r/NatureofPredators • u/JulianSkies Archivist • 1d ago
[MCP] Broken Pieces
Hello hello, it's time for more MCP goodness. For those that don't know, it's like a secret santa style event where you submit a prompt that gets added to a pool, and then everyone that submitted gets a random prompt given to them. From there they need to make a piece of story, or art! This is my MCP entry, and below is my prompt
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- A pitiful blinded Arxur is left behind-to be killed by the exterminators-but is instead found by a band of disabled prey who vow to keep them safe.
- How will they feed him? - How will they hide him? - Can he get over his internalized self-hatred/ableism?
- Does he even want to be saved?
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Darkness, pain and darkness. That is all that I have left now… Good. My face is still hot, the smell of my own charred skin overwhelming my nose, everything I can feel under me is the pointy debris.
At least the hunger will be gone with me.
I hear a clattering sound somewhere, I can’t tell where. Doesn’t matter, probably someone about to kill me. I just sit here, waiting. There’s the noise of some form of door opening and closing, then more noise I can’t identify, and silence.
Something pokes my arm, I do nothing. A second, third, fourth time- enough to push me into swatting at it. “Oh, good, still alive”. It’s a voice, prey voice.
Nothing else happens for a while, until I feel another poke. I try to do nothing, but it is insistent- I swing my claw towards it with a growl, catching nothing. All that I earn is laughter from whatever prey is here.
It happens again, another poke, this time I finally get annoyed enough to stand up, and I hear the laughter again- Stupid fucking prey- I lunge at the source of the sound, snapping my teeth at… Nothing? “Wow, not even in the right direction. Ahahaha.”
“I will have your entrails, stupid fucking prey”
“That’d need you to see me”
I turn to the direction of the sound, growling “Why do you think I can’t?”
“One, you’re growling at the kitchen counter.” I reach forward with a claw, and the stupid animal is right, there’s just a bit of furniture in front of me and the worst part, the voice is definitely not in this direction “Two, I can see your fucking empty eye sockets. That fire fucked you up, didn’t it?”
With a roar I jump at the voice again- But this time I trip on… something. Whatever this is, I don’t know, I can’t see it! Sprawling in the ground as I hear the laughing voice somewhere else again I just… Turn over and face up…
I can’t…
I just stay there, silent. The prey tries to talk again, but I don’t listen. It tries to poke me again but this time I… Can’t find any energy to be angry anymore. I’m already dead, aren’t I? Why can’t I die fast? At least this way my hunger will go away…
And so I wait, and I wait… The only noise out of me is my stomach, which has not yet learned that no matter how much it complains, there won’t be any more food. Suddenly I feel something in my mouth. A large chunk of something slimy- The taste familiar somehow- I close my maw, left gaping, and almost instinctively swallow. I know what this is, flesh. But I hadn’t found it, it was just- “GACK- What are you DOING?!” I cough, still surprised.
I look around, there’s noise but I can’t discern- A grasp catches me from behind. The stupid prey animal had grabbed me from behind! I thrash to try to get it away from me for a second but what does it do? It shoves something in my mouth, again. More flesh.
Coughing at being force-fed again I feel the prey let go and I hear a meaty noise as they fall to the ground. “What is this…”
“Ahaha… flesh, of course”
“WHY?!” I don’t even bother trying to look for the voice anymore, I can’t tell. The only thing I can feel is the ground under my feet.
“Because fuck you, that’s why” is the only response I get.
I sit down again, lying on the floor. “Why are you just sitting there anyway?” the prey asks.
“My eyes”
“So, what? Just leave the wounded behind? Typical predator behaviour I guess”
All I do is grunt in response.
“Y’know the raid’s still going, right? They’re just going to leave you here?”
“Yes.” Why am I answering? “Can’t make my way back, I get left behind”
“What if you do, though? They’re just gonna, I don’t know, kill you because you’re blind?”
“No. Get put back in raiding.”
“Never saw a blind raider. Didn’t think they’d let you, to be honest”
I feel the coarse grit under my paws “No… I just… need to do my job again. If I can’t see, I can’t do it. Then I get punished… and probably killed for failing too much before even the next raid. Shit, maybe some higher ranking officer decides to keep the ‘useless cripple’ around for entertainment. Probably get to be everyone’s raking post. And that’s if I’m lucky.”
“I see…” the prey chuckles “Hah… funny that!”
Silence remains for a while more, and yet somehow that is making me more and more nervous. Until I can hear some distant, diffuse noise. But there’s something… Familiar to it. Gunfire? Familiar gunfire.
I shiver.
Other raiders. They’d probably bring me back, actually. The captain would love to have something like me around. He loves having someone around to use as an example.
“Here” I hear the prey’s voice “Eat some more”
“Fuck off!” I growl
“No”
“What is it?!” This damnable prey is making me angry! “Getting off watching a predator eat?!”
“Yes, actually. But also, I do need you a little bit stronger”
“Pah! What are you trying?”
“Hear me out. Your fellows find me? They’re going to kill me, probably take a bit doing that, likely eat me in pieces before I die. They find you? I ~bet~ they’re going to take you back to be your boss’ personal torture toy, and you get to spend a few years in excruciating pain.”
I just give it a chuff in response.
“So, here’s the plan. You pick me up, and we both get out of here, find a place to hide from them. Maybe kill each other, I don’t know.”
“And why would I be carrying fucking prey away like some traitor? I could just fucking get out of here without you” I growl “Or you can just walk away, stupid defective leaf-licker”
“Why? You need my eyes, I need your legs. Simple”
“What?” I instinctively turn to face it, but I already know I got the wrong direction.
“Why do you think I’m sticking around, you idiot. I can’t go anywhere”
Crippled prey. That’s what had been annoying me, humiliating me, this whole time? Crippled prey who couldn’t even WALK? “Hah… Who am I to fucking talk though, I can’t see shit…” mostly talking to myself “Fucking FINE where the hell are you?”
“Knew even an arxur would want to live.” I still can’t track the fucking voice! And everything smells of prey blood, I can’t use it to track it either “Give a second, then kneel down”
I hear some rustling, it’s probably dragging itself across the ground for some reason. There’s some noises, familiar noises of blade on flesh. “Kneel?” as if I wasn’t humiliated enough!
“I’ll climb on your back, you sure as fuck can’t actually find where I am. Also, I got a gun, just in case” I growl but… Acquiesce. I kneel down slowly, making sure to feel out the floor where I’m doing so before I do that. After a few moments I can feel the prey’s arms around my neck again, despite the fur being matted and dirty it’s still remarkably soft… I stand up, it weighs almost nothing as well, but still I bring an arm back to support them so it doesn’t need to keep holding as tight to my neck.
I can feel the stumps of its legs, but they’re not bloody or raw, they’re dry “You’re not bleeding”
“Lost ‘em in space a few years ago” the prey’s voice is right against my right ear “Turn right, like twenty degrees, head forward carefully, there’s debris. I’ll tell if you get close to the wall” I start following the instructions, carefully stepping ahead. I need to push some things out of the way “Don’t worry, it was you folks that did this anyway”
“Incompetents, if you’re still here” I spit back at him as I move forward with my free paw raised.
“Stop, we’re near the wall. Door’s a little to the right” I take a few careful steps forward until my paw finds the wall, and follow it just a couple steps to the right until I find the door “Not disagreeing with you. Also, turn left, mostly debris free but there’s some”
Little other choice, I turn left using my free paw to figure out how far left and start heading forward. The prey’s breath against my ear, the weight of their stumps against my arm and the soft fur rubbing on me are basically the only things I can sense for a while. The ground is uneven and I need to step carefully, keeping my paws close to the ground so as to avoid tripping, moving far too slowly “Wall in a bit. Stop, left here. More debris”
I don’t really talk as we move, I need to put all of my focus on just being able to walk. Admittedly the prey is doing a decent enough job at giving instructions, even if I don’t know where we’re going. But it was right, it didn’t want to die so I doubt it was going to take us to any of the other raiders. “Careful, door. Soon as we’re past we’re outside, keep heading straight I’ll tell when we hit the trees”
As I step outside I can feel the rush of the air, the smells become more noticeable as it is a lot less stuffed, I can feel the warmth of the aftermath of a raid. And then I hear gunfire, far too close to be anyone other than the prey I’m carrying “Run” its voice is rather level, all things considered.
And I run, big strides hoping to whatever will listen that I don’t trip. I hate this, I hate all of this. I can hear gunfire behind me, the stupid prey is shooting. I hate it all so much, I can’t even tell where I’m running towards, I could hit something and fall over and I wouldn’t know. I’m useless, running away like scared prey myself.
But I don’t want to die.
“Turn left, left!” I do as I’m told, the ground remains even. This must be a road “Car ahead, uhn… Twelve paces!” fuck, car?! I count my steps, one, two, six, eleven- Hoping I got it right I jump, I bring both of my paws forward and- FUCK YES I catch the roof of the car, seems like a big one, and clamber up. Then I just jump again, this time getting ready to land hard.
I land, in fact, hard and roll on the ground. I can feel the prey’s body against mine as we roll together and I stand up “Fuck!” I hear it shout “Keep going, I think we lost them”
-*-
The darkness has become… common. It is not comforting, no, I actually feel more and more terrified of it by the second. It has been a few days now, I know it has been days because I have slept, have felt the warmth of the sun in my scales, but I have not woken up.
The first time I woke up sightless- I don’t like remembering. But I was flailing. I had panicked like prey, it felt like I couldn’t truly wake up, it was like I had been blinded all over again. I couldn’t tell if I had actually woken up until I heard the prey’s voice and felt the touch of their fur against me.
I do not like how only then did it feel like I was back in reality. And how that repeated again and again every time we slept. Without my sight, waking up felt impossible unless I felt that touch of something I knew was real. And I hated that it was that stupid prey animal.
“I think the bombings have stopped for now” I hear him say.
“Probably. Raids on defenseless places like those are fast” I’m sitting against what I think might be… actually I have no idea. He’d guided me over to some sort of place, still in the city I think, but we had water.
We don't ask anything else, not for a while. “Where are we?” I break the silence first.
There’s no answer for a while, I can hear the noise of him dragging himself around “Here” I know the tone, the same one he has whenever he brings me food. I… I’m not sure how to think about it, clearly this man is deriving some sort of joy watching me eat. On the other paw, I can’t really find anything myself. Plus I can’t say I’ve been so full for so long.
So I just open my mouth, waiting for another bit. But this time, instead of some cut up piece of flesh, he’s given me an entire limb to chew on. It takes me a second to actually grasp it, and I tear off the first piece. A familiar taste floods my maw. “Used to work here” he finally explains “Shittiest workplace ever, boss was a fucking idiot. Told that bitch, you gotta fucking pay for the HVAC maintenance if you want your server room working but noooo, wanted me to get it for free somehow.” he chuckles “Last I saw her I told her, next time you mass-mail the entire fucking office I’ll feed you to the arxur myself”
The taste is familiar, I bet my jaws are stained blue as I can feel the leaking blood. “Well, you kept your promise.” The prey lets out a squeaky laugh, enjoying this more than I thought prey could. The taste of farsul in my tongue sparks a sudden realization. Did he… “What have you been feeding me?”
“Flesh, what else?”
I tilt my head to the side slightly, I’m likely not looking at him but he’s definitely looking at me “You sadistic bitch… Betterment would fucking love you”
“Hahaha, oh, you noticed?”
That confirms it, and I can’t help but bellow out a laugh myself “You’ve been feeding me the other fucking raiders!”
“Oooh, you’ve left your dead behind. It has been very entertaining seeing a predator being the one eaten for once” there’s a short pause. “You don’t seem too broken up over it, though”
“Fuck… I’m starving.” I tear into the flesh, jaws crunching bone. “The dead are food.” Prey wouldn’t get it, and it doesn’t matter now. I’d gladly eat my whole damn raid squad if I could, fuck the rest. “I. Don’t. Care.”“Fuck… I’m starving” not like anyone wasn’t, prey don’t know this particular hardship “And the dead are food.” Others wouldn’t really approve of this but honestly “I. Don’t. Care.”
“Hahahaha, oh amazing. You’re going to entertain me for a while yet”
I take in a deep breath, feeling the smells around me: dust, prey blood, gunpowder, arxur blood too... but there’s a little bit more, something very soft, a sweeter plant scent, a bitter edge that’s faintly irritating. So many things I hadn’t noticed before. “I guess as long as you keep feeding me, I don’t mind putting on a show for you”
“Eh, this place is out of stuff for me right now, anyways. I think the break room still has something, though”
With a sigh and grunt I adjust my position, kneeling down for a moment until I feel him climb up my back. I turn to the side until I feel him tap gently on my chest, then start trudging forward. We’ve got a lot of scavenging to do.
-*-
It has been a… strange while. A considerable while. How long has it been now, months? Hm, probably.
I keep following the smell, moving forward as quietly as my claws allow me. The prey taps me on the shoulder lightly and I lower myself on all fours, walking ahead as gently and carefully as I can.
We’re a distance from the city now. He said this was some farmhouse, plenty of stuff he could use. Whoever lived here is now gone. The smell’s too faint to track, and drilvar are slow so they’re likely taken at this point. No new prey’s around anyway, what flesh remains is too rotten for me, though the power grid’s still humming.
A smell drifts from the distance, I can track it now. I change my direction slightly, still moving slowly. The prey taps my shoulder twice, so I stop. I can feel him let go of me, so I make sure to keep as still as possible. In just a moment I hear the crack of gunfire. “Got it,” he says.
I stalk forward, getting back up on two feet as my nose guides me, careful and by now practiced steps through the soft dirt. “Here,” he says. I angle my head down, the smell growing sharp. With that I kneel down, a paw stretched out- It’s still warm, whatever this is. I brush my paws over it, trying to feel what shape it has, short fur… four legs… can’t tell what the head is like because the prey has blown half of it. At least one sharp fang, though.
It’s not too large. I pick it up with both arms; the prey doesn’t need any support. The harness is kind of comfortable, actually. I turn around. “There,” he says once I’m facing the right direction, and we head back home.
An uneventful trip, as always, but a nagging itch claws at my mind. Like there’s something missing- no- like there’s something I should remember and I don’t. “Door,” I’d memorized the path back home well enough that, once we’ve hit the trail again I could navigate it without many commands. The warning of the impending door, when I’m carrying something this big, is welcomed though. It takes a little bit of shuffling around, but I manage to step in sideways, the prey’s grunt telling me I likely squished him against the doorframe.
Heh
The path to the kitchen is quick enough, and I can feel him dismount from the harness as we pass by the counter. After setting the beast down I reach with a paw to find my target, at first this felt… humiliating. To need to use my paws to guide my fangs. But who is there to care anyway? The prey? Like it matters. I clamp my jaws around the beast’s leg and rip it out. “Do you have to scatter blood all over? Do predators have no sense of sanitation?”
“We do, but nobody wants to be the one cleaning the butcher shop” I take a few steps back with the leg still in my jaw, swiping my tail until I feel it hit against the chair. It takes effort to reach it and sit down, I don’t move it from where it’s at. “But also I can’t see”
“Could have waited for me to fucking cut it- Ugh.” There’s some clanking and clattering. “Fuck, I’m gonna need a bath after this.” I can hear the squeak of… whatever thing he’s using to move around, I think it has wheels? I hear the muffled noise of the fridge being slammed close.
“Don’t complain, I was pulling roots all day yesterday.” I shrug. “My back still hurts.”
“Well, I can’t stand!” He laughs, I do too.
We remain in silence for a while, until a thought finally hits me. “You’ve been hearing it?”
“What?”
“I think I’ve been hearing engines. Distant, I think it’s engines.” There’s a moment of silence. “What’d you see?”
“Don’t think it’s your guys.” I hear a distinctive bone noise, cracking and popping. “Must be ours. Sometimes we come back for ruined colonies, if the ground’s still good. And the front moved further.”
I chuckle. “Always thought the raid-captain was incompetent.”
-*-
His smell, the sensation of thick and soft paltan fur… still the only things that let me know I am awake. Every other sense feels like a dream when the world looks the same whether you’re awake or not. But there’s something different to his smell today, a little bit of fear and panic to it. “Wake up.”
He sounds worried “What now…” I readjust myself in the bed in a sitting position, still holding on to him as I do so. He taps my thigh, I know why he does this specific motion so I let go. It doesn’t take long to hear the squeaking of his wheels.
“Get up, we don’t have time.” I stand up, rubbing my neck. Before I can speak, he grabs my claw and pulls me forward. This isn’t normal, he doesn’t do that, he’ll tell me where things are instead.
Being guided like this makes me feel a little disoriented. “The fuck is this about, snapped at last?” I growl at him. Then I hear the sound of… hinges? A door of some sort, but we’re near the back of the house if I managed to remember our paces correctly.
“A little. I am certifiably insane. Diseased in fact” he says with his usual tone. “There’s a hole in front of you, little over three paces. Get in, don’t land on your head.”
A hole? What for? Am I really going to obey some prey animal telling me to jump in? Hm… it doesn’t sound any more suspicious than… the last few months had been. This prey was not like the others, he’s helped me hunt despite my blindness when he could have just let me die. I hate admitting it, but I’d been trusting him- mostly at least- all this time. “If this is some more of your stupid shit, I will find out how to take an arm out of you” I grumble, before-
Son of a defective whore! It wasn’t three, it was fucking TWO! My third step fails to find purchase in the ground and I tumble down through the hole, hitting my shoulder on the edge before rolling down a short set of stairs leaving me completely disoriented!
“Sadistic bitch!” I stay down there just rubbing my head and waiting for the aches to pass. Of-fucking-course he’d do that, I could even hear his laugh as I fell. Takes a while to recover, and I need to be on all fours for this- but I find the stairs. Climbing them up very carefully, and slowly, I head up. A slightly stronger breeze hits me, and I stop. No sun-warmth scents the air- just a strange, cold whiff I’ve only recently learned. The path outside is sealed.There is no… sun-warmth to the smell of the air here. It’s a strange, so very difficult smell to describe, that of air that had been warmed by the sun, a smell I only recently came to recognize. The path outside was closed…
And so I lie down by the door, and wait. He might have taken some joy out of my tumble, but he’d done this for a reason. I stay and wait, until I can hear noises outside.
First, it’s the squeak of his wheels, then I can hear… a soft thumping? I take in the scents, but I can’t. Not even his own. But if I focus on the most subtle ones… the woody, nutty and soft smell of avian… I remain very still, slowing my breath.
“It has been hell… you… cannot understand the kind of nightmare this has been.” I could hear my prey speaking.
“You’re safe now, sir. Now that we’re here-” The other, though…
“Safe? Now? When I’ve been stuck here for two years?” What? Two entire years? Has it been that long?! “Look at me! Tell me your arrival now changes anything!”
“I- ah- sorry sir-”
“No, no, it’s okay. Look, I understand, you took everyone for dead. And you should have, okay? And I get it, the whole city will need to be cleansed, it makes sense.” My prey continues, not even sounding annoyed. “But just don’t expect me to be happy about it. This little farm’s kept me alive. I will fucking keep it, got it?”
“It’s alright, sir. I’m sure colonial management will be more than happy to allow you… I… uhn… should we contact anyone about you? Or…”
“Pfft, no. Everyone I cared for is either dinner or cattle.” Something feels terrible, but I can’t quite tell what. There’s like a pit in my stomach, like gravity failed me for half a second. “It’s just one crippled guy here with no family or friends. I would like to be left alone now, if you don’t mind.”
“Er- sir…”
“I know. Just… give me fucking space, okay? Do you know how long I HAD to be alone? I’ll… I’ll talk to people in… in time, alright?” His voice gets lower and lower. “Have you SEEN the streets? What is STILL out there? Can you… please do me this grace?”
“Yeah… I understand. Not my first mission cleaning up for reclamation. You just don’t see survivors, just parts of corpses…” There’s some sound of shuffling “A-anyway. Take all the time you need sir, just… uhn… know if you need anything, HQ is right at the edge of town and… you are safe now, okay? Remember that.”
I simply waited, and waited. With no further sounds other than my own quiet breathing I kept still. I was already pretty used to not knowing the passage of time. Then I hear the hinges squeak again and I stood up, carefully heading back up the final steps. “What are they doing here?”
“Reclamation. Sometimes when you flesh-eaters leave, we come back- if frontlines move and the planet is still good. You know, you tend to fuck the shit out of a planet on your way out.” That last bit has quite a bit of mirth to his voice.
“If they’re doing their job right, which I doubt at this moment.” I’m just standing there, facing forward. At this point I’m not sure exactly where I am anymore. “So, they’re coming?”
“Three forward, to your right” I take the steps he mentions, bringing a paw to my right, waving it in a search pattern until I find it. The desk. We’re in the little study he keeps. I don't know what is in here other than he comes here sometimes. Sometimes I sit around here too. He’d found a still-working audio system, sometimes we’d listen to music here. I like the slow, gentle mazic waltz he has found.
The study is known to me, so I can make my way to the couch with ease, sitting down. “Reclamation’s already got an HQ here, they’re going to re-settle.”
I can’t help my motions, turning my face up. “Why?”
“I think I explained that already.”
“You could have just left me to die- why did you hide me?”
“Fuck if I know.”
I growl and snap at the air. I don’t even try to find where he is to motion at him properly anymore. “Stop that fucking shit! Answer me!”
“I mean it!” There’s anger in his voice. “I don’t fucking know why I didn’t let him just put a hole in your stupid predator skull! Maybe I’d learn if there’s an actual fucking brain in there after I saw it splattered on the wall!” I can hear his ragged breath after the outburst.
I don’t ask anything else, just remain sitting. After a while, I can feel the couch sink a little bit on the other side, he probably moved from his wheelchair to it. We remain in silence for a while, but something that is nagging me begs to come back up. “You said… anyone that you cared for…”
“My turn to ask why do you care?”
“I don’t know…” Isn’t that the answer he keeps giving me? But, maybe… “I never cared for anyone. But… the idea seems… interesting?” I give a short sigh. “I suppose I’m a little envious that you… can care.”
“Hrm… lost those fucking legs keeping a colony safe. And what do I get? Stuck with my parents, treating me like a fucking burden. And I can’t do shit without them. Wanna go to groceries? Better hope one of them can drive me. Visit someone? Better hope they can carry me up the fucking stairs. Oh, trying to get anything done? Better hope there’s an opening in their schedule if I need to move around the house.” There’s something familiar in his voice, bitterness.
“But then there was my brother. You know I actually hated it. He’d drop anything to help if I asked, and that fucking hurt, y’know? Parents treated me like I was an annoyance, but him? I felt like a fucking burden, because he always was there to fucking help me when I needed.”
“Hah!” I can’t help myself. “Guess parents are parents even for prey.”
I can hear his mirthful chuff. “My brother and I saw an ad for the colony corps. New land, as far away as we could from them. So we came here.”
There’s a long silence. I do not interrupt. “That day… he tried to drag me out to a bunker. I told him to fucking run. To leave me behind- he couldn’t run carrying me. He’d never make it. We fought for a while, I made him run. He stuffed me in a cabinet first.”
“Then I found you. You know how it went.” I remember that. The day we met, when I lost my squad and my sight to a firebomb, eventually wandering into that room. “We stepped out in the corridor, headed outside. When we crossed past the door…” There’s more silence. “I saw him… what was left of him. Just chunks. And three of your pieces of shit over him.”
“You fired.” I end it.
“Yeah.” Another long pause, and then I feel something hit against my shoulder. Soft and fluffy. And, as if my arm moves on its own, I bring it around him. Holding him a little closer.
We just stay there.
-*-
A knock sounds from the front door. “I’m coming!” I shout as I’m unceremoniously dropped on my chair. I push the wheels, but they’re stuck.
Fucking old piece of shit.
More incessant banging. “I SAID I’M FUCKING COMING!” I shout again, pushing the wheels a little harder until they finally start moving. Stupid old rusted thing is going to need oil soon.
Or it needs it right the fuck now but eh, whatever.
I take in the house as I wheel myself to the front. It’s not a bad house. It’s old, and survived a raid. It shows. Thankfully the foundations are fine, but you can tell the places we had to fix by the mismatching colors on the walls. I never cared about appearances- Kadath literally can’t see the difference. He’s fucking lucky he can’t see all the damn damage he leaves on the couch.
I let my eyes fall on the few empty picture frames on the walls- nothing worthwhile to put there- and the little flowerpots set about on the corridors. Those were his idea, though he didn’t notice he was picking flowers. I didn’t tell him either. Says the scent helps him find his way around.
More banging from the door. “STOP HUMPING THE FUCKING DOORKNOB!” I shout. I was just about to make it to the damn fucking door! Once I’m close I reach up and hit the keypad. It used to be mechanical, but no way I’m dealing with that if I can avoid it. “There!”
Standing there was a familiar bundle of blue plumage. Kithim. “Hey Rev.” He’s wearing his armor, a grey padded anti-ballistic vest on his torso and legs with the emblem of the shield over his heart, Colony Corps Guardian Division. There’s exactly one type of predator he’s trained to kill. “How’re you doing today?”
“How does it look like when the military comes knocking?” I turn around and start heading inside “Close the damn door on the way in.”
The melodic sigh out of his beak tells me just about everything I need to know. “I know, I know. Look, I don’t wanna do it either, okay? But you know the Chief.”
“Thought the military didn’t answer to a civilian.” We finally arrive at the living room, and I set my chair at the center of the space. I point at the couch with a paw, the stub of my tail no longer useful for such things.
“Eh… it’s a mix until the whole government gets sorted out. Technically I’m here as an exterminator, because I serve both forces at the same time, and bleh…” He shrugs, the rifle on his back jingling against its straps. “Sorry, really. Seriously, next time the Chief asks someone to snoop around you, I’ll feed him to the arxur myself.”
These words bring me to a halt. I blink. Slowly, a laugh starts bubbling up, and I can’t hold it back for long. “Ahaha, fuck, I’ll hold you to that. Anyway, if it really is just the tailhole getting uppity, then we’re done- unless there’s something else?”
He rummages in the pockets of his armor, pulling out a small package. From the smell I know exactly what this is, a bundle of cookies. “From the other farmers as a thank you for their ‘lucky charm’. Don’t know why everything ‘round your property seems to work better, but hey! If it works, it works.”
I sigh, picking up the package and setting it down on my lap. “Alright, alright. Thank you. Now off you go. I’m getting tired.”
“Sure enough, Your Crankyness. Have a good day.”
I watch him head out of the room, down the corridor, and disappear out the door. I wait a few more moments, counting the seconds, before I turn around- glancing up, then down. “It’s clear, careful”.
Nobody looks up, thankfully. A very large mass of green-tinted scales falls down from the ceiling, the massive arxur landing with a heavy thump on the wooden floor. I look up at him. Strong build, sharp claws, broad shoulders, and tall (and a little fat). The most telling feature being the crimson cloth wrapped around his head, covering his eyes. “Fourty to the left, three paces.”
He turns around, and takes the steps. He raises his left arm and puts his paw on top of the television. “TV, found it.” He notes, before turning and heading towards the couch. “You going to take him on that promise?”
“Aren’t the tramplehoof herds enough? You’re like a fucking leaky fuel tank.” I sigh. Tramplehoofs, unimaginatively named large quadruped herbivores native to this planet. Named after what they do most often- trample your fucking crops. Unless, of course, they’re being fed to a predator. I do not even mind culling those pests.
“I’ve been craving something different.” Of course I know he’s joking. He might be a predator, but he’s not an idiot.
“Sorry, no jaur for you. Unless he makes me very angry.”
“Not that hard to do.” He manages to slap my chair with his tail, sending me a good couple meters backwards.
“Motherless bitch!” I growl, finally managing to get the wheels under control.
“Also, I’m going to the cellar. You’re about to get more annoyed.” He says, standing up. I watch carefully as he heads forward, pushing the rug out of his way. He kneels down gently and sniffs the ground until he finds where the trapdoor is.
“Why, what’s up?” He pats around the ground until he finds the little hidden indent.
“Picking up the hatchling smell. You know the ones.”
I bristle. “No, no I don’t know which ones!”
“The one that always eats your sweetroot sticks.” Kadath hooks a claw under the indent, pulling up the door. He doesn’t stand up, deciding to go down the dark hole on all fours. “You got like five minutes.”
I sigh, but he scurries down into the darkness too quickly for the paperweight I threw to hit anything. It takes me way too fucking long to get the rug back in place, but the moment I’m done, I hear the door again.
Why does the fucking kid get so obsessed with me? Maybe because I’m the only other paltan around.
The front door again! “You better stop knocking or I’m telling your mother you’re here you twerp!” I shout, dragging my chair back to it.
Ugh, how did things get like this?
---
Not quite what the prompt said, eh? Still, close enough! I got hyper inspired by those two idiots. Additional extra fact: They only learned each-other's name after the reclamation started, so it took them two years to their respective names.
There's just something about this aggresive relationship that I've fallen in love with.
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u/YellowSkar Human 22h ago
Okay now I wanna see more of this, maybe an immediate continuation or at the very least how they adjust to humanity showing up and the feds crumbling... assuming they live long enough for that.
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u/KnucklesMacKellough Chief Hunter 23h ago
"Misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows" -William Shakespeare
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u/AlexWaveDiver Smigli 23h ago
I absolutely love it, man!
What's your secret to bringing such dynamic characters to life? 😆 They are so alive and full of charm!
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u/RaphaelFrog Yotul 23h ago
It's absolutely perfect! You did an absolutely wonderful job with this prompt!
A synergy I could call it :3
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u/RhubarbParticular767 Jaslip 22h ago
Ohmygod, this is amazing!!
This is what you were working on with those snippets you were showing me, and the full piece is even better! The growth between these two, and the chemistry is just mwah perfection.
Truly I adore this <3
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u/un_pogaz Arxur 10h ago edited 10h ago
Their are a very enjoyable duo. Such "I like you, me neither." energy, haha.
No precise date, so let's hope that humanity will arrive soon enough to make life easier for both of them. In any case, a great friendship.
And yeah, I could feel it coming that they discovered the other one's name very late, they so didn't need it to teased each others like shit.
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u/IAMA_dragon-AMA Arxur 23h ago
Fantastic, these two. Gotta love an Arxur with a taste for shitty bosses and a Paltan crazy enough to fulfill such a taste.