Ilrica

"Okay, so what's this one here?" Gerald asked, tapping his finger on the little squiggly symbol. "The one that looks like a desk?"

"That's a basic greeting to someone of equal standing," Ilrica explained, her long gray tail swishing about. "It's pronounced tzerbia."

"Tzerbia," Gerald repeated.

Her tall ears twitched. "No, you need to roll the 'R.' It's Tzerrrbia."

"Tzerrrrrrbia," he tried again.

"Tzerrrrrrrrrbia"

He brought his hand up to his mouth.

"What's wrong?"

"I bit my tongue."

Ilrica threw her head back and laughed heartily, revealing a maw full of sharp white fangs. Although he was sitting in a corner, she was actually sitting on the wall next to him as if that was the floor for her.

"Um, could you not sit that way? It's kind of throwing off my sense of balance."

"Deal with it, human."

"Right, sorry."

Gerald turned the book over and gave it a tap. "This is really great, with the text printed side by side in both Stolleckian and Standard, I should be able to piece together a workable Standard to English translation."

He ran his hands over its leather bound surface. "Actually I'm kind of surprised you found this. I didn't know the Alliance still had paper books."

"Well, it's not paper, it's actually a kind of metal, but yes they still have some. Mostly for historical value. This came from the vaults in the archive."

He raised an eyebrow at her. "The restricted archives? Did you steal this?"

"All the locks at the academy are broken right now, so it's really more of a door than a vault," she said, waving her clawed hand at him. "I just saw this while I was in there and thought it might help you learn standard."

"Yes, but what were you doing in the vaults?"

She used a claw to pick at something between her teeth. "Oh, you know... stuff."

"Uh huh."

Gerald opened the book again. "I had no idea Standard was so complicated. How long did it take you to learn it?"

"Half a second."

He looked up at her in shock. She lifted up the fur on the back of her neck, revealing the crystronic plug points there.

"Oh, right."

She smoothed her fur back down. "Even then it does take some work, though. You can download the language, but you can't download muscle memory. You still have to practice speaking it a whole bunch to get the sounds and rhythm and tone down. It's kind of a pain, that's why most people don't bother, they just use a translator. Heck, three cycles ago, before I got outfitted with crystronics, I couldn't speak my own language."

Gerald looked at her stupidly. "How could you not have been taught your own language?"

Ilrica looked at him seriously, placing her hands on his shoulders. "Gerald, can you keep a secret?"

He was surprised at how candid she was being. "Um, yeah."

She patted him on the cheek. "So can I."

Gerald shrugged and ran his finger across the page, finding a phrase that roughly translated to 'thank you anyway,' then pointed to her. "Tzdiol... llietz... nesha... tzlliek," he said as best he could.

"No, that's wrong. You only use 'nesha' to an equal. When addressing a Bertulf you'd need to use keiitzha."

"But, we're both students, wouldn't that make us equals?"

"Pbbbth," she said, sticking her tongue out. "As if."

"Hey, I've seen your scores, I may be bottom of the class but you are just above me."

"The Bertulf don't care about that kind of stuff," she said, grabbing her feet and rolling on her back like a little kid. "There are only two races. The hunter, and the prey."

Gerald thought about this for a moment. "So, if your people don't care about academics, then why are you here?"

She froze in place. For a brief moment, a wave of panic washed over her face, but she quickly covered it up.

"Oh, you know how these things work," she said flippantly as she pounced down from the wall and landed next to him. "It's just politics and all that. If the Bertulf didn't send at least one representative everyone might forget the natural food-chain and start getting all uppity."

"Do all of your people boast this much, or is it just an Ilrica thing?"

She smiled and flipped upside down, standing on the bottom side of a tree-branch. It was so disorienting that it made him wobble back and forth a little to look up at her.

"Look, I get it, Dyson. You humans didn't ask to be the inferior species, just like the Bertulf didn't ask to be the superior species. That is just how the dice fell. When you humans came along you had laughably little to compete against. It only took sticks and rocks to kill off the neanderthals or whatever and then found yourselves at the top of the heap with nothing to do but kill each other. You didn't have to compete against psychic-stalking interplanetary predators, or take-down carnivores with diamond-hard skin twenty times your size. You were small fish in a very very small pond. Now you've been dumped into the ocean, and you find yourselves at the bottom of a much larger food chain. I can understand why that would be so upsetting."

"Why do you always assume I am upset?"

She furrowed her brow. Her wolf-like ears fell down. "Because I would be."

"Well, I am not. Being angry doesn't solve anything."

She dropped down next to him and slapped him on the shoulder, nearly knocking him over. "You know, you've got a good attitude about this whole thing. I appreciate that. When the Bertulf hunts your world, I'm gonna have them add your name to the protected list."

"Um... thanks?"

Ilrica looked him over, concern in her eyes. "How're your legs?"

"Pretty sore," he said, rubbing them through his robes. "The bones haven't completely mended yet."

It was then that the hair on the back of his neck stood up. Instinctively he looked around. Somehow he just knew that someone was watching him, but all he saw was a quad full of bored students. Finally, he noticed a red silhouette up on top of the church tower beyond the girl's dormitory where Trahzi stood, watching him.

"Forgive me for being a stereotypical xenophobic human, but it kind of creeps me out when she watches me like that."

Ilrica looked up and noticed Trahzi as well. "Gerald, can I be serious with you for a moment?"

"I dunno. Are you physically capable of being serious?"

She swatted him on the butt with her tail.

"Hey."

"No, Gerald, I am being serious. You need to stop talking to her. She's dangerous."

"Trahzi?" he asked, rubbing his backside.

Ilrica nodded solemnly. "The Bertulf hunt because it is what they were born to do. They never take more than their fill, and they live by a strict code. The Trahzi aren't like them. They are monsters. They reduce whole planets to nothing but ash for no reason at all."

Gerald looked up at the red-skinned woman watching them from afar.

"You need to stay away from her," Ilrica said.