So the Eridian goodbye (movie) is so scrumptious to me.
The basics of the 'goodbye' is the hand/claw rubbing up and down along the arm, right? Theres a 'walking' sort of motion with the fingers in the beginning that speeds up and becomes a sort of dragging of knuckles along carapace, producing a knocking sound. What gets me is the visual of that almost walking away and back again, like finger puppets. That implied state of impermanent farewell or of seeing someone again, of coming back together. Which is just, lovely, but also.
Eridians use sound to see! So them making that crkrkrk sound as goodbye is just. So heartfelt. Because in doing so, they're making themselves more 'visible' to the person leaving (since they don't have eyesight they can see behind them! As long as there is noise and conduction).
It's like they're trying to stay in contact/in range of the other for as long possible, even as they move away. I like the idea that theyre sort of conveying that when the departing returns, theyll be there as they sensed them when going - broadcasting where they are and were, and maybe one day will be again. In addition to the person leaving being able to hear/see them, the person staying behind also can probably 'hear/see' the person leaving better (as the sound theyre producing bounces off the one leaving), until the tone doesn't return to them anymore, just like how the one going isn't returning. (But also, those sound waves bouncing back in that final return, even when the leaver is long gone and going? That conflicting wave like thing, where the Person is going one way, but their thoughts and senses return the other.)
I'd be really interested to know if it's reciprocal during parting or if just the staying party does it. If it was reciprocal or the leaving party typically does the motion, I feel it adds like a whole sweet thing! If you have both making the noise as they leave, it serves both as an anchor and a broadcast. 'I am going, I will show you where I am, I will hear where you are, until we are too far and our sound fades into distance'. Yk??
Tracking the person leaving by the sound they make, or of the two crkrkrk's bouncing off each other (idk how sound works). Their whole primary sense being sound is so interesting to me and in how it might impact perception and interaction. Am I making it too sentimental? Perhaps! But we used to say 'god be with ye' which turned into goodbye which is a whole like, internal wealth of culture/history and emotion, and the idea of parting and rejoining is such a dear theme to me in the movie and book, so applying something like it to eridian culture doesn't seem too outlandish.
Also; Eridians just not having a word for goodbye. Leaving is a process. There's no sudden disappearance, no cut off in line of sight. It's gradual and involved. They're always 'looking back' as they go. Man.