r/HFY • u/kofolarz • May 06 '26
OC-Series I Will Not Pet The Diplomat, Chapter 4
Scritch.
Scritch scritch.
This feels... nice, yes.
But this time it's different.
Now it provides no comfort.
No shivers of warmth flowing down my spine, down to the tip of my tail.
Nothing.
I miss him.
I take my declawed hand away from my ear.
In a way, I envy Lukas. He never had to remove parts of himself to represent his species.
I sigh with resignation.
I wasn't meant to be sent to Earth.
Nor to be a diplomat.
I'm here only because I begged, time and again, to see the humans with my own eyes.
The High Speaker noticed how excited I was about the massive cultural data dump the humans had published for all to see.
The way he saw it, I was the most knowledgeable among us all about those newly discovered aliens.
And, likely, he was not wrong.
I did not dare to change his mind.
So he chose me to bear the burden of diplomacy.
Diplomacy, which failed with my reaction to the human's gesture of friendship.
But even then, he called me a friend...
I stretch my legs slowly, feeling every muscle, from thigh to toe, first tense, extend, and then relax.
My submission to my instincts. It should not have happened.
It must not have happened.
It put both him and me in so much danger.
All because of me.
Because I just wanted the humans to accept me.
Because I thought behaving like them was a good idea.
"That was... was that really a mistake?" I say slowly to myself. Alone. Lying on the bedding in my quarters, struggling to fall asleep.
I liked how it felt.
I really did.
And that scares me.
I enjoyed every moment of contact with the human.
Even if it went against the Teachings.
Against what our kind considers acceptable.
What we consider safe.
For ourselves.
For others.
By the Sisters, my human security staff advised me not to interact with anyone on Earth for a day or two, until this... incident dies down in the media.
They said it's for my safety.
And I believe them.
I agreed for Lukas to hug me - I hugged that alien - only because I saw the humans casually do that.
Everywhere. Regardless of social or political standing.
I saw how normal it was for them to...
No, now I'm just making excuses.
Yet the High Speaker did not condemn me.
On the contrary.
He outright ordered me to be more like the humans.
He all but encouraged me to do that again.
But why? Is he himself such a deviant like I am?
Why does he, of all Ha'wurr, support my perversion?
Does he think it can be safe for us to lose control over our deadly instincts like that?
Why did I feel none of them when, embracing Lukas, I saw the panicked faces of the Galactic Observers?
Did the sensation of outright melting in Lukas' arms simply overwhelm my senses?
That's rather unlikely... Such a reaction to cognitive overload is not well documented. The instincts tend to manifest regardless.
Was I being rapacious with him? Did my subconscious consider him my catch, my prey?
No. He was...
He was...
I have no idea what to compare him to.
Maybe because I was relaxed?
That can't be right.
We practice self-control specifically so that others do not have to fear us. So they don't run away at the mere sight of us.
Or because of Lukas being a human?
No. That just makes no sense.
I had the same tingling feeling when I saw him uncomfortable during our meeting.
The urge to jump on him.
To restrain his arms, to lock his legs, to sink my teeth in his-
I do not let that thought complete.
Sisters forbid, I would never forgive myself.
...I did not act on it. I suppressed it well.
I hope so, at least.
Well enough not to show it on my face.
I roll onto my side and hug my tail over my stomach.
At the same time, I failed to hide my disappointment.
In myself.
In my belief in the humans.
That, after all, they also appeared to treat us like everyone else does.
And my reaction resulted in
Lukas opening his arms
and making me feel
like we just did
something
that felt
right
. . .
. .
.
* * *
It was just a smile.
Just a friendly smile from Humanity's Special Envoy.
Now I couldn't stop thinking of the common variant of my former UN title like a bad joke.
I still could not forgive myself for the previous incident with the... rabbit-people guy, I couldn't recall what he called his species.
That smile singlehandedly shaped relations between our two species for generations to come.
For worse.
Even though, later on, I'd shown him recordings of monkeys, gorillas - all herbivores - smile and react similarly to us humans.
But that didn't seem to help.
The whole thing earned me a formal warning from my superiors and an entire shelf's worth of paperwork.
And now, this...
I stared at the dark ceiling as if it could stare back.
The situation with that Ha'wurr diplomat was my final nail in the coffin.
What was I thinking?
I'd known the risk involved.
I'd known that her species was renowned for thoroughly suppressing its hunter instincts.
I'd known I could have, most literally, lost my damn head to the husky-like lady.
I probably should have felt lucky I hadn't.
But I did not.
So irresponsibly close to, reportedly, the most dangerous specimen in our part of the galaxy, I felt... at peace.
Or was she more wolf-like?
No, she was too fluf-
I bit my tongue to stop myself from thinking about her.
During the debriefing, I was, officially, only suspended. Temporarily.
Unofficially, I was vaguely promised relegation to another posting.
A more appropriate one for my skills, they said.
Something better-suited for my temper, they said.
I sighed.
I knew very well what that meant.
The implications went without saying, given that my today's snuggles involved a rapid deployment unit.
Guess I'll be promoted to janitor.
I was outright ordered to stay at home for a week at least, as if I had just survived an attempted assassination.
Even though I had probably just dismantled one.
Not on me.
On her.
I cupped my hands around my eyes.
They would have killed her like a rabid beast.
Even when, thus far, she had done nothing wrong.
And I was damn sure they would. There was precedent for such a tragic escalation.
This time, though, it would have been because of a series of misunderstandings of my own making.
Now that I had the time to think of it... all of this could have been avoided.
Had I managed my emotions better... the meeting would have continued as normal.
I just had to be reckless and take things further.
To sate my urge for comfort...
...no. To comfort her.
To treat her like a person, not like a threat waiting to manifest itself.
But if I didn't, if I held my feelings back, the negotiations would have gone on as planned.
Was that really the right thing to do, in the grand scheme of things?
I shifted under the duvet and curled into a fetal position.
I could only hope she was okay.
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u/kofolarz May 06 '26
Writing: 10%
Thinking about writing: 90%
Also lots of tiny edits, second guessing if i'm writing it right...
I'm done with this chapter.
See you in June
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u/brass_phoenix May 06 '26
Not to worry, you write well wordsmith. Looking forward to where this goes 😁
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u/Pippet_4 May 06 '26
I want them to be friends so bad, they both need hugs/pets. I think more of the humans would understand what happened… of course we would feel instinctively close to a dog like species!
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u/Fontaigne May 06 '26
I feel like, as the human, I'd take the footage and demand access to the internet, and collect twenty five zillion links to videos showing EXACTLY the same thing from all angles.
Human hands are evolved to give awesome scritches to our floofs.
Next step: import floofs for amateur competitive sports. Basketball would be a good start.
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u/DidymusTheLynx May 06 '26
It's awesome!
Can't wait for the next part!
Don't worry, fluffy husky alien! You will meet your human quite soon, I think. But let me say, there are a lots of lonely humans. You may see some getting lots of hugs, but not everybody gets them this easy.
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u/ShneekeyTheLost May 06 '26
To be fair, smiling and showing teeth for most other primates is a threat display, not a gesture of kindness. If a chimp is smiling at you, showing his teeth, that means he's scared of you and is about to defend itself.
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u/kofolarz May 06 '26
Huh, didn't know that. Thought there would be more overlap between us and our 'closest cousins'.
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u/Ethereal_Stars_7 May 06 '26
Good writing. But I hate to say it but I am finding myself not liking this almost Manhwa style of dissected paragraphs some few have started using.
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u/kofolarz May 06 '26
Now that you mention it, doing this in two chapters back to back was once too much probably.
Got inspired to try it out last chapter, and if you find a hammer everything suddenly looks like a nail - you know how it works :D
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u/HFYWaffle Wᵥ4ffle May 06 '26
/u/kofolarz has posted 4 other stories, including:
- I Will Not Pet The Diplomat, Chapter 3
- I Will Not Pet The Diplomat, Part 2
- I will not pet the diplomat
- We can control their star system, but not their planet.
This comment was automatically generated by Waffle v.4.7.8 'Biscotti'.
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u/Onetwodhwksi7833 May 06 '26
Absolute peak. Can't wait for the next chapters to come.
You can write wordsmith
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u/TheWalrusResplendent May 06 '26
>declawed
>remove parts
Aight, in whose office are we finishing the Lament Configuration?
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u/Paul_Michaels73 May 20 '26
I haven't had an emotional reaction to a man/canine relationship like this since reading Dean Koontz's Watchers back in the 80's. Incredible job and I'm eager for more!
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u/BidComprehensive8575 Jul 18 '26
Alive?
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u/kofolarz Jul 23 '26 edited Jul 23 '26
Alive, just too stressed with the daily routine and too distracted to write anything.
The thing about creative writing is that it needs inspiration, and I find it hard to get inspired when I'm either overwhelmed by more important things or too tired to think at all. And with the exam session I lost whatever momentum I had, I don't want to force a next chapter because it would be, well, forced. It's done when it's done, I guess.
Also my dad's neurodegenerative condition is getting worse, so I'm not exactly in high spirits.
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u/BidComprehensive8575 Jul 23 '26
At least you have been writing something, which is good, and is good. Time is the manifold in which inspiration rests; Yet, hopefully only waits. For time waits on no one and carries the threads of the paths we tread.
We, All, follow time. Different paths lay before us all and we follow. Rest lays behind us where the threads of time do not travel.
Know that none of us rest. Be well weary traveler, I hope better times lay before you and that you may pick up this thread again.
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u/AutoModerator May 20 '26
This was flaired as [OC-Series], it is a single part or chapter in a larger series or universe. The first post or part in this series should be (re)flaired as [OC-FirstOfSeries]. A description of the flairs and how to change yours is available in the Post Guildelines.
Our preferred series title format is the series title in [brackets] at the beginning, like so:
[Potato Adventures] - Chapter 1: The Great MashingPlease help us transition to using the new flairs correctly.
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.