I point at it, expecting him to start toward her right away, just like I would.
When he doesn't move tug on his mane. "Go! Now!"
"No," he says as he moves forward to grab me.
I dodge him, which makes me trip over a rock and land on several jagged edges.
"I'm not going," I tell him in a tight voice.
I can't betray how much pain I'm in or he won't budge.
"There's no time. Go!"
He snarls, but starts running.
"Hide," he growls back at me as his claws scrabble for purchase on the rocks.
I look around and see an overhung boulder with a small cubby. It looks slimy but I move over to it, ignoring the squish of water and the wetness seeping through my suit.
I haven't been able to convince myself to wear any of the clothing we've pilfered, but I'm regretting it now.
Luckily the moon is bright out here without the tree cover and I can see him clearly. My heart's in my throat as I watch Thivoll leaping rocks upstream, then making his way in a sharp arc back downstream to get to her.
He isn't going to make it in time. I hold my breath as it hits her. Her chamber spins but doesn't dislodge and I let out my pent-up breath.
Thivoll carefully tests his weight on the surrounding logs as he makes his way out to her. I'm pretty sure he's wrapping his tail around the chamber soon after, but it's hard to tell with the spray of water between us.
I don't hear the hunter before they move to block my view, a pistol in their green hand.
50
Ree
"No screaming for your manticorid friend, female. Move out of there."
Thivoll was right about the danger. And about the Little Green Men.
Braceaaer really have been accurately portrayed in tabloids. Giant heads compared to their body size, enormous eyes, gray-green skin with a silver sheen, and pitifully weak looking.
Guns have a way of making that not matter.
I slowly raise my hands, then stand up in controlled movements.
I had a gun pulled on me a few months ago when treating a young child's broken arm and I asked one too many pointed questions about how it happened. It's not pleasant, but people who don't shoot you right away are usually after something.
Which means it's best to find out what that is right away.
My throat shifts painfully so I can do just that. "What do you want?"
"A whore with a translator. How inconvenient. Just move."
Well, that answers that question. Typical.
Hopefully he likes his 'whores' alive, so it gains me more time.
I make my way back up the rocks, hiding a glance over to Thivoll with the fall of my long hair. He would have normally heard all of that, but the roaring water must be drowning us out because he's still heaving the chamber across the logs, mostly blocked from my view by the spray of water.
I just need to live long enough for him to look over to my empty hiding spot.
