Trying To Get By Ch. 01

"I want to ... believe you," Irianni thought quietly, "But as I was taught, you are one of the feared ones from the war."

"I was not in the war. I was born here. That was a long time ago," H'Yan-Ah replied softly, "long before either of us drew our first breaths. And I am only half a 'feared one' – if that is how you know my father's kind. I would say that your fear is well-founded – if I was one who had been birthed wherever they come from.

"But I am not from there. I saw and knew of ones like that when I was a child but they were no friends to me or my father – who was one of them. I just live here alone.

"How did the war end? I know nothing of it. I think that it must have been going on when my father's vessel left. There is nothing about a war with fire ones in the records that I found."

She turned away then, not really wanting to talk anymore, since even thoughts require a little energy and she doubted that Irianni had very much of that left. She tried not to think of it, but she almost expected to find a frozen corpse here in the morning.

"I do not know either," Irianni said in her mind, "I know only that I want in my heart to go with you. It is my mind which gives the trouble."

"This was your mother's cloak!" Irianni said in shock through her mind, finding the connection to the warmth that she'd felt in H'Yan-Ah's thought, "You gave me your mother's – "

"Yes," H'Yan-Ah replied, "I wore it whenever I was cold or just feeling alone. Finally, I outgrew it.

Irianni looked down, "I am tired, so tired now. I feel weak and slow from the cold. Thinking grows hard to do."

She looked up and around at the inside of her shelter for a moment. "I should feel ... confined here in this place. I should feel worry, wanting to use what I am to stay warm, though if it even worked, I would burn this tree down."

She sobbed softly once, "But I have nothing left in me anymore. The fear ... the way that I cannot feel like myself ... How I am so cold ..."

She shook her head as if to clear it, "I should not be like this. I have trouble to keep my – my eyes open, but if I sleep like this – the way that I am so weak .... I ...

"If it happens here, then I know that I will not awaken. My flame inside will leave me and I will go ... out."

H'Yan-Ah turned back instantly.

She knelt and moved some of the boughs aside to reach slowly into the darkness. "I did not know these things about ones such as you. I did read a little, trying to find out what you might be after looking at the recording in my machine.

"I am sorry. If I had known that it would go this badly for you, I ..."

She shook her head, "I would not have waited to come for you. Please come with me, Irianni. I make you my promise that I will not harm you, no matter what I am to you.

"And I will not leave you here to die in the cold alone – not when I have far more than you and the need in my heart that I share it.

"My father told me of my mother's people. It was not their way originally, but they came to know of a custom that the white people brought with them when they came here long ago, something called Christmas. It happens late in the year – right now, I believe.

"It is about a religion and a god's child. I know little of it and have never cared, since I never feel even a little like most of those people. But I remember that he told me that at this time, many humans think more of others than at other times of their year.

"I can remember little of what he taught me because I was never one of them. But I think that I feel something that is a good thought to me. I can help another who is something like I am. It is a small part of the custom, I think. It is something that I can do and I feel that I want that now."

Irianni took a moment to answer, "I – I know of this. My father was human and he taught me. Later, I left and had to live with other humans where I learned to fly their machines; use their weapons. I was always alone at Christmas, but I saw the way that it changed people a little bit."

She looked up across the small dark space of her makeshift hovel at the dark figure that she could see a part of, "They give each other gifts then."

"Then if you like this thought," H'Yan-Ah said in her thoughts, "We might try to give each other our friendship."

H'YanAh held out her hand as she reached further. "This is where you must show a little faith in me, Irianni.

"Do that, and I promise you a better day when the sun rises."

Irianni nodded wearily and reached to take H'Yan-Ah's hand, deciding finally that this hunter was going far and trying harder than she'd need to if all that she wanted was a captive – or a meal. Either way, to Irianni, the thought of dying in a warmer place than this one held at least the appeal of being warmer.

H'Yan-Ah felt Irianni's hand in her gloved one, so she reached up with her other one to manually override the light spectrum which her helmet showed to her. She possessed better night vision than any human, anyway. There was no need for the false colour heat imagery now and the blue/red smears and streaks bothered her. She wanted to see this person's face, just the little that her eyes could bring to her in the dimness.

She gasped and almost spoke out loud, but she caught herself, "It is good to see your face. You are ... Irianni, you are lovely, from the little that I can see of you, where I am – "

"Beyond dark in a dark place," Irianni nodded, letting out a tired-sounding sigh, "I cannot even see you much at all. And we are both here in this cold hell. I learned that word from my father."

H'Yan-Ah helped Irianni slowly out of the cold shelter. As they walked away together, Irianni following a little as she held H'Yan-Ah's gloved hand, she thought, "Your hand is very hard. I know of your kind, but I cannot think of a good reason why you have helped me, if you are one like I believe you are.

You are ... Yautja?"

H'Yan-Ah's stride faltered for a moment as she held Irianni's hand, "I am sorry if I frighten you, I did not think – "

She hesitated, not knowing quite what to say, so she just tried to do her best, "No. At least, not what you must think. Again, I am only half Yautja, from my father. I will not harm you at all. I said the truth of it when I spoke of a friend.

"For this – what we do here, please try to think of me as being half-human instead. I do not mind that humans fear me – if they do. But I think that what your mother taught you keeps getting in the way. I am not like that – I do only what I need to stay alive."

"That is so good to hear," Irianni answered, "I know only a little of that way to talk the way that the Yautja speak, none of it good. I am a little interested in how a female might look. I have seen only males."

She didn't say it, but H'Yan-Ah noted the thought that the faces of her father's kind were repulsive and frightening to Irianni's mind from what she could recall of her mother's teachings to her.

"The females look much the same," H'Yan-Ah thought quietly, "I think the only reason that I can go to bargain for what I need from the humans is because I look more like my mother – and still I can upset some of them if they see me."

She looked at Irianni and saw that she looked to be a little wobbly and seemed nervous about something that she looked at to the side of them. "Why do you stop?" she asked, "is it the cold? The wind and snow?"

"Those things, yes," Irianni admitted, "I can bear them a while longer, I think. What bothers me more is what I feel from those trees over there, as though there is something not right in those woods."

"It is what I placed there to keep humans out, " H'Yan-Ah explained as she held out her hand again and as Irianni took it, "Just a threatening feeling more than anything, though there are traps. I have no other ways to keep people away without harming them. My home can warn of wanderers as they come, but I do not want for it to act in my defense if there is a chance that a young child might die only for wandering into the woods.

"We do not need to go there. There is another way."

She felt Irianni's hand pull away from her own again.

"Irianni, what is wrong?

"Irianni?"

She looked back and down. Irianni was now a dark pile in the snow.

H'Yan-Ah gasped, "No!"

She reached down frantically, pulling on the hem of the cloak that she'd given Irianni, feeling with her free hand to find her, searching in the dark ...

It was far too cold and windy for any creature which did not possess a hide protected by thick fur. At best, the blowing snow would feel like icy sandpaper as it whipped past, driven by a northwest wind which was turning almost murderous in it's wild attempts to knock H'Yan-Ah down too. Exposed human skin could be frozen in only minutes with the wind and the low temperature.

H'Yan-Ah felt a little frantic for a moment before she remembered reading that Irianni's kind was considered immune to frostbite – but she also knew that it was only a matter of numbers mostly and for a limited amount of time, depending on the wind-chill. At any rate the tendency was far more than a human could manage.

As her gloved hands finally managed to lift Irianni and then shift her hold slightly as she stood up, H'Yan-Ah remembered that Irianni was half-human. A weak, starved and unconscious half-human. She shook her head and tried to force the fear in her heart down.

A few moments later, an almost inky shape was sometimes visible through the buffeting wind. It did not wander or deviate from it's course through the wintry blast on strong, sure legs, carefully clutching a cloth-covered bundle as it walked ...

Muttering quiet and desperate prayers to any deity known of, any deity which came to mind, even any deities who might still remain unknown on any world ...

Any god who might be listening at all.

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In a far-away, surreal jungle landscape

Irianni ran on, feeling worse than helpless since she couldn't even muster a single thing in her own defense. Nothing worked. She had no ability at all – and for one of a kind which usually entered their world in a shower of flaming sparks when they were born, it felt like almost terror to be without at least something.

She looked back and saw her hunter following relentlessly, effortlessly, just never making the final sprint to take her.

And it kept shouting in it's gravelly language while it's thoughts came into her mind unbidden, calling her by her name, at times almost beseeching her to stop running so that she could be helped.

-------------------

Irianni opened her eyes and blinked for a few moments, wondering where she was.

Lying naked on the floor apparently, she saw as she looked up from where she was leaning against a wall with her head and shoulders.

H'Yan-Ah was there, removing her armour while trying to get into Irianni's thoughts so that they could speak together again, "Good. You are awake. You fell down in the snow outside and I carried you the rest of the way."

She looked around, motioning with her hand, "My home and welcome."

She smiled then, though it went unseen inside of her helmet, "And before you have the thought to panic or anything, you are absolutely safe in this place. There is no wind or snow here to sap your strength further. You can breathe here.

"There are no humans from the town – or anything else that can harm you here. Think of this as a hidden fortress where you can take shelter and respite. And you can get warm here also – in perfect safety, I swear it.

"I am taking these things off so that we might begin with our nakedness in common since all of your things are now soaked through. I found melting snow at every layer. I need to get you warm and I cannot do that if you shiver inside cold and wet things. It is always a little warm here anyway and I hope that like this, you might not be so frightened."

She groaned a little and thought in a regretful tone, "But you are now awake and I cannot just jump out of what I am wearing here so please allow me a little time."

"Why ... why am I here on the floor?" Irianni asked in her mind.

H'Yan-Ah shrugged, "I had no other place where I could keep you in my sight for the moment which did not make me fear that you might stir and fall for the way that you seemed to struggle wildly in a dream."

Irianni nodded, absorbing what was said. She looked up in a bit of wonder at the sight of H'Yan-Ah's body as more of it slowly became visible as whatever clothing that she wore came off. The gauntlets were off and sitting together on a bench nearby. H'Yan-Ah sat down for a few moments as she worked off her boots and set them down.

"You look a little better," she thought, "I – what I mean to say is ... you do not look as pale as you did when I first brought you in here. It worried me. The images that I have of your kind in the systems here showed ones who had more colour to their faces and skin. You looked more like the snow out on the lake."

"I feel a bit better," Irianni thought as she looked at the muscles which moved over H'Yan-Ah's forearms as she worked to get her things off for a moment, "My fingers and my feet ache and tingle. I want to ask about if there is warm water here which I might soak them in, but I know how that would hurt. Not a mistake I want to make again."

H'Yan-Ah shook her head emphatically, "No, better to warm them slowly. I will do as I can to help.

"I came to see you out there knowing something – other than I wanted to meet you to see if I could help. I knew that it would be cold and what caused me more concern was that I knew also that it would get colder quickly.

My father's people made long studies of this world including the weather patterns. The temperatures in this area this night will be the coldest on record, according to the data that I have. Even the local weather predicts this – and that came, a lot of it, from their weather services, taken from their global internetwork itself as well as the data predictions in my modelling.

"So I am feeling much better because you decided to come with me and are no longer out there. Please rub your hands together as much as you can without pain. I need a bit more time to get my things off."

For the next few moments, H'Yan-Ah concentrated on hurrying the process and forgot that they'd been able to find a link to each other's thoughts. During that time, she marveled at what she'd seen, after the struggle to get Irianni's wet clothing off when she'd been unconscious.

She was tall – at least for a human, and H'Yan-Ah liked that as well as the build on her, since it was plain that in spite of being a lot thinner than she was, Irianni was not made as a weak thing. It told her just how bad the weakness due to malnutrition must have gotten.

She also liked the open look that she saw on that face, the lovely mouth under the sweetest-looking nose and the almond-shaped eyes. She found that her short horns were intriguing, as were her long ears, both being hidden at times under the very long hair which seemed to defy any attempt to categorize the colour, seeming at times almost a blonde and at others, more like a dark brown. She really liked the long braids which were only evident from the girl's forehead back to just in front of her ears. From there back, she saw a topknot and even longer hair.

To H'Yan-Ah, Irianni's ears looked like the ears on a few of the characters in a book that H'Yan-Ah's mother had bought at a yard sale when she'd been pregnant. Elves, they were called, her father had told her. She still had the book someplace.

Overall, Irianni looked trim and fit – as well as half-starved, which was something that H'Yan-Ah could help with at the very least. There were lean muscles there, soft and lovely girl places too, once you got the many layers of ill-fitting and mismatched clothing off. She smiled to herself, thinking about the clothing which she'd found closest in against the most beautiful skin that she thought she'd ever seen.

Memories came to H'Yan-Ah's mind of the surprise that she'd felt as she'd been gently removing the wet layers. She still marvelled at how snow had gotten all the way to the most inner layers, wondering how that was even possible. She'd found it melted or still melting everywhere.

She thought about the clothing closest in again and how incongruous it seemed in a way. A short, pale green skirt and a matching bikini top. It came to her then that Irianni didn't own any underwear and she felt humbled once more, but hopeful that she might make this poor girl's life a little better if she was given the chance.

She wanted to shake her head, wondering how the girl had even lived this long into the winter with nothing warmer to wear.

She really hoped that Irianni might become the friend that she'd always wanted. Anyone, no matter how they looked would be fine with her. H'Yan-Ah felt hopeful that it could be. But one way or another, her friend was going to be a lot warmer than she must have been before now.

"How?" Irianni thought as she smiled over, "How will you make me warmer? I do not want to argue about being warmer; I would only like to know how it is to be done. To me, it sounds wonderful."

H'Yan-Ah decided to be a little more careful with her thoughts, but she smiled inside the helmet, "By wrapping you in warm things and adding more as required, of course."

She chuckled, "And if I see that you need it, by sitting on you to keep you from squirming out of the things that I put on you – "

"What about tying me up and keeping me naked like this against you in a bed under many warm covers?" Irianni suggested, "I think I might need that once in a while, or twice, or three times, depending on your measure of 'a while'."

Her voice faltered a little at what she'd just blurted out.

Irianni caught herself then, and her quiet thought came as an apology to H'Yan-Ah, "I am babbling, I think."

"What?"H'Yan-Ah asked out loud as she almost knocked one of her gauntlets from the bench in surprise over what she'd gotten in her mind about tying Irianni up, but she caught the gauntlet before it fell to the floor.

Irianni stared open-mouthed for a moment.

"English?" she asked, "You can speak English? We have been sending thoughts all of this time when we could have just said what we needed to?"

They laughed at each other for a moment before H'Yan-Ah removed more of her clothing, suddenly delighted to hear such an intriguing accent in Irianni's speech. With a language in common between them, the actual words began to come out a lot less stilted and formal. She considered what Irianni had said about being in her bed.

Some of that had to be babbling, coming from a place inside where Irianni had found that she was still alive after falling unconscious, waking up in a different place and maybe feeling flush with the sheer joy of finding that she was still drawing breath. She had no idea what she herself might say in such a circumstance.

And it had been funny. Irianni seemed very likeable.

She then looked down at her hands seeing that Irianni was looking at the claws on her hands and she retracted them at once.

"Don't worry," she said, "I don't leave these out often. My father almost always left them out – though some of the rest of them couldn't pull them in. This vessel is made with things that can be actuated more easily by ones with long claws. It's what's normal for them."

She shrugged, "I live in the world outside very often. To me, these things get in my way more often than not. They do work well here when I need to work things a little quickly."

"Your hands, your ... arms," Irianni began, "They look so good to me. The patterns on your skin, did you ... do that?"

H'Yan-Ah shook her head, "No. This is the way that I came when I was born. What you see is something like what my father had. Dots and ringed spots, that is me."