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They called us mushrooms. Technically they were right. According to their own classification system from their homeworld, anyway. They looked so different than us. All those separate organs packed away on the inside, doing their own thing. On the outside, you could barely see their pores! But our similarities outweighed our differences.
One of the things we had in common with humans was fragility.
We’re pretty spongy. We need a specific humidity otherwise we dry out pretty quick. If we’re dried for too long, we die. A lot like humans.
In space we puff up and freeze solid. A lot like humans.
We’re vulnerable to most of the same things; fire, drowning, physical damage. It takes us longer to drown than a human but we do drown. Our organs are replicated in miniature all throughout our bodies. So we can take a head shot or a chest shot and still live but we don’t have ‘bones’ so it’s pretty easy to blow us apart. Pluses and minuses.
One of the big differences is that we have over 7000 genders. Humans just can’t get their head around that one. Our planet‘s air is ripe and thick with spores. Yellow wafts of it stripe the thick fog of musk and pollen that we all wade through. It takes root in some of us and children grow like tumours on whatever part of us caught it. The ‘parent’ could be from three cities away.
We puff our seed into the air in a variety of ways. Some grow huge puffballs that burst once a month. Some have a constant small stream of seed wisping from open chambers on their back. Some blossom brilliantly for pollinators to come and gorge. Some just rub against building corners or passing animals in the hopes that compatible mates will rub the same thing later. The ways of fertility vary wildly.
Our air can’t be breathed by humans. But on the other hand, we don’t seem to be as obsessed with sex as they are. Some of them thing we’re sexless, some of them thing we’re having sex all the time just by walking around in this soup.
To them, our planet stinks. To us, they’re scent ghosts. They can walk around with unprotected skin as long as they have an air supply around their mouth and nose.
They’re very good for us when they die. The first one that died here had a heart attack during first contact negotiations. His body bloomed and rotted into bones within 24 of their hours. They hadn’t seen anything like it. That body nourished maybe 200 children immediately.
We asked them to ship their dead here. They complied. It’s all voluntary buy anyone who gets shipped her helps us immensely. That’s probably why we’re overpopulated.
But we can travel on the human’s starships in our encasement suits. It keeps us from reproducing on the long journeys. We have to return home to have more children but it’s rarely done.
The name the humans gave me is Chard. I’m a deep green and my skin is pitted deep with yawning holes. I’m quite tall according to them. I love talking to them.
It’s good to be part of the union.
tags
One of the things we had in common with humans was fragility.
We’re pretty spongy. We need a specific humidity otherwise we dry out pretty quick. If we’re dried for too long, we die. A lot like humans.
In space we puff up and freeze solid. A lot like humans.
We’re vulnerable to most of the same things; fire, drowning, physical damage. It takes us longer to drown than a human but we do drown. Our organs are replicated in miniature all throughout our bodies. So we can take a head shot or a chest shot and still live but we don’t have ‘bones’ so it’s pretty easy to blow us apart. Pluses and minuses.
One of the big differences is that we have over 7000 genders. Humans just can’t get their head around that one. Our planet‘s air is ripe and thick with spores. Yellow wafts of it stripe the thick fog of musk and pollen that we all wade through. It takes root in some of us and children grow like tumours on whatever part of us caught it. The ‘parent’ could be from three cities away.
We puff our seed into the air in a variety of ways. Some grow huge puffballs that burst once a month. Some have a constant small stream of seed wisping from open chambers on their back. Some blossom brilliantly for pollinators to come and gorge. Some just rub against building corners or passing animals in the hopes that compatible mates will rub the same thing later. The ways of fertility vary wildly.
Our air can’t be breathed by humans. But on the other hand, we don’t seem to be as obsessed with sex as they are. Some of them thing we’re sexless, some of them thing we’re having sex all the time just by walking around in this soup.
To them, our planet stinks. To us, they’re scent ghosts. They can walk around with unprotected skin as long as they have an air supply around their mouth and nose.
They’re very good for us when they die. The first one that died here had a heart attack during first contact negotiations. His body bloomed and rotted into bones within 24 of their hours. They hadn’t seen anything like it. That body nourished maybe 200 children immediately.
We asked them to ship their dead here. They complied. It’s all voluntary buy anyone who gets shipped her helps us immensely. That’s probably why we’re overpopulated.
But we can travel on the human’s starships in our encasement suits. It keeps us from reproducing on the long journeys. We have to return home to have more children but it’s rarely done.
The name the humans gave me is Chard. I’m a deep green and my skin is pitted deep with yawning holes. I’m quite tall according to them. I love talking to them.
It’s good to be part of the union.
tags
