Stranded on a Tiny Planet

Education

Despite the nice "bed" he was given, Merco still awoke early. He stretched his limbs with a groan and sat up. The suns were beginning to gleam over the peaks of Anashee's valley in the yellow sky. He scratched his head as he stood up to find a secluded spot to do his morning constitutions, well away from view. When finished he returned and put on his boots so he could take a walk around. He wasn't sure if anyone would be awake but he'd be sure to tread lightly to not disturb the inhabitants.

He walked along the wall and startled a couple guards who were stationed there. He politely greeted them but they didn't seem willing to reciprocate it, so he continued on toward the multi-colored fields of exotic alien crops, laid out like a quilt across the ground. Tending the fields, he could already see little alien farmers poking up amid the plants. There were floating devices that looked like carts and farm equipment, moving along the well-organized rows. Merco could also make out lines of irrigation systems, not too dissimilar from the ones used on Earth.

As he passed the fields, keeping himself on the fringes to avoid treading on the crops, the alien farmers would stop and stare up at him. Some hastily left their fields as he approached which made him feel awkward...but he had begun to expect such reactions. A couple bold ones even stood at the edge of their field, brandished their farming tools and shouted something at him. Merco gave them a friendly wave anyway and kept walking.

Then he saw something very interesting a bit away from the agrarian fields near a fence off the path. It looked like an animal of some kind no bigger than a sparrow with bluish-gray faintly striped fur. Merco slowly approached and as he did the little creature tried to bolt, hopping up with a guttural grunting noise. But it stopped, halted by its own foot which was tangled in the fence. It collapsed on the ground, kicking wildly until he wore itself out, laying on the ground with wide panicked eyes.

Merco knelt down, befuddled by what he saw. It was strange looking, like someone had taken parts of a kangaroo, a duck -billed dinosaur, and a zebra and cobbled them together into a hopping bipedal form. The two back legs were large, bent backward, and tipped with claws like a kangaroo. The long neck was sporting a tall, striped zebra mane that flowed all the way up to the top of the creature's head. It had four dark eyes, two on each side of the head, large nostrils that ran up the bridge of snout which looked like a duck billed dinosaur. Comically, it had tiny underdeveloped T-rex looking flippers flailing at the front of its body that were tipped with a single claw. Then the body ended with a long tail tipped with two flat pieces of what looked like bone.

Merco was amazed by the odd little alien creature and gently picked it up. It gave a guttural squawk and lashed its tail against his hand, but it was little more than a snap of a rubber band.

"Easy. Easy little...thing?" he crooned gently, finding where its foot was caught.

Its kangaroo-looking foot was tangled between two of the wires of the fence as if it had tried to jump over and got snagged. It was bleeding a little bit but the leg didn't appear broken. Merco pulled the two fence wires further apart and proceeded to untangle the hapless creature. Its bird-shaped chest was heaving and it made another guttural squawking noise.

"Shh. Shh. Easy. You're ok." Merco tried to sooth as he unbound it.

Just as he was about to free the creature it panicked again, flopping and kicking with its free leg. He tried to hold it still with his hand but suddenly its eyes got huge, it convulsed, and it went limp. Merco frowned and touched the creature's body with a finger. No heartbeat, no breathing. Its little heart must've given out from fear.

"Oh shit... I killed it." Merco bemoaned to himself.

He glanced around and could see more of the creatures inside the fence grazing. So, they were a domesticated species, like cows.