"Bro, we slaying some evil today or what?"

I continue sipping my tea. Bitter nostalgia hits hot on my tongue, scalding it slightly. It's a good morning. Boring, but good.

"Come on bro, I'm tryna get my blade wet if ya know what I mean."

I ignore the sword, pondering how much trouble it would be to charter a ship and dump it in the ocean.

"You can't ignore me forever, bro. Let's run it, right now, bro. What about him, huh?"

The innkeeper, Jarem, passes my table. I smile warmly. He smiles back politely and nods, moving past my table to wipe down another where a rowdy band of adventurers had managed to leave things mostly in one piece.

"Bro wouldn't even know. He ain't looking. Come on, let me show you what I can do!"

"No," I whisper between sips.

"Bro, fuck you. Give me a chance bro, I'll show you. I'll show everyone."

Jarem, thankfully, could not hear the sword. Nor could anyone, save for those unfortunate enough to be bound to it.

I ignore the sword's plea.

"Ugh, we never do anything fun," It pouts.

"Maybe," I say quietly, "if you weren't insistent on taking the reigns, you'd be let out of your sheath more."

Jarem shoots me a bemused look and shakes his head.

"Oh please, that was one time. Plus, it was too bright out. I couldn't see. You got the arm reattached anyways, didn't you?"

I feel the mind of the sword withdraw. Sulking off to whatever place sentient swords go when they feel sad and introspective.

I sigh.

The sword is useful, I remind myself. It can turn the most formidable warrior into a flailing child, if they're stupid enough to draw the blade. And the blade wants to be drawn. You can feel it, deeply enticing. Entrancing even, despite the inane whinings.

The sword is useful.

And blessedly--at least for the moment--it's also quiet.

I had no fervor in life. Life seemed to me a way to flounder around from place to place. I was a freight, and I carried life around with me.

Someone once told me, to feed the fire! But I have hardly any embers left in me, the life burning the fire away.

For I search for things to be fluent in, to pass the time. All the time wondering if this was all there was.

But something in me tells me to carry on. For if life won't let me live, then I'll live in spite of life.

(Wc: 99 words)

“What do you mean earth will have 4 senators?” Asked my friend, Ooclis

”Exactly what I said.” I told him

”But why?“ Ooclis asked “It’s always been that each planet only has 1 senator.”

”No, it’s each sentient-intelligent species. The misconception comes from the fact that no planter has ever had more than 1.” I said

”You mean earth does!” He asked in astonishment

“well, up to 30 earth cycles ago, no”

“But you just said-“

“Let me finish. 30 earth cycles ago, the humans, the only sentient-intelligent creature on earth at the time, were doing experiments on a dog, and accidentally made it as intelligent as humans.”

”fascinating” Ooclis said

”After the discovery, they attempted to make another animal intelligent, this time a bird. They chose to attempt the parrot, because it was already a more intelligent creature. It was another success, and only 3 earth cycles after the dog. The parrot can even replicate other voices and languages, meaning if it hears enough words in our languages, it may be able to produce entire conversations in them.”

Ooclis just gaped, clearly astonished. I had a similar reaction to hearing. If I had not heard it first hand from our senator himself, I most likely would not have believed it.

”The most recent creature was the sea turtle. This time, they were trying their luck with a less intelligent species. It took them only up until a season before we arrived at their planet to welcome them to the galactic order.“

“so they will have all 4 species on the galactic parliament?” Asked Ooclis

“yes” I say

” what happens if they make more intelligent creature. Do they also get a spot?” He asked.

“ the parliment decided if they make more, it will fall under either terrestrial, aquatic, or flying. These, along with humans, will hold the senate spots for planet earth“

Suddenly, I hear a ping from his watch.

“The earthians have arrived. Let us go welcome them D’lars”

”indeed Ooclis”

The spider just ate a dragon!

I kinda like this. It’s fun to nitpick all the stupid stuff in high fantasy but its common for the genre to have things like wizards that can wipe armies or berserkers that by sheer power of rage can singlehandedly slay monsters 5x their size.

Humans are able to feel things though alien definition might vary maybe non human and just vocal rather than vocaloid Dogs can attack other ones etc

THIS IS SO COOL

Almost all animals count as sentient but some could represent others etc all can feel things and depends if you take sapient has wise or appearing wise how you define it

This would be a good prompt in /r/humansarespaceorcs too

The humans stared in surprise. "I'm sorry, perhaps we misunderstood - I thought that each sentient species got a single senator?"

The gelatinous alien wobbled. "Yesyes, quite right quite right. One senator one senator. Everyone gets one, everyone gets one."

The feathered, multi-eyed creature standing next to it nodded slowly. "As my colleague explained, you are correct. One senator per sentient/sapient species, regardless of planets settled or ruled over."

One of the humans - the one named George - whispered, "Do... do they mean whales and dolphins? Chimpanzees? Did we miss something?"

The leathery humanoid, Lange - incidentally the only creature with a human-pronounceable name - chuckled. "No, no. While you have an impressive number of creatures on your planet, none but the Humans are worthy of a seat on the council."

Ambassador Humphries cleared his throat. "May I ask... why are we being given this singular honor? Humanity is only a single species, and yet we get four senators?"

Lange burbled another chuckle, joined by the other two aliens. "You humans are so inclusive! It really warms my hearts. No, as I'm sure you understand, even though you see yourselves as a single species, you are of course four. Unless... well, there was some debate about Hot/Dry Humans and Hot/Wet Humans?"

Humphries blinked in surprise. "I'm... sorry? Are you calling humans different species based on... climate?"

Lange seemed confused by the question. "Well... yes? I suppose we should have clarified, but - here, look."

She pulled out a holographic projector, and pulled up an image of a young woman in a thick winter coat. "This is one species, the Cold Human. This one is from 'Michigan'. Er, we use the term Cold Human, your inclusivity must have eradicated the different terms generations ago. And this one" - the image changed to that of a middle-aged man in shorts and a t-shirt - "is a Hot/Dry human, from 'Marbella, Spain'. And this one... and this one. Cold, Hot/Dry, Hot/Wet, and Temperate. Ah! Maybe you call them Arctic, Desert, Tropical, and Plains? Though some of the plains undergo rapid temperature shifts..."

Lange trailed off. Humphries cleared his throat, twice, then eventually found his words. "That's... those are all just humans, though. We wear thick clothing in cold temperatures, thin clothing in hot weather, and while, yes, most of us prefer one climate or another, we do move around a bit. I was born in England, but moved to Florida, in the United States - temperate to hot, er, wet. We adapt to almost any temperature, but we're still all the same species - surely the blood tests and DNA matching would have shown that?"

The aliens gathered into a huddle, squawking and gesturing wildly. The blobby alien turned a sickly-looking shade of yellow-green, while the feathered one shed more than a few feathers. Lange, clearly the most level-headed of the group, still looked quite shaken. Finally, they turned back to the humans.

Lange cleared her throat with a delicate squeak. "We... you are correct, of course, about the blood tests and so forth. But there is quite a bit of... shall we say, climate hard-liners? Our planets, much like your own television shows, largely a single climate, or only populated in a single climate band. My planet is temperate." She made a short engine sound, followed by a loud cowbell noise, gesturing to the goo-creature - " comes from a planet that is mostly water, dotted with tropical islands. And" - a horrible static noise, this time gesturing at the bird-person - "is from a dry, dusty planet of intense heat. He wears a thermal regulator to visit your temperate facilities, here. But... you live all across this wild planet, with its intense heat and cold?"

Humphries nodded. "We do, yes; as I said, we humans are adaptable. While we thrive in temperatures from -40 degrees Celsius to over +40 degrees Celsius, we can survive much more extreme - I'm sorry, is your friend all right?"

The blobby creature had gone fully green, and was shaking so hard its rolls of goo were making tiny clapping sounds. Lange glanced in its direction, then shook her head. "No, it will be fine. We are just... shaken. Are you telling us that you refuse four senators, and choose only one? And that your choice of senator will come from... any climate?"

Humphries nodded, somewhat mystified at the odd reaction. "Of course. We may have our differences, but outside of preference, we don't argue over climate. Much, anyway. As far as I know, we've never gone to war over climate! Ha ha!"

His joke fell flat. Lange, her face unreadable, replied only, "We have."

The coming months were eye-opening, to both the varied aliens and to the humans that visited them. Icy worlds were met with, "Gee, it's a bit chilly! Almost as bad as winters in Alaska, but you've got a lot more daylight," and desert planets were greeted with, "Oh, no worries, it's a dry heat, just stay hydrated. And you don't have any scorpions!" The alien worlds were unprepared for the constant downplaying of the climate - no world humans visited was as hot, as cold, or as inhospitable as the climates of Earth. The hardliners scoffed that their world was much more extreme, but soon found that the more harsh they claimed their world was, the more humans flocked to it. "You call this cold? At least the atmosphere is breathable, at the top of Mount Everest you have to were oxygen tanks!" or "This is hot, yes, but one summer my family visited Death Valley and cooked hamburgers without lighting a fire, this is nothing!"

Lange smiled to herself as she read through the morning's reports. The climate extremists - hot and cold, for the first time in history on the same side - were calling for a ban on human travelers, though their reason why was mostly angry grumbling about "showoffs." The vote to remove a number of extreme temperature planets from Parliament was called off, because humans had somehow managed to take up permanent residence on almost all of them, calling them "not that hot" or "only kinda cold." There was even the beginnings of a tourist trade among the somewhat less extreme planets; a Khorthian, known galaxy-wide as a hater of "warms", became the first of his kind to visit Noomoobooloo, one of the colder planets, albeit on the middle of a heatwave. And the human clothing! It had taken the galaxy by storm; parkas and Hawaiian shirts sold like coldcakes. Even their food was extreme! Ice cream and hot coffee! Eaten together, at times! They even had "frozen hot chocolate", an oxymoron that nonetheless was becoming popular with many cultures.

Lange unlocked the bottom drawer of her desk, and pulled out a report: "Earth: X7 rating. Death planet. Extreme climates, dangerous lifeforms, long-term toxic to most life forms. Natives invented atomic energy and immediately used it as a weapon on themselves. Avoid at all costs."

She flipped the page to the other report, the one she had submitted to Parliament. "Earth: M5 rating. Four distinct climates, each with its own lifeforms. No sign of inter-species war. Some extremist views."

A scrap fell out from between the pages; written on it was a quote from a famous Earth author, Mark Twain: "Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime."

Lange carefully tucked the scrap back into the folder, and locked it away again. Travel, indeed.

This would be a good prompt in /r/humansarespaceorcs too

[removed]

Ahhh well I enjoyed it :) I liked how you put crows on it. They smart as hell :) I wonder who the extinct ones were though. Dinosaurs? :)

Of course! Also I decided my original idea was dumb halfway through and decided to end on a very different note than I started!

Mice?:) inspired by hitchhikers guide?:)

SHIT!

See what I mean? We had no fucking clue. McDonalds sucks now, there's just a hole in the earth where KFC used to be. Coca-cola is on trial for unrelated war crimes, that's icing on my egg/dairy free cake.

Damn that's good! Definitely wouldn't mind more.

This was a great read, thanks!

your TV is on the moon

Aww thank you ❤️❤️ I'll probably just write short stories on Reddit for a few months to improve my writing confidence and speed but after that I'll pick a longer project for sure!! My heart is in novels and web novels after all 🤗

Btw my topics and writing style is all over the place but made a new account u/secret-rune because I dont love this username which makes me seem like a middle aged lady 😂

Homey legit decided to identify as an attack helicopter. Damn, transphobes blown out.

"Four?" Garrett's voice carried his consternation. "I- apologize, but I was told we had but a single representative for the planet."

"No," said the machine, primly. "You were not. One senator from each sentient species, you were told. Our last survey from your region, approximately 11,000 years ago, indicated at least 6 such species on your world. At least 4 are extant. Before you are admitted entry, you must return with your counterparts."

"Then there's been a mistake," Garrett insisted. The machine said nothing, so he continued. "Humanity is the sole sentient species on Earth. We've never found evidence for any -"

"AH, there you are!" cried a booming voice. A long, low crate behind him that he'd thought was a piece of equipment suddenly faded to transparency, revealing...

"A whale?!" He couldn't hide his astonishment.

An eyeball the size of his fist rolled to stare him, distorted behind the pressure vessel but somehow managing to convey both apology and amusement. "A human?" the whale echoed, in gentle mockery. "Yes, a whale. They made contact with us first, you know. They only know about you because we told them."

Garrett couldn't seem to make his mouth work, so the whale returned his attention to the gatekeeper. "Now that we're both here..."

"I have received word," interrupted the machine in the wall, "that the third of your senators has arrived at a different entrance. Once the fourth has arrived, all will be admitted."

"The third?!" exclaimed the human, while the whale seemed to writhe in his tank. Seconds later, the massive creature's translator boomed, "fourth? What fourth? We invited the dolphins but you stated they were genetically similar enough to be fairly represented by me. What other third can there be? Fourth?"

Suddenly, the wall next to the machine became a window, and from within it, a single, black eye peered out, surrounded by tiny, jet-black feathers. "Haha, my fellow earthlings!" croaked the eye, and Garrett suddenly realized he was seeing the feed from a suit camera. He stared. The whale stared. The crow stared back at them, in apparent good humor. "What?" she drawled. "Don't tell me you're just now figuring this out?"

"You have arrived at the wrong entrance." the machine informed him. "But conditions at that gate are biocompatible, so you may proceed to entry as soon as the fourth member of your party arrives.

"Fourth?!" cawed the crow. There was a jitter in the feed as she flapped her wings in alarm. "There are but three of us! AWK!"

An hour later, they were still arguing with the machine. Garrett, and the whale, whose name, it turned out, was Thumps-the-Squid, had spent some of that time clearing up historical misunderstandings. The crow, who had a name but refused to share it, seemed personally offended at the idea that there was a fourth senator. Thumps suggested that perhaps she'd been looking forward to upstaging the two of us, and wasn't thrilled to be upstaged herself. The wall, however, steadfastly refused all requests for information and insisted that the fourth senator must be present and that it was not authorized to provide additional information,

Garrett, despite the circumstances, couldn't help feeling just a little smug. Okay, so there had been some shocks. Humanity wasn't alone on earth, and that was going to rock the planet more than the news of alien contact had, but at least the aliens made mistakes, too. An hour had passed with no sign from the mystery senator, and all three earthlings agreed that, while each was certainly a shock to the others, all had a right to be present and none could come up with a plausible fourth. "Too long!" shouted the crow stridently, "you take too long between surveys! Species die! Perhaps smart then, but stupid now!"

"Yes!" exclaimed Garrett. "Whatever other intelligence you found 11,000 years ago, clearly they're no longer with us!"

The machine answered instantly, "the remaining sentience was not found at our prior visit but revealed itself to us only recently. It was their contact that led us to initiate your admittance to the Parliament. All four senators must be present for admittance."

Crow, whale, and man all stared at each other. After a moment, Garrett tried again to explain. "We think there has been a mistake. There is no as species on earth capable of establishing interstellar contact, not on their own, and certainly not without at least us noticing. Okay, we didn't see the whale colonies, but they were hiding in purpose! The crows don't want what we want, so we were unaware of the level of..."

He trailed off. He couldn't explain the crows, either. "Nevertheless!" he rallied, "The energy requirements alone would have been a dead giveaway! You established contact with US!" Garrett pulled out his phone, unsure of whether he planned to call for backup or just look up the history of First Contact, when the machine smoothly cut in.

"The fourth member of your party has arrived. You may enter."

Three pairs of eyes, one green, one brown and cow-like, and one black and beady, watched the tiny white mice stroll through the door, looking for all the galaxy as though they owned the place.

RETURN TO MONKE!!!!!!

Humans, dolphins, mice and...?