Chapter Text
Memory Transcription Subject: Borlin, Venlil Postal Worker
Date: [Standardized Human Time] August 1, 2136
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It was turning out to be a great paw. There was a gentle breeze across the town of Merrywood, a small transport hub that mostly served as a distribution center for many corporations across Venlil Prime. I had just finished school a few [weeks] ago and had lucked into a job that wasn’t just hauling goods across a warehouse. Today had been my first shift at the Merrywood Postal Service.
The pay was good, the blue postal service vest looked great against my black wool, and it felt so much more personal to deliver packages to people’s homes. I had been worried about feeling left out after graduation, most of my classmates headed off to some academy in one of the big cities. Others signed up for the military, exterminator training, or joined a family business. I couldn't decide on a career path, nothing really interested me enough to commit to it, but now I felt like I had found my place in the herd.
My first day wasn’t even the best of it! The planetary lockdown a few paws ago was more than just a false alarm. First contact with a brand new species, not uplifted but one that came to us! Something like this hadn’t happened in the Federation for millenia! The only problem was that the “humans” might be predators? They claimed to come in peace, and that they could eat both meat and plants. Some scientists claimed it went against everything we knew about biology, but I barely passed that class anyway so I have no idea. The holonet was exploding with debate over them. Some were convinced they were biding their time to strike and devour us, others thought they were the key to defeating the Arxur. Either way, starting today we had an opportunity to look closer and see for ourselves. The humans had sent a huge data dump of cultural information and announced a Human-Venlil exchange program! We could sign up to talk to a human and ask them whatever we wanted! I couldn't wait to tell my folks so we could all sign up together!
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"ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR SPEHCKING MIND! WE ARE ABSOLUTELY NOT CONTACTING PREDATORS!"
My tail nearly fell to the floor and my ears went flat against my head at my father's outburst. I looked to my mother for support, but she looked as though she might faint right there in the den. It certainly wasn't the reaction I hoped for. I didn't expect that they would share my enthusiasm with the program, but I thought they would at least be open to the idea. At worst I expected apathy, the usual "that's nice dear" or something, not this. I had never seen my father so angry before and I had no idea how to respond. I fought down my shock, picked my tail back up and tried to reason with him.
"I-It's just a t-text chat dad! They can't hurt us over text!"
"Once we sign up they will know where the population centers are, where WE are! And when they decide to strike, a drop pod will land RIGHT AT OUR DOORSTEP TO TAKE US AS CATTLE!"
My father took a deep breath and tried to calm down, but his fury was still readily apparent.
"You've never seen an Arxur raid son, you haven't heard the stories of those lucky enough to survive. Predators don't want to be friends, Borlin! All they want is to see how gullible their new cattle are!"
"We don't know if they're like that dad! Look at the data they sent! They have Music, Art and Poetry! They're not the Arxur!"
"You can't trust anything a predator says! They probably stole all of that from their last victims!"
"Now you're just making things up, you haven't even looked at it!"
Tears began to cloud my vision, all of my excitement from before turning to disappointment, anger, and sorrow. I couldn't believe my own dad would buy into these insane paranoid conspiracy theories so easily. He wasn't willing to listen to anything else and I couldn't see any way to make him listen. Why did it have to be this way? This wasn’t what I wanted. As I struggled to hold back the tears and think of a way to get through to him, my father was pacing the room, his tail twitching with anger, when he whirled and spoke with a cold certainty.
"No-one in this house will be signing up for this predator program. If you want to put a cattle collar around your neck you can do so out on your own."
My tail drooped at his words, of course we had talked about me moving out before, but it had always been something positive. Something that meant growing up and being successful, not like this. This was a threat, a rejection from the herd. I felt the dam beginning to break and rushed towards my room. Only stopping at the doorway for one final word.
"IT'S ONLY A ONCE IN A MILLENNIA OPPORTUNITY DAD! I GUESS WE'LL JUST WAIT FOR THE NEXT ONE!"
Not the best comeback, but it was all I could come up with. I felt the tears rolling down my snout as I turned and slammed the door. Collapsing on my bed I faintly heard my mother’s sobs from the other room echoing my own.
What a terrible paw.