Hannah looked at the deep pine-green stain on the wood. Even though she had cleaned up Jar-hidda's blood after her first-aid job, it had set into the grain of the floor, just like normal blood would have. It had stopped glowing after almost an hour, and over time had turned a near-black color that she was never going to be able to get out. She sighed and moved back upstairs to her workroom, where the guns of the Weyland grunts were all laid out on the table.
Jar-hidda was in the room across, enjoying the heat. His mask was on and he was messing with the device on his wrist. She had given him back his jewelry, figuring there was no harm in him having his necklaces. He was looking more and more like the first time she had laid eyes on him nearly a week and a half ago. Life in the past couple of days had been relatively routine. She was keeping herself busy with her normal chores, really nothing she hadn't done before in the twenty-one winters previously. She was well adept at staying busy while snowed in. Jar-hidda amused himself by watching, and occasionally learning or offering a verb.
The alien was walking without his crutch, having handed it to her the day before and navigated the house without it, albeit limping. She recycled the crutch in the fire and thought nothing more of it.
She sat down in front of the table and ejected the clip of the first gun. They were all Glock 17C Gen4s, a little old-fashioned, but there was never anything quite like the classics. There was no need to keep more than one gun, but she was unloading all the bullets out of the clip, flicking them out with her thumb and setting them on the table. Only one of them had a full clip, the one that had belonged to Dyson, and only one had an empty clip. She was planning on throwing away Dyson's gun and keeping the empty one.
She had set all the bullets on their flat end in lines, seeing which men had gotten how many shots off in a small urge of pointless curiosity. Once all five guns were empty, she checked over the one and made sure it was clean and undamaged. She loaded its clip up and slid it in, flicking on the safety. It would go in the drawer with her Cheetah, the others she'd throw away the next time she went into town.
That would have to be soon. She had gone through many of the resources in the past couple days, and she would need to get more wood. And more meat. Her freezer was officially empty. She was sure Jar-hidda was going to get fat eating that much and sitting around. He was probably bored out of his mind. They were running out of things to play the word game with. He had picked up and asked about everything that he could pick up or point at, only some of which he had a word to offer back. She really didn't have very much.
She wasn't looking forward to a seven-foot tall, four-hundred pound alien with cabin fever when that struck.
Hannah threw the extra guns and empty clips into a paper bag and walked back downstairs with them. She found Jar-hidda had moved from the room and was inspecting the bookcase, a single black claw running along the spines, "yeah," she said absently and the alien looked at her. She set the bag down by the door, "I've got a lot of books," she looked over at the bookcase full of hodge-podge informational texts, everything from the theories of the extinction of the dinosaurs to migratory patterns of water fowl.
"My mother always used to say, 'it's better to have it and not need it, than need it and not have it.' Of course when she said it she always meant things like a condom or a knife or gun, or pepperspray. I ended up applying it to knowledge, something that saved your life in fact," she smirked slightly but it didn't last, "unfortunately, the more I learned, the more I ended up hating my own species. War, greed, crimes against humanity. Everyone willing to stand on someone else's chest to get a little higher in the social ladder," she frowned, looking over at the pictures of her mother, "and ultimately you can't trust the people who have the power."
She frowned, shrugged, then moved to put the one loaded Glock in the drawer with her Cheetah. She paused, looking out her window, actually able to see outside beyond the snow. The sun was beating against the western side of the house already, scraggly thing shadows from the trees dancing across the glass. The sky was blue with very few clouds. It was a good day today.
She heard her name and looked over her shoulder, realizing she had turned her back to him and thought he was going to correct her for it, but he was gone. She went to the stairs, figuring that he had gone back to his room, placing a hand on the railing and looking up the stairs.
"Yes Jolly?" she called but received no answer. She waited a few seconds before turning around. She jumped nearly out of her skin. Jar-hidda was right behind her, looking at her with a slow tilt of his head and a rattle that she had discerned was his form of 'laughter.' She hadn't even heard him walk right up behind her. And where the hell had he been hiding in the first place behind the chair? Maybe he had been in the kitchen?
"Laugh it up chuckles," she growled, pushing his chest to get past him. But pushing him was like pushing a tree, and he refused to move. She set her jaw and pushed again, then again with both hands, then put her shoulder against him and used the stairs as leverage to push harder. He just rattled.
She relented, stepping down onto the stairs. He huffed. She lifted her hands in the air and shook her head, smacking her thighs, "have it your way," she said and carefully began walking up the stairs backwards. She paused a moment, looking over the top of his head at her living room. She inhaled, making what was possibly a foolish split-second decision. She jumped off the stairs, towards the giant, scrambled over his shoulders like a squirrel over branches and hopped behind him.
She didn't stick the landing though, falling on her side, but she scrambled up to a sitting position and whipped around to face him as he roared. She could not see his face, but he was in a definite fighting stance; knees bent, hands spread at his side, fingers bent brandishing his claws. She felt her heart fall into the pit of her stomach as she stared at him. She was up on her feet in a second as he made a charge for her like a mad elephant. She tried to figure out what she had done to piss him off as she ducked under his arm.
She ungracefully stumbled out of the way, catching herself from falling and breaking into a sprint. Her initial instinct was to go for her Cheetah, but realized that was a foolish idea considering he had survived seventeen point-blank Glock shots to the chest, and course-corrected herself towards her rifles. She reached her hand for her .30-06 but suddenly tripped and fell, her chin smacking against the ground and she tasted blood.
"Don't touch," Jar-hidda mocked in her voice as he dragged her away from her weapons by her ankle. She found herself wishing that Smaug was a much larger lizard, capable of doing more than sitting on the chair and hissing like he was. Jar-hidda let her go and she scrambled up again, nearly tripping over herself and putting the chair between her and the alien.
He lifted the solid oak wood chair like it was nothing, ignoring the bearded dragon, setting it down to the side and grabbing for her. She stumbled back, feeling the fire at her back and reached behind her for the fire poker, grabbing wildly but couldn't find it. He stepped forward and grabbed for her flailing hand but she snatched it away, ducking reflexively in case he tried to grab her again, and made a break for the table. Several pictures fell as she slammed into it, tearing the drawer open.
She whipped around, gripping the edge of the table tightly, knuckles white, as it bit into her lower back, her Cheetah pointed right at his throat, just below the three mandibles that were clicking together behind his mask as he tilted his head back and forth, regarding her, walking slowly forward.
"What the hell is your problem!?" she screamed. He looked at the gun, then at her. In a swift motion he caught her hand and the gun in one massive claw and moved the barrel away from him. His grip was like steel, but wasn't hurting her. He turned the gun and her wrist sideways until she was forced to let go of it. He set the gun gently on the table and grabbed the front of her shirt, dragging her away. He let her go and took a few steps back. He pounded a fist against his chest with a grunt then assumed the bent-kneed spread-armed stance again, roaring.
She stood dumbly. He wanted to fight her? In hand to hand combat? Was he crazy? He came at her again, slower this time but his feet still echoed through the floor into the basement. She stepped back and simply moved out of reach of his swings, "no," she said, redirecting the swing of his arm downwards away from her head, "no," she said with more force as she moved her shoulder away from his swiping claws, "no!" she yelled as her back slammed against the wall, the stock of a gun pressing awkwardly against her shoulder.
"Are you crazy!? I'm not going to fight you! You're, what, fifty times stronger than I am!?"
Jar-hidda had his hands planted against the wall to either side of her shoulders, claws raking against the wood as he growled, either irritated or disappointed, she couldn't tell.
"No contest! You win! Back off!"
The alien grunted, but he moved away, stepping back and she moved to the side, directly away from him murmuring curses under her breath. He looked at her as she glowered at him. Then, nonchalantly like nothing happened, he moved back over to the books, limping a little worse, and began to run a claw along the spines again. She couldn't believe it. One second he was this ball of pent-up aggression, the next he's playing passive scholar?
She felt an empty sick feeling in her stomach as she realized that she may have been wrong this entire time. Surely he was no ambassador but what if he was more than just a visitor? What if he was a scout for an army, and all the sci-fi movies had it right? What if all she was really doing was helping Earth get invaded? She felt very ill, and chilly. She shook her head, ignoring her own thoughts. She was being irrational. She wasn't sure if it was his cabin fever or hers, but she needed a break.
She walked briskly past him, ignoring his jerky glance, and up the stairs to the sweltering room. She dressed in triple layers, put on a scarf and her warmest boots. She got her gloves and moved to her office, grabbing the collapsible sled and putting it on her back. She felt the inside of her lip with her tongue. It had been cut open by her teeth and felt the wound already swelling and irritated and growled in her throat.
She would probably be gone for the rest of the day. Just her, the snow, the hibernating wilderness and the hunt. Just to calm down and clear her head. She was back down quickly, almost rushing past him, not bothering to make sure that her back was away from him. She unhooked her bow from the wall and opened the door. She paused and looked back at him, who was watching her with a curious rattle with an open book in his hands.
"Stay here, Jar-hidda," she said, pointing at him and then the ground, "I'll—," her voice caught in her throat before she sighed heavily, "I'll be back soon," she finished, sounding unsure about it herself. She turned and stepped outside, feeling the warm sun on her face as she pulled up the scarf. The icicles were shrinking, the snow was slipping off of the trees. It felt frigid. She glanced behind her at Jar-hidda, brown eyes cold as he watched her unmoving. She turned and shut the door between him and her.