Grace X alien!kid reader (platonic) [Part 1]
Tags: Found family, fluff,sci-fi
A/N: reader is gender neutral but Grace assumes gender and uses she/her pronouns at first to refer to reader (for now,will change), my description of reader is your typical description of aliens on social media,not everything mentioned in this fic is scientifically accurate,text used for 'alien language' is actually written in Unified Canadian Aboriginal Syllabics,not proofread
/ᐠ｡ꞈ｡ᐟ\/ᐠ｡ꞈ｡ᐟ\/ᐠ｡ꞈ｡ᐟ\/ᐠ｡ꞈ｡ᐟ\/ᐠ｡ꞈ｡ᐟ\/ᐠ｡ꞈ｡ᐟ\/ᐠ｡ꞈ｡ᐟ\
It's been five days in space and Grace has finally managed to remember his name and make his way up from medbay. The floor above the latch was much bigger. If he knew it'd be so much less claustrophobic up here he'd have put more urgent effort into remembering his name.
Being the only existing living thing on the ship was to put it lightly extremely lonely. He still didn't know why he was here or how he even got here. He did know however that there's this thing called astrophage that's eating the sun,he was a middle school teacher and he's out of vodka
He hopes he'll remember what he's supposed to do before he runs out of resources.
"Well I guess I'm doing this now. I don't really know if anyone will find this but it helps to talk to something. Makes it feel less like like I'm gonna...die alone. Wow! That's dark huh?" He fears he might be going insane. He's started these logs on his fifth day on the ship and for the past two weeks. No first month? Or was it only one week? He was beginning to lose his semblance of time. Actually what was he even saying in the first place?
Mary's robotic detached voice drowned over the ship's speaker and he dropped the camera out of instinct. Luckily the lack of gravity caused it to safely float around around in space. His skittles were abandoned and floated helplessly in the environment like Thano's infinity stones. Oh boy was he an avengers nerd? He'd have to unpack that later.
"Mary what does that mean? What does that mean Mary?!"
"No no unprepare for docking!"
"I'm sorry I didn't quite get that. What is unprepare for docking?"
A frustrated groan left his throat. Mary sure let him down today.
Grace aimlessly floated to the door. Something was attached to his ship. Could it be an alien? Another human? "No" he spoke to himself but before he could reach the pilot seat to run away from this situation the outer latch leading to the nothingness of space opened. Oh fudge he's going to be killed in space!
His curiosity got the best of him when he saw a figure of less than 120cm tall emerge in a yellow space suit. It had a metal square attached to it's back. Grace immediately stumbled back when there was a knock on the decompressurizer door that he currently has kicked shut as a protective barrier between him and this figure. It floated up close and upon further speculation he could confirm that whatever this thing was it wasn't human
It looked like those kind of aliens he saw out of the movies. It's skin was a dark green,it had ovular shaped black eyes. It had no nose. Only a mouth. There was little root-like extensions sticking out of its neck and who knows what else.
He pinched himself. He must be dreaming. This can't be real. No way this is real.
The creature knocked again on the little glass window. It wanted in.
"Hey uh are you gonna kill me? You know what that means? Kill?" He did a slit throat motion that made the green figure's eyes go wide and it backed away. Oh geez.
"Oh no no I don't mean me. I'm not gonna kill you!" He did an x-shape with his arms in attempts to communicate.
Ofcourse they didn't speak English or any earth language Grace. He felt dumb for even thinking that it would be a possibility. "Okay I have to be honest right now. I have no idea what you're saying. Just... wait here for a second"
Think Grace think. How are you possibly going to communicate with this person? His eyes landed on that little crocheted earth ball. Maybe visual demonstrations would help?
He returned holding up the ball. "You see this? This is where I'm" he pointed at himself. "from. It's called earth. Where are you from" he gestured to the green figure who was still floating in the decompressurizer chamber. He wasn't keen on opening the door. He'd prefer not dying instantly via aliens eating him or something.
The alien tapped on some kind of touchscreen armband thing before the metal thing connected to their back reflected a hologram. It was a mostly green planet almost like his. He remembers hearing about this one in the cosmos articles he read. Back on earth they called this planet Sylvaeris. It was noticed but never explored. The name was derived from 'sylva' meaning forest. Sylvaeris was something many scientists like himself used to theorise as a planet possibly capable of being habitable for organisms but the problem was it's orbit climate. It had an oval shaped orbit meaning It would go from intense desserts to lush greenery to ice cold winters. It was a wonder that aliens even survived on there but maybe their biology was just different.
"You're from Sylvaeris? Okay that's cool" he gave a thumbs up. "I guess we're both far away from home huh?"
"⊑⏃⎐⟒ ⊬⍜⎍ ⌇⟒⟒⋏ ⋔⊬ ⌿⏃⍀⟒⋏⏁⌇?"
He frowned. It was difficult making sense of a language he had no knowledge of. Their irritated expression deepened when he looked confused.
They tapped on their armband and a different hologram showed up of two bigger green guys with a tinier one in the middle. The alien pointed to the middle one before pointing at themselves.
"That's your family?" He nearly pressed his face against the little glass window to try and get a closer look at the hologram. That's when he noticed the scribbles on the metallic thing on the creature's back. It had little stars and other doodles stuck onto it in a way that was childish. He wondered if that might've been their equivalent of a backpack.
"Those are your parents?" He pointed at the two other people in the hologram but they didn't understand his words. He suddenly felt an entirely new wave of confusion overcome him. "You're a kid aren't you?"
Ryland tried to look past into the tiny space shuttle attached to his ship but there was little to see. Infrared light probably to photosynthesize and a bunch of little buttons he didn't quite understand.
"Your parents" he pointed at the two taller figures and then gestured around them. "Where are they?"
The kid seemed to understand that atleast. They changed the hologram back to their planet and did what he could only assume was an immitation of an explosion.
Ryland's frown only deepened with concern. Their planet blew up? Does that mean the parents are...oh geez.
"Your parents" he did a motion with his finger until the alien eventually got the message and switched back to the hologram photo of what Grace assumed was their family. He pointed at the two older figures in the photo again. "Did they" he mimicked her imitation of an explosion. "Did they blow up too?"
It seems they understood him since they shook their head. Okay that's good. They're not dead. Hopefully.
"Are they on the ship?" He pointed at the picture then at the ship. The alien looked behind them as if making sure before shaking their little green head again.
Good news is they might still be alive. Bad news is the kid didn't seem to know where they are either and they were definitely not on that ship.
He was a middle school teacher if he remembers correctly. Maybe that's why he felt so strongly about the thought of a child left alone to their own devices.
"Okay" He was muttering to himself again. What do you do in this situation? He had no idea. "Okay"
He placed his hands on his hips before they shot out to a wall when the sudden motion made him lose his balance in the zero gravity space. "Ah crackers-" That seemed to make the child laugh. Maybe he was just lonely but hearing laughter that wasn't just him reacting to his own cheesy jokes made something akin to relief fill his chest.
"So I met an alien. Well an alien kid. I'm not exactly sure." Ryland found himself talking to his camera that night as he floated around the lab. "They docked my ship but I'm still trying to figure out what kind of conditions she survives under. Good thing is they haven't tried to kill me and eat me so far which was a major concern for a while"
He looked into the camera,a heavy sigh leaving his throat. "I think she's lost. I don't know why I'm here but maybe the universe sent me here to help her find her parents. Or something like that" he took off his glasses and dragged a hand over his tired eyes. "Well I'm going to bed. This was day fifteen. Log...ten? Eleven? Gosh I lost count"
"Okay so she has roots. That means...maybe she's a plant? Or something like it. Maybe they breathe carbon dioxide? Or nitrogen?" Ryland was in the lab and floating round and round with a confused expression. The alien drifted around in their yellow space suit whilst a rope connected them to their space shuttle.
He saw the kid holding that white machine that almost looked like some futuristic gun or a high tech prize scanner and Grace immediately reached out to stop tiny hands or roots from messing with element scanners. "Hey hey let's look with our eyes. Not our hands" Ryland found that communication was a bit of a difficult thing when you're trying to speak to an impulsive child that didn't understand a word you said.
"⌿⏃⍀⏁⊬ ⌿⍜⍜⌿⟒⍀" they mumbled under their breath.
"⏃☌⍀⟒⟒⎅" their backpack had long robotic arms and an installed speaker where an ai voice different from Mary's blasted. It seemed to agree with them often. Or atleast he thinks so. Grace had never seen a talking backpack before.
He sighed whilst looking down at the scanner in his hand. And finally he felt the gears turning in his head. It was simple really. Maybe scanning the inside of this alien's shuttle might give him a clue to what this kid needed to survive.
"Hey" he crouched down or tried to in zero gravity. He pointed to the closed decompressurizer latch. "Your ship? Can I go on?" He gestured towards himself.
Maybe a different approach. "Okay this is your ship" he grabbed a pen and drew a mediocre picture of a space shuttle. Then he drew the stick figure. And pointed to himself. "This is me" he drew a line from the stick figure to the space shuttle drawing. "Can I go onto your ship?"
They nodded. Okay that's progress. Cool!
"Great! That's awesome" Now he just needed to suit up. The man glanced around, specifically at the pen floating past him. This might be tricky.
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I made a rough sketch of what I think reader would look like.
Glossary for "Sylvaerisian words" used in this fic:
⊑⏃⎐⟒ ⊬⍜⎍ ⌇⟒⟒⋏ ⋔⊬ ⌿⏃⍀⟒⋏⏁⌇?
Have you seen my parents?
Part 1 (you're here!) >> Part 2
