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“Holy shit,” I curse when I see the guster things.
I’d seen them before but never this close up and never with the intention of riding on one. The monstrous things look like something out of a drug fueled nightmare. They walk on wide webbed feet that clearly make it easy for them to cross the loose sand but that’s not what gives me pause.
One of them is at the fence of the pen and the thing is more than tall enough to look right over it. It opens its maw and reveals row after row after row of razor sharp looking teeth. The kind of teeth evolution designed for tearing its prey to bite-sized pieces. And as if those weren’t enough to strike fear into the stoutest of hearts there are pointy spikes protruding every which way all along its back.
“Worry do not,” Mohlad says. “I handle.”
“Yeah,” I say, shaking my head. “Does he know that?”
Mohlad chuckles. “Female. That one. Yours.”
“Mine,” I say, blinking several times. “Right. Mine.”
You agreed to this. Too late to back out now. Time to cowboy up girl. Literally.
Mohlad walks up to the monstrous thing and it snaps at him. He unabashedly slaps it on the top of its head and the thing jerks back while making a mewling sound. I gasp in surprise. He did it all so nonchalantly. The creature may terrify me but he clearly isn’t intimidated and the thing reacts to his certainty. It steps back, lowers its head and continues making the low mewling sound.
There are three more of the creatures in the pen. One of them is substantially bigger than the others. Bigger and meaner looking. That one is watching Mohlad. It doesn’t move or, as far as I can see, even blink.
Mohlad walks over to the gate and slips through, closing it behind himself. There are saddles resting on the fence and he grabs one of them. My heart is racing watching him but he continues moving about in a quiet, workmanlike fashion as if this is nothing at all. The monstrous creatures that no matter how big and muscular he is could tear him apart if they took even half a mind to seem to be nothing to him. He might as well be doing the most mundane of tasks the way he is acting.
He approaches the biggest one with the saddle held in one hand and his other hand extended in front of himself. He doesn’t move fast. Each step is deliberate as he moves closer. The monster growls, baring teeth, and lowering its head.
Mohlad moves right in until his forward hand is on the thing's muzzle, right over those nasty, sharp teeth. He runs his hand over its muzzle starting at the ridge over its eyes and coming down to the wide nostrils. The guster snorts, growls, but the one thing it doesn’t do is attack.
Mohlad continues stroking and as he does he hums. It’s a soft and low with a beautiful musicality to it that even calms my nervous heart. It seems to be working on the guster too because its eyes drift closed as the growling stops.
Mohlad steps to the side and then swings the saddle up and over the beast. The beast snarls, bucks, but Mohlad strokes down the nose a couple of times all while continuing the humming and it settles again.
I’ve seen plenty of old Earth vids back on the ship. My dad’s favorites were a genre called westerns and my best memories are sitting on his lap watching them with him when I was really young. Because of that, I’m at least passingly familiar with the idea of what Mohlad is doing to put the saddle on, but those creatures of Earth are nothing like these evil looking lizard based monsters.
He kneels and moves around as he fastens straps, all the while continuing his hummed song. Something about the tune calls to something deep inside of me. Not only does it make me feel calm, it evokes emotions. Deep seated ones of quiet moments of peace and joy. It’s almost magical and I wonder if it’s only affecting me that way or if it would happen to anyone.
He finishes saddling the big one then backs his way to the fence, never giving the gusters his back, and without even looking he grabs another saddle. He goes to the one he said would be mine and repeats the entire process.
When he finishes he takes the leads on both creatures and brings them over to the gate. The big one, the one he will ride, tosses and snorts. Slight resistance, but still coming along whether it wants to or not.
“Ready?” he asks, his dancing eyes alighting on me.
“Uhm,” I hesitate looking at all the sharp spikes on the thing. He put a leather strap muzzle over their mouths so they can’t open wide enough to take a bite, but that does little to ease the fear that feels like it’s doing a tap dance up and down my spine. “Yes?”
He chuckles and shakes his head.
“No. No, beautiful,” he says flashing his brilliant smile. The sunlight bounces off his scales causing rainbows to form around him in some kind of alien transfiguration. It takes my breath away as much as him calling me beautiful. “Confidence. Guster responds to. You, certain. Must be.”
I nod as I parse his words. His Common is good, better than a lot of the Zmaj, and certainly outdoes my zero understanding of his language, but I still have to think it through. Confidence. Right. I stare into the creature's baleful eye and my head fills with thoughts of it eating my face, but I push those aside.
“Right. Confident,” I mutter, walking over to meet him at the gate.
He opens it and leads the creatures through then closes and locks it behind him.
“Front, behind never,” he admonishes as I approach my ride from the side and slightly to the rear.
I stop dead in my tracks as he speaks because the monster twisted its head to keep an eye on me in a way that doesn’t look like it should be able to do.
“Front. Right,” I agree sliding across the sand until I’m next to its head.
Yup, right here close to the razor-sharp teeth that are only restrained by what looks to be a very thin set of leather straps. I am fairly certain if that thing wanted to it would snap those straps without a second thought.
