Zangoose and Seviper have been fighting for eons, but they have not forgotten the origins of their endless feud, and are indoctrinated from a young age worse than the loudest, most jingoistic patriots. Although many Seviper in this era are told only to be wary of Zangoose attacks, virtually all Zangoose learn long lines of every ancestor that was lost in battle, and of the story which I am to relate here, one warped by generations of bias into the form they tell today:
For generations, the Seviper and Zangoose had lived in peace, but the Seviper were a greedy nation, and elected a king who promised war. Yet faced with military weakness, he invited the king and chieftains of the Zangoose to peace talks, where he fed them apples tainted not with venom, but with knowledge – knowledge of human societies where lords abrogated their duties to the people in order to live in luxury and reduce their subjects to serfdom. The Zangoose king signed away half his nation and ruled through terror and fear, taxing his people to the brink of starvation, and slowly his form began to change along with the rest of the elite, until a decade later, the starving Zangoose were ruled over by Seviper lords.
The remaining Zangoose struck back and won their freedom, yet at a heavy price. For the Zangoose never forgot their bitterness; from their nursing mothers, they learned this story, and every new war brought new crimes and new sufferings, which were always blamed on the Seviper. Today, the Zangoose desire peace; they just do not believe the Seviper capable of such a thing.
Never do they look at their own bloodied reflections.