Chapter Text
Noise.
Humming and loud and musical and jarring.
His first conscious thought was to cover his ears, but his hands didn’t want to cooperate. He twitched, the scraping of one hand against the floor impossibly loud.
One of the noises rose in pitch, excited somehow. The notes melted and merged together, forming… words?
“Grace? Awake, question?”
There was a long moment of confusion and emptiness that was terribly familiar. The emotions came back to him, fear and loss and a tension he couldn’t feel. Because…
He remembered pain. Sickness. Weakness that pulled him further and further down.
He remembered being days away from dying.
He remembered a risky solution.
A solution that filled him with noise and painted the world in silver.
“Awake, question?”
Rocky sounded impatient. Grace would’ve smiled if he still had the ability to. He tried to respond, but no mouth to smile meant no mouth to answer. Right.
“Grace?”
Worry tinged Rocky’s impatience. He didn’t know if it had worked. Grace had to respond… somehow…
Something in him responded to his desire, releasing a low, nonsensical hum. Rocky responded immediately, waving two of his hands.
“Amaze, Grace! Amaze!”
Grace repeated the sound, trying to puzzle out the new muscles required. Then he returned his attention to the fact that he’d seen Rocky’s excitement.
Eridians could see, of course. Grace had known that from the beginning, but they didn’t need light. It was a kind of sonar, one that he was thankfully using without conscious effort.
Even if it was so loud.
Sound and shape were one now. Shifting sound told him of the shape beside him, rocking excitedly. A larger shape was hunched nearby, and several other shapes moved around, thrumming to each other. An even larger shape arched over them all, unmoving and solid, but also transparent?
Right. Walls meant nothing to Eridians.
Grace reflexively wanted to take a deep, calming breath, but… well, no lungs. A discordant noise escaped him and he felt his limbs twitch erratically.
Could. Could Eridians have panic attacks?
Okay, more important question, how did Eridians deal with panic attacks?!
His claws gouged the stone under him, the screech nearly deafening. His limbs flailed wildly and he felt his carapace rock sideways, knocking against a wall.
“Grace.” Rocky skittered around Grace, his movements blurred. “Calm. You okay, statement.”
Grace tried to accept it. Again tried to take a deep breath, but. Still no lungs. Right.
A terrible wailing rang out, nearly drowning out Grace’s senses. Every Eridian seemed to freeze as one. The wail stuttered, then rose in pitch.
“Grace! Calm!”
That sound was… it was him, wasn’t it? Trying to silence himself, Grace instead flung out a claw, smacking Rocky by accident. Grace tried to apologize, but all he managed was a discordant spurt of noise.
Wait.
Doing his best to block out the movements around him, Grace tried to recreate the noise. He managed it, aware that he probably sounded insane to the Eridians.
Eridians crowded around… was it the door? Grace couldn’t figure out his depth perception, but he thought most of the Eridians were outside. Maybe. They were all murmuring, and Grace had calmed enough to catch a bit of their conversations, namely one word: pebbles.
Pebbles were a nickname Grace had given to the small, young Eridians. The Eridians had picked up on it, and the nickname had persisted.
Right now, the Eridians in hearing were asking about the upset pebble. It took Grace a moment for him to figure out the context, and when he did, he wanted to curl up in a ball in embarrassment.
Grace was the “pebble”. Apparently, he’d been doing the Eridian equivalent of a crying child.
Well. It wasn’t like it was the first time the Eridians had seen him cry, but still.
“Grace calm now, question?”
This time, it was Adrian asking. Grace automatically pushed back on his limbs, trying to turn his body, instead clattering against the opposite side of… the nest?
Yeah, it was a nest. Eridians slept in nests when they weren’t dog-piled in the middle of their houses. Grace wasn’t entirely sure why they did that.
He was getting distracted. Less focus on sleeping habits, more on practical matters. Like how in the world he was supposed to talk. Or stand.
Talking first. He’d managed it somewhat on purpose, and now that he was thinking calmly again, he had to just… do it again.
A noise that was half hum, half squeak came out of him. At least it was semi-intentional this time, even if his attempt at saying “calm” came out closer to the Eridian word for “fall.”
“Amaze, Grace!” Rocky praised.
Grace briefly wished he could at least smile at Rocky before he squashed that desire down. He couldn’t spiral again. Maybe later. But not now.
Grace managed a hum that wasn’t quite words, but it was better than the Eridian version of crying again. He tried to lift himself from the nest, promptly failing. All his joints felt wrong and Grace briefly wondered how he was going to adjust from being bipedal… also, he had five limbs now.
Rocky returned to the edge of the nest with Adrian. With some focus, Grace realized the other Eridians had been shooed out of the room. With a moment’s thought, he remembered the Eridian scientists who had been present for the transfer to make sure it went as smoothly as possible.
Grace briefly wondered if it could have gone any worse before quickly realizing that, yeah, it could’ve gone a lot worse. He chose to not think about that, instead focusing that the experiment had been a success! He’d given up his rapidly failing human body for an Eridian’s body. And, against all odds, it had worked! He was an Eridian!
Oh, fudge, he was an Eridian now. For the rest of his newly extended life, he was an Eridian.
And at that moment, Grace didn’t know if he wanted to laugh or cry.