"Myths aside," Krysanthea interjected, "genetic studies confirm we evolved from different branches. All prads have way faster heartbeats than humans. We can punch, accelerate and run much faster than you and have better balance because of our tails. Humans lack the instinctive traits that define pradavarians—digitigrade legs, tails, enhanced senses, species-specific abilities, and most significantly, our metabolic requirements and reproductive cycles."

"What kind of requirements?" I asked.

"Dietary, for one," Krysanthea explained, working her knuckles in small circles between my shoulder blades. "Humans can survive as vegetarians, even vegans. Pradavarians cannot—we are predators and our bodies require specific proteins and compounds found only in animal tissue. Without them, we experience severe physical and neurological deterioration."

"My cousin tried going vegetarian once when she was young," Nessy added. "Ended up hospitalized within three weeks. Nervous system started shutting down."

"I see," I said.

"And then there's the Cycle," Krysanthea continued, her tone becoming more clinical. "Every 77 to 99 days, depending on species and age, pradavarians experience… Estrus."

The word seemed to cause some distant part of me pure, undistilled fear.

"Basically a week of heightened emotions, intense territorial instincts, and..." Nessy trailed off, her ears flattening slightly. "Ummmm, increased mating drive."

"Unlike the comparatively mild human hormonal fluctuations, the Prad Cycle cannot be medically suppressed," Krysanthea added. "It's hardwired into our neurochemistry. During peak Cycle, pradavarians take leave from critical positions—law enforcement, medical services, education—to prevent... incidents."

"What sort of… incidents?" I echoed.

"Territorial disputes. Challenge fights. Emotional outbursts. Inappropriate advances," the raptor clarified, her elbow digging into my back and making me shudder. "There's a reason many pradavarian dwellings have reinforced 'Cycle rooms' and Cycle timed locks for isolation during the more intense phases."

Nessy nodded enthusiastically. "The worst part is the smell perception distortion. When we're in estrus, our sense of smell goes crazy. If your mate smells even slightly like another prad, it can trigger completely irrational behavior. Full-on jealous rage, territorial marking, crying fits that last for hours, etc."

"It's deeply embarrassing and annoying," Krysanthea admitted grudgingly. "I once missed an important certification exam because of estrus and spent the week obsessively cleaning my apartment."

"Yep, humans don't have to deal with any of that nonsense," Nessy continued. "So, you're often wanted more for jobs like air traffic controllers or airline pilots, because you're so stable, so free from these primal drives. It's why the Slayer dubbed you the anchors of our world. In the ancient texts, it says time itself would stop if all humans vanished—you're that essential to reality's structure!"

"What?" I chortled.

"Just more Nazarite mythology," Krysanthea corrected with a sigh. "But there is something undeniably... grounding, trustworthy about humans. Your perspective is linear, stable, constantly logical in ways that pradavarians struggle to achieve during the cycle."

"Oh? Is that why you chose to date a human?"

"Actually, yes," Kristi confessed. "You might be weaker in a fight but you are hella reliable. No crazy drama." This statement seemed to be directed at Nessy as if the husky was the source of all drama in existence.

"There are physical differences too," Nessy added sticking her tongue at the raptor. "Prad females are typically larger and stronger than males—the reverse of human dimorphism. Female raptors like Kristi are way more aggressive than the males. There are way more female prads than male prads too."

"We're simply more territorial,'" Krysanthea objected, though her increased pressure on my back somewhat contradicted her statement. "You dogs just get messier and clingier."

I momentarily struggled to imagine a clingier Nessy who was already at maximum cling levels around me.

"Yeah, my apartment is like a total mess when I'm in Cycle," Nessy admitted with a sheepish grin. "It's why I rent from a human landlord—aka my boss Will as he can't smell any of it."

"Our senses also operate on entirely different spectrums," Krysanthea continued. "Raptors like myself can detect thermal signatures and movement patterns imperceptible to humans. Canids like Nessy perceive scent layers that most other species can't begin to comprehend."

"So many interesting prad facts," I murmured, feeling extremely relaxed from the raptor-massage.

Has it not been way more than ten minutes? Were the girls even bothering to time my massage? I chose not to question it, enjoying their closeness.

"Then there's the Seasonal Voice," Krysanthea said, her hands pausing momentarily.

"The what?" I yawned.

"During seasonal changes pradavarians experience collective instinctual impulses—migration urges, nesting behaviors, communal hunts," she explained.

"The Winter Calling for example," Nessy nodded solemnly. "Last year's was fun. Half of Ferguson's canids ended up gathering at Midnight Hill to howl at the moon for four hours straight! Or the Spring Hunt..."

"Humans observe these phenomena but don't experience them," Krysanthea added. "Another key distinction is our adaptive capacity. Pradavarians can physiologically adjust to environmental changes within a single generation—humans constantly invent better technology instead."

I felt myself drifting away and discovered that Nessy had gradually nuzzled into my left side.

"Ah, is someone falling asleep?" Kristi teased.

"Been a long day," Nessy yawned. "Plus we gotta get up sooper early tomorrow for Superstore-slaying, yeah?"

"Yeah," the raptor-girl sighed. She slowly slid off me and vanished into the bathroom to change. Upon her return she settled on my right side in another pair of dog-themed, pink, soft pajama top and shorts.

"Looks like someone likes wearing my clothes," Nessy teased.

"I, um, don't want to go home," Kristi said, settling on my right side. "My parents and sisters will ask too many questions and cause a level of drama that I really don't want to deal with now."

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"You all live together?" I asked.

"Yeah," Kristi let out. "I've got a pretty nice loft apartment at the Strand estate."

"How many sisters do you have?"

"Seven."

"Bulwichu, sweetie, can you turn off the lights?" Nessy yawned again.

"Lazy dog. You should get up and…" Kristi began and then the lights dimmed across the entire RV bathing it in darkness.

"What the fuck?" The raptor hissed. "That tree is controlling the electrical system in here now?"

"She's just being a helpful RV-tree," Nessy commented. "Be nice!"

"Whatever," Kristi grumbled into my side. "We will definitely discuss this… tomorrow."

"Ness?" I turned my head to the left.

"Mmmm?" The Husky tightened her full-body wrap around me.

"Are your parents in Ferguson or…?"

"Yeah," she murmured. "I can take you to meet my fam if you are ready for this step."

I decided that I wasn't. Interactions with local prads seemed to only make my situation worse given that I had to constantly pretend to be another person with only random, fractional knowledge to go on.

"S'fine," Nessy let out, seemingly guessing or sniffing out my thoughts. "No rush. Just remember, you mine now."

Raptor claws seemed to tighten against me from the other side and I winced, becoming concerned about getting sliced up to shreds.

"Ow," I voiced. "Don't salami me up."

"Ours," Nessy corrected herself, swatting at the raptor with a fuzzy paw. "No claw our precious Alec-tree."

The talons relaxed, letting go of me somewhat.

"Sorry," Kristi let out. "I… don't know how I'm going to deal with… all of this, especially when Dad finds out that I'm in a… pack with a… dog. Also... Both of us together during estrus seems like a terrible combo."

I swallowed nervously and suddenly understood exactly why the local Alec ran away to university, left the little town he loved with his entire heart.

It's always been about estrus. The two prads who cared about me were going to literally murder each other if I didn't put myself out of the picture, didn't pull myself from their paws and claws.

The threat of estrus was real and was only getting worse, escalating with each year. Nessy's overly clingy, possessive nature and Kristi and her family were a truly awful combination to deal with, lashing out in unexpected ways at me and each other every 77 days, resulting in threats, violence, bullying and unending drama.

"Now I'm starting to get concerned about the near future," I said.

"It's fine," Nessy said. "Rrrrelax. The pack bond will help."

"I don't know if it will," Kristi sighed. "I'm probably going to chew your head off, dog."

"You won't," Nessy replied. "It's going to be tough, sure, but not unbeatable. I've got Riffweld now. The Slayer spoke of the distant future to his prad children, knew in his divine human wisdom that his children's children would someday attain the reality-bending powers that he once wielded himself. For everything awful that Systemfall made like the magnetic lynx… it also allowed us to be together. Silver lining, yay!"

"What magnetic lynx?" Kristi demanded with an annoyed groan.

"Ummmm… the one chasing after me," Nessy let out.

". . ."

"Probably shoulda told you about her earlier," the canine girl added.

"Why is there an 'effing magnetic lynx chasing after you?" Kristi asked, her voice sharp with sudden alertness.

"Well..." Nessy began, shifting nervously against me in the darkness. "I might have accidentally destroyed her junkyard nest."

"You did what?" The raptor's voice rose with incredulity.

"Let me explain!" Nessy insisted. "After Systemfall hit, I went out looking for Alec, right? I had my shotgun and two pistols—all licensed and registered before you pester me about it, thank you very much."

"Continue with the lynx story please," Kristi prompted, the bed shifting as she propped herself up on one elbow, her eyes reflecting the violet night sky behind the RV's glass windows and flickering with tapetum lucidum retroreflection.

"Right, anyhow… my truck wasn't getting me anywhere on highway 69 as the road seemed to go on forever. So I sniffed for a way out, abandoned my car and went out on foot. Stumbled on what used to be a recycling center," Nessy explained. "There was this huge mountain of scrap metal—old cars, refrigerators, washing machines, you name it."

"And let me guess," Kristi interjected. "Something was living in it."

"Exactly! But I didn't know that then," Nessy continued. "I was just trying to find the best way through to Alec. It was getting dark, and I smelled something unusual. Like... electricity, metal and oil, but alive somehow."

I felt her shudder against me.

"My nose led me through the center of the junkyard, over the mountain of metal. That's when I saw it—this weird depression beside the mountain of junk, like a nest made of crushed cars, cranes and twisted girders. And at the center was this... thing."

"The lynx," Kristi supplied.

"Yeah, but not like any lynx you've ever seen," Nessy said. "It was huge—the size of a house. Its body was made entirely of metal scraps fused together. I froze, hoping it wouldn't notice me, but then it… she did."

"And that's when things went south," Kristi guessed.

"Spectacularly so," Nessy confirmed. "She woke up and went after me, freakishly moving on four legs unlike a prad lynx. I ran faster than I've ever run in my life. But as I was scrambling across the junk mountain, I dislodged something—maybe a car bumper or an old washing machine—and it triggered a chain reaction. The whole pile started to collapse.

"You caused an avalanche of junk," Kristi stated flatly. "How very... you."

"A metal-avalanche, yes," Nessy nodded. "Which would have been awesome if I wasn't in the middle of it. Anyway, the lynx's nest got completely destroyed as everything came crashing down. I barely made it out alive, diving into a drainage ditch as refrigerators and car doors rained down around me."

"And now it's following you," Kristi concluded.

"Yeah," Nessy sighed. "She's mad at me 'cus I dropped all that junk on her and destroyed her nest. She caught up to me later that day and ripped my guns and backpack off. I barely got away. I think that she's tracking me through my guns or something. She followed me all the way to the Mini-Mart and will likely get to Ferguson eventually."

"And you really didn't think to mention this before now?" Kristi's voice had that dangerous calm that suggested she was suppressing significant ire.

"I didn't want to worry you!" Nessy defended. "We already had slimes to deal with, and your sisters' Superstore issues, 'n stuff. It seemed like a problem for Future Nessy to handle."

"Future Nessy and Future Us," Kristi corrected sharply. "Since we're apparently a pack now, which means your magnetic predator problem is our magnetic predator problem."

"Aww, you do care," Nessy cooed, reaching across me to pat what I assumed was Kristi's arm. "See? Pack bonding is working already!"

"I'm going to smother you with a pillow," Kristi muttered.

"No you won't," Nessy replied confidently. "You'd miss my singing too much."

"When is it going to get here?" I asked.

"I dunno," Nessy sighed. "She'll have to go around highway 69. I'm kinda hoping she'd get stuck there, but then again she's too smart for that."

"How do you know how smart she is?" Kristi demanded.

"She… avoided all of the terrible places I tried to lure her into in the city. She, ummm… Sent a picture on Pradstagram to me today… a photo of my shotgun with its barrel chewed off. It's a message."

"It's on Pradstagram too?!" Kristi choked.

"She is, yes."

"Right… We'll deal with your lynx situation after the Superstore then," Kristi sighed. "One catastrophe at a time."

"That's the spirit!" Nessy yawned widely. "Catastrophizing in an orderly fashion."

"Go to sleep, both of you," I murmured, feeling the weight of the day pressing down on me.

"Fine, fine. G'night, Alec," Nessy whispered, offering me a quick lick on the cheek. "G'night, Kristiliss."

"Night, dog," Kristi relented, settling against my other side. "Night, Alec."

"G'night you two. Initiate level up," I said and my eyes ignited with a million alien colors from within, my consciousness spiraling into itself.

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