Oh god, it's been too long since I updated here! I'm so, so sorry, but I happen to be at my last semester of school so it's a lot to do right now, and I don't want to rush my writing when I have time for it because I want the story to be good. So please be patient with me! :)
And I'm so extremely grateful for the response I've got here! Thank you so much, I never thought it would be this popular though it's a story that is pretty much following the original plot, only difference is that it's from someone else's perspective. And that's the way it'll continue, so I hope it won't be boring to read this just because of that.
Here's chapter 3. It still feels like it's only the beginning of everything and not so much is happening, but don't worry, it'll get better and better!
Chapter 3. Even good days turn bad
"Yeah, you should've seen Lyle's face when he came running with a group of Tapiri hunting him down because they thought he had some food for them", I said as Norm and I got ourselves onto the Samson at noon. "I mean seriously, what can they do? Kill him slowly with their moo?"
Norm laughed as he sat down in his seat and put the backpack in the small space between us.
"Didn't he have a gun?"
"He had, but mum always threaten him to not use it. He's quite afraid of her actually."
"Well", Norm said and shrugged. "That's useful."
"What's useful?", a familiar voice asked and I leaned forward to see Jake climb onto the ship with, surprisingly enough, a big gun.
"How come you're here, with… That?", I asked him, feeling very confused.
"I asked first", he said and grinned at me, but I would not give in that easily.
"My question is more important."
"How do you know that?"
"'Cause I know the answer to yours, and it's not important."
"Yeah, but you don't know the importance of my answer to your question, eh?"
"No, but I do know that the reason to your presence here is more important than my answer, so tell me now."
He chuckled at me and I crossed my arms and frowned at him as Lyle joined us. When I saw his gun too I suddenly realized why Jake was here.
"Hey mate", Lyle said to Jake and they made a brotherly handshake. "Watch out for that She Devil, she can be really awful when she wants to, just like her mother."
"You only think that 'cause you're such a pussy, Lyle", I said and Jake whistled.
"Yeah? And you have a big mouth compared to your size, but maybe that's necessary when you're going for big alien guys instead of normal people."
Lyle knew way too much and too well what hurt me the most, but I would never show that, and neither would he show how much I hurt him too when I successively uncovered his soft sides. Let us just say that the two of us had been forced together for too long now. I just snorted and turned away, because I already knew that if I continued it could, and probably would, go on forever. That was how humans of the opposite sex often worked, and I was glad that not every male creature I had met in my life acted that way.
As we sat down and ate our dinner, a hand touched my shoulder. I did not get time to turn around and see who was behind me, though I felt the breaths touch my cheek.
"You want to see something fun?", Tsu'tey whispered in my ear.
"That depends on what fun is", I answered and put my last piece of food in my mouth.
"You'll see if you come with me."
I looked back at him and he gave me a mischievous glint. That was enough to persuade me and I made a quick glance around before I got up and jogged after him, away from everyone else. It was still hard to get used to the way he treated me these days. After that first hunt, I thought that everything would go back to normal. He would continue laugh at me with his friends and I would act like I did not care and definitely did not get hurt by every word he said, but something had changed, and I really liked it.
He slowed down a bit and began to crawl through a tunnel of young trees with much too heavy leaves and seeds, and as I followed I was as amazed as always over how flexible his body was. Then, he made a small jump to get position behind a thick tree and carefully looked around it at something in front of us. I straightened up to sitting position next to him, searching with my eyes, but I saw nothing special.
"Wha-", I began but was silenced by his hand that folded my mouth completely. The touch made me shiver slightly, though I was not prepared for it, and he gestured for me to get behind him. I did as I was told, and was certainly careful that I did not touch him from where I was. He made my efforts wasted though, as he leaned back against me when he spoke.
"Look around the tree carefully… And watch. Is that how Sky People amuse themselves? Then you must have a really boring life."
I leaned forward slowly and found someone standing a few meters away. As I looked closer, I saw that it was Ina't. But what was she doing? She spun around and reached down to the ground to pick up something, that she afterwards pulled over her head and placed it right over the upper part of her body. I did not understand the strange or funny part until I realized that was the way I acted when I had recently bought some new clothes. That was not something usual around here, because these people never bought clothes. Human clothes. I continued to watch as she began to make poses, and Tsu'tey leaned forward to watch again. I saw his cheek twitch for a moment before a huge snort escaped from his mouth and was followed by an even bigger laugh. Ina't froze to the ground and I threw my hand around Tsu'tey's mouth and pulled him back behind the tree, just in time for her to stare our way with a frightened gaze. We heard movements from where she was and then suddenly she ran past us without meeting our surprised glances. I thought I heard her sniff too, which made me feel a bit bad about this. I looked at Tsu'tey, and he met my gaze, also looking a bit guilty before a smile took over. It spread over to my face as well, and for a second my mind did not even realize how close we were, but my body definitely did.
The flight out in the woods was quick and when we landed we all got away from the ship, except for Lyle, who mum forced to stay behind as always. We started to wander forward, and I looked up at the big tree crowns and sighed. It was so beautiful. My mother came up close to me, and I looked at her questioning.
"Keep an eye on Jake, will ya? He seems to be a bit nervous and I don't trust him when he carries that thing."
I nodded and hurried forward to catch up with Jake, and he smiled when he looked back and saw me.
"Couldn't stay away from me any longer, huh?", he teased me with a satisfied expression.
"Keep your dreams inside your head. You need to concentrate or maybe you'll blow up the whole planet without even noticing it."
He laughed at me and told me that he had handled a gun so many times that he could not even count on it any longer, but it still made me frightened when he turned around a bit to look closer at something and the pipe of his gun suddenly pointed my way. That made me slowly break the promise I had given my mother and the distance between the two of us only grew bigger and bigger with every step I took.
"Hey, why are you so far away?", he asked me.
"I don't want to get a bullet in my foot", I answered and jumped over a big root. "Believe me, I know how it feels."
And, as a coincidence maybe, that was the moment when we reached the school building. Mum and Norm walked in through the door and Jake began to get up the stairs to follow them, but hesitated in the middle of a step when he noticed that I did not come.
"Are you not going inside?", he asked, a bit confused.
"No."
"Okay."
He seemed to be thinking about it for a minute, considering if he should ask why or not, but then he turned around and walked in, to my relief. I did not even want to look at the building at all, neither be close to it, so I took a few steps away and sat down on that big root with my back against the doomed place.
When school was out for the day, I followed Neytiri back home. As we came through the last brushwood something bumped into my leg. I looked down, a bit surprised, and found a small tapiricub, maybe only a few days old. It had rolled over by the collision, and hurried to get onto its feet and started to run back in a hopping way to the mother which stood a few meters away, grazing. It hurried to hide safely behind her, but peeked its head out next to her, full of curiosity. I looked at Neytiri and she smiled with her whole face. She went past me and sat down closer to the mother and baby. I followed her example, and sat down next to her. In the beginning, that scared the little one, he or she did not even look at us, but as the time went on its boldness grew.
Finally, it had decided we meant no harm and came around its mother to greet us. Or actually, it came to me. I let it sniff my fingers and then I tried to pat it on its small head, but then it leaned away, so I quickly removed my hand and acted after its conditions.
"He seems to be very fond of you", Neytiri said and I looked up at her with a smile playing over my lips.
"How do you know it's a he?", I asked, curious.
"You see that colour on his head. He has a reddish line straight over, the females have a purple one, and it's smaller", she described and pointed cautiously over his head. He tried to sniff her hand, and she turned it over to let him search over her palm. He suddenly sneezed and it made us both giggle. It felt so natural, being with Neytiri. She was a really good friend. Of course I liked Trudy as much as her, but Trudy was older than me. Neytiri and I was at the exact same age, which made us better suited for each other. Maybe if Trudy came here one day, she could befriend Sylwanin who was older too, and we could all hang out together. If me and mum made a good job with the school, that could be reality one day.
I was brought back from my daydream by their voices and footsteps when they exited the school building, and I rose from the root to join them. We began to walk further into the forest and stopped at a big, but thin root system that was for once placed over the ground. Usually these roots were placed deep into the ground to ever be able to hold up the huge trees. Mum and Norm began to analyze them with the same sticks and pad we used before. I stood next to Norm, giving him the right things that he handled over to mum when she asked for them. I saw in the corner of my eye how Jake slowly walked further away from us and when I turned my head to look where he was going, he was gone. I gave the other two a final glance; they seemed fine without me, and then walked after Jake.
As I listened carefully, I could hear his feet in every step he took. He was not the smoothest and most flexible person I had met in my life, but maybe that was because he usually did not walk at all. I turned around a big stone that was covered in thick leaves and ferns, and found him a few meters ahead, curiously getting closer to a big population of helicoradians. I stayed behind the stone, waiting for his reaction when they coiled up. It could be quite scary and surprising when you did not know what was going to happen when you touched them for the first time.
Jake took a final step closer and looked at one of the plants for a second before he reached out his hand and tried to touch it. He gasped and leaned away from it, and I put my hand over my mouth to smother the laugh that bubbled up inside my body. He looked around for a moment, and then he continued to make the big plants disappear. I smiled as he chuckled, it was a pleasuring sound, but it was also nice to see him having fun.
I turned around, letting out a small giggle, and did not notice the danger before it was way too late. The huge, black beast froze when it heard me, even though it was at least 15 meters away. I cursed myself for losing my attention on the surrounding, dangerous world I was standing in, and froze to the ground myself, hoping it would loose its track.
A sudden, high roar behind made my heart skip a beat and I heard the metallic sound of Jake's gun being handled. In the next second my mother's cautious voice came from the small microphone around my neck. She was talking to Jake, giving him instructions for how to handle the situation, but I could not care less about it for the moment. The thanator had of course also heard the roar, and was crawling silent in our direction. I looked around for somewhere to hide, and decided to move around the stone and try to stay as silent as possible. I tried to listen, to hear if it was close, but that stupid hammerhead did not shut up, and neither did Jake. I tried to whisper into the microphone, hoping that someone would hear my warnings over the noise.
As I looked around the other edge of the stone, I saw the whole thanator climbing over the edge, right behind where Jake had been standing before. I hoped for all of my heart that he had gotten my message, or at least that mum or Norm had reached it, so that they could have passed it forward to him. But by the way the big, black animal was acting, my hoping was worth nothing. It let out an even bigger roar than the hammerhead had, and threw itself down at Jake.
