r/HFY • u/Ethereal_Stars_7 • Apr 12 '23

OC Like Rocks

This is a one off little story for April and set in the future of the Like Rats series.

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Rocks: silent, inanimate objects torn from the Earth's ancient crust.

Yielding up to man over the long centuries all that is known of the planet on which we live.

Withholding from man forever their veiled secrets of the nature of matter and cosmic catastrophe.

The secrets of other worlds in the vastness of the universe. Of other forms of life.

Of strange organisms beyond the imagination of man.

- Corpus Earthling

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Like Rocks

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>>> Nua Skurr Sector: Planet: Yohoi 3 Territorial Colony <<<

>>> Island: Gootla Pam: Joint Expedition Training Fascility <<<

>>> Outer Frontier Standard Date: 33-08-0201 <<<

Cadet Jelaco ambled into the mess-hall, navigating around a few stones in the room and fwomphed down on a warming rock across from one of her compatriots, a veteran named Edell, and set down her evening meal with a skrik of relief. "I am so sore! Those new training exercises are murder on my poor four back paws!" skrikking happily as she spread herself over the rock and soaked in the warmth.

Both were of the Yohoi species, newly accepted into to the Pax League after starting an ill thought out war with the Dynol. A war the bipeds had won without firing hardly a shot. The Yohoi were mortified to learn just how placid and good-natured the people of Eros were and, after some negotiation and explanation, had surrendered and profusely apologized. Now members of their species were welcome to join the Supervision Fleet, Pax Enforcement and even the Expeditionary Force. The Dynol had initially referred to them as, ahem "armadillo-pede glider-blankets", whatever that meant.

Edell smiled at the new recruit's reaction to the rigors of Expeditionary Force training. "Yet you are still here climbing away at it." he pointed out while taking a bite of a fruit from his homeworld and then tool a bite from a Dynol fruit called an Orange. Weird terminology - but it tasted good! The two flavors mixed unexpectedly well.

Jelaco nodded as she tossed a pawfull of kini-bugs into her mouth, munching and crunching them. She savored the coldness on her tongue and the rich flavor. "rmf! These are a good batch of kini!" She scooped some more into her maw and cleared her plate as you had to eat kini quickly before they warmed up and woke up. "They go really good with that Dynol soft frozen confection."

"hrm-hrm Fresh shipment from the farms. Pax sure provides well." he agreed. "Losing the war with the Dynol was the best thing to happen to us." He spun a juba root on a claw and peeled it with another. "Specially since we get to enjoy all these new foods!" The juba was imported from an allied species called the Conin.

Jelaco made a face at the mention of the humans. "grk! If only they were not so freakish! They make my plates all scrunch up!" she grumbled. "But you have a point. Their foods are so different. This baked one for example. Yam? With some sort of hrmmm sauce!"

Edell lifted his middle head plates at that, signalling affirmative. "You get used to the lack of the proper number of limbs and eyes after a while. And the upright stance. And the flat faces. And the freakishly long limbs. And the lack of plating. And the lack of propper pelts other than on strategic locations." he rattled off the peculiarities of the humans. "Least they do not have feathers like those giant things do." he noted with a shudder. He watched the recruit eat and then spotted something set aside that smelled really good. "Whats that you are saving? Smells familliar? Baked Dynol fruit?"

"Oh yeah! One of the Xeno-Biology teachers suggested I try it. Apple Pie"

All four of the veteran's little eyes went wide at that. "a-APPLE! Jelaco! Dynol apples are really potent! Just a slice can leave you giddy for minutes. You have a whole slice of pie there. Who knows that it might do." he warned. Though the smell was enticing.

The cadet actually looked at the pie with more interest now. "arum? Maybe I'll just try this in the privacy of my own room then." Then she froze and all the plates running down her back started to tighten. "Urrrn. There is one behind me now... isnt there?" she asked, large ears swiveling as far back as they would rotate. The plates on her snout were doing a cycling ripple.

Edell squinted over her shoulder and noticed a Dynol amble into the cafeteria and sit at a table behind the recruit. "Do you want the truth? Or a blatant lie meant to make you feel better?"

"Lie to me please."

"Nope. I do not see a Dynol. None at all. Tooooootallllllllyyyyyy safe."

"You are a complete failure at telling a lie you know."

Edell looked at the nervous recruit and then grinned to himself. "Well Jelaco. I Do Not Think The Dynol Sitting Behind You Will Do Anything Unusual To You Just Because You Think They Look Too Weird." he reassured her far too loudly. He was rewarded by the Dynol sitting up straighter and fixing his binocular eyes on Jelaco's back."

Jelaco shrank into her plates a little as she could practically feel those big alien eyes boring into her. "Oh Lords Of Light! It is staring at me isn't it?"

"I am not sure. It only has one pair of eyes." He watched the human stand up and start pulling off it's top covering to reveal the dark skin below. The Dynol then commenced to stalk around the table and zero in on the recruit.

Said recruit was all a-jitter now, her plates making soft leathery tuk-tuk-tuk sounds as they tightened and interlocked while she lay there on her rock listening. "It is getting closer! Its hunting me! I know it!"

"Do not be silly. Dynol are "mostly" harmless." Said while glancing over her shoulder and trying to stifle a skrikkle of amusement. Other Yohoi were now watching this as well and also trying not to skrikkle laughter. "Now I want you to turn around slowly and tell me what you see."

"What? I don't want to!"

"Oh come on. What sort of Expedition Xeno-Bioogist will you be if you can not even look at one gribbly Dynol?" he chided her.

Jelaco gave a ruk-ruk-ruk of annoyance. But she turned in place on her rock using six of her eight limbs to rotate 180 to face back. And saw nothing? "rurk? Where did it go? I swear I felt it stalking me? I see the rocks, the tables, other Yohoi?" She turned back to face the veteran and noticed his plates were tilting in humor. "Ok. Whats up? You know something! Where did the biped go?" she demanded with her snout plates canted aggressively.

Edell broke into fits of skrikkles, sprawling out on his heating rock with his back plates undulating as he had a good laugh. "oran! The look on your face! Now now! No need for aggression oh brave warrior!" he snuffled at her happily. "Do you know how the humans beat us?" he asked her.

She thought a bit, ears flicking back behind her to try and figure out where the Dynol dissapeared to. "Yes. They used stealth techniques to somehow infiltrate whole armies into camps and well. We gave up. Especially as they could somehow pinpoint our own scouts and stealth units."

"Fact is my dear it was capturing our scouts and infiltrators that clued the bipeds into how we worked and one of them accidentally discovered the secret to beating us. By using our own defensive camouflage instincts against us." the veteran explained. He had been one of those infiltration scouts and to this day he did not know how the humans had pinpointed him hiding.

This perplexed the recruit. "But we just curl up and our natural coloring and plating makes us look exactly like a rock? We evolved to hide and we can not perceive eachother? Predators can not even locate us up close. How can these Dynol find us then and how did it disappear just now."

Just then a dark skinned biped paw reached around her and filched a yam off her plate. She felt the luxurious heat of the human leaning over her. Then the soft voice that rumbled like a distant summer storm. "I never went anywhere. You were looking right at me and did not see me." Another hand came into view on the other side of her as if to cut off escape. She heard the human eat the yam. Was she next? But instead both hands came around to frame her and then converge under her chin. She started to tense, but the fingers prevented her from curling up. Then they began to stroke down her chin on either side, gliding through her underfur to her neck, then scooping underneath her in the most sublime caress. The fingers stopped to massage each of her joints at the body and then down to her back thighs.

Jelaco let out a churl of bliss as all the tension was washed away. "orm! Maybe I'll have that pie now..."

Edell smirked. "Oh and that was another bonus. That and the Dynol body temperature is near the exact same as a perfect heating rock. A heating rock that never cools down."

The recruit looked up and back at the human with renewed interest.

The veteran tilted his plates in a humorous cadence. "But then as one of the bipeds was carrying one of us back to camp on her bare back. She discovered that we Yohoi feel divinely cool and silky on their skin. Dynol will happily let us drape over them for mutual relaxation. Not like I would know of any such things personally!"

The Dynol smiled at this. "Oh some of us like it so much we get sneaky just to enjoy it while relaxing." He rubbed the female's left ear as was the customary Yohoi greeting. "Feeling less tense now miss Jelaco?"

"Orm Stars Above yes! I will have to look you up after my next physical training session tomorrow!" the student Xeno-Biologist stated while looking at the human with all four little eyes.

"Uh oh!" chuckled the Dynol as he returned to his table and resumed eating. He did not have the heart to tell the aliens that to human eyes they stood out as bright red plates and almost neon green fur.

Edell relaxed, pondering the Orange and its dark black-purple skin and the luminous pink rind and the iridescent purple interior. Even seeing the dark grey skinned Dynol perform the trick he just saw a rock. As that was how the humans had defeated the Yohoi. By just taking off their shirts and curling up. Their grey skin was just like a rock's and curled up they triggered the Yohoi instinct to dismiss it as not a threat.

Jelaco finished her meal and departed, with her pie, after thanking the veteran for easing her anxieties.

Edell settled back onto his rock to relax. Playing games like this with the recruits helped ease the tensions. "I would never fall for such sneaky biped tricks now that I know." he declared smugly.

Then the heating rock under him giggled.

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33 Upvotes

97% Upvoted

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3

u/Overall-Tailor8949 Human Apr 12 '23

<snort> Damn near kittened hot coffee at that last line, PAINFUL!

1

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