Hannah officially knew all the swear words she would need to yell at any of Jar-hidda's species if they decided to invade. Everything from c'jit and pauk, to hac'nikt, daka, and sjauk'la. She mused to herself if she would ever have the balls to say any of those to Jar-hidda's face if he ever pushed her that far. She sat guard outside the cave on the edge of the level ground, facing outward towards the world. She had her gun with her, but also her bow, and she had already killed a couple rabbits more out of boredom than needing the meat.
She had been Jar-hidda's 'go fer' for nearly a month now, New Year's had come and gone with a simple cracking open of a bottle of champagne and sharing some with Jar-hidda, who was not impressed. She was avoiding Mike's shop and taking special care not to visit the same establishment too often in a short span of time. She was going to have to begin cycling, maybe even go back to Mike's. It had been long enough that a return visit shouldn't be too strange.
Hannah was just glad that whatever she was bringing seemed to have some use to Jar-hidda, and that meant, bit by bit, he was getting closer to leaving. There was a steadily decreasing amount of expletives that came from the ship, and today only the sounds of work could be heard.
Hannah stripped the rabbits of fur easily, and got up from her spot to set them on the edge of the ramp, "snack for you Jolly!" she called in before retreating to her post. Jar-hidda seemed to be more comfortable with her approaching the ship, maybe trusting that she wouldn't go inside. She had a feeling that she would have a similar breathing problem in his ship that he had outside of it. She would probably be able to breathe his air, but it would be difficult, painful maybe, and probably wouldn't last forever.
She had quite a few running theories about Jar-hidda and his species, things that she thought of as she sat bored in the snow. Language was one. For a creature with no lips, there were quite a bit of sounds that he would make that would require lips, like 'm' and 'p.' Yet his language was full of sounds like that. She theorized that the clicking rattling noises he made had been his race's original language, which could have worked something like Morse code, or like the clicking languages of Africa. But as they began to travel through space and use their natural parroting ability on prey, they began to borrow sounds and steal words, sort of like English, and were able to construct a more 'verbal' language that eventually became the primary form of communication.
That was just a theory, it was possible that the parroting ability gave immediate rise to a verbal language, and that the clicking was only ever used to express emotion, like the difference between a dog's vocalization and its tail.
Hannah sat back down on her parka and bundled up the rabbit hides to be carried down with her. Jar-hidda might like them. She was dressed in a tank-top, the metal net suit underneath it, but visible above the collar, and down her arms. She had only one layer of bottoms in the form of jeans, and only one pair of socks under her hiking boots. She had gotten used to the odd sensation of dressing for summer while the snow was still waist-deep.
She was musing to herself theories about a society that revolved around hunting, chin rested on her hand, when she felt the heat of Jar-hidda's hand on her shoulder.
"Are you… tired?" He asked.
"Bored," she corrected, handing him the bundle of rabbit pelts, which he took without ceremony or gratitude, the same way a clerk would accept payment, or a landlord rent.
He rattled and repeated the new word, hanging the furs in a net attached to his belt. He had one of the rabbits with him, eating the meat straight off the bone. Maybe that should have disturbed her, but it didn't anymore.
"Go hunt," Jar-hidda said suddenly and Hannah gave him an incredulous look.
"Really?" she asked. She was stuck here on guard duty, making sure no peons came crawling up on Jar-hidda with his back turned. She figured her role had been pretty well understood by the alien. True, there had been no incidents yet, but she was hesitant to risk it.
Jar-hidda nodded and pointed down the mountain, "go hunt if you're bored. Two hours won't kill me."
Hannah couldn't help but smirk at that. It seemed like such a human thing to say, "alright," she got up, taking her bow, slinging the rifle over her shoulder so that the strap was across her chest. She wouldn't be using the gun to hunt, too noisy and less sport, but she wanted it with her just in case.
"Payas leitjin-de, good hunting," Jar-hidda growled. Hannah blinked at the sudden serious reverence he showed, bowing his head slightly before stepping back away from her, giving her the proper distance that she could turn away immediately. She looked at the alien from down her shoulder, brow furrowed as she hesitantly turned and moved down the mountain.
Her steps crunched lightly in the powder-y snow, sliding every now and then, being careful to not lose her footing, or to cause much disturbance to the blanket. The last thing she wanted to do was trigger an avalanche. She had to go far away from where Jar-hidda's ship was. With the noise he was making up there, though she herself couldn't hear it, all the animals would have given a mile-wide berth to the area.
She was going towards the Northern side of the slope where the deer herd tended to frequent. Hopefully Jar-hidda hadn't hunted them out of the area. If he had, she'd have to look into baiting them into the area, as much as she didn't want to. It was a hard winter for the animals, they were here because there was some food here, but not enough to keep them if they felt threatened.
She stopped her descent when she heard a bunch of crows. The birds were useful for giving away the position of dead things. It was off to the right of her, more towards the Northern face of the mountain. It was probably where Jar-hidda had left the remains of a kill, because she knew she hadn't hunted this side of the mountain in a long while. Curiosity got the best of her and she made her way towards the bird. Once she got close enough, she could see though the trees that there were raw rib-cages hung to the branches, and a pile of remains in the center of the circle.
She crossed tracks in the snow, but the powder was too fine to hold a print, so she wasn't sure what made them. She remembered that there were some wolves in the area, who would definitely be attracted to carrion. It didn't take her long to reason that Jar-hidda was using this area to bait more dangerous game than some starving herbivores. She looked towards where she could see the black forms of the birds and thought better of investigating. Wolves normally wouldn't attack but with as hard of a winter as they were going through, it was more than likely that they would defend a cache of food if they had it.
Hannah readied her rifle, just in case, and turned away from the birds to head back the way she came. She got maybe four feet away, when the hairs on the back of her neck stood on end, and something suddenly landed hard on her back. She fell face-first into the snow, pain searing through the back of her head as teeth clasped down around her skull. She twisted her body and threw the weight on her back around until she managed to grab a handful of fur and pull.
There was a haunting scream and the weight lifted off of her. Hannah scrambled up, dazed, feeling blood run down through her scalp as she whipped around to face her attacker. It was a cougar, a thin cougar. Her rifle had disappeared in the snow, she spent only a second scrambling for it before she stood up. The cougar would have normally run away after its prey started fighting back, but it was starving, and she could see it weighing its options, crouched with its tail flicking.
Hannah screamed at it and it flinched, but didn't run away, still debating if the meal was worth it. Hannah didn't hesitate, reaching into her pocket and pulling out her cheetah, taking aim. She fired once and missed, the white snow spraying up next to the cougar who turned and ran. She lowered her arms with a sigh of relief, wincing in pain and touching the back of her head, looking at the blood staining her fingers. It could have been worse, it could have gone for her neck.
Then it got worse. Hannah jumped when she heard a scream, and saw the cougar barreling down on her. It was desperate. Hannah raised her gun and fired twice, able to see where the bullets impacted the cat's body but it still came for her. It leapt onto her before she could get a third shot off, knocking her down into the snow.
She lifted an arm to protect her throat and the cougar bit down on it, she yelled out in pain, her hand still tightly gripping the cheetah though the cat was intent on tearing that arm off. She began punching the cougar with her empty hand, trying to cause it enough pain that it would get off of her. She grabbed and pulled its ear, digging her nails into the skin and it let go of her arm. She turned her gun up, point blank to its throat and fired repeatedly.
The cat fell dead on top of her, sinking her a bit further into the snow. She laid there for a moment, gasping for air and whimpering. She finally pushed the cougar off and looked at the damage done to her arm. It looked like she had put it through a grinder, she figured the back of her head looked only slightly better.
Hannah shoved the cheetah into her pocket and sat still for a moment, letting it all sink in, gaze wandering over all the red-colored snow. She slowly stood up, feeling sore all over, and turned to start looking for where her rifle had gone. There was a crackling noise and Jar-hidda appeared not ten feet away from her. She blinked, wondering for a moment how long he had been there.
"Good kill," he said and Hannah felt anger sear through her.
"You dick!" she yelled storming over to him and hitting his chest as hard as she could with her left hand, "you were watching the whole fucking time weren't you!? And you didn't do anything to help me! I could have died!"
She hit him again before favoring her injured arm, taking a step back away from the alien, glowering at him. Then slowly, she began to put two and two together. She had followed the direction Jar-hidda had pointed in, the area was baited for dangerous game. He had followed her and watched.
"You set me up," she said in disbelief, staring at the alien as he lifted the cougar up to examine it, "you fucking set me up for this, didn't you? Didn't you!?"
Jar-hidda turned to look at her with that expressionless red mask.
"Why!?" she felt so betrayed, after all she had done to keep him alive, he had tried to get her killed.
Jar-hidda was silent for a moment, turning away from her and turning his face up to the sky as he rattled.
"To… show me your strength."
Hannah blinked, brow furrowed. After a second comprehension filled her and she growled, "it was a test."
Jar-hidda gave her a short nod before using his wristblades to relieve the corpse of its spine and skull. He walked over to her and handed her the 'trophy' saying, "you did good."
Hannah looked at the face of the cougar, twisted in death, then punched Jar-hidda one last time before snatching the skull from him, "help me find my gun you dick."