Our New Human

6

After we ran to catch our ship and Elsie saw it for the very first time, we both sat down. She continues to ask me about the planet we're going to and asking me about various crew members.
"Who's that?"
"Ulaui."
"What's special about Ulaui?"
"Whenever they experience strong emotions, they die, but there's a large egg inside of them, which contains an almost identical version of them, save color or gender-based traits that has a replica of their brain. The egg rolls out from a hole on the abdomen and then hatches."
Elsie looks at Ulaui, who is currently a green female and chatting with the commander.
"That's kind of odd. Okay, how about..." Elsie searches for another interesting 'alien' to learn about. "Woah!" she yells suddenly, as our guardsman who can turn invisible at will suddenly pops into view. He's never been able to control visibility that well. Mortar the guardsman turns and shakes his head at her.
"Sorry Mortar! This is our Human, Elsie. She's never met anyone from your planet before." I explain. Mortar nods and walks up to us.
"Miss Elsie, welcome to the fleet! I hope to become very good friends." she looks at the large, grey, man-like alien with rippling muscles and small, wrinkled eyes, and suddenly wraps her arms around his waist.
"I hope we become friends too!" she replies, and and a smile spreads across Mortar's face. He pats her on the head and walks away, flickering in and out of view.
"I'm going to get him a hat." Elsie says, nodding her head but not to show approval to anyone.
"What is a hat?"
"It's a head shaped piece of fabric that keeps your head warm. I'm going to get you one too." she explains. Elsie fishes through the backpack she has and pulls out a stiff, black 'hat' and places it on my head.
"This is a fedora. I was going to give it to you later, but I think it'll be pretty snazzy later on." Yet again I have no clue what 'snazzy' means, but I do remember Commander Grim saying how humans appreciate gifts in return.
"That reminds me, I want to show you this thing when we get back to the main ship."
"What is it?"
I meet eyes with Israeb, who can hear anything, and has been involuntarily listening to us for the past week.
He looks around and motions to something, which makes me look to a painting Fleurentine is working on, she's been playing with human hobbies since she learned Elsie was coming.
"It's... a... picture."
"A picture? Of who?"
I only have one picture, that's all.
"It's of my family."
Elsie looks at me and does the sudden arm wrap thing she did to Mortar.
"That's so sweet of you, Xil." She picks up the hat and makes a strange face. Her eyes and nose squint up and the mouth opens involuntarily.
"a...choo!"
The entire crew freezes as Elsie repeats this high-pitched process. As she does it, she brings her elbow up to her face and her body shakes.
"Elsie, are you okay? Is this another human function?" She looks over at me, still squinting. Little drops of liquid line the corners of her eyes.
"What? I'm fine. It's just a sneeze." Her voice is thicker and strange.
"Did you do this on purpose?"
Elsie wipes the drops away and shakes her head.
"Involuntary function caused by inhaling foreign particles or irritants."
"Is it dangerous?"
"No."
"Where was the irritant?"
"I'm not sure. I have something called allergies."
"Is it contagious?"
"No."
Elsie places the hat on me and tells me she has to put on her suit.