Chapter 10 Retreat, Theft, and Confide #2
He grunts and drops his load on the floor before me. I take a step forward, eyeing the carcass before the blue satchel. “What is it?”
Whatever it is, it’s larger than a station hound, brown, with coarse-looking fur. Like some of the ancient earth animals I’ve seen in books and movies, it has a snout. My memory dregs up an old children’s rhyme about farm animals… The pig comes to mind.
“Pig,” he says. “A small one. They can be found roaming in large packs on the outskirts of the city, toward the…”
“Toward the?” I echo, studying the weird creature.
He shakes his head and turns the pig carcass over with his tail. “A place I call the forest.”
“Right, the fertile land that’s grown back. We were all heading for it. It’s the only safe place many of us could reach without enough fuel reserves to launch again. But that’s nothing you would care about.”
“You know about it?”
“Yeah…” Tearing my gaze away from the strange presence of the dead pig is difficult.
I’ve never seen a real animal outside a dog or rodent in my life.
There aren’t many animals on spaceships, and livestock animals are even rarer.
You needed a special expensive license to have one.
“Why didn’t you want to tell me about it? ” I eye him.
“It is a bad place.”
My brows furrow. “Bad?” I flinch as he grabs the back of the pig’s neck with one hand and uses the other to grab its leg, hoisting it up to drip blood all over the place. “Wait!” I exclaim. “Don’t butcher it where I sleep, geez! Or in front of me! The last thing I need is that sort of trauma.”
After a long blank look, he carries the pig back to the tunnel and leaves again without another word.
Once he’s gone, I gingerly approach the plastic satchel and open it up.
A myriad of items appear; some I immediately recognize and some I don’t.
Spreading them out, I go through them one by one, feeling an uncomfortable ache materialize in my chest. Most of the items are plastic, but I’m still surprised how nice some of them seem.
One is wrapped partially in additional faded clear plastic.
I pull aside the excess material to find a hairbrush and a pack of make-up brushes.
There are several zipper cases. Food utensils made of metal.
Three small empty bottles. An old tablet with a broken glass screen.
A few intact books with thick shiny paper for the pages, as well as rolls of thin plastic twine, two dish plates, a large cup, and several chains of various sizes, some jewelry dangling random baubles.
The rest is random—industrial goods like office supplies and tools. Among them is a fire starter kit.
Picking up a necklace, I see the chain matches one of the ones I’m already wearing. I thumb the stone at the end, rubbing the dirt off it. Finding a shiny black rock underneath, I immediately love it. Pulling the necklace over my head, I settle it among the others.
Gathering the rest of the supplies, including the plastic it’s all lying upon, I place the items next to my boulder. He never said so, but somehow I know they’re all for me.
Darolus finally returns again, this time with a shredded-looking slice of meat in his grip. There’s fresh blood dripping off his hands, down his front, and along his tail. I grimace.
He hands me the meat.
I take it from him with a reluctant pinch of my fingers. “Whoa, so, I just cleaned your place. The point of taking the pig outside was to keep the blood there.”
He huffs and it comes out with a hiss at the end.
I hold back a smile.
“You are not easily satisfied, female.”
“I’m here unwillingly, I should be horrific to satisfy.” I scoff at him after laying the meat out on the flat rock he provided. My new table, apparently.
As my words slowly hit him, his lips twitch.
I smirk. “See, we can be friends.”
“We can be friendssss.”
I nod, then turn to my sad firepit, thinking about dinner—only to realize I still need fuel even with the fire starter kit. Looking down at my two hides—one clearly stolen and yet on show for the victim’s perusal—I glance up at him again. “I’m taking out my knife,” I warn.
His brow arches. “Why?”
“I need kindling.” I tug out my weapon and saw off a long piece of the larger hide. Darolus, like usual, watches in silence as I do this.
I’m getting used to it; he’s doing it for the same reason I watch him, after all.
We’re figuring each other out. We find each other interesting. Well, I find him interesting.
He doesn’t stop me as I pile in the hide and gather more stones.
Despite the kit, it takes me longer than usual to get a spark to take hold in the old leather.
And when it does it smells terrible, but I grin with satisfaction as I place the meat within the weak fire.
Sitting back, I poke the flames with my knife, unbothered by the reek of burnt fur as long as I get to eat tonight.
I gaze at him as the meat sizzles. “The forest, why is it bad?”
I know why it’s bad right now, with what’s happened to The Dreadnaut and all.
But I don’t know why it would be bad for someone like him.
With how big and strong he is, I can’t imagine anything being bad for him besides tight spaces.
I don’t know how much wood is left in the city…
but I don’t want to ask him to go to the forest if it will be dangerous for him.
Still, I can’t keep cooking with hides, not indefinitely.
He doesn’t reply for a long time. The shadows lengthen as the golden light fades into a soft darkness. Already sawing off more of my hide, I watch as he slips to his bed, snatching a thinner article of folded-up tattered cloth. He tosses it to me, and I feed it to the flames, murmuring a thank you.
“It is a dangerous place,” he finally answers, coiling back up on the other side of the fire. “Many evil beings live there. If your fellow humans have gone there for safety, I am afraid they will not find it. Not without a fight first.”
“Isn’t the forest where you and your kind are from?”
It had to be, right?
“Long ago, but not anymore. We have since spread. For my part, I do not reenter the trees, nor climb the mountains. I do not even go within view of the forest if I can avoid it. The fields of new growth around it are as far as I will risk hunting. Enough animals venture away from there for the same reason as I. It is safer.”
“How can anything be unsafe for you, you’re so… so… big.”
“My spine can be severed as easily as any one of my brethren’s. A faster naga than I could latch onto my back and knock me out, perhaps one that has stronger venom. I may be larger and stronger, but only a fool expects to win. My caution is why I always do.”
“I just can’t imagine you being afraid.”
“I am not afraid.”
“You seem like you are, if you don’t go within view of it. That’s only something someone who’s afraid would do.”
His eyes narrow. “It is because I do not want to be seen. I am not afraid. I am cautious,” he huffs.
I lift my hands. “Sure, fine. You’re not afraid. Well, I’m not afraid either, and the forest is exactly where I plan on going as soon as I get out of here.”
His blue eyes roam over me. “Then, for your safety, I will have to make sure that never happens.”
“Are the other nagas that bad? The one on The Dreadnaut didn’t seem that bad…” Except to that one lady…
“They are worse than you can imagine. And would be monstrous to you for being a human female.” He flicks his eyes up and down me, and I straighten, for the first time feeling like he’s checking me out.
“Relentless killers of everything that does not belong to their clans, they have no care for others, especially a stranger who happens to be trespassing in their territories. Which are many and spread out, encompassing the entire forest. Whatever you seek to find in there, you are better off looking somewhere else.”
The fire dies down as the hide burns out, and I shift the meat around with my knife, pleased by the sear. And it’s thinner than the pieces this morning, so the middle should be done too. Slicing a bite off, I bring it to my lips and blow on it.
Meanwhile, Darolus unwinds his tail and slips its long length entirely around us in a large circle.
Strangely, I find I like the enclosed feeling it creates. It reminds me of the walls of a ship, and the safety those walls bring. Tight quarters have never bothered me. With the soft heat of the firepit, it’s almost… cozy.
But then his tailtip curves away and slides toward the pool, going over the edge, dipping into the water. Soon, the rest of his tail follows suit, and he lowers his upper body into the water smoothly.
“What are you doing?” I ask, perplexed.
His bright eyes return to me as he silently slips beneath the surface, and into its shadowy depths.
With only the light of the cloth still burning to see him by, all I can discern is a massive form moving beneath the glinting ripples.
Awed once more, this time by his sinuous movement, I follow his watery path with my eyes.
A splash startles me, and I jerk my head, catching his tailtip sinking down and out of sight.
The pool must be deeper than it appears.
My awe vanishes with a knot in my stomach.
Easing another few inches away from the edge, I take another bite of the meat, distracting myself while Darolus finishes his bath.
Because that’s what he’s doing. Bathing.
Which is something I should not be involved in, not unless we were contracted, and we’re definitely not.
He’s my captor, not my trick. Besides, I haven’t contracted into a relationship since I was seventeen and needed a safe place to sleep. And can humans and naga even have sex?
For the first time, I’m glad for the darkness. It’s hiding my blush.
As I’m finishing up my meal, Darolus rejoins me on dry ground, heading to his bed and shaking the water off him as he goes.
I watch him move through the shadows from the corner of my eye.
When he turns to me again, I quickly look away, lifting my blade to the fire and fiddling with the last of the burning fabric.
“I can’t imagine a naga being worse than the worst man there is,” I murmur.
“The Supreme Commander of the ship I was stuck on for nearly two years almost killed us all because he didn’t want to work with the lower castes,” I say, filling the silence with my angry voice.
“Humans can be terrible, and I’ve survived them so far. ”
“Do humans rape their females to death?”
My lips flatten but then I force them open. “I’m sure they do sometimes.”
“Then we have the same enemies. Human or naga.”
He drops another thin cloth and several smaller hides next to the mostly dead fire. After a quick nod from him, I nurture it back to life, while he settles on the floor between me and his bed rather than in the tunnel like he usually does. I have to shift and turn halfway to keep an eye on him.
He’s smart. At this angle, with my back now partially to the fire, he can see me clearly, though I can’t see him.
He watches me.
“Everyone is my enemy.” I laugh, trying to lighten the tense mood. “Anyways, thank you… For the supplies.” I indicate my little hoard with my finger, even so much as reaching over, taking hold of a plate, and plopping the rest of the meat on it.
He nods stiffly at me. “Are you good now, Ssssabrina?” he asks, drawing out my name with his sibilant accent, his voice still dark from the earlier subject.
“I… I’m good now. Thank you. I’m full. But…”
“But?”
“I could use some wood, if you know where to find some. It's better to cook with.”
He abruptly rises and heads for the tunnel.
I shoot to my feet. “Where are you going now? You don’t have to leave.” I don’t know why I say it like I’m the one giving permission, but now that he’s here, I don’t want him to go. I’m lonely, and I didn’t realize how much until he started a real conversation with me.
“It has been a long two days, for the both of us. I would rather not be stabbed in the face while I ssssleep. Tomorrow I will bring you wood. Good night, female.”
He vanishes into the tunnel, pulling a boulder in after him, ending the conversation.
Sitting back down on the hides with a sigh, I stare at the fire and pretend he’s still here, only out of sight. I’m good at pretending. I always have been.
I’m not alone. Not really. Right?
Exhaustion hits me suddenly, and the flames die into another round of embers as my eyes hood. Pulling the hide over my body, I drift off to sleep with Darolus’s scent in my nose.
I no longer mind it.