“Shegrräo, you suppurating anus! My rejection of your sibling’s advances is none of your fucking business!” hissed the murder victim, probably Rrefka, still alive, but certainly not for long. They were brandishing the stake that would eventually make its way through their gut.

Shegrräo was bigger than them, and had six arms and legs like `errke and Nir had. Where the victim expressed mostly reptilian phenotypes, Shegrräo more closely resembled the forward grassland dogs that had a symbiotic relationship with the primates there. Only much bigger, and wearing a colorful poncho. And the dogs didn’t have six legs. Few fauna did.

Sharwe could see all this playing out, superimposed on the very real scene of the murder that was before them all. The others were possibly watching their own versions at their own paces.

“No. Pause,” Nir murmured.

Sharwe kept watching.

“I’ve made it my business,” Shegrräo’s recording growled.

“You sure the fuck have,” Rrefka shouted back. “And I need you to back off!”

“Or what?”

The two stared at each other over the firepit, muscles tense and twitching. A pot that was no longer present was bubbling, placed directly in the fire. Shegrräo had a large enough bag to carry the pot, some food, and maybe a few other things. Rrefka appeared to be empty-handed besides the big stake, which looked like it was made from fresh wood.

People normally didn’t craft things out of actual wood. Not unless they were ceremonially honoring a recently dead tree. But there were processed laminates, epoxies, and forms of nanite clay that could very closely mimic wood, even when worked by hand. This looked like genuine wood.

Sharwe activated the recordings annotations.

Yep, real wood, from a Sunspot Fir. Oh. Shegrräo’s pronouns were xe/xyr/xem, and Rrefka’s was rrem.

Hissing menacingly, Rrefka started to stalk rrems way into the little clearing. Cautious but threatening. Rrem already held the stake high, but rrem managed to lift it even higher before slowly lowering it and gripping it with both hands, eyes narrowed.

“You better be awfully certain of your next actions, Rrefka, because there’s only one ending the steps your taking now are gonna lead you to,” Shegrräo intoned.

“I don’t know,” Rrefka said. “I see a couple of possibilities.”

“You must be an optimist.”

“Apologize and back off, or shut up, Shegrräo.”

“You must love that stick, Rrefka, because I can see you humping the fuck out of it in a few seconds. It’s such a clear vision, you know?”

“Must be hallucinating.”

“Pretty sure I’m not…”

Snarling, Rrefka lunged to the left, then drove to the right to step around the campfire.

Shegrräo calmly watched the other Monster feint, then stepped in time with Rrefka right into rrems lunge, rising up on hind legs, and grappling with all four hands. Top hands went to Rrefka’s shoulders, lower hands to the stake to push it aside.

Rrefka’s enormous hind claws and surprisingly long and supple tail gave rrem considerable balance. Rrem was pushed back only a decimeter or so, and stayed stoic and upright, bearing rrems teeth.

Rrem jerked rrems head to the side as Shegrräo snapped at rrems face with finger sized canines.

“You fucker,” Rrefka shouted in Shegrräo’s parabolic ear. Then rrem tried a downward swiping kick with rrems left foot, right foot digging further into the ground.

Shegrräo flinched at the shout, then deftly avoided the kick by holding Rrefka back and finally putting rrem off balance momentarily. Then, as Rrefka dropped rrems foot and regained rrems balance almost immediately, xe quietly twisted the stake out of Rrefka’s grasp, turned the point toward rrems gut, and pulled with xyr top arms while shoving with xyr arm legs, which gripped the stake.

In that one, swift, vice-like action, Shegrräo put the stake right through Rrefka’s bowls and out past rrems spine as easily as skewering a mushroom.

Sharwe sympathetically exhaled, clenching gems stomach, and then felt like vomiting. A few seconds later, Togi had a similar reaction.