Rocks and Shoals Pt. 02 of 04

On the third day, Jadhar developed a fever. He curled in a fetal position and shivered. Shan warmed him as best she could and wiped his head and chest with water to bring his body temperature down. When his fever finally broke sometime that night, he woke and drank a quart of water and fell under again.

Then, over the following days, Jadhar recovered. He ate more, regained his strength, and managed to get up and explore. The first thing he did was inspect the wreckage of his fighter. This made him pensive, as if he only then understood his situation and what his future was going to be. After that, he walked off and Shan didn't see him the rest of the day.

During those first few days, the two survivors spent little time together. They each explored their new environment and gathered what supplies they could. Shan harvested the tall grass and boiled some and they ate it. Then she dried some and wove it into a makeshift mattress and blanket. He carried more scrap metal up and expanded their home.

The truce between them was uneasy and neither knew how to bridge it.

Then Shan made a decision: she taught him English. She pointed to things in their environment and named them. At first he just looked at her and said nothing. But then he started repeating them back to her. He understood what she was doing. And he picked up the words quickly.

Later she started speaking to him at length, about any number of topics, about herself, about her family, about Earth and the Defense Force, and about her hopes and dreams for the future - or rather what her dreams had been before she had been marooned here. She knew he was assimilating the words, she had no idea how much of it he understood, probably none at first, but in time he was answering with simple one or two word comments.

And the dirz tried teaching Shan his language, he followed her lead and pointed to things and named them, but that did not go quite so well. She had little patience and got frustrated easily. She had an aptitude for survival skills: foraging, starting a fire, building tools, but she did not have a head for language. One name for things was enough.

Before she knew it, thirty days had passed on that barren rock. During that time, they learned to communicate and to live in a semblance of peace despite their differences.

On the one hand, she appreciated his skill set and it was nice having another set of eyes and help with the daily chores.

But it was unsettling living with an alien that was responsible for the deaths of so many humans. She hated depending on him but at the same time she grew to appreciate his company, unbelievable as that sounded.

One day Shan decided to explore beyond the valley. She went up the ridge to the crest and stared out over the flatlands beyond. It was a plain of rock and dust and some grass that extended a great distance. At its far end she could see mountains rising from the plain. They looked huge, far taller than the ridge they inhabited. There was snow on their peaks.

She had no intention of going that far, not all the way to the mountains, but she decided to see what the plain had to offer.

It took some time to pick her way down the slope, the rocks here were loose in places and the footing treacherous. And when she reached the rim of scree at the base, she had to slide and hope for the best.

Fortunately nothing stupid happened and she reached level ground and began her march.

Walking an endless wasteland of rock under a dark red sky with only a tiny sun's feeble light through the clouds, she imagined she was in Welke's Christian version of Purgatory.

She passed clumps of razor sharp grass and hedges of brush with a tangle of branches and thorns. Then she came to a dry river bed with a tiny trickle of muddy water. Then, past the opposite bank, she saw them. Hundreds of them. A herd of some herbivore grazing on the grass.

They were four legged creatures, bulbous bodies, long legs with three toes and a long neck with a narrow head and little horns. They had tails that kind of swished back and forth as Earth animals do. Their fur was long and shaggy, light brown laced with black and navy.

They moved in clumps among the thickets of grass, their heads down eating, some up and alert.

Shan stood and watched them, dared not get any closer for fear of scaring them and starting a stampede.

She considered this new information. A source of meat. Something more than minnows. And a source of furs. She imagined sleeping on a blanket of that long hair.

But it also presented a challenge. She could try digging a pit and trapping one. Then she imagined herself shooting one with a bow and arrow. That sounded pretty cool. She didn't know how to make a bow and arrow, but she did have experience with archery. It might take a few tries, but it was possible she could make something that would bring one of these animals down.

Then she noticed something else, the grass they were eating was different than what she had seen before. Perhaps this kind was more edible. So she waited. And when the herd passed, she went out and gathered some. Then she gathered some of their droppings as well.

Encumbered with her new supplies, she returned to the ridge and the tense relationship with her new companion.

*

That night she used the dung as fuel and made a fire. Then she used a scrap of the fighter's cowl to hold some water and set if over the fire to boil the grass.

While she waited for it to cook, she spoke her thoughts aloud. "I saw some animals on the plain today. A whole herd of them."

He looked up from his work. He was sharpening a shard of metal from the wreckage into a knife.

She continued, "I don't suppose you know how to make a bow."

Nothing.

She mimed knocking an arrow and drawing a bow.

"Bow," he said, trying the word.

"Yeah. It'd come in real handy getting us some meat. Not to mention their fur for bedding. I don't know about you, but it gets cold here at night."

"Cold." He agreed.

Later, after their meal and after the fire died out and the sun set and they were in the shelter, she felt Jadhar move closer to her. She felt his body press against her back and his arms wrap around her.

"Warm," he said in her ear.

Shan was tense for a moment, then she made the decision to let go of her anger and to accept his gesture. There was something calming about his presence, his being here with her. He seemed to take his situation in stride and showed little stress or worry. Unlike Shan, who snapped at little things and lived in a constant state of high strung nerves.

That night Shan slept well for the first time since the crash.

*

The next day the two of them worked together and made a bow and a single arrow. They used a length of carbon fiber rod from one of the wing ailerons from the dirz fighter. It was already slightly curved as it followed the arc of the wing. That they found anything at all, was a miracle as far as Shan was concerned.

Then they notched each end and used some of the wiring for the string. They used another piece of the carbon fiber for the shaft of the arrow and Jadhar sharpened another shard of metal for the arrowhead.

Both the bow and the arrow were crude, but Shan had shot a bow in her academy training as part of an archaic weapons course. She thought it would have the strength to bring down one of the animals.

"I got a good feeling about this," Shan said.

"Will work." Jadhar nodded.

They strung it and Shan took it and knocked the arrow and drew and held it a second and fired. The arrow flew cockeyed, clattered off the stones and the head broke off.

That sucked.

Shan spent the rest of the day fashioning another shaft, while Jadhar searched for the missing head. They both succeeded and sometime before sunset they had another arrow.

This time Shan set up the upholstered pilot's chair from the dirz fighter as a target. She shot the arrow and it sailed pretty straight and hit the padding of the headrest.

Nice!

The next day, the two of them woke early and saw clouds, low and heavy in the sky, blocking the distant peaks. They decided to go hunting anyway. They crossed the ridge and went to the plain and crossed the river and found the herd. It was a farther down than it had been before but not far. There was still plenty of grass and it was only a small herd of a couple dozen.

Shan hefted the bow and appraised the distance between her and the nearest of the yaks (that's what she called them) but before she shot, the clouds suddenly opened up. The rain fell in cold fat drops. The two of them ran back toward the ridge. Soon Shan and Jadhar were soaked and miserable. They didn't reach their shelter but found an escarpment with a rock overhang. There they took cover.

Under the ledge, Shan paced up the down the length of the crevice. She was wet and cold and in a fighting mood.

Jadhar sat on a rock and leaned back against the granite wall.

"I'm glad you can be so calm with all this shit."

He opened his eyes.

"Oh, come on, you don't get worked up about anything, do you? Not even this." She gestured to the pouring rain.

"No reason."

Shan rounded on him, glared at him. "No reason. Are you fucking kidding me? I don't think you have feelings. Not like me. You're a snake."

His eyes met hers. She saw something in them, a contraction of his pupils, a tightening of the muscles in his face. She was pushing him, hurting him, and she didn't care. She wanted to push harder.

"You started this you know? The war. Your fucking species. A bunch of cold blooded xenophobes."

Still, he didn't rise to her challenge.

Then she got closer to him. She leaned over and was right in his face. She looked into those gold alien eyes and she saw that he was angry. Or at least, she imagined he was angry. She wanted to hurt him again. "If our roles had been reversed, if you were unharmed and I was the one unconscious, I bet you would have brained me with that rock and not thought twice."

His pupils contracted that time for sure.

"I bet that's how you get off. On killing."

And then he was up in her face. He moved remarkably fast.

She realized just how much bigger he was than her, several inches taller, and broad shouldered and strong. She might have pushed too hard, but she wasn't thinking, only acting, and she needed to provoke some kind of reaction from him, anything to know he was as angry as she.

Still he said nothing, only glared.

"Fucking snake." She shoved him in his chest.

He got right back in her face. "Stop it."

She shoved him again, advanced before he could make up the lost ground. "Stop what?"

She put her hands on his chest, ready to shove him again. But before she could, he grabbed her wrists. She jerked, tried to free her hands, suddenly she was scared of him, of what he might do.

"Are you going to hit me?"

The tension held for a moment. Then, amazingly, he released her. The two of them stood perfectly still, neither daring to speak, their hearts were racing.

And that's when Shan noticed it, Jadhar's heart was racing, same as hers. His blood was pumping. His chest was radiating heat.

And in that moment the tension snapped. Shan knew what she needed. She grabbed the back of his head and pulled him to her and kissed him full on his mouth. The suddenness of her own feelings overwhelmed her.

He returned her embrace.

The passion he showed her in that kiss was enough to shatter any remaining walls between them. He was no longer reserved, no longer stoic, he grabbed her waist in his strong grip and he devoured her.

His rough lips worked their way across her cheek to her ear and he chewed it. Then he kissed her chin and went down her neck.

Shan's head rolled back. Eyes closed. She felt the physical weight of him beside her like an active volcano. She hungered for the eruption.

She was on her back then, not sure how she got there, undressed, not sure how that happened either.

Jadhar was atop her, sucking on her breasts, her hands clutching his powerful shoulders.

There was a hot brand on the inside of her thigh.

A moment later it was inside her.

She cried out, the sudden intensity of it filled her, the heat of it filled her.

With steady rhythm he worked it in and out, pumping it into her, each time pushing deeper.

All the pain and fear of being marooned on this godawful world, all the stress and physical work, all of it was washed away in that moment. For a brief time, she was simply alive, and glad to be alive.

She cried out many times during that lovemaking. It went on for some time, but she had no idea, there was no future, just this wonderful carnal present.

At some point he burst inside her. His whole body tensed, he held her tight.

At some other point she climaxed. It washed over her, from crotch, to core, to limbs, to the padding of her fingertips. She tingled with warmth and endorphins. Her whole body felt cleansed of the tension she had been carrying. Her muscles relaxed for the first time since the crash.

Her consciousness broke the surface of the tide of her hormones. She looked over and saw Jadhar laying on his back beside her.

Despite the cold air, their bodies were slick with sweat, their breathing deep, their breath fogged with each exhale.

"I was wrong," she said. "Not cold blooded at all."

Jadhar said nothing, just kissed her, rough and tender and full of the same barely contained passion she felt for him.

Soon the chill cooled their bodies and they had to dress. The rain had stopped some time ago and they were able to leave the overhang. When they did, they saw that the herd had moved on and was out of sight.

She put a hand on his powerful arm. Jadhar looked at her. She knew what he was asking. "I'm too exhausted to continue. Let's go home." He nodded his agreement and they crossed the ridge and went back to their shelter.

*

They spent the rest of the day avoiding each other. Shan wasn't sure why, but she needed space, and she thought Jadhar felt the same. She told herself it was to sort through her new feelings. The two of them were stranded here together. It was easy to imagine a false sense of intimacy.

Eventually they found themselves together again. This time on opposite sides of the small fire, the meal of fish and vegetables cooking.

"I'm not sorry for what I said."

He met her eyes as if challenging that statement.

"I'm serious. I said you were cold and I stand by it." Then she exhaled, letting go of her guarded emotions. "But it's not the whole truth. There is warmth in you. There's fire too."

He seemed to smile.

"Don't get me wrong. I'm not so easy. I don't just put out for any guy I happen to be stuck on a crappy planet with. I have standards."

"I believe you."

"And I don't want you expecting you're going to get this whenever you want."

He nodded.

"I think of this as a friends-with-benefits kind of thing, you know what I mean?"

A nod.

"Good, because that's what this is, a chance for both of us to blow off a little stress now and then with no emotional entanglements. You understand?"

Another nod.

"Good. Now let's eat." She ladled some vegetables onto a makeshift plate and handed it to him, then filled another plate for herself and they shared a meal.

Later, after the sun set and Jadhar was cleaning the plates, Shan saw something in the near distance between their camp and the crashed fighter. There were lights, like stars on the ground, some of them were moving among the rocks and bracken. She stopped what she was doing and stared. More light appeared. Some flickered and faded out. And then there came a long low buzz. Jadhar stopped what he was doing and came and joined her.

Together they walked down the slope. They got closer to the lights. There was motion among the rocks. In the flickering light Shan saw insects, large ones, shaped like crickets, with humped backs and long back legs. They had spines from their sides and legs and long antennae. She put a hand on Jadhar and they stopped and watched.

As they watched, the crickets' bodies flared to light like fireflies. The crickets hopped along the stones among the plants searching for mates on that cool night.

Shan smiled, looked at Jadhar. He too was smiling.

"I remember chasing fireflies in the backyard as a girl. Strange that I would be reminded of that here."

Hand in hand they ascended the slope and Shan led him to their tent where they lay side by side on the grass mat. There was something between them that Shan couldn't name. She wanted to fill the silence but didn't know what to say, so she settled for quietly moving closer to him and taking his head in her hands and kissing him on the lips. He returned her embrace.

Aroused by her tenderness, Jadhar took the lead and moved to the next phase of the encounter. He reached down and slipped his hand under her waistband and brushed soft flesh. Leathery fingers caressed her sensitive opening. Shan gasped from the sudden stimulation. Her head rolled back.

Jadhar ran his fingers around, slowly, gently giving her pleasure. Her breath came in ragged gasps. The buzz of crickets was lost beneath the sound of their heavy breathing.

There was a slow build up, Shan thought she was about to climax, then he stopped, his fingers left. She came down from her high, opened her eyes and met his gaze. Then his fingers returned to her. Another slow build up, another near climax, another retreat, and another break.

He brought her close, but never took her across the threshold.

After several luxurious cycles of building up and cooling off, Shan was finally brought over the edge. He rubbed her faster and faster, worked her over. When it came, it crashed over her like a wave. Her core tensed, her limbs shuddered. Her eyes squeezed shut. She cried out, bit her lower lip, crashed and lay limp on the thatch bedding.

Then the dirz mounted her. He kissed her chest, her shoulders, devoured her body, hands caressed her soft flesh.

Shan grabbed his cock. It was hot and hard in her hands. He was trembling with anticipation, she knew it would torture him to drag it out any longer. So she gave it a jerk. He grunted. She lay back letting him situated himself between her legs. His member hot against the inside of her thigh. A moment later it was thrust inside her.

She gasped. Sudden and intense, it filled her.

And he wasn't all the way in yet. He worked it deeper with each slow thrust. Then he picked up speed. His rhythm was faster. His thrusts more powerful. He pulled all the way out between thrusts.

She grabbed his back. Held him tight. Savored every caress. Every feel of his body tight against hers. She ached for his body, for his musk, for the gentle sound of his grunts and his mouth on her nipples.

And in that euphoric state, she climaxed a third time that day. It was a full body experience, tingling all the way out to her extremities.

Jadhar continued. It was some time later when he too climaxed. Exploded inside her. Both held to one another tightly. Hands on sweat slicked bodies. Gasping. Post coital bliss.

Afterwards they slept. She lost track of time. She lost track of everything outside the shelter. Sometime later she woke, saw the alien beside her, the enemy of the human race and she felt peaceful in his presence.

The context of being stranded on this world changed. They had their own private world to themselves. Nowhere else would they have had this chance to be together.

Beside her, Jadhar stirred. He rolled to his side and wrapped arms around her and held her close.

She sighed and she went back to sleep.

*

Sometime late that night, long past midnight, they were both awake.

Jadhar ran his fingers across her shoulders and down the length of her bare arms. "Are all humans colored like this?"