He looked in the tiny mirror, brushing his hair behind his ear. His…short ear.
"C'mon…that looks longer right?" He craned his neck for the best possible view of it. "Like…it's supposed to take a little while, y'know? But that looks longer…yeah?"
He turned to take inventory of his wife's expression, which turned out to be sleepy.
"Honey, are you listening? It's got to happen now right? This has to be it; this has to be when I finally become a man."
"Alistair," She rolled over in bed and squinted at him, "as far as I'm concerned you were a man long before I met you, but right now you sound like a five year old. Now come to bed, you need to sleep for the decoration tomorrow."
"There's no way I can sleep when any minute now it might happen! Plus, I'm too nervous for the decoration, I think maybe I'll take a courtesy barf before I go to bed." Alistair couldn't stop turning in awkward angles to get to the best possible view of his ear, when he noticed Amy's expression in the mirror. She was shooting him a death glare, the kind that mostly conveyed in caveman, "Me need sleep. You sleep too." Alistair shrank back a little, sighed, and dropped his hand from his ear to give himself an accusing point. "You," he jabbed, "had better get working. I refuse to have short ears as a starship captain." He glanced hopefully at his left ear and then turned for bed.
As far back as Alistair could remember the Tellurian race had always judged the point of manhood by the length of the man's ear, or cunicula as it was known to them. For women it wasn't nearly as important of a process, but for the men, the longear was a rite of passage, and until your ear had grown from elflike point to a long and majestic cunicula, you were immature, boyish, and ignorant. At least this was true for other Tellurians, but most Humans didn't care. He just knew the other Tellurians were laughing at him.
The point in which this change in length occurs is when you have reached a pinnacle moment in your life or a great accomplishment, the moment that defines who you really are and what you stand for.
Alistair, now far past the point of manhood, still had not fully grown into his cunicula, and now that he had been reviewed and approved, and accepted a commission as a starship captain he thought that this must be his time to shine. To show the Tellurians that the late bloomer, Alistair Butler, was just waiting for the perfectly ripe moment to show them all who he really was, a real life starship captain!
His wife, Amy (being a human), didn't necessarily understand the Tellurian customs, of course she knew it was important, but she just didn't understand what it was like to be a shortear and to have to wait for that moment for your entire life. She was sweet. She was encouraging…most of the time. But she was still human, and there are just some things that humans don't understand. Alistair had to suffer through their entire wedding as a shorteared freak, and had been embarrassed about it their entire marriage, but he wasn't about to tell Amy that.
As Alistair climbed into bed, he laid his head in the soft pillow and wondered to himself what it would be like to sleep with cunicula. Would it hurt? Would it be uncomfortable? Would he poke Amy in the eye every time he rolled over? He would cross that bridge when he came to it, but if that bridge wasn't right around the next bend, he would have some serious bones to pick with the Tellurian gods.