Page 7 of There’s an Alien Down My Chimney

He got impatient when I didn’t immediately take it, folding his fingers around it again, and stepping closer. A finger hooked beneath my chin, angling my face, but it wasn’t for a kiss this time. I jumped a little when his tail swung up and swiped my short hair to the side just behind my left ear, I wasn’t sure at this point if I should step back or let him do what he wanted.

Holding the squiggly thing up, he brought it to my ear and I froze in place. Maybe that was something to help me understand him, he was an alien after all, and why else would he want to put something on my ear? The rumble coming from his chest sounded suspiciously like approval when I held still, I felt a little coldness as he pressed his squiggly thing against the hard bone behind my ear.

I crumbled from the pain the next moment as hot spikes of agony drove themselves into my skull. Feeling just a tad betrayed I fought him when his arms clutched around me to hold me up, my eyes were streaming with tears, a raw, pained sound coming from my throat. With my fists I railed against his massive chest, fighting him when I couldn’t fight the pain. Why would he put something so painful on me? I wanted to scratch it off but he wasn’t letting me.

As suddenly as the pain had come, it went. I went limp in his arms, panting from the exertion, the shock of it all. When I was a little calmer I noticed the wide-eyed, panicked look on his face, and saw how he was frantically looking at the metal part he’d just attached to my head. “Oh, boy, how bad is it?” I croaked, expecting that either my ear was about to fall off, or at the very least that I was pouring blood from the orifice.

“It looks as it should!” he said, “But your reaction was extreme, please tell me you are alright now Stella? I didn’t mean for this to happen!” My eyes went wide with shock when I realized I could understand what he was saying, word for word. So it was a translator device of some kind, it just hurt like hell when he put it on.

“I can understand you!” I said, and he smiled back at me, looking a little relieved. I could understand that, with how much pain that thing caused, he must have been worried he’d done something wrong. “You could have warned me it was going to hurt though.”

He shook his head, a thumb coming up to brush away the tears still clinging to my cheeks below my eyes. “It shouldn’t have, this technology is human-compatible. I do not understand why it harmed you. Forgive me?” he added the last with these sad puppy dog eyes and I couldn’t help but laugh at seeing the look, it was so out of place on his alien face.

“I think I’m alright now,” I said, “And if you didn’t know it was going to hurt, I guess it’s alright?” I mean, he did look extremely worried, he was still rubbing my cheeks, trying to wipe away all evidence that I’d just cried. I’d begun to realize that he was both a bit of a flirt, at the very least with me, and a total marshmallow.

“Good,” he said, his voice still that nice deep rumble, but now it somehow resolved itself into words inside my mind. It was a little uncomfortable because it felt like there was a slight delay, but it was amazing to finally be able to have a conversation with him.

“I fetched my emergency kit from the woods and located where my ship landed,” he added, and then he dipped and I was swung up in his arms. “Now I will make more drinks with sugar and you will sit on the couch and get warm. Then I will inspect the chimney.” I didn’t protest because it was seriously nice to be in his arms and pressed up against his warm body.

“I like that you’re wearing the Santa hat, it looks cute,” I told him when I was back in the nest of blankets. It really was still very cold, no wonder because it was definitely still freezing outside. The Santa hat was sitting on his head at a jaunty angle, perched a bit on the back of his wild mane of hair to accommodate the two antlers sprouting from his forehead.

“Santa’s hat?” he said, his eyes going wide, and then he patted the red and white hat with a big hand. “Oh, no, I’m wearing your holy man’s hat? I didn’t mean to offend!” His eyes darted to the ostentatious statue of Santa and his sleigh on the side table, a worried look on his face.

I hadn’t meant to freak him out, and honestly, this wasn’t at all the response I expected. Pretty sure most guys would have griped about being called cute. I hurried to assure him, “No, Santa’s not a holy man. He’s just…” I thought for a second about what to call him. He was just folklore, a fun figure for kids to believe in but how to say that? “Technically he is a saint, I suppose but…”

“A holy man!” He said again and snatched the hat from his wild locks to hold it out in front of him, unsure what to do with it. I scrambled to understand why he seemed so set on the phrase ‘holy man’ and realized quickly that maybe the translator was turning ‘saint’ back into that. I had just made a complete mess of this.

Taking the hat from his hands, I reached up to put it back on him, gently smoothing his hair in place around it. It was a little coarser than my own hair but super warm and thick, I was surprised he even wanted a hat. “You should wear it. Santa is just a fun folklore tale, he’s not real, and people wear a hat like his all the time. It’s practically tradition.” With a lump forming in my throat, I patted the slightly worn wool of the hat he had on now, “This one belonged to my grandfather.”

He dipped his head, “I see. Then I will wear it with pride. Thank you, Stella.” He got up, and fixed more of the warm drink while he quietly hummed a dual-toned melody under his breath. I watched him move, hat on his head, tail swaying behind his sexy butt. He looked at home in here, already he knew just when to dip his head to avoid hitting the rafters with his antlers.

I hoped he wouldn’t be gone for long when he headed outside to check the chimney. I would love to be able to light the fire again, this damn cold was really getting to me. At the same time, I really wouldn’t mind spending another night cuddling with him to stay warm. How long was he going to stay? He had to go back home, there was no hiding him when I lost this property. I squinted at the hardwood floor while I imagined Ru inside my tiny one bedroom apartment in the city.

Chapter 5

Ru’ol

The chimney was alright I concluded when I’d peered inside the dark shaft. A portion of my stupid horn had broken off where it had scraped along the soot-covered interior, but the stone was all sound. Despite the hard landing against it, I hadn’t damaged any of the mortar holding the thing together. Whoever had built this big old chimney, had done it well.

Leaping down from the roof, I did a quick patrol of the clearing on which the cabin stood. I hadn’t liked returning to the human female to discover two strange males on her porch. I hadn’t been able to approach until they were well out of sight, but I’d watched her get colder by the second, a sad, forlorn expression on her pink face.

I had been unable to hear what these males said to her, but it had made her upset and I strove to erase that sadness for her. She’d been so kind to me, taking me in when she couldn’t understand a word I said, and I had to be pretty scary to her. She didn’t appear to have seen one of my kind before, and I was easily twice her size.

These males looked just like the males I’d seen standing on the shore of the lake, overseeing the dozens of people that were fishing my ship from the bottom of the water. Had they been here to look for me? Stella lived awfully close to where they were pulling the Scintilla from the water, though you couldn’t see a thing through the trees from here.

I didn’t like the idea that I was putting her in danger just by being here, but I also didn’t know where else to go. With my emergency kit in hand, I could tough it out in the woods, but I needed intel on these males if I wanted to get my ship back. Looking at the vehicle they drove, at the technology they were using to retrieve my ship… I’d come to the very bleak and disturbing conclusion that not only had I traveled a vast distance through space, but I’d also traveled through time somehow.

Reassured that the perimeter was clear, I returned to Stella’s home, entering it as easily as I would my own, it felt so familiar. She was still where I’d left her this time, curled in the nest of blankets, her hands curled around the mug of warm drink I’d made her, this time successfully. She looked up when she heard me, and I made sure to kick off my boots again so wet snow wouldn’t go everywhere.

“Chimney looks good, no cracks, I checked thoroughly,” I told her, while I appraised the pile of wood she had in a basket nearby. What was her method of lighting it? Would she find it strange if I pulled out the fire-starter from my bag? I had some survival training from the Kertinillion Army, but I was a trained navigator with ports, they had never wanted to put me anywhere but on a ship. So my skills were a little rusty when it came to actually making fire.

She was kneeling in front of the big stone hearth in a flash, her hands quick and adapt as she set up kindling and logs. In moments she had a fire crackling, and a blissful expression on her face as she warmed her hands in front of it. Turning her head, she smiled at me over her shoulder, “It will take an hour to get nice and toasty in here, but it will be so nice.”

An hour, huh? I smirked as I plunked my ass down on her comfy couch, opening my arms to invite her into them. She laughed, biting her plush bottom lip as she contemplated it, in the end, she clambered into my lap and tucked her head beneath my chin with a sigh. “You are really warm,” she said as if this was strange, and maybe for her, it was, given how cold she got in these low temperatures.

“So did you find your ship? Is it badly damaged?” she asked me. Her fingers had found their way into the collar of the strange sweater she’d given me to wear, it was distracting. I’d take a moment later to wash up and pull my own clothes back on, Stella had washed them last night and hung them to dry around the cabin, with the fire going they’d soon be completely dry.

“The Scintilla looked whole, she’s not a big ship but she’s sturdy,” I said, turning my thoughts to the troublesome sight of humans recovering her from the lake. Being back in time meant I couldn’t count on the government just accepting me as a rescue situation and helping me out. If they were anything like how my own government had acted during pre-spaceflight times… I should expect covert missions and secret military bases that studied alien life. If I wasn’t careful, there might even be a possibility of being locked up in some lab and being experimented on.