text; un: bortz

[abortz]

[Bortz is not a chatty person. They aren't a particularly social person, and they aren't at all eager to make new "friends". But they'll submit to this sort of socialization with complete strangers to get information they need.]

Do animals have doctors?
If there is anyone in charge of fixing those of us who break then I need to know in advance rather than waiting until they're actually needed.

[There's a pause, and then they continue, almost begrudgingly.]

I also need to know if anything be done for you people if you're damaged.
If it comes up then there won't be time to figure it out in the moment. I won't waste time trying to help if there's no point.

[They don't care. They really don't, these organics mean nothing to them and frankly, expending effort on them when they have such short, limited lifespans to begin with seems pointless. But this is the job they've been given, and they'll do it right. If that means babysitting these fleshy people then so be it.]

Comments

[abortz]

[I am...so sorry, Majima, you're just the first person who's brought this subject up so directly.]

What is the difference, exactly?

[Women are generally softer and have those sacs on their chest, but they've also seen women with no sacs at all. It's confusing.]

[justbeingknife]

Uh.

[ jesus christ ]

Well...

[ JESUS CHRIST

I mean he guessed it was kind of important for this mission but w h y ]

...Listen, you just want to be able to spot one or the other, or do you actually want details?

[abortz]

???
I'm just asking what the difference is. What constitutes "details"?

[justbeingknife]

[ shit ]

Plenty! There are intricacies and shit, okay?!

[ but fine, he'd try. at least it sounded like they wanted something clinical. ]

...Generally speakin', you need two kinds of humans in order to reproduce. About half the population is male and half are female. I guess there's a lot more you could say about both, but... basically, women are the ones that actually bear children.

[ now let's never talk about this again or let's, who knows ]

[abortz]

[You're damn lucky Bortz isn't terribly curious about things that don't involve them. Because there are definitely gems who would have pursued that topic and asked more about how reproduction works (cough Phosphophyllite cough).]

How do you tell the difference?

[justbeingknife]

Men are usually taller, with deeper voices, and broader shoulders and builds. Women are curvier with smaller waists. Where I'm from, they usually got longer hair and flashier clothes, too, but here's a little different.

You can probably get a better sense of which is which by people-watchin' around town, since it's the women who're in charge.

[abortz]

[It follows what they've observed so far. Men generally appear more like Sensei, though rarely so tall or broad. And women are more like the rest of them, but curvier and sometimes with those chest sacs.]

I see.
And you're a man.

[justbeingknife]

That's the idea.

So, what... you guys don't have any genders?

[abortz]

We're just us. We don't reproduce, so we don't need anything like that.

[justbeingknife]

So there's only ever so many of you?

[abortz]

Minerals rise up through the planet's crust over millions of years. Very rarely, they come out like one of us. There are currently twenty-four of us, all born over the course of around the last 3500 years.

[And Sensei, but who knows what Sensei's deal is. They don't question it.]

[justbeingknife]

Oh, I gotcha.

[ yeah, it... did kinda seem pointless to have male and female rocks. ]

So are there different kinds of minerals? Like quartz or rhodochrosite.

[abortz]

Most of us are different. The Amethysts are twin gems and we're recently gained newer versions of some gems that were lost. But everyone else has always been unique.

[justbeingknife]

Huh.

[ living rocks... who'd have thought. it was like out of some kind of crazy sci fi video game ]

Ya sound like you're used to blendin' in with humans, even if you don't know all that much about 'em.

[abortz]

???
I've never even heard of humans before coming here.
I thought you people were trying to look like us.

[justbeingknife]

Don't know what it's like on your world, but there definitely ain't any talking rocks where I'm from.

Maybe it's like on them sci-fi shows where for some reason all the aliens all look the same.

[abortz]

[Oh jeeze.]

"Sci-fi shows"? "Aliens"?

[justbeingknife]

Oh, that's right. I guess you guys wouldn't have TV.

...you do have fiction, though, right? Stories?

[abortz]

I think there are some books like that in the library. But I don't go down there much.

[justbeingknife]

Okay, that works. Where I come from, there ain't just fiction in written form. They record people acting out those stories and transmit them so other people can watch.

Anyway, one of the most popular types is science fiction. It's about the future and what'd happen if people traveled to different worlds and so on.

[abortz]

Isn't that what we're doing here?

[justbeingknife]

Yeah. Kinda wild, ain't it?

Anyway, on those shows, they gotta depict people from other worlds. But since all the actors are human, those aliens almost always end up with two arms, two legs -- mostly human-looking, anyway.