Chapter 4
MARGARET
The weight of leaving is so much more than I had expected. I thought I was, at least mostly, mentally prepared for it but seeing all of my kids gathered together as I left has placed a weight on my heart that isn’t going to be nearly so easy to handle.
Mohlad is silent too. He leads the way around the ship towards where the pens are on the backside that hold the monstrous things they call guster which we’ll be riding. Our intended target is another part of the shipwreck that we will scavenge for parts to hopefully fix the refrigerator. My mood remains somber. Walking past the graveyard doesn’t help.
As we approach it I see Desiree is there. She usually is, almost every morning, saying prayers for her husband who died, only now she isn’t alone. Her new mate, an alien Zmaj of her own, is with her, standing solemn and silent, giving honor to the man who loved her before him.
It’s oddly encouraging. She had love and lost it too, but there she is with her second chance. Do I not deserve a second chance too? Is it wrong for me to have someone to share my golden years with?
No, but he shouldn’t be so young, now should he?
That’s the crux of what bothers and worries me about this. Mohlad is young, even amongst the Zmaj he’s young. And the stories are that these guys are really long-lived. Am I setting him up for losing? That’s not fair. Going into a relationship knowing that he will outlive me by a long, possibly long, long time isn’t really good for him, now is it?
Sure there are the stories about them and their fated mates or whatever. I’ve never bought into love at first sight or fate or any of that. In all my life I’ve never seen it. Lust at first sight, oh yeah. Plenty of times, especially when I was younger. But love?
Hank and I were anything but love at first sight. Our love grew over time, working together as we got to know each other and find not only things we had in common but our differences which made as much of an attraction as anything.
It was a good love. A strong one that had given us our beautiful family. I missed him for a long time, but I had come to terms with being alone a long time ago. Desiree looks over and waves with her gentle smile. I return the wave.
“Be safe,” she calls. “Good journey.”
“Thank you,” I say.
Her Zmaj mate calls something to Mohlad in their language. It’s a weird one to listen to and I don’t know if I will ever really understand it or not. Lots of long vowels and dragged out hiss sounds. Mohlad says something in return then we’re rounding the ship and they are out of view.
We continue to walk in silence but it’s an easy one. I don’t feel any pressure to talk or make myself interesting, which is nice. It’s certainly a change from what I recall of dating before when I was always worried about it.
“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.
“Good,” Mohlad says.
He comes to stand at my side and then strokes the muzzle of the one I’m going to mount. The saddle has a stirrup that sways gently back and forth. I know, in theory, how to do this but theory and reality are nowhere near the same thing.
I reach up as far as I can and only barely get my fingers around the pommel then lift my right leg into the stirrup. The creature dances to the side and I lose my grip on the pommel. My leg is pulled forward still stuck in the stirrup and I’m falling.
I yelp loudly as fear grips my thoughts but before I hit the ground, which should be inevitable followed by being dragged off to who knows where, I stop and I’m floating. Purple eyes are only inches from mine. Full lips are so close and all I can think of is how they glisten and how much I want to taste them.
“Careful,” Mohlad says in a soft whisper.
I memorize the way his lips move as he speaks. The curl, tension, relaxing and the sweet smell of his breath. How does he do that? Do Zmaj brush their teeth? Do they need to?
A tremble passes over and I blink, trying to get my thoughts under control. He doesn’t move and I’m stuck so I don’t either, not that I want to. What I want is anything but to move. Away at least. Other movements, oh hell yeah. I’ll move with him all day and all night.
The familiar, yet so long forgotten tightness forms low in my belly. The coiling of a spring. I raise my right hand and run my hand through his hair, pushing it back and away from his face and tucking it around his protruding horn.
What am I doing? He’s a third of my age at best.
I don’t care and judging by the way he’s looking at me he doesn’t care either. I know attraction when I see it and there is no denying what that fire burning in his eyes is. I swallow and force myself to act much more sensibly than my body wants to.
“Uhm,” I say.
“Oh,” he says, shaking his head as if to clear it of distracting thoughts.
Thoughts of me? Of doing more?
Stop. For the sake of every god that anyone anywhere has ever sent a prayer to, let this young man be. This isn’t right for him, for me sure, what do I have to lose, but he has an entire life to live.
The thoughts bring a sadness with them that is so overwhelming I want to cry. I refuse to break down like that. Not now and not here. So I shove all my thoughts and feelings into a box and force a smile onto my face.
“Thank you,” I say, a much more appropriate response.
He nods and gently lifts me up until I can swing my left leg easily over the top of the guster then he lowers me into the saddle. He grabs the reins and hands them to me while I twist and shift to settle myself into the saddle.
He remains at my side, one hand on my thigh, which I am acutely aware of, and the other on the muzzle of the guster. I wrap the reins around my hand while tightening my thighs on the sides of the guster.
“Good,” he nods, then he looks up to me. “Good?”
“Yes,” I say and give him a smile.
Oh, I’d give you so much more.
No. Stop. Back in the box with all that.
He waits a moment longer before moving over to his own creature. That one is watching us with its bloodshot, baleful glare. I have no doubt that if the monster has any coherent thoughts they are all about how tasty I’m going to be when it finally eats me. Impulsively I flip the creature off. It snorts and tosses its head.
Mohlad mounts with the ease of practice and skill. He settles himself onto the saddle and no, I don’t miss the quick adjustment he makes to his boy parts. How could I miss such a thing? Old or not, I’m still alive damn it.
He makes a sound that sounds like chk chk and tugs the reins to the side. The beast tries to turn in the opposite direction but Mohlad smoothly pulls harder and the guster turns to the direction he wants and lopes forward. Without warning my own moves to follow. I’m tossed back, brushing some of the spikes behind but thankfully taking no damage.
Mohlad is watching over his shoulder, making sure that I’m okay. I smile and give a one handed wave. He smiles and nods but doesn’t turn back. He continues watching me as my guster falls in to the side of his.
The gusters carry us away and I can’t keep myself from taking one last look over my shoulder at the ship as it falls behind us. I hope it’s not the last time I’ll ever see it but if it is, I’m at peace with it.
“Adventure,” Mohlad says, smiling. “Me. You.”
“Adventure,” I agree, smiling.
And I can’t deny that I feel more alive in this moment than I have in a long, long time. No matter the heat, the danger, and the unknowns that we face, I’m alive and thrilled with it.