Author's Note: Hello today's piece of steak is brought to you by the kitchen floor, The Gods Must be Crazy (an epic movie), and the San People-the oldest group of modern humans-and a dying culture

Um… this has been festering in my head or a while-though this is not how imagined this piece would come out? Hopefully, the next piece will be a proper crack-fic, instead of this… whatever this is.

A Lesson in Language

"The humans have a story. It's old and no one remembers who first told or when. It could be a collection of many stories or one that is all but lost in the far reaches of the decaying minds of the storytellers old enough to recall such a tale from the early days of their youths."

"What the humans do know is that the story is the last tie they have to the lost lands. Like the continents that faded beyond the sea their memories have faded as well. And I doubt they can even recall that the story is told by another group of people; albeit from a different point of view."

Pebbles ground as the Lethrblaka shifted, his eyes focused on the faint lights moving about in the distance instead of the young pupae sitting together a short distance away. Soldiers were changing their nightly shifts on Narda's walls.

"Even our memory of the old land wanes, but what is remembered is that we dwelt in the north, the humans in the heat of the south. For thousands of years we were unaware of their existence, until an accidental chance encounter. Something, something terrible drove them from their homes and forced them to seek refuge in our northern lands."

"What happened?" His daughter chirped. He glanced at her, with a light smirk of amusement at the look of growing irritation on his son's face as she used the top of his head as a chinrest.

"I don't know, but whatever it was bad. Very bad. The humans couldn't tell us."

"What?" His son shifted, glowering as his sister shifted with him.

"They were incapable of speech, using rough grunts and other sounds to convey their emotions, but proper words were beyond them. But I digress. The first humans our people ever encountered were an oddity. They hunted, but lacked the fangs and claws to it. Instead they used tools, and despite their lack of language were intelligent. It was our curiosity that led to the first meeting of the two races."

The Lethrblaka flicked a stone of the cliff ledge. He smiled wryly at the unintentional symbolism. "Wishing to learn about these people and about the southern lands we taught them to speak. Their first language was crude and many of their words sounded very similarly to our own. As we have the ability to mimic their more advanced tongue today, they had the ability to copy us as well."

"So could humans learn our language?"

The Lethrblaka thought a moment. "They would only be able to understand what they have the ability to hear, and even then I doubt they'd be able to fully pronounce many of our words. They could probably learn to copy some of our sounds, but I imagine they would be crude imitations at best. At this point it would be folly divulge such knowledge anyway."

He glanced at the tiny flickering lights in the distance again. "We lived in peace with them for a time. However, both groups hunted the same prey, and more and more humans poured in from the south pushing further and further into our territory. It was when our warnings for them to halt their advancement that relations began to turn sour. The food sources were being depleted at a rate faster than they could recover- and eventually fights between the races broke out over resources. They raided our caves and tried to kill us in our sleep, and in turn we flattened their villages."

"It was in desperation that we turned to prey upon them. They were never meant to be our food, but the near extinction of our preferred food, and sudden changes in the weather we were left with no other choice but to hunt them. And there's no denying that they do taste good."

A wry smile curled his lip and in the corner of his eye he saw his children shift. "And ever since our races have been at war-locked in a ceaseless battle for survival. It was those weather changes that eradicated their and out initial food sources. In search of greener pastures and food they sailed away, and in need of sustenance we followed the only source of food we had."

"How come they don't talk like us anymore?"

The Lethrblaka shrugged. "They've lost the ability. After encountering elves and dwarves the humans sculpted their language to sound more like theirs. They adopted the dwarves' written language as their own…. And they have long forgotten the influence we had on their culture. We've been relegated to the dark monsters that haunt their dreams; a nightmare they'll never wake from."

"Are humans evil?" His daughter piped up.

The Lethrblaka tilted his head appraising them with ebony eyes. The answer was difficult. "Humans are… destructive, tenacious, and chaotic. Are they evil? Some are, others are so convinced by their dark amnesia that they truly believe we are nothing but evil, and will react violently in what they perceive to be self defence. Evil? Most of them are not any more evil than we are, but they are quick to anger, slow to placate, and that makes them dangerous. Exceedingly so."

"So…how do they tell that story?"

"They begin in a similar fashion, I imagine, but in their version we're monsters throughout."

He rose, stretching limbs, and shaking his wings. Having recently eaten he was more than ready for a nap. The dark of the cave behind him had become a gravitational force. Turning to his pupae he leaned down putting mere inches between them and his lethal beak.

"You're too young to hunt yet, but no matter how fast or strong you two become never underestimate them. Never turn your backs on them. They have no control of their emotions and their moods change on a whim, many would attempt to kill you given the slightest provocation. Never give them that chance."