#walks of life
The serpentine s'k'tras of the jungle planet J3-7566 (locally known as Jora) arrive into this world silent and shiny, bursting out of egg clutches in droves, slick with mucous, and their scales still soft. The mother s'k'tra may reach a length of fourteen feet, with most of the length provided by a long prehensile tail. However threatening she may be, however, Jora is home to some of the most vicious predators on this side of the universe, and she must abandon her eggs so as not to allow her presence to draw any attention to them. She rejoins her family in the trees, and the nomadic tribe will wait with her for her eggs to hatch.
Without a mother to guard them, egg clutches must be laid in caves and holes in order to hide the young from prying eyes and hungry mouths. An indigenous mammal is subdued and paralyzed by the mothers venom for the offspring, and may have to lie in wait for days until the eggs hatch. Upon hatching, the younglings will instinctively huddle close to the body of the beast for warmth, but also to gather sustenance. As you may be familiar with, many species rely on a liquid diet in their first days, usually provided by the mother as regurgitated food or milk. The s'k'tras, however, drink the blood of their prey upon being born. With still developing arms and prepubescent venom sacks, the young s'k'tra rely on their needle like fangs to puncture the hide of the animal. However, once a wound has been made, all of the young will surround it, and greedily lick up the blood that they can. Their mothers venom causes the heart of the beast to beat at an extremely slow rate, so as to ensure that the young do not overeat and die. While the venom is non poisonous to their own species, it is potent, and there is enough in the bloodstream to keep the beast paralyzed until it dies of blood loss. Once the first feeding is over, the young s'k'tra will emit a high frequency cry, nearly undetectable to most of the fauna that stalks the undergrowth. Upon hearing the cry, the mother will descend with only her mate to retrieve the offspring. While the males of the s'k'tra are much smaller than the females, he is able to serve as a lookout, and if necessary, sacrifice himself so that the mother can ascend into the trees with her children latched onto the hard scales of her back.
At least, that was how it was in the wilds of their own planet. As a space faring race, they have long since abandoned the need for dirt holes and paralyzed beasts, instead opting for large hatcheries where the young are kept warm through heated pods and fed a steady diet of blood supplied through tubes, and provided by genetically modified ‘blood beasts’, designed and bred by the s'k'tras themselves. Their people are well known as mercenaries and pirates, their speed and strength gifted to them through eons of evolution on their death world. On my long journey to learn the ways of life, I had the opportunity to work in one hatchery. The young spend the first few days slithering around each other, and are closely monitored. Hatchlings do not have the extravagant coloration of the adult members of their race, and are instead pale shades of green and brown; camouflage in the wilds, in case one were to become separated from the group. While they were mostly helpless, I still have a few scars from underestimating needle tips of their fangs. Even now, hundreds and hundreds of generations away from their wild ancestors, the instinct to latch onto and suck the blood of a nearby mammal still rules them.
In the wide open plains of planet P4-6595 (oddly enough, this planet is unnamed by its inhabitants) there exists the largest land animals known in the galaxy. Or so we thought at first. Gargantuan masses of green fur and taut muscle, these ‘Grehorums’ (as they are locally known) are not truly animals, but a type of plant, who slowly lumbered around the planet, constantly following the sun. These Grehorums ranged in size depending on their age, from the rolling spores that could crush a small vehicle, to the ancient behemoths that could crush a citadel with a careless movement.
With sparse grass and permafrost, the planet did not serve a very hospitable environment, but these lumbering plants did. Constantly moving to avoid the dark side of the planet, their forests of ‘fur’ (which in reality are leaves) provided the perfect environment for the evolution of an entire ecosystem relying entirely on these vast organisms. From the surface of these massive creatures came the kithrit, an almost entirely airborne race of winged peoples. The adults are covered in glamorous blue feathers, their massive wings easily span 13-14 feet, with small prehensile feet dangling from their diminutive bodies, and nearly flat faces. Flat teeth help in grinding up the plant food provided by the Grehorum.
The young are born featherless, with naught but greenish leather skin. Birthing of these young ones was one of the few activities that the kithrits landed for. The mother would maneuver to the underbelly of the Gerhorum, carefully clinging on to the foliage with her prehensile feet and the vestigial claws on her wingtips. The fledgling kithrits are born with more viable wing tip claws, and use these to grip onto the belly grass of the Grehorum. The mother, unable to fly with her litter of up to four, leaves them to eat the soft leaves of the Grehorum. She will return periodically to check up on them, but otherwise they would have to rely on camouflage in order to avoid being eaten by one of the Grehorum’s many other passengers.
Their space aged descendants are no longer rely on the Grehorum, nor are there any Grehorum left. The kithrit never developed very advanced technology, but they are renowned throughout the galaxy today as some of the fastest thinkers and greatest minds. Their society stretched eons thanks to the timelessness of the Grehorum, and their own ability to evade predators. This long lastingness allowed them to watch their sun die and fade into a white dwarf. Unable to provide enough light, the Grehorum all but died out. It was only because of the efforts of a mixed group of researchers who had been observing their development (or lack thereof) that the kithrits were uplifted.
The original kithrits did not have possessions, but they did bring with them the dormant pods of Grehorum seedlings, each weighing several tons but integral to the kithrit peoples. Today nearly all kithrit devote their lives in search of a world not unlike their own; one with open fields and plenty of sunlight, to wake the sleeping Grehorum. However, as a result of the limited room available on space ships, many kithrit grow up never having flown, and it is not uncommon to see adult kithrit with wings shrivelled from disuse.
It was on one such ship that I had the great pleasure of aiding in a birth. Kithrit pups come into this world with their eyes fused shut, and desperately clinging onto anything that they can get a hold of. It is generally a quick process, and the mother is often able to deliver them by herself. I was present simply to ensure that her brood were born healthy. After cleaning these leathery pups, they are gently coaxed onto a hanging crib of sorts. Lengths of artificially grown vines are hung from the ceiling, which the kithrit pups gladly latch onto with their claws, and begin eating the nourishing vegetation. These pups are generally quiet, and do not require much attention from the mother. They are born into this world blind, but may spend the rest of their days looking for a new home.
However, in all my travels, I have not met a more strange birth than that of a human child. I will admit, I do not know much about them, with them being only one of many species recently embraced into the galactic community. However, I will never forget the absolute insanity of their species. I was much younger then, my body still able to support itself, though it was failing. I was waiting on a small planet, with naught but a colony of humans as neighbors. I had landed my pod not far off, and set up shop there while I waited for my papers to go through, to upload my mind into the collective of my own species and join the elders. I made it known to them that I was a practiced and well known medical professional, and that they could come to me if they needed help. There was a lot of baring of teeth and shaking of ‘hands’ at this; apparently their old ‘doctor’ had passed away a few cycles past, and their requests to their homeworld for a new doctor had been, for all intents and purposes, ignored.
“Oh man, you came in the nick of time! I’m Samuel, and you, my friend, are a sight for sore eyes. Y’see, my sweet Margaret is due to pop any day now, and no one on this rock knows nothin’ about delivering a baby.” a wiry young man bared his teeth at me while he vigorously gripped my appendage with one manipulator, and gesturing towards a severely bloated female close by. It looked as though she were going to burst! She replied to him in a strange tongue, which he translated back to me in Galactic Standard.
“Marge is wondering if you ever delivered a baby b’fore. ‘Course you have though, right?” he inquired, his teeth still bared in what looked like a threat.
“Ahem, ah, yes, yes, I’ve delivered plenty of human babies before. I’ve delivered them to all sorts of places!” I insisted out of fear; his incisors looked sharp, and I was unsure as to the temperament of these ‘humans’. The young man let out a sharp gust of air through his nose, and translated what I said to the rest of the humans that had gathered to greet me; they weren’t able to understand or speak Galactic Standard. All of the humans bared their teeth and began to quickly hyperventilate, though I later learned that this was their own twisted form of laughter.
“Yer’ alright doc’. If you’d like, we can set you up in the old doc’s office. Beatrice is still around; she’s, ah, kinda an assistant to the doctor. A nurse, we call ‘em. She might be able to help you out a bit, but I’m sure that someone like yourself won’t need much help.”
As it turns out, Beatrice knew a lot about childbirth. Using a ‘Galactic Standard’ handbook, she was able to communicate with me the basics of human childbirth over the course of a few days, but made it very clear that I was only to there to help her.
“I didn’t get my medical license so that I could play second fiddle to some xeno quack!” as she put it.
It was in the early hours of one morning that a young man came from the town to my ship, speaking rapidly in his own tongue. I went rigid with fear; if a 152cm pink bipedal came at you in the small hours of the morning speaking in a loud voice, you would have too. He froze for a moment, his face scrunching up in thought, before shouting in Galactic Standard “Baby! Baby born! Baby!” Somehow, through his thick accent and slaughtering of the words, I understood the message. I hurried to follow him out, but before I could mount my hover scooter, he forcefully shoved me into the passenger seat of a large rusty human vehicle. A ‘pick up,’ I believe. Absurd. A vehicle designed to pick people up. Ha!
We arrived at the old medical office, around which a mob of humans seemed to have gathered. I was quickly ushered through the old screen door, forced through the sterilizing airlock and into the operation room. The were four people there, including Beatrice, Samuel and Margaret. An adult female, unknown to me, stood off to the side. Beatrice barked orders at her, while Samuel simply stood by Margaret, looking nervous and holding one of her manipulators in both of his and speaking to her softly in their human tongue.
“Hey doc.” he turned and bared his teeth at me. I quickly went to Beatrices side, ready to aid her. Margaret was looking less bloated than before, but on her face was an expression of extreme pain. She wore an ugly dress, and lay on her back on a table with her legs propped up on a pair of metal stands. Beatrice knelt between her legs, and spoke commands to Margaret. I did not understand what was going on.
I will be honest, I wasn’t much help in the operating room. While I tried to observe and learn as much as I could, as I had before, I spent most of the time in there cringing in horror and looking on at the grizzly scene with shock. At one point, I was roughly shoved aside so that they had more room to work.
To put it shortly, human birthing is akin to torture. Not just to the mother, who was going through extreme pain to bring her child into this world, but the all of the people in the room. Margaret, who had seemed so timid when I first met her, devolved into an angry screaming and cursing demoness. Her face was red with pain, and she almost entirely ignored her mates attempts to soothe her. The screaming nearly deafened my delicate ears, and I still have nightmares about it, but I could not muster the strength to open the airlock by myself, so I remained in that operating room for hours.
The process was slow and grueling, and I was forced to watch the whole thing. “Once the child is born, it is going to be quiet. It will be peaceful.” I kept assuring myself, in order to hold onto my sanity. However, once the human offspring was born, it was a whole new screaming. While the mother had finally ended her screams of anguish, the bloody spawn of hers began screaming all on its own! Beatrice brutally severed something from the kicking and flailing child before handing the screaming bloodspawn to the mother, who cooed and bared her teeth at the baby; possibly to establish her own dominance? Who knows. The other humans surrounded the mother, who was still pink from the strain, and her face still covered in tears.
Meanwhile, I huddled in the corner, also covered in tears. I was praying to the divines to whisk me away from this place when Samuel gestured me over.
“C’mon, doc! It’s okay, come meet the newest member of the colony!” he turned to me, his eyes filled with joy but his teeth bared in what could only have been a threat. He must have been angry with my incompetence, but I rushed over in fear. I was still trapped in the room with them after all.
Margaret held her child, mostly dried off now, but with bits of afterbirth on its skin. Even now, the child still screamed with all the rage and pain of a fallen warrior. Beatrice busied herself with the old medical scanner, checking the vitals of both the mother and infant. Meanwhile, Samuel placed his manipulator on my shoulder, and turned towards me baring his teeth, then turning back and baring his teeth at his screaming hellspawn and mate. Beatrice opened the airlock and invited everyone but Margaret and the child to leave and get some rest, and I left without so much as a goodbye.
I don’t remember much about the trip between that human colony to my ship. I left my hover scooter behind in my hurry to leave. However, I will never forget that terrible scene. I am comforted by the minds of the Elder Collective now, but I can feel them cringe away from me when they encounter that memory. I shudder to imagine what kind of mad god would create such creatures, that would come into this world kicking and screaming in such a manner. What insane evolutionary boiling pot would bring about younglings covered in blood and filled with anger?
I still watch the news. Well, not really ‘watch’. Rather, it is streamed directly into the minds of the Elder Collective, and I am one of the few among us who choose to pay attention. Humans have made a name for themselves, spreading far and wide through the cosmos. They preach peace and love, but in their ignorance assume that this message is reciprocated by their galactic neighbors. I know that some of the more empirical societies see them as easy targets. Even now, several peoples have begun mobilizing invasion forces to take from these soft pink bipeds everything they can, though this news isn’t drawing much attention. ‘It’s nothing new among the stars,’ as they say. But I know the truth. I have seen the madness. In the first moments of life, the most base nature of a species is revealed; whether that is to embrace the life giving Grehorum, or slink through the shadows and feast on the blood of the weak. Unfortunately for their enemies, humans are born into this realm kicking, screaming, and bathed in blood.
