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“What do you miss most about home?”
———
“This I shall do for you,” Rocky stated, intoned with love and sincerity, showing Adrian the model of their future home he had constructed and perfected over the course of the last few six-days. It was filled with tunnel-spaces and nooks, acoustically sound and meant to perfectly echo both the beautiful grating knocks of Adrian’s laughter and his own chirpy nonsense laugh that they somehow still loved.
They had stayed up together, in separate rooms, perfecting their promise-gifts while trying their best not to find out what was being prepared just across the empty, empty halls of Rocky’s childhood burrow.
“And this I shall finish,” Adrian replied, their deeper tones roughened further with emotion as they shared their gift; a model of a delicate lattice structure, a bower to frame their home and shelter them from storm and flood. It would hum in the winds, and the sound of it would let neighbors and passersby know that those who lived here were in harmony, now and forever.
Not a single carapace was still, they were all shaking and humming with the tune of excitement and happiness and the choked-up thrum of well-wishes. Adrian’s siblings especially were clambering around like pebbles, rushing to invite Rocky to their next family gathering, as surely that would be better than whatever he had been doing previously, since there were not too many distant relatives who were nearby like they were?
Rocky was just thankful they had not mentioned his parents’ death outright, and advised that yes, he would be there.
Adrian bumped his shoulder and hummed, soothing. The tender contact started another round of cheers, but he was more glad for the support than anything else.
———
“Hmm, my mate.”
———
“This I will do for you!” Rocky sung with excitement, clanking his digging-plates together before starting into the next section. Their days here were light and sweeter than the warming-season winds, and work on their home was going more quickly than they thought it would. The underground structure was perhaps 4/6ths of the way done, and the bower- while slower going- was shaping up nicely. The wind played across the standing threads and hummed in agreement.
Rocky chirped a laugh.
“And this I will finish,” Adrian agreed, making measurements and finishing a new materials order for the Bower- these were fine for the high and middle notes, but they needed thicker wire gauges for the lower tones and the ones manufactured here just weren’t perfect enough. Something like the spires near Rocky’s clan burrow, where the holes in the stones whistled and provided the lighter strings something to sway against in high winds, like parents singing a sleep-song. It was going to be perfect.
———
“Wait, what? You’ve got a mate?”
“...Yes?”
———
“I need to do this. For you.” It was a horrible decision to have to make. The discovery of the star-eaters had rocked the very foundation of their world, and Thrums upon Thrums were deliberating on what to do. Rocky shifted side-to-side, nervous, and braced for an argument. What he did not expect was for Adrien to sigh and gesture for him to follow to their office, but he did- tenderly tapping towards their workspace.
“Then I will need to finish this.” It was a model- hundreds of them, actually, but all essentially variations of a single model: life-support systems for the ship they were planning to send. The thrum had chosen them both, it seemed, but for different reasons. Adrien opened their posture carefully, turning so that the peak of their carapace was pointed backwards- the very opposite of their resonant, confident self.
What followed was several hours of them crooning comfort at each other, humming care, and making promises that neither of them were sure could ever be kept.
They were together until the very last moment, humming goodbyes that earned sympathy chirps from every family in attendance. Not a single carapace was still during the ascent of the surface-to-space ride, all the flight crew clicking with anxiety and shuddering with the last aftershocks of sadness to be had before taking on the brave mantle of their mission.
It was going to be fine.
———
“I mean not that you- I’m sure- I’m. What’s their name?”
“Name is: Soul-Valley, Deep-thinker, Clan of the Three Spires and my Mate-in-Mourning.” They probably were mourning him, to be entirely fair. It had been almost 100 years.
“It’s beautiful,“ Grace said, having only caught about two words [at best].
“Grace have mate, question?” Rocky asked, consciously slowing the words so that the translator could pick it up- if they were similar in that way, too, then Grace had to be feeling the same sense of longing that he was after 387 years away from his mate, their home…
“No. But she thought I had my head in the clouds…”
———
“Understand. I am here forty-six years.” Time calculations were quick, easy. 46 was so much smaller and more manageable a number than 387.
“Forty-six years? Earth years?”
“I am here forty-six Earth years, yes.” A high-pitched laugh follows the statement, teasing.
“How… How long do Eridians live?” Halting, boggled, curious.
A thoughtful hum. “Average is six-hundred eighty-nine years.”
“Earth years?”
“Yes.” Another whistling chuckle. “Always Earth units. You are bad at math, so always Earth units.”
———
“Grace, question?” Tentative, hopeful.
“Yes!” Happy, relieved.
“You are here, question?” High-pitched with disbelief and smothered in emotional sub-vibrations, it shrieks in the human’s headset.
“Yes! I’m here!”
“You are… You… You are here!”
———
The return to Erid is not heralded with celebratory whistling and song, but with careful suspicion at the new craft and wonder at their story.
Adrian is there, though, and that is what matters. Grace is staying on the ship in orbit until a shelter is built.
“This I must do for him,” Rocky intones, after telling the entire story.
Adrian, overcome with the avalanche of emotions, rumbles affectionately and runs their knuckles over the ridges of Rocky’s carapace with all the love and care of one who thought they’d never see their mate again in this lifetime.
Their home was finished before Rocky left Erid- decades before- but this undertaking is much larger than a Burrow or a Bower, and much larger than both of them. Adrian responds anyway.
“Then this I must finish.”
———
”Now tell me again how you named a planet for me?”
The music of rumbling laughter and whistling embarrassment are echoed and harmonized by their home and the structures around it.