Submission (#376) Approved

(This writing uses the laboratory exploration prompt.)
It was yet another average day on Terrah. Or was it? Could one say the day was average if they ever bumped into Velvette? Probably not. Plenty of her fellow terraliens had a story or two about her incessant strangeness. Some had several.
Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, one Dr. Scope would be given his own story today. Velvette truthfully wasn’t even sure how she’d gotten here. An open window? An unlocked door? She didn’t know! She couldn’t remember. Even stranger, she had just come in maybe a minute or two ago. Though, one might say that her favorite pastime was getting lost anyways. After all, she did wander the lands of Terrah quite a lot. One couldn’t even be totally sure she knew where she was, but curiously, she seemed happy this way. As a well-meaning synthetic, she was one of the stranger terraliens you might meet. As she wandered the tiled halls of an old abandoned laboratory, her claws made little clicking sounds as she went. Now and again, the screeches of a bat bounced menacingly off the walls. Not that Velvette would notice, though. If anything, she thought it was cool.
Dr. Scope, too, was padding around the place, head whipping wildly back and forth, little paws held up to his chest. He bounced with excitement at the prospect of making a new scientific discovery here, even though the place had definitely been abandoned long ago. But who knows, maybe some old research was left behind. Maybe even some specimens! As he thought, Dr. Scope was not watching his paws. He let out a little shriek when he tripped.
Velvette, who was just down the hall, heard this. She slowly turned her entire body to face the direction it came from, then silently headed that way, arms locked awkwardly at her sides. She poked her head around the corner, staring long at the limp body on the floor. Another terralien, staring up at the ceiling. Not really reacting, she just came over and bent over him to stare. This lasted a while. Finally, she did reach out towards him with both arms, offering paws to help him up. He took both, allowing himself to be hoisted up. As they now stood face to face, Velvette emitted an odd beeping sound. No response. She bounced in place instead. Then Dr. Scope began to bounce with her.
Friendship acquired.
Awesome.
Then she grabbed his paw, suddenly leading him away. The poor scientist had no choice but to follow, as she had an iron grip and a determination to show him something cool. What cool thing? She didn’t even know. She’d never been here before. They would find out together!
They ended up in some random room. A room Velvette knew nothing about. Dr. Scope, however, dug his heels in and bounced in place to get Velvette’s attention, pointing eagerly at the equipment scattered around the counters. Velvette stopped suddenly, heading that way. As soon as she let go, Dr. Scope went right for the leftover equipment, testing all sorts of buttons and dials. He seemed happy, so Velvette was happy. She did awkwardly stand in place as he worked for a while, but something flitting past her managed to grab her attention. Her head snapped to the side to look that way, intrigued by the prospect of yet another friend.
It flitted about, flawlessly dodging Velvette’s paws as she tried to catch it. She chased it around the room for some time, Dr. Scope never even seeming to notice. Come on, new friend! Be friendly!
It finally landed. Velvette approached slowly, not wanting to startle it, before gently placing her paws over top of it. Did she catch it?
It landed victoriously in front of her, out of her grasp, as if to taunt her. A little grasshopper. Her new friend was a grasshopper, tiny in comparison. She had to be extra gentle this time. Trying her luck, Velvette cupped her paws in front of it, offering a ride. It hesitated a moment, before conceding and jumping into her paws and resting there. Overjoyed, Velvette beeped at Dr. Scope, who was still busy exploring the cabinets to see what else was around. He turned in time to see her coming towards him before she lowered her paws so that he could look. The little grasshopper snapped its wings as if to say hello. Dr. Scope and Velvette watched it for a long time before Dr. Scope reached out with his own paws, asking to hold it. Velvette gently transferred the grasshopper to him so that he could observe more closely. They both looked for a while, questions about the little organism swirling in their minds.
The three would spend the rest of the day together like this, exploring the old lab to their hearts’ content as they answered plenty of questions about each other.