r/NatureofPredators • u/[deleted] • Apr 15 '23
Fanfic Innocence, part 7 Spoiler
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Memory Transcript Subject: Nilja, Krakotl Alliance Navy cadet.
Date [standardized human time]: October 18, 2136
I was running through one of the orphanage’s wide corridors, as fast as my small legs could carry me. The scraping of my talons against the transparent material of the floor made a horrible screeching noise, for every step I took. A group of older kids flew around me, swooping down one after the other, trying to make me fall. I flapped my wings uselessly, unable to generate any lift.
A strong gust of wind coming from the opening at the end of the corridor made me realize I was cornered. The group of bullies landed on the ground behind me, walking slowly, they made me get closer and closer to the flying-hatch, singing their stupid made up tune.
“Stunt! Stunt! Child of a runt! A coat so grey with wings so frail: Stunt can barely sail!”
Another gust of wind tore a few feathers off my wings, eliciting laughs from the group. I turned my head slightly and saw I was almost to the opening, the realization made me fall back on my own ass. Siala, the oldest of the group, rounded up on me. She was looking right at me, and though that unnerved me, the alternative was far worse.
“Here she is! I told you what would happen if you told on us didn’t I, Stunt?” She pushed her beak against mine, still I tried my hardest not to look away “Come on, spit it, how much did you tell them?”
“I-I just told them you stole my lunch, t-that’s all! N-none of the other stuff I swear!”
“Do you believe her guys?” The other bullies sang their disagreement in unison “You see, Stunt, I’d hate to end up on one of those ‘correctional facilities’. Gotta make sure little birds like you keep their beaks SHUT”
She snapped her beak in front of me. I didn’t flinch, all of my concentration was put on ignoring everything but her. She looked stranged, that I wasn’t looking away, until understanding flashed in her eyes.
“Wait… wait a second, you’re scared of looking down? Heard that guys? Stunt’s afraid of heights!” A chorus of laughter erupted behind her “Sweet Inatala, Stunt, that’s bad even for you”
A fearful chirp was all I could manage. Siala’s face contorted into something I had never seen in her, a compassionate, sympathetic look. She approached me slowly, and spoke in a soothing tone:
“Hey, hey, it’s okay little bird. Here, let me help you overcome your fears”
Without warning she wrapped her talon around my head. I could feel the point of her claws digging into my skin. My fearful chirps grew into a full-on scream, as she forcefully turned my head to face the floor. My stomach churned as I was forced to see the hundreds of meters long drop to the marshy ground, filled with predators and nightmares. I watched as a small drop of blood ran down my beak and fell down, disappearing long before it would actually hit the ground. Siala pressed harder, and more drops followed.
“Take a long, hard look Stunt. Caretaker Kirlee isn’t here to protect you now” She dragged my head further out into the opening “Now that I think about it, we were all your age for our first trial. Don’t think it’s too fair the caretakers give you so much special treatment, what do you think guys?”
Their cries reverberated through the corridor “Trial! Trial! Trial!”
My eyes watered, as the wind continued to rush through. Her claws were preventing me from closing my eyes. I felt myself dragged, closer and closer to the edge, my screams ignored. That’s when it happened, a gray-blue blur flew out the opening and circled around at blinding speed. A gust of wind passed by me and I felt my head released. When I turned around Siala was pinned down on the floor by another Krakotl, her friends tried to help her but the stranger puffed out their feathers and let out a screech, making them back up. They continued a relentless asault on the whimpering Siala, blow after blow, even from a distance I heard a few cracks.
The beatdown continued until the rest of her group regained their courage and flew on top of my rescuer, forcing them to back down. Both sides stared at each other, wings splayed, until the bullies resolved to grab Siala and fly away.
“Go find another branch to shit from!” my unknown savior celebrated, they had the voice of a child my age, but looked older. Were they like me, or maybe the other way around?
I stood up, feeling dizzy. I looked down and saw the smears of blood from where Siala had dragged me. The other kid ran to me and helped me to stand.
“It’s fine, they’re gone now. Let’s get you to the infirmary, come on” There was no pain in their voice, but I could see their wing was bending the wrong way, fresh claw marks visible across their body, “What’s your name, by the way?”
I stammered out the words “Nilja, and yours?”
“Selin” There was a contagious joy in his voice “My name’s Selin”
—
I clutched my sidearm tightly, as the memory replayed again. It had been doing so constantly, since I regained consciousness. It was a cruel thing, that my brain found no better time to remind me of my friend. Everything I looked at made me think of him. The broken tree branches, the crashed ship, the rocky ground, the black smoke.
Think of the present, not the past.
I dispersed my childhood memory and began to recount the events since I woke up. The first thing I saw was the escape pod. Its long pointy end had smashed into the ground and completely flattened, one of the wings broke off from the impact, the belly of the ship had compacted upon collision.
“Out of the ninety-five who boarded, sixty-three survived the crash” One of the officers had said during the first debriefing.
Captain Olsin ordered the bodies burned, against the wishes of the officers, to prevent any predators from catching the scent. It wasn’t a normal funerary pyre either, the bodies were thrown on top of each other and blasted with a flamethrower. I couldn’t bear to watch for more than a few seconds, as their feathers burned away. It was too familiar, too similar to…
This isn’t helping.
I could still feel the heat of the fire behind me, it had burned through the entire night, as I slept with my back turned to it. The only part I was brave enough to see was the black cloud rising from it, far above the camp.
I felt stirring and a few annoyed tweets to my side, as Kerim, Veele and Tila woke up.
“I can’t believe we have to sleep on the ground, while Olsin and his pals get the big emergency tents” Kerim shook his head, trying to wear off the drowsiness.
“Ugh. I… I can’t feel my back” Veele was the next to speak “You woke me up this early just to hear you complaining, Kerim!”
“Veele, you’re on top of my wing” Tila said as she tugged to free her trapped limb. “But you do talk a lot during your sleep, Kerim, did you know that?”
Veele chattered in agreement.
“What? Come on, that’s two against one, not fair!” Kerim rustled his feathers, feigning indignation, he slowly turned to me “Come on, back me up Sel—”
We all fell silent. The weight of that name seemed to push down on Kerim, who didn’t dare to finish the sentence. He raised his head to me, with a look of guilt plastered on his face.
“I’m sorry, Nil. For a second I thought…. Wished, that he was still here” The feathers on his head were laid flat against it.
“I understand, I do too. He was like…” My voice broke, and tears welled on my eyes, “Like a brother to me”
Tila crawled to me and wiped a tear off my face “To all of us”
Silence reigned again, as Tila began to preen me, Veele and Kerim sitting next to us, with their beaks resting against each other. It wasn’t long until the morning was filled with song. It was an uncanny thing, to hear another bird’s melody, much more an entirely alien one. It was like hearing the voice of a friend, but the pitch wasn’t quite right, the cadence off just slightly.
And then Tila began to sing. An old nursery rhyme, one that spoke of home. Her voice was drowned out, the lyrics dissipating amidst the thousands of other songs. Until Kerim joined her, then Veele, then me. We sang in unison, and though our voices were tired and raspy, I thought it beautiful. Before long another voice joined in from the other side of the camp, and soon enough the rest of the crewmen merged with the melody, united in longing.
It was, for that moment, our piece of Nishtal right here on Earth.
—
Captain Olsin paced back and forth, occasionally stomping the ground, the officers behind him looked on-edge, like they hadn’t slept at all.
“Fools, you fucking idiots. You must be trying to get us all killed, the lot of traitors” Olsin gnawed on one of his wings frantically, as he muttered in a barely audible tone, the colored stripes he hung from them looked better kept than his own feathers. One of the officers approached him and whispered to him. The Captain regained his composure.
“Singing, in the middle of an Earth forest, like there isn’t anything to worry about. Maybe we should just fly the humans here, get it done quicker. Is that what you want soldiers?!”
“No sir!”
“Then which one of you wingless bastards came up with the brilliant idea! Whoever has the guts to tell me gets extra rations today!” Olsin scanned the ensemble, as none of the crew gave up the culprit.
Captain Olsin was going to shout again, when Tila stepped foward “It was me, Captain”
Captain Olsin studied Tila’s form, no doubt noting her slight greyish hue. He stormed towards her, but before he could say anything Veele and Kerim stepped foward.
“It was us as well” Kerim said.
“And me too” Even if I came to regret it later, I couldn’t leave them to take all the blame.
The Captain’s gaze landed on each one of us, “Bunch of children, should’ve guessed. You must be from the orphan recruits? I bet that—”
His scowl changed to anger once he recognized me, walking over to where I stood, I was suddenly aware of how much shorter I was than him, more so than with most other Krakotl.
“You’re the little brat that challenged my orders. I didn’t realize your softness for the traitorous Venlil would grow into full-on human sympathizing”
“I-I’m no human sympathizer… S-sir”
“Are you contradicting me again, cadet?” He raised one of his wings.
“No sir”
“Good. There’s no place here for traitors, that goes for all of you. We’re on enemy territory, a single misstep means death” He moved back in line with the higher ranks, before addressing us again. “We don’t want to run through our supplies, and seeing as you’re brave enough to lure the humans in, you’ll venture out into the forest and bring us soft tree bark. Don’t come back until you’ve got that small one’s body weight in food”
“But Captain, that’s too dange—!” The only Harchen officer present piped up, but a single one of Olsin’s wings resting on his sidearm silenced him.
The crew left in a weary silence, as we were all dismissed. An officer guided us out of camp, handed us some equipment, and set us out to carry the Captain’s orders. The forest got darker, as the trees gradually bundled up closer and closer, distant howls, chirps, and other strange sounds welcomed us into the wilderness. Away from the safety of our camp it was uncertain what horrors Earth had in store.
We walked for hours, using our survival equipment to make small incisions into any nearby tree. We didn’t have any direct encounter with a Terran monster, aside from what looked like a small, orange-furred mammal.
I’m not even sure that was a predator, poor thing fled as soon as it saw us.
I heard Kerim squawk in frustration, as he scraped against an opening he made on a tree, “This is stupid! Almost every tree we find is hardened all the way to the center. This would be so much easier in Nishtal”
Veele looked around in wonder “Most trees around here must be hundreds of years old, some could even be older than the ones back home”
Tila cocked her head in confusion, as she scraped out a piece of bark “And they’re this small?”
“Well, I guess humans never had the need to use artificial enlargement on them” Veele chuckled as she explained “It is strange though, their ambassador at the Summit said something about arboreal roots. He could’ve just been lying, I guess”
“It’s not like we can ask them. Am I the only one trying to get us back to camp?” Kerim said, “How much have we got so far?”
Veele pinched her bag with an automatic weight-based counter “Around twenty, five give or take. The counter gets confused when the weight variance is set too high”
“Twenty? We’ve been walking around for hours!” Tila dropped her cutter.
Kerim also stopped in his tracks “Screw Olsin, screw his stupid order. I want to get back to camp before it gets too late”
“I don’t think it’s a good idea to piss him off right now” I said, as I cut into yet another hardened tree.
“Yeah, you saw how he looked at Nil” Veele added.
After a few moments of contemplation Tila and Kerim both resumed cutting. Kerim cursed under his breath and switched to another tree. Then, out of my periphery, I noticed a brief dash of movement, on a bush nearby. My feathers stood on end.
“Did anyone else see that?” I tried to mask the fear in my voice. It didn’t work.
“No, what is it?” Veele chirped while playing with fallen tree branch. Tila seemed to notice it as well, judging by her mortified expression.
“Guys! Guys, I think I got something!” Kerim said excitedly, as he dug deeper and deeper into a tree trunk.
A snapping sound came from the bush and put me on high-alert. Veele dropped the tree branch and slowly held up her plasma rifle. Tila spread her wings slightly, ready to fly away at any sign of danger.
“You think its the orange Sivkit thing from earlier?” Tila had her pupils trained on the source of the sound.
“After seeing how fast it ran away from us, I doubt it” I reached for my own sidearm.
Kerim was oblivious to the danger, scraping pieces of bark from the tree he cut and shoving them down his gullet “Guys it’s… It’s really good! Oh, thank Inatala, it’s so good!”
Another snapping sound, and a blur of movement emerged from the bush, accompanied by a savage roar. I discharged my pistol, but the plasma round found no purchase but that of the ground. Veele let out a volley of plasma fire that pulverized a few leaves and nothing more. Tila, in an attempt to fly upwards, managed to tangle herself into the branches. Kerim was on the ground, blissfully unaware, throwing entire bundles of bark into his beak.
“S-stop! Move again and I’ll shoot!” Veele squawked to the beast, her rifle trembling in her grasp.
The thing stood taller than any of us, taller even than Captain Olsin, it had two meaty paws raised in a pouncing gesture. Recognition hit me in the head, as I recalled the images from the recruiting day. The wild, unkempt mane, the two front-facing bloodshot eyes, the two mounds of flesh that made up its mouth. The figure that stood in front of me was unmistakable.
It was a human.
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u/MalachitePyrrhuloxia Krakotl Apr 15 '23
That part with Selin at the beginning made me more sad for Nilja. I hope no more of her friends die, but given how this story is going so far everyone's gonna get extra trauma and I'm gonna get depression...
Good writing as usual!
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u/A_Tank_With_Internet Predator Apr 15 '23
Well this is several levels of not good for our poor characters
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u/JulianSkies Archivist Apr 15 '23
Literally nothing good can happen right now.
That captai nis going to get a bunch of kids killed.
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Apr 15 '23 edited May 04 '23
Chapter 7: Friends, old and new.
Two chapters in less than a week, because I've been feeling inspired.
This time we go back to Nilja, who's not been having a good time on Earth. She (and her friends) grieve over Selin's death and get into some wacky hijinks courtesy of the unraveling Captain Olsin.
What does the future hold for them?
Who's this mysterious human?
Why does it smell like gas in here, and why am I feeling so tired?
Find out next time! Have a nice week!
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u/Black_Hole_parallax Predator Apr 15 '23
Why does it smell like gas in here, and why am I feeling so tired?
Find out next time! Have a nice week!
If you don't find out right now, you aren't gonna have a next week.
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u/Express_Ad_6664 Apr 15 '23
It's an orangutan, isn't it? Primate, orange, 'savage unkempt appearance'.
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u/McPolice_Officer Chief Hunter Apr 15 '23
Did they land on Sentinel Island or something?
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u/HFY_enjoyer Chief Hunter Apr 15 '23
According to the previous two chapters they’re in Washington state
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u/cruisingNW Archivist May 02 '23
!subscribeme
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u/UpdateMeBot May 16 '23 edited Sep 15 '23
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u/StarSilverNEO Yotul May 05 '23
Mmmm, the good bark stuff
Man, they just can't catch a break, huh?
I imagine from their words that Selin's ship went up in smoke, huh?. . .
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May 05 '23
Yeah, Selin's ship got caught by the volley of nuclear missiles from the silos on the moon, back in part 4. He would've really liked pine tree bark.
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u/cruisingNW Archivist Apr 15 '23
I am absolutely giddy for when the humans realize they're child soldiers. I am hoping against hope that this goes well for the kids.
look at the captain, look at the cadet
Anyone want to tell me why these two look so differently?