Hi there!
This is part six of this series, so if you're reading it and can't make heads nor prehensile tails of it - that might be the reason why! Go back!
(If you still don't get it afterwards, you can totally leave me a mean comment.)
Content warnings: blood, fighting, extreme moping.
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Deviously using food as a distraction for my boys - works every single time - I provide myself of some time and space for my visit to the storage room, aka the female's lair. The estrogen hideout. The lady cave. You get the drift.
On the off chance that Drahta are water drinkers and omnivores like their male counterparts, I carry a little of each with me there on a little tray.
Opening the sliding double door just a hair, I quickly slip the foodstuffs into the room on their makeshift tray, then take several large steps back. All the way to the other wall, actually, and then a couple down the corridor.
Then, nothing happens.
I get nervous. I didn't lock the door or anything when I left her before. Maybe she left the room in the meantime, found another hidey hole?
(Or maybe she died.)
I frown darkly at myself.
Oh, fuck off, you meanie.
I sit at a large, if not safe distance away (because, really, there's no such thing as a safe distance when your attacker moves like Catwoman on steroids) and gently twirl the language chip between my fingers. As I contemplate how much I fucked up if the A'Draht really is gone or dead, there is a flash of movement in the dark behind the door. My pulse kicks up a notch with twin relief and dread.
(You talked a big game to your lovers, Valerie Greene. Too late to turn chicken now.)
"I know, I know," I murmur to myself and count the seconds. How long would a hungry A'Draht need to eat and drink up? I brought a double portion thinking she might be hungry after... how many days had she been sitting in this dark storage room, I wonder.
(You can ask her if you manage to put the translator into her noggin.)
"
When
," I snap at my inner Captain Obvious and creep half a step closer to the door. "
When
I manage. Because I fucking will. Now shut up and watch me."
Somewhere towards the back of my brain, that crow in that tree quietly rustles his feathers and I know that Rune is paying attention to me - and ready to step in and take over.
So I hike up my big girl panties, channel my inner Steve Irwin by the way of Cesar Milan, get up off my ass and walk towards that door with strides that, I hope, project confidence.
Calm and firm, assert dominance. With a positive attitude.... mate.
The makeshift tray on the floor is empty. The makeshift bowl isn't on it anymore and the big pieces of space lembas bread are gone, leaving not even crumbs.
I pull the door half-closed behind me, using the light from the corridor to navigate the storage room which appears to be deserted, just like the last time I came in here looking for a refuge after my hissy fit.
Stooping down slightly, I scan the shelves and - yep. There she is, just where she was before, half-hidden from my sight now behind boxes and crates full of whatever.
I must say, I like her better a couple of meters away from me than right in my face. It boosts my confidence to know that I'll at least see her coming for a full couple of seconds if she does attack me.
We make eye contact, her eyes two big glossy orbs reflecting the light back at me. I try a close-lipped smile just in case she interprets teeth as a sign of aggression.
(Like she's a baboon?)
Shut it.
"Hi," I say, not too loudly. "Uh. Well. There you are."
You gold star conversationalist, you.
I clear my throat. "My name's Valerie. You can call me Val, or Ree, or Valerie. I, uhh... I come... in... peace?"
I trail off somewhat uncertainly on that last bit because she's started to move, her eyes fixed right on me, towards me. Before I can decide to turn tail and run (
regroup temporarily
, I mean!), she's out of the shelf and slithering onto the floor on all fours.
Her eerie white-eyed gaze is laser-focused on me as her head is tilted in a strangely feline, lizard-y way, her intensity pinning my feet to the ground so I can't even back away. The delicate slits of her nostrils are moving visibly as she takes in my scent.
Confidence, Val. Confidence!
Much easier said than done.
Ohh, dammit, I should've gone to the loo beforehand.
"I know we didn't meet in particularly favorable circumstances, but I hope that first... first impressions... uhm."
She's sniffing me. From my toes up. In addition to the tip of her nose skimming along my instep and ankle, her feelers are extended and reaching forwards. They wriggle like tiny snakes, brushing the skin of my calves and then my thighs.
(How long ago was your last shave, Val?)
You serious right now? We're about to get mauled to death, ankles first, and you're worried about calf stubble?
(I'm trying to distract you.)
Well, it's not fucking working. You're only making me angry.
The alien buries her face in my crotch and takes a deep whiff.
Eep. Terrible, thanks for asking!
"I hope you don't expect me to do you afterwards," I mumble stiffly through a grimace, and she thankfully starts moving further north, stopping first at my belly button for quite a long time, then at my right armpit (which makes me feel all giggly), and lastly at the two bite marks that Bane left on top of each other on the side of my neck in our last bouts of passion.
"Not that I'm at all against, like, oral and stuff like that, seeing that, you know, I have enthusiastically dived into much,
much
weirder things these past couple of years, but I... I kinda like to get to know her first, y'know? Like, her name and her, I dunno, star sign or favorite color or whatever. Hopes and dreams? Income? See which way she'd put up the toilet paper, because, really, I can't trust my most delicate body parts to someone who would hang it
under
."
Babbling doesn't exactly help, but not babbling makes things worse, so I babble. Don't judge.
Then she's all the way upright (just a few inches shorter than me, actually) and looking me in the eye - and then sniffing my mouth and nostrils, which is really, really weird, but nothing in comparison to her tentacly feelers combing through my hair and exploring my head.
"Really wish you wouldn't do that," I giggle-squeak when one foraging wormy appendage goes full wet willy on my left ear.
As she stands there, I get a chance to have a closer look at her in the light of the corridor. There, down the side of her neck from behind her earlobe to her very pronounced, weirdly shaped clavicle, is the gill Rune told me about. It's closed right now so that only a thin, darker line remains, like a single leafless branch of ivy crawling up a marble column.
The translator chip enclosed in my fist suddenly seems really bulky and razor-sharp.
Not as sharp as the claws on the A'Draht's hands, mind you.
Speaking of hands, she's leaning down and grabbing my empty hand with both of hers, and turning it this way and that, and—
Oh boy.
(Or rather
Oh girl.
)
Bane's, Rune's and her tongue are definitely from the same planet.
A rush of goosebumps goes up and down my spine as she licks between my fingers, doubtlessly to get to the last remnants of edible matter clinging there after my previous cooking session.
"Don't get any ideas picking dinner out of my teeth, eh," I try my best to joke even as the sweat rolls down my armpits. I should have been more careful with the foodstuff. Back at the brothel, I always was so very cautious after that first near-miss, locking everything away and scrubbing myself thoroughly after kitchen duty, not wanting to give anyone any ideas. Living wild with my boys has made me careless, among other things.
Then again, it also made me ballsy as hell, which is why I somehow manage to grab the A'Draht's hand with my recently licked one and give it a squeeze.
She gives a wheezy little bark. It doesn't translate to anything in my brain, and I can't really tell if it's a positive or a negative sound, but I decide to have massive amounts of faith for just a little bit longer. I mean, she hasn't torn into me yet, so that's something, right?
"Come on," I coax, pulling her gently but firmly and sliding the door open. "We're gonna get ourselves cleaned up, and then I'll get you more food. Come on. Come, come."
She seems very wary. That makes two of us. But hey - my very diverse work experiences have given me plenty of opportunity to hone the high art of faking it till you're making it.
Not to brag or anything, but my co-workers at Hernandez Rentals called me The Client Whisperer.
A distracted customer is an uncomplicated customer, Miss Greene!
Oh, look, Mr Hernandez did teach me something besides how to avoid your sleazy boss without getting your scantily-clad ass fired.
Praying that Bane and Rune will both stay well clear, I march "upwards" through the spiraling corridors of our spaceship, dragging the lethal alien girl behind me like she's my little sister and we're at Disney World. I chatter on endlessly about showers, dinners, aliens, the teacup ride, and Mr Hernandez, and make sure she's listening to me even though she doesn't understand a word (yet).
I'm bullshitting so successfully that I actually run right past the washroom door. I double back, pull the (now somewhat confused) alien female (man, she needs a name, stat!) in after me, flick on the lights and shut the door with a hydraulic 'whoomph'.
So far, so good. What now, Valerie?
"Shower," I decide, and point. "Come on, Missy. Gotta get Tulun D'tel out of your pores."
Easier said than done. 'Missy' hisses at the first spurt of water, and then at the spray of it coming down on her naked shoulders, and then at me for pulling her farther into the shower nook. Then, she starts wrestling with the shower head, getting water everywhere except on herself. Then, she hisses at my demonstrating the use of soap. Then, she crouches down in miserable defeat while I work some shampoo into her hair- a process made much more difficult by her feelers, which tangle around my fingers like sentient ramen noodles. Then, she licks sudsy water off the floor, and splutters because it obviously tastes awful, and then hisses at me again because it's clearly all my fault.
Forget Missy. It's Hissy. Or Pissy.
By the end of it, we're both mostly bedraggled, mostly clean, shivery, and annoyed from getting water in our eyes. Whose brilliant idea was this, anyway?
And just as I bitch and moan about this girl's manners and pointless ideas that lead to nothing, as if to prove me wrong, the entire side of her neck splits wide open.
Wide. Open. Think
Japanese R-rated splatter horror movie swordfight scene
. Absolutely capital-G
Gaping
.
Holy moly. I was
not
prepared for that sight. That slash is
