You know how Rocky’s camera in the film can sort of translate light into textured images for him to see? Do you think he spends time one day on their trip home to Erid, to trace over and memorize every bit of Graces skin? Can he finally pick up on he’s body hair? Not just head? Can he see the fine lines when he crinkles his face, the slight discoloration of veins below Graces skin? His pores, his freckles, moles and beauty marks? Small scars that not even grace can see; that have healed over— the camera picking over like an interconnected latticework of discolored scratches? Can he see sun damage? Can he see his tattoos?
And when he changed the frequency ( because Grace explained different frequency’s can pick up different colors or textures) does he see Graces stripes? The ones hidden from even humans— he could point out that Grace is like Adrian (the planet of course) swirling, dotted and spotted?
Can it pick up on human bioluminescence? A slight change in patterns around his skin like the skin it’s self gave off light. What could Rocky see? Or hear? And he’d remember it forever— this moment forever. His ugly leaky space blob friend and his hundreds of weird life patterns all over him.
Do you have Stripes? Whenever I look at my skin in low lighting, I notice that I have stripes. They're like fingerprints , but instead of being raised bumps , they're just lighter and darker lines of skin , but they don't show up in StrOng lighting. Do you have Stripes?
I do, everyone does, but mine aren't visible, alas!
Something that occurred to me while rereading the latest chapter, it was phenomenal btw, would Helsknight's new skulk marks look anything similar to Blaschko's Lines? (they're marks left from developing during the fetal stage that aren't visible usually but when they are they can often have a swirling pattern.)
I'm glad you liked the chapter!
And ABSOLUTELY they would look like Blaschko's Lines. That is something I've never heard of, but upon looking it up, it so clearly aligns with the images I had in my head. They would just be blue instead of the freckle-brown.
Gonna use these for reference images now :D thank you so much for pointing those out!
Some photos under the cut, for anyone curious! Warning for shirtless people.
The hot nighttime air blasting through the windows of the hovercar made conversation hard for all of us, but that didn't stop Paint. She pulled her lizardy face into the car long enough to ask "Can we make more deliveries to climates like this? It's great!" Not waiting for an answer, she stuck her snout back out into the gale.
"I'm just glad the air is moist," said Captain Sunlight from the driver's chair. She was as fond of extreme tropics as the next scaly little Heatseeker, but as least she was tactful about it. "If this was an arid climate, we'd dry out in no time."
Zhee snapped a pincher in irritation, adjusting the coldpack draped around his shoulders. He had another around his praying-mantis hips. "I," he declared, "am glad it is DARK. Sun this intense would fry us on the spot. This is not a temperature for any reasonable being." He cast a big bug eye in my direction, with what passed for subtlety.
I hadn't spoken up yet because I was busy guzzling water to replace all the sweat I was losing. "Agreed," I said when I came up for air. "There's a place this hot back home. We call it Death Valley."
Paint leaned back into her seat. "What? How could such a lovely heat mean death? It's so nice."
"For you," I said at the same time as Zhee. I would have high-fived him but didn't want to hurt myself on his pinchers. Instead I said, "I'd die of heatstroke in no time."
"But you have that temperature regulation!" Paint said, waving a hand in my direction. "I thought you were fine in hot and cold!”
"Just because I'm warm-blooded doesn't mean I'm comfortable in all temperatures," I said to my scaly crewmate. Holding up an arm, I asked, "You see this sweat? This is not fun." I was wearing the smallest amount of clothes I could stand: sports bra and shorts, and it was still too much. “At least the wind helps. I’ll want to get the unloading done as quickly as possible when we stop.”
“We’re almost there,” Captain Sunlight said, pointing at the navigation screen.
It was a good thing she had that screen, since the view outside was an endless nighttime seashore with sand dunes and rocks, but no memorable landmarks. You’d never know there was civilization here. We’d been instructed to land our ship far inland, so we didn’t risk blowing sand into a burrow when we took off again. Luckily the hovercar was acceptable. Thinking about dragging all those crates across the dunes by hand was enough to make me need another drink of water.
When we settled in to park, it was beside a boulder at the very edge of the water. Gentle waves lapped at a very flat shore. No civilization that I could see. The air gushing in the windows was oppressively hot and wet.
“The client should join us at any time,” Captain Sunlight said, getting out of the chair. “Let’s unload.”
“Aw,” Paint said.
Zhee led the way out the door while I focused on taking deep breaths. This was unpleasant.
Sunlight insisted on keeping all but the dimmest lights off, for the sake of the client’s nocturnal eyes. The many stars helped. Luckily there wasn’t much around to trip over. And the boxes were head-sized, not gigantic hassles. There were a lot of them though, and we weren’t quite finished stacking them on the wet sand when the client rose from the waves.
Captain Sunlight’s polite greeting prompted me to look up just in time to see what looked like a lobster the size of a horse come splashing toward us. I clamped down on a startled yelp. Professional calm, I reminded myself. This is entirely normal.
I did a pretty good job of pretending to be calm while I set down the box I was holding and went back for more. Sunlight kept up the small talk and handled payment, both thanks to technological aid: a translator and credit screen with some impressive waterproofing. The voice that came from the speakers was almost too deep to hear. It reminded me of my aunt’s favorite whale impression.
“Thank you for your use of time,” the client said. “Our previous delivery people arrived at high tide, leaving us with a long walk to the burrow.” A little crustacean leggie waved back at the water, where I assumed the doorway lurked. Now that I thought about it, I could almost make out a darker spot among the waves.
And that’s not so much a lobster as a huge shrimp, I decided, setting down another box. Looks like it would have some bright colors in the sun, too. The starlight didn’t illuminate much, but the faint glow from the ship’s cargo hold showed hints of red, blue, and green. And far too many legs, honestly. But you didn’t hear that from me.
“Last one,” Zhee announced, resting a box against the others. “Would the esteemed client like to confirm the count?”
The client did, waving two legs while counting. “Confirmed. I am pleased to do business with all of you.” Captain Sunlight started to say something else polite, but the client wasn’t done talking. “And it is pleasant to see such a lovely being of light.”
With the way all those legs moved, it took me a heartbeat to realize she meant me. “What?” I blurted.
The rest of the crew were confused too. “Being of light?” asked the captain tactfully.
“Yes, and with those charming stripes, too!”
It was all I could do not to ask “What?” again. I just looked at Sunlight, wondering if I was being pranked. If so, she didn’t look in on the joke.
“I, ah, can’t say I’d noticed,” she told the client.
“Your eyes are different, aren’t they?” asked that deep voice with even deeper sympathy.
“Um. Must be.”
“You’ll have to take my word for it, then. You two little ones blend in with the surroundings, while you, friend, look more like an artfully painted land-skimmer,” she said to Zhee, who looked like he had decided to take it as a compliment. “But you. You glow like a gentle moon, with all the curves of a crashing wave across your surface. My night has been enriched with the view.”
“Uh, thank you,” I managed. “My pleasure.”
“I will be sure to request such prompt and pleasurable couriers for my next delivery. I thank you.”
“And we thank you!” Captain Sunlight said. “We’ll be on our way. I trust you can get the boxes into your home without trouble?”
“Oh yes, this will be fine,” said the client with more leg waves. I wasn’t even sure which part of that complicated face to look at. “May you have safe travels!”
With more polite words from Sunlight, we re-entered the hovercar and took seats in even hotter air. The door shut, the engine started, and a very welcome breeze wafted in. Sunlight eased away from the beach at a tactful speed before gunning it toward the ship. No one spoke until the sea was out of view behind a dune.
“Glowing?” exclaimed Paint. “Stripes??”
“Did she mean heat vision?” Zhee wanted to know.
“Can’t be,” Sunlight said from where she drove madly. “She compared you to a nice paint job, remember?”
“As she should,” Zhee said. “But was that a different thing she was seeing when looking at me?”
“Hard to say,” Sunlight said. “Robin?”
“I have no idea!” I burst out. “This is the first I’ve heard of any of it! Is there a chance she’s joking?”
“I don’t think so,” said Captain Sunlight. “All the courier reviews of her behavior are top-notch. If she was the type to lie like that, then surely she would have done it before.”
“But stripes??” I asked, sticking a forearm into the aisle. “You’ve seen me! What stripes? I don’t even have that much body hair!”
“You don’t glow in the dark, either,” said Zhee, staring with the kind of intensity that only someone with truly gigantic bug eyes can. “You reflect a little starlight right now, what with all the grossness you’re exuding, but I doubt that’s what she meant.”
I laughed. “You know, people do sometimes describe sweating as glowing, but it’s really not meant to be taken literally.”
Paint leaned close, all curiosity. “Does something in your sweat fluoresce?”
“No!” I said. “Nothing about me does! This is absurd!”
“We can check the wiki as soon as we get back in range,” said Captain Sunlight. “The ship’s knowledge banks are pretty good, but let’s not kid ourselves.”
“I can’t wait,” Paint said. “My money is on the sweat.”
I shook my head and finished the water bottle. With the way Sunlight was driving, we made it to the ship quickly indeed. Paint was already out of the car and telling the rest of the crew about it while I had barely stood up. I exited to several other curious faces, immediately telling them no, I had no idea.
Normally after that kind of delivery I would have gone to wash up, but this time I just grabbed a towel to wipe off the sweat (and to wear as a shawl in the much cooler spaceship air). Captain Sunlight was calling for top speed.
And she got it. Good thing we’d be refueling soon, because I was pretty sure we’d used up a solid chunk of the reserves.
But we were back in range of easy broadcasts, in record time! Everyone who didn’t have to be somewhere else crowded into the meeting room with the big info screen.
And we all learned that humans freaking glow. Just too dim for anyone to see, unless they have extra-super-special eyes. The kind of eyes that can also pick up the seams from cell division that are usually just as invisible.
“What the heck,” I said, staring at the screen.
Sunlight had called up both topics side-by-side, and everyone was reading at different speeds. I’d skimmed enough to be unsure of what emotion to settle on.
“It’s not the sweat,” Zhee said.
“Well, it’s also not the heat vision!” Paint retorted.
“It may sometimes coincide with heat vision,” Captain Sunlight said, pointing as she read. “Tied in to metabolism, changing throughout the day. Human metabolism creates heat, right? So it could be both.”
“But it said it’s not.”
“I still win the bet,” Zhee insisted.
“Oh, you didn’t even make a bet!” Paint said.
Mur sat beside me, flipping a tentacle in amusement. “It’s a pity we don’t have anyone with those extreme eyes onboard,” he told me. “We could send the pair of you into dark areas, and she could see by your light.”
I shook my head. “This is just bizarre. I can’t believe nobody told me.”
The squiddy alien shrugged a pair of tentacles. “If you can’t see it and neither can most of the civilized galaxy, I’m not surprised that it isn’t common knowledge. What I want to know is—” he spoke louder “—Hey Zhee! Do you want to get glowing paint to decorate yourself with now, since somebody is outshining you?”
Zhee angled his antennae into a glare. “Maybe.”
“Ooh, me too!” said Paint, to no one’s surprise. “Can we do the walls too? It’ll be great if we ever lose power!”
I huffed a laugh. “Look what you started.”
“You’re welcome,” Mur said. “Care to see who can paint some nice new decorations in the highest and most creative places?”
“Absolutely. You know I can reach the top of the engineering crevices by putting a foot on each wall and shuffling upward, right?”
Mur cackled. “And you haven’t seen what a properly motivated Strongarm can do! Extra points for painting a likeness of Zhee somewhere he’ll never find.”
“You are on.” We shook on it, which is an absolutely disgusting experience when tentacles are involved, but I managed to pretend it wasn’t. Gotta be professional, you know.
~~~~~~~~~
Fact check! Humans do glow slightly, and we do have stripes called Blaschko’s Lines.
Yes I based the alien on a mantis shrimp; yes I know the shrimpvision thing has been debunked; did it anyway. They’re cool.
And if you enjoy these shenanigans, you may like the book that this is backstory for. More stories to come!
(Thanks to @theacegamingdemon for giving me the idea for this one months ago.)
