Kita'thalla Ch. 08

But she remembered everything.

A splash off to the side caught her attention. He had pulled himself out of the water and was drying himself off. Quickly deciding she'd had enough excitement for one day, she quickly scraped off the remaining water from her body with the blanket before getting dressed. She waited for him to pull on his fatigues before heading over to him. He said nothing as she approached, suddenly making himself busy by adjusting the belt carrying his weapon. She stared at him for a moment, noticing the redness in his face, before simply heading off in the direction of the cave, pausing for a moment as she made sure he was following her.

So, what now? She asked herself as she walked. She'd discovered more about the way humans showed affection, that was for sure. And...while she was still having a little trouble getting over the level of intimacy involved (Swapping saliva? Yuck.), she had liked it...and she wanted more. But...he was a human! That was impossible to ignore. And if she did somehow communicate that she did remember, and actually did like what happened...ugh, she'd made things more difficult by acting clueless! And even if she did figure that part out...would he want to do more than just... to go all the way? And aside from that... It would mean admitting the way she felt about him, both to herself and to Eric. Wait, admitting what?! Did she really...RRAGH'CHA!!! What had she gotten herself into?

"Kita, is...everything okay?" Eric asked at little shakily. She realized that last curse had come out loud.

"I..." she searched for something to say, anything other than what was on her mind. That was the LAST thing she needed, to blurt out anything else that would make this worse. A flicker of movement suddenly caught her attention off to the side. A welcome distraction, but what was it? Did that tree trunk just move?

" Eric, don't move, hand me the pistol" she said, trying to keep her voice as quiet as possible .

"Wait, what?" he asked, absolutely clueless, his mind still going over what had happened at the river, and just how he was going to talk to Kita again without it being awkward.

"Just do it!" she hissed at him. When he still didn't move, she lunged for the holster, grabbing the weapon and trying to draw it. Eric yelped, turning awkwardly, and she fumbled, almost dropping it as she finally got it out. Turning towards the place she'd last seen the movement, she caught a fleeting glimpse of hoofed feet disappearing into the woods. Thankfully not something predatory, in fact....possibly prey.

" Kita, what the hell was that for!?" The sound of Eric yelling snapped her attention back to him.

"I saw something. At first it looked like one of those things that attacked us" she said. "I tried to tell you, but you were somewhere else!"

Eric let out an exasperated sigh. "Okay, fine, but that was still dangerous! What if you'd pulled the trigger when it was pointed at me!?" Even as he said this, he knew the chances of that were unlikely. Gauss pistols and the belt they were carried in had a redundant safety system built into them. Even if a gun was holstered with the safety turned off, a set of sensors and electronic locks in the weapon and belt made it impossible for the pistol to be fired until it was completely clear of its holster, even if the trigger was pulled. So there had been little risk of her accidentally shooting him, but still, it had been very unnerving.

She looked at him condescendingly. "I'm better trained than that. At least I didn't lose the other one!"

"Back to that again..." Eric rolled his eyes. "Look. It happened, and there's nothing we can do about it now. In any case, what about you? If you hadn't run into me, you weren't carrying anything other than your teeth and claws!"

Kita opened her mouth, about to point out that if he hadn't been lucky, teeth and claws would have been more than enough to deal with him, but then thought better of it.

"Well..." she replied, reigning in her temper "I wasn't keen on burning to death at the time, so I didn't grab anything from the wreck. But now that you mention it..." a look of sudden realization crossed her face.

Eric saw it and cottoned on. "Is...there any chance that anything on your craft survived the crash?"

"It's possible" she said. "Gun lockers are fairly durable, they have to be when you're storing plasma weapons. And of course...as long as they didn't get warped by the heat, some of the blades might be usable as well."

Eric shrugged. "So, lets take a look after we eat? I've seen that you're well enough to climb, it's not that far from here."

Kita nodded. "Yes, I think we should. It might mean we can finally stop having to worry about swapping the pistol around. Of course..." she said, giving him an impish look. "I'm still not going to let you forget about losing the other one"