The Nature of Predators 181 (Patreon)

Memory transcription subject: Captain Sovlin, United Nations Fleet Command

Date [standardized human time]: April 9, 2137

I wasn’t sure what I imagined human funerary traditions would be like. Not too long ago, before I grew close to the gentle-hearted primates, I wouldn’t have imagined a predator race would hold sincere burials at all.

Carlos would be laid to rest in a funeral plot all of us chipped in to pay for, right in Tyler’s backyard of Columbus, Ohio. It was a small ceremony consisting of people who worked with him in the past, and our ship’s crew members, who’d arrived on Earth after a dragged-out journey back from Aafa. Several stops had been made on our voyage home, to unload Kolshian prisoners and drop off passengers at Skalga and Leirn. Per my deceased friend’s wishes, we hadn’t invited his family, despite how heartbreaking that rift was. The quiet ceremony unfolded with little fanfare, and some human religious figure arrived to say a few words.

Samantha Harris had made the detour to pay her final respects to her longtime companion. Tyler and Onso were watching a virtual livestream, since the two of them had moved to Leirn for the time being. The apartment had been left into my care, though I was told that “ya gotta pay the rent now, Sovlin. Don’t ya dare get me evicted.” I was surprised by my commanding officer’s decision to move away from Earth, and wondered if it was all for his exchange partner’s sake. Officer Cardona was never coming back to reclaim his dog from his father? Why wouldn’t he want to continue his ramen chef duties, with Hunter and I as roommates?

Overall, it felt good to be back on the predator homeworld, but I hated today’s circumstances: knowing that Carlos hadn’t seen the return home with us. His body would be lowered into a hole in the ground, with a simple headstone denoting the years he’d been alive. That was what the one person who’d shown me immeasurable kindness was reduced to. A human priest was reading a passage that stated, “Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted”, before offering words of solace. I knew little about how Terran religions compared to Gojid religions, but that sounded like nonsense.

There’s no comfort in a loved one’s death. Just pain, loss, and heartache. Mourning is knowing a person is gone, and they took a part of you with them.

Unlike Sam, I’d turned down the opportunity to speak at the funeral; her statement had been a short admission that she missed his kindness. I had no idea what I would’ve said if I stood before everyone, but I could barely bring myself to be at this ceremony and honor Carlos’ life. I could still see the bullet hole in his helmet, and recalled shaking his spacesuit. Too many people that I cared about had been taken in recent months. Ever since the cradle’s fall, terrible events had played out before my eyes, all while I tried to atone for my own hatred. I was grateful that Hunter, Vysith, and Aucel were standing beside me, reminding me why I bothered to persist, confront my demons, and seek happier days.

Tears rolled down my face, as the funeral drew to a close; I couldn’t wait to bolt from the premises. I thought if I had spoken before the crowd, I would’ve commented about the lessons Carlos taught me on open-mindedness, and understanding opposing viewpoints. That was how I wished to remember him, not as the embalmed corpse locked in a wooden box. We might’ve unseated the Federation, but I’d never forget the costs it had required. Regardless of what my plea deal and my conscience had said, there was nothing left for me to give to any war.

I was an old man, who wanted to help his found family navigate their present reality. It was time to make a positive difference in the world, like the humanitarian work Carlos partook in before this all started. That was what the Peacekeepers were truly about, and those were causes that I could put my personal touch on.

“Hey, Baldy.” Samantha walked up to me, dabbing at her binocular eyes: watery pupils I’d once thought deceiving, with false emotions. “Wherever our friend is, I hope he’s at peace. Too many burials in too short a time frame. I hope you’ve got something happier on your slate, now that this is over.”

I flicked my claws. “I used to think I deserved my suffering. Since I survived instead of Carlos, I’m going to try to find a way to heal myself…and to make a difference in post-war Earth. There’s lots of people like my three younglings here, who could use some guidance. Setting them all up for a bright future is my new mission.”

“Fuck, I sure could use some guidance myself. Now that I’m here…I either have to grapple with the fact my home and my family are long gone, or I’ll find a way to ship out. There’s nobody. Not even Carlos. I could live with running off with the UN if he were here.”

“There’s no need to leave or go it alone. You can stay here, with us, Sam. You know Earth better than all of us. I know I haven’t been your favorite person, but I care about you. I hate seeing grief tear others apart like it did to me. We can have our own family, a support network, right here.”

The auburn-haired soldier forced a smile, before, to my surprise, she wrapped me in a fleeting embrace. “Thanks for offering, but I’m sure as fuck not living with the Yanks. Too much soda, guns, and star-spangled bullshit going on here; it’d make putting up with a racist war criminal not even the worst part.”

“That’s not all America is, any more than you’re kangaroos and koalas!” Hunter protested.

“Well I like my kangaroos and koalas, and it beats dealing with Sovlin on a daily basis,” Sam responded, pulling away from me. “I’ll be fine. Some time to grieve John…it can’t hurt any worse. Ah, enough about me. Why don’t we say goodbye with some happier news? Like how the fuck you don’t have to uphold those minimum five years of service?”

I shifted with discomfort on my paws. “I have Marcel’s blessing; I reached out to him. He wanted me to…get help before, and he still does. If there’s anything I learned, it’s that I’m not predator diseased. I have PTSD. I told the UN the truth, and got a statement from Dr. Bahri advising that I was unfit for combat duty. With the war over, they’re happy for me to fulfill our pact through community service. It’s part of their mission.”

“Don’t I know it. I reckon they want to not just rebuild Earth, but forge our cities into true interplanetary hubs. The UN wants multicultural acceptance, where, once they get past the ‘predators scary’ phase, aliens feel welcome. Since you’ve acquired such an…interesting cast, I’m sure you’re up for it. If I heard about an Arxur, a Kolshian, and a 1970s human living together, I’d have thought it was a joke.”

Aucel kept me positioned between her and Vysith. “I would have too. You should’ve seen how I reacted when Sovlin told me. Living around a gray…it’s a quick way to get over being disgusted by humans.”

“That’s unflattering. My people might be monsters now, but I’m not one of them. I have more in common with the Terrans than the Dominion,” Vysith commented.

To say the living arrangement had been awkward at first would be an understatement. Once the United Nations gave the sign-off to Aucel’s asylum, after learning her relation to the heroic Recel, it’d taken a great deal of convincing about how ancient Arxur had been empathetic and civilized. The female Kolshian was more in line with the belief that humans were the exception to the predator rule; I could understand how long that notion took to work through. There was no telling whether she’d seek a use for her botanist expertise now, perhaps cultivating a garden in predator lands. Helping her adjust to Earth, keeping her safe from humans who didn’t like her citizenship, and coaxing her out of this fear, was the least I could do.

Sometimes, it just takes time to get over things, and I believe Aucel can come around. She’s learning tolerance for how predators live, at their ugliest, by being here. She has a strong moral compass, and she trusts me. Everything we both believed is gone, but we’ll shape something new. Together.

While it was an accomplishment for Aucel to be in the same room as two predators, Vysith and Hunter had both graduated to the next steps of their life. The pre-Dominion Arxur had considered how despondent the other grays found in the Archives were, and decided to set up a support group. With Giznel unseated, the path had opened up for her to join the UN Peacekeepers: something she was leaning toward doing. Her presence on Earth no longer needed to be hidden, because of it being an affront to Betterment. As one of the few members of her species not involved with the atrocities, Vysith could prove Arxur weren’t always monsters to the galaxy.

Hunter Garner was still adjusting to present-day culture and technology, with occasional mishaps that reflected his primitive upbringing; however, his fiduciary field of study wasn’t obsolete. When he approached me about delving into xenoeconomics, I thought it was the perfect use of his skillset. All of humanity would be exploring that field from scratch, and he’d proven to be quite absorbent to those concepts. As the United Nations opened its doors for trading, there would always be roles for the numerically savvy. I still thought he should change his name if he wanted to do business with herbivores, but that was a moot point.

“While they’re arguing about whether Arxur are disgusting, why don’t you tell Sam your other service?” Hunter slapped me in the back, right on a large, bald patch devoid of spines. I flinched, not used to direct contact there. “To your people.”

I groaned, as Sam fixed me with a quizzical glare. “I’d rather not. Sam will make fun of me, and it’s a sore spot.”

“I’ll let you in on a secret,” the Australian soldier replied. “I’ll make fun of you no matter what you say, because deep down, you like it. Plus, you owe me for having me call Onso a slur. Spill.”

“Ugh, Hunter, now I’m fucked to the Protector’s Cloud! Look, when I talked to the UN, I might’ve gotten them to sign me up for the cure reversal. The first Gojid trials are moving forward this week, and I volunteered. Now, I know what you’re thinking about how I hate being a former omnivore, but this is just about the allergy, like Marcel testified to the SC. If I’m living on Earth, I can’t die from a whiff of your grossness.”

Hunter clapped his hands with delight. “We’re going out for burgers after the procedure. Take back that Gojid pride!”

“I don’t know how Gojids are rebuilding our culture, and I don’t want to be involved with it. After what happened to the cradle, I doubt it’ll even be recognizable. I’m not proud of my ancestry, even if they were just people. Meat-eaters aren’t monsters, sure, but it’s still sickening. It’s like eating a slab of your…skin!”

“You already watch me eat raw, bloody meat,” Vysith commented.

“That’s different. You will die without that, and I don’t ‘watch’ you. I purposefully turn away, and I wish you’d go do that in a closed room.”

“It takes me all of about two seconds to devour those tiny human cuts. Do I need to isolate myself for basic survival functions, just because I’m a flesh-eater? I understand you may feel uncomfortable watching an Arxur tear into meat, after what you saw with your family, but I don’t wish for you to feel ashamed of me.”

Aucel shuddered. “Being around you during mealtime is so…visceral.”

“Hey, it’s not her fault that she has fangs that could snap us in half?” I offered, in an uneasy voice. “Though she is terrifyingly capable of killing us with a single bite. It reminds me of certain things.”

Samantha rolled her eyes. “And yet our canines were scary. How exactly were we going to bite you, and snap you in half?”

“With the power of sass and evil sadism, obviously.”

“You make a compelling argument. My sarcasm is a weapon of sass destruction.”

“That was a fucking terrible pun,” Hunter griped. “He won’t even get the rhyme through his translator!”

“That sounds like Sovlin’s problem. Seriously, Baldy, I’m not gonna make fun of you; I think it’s great you’re getting uncured. I’m not your shrink, but for what it’s worth, I think chowing down on a burger might be a great idea. Not even because you want to switch your diet. One bite is all.”

I scowled. “Why the fuck would I do that? I just learned how you get lethal diseases from eating meat!”

“All talk to keep you afraid. Our stuff is monitored, and it’s safe. I think you should try meat, just once, to prove the Federation doesn’t have power over you. To prove to yourself that you won’t change or struggle with bloodlust, because you broke your herbivore crap. It’s a way to come to terms with what Gojids really are. Maybe…think about it?”

“I don’t know. It’s eating carcasses, even if it’s artificial. I hate what the Kolshians cost my people, and yours, but I don’t know if I’ll ever do something like that.”

“I doubt you thought you’d jump out of a predator spaceship to a moon either. Sometimes, you take the leap anyway. You’ve come a long way from wishing we’d all go extinct, and bristling up at the sight of me. I wish you the best of luck, Captain Sovlin. It was an honor to serve alongside you.”

“Likewise. Don’t be a stranger, Sam.”

My surviving guard ducked her head, awakening me to the reality that I was no longer a prisoner: not to my life, not to my genes, not to my guilt over Marcel and the cradle, not to the United Nations, and certainly not to the Federation. I was free to live my life however I pleased, whether that was down the path of burned flesh patties or not. Hunter’s amber eyes twinkled with affection; to think I once would’ve seen human vision as proof that he was incapable of kindness. There had been a great number of leaps I’d needed to take internally, with everything I ever knew crumbling. Revelation after revelation challenged my certainties and beliefs until none survived.

I had come a long way from my first encounter with humanity, savoring an innocent man’s suffering out of misguided vengeance for my daughter. How laughable was it that even after I’d been convinced of humanity’s empathy, I’d believed they were struggling not to pounce on us at a moment’s notice? While my therapist had refuted the existence of Terran bloodlust, I had nagging concerns about Gojid proclivities. After what Maronis told us, it was apparent that such constructs were inventions to keep us afraid of regression…all because of a poor understanding of odd diseases. When I talked to Vysith, even she knew what it was: as an Arxur from hundreds of years ago!

The truth is that I don’t understand predators at all, but I know that they’re not defined by their diet. I won’t be defined by that either, anymore.

Aucel gazed at Carlos’ casket, as Samantha retrieved a flower and placed it atop the cover. “They associate…beautiful plants with death?”

“I don’t know why they do it, any more than why the Venlil decorate their plots with flowering bushes,” I remarked. “I’d guess it’s about making ugly things beautiful. Like why the City of the Flora is so gorgeous…to hide the shadow caste’s ugliness underneath.”

“Is that a good thing?”

“It depends on what you’re hiding. One is a gesture of love for someone who’s no longer around, perhaps symbolic of life’s fragility. Another is beautifying the oppression of someone no longer around, symbolic of their lies’ fragility. If he was here, Carlos might’ve said it’s our beliefs that make a thing good or evil.”

“He must’ve meant a lot to you, to imagine what he would say now. But that only asks the big question about our morality, with the causes forced on us in the past. What do we believe now?”

“I believe all of us have suffered enough for one lifetime…that we don’t have to let the wounds of the past hold us back. That the truth about ourselves may not be pretty, but that it can’t be something we run from. And I believe it’s worth trying to build something better.”

Vysith lashed her tail. “Something better, hrr? Maybe one day, I’ll find the strength to help my people…and you to help yours. But for now, let’s go home.”

“Yeah. We can figure out the future together, Dad. I’ll be ready for anything, as long as I have your support,” Hunter agreed.

I ruffled the human’s brown hair, just how I used to with Hania. In that moment, I wasn’t a broken man who’d been grieving his family for years, a captain who’d unraveled his own life’s purpose, or a devastated conscript burying a guard-turned-friend. I was a father who wanted to see his children succeed, no matter what path their lives took. The galaxy’s future under the United Nations could be prosperous, and I couldn’t wait to settle down and watch the future unfold. My life’s intersection with the predators had not only freed me from my past, but like the casket’s flowers, it made my present reality a bit more beautiful.

A/N - Sovlin's finale: the first of our remaining POV characters! Our Gojid narrator attends Carlos' funeral, and discusses with future with Aucel, Vysith, and Hunter on Earth, fulfilling his bargain with community service post-war. He also has elected to get gene edits, and will at least consider taking one bite of meat as a middle finger to the Feds. Samantha wishes Sovlin all the best, before leaving our Gojid to ponder his newfound freedom and continue into a better future as a father once more. Do you think that Sovlin came full circle, and that his family will thrive on the human homeworld? Do you think that he'll end up taking that single bite as his friends advised?

As always, thank you for reading and supporting! Three more chapters to go; Onso's ending, Tarva's ending, and then one to conclude it that might be a bit...surprising if you're not stalking Discord.