1 year later:

“Crisis, you’re still a predator! Safe Harbor is supposed to be a place where nobody gets eaten!”

Jade was always seen as antisocial by others who didn’t understand her beliefs. But Crisis understood. She was the same as Beth had been, too horrified by the things those around her did to want to ever talk amicably with them, because doing so would in some small way give their awful beliefs legitimacy. It was an understandable position, Crisis thought, but one which she thought was somewhat misapplied in this case.

“Think about it, Jade! How often do you think nekos in your territory eat neeras you’re supposed to be protecting? You can’t watch them all!”

“I can’t stop that from happening! And neither can you! I’m sure plenty of nekos eat neeras in your territory, too!”

“Yeah, it does happen sometimes! But Jade, you have to realize, most of the neko tribes who live in my territory have given up on that, seeing the benefits of my deal. Most of the time when my neeras get eaten, it’s because the nekos are coming into my territory, then running back to your territory where they can be safe from the consequences! ‘Whatever happens outside of Safe Harbor is none of my business,’ you say. Well it is my business, and it is definitely those neeras’ business.”

“Crisis, I can’t let you come into Safe Harbor and start eating nekos! It’s called Safe Harbor! People need it to be safe! If you do that, people will flee into the forest, and many of them will get eaten by God knows what!”

“Listen, Jade. My way is a good way, an effective way! Nowhere is perfectly safe, not even Safe Harbor! With my compromise, I’ve gotten Anna and Milly mostly on board, and I’ve made a territory many times bigger, which is far safer than anywhere else in Felarya, unless you decide you’re going to eat people yourself!”

“You did it through threats and bloodshed!”

“Jade, at the end of the day, order in this world only comes with some threat of violence. You should know that, you’ve fought off plenty of predators who threatened your people. I’m just asking you to consider the fact that there are also plenty of predators among your own people!”

“What would you have me do? I can’t let you in here if you’re going to eat nekos, no matter what your reasoning is! There’s no way you can convince me otherwise!”

Crisis thought for a moment, then came up with another idea. “You don’t want me to go in and eat your people. I get that. So, how about instead, you tell them they aren’t welcome in Safe Harbor unless they stop eating neeras, both inside and outside Safe Harbor. You want to protect the neeras as much as I do, right?”

“Yeah, but I’m not willing to kill my people!”

“I’m not asking you to. If you catch anyone doing it, you don’t have to bring them to me or anything. You can drop them off somewhere else, even give them supplies if you want. But I think exile from Safe Harbor is still a good enough threat to get them to stop attacking my people!”

“That’s practically a death sentence,” Jade replied. “I don’t really want to do anything like that.”

“Jade, think about it. This is completely in line with your ideals, right? You told me that before you created Safe Harbor, you wished you could protect all the smaller people, but when this was impossible, you settled for this small territory in order to be practical. But you still want to protect people outside of Safe Harbor too if you can, right? With more of us working together, we could protect more territory! What do you do if nekos come into Safe Harbor to eat neeras under your protection?”

Jade sighed. “It’s a hard problem. I generally kick them out, but… it’s hard to catch them all, you know? I can only be in so many places at once, and neeras are so small, I can barely even see them...:”

“Well, you can ask your people to help you out with that! That’s what I did! I imagine it would be easier for you than it was for me, since your people already mostly believe that nobody should be eaten, while mine tended to need a lot more… convincing.”

Jade shuddered a bit, but she could see the sense in what Crisis had said. “I’ll… I guess I’ll think about what you said,” she replied.

Crisis smiled. “Thanks! I really hope we can get closer, help each other out more in the future!”

Jade smiled a bit. “Maybe,” she replied, not seeming so certain. She turned away and walked off.

Crisis thought back to her time on Earth. As a human, she never thought she’d be responsible for something as important as this, with thousands of lives hanging in the balance. But she knew now what she had doubted when she first started to question her role as a predator: This was the world where she belonged. Not as a predator, as she had been previously, as she had thought when she first arrived, but as a protector.

She laughed a bit. This was something she never could have imagined before it happened, either as a naga or as a human. She supposed life was just unpredictable like that, and she was glad that this time it had turned out mostly for the better.