Beth looked down at the many faces of the nekos below Crisis, from her vantage point on her left shoulder. Their faces were grim, seeming to hate her somewhat, though resigned to working with her. None of them spoke, until Chief Greencloud addressed them, standing on her right shoulder.

“My friends!” He addressed them. The speech had been prepared on the way there. “I know this is a sudden change. I never thought something like this would happen! But we must respect Crisis’ wishes! If today has shown us anything, it is that we cannot afford to have her as an enemy! She could have killed us all today, and we all thought that she would, but she did not!”

There were begrudging murmurs of agreement from the crowd below. Not everyone was in agreement, however. One young man piped up, his voice dripping with sarcasm. “Yeah? Great! She didn’t kill us, she only threatened to kill us! All hail the queen!”

“Understand this!” boomed Greencloud, before Crisis could respond. “I don’t like this any more than you do. But this isn’t about how great a person Crisis is. This is about the future of our tribe, and that is something we should all be concerned about. That is something we should all be willing to make sacrifices for. The fact is, if this deal doesn’t work, we’re all going to die, very soon.”

The crowd quieted down at that. “It wasn’t my choice to do this. Crisis forced me into this, the same way she forced all of you. It’s not a position I want to be in. But we must not falter. We must do what is best for all of us. From now on, we don’t eat any neeras or tomthumbs. Anyone who does… well, I tell Crisis, and she decides what to do about it.”

There were grumbles and protests from the crowd, and the young man from before opened his mouth to speak, but Greencloud spoke first. “I know this won’t be easy to accept. But like I said, we have to do it. Think about it this way. All you are being asked to do is the same thing Crisis is doing for us. To her, we are like tomthumbs and neeras, and she thought we were nothing more than food, until she changed her mind. We are being given a chance we have never been given before, and we must take it, whether we like it or not, or else we are going to die.”

Crisis cut in. “I’ll be coming by every so often to check on you. I’ll keep trying to convince Milly and everyone else I know not to come after you, though.” She picked up Greencloud, placing him on the ground among his people. “You’d better listen to him,” she said. “As he says, he’s only the messenger. Anyone who messes with him, messes with me.”

As Crisis turned to leave, Rose thought fast. “Wait, Crisis! Can I stay here?”

Crisis seemed a bit relieved. As much as she wasn’t about to eat Rose, there were still some understandable hard feelings between them. “Go ahead.” She turned back and addressed the crowd again. “This is Rose. I kind of… ate her tribe. I’m sorry about that. I guess there’s not much more I can say…”

The crowd murmured disapproval while Crisis squirmed for a bit. “Anyway, I was going to eat her, too, but Beth here…,” she indicated the human on her shoulder, “she, well… convinced me not to. I was angry about it for a little while, but I understand her point of view now. She is the reason I haven’t eaten you. She’s the reason I haven’t eaten Rose. And she doesn’t want you to eat neeras either. Rose has already stopped. I hope you can take her advice.”

She picked up Rose once again, then set her down among the nekos. “Treat her nicely, okay? She kind of just lost everything…”

With that, Crisis turned and fled from the scene. The nekos didn’t get to see the look of utter shame on her face as she went back into the forest.

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Crisis eyed the struggling deer she held between her fingers. Beth was a bit spooked by the large animal’s violent struggling, but to Crisis the deer was little more than a wiggly doll.

She seemed to puzzle over the situation for a while, before bending down and setting the deer gently down on the ground. The animal ran off in a panic, disappearing into the undergrowth.

“What was that about?” asked Beth. “I mean… that could be an ethical replacement for your… previous diet, if you’re still used to it.”

“That’s what I thought too, for a moment,” she responded. “But… it doesn’t seem right. They yell and struggle… well… kind of the same way humans and nekos do.”

Beth laughed a bit. “Come on, Crisis, you know it’s not the same thing.” “Isn’t it?” she responded. “I guess I never gave much thought to the perspectives of my food before… all this. I didn’t really think it mattered, I was just doing what I was supposed to do. But I sometimes thought… they must have some perspective, I mean, I can talk to them, right?”

“Animals can’t,” replied Beth.

“I mean sure, but they kind of act the same way otherwise, right? Most of the humans I’ve seen… the only things they say are “help me” and “don’t eat me”, I mean, how different is that in meaning from the noises that deer was just making?”

“Crisis, don’t be absurd! Look. I remember those people back on Earth, they called themselves ‘vegans’, they would act all high-and-mighty, get bent out of shape about what happens to some random cows or pigs or chickens or whatever, and call you a serial killer just for having a sandwich. Those people were so annoying and sensitive and judgemental. Don’t you remember that?”

Crisis remembered what Shelny had said about the way farm animals were treated on Earth, and began to connect some dots she didn’t really want to connect. Those people hadn’t really shown her how bad it was! They’d just insulted her, and she’d gotten fed up with them! It wasn’t her fault…

Then Crisis made another connection. “Beth. You’ve yelled at me, called me a mass murderer. I understand why you did it now, but at the time it just seemed annoying and hateful. It seemed to me like you were overreacting to something trivial, something normal. That’s still how it seems to most people in this world. But you were right anyway.”

Beth’s face turned red. “That’s still not the same thing!”

“Of course it’s not the same thing. But Beth, there really is a problem on Earth. Farm animals are treated terribly, worse than anyone is treated here. They feel pain, too. I never had a reason to deny that. I always knew humans felt pain. I just didn’t think it was important. And just because you didn’t like some of the people who fought against that horror back on Earth… doesn’t mean they were wrong. You understand that, right?”

Beth sighed. “I guess I can see what you’re saying. I’ll have to think about it, though.”

Crisis smiled at her. It was amazing how quickly their roles had revered, she supposed. Her thoughts briefly went back to the horrible dream she had had, but she quickly and confidently pushed that away. She was doing everything she could, far more than anyone expected of her, to make the world less like it had been in that dream.

The sun shone down on the vibrant green forest, and though Crisis knew now that there was horror in that beauty, at least she knew she wasn't making it worse, she was doing something about it, and that was all she could ask for.