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At some point between arriving on Erid, emaciated and delirious, and starting up his classroom, Dr Captain Ryland Grace had become a global sensation.
Not that it was entirely unexpected, hell if E.T set up basecamp in his city he’d be scrambling to see him too. What Grace hadn’t anticipated, however, was the sheer scale of his stardom.
There was a one-Eridian-year long waitlist simply to reach the viewing section of his biodome, and whilst years of being a young, single, male who was seemingly good with kids had made him feel wanted, and his time aboard Stratt’s vat had made him feel needed, it wasn’t until he reached Erid that he felt adored.
As such he had proposed to the management team at the Centre For Human-Eridian Friendship that his “habitat” be open for viewing in 12 hour on and off cycles. They had eagerly agreed, moneybags shining in their non-existent eyes, because yes, unfortunately capitalism existed across the galaxy.
Thus, observation of Saviour-Grace became the latest craze among families, young couples, and educational groups alike.
This phenomenon had unintended consequences, well unintended on Grace’s part, the management at the Centre For Human-Eridian Friendship knew exactly what they were doing.
Many of the lucky Eridians who visited the Centre For Human-Eridian Friendship left satisfied, however perplexed about the strange rectangular accessories that clung to Saviour-Grace’s face.
There was wide speculation about the purpose of these objects, the leading theory suggested that they were a human equivalent to Eridian celebration jewellery, that is that they served no functional purpose except for making the wearer infinitely cooler. As such, young Eridians who visited Saviour-Grace began to partake in a new, alternative style.
Hanging off the carapaces of the street-savvy youth were xenonite rectangles, that passed for convincing human glasses, if it wasn’t for the fact that they were entirely opaque.
Eridians, who as a species had no concept of “eyes”, had only the questionable model of Dr Ryland Grace as to the methodology of wearing the accessory. Thus glasses were attached to all locations of the carapace, and during a particularly experimental phase of the movement, were worn as a sort of bracelet.
Rocky, who was the universal expert on all things human, ignored the fashion statement for the most part. It's not that he disliked the movement, objectively it was hilarious watching eyeless creatures imitate vision impairment. But the practice inevitably reminded Rocky of what he lacked, eyes.
He held a secret jealousy for his friend’s light sensing capabilities, but the jealousy was quickly dispelled when he realised that Grace was incapable of “seeing” through walls.
As Grace began to recover from his most recent love affair with death, he became far more interactive with his biodome.
The Eridian public was enraptured by the potential to watch the ethereal alien in movement, Grace-watching rose in popularity, if that was even possible, and the Centre For Human-Eridian Friendship had to introduce observation spaces beneath the biodome due to increased demand.
Eridians watched in awe as the creature balanced itself upon only two legs, yet the true beauty of its movement was its occasional tendency to suddenly fall toward the floor.
Often, its arms would reach out as it fell forward, as if it were shifting to the far more efficient quadrupedal form of movement.
Eridians interpreted this airy, clearly fragile form of ground facing movement as an expression of vulnerability. This was solidified when Saviour-Rocky helped return Saviour-Grace to his standard bipedal form as they walked along the shoreline together.
And so, a new dance move was conceived.
Most popular among young couples, but still commonly seen between close friends, the “fall” became a staple of the new-wave, post-cold Eridian culture.
The practice was simple:
One Eridian would flop to the floor, star-fishing their limbs outward.
Their dance partner would pull them up, and then flop to the floor themselves.
This cycle was repeated to the heart’s content.
Rocky, upon witnessing this move in action at a highly important scientific gala, fell into hysterics.
Grace, upon learning of this new move from a demonstration by Rocky and Adrian, closed the viewing of his biodome for one Eridian day whilst he recovered from his mortification.
Grace was never a fan of yoga on Earth.
Not that this was for a lack of trying, he had gone through a phase of daily yoga and meditation following a work-related incident occurring within a certain nation at a certain conference.
But he just couldn’t get into it.
Yet here he was, dressed in tights, yoga mat in hand, standing upon an artificial beach 16.3 light years away from Earth, weirder things have happened– right?
The yoga had been mandated by his lovely, caring doctor Greg. Months in increased gravity had already started to take a toll on his joints, and his fears of not being able to move this time next Earth-year had outweighed the shame he felt at the notion of performing the downward dog in front of an audience of Eridian spectators.
Thank Curie they made the xenonite one sided, he thought as he rolled out the mat.
Many Eridians, upon observing Grace complete yoga, made a swift exit from the Centre For Human-Eridian Friendship.
The movement was simply awe inspiring.
It reminded Eridians of the flexibility that arose from the vulnerable exoskeleton of the human species. And soon took hold amongst the Eridian public not as a sport, but an art form.
Erid, surprisingly, had a similar activity to yoga already. It was relatively obscure and focused entirely upon experimenting with the limits of the Eridian form. Thus, when the brand-new-shiny alien began to complete Eridi-yoga, his devoted fanbase, which was most of the planet, began to partake in yoga too.
Each morning, thousands of Eridians partook in yoga of varying complexity, and the Centre For Human-Eridian Friendship began to sell Eridi-yoga mats textured in the pattern of Dr Grace’s face.
Dr Grace, meanwhile, was enjoying the newfound looseness in his joints, and was surprised when one morning, as he approached the shore, yoga mat in hand, that Rocky and Adrian stood ready upon oddly textured mats.
The Eridian public’s latest fixation pertained to the strange growth that sat upon Saviour-Grace’s head.
Its texture appeared delicate, yet dense, to Eridian vision.
Recent efforts to introduce educational content to the Centre For Human-Eridian Friendship, spearheaded by Saviour-Grace himself, informed the curious public that this growth was known as “hair”.
It functioned, to an extent, as an insulator to the cold, but in modern human society, at least as it was when Saviour-Grace departed from it, “hair” was used as a fashion accessory.
This information was deeply interesting to the Eridian youth, who were recovering from the recent disappointment that glasses were, mostly, not fashion statements, but instead related entirely to an organ they did not possess.
Unfortunately, Eridians were entirely hairless. It was an unsettling truth that put a cloud of sorrow over the Eridian zeitgeist.
That was until one bright minded entrepreneur thought of thinly shredding various metals to create an artificial, detachable “hair”.
When Rocky, who had long accepted the absurd fashion in which Erid adored Grace, explained the latest trend to his friend, he proclaimed
“Oh! They made Eridian friendly wigs!”
The cultural sensation of wigs, validated by Saviour-Grace himself, was far more unstoppable than glasses ever were.
During a rare interview with Saviour-Grace, a talented upcoming journalist asked the questions that had been at the forefront of every Eridians mind.
“Humans wear wigs, correct?”
“Yes, and for centuries we have. Here’s a fun fact, they were invented by ancient human societies for pest control!”
Grace felt a deep, instant sort of regret upon sharing this information, he never could help himself, a chronic, compulsive fact-sharer.
“Amaze! Has Saviour-Grace worn wigs?”
“Oh no, this hair is, um, all home-grown”
“Will Saviour-Grace wear wigs?”
“I mean, maybe? It depends really on whether my hair decides to fall out or not.”
This comment had resulted in widespread terror and morbid fascination across Erid, as Eridians discovered that human hair is capable of simply “falling out” of the head, and was in fact near constantly falling out of their human’s head.
One particularly cunning Eridian, who held a coveted position among the maintenance team of Grace’s biodome, had heard this information and formulated a brilliant plan. They had seen extremely thin pieces of what was now referred to as “hair” littered across the biodome in the past and simply dismissed it, but not anymore, they were about to be a very wealthy Eridian.
It had taken only 48 hours for a black market of Grace’s hair to be established.
It was extremely popular and began to appear in celebration jewellery, amongst the collections of the rich and famous, and one fanatic had the hair surgically fused to their carapace.
Rocky, upon hearing of the trade, went ballistic.
Every Eridian who had access to the biodome was thoroughly investigated, their possessions ransacked for signs of the thin, golden hay-like pieces.
Rocky personally interviewed each suspect, displaying the sort of competent, fiercely protective leadership that reminded Erid that Rocky had returned from the great unknown of space.
Thus, 72 hours after the fateful interview, the hair black market was eviscerated, and the maintenance team on Grace’s biodome had been completely reevaluated.
Grace, upon hearing of this “hairy situation”, responded like a completely normal and well adjusted adult.
That is to say that he grasped the side of Rocky’s carapace through his xenonite suit and screamed:
“Oh god! They’re going to clone me. They’re going to clone me and sell mini mes at the gift shop!”
Grace would not like it mentioned that the Eridians already owned samples of his stem cells, thank you very much.
A constant source of awe to Grace-watchers across the globe was the manner in which it moved. Bipedalism was a fascinating concept, many argued that Saviour-Grace was undoubtedly an example of perfect symmetry due to the bipedal form, others saw it as an inefficient, yet objectively beautiful, manner of existence that elongated the form and disturbed balance.
Slowly but surely, the Eridi-yoga movement had become more advanced in their practices. And now, they were ready to conquer the next level of beauty in imitating the human practice, bipedalism.
The first Eridian who moved bipedally managed to do so for approximately three seconds, it was a revolutionary performance that inspired poems, song, and one short-film (an Eridian short film, that is, which is more like an abstract human podcast)
In the time following, the practice and its masters expanded exponentially, and more Eridians became practitioners of bipedal motion.
This trend outraged the Eridian health-science-thrum, who explained to little effect the damaging consequences of bipedal motion, the Eridian form was simply too dense, too bulky to handle such movement. This natural limitation prevented the movement from ever overtaking regular movement, yet it remained a revered form of art due to its direct connection to Saviour-Grace.
Rocky, unknown to everyone except Adrian, was a virtuoso of bipedal motion. Years in space, moving in altered gravity, had given him the uncanny ability to walk upon two legs at swift speeds for up to thirty seconds.
Grace found this out one sunny afternoon, when Rocky entered the biodome through the VIE (Very Important Eridian) gate.
Grace had called out to him,
“Hey Rock! It’s been ages, come sit with me”
Rocky then proceeded to stand upon two legs, leaving his remaining three limbs to flop in a useless counterbalance as Rocky scuttled toward Grace with unanticipated speed.
The resulting, high pitch, melodic scream that came from the mouth of Dr Captain Ryland Grace upon witnessing this spectacle was the muse for an entirely new genre of Eridian Music.
This scream had been followed by an equally passionate exclamation that was, unbeknownst to Rocky, identical to what Grace declared after laying his eyes upon the “Blip-A” for the first time.
“Holy fucking shit!”