The Beach Stranger wrote:We were analysing our first and second data samples from the analysis instrument when we heard a knocking on the exterior hull door. All our heads shot up in unison, and we looked at one another. How was someone knocking when we were all present and accounted for? Warily, we armed ourselves as we were already in our suits (having gotten prepared for another walk outside), and approached the door to our craft. Garn and Mal flanked the door whilst I pushed it open.
We were utterly stunned to find an adult from the herd stood about a meter away from us, meandering to and fro a little in slight wariness on its feet but it's gaze locked on us in determination.
We muttered quietly between ourselves for a moment, questioning what was happening, what it wanted and.. more importantly.. how it had managed to knock.
Despite its wariness, it tilted its head as we spoke, it's ears rotating independantly as it tracked our sounds and movements. Was this creature more intelligent than we thought?
I reached out my hand but Garn grabbed my wrist, telling me that touching it was a bad idea. We had no idea if it would be dangerous or not. I retorted that we won't know if we don't try.. and we had seen very little aggressive or dominant creature behaviour from their species at all until this point. He reluctantly let go of my wrist, and I very timidly descended the steps of our craft to get closer.
The creature backed up but stayed within reach, and I tentatively put my fist out tightly scrunched up. I didn't want to lose any fingers were it to bite clean through, after all. It craned its slender neck and sniffed at my hand for a moment. Internally at this point I was both overjoyed but also terribly frightened. When it was busy inspecting me, I noted that the markings.. whilst similar amongst the others of the herd.. were unique variations from specimen to specimen. This one had a different marking on its broad chest to ones i've looked at before.
I opened my hand and relaxed my fingers, it sniffed at my hand again. Then promptly extended a long, purple tongue and licked at my palm. Gross!
The boys laughed behind me but I had other thoughts on my mind. I said we should name it, as it was an undocumented species. They agreed. I managed a momentary rub on the snout of the creature before it turned and walked away, making some noises of communication to members of the herd nearby. It had not gone unnoticed by us that there was 'backup' in direct line of sight the entire time.
After talking amongst ourselves, we decided to combine some words chosen from our many native tongues together to name the species. We settled on O-Merus Advena, which is a mix of Latin and U'Rekan. The name translates to 'Beach Stranger'.
From this point on, at varying intervals, there would be a curious knocking on the door of our craft. There would always be an adult stood outside. We came to understand that the knocking was them rapping the hull with their horn to get our attention. We began to speculate that they were greeting us, or deciphering our threat level to the group.
Even as we prepared Garn for his first attempt at diving into the ocean of this unchartered world, the creatures look on in curiosity. Growing more confident and decreasing the space between us.
I joked that as soon as Garn was submerged, they would probably be swimming alongside him and checking him out. And probably finding his sluggish swimming rather amusing.
I'm so glad I came on this voyage, and though our time here is limited and we will return.. I feel that myself, perhaps even other teams, will be sent here sooner rather than later to expand on what we've done.
And perhaps make friends with the O-Merus Advena. I truly hope a day like this comes.
I wonder how long it'll be til someone mentions this piece in the staff discussion thread. So far, 2 and a half 5 hours 14 hrs and not a word.You guys are not on the ball im js
Also the whole pet is actually based on the crab existing. Interesting! Perhaps you should ask me why the crab is even there?
.png)
.png)
