“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 plasticit’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 findhiminteresting.
He doesn’t stop me as I pile in the hide and gather morestones. 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 toThe Dreadnautand 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 riskhunting. Enough animals venture away from there for the same reason as I. It is safer.”
