Chapter Text
Urban legends are not confined to planets alone. With the connections between space fairing vessels and trade routes among planets, news spreads just as fast as the goods being transported.
So when humans are found, the rest of the universe is quick to find out about it.
At first, they are excited, a new young species just barely making its way into space. The Galactic Council is content to leave them alone and allow them to make their own way until they reach the outer galaxy where the rest of the trade routes lie.
But with discovery comes new dangers.
Rouge scientists and bounty hunters come in droves, all secretly, of course. The Galactic Council would have their heads if they were spotted by a human before it was time, and took humans off of their home planets. To study or to keep as some twisted pet, the humans didn't care, and they didn't go quietly.
With the language barrier firmly set in place, the humans all likely believed they were going to be killed, and apparently, a cornered human is a dangerous one.
They didn't look it, but they were deadly creatures. Not for size or for sharpness like some other beings, but for the sheer willpower they exuded in every breath. If they did not want to die, they would not die. Simple as that. There was a case where a woman and her child were stolen off-planet. Whoever had captured her tried to take the child from her, apparently ignoring one of the most important rules of dealing with any hostile creature. Never ever touch the child when the parent may be nearby.
Nobody was on that ship when the Galactic Council came to clean up the mess. There were only corpses. The woman had taken over the ship and landed it on a random planet before grabbing her child and running into the woods. They managed to find her camp before being chased out, all bared teeth and angry screaming. She seemed to be doing quite well for herself and her child, but the Council can only observe at a distance, so who's to say?
There were other rumors, though nothing set in stone. A human had their arm cut off and kept fighting until everyone was dead or unconscious before wrapping the arm and marching out, a human smashed a smuggler's head in with the handcuffs they had been bound in, a human is on the planet they were docked at right now.
Okay, that one is a little concerning.
"Here?" Philza asks, clucking in surprise. "On-planet?" The grizzled bargoer he had been talking to nods solemnly, raising his drink to one of his mouths.
"Yessir." He says gruffly. "Some group of dumbasses thought it would be a good idea to steal a human away, took a young one. Thought they wouldn't have as much trouble." The man chuckles darkly into his drink. "That thing tore through them like paper. I don't know why they thought they would be different from anyone else that tried stealin' an 'uman."
"Have they caught it yet?" Philza asks, swirling his own drink in a clawed hand. The man shakes his head.
"Nah, you know how humans are. That thing is probably so deep in the woods that no one'll find it for years."
Philza hums thoughtfully, throwing a couple of coins onto the counter of the bar before standing. The bartender nods at him.
"Well, thanks for the gossip, mate," Philza says, ruffling out his wings. The man nods, not looking up from his drink.
Philza marches out of the bar, eyes scanning for his sons (they were his crewmates, but they'd been traveling together so long that a title like that seemed overly professional). He spots them pretty quickly, they never wander far when they visit planets, bless them. Wilbur is haggling for prices, an umbrella firmly in his hand to block his sensitive skin from the sun. Technoblade stands beside him, arms crossed as he stares down the nervous-looking sales clerk. Philza would usually let them intimidate and annoy their way into better pricing, but they need to get off-planet as soon as possible. Technoblade glances over to him and seems to register the serious expression on his face, because he grabs Wilbur's shoulder and tries to tug him away. Wilbur shoves him off, still trying to haggle, but Technoblade whispers something in his pointed ear and Wilbur stiffens and turns to look at Phil with a worried expression. Phil nods his head towards the ship and his two boys start to head in his direction. The shopkeeper breathes a sigh of relief at their departure as they catch up to Phil, coming up to his side.
"What's happenin' Dadza?" Wilbur asks, twirling his umbrella in his hand idly, though the backward tilt of his ears betrays his nervousness.
"According to locals, a human crash-landed here a few days ago and no one has been able to track it down," Philza explains hurriedly. Wilbur's eyebrows shoot up to his hairline, and Technoblade, despite his deadpan expression, blinks a few times in surprise.
"Oh. That explains why this place is so dead." Techno drawls boredly, though his gaze darts around at the trees surrounding them, and he stands a little straighter, as though preparing to defend the three of them.
"Do you think it's the real deal or just local legend?" Wilbur asks, uncharacteristically serious. Philza sighs.
"I'm willing to bet this is real. You remember seeing that wrecked ship when we came in?"
Wilbur hisses through his teeth at the thought, claw coming up to pick at his skin nervously. Technoblade slaps his hand away, and Philza retreats into his thoughts as his boys bicker.
They needed to leave as quickly as possible or risk running into the human. Phil honestly doesn't think it's going to attack them in the middle of the woods like this, according to all the legends humans almost never attack when there is an option to run; and to attack three people at once would be foolish of any species. Having Techno with them is a huge bonus. Even if the human doesn't know of Piglin's historical rank as a warrior species, Techno's broad stature and height would scare off just about anything. Especially if the rumors were true and it really was just a young human that the smugglers took. Phil frowns at the thought of a child being out on an alien planet all alone, human or no, it made his wings twitch with restlessness.
He comes back into the present to see his sons staring at him suspiciously.
"What?" Phil asks, a bit self-conscious of how his wings are twitching upwards without his control.
" Why are your wings twitching Phil?" Wilbur asks slowly, raising an eyebrow. Phil scoffs, but there is no point in trying to hide it now.
"Apparently the smugglers took a fledgling human, even if it's human I hate thinking of a fledgling all alone out here," Phil says, and the empathy filling his voice has both his sons coming up in arms.
"Oh no," Technoblade says. "We are not going to hunt down some rouge human child and possibly get mauled in the process just so you can dad it."
"That- That is not what I was saying!" Philza huffs, wings fluffing up in offense.
"Okay, sure ." Wilbur teases. "That's why you got all bent out of shape when you thought about it being all alone in the woods, cold and hungry- there ! Look Techno, he's doing it again!"
Philza grumbles and tries to pat down his twitching feathers to no avail. He glares at his sons from where he is trying to wrestle his feathers back into place.
"You two are awful, you know that?"
Philza guides them back to their ship, grumbling at his son's teasing the whole way there. It isn't his fault he has fathering instincts, okay! His species is very community-based. No matter how many times he tells his sons this, they still make fun of him for his relentless mother-henning, even towards a creature that could likely break most of his hollow bones with one hand.
They board the ship in high spirits, or at least Wilbur and Techno are in high spirits, Phil is still caught up thinking about the young human alone in the woods even as he fends off the rampant teasing.
Phil manages to get to the cockpit without dying of embarrassment or rushing back out into the woods to find the human fledgling, so he considers it a win. He lifts the 'Sleepy Bois Inc' off of the ground, listening to the soothing hum of its engine. He stares sadly down at the trees as he lifts them up and into the sky, trying not to think about how long the human would survive down there. Techno and Wilbur are likely busying themselves with unloading the things they had managed to buy on-planet, so Phil tries to relax and focus on getting them out of there.
There are some things that he just can't save, and one of those things is a rouge human fledgling who is probably tucked away in some other animal's burrow right now. Philza sighs and decides to put it out of his mind as they pass the atmosphere layers and head into the dark sky.
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Deep, deep down in the belly of the ship, a human in a torn white and red shirt crouches behind one of the many storage crates. He hopes these aliens won't be as creepy as the last ones, maybe they'll even let him hitch a ride back to Earth.
Somehow, he doubts it.