Hatred 1 (Patreon)

Previously, @Millerdark had requested an arrunian/geroo romance, and I decided to try one of those where the couple thinks they hate each other, but they're the last to figure out the chemistry they have.

———

Eka stood before the mirror, angrily trying to brush out a little curl in the cream-colored fur at the center of her chest. Her roommate, Upai, peeked in as she walked past the open bathroom door. “Well,” she said, drawing the sound out, “don’t you look lovely today!”

Without turning around, Eka glared at her roommate’s reflection in the mirror. She said nothing.

“Seeing the ambassador today?” Upai asked sweetly.

“Yes,” said Eka, pausing only a moment in the futile battle to straighten out her fur, “it is my job.”

“You like him, don’t you?” asked Upai.

Eka ground her teeth. “No,” she growled, “I hate him.”

“Hmph,” said Upai as she continued on her way to her bedroom, “you put an awful lot of effort into your appearance for someone who isn’t trying to impress a guy.”

“I’m not trying to impress—!” she started to scream, both her fists shaking before she finally regained control. “I am trying to look presentable.”

“Presenting yourself to a guy,” said Upai, sticking her head out into the hallway just for the retort.

Eka drew a deep breath and released it slowly. “As our envoy, I represent the ship, the geroo, and the entire empire.” She brushed at the curl of fur a few more times with fierce enthusiasm before scooping some water up from the tap in one paw and soaking the cream-colored curls. “Of course, I’m trying to look nice. It’s my job to make a good impression on him.”

She heard Upai muttering in the next room, “Because you like him.”

“No, I do not like him,” Eka said, trying to brush the wet fur straight. “In fact, I very much do not like him. I hate the ambassador.”

Upai left her room with strand in paw, tapping away at a message she was sending. As she passed behind Eka, she said, “No, you don’t.”

“Oh, yes, I do!” Eka shouted, shaking the brush for emphasis. “Ambassador Jeerus is a little petulant spoiled cub, constantly shouting, ‘Mine! Mine! Mine!’ Like all the arrunians, he’s only capable of thinking of himself. He’s completely incapable of imagining what could be best for his people because he can only focus on what he wants.”

Getting the fur to straighten out at last, she threw the brush down in the sink where it clattered like a kitchen mishap. Then, she turned on her heel and stormed out into the living room, not ready to end the argument with her roommate. “The arrunians are so … grr!” she growled.

“Did you know,” Eka said, “that when I go down there, the ambassador insists that our shuttle lands in the water? He makes me park in the ancestors-be-damned ocean, just so our ship doesn’t occupy any of their precious land!” she added in a mocking voice.

She drew another deep breath, but before she exhaled it in a calming way, she thought of more, “Oh! And if the tide moves out while we’re meeting, he will stop, insist I lift off, and move the shuttle a couple more meters out into the sea so it won’t be on the shore!”

Upai studied the cream geroo for a moment. “He sounds awful.”

“He is!” Eka said with renewed venom. “Honestly? If we could find any country where the arrunians were even a little less insufferable, I’d meet with them instead, regardless of how small their island might be. But from what I can tell, they’re all just as horrid.”

Upai’s ears grinned wide as she scooped a knifeful of creamy wyra butter from a jar and spread it across the sandwich she was making. “Well, don’t let him get you down,” she said. “Sooner or later, you’re bound to work out a treaty they can live with.”

“Thanks,” sighed Eka as she walked out her front door.

There, in the corridor, stood her father, fist raised to knock on Eka’s door. He smiled fondly, his greying ears out wide. “Well, don’t you look lovely!” said the older geroo.

At last, Eka smiled. “Thanks Dad. It’s not even eleven-hundred hours, and today’s already been a rough one.”

He kissed his daughter between the ears. “Aw, don’t be blue. I’m sure the day will turn around soon,” he said. “You headed out on a date with your ambassador friend?”

# # #

Ambassador Jeerus sat at the bar and sipped a cocktail from a loroka husk. The bartender just eyed him and shook his head. “What?” Jeerus demanded.

Krieker shrugged and went back to washing glasses. Balancing on his wings, the bartender held a mug in one claw and wiped it down with a rag in the other. “Aren’t you supposed to be meeting that envoy in like an hour?”

Jeerus nodded. “Yup. So, I’m gonna need at least one more of these in the meantime, or I’ll never survive.”

Krieker cawed a laugh. “She can’t be that bad.”

“She is!” said Jeerus, waving his wings. “She’s so awful. She doesn’t understand anything. All she can talk about is South Cresthelm ‘leading the other countries to unity’.”

The bartender snorted.

“I know!” said Jeerus. “It’s ridiculous. I’ve explained that we’re not leading anyone anywhere. Unless the geroo are willing to give us some high tech weaponry so we can conquer other nations, no country is listening to what any other country has to say.”

Krieker groaned. “I do not want to fight another war,” he sighed. “I lost my brother when the Eastern Archipelago invaded.”

With a claw, Jeerus raised his drink in a silent toast for a moment before quietly adding, “We all lost loved ones that day.” He took a heavy swig of the potently alcoholic brew. “But she thinks we should just ‘get over it’, just pretend they never attacked us. She has no concept of what it’s like to be surrounded on all sides by your enemies.”

Grabbing the mug in his hooked beak, Krieker hung up the glass and plucked another from the rinse water. “So, what’s she want from us, anyhow?” he asked. “Best not be planning to dump her people here. Mobs’ll just push them out to sea without a raft if they try that. We can’t pack in any tighter than we are now.”

Jeerus polished off his drink. With a gulp, he said, “Yeah, that’s the thing, innit? What does she want? She acts like she doesn’t want anything from us, but that just means that whatever it is must be huge. She’s hoping we jump at the bait without realizing how she’s circling overhead.”

The bartender scowled. “What’s the bait?”

“Buncha stupid shit,” said the ambassador. “They said they can show us better medical techniques to cure diseases and fix injuries—that’s cool—but the rest of it? Science, industry, spaceflight—”

“Flying in space would be pretty cool,” said Krieker.

“Yeah, but not flying in space, y’know? More like stuffing everyone into a box so small that no one can stretch their wings, and then the box goes flying through space.”

“Ah yeah,” agreed the bartender. “That’s dumb. Why would anyone want that?”

“Exactly! The rest of it is dumb too,” said Jeerus. “Putting all our music and stories and everything in our libraries in tiny boxes so you can carry it around with you. Navigation. Power—”

“Well, we could certainly use more power,” said the bartender as he fixed another drink. “Something to keep the archipelagos from trying that again.”

“Not that kind of power,” grumbled the ambassador. “More like powered lights so you can stay up at night.”

Krieker slid the drink across the bar. “Why would I want to do that?”

“Yeah, exactly!” Jeerus shouted as he pointed a toe across the bar. He accepted the new drink with thanks. “I told her what we want: more territory, more security. And nothing. Can’t help us. All she can talk about is fixing things that ain’t broke.”

“Well, I’m sorry to hear that. If talking to the envoy is so hopeless, then why keep trying?”

Ambassador Jeerus sighed. “That’s hard to say. I’m afraid she’s just holding out on us, like she won’t give us what we need until we wear her down. And if we give up on negotiations, she’s liable to go to the archipelagos. Storms consume us all if she arms them.”

He drank in silence, stewing in his misery for a long while. “I hate everything about her—how smug and superior she is, her lips, her teeth, her creepy fingers, how she hops around from place to place, and I really hate her curls!”

Krieker perked up, studying the ambassador with one eye. “Curls?”

“Yeah, curls,” said Jeerus. “All her fur is straight except for right in the middle of her chest. She must fiddle with it for hours just to make it do that.”

———

Reviewer's link: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1YteW14oMzr5Uz4173iKZa_2rbW7NOa-RxOPI7iYeo50/edit?usp=sharing

Thoughts?