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When Graecie initially cleared the keeping of two apex predators on her ship, two apex predators that they had no initial way of getting proper translators for, she did not anticipate them to become two of the most valuable members of her crew.
The language barrier had initially been a very pressing matter, but 4C was good enough at interpreting the pair's body language, and slowly, very slowly, the crew could also put together sentences based on what the humans would show them via artwork or hand gestures or even just vaguely waving at food on a few memorable occasions.
Actually finding a translator was not one of the heavier issues. Humans had been kept in captivity before, a fact Scott cited as the reason lots of them were reported to be 'feral'—anyone would be, with captors like that, he reasoned. Anyway, it surprised Graecie immensely just how many languages and dialects were on Terra. Earth, they learned the humans called it. 'Nominal' and 'Katie' spoke English, according to them.
Nom had an 'accent,' a word meaning something similar to Mae's m'xrnn. Graecie understood it to mean a certain inflection and way of speaking unique to a person, typically suited to a region. When asked why Nom had it and Katie did not, he informed the crew that he had grown up in a different region to Katie after their parents split up, taking one child each.
The common area had grown quieter after that.
Nom and Katie took to Common fairly fast for the amount of isolation they'd been forced through in their time in captivity, not to mention the general difficulty that was learning a new language.. Just thinking of it made Graecie's ears droop—4C had been with them for two weeks. Nom and Katie had been alone in a stark white cell with barely enough food for two months.
The quantities and clocks were another thing—Graecie was quite relieved to know that their day-night cycles were relatively the same, and that counting was relatively universal even to humans.
Unfortunately, forcing them through education on the Common language was needed. English, alongside most other human languages, was not widely spoken nor understood across the galaxy. Common was, so Katie and Nom had to learn, bless their hearts.
It was almost entertaining, to hear the accent switch—whilst speaking English, Katie's words were lightly flourished with slight emphasis on the rounder sounds, and a tall quality to the way she vocalized 'oh's and 'ah's. Nom, however, had a rougher cadence and slightly shorter sounds, with a much thicker pronunciation compared to Katie.
However, in Common, both of them had something like a mix of Mae and Graecie’s tonal inflections, and a few of Scott’s mixed in on Nom’s end.
Interestingly, Nom's accent also got significantly stronger when he was angry, 'drunk' (and wasn't the thought that humans purposefully drank something that would intoxicate them terrifying?), or incredulous.
She mused on this as she watched the two humans, now proper members of her crew, attempt to teach Mae and 4C some kind of clapping game. They had hijacked the cups on the ship for their escapade, the little rascals, and were clapping their hands together, banging them on the table, and moving the cups in rhythmic motions.
They were also singing. Hearing Nom and Katie sing for the first time had definitely been an experience—they didn't sound bad, by any means, but Graecie somehow hadn't considered the possibility that humans would sometimes sing just because they were able.
The tune they were trying to teach Mae and 4C was in English, but Graecie knew the words well enough to understand, even though there was some odd slang for 'going to'.
"When I'm gone, when I'm gone,
You're gonna miss me when I'm gone.
You're gonna miss me by my hair,
You're gonna miss me everywhere,
Oh, you're gonna miss me when I'm gone."
For such an upbeat melody, the lyrics were so sad. Mae and 4C clearly felt the same way, staring at the siblings with some mix of confusion and melancholy. Nom and Katie were completely oblivious to their predicament, though, because they kept going, over and over, incorporating what sounded like a first verse and perhaps a bridge of some sort.
From what Graecie could gather, the song was from the perspective of somebody who would soon be taking a journey and was inviting whoever they were singing to along, but the singer was, for whatever reason, convinced that they would not come.
"I always sing that one when I think about what happened," Katie laughed like those words weren't some of the saddest she'd ever spoken. "Was always kind of worried about being separated from Nom."
Humans were actually incredibly social creatures, Graecie had learned, but particularly so with relatives, and Nom and Katie were close like no other. They seemed to have dragged 4C into their pack bonding, too.
That had been terrifying. When Graecie first saw Katie and Nom behind 4C during the rescue mission, she'd aimed her gun at Nom—the bigger one, she had reasoned, the bigger threat—like he was a danger to 4C's safety. All she could feel about it after the fact was guilt. He must have been terrified, and yet still, he had nearly vaulted over the plasmoid to tackle her because he had assumed by her angry tone that she would hurt 4C.
It had taken ages after that interaction to convince Nom that she meant no harm, that she wouldn't hurt him. She'd been a total wreck about it for weeks, up until he cornered her and told her that he wasn't upset anymore, but his brain had a hard time remembering who was an ally and who was an enemy because of what happened.
"We tried it with the plates," Nom replied, chuckling as well. The rest of the crew on the Bluki had incredulous expressions on their faces, staring at the siblings with horror in their eyes. They were all humanoids, but still an odd combination. "There's a reason it's called the cup song and not the plate song. Plates do not work."
Katie turned to 4C and Mae again, her eyes shining and her teeth bared. At first, Graecie had believed it to be a threat display, but now she knew that it was a signifier of happiness in humans. "Okay, we can demonstrate again!"
The lyrics this time were different. A second verse to the song, maybe.
"When I'm gone, when I'm gone,
You're gonna miss me when I'm gone.
You're gonna miss me by my walk,
You're gonna miss me by my talk,
Oh, you're sure gonna miss me when I'm gone."
After getting over their shock and immense guilt and horror at the way Nom and Katie glossed over their previous treatment, Mae and 4C studied the way the two moved their hands and their cups intensely, dead set on getting the movements exactly right. This lead to cups strewn across the common room, on the floor and on top of Owain's head.
Graecie couldn't bring herself to be mad. She really would miss them, if they were gone.