Wild World: Annette
(Author's Note: Hey, thanks for sticking with this or giving it a second shot now that I can finally REALLY get it started. Just a couple of quick things I felt the need to mention. This one's more about character development, so there isn't sex in this one. That will come later, promise. Second, this story involves a second language. When the other language is being used, I've separated it from English by
italicizing and underlining it
. Full sentences that I'm translating to English and such will be (Put in Parenthesis). Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoy! ^.^)
I slog up the hill into the cave I've called home for well over a month now, foraged food aplenty stuffed into the duffel bag that I brought from my home world. Though it's still pretty hard to believe that I've actually come to another world, I've definitely had the time and help I've needed to adjust. I actually see her in her usual spot, upright in a chair in the brightest corner of the cavern's entrance with one of my books in her hand. I woke up with her in my bed weeks ago, and the both of us spent tons of hours nearly every day figuring out how to communicate until we had finally figured out enough of each other's languages to start actually learning them. I almost immediately wished that it would have impossible to do so.
"Hey, what are you reading today?" I ask her sullenly, trying hard to swallow my crushing sense of guilt. I see her ear twitch, letting me know she's heard me even though she won't respond at all and I just stand there trying not to let the memories overwhelm me. The memory of her calling me savage without an ounce of passion in her voice, the memory of her telling me what I did that night I couldn't remember before I woke up the next day with her in my bed... I hated myself so much, but couldn't let myself fall to it. She wouldn't even leave after I... I... i...
"Sher-lock...Hol-mes." she says, carefully moving her mouth in her efforts to pronounce it properly and blessedly snapping me out of my downward spiral for the moment. "I like this man. He is clever. Are you from Baker Street as well?" I can't help but chuckle at her innocent question.
"No, I'm not. Baker Street is in London, which is in the United Kingdom. A completely different part of a completely different country than where I'm from." I say to her, setting my bag down a bit farther in the cave and rolling my shoulders. Even with the super strength that this world provides me, my body still gets sore and tired from the exercise required to survive. "I come from Ogden, which is in a state called Utah in a country called the United States. A very,
very
long way away from London."
"I see." she says, closing the book for now and actually looking at me again with those soft eyes of hers. "Did my information on where to forage for food help?"
"It did, a lot actually." I tell her, opening up the duffel bag and showing the variety of fruits, veggies and mushrooms I gathered in my little outing. "Thank you...for helping me so much. Even though I..." My words catch in my throat, making me curse myself for being unable to even apologize for what I did. Being only semi-conscious is no excuse for my crimes, but she seems as impassive as ever as she loudly sighs at me.
"You were savage, but you did not hurt me. I wish you would understand that already." she says to me, coming over and inspecting everything. "You are getting better at choosing good food, Max. Also, you do not have to thank me. You taught me your words, and let me read your books even though I don't provide food."
"Just...trying to be a good person." I say to her, knowing she'll just be upset if I apologize again. "But can I ask you something?"
"No, I do not have a name. Nobody I know has a name, except for you. That is how things are." she says, cutting me off. I smile a bit, having had the name argument with her before until I finally let it drop
"No, no. It's not about the name thing. I just wanted to ask, why are you still here?" I ask. Her ears twitch slightly and she looks over at me, puzzled.
"What do you mean? Am I unwelcome?" she asks, tilting her head cutely to the side.
"No! I mean just.." I say, stumbling over my words for a bit before taking a deep breath to get back on track, "I'm just wondering why you haven't gone home. You know you're free to come and go whenever you want, right? Don't you want to go back to your friends and family?"
"There are no books back home." she states, very matter-of factly. "I like books, very much, and I am not done reading yet."
"I..." I stutter, a bit dumbfounded by her answer. I can't help the bubbling of laughter that comes up right from my stomach, nor the feeling that I wished I'd met this amazing woman under much better circumstances. "Okay, okay. I know that tone of voice. It's the one you use when you think I'm being an idiot and missing something very obvious."
"Tone..of voice?" she asks, confused.
"Oh, well...that's when..." I pause, humming to myself while I think of how to word this. "A tone of voice indicates something about the words you're using beyond the obvious. Does that make sense?"
"No." she states again, her whole body moving in what I now know is her dedicating herself wholly to trying to understand something.
"Okay well, maybe an example would be best. Let's pretend you just asked me a question. Now if I say 'Yeah!'," I say, using a very pleasant, upbeat tone of voice, "you're aware that I'm being sincere. But if I said it like '...yeah.'," this time using a much lower tone of voice like I were depressed, "you know that there's something else behind what I'm saying."
"Oh!" she says happily as her face lights up in understanding. "Then..perhaps I am not using the right tone of voice when I try to tell you about how you were savage and that is why you don't understand what I mean."
"I don't..." I say, stopping and sighing when I realize that rehashing the same arguments weren't going to get me anywhere. "Don't you think your family is worried about you? You've been gone for like a month, and you haven't once ever tried to go back."
"Like I said, I'm not done reading yet." she says to me, looking me over like she's trying to decide something. "Why don't you go?"
"What?" I reply, confused by her sudden question.
"I've told you where I live, because that's where you brought me here from. You know the way, and you can get there much faster than I can." she says to me, speaking like I should have realized all this myself. "And it would be good for you to practice your
yoto
with someone other than me for a change. You can't just stay alone in this cave for the rest of your life."
"My
yoto
, huh?" I say, working my mouth around the word she taught me refers to both language and the mouth. "I suppose, if you'd like."
"It would be good for you. You go to the...village?" she says, pondering if she's using the right word for a moment, "Yes, village, and I'll stay here and practice reading and speaking En-ga-lish a bit more."
She flashes me a small smile, grabbing the copy of Sherlock Holmes she was reading and going to return it to the bookshelf I'd built. I couldn't really think of any argument that she couldn't shut down so I left her to her perusing of my books while I went deeper into the cave I called home. Well, I suppose now I should say the cave
system
I called home. After she had...well, let's call it
moved in
, she had encouraged me to go deeper into the cave. It had actually been the first time I crafted a torch and I thanked my lucky stars for the thousandth time that I had that survival book.
The cavern ended up being pretty expansive, and slowly wound its way down into the innards of the hill and even below ground. Going through, I start wishing that I had or at least knew how to
make
some electric lights for this place. Honestly, it wouldn't make a terrible home with enough time put in it. There was certainly more than enough room, and even smaller branches paths of the cave system that would make for decent personal bedrooms.
I stop as I reached the small, dark alcove that served as a makeshift pantry, making sure to keep my torch well away from the beds of washed and dried grass that we used to keep the food from actually being on the floor of the cave. I back away after putting away the latest foraging haul and take a look around the cave. The thought occurs to me that if I had some heavy-duty tools, I could probably punch some skylights in the roof if I was careful. Then
another
thought occurs to me, did I even need tools anymore?
I take a deep breath, and feel my body fill with that incredible energy that I had only learned existed within me when my antelope-ish roommate told me exactly what I had done that night I could never remember. It coursed through every muscle of my body, imbuing me with the kind of super strength you normally only see or even read about in comic books. Even my bones became more durable, though I found out the hard way I definitely wasn't invulnerable after cutting myself on a large rock I had punched as hard as I could. My fist was fine, but the shards that exploded everywhere cut up my skin pretty bad.
It was definitely exciting, and more than a little scary, learning that being in this world gave me
actual
freaking superpowers. I suppose that it's
