Status Update: 13
You and the scavenger sit in an uncomfortable silence for a few very long moments. It doesn’t do anything except stare at you as you reach into your pockets and pull out the last of the worm grass you had; you had better finish it, lest it goes bad. (-3 worm grass)
The scavenger blinks in confusion as you hold the worm grass up to your neurons, then blinks faster as your neurons latch onto the worm grass and begin siphoning nutrients from them. You let it stare as you reach into your pockets for one of the blue pupae. This is possibly the first time it’s got a good look at how you actually get your nutrients. You imagine it’ll be a good story to tell once it’s back with its own kind.
You offer the pupa to it. It tears its gaze away from your neurons to look at the offering, then glances between you and the pupa a few times before nervously accepting the food. It just as delicately nibbles on the food as it resumes its staring at your neurons. (-1 blue fruit)
You wrap your arms around your legs again. Now would be a good time to talk to the scavenger about… anything, really.
[6 actions remaining.]
>I think you should talk to the scav about your problems. Maybe it’ll help with them. It doesn’t even have to know what you’re talking about you can just chirp at it.
You glower at your overseer. "And how exactly do you expect something like a scavenger to help me if it doesn't even understand what i'm saying?" you retort.
You turn your gaze toward the scavenger as it gently scratches at the floor. It blinks at your overseer a few times, a question clear in its wary eyes, and it slowly signs at you. There is an additional sign in its sentence that you do not recognize, but you gather that the question is "Is this your friend?"
You give your overseer another baleful look. "Friend" is not the word you would go for. That isn't the point of the scavenger's question, though. You're not sure how to say "kind of," so instead you respond with "Yes no."
The scavenger cocks its head to one side. "Yes and no?" it repeats; the clapping motion it makes is fairly simple to intuit.
You fumble for words for a few moments. How do you convey what your overseers are to you with the limited vocabulary you have? They are an extension of you, and yet they're not quite you at the same time, especially now when you're only your puppet. You suppose that does make them more like simple companions, in a way. But reducing them to just that would be inaccurate; your overseers are still you, they're just not all of you.
You don't find any suitable words to convey this, so you give up and settle for explaining this in the same way you explained your neurons: You point at your overseer and say, "This is me." Your overseer helpfully wiggles a tendril in greeting.
All you get is a blank stare in response. The scavenger forms one hand into a claw and hangs it over its other hand, then points at you—does that sign mean overseer? You allow yourself a snicker as you cast a quick glance at your own overseer. It's definitely an apt mimicry of them.
The question is not lost on you, though. "Yes," you affirm. "Overseer is me."
More confused staring ensues. "Glow is also you?" it asks, the bafflement clear in how it flicks its hand at the end of its sentence.
"Yes." You're not surprised that a creature with a unitary body like a scavenger is confused by this. "Also me." You're fairly certain that sign means "also" anyways. The context of this conversation is rather clear.
Evidently these answers just gave the scavenger more questions, because it looks even more confused than before. You feel a little bad for contributing to the confusion, but the scale of an iterator is a difficult concept for any lesser creature to grasp. You can at least count on this scavenger not attacking your overseers from here on out, or so you hope.
[5 actions left.]
>Why not like, ask the scavenger about Five Pebbles directly? Like, maybe the scavenger knows a direct path to him. Like, it’s worth a shot, right?
As evidenced by the conversation that occurred just now, you doubt any scavenger even has a concept of what Five Pebbles is. You're also not sure how to convey the idea of just his structure to this scavenger. You can't compare yourself to him, after all; you're just your puppet right now, and this scavenger has surely never seen Five Pebbles' puppet.
You don't even know if this scavenger has been that far east. Sure, some scavengers are nomadic, but the ones you've met up until this point don't much seem like they wander quite that far. You wouldn't expect to see this one in particular wandering far from its own tribe.
You attempt to find some way to convey Five Pebbles' superstructure to the scavenger anyways. You could mime the rain, or maybe the shape of his can, or maybe the rot on him, but the more you think about it, the less sure you are of how to make yourself make sense. You ultimately just give up with a sigh and wrap your arms around your knees again. You doubt you'll get anywhere on this topic with the means you have to express yourself to this scavenger.
[4 actions left.]
>Ooh, I know, maybe make a comparison to its hands and legs and eartlers or something. That’ll give it a rough idea of how us Overseers and the Neuron Flies are part of you, and removing us is harming you!
That’s a good analogy. It’s approximately the truth anyhow.
You gather the vocabulary you know of, trying to piece together a way to say this. Perhaps you should start with using your own puppet as an example. You gesture at your puppet’s hand. “This is me.” You really wish you had a way to say ‘part of you,’ but this is as good as you can get for now. You then gesture at your neurons, and you repeat, “This is also me.”
The scavenger slowly blinks at you, its gaze growing somewhat quizzical. You point at its eartlers, wiggling your antennae to try to draw a better comparison. “That is you.” You point at your neurons again. “And this is me.”
It slowly reaches up to grab its eartler, cocking its head at you. Then it crawls towards you, leaning back on its feet and standing up straight, and it points at your antenna. Then, cocking its head in a clear question, it points to its eartler.
lYou pause, considering your options. You understand the question: Is your antenna an eartler? And obviously, the answer is no. It is the closest approximation to an eartler that you have though, and your auditory structures are next to the base of your antennae, similar to how eartlers funnel sound into the ear canals. It’s not really worth explaining the difference either, especially not for this conversation.
A small lie won’t hurt. “Yes,” you finally answer with a slight shrug.
The scavenger blinks at you a few times. “Glowies are like eartler?” it asks, shaking its hands gently up and down.
You hope you’re interpreting these new signs correctly, but the context is fairly clear. “Yes.”
It glances over at your overseer, which waves a tendril at it again. “Overseers are like eartler?”
“Yes.”
It stares at your neurons for a few moments, clearly pondering. It reaches up to hold its eartler again briefly, rubbing its fingers along the sides. Then, with a rustle of its spines, it signs: It mimes grabbing your neurons, then forms its hand into a claw and drags it downwards next to its head. It’s similar to how the other scavengers in its little scouting group were using the sign earlier, but there’s some nuance that you missed earlier; here, it seems to be using it as an action. As far as you can tell, its question is “Taking your neurons hurts you?”
And yes, yes it does. You sign the affirmative. “Taking neuron like"—you point at your antenna, then mime snapping it in half. The scavenger visibly flinches, reaching for its own eartlers. A twinge of guilt shoots through you at its distress. "Big hurt,” you add to drive your point home.
Still clutching its eartlers, it blinks at you with wide eyes. “Sorry,” it says, sadly shaking its head. “Don’t want to hurt you. Won’t take glowies.”
You let out a sigh of relief. That went well. “Thank you.”
[3 actions left.]
> Maybe ask about the path ahead? Maybe they know something about the area, kinda running out of ideas to ask here.
You suppose this will have to do in lieu of directly asking about Five Pebbles. Problem is, you don't know how to sign "path." Or any similar words, for that matter.
You sigh. Charades it is. Five Pebbles is roughly to your east, so you gesture in his general direction, then tip your head. The scavenger blinks at you, not understanding. You repeat your question, throwing in a "Dangerous?" for good measure. Knowing of the general dangers ahead would help too, but you're really asking generally.
The scavenger scratches at its foot. "Is east dangerous?" it echoes, blinking at you with wide eyes.
"Yes, is east dangerous?" You'll settle with that.
The scavenger shuffles its feet. "Yes," it starts, then mimes a gaping maw of some beast with both its hands curled into claws. Then it blinks up at you, realization lighting its eyes as it remembers you don't know that sign yet. "Big enemy," it supplements, stretching out its arms as far out as they will go. "Big mouth." It mimes a set of jaws with its hands again, clamping them around its own leg and gently shaking it.
Based on that description, you presume it's some sort of lizard. It could be the mud lizards you encountered previously, though you're not sure they roam that far east. Even still, there's a few potential lizard variants this could be. You copy the motion of the jaws, then move them rapidly across the floor, tipping your head questioningly. The pink ones are fast, so...
"No, no." The scavenger mimes the jaws again, but moves it slowly, laboriously sliding its hands over the ground. "Big enemy. Slow," it clarifies, slowly closing its hand as it moves it from its right side to its left.
Green lizards then. That's not a good sign. "Only green lizard?" you ask to confirm.
"No." It signs another lizard type, placing a raised finger on top of a clawed hand; that has to be the sign for enemies and lizards. The scavenger then moves the lizard across the ground quickly. "Fast lizard," it says, slicing its hand upwards.
You mime the lizard climbing a wall, cocking your head at the scav. That could be one of two lizards.
"No," it signs again, then erects its arm like a pole, placing its other hand on it and shimmying the lizard up the pole. "Fast lizard," it repeats, wiggling its hand.
Pink lizards. You exhale slowly. Those... should be fine. "Only green lizards and pink lizards?"
The scavenger hops nervously in place. "No." It places a clawed hand on the back of its other hand, held vertically; you don't need elaboration to understand the sign for blue lizards. "And..." It folds the middle two fingers of its left hand, then stacks it on top of its other, clawed hand. As you stare at it, trying to figure out what lizard it could possibly be, the scavenger hesitantly flaps its arms. You scowl. As if the vulture you dealt with in the farm sector wasn't enough.
"There's also big vultures," the scavenger meekly adds, blinking anxiously at you.
Big... vulture? "Big vulture?" you echo your thoughts.
"Big vulture." It mimes tusks on the sides of its face, shooting one out towards you. Unease ripples through you. You really don't want to deal with one of those.
The scavenger shuffles some more, signing that whatever the sign of holding two curled fingers up on both hands means, those to the east told it this information. You wait briefly for it to clarify, not having any leads on guessing what this sign means. You're at least glad you're collecting more vocabulary.
It's the scavenger's turn to sigh, wearily scratching at its eartlers. "I am a scavenger," it says, repeating the sign it made earlier. "There are also scavengers to the east."
That... makes sense, actually. You curl up a little tighter, a little embarrassed at failing to guess at that one. This should be enough information for now though. "Thank you."
[2 actions left.]
> Could we ask the scavenger a bit about themself? Their name, or perhaps their family/tribe?
Asking for a name would be a great idea, except you don't know how to mime that in the slightest. You don't know the sign for name, nor how to ask a question that isn't a yes-no question. You'll have to figure out how to ask for something like that in the future.
... you're not sure how to sign 'family' either. The closest sign that you know is friend. Or scavenger. But you don't know any numbers. Not that that would really help in this situation, but...
Uhh. "Friend scavenger like?" Adjectives go after the nouns they modify, so hopefully you've set up the sentence correctly...?
The scavenger blinks at you blankly. You sigh. You honestly don't even know what your own sentence meant. "Tell me your friend scavenger like?" you try again.
It squints at you, raising one hand and shaking it with its palm facing upwards. You hope that's the sign for 'what,' because that would be extremely helpful right about now—and, honestly, you can't even blame it. What even are you saying?
Well, either way. "What your friend scavenger like?"
The scavenger blinks at you again, but not out of confusion this time. You can only assume you deduced the meaning of that sign correctly. It doesn't promptly respond, however, instead raising its hands and wringing them and lowering them again. It eventually, after a few moments of hesitation, starts signing slowly, clearly explaining something, but you... don't recognize any of these signs. It drops its hands with a defeated slump of its shoulders at your lack of a reaction to its words.
You drum your fingers on your knees. At the very least, you now know how to ask more questions now, so this wasn't completely pointless.
[1 action left.]
After a few moments of wordlessness from both of you, the scavenger rustles its spines one last time before curling up on the floor, tucking its head under an arm and vanishing into the shadows. You watch it for a few moments, but it doesn't move, clearly committed to getting a night's sleep.
You have no desire to interrupt its sleep, and you've run out of things to say anyways. You move yourself to a more discreet corner while making as little noise as you can manage, carefully putting your lance down before wrapping your arms around your knees again. It's about time you got some rest as well so you're prepared for the trek tomorrow, especially if you end up having to deal with king vultures.
Despite that, you find your thoughts turning back to the scavenger. Scavengers sleep light, you know from Silver's research on them, and are easily startled awake. They tend to be biphasic or triphasic sleepers, with one longer sleep period during the night. It was hard to confirm, but from the records of old tests and experiments that you two trawled through together, it seems this longer sleep period corresponds with slow wave sleep. But some scavengers in those records refused to sleep at night when stressed, particularly if they felt threatened.
You glance in the scavenger's direction again. You can't make out its form in the darkness, but from its even breathing you deduce it successfully dozed off. Sound asleep despite your glaring presence in the room.
You recognize that the scavengers roaming your and Five Pebbles' facility grounds are generations upon generations removed from those in the records you read. Some of those records were written when Day was young, and many were written before she was even constructed, with a few dating back before the Void Fluid revolution. In that much time, with scavengers now roaming free on these lands, a lot of things have likely changed. You don't know if they even know of what their ancestors endured.
Yet, you know innately what the scavenger's quiet sleep means here. Dismissing your busy thoughts, you opt to listen to its soft breaths instead, slowing your own breathing to match it. It's a quiet snuffle, with a hint of a snore every few breaths. The slumbering whispers of a small creature is not something you've heard in such close proximity before.
You let out another sigh before slipping into your own version of sleep. As strange as it is, it's nice to be trusted.
[Proceed to Scene 14 | Return to Scene 13]