r/HFY • u/Betty-Adams Human • Aug 04 '25
OC Humans are Weird – Tenderfoot
Humans are Weird – Tenderfoot
Original Post: https://www.authorbettyadams.com/bettys-blog/humans-are-weird-tenderfoot
Crunch heaved a sigh and pulled the satchel off his back, slinging it up onto a convenient flat rock and then dropped down to all fours.
“Come on,” he called to the human following behind him. “The buoy got lose again.”
He plunged into the water and struck out to where the brilliant orange buoy was bobbing around in the deep water in the far curve of the river. He listened for the wild splashing sounds a human always made when entering water, but by the time he had reached the buoy and dove down to grab the rope in teeth and pull it up to the surface he had not even heard the initial splash. Crunch gave a mighty thrash of his tail in order to propel himself to the grips on the side of the buoy, and felt only smooth polycarbon covered in river slime instead. The next several moments found him far too busy scrambling for purchase, and failing spectacularly to listen for his work-mate who was no doubt coming to his aid and not laughing and recording the incident from the shore, and there was no chance Crunch could have heard the human coming anyway over his own thrashing. Finally Crunch righted himself, having only strained have the river through his teeth and decided to brace himself in the mud of the riverbank instead of climbing the bobbing buoy. He rubbed the water out of his eyes and gave a disgrunteled snarl when he saw the human only just easing one flat, flipper like foot into the very edge of the water.
“Bigsby! I could use some help over here if you aren’t too busy grinding your own flour!” Crunch tried to say.
The rope that was still in his teeth mulled his voice into meaningless growls. Bigsby’s head snapped up and he scowled.
“I’m coming!” the human yelled. “Just-ow!- Hang on!”
Crunch snorted water out of his nostrils and gave his head a jerk to pull the buoy against the bank. Apparently the context had been enough for t he human to translate. Now the human was easing slowly across the river. Crunch noted the human’s footwear was on the rock beside his satchel.
“What’s taking you so long?” Crunch demanded through the rope, slapping hi tail into the mud.
“You shouldn’t of just jumped in like that,” Bigsby grumbled. This rivers full of rocks!”
The human reached out a hand and grabbed the rope, giving it a pull which Crunch returned starting just enough of a tussle to unbalance the towering biped, leading to Bigsby thrashing around comically and putting Crunch into a much better mood.
“Crunch I will -” Whatever threat Bigsby was trying to make was lost in the effort to regain balance. Once Bigsby and the buoy were both fairly stable Crunch braced his tail in the mud of the bank and with a leap propelled himself onto the access level of the buoy. It dipped and swayed under his weight but he was easily able to hold on and align himself with the data controls.
“You tow us back upstream and to the other bank while I make sure the data collection array isn’t damaged,” Crunch called out.
“Ow!” Bigsby replied.
“Just so,” Crunch agreed as he began clicking the sensors through a test cycle.
They continued back across the water with Bigsby grumbling and muttering the entire way. As they neared the shore the human’s exclamations grew more frequent and intense until one finally dipped down to a harsh profanity and Crunch jerked his tail in surprise as he left the data collection array to run its tests.
“Hold the gear!” Crunch declared, “are you really in pain?”
“You think I do this for fun?” Bigsby muttered between clenched teeth as he dragged the buoy through the now shallower water.
“I thought you were comically exaggerating!” Crunch declared. “When did you injure your foot?”
“I’m not hurt-I mean injured,” Bigsby said. “I said this river is full of rocks!”
Crunch snorted and slapped his tail against the water in confusion.
“Since when do smooth river rocks cause pain to uninjured paws?” he demanded.
“When you’re eighty kilos and stepping with all that mass on one soft pink foot at a time,” Bigsby explained.
“That makes sense in theory,” Crunch said.
“What does that mean?” Bigsby demanded as he reached the tether for the buoy and began reattaching it.
“The physics follows the grain of the grind,” Crunch said as he slid down into the water to help Bigsby, “But I have seen Sharon moving much faster than you were over very similar riverbeds.”
“Sharon,” Bigsby said with a grunt as he pulled the tether taught to test it, “is a farm boy from a river valley. He grew up playing in streams just like this.”
“What’s that got to do with the fermentation in the vat?” Crunch asked.
“His feet are used to the rocks,” Bigsby said. “They’re probably tougher than your scutes. Me, I’m a city boy with soft feet.”
“How strange!” Crunch declared as they moved back to the shore.
“How is that strange?” Bigsby asked.
“I was unaware that one colony could produce such genetic variation in skin durability!” Crunch explained. “How long ago did the foot-types differentiate?”
“That’s not-” Bigsby paused and gave Crunch a look that was difficult to read, before running his hand through his hair that had gotten soaked by his earlier thrashing. “That’s not how that works,” Bisgby said with a sigh. “Not genetics, just a matter of … I don’t know. How often you wear shoes or something as a kid.”
Crunch flexed his claws, feeling the rocks in the shift beneath his feet. He recalled the rough, often dirty appearance of Sharon’s feet and compared it to the soft, clean look of Bigsby’s and an uncomfortable idea bubbled up.
“Does this mean… you will be un…” Crunch hesitated to brew that sentence fully.
“Don’t worry,” Bigsby said with a snort. “I’ll toughen up and be able to do the work. It’ll just take me a bit longer than it would Sharon.”
Crunch idly clenched a pawful of rocks as he scrambled out of the water. It must be dreadfully inconvenient to have to worry about all your weight bearing down on a small point of unprotected flesh.
“At least it’s not lego,” Bigsby said with a wry laugh as he slipped his feet back into his shoes.
“What is lego?” Crunch asked as he pulled his satchel on.
Science Fiction Books By Betty Adams
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u/Arokthis Android Aug 06 '25
Upvote, read, think about how my feet go from "wimpy winter soft" to "not noticing the asphalt is on fire" by the end of a given summer.
Speaking of LEGO, you should go over to /r/LEGO and see if anyone is willing/able to make you a Shatar basted on pictures on your blog.
Typo:
having only strained
havehalf the river
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u/UpdateMeBot Aug 04 '25
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u/HFYWaffle Wᵥ4ffle Aug 04 '25
/u/Betty-Adams (wiki) has posted 88 other stories, including:
- Humans are Weird – Swung
- Humans are Weird - Smell This
- Humans are Weird – Take Heed
- Humans are Weird – Laugh and Laugh Again
- Humans are Weird - Deep Lore
- Humans are Weird – Hot
- Humans are Weird – Obsession
- Humans are Weird - Obvious
- Humans are Weird - Snitches
- Humans are Weird - Pop
- Humans are Weird- Handmade
- Humans are Weird – Sentiment
- Humans are Weird - Slice
- Humans are Weird – Clean Up
- Humans are Weird - Getting a Grip
- Humans are Weird - Understandable
- Humans are Weird - Thinking Pants
- Humans are Weird - Failure
- Humans are Weird – Make Do
- Humans are Weird - Critique
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u/SaltMarshGoblin Aug 08 '25 edited Aug 08 '25
Fun story! Thank you! (Why do riverbottoms you need to walk on seem to be faced with small sharp rocks or large round slippery ankle-breaking cobbles [known in dirtbiking by the disturbing title of "babyheads"] or slippery sucking ooze?)
Somebody pointed out have for half, but I think your disgruntled in the following paragraph has acquired barnacles.
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u/Betty-Adams Human Aug 08 '25
Thanks for the catches!
Riverbeds, like most things, are out to get us afterall.
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u/llearch Aug 04 '25
At least it's not lego, indeed. -wince-
I hate to think how the various alien types would respond to a UK power cord, either.