This was not the first time Mzdhar was acting as a member of a rapid action team made of various intergalactic species allied to the Nasir Kingdom. The war with Crefets had led to many such joint operations, created to use the unique synergies formed, owing to the vastly varied evolutionary advantages possessed by each species. Early on in the war, the Nasirabics had realised that the only way they could keep up with the far more prepared and advanced Crefetites was through these alternate tactics to try and win the battles they could and keep the war beast at bay.
But the fact that Mzdhar was well experienced in tackling the cultural differences of various other species, DID NOT prepare him for the sapiens. Sapiens or more commonly known as humans, were one of the most recent additions to the alliance. Needless to say this was the first time Mzdhar was going to be in close proximity to the bipeds. This didn’t mean he knew nothing about them though. In their brief time in the alliance, the humans had somehow left the entirety of the galaxy, composed of nations centuries ahead in terms science and technology - utterly amazed and bewildered at the same time. The stories that had passed throughout The Way ranged from long and detailed anecdotes, lauding the bravery and sheer tenacity of the aforementioned species, to tales describing lunacy, the likes of which had not been seen since the time huzdumah became a barren planet. The ones that really stayed though,were the short one-lined cautions - ‘Baring fangs is not a form of aggression but a greeting amongst humans’, ‘Humans have great endurance and are excellent survivalists’, ‘DO NOT USE THE WORD DARE IN A SAPIENS PRESENCE’, ‘Sapiens are a creature of emotion.’ and neither the last, nor the least, ‘ DO NOT let the humans come in contact with furry less intelligent lifeforms, because no matter how dangerous they are, humans WILL try to embrace them.’
Let it be known that Mzdhar has always been and will always be the epitome of politeness. So it was not a surprise that when it came into close proximity to the human, he shaked its hands in a primitive greeting the human seemed partial towards and kept itself from almost unsheathing its KO67, when the human bared his fangs. The rest of the crewmates meeting the human were faaar more jumpy. It took almost 7 near explosions before Bregha of the lost ambrixa finally believed that the human was not really gonna eat him - scales and all.
After about a week of human time, a hubrah in the Nasirabic standards, Mzdhar became relatively comfortable with the human. Like all intelligent races, he believed himself an exception to the general rule that seemed to be the befallment to humans. And that was when it happened. They were in the burbrutic belt at the time, restocking on supplies before they joined fellow soldiers in the border region of guzbacelham. Burbrutic was a mostly abandoned planet and had thus had been infested by wild jyingawer. The only safe place was the fenced outpost they were currently staying at. Now common logic declared that no one steps out of the safety and comfort of the fences. Common logic was supposed to be common. In fact to Mzdhar and every other intelligent being there, it was so simple that they did not even bother putting up a lock on the fence. It only opened from the inside anyways and who would defy common logic to do that with no reason. So Mzdhar was quite alarmed when the emergency warning system started up and flooded the outpost with unpleasant vibrations. One of the soldiers in charge of the post rushed to him and his crew and let them know in a panicked voice that their human had seen a jyingawer and had rushed out to what appeared to be a fight with bare limbs. No one understood why the human took such a drastic step but there was no time to ponder because they had to go save their human as soon as possible. They couldn't let there be a casualty before they even reached the battlefield. Just as the rescue team reached the spot where the two species were tussling around on the ground, they realised to their utter bewilderment that the jyingawer was not trying to eat the human but was licking his face while wiggling its rear appendage as the human kept scratching its ears and whispering something akin to good doggie to it. Later when asked why the human took the rash action and whether he knew somehow that this jyingawer was different, the human replied with a weird upwards thrust of its shoulders and replied in three words. The three words that will become one more phrase in an ever growing list that the alliance was apprehensive about.
“It looked cute”.
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