Creature

Immerut is a contentious place, and we don’t help things. Man thinks we’re a bunch of animals living in the woods while for us we’re just honoring our evolution. We’re hunters, apex predators. We got here through blood and sweat, crawling on all three legs. It took us time to get to where we’re at but we’re proud of our progress. I remember that day well, the first time I’ve interacted with a human. A ship crashed on Immerut, and I was the closest of my kind to them. I wasn’t headed there, just in the area hunting. I know I look like a monster—sickle claws on my elbows with a parallel and flat to the ground posture standing on three legs—but I’m not. I was out hunting and had caught a Tari-Tar, a deer-like creature, and was in the middle of eating it when a few of man came out the jungle from their crashed ship.

I was hunched over the desecrated corpse, eating the Tari-Tar raw, as we do with all our food, and enjoying the bones in the jaw (the teeth have a truly fascinating flavor to them!). My beak tearing meat and flesh, while my tongue pulled bone and fat to my flat teeth that ground the food down. We have lips towards the back of our mouth where our teeth are, but we lack lips where our beak is. My blue eyes are triangular, pointing forward but wrapping on the side. I was at an angle but could see and hear the bushes moving, I was excited, and so I opened my jaw wide, raised my dorsal spikes (all eight of them!) and frilled my feathery mane, and turned to the bush as three of man came out of the bushes. Two had guns and were trembling in fear. I yelped in excitement, they seemed like they needed help, but they pointed their guns at me! I was terrified so I backed down, hunched into a defensive position.

“The hell is that creature?!” I could hear one of them shout.

“It’s a wretched. We have a gun, stay back!” How rude of them calling me a wretched, that is almost a slur, I’m just a humble Sirov. In excitement I arch my back and lift myself up making me look bigger, flashing my feathers in a vibrant white-orange-purple display while waving my dorsal spikes around, almost wagging them like a tail. This is how we say we’re peaceful, surely these humans think of it that way too. But they don’t, they’re scared, and they point and gun at me, I think one of them even fired it. My outer armor protected me from the bullet, but my ears were ringing. How rude. This time I got into a more aggressive pose, hunkering towards the ground and sticking my feathers and spikes straight up, while opening my jaw and sticking my purple tongue out while screeching. I was trying to remember English and so I let a guttural “Hey!” while keeping in posture.

“They can talk?” I heard one of the humans mumble.

“Hey!” I shout out again trying to remember more English.

They were shaking and scared, while I was balancing on my third leg, keeping my sickle claws in the dirt, hovering over the Tari-Tar, before looking back at my food. I decided that maybe showing a lack of interest would help so I did what I’ve been taught not to do and turned my back to the humans and resumed eating.

“It wants to eat us!” I hear one of them shout out in fear. How very rude of them. I’ve never even had human before, but I certainly wouldn’t want to try one now. I wasn’t interested in them, so why are they standing here, why don’t they run off. I remembered more English, so I decided to try and speak to them after tearing out the Tari-Tar’s delicious heart.

“Run.” I said as they began to tremble, and before long they broke into a full sprint, running off into the woods.

I ate the rest of my lunch and decided to look for the humans to see if they needed help. It wasn’t hard, they stink, and I could smell them for miles. Following their trail I eventually wound up meeting another Sirov in the woods.

“There are three of them and they’re scared.” I say to my friend as he bows up in excitement.

“I’m following them, seeing if they need help.” He says to me, bouncing from one sickle claw to the other, while balancing on their forespike, the large spike that is our third leg. We set off, dragging our forespike along behind us as we ran on our sickle claws protruding from our second elbow. We were partially grounded, partially in the trees as we ran, all six-hundred pounds of creature breaching the silence.

We stopped outside of their crashed ship, standing in a tree and looking down at them.

“Hey!” My friend shouted as we jumped from the trees before them.

“They’ve come to finish the job.” I hear one of the men sigh as they raise their guns and point them towards us.

“Help?” I mutter as my friend bobs their body and shouts, “Help!” These peculiar humans look at us with confusion.

“What?” One of them says as the other two shrug.

“Need help?” I say as my friend mimics me.

“Yes, we need help because you two freaks are going to eat us.”

“We just ate.” My friend says seeing further confusion.

They stopped for a moment, pausing, before looking at us.

“If you just ate, why do you still want to eat us.”

“We don’t.” I say excitedly, bouncing from one sickle claw to the other, flashing my feathers while my friend goes prone, lifting their blue and teal feathers as he yawns, letting out a growl.

“Then why are you here.” The humans were scared by my friend yawning, skittish creatures humans are.

“You need help.” I say as I lean forward, bobbing my head and chittering my beak as I sniff the air.

“They can smell our fear.” I hear one of the humans shouts pointing his gun directly at my face.

“We smell deer not fear.” I say back as my friend takes a whiff of the air, before shaking their head side-to-side in excited agreement.

One of the humans puts his gun down and sticks his hand out. I don’t know why he’s doing this, so strange. I approach him as the other humans look in abject horror.

“What are you doing Bryan.” One of them says as I lick his hand. A tender silence falls upon us as he shook his head nervously.

“We need to communicate we crashed our ship. So could you help us?” He says as I nod, hissing in excitement.

“We have our own ship.” My friend says as I nod in agreement.

“You can use the communication system to ask for help.” I say, my English getting better.

“Okay, so you’re helping us, not hunting us?”

“We just ate.” I say as my friend chuckles boisterously, shaking their entire body while prancing.

“We don’t want to eat you!” He says as I open my mouth wide and hiss, before cackling, shaking my body as well.

These humans are oddly not that expressive. They tremble and shake, and their faces move in weird ways, but their hair doesn’t stand up on command. We begin to walk slowly, one sickle claw before the other as the human who I think was named Bryan follows along behind us. The other two humans followed shortly thereafter but stayed behind pointing guns in our direction.

“Why don’t you cook your food?” Bryan asks me as I make a weird noise and shake my spikes.

“Sometimes we do, but we were made to eat food raw.” My friend says as I nod in agreement.

“Yes, yes, we like food raw. Bone tastes good. Do you like bones?” I ask as the human mummers “What the…” under his voice.

“Can you speak up, you’re mummering.” I say as I turn my head and see him stir himself awake.

“We can’t eat bones ; it would break our teeth and jaws.”

“Ha!” I hear my friend snicker as he crouches down before making a “Hehehehe” sound while shaking their blue and teal feathers. I also laugh, stopping to crouch and shake mine.

In a bold display of friendship my friend rises as high as their arms can extend and drops their head on mine, just something we do when we’re in a playful mood. I try to flip them onto their back, it’s just a lil’ game we play. The humans, however, watched in confusion, not sure of why we stopped nor what we were doing.

“What are you doing.” One of the humans in the back says, as I can hear their gun tremble in their hands.

“Playing.” I retort, ramming into the side of my friend trying to flip him over.

“That thing just head butted you.” Very astute, they have good eyesight. I ram into my friend’s side again as he does the same thing to me as a third Sirov shows up, screeching in excitement. They raise their green and white feathers, extend as high as they can, then drop their head onto mine, before trying to roll me onto my back.

This goes back-and-forth for a while before turning to our new friend and catching them up on what’s going on.

“We’re taking them to our ship so they can tell other humans they crashed here on Immerut. Want to go along?” We ask as our friend shakes their head in negation.

“I’m hunting Grulle. Thanks!” They say as they try to roll me over one last time, then skittering back off into the woods. I chuckle, turn towards the humans, and growl, getting close to the ground.

“We’re almost there!” I say excitedly, standing up and prancing in a circle as my friend hisses.

We show them to our ship, letting them on board as they use the electro-communication device to contact a nearby human ship.

“This is Bryan Worthington, we’re on Immerut, I’m sending the coordinates over. Two Sirov escorted us to their ship. I’m kinda scared, this is the first time I’ve talked with a Sirov. Yes, they’re letting us use their com system. Yes, they helped us. Uh, yeah, we shot at them a couple of times because we thought they were going to hunt us down and eat us. No, they don’t intend to. No, they are not trying to trick us. Yes, they’re helping us. Can you just get down here? Please.” The human hangs up and this Bryan fellow walks up to me.

“Can I see your hand?” He asks me as I nod. I extend my forearm, and he holds onto my talon-hand, grasping firm.

“When a human sticks out their hand, you don’t lick it, you extend your arm and hand and then grab firm, then shake.” He then proceeded to shake my hand rather aggressively. I hear a ship break atmosphere and look up from the clearing we were in.

“That is for you huh?” I say as Bryan nods.

“What is your name?” He asks as I look at him, prancing in a circle with excitement, then lowering the front of my body to the ground and looking him in the eyes.

“I’m T’rreil. That is I’veio. We’re hunting partners.” I respond, watching the ship touch down. A few nervous humans step out of their ship, eagerly awaiting their friends. We could tell the humans on the ship that just arrived were nervous, however, the humans we escorted seemed to relax. As they got onto their ship, they turned to us, waving goodbye as before the ship’s doors closed. The ship took off, and me and I’veio knocked heads one last time before disappearing back into the jungle, looking for something to eat.