“And grief is a physical thing you carry in your belly, and at the base of your spine”
@biggest-gaudiest-patronuses this one really inspired me. I hope you don’t mind.
Joan was one of only a few humans in this region of space, but that was the way she liked it. Being surrounded by all these new and curious cultures and people was absolutely fascinating, and she’d never been able to just sit at home and be content like her sister. Sure, sometimes that got her in trouble, and it honestly might get her into trouble again today.
But it also might allow her to find the answer to a great mystery.
“Hey, Joan, how’s it going?”
Joan turned to find Trisendrion walking through the doors of the cafe. He was taller than her, as most Xileh were, but not dominatingly so. His skin coloring was almost human, with the olive tones of some Mediterranean peoples, but with a little more green in it, as his people had limited photosynthetic abilities.
Most humans didn’t notice that particular difference at first, though. They usually didn’t even notice the arms like octopus tentacles, as the Xileh had long ago invented mechanical gloves that gave them multiple opposable digits on each tentacle and were often mistaken for humanoid hands at a quick glance. No, what really stood out were the six protrusions from his torso. There were two on his chest, and two just below that (where a human’s ribs would be), all four of which were oblong shapes. The one on his abdomen and the one at the base of his spine were perfectly round, and she knew the pouches under the skin would be spherical when full. They weren’t lumps of fat like a camel, although some of them served a similar purpose, but they werent muscles, either.
“Hey, Tri, good to see you!”
She noted the way he sat down, with a slight lean forward to accommodate the lone dorsal lump. She had always wondered what quirk of evolution had caused something that seemed so important to develop in such an inconvenient place.
“So how’ve you been the last couple weeks? You manage to boldly go where no one has gone before?” Tri asked with a playful smirk.
“Oh my gosh! You started watching it?”
“Yeah, yeah, I finally started watching it. Just yesterday, actually. It’s utterly ridiculous and entirely inaccurate.”
“Exactly! Isn’t it great?” Joan asked, full of the excitement, hope, and mild anxiety that comes from the possibility of finding a new friend to share a hyperfixation with.
Tri gave her a pointed look.
“Like I said: ridiculous and inaccurate.”
Joan was crestfallen for about a quarter of a second before Tri’s head tilted back and his arms expanded to their full potential girth, his equivalent of a yawn.
“Wait,” Joan said. “How late did you stay up watching it?” When Tri gave her a sheepish grin - a very human expression -, she exclaimed, “So you DID like it!”
“I admit it, your stupid ancient sci-fi story kept me up all night. It’s ridiculous, and inaccurate, and so much fun.”
They began to chat about the first few episodes and his more detailed thoughts about them. At one point, the waitress stopped by and took their order. Joan got so distracted talking about Trek that it wasn’t until Tri was taking his first bite of food that she realized she still hadn’t found a way to ask the question she had come here planning to ask. It had been eating at her for WEEKS, the curiosity going from mild to burning, but you can’t just ask a man what those lumps are. Even she knew that would be ENTIRELY inappropriate.
Suddenly, her thoughts were interupted by Tri asking, “Ok, what is it?”
“What is what?” Joan said, a little startled and trying to regain her composure.
“Whatever thought that’s buzzing through your head so loudly that you’re not invested in a discussion of Star Trek.”
“What? Oh, I mean, I’m just, like, eating my food, you know? Just, uh, chomping down. Yup.” She took a big bite, and then, through the mouthful of food, said, “This cafe has great food. Do you think we should get seconds? You know I really do love this place. What about dessert? Yeah dessert! What should-”
She withered a bit, then took a second to actually chew and swallow her food. That really had been a rather large bite. A part of her hoped that he would relent by the time she managed to get it all down, but, unfortunately, that was not the case.
“Well,” she said hesitantly, “it’s something you’re not really supposed to talk about at the dinner table, I think. So I’ll, um, I’ll tell you another time?”
Tri held her eyes for a moment, which was distinctly uncomfortable, especially given the current contents of her brain.
“Ok,” he said with a sigh. She was relieved until he followed with “I know it’s something to do with me, and I think I can guess what it is. You may not have been invested in the words we were saying, but you were definitely staring pretty hard at me. Go ahead, out with it.”
Joan went through a lot of emotions in that moment. Embarrassment at getting caught staring. Anxiety about actually asking the question. Excitement at possibly getting an answer. And, finally, embarassment again as she realized she was sitting there silently, staring off into the distance while she thought about the way she was thinking about the things she was thinking about and he waited on her to speak.
He patiently waited for her to get the words out. She really didn’t want to ask this question, but she wanted to know the answer more than she wanted to run home and hide under a blanket and never talk to anyone ever again. It was just so interesting! Humans had learned, from providing bits of minor medical assistance here and there over the years, that the two lumps on a Xileh’s chest were pouches that stored extra food. Of COURSE she was staring as they swelled up to 3 times their usual size while he ate, like a kid who takes way to big a bit and has to hold some of the food in their cheeks while they chew. The mid-torso pair, in a similar way, stored extra water, and had similarly expanded during dinner.
“What are the, uh…” Suddenly it all poured out of her.
“What are the other two pouches for?? They’re so much smaller! We know the top two are for food and the other two are for water, but, like, what do the last two do? Why is one on your belly and the other at the base of your spine? Why are they the only ones that are perfectly spherical? We know they sometimes expand when stuff goes wrong or you’re freaking out, but why? Do they store, like, adrenaline or something? Does it help you breathe better or something? What do they DO??”
Suddenly Joan realized she was yelling. She didn’t know when her tone had escalated that much, but Tri had leaned away just a bit, eyes wide, and a number of people were staring at them.
Before she could apologize, though, Tri said “Yeah, I figured that’s what it was. Well, to start with, it hasn’t been some grand secret that we intentionally kept from the humans. It’s just… not something we really talk about. Kids learn about it when they’re very young, and it’s just a really personal thing. “No, no,” he said, as Joan began to speak, “it’s fine that you asked, no worries. I admit, I’ve got my own questions about humans. But we can talk about that later.”
Tri paused for a moment and took a deep breath.
“Basically, we have a very unique, and very helpful, way of dealing with grief. The glands that produce the chemicals in our brains that cause us to feel grief are right on the surface of the brain, and we managed to evolve a way to temporarily prevent the brain from absorbing it. There are tubes, similar to blood vessels, leading from those glands and following major branches of our nervous system, which is set up much like yours: one path to the pouch at the base of the spine, and another to the one next to the stomach. In crisis, when something has gone very wrong but we can’t afford to grieve, we can prevent ourselves from feeling that grief by removing those chemicals from the brain. Now, this is temporary, as the chemicals don’t get processed or absorbed in any way by the pouch. It has to go back to the brain within a few weeks, or it can start to have some major negative side effects to a lot of different parts of the body. But for a week or two, until we have time to deal with it…”
“The grief is stored in the balls.”
