Melon, who’d been following the conversation from behind the pillar—with an unmasked and entirely visible interest—straightened up at her abrupt inclusion into the conversation.

“You just addressed him by name,” Melon said, startled. “You’re really not supposed to do that.”

It was the first real thing that she had knowingly said in his presence, which felt like progress, even if it wasn’t really directed at August himself. The content of her words had him thinking back to the very first thing she’d said upon arriving—the name of one Junil Eltis, a Gaian woman. He was still trying to pull his disparate thoughts and observations together into a cohesive whole when Rittan spoke up.

“I feel I must reiterate that August isn’t Gaian, something which has left him entirely unfamiliar with their culture and customs,” Rittan said, voice gentle. “In support of this, I addressed him as a Child of Gaia the very first time we spoke, and he had a rather visceral response to it—he even called me a jackass.”

August felt a pang of alarm at the words and in remembering the event in question. His mind kind of cringed away from the memory of standing over the summoning pit with a sharpened stick pointed down at Rittan’s face—to think he’d actually believed he was prepared to defend himself against whatever he ended up summoning. Stuck in the pit or not, Rittan would have torn him apart if it had come to a fight, and that spear would have done nothing to prevent it.

“I thought you were literally calling me a child—” August said in weak protest. “Why are you smiling? You know what, you are a jackass; I was completely justified after all.”

Rittan laughed out loud at the words, clearly taking it as the joke it was and making no real effort to muffle or conceal his amusement.

“Justified or not, the point stands,” Rittan said once he’d gotten a handle on himself. “Melon, perhaps you could try speaking with him first? I assure you, he will not be upset if you address him directly.”

August remained silent, not wanting to ruin whatever impromptu confidence-bolstering scenario that Rittan was attempting to engineer, and more than willing to wait for her to come to a decision about it. Melon seemed visibly torn, but rather than retreating back into her silence, she seemed to steel herself.

“Hello,” Melon said, staring down at him. “Are you really an alien—oh, I asked a question.”

August hummed before putting voice to a thought he’d had back when Boko had asked him the same question.

“I’m not from Gaia, so I think that makes me an alien by definition,” August said, in response, “But in saying that, if you were on Earth, you’d be the alien—I guess the word feels weird to assign to myself.”

Rittan was practically beaming at them now and visibly pleased with successfully guiding her into breaking her silence. Kalter—who’d been waiting at the base of the ladder and watching the entire exchange occur—shook her head at it all before reaching out and pushing Rittan away from them. August watched them go out of the corner of his eye, noting that Melon had taken an aborted step in the direction they’d gone. There was a moment where they both took in the fact that they’d been abandoned entirely by the others, and then August spoke up.

“You seem pretty hesitant about being in my presence, so I’d like to try and alleviate whatever the problem is,” August said, working his way through it. “I’m really not a Child of Gaia or a Gaian or whatever else I look like to you—so you don’t have to defer to me or anything like that.”

“You look exactly like them,” Melon said, speaking carefully. “I don’t understand how a species from another planet ever evolve to look so similar.”

“I woke up here ten days ago, but before that, I’d never even heard about Gaians, Magnus, or Voithos,” August said before shaking his head. “Haiko thought Humans and Gaians might have a shared ancestor, but that doesn’t account for the shared language—so all we’ve really got at this point is speculation.”

“Can all humans revive the dead?” Melon said before pausing. “Oh, I asked another question.”

August breathed an amused breath out of his nose at the phrase.

“The thing I did to bring you all back to life is some kind of Gaian technology; you probably saw all the runes on the walls of the pit,” August said, “Humans don’t even know that runes exist in the first place—or, more likely, they might not exist back home at all.”

Melon shifted again, her posture settling a bit, and she no longer looked as if she wanted to slink back behind the pillar she’d been hiding behind.

“I can’t even imagine such a thing,” Melon said, “How could a society function without runes? Oh—”

“You asked a question,” August said, finishing it for her. “I don’t really know if it’s a true analogue to runes, but we got along pretty well with just engineering and science.”

A dark blotch of colour rose to her cheeks at the interjection, turning her skin an even darker grey, and he used to space to address the phrase she kept on using.

“Haiko mentioned something about a rule preventing you from asking too many questions or something like that,” August said, “If you’re worried about it, don’t be—you can ask me whatever you want.”

“Oh,” Melon said, appearing even more flustered. “This is very unusual.”

“I’m sure it is,” August said in agreement. “Melon, would you like to help me make this fire—if you don’t want to, that’s fine too.”

“I would like to help, I think,” Melon said, and then after a moment. “I’ve heard you do it with the others, but do you really address everyone by their names—and allow them to use your own?”

August paused at the question, recalling the comment that Haiko had made about him using their names when he interacted with them—it had kind of gotten lost amidst the overall conversation, enough so that he’d just about forgotten it. A refusal to use the names of the Voithos. Was that some kind of societal standard the Gaians used when interacting with their creations? It seemed cold, distant, and dehumanizing—or rather, given they were different species entirely as if they were treating them as less-than-Gaian.

“Using each other’s names is a pretty normal thing for humans, and it seems pretty terrible to me that they wouldn’t use yours,” August said as he turned to face the place he’d picked out for the fire. “How do the Gaians refer to you when your speaking with one?”

“There are many ways; Voithos, servant, you, that one, her, him, those ones, them, the male, that female,” Melon said, listing them off, one after another. “Very infrequently would a name be used when identifying an individual, and even more rarely when they were actually present.”

August paused, his hand halfway up in the air in preparation to remove a marking stick from his inventory.

“Well, that’s rude as hell,” August said, letting his hand fall back down. “Is that a Voithos only thing, or do the Gaians avoid using each other’s names either?”

“It is quite normal for them to use each other’s name,” Melon said, nodding. “Why do you consider it rude?”