#the hypocrites

Frixe will never get used to the stories of Terra. The flora, the fauna, the natural disasters. It sounded almost unliveable. And these new creatures, the humans, speak of it so casually like it happens every other orbit. It probably does, Frixe figures, though they respected the love the humans had for their planet despite the dangers.

But still. A water planet, and it was ruled by land walkers? The idea was insane to Frixe, who lived on a simple desert planet that was the same from nearly every side. Frixe had to know more.

Luckily there was a small group of humans nearby, talking to some other species Frixe was familiar with. They were all currently on an artificial planet that was built for the purpose of bringing all the different discovered species together, so there were probably over a hundred planets' worth of creatures currently visiting it. Including the newest group, the humans.

Frixe waved one of their four limbs at the pack of humans, a gesture they learned meant a friendly greeting. A human waved back, and made space for Frixe to sit near them. They recognized her, her name was Avery.

"Hello Avery", they said simply. "I hope I'm not interrupting, I was curious about your planet."

Avery just smiled, avoiding baring her teeth as it was discovered to be a hostile gesture to most species besides humans. There were three other humans in the circle, and multiple other different creatures as well. It seemed like they were telling each other stories.

"Oh course! Gruogol here was already asking us about our oceans." Avery said. "He was asking if we can drink all the water, and the answer is actually no. The majority of our oceans are made from salt water, and we can only drink fresh water, which makes up about 2.5%."

"Wow, you can't even drink the majority of the water on your water-planet?" Another creature asked.

"Nope, not without it harming us. Ironic isn't it? And we're made of 70% water ourselves." A human next to Avery piped up.

"What is it like in your oceans? Such huge bodies of water must have incredible creatures in it." Frixe asked.

"Oh yeah," Avery started. "There's some wild things down there. The further down you go the more weirder they get. And we don't even know everything that's down there. We haven't even explored a quarter of our oceans so far."

Frixe balked at that. "What? How? You have the technology to travel through the vacuum of time and space yet you haven't even discovered all of your own oceans?!"

All the humans nodded solemnly. "Exploring space is easier than our oceans."

A human male turned to Avery. "Though, we do get a lot of help from the Maris. They like to gatekeep some stuff from us however."

Avery just nodded like he didn't say a word no one else understood. "The Maris can only go so far down themselves, they don't even know the entirety of the oceans yet."

The non-Terra residing aliens from the circle just glanced at each other in confusion.

"Ah, Avery?" She looked up at Frixe. "What is the "Maris"?"

Avery and the other humans froze for a second, and glanced at each other in an odd synchronization Frixe figured was typical for their sociable body communication.

"Did we never bring up the Maris to the galactic federation? I figured they would've added them to the database of sapient species."

"There's ANOTHER intelligent species on your planet?!" A creature next to Frixe shouted.

The humans just looked at each other again. "Oh god, we never told them about the Maris."

Frixe didn't know what happened next, but suddenly they found themselves at an even bigger circle, with the heads of the galactic federation at one end and the suddenly sheepish looking humans at the other. The head of Frixe's planet rubbed their face exasperatedly.

"So you mean to tell us there's not one, but two sapient species residing on your planet?" They spoke in a tone that faintly resembled an 'oh spirits there's two of them?'

The humans nodded, and the federation gestured to them to continue.

"We call them the Maris, which is an old word meaning "Of the sea." They resemble us both anatomically and biologically, but instead of legs for walking on land, they have tails for swimming."

The creatures in the room made noises of awe and bewilderment. It was rare but not unheard of for a planet to have more than one intelligent species, but for a deathworld? And based on the human's description, they were basically physically identical to the humans beside the tails. So now there's two sets of humans that exist? Frixe thought with exasperation.

"Tell us more about these Maris. Why haven't we heard from them until now? If they're a sapient species they must join us up here."

Avery continued with the explanation. "We must've overlooked explaining them. We have a far bigger hand in space travel as we can walk out of water. They can only be outside of water for short periods of time, so it'd be extra hard to bring any of them out here. There would have to be some accomodations." Avery looked around.

There were water planets, of course. And there were some of the species of those planets here already. But all of them are able to walk on land in some way shape or form. Frixe is sure there are other planets out there with undiscovered intelligent species because they cannot make it through space nearly as easily, so the issue makes reasonable sense.

So the galactic federation set to plan with the humans to bring some of these Maris to meet with the rest of them. Frixe couldn't hide their mixture of excitement and terror.

Humans with tails! Humans that are water-bound, that swim instead of walk, that know more of the oceans than the land-humans do. Frixe is so curious how similar and how different these beings must be to their bipedal cousins.

But also, humans have quite a reputation up here. When they started making their way through space, they accidentally got mistakened for animals and got themselves domesticated by a neighboring reptilian planet. For about 2 years they struggled to prove their intelligence to a species that would just pat and coo at them. Then after they got out of that, they made names for themselves by infiltrating alien ships just to mess with the machinery and either make it better or worse. They'd run straight into danger, and once accidentally caused and ended a single war in the span of 6 lunar orbits.

So doubling that, just with aquatic tails? Frixe wonders if they all should be worried.

~~~

Frixe was at the front lines, excitedly waiting for the human ship to dock and open. It has been a couple of lunar orbits, and the humans with the help of multiple other species, were able to function water pods to allow their aquatic friends to travel by spaceship. The federation also had multiple pools and aquaducts built into the mechanical planet for these new creatures to travel around.

Frixe noticed Avery first, and she was pushing out a large circular pod on wheels. It had an open top, and when they got off the landing pad, that's when Frixe saw the head pop out.

It just looked like another human.

It's hair was wet, and it was looking around sporadically, but it didn't look much different from Avery other than the obvious individual features.

But then as they got closer, Frixe noticed it. Their skin was significantly paler, with a blue hue to it. Their teeth were sharper. Their paws (or hands as humans call it) had thick webbing between each digit, and their nails were sharper. And when Avery brought them up to Frixe, they saw as the creatures pupils thinned into slits instead of the tiny dots humans had.

Avery smiled at them. "Hello Frixe, meet my friend Saorise."

The creature, Saorise, grinned big at Frixe and offered her hand in a handshake like she didn't make Frixe fear for their life. Avery quickly whispered in Saorise's ear, and she must've told her of the fangs problem because she covered her teeth. Frixe felt a little better.

"So, now that we got them here, do you have any questions?" Avery looked at Frixe. Behind them were more pods being carted off the ship.

And oh yes did Frixe have questions.

~~~

"Okay, ask away. We'll be as specific as we can."

Avery, Frixe, and Saorise found themselves in a group of multiple other interplanatary species researchers, all thrilled to ask questions about this new life form.

"How far back does your species' relationship go? You have to have a common ancestor, right?" One kicked off the conversation.

Saorise nodded. When she spoke in human dialect, it came out deep and more gravely, not as smooth as other humans. Frixe could assume that this meant her species was used to communicating through sounds coming from the chest rather than windpipes.

"It is thought that we both have an ancient ancestor that was aquatic, but some of the species moved onto land and became terrestrial. My side were the ones that remained in the water." She said.

Avery nodded. "We have a lot of very old bones and fossils that imply that Maris and Terrans are about as equally old as each other, so we're not sure who was here first. Terrans are higher in population numbers though."

Frixe nodded in fascination. The more they looked at the two side-by-side, the more differences they noticed. Saorise's build was a lot more toned and slim than Avery's, likely attuned to swimming. While Avery held more muscle in her arms and chest- possibly because Fixe has seen her climbing diligently before. They heard primates were excellent climbers, so it was likely a skill Avery was well practiced in.

There was also the difference in skin. Avery's was much darker with a noticeable pink undertone from the red blood flowing through her veins. Saorise also had a hint of pink, but it was mostly overshadowed by the blueish gray tint. It must be because of the difference of natural sun exposure.

Another alien made a comment. "Your two groups seem to be quite friendly together, you must've had a fluid relationship through your history?"

Saorise and Avery turned to look at each other before nearly breaking out in laughter, leaving the rest of the group confused.

"Ah, I'm sorry- please don't take this as insult. It's just, we used to hunt each other." Avery smiled in amusement.

"Still do in some places." Saorise nodded.

What.

"Oh yeah, nothing has ever been easy on our planet. We fight within our own species' enough, you have no clue how brutally we've treated each other in the last multiple millenia. It goes back to the caveman eras, they made paintings on the walls of our fights. Both land and water caves." Avery smiled.

"You- you've killed each other for centuries?" Frixe couldn't help but ask in astonishment. But they seem so friendly with each other!

Saorise smiled with her sharp teeth. "Oh yes, they would hunt us in their boats with spears and arrows, we would drag them down and rip them apart with our bare claws. We have sharp claws and teeth to our advantage, they have mobility and flexibility to theirs. It's gone on so long we've even made up myths about each other. They used to say we had mind-controlling voices that would lure them to their deaths. And we said the same things about them!" She laughed in delight.

"Ah yeah, it's quite ridiculous if you think about it. We used to say you were controlling us with your impossible beauty, and to find out you thought WE were just as beautiful, it was like a really really long and violent form of flirting. It was so ridiculous." Avery laughed in turn.

Frixe shook their head in wonderment. "So I'm assuming these wars are not an active issue anymore?" They said hopefully.

Saorise shrugged. "They are in some places. Depends where on Terra you go. Avery and I both live along the beach areas of two countries that long established peace and collaboration between our species, which is very beneficial for resource trading and scientific research. There are some areas where they still fight and hunt like in old myth. It's a tale as old as time."

"There's also a bit of culture of meat exchange." Avery mentioned thoughtfully. Frixe really REALLY hoped she didn't mean what they think she means.

"What do you mean by meat exchange?"

Avery answered. "Ah, while most advanced countries both in and out of water have long banned eating each other, there's still situations where the fresh bodies of Terrans fall into the ocean and Maris wash up on shores. The only reasonable thing is to use the remains so they don't go to waste. Sometimes this means eating them if they're fresh and good enough."

Oh dear, she meant exactly what they thought she meant.

"That... can't be healthy or ethical, can it?" A other piped up. Frixe couldn't help but agree. Though a couple other species in the group nodded in understanding of the humans. Frixe supposed it could be a waste to just leave the meat, but seriously?

Salrise hummed. "One would think. Cannibalism within our species is considered a social blight, and is only considered acceptable in absolute grave situations. It's hard to say whether eating each other outside of our species is fully cannibalism, but between the two of us it's happened so long it's culturally embedded at this point. It's about as normal as eating a large predator like a lion or tiger. Weird and mostly unthought about, but still a thing that happens sometimes."

Avery piped in. "There is the risk of prions disease between each other's species since we're somewhat related, but you can mostly avoid that by not eating the brain. I've had Maris tail before, wasn't the most impressive thing I've tasted."

Saorise scoffed in mock offense. "Well the Terran liver I've had wasn't anything to brag about either." She crossed her arms. Though when the two looked at each other they just broke out in giggles like they weren't confessing to literal half-cannibalism. Frixe didn't know whether to be sick or laugh with them.

"Could we perhaps move this conversation from consuming each other please?"

The Earth women smiled at each other and nodded. "Sure, what other questions do ya got?"

The creature next to Frixe raised their hand shyly. "I know you humans are a bit sensitive about this subject, but for the sake of research would it be alright to ask if your species are compatible reproductively?"

Hmm, a reasonable question to ask. Though from what Frixe heard humans were very private about their mating habits so they didn't blame the other for treading gently. Luckily Avery didn't seem bothered at all by the question.

"Oh sure. We are compatible reproductively actually." Hums of curiosity piped up. Could there be little mixes of Terran humans and Maris humans out there?

"It doesn't always work. We've done and are still doing extensive research on mixing. Both Maris and Terrans can carry a mixed child to term, though it often requires they stay attuned to the other side's domain a bit. That means a lot of fish and crustaceans for pregnant Terrans and a lot of fruits and veggies for pregnant Maris. " Avery laughed.

Saorise nodded and continued. "The chances of miscarriage is heightened, not horrifically but it is by a lot. So it's not impossible to carry a mixed child to term, but it is considered rare. When they come out they may have mixed resemblance of both parents as normal, but physically they only take the biological characteristics of one. So they're either born Terran or Maris, there's been none with a half tail half leg situation so far. They may have the smaller features of the opposite species, but that's the extent of it."

"Yeah," Avery finished. "I met a little mixed kid that had Terran legs, but he still had the sharp little teeth and claws of his Maris mother so it was obvious he was mixed. There are plenty that come out only resembling one species though, which makes it easier to hide."

"Hide?" Frixe asked. "Why would they hide it?"

The two women grimaced at each other. "It's only recent that mixed ones have been accepted. In history they were not treated well at all. Sometimes even killed off at birth, no matter who's domain they took to. And they are almost always infertile, because of how different our species is none of them are able to conceive themselves. Most don't consider it worth it to have a mixed child because of that, and most interspecies relationships will instead choose to adopt or surrogate."

Frixe supposed they understood. They would feel selfish bringing a youngling into the world with the certain knowledge that they would grow up mistreated and never allowed the choice of having their own family. It sounded like a hard decision to make.

"At least your species seems to be doing good now. You both seem quite friendly with each other."