we don't talk about language barrier and various meanings prescribed to the words due to cultural differences enough, and we should. like, imagine, one day simon is walking past grace's classroom, flowers in his hands as he heads towards the newly planted trees — synthesized, of course — and he stops to nod towards grace and ask him to meet up after class to discuss the completion of the greenhouse, and when grace agrees, simon nods again and says, "thank, mate"
and the kids, the kids know this word even if they haven't been provided with a translation, because they've heard grace use it to describe adrian, and they start vibrating even before simon finishes pronouncing the syllables — not having the slightest idea that he just irrevocably disrupted a lesson — because their teacher has a mate. and grace, he's so, so tired of suffering from migraines the last few days that he decides to just. let it happen, whatever, and no, they don't have mate marks, and no, people don't sing songs to each other to announce courtship, and how about going back to the lesson?
they do, but the kids don't forget about what happened, oh no. instead, they come home with an enthusiastic tweet that their teacher has a mate, and all the parents are equally thrilled because they weren't sure if it was possible for grace to be with the new human, and they're so, so glad that it happened, even if those of them who are scientists are already torn by an internal conflict between the desire to respect grace's boundaries and the need to learn more about how people mate
and all of this, of course, reaches adrian, and they already know that their work journal will be filled with separate columns on the behavior of human mates, and they will have to discuss this with rocky — who must have been aware of it happening, and didn't tell him a thing, little shit — so they can prepare a surprise for them, maybe add a nest to their biosphere since simon is always complaining about the cold anyway
and when rocky hears about grace mating simon, who arrived on the planet in an explosion and dust and almost killed grace in a panic— well. it goes about as well as you can imagine
dededos
kianamaiart
stormborns
pixelskylines
baratheonpilled
romaincrisis
annaxmalina
janainaart
blakekathryn
discoholicmusic
