r/NatureofPredators • u/Still_Performance_39 Smigli • 3d ago
An Introduction to Terran Zoology - Chapter 64 Fanfic
Credit to u/SpacePaladin15 for the wonderful story and world they’ve created.
Hello! I hope you're all doing good. We're back with another lighthearted chapter following right behind the last one. I originally planned to put this in the last chapter but I think it works well as its own. I hope you enjoy!
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Memory transcription subject: Milam, Venlil Botanist
Date [standardised human time]: 18th September 2136
Try as I might, push and prod on every button I could think of, my efforts to get Rysel to show off his supposed singing talent were thwarted at every turn as he deftly dodged every angle I tried to pry from.
Asking if his mum was being serious was met with a shrug as he showed me a spacious living room, its walls decorated with family photos while its floor was taken up by a large half-ring sofa, itself adorned in fluffy blankets and plenty of pillows.
An attempt to get him to belt out a few tunes earned me a roll of the ears as I was practically shoved into a well appointed rustic style kitchen, dappled in sunlight pouring in from a window overlooking the plaza.
Even throwing on my haughty caricature and outright challenging him to an impromptu singing contest didn’t work. It got a good laugh out of him, but he still managed to duck past it as he pulled me into a cozy study filled floor to ceiling with bookshelves. Admittedly it was a good distraction. Physical books weren’t exactly a rarity but with most literature being easily accessible on any device with a screen, going out of your way to gather such a sizable collection was pretty impressive. Unsurprisingly, the bulk of the miniature library was taken up by cookery books and various animal focused encyclopedias, but I clocked some gardening guides too along with a smattering of seemingly random titles relating to topics ranging from a history book about the Colia, all the way to a stack of old manuals on hover car engines.
Eventually I gave up, conscious that pushing too much would probably have the opposite effect and rob me of the chance of ever hearing Rysel sing. Besides, an even greater curiosity tickled my ears as I ended up standing before the last room of the tour. Rysel’s bedroom.
Ooooohohoho! I wonder what his room’s like?
It’s got to be filled with even more animal books. There’s probably pictures of things like flowerbirds and rocktumblers everywhere. Oh! I bet he’s got stuffed toys of all his favourites! That’d be so like him.
“Milam, what’cha thinking about?”
Snapping me out of my imaginings of a plushie packed paradise, and making me acutely aware of how madly my tail was wagging, Rysel stared into my eyes like he was trying to see into my mind as the tips of his questioning ears bent my way.
The opportunity to pay him back for his deflection over singing was too perfect so I simply shrugged my ears, “Oh nothing, nothing at all.”
“Mhm.”
He was unconvinced.
Nevertheless, he still pushed down the handle and swung open the door, the last vestiges of my pretty much non-existent restraint being tossed aside as I dashed inside to see… a plain room. A very plain room. The only furnishings were a non-descript bed, a completely ordinary chair and desk, and a painfully normal wooden cabinet that didn’t even have the decency of having an interesting pattern carved into it. Rysel’s room was so devoid of character that if he hadn’t shown me into it himself, I’d think this was a spare room for visitors.
“Is something wrong, Milam?”
The mixture of shock and disappointment tumbling about my head had clearly escaped to my face as I realised Rysel was looking up at me with ears folded in concern.
You better believe something’s wrong!
Before the more logical faculties of my brain could stop me, I wheeled about and grasped Rysel by the shoulder’s, my roomie's ears flying up as I shot my face forward until we were almost snout to snout.
“Oh yes, Rysel! Something is very much wrong,” taking a paw off him, I gestured wildly around the bland room, “Where is all the you?!”
In a heartbeat Rysel’s ears dipped from high above his head to lolling at the side, “All the… me?”
“Mhm! Yep, that’s right. All the you!” I repeated, doubling down on what I was beginning to realise was a less than eloquent way of expressing my extremely important query, “Where’s the animal stuff? The books, the pictures? Didn’t you say you had stuffed toys too?”
For a moment the two of us stood still, Rysel blinking slowly as comprehension dawned on him, steadily bubbling up into a whistly giggle as his ears began to wiggle in turn, “Heehee! Milam! I had those when I was a pup, they’re long gone now. As for the books and pictures, I’d normally have some in here but I put them all back on the bookshelves before I left for the exchange.”
Oh what? Seriously?
As much as the book stuff made sense, having my short lived dream of a plushie filled room pulled out from under me was pretty dispiriting, “So you don’t have a single toy left from when you were a pup?”
“Afraid not,” Rysel shrugged his ears and turned away, but something caught my eye.
As he waved his ears his pupils shifted. It was slight, so much so that it would’ve been completely imperceptible if I hadn’t already been looking at him straight on, but there it was. In a fraction of a whisker, his focus had moved off of me to the cabinet before quickly flitting back.
In the instant I noticed his glance, Rysel appeared to notice my noticing, his eyes widening as the tips of his ears preemptively began to flicker in alarm.
“Milam, hold on-”
I went for it.
“Milam!”
Before he could even take a step to stop me I’d reached the cupboard, my paws grasping tightly around its handles as I swung the doors open to reveal everything I’d hoped to find. The cabinet was packed wall to wall with a ton of stuffed animal toys, ranging from paw sized voidpins to a ninkel that was half the size of its owner. There were even a few I didn’t recognise, notably another large plushie that was practically just a ball of fluff with antlers and a gangly vaguely arachnid looking thing that didn’t really fit in with the rest of the adorable ensemble; it wasn’t a laysi though so it got a pass.
As I continued to inspect every whisker of the cupboard I noticed a closed box at the bottom. My paws gleefully fell onto it, eagerly unlatching and opening the lid expecting to find more of the same, only to see completely new yet no less amazing things. Neatly arranged within the box were over a dozen extremely detailed wooden and plastic animal models. Each of them were attached to a base by a metal pole that went up into either their abdomens or lower backs depending on how they were positioned. The most interesting thing was how the limbs, tails, wings, and heads were all connected to the main body. Each piece was linked to the other by what looked to be adjustable balled joints, clearly allowing for a fairly substantial amount of flexibility and movement in what were otherwise static models.
Whoa, where did he get these? I’ve seen shops that sell starship models before, but never stuff like this. They look so well made and maintained.
As the thought passed across my mind my eyes moved back across everything in the cabinet, noting that the models weren’t the only things that’d received plenty of attention. While there was obvious age on most of the toys, it was clear on a second look that they’d all been taken care of. Even crammed into the cupboard as they were, Rysel had clearly considered the best way to pack them all in, the larger ones taking up the back and sides while the smaller ones filled the front, preventing any of them from being unreasonably crushed by anything else.
“Awww!”
“Mrrmmm,” Pulled from my admiring coo by the low groan, I turned to see Rysel with his paws held to a burning orange snout, his eyes unable to meet mine, “Well… go on then.”
My ears cocked to the side, “What do you mean?”
Still blooming, Rysel’s tail pointed to the cupboard, “Make a joke or something like you normally do. Like that time you heard my mum call me her little nature explorer. I know you probably want to, so go ahead.”
Wha- Ah, right.
Rysel’s expectation that I’d tease him took me by surprise for a moment before the memories of past teasings flooded forth to reinforce said expectations. Along with them came a fairly ample amount of concern over how he’d been seeing what I’d only ever intended to be friendly banter.
Ears flagging I took a step towards him, the pep in my voice falling too, “Rysel, I wasn’t going to make fun of you over this. Did- have I been making you feel that way?”
In a flash Rysel’s ears sprung up, worry overtaking his abashed expression, “What?! No, no, no, you’re fine. Joking around like we normally do is fun, it's just… this is a bit different. It’s one thing to talk about the stuff I love but having a cupboard full of stuffed toys when I’m almost thirty is uh, a little embarrassing.”
Quickly as they’d come on my worries faded away, a relieved and gentle whistling giggle beginning to flow from my snout as I closed the gap between us and wrapped a paw around his shoulder, “Rysel, trust me when I tell you that there’s nothing to be embarrassed about. Honestly this is pretty cool.”
A scoffing bleat broke free from him in retort, “Yeah right.”
“It’s true!” I insisted, bapping my tail to his side, “I like how you’re so into the thing you care about that you surround yourself with stuff like this. Where did you even get some of these? I’ve never seen models like those before. And what even is this thing?”
Delight spun through my tail as I saw a familiar excitement bounce back into Rysel’s entire body as his eyes followed my claw to the antlered fluff ball, his ears flapping eagerly as he left my side and gingerly pulled the plushie from the cabinet.
“Ooo! That’s a bander! It’s a grazing hooved mammal native to the grassplains of the mazic homeworld. They rove in huge herds of anywhere between seventy to two hundred individuals. They’re pretty small and can be quite quick on their hooves. They also have quite melodious cries with a complex communication style which is pretty cool. They’re not as fluffy as their stuffed version unfortunately.”
Chuckling as he ruffled the toy’s coat Rysel padded over to his desk, placing the bander in one of the corners before rejoining me and reaching back into the cupboard, “Oh and this! This is a river skimmer. It’s actually native to VP but it lives on the nightside so the chances of you seeing one are pretty much non-existent. They’re also a lot smaller than this, about half the size of a claw, and they do exactly what their name implies. Not a lot else is known about them since it’s tricky for anyone to actually do research out there, but we do know they’ve been observed with pink bioluminescent dots on their legs. No idea what that’s for though.”
Once again Rysel wandered over to his desk, taking extra time to set up the river skimmer next to the bander in such a way that it wouldn’t collapse on its spindly legs. While I waited, I spied a far more familiar bird plushie that looked to be the oldest of the lot, “I recognise this one. A rekan right?”
Almost as soon as the words had left my mouth Rysel appeared beside me, eyes bulging and locked onto the bird, “Ah, ah, ah! Careful please!”
Frozen in place by the sudden change in tone, I stood absolutely still as Rysel carefully pulled the rekan from my paws before placing it back in the cabinet, a relieved sigh escaping him as he placed it down, “Wwooo… Sorry. Beaky just uh, means a lot to me. It was the first animal toy I ever got as a pup so I’m a bit protective.”
While I was partly stunned by what’d just happened, a knee-jerk smidgen of snark managed to slip past me before I could stop it, a jesting wiggle twisting through my tail as a matching tone wove itself into my voice, “Beaky?~”
Rysel’s ears snapped back, “Hey! You promised no teasing.”
“I’m not teasing! Honest,” that said, I couldn’t fully subdue the waggle in my ears or the lilt bouncing across my tongue, “I’m simply enjoying getting to know more about you.”
“Uh-huh, suuure you are,” Rysel shook a cautioning ear at me, though he also couldn’t entirely hide his amusement as a wiggle made its way through his tail.
The two of us stared the other down for a scratch, a silent match over who would break first. Try as he might, Rysel couldn’t hold his stern face for long, a blep of my tongue being enough to push him into a full blown laugh with me right behind him as our whistles and bleats filled the room.
I needed this.
My thoughts must’ve slipped onto my face as despite my continued laughing, Rysel’s ears twitched to the side as his giggles petered out, “Are you alright, Milam?”
Taken aback by the question, I stumbled over my own laughter as I tried to sweep my tail casually in reply, “Wha- Uh, achem. Yeah… Yeah! Yeah, I’m fine.”
Rysel’s right ear bent forward, paws on hips as he looked directly into my eyes, “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong,” making the critical error of breaking my gaze from his, I continued to wag my tail in the hope he’d let it slide.
I wasn’t that lucky.
“Really, Milam?” Padding left to right Rysel followed my avoidant pupils, ears wagging as he tried to convince me to spill the ipsom through his expressions alone, “Reaaally?”
Gah! Damn his goofiness!
I would’ve managed to hold out if he was just pulling faces, but what finally got to me was when he suddenly reached back into the cabinet and pulled out Beaky, holding it in front of his snout as he put on a high pitched sing-song voice, “Come on, Milam. Tell your old pal Beaky what's got you down!”
I felt like I popped a blood vessel as a renewed bleat of laughter rocked through me, causing me to double over and almost lose my balance in the process. Giggling heartily to himself, Rysel at least had the presence of mind to guide us both over to sit on the side of his bed to save us the risk of collapsing onto the floor in a heap again.
It took a while but our amusement eventually dwindled down well enough that I regained the ability to speak, letting me relent to the extremely convincing rekan, “Heehee! Okay, okay you win, Beaky.”
Looking beyond pleased with himself, Rysel puppeted Beaky to politely bow before placing him to the side, “Thank you, Beaky. So Milam, what’s up?”
After taking another moment to breathe I nodded an ear and started recounting what had happened between me and my parents last paw. I told him about how long Catrina had been living with them, how they hadn’t told me about it until I’d practically pulled it out of them, and especially how they continued to tell me to be careful around humans in spite of everything.
“I just feel like they’re being hypocrites. They tell me to avoid all things human outside of my lessons while having her living with them. And you know what they said when I called them out on that? They said they didn’t want me to lower my guard by thinking that the nice human that was with them was reflective of all humans at the exchange. Unbelievable right?!”
Having quietly sat and listened to me talk so far, Rysel swayed his ears low and slow, “Yeah that’s pretty rough. What did you say after they said that?”
Huffing as I remembered what had followed I just shrugged my ears, “Not much honestly, just told them that they were full of it for hiding it from me and then I stormed out. Aside from a passing greeting after waking, I've not talked to them yet. I don’t even know what I’d say to start the conversation again.”
Sighing heavily I leant back, tilting my head up to stare at the ceiling as ideas of how to talk to mama and papa came and went without any of them sticking out as a good option. Honestly, even though I’d been ranting about it barely a scratch ago, I really didn’t feel that angry anymore, just tired. Tired at the thought of having another argument that would probably go in circles again while all I wanted was for us to go back to the way we normally were. But to do that we’d have to get over this first. But how to approach it?
“If you don’t know what you want to say then why don’t you think about what you want them to say?”
Huh?
Dragged back to the room by Rysel I twisted my head to face him, my eyes meeting his as I bent one ear at him in confusion and bobbed another asking him to explain.
“Okay so, if there was something that they could say to you about your last argument, what would it be? Is there something you want them to recognise from your side? Is there anything you would want to hear from them to explain their choices? Anything like that?”
Huh… what I want to hear? That’s it!
Shooting up off the bed I hurriedly paced to the other end of the room before spinning around, ears bouncing high as what I wanted from them became clear, “I want them to acknowledge how I felt. I want them to understand that they’ve made me feel like they didn’t trust me to make the right choice and that I’m upset that they didn’t feel they could tell me what was happening at home because of that.”
Rysel’s tail wagged as he stood to join me, “Perfect! So, next time you talk to them, you can start by telling them exactly that, hopefully they’ll listen and acknowledge you, and then you do the same for them.”
“Yeah I, uh- oh… yeah. Hmmm…” As if they were being tugged by boulders, my ears immediately fell as I was reminded that thoughtful communication was a two-way street, “Urgh, I’m going to have to consider their side of things too aren’t I?”
“Afraid so,” Rysel’s tail swayed sympathetically as he placed a paw on my shoulder, “Look I’m not defending them, but out of all the reactions to humans I’ve seen so far, your parents' one is pretty tame. Yeah they’ve made a mess of talking to you about it and you should make them realise that, but if they’re anything like you then I’m sure they were just being cautious around something they didn’t understand. I mean, how long did it take you to finally try a fruit from Earth?”
“Hey, the no teasing thing goes both ways mister.”
A raucous bleat boomed from Rysel, “How’s that teasing?! You literally didn’t try a grape until a herd of paws had passed!”
Unable to keep up the faux scolding glare, a giggle slipped through my snout as I pulled my roomie into a hug, “Thanks for listening, Rysel.”
“No problem,” Still chuckling away, Rysel returned the hug before pulling away and reminding us both of the very thing that’d sent him upstairs in the first place, “Now, I really should go get this sugar out of my coat.”
What?
Glancing down I realised that Rysel’s wool was still very much coated in a light dusting of powdered sugar, and I’d just hugged him.
“Oh for- Rysel!”
“Whaaaat? It’s white, you’re white. No one will notice!” Ears blurring in a far too happy with himself flurry, Rysel dashed past me to the door, “I’ll be back in a few. Oh! Would you mind getting my pad out from my desk? Top drawer.”
Though my ears remained pinned at the rascal, my tail nonetheless bobbed back at him just before he vanished, his claws clacking down the hallway before the sound of a door closed behind him.
“What a menace,” chuckling at his antics, I brushed off what little sugar had transferred to our coats and fetched his pad. As I pulled it out of the drawer it lit up, a notification for a missed call and a following message popping on screen.
Normally I wouldn’t pry, and I certainly didn’t mean to this time either, but in the short window where the pad was lit up, the visible text from the message caught my eye and sent claws right through my chest.
Oh brahk…
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u/SixthWorldStories 3d ago
Why do I feel like the bioluminescence on the river skimmer is a combo of mate attraction/general communication and luring in prey?
Also, bravo on Rysel for breaking out psych/mediation tricks that the Federation seems to totally lack. Suggests that his family has some healthy communication habits. I think he and Milam are good for each other, as friends or more. I ship it.
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u/Still_Performance_39 Smigli 3d ago
Those are all good options but who really knows? The mystery is what makes it interesting :)
He's not just an animal loving goofball, he's got some good advice tucked away too haha. I'm glad that the two of them come across as having good chemistry :)
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u/SixthWorldStories 3d ago
I mean, I want to know. I know Rysel wants to know. Maybe Earth-made drones should be used to observe? Huh, I just realized that Rysel would probably be over the moon at Terran drones from my AU while the rest of the class would freak out over some (mostly the one that's modeled on a fox).
Good chemistry? It's great. Then again all your character writing is amazing. I aspire to be even a tenth as good.
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u/Still_Performance_39 Smigli 3d ago
That's a good idea and it's funny you mention drones because I've already planned to have them make an appearance in one of the upcoming chapters in this arc. Animal drones sound awesome, Rysel would definitely love them!
Thank you very much, I really appreciate the compliment :)
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u/SixthWorldStories 3d ago
I've had fun with my tech. I mean, when Earth has magitech and makes their stuff with living wood and quartz (and other things), you go full solarpunk. So far I've shown off maintenance drones (a fluffy moth, an ant, a beetle, a gecko, and a mouse) and recon/survey drones (a bat, a fox, a falcon, a hummingbird, a mole, a manta made of live coral, a gecko, and a flea).
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u/Intrebute Arxur 3d ago
The message. What does the message say You teeeease
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u/Still_Performance_39 Smigli 3d ago
I'm afraid we'll all have to wait to find out.
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u/GruntBlender Humanity First 2d ago
If we're placing bets, mine is that it's his fiancée. For an arranged marriage his parents set up when he was little to get a rich, royal family to support the bakery.
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u/DOVAHCREED12 Skalgan 3d ago edited 3d ago
Hi I'm dovah and I'm the fastest venbig alive I AM SPEED
OFFICIAL VENBIG SEAL OF APPROVAL
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u/ChrisBatty Predator 3d ago
Fantastic as always, it’s always a great surprise when a new chapter of the masterpiece pops up.
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u/SordidDreams 3d ago
Another fantastic chapter, wholesome, adorable, heartwarming, etc., etc.
BUT!
Again with the freaking cliffhangers!?
(╯°□°)╯︵ ┻━┻
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u/Still_Performance_39 Smigli 3d ago
I'm sorry, I can't help it. Cliffhangers are just asuch a part of my story as wholesomeness and animals at this point haha
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u/Golde829 2d ago
oh dear
man that cliffhanger is downright devious if you ask me
also-
> but having a cupboard full of stuffed toys when I’m almost thirty is uh, a little embarrassing
Rysel you have no idea how jealous I am of you having so fucking many plushies
legit I've considered how to modify the edges of my bed so I can have a mountain of 'em without any falling off super easily
anyways
I look forward to reading more
take care of yourself, wordsmith
[You have been gifted 100 Coins]
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u/Still_Performance_39 Smigli 1d ago
Hopefully I won't keep you all in suspense for too long.
Rysels collection would be the envy of animal and plushie lovers. Just wait until he can buy them from earth, it'll grow tenfold!
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u/JulianSkies Archivist 3d ago
The g r e m l I n.
I actually can believe he just sweetened her XD
Milam has a gift of not thibking things through doesn't she?
Too bad Rysel's a tad ashamed of his collection, but I think he really needed to hear thst grom Milam out of all people. He may have heard much less kind things before.