A Raptor Connection

This is a short work of erotic fiction containing furry, or anthropomorphic, characters, which are animals that either demonstrate human intelligence or walk on two legs, for the purposes of these tales. It is a thriving and growing fandom in which creators are prevalent in art and writing especially.

All work is fiction intended for fantasy only, regardless of content, and consent must always be acquired when engaging in any sex act with another adult.

Please note that all characters are clearly over eighteen and written as such in all stories.

---

I leaned back in my seat a little, trying to appear like I wasn't interested in what mom was doing as we set down on the new planet. I suppose, by then, it had come to the point in our relationship that I was trying to look a little more detached from the day-to-day stuff, though my life growing up had not been typical either.

"Alright, that's us, Big Bird X O fifty-four setting down now," my mother said, the secretary speaking clearly into the headset microphone that was poised just before her grey beak, though there was a line of yellow where it set into her feathered face. "Copy that."

I couldn't hear what was being said on the other end of the line as the environmental study ship set down on a planet that, as yet, was unknown to me. But that's what my mother and I did -- along with the rest of the research team on the ship, of course. We travelled from planet to planet doing environmental studies, as my mother was a biologist. At the current time, I was in training, even though I still wasn't sure what direction I wanted my life to take.

Sometimes it sucked that my mom was single and travelling constantly in her life, dragging me along with her, though I got lots of experiences that I may not have had if I had been stationed on a single planet. Even with the universe at our fingertips, the education system was often standardised within those signed to Convasse.

Mom didn't like Convasse, the control they took over the citizens of multiple planets. So, that was how I'd ended up travelling along with her until I was nineteen, just, only meeting some others who were the same age as me. We were the only secretary birds, though there were a couple of other avians over the years, who I tried to chat with and learn from the best I could. Sometimes, that was all I could do.

When we set down, I scurried out as soon as mom allowed me to do so, as she was still above me in the hierarchy of the ship. I'd tried to tell her, before, that I didn't really have to listen to her now that I was an adult and had been for a little time, but, of course, that didn't go down all that well when there was a chain of command there.

I had to obey that and, honestly, I liked the work too. It was better than what many my age got into and I didn't feel like I all that easily connected with those who were closer to me in age, going out and partying. It didn't matter what planet we were on: if there was a station, there was a party. I just wasn't all that interested in them and, frankly, I didn't think that was ever going to be for me either.

I grunted as I set down, surveying the area. It was rich and jungle-like -- kind of like the planet we had been on four or five back. Sometimes we hopped from planet to planet and environment to environment so much that they all blended into one in my head. That was a struggle for me: keeping things separate like that.

But I could work around it and I think, really, that was what life was all about. You had to be flexible in the galaxy, unless you stayed on one planet for your entire life. I didn't want that, but I wasn't so sure being on a research expedition to study the environment, working for different companies, was something I was interested in for the rest of my life either.

Little did I know that my fate had been set the moment I set foot on that planet, studying the foliage and using a hand-scanner to quickly record the plants around me. There was nothing for me elsewhere and I was destined to stay right where I was.

"Ah... There..."

My mother raised a feathered, hand, her wings forming part of her arms. I'd seen some anthros who had separate wings on their backs, which was pretty cool, though I could gain some height and air with mine if I flapped really hard. My mother, however, pointed at a bipedal creature up on a hillock, some distance away from where we'd landed.

It looked dinosaur-like, though true dinosaurs had not been seen across multiple planets for many years; there was a chance that some still existed in the galaxy, of course, for not every planet had been explored yet. But the creature was definitely powerful, standing on two clawed feet that were much larger than my own, appearing to all intents and purposes to be a raptor.

"It has feathers like us," I said and my mother nodded, having that noted down; my eyes were better than hers and could see a little further and more clearly. "They're blue... I think there's a lighter underbelly too, definitely a carnivorous head."

"Fascinating," my mother breathed. "I did not expect to find life like that here. This is a significant discovery!"

I could not help but smile at my mother's enthusiasm. It seemed to take no effort at all to get her happy about something, as if she lived for her work. That was all well and good for her, though it was not at all the sort of thing that suited me.

However, the raptors, as we took to calling them, populated a large part of the planet -- or at least where we landed and made camp for the time being. We slept on the space vessel, of course, retreating to it every night, though there was talk about getting small expedition vehicles to traverse the planet more easily. Sometimes we used hover craft and other times there were more rugged wheeled vehicles, though they all had their pros and cons.

I wouldn't have minded doing some work there too, or perhaps going into more lab-based biology -- as long as it wasn't the same every single day. The raptors, at the very least, kept me interested and I made them my speciality for that research trip, even though there was plenty of flora there to be studied too.

They varied in size, but most of them were at least a head taller than I was, so somewhere around seven feet tall. It was difficult to get an accurate measurement on any one of them, for they often seemed to be in motion, though I was able to get quite close to them.

They were feathered creatures and could bow down on to their front legs, which were hooked up more like arms, if they wanted to investigate something, though they were, more often than not, standing on two legs. They didn't have scales, like some alien species I'd encountered, but feathers all over their bodies. In that way, they kind of looked like my mother and me, though we were very much secretary birds rather than alien raptors.

The raptors had wicked, hoked claws too that they used -- but only for the killing blow of a hunt, which I was lucky enough to observe, having half climbed and half flapped myself up into a tree. They didn't hunt in packs either, though needed a fair amount of food from other mammalian creatures on the planet to feed themselves.

Feeding was brutal and that side, to be fair, turned my stomach, even if they fully and cleanly dispatched their prey before feasting, together. It was how they hunted that was strange, as if the prey was being drawn to them, walking in a trance. I thought the raptors may well have been able to camouflage themselves, in some way, from their prey -- but that didn't make sense when I could still see and hear and smell them as clear as day.

Yet something wasn't quite right there. I was so wrapped up in my fascination with the raptors that I didn't notice at first, but the others that I'd lived and worked with on the ship started acting...odd.

First, Emily, a dragon anthro, snapped at her partner -- literally. Her teeth caught the wolf's ear and ripped loose a shred. It might have been a small notch of skin out of her partner's ear, but it was significant enough to give me pause.

And then I noticed Julienne and Michael fighting, the pair of horses bickering back and forth, stomping their hooves and swishing their tails. The guys usually got on like they'd been together forever, though I think their relationship was only of a couple of years.

Things escalated sharply from there as the raptors lunged into our group, even though we were close to the ship and should have been well-protected by the force fields around it. It didn't make sense, not at all, how the raptors could bypass that -- but it was carnage!

They screamed, a bone-chilling cry that ached through the air, and even I had to quail, a ray gun clutched in my feathered hands. It wasn't my usual weapon of choice -- but it was not as if I all that often needed a weapon at all. I held it like I was going to take a sample extraction, not defend myself. My hands shook terribly and I clamped my beak shut tightly as a raptor dragged another member of the expedition, Mary-Anne, off into the bushes, her cries echoing through the air.

We hadn't even seen them coming and, in the chaos, my mother dragged me with a short, sharp squall back on to the ship.

"Up, up!" She hissed, pulling out my feathers in her haste to get me to the medical bay, shoving me ahead of her. "You've got to get in, get away! You've got to get in!"

"Mom -- what's happening? Why can't we just lock them out?"

I meant the raptors, of course, though it crossed my mind that other members of the expedition would be locked out too if we simply closed the doors. My mother shook her head, tapping a few buttons on the side of a medical pod -- the kind that was designed to hold an anthro in stasis for a time, usually when they had grievous wounds or something further needed medical investigation.

My mother didn't answer, though she had something of an ashen look about her face, her feathers ruffled and sticking up. Even the colours around her crest and beak were dulled as if something was being drained from her. Had I not noticed that she was fading, that she was perhaps unwell?

Alas, it was too late to know as the raptors stepped on to the ship, not needing to rush. I shivered, something prickling around the edges of my mind. Could a brain be itchy? Well, that was most certainly the sensation I had at that time, as much as it didn't make sense.

"In, you've got to stay there. I hope..." She said softly, her voice dropping and taking on a rough, raspy quality. "My dear, I hope I see you again. Please, stay safe."

She pushed me into the pod and the last feeling I had of my mother, in that mind, was her fingers leaving my shoulder, the imprint of her hand biting into my shoulder.

And then I knew no more, falling and falling, as the smooth, domed lid of the stasis pod closed over my head.

I didn't need to know, not in stasis, after all.

When I dreamed, time having no meaning in limbo, I saw coloured raptors -- in all colours of the rainbow. They darted and danced and stared, piercing eyes capturing my visage, as if they were staring directly into my soul.

The backgrounds of my dreams changed, from the ship to open meadows to the rich, wet jungle too -- even a cave, more than once. Of course, there was no way for me to differentiate one dream from another.

I finally came around with no sense of the time that had passed, though my tongue felt thick and fuzzy in my mouth, as if I had imbued too much liquor.

"Ah... What?"

I couldn't get any further words out as I sat up slowly, something ringing in my ears. There was a dim beep in the background, though it didn't stop as I swung one leg, slowly, after the other out of the pod. It looked like the power source for it had been cut -- though it was not as if I wanted to slip back into stasis either.

My heart pounded and my stomach lurched. Regardless of my physical state, I had to find out what had happened. The last thing I remembered was anthros from the ship acting weirdly and then fighting, doing things that were very out of character for them. Next, the raptors were attacking and there was so much chaos, screams cutting through the air...

"Erf."

I grunted, pressing a hand over my beak, though it didn't stop the odd rise of nausea there, as if I needed to regurgitate. It was okay, however, for the sickness was settling, even if I hadn't done anything in particular to actually soothe it in the slightest. It was only a marginally good thing that being in stasis meant that every function of my body had slowed, only allowing brain function at an unconscious level. Things had still worked, though so slowly they were imperceptible.

Everything felt okay, however, and I stretched out one wing-arm and then the other, turning back and forth and smoothing feathers back into place. I was still wearing out unicorn, a black, long-sleeved jacket over wicking underclothes and black trousers that clung to my legs, allowing me flexibility before they cut off at the point my feathers eased into that scale-like skin for avian legs. My claws clicked across the smooth, easily cleaned, floor of the medical bay as I took in my surroundings, wincing at the noise.

I wanted to be discreet, though I didn't have any talon mufflers with me and had to keep going. I just had to find out what had happened. Despite how I'd been trying, in a small way, to distance myself from my mother and find myself as an avian, I ached for my mother more than ever, a sick sense in the pit of my stomach that she had, ultimately, sacrificed herself for me.

There'd only been one stasis pod, after all, on our ship. I couldn't imagine my mother taking the space of someone else anyway, even if there had been multiple ones and more of a chance for her to escape too.

Exploring the ship, I went through the mess hall to the private quarters, though there were no locked rooms there. The click of my talons echoed strangely through the empty ship and my stomach panged with loss. I was not used to it being so quiet, not alive with the hum of the machinery and bustle of anthro activity. It was lonelier like that.

There was no one there either and I finally retraced my steps to my mother's quarters, which looked like they had been lived in -- somewhat. It was hard to remember, if I remembered at all, just how her room had looked before we'd landed on the raptor planet, if anything was significantly out of place.

For it did not appear as if any of the ship had been ransacked in the slightest, if the raptors had come on board, truly, at all. It looked lived in and normal and I may well have not noticed anything at all out of place if it had all been a regular day.

It was from that, however, and I ran my fingers experimentally over the small bedside cabinet that held a few locked drawers, right next to my mother's slim bed. It was still wider than mine (a perk of her rank) and I'd been so jealous about it before.

My beak tipped down and I swallowed hard, even though it didn't do anything at all to dislodge the lump of emotion in my throat. Oh, how I missed her... Yet it wasn't the time to let emotion get the better of me. Like a wild creature, I had to be careful and I had to rely on instinct.

Above all else, regardless of all that had gone down, I needed to survive. And that was the only reason I could not succumb to the swirling mess of emotion threatening to rise within me.

There was a little dust on the top of the cabinet, though not too much. At least that told me my mother had not been there in some time. I wasn't a good judge of things like that, but, with all the doors throughout the ship open, I imagined it taking only a couple of weeks to get into that light state of mess.

Bending over, I picked up a journal from the floor and opened it to the recent entries.

It was my mother's, of course, though I knew my mother never would do something like document her feelings: she was open about those with her friends and no more than that. She was the kind of bird who had a very distinct line between every facet of her life. Emotion and working through problems were for friends -- not for bringing into her workplace, of course. Maybe that was simplifying things a little too much, but it made me smile to remember her, exactly as she was.

I'll find you, mom.

I had to find her. There was no other option for it, for my mother, regardless of our differences, had always been there for me. She'd done everything she could to save me -- and I had to help her, in some way, any way.

So, I read her notes, working backwards through the journal. At least, that was what I tried to do, as she recorded everything that happened in the days past.

But...her writing wasn't the same, not on the latest entries, though I had no way to tell the time or the date, as all electrical systems were off on the ship. So, I flipped back to where I could read her writing more clearly, using an old-style pencil rather than the smart tech we brought with us. With that always changing and evolving, allowing us even to just write in mid-air or on a hologram and have it transcribed perfectly to digital format, it was strange that she'd chosen that medium. I'd never even seen her write in a journal before, not like that.

As I read, I uncovered some further details about the raptors. Apparently, they shed their feathers every few cycles, though I didn't quite know what a cycle was on that planet. I flipped further back and found a section on raptor mating, which I read with an oddly erotic tingle. Creatures like that coming together and mating had never interested me so much, from a technical standpoint, yet there was something in me that was more interested in it than before.

If I'd realised the danger then, I might have been able to find some way to escape, or even mitigate the danger I was in. But, it was not to be. I should have known we were far inferior to creatures like the raptors.

Yet there was no true way for me to know.

However, as I kept reading, I learned that the raptors were not all feathered, like the ones we'd found. They were capable of mating with all kinds of creatures to reproduce -- though did not often mate with their own. My mother didn't note down a reason for that, though it would have been speculation, nonetheless.

That meant there were some sketches of raptor offspring in the notebook too, showing them with dolphin-like features: a fish-catching beak and a dolphin-like tail. A few pages were spent on one that I presumed my mother had been able to study up-close, though there were other examples too, like some with fur and some with horns like the favoured mammal that I'd thought was their prey before. Different skin types were noted and I gulped hard to think of my mother being so close to the creatures. I had not been in the eye of the carnage, although that didn't mean I didn't respect the horrors that had taken place there, what the raptors themselves were capable of.

I shivered. There'd been an intelligent, alien theme in their eyes, back when I'd been studying them too. Who could have known that so much would happen in such a short span of time?

I grunted and laid a hand on my stomach, my clothes feeling like they were too tight and restrictive on me. Squirming, I mused over taking them off, but I didn't want to be bare. The clothes didn't protect me, but they made me feel a little more myself.

There were some good details on the raptors, like where they nested and where they favoured hunting grounds were, although the writing... My mother didn't make much sense in the end. It was as if she was becoming infatuated with them, the more she wrote and the more days that passed. Even her writing gradually turned into a scrawl, the last readable words tracing my vision several times.