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English
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Drabble Drop Fall 2026
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Published:
2026-09-12
Words:
200
Chapters:
1/1
Comments:
6
Kudos:
5
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2
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52

Striking Two Chords

Summary:

Back home from a trip to the Eridian Museum of Anatomy, Ryland Grace makes a bilingual lesson plan.

Notes:

Thank you to TeamHuski for the request! I hope you (and everyone else reading) enjoy it.

(Publication date changed to the reveal date.)

(See the end of the work for more notes.)

Work Text:

Click. 

I breathe deeper without my binder's compression. My left foot spins the protractor.

Click.

Same angle. Inhale. Shift the xenonite constructor downwards with my right foot. Exhale. Steady my hand, and...

Click-spin thrice.

I whoop. "A perfect hexagon!"

Rocky makes an exasperated-affectionate finger-Iℓℓ. “Finally!”

“Thanks!”

Rocky tilts. “I thought you already wrote about the Anatomy Museum in your journal.”

“Just copying the diagram from there,” I reply, “I'm building a model similar to the museum's. Got the puncher to translate the rest. It's a 2-in-1 lesson plan for GCMS: anatomy in English, Eridian language with this.”

I gesture towards my amateurish replica.

“Why do you insist on DIY?” Rocky asks, “The Museum would've given you one.”

“Remember when I wrote letters to Stratt?”

“Oh yes. Hate-love-ambivalence shit you won't ever send.”

“Same principle: I'm pouring my feelings to someone who won't hear, to acknowledge they're important, and release them… That's closure.”

Rocky presses himself onto me. “Then I'll help.”

When it's done, I can see my students weaving in and out of the hexagons like Eridian worker cells...

“Your face is leaking!”

“It might be the best lesson plan I've ever made." I grin, despite. "Fist-bump, Rocky."

"Fist-bump."

Notes:

This double drabble was a great challenge for writing muscles!

It was inspired in huge part from the Eridian lore manual, where their script is written in high-low protrusions, or holes to save space; plus the way their bodies work, they're porous. It's awesome.

Click here to see authors' thoughts on the story, so don't let this color your interpretation if you don't want to:

Basically, we imagine that Eridian scientists made Grace a machine that's basically like a 3-D printer for xenonite (for protrusion text or 3-D models), plus a keyboard (puncher for holes) that his 10-fingered, 2-legged human body can use.

Rocky says "finally" because Grace has been failing to make a good hexagon for way too many times! (He can't take calming breaths that well when the binder was on...)

“Oh yes. Hate-love-ambivalence shit you won't ever send.”

The giftee says about liking Grace and Stratt's "Weird Third Thing", so, gotta reference it!

“Same principle: I'm pouring my feelings to someone who won't hear, to acknowledge they're important, and release them… That's closure.”

Yes, "they" may refer to the feelings and/or the people...

When it's done, I can see my students weaving in and out of the hexagons like Eridian worker cells...

It doesn't say human students or Eridian students. Grief for the past, and hey, maybe he'll move on by letting his present students use it. Both would have fun learning anatomy by pretending to be worker cells, blood, etc. while climbing/walking inside the honeycomb, eh?

It's a replica of real Eridian anatomy. (Well, a replica of a museum's model of Eridian anatomy. We imagine in the museum there would be detailed models of multiple organs and systems, but what Grace is copying is a simplified model of an entire body, which can work as an opening exhibit before delving into more specific parts.)

And also, Grace wants his human students to know Rocky better, cause we know damn well that Grace is changing the shape from Default Eridian™ to his fire-forged friend.

Thank you for reading, everyone, and your thoughts would be much appreciated~