An 'Evolved-One's' Tale
Natalia's Story
(c) Cederwyn Whitefurr
2nd October, 2009
All Rights Reserved
What had begun as an experiment into genetics and understanding of 'life' - lead to cloning of animals from fertilized eggs and implantation into surrogate mothers. Scientific groups and Religious groups fought each other in the courts, media and in some rare cases - even resorted to actual acts of terrorism and similar distasteful reactions. Almost as an underground science - the study of genetics and creation of 'life' went on - eventually leading to the first viable cross-bred human/animal creatures. At first, they were creatures treated on the same level as animals - often subjected to cruel and painful experimentation, even though their human-like senses and emotions were quite developed. Still, the borderline experimentation continued, and as these new creatures were more and more altered from their ancestors DNA - they become more and more human-like.
*
Some two-hundred years later - the 'evolved-one's' as they came to call themselves, finally won the rights to live as citizens, free from persecution and discrimination. Or so it was widely believed. The worlds media, governments and other powerful and influential people made a huge deal and celebration of this moment - yet a decree giving the evolved their rights as equals to the human-populace, was more a lip-service than a fact. Much distrust and animosity still existed - a hundred years after their first 'revealing' to the world, and even though they had 'rights' just like any normal person, often, these rights were overlooked, or blatantly squashed by the courts - when it came to siding between the human or the evolved.
Whilst some small splinter groups still called them abominations and freaks - slowly, the general populace began to see these creatures not as some blasphemous abomination - but as living, breathing people in their own right. They worked alongside some of the greatest minds known to human-kind - and despite a few setbacks over the years, they began to find their place in society.
Of course, marriage between these 'evolved' and humans was - at the present stage - forbidden, illicit interactions occurred, but due to their differing DNA and other complexities, inter-breeding was impossible. Laws protecting the 'evolved' were few and far between - even though they had been granted full rights as citizens - and many a penal settlement was filled with falsely accused evolved creatures. Humans who found themselves caught - having any form of sexual relationship with an evolved - it was not the human who was punished, but the evolved, who bore the full brunt of the legal implications. Even in cases, where an evolved female had been tortured, brutally sexually assaulted and even killed - the courts often said it was the evolved, who had used her feminine whiles and such, to 'draw the humans into lecherous and licentious acts'.
*
It was in a rough, wood-log cabin, on a freezing cold winters morning - that Natalia was born, after a seventy-two hour labor, to simple evolved parents. Natalia was born in Vladivostok, Russia, in the year 2039. To her parents dismay, Natalia was one of the rare genetic throw-backs, to her ancestors. Whilst the 'evolved' were human-like, and could walk bipedally, wear human clothes, hold jobs and so on - Natalia had the characteristics of her ancient ancestors. It was obvious, from the moment she slithered from her mothers body - that Natalia was a genetic 'mistake' as it were. As her father cut the umbilical cord, he noticed Natalia's blood and embryonic coated body was not as he has been expecting. Natalia's hips were narrow, her legs long and misshapen, with large, almost oversized narrow feet. Her tail, was longer and thicker than it should have been - and her arms were much shorter and ended in soft, supple black claws. As Natalia drew her first, choking breaths - her father felt conflicting emotions....
Natalia's father gently ran his human-like hands down Natalia's wet, slimy stomach, his fingertips tracing the hint of a pouch - and he looked down, confirming that this crying, wet and slimy joey he held tenderly in his arms, was indeed a Doe. Overcome with emotion, Natalia's father looked up into his wife's eyes - and she merely moaned softly, then her eyes fluttered closed...and her breath rattled in her chest, then ceased. Exhausted by the lengthy labor and difficult birth, not being the best of health to begin with, Natalia's mother passed away. In a way, her passing, thought her husband, was a kindness, as she had suffered terrible illnesses and poor health in general - and now, her suffering would be over. As he turned away, holding the crying joey in his arms, he looked down at it, then felt tears trickle down his furred cheeks. Natalia was a genetic mistake - he knew that - and as a mistake, she should be taken outside, placed into a snow-bank and left to die - but this young, shivering and wet joey - was his daughter...a daughter...he and his wife had tried to conceive for over ten years. Oh, there had been other pregnancies - but due to his wife's poor genetic health and numerous complications - none of the pregnancies had made it anywhere close to term, always ending in miscarriages. At last, as the young Joey cracked open its eyes, and looked up into the muzzle of her father cradling her in his arms - she placed her shaking paws on her fathers arms - and forever banished any thought he may have had, of taking her outside to die. He smiled at her, yet his smile was sad - and he lifted her up, then licked away the sticky embryonic fluid and blood that stung his daughters eyes, before he kissed her forehead and cuddled her close to his chest.
"Natalia, my love - " He whispered, as he found an old blanket and wrapped the joey in it. "I will grieve, my love - for your mother, in time..."
*
As Natalia grew, she knew she was different from her more 'human-like' evolved father, but he made no distinction between himself and Natalia. Her father's paws were fully dextrous, capable of holding things and interacting with them, and he spoke fluently, yet Natalia's mind grew as one of the evolved did - she understood her father, but her vocal cords were still ancestral in their design, and she could not speak. Natalia could not speak, only communicate using her paws, and by expressing her emotions through her eyes and by various expressions on her face, which often frustrated her and made the sensitive young Doe cry with frustration. Her father could understand Natalia's frustrations, and he understood that Natalia couldn't speak, but he never made an issue out of it.
Natalia stood, when erect on her long, strong hind-legs, five feet two inches tall. Her heavy tail was a deep tan/cream for the most part, darkening on the upper-side with an almost charcoal like coloration. From the base of her head, down her back and outer legs, her coloration was a deep reddish-brown fur, paling to a sort of tan/cream coloration on her throat, belly and legs. Her muzzle was a dark grey - almost charcoal in coloration, with white markings near her black nose and a two-finger-wide stripe of tan/cream along each cheek, ending just below her deep brown eyes. Each large, tubular ear was the same pale charcoal colour, with greyish/white edging. Her slender arms were the same coloration as her back, until just above the elbow, when the colors turned more to the tan/cream, ending in non-prehensile black paws and short, blunt claws. Each of her feet was long and slender, with three toes on each foot - the middle toe ending in a large black, sharp tipped claw, the other two toes having much smaller claws.
*
Her father raised her from birth - using the milk from a reindeer doe they kept as a source of fresh milk - knowing that this was the best he could offer her. Indeed - Natalia survived this cold, cruel and harsh environment, but lacking her mothers milk for the first few months of life - Natalia's own health rapidly declined. Her father, a poor creature who did what he could to survive on the edges of the great forest - often went out of his way to give his sickly daughter the best chance at life he could. They did not eat well, and most days, her father did not eat at all - giving up his food to his sickly offspring, and it began to take its toll on him, both physically and mentally.
One day, when he was out on the frozen lake, Natalia lay at home, wrapped in an almost-threadbare blanket, when she heard the soft snuffling of the Reindeer outside their door. Crawling across to the door, Natalia rose up on her hind legs, then clawed at the crude catch - before managing to disengage it and she nosed at the door, pushing it open slightly. When the reindeer doe's nose poked in, Natalia squealed in fright - and nearly tripped over her unsteady foot-paws, before realizing who and what it was. Nudging open the door, the Reindeer Doe cautiously crept in, then stood near the fireplace. Natalia knew her father would have a seizure if he caught the Reindeer in here - but she knew the poor creature felt the cold, and her father wouldn't be home for a while - so why not share the fires warmth? Natalia crawled closer, then clasped the Reindeer by the neck with her front paws and nuzzled its muzzle and throat, to which the reindeer responded with licks and gentle nuzzles of its own. These two had been close for many years, and as the reindeer began nuzzling and licking Natalia's ears, Natalia giggled and relent - letting her adopted mother groom her.
Soon, the Reindeer nudged Natalia gently, then moved forwards and rubbed her right flank against Natalia's cold, wet nose. For a few minutes, Natalia balked - but the remembered warmth of the reindeer's milk and its rich, creamy taste, soon won over the recalcitrant Kangaroo Doe. Slipping her nose under the reindeer's belly, Natalia nuzzled at the reigndeer's udder - before twisting her head as best she could - and finding a warm nipple. As Natalia began suckling, she felt a sense of shame, as at five years old - in human years, Natalia was the equivalent of fifteen - her days of being fed warm reindeer milk were long behind her, but Natalia appreciated the kindness of this old Doe. For thirty minutes, Natalia eagerly suckled from both teats, feeling the hot, creamy milk warming her body, and giving her strength. Finally, the Doe grunted and pulled away, before nuzzling at Natalia's muzzle and licking away the few drops of milk. Natalia did her best to hug the doe around the neck, nuzzling her throat into the thick greyish-white coat of the reindeer - thanking her for her kindness. Suddenly, the Doe's head snapped up, and she uttered a short, sharp barking sound. Natalia's eyes widened, knowing the sound as a warning - and a few seconds later, there came the loud crash of a rifle discharging.
Instincts took over the reindeer, and she bolted through the front door, it slapping back against the crude log cabin wall with a hollow slap and dislodging a large drift of snow. Natalia was slower to react, and as she hopped after the fleeing Doe. A choking cry came from outside, around the side of the building, and the reindeer turned to Natalia, her ears flat and eyes wide in terror. From nearby, Natalia heard the choking gurgle of someone - or something, and before she could turn to see - a tight metal snare was thrown over her head and yanked cruelly tight. Natalia's paws shot to her throat, as her unseen assailant pulled her cruelly backwards, the snare contracting tighter and tighter, causing black blotches to form in Natalia's gentle, brown eyes.
"For the love of the gods - can't you do anything right!" Come a heavy, Slavic voice from nearby.
Natalia clawed at the snare, her blunt claws scratching at her throat as the snare pulled even tighter, her lungs burning and consciousness rapidly diminishing. Thrashing wildly, slowly being asphyxiated, Natalia threw herself backwards, fighting for even a slightest breath - but her assailant only grunted laughter - and then a thick club crashed down between Natalia's ears, stunning her. Her last conscious vision, was her father laying slumped in the snow - snow coloured red with his blood.
"Leave her alone - you bastards!" Natalia's father gurgled, blood frothing from his muzzle as he tried to rise. "Let her be!"
One of the humans, dressed in heavy winter clothing and cradling a rifle, merely sneered contemptuously and put the rifle to Natalia's fathers head - and pulled the trigger....
~ Continued in Chapter Two ~