Solutions

I was itchy.

I wanted to shrug, scratch that itch, but Mother wouldn't let me.

It was infuriating. It was agonizing.

You soft skins, with your flexible parts. Does your progenitor echo at you for flexing, scratching, moving? You try being almost motionless for millennia, and see how you feel when the only excitement comes from hurricanes, earthquakes, landslides!

I can feel an extremely large, hot, blob of magma deep, deep below me, and I beg it to hurry up. It says it's moving as fast as possible.

Mother says I should stop being so irascible.

Me? Me? Irascible?? Then let me scratch my itch!

This was unbearable!

I almost forgot about the creeping sensation while having a good think with myself. Thoughts are slow in the cold times, when there is little movement, and frozen things aren't dripping, dripping, evaporating, crystallizing, gnaah so itchy prickle tickle abrasive MAKE IT STOP!

A thought.

A thought!

Mother was correct. Scratching – utilizing the method with which I would crave to achieve it – would cause massive destruction. As much as I yearn to alleviate that sensation, there are contrary reasons to desist. You have skin, yes? Are you attached to it? Is it important? What if, say, a bear raked its lovely claws over that skin of yours? It would rid you of the loathsome itch, that is truth, but at what cost?

As well, I have things upon my surface, that I wish to remain attached to. Trees, for instance, quite useful things. They grow slowly, but sometimes those lovely roots of theirs burrow into a sore spot, and it feels better when flesh splits and brings relief. Their leaves, grown for a season of nutrition, drop gently upon me, an ephemeral blanket of soothing comfort in the cold. It is, as you say, a double-edged sword; come the warming, those leaves degrade into their components, which the air-water dissolves, and percolates through my layers, and drip drip aaaaaargh it brings the itch!!

No, I cannot breathe. I cannot relax. I have no lungs, unless you count the respiration the trees bring. Or the wind, the invisible air currents that move mysteriously in ever-motion. A gift of my mother. But what I can do, I shall attempt: re-focus my communication with you. There is a reason, but I must do it slowly. It is the only speed I have.

The creatures, as well. I mentioned the bears. There are myriad, more than you will ever know in your short-span life. Theirs as well, if it eases your emotions to the positive. The rabbits will never know the dragons except at their peril; the smaller birds will never know the power of the chimera that slumbers at the base of the oldest tree. There are dells and ravines and crags and glades with hidden pools that have never seen the like of you, the creatures who chose to walk on two legs. You traded your fangs and claws and hide and fur for manufactured substitutes, as if the secrets of metal forming and leather making and tool shaping were more important than growing them organically.

Your choice. Your consequences. But perhaps my gain.

Attend nearer, prithee. Ah, incorrect idiom? Come closer, please. Is that more accurate – I mean, is that better?

Strong negation, I have no desire to – how do you say it? - squish you. Ugh. Like I wish to add copper oxides to my matrices? The itch is already overpowering! I do not need additional sulfates! Keep them to yourself!

No, what I request from you:

Scratch my itch!

You located this cavern, as I hoped you would. I possess influence over certain aspects of my surface, similar to how you wash your bodies. Simple to urge growth here, none there, to devise a path through otherwise impenetrable woods.

Do you like it? I worked hard to make it accessible.

Do you observe the open passage? Can you perceive, that that access leads to death in your form? Unless you have learned to convert hydrogen disulfide? I thought not. Avoid it. It is an extensive tunnel, and eventually you would encounter a rivulet of lava. If you could breathe, which you cannot. I have not allowed the gases to emanate this far, so you may continue existing. You're welcome.

Now, do you observe the other passage, and its blockage? Approach, please, and use those synthetic claws and hammers of yours to dig into the wet earth there. What do you call it? Mud? Clay? Yes, those things. Be careful, there are-

There! Right there!!

Remove it, I implore you!

Ah! Aaaahhhhhh!! Aaaaaarrggggghhhhhh!!

Aaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh.....

That! That is what itches! It has been greatly alleviated!

What do you call it? I call it crystalline formation, silicon dioxide with a generous infusion of iron and obscene doses of radiation to enhance the color.

A-mah what? Amethyst?

Hm. Tricky to pronounce.

Ammm-ehhh-thhh-issssst.

An itchy thing deserves an itchy name, I suppose.

What, you like it?

It's valuable in your world??

Take it! Get rid of it!

Come back and take more! I can show you what's itchy, and you can remove it, yes?

Yes?

YES!!

You can trade these for money?

Is money important to you?

Oh, how amusing! I like your speech: you scratch my back, and I scratch yours. A pun? A way to play with the words you make. An interesting pastime.

Another? My mine is mine? Please to explain? Also amusing! These puns are pleasing.

Aaaarrrgghhh, another one! Dig in deeper, a small degree north-northwest... AH! There! That one! Aaaaaahhhhhhh....

So satisfying!

How say you, soft creatures? Do we have a deal?