Trying To Get By Ch. 01

She began to work at opening the clasps and latches that held the hard bodice closed, "I'm sorry for the way that I must look to you. I –"

"Do not be," Irianni smiled a little, "It is good for me to see. I find that I like it." Her eyes widened a little, "Those are not scales, are they?"

H'Yan-Ah shook her head as she held out her arm, "See for yourself."

Irianni reached out and carefully touched the mottled and patterned skin with a look of childlike fascination on her face.

The look faded to a little uncertainty when H'Yan-Ah read the accompanying thought. "So far, I am not hard to look at – as you were thinking. But I still wear this helmet. I am a little afraid to take it off, thinking that you probably won't like what you see then."

Irianni shook her head, "I'm sorry for my thought. I am prepared to learn what I can of my new friend. You saved my life, H'Yan-Ah. It's worth very much to me."

"I pulled you up and out of the snow," H'Yan-Ah said with a depreciating chuckle, wanting to gently close off the unpleasant memory of carrying Irianni through a dark, freezing hell. "I'm only thankful that I seem to have had the thought to do it while there was still a little time."

She pulled the two halves of the armoured bodice apart with a groan. "Even if I only wear this for a very short time, I find that I want to carefully scratch some life back into my ... ,"

She looked at Irianni's face and then down at herself, "Chest."

Irianni stared – even after warning herself not to.

H'Yan-ah was very muscular and her breasts were tight against her build. They were a good size from Irianni's point of view, yet it was obvious that they were very firm as well. A detail which could not be overlooked easily by her was the size of the nipples. There was little to be seen of them at the moment, but the areolae were the largest that she had ever seen, easily more than twice as large as her own.

"Sorry – our young have large and hungry mouths. My father said that I would have been a prized female on his world, very popular because of these. I -"

Irianni's eyes were glowing a little as she shook her head and waved her hand, though it quivered in the air from her weakness, "Stop, H'Yan-Ah," she said, "No need for this being sorry.

"We are what we are, both of us. Our kinds come from different places, and we even come from two places at the same time. So we are what? Three different kinds between us? I have seen nothing for you to feel sorry about yet."

She smiled as her thought ran on through H'Yan-Ah's head, "I can hear at least some of the thoughts in your head, so you must hear mine as well – probably better than you have let on. If I must make the statement so that you can hear it in your mind – if you do not already know, I find you amazing. Your skin, your ...

"I have never seen muscles as wondrous as you wear on you. You are a beauty to me. You move and I'm like a little thing who's fascinated over how everything moves together on you.

"And it hasn't escaped my attention that you haven't had any unkind thoughts over my tail, so I can't look at you in any unkind way, can I?"

"I like your tail!" H'Yan-Ah thought in protest, "It must have worked itself free from where you had it hidden in your ..."

"Trousers" Irianni offered.

"Yes, and thank you for the word," H'Yan-Ah said, "As I carried you, I worried over stepping on it once I knew that it was free. But instead, it curled over my arm, probably out of wanting a little warmth – which I didn't mind at all.

"I came back here with you, really worried and afraid that I might have finally found a chance to begin to make a friend – who looked to me as though she might die if I made the slightest mistake. I held on to you so tightly it's a wonder that I didn't bruise you, I was that scared."

"I have not died yet," Irianni smiled up, "So you do nothing wrong yet. And you worry too much. You've already made a friend in me for what you did to help me by what I feel about you. You can laugh about it now, but I was getting close to going out in the wind – dying, I mean. I will not forget what you did and I have wanted a friend too.

"All of my life, I had to be careful over how I looked, who I spoke to, what was said and that was before I came here – where it has gotten only worse for me."

She sighed and it was done with a smile, "But here, with you, I seem to be able to be a little like myself for once."

The remark stopped H'Yan-Ah and she found that she was smiling inside her helmet as she looked at Irianni's hair. It seemed now to be ... flickering a little. Bits and flashes of orange and red ran along some of the strands and over the braids.

"Are you feeling even better now?" she asked, "Your mane there seems to be glowing at least a little."

Irianni nodded, pleased that H'Yan-Ah could put at least some of it together. "I try to hide it most often, but here, I don't want to and – and not in front of you. It shows how we feel most times. That I'm warming up makes it glow a little. Also, I'm enjoying this with you. Do you ... do you have a male?

"I mean, do you have a man or anything?"

She looked down with a quiet groan. "Is there ... someone in ..."

H'Yan-Ah was beaming inside of her helmet, but she held up one palm, "Stop," she chuckled quietly, "I know what you want to ask. No. There is no one ... or any - thing. I thought that I should answer you before you wound yourself into the floor with your question or something. You can ask me anything you like Irianni, only just ask it and never mind about the way it comes out.

"I really LIKE talking to you. Please do not be nervous to ask such a thing."

H'Yan-Ah shook her head and said, "To answer you, no. I'm alone here, if you can remember what I said when I was looking for you outside. No full female Yautja's here either. I never cared about – or even noticed the female Yautjas very much when they were here. The ones like my father did nothing for me – so it never surprised me that I found nothing to like in the way that they were made. It's the same way as far as the males go."

She bent a little to begin on the hidden clasps of her greaves, "If have to say what I feel a little drawn to, I've always found humans to be at least a little interesting, though nothing has ever happened between them and me. At first, I liked to look at the men. But after a while, I found that, like you said, it was more over the way that some of them moved, more than feeling a want to do more than watch them.

"Sometimes, I intercept their broadcast signals – the ones that they call television. I like the women much more, but the ones that I see there are not like the ones that I've met here.

"Besides, you look better than all of them to me and you're the first person I've ever been this close to other than my father or my grandparents when they were alive who doesn't look nervous or anything."

She sighed, feeling as though she had run out of road. The greaves came off and were laid aside, followed by the waist armour that covered a little of her pelvic area, front and back. The brief leather inner shorts were the last to come off.

Irianni would have fallen down, but she was already on the floor.

"You - you have no hair there? Doesn't it grow there on you?"

"Oh, it grows," H'Yan-Ah chuckled, "But if you think of the things that I've just taken off, it's more comfortable to never snag a hair – when you're inside something that won't give you much chance to fix things. Besides, I like it like this."

"I shave mine when I can afford to," Irianni admitted, "The hair comes from my father, I think. My mother never had any. No female of that kind has any.

"Her kind - even me, she said, are birthed in a cloud of sparks and flame. It happens for an instant at the moment we are born and then we are out but ... that is why no female has hair there.

"But I have to shave, though not in the winter and I can't buy the blades very often – not when I need food more. When I even have blades for the razor, I use each one until it can't cut my hair anymore. Then I am back to scissors again."

When H'Yan-Ah straightened up from setting her bodice aside, Irianni heard her chuckle over what she'd said and nodded, holding up her hand, "You say things I would never expect to hear, yet I like to hear you say them.

"I've never seen a single human girl who looks like you do so I'm even happier that you're here and not outside any longer."

"There are some here, girls who look something like me," Irianni said, trying to maintain a lock on H'Yan-Ah's helmet, though she wanted very much to look lower again, "I believe that the overall type comes from a place far from this frozen part of this world – somewhere warmer, is my thought, though some do come from other cold lands. They look a little like me, plainer maybe, smaller with no –"

She stopped there and stared.

H'Yan-Ah had taken her helmet off.

She reached for a cloth like a towel and was busy wiping her face and then trying to squeeze out her hair. The melted snow that she'd carried in on her long hair had saturated her long, thick braids and she stood looking down with her feet apart as she wrung the hair out a little before using the towel on it. The water ran in long streams and drips, landing between her feet to run to the drain in the flooring.

Everywhere that Irianni looked in the next moment, she saw only a fine form to her eyes and more of the muscles which held her spellbound to watch as they moved from H'Yan-Ah's motions.

Irianni had seen images of Yautja people and what they looked like under their fearsome armour. She didn't know what she'd been expecting of H'Yan-Ah, but what she saw was startling. H'Yan-Ah was beyond lovely to her.

Her head was human, and her face showed no signs of the mandibles which the Yautja had for mouths. She saw beauty and a mouth much like her own. Around the periphery of that face, she saw the last of the little spots and patterns which were more in evidence elsewhere. There in that face, it was only some few at the edges of her forehead, her cheeks and her jaw and on down her lovely throat.

H'Yan-Ah's eyes were a little different from strictly human ones, being paler and she got the feeling that they could also look very piercing if there was a need. But overall, she thought they looked wonderful - 'eyes that she could lose herself in' was the thought which came to her.

Irianni fought off the urge to ask if she might be allowed to kiss that pretty nose, just for a moment. Then she reminded herself not to babble again and the moment was gone.

"With no horns and tails?" H'Yan-Ah thought as she chuckled. "I have seen women here like that. But nothing like you, Irianni. Nothing at all like you. Not even a little close.

"I'm not completely sure what it refers to, but I know that people like that are called Asians or Orientals. I know Asia is a continent name, but I've got no idea about Orientals. I never went to any schools. I guess Asia might be where those people first came from.

"Their eyes have a little similarity perhaps, though they don't flare red as yours did a moment ago when you disagreed with me. The ones that I've seen don't have hair like yours, looking black where yours is a dark and full brown – or that mysterious blonde that comes through - when it doesn't ripple with the orange lights through it like quiet flames.

"I haven't seen a mouth like yours on one yet, a little wide and full, making the nose even more pleasing to me with them. I saw no smile like the one that I'm coming to enjoy when it looks to me like you're holding a pleasant or slightly funny thought. That seems to happen a little often and I really like it."

"Have you a thought about my ears, then?" Irianni asked at the same time as she outright laughed a little, "My horns?"

H'Yan-Ah nodded, laughing too, "I like your horns. They make me wish that I had ones like them. They might have had a physical function in your kind once, long ago. If they have one now, I can't guess what it might be, other than – "

She paused for a moment, "other than to add to your attractiveness."

"How so?" Irianni asked a little mischievously, "You find me more attractive because of them? Why?"

H'Yan-ah felt a little foolish, but she pressed on carefully, "I don't know if it would be seen as wrong by your kind, but to me and my father's kind, both here and where they come from, a horned creature is often one who likes to ... rut ... uh, ..."

"Hard and very often?" Irianni asked playfully, "That is what I would like to hear."

H'Yan-Ah nodded, more than a little surprised, "Yes, I suppose."

"Ah," Irianni smiled, "so then, if I am right in the guess that I might make to you, my ears must seem just right to hold in one's mouth at such a time, no?"

She shook her head, "I don't know where that came from, sorry again."

"Don't worry about it and yes, the thought has come to my mind." H'Yan-Ah looked down, her face gone red, but she nodded, hoping that she hadn't ruined at least the chance at a friendship. "And I don't know where that thought came from."

She smiled a little shyly, "But there it is and I do think that you're very attractive. You must have many - ah ..."

"No," Irianni smiled back steadily, "Not one, in fact.

"I am considered ugly by people – almost universally, "she said, "And it only makes it worse that I have a strong preference which has always come in the way – even when I thought that I'd found someone that I liked among them."

She looked down and sighed which H'Yan-Ah heard clearly.

"I have always liked girls best. I have never done very much of anything with one, other than the very few chances that I had, but I can recall when I was small.

"My mother bred with my father to make me. He had a cousin who came to visit sometimes, and she had a powerful love with another girl. They'd come to visit and would mind me so that my parents could go to the village to buy things."

She smiled, "I'd wake up in the bed from those two and their rutting together and it was ... well, the way that I said between them. I didn't know what they were doing then and they stopped when they noticed me and I was cared for by one or the other and put into the small bed for me when I fell asleep, or even a little before that. Then they went back to it."

She looked up with a little grin, "Hard and often, I must guess.

"They were caught at it once when my parents came back early. There was a big fight and they never came again. I was heartbroken, for I loved both of them so much for the way that they treated me because they were always kind to me. After the last time I saw them, no one ever called me their little princess again."

She smiled a little hopefully, "I didn't know what to think when I woke up like this here with you. But now I've come to really like this ... nakedness in common between us. It's really good to see how we're alike – in spite of how we're also different. I think you had a good idea there."

"Thank you," H'Yan-Ah smiled, "and please allow me to disagree with whoever might have told you that you're ugly. It's just wrong."

H'Yan-Ah thought of something then and smiled as she held up a finger, "I almost forgot. I don't think of it often but I can change my colour."

Irianni stared, "You can what? Really?"

H'Yan-Ah nodded, "I'm not completely sure where it comes from. There are different kinds of Yautja. I've seen pictures of them. My father was the ... I dunno, the intellectual scientist kind, whatever that is to them – but he told me once that his own father had been from a family of hunters and soldiers and I read that they had tougher skin or something. There were none like that among the ones who were here." She shrugged, "And none of them could change their colour. They were just the way they were.

"My father couldn't do anything like what I can and my mother was a human, so she couldn't do it either and neither could my grandparents. Watch."

Her features remained the same, but after an instant, Irianni stared. H'Yan-Ah's skin turned completely black in about half a second. Well, a very dark grey, to be completely accurate, but it was very close to looking like bituminous coal. Her nipples looked like onyx as did her lips; shiny black.

"My skin is a little ... I dunno, thicker like this," she said, "a little leathery maybe."

Irianni gasped softly, "Can I ... can I please touch?"

H'Yan-Ah nodded and she felt Irianni's fingers as she watched them slide over her arm.

"It might be thicker like this," Irianni smiled over, "It felt that way to me when I pressed with my fingertips. It's still nice to touch and just as warm as before. I like it. Your spots are still there on you – just harder to see since they're the same colour."

Then H'Yan-Ah was back to looking like a lovely girl who might have stolen the spots from a leopard or something. "I didn't scare you, I see."

Irianni shook her head slowly, her mouth open a little in happy amazement, "I was wrong before. You're TWO beauties!"

She laughed then, "What do you think it's for?"

H'Yan-Ah shrugged as she bent down to rub her shin lightly for a second, "Other than keeping the cold from me a bit, I have no idea. I often forget that I can even do that. I do use it to hide the parts of me that my armour doesn't cover completely if I'm not in the whole thing like I was out there - if I think of it."

"I'm a little glad that you seem to like my nakedness idea," H'Yan-Ah chuckled, "because I'm like this more often than not in here. It's easier to keep things a little warm in here than it is too make it colder. There are gardens on the floor above which get sunlight and that makes it warm. I think it's better to have the gardens and be a little warm than otherwise. I use the heat to warm the rest. It takes some time, but the heat from the garden can warm the whole ship even in winter. It saves on power – other than powering the ventilation fans, which would be running anyway."

"It feels like a place – a magical place to me," Irianni smiled, "I have seen nothing more of it than where I am now but it feels that way to me. Did you make it?"

H'Yan-Ah shook her head, "It's the first of the vessels to come here in a time. It landed hard and was a little damaged. The survivors of the crew called to where they come from and a second larger one came. My father was on that one. He was left behind for mating with my mother and making me. We repaired this one, my father and I. That was far from here. I learned to fly this and came here after my father was killed by humans.

Half of what I am came from a darker place, so when they make something like this, it's always dark inside. That's how it was in here. But humans need more light than Yautjas. And humans make a nourishment called vitamin D with their eyes if they're outside in the light of the sun. I left some of the lighting in here as it was, but I also found some human lights that are like the light of the sun, but much weaker. I put some of them in here and the wiring was nothing that I want to remember.

"When my gardens began to grow, it grew warmer in here, so I don't need to wear anything most often – and I like it that way.

"I hope you don't mind it too much, since I have no clothing which would fit you properly unless I make some things for you – if you think we can get along enough to want to stay with me."

Irianni's jaw fell open, "You – you can make clothing? I'd give anything to have clothing which might keep me warm until the winter passes. I suffer every year. I never have enough of the right things to wear.

"As far as staying with you, "she smiled a bit shyly, "I think I want that, if you offer it. I've learned that I can't live well at all on my own, not on this side of the world, at least."