The Foundations of Humanity 40 (000) - an NoP fanfic
Thank you u/SpacePaladin15 for establishing the Nature of Predators Universe, and for allowing Fanfics to flourish!
Thank you again, u/R0senkr3uz, u/Braquen, u/Acceptable_Egg5560, u/BiasMushroom721, and last but not least u/Liberty-Prime76 for proofreading!
And thank you to u/OnlyOneSyllable’s for his art of Maeve’s Lessons , and for the Hug , u/Braquen ‘s Group Photo , and u/ImaginationSea3679 ‘s Several Drawn Works of my characters! It is so wonderful seeing these characters come to life on the page.
Memory transcription subject: Maeve, Temporary Resident of Venlil Prime.
Date [standardized human time]: Sept 15th, 2136. Late 3rd Claw.
It was at that moment we heard a low bellowing croon float over the lawn from behind us. Turning around, I saw Ulmic standing from the bench and waving at us, prompting Valek to stand and help Alvi and I to our feet.
“Feel a little better, you three?” He called once we were close enough for conversation.
Alvi’s tail was high and bobbing as she answered, “Much! Thank you so much for doing this, it means a lot to us.”
Ulmic opened the rear driver’s door for her as she hopped into the car, “It was the right thing to do, especially after all that nonsense.”
Valek followed his example and held the door for me as well, though it was the back door. I stopped and he noticed my hesitancy, urging me to take the back seat. I hoped I wouldn’t regret my decision, but I took the invitation and allowed Valek to ride shotgun. Looking ahead at the pair, I watched Ulmic’s quills flare as he saw Valek take the front seat and hastily put on his harness, his affect clearly saying ‘I will sit here’.
Ulmic looked back at Alvi, who returned his confusion as he hesitantly started the car and pulled out of the car park. The tension in the front seats were palpable as we left the city center and navigated toward the starport. Ulmic was the first to break the silence when he cleared his throat, but Valek was the first to speak.
“How do you do it?”
It was clear by his ears that talking to Valek was the last thing he wanted to do right now, so he put his eyes on the traffic around us and didn’t answer.
Valek took the silence to try to explain himself, “So many people, when they first see Maeve, are terrified of her! They lock up, or bolt, or just hurl insults and curses; those weren’t the first people to threaten her life. You? You just… you’re fine with her! I didn’t expect an exterminator to give her a chance.”
Ulmic shrugged in the Venlil way, speaking with a casual defensiveness, “Well if I’m honest, the first time I saw her I was off-duty at the time; I had to - wanted to - protect the people in the forum, but I was unarmed. I was hoping to scare her off but when she offered the chance to talk, I figured it was smarter to distract the ‘vicious predator’ than to drag her off, so I humored her.”
Valek’s tail flicked a negative. “And I’m thankful you did, but that’s not what you should have done. I’m no expert but I took Pred. Ident. 101, and they hammered into us that you should always call for backup, especially if you’re unarmed. Any other exterminator would have called the office first; why didn’t you?”
Ulmic’s ears flattened down, the tip of his broad tail twitching in the footwell in front of me. ”I… would have. A younger me, anyway. I don’t know, it’s… it’s been harder to do this, ever since Bernia got burned.”
Valek drooped his ears in sympathy, before raising them reassuringly as he forced positivity into his voice. “You’ve mentioned her a few times; sounds like she means a lot to you?”
Ulmic laughed, like he was asked the most obvious question in the galaxy, “Like the sun never sets on The Green, my love for her will never set. She makes me a better man, a better Gojid, than I could ever hope to be on my own. She gave me two pups, long grown now, and even then we have that same fire that sparked that paw in the Forum. Yeah, pup; she ‘means a lot to me’.”
“Sounds like an incredible woman, I’d love to meet her someday!”
“HA! Not on your life, pup; not till you get that temper of yours in check.”
“Heh, yeah…” Valek mumbled through Ulmic’s thick belly-laugh. When silence fell in the car, Valek took a short breath, “About that, Ulmic, I… I want to apologize for the way I spoke to you, the other paw and also earlier. I meant what I said, I will stand against anyone who wants to hurt Maeve or Alvi, but that wasn’t you, and I didn’t even try to give you a chance. I’ll make no excuses, I’m not asking for your forgiveness, but I want you to know I regret what I did, and that I’m trying to be better.”
Ulmic seemed a little taken aback by that, but his quills were flatter than when he sat down, and I could see his tail swaying in that footwell with what I could only guess was satisfaction, “Hrmph, nobody’s right after a pilot light in their snout; I don’t know what’s going on with you, neither will I ask, but whatever it is must be real big to make a Venlil that ready to fight. Thank you for apologizing, Valek, and I hope whatever you’re going through, you’ll make it to the other side. And if what Maeve and I talked about is anything to go by, it sounds like you got two ‘incredible women’ to help you along, so I think you’ll be just fine.”
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I could feel the blush under my veil as Ulmic looked back at Alvi and me, before refocusing on the road. I didn’t want the conversation to end, so I asked, “What happened to Bernia that she got burned?”
Ulmic took a long breath as he started, “Well… A while back, me n’ the missus were trying one of those sun-side dishes at home, Malley-fried Deeproot. We… might have got a little distracted in the kitchen, but the oil was still sizzling when we came back so we just followed the recipe. Threw on some sugared deeproot and…”
I spoke without thinking, remembering a very eventful dinner at an over-ambitious ex’s place, “And the pan lit up, so she tried to put it out. Grease fires are a nightmare!”
Ulmic waved his ears agreeably, “I’ve seen plenty of fire, but never one so angry. Once the water hit the oil, a massive cloud of fire and smoke just exploded from the pan! Bernia’s paw got the worst of it, but some of it splashed right onto her face and chest, and her coat hasn’t come back right since. I let her know every blessed paw, that she is just as beautiful as the day I met her; she doesn’t believe it, but her tail tells me she appreciates it, every time. And that’s enough for me.”
He took a moment to think before continuing, “I took the rest of the harvest off, took Bernia home, and helped her any way I could. Hospital took good care of her but there was just… so much damage… I was by her side every moment I wasn’t getting her something. But I had to go back to work eventually. Took a few paws, but the first time I was back in the field for a lair-light, I picked up my flamer and went to do my job. The moment the flames touched those predators, I heard Bernia in their screams; saw her on the ground, wearing the fire spat from my own damn flamer.”
Ulmic stopped the car, and I was surprised to see a large open intersection, cars weaving through it like a dance. This wasn’t uncommon back on Earth, but our cars weren’t still driven! When Ulmic eased onto the accelerator and we slid into the maelstrom, my knuckles went white as I clenched a ball of linen in each fist, trying to keep my breathing at a normal pace. The boys were wrapped up in their conversation, but Alvi noticed and laid her hand on mine as her tail wrapped around my ankle. I took a deep breath, and tried to focus on the conversation as Valek asked Ulmic another question, “Why do you still do it?”
Ulmic was gripping the wheel tightly, and I could see his thumb-claws dug deep into the ReWeave, before he relaxed and answered his question, “I didn’t, for a while. Took every office role I could, but one shift they needed a second old claw on the paw, and there was just me at the time. Went out, found the lair, lined it up and I… I couldn’t pull the trigger; checked the safety, but I knew it was me. Treven called me out - that runt’s always been a brapic - so Kevros gave my torch to one of the new fluff. Just some kid; the crew called ‘em Mute. They were some fresh-shorn pup that had no business being behind the fire. I couldn’t let him hear the things I do when I sleep, so I took back my flamer, and did what I had to.”
“Ever since, I’ve tried to push for less fire in the field. Kalek was an old friend of mine, and when he was in charge we made a lot of great strides! Got training on higher-temperature flamers, and talked to a few predator specialists so we would know how to help them die faster; ease their suffering. Together, I like to believe we made the office more… merciful.”
Skyscrapers disappeared from the sky as we left the city proper and entered the industrial district. Their warehouses were likewise oblong, but rounder, letting the empty space between them serve as worker and vehicle throughways. Valek brought his focus to Ulmic, confusion and disbelief on his ears, “More merciful?? Mercy Like what we saw in the breezeway?”
Ulmic shrugged, “Well, it was. We changed how we approached PD patients, got more people the help they needed. At the time we thought we were doing good things, but seeing the numbers now and how I helped them climb… puts a foul taste in my mouth. We were actually about to pioneer a program where we would use our sidearms to put predators down, and only after that cleanse the body and area of its taint. But then… Then Tarlim happened.”
His spines bristled with agitation, and his voice took on an exasperated, disappointed tone, “I-I have no idea why Kalek cleared that diagnosis. The Giant had no complaints of note, a stack of doctor’s notes, and despite his size he was still just a pup! That whole mess brought Kalek back to the field and got Kevros behind the Big Desk, and he immediately doused every reform we had growing or planted. Said it was ‘outside our reduced budget’, or ‘against official policy’, or ‘too risky for the herd’, or this, or that, or BAH. Bunch of shali-shit.”
“After that, everything fell right in the Arxur maw. Kalek brought in some Herd priest, which brought the office together, sure, but it just made everyone more… eager. Working the desk - doing something that was actually helping people - became a punishment; all that mattered was what you did in the field.”
His confusion switched quickly to anger, swinging his attention on Valek, “Valek, you’re one sour sylphberry of a Venlil, and need a few headbutts yourself but, Protector shield me, you were right. ‘Good to other exterminators and their reputation’, I prick myself for not seeing it the first time. Nenikes? Sure, he was all for closing that facility even before we knew the whole story, but when the facility just -- let them all loose? Suddenly he wanted them gone, by shuttle or flame. Nalja was a joy in the office, but she kept getting written up for icing her flamer. I thought, then, that it was just an honest mistake, but now… when I think about all lair-lights she volunteered for…”
Coming out of the shadow of a large warehouse, we saw the starport behind a steel forest of processing plants. Ulmic was less agitated, but still angry all the same, “I want them back - I want my friends back, but I’m starting to think they were never really my friends; not the ones I thought they were. And I don’t think they will ever come back.”
He took a breath, swinging his attention from Valek and back to the road. “So I’ll be putting in for a transfer to somewhere quieter, somewhere I can be a servant of the herd again. Bernia always did like the countryside anyhow.”
Valek relaxed into his seat, but kept his attention on the Gojid. “That’s probably for the best. If this trip is anything to go by, I think now with the humans around things are going to get real different, real fast.”
Ulmic let out a huff, thumping his tail on the back of the footwell beneath him. “On that, we most certainly agree. The world is changing, maybe a little faster than I’m really ready for.”
Valek nodded, bobbing his tail before his ears dipped in sympathy. “I’m sorry about your friends, Ulmic. You deserve better people than what Dawn Creek gave you, and I hope you find fertile fields wherever you end up.”
Ulmic glanced his way, one ear staying on him as his eyes returned to the road. “Thank you, Valek. And I’m sorry for… well, for Dawn Creek. For the people I work with. Sorry that they weren’t better for you. Hopefully home is… better.”