Fox!Grace 🦊
Rocky watches dubiously as the strange creature wanders around the ship. It jumps up onto a counter, sniffing at each glass and beaker as it goes past.
“Grace supposed to be running experiment,” he reminds it cautiously. Hopefully none of the abandoned components are volatile. Grace had the sense to turn off his machinery as soon as the vertigo hit, but still…
The creature does not respond, tilting its head at an image on a screen. According to the texture map, it shows a video of Adrian life forms scudding across a slide. The creature watches the movements, then launches itself at the screen.
“Grace, no!”
Its feet slip on the smooth surface and something knocks to the ground with a high, musical note. The texture seems brittle, but thankfully it doesn’t shatter on impact. The movement of it must be enticing, though, because the creature follows it, pouncing its two forward limbs on the item. It proceeds to dig at it with its claws, before picking it up in its mouth and trotting away. Its fifth limb is raised in something Rocky can only interpret as triumph.
“Grace fifth limb just for brag,” he gripes. “Grace not even know how stupid Grace act! Grace not even mad at Rocky insults!” What was the point of sassing people when they couldn’t understand you??
He follows the creature from his side of the tunnel. There’s not much he can do if it gets into trouble, but at least he can watch. In a way, it’s like Grace is asleep when this happens. He ceases to understand who he is, or where, or why. He ceases to be able to speak or to know things. And he never remembers what happens when he is Grace again. Very much like sleeping. So Rocky will watch over him.
The creature — a fox, Grace calls it, but the word is meaningless to Rocky; the literal translation of his own word for it is something akin to ‘little-Grace-stink-pest’ — drops the bottle it had taken as a trophy, and begins to play with it, picking it up and releasing it quickly so it flings into the air, then eagerly chasing after it.
Rocky settles in to observe, four legs folded beneath him; he keeps one hand on the xenonite barrier, tapping frequently to get a clear view. Grace has gone from long and looming to something much smaller than Rocky himself, and seemingly that much more fragile. He has grown a fifth limb, though it does not appear to function either for ambulation or dexterity, and traded his woven fabric covering for a hazy texture that densely coats his body. It makes him hard for Rocky to focus on. Something about him is always just a little blurry, which means that he is soft, soft, soft. Much softer than Tall-Grace.
Clunk goes the bottle again, bouncing off the xenonite before landing in Grace’s bedding, where it rests piled against the barrier. The fox chases after it, but has lost visual. Earth light-sense is useless. Can’t he sense it beyond the fabric?
“Over there,” Rocky tries to help. Grace is not performing his experiments, but he seems intent on his current mission. “Right. No, more left. There, under sleep-thing. Yes— no, no—” he points and gestures, but these things don’t seem to have meaning to a creature with no pointing appendages. What they do accomplish is shifting its attention. It turns toward him, tracking the motion of his arms. It does a little wriggle of its body, legs shifting more solidly beneath it. “Grace,” Rocky warns sternly. “Do not—”
Thwump! The fox crashes into the clear barrier, a much softer impact than the bottle, and slides to the floor. “Must still be Grace,” Rocky muses through a laugh, “because still have none.”
The creature recovers and begins sprinting around the room, its hazy layer puffed out and tail kinked. Rocky’s not sure there is a point to this behavior, but he knows the feeling. He has done it himself when his own excitement was too great to contain. He thinks of excited pebbles scrambling around on Erid, launching off of surfaces and getting their legs tangled. Grace does not have the space on the Hail Mary to run or jump or do much of anything in his normal shape — but there is plenty of room for a tiny-stink-beast, and maybe Rocky can understand this one thing about it. He might not understand why humans change shape without warning, or forget who they are, or launch their children into the stars to die. But he can understand the urge to run for no other reason than because you are free. And finding freedom in the place meant to be your tomb is an incredible thing.
Once it has spent its energy, it curls up against the xenonite directly where Rocky sits. Not the bedding, nor any of the articles of clothing strewn about the place. Rocky taps fondly against the barrier. Maybe there is just enough of Grace in there to know him. Maybe every part of Grace knows he is safe when he’s with Rocky.
“Is okay, Little-Grace. Rocky here when you come back.”
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Now with a prequel!