The Surface of Valdon V-III - the fifth planet of the star Valdon's third moon - is a desolate place. It never seemed appropriate that it should be so. No, under the surface, in the cave networks teeming with life, you'd think the surface would be just as beautiful, a vibrant place of coruscating life. You'd think that - but you'd be wrong. It's bleak, with its flame-yellow sulfurous sky and red-brown landscape, the absence of the stars, and its ashen, silty oceans of diluted sulfuric acid. It has its moments, don't get me wrong, the sunrise here is like the bloom of a glorious golden flower, and sunset is just as dazzling... but it's usually this institutional yellow color, so even the monochromatic blue-green lichens that frame the mouth of its caves seem terribly interesting.
That's good though - because they lead you inevitably inward, like all the best religions, into the beating heart of Valdon V-III, which desperately needs a better name. The natives don't have a proper unified name for it yet because they're still young. One tribe I met there called it Bunghole, and who'd name it that on the Atlas? Nice people though, if a bit candid. When I visited, they told me I had ears. Why, yes! Thank you so much, they're very handy! No, please be gentle, they're sensitive.
They called themselves the Bunglings, the children of the Bunghole, but I'd prefer to list them as the Mortons, after their concept of death. Sounds morbid, right? But they believed that when you die, you meet your perfect lover, your 'Morton', who leads you to the paradisaical caves of the afterlife by the hand, and I like that story of theirs... so, Mortons they will be, at least in my accounts here.
The Mortons were the first people I encountered on Valedon V-III, and we met when I'd tried to eat the boring lichens on the surface outside their cave. They tasted of... hallucinogenic substances my Analyzer told me I could digest, that I could turn to fuel to sustain my Instance, as my rations had run dry days ago and I was definitely a bit peckish, but it was a bit sparce on what would happen next - just that I would experience "minor visual artifacting" and "mild nausea". I should have known better, but I was so, so hungry and anything, I'd thought at the time, would be better.
Bullshit, I was sick as a Thorian Hellhound in a gravity simulator on spin-dry.
They'd made fun of me for it, as a matter of fact, and took me in while I hallucinated for three full days and then slept for another five. I woke up with a Matron of the Mortons by the name of Breastmilk caring for me, and... that really says a lot about the Mortons, doesn't it? Oh, not just the way they name things, but... here I was, several eyes, an arm, and two legs short of being a member of their species and they'd taken me in, just because I was in trouble.
I mean, they made fun of me for it, a Morton pastime, but they still took me in. In my experience... actions speak much louder than words, and their kindness was so welcome after having been lost on Valdon V-III. They called me Ears. Again... says a lot, doesn't it? I mean, I can't really blame them - their ears are more like drums - gaps in their skulls with thick flesh stretched over them, covered in soft hair they keep meticulously clean, as opposed to mine - about a foot long each, expressively twitching at every noise or wash of emotion, drooping when I'm sad or upset, slicking back when I'm relaxed, perking high when I'm stressed or alert. To the four-jawed, six-eyed Mortons, my ears were the most expressive part of me - and thus... Ears was my name.
Breastmilk, to her kind, was very beautiful apparently. Others like her came and went as I recovered, and they always called her that, so I was prepared to take it on faith. She had four stout legs, ending in flat, stompy feet and three spindly arms that ended in four strong, surprisingly gentle fingers each that dragged soap through the usually snowy-white fur that covers my body. The soap she used was made from sulfur and the milky secretions of the bulbous breasts that swung below the bulk of her pale body, and smelled like vanilla and garlic... but it also dyed my fur resolutely pink. That was how I woke up - with her washing me. The 'Water' held no danger for me after this long on Valdon V-III, and with the soap, it was pleasantly warm.
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I looked at her, opening lucid eyes for the first time since coming here, as she washed my breasts and massaged the soap into the short fur I had there.
She looked at me, noticing I was staring only after glancing at my face to see if my wiggling nose was dirty.
I blinked slowly.
Her eyes widened in what my Interpretor called delight.
"Hello~!" I'd said in what I sincerely hoped was her language as my Interpretor had pieced it together, and she tilted her head to one side - surprise, my Interpretor told me, as if I needed telling.
"Hello." she replied
She finished cleaning me, didn't say another word to me, with two hands positioning and rubbing the soap-paste into my bare form while her third hand milked herself into a ceramic dish and rubbed a yellow rock in the thick liquid to create a paste with her milk. Then, she washed me in a tingling rush of warm 'water'. An alien kindness, but a kindness nevertheless. Mild Sulfuric acid mixed with warm milk and enzymes from an alien teat shouldn't feel tingly and excellent as it washes over your vagina and into every nook and cranny of your body, and on many worlds it would not, but I'd been here long enough to handle it like a native, and I thanked my Creators, wordlessly, that they'd made me the way they had. Just as well - this Instance of me was in no position at all to do anything but my very best to relax into Breastmilk's attentions and compassionate care.
I was weak. Too weak to do anything to help more than meekly relax as she picked me from the warm basin of liquid and set me on a bed of silt, which she vigorously, but gently rubbed into my fur and skin until the moisture was wicked away, leaving me very, very clean, dry, and smelling like the flowers in the cave she called home. Vanilla (or something like it), as it turns out is common the universe over. It comes in different shapes and sizes, sometimes in oceans, sometimes in beans, sometimes in moon-silver glowing petals growing in the caves of a kindly primitive stranger - as in this case - but it is... one of those common biochemical compounds in the universe, for whatever reason, and it made me feel at home.
Her eyes tracked the slicked-back relaxation of my ears once I'd relaxed, bare before her on her floor, dry at last, the ordeal of the bath over with. She did not understand, but the stroke to the dark head of hair on my head was unmistakably a grooming thing, and I leaned into the touch with a smile she also failed to interpret. Some body language, thankfully, is universal. A smile isn't one, but leaning into gentle contact is.
Using those long, strong fingers, she stroked knots out of my hair, which had grown long to mid-back in my time here from the shoulder-length it had begun as in this instance. So what do you do, when you're spending intimate time with a primitive stranger on an alien world? Because make no mistake - having someone play with your hair and bathe you while you are too weak to do it yourself is pretty intimate, and Breastmilk - that was honestly her name - was apparently ok with things as long as I was.
"Why are you called Breastmilk?" I asked like a goober. Her four-part jaw moved in a way that made my heart race as it showed her needle teeth, but that my Interpretor affirmed in the way her eyes crinkled at the corners - amusement.
"Why are you called Ears?" she replied, as if absolutely certain that was my name. Social came up and told me I was being made fun of, cheeked by the kindly woman, and I could only laugh! It had all just been too much, and things were finally catching up to me.
She was confused at first, but mirth - it has a sound, even if the language of it is different, and she began to laugh too because it likes company, a strange puttering, barking noise. And that was that.
"Thank you, Breastmilk"
She gave a shiver that my Interpreter called a nod, and just like that - we were besties.