Our New Human

3

Tomorrow is the day we head out on our first expedition with a human.
Elsie, of course, has been in an incredible mood since her arrival, but she has become even more energetic in the last few hours. I'm spending my time researching how humans react to danger.
"Hey Xil, it's getting late and I need to pack, can you help me?" Elsie asks, popping her face up by my computer.
"Elsie! Shouldn't you be sleeping?" I look over at my clock. It's Hour 23, so we should be in our respective rest periods.
"Yeah, but I need to pack some stuff for tomorrow, and you want to learn more about humans, don't you?" her eyes aren't as wide as usual, and her voice seems different.
"Yes, I don't want to cut into your sleep time."
Elsie and I head to her quarters, a room larger than most of our personal rooms, probably to accommodate a bed, but also because everybody has fallen in love with our cute little human.
I didn't realize a human would need so many things, however.
Not only does she need sleep and food, but she needs loads of things to even function.
First, Elsie needs a paddle made of earth trees with bristles on it, for her fur, which she pointed out through fits of laughter is called 'hair'. She also needs two different large vials of hair cleaner, wrist-sized elastics to pull it back, a few bottles of different liquids that do things to hair, and a hot air machine. Like I said, just for hair.
For her body, she needs some body cleaner, a little stick with a blade that removes the small hair (for when she "has to be fancy"), a vial of face cleaner, another bottle that has 'moisturizer', and a stick with a solid yet powdery inside that apparently keeps Elsie from smelling bad. She has a box filled to the top with small crinkly tube-shaped wrappers, which I learned is what Elsie uses during The Shedding, but I never caught what they're called. Elsie had me set out several for our two-day trip, so I guess she really is indestructible if she's going out on an adventure while 'her insides pour out'.
And there's still more!
Elsie has "beauty products" that she uses to "look decent". This includes:
-a stick with bristles to clean her teeth
-a tube of something that also cleans her teeth
-some reddish (I learned a new color!) substance that colors her mouth
-another tube, that contains slime to match her skin tone and cover up her face (it took me a while to grasp this one but she says she only uses it under her eyes so I shouldn't worry)
-some wet cloths that wipe off something called makeup
-a small soft blue thing that I kept squeezing involuntarily, to 'rub in the concealer'
And finally, a tube of black paint with a bristly stick attached to the lid.
"What's this do?" I ask, holding up the tube.
"It's called mascara, I use it to make my eyelashes darker." Elsie says, sitting on the other end of her bed. She's spread out all of these items on her bed to teach me about 'the cursed gift of womanhood'.
"What are eyelashes?"
Elsie points to her eyes.
"See those little black things?"
I nod.
"Well, humans use them to keep things out of our eyes. Normally, mine are much lighter, and you can't see them, so I put mascara on it so they look better."
"But you look cute anyways."
"Yes, but to humans eyelashes are a sign of beauty."
"I do not mean to be rude, but what do they look like normally?"
Elsie smiles and begins wiping at her eyes with the wetted cloth. She stops and poses dramatically.
"It's just lighter, and there's a bit of blue under your eyes."
"Those are eye bags, because I'm tired." I nod, because humans like to be understood, even though I have no clue how she could fit a bag into her face.
"Can I try?"
"Yeah, why not?"
I unscrew the tube and look at the stick part. Elsie giggles.
"I'm going to make my fingers look darker and prettier!" I announce, since to humans pretty is a positive word, and Elise makes a pfft noise and does the mouth thing again, which she says is called smiling. In all honestly, I don't understand what this is or what prettiness is.
"Here I go!" I take the bristly end of the stick and swipe it across my finger. It pokes my skin and leaves a trail of black paint in stripes across it.
"Did it work? I feel pretty!" I say, 'smiling' and holding up my hand to show Elsie. She puts her hands over her mouth and begins to laugh so hard she falls off the bed.
"Oh no! Elsie, are you okay?" I shout. I look over the bed, and she's still laughing uncontrollably on the floor.
"Elsie! I'll call the infirmary. Don't worry!"
This results in another burst of laughter, before Elsie realizes the fear in my eyes and sits up.
"Xil, I'm fine. I'm laughing!" she giggles, and gets up on the bed. I'm relieved. She has to explain to me that since I don't have any hair, I can't use mascara, but it was a really good try. That makes me frown because I just want to make my human happy. She still is though, and won't stop smiling.
She teaches me about human things while she puts food and her elastics and Shedding supplies into a bag with two large straps. I've learned a lot about humans this week, more and more each day. Elsie talks until she falls asleep mid-sentence, and even though I don't understand how this works, I clear off her bed and lay her down on it.
The most important thing I've learned today, is that even though Elsie has told me a million times this week, humans think I'm 'cute' too, which has never happened before.