Foreword:
I love this chapter. :3 Readers, please keep in mind that it was originally one with the chapter before it, so it takes place on the same day—part of it even at the same time. I hope this isn't jarring for anyone since there was gap of almost a year between chapters 1 and 2.
"Love is patient, love is kind."
— 1 Corinthians 13:4a
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When Kaden arrived back at his workshop, he took a good long look at his nearly completed ship. He had found it crashed out in the desert several months ago and leapt at the challenge to get it working again. It took him three weeks to disassemble the thing and bring it back in pieces, and twice as long to put it together again—but that was the easy part. Now he had to face the daunting task of actually fixing the engine. So far he'd met with little success, but he wasn't ready to give up just yet. His pet project had been sitting untouched for too long while he was building that gizmo for Alister, and now it was high time he picked it up from where he'd left off.
With a deep breath and a hopeful sigh, he grabbed his wrench and propped open the left hood to get a look at the ship's engine. Sticking his head inside to blow away the dust turned out to be a mistake, and he instantly reeled back and erupted into a fit of coughing from the cloud that billowed forth. How could so much dirt settle into an engine that was covered? It hadn't been that long, had it? The engine components must be attracting the dust in the air. Maybe there was a malfunctioning shock absorber generating static or something.
Kaden sighed as he added another chore to his mental checklist, and once again his upper half disappeared into the black hole of his ship's metal innards. He stared carefully at the jumble of pipes and wires before him, and slipped into a state of deep concentration.
"Hi, Kaden."
He jumped, surprised to suddenly hear a voice behind him. His arm slipped, knocking aside the rod that was propping open the hood, which consequently fell and hit him square on the head. Ignoring the pain, he pulled himself out of the ship's jaws and turned around, nervously exclaiming, "N-Nayeli! What are you doing here?"
"I—talked to Alister yesterday," the girl explained hesitantly, making an awkward face. Apparently she was unsure whether to react to his question or his head injury as she stood in the center of the archway leading into his humble workspace. "He said you were working on something and that you could probably use some help if I cared to drop by..."
"He shouldn't have..." Kaden muttered through gritted teeth, a fake smile desperately plastered across his face. Al, you will pay dearly for this...
"So, do you need any help?" Nayeli asked with a smile, clasping her hands wistfully behind her back.
"Well, I appreciate the offer," Kaden replied, "but I think I have everything under control."
"It's really no trouble," Nayeli assured with a dismissive shake of her head. "I don't have anything else to do today, and I'm already here."
Kaden swallowed, staring indecisively at the young lady standing a few paces away. She wasn't wearing a dress like she usually did, but was instead clad in work overalls with ripped knees. She had planned on this. She came dressed for the occasion, fully intending to help him. How could he turn her down? For that matter, why did he even want to?
"Well... okay, I guess..." he mumbled hesitantly, "Come on in."
Kaden turned his attention back to the engine before him as Nayeli stepped inside. He didn't dare walk over to greet her properly—he was still too flustered, and bound to humiliate himself if he tried to talk to her now. Hopefully she wouldn't think him a jerk for acting so nonchalant. Although, he had a feeling she was much too good-natured for that.
"So this is your workshop, huh?" she observed as she looked around at the various disassembled gadgets and half-finished projects that littered the floor and workbenches, some of them buried in dozens of tools and bits of scrap metal, leaving no free space between them. Kaden cringed to wonder what she must be thinking. The place looked more like a landfill than a workshop. But this was the life of an aspiring engineer. Workshops weren't meant for entertaining guests—especially lovely female guests on whom one desperately wanted to leave a good impression. Kaden wondered if it was actually possible to die from embarrassment. Apparently not, because he was still alive—albeit his pulse was probably at double the normal speed right now.
"It's incredible!" Nayeli marveled excitedly.
In his surprise, Kaden turned from the ship to look at her, muttering in disbelief, "You think so?"
"Yeah, it really brings back memories," Nayeli added.
"Thanks," Kaden murmured after a moment's pause, his ears angling themselves awkwardly as he wondered what to make of her comment. He decided to change the subject before Nayeli could start asking him about all his inventions, because he really didn't feel like explaining how most of them had failed and he just hadn't bothered taking them out to the scrap pile yet. "Um, Nayeli, could you hand me a plasma injector?"
"Sure." The girl scampered off to the workbench where several toolboxes lay open, spilling their disorganized contents all over the floor and surrounding bench space.
Kaden listened to her dig for a few moments before he called out, "It's the blue thing with the—"
"Found it!" she announced before he could finish, and came running toward him, proudly holding out an instrument that looked like a small water gun.
Kaden couldn't help but take a second to stare in surprise at her, and the tool she held in her hand. It was the correct one, all right, and she smiled warmly as she waited for him to take it. The amber Lombax reached out and grasped the plasma injector, careful not to touch Nayeli's hand as he did so.
"Thanks," he muttered, then turned away to bury his face in the ship's engine.
After a few moments of working while Nayeli patiently stood by, Kaden asked another errand of her. "Now I need a wave modulator."
"Right." The girl returned to the tool pile, and this time Kaden watched her as she fished through the mess, deliberately refraining from describing the sought-after item. Within a minute she'd pulled out another obscure-looking gizmo, and promptly delivered it.
"Here you go," she said as she handed the tool up, and again Kaden took care not to voice his surprise when he reached down and took it from her. There was no doubt about it: Nayeli knew her tools—or knew how to identify them, at least. She hardly seemed like the greasemonkey type, though, and Kaden was puzzled by her uncharacteristic know-how.
For another few minutes he worked inside the engine with the tools Nayeli had fetched, pondering until an idea occurred to him. It might be a bit underhanded, but he decided to do a little experiment to satisfy his curiosity. Once more he emerged from the engine and looked down at Nayeli. "Think you can find me an isometric projector?"
Nayeli nodded and went off a third time. Sure enough, she returned shortly with the exact tool he'd asked for in hand. Kaden smiled as he took the instrument from her hands. She'd been able to find it with no trouble, but failed to notice it was a tool that would never be used in building or repairing a ship. So she knew the tools by name and appearance, but apparently didn't know much about how they were used. Now Kaden was really curious—enough so that he was willing to swallow his nerves and ask.
"How come you know what all these gadgets look like, Nayeli?"
The girl smirked and said, "My dad is an engineer, so I'm used to this kind of thing. I can't understand all the finer technical points the way he does, but I've gotten pretty good at handling grunt work."
"Your father is an engineer?"
She nodded proudly. "Yes, one of the best. He designed a lot of the weapon and armor technology that the military uses."
"Wow..." Kaden muttered, more from surprise than awe. He'd seen the imposing brown Lombax on one or two occasions, but certainly never spoken with him, and truth be told, he wanted to keep it that way. Nayeli might be too innocent and humble to realize he had feelings for her, but there's no way he could hope for such luck with her father, and the last thing he needed was Nayeli's dad sitting his daughter down to have a talk about 'that boy.'
"I know. I'm really proud to be related to him—even though I didn't inherit his mechanical genius," Nayeli affectionately continued. "He's retired now, but he still does lots of tinkering. You kind of remind me of him, Kaden."
For a moment Kaden stood still, and silently prayed that Nayeli couldn't tell he was blushing through the fur on his cheeks. Finally he managed to gather his wits and continue the conversation. "So, how long has your family been living on Lumos?"
"I think we moved here when I was... ten?" Nayeli replied, thoughtfully touching two fingers to her lips. "Papa picked this planet because he was tired of the big city and wanted to live somewhere more peaceful. Of course, 'things can only get so peaceful in a place where Lombaxes gather.' That's what he says, anyway... Hey, are you doing okay in there?"
Kaden noticed that she had interrupted her own train of thought. She must've seen him struggling with the engine— his legs airborne and wriggling around as he tried to get past an annoying barrier in front of him. He imagined he might look like he was being swallowed by the machine he was trying to fix. That imagery actually wouldn't have been too far from his perspective on the situation.
He wriggled his way out of the ship's jaws and sighed with annoyance as he explained, "I'm trying to connect this plasma conduit to the auxiliary thrusters, but I can't reach the stupid plug!"
"Let me see," said Nayeli, and before Kaden could object she had rushed to his side and was peering down into the ship's engine, oblivious to how awkward he felt standing so close to her.
"I can see the plug," she stated, "It's right behind the helm console inside the ship. If you open the panel, I can crawl inside, and then you can feed me the cord from here and I can connect it for you."
"Are you sure? It's messy down there... you'll get your fur all greasy."
"I don't mind," Nayeli assured. "That just comes with the territory, right?"
At first Kaden just stood there, speechless and expressionless, but before long an impressed smile permeated his face. "Okay, then. Let's do it."
It took a few minutes to set up Nayeli's plan, but once the front panel of the helm was removed, it was just a matter of getting in position. While Nayeli crawled into the hole leading under the ship's engine, Kaden returned to his place hovering over it, and when he looked down past all the coils and rusty springs, he saw her face looking up at him. She managed to wave from the cramped little space where she was lying on her back, and softly muttered, "I'm ready."
"Okay, here it comes." Kaden slowly fed the cord down to her, and stopped when he felt the resistance that meant she had grabbed the end. Then he had nothing to do but wait for her to finish the job.
"What made you think to do this?" he asked, half out of curiosity and half just to avoid any long awkward silences.
Nayeli's answer was simple. "My Dad ran into a similar problem with a ship once. This was actually his idea."
"He sounds like a really smart guy," Kaden murmured.
"He is," Nayeli affirmed with a smile, "I take more after my mom, though. She's pretty quiet, and can't tell up from down when it comes to technology. I still wonder how she and my dad ended up getting married. I'm not as mechanically challenged as she is, but since I still can't even come close to keeping up with Papa, I pretty much just follow in my mother's footsteps. She teaches me how to do all these homey domestic things, like cook and sew, and Papa always comments on how obsolete those skills are in this day and age, and then the two of them get into the funniest arguments! It's the one time I can never take them seriously..." Nayeli burst into giggles as she struggled out these last few sentences, but Kaden couldn't bring himself to laugh with her. For some reason, he suddenly felt a little sad.
"So, what's your family like, Kaden?" Nayeli casually asked.
Kaden hesitated for a long moment before he replied. "Well... the truth is, I don't—have much of a family. I don't live with my parents—don't even know where they are, to be perfectly honest... and I haven't seen either of them in a long time."
Nayeli stopped what she was doing, looking up at him with a gasp. "Oh, that's terrible!"
"Not really..." Kaden said, going on in a somber but detached tone. "It's not like they abandoned me or I ran away or anything dramatic like that... We just—I don't know, drifted apart somehow. And since I was able to get along on my own, there wasn't any tension... I'm not exactly sure how it happened... Maybe we all just sort of mutually decided that we'd be better off without each other... and I think we were right."
Nayeli stared sympathetically up at him, her soft, beautiful eyes glazing over. "I'm so sorry to hear that... I can't imagine living without my family..."
"Yeah, well... you've got a great family..." Kaden trailed off, and turned his head to break eye contact before adding, "I'm happy for you..."
Hours later, when evening set in and the sky began to darken, it was time for Nayeli to go home. She sighed and wiped her forearm across her brow, smiling with accomplishment as she looked up at the ship. By now they were both covered in sweat and grease, both tired from a long day's work and ready to get some rest.
While she was staring at the ship, Kaden was staring at Nayeli. He'd never seen her like this before. Normally she looked so clean and presentable, wearing a light summery dress, perhaps with a flower tucked behind her ear. Now she looked like a regular mess, wearing torn, grease-stained overalls with smudges of oil slicked all over her cream-white fur. Somehow, though... Kaden thought she looked even more beautiful this way.
"Thanks for all your help," he said, turning shyly away.
"Don't mention it," Nayeli replied. "It was fun."
She waved goodbye, and Kaden watched her with meek, adoring eyes as she trotted off into the sunset.
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Alister exhaled with deep, joyous relief as he looked up at the first stars of evening, leaning back against his arms in the center of his oasis. He felt like everything in his life was lining up in his favor, for once. All his hard work and determination was about to pay off.
Suddenly an out-of-place noise interrupted the silence, and he smiled coyly when he recognized the sound of brazen footsteps stomping angrily toward him.
"So, how did it go?" he asked as he turned around to face his visitor. Without warning Kaden charged him, tackling him to the ground before he could brace himself.
"What's your problem?!" the irate Lombax shouted. "Why would you do that to me?!"
"Because I know you're hopeless on your own," Alister replied with an impish chuckle, flipping his friend over in retaliation. The two of them proceeded to argue while they wrestled on the ground, their speech peppered by frequent pauses and grunts of exertion.
"Haven't you ever heard the phrase—'mind your own business'?" Kaden grumbled, trying to get his friend in a headlock.
Alister slipped around his grip to get behind him, where he reached under his arms and pinned them back as he retorted, "Since when is your business not my business?"
"Since you started getting involved in my—love life!" Kaden snapped his head back as hard as he could, smashing Alister's face with the back of his head, and the older Lombax released his arms. They tussled for another few seconds until they'd wrestled themselves into an awkward knot, with Alister's knees being held at bay by Kaden's hands and Kaden's foot planted firmly against Alister's chin.
"What love life?" Alister muttered in a gritty voice, unable to open his mouth all the way. "You can't even look your girl in the eyes!"
"She's not my girl!" Kaden snapped, trying to kick himself loose.
"And who's fault is that?—OWWW!"
Alister yelped as Kaden mercilessly tugged on his right ear, and the battle resumed.
"You know," Alister muttered after dodging an attempt by Kaden to kick him in the face, "I could reasonably take offense to this—you showing up out of nowhere on my birthday and attacking me... You didn't even ask how my day went."
Just then Kaden managed to get on top of his friend, and wasted no time in grabbing his wrists and holding them against his back as he lay face-down on the floor.
"What's that got to do with this?" he bellowed, struggling to keep his opponent's arms immobilized.
"Well," Alister grunted, straining against Kaden's grip, "the head of the militia said that I'm one of the most—promising new recruits he's ever seen. They accepted me without even—bothering to review my performance on the qualifier."
"So?"
"So..." he craned his head as far as he could to the left, grinning smugly as he glanced askance at Kaden. "Do you still think you can beat me?"
With a swift, sudden jerk of his hands, Alister broke loose from Kaden's grip and flipped over, knocking the smaller Lombax aside. He came at him immediately for another tackle, and the two friends tumbled around the ground once again, kicking up dust left and right while Kaden yelled, "I don't need to beat you... I just need to—break your jaw so you can't—talk anymore!"
At last they stopped wrestling and collapsed on the ground side-by-side, breathing heavily and staring up at the violet-blue sky.
After a moment Alister turned his head to look at his exasperated, breathless friend and said, "Feel better now?"
"A little..." Kaden muttered. "You bleeding anywhere?"
"No, I'm okay. You?"
"Nope."
"Oh, good."
They panted in relative quiet for another few seconds before Kaden grudgingly added, "I'm still mad at you, though."
"Oh, come on, you know you loved it," Alister argued. "Don't act like you're so upset."
"I am upset!" Kaden exclaimed, meeting Alister's eyes with a furious glint in his own. "I thought I was gonna die!"
"Kaden, she's a girl, not a War Grok. Where's your sense of pride?"
Kaden pursed his lips and huffed with annoyance as he sat up. Alister followed suit, crossing his arms over his propped-up knees.
"Anyway, you still haven't answered my question," he pointed out. "How was it?"
Kaden turned away so that Alister couldn't see his face and scarcely whispered, "It was... nice."
Alister grinned with pleasure, but resisted the urge to say 'I told you so,' and instead contented himself to say, "Did you ask her out?"
"Of course not!" Kaden exclaimed, turning to scowl at his nosy friend yet again.
"Oh, for crying out—Kaden! What's wrong with you?!" Alister scolded.
"Would you cut it out!" Kaden snapped back at him, wearing a serious frown. "Look, even if she said yes, there's no way I could make her any happier than she already is..." He rested his head on his arms, his eyes closing halfway in sad resignation. "So why bother?"
Alister gazed with compassion at his dejected friend for a quiet moment, then comfortingly said, "You don't give yourself enough credit, Kade... That girl could date every guy in the galaxy and never meet anyone who adores her half as much as you do."
Kaden scoffed doubtfully. "Yeah, right... Who doesn't adore Nayeli?"
Alister shrugged and casually stated, "I don't."
"Well, that's because you're stupid," Kaden said flatly.
"Aw, that's low," Alister muttered with a chuckle. "Come on, I'm just trying to—" He stopped in mid-sentence when he looked at Kaden and saw his face. It was mostly the same downhearted countenance of a moment ago, except that now it seemed more... forlorn. His eyes were sad and solid, like he'd made a final decision from which he wouldn't be swayed— but one that hurt him. Alister eyed his companion with an awed expression that was somewhere between admiration and pity, and softly muttered, "Whoa... I thought this might just be a stubborn crush, but... you're seriously in love with her, aren't you?"
Kaden said nothing at first, his dismal expression unchanging. After a short while he took a deep breath and sighed despondently. "It doesn't matter. She's not looking for that kind of relationship right now; she doesn't need one... She doesn't need me."
Alister stared sympathetically at his best friend, making no effort to speak. Poor Kaden... To think that a thrill-seeking teenager like him harbored such pure and gentle affections for a girl with whom he had absolutely nothing in common. It didn't make sense— but then, matters of the heart rarely do. He wanted to say something comforting, to make Kaden feel better, but he had no words.
At long last he stood to his feet and reached a beckoning hand down to his friend. "Come on, let's go home."
Kaden grabbed his hand with a sigh and Alister pulled him to his feet, then led the way as the two slowly made their way back to the settlement. After a few minutes of walking on in silence, Kaden softly murmured, "Hey, Al?"
"Yeah?" Alister replied, ready to offer encouragement.
Kaden hesitated for a moment before asking, "Why are the back of your ears pink?"
Author's Notes:
When I'm writing a story, I love finding songs with lyrics that describe the characters and their inner feelings and struggles... I think I may just have to mention one or two of them in my notes, but there's no need for you readers to drop everything and go listen to them if you don't want to. ;)
- Theme Song: "You and Me" by Lifehouse— I think this song captures Kaden's feelings for Nayeli pretty well. :3
- Kaden's Family— Originally I had hoped I could sneak my way through this story without even mentioning Kaden's parents... I really didn't want to have to deal with them in the early chapters where Kaden is still a teenager, but I didn't want to make him an orphan, either (that would open a whole other can of worms I didn't want to deal with). Alas, I wasn't able to escape the inevitable need to address such an important aspect of his character. I finally gave in and decided to work out Kaden's family situation. However, with my former feelings still standing, I chose to do this in a very roundabout way. Hopefully what I've provided is enough to deepen Kaden's bond with Nayeli and explain why he's so recklessly independent, but my biggest ulterior motive was to leave his mom and dad in a dark corner of oblivion from which I am never obliged to move them. (Obviously I have no current plans to do anything further with Kaden's folks... but who knows? That could change. ;P)
