Chaos Good Creature

-Body-

◇ Yautia!Eridians come in all sizes and colors. Of course, this applies to their mask, their legs and extra arm too.

◇ Their body has a high pain tolerance. However, their most sensible area is the hair: they have blood flowing in and a complex nervous system. The hair is essential for balance in Yautja!Eridians. They are also handy to sense change of atmosphere: they are so sensible that they can perceive the slightest shift of air, which helps the yautja to be even more aware of their surroundings. The hair functions as some sort of "eyes".

◇ Being so sensible, the hair are handled with special extra care, and due to societal norms, only the Eridian!Yautja's mate can aid with taking care of them. If someone is without a mate, they usually handle it on their own. An exception is made for the Pebbles since they need to learn how to take care of the hair from their parents, and they lack the high sensibility of the adults' hair, risking to hurt themselves since they don't feel pain through there yet.

◇ Having even one single lock cut can cause horrible pain. They can be paralyzed due to the shock, and it takes hours for them to manage the agonizing sensation enough to move again and seek help. Having several cut can cause death by blood loss.

◇ Yautja!Eridians seem to not have fully developed their legs in the evolutionary process, so they use biomechanical limbs since they are kids. These prosthetic legs "grow" with the yautja. They are changed over time to match their height and weight until they reach full adulthood, then they will keep that pair for the rest of their life, unless an incident forces them to switch to new ones. The legs are fully connected to the nervous system. Breaking one of them can cause bleeding where it meets the organic matter and pain.

◇ Their food and drinks are not safe for human consumption. They can tolerate human food, but for them, it's more like an occasional treat. It's not very fulfilling and doesn't give the essential nutrients they need.

◇ Their extra limb can move in a 180° range. allowing the Yautja!Eridians to multitask easily.

-Sleep-

◇ In their stasis, their vital function slow down exponentially, and, added with the scales on their back which are thick enough to muffle the slowed sound of their heartbeats, it makes them "invisible" to any danger. The yautja that watch them sleep will have a hard time understanding if an Eridian is resting or dead unless they are a doctor. (It took for Rocky a while to figure out his crewmates were dead. He just kept taking care of them until he accepted he was alone)

◇ Anytime they rest, Yautia!Eridians remove their jewelry to avoid making the slightest sound as they sleep.

◇ In the safety of their den, Yautja!Eridians sleep in less sheltered poses. They actually become cuddly: Rocky enjoys being spoiled when he naps - he loves laying on top of Adrian and makes some sweet musical tones to his mate until he falls asleep. Rocky also loves spooning or sleeping on top of Grace... In these cases, Grace ends up stuck there for the whole time the yautja sleeps. There is no way to move out from Rocky/Adrian.

-Social Behavior and Customs-

◇ The mask ensures complete privacy regarding their mouths. It's made of a material that doesn't allow the eridians to see through it, and it's composed by the bio-mask and mouth guard. Even if the mask has very tiny clasps that hooks on the scales of their head and the mouth guard is shaped so that the tusks can close around it and keep it in place, both these parts are also connected by a magnet for extra stability.

◇ Eating is a very private event, and their mouths are covered all the time, even in their sleep. They expose it only to consume food or to show their fangs as a threatening display. This last act is seen as super aggressive and that the Yautja!Eridian is about to attack.

The first time Rocky saw Grace smiling at him, he was a bit worried: he knew he was dealing with an alien life form and behavior would differ, but his instinct still sent a few warnings…yet they were very easy to ignore because Rocky was just relieved to not be alone anymore (now both Rocky and Adrian love seeing their human smile).

◇ Yautja!Eridians avoid standing not only for self-preservation, but they avoid doing so also because it's seen as threatening. When a Yautja!Eridian is furious or about to attack someone, they will stand at full height, their body will start to let out steam as a way to let the body cool down (and as an aggressive display). If the "opponent" is not backing down, they will remove the mask to show their tusks and fangs as a last resort.

It took a bit for Eridians to get used to Grace standing at full height or smiling and not associate it with him being threatening.

◇ When it comes to standing upright, Adrian and Rocky are the Eridians to do it very often compared to others, but only in the bio-dome with Grace. They like mimicking Grace's posture when they want, often knocking against things for how tall they are (Rocky had to fix so many door frames…Adrian is veery tall).

◇ Little fun fact: when Rocky and Adrian experience cuteness aggression because of Grace, they let out the steam. They learned quickly to step away from Grace and let the body temp regulation happen, before resuming cuddling with their human.

◇ The jewelry they use is not necessarily for aesthetic purposes. With the soft clinking of the xenonite rings and beads, they can see each other's more clearly.

◇ For Yautja!Eridians being left alone for a long time is unthinkable. They are highly social. They need someone to talk to and especially to watch them sleep. If a yautja!eridian is without friends, parents, or mates, strangers will offer to watch them sleep or hunt with them before resuming with their own tasks.

When Rocky came back, Adrian and other eridians were horrified to learn he spent all those years completely alone, but also relieved to see he had Grace with him for the last four years, on their way to Erid.

-Hunting Traditions-

◇ Yautja!Eridians do hunt, and it's still part of their culture to collect trophies. However, failure is more accepted compared to most yautja clans. Since Eridians are highly social, solo-hunts are very rare. It's more common to have a minimum of two eridians hunting together so they can watch each other sleep.

◇ Their Chiva is not a rite of passage someone does alone but it's a team effort.

-Space Travel-

◇ They never felt a need to travel outside of their home planet (until the astrophage started to dim their sun), so Yautja!Eridians never hunted on other planets or met other alien species compared to most yautja clans. The first time they saw a human was with Grace.

◇ Some eridians, like Adrian, started to venture on other planets more often, after Ryland warned them about the radioactivity. The eridians engineers built more safe ships to explore outside of Erid, thanks to Rocky and Grace's help.

-Pebbles-

◇ They come out from eggs. A Yautja!Eridian can have from two to a max of six eggs per season, yet there is not a guarantee that all of them will hatch.

◇ Newborn pebbles are surprisingly very quiet compared to older kids or to the adults. This is because their syrinx and head scales are not fully developed yet. They will start producing short melodies and sounds one year from their birth.

◇ Yautja!Pebbles, the first few weeks of life, tend to have grey hues. The more they are exposed to Erid atmosphere and elements, the more their scales will start to get some colors, and their thicker ones will start to take shape.

◇ Yautja!Pebbles are very vulnerable. Their bodies can't adapt as easily as the adults, so they can't handle the change of atmosphere from Erid to the bio-dome. This is the main reason why Grace's class has a xenonite wall separating him from them.

◇ Their scales are softer, and their hair still don't have a fully developed nervous system, so they tend to be less aware of their surroundings (their echolocation too is still improving). The pebbles rely a lot on the adults until they are in their teens.

-Sex and Gender-

◇ They don't have a concept of sex and gender like humans do:

• They are equipped with both genitalia, which are hidden inside thick scales, similar to those on their head or back. They will open only during mating.

• Regarding gender, they don't mind whatever Grace choose to address them. Some pick pronouns from the human vocabulary just because they like the sound of it, like it happened with a few eridians working in the bio-dome or with Rocky.

-Mating-

◇ The courtship is very similar to other yautja: showing you are a good hunter and bringing to your potential mate a few skulls and many gifts is appreciated, but offering music is the most important of them all. Two or more mates will produce songs of their own, with complex vocalizations. They can keep singing for a full Earth Day until they synchronize, creating a sweet chorus.

Once the synchronization happens, that seals a good mating bond and the eridians will be mated for most of their life.

◇ Yautja!Eridians can have more than one mate: the more who watches you sleep or help you hunt, the better.

(When Adrian saw how much Rocky cared for Grace, even to the point to gift him pieces of his own scales for him to keep, they didn't mind accepting the human. They were surprised and curious to learn, of course, but for the first few weeks they were also worried because of the high codependency those two developed)

◇ Once the eridians are mated, it's tradition to exchange their fallen scales and use it in their hair, neck, and arm's jewelry. They will also go to a specialized Yautja!Eridian to have each other's scales inserted among their own, usually on the arm, as a marital status.

◇ A few years in the relationship, they also create a little chain holding rocks with a similar texture as their mate's, which will be hanging from their belts most of the time.

◇ It's a very intimate gesture to caress each other hair and handling them gently. It means trusting deeply someone with touching an area that can cause their death if treated too rough.

Rocky was glad that in human culture, doing something similar was still seen as an act of affection.

◇ They don't do human gestures as hugs or hold hands when it comes to showing affection. They usually just stand very close, rest their heads against each other, and specific sounds and rhythms are used for showering their mate with lots of love.

Rocky was introduced to hugs and holding hands by Grace, and on their trip back to Erid, the Eridian found himself unable to go on a day without human cuddles (He also confused Adrian a lot when, the first time they reunited, Rocky hugged them. He keeps using human mannerisms despite being on Erid).

As for Adrian, they took a bit more time to get accustomed to it (they didn't want to accidentally hurt Grace. Their biceps are almost the same size as his head, after all). Yet, after a few encouragements from both Rocky and Grace, Adrian started to accept the concept of humans' gestures. Head patting Grace is their favorite one.

◇ Do they kiss? Not in the human way. The closest to a kiss is eridians bumping their faces gently, letting their mask touch. Or having their external tusks tapping on each other.

Yet having contact directly with their mouth? It's not something eridians thought of doing, especially since it's a vulnerable area, mostly hidden by the mouth guard and strongly associated with eating, which as i mentioned, is very private, even between mates.

Once their relationship developed (and Rocky did a lot of research about human mating customs on his earth computer), Rocky wanted to try it, and Grace was more than happy to oblige. Safe to say, Ryland found a way to render Rocky completely putty, quiet and flustered just with a few tenders pecks. Rocky loves them.

As for Adrian? They are a scientist, curiosity is in their nature. Once they accepted Grace as mate and viceversa, that's the first thing they wanted to try since Rocky talked so much about it.

Adrian gets easily bashful and shy with the human kissing, though sometimes, they can be very adventurous and make Grace/Rocky all flustered in return.