Memory Transcription Subject: Rosi, Yotul Housewife

Date [standardized human time]: November 19, 2136

“Wait, shit, it’s just a Yotul,” said the predator. A faint bright outline encircled the cabinet door as the lights came back on. I cowered in the back, as far from the door as I could scooch, shaking, trying not to completely give in to panic. Panic had already led me to this dead-end useless hiding place. I need to find a way out. There had to be a way out!

Nikolo, I'm sorry I couldn't get to you in time, I thought, tears in my eyes. I'm sorry I never got to say goodbye…

I heard two voices outside, arguing, too quietly for me to make out. A pair of humans debating who had the right to eat me, probably. One clearly won, as I heard a slightly higher-pitched feminine voice address me. Less growly, but still a bit raspy. The human’s mate?

“Hey. I wanna apologize for my human friend. He's kind of a jerk sometimes, but he's learning.”

My eyes narrowed. The Gojid. I'd grown up during the Federation uplift of my species. Most of my schoolteachers had been aliens. Even without my translator chip, I recognized the cadence of her language. Gojids hadn't been the worst teachers, but they’d been, by far, some of the most pretentious. Phrases like “he’s learning” or “she doesn't know any better” or even just “poor little primitive uplifts”. Pfeh! We'd already invented steam engines by the time the Federation had shown up. The leap forward to space travel had been jarring, sure, but we were already industrializing. They treated us like we'd been living in mud huts and foraging!

Still… the Gojids’ specieswide penchant for cultural chauvinism came paired with an honorable streak. A Gojid might lie to you, sure, but only the way a mother at her wits’ end might lie to a naughty child to get them to behave. A bit of “Sorry, that was the last cookie, you can't have another tonight” as she puts the cookies away on a high shelf for tomorrow's dessert, that sort of thing. A Gojid would only lie to you if they thought it was for your own good.

Luring me outside to get eaten by a predator, notably, would not be for my own good.

“Is it safe for me to come out?” I asked, my eyes narrowing in suspicion.

“Of course,” said the Gojid. “David only says mean things. He doesn’t physically hurt people.”

Probably a white lie to set me more at ease. “Will you protect me if he attacks?”

The Gojid laughed. “He won’t.”

My hackles raised. “But what if he does?”

“Hmm.” There was a long pause as the Gojid considered the question. “If it turns into a fight? Yeah, I think the two of us could take him.”

I nearly choked on my own spit. “You think we can fight a predator?!”

“I think we can fight this one, specifically,” she offered. “An Arxur would be trouble, sure, but a human? They’re squishy, and not particularly adapted for close-quarters fighting. Just kick his legs out a bunch, and I’ll handle the rest.”

My legs tapped against the bottom of the cabinet, idly, as I weighed over whether to trust the Gojid’s confidence. She couldn’t be lying, but she might be mistaken. Still… it was the best chance I was likely to get to escape with my life and organs intact.

I slowly, cautiously, opened the cabinet door, and came out. The human was at the far end of the room, unarmed and empty-handed, just watching with his terrifying, piercing eyes. And the Gojid was the same one who worked for him behind the bar. The one from that odd ball game who showed off that her human was as tame as an old farmhouse’s pet hensa.

“Where is my husband?” I demanded, eyeing them up suspiciously.

The human raised an eyebrow in confusion. The Gojid just looked concerned about me. She put a reassuring paw on my shoulder. “I can say with complete confidence that you are the only Yotul in the building,” she said.

“We’re closed,” the human added. “The last customer left over an hour ago.”

I sank back down onto the floor in despair as the last strength in my legs gave out. My poor Nikolo was already dead. Or, worse, he was at some dark predatory coven elsewhere, beyond my reach. And it was worse: getting eaten by predators at least didn’t condemn his immortal soul the way that consorting with them did.

I wept.

“Are you alright?” asked the human, clearly mocking me.

“No!” I shouted. The only thing predators like him understood was strength, so I had to show some. For Nikolo. “I don’t know where my husband is! I don’t know if he’s dead or damned.”

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The human recoiled in confusion. “...those are the only two options?”

The Gojid shushed him, and turned back to me. “Have you tried calling him?” she asked.

I scoffed. “No, if he’s dead, he won’t pick up, and if he’s at some… dark blood cult meeting or something, he’s not going to pick up, either.”

The Gojid sighed like a teacher frustrated with an overly thick-headed student, but she soldiered on. “How about you leave him a little text message, and we see what happens?”

“Fine,” I said. Probably faster to settle the matter that way. I carefully kept one eye on the human while I pulled out my holopad and sent a quick note to Nikolo. ‘Where are you? Dinner’s gone cold. I went to the Carnival to check on you, but you weren’t there.’ There. If he was alive, then at least he’d be able to retrieve my bones if the human ate me. I scowled at the human. He probably didn’t have the jaw strength to crunch my bones like an Arxur, but there was always the possibility of tool use to make up for his physical deficiencies.

“Alright,” said the Gojid. “Why don’t you take a seat for a bit. Maybe I can get you some warm tea? On the house, of course.”

I coughed. My mouth was a bit dry, and it was nearly winter outside. The kitchen itself wasn’t kept all that warm, either, with the ovens having gone cold for the night. I shivered, and only part of it was from fear. “Sure. Thank you.”

The Gojid nodded, and left the kitchen.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa!” I shrieked, scurrying after her in a panic. The human was still watching me from the corner of the kitchen. “Don’t leave me alone with him!”

The human, in what I assumed was a small kindness, covered his eyes with a single palm.

“Sure, come along, then,” said the Gojid. She was sounding frustrated, but understanding. “We can talk at the bar, if you like. He’ll stay in the kitchen. You can see him from here.”

“It’s my bar, you know,” muttered the human, and the Gojid shushed him again. He sighed, but stayed put.

I took a tall stool and pulled it closer to the bar, making sure to angle it so I could keep one eye on the human. The other eye… well, clearly the human was lying and acting territorial: the bar itself was a beautiful piece of old worn wood, good as you’d see in any pre-contact tavern back on Leirn, and no hunting species could have had such a knack for fine woodwork. And the bottles along the back wall were far too well-stocked for anyone but a proper agrarian species like a Yotul or a Gojid. The Gojid herself, clearly the real master of the bar, set a steaming cup of hot water and fragrant flower buds in front of me. “Couple minutes to steep,” she said, even though the tea already smelled like a warm garden in late spring. “So, uh… You look a bit familiar. Have we met already, or…?”

I flicked an ear in acknowledgement. “Yes, at the ball game. My husband and I were first in line. Nikolo…” I tried not to cry, with how worried I was about him. “Uh, and I’m Rosi.”

The Gojid nodded like a human. Odd, but I supposed her ears and tail didn’t have the length for more traditional gestures. “I’m Chiri Garnet, and this is David Brenner.”

My snout crinkled in confusion. “Two names?” Why did Garnet sound familiar…

Chiri nodded again. “Yeah, it’s common on Earth to take a family name,” she said. “When I decided to start a life here, I took the name of my family’s old winery.”

My eyes widened as a memory clicked into place. I remembered, as a young girl, a day not that long after first contact, my father excitedly rolling a huge steel keg--imagine, having space-age foundries smelting steel so plentifully that you could make something as silly as a keg out of it!--that he’d purchased at a starport from a Gojid trader. Took my dad nearly an hour just to figure out how to open the damned thing, but then out poured this sweet fizzy wine from beyond the stars. He even let me try a little, young as I was, just because it was such a special occasion. Even with a markup for how expensive it was to find, the keg sold out in a single evening of service. Half the town showed up at our tavern that evening just to try it for the novelty, and then they ordered seconds and thirds until it ran dry because it was so delicious.

“You’re from Garnet Orchards?!” I said, my eyes wide.

“Hm? Yeah,” said Chiri. “I’m happy you’ve heard of me. Well, my family’s business, at least.” She turned back to glance at the bottles on the wall. “I don’t have any of our wine to sell, but I’ve managed to mix a few local things together into a fairly convincing mimicry. Prosecco, plum wine, cherry cordial, couple others…”

I opened my mouth to ask for one, but the human fidgeted, and my mouth clicked shut. “Best, perhaps, to keep my wits about me,” I said stiffly.

Chiri looked towards the human, then back to me, and sighed. “Rosi… if you're this worried about humans, why did you come to their homeworld?”

“Well… why did you?” I shot back.

Chiri stared at me incredulously. “My planet was destroyed.”

Oh. Right. That had been on the news. Humans and Arxur fighting over control of the Gojid Cradle, and humans stealing away as many Gojids as they could to keep them out of Arxur maws. And the Arxur had bombed the planet barren afterwards. Monsters.

My head sank a bit lower in shame as I answered Chiri's question. “I came to Earth because my husband Nikolo thought he could find good work. I thought it was stupid and reckless, but what else was I going to do? Let him go alone without me?”

My holopad buzzed, startling me so abruptly that I nearly fell out of my seat. I bobbled it in my paws as I read the note from Nikolo. ‘Sorry, couple guys from the build site were having a few beers at a coworker’s place, and I lost track of the time. Go ahead and eat without me.’

I put the holopad back down on the bar, buried my face in my arms on the wood next to it, and screamed quietly.

“You good?” asked Chiri, putting a paw on my shoulder.

“He’s out drinking with friends from work!” I groaned. “Good for him. Must be ffffflipping nice!”

Chiri tried not to chuckle at my minced oath. “I’m guessing you don’t get out much on your own?”

I sighed. “No. I don’t know anyone yet, and it’s too terrifying to go outside alone when it’s not a matter of life or death like tonight.”

Chiri nodded. “Look, a healthy relationship can’t just be about the other person, you know? It’d be good for you to find some of your own things to fill the days. Hobbies, friends, maybe even a job of your own.”

I looked up at Chiri, bleakly. “A job? I mean, sure, we could use the extra income, but be realistic. There’s hardly any businesses open nearby, and the only practical skills I have involve running a tavern. Who in the world would hire me?”

Chiri preemptively shushed David, but he cackled over in the background anyway, and nothing would quiet him.