She was quite eager to see the results of her hard work. She'd spent hours analyzing the vibrations her tool users made, and many more ensuring She replicated them much more closely than before to avoid any possible miscommunications due to variances in vibration frequency or pattern.

To that end, She chose to more closely imitate the vibrations of the smaller male. For one thing, that was who She'd received a larger sample size of vibrations of due to the male's willingness to address She, and for another, it should at least somewhat appeal to the female's protective instinct, perhaps resulting in fewer complications of She interacting with the female.

Of course, next came the decision of how She would introduce herself. Well, first, She would need to address the female. Simple enough, whenever the male needed to address the female, it used the word "brother," which would suffice here. Then, She wanted to make clear that She was seeking to interact for the sake of communication rather than seeking territory or resources, so starting out by expressing a desire to know more seemed like a good idea. Finally, She needed a way to introduce herself. This was a more complicated endeavor than She'd thought until the problem presented itself. How does a She express the complexity of expression within her own She? Usually, a brief thought would include a burst of information, including a sense of self within the scope of She, almost like a flavor, so one She could tell another apart, but vibration seemed a problematic way to express an abstract idea like the sense of self. They seemed to rely more on specific vibrations, which made sense, given the limitations of vibrating versus actual communication, but that left the question: What vibration should She use?

Thinking back to her analysis of the communications, She realized there was one other figure the tool users occasionally spoke of. While She was not entirely sure of their exact relationship, it seemed likely this figure was some sort of tribal leader or life-giver. Perhaps even their own life-giver. Well, it seemed clear that a tribal leader was about as close to something they had a concept of as She was, and She was also, in a way, a life-giver, so that vibration should suffice, at least for now. While there seemed to be a few different vibrations for the figure, one seemed most frequently used. So She decided She would introduce herself as "she," even though the vibration seemed to lack the full complexity of She.

Thus eager to test out her new appendage and introduce herself in a non-hostile manner, She walked up to the female and vibrated. "Brother, She has questions."

-

Scott was at a loss. As if sitting on his backside in the water, listening to some new spider monster speak to him in his sister's voice wasn't disturbing enough; it seemed to be expecting an answer, but all he could give it was a question. "What the hell are you?"

The...thing tilted its head in what seemed like a mockery of all that was good and decent. "Am She. Am hand, eye, listen, mother, and now word. Am She."

Scott blinked rapidly. He was a little too young for a stroke, so it was more likely he'd just lost his last grasp of sanity and had lost his grasp of reality. That or the weird spider monster thing was just terrible with words. He felt like laughing. He felt like running. He felt like fighting. Finally, he just gave in to the absurdity of everything and spoke to the thing. "Are you saying your name is 'She?' Because it's going to be really awkward using such a common word as a name going forward..."

"She" tilted her head to the other side. "Name? What name?"

Scott wondered if he could get out of the creek, but the thing seemed disinclined to approach him, perhaps because of the water. Maybe he was safer to stay where he was. Then again, the one that lifted his sister out of the creek hadn't seemed to mind the water... Though it might not matter, as long as it wanted to talk, it wasn't an active threat. "You know, a name. For example, my name is Scott." He placed a hand over his chest as he spoke. Then, he pointed toward the lean-to. "And my sister's name is Alice. It's the thing we call ourselves."

The thing looked back and forth, then pointed at Scott. "Brother." Then, it pointed at the lean-to. "Munchkin."

That confused Scott. Why would it think... wait, it's been listening to them somehow. That's why it thinks that's their names because that's what they call each other. How such a giant monster has stayed close enough to listen is beyond him... Maybe the mouth spider has been speaking to it. That didn't matter, though, nor did it explain why the thing sounded like his sister... Wait, no, he'd better stay focused. Changing the subject right now would only lead to more confusion. "No. Brother is my relationship to Alice, not my name. My name is Scott. Only Alice can call me brother. To everyone else, I'm Scott. To you, I'm Scott."

She was quiet momentarily as if trying to understand, then it spoke again. "What you?"

Tilting his own head to the side, Scott tried to think of the best way to answer such a complex question. "I'm a human. We come from Earth and are stuck on this planet for now. We don't mean you any harm."

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She was quiet again as if trying to understand, then She spoke again. "No. What word you? New word."

That stopped Scott short. It wasn't asking what Scott was. It was asking him to define the word! He couldn't help it, he laughed. She only seemed further confused and asked, "What" It laughed, just like him. "word? Also, new word."

That stopped Scott. What was it saying? Oh, it thought laughter was a word? Oh god... how to explain? No, it's better to start with something simpler. "Ummm, 'you' is a word that indicates whoever you're talking to." Wait, no, he just used the word to define the word! "I mean, 'you' is whoever a person is addressing. For example, when She is talking to Scott, Scott is you. When Scott is talking to She, She is you." Scott hoped they could come up with a new name for She, or things would get really confusing fast...

She straightened a little. "Ah, Scott is you!"

Scot kind of hedged his words. "When She is talking to Scott, yes, when She is talking about Scott, Scott is Scott."

She shook in an odd way that meant nothing to Scott. This may be too much for it. To be fair, the spider person was probably very primitive and struggling to understand a complex method of communication. It was honestly quite impressive it was doing this well.

This time, when it pointed to Scott, it said, "Scott. Then it pointed to the lean-to and said, "Alice." Then to herself and said, "She."

Scott shook his head. "Can we use another name for you? She is a really common word in our language, and it'll be easy to have a misunderstanding..." Realizing that was probably too complex a word, he corrected himself. "A mistake of words."

She tilted her head to the side, then asked. "What you name She?"

That stopped Scott cold. Was it asking him to name her? What does one call a giant spider monster creature? His first thought was Spider-Woman, but that just brought to mind old Earth comics his dad once showed him, and he rejected that on account of this already being far too absurd a situation, and he couldn't handle it getting worse. Next, he thought of an old horror story about a giant spider with a human face named Atlach-Nacha. While it fit, naming a possibly (hopefully) friendly spider monster after a horror story seemed like a bad omen for the future, even if it wasn't too much of a mouthful... Though on the topic of stories, he remembered an old children's story about a friendly spider, it took him a moment to remember the name. "How about Charlotte? It's a friendly spider from an old Earth story."

She seemed to consider a moment and then nodded, a motion it must have picked up from watching them. "Charlotte... She is Charlotte!"

That was when Alice chose that moment to crawl out of the lean-to while rubbing her eyes. "Brother, who are you talking to?"

The spider creature turned around, and Scott couldn't help but notice how many legs had to dance in place for what would be a much easier feat for a human as it spoke. "You talking Charlotte!"

Alice stopped, lowered her hands, and stared momentarily before squealing and running forward. Scott tried to climb out of the creek but couldn't make it before his sister was latched onto one of the creature's legs while Scott's words of caution seemed largely ignored. "Wait, Alice! Don't..."

The girl looked up at the spider creature like it was the coolest bug she'd ever seen. "How do you have my voice?"

Charlotte tilted her head to the side. "What voice?"

Scott finally got out of the water and debated how much to pull his sister off and get between them while he kept talking to keep things calm. "Your words. She means you sound like her."

The creature tilted her head to the other side again. "I don't mean that..."

Scott sighed, defeated. "This is why you can't be named 'She.' When I'm referring to a girl...a female...er, whatever, the word for that is she. In this case, I meant Alice means you sound like her."

Charlotte grew quiet. "Munchkin, Alice, you, she...many words for one. Why?"

Scott called over his sister, who reluctantly pulled away from her new toy while Scott thought. "It's hard to explain, but it's all about context."

A seemingly neverending font of questions, Charlotte asked another. "What context?"

That one stopped Scott. It was a difficult concept to explain. "Well, context is how you figure out the meaning of a word based on the other words around it... That might be a bit hard to explain..."

However, Charlotte looked pleased. "Context! Words around word explain word! Context!"

Scott blinked. So, it had trouble with names and pronouns, but it grasped the definition of the word context right away? He wondered if he'd ever get a chance to work on the roof, only to realize he was apparently so at ease in this nightmare creature's presence he was thinking about other work rather than focusing on it! How had it done that? Perhaps it was the childlike attitude it had... It seemed so happy when it figured things out. It was hard not to be put a little at ease. Still, this was a whole new complication in an already complex survival situation...

-

She was pleased but also confused. She was rapidly learning more of the tool users used vibration language as she communicated with them, but it was unnecessarily complex. How could so many words refer to one creature? It made no sense! They had these specific vibrations for each other, "names," apparently. Why not use those when vibrating to avoid confusion?

Still, this was progress. She even had her own vibration now. "Charlotte." Her attempt to mimic the male's vibrations and movements seemed to be working. Of course, She had more questions now. She understood many of the bigger vibrations (words she reminded herself) the tool users used, but there were many smaller ones between the big words. There was also the question of what this "Earth" the female kept referring to was. It was probably a reference to their home tribe or land and probably inconsequential at this time. Then there was the question of what She should teach the tool users? Should She start out big and flashy or stick to things they'd better understand? Before that, it might be best to show them how helpful She can be. Maybe She should help finish the nest the female had been working on. That might be an excellent place to start!