They say we're one in ten. Carnivores, I mean. Predators. Whatever term people are comfortable with that week. Ten herbivores for every one of us, give or take. You'd think those odds would make us careful, make us shrink ourselves down to fit into their world more easily. Maybe some of us do. I never saw the point.

I'm a pilot. First Officer Berlian, Trans Indonesia Airlines, flying 737s, C919s, and ATR 72s across the archipelago and beyond. When people meet me—really meet me, not just see the uniform—they always do this little double-take. The dhole thing catches them off guard. It's in the eyes, I think. The olive green color, the way they catch light. Predator eyes. Even when I'm smiling, even when I'm in full uniform with my three bars and wings, some herbivores still see those eyes first and recalculate everything they thought they knew about me.

Indonesia isn't like the West. I have to say that upfront because if you've read anything about species relations in the Western world, you'd think we're living in some kind of war zone. We're not. My family was the only carnivore family in our village growing up, and we weren't lynched or burned out. My father sold rice to everyone—herbivores, omnivores, even the occasional carnivore passing through. Islam helped with that. The Quran doesn't make distinctions between species. We're all Allah's creatures, all equal in His eyes. Most people in my village actually believed that, or at least acted like they did.

But "not as bad as the West" isn't the same as "not existing at all."

Let me tell you about last week. I was at the gym near my apartment in Kalideres, doing my usual routine between flights. There's this new member, a greater mouse-deer—tiny thing, maybe comes up to my chest. She's on the treadmill next to mine, and we're both running, both in our zones. I can smell her, of course. That's just biology. We all smell each other. But I'm professional, I'm focused on my workout, I've got early departure tomorrow morning.

She keeps glancing at me. Quick little looks, the kind prey species do when they think predators aren't watching. I'm used to it. Then she moves to a different treadmill. One that just happens to be on the far side of the gym. Away from me.

I didn't care. I really didn't. I finished my five kilometers, did my cooldown, hit the showers. But on the walk home, I kept thinking about it. The casual nature of it. She didn't even know me. Didn't know I'd never hurt anyone in my life, that I'm vegetarian four days a week because my mother taught me balance, that I literally hold the lives of hundreds of people in my hands every time I fly. None of that mattered. She saw a dhole and her instincts said: distance.

The thing is, I understand it on an intellectual level. Evolution is a powerful force. For millions of years, things that looked like me ate things that looked like her. That's not prejudice, that's survival programming. But understanding something doesn't make it less exhausting to live with.

There was this incident at the supermarket last month. I was in the produce section, picking out vegetables for dinner. A Javan rusa and her kid were near the tomatoes. The kid—maybe five years old, still had that baby face—pointed at me and said, loud enough for everyone to hear, "Mama, why does that lady have scary teeth?"

The mother went pale. Like, visibly drained of color. She grabbed her kid's hand and hustled him away, but not before I caught her looking back at me with this expression. Not quite fear. Not quite disgust. Something in between. Wariness, maybe. The look you'd give something potentially dangerous that you're trying not to provoke.

I stood there holding a bell pepper, wondering if I should have smiled less when the kid noticed me. If I should have kept my mouth closed. If I should have just left and done my shopping somewhere else, somewhere with fewer families, fewer children who haven't learned yet to hide their reactions.

I bought my vegetables and went home. Made gado-gado. Didn't think about it again until I'm telling you now.

Work is different, though. Aviation is a strange equalizer. When you're at 35,000 feet and the weather turns nasty, nobody gives a damn what species is flying the plane. They just want someone competent. My captain on the 737 routes is a Javan banteng—big herbivore, built like a tank—and he trusts me completely. Has to. Our lives are literally in each other's hands every flight. You can't fake that kind of trust. You can't maintain speciesism when one wrong move from either of us could kill everyone on board.

Captain Suryanto—that's his name—he told me once that his daughter wants to be a pilot. Showed me pictures. Cute kid, about twelve, already obsessed with airplanes. He asked if I'd talk to her sometime, give her advice. I said yes, of course. We had coffee at his house a few weeks later. His wife made tea and set out cookies, but she served mine on a separate plate. Different pattern, different color. I noticed. She noticed me noticing. Nobody said anything.

The daughter, though. She sat across from me at their dining table, eyes wide, asking question after question. How do you handle crosswinds? What's it like flying through monsoons? Do you get scared? She never once looked at my teeth or my eyes like I was anything other than exactly what I was: a pilot who could tell her about flying.

Kids are strange that way. They haven't built up all the layers of socialization yet. They either see you as a threat because that's what their parents taught them, or they see you as a person because nobody's told them not to. That girl saw a pilot. Her mother saw a carnivore in her house, near her child, and probably spent the whole visit calculating distances to exits.

But even at TIA, even with all the professionalism and modern Mammal Resources policies, I see it. Feel it. The rabbit in MR who processes my documents always leaves them on the edge of the desk so she doesn't have to get close when I pick them up. The water buffalo in Maintenance who's brilliant with engines but won't make eye contact during briefings. The goat from Scheduling who flinches—actually physically flinches—when I walk past her desk too quickly.

They're not bad people. That's the complicated part. They're just... acting on instinct. Millions of years of evolution telling them that things with sharp teeth are dangerous. And I get it, I really do. If I saw a Sumatran tiger in a dark alley at night, I'd probably feel something too, even though logically I know most tigers are just regular people trying to live their lives.

There's this coffee shop I like near the airport. Good espresso, decent pastries, free wifi. I used to go there every morning before early shifts. Past tense. Used to. The owner—a sweet old goat, probably someone's grandmother—she was always pleasant enough. Took my order, made small talk about the weather. But she never remembered my name. I'd been going there for six months, same order every time, and she still asked what I wanted like I was a stranger.

Then one morning I noticed her remembering everyone else. The spotted deer who came in after me. The binturong who ordered the complicated drink with extra foam. Even the young water buffalo who'd only been coming for a week. She knew all their names. Greeted them like friends.

I was just "the dhole." Not Berlian. Not "the pilot from TIA." Just "the dhole."

I stopped going. Found another coffee shop further away. The owner there is a palm civet—omnivore, technically, but enough carnivore ancestry that she doesn't flinch when I walk in. She learned my name the second time I visited. Now I go there instead, even though it's a longer walk and the coffee isn't as good.

My mother used to say that being carnivore in a herbivore world meant being a bridge. You had to be twice as good, twice as calm, twice as non-threatening. "Show them who you are with actions," she'd say. "Words are just air."

She wasn't wrong, but she wasn't entirely right either. Sometimes actions don't matter. Sometimes you're just the scary thing in the room, no matter what you do.

I went on a date last month. Tinder match, seemed nice in chat. Snow leopard, works in IT. We met at a café in Senayan—neutral ground, public space, all very proper. He was handsome, funny, easy to talk to. We talked about aviation, about his work, about the Netflix series we were both binge-watching. Two hours flew by.

I thought it went well. Really well. We laughed at the same jokes. Finished each other's sentences a few times. There was this moment when he was talking about a difficult project at work and I understood exactly what he meant, and he looked at me like he'd just found someone who finally got it.

When I got home, I was floating. Sent a thank-you text, got one back. Made plans for a second date.

Then he ghosted me.

Just... stopped responding. I waited three days before I understood. I'd been too much myself. Too direct, too confident, too comfortable in my own skin. Carnivore traits. Predator behavior. Whatever you want to call it. He'd wanted someone softer, more deferential. More prey-like, even though he was a carnivore himself. The self-hatred in our own community is sometimes worse than anything herbivores throw at us.

There's this thing that happens in carnivore dating. You meet someone, another predator, and you think finally, finally someone who gets it. Someone who doesn't flinch when you laugh too loud or move too fast. Someone who won't judge you for ordering meat at dinner or having sharp teeth or making direct eye contact.

But then you realize they've internalized all of it. All the messages about what makes a "good" carnivore. Quiet. Gentle. Apologetic. They've spent so long performing harmlessness for herbivores that they expect it from each other too. They want a carnivore who acts like prey. It's exhausting.

I deleted his number and went back to the gym.

Here's what nobody tells you about being one in ten: you get used to it. Not in a defeated way, but in a practical way. You learn to read rooms, to modulate your body language, to make yourself smaller when you need to and take up space when you can afford to. You learn which battles matter and which ones are just exhausting.

That mouse-deer at the gym? Not worth my energy. The MR rabbit who's afraid of me? Whatever, she still processes my paperwork. The dates that don't work out because carnivore dating is complicated and fucked up? I'll find someone eventually, or I won't. Either way, I'm still flying planes.

But sometimes—and this is the part I'm not supposed to say out loud—sometimes I'm angry. Not rage, not violence, just... frustration. At the constant calculation, the endless social navigation, the knowledge that I'll always be judged on a curve. That my successes will always have an asterisk: for a carnivore. That my failures will always confirm someone's bias.

I remember when I first joined TIA, three years ago. The training program had fifteen new hires. Fourteen herbivores and omnivores. And me. During the introductory session, the MR director made this big speech about diversity and inclusion, about how TIA valued pilots of all species, how we were building a modern airline for a modern Indonesia.

Then during the first break, I overheard two of the other trainees talking. Both chevrotains, both fresh out of flight school like me. One was saying how nervous she was about the simulator sessions. The other one said, "At least you don't have to worry about the competition. They always go easier on carnivores."

They always go easier on carnivores.

I scored top of the class in sim training. Top three in ground school. Got my type rating on the 737 faster than anyone else in my cohort. And I still heard the whispers. Must have had help. Must have been given extra chances. Must have been a diversity hire.

Never mind that I'd worked two jobs through university. Never mind that I'd graduated top ten percent from a state school where carnivores made up less than five percent of students. Never mind that I'd done everything right, everything by the book, everything twice as good because I knew I had to.

They always go easier on carnivores.

There's this phenomenon in aviation psychology called the "authority gradient." It's about power dynamics in the cockpit, how junior crew members sometimes hesitate to speak up when senior crew members make mistakes. It's a known safety issue. They teach you to overcome it in training.

But nobody talks about the species gradient. How a herbivore first officer might hesitate just a fraction longer to question a carnivore captain's decision. Not because of rank, but because of teeth. Or how a carnivore first officer—like me—might overcompensate, might defer too much, might stay quiet when they should speak up because they don't want to seem aggressive or threatening.

I've caught myself doing it. Captain Suryanto will make a call I disagree with, and I'll run through the calculation in my head: Is this worth speaking up? Is this safety-critical? Or am I just going to come across as the pushy carnivore who doesn't know her place?

It's exhausting. And it's invisible. And it makes me a worse pilot, which pisses me off more than anything else.

I was the first person in my family to go to university. First to become a pilot. I've logged over 2,000 flight hours, I'm qualified on three aircraft types, I mentor cadets, I speak at schools. I've built a good life, a meaningful career. I've earned respect.

But I'll never stop being a dhole in a world designed for herbivores.

The apartment building I live in has a community chat group. Mostly it's for building maintenance issues, package deliveries, that sort of thing. But sometimes people post about suspicious activity. "Strange person loitering near the parking lot." "Unknown individual in the stairwell."

About three months ago, someone posted a warning. "Carnivore seen on the fifth floor. Be careful and keep your doors locked."

I live on the fifth floor. I am the carnivore. I'd been coming home from a night flight, still in uniform, and apparently walking through my own hallway at 11 PM made me suspicious activity.

I didn't respond to the post. Didn't defend myself. Didn't point out that I lived there, that I had every right to be in my own building. I just read it, felt that familiar twist in my stomach, and went to bed.

The next morning, the building manager posted an apology. Said there had been a misunderstanding. Asked residents to be more considerate. But the original post stayed up. Nobody deleted it. And I knew—I absolutely knew—that some of my neighbors had read it and agreed. That some of them were extra careful locking their doors now. That some of them held their children a little closer when they saw me in the elevator.

I smile more now in the building. Always greet people first. Always move slowly. Always make myself small and non-threatening. Because I don't want to move, and I can't afford for this to escalate. So I perform harmlessness every time I go home.

Last week, I flew a 737 from Jakarta to Denpasar. Full flight, 162 passengers, mostly tourists heading to Bali. During boarding, I did my usual walk-through—show the passengers there's a real person flying the plane, put them at ease. Professional smile, confident posture, friendly greetings.

This boar in 7C—business class, expensive suit, the works—he stops me. "You're the pilot?" he asks, loud enough that people around us hear.

"First Officer," I say. "The captain is just finishing the preflight check."

He looks me up and down. Takes his time with it. I can see him cataloging everything. The teeth. The eyes. The predator species standing there in a pilot's uniform. "They let carnivores fly now?"

The cabin goes quiet. That special kind of quiet where everyone's listening but pretending not to.

I could've been angry. Could've been hurt. Could've filed a complaint with the company. Instead, I smiled wider. "They've let us fly for decades, sir. Statistically, we have better spatial awareness and faster reaction times. Makes us excellent pilots."

I leaned in just slightly. Just enough that my voice stayed professional but my point was clear. "We're very good at keeping prey safe."

He didn't say anything else.

I went back to the cockpit, ran through the checklist with Captain Suryanto (who'd heard the whole thing over the intercom and was trying not to laugh), and flew us to Bali without incident. Smooth flight, perfect landing, passengers applauded.

The boar avoided eye contact during deplaning.

Here's what I learned from that exchange: sometimes you can use it. The fear. The prejudice. The assumption that you're dangerous. You can let them remember, just for a second, that you are what they're afraid of. Not because you'd ever hurt them—I wouldn't, I never would—but because sometimes the only way to get respect is to remind them why they were scared in the first place.

I'm not proud of that. But I'm not ashamed of it either.

That's the thing about being one in ten. You learn to use it. The fear, the prejudice, the assumptions—they're tools if you're smart about it. I'm not advocating for intimidation or playing into stereotypes, but I'm also not interested in making myself smaller for the comfort of bigots.

My father sold rice to herbivores his whole life. Made friends with them, earned their respect through decades of honest work. He believed in coexistence through patience. Through proving, day after day after day, that carnivores could be trusted. That we were part of the community. That we belonged.

I respect that path. It's not mine.

I believe in coexistence through competence. Through being so undeniably good at what I do that people have to get past their instincts and see me as a pilot first, carnivore second. It doesn't always work. Sometimes people can't get past the teeth and the eyes. But enough times it does work, and those times make it worthwhile.

There's a high school I visit sometimes. I'm part of TIA's outreach program, where pilots go talk to students about careers in aviation. Usually they send me to schools in Jakarta or Bandung, nice schools with good facilities and students who've probably seen plenty of carnivores before.

But a few months ago they sent me to a small school in Central Java. Rural area, mostly herbivore families, traditional community. The kind of place where seeing a carnivore in person might be a rare thing. The kind of place where I'd be the first predator some of these kids had ever talked to.

I wore my uniform. Full dress uniform with all my insignia, my TIA wings, my name tag. I wanted them to see the pilot before they saw the dhole.

Didn't work.

I could feel it the moment I walked into the classroom. Thirty students, all herbivores, and every single one of them tensed. The teacher—an elderly sambar deer—introduced me with this strained enthusiasm, like she was trying very hard to be progressive and inclusive and not at all concerned about having invited a predator into a room full of children.

I gave my prepared speech. Talked about flight training, about what it's like to fly a commercial jet, about the math and physics involved in aviation. Showed them pictures of the cockpit, the instruments, the view from 35,000 feet. Talked about my journey from a village in West Java to the airlines.

They listened politely. Nobody asked questions. When I invited them to come closer to look at the photos, nobody moved.

So I changed tactics. Put away the presentation and just started talking. Told them about the time I landed in the middle of a thunderstorm and how scared I was. Told them about making mistakes in training and having to try again. Told them about my father and the rice farm and how he sold some of his equipment to help pay for my flight school.

Slowly—very slowly—they relaxed. A few kids started asking questions. What's the scariest thing that's happened while flying? Do you ever get motion sick? Have you ever seen lightning up close?

And then one kid, a young Javan rusa, probably about fourteen, raised his hand. I called on him. He stood up, nervous but determined, and asked: "Do you think carnivores should be allowed to be pilots?"

The room froze. The teacher looked horrified. Started to interrupt, to apologize, to make the kid sit down. But I held up a hand.

"Why do you ask?" I said.

The kid glanced at his friends, then back at me. "Because my father says carnivores are dangerous. That they can't control themselves. That they shouldn't be in positions where they could hurt people."

I could've been diplomatic. Could've given some careful answer about diversity and equality and how we're all citizens of Indonesia together. But I looked at that kid, and I saw something in his face. Not malice. Not even prejudice, really. Just honest confusion. He'd been taught one thing his whole life, and now here I was, contradicting everything he thought he knew.

So I told him the truth.

"Your father is wrong," I said. "Not about carnivores being dangerous—we can be, just like anyone can be dangerous. But about control. About trust. Every time I fly, I have the lives of hundreds of people in my hands. Herbivores, carnivores, everyone in between. If I mess up, if I lose control for even a second, people die. Not might die. Will die."

I let that sink in.

"I've never hurt anyone," I continued. "Never lost control. Never let my instincts override my training. Because being a carnivore doesn't make you a monster. It just makes you a carnivore. What makes you a good person—a good pilot—is choosing, every single day, to be better than your instincts."

The kid sat down. The room was very quiet.

"I've flown over 2,000 hours," I said. "I've carried maybe 200,000 passengers. And every single one of them landed safely. Not because I'm not dangerous. But because I chose not to be."

I don't know if it changed his mind. Probably didn't change his father's. But maybe it made him think. Maybe next time he meets a carnivore, he'll remember the pilot who told him the truth instead of the comfortable lie.

I think about my younger brothers sometimes, the twins studying computer science in Jakarta. They're coming up in a slightly different world than I did. More diverse universities, more exposure, more herbivores who've actually known carnivores personally rather than just abstractly. They'll have it a bit easier, I think. Not easy, but easier.

Teguh called me last week. He'd been assigned to a group project with four other students. All herbivores. He said they were polite but distant. That they held their meetings in public spaces and never invited him to social gatherings outside of class. That he felt like he was always being watched, always being judged.

"Does it get better?" he asked me. "Or is this just how it is?"

I wanted to tell him it gets better. I wanted to say that once you prove yourself, once you show them who you really are, the prejudice fades. That you eventually find your place, your people, your peace.

But I don't lie to my brothers.

"It gets easier to deal with," I said. "You get better at navigating it. But it doesn't go away."

There was a long silence.

"I'm tired, Kak," he said. Big sister. "I'm tired of always having to prove I'm not a threat. I'm tired of people assuming the worst. I'm tired of being one in ten."

"I know," I said. Because I did. Because I am.

"How do you stand it?" he asked.

I thought about that. About the mouse-deer at the gym and the rabbit in MR and the boar in business class. About the coffee shop owner who never learned my name and the neighbors who think I'm suspicious. About all the tiny paper cuts of everyday speciesism that never quite bleed but never quite heal either.

"I fly," I said. "When it gets too much, when I'm too tired of being watched and judged and feared, I remember that I get to fly. That I get to do this impossible, beautiful thing that most people will never experience. And up there, at 35,000 feet, with the sky all around me and the plane responding to my hands... up there, it doesn't matter what I am. I'm just a pilot. And that's enough."

And maybe their kids—if they have kids, which I won't—maybe their generation will finally tip past this. Maybe they'll be the ones who grow up in an Indonesia where being one in ten doesn't mean always being slightly on guard, always aware of the ratio, always calculating.

Or maybe not. Maybe this is just how it is, how it always will be. Prey and predator, coexisting but never quite trusting. Ten to one, forever.

I think about that sometimes. Whether it's worth it. Whether I should have chosen a different career, something less visible, something where I wouldn't have to represent my entire species every time I put on the uniform. My parents wanted me to be a teacher. Safe. Respectable. A good job for a carnivore who wanted to keep her head down.

But I didn't want to keep my head down. I wanted to fly.

And the thing is—the thing I've realized after three years of this—I'm good at it. Really good. Not just "good for a carnivore" good. Actually, objectively, measurably good. My simulator scores are in the top ten percent of all TIA pilots. My safety record is perfect. My passengers consistently rate their flights highly. I'm being considered for captain training earlier than most first officers.

I'm good at this. And I love it. And I'm not going to let anyone—not the speciesists, not the fearful, not even the well-meaning people who think I should be grateful for being tolerated—take that away from me.

There's a moment that happens sometimes, usually on long flights. The autopilot is engaged, the aircraft is stable, Captain Suryanto is handling the radio, and I have a few minutes to just... exist. To look out at the sky, at the clouds below us, at the curve of the earth in the distance. To feel the slight vibration of the engines through my seat, to hear the steady hum of the air conditioning, to smell the particular scent of the cockpit—coffee and electronics and recycled air.

In those moments, I'm not thinking about being a carnivore in a herbivore world. I'm not calculating social distances or moderating my body language or wondering if the flight attendants are comfortable working with me. I'm just... flying. Doing the thing I was meant to do.

That's what keeps me going. Not the hope that things will get better—though maybe they will. Not the belief that I'll eventually be accepted—though maybe I will. But the simple, selfish joy of doing what I love, of being exactly who I am, of refusing to apologize for taking up space in a world that would prefer I didn't.

Either way, I'm still flying. Tomorrow I've got a 6 AM departure to Makassar, and the weather looks perfect. Clear skies, light winds, smooth air. The kind of flying that reminds you why you love this job.

The kind of flying where it doesn't matter if you're herbivore or carnivore, prey or predator, one in ten or nine in ten.

Up there, we're all just trying to stay airborne.

And I'm very, very good at keeping us in the air.

—

After careful consideration, I've decided to create a new story to accompany this submission: https://www.furaffinity.net/view/63139277/

The original story has been archived at https://archive.ph/Zpu72 and https://web.archive.org/web/2025120.....view/63139277/

While I aimed to explore the dynamics between predator and prey and highlight interspecies tension, I've realized that the previous description may have missed the mark and been offensive to some.

I sincerely apologize; it was never my intention to offend any specific group or nation.

I envision my universe as a more extreme version of Zootopia, finding the predator-prey dynamic intriguing as a form of social commentary.

However, I recognize this is a sensitive topic, and I hope to approach it more thoughtfully in the future.

—

Story and character: Berlian the Indonesian dhole @ JudyJudith

Art by:  tony07734123/KangWolf