i feel like rocky can throw a fierce tantrum when hes pebbleish. incredibly dramatic flopping around, flailing his legs, stomping against the xenonite tunnels in a rhythm that would be incredibly annoying for other eridians, flinging out the most dramatic of declarations that Rocky Not Doing Anything Anymore. World Is Unfair. Grace Mean Mean Mean. Grace Not Rocky's Best Friend. the sort of stuff children say doing their best to hurt someone else's feelings and... not really succeeding
grace taught middle school, which about covers the age range where a kid might still throw a tantrum but also has the necessary experience to insult someone in a way that actually hurts, so rocky's absolute grumpiest is not that impactful. he just waits it out until rocky exhausts himself (which doesn't take that long, relatively — humans are endurance hunters, after all). and then,
"it was frustrating when our math didn't agree, huh."
"... grace think rocky stupid."
"aw, rock, no," grace scoots close to rocky's ball — he's sitting on the floor so they're about eye level — and gently taps out their code word for everything's ok. "rocky is very smart. and very good at math. but we're working together, which means we help each other when we make mistakes, right?"
rocky is currently all splooted out, but tilts towards grace.
"it was tough being so mad. and your body did what it needed to do to get that all out. no hard feelings, ok?"
"... grace rocky still best friends?"
"grace rocky still best friends."
