had once been gone returned and were quickly Thrummed in and updated as plans were put in place.
The hardest part, if one could believe it, was making sure that Grace landed in the correct place. All of Erid remembered even as time sloughed away- for the rest of the Universe, the Override was Mental as well as Physical, but The Thrum chose to Remember and so they Remembered even as the years Disappeared. And Grace was of Erid but he was also far away, and thus they were technically existing at a point in space-time before the birth of their Squishy Savior Angel Friend. But time is both Chronological and All-Encompassing, and moments don’t Cease to exist just because the most updated versions of the beings in it continue to move forward. Sideways doesn’t Disappear just because traffic is largely moving Forward. A drop of water can lose itself to the ocean, but what is the ocean if not many, many drops of water? Such is time, The Thrum discovered (or maybe Created- such complexities are beyond any one being). So it was a matter of figuring out how to drop Their Grace -who was by decree of The Thrum Eridian and thus immune to the Mental Overwriting of Time that was currently pulsing through the universe- into the most convenient position in the New Time, which would naturally be a different position than the rest of Erid.
It was difficult, but they did manage to put the Spirit of Grace into what they deemed would be an acceptable point in which to come home to them. Relativity complicated such matters, and it was more like throwing a dart towards a map across the universe than choosing an exact point in time, but they were confident that things would go better not only for Grace but for Earth this time around. Not that such a thing was particularly high on their priority list after Earth’s Colossal Fuck-Up in throwing Grace away, but Earth’s Colassal Fuckup was Erid’s Great Serendipity, and also, Grace loved Earth and so The Thrum decided that it would be fine if things went a little better for them This Time Around as well.
Erid began once again to build their ship, and across the universe, Grace Woke Up.