IMPERIAL INFILTRATION LOG: VIII–963–020 (Patreon)

SKRULLOS STANDARD — 20TH ROTATION, 8TH CYCLE, YEAR 963 OF THE EMPIRETO: THE HIGH PRIEST OF COMPARATIVE XENOBIOLOGYFROM: VERANKE, SOVEREIGN OF THE SKRULL EMPIRESUBJECT: PRIMATE DOMINANCE AND MAMMALIAN BIOLOGY

High Priest,

My continued immersion among the humans has exposed a contradiction that your behavioral reports describe adequately but, I believe, fail to appreciate.

Humanity congratulates itself on being rational.

They build laws, institutions, manners, hierarchies, philosophies. They conceal aggression beneath etiquette and lust beneath courtship. They train themselves from infancy to suppress impulses inherited from creatures that once fought over food, territory, and mates with little more sophistication than the animals they now exhibit in cages.

And yet the animal remains.

I have observed it particularly clearly among their males. Stark disguises dominance beneath wit and vanity. Rogers buries it beneath duty and propriety. Parker smothers it beneath humor and excessive concern for others.

Logan, however... he scarcely bothers disguising it at all. His territoriality, competitiveness, suspicion, appetites, and readiness for violence exist remarkably close to the surface.

At first I considered this primitive, but I am no longer certain.

There is a peculiar distinction between mammalian dominance and the harsher traditions of our own kind. A Skrull despot establishes supremacy vertically. Rank is proclaimed. Authority descends as it should. Those below obey because disobedience invites punishment.

The human "alpha," to borrow one of their embarrassingly popular terms, often establishes himself more socially. He tests. Provokes. Impresses. Protects. Competes. He seeks recognition not merely through fear, but through attraction, loyalty, camaraderie, and the acknowledgment of his peers.

Inefficient though the system is, it is also disturbingly compelling.Perhaps some of my fascination originates in the mammalian body I presently inhabit.

Their reproductive biology remains profoundly alien to me. Humans carry their developing young internally rather than depositing eggs. Their offspring emerge helpless and remain dependent for absurd lengths of time. The female mammary glands then produce nutrient-rich secretions specifically to sustain them.

I confess that curiosity compelled me to sample the milk from Jessica Drew's own teat. Or rather, MY teat.

The flavor is surprisingly delicate.Sweet. Warm. Richer than anticipated.

I have repeated the experiment sufficiently often to assure you this assessment is scientifically defensible. There are, naturally, other peculiarities. Mammalian reproductive organs are soft, vascular, extraordinarily sensitive, and astonishingly responsive to psychological stimuli. Dominance, affection, rivalry, embarrassment, scent, memory, even spoken language may produce immediate physiological consequences.

I occasionally find myself considering what might be accomplished once our invasion is complete and I am no longer constrained by Jessica Drew's anatomy. Skrull flesh can imitate these mechanisms perfectly, and a sovereign need not retain a single configuration.

Perhaps I shall fashion myself something more appropriate to imperial authority. Something prodigious.

Priapic.

A magnificent organ proportioned less according to human biology than to royal entitlement. Hmmm... There is a certain symmetry to the thought.

Human males spend so much of their existence allowing one protruding organ to dictate their confidence, rivalries, ambitions, and sense of hierarchy. Perhaps their instincts would become considerably easier to understand were I to impose a similar tyranny upon my own court.

I confess the image amuses me. My attendants kneeling beneath their Queen while I demonstrate, in terms even the most simple-minded mammal could understand, precisely where authority resides. Warm bodies yielding to whatever anatomy their sovereign chooses to wear. Subjects discovering that shape-shifting provides their Queen with considerably more options than mere disguise.

Then remains one final question no amount of xenobiological study could ever answer for me. An empirical, sensory question whose answer science cannot furnish on my behalf. If I fashioned functioning male reproductive anatomy while otherwise retaining this human form, what precisely would my own seminal fluid be like?

Its composition.Its potency.Its scent.Its... taste!

I find myself unexpectedly impatient to conduct the experiment personally.Perhaps, when Earth is finally ours, I shall have ample opportunity.

I can barely wait.

Earth will be ours. As it is written. He loves us.

[TRANSMISSION INTERCEPTED]S.H.I.E.L.D. COUNTERINTELLIGENCE DIVISION

FILE: INVASIVE SECRETIONSDECRYPTION OPERATIVES: TRACY SCOPS & BLACKHOOD9043VISUAL RECONNAISSANCE: X-GEEKSECURE UPLINK: TRACYVERSE.COMTHREAT LEVEL: PLANETARYTHREAT CLASSIFICATION: SKRULL INFILTRATIONPRIORITY: CRITICALSTATUS: ACTIVE