Memory transcription subject: Silvon, venlil biologist
Date [Standardized human time]: August 18th, 2148
[Day 11]
Danny hasn’t been his usual self since last night. I keep asking him what’s going on, but he dodges the question or just hides away within himself. I think it was bad. Real bad. Even Mom and Dad were concerned. He hardly touched his food and flinched when I tried to hand him a fork since he has trouble with venlil utensils.
After lunch, he excused himself to the guest bedroom. I’m determined to find out what’s wrong! I carefully creaked open the door, “Danny?” I called.
“Hey,” his voice emanated from the bed. He was wrapped up in blankets, the blinds shuttered.
“You doing okay?” I asked, mentally reprimanding myself for such a stupid question.
“Yup, peachy. Just a bit tired is all,” he said reassuringly. I shook my head.
“I know you when you’re tired, this is not it, Danny,” I said, “Please, talk to me. It’s okay.”
I reached out a paw to move the mass of blankets obscuring him. His big, beautiful brown eyes were broken and teary. I’d never seen him like this. “I told you, I’m okay,” his voice was shaky. He was failing to hide it, which only made it break more.
I put my arms around him, he finally welcomed my embrace and sobbed into my fur.
“I’m sorry,” he sniffled, “I’m so sorry.”
“Sorry for what, Danny?” I asked carefully.
“The guy- the note,” he sobbed. The note with the knife, I definitely remember. “I came home from work- he was in our home,” his sobbing intensified. I gripped him closer, whispering “Everything’s okay, you’re okay.”
“I’m not okay,” he heaved, “I- I’m a monster- I- I killed him, Silvon,” his tone grew darker, he broke away like he was afraid he’d hurt me too. “It’s probably- the news, I killed-” he fell into hysterics.
I pressed my lips to him, we broke apart and I held him again, “You had no choice, Danny. You did the right thing,” I cooed.
“Did I?” he sobbed.
“You did. I love you, Danny. Nothing can change that,” he held me tighter.
~~~
Memory transcription subject: Governor Maulo of the Venlil Republic
Date [Standardized human time]: August 18th, 2148
[Day 11]
“Governor?” Servaen’s voice called. I opened an eye, my bedroom was dark. Light fluttered in through a crack in the door. I could just make out an emerald eye gazing in. I could’ve sworn I told him not to bother me while I was asleep. “Governor?” he echoed.
I slid out of bed, “Yes, Servaen?” I mumbled, still dreary from the rude awakening. I pushed open the door and shuffled out, squinting in the bright light.
“I got today’s statistics- it really couldn’t wait-” he seemed jumpier than usual. With shaky paws, he popped open his holopad. On the screen was footage of more riots in Ransu. It was pure chaos, not a single other species but venlil were seen.
“The Secretary-General called for an emergency evacuation, it’s getting really bad. We don’t know how many have made it out of the city so far-” he hurriedly caught his breath while I processed this.
“So he pulled out the peacekeepers? What the f- what are we supposed to do to contain this?” I asked.
“Not just the peacekeepers, just about any human in the city has been discretely ordered to an evac site on the south border. They’re doing the same in Beiton,” he explained.
There is absolutely no fucking way that was legal. “I guess humanity are citizens of the UN, but he’s left us completely defenseless!” I cried.
“Maybe not completely,” Servaen got a devious look on his face. “The extremists were originally inspired by the old federation ideals. If maybe we got exterminators-”
“Absolutely not,” I growled, “We defunded them for a reason! Stars forbid we give them free rein to just incinerate people again.”
“Maybe not incinerate them, but command them. We secure Ransu’s and neighboring city’s borders with exterminators. It might just get them to settle down and actually stay in place.”
I weighed my options here, the Peacekeepers did fine until the stampede, we have absolutely no way to be sure exterminators would get anything done, except maybe piss off Humanity First. On the other hand, the Skalgan Flu was spreading faster than ever. I sighed heavily, “Fine. Get me in contact with some guild reps and I’ll see about allocating some funding. The first sign of anything going wrong, and I’m cutting it again,” I said firmly.
Servaen nodded hastily and retreated down the hall. I entered my office, made myself comfy in my chair, and ordered myself some coffee. It was going to be a long paw.
~~~
Memory transcription subject: Captain Reivaan, of the Ransu City Exterminator Guild
Date [Standardized human time]: August 18th, 2148
[Day 11]
We were holed up in the exterminator’s office. The shit going on outside was no concern to us, we had work to be done. Since the war, we’d been relegated by those scummy predators to nothing more than basic police work. We didn’t even keep the streets safe anymore, just investigated crimes that humans could solve. It was awful, but the pay was good.
I clicked away on a computer, logging today’s busy work and forwarding it to the RCPD. My holopad vibrated loudly on the desk, drawing the attention of the cubicles next to me. I used to have my own office before our funding was cut.
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It was a call on our emergency line, one that was rarely in use anymore. I glanced at the number, it was a Capitol City area code.
I answered and the features of a brown-furred venlil in a formal blue and white cloak appeared. He had incredibly dark bags under his eyes and nursed a cup of coffee. “Governor Maulo,” I failed to hide the surprise in my voice.
“Captain Reivaan, yes?” He asked, taking another swig of coffee.
“That’s me,” I answered.
“Good. We have much to discuss and not a lot of time. You’re no doubt well aware of the situation in the city, right?” he asked.
I nodded, “Yeah, fuckin’ predator’s disease driving everyone-”
“Skalgan Flu,” he corrected flatly, “There’s good money in what I’m about to offer you. Drop the anti-human rhetoric.”
Fine. “Understood,” I said calmly. “What’d you call us for?”
“The UN has pulled all peacekeepers out of the city, which means there’s nobody to keep watch of the city borders and maintain order. I figure a lot of the extremists in the street look up to the exterminator guilds, so I’ll cut you a deal,” he explained.
“Go on,” I urged.
“You secure the borders, keep people from moving out and infecting more cities, by any peaceful means necessary, and I’ll restore funding to your guild. If you don’t accept this, more people will die,” his face was grim and his voice was dark.
I thought for a moment, it was insane putting my exterminators in charge of an entire city, but we could make it work. There’d always be people pushing back, but far less than there were when the humans were here. They’re more likely to trust someone who won’t shoot and kill them.
“Yeah, sounds like a deal to me. But we might need more people. We’ve got too much ground to cover, and a lot of exterminators quit after the war,” I said.
Governor Maulo nodded, “We’ve already made arrangements with a few other guilds. We’ll be flying people in tomorrow to aid you. We want you to make an announcement to the people as soon as you can, use the old airwave broadcasters, I’m sure you still remember how to use them.” The governor’s figure melted away as the line hung up.
A ping appeared in my email inbox, it was a video of another exterminator captain a few cities over, announcing to the people that we were securing the city and that we had their best interests at heart, along with some further reassuring mumbo jumbo.
Fucking finally! Something to actually do! I leaped up from my chair and practically skipped to our storage room. An old mess of broadcasters was sitting collecting dust. Back before the war, we’d use these to automatically override TVs and holopads to display warnings of predator attacks or raids.
I flicked a few switches on the old machine, working entirely off muscle memory I thought I lost cycles ago. The screen lit up and I uploaded the email to it. The tech was real old, so it took a moment to prep the video file fully. Once all was said and done, I rewatched it to ensure it wasn’t corrupted. Finally, I clicked broadcast.
~~~
Memory transcription subject: Silvon, venlil biologist
Date [Standardized human time]: August 18th, 2148
[Day 11]
It was cold and overcast, sometime last night we’d gotten a light sprinkling of snow. Me and Danny walked along the freshly iced sidewalk hand in paw. It took a lot of convincing to just get him out of the house again, but he seemed to be getting better quickly. This time of cycle a lot of traders from far-off planets came to sell goods for the upcoming holiday season. Danny compared it to Christmas, a human gift-giving holiday.
The town square was packed with vendors, I spied krakotl, yotul, gojid, and even a couple of tilfish and farsul. A lot of the shoppers were venlil, but the town had gotten a surprising amount of humans since the last time I was here. Everyone was in high spirits, and I could see that starting to work on Danny.
We stopped for a moment on the bridge, watching the water rush past. “This is probably my favorite spot in town,” Danny said, wispy condensation puffing from his mouth. A burzick swam by beneath us. They were apparently similar to ducks on Earth and one of the many creatures humans reintroduced to our ecosystem after the war. It honked at us as it passed along, followed by a line of small, fluffy babies.
“It’s nice here,” I agreed. It was a bit chilly, I could feel my teeth start to chatter.
Danny tilted his head to look at me and smiled softly, then put a warm arm around me.
“So is all that fur just for show?” He joked.
“Maybe,” I replied, snuggling into his warm embrace.
“I’ll buy you a coat when we get to town,” he said.
We continued walking along. Danny slipped on a patch of black ice, I couldn’t suppress my giggles as he ran in place for a solid 5 seconds before landing square on his ass. “It’s not funny, Sillvy!” He said, cracking into a big goofy grin. I helped him up. “Okay, maybe it’s a little funny.”
Finally, we made it to the town square. It was bustling with activity and happy people. I’d never seen the community so together! In previous years, especially just after the war, there was so much animosity between everyone. Now everyone was freely mingling without judgment.
A few brave humans even dared food stands, boasting imitation meat of course, which was popular among the more daring foodies. I felt less uncomfortable holding hands with Danny in public. I was afraid of being judged by how taboo interspecies relationships are.
He tugged my paw and pointed toward a stand selling really warm, fluffy jackets. “That sign says it imitates venlil fur,” he said. It was written in English, with poorly translated venlil beneath reading ‘venlil hair shirt’. Ew!
We strolled up to the vendor, a human who looked a bit younger than Danny, with an older man comfortably lounging in a folding chair behind. Both resembled each other, I figured the older human was the father.
“Hey,” Danny greeted, “How much for one of the sweaters?”
“12 creds,” the vendor responded smoothly. Danny nodded and dug the credit chip out of his wallet, then slid it into the reader on the stall. “Pleasure doin’ business,” the older human chimed in from the back. He cracked open a can of beer and waved us along.
Danny wrapped the coat around me, it was unbelievably cozy and made me look even puffier. “How does it look?” I asked, squirming fruitlessly to get my tail out from under it. I blushed as he lifted the back of the sweater to free it.
“You look great, Silvvy,” he said.
We kept walking, the stalls made a labyrinth in the town square. Danny kept sniffing at the air, a hungry look in his eyes. I wish I had a nose so I got what all the fuss was about with aromas. He tapped me on the shoulder, I almost didn’t feel it through the coat. “Hey, Silvvy, look over there,” he pointed toward a stall where humans were pounding and tossing dough up in a showy manner. “Have you ever had pizza?” He asked.
I shook my head. I’d definitely seen it around during college, but I never worked up the nerve to try it. We walked over together, I was a bit more comfortable around meat substitutes now, and Danny had me try plenty over the cycles. Besides, this looked vegetarian enough.
He ordered me a slice with just cheese, which to my understanding was some kind of moldy animal milk. He got himself one with thin red slices of meat called pepperonis. There were picnic tables set up next to the stall, and plenty of other people were sitting around enjoying all kinds of food from all over the galaxy.
We found an empty spot and Danny immediately dug in. I was a bit squeamish, staring down the triangular slice. Finally, I slowly lifted it to my mouth and took a bite, absolutely incredible.
“You like it, Silvvy?” he asked.
“Mmhm!” I nodded, taking another bite. It was delicious! I really was missing out on some great food! Danny had already finished his slice. He wiped grease onto some napkins, and cradled his head in his hands, watching me with a dreamy look in his eyes.
“How often do I tell you how adorable you are?” He asked.
I swallowed the pizza, “About every day,” I smiled.
“Have you thought about our honeymoon much?” He asked.
I shook my head, finishing off the crust and cleaning my paws on the napkins.
“It can be anywhere you want, doesn’t matter to me,” he said.
“As long as you’re with me, Danny, we could have it here for all I care. I love you so much.”
“I love you too, Silvvy.”
We kissed, warming each other's lips, not caring about the people staring. My Danny was feeling better, and I couldn’t be happier. I melted into his arms as the snow began to fall again.