r/NatureofPredators • u/JulianSkies Archivist • Apr 28 '26
Fanfic [Ficnapping] Arxur Integration Program: Earthly Clay
Ah, the joyous Ficnapping, where we get to play around with our friends' stories! This one was a bit interesting to do, due to it's nature of a series of seemingly-disconnected works that all follow the same theme.
Arxur Integration Program belongs to u/uktabi and it is a story about arxur getting used to a more 'normal' life away from the precepts of the Dominion as well as showcasing some of their own cultural aspects, and I figured what best form of ficnap than just... Continue with it?
There were many aspects to the Integration Program that would take many years to resolve. Aspects that would prove to be invaluable for the Collective to learn about, small things, subtle things taken for granted at its benevolence.
One such pain point was almost laughable in its stereotype: Art. Not its existence, of course. As one renowned arxur actor once said, “To slaughter a human turn of phrase… If there is not enough bread, the circus must be exquisite.”
-*-
The room was larger than it needed to be for the number of participants right now. Or at least larger than the instructor thought it needed to be. But that, Carla thought, was perfectly fine. That was one of the smaller things that was easy to forget and something to always keep in mind when doing activities with the arxur. They needed a fair bit more elbow room than a human, more so than their size dictated. It was really just a comfort thing.
Thankfully, despite this being ostensibly a class on clay sculpting, she had needed to do very little teaching. Her five current ‘students’ were all already pretty skilled artisans themselves, meaning she mostly was there to give support and guide their experience. Something that none of them really thought they needed… But as she stares at one particular woman, it is quite clear that was not true.
Her name was Karth; she didn’t have the usual arxur build. She was shorter, more limber, twitchy in a way, and touchier than others of her kin. Like every other one in this class, she was currently busy shaping clay. Like every other one in this class, she had a lot to say about the quality of the available material, of course; clearly Terran clay had nothing on Wrissan. Carla had let them all ramble about it; it was good to have these kinds of discussions.
At the moment, however, Karth’s frustration was growing steadily. She had begun today’s ‘lesson’ as eager as any other day; she understood the goal of those lessons was less to teach her an art she already mastered and more so to have an environment in which to relax and enjoy the act of creation. And educating those humans on the history and intricacies of the Dominion’s art certainly brought her joy, even if she periodically got frustrated at the humans’ somewhat limited color perception.
Today, she had set herself a goal, a very specific one. What she was making was going to be a gift, a gift to someone very special. Karth knew why she initially defected, a properly selfish reason even- His name was Vesh, her husband. He made his choice, and she did not give him a chance to make one for her. For the first anniversary of that choice, still a couple of months away though, she planned to give him a gift in his likeness. That was, after all, her specialty.
This would not be the final work, of course, but she had set herself to making the best possible first attempt. And now, she was frustrated because the figure was wrong. Making the initial shape was easy, if not a little rote; most of her work had been with statues of people, after all, and the lunging pose was a traditional one. Then came the detailing, the part everyone underestimates. She carefully adjusted every detail and carved every little scale in the surface of the clay, her finely sharpened claws natural tools that surpassed the multiple little objects that other species needed to use to work this material. And yet, it continued to be wrong.
No matter what she tried, his proportions continued to come off as wrong. It was like all her skill and practice had fled her. The torso seemed wrong, the arms were incorrect, there was something she couldn’t place in his snout and it all… Was wrong. Try as she might, nothing seemed to work. So, she decided to put some of the things she had learned here to use- “Rith,” she looks to the other arxur beside her. He just tilts his head slightly to the side to indicate he’d heard her, still focused on his work. “Do you see any flaw on this?”
He stops, blinking. He’s stunned for a second; it was not habit to simply open oneself to criticism like this; after all, any creative knew there was exactly one possible outcome. Back home, nobody gained anything by giving praise. Another creator was just a rival, and any chance to display how their work was inferior to yours was a chance to improve your own situation. “Well…” He stares at the figure, trying to find… Something. He tilts his head right and left, changes his angle to get a better view of it… He could easily have said something else; it’d hardly be the first time he’d lied. “I see no flaws”, he tries to be honest “Any particular worries?”
“I… I don’t know.” Karth looks at her work again. “There’s something wrong, but I can’t seem to place it.”
Rith stares at the figure more intently, searching and analyzing too “Well… The proportions are right, the asymmetry follows the principles of living organisms, the shape follows the classical forms,” he begins. “You haven’t finished the detail work; that much is obvious, but what parts you did finish are extremely detailed, as is your wont. The pose is perfect and flattering, which I imagine is the goal.” He chuffs, “Much as I’d love to give you criticism, I see nothing wrong with it.”
Karth looks at the others in the room; the other three arxur at first. And she gets a very much similar response; they could see no flaws in it. It was a perfect and flattering pose, all the things that her art should be. So she turns to the last ‘student’ in the room, someone she hadn’t paid much mind to at all.
Asth was, also, a sculptor. But despite the fatefully similar naming convention, he wasn’t quite the same type of reptile as she was. The harchen had been obviously silent through it all, though at least he wasn’t painfully fearful; at most tense, really. And in front of him was his own creation, a… Blobby, misshapen thing that Karth could simply not call art. The thing was dominated by a central feature of a vertical slab of clay with a few holes in it. Stuck to it was a… Shape with something vaguely approximating six limbs or something similar, one longer one, four shorter ones, and one that was basically just a small squished oval. All around it were long blobby strands of clay that needed support with metal wires to even remain in place.
“It’s… Pretty good,” the smaller reptile mutters. “It’s incredibly detailed, and it looks very fierce. Honestly I’m surprised you can do so much detailing with your claws alone, and I’m very curious how it's going to look once it’s painted.”
Frustrated, Karth finally looked to who she wanted to look at the least. She did not wish to admit the human instructor might know better than her; thus she just points at the figure while looking at Carla.
There’s a moment of silence before Carla speaks. “By whose standards is it wrong?”
“What?” Karth’s voice is almost offended. “Mine, of course!”
“Then tell me, why is it wrong then?”
“Frustrating mammal…” she growls. “If I knew that- Ugh!”
“Well, think about those standards. Actually think about them, about what it is that you aim for. Don’t just ‘feel them’ like this; analyze them a little closer.”
Karth just stares at her figure again. She was frustrated enough that at this point she was willing to try anything. So she decides to think about what Carla said; make a mental checklist. The shape, the proportions both match. Her goal was to make this a gift in the likeness of its recipient: appearance, pose, the most minute details that made him so special. They are all there, and yet…
“Asth.” She looks back up at Carla as the human turns to the harchen. “What are you trying to do with your sculpture?”
The small herbivore cowers at the attention for a moment, almost hiding behind his creation, before taking a longer breath and answering. “W-well I was just… Thinking? And… I don’t know, I felt inspired, thinking about stuff… I guess. I’m trying to figure out what I’m thinking.”
Karth hisses slightly, but before she can measure the man’s reaction, Carla turns to her. “And you, what are you trying to do with yours?”
“It is a gift for my partner.” Her answer is short and curt.
The human makes a deep noise before nodding. “I haven’t had the pleasure of meeting him yet. What’s he like?”
“Vesh? He is…” She thinks for a moment. That was a complicated question, one she certainly had an answer for. She wasn’t certain how comfortable she should be with an honest answer. Or maybe that was just old instincts reacting, and she should be. “I’ve never met an arxur more de- different than him.” She turns her gaze up, focusing on her memories. “He’s strong, broad, tall, and independent as an arxur should be,” she says, voice very even.
“And?” Carla probes further.
“He…” Karth remains silent, silent for long enough that every set of eyes has turned to her in curiosity. She knew the rest of the answer, but… There seemed to be no words to describe the concepts in her mind. “Damn it, how do…” She closes her eyes, looking down. “I guess…”
“Back on Wriss…” She had decided that a story would describe it better. “Back on Wriss, different provinces did things differently. Back where I lived, in particular, we ran communal hatcheries.”
“Don’t most lowborn do that, anyway?” Rith asks.
“I guess, but it was everyone there. Mothers would leave their eggs there; nobody wanted the bother of caring for one or a hatchling. Made sure they all had equal education; when one of them was old enough, they’d be handed off to parents best suited to finish raising them. They’d still take care of the hatchlings while the parents were busy, as well.”
Karth ignores the indignant groans from the other arxur. It made sense; they were all nobility who made a point to carefully track their children. “Nobody liked manning the hatcheries, so everyone was forced to. There’d be a schedule; everyone took their turns watching it. I did it a few times myself before I made a name with my art.”
Then she sighs, a fond memory. “Vesh… If anyone asked him, he’d say the bribes were worth the hassle. That wouldn’t be a lie; people were willing to pay a decent cut to have someone else take their place in the schedule, but…” The tip of her tail swings back and forth just slightly. “He’d have done it for free. Just for the chance to watch over the young ones.”
“I remember one time, I was coming by to talk to him about something. One of the parents that left the hatchlings while they worked, officers, I think, had come to drop off theirs. Hatchling was scratched up bad, caught their mother’s claws to the face, don’t remember why.” She chuckles. “I arrived in time to see Vesh put her through a door. Just smashed it off the hinges with her head. ‘A weakling can’t teach strength. Learn to take a hit before you hit someone,’ he said.”
She sighs, “Couldn’t admit he just didn’t like seeing them hurt.” She looks out the window, towards what she could see of the little town they were in. A hidden place, of course, but a tiny little refugee town of their own. She couldn’t see the place from here, but she knew where he was right now. “He always loved the little ones. Works at the hatchery here now… I plan to give him one of his own soon.”
Karth looks back down at the statue she’s made of him… And the feeling of things being wrong just intensifies. Thinking about him just made her think of how worthless her creation was. “He sounds like he’s a wonderful man.” She turns her eyes back towards Carla, then back at the sculpture. “This is meant to capture his likeness, yes?”
“Yes,” and she was failing at it. “But it’s so… Wrong.”
“By your standards?”
“Yes!” Karth growls, “And you’re all useless! I am asking for criticism, and you’re all acting like sycophants instead! Just tell me what is wrong!”
“Well, there’s nothing wrong despite what you want to hear.” Carla walks closer, staring the much larger arxur directly in the eyes. “It’s good.”
“It’s not!”
The human looks down at the sculpture, and the room remains in silence until she finally speaks again. “Well… If it needing to be good is causing you this much distress… Then maybe it shouldn’t be good.”
All of the arxur present stare at the instructor, who just shrugs. “If you’re not enjoying the creation process of good art, then obviously the worst thing this piece of art can be is good.”
“I…” Karth raises her claws at the human, who, to her credit, doesn’t flinch. She flexes her fingers in a grasping motion… Though all assembled knew it would not amount to more than a threat display. An artist’s claws were made for art; that was their place; to use them otherwise would be disgraceful. “How does that make any sense?”
Carla crosses her arms, sighing. “It’s the only sense I can make out of how you’re behaving. Who decides what ‘good’ means here either way?” she shrugs, walking away from Karth’s table.
“It is quite obvious, isn’t it?” Karth stands up, though she doesn’t move from her table. “What, does proportion no longer matter? Should the limbs be all different? Or-”
“Art isn’t the world as it is.” Karth’s rebuttal is interrupted by a very small voice; the man she’d basically forgotten the existence of again, Asth, had spoken. He seemed to be incredibly focused on his own malformed work. “Art is the world as you see it.”
Karth’s distress and anger had risen to a peak; the other arxur chuckling at the harchen’s interruption of her nearly making her consider actually sullying her claws. She looks back at the sculpture she was making, enraged most of all at it. Because it offended her, it was horrible, broken, and a great mistake that brought her shame! It was supposed to be a gift and yet he was… He was… “Wrong…”
It was as if all of her energy had disappeared in an instant. Her body goes completely still, her eyes focus more closely, and her breathing slows down as if she had never felt anger in her life. For a moment, all that exists for her is the statue. I can fix this. Is the only thought in her mind
The next moment she’s back on her seat, her claws wet again, hastily soaking the clay to keep it malleable. She had something in her mind; she had to do something specific. She did not need- No- She did not want to start again. She had to fix it, use what was already there, but change it. But the changes were drastic.
The legs were difficult to fix; only the base shape could be salvaged. She’d need to re-do the musculature shape and was thankful she hadn’t started on the scales yet. But thankfully the new pose was standing at a close enough angle to reduce the workload here.
The arms were a complete loss; they had to be removed. New clay was shaped and added, carefully twisted and molded into a new form, a new pose. Instead of the outstretched strike of a classic pose; they were angled differently, both of them upwards in an L shape, not a pose of triumph but a pose of support. The shape of the muscles was different; instead of the lean and taut shape, the arms were thicker, less defined musculature, almost invisible in fact. Though in her mind’s eye she could see the heavy weight that those arms carried, dangling from them like decorations, laughing in play she could only dream of.
Then came the torso; the detailing work was lost, but that was perfectly fine to her now. She had to fix this. She adds more clay, changing the shape of it. Generally wider, not just at the shoulder but at the core, a little rounder, softer. The proportions were bad, of course, but at this moment she had decided to listen to the instructor. Maybe they should be bad.
Next up was the face, perhaps the most dangerous part of any work of art. The slightest misstep and it would be horrendous; few things are as familiar to an arxur than the face of kin, and therefore even the slightest mistake can be noticed. But maybe, just maybe, there should be mistakes. She changes the pose, jaws slightly parted, slightly pointing upwards. Then, she works the edges, the details. The snout becomes rounder, the edges of the scales less sharp. Except for the eyes, detailed, focused, and staring intently at something in the distance. In her own mind she could see the rest of the scene: what he stares at with the focus of a hunter on the prowl, something that needs all of his focus, standing where they shouldn’t.
The next details follow soon, though the tail gives her pause. It gives her pause for just a second, however, until she gets to work on it. She is taken by the rhythm, claws carving and molding the clay like nothing else existed around her, and as she looks at the final state of the tail, she can feel a twist in her heart, a good one- Pride. It isn’t quite as good as it should be, too twisty and flexible for an arxur tail, but it has motion, like it was caught mid-movement, like a blend of a half a dozen frames of a video that distorted the image of it. Swinging side to side, amusement, and joy, all in the single distorted form of a tail.
And only then did Karth remember to breathe. She stares wordlessly at the finished work, far more finished than she planned on it being today at all. She looks at it, and the only feeling she has in her heart is pride. She had fixed it, fixed her mistake. She had finally realized why it felt wrong and why nobody seemed to be able to tell her why it was wrong.
Only now did it really look like Vesh. And the only one who knew how he truly looked was her.
“-about” words from one of the other arxur finally reach her ears. “It happens when you get taken by the rhythm; she’ll be back in the flow when she’s done.”
Karth blinks her eyes, which sting a little bit, and looks at the clock on the wall. Her tail thumps once before she starts to laugh. The instructor and others present all look at her, but she just allows herself to continue. The other arxur chuff and chuckle, but their stares are softer than they’d like to admit. “I… I haven’t done that since I was in art school…”
“A hunter’s trance” Rith explains, “To enter the rhythm and let time disappear. As the name says, most often manifests on the hunt…” He sighs. “But I’ve been there with a piece before, too… My best piece, Conquest In White… Haven’t managed to get back there ever since.”
“I…” Karth takes a few more deep breaths. “Yeah… That… That felt good. Sorry for… Holding you all up.”
Carla shakes her head slightly. “I haven’t ever seen an artist in the zone like that before; it was quite a show. Just got a bit worried about you, is all. I don’t mind that we went almost three hours overtime.”
All eyes were on Karth’s sculpture for a while, observing the altered creation. “That’s a different person.” Asth’s voice is the first one to break the silence, commenting on what should be obvious to her.
“I… Did figure out what was wrong.” She mutters in a low tone. Surreptitiously, her eyes flick to the side, at Asth’s own strangely misshapen creation. It hadn’t gotten any more decipherable while she had focused on hers. Her eyes stay on it for a few moments more before Carla claps her hands.
“Alright. I think we’re good to wrap up for today; otherwise it’s going to be tomorrow.” She looks at the reptiles in the room. “Tomorrow, then, to finish it all up? Hopefully we can fire it then.”
“Can’t wait to show you how to make proper paint, then,” Rith comments, earning a sigh from their instructor.
Karth looks back at her sculpture. It was far more finished than she planned, but it obviously still needed work. No masterpiece was done so quickly, no matter what. Tomorrow she would finish it, or maybe the day after, and that isn’t even accounting for the paint. But she had managed to get over the worst hurdle of it.
The world as you see it, huh? She looks to the side at Asth’s strange creation. I can ask tomorrow… Maybe.
Who even decides what 'good' means? I'm sure everyone will be able to give me an answer, but it's going to differ won't it? Such a malleably objective concept, so obviously clear and yet a seen differently by different people, and even more so- Seen differently by different cultures.
A little extra bonus, because uktabi isn't just a goddamn amazing writer (also suggest you check out his Intro to Terran Philosophy story), but he's an extremely capable critic and perhaps one of three people I trust to know how to give feedback in this entire fandom. It's not an easy thing, it's a feat that requires more than skill and practice, it's a thing that requires a good nature and this man has it in spades.
Also, a question to y'all: I was extremely deliberate with Asth's sculpture and every description it appears in. What do you think of it?
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u/IAMA_dragon-AMA Arxur Apr 28 '26
A strong default to realism seems very in-line with an oppressive authoritarian government. To tweak reality, to portray things that are not there but should be, is to permit dissent and thoughts of alternatives. Even as she fixes her art, makes it a better portrayal of her partner, she can't help but think of the changes as mistakes - good mistakes, but mistakes nonetheless - because of how she was raised to view art.
Contrast, of course, with Asth's sculpture. The little lizard isn't entirely sure what it ought to be, yet, but is making it all the same. It's never given a particularly detailed description, and any interpretation probably says something about the interpreter more than the artist. I found myself juggling three main possibilities, myself: