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====== Yinrih proxemics, familial gestures of affection, and grooming ======

Adult yinrih are much more particular about their personal space compared to humans. There are a few expressions of affection involving contact shared between parents and their pups, as well as between littermates or unrelated playmates, but never between parents in a childermoot.



Intertwining tails is similar to a hug. It shows emotional closeness and expresses a desire to give comfort and protection. Sires or dams often intertwine their tails with young pups when out and about, similar to holding hands for safety. Parents may also rest their tail across a pup's back to express a similar sentiment.



Touching the wet tip of the nose to the muzzle, cheek, top of the head, or the back of an ear and quickly exhaling (AKA "kissing") is an affectionate gesture that pups give to their parents and vice versa. Kissing is also used by Wayfarers to show reverence to sacred objects such as the star hearth, holy relics, or the bones of their deceased loved ones.



Between pups, gentle headbutting and tail pulling are common ways to initiate play. A quick thump across the other's back with the body of the tail expresses fraternal affection.



As pups reach their adolescent years, they stop giving these gestures to parents and littermates, and stop tolerating them from others. As they progress into adulthood, however, they may resume more mild gestures of affection from parents and now adult littermates depending on cultural norms.



Aside from the above, physical gestures like this are likely to be interpreted as violations of personal space when they occur between adults, including between members of a childermoot. Adult vulpithecins, including tree dwellers and yinrih, do not engage in social grooming, as their jungle home has a variety of bristly plants they can rub against to dislodge loose fur and skin parasites.



Synthetic recreations of these bristly plants are used for personal grooming by modern yinrih. Such tools are called brush boards, brush mats, rubbing boards, and the like. A common simple variant is a bristled surface lying loose on the floor or mounted to the wall. Yinrih will rub their back, tail, and sides against these wall-mounted boards, or wallow on the floor-standing mats. Tools very similar to Terran hairbrushes held in the tail are favored by spacers. Rotating drums covered in bristles are also used.



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