Thank you all for the feedback on the previous chapters. I've tried to incorporate the meaningful comments into the subsequent chapters. Hope you enjoy it!
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The sun had begun peeking over the mounting by the time Istvan opened his eyes. Bella laid by his side, the rhythmic rise and fall of her sleeping chest capturing his attention with a smile. The beauty blinked her eyes open, still tired from the evening escapades.
"Good morn," Istvan spoke softly as he brushed a stray lock from her face. It was obvious: he adored her.
"Mmmm good morn indeed," she replied with a satisfied smile, though, the tone was not what Istvan had been expecting. Rather than gentle exchange of lovers, Bella's tone was friendly and dismissive, as if she were greeting him on the street and was politely saying hello. "Hmmm. It is later than I expected," she commented, finding her dress and sliding it over her perfect form. "Much to do."
"W-wait... you are leaving?" Istvan called out as she stood to leave. The hurt in his voice was unmistakable.
"Of course," she answered as though she found the question to be an odd one. "Oh don't you worry, my dear. Your little indiscretion is quite safe with me. My lips are sealed."
"Have a nice day," she said in her standard silky tone as she sauntered away into the woods. It wasn't sort of saunter that demanded he follow after. Rather, it was the sort to imply his services were no longer required and she was to be left in peace.
For the moment, Istvan just sat there. He was too stunned to move and felt utterly rejected. Had he not been a sufficient lover? There was no doubt that Bella was far more experienced than he, but she had come countless times; did that not mean she found him at least enjoyable?
After a few moments, he simply frowned and shook his head to dismiss these negative feelings. This was supposed to be paradise but so far, he was finding himself more miserable than not. After he had gathered and re-donned his garments, Istvan realized that he didn't fully know where he was. He knew that Maddy's cabin
should
be nearby, and as luck would have it, he began to over-hear a conversation between her and John that lead him from the woods. He paused as he neared, realizing that neither strange person knew he was present.
"What are you doin', lass?" John asked her, his accent the utter embodiment of the fey tongue. He was tugging a button up shirt on over his bare chest, both it and his trousers looking far more normal by the standards of the rest of the villagers. Maddy, on the other hand, was now clothed in something utterly foreign and more in line with what John had been wearing the previous day.
In place of her beautiful noble gown, Madeline now wore a short (by Istvan's standards) skirt, a tight fitting blouse, and a heavy, blue canvas jacket. Her legs were partially covered by skin-tight leggings and her shoes were the strangest contraptions Istvan had ever seen. She wore the garments with comfort and ease, indicating their familiarity to her.
"I'm weeding the garden," she answered John in a mildly cross tone.
"What on earth for?" He asked, flabbergasted. "Yer supposed to be find'n out whatever information ya can, not pull'n grass from a cabbage patch for Christ's sake."
"All of the books were empty," she informed cooly, though calmly.
"And? And there ain't nooth'n else ya can be work'n on?" He returned, his voice starting to rise.
"Yeah. Weeding. What do you want me to do? They decided not to kill us. Great. You don't think that means they'll be all gung-ho about trading with us, do you?" She asked the question as if she thought John were an idiot. "Hell, that assumes they aren't some sort of barter system but I have no idea how economics would even work in a place like this. Did you see any money anywhere?"
John looked taken aback for a moment. "No, actually I didn't," he remarked curiously.
"Yeah, me neither," she answered, returning to her garden. "So either there's some bank or something in town, which we obviously have no access to, ergo no money, or we just woke up in Barter-ville, where everyone hates us and will probably not trade with us. Given that we only have about 6 months worth of food between the three of us, no trading in any form means no food. So, if we're going to eat, then, yeah. I'm weeding the fucking garden. Unless, of course, you'd like your second death to be starvation."
John reached down and grabbed Maddy's arm, yanking her to her feet as she let out a surprised yelp. "Listen, lass," he said in a patient enough sounding voice. "We ain't gonna starve to death, do you understand me? They'll either come to their senses or I'll make them. It don' matter which to me, but I do know a doctor has no business play'n house. You got better things to put that mind to, so it's more important that you go down to that library and play nice with the old fart and that weird fella to get all the information ya can, you understand? We gotta get outa here and you on your knees in the garden, pull'n out bits of grass sure as hell ain't gonna make that happen any faster."
Madeline's lips tightened as she tugged at from his grip. Istvan couldn't quite make out her expression from his vantage point, but if it was anything like the one she had offered him for a similar gesture the night before, John should have been recoil in intimidation right about now. Interestingly, he wasn't.
"Do you have any idea what you are saying?" She finally replied in a gravely serious voice. "I mean, you
did
see God yesterday, right?"
"What the fook does that gotta do with anything?" He barked in return, shaking her arm slightly to get a tighter grip.
Madeline's face contorted in disgusted disbelief. "Only that God himself said we died and that he put us here intentionally, you moron," she countered in a brazen and fearless reply. Istvan winced on her behalf. It didn't take a genius to see where this was headed and he suddenly felt that Madeline was a fool for not backing down to John. "Even assuming I
could
build you some space ship, which I can't, what makes you think escape is even possible, given that it God who put us here in the first place?"
John's scowl was painful to watch and Istvan winced for a second time, thinking he should probably intervene at some point. John pulled Madeline in closer, clearly exasperating the woman's obvious need for a sizable distance between her and anyone else. Madeline's face blushed red with anger as she doubled her efforts to escape, fruitlessly. "Oh yeah?" He answered, his voice teetering on a dangerous calm before the storm. "I also watched them freak try ta kill us for reading the bible," he countered. "Ya think Gad intended on that? And all that talk about multiple gads... it's fook'n herasy, Madeline, and it don't take a genius like you to see that this ain't the paradise we was promised, which means it's all some alien fook'n trick. I'll bet we ain't even dead. I'll bet we're in some prison with our brains hooked up to some machine, pump'n all these thoughts inta our heads like some fook'n extended LSD trip from hell."
"If that's true then nothing I do can wake us up," Madeline replied, the former bite to her tone now gone, as if she had recognized the error in her approach too late.
John shrugged, offering her a little more space, but not releasing her arm. "An' what if they dropped us on some alien planet or something. It was you who pointed out the stars ain't where they ought be," he added, much to Istvan's surprise. Albus had mentioned that it would take an observant and keen mind to discern that they were on another planet. If John's reply were to be taken seriously, Madeline had done so within a few hours of arriving here. "Maybe it's some Alien trick ta give us hope. Ya can't have misery without hope and those fookers love misery," he concluded in what Istvan took as likely the most insightful thing the hot head had every considered.
John tossed Maddy's arm back, causing her to stumble away slightly with far less grace than she had thus far demonstrated. "I don' much care about the why's," he said with finality. "All I care about is getting outa here and back home so we can give those alien fookers a taste of what the Irish Bomber can do when he ain't all beaten and bruise. The only one here who can do that is you and if you insist on need'n help, well, then go train those two fookers at the library ta help ya. I'll warn ya, lass. I ain't gonna tolerate this foolery outa ya fer much longer, ya understand?"
Madeline scowled at him in return.
"I asked if ya understand, lass," He repeated in a serious tone.
"Yeah, I understand," she finally answered, none-too-happy about where this all had lead.
"Good. Now get yer ass down there and get ta work. No more shitt'n around in the garden."
Madeline continued to give him a scowl as she non-committally stepped away and toward what Istvan assumed must have been the road. For his part, John moved in the opposite direction.
Istvan frowned as he took in the interaction as a whole. He did not care for the way John treated his companion. He had seen the type before and sooner or later it would escalated to physical violence. In any case, he would not interfere, not unless asked. They were both so strange to him, that he didn't want to risk furthering the misunderstanding that had transpired between the Three and the rest of them.
Giving the hothead time to distract himself, Istvan took a circular route back to the village, intersecting Madeline's path halfway there. Along the way, his mood soured considerably, largely owing to how John had treated Madeline and the impotence Istvan felt in the matter. The physical delight with Bella only lasted so long. It barely endured past her matter of fact dismissal of him.
