Chapter 7: Calm Before the Storm.
Tik eleth closed the entrance to the cave off with a rather large piece of wood plunging the entire into darkness, her thermal vision gave her perfect vision in her but it was obvious to her that her new ooman ally couldn't see as he stood perfectly still in the pitch blackness as to not tip over anything. Moving past him in the dark caused him to flinch and look in her direction, she admired his reflexes as they appeared to be finely tuned, she watched him tilting his head to use his hearing to locate her rather than using his eyes which was smart, using a small plasma torch that she'd managed to salvage with one or two other things from her ship she lit the tallow candles that she'd set up around the cave, after the first one was lit he instantly locked his vision onto her and watched her as she walked around lighting the others, pretty soon the cave was more than adequately lit for them both to see properly.
Jack watched as Tik lit the homemade candles with a small plasma torch, finally she seemed happy that there was enough light for them to see, then she walked over to a small rack that he hadn't noticed initially when he'd entered, it was just to the right of her skull display, then she started removing her weapons and placing them on varying places on the rack, first was the large sword on her back, now he had time to study it a bit he could see that the hand was ornately decorated with tribal style insignias made in what appeared to be some form of ivory, the main handle itself appeared to be a gold like metal but from the way the light changed its colour as it moved he could tell that it wasn't real gold but looked like something far stronger. The sword followed by two rather long daggers from the base of her spine, these reminded him of her wrist mounted blades in shape and size but with rather well made handles made from bone, then the shoulder cannon that she had mounted on her armour was removed and set on a small stand, the only thing that she kept on her body was the set of wrist blades that she had.
He felt a connection in this action as he even when he was at home never slept without his knife nearby, he felt totally naked without at least one weapon in arms reach, it was a reflex born of years of sleeping in hostile territory and in the field, then much to his surprise she unclipped two valves to the left of her mask and slowly pulled it from her face.
Jack had been trying to imagine what she looked like underneath that thing but the reality was far more surprising that he'd imagined, she had four mandibles tucked into the side of her jaw which he guessed doubled as some sort of cheeks, he could instantly tell now where the clicking noise she made came from as there were four small teeth or tusks if you could call them that at the end of each mandible, her jaw itself was quite narrow and rather feminine in its shape, she didn't appear to have a visible nose above the mandibles but a long sloping piece that led up between her eyes and what eyes she had. They were large and bright purple that shone with an almost inner light but screamed with a deep intelligence, a rather large brow over hung her eyes that led to a large broad forehead that was almost like a crest with ridges crossing over it that almost looked like small smooth and shiny abdominal muscles, she had some sort of tattoo in the centre of her cranial ridges that he guessed was some sort of clan mark, her long dread locks were connected to the edges of the cranial ridge and hung down over her broad shoulders and her strong back, to many humans if not all of them she would have been considered a monster, they'd have taken one look at her and screamed in fear but Jack didn't see that at all, what he saw was a strong, very proud and exotically beautiful woman brimming with confidence and untold skills and the more he saw the more he found himself wanting to see, he found himself almost desperate to know everything about her.
Before he could stop himself Jack let out two words under his breath but it was a powerful pair, "So Beautiful" he breathed without thinking.
Tik eleth froze solid as she was placing her new mask down, had she just heard that correctly? her hearing was pin sharp from years of honing and training but she could have just sworn that she'd heard Ack say the word beautiful under his breath, he couldn't have been referring to her surely?
She quickly finished placing the hunting mask down and turned to face Ack who she found to be looking right at her, immediately he changed skin colour for some reason, his entire face seemed to go bright red in colour and it flowed from his face down his neck, this instantly surprised Tik eleth as she didn't know that oomans could change their skin colour at will like that and it intrigued her, for the first time she studied Ack's facial features with her own eyes, his jaw was strong and square, then those unusual but rather fetching fleshy things keep his sharp warriors teeth hidden from her view, which made her a little disappointed as she kinda like the way they looked as they were sharp and fierce looking, he also had a flattened nose in the centre of his face that looked like it had been broken more than once, this was sat between the sharpest and most piercing blue eyes that she'd ever seen in her life, over his right eye and was a deep scar that led from his cheek upwards over the eye and onto a rather smooth and small forehead, the rest of his head was covered in a thick layer of light brown fur with swirls of blonde thrown in here and there, all in all he was no-where near as repulsive as she was led to believe oomans were, now that she had chance to examine him a bit she actually thought that his looks were rather exotic but no-where near repulsive, she found herself admiring the scar on his eye and wondering how he got it, also she found herself wondering if he had anymore, in her culture scars were a symbol of a victory in a battle hard fought and she already knew that he was battle worn.
They stared at each other for a few moments when Jack decided to break the awkward silence,
"Err so what's to eat? I'm kinda starved" he said fidgeting awkwardly on his feet like a naughty schoolboy, what the hell was going on with him, he'd never been like felt like this ever, he was known as iceberg among his fellow soldiers for his impeccable ability to keep his cool regardless of what was facing him down and yet here this strange alien huntress had him all hot under the collar and as flustered as hell just by looking at him with those amazing bright purple eyes of hers.
His words seemed to snap Tik out of her trance and suddenly she was the one looking all flustered and it turned into a flurry of movement which confused the hell out of Jack, she rapidly turned and headed for the drying rack and she snatched up some small animals that looked like some sort of rather large lizards that had unusually colourful hides,
"Shimmer lizard" she said holding them up for him to see, he nodded,
"Great, right now I could literally a horse" he said as his stomach growled again as if to make his point, just before she turned to start preparing the food he could have sworn he saw Tik draw her mandibles up into a smile,
"No horse only shimmer lizard" she said with an amused tone or what he hoped was an amused tone to her voice, Jack chuckled softly to himself,
"Sorry, human expression, it means that I am very hungry" he said, Tik clicked her mandibles together and appeared to shake her head,
"Oomans confusing" he could have sworn he heard her mumble under her breath, he decided that since he was going to be spending some time here he might as well get comfortable,
"I'm just going to check my weapons over ok?" he asked as he didn't want his actions to miscued as an act of hostility, she simply turned her head and nodded, so removing the large sniper rifle Jack decided to sit on the floor next to the massive bed on one of the massive fur rugs, weapon checks always calmed his mind and he was hoping it would work here, so he dropped himself down and removed both his weapons as well as his armour.
Jack expertly stripped the AS50 down to its bare components and began checking each part, fortunately one of the things he'd found in his pouches of many things was weapon cleaning kit, these were essential to every real soldier but were usually under appreciated by either wanna-be's or part timers, proper weapon maintenance was especially important with something as finely tuned as the AS50 as it could fire over such a long range that even a light compromise to it could cause it to miss by yards.
So as Tik worked diligently in preparing their meal he cleaned each and every component of the massive rifle before reassembling and checking the weapon, the he did the same to the Desert Eagle all the time completely unaware of Tik watching him fascinated by his diligence to the maintenance of his weapons, this fascinated her as it was something that was expected of all Yaujta hunters and huntresses, but she never expected this sort of behaviour from an ooman and she found herself rather impressed, in fact he'd done nothing but impress her since she'd set eyes on him and he'd taken down the giant lizard, it was like nearly everything she'd been taught about his kind was untrue, she'd been led to believe that they were an uneducated prey species that had little or no potential and no understanding of honour, but seemed to have rather good luck, but what she'd seen him do was not luck, it was diligence to one's craft and a deep level of intensive training just like she herself had received, now she couldn't speak for others of his kind but this one certainly understood honour as he had conducted himself with honour both towards her and towards his prey, as she watched his skilled hands working over his weapons some rather strange thoughts about other things he could do with those dexterous graceful hands entered her head and instantly startled the hell out of her, 'No he's not Yaujta! Be gone foul thoughts stop clouding my head, I will not dishonour my clan or myself in such a way!' she screamed at herself in her head giving herself a mental slapping, she instantly put the brief transgression down to her hunger and to her tiredness which had caught up her since she'd had to stay awake the entire night while watching for Ack to move from his sleep, instantly she threw herself back into her work.
Jack finished up his weapon checks by doing an ammo count, as a sniper he didn't believe in solving a problem with vigorous expenditure of ammunition, one shot worked wonders and he still had plenty for now.
"Right that's done, is it ok if I store my weapons over on that rack with yours?" he asked Tik who had her back to him while vigorously skinning and cooking the lizards, it seemed that Yaujta threw themselves completely into whatever they did if Tik was anything to go by, she glanced at him and gave him a gesture that he took as an ok, so he carried his guns over and placed them on the rack next to hers, then he couldn't help but stop and admire the craftsmanship of Tik's weapons, it was obvious that he herself took pride in her weapons as he could see that they too were perfectly maintained, her long daggers were perfectly oiled and looked like they were sharp enough to cut a passing fly in half if it so much as glanced at the edge of the blade, he was going to say something about it but he could see that Tik was busy and decided to pass on it and returned to his seat silently, but as he sat there he kept finding his eyes drawn to her strong broad back, he loved the way the light from the candles seemed to be absorbed by her natural camouflage coloured skin and the way it seemed to create and almost shadow like aura around her, he found himself wondering if that was why they were called the Shadow Claw clan? Because the shadows clung to her like a shroud making his eyes have to work even harder to truly see her, his eyes wandered down from her large shoulders over her broad back to her shapely feminine hips and her feminine rear before he suddenly realised what he was doing and was forced to give himself yet another mental slap, what the hell had gotten into him? He truly didn't have a clue but he was going to have to reign it in before it wound up getting him into a world of very painful shit, because he really didn't think that Tik was going to really appreciate being stared at like that by him.
It wasn't long before Tik was done with her cooking and presented Jack with a rather sizable plate full of cut and boiled roots and lizard meat, he thanked her politely for the meal and accepted it, he instantly found himself fascinated in how she was going to eat without cheeks to hold the food in, but he knew that staring at her while she ate would be a death sentence, so he picked up the utensils that'd she provided him and noticed that they were handmade, they were expertly carved from bone and had been polished with something so much that they actually shone. He started to eat quietly and made sure that he intently stared at his plate the entire time, blissfully unaware of the fact that the very same curiosity was eating at a certain female Yaujta on how he would eat without mandibles to control the food, but she was a being of honour and staring at one's guests while they ate was not an honourable thing to do so she too stared at her plate while she ate.
Much to his surprise the food was actually rather delicious, Tik had spiced the meat with some sort of concoction that really burst with flavour as he ate, he just hoped it wasn't going to kill him in the long run, as he finished he looked at Tik and when she caught his eye he smiled at her flashing her his best smile which caused her brows to go up, then much to his own surprise something incredibly cheesy came out of his mouth,
"That was delicious my compliments to the chef and huntress who provided for us" he said having no fucking idea where that came from, but it seemed to strike a chord because Tik clicked her mandibles together making the happy click, "Ack is well mannered" she said simply then she stood up and took his empty plate to wash them up for some reason she couldn't understand smiling the entire time.
Now it was time for them to get some sleep and this led to a bit of a dilemma, as not only where was Ack going to sleep, a momentary thought about allowing him to share her bed was vigorously chased from her mind by reason wielding a big stick, but also Tik eleth liked to sleep naked and there was no way she would strip off completely in the presence of a male who was not her mate, in her culture it wasn't frowned upon in fact rather the opposite, but it was more of a personal comfort thing with her, she didn't feel it was right to expose yourself in such a way to someone that you didn't have a truly intimate relationship with, as at least then you wouldn't be exposing yourself to mockery, with her hang ups about the way her body looked she really didn't feel like having an ooman start mocking her for how short she was, how small her limbs were, how unfeminine her hips were and how so obviously unattractive she was compared to her much taller and far more attractive peers, but much to her surprise Ack solved both her dilemmas himself.
"Right well, I guess it's about time we get some rest and I don't know about you but I feel like I could sleep for a thousand years, so I'll take the floor with those rather comfortable looking rugs of yours, oh and would you like me to step out for a moment do that you can get yourself changed for sleep as I'm only guessing here and feel free to correct me if I'm wrong but I doubt Yaujta sleep in their battle armour" he said looking at her right in the eyes, his honourable conduct yet again surprised Tik eleth,
"Ack is willing to step out while I change?" she asked curiously, he nodded,
"Of course, it's not right for a man to spy on a lady while she changes for bed, especially so being a guest in her home, I'm a gentleman I'll have you know" he said flashing his sharp teeth at her again, she was really starting to like when he did that,
"Entleman?" she asked sounding confused,
"Oh right sorry human term, it's used to describe a man who conducts himself properly, honourably and with respect in the presence of a woman" he said,
Tik eleth clicked her mandibles in thought of this, the Yaujta had nothing like that be she had to admit she liked the concept of it and Ack had already proven himself to be honourable, she was beginning to believe that the males of her kind could learn a lot from this ooman, she nodded and gave him a gesture of thanks, he nodded and got up and left the cave simply saying
"Call me when you are ready" as he left.
The more she learned the more she liked this ooman, he was a special breed and she knew that with his help she would finally leave this foul rock of a planet and return to her clan, she also vowed to herself that she would honour her word to return him to his clan also, she began to strip off her armour as she thought about home, she left on the bare essentials just enough to cover her modesty as she readied herself for bed, then she blew out all but two of the candles before calling for Jack to return, she was in her bed under the furs as he entered, he gave her a flash of his teeth that made her heart jump, again that thought of inviting him to the bed ran through her mind before being chased back out, he turned and blew out the final two candles plunging the cave into darkness, she could see him moving over to the part of the floor he'd chosen to sleep, then she heard him settle himself on the floor and rearrange the furs to get comfortable, "Good night Tik sleep well" he said from the shadows, this confused her but she figured that it must be a ooman thing so she decided to return it,
"Goodnight Ack" she said then she settled herself down a bit, it wasn't long before she could hear the pitch of Ack's breathing change and she knew that he was asleep, but for some reason sleep refused to claim her as well, it felt like there was something that was left undone then she remembered what she hadn't done that day, so silently she slid out of the bed being careful not to disturb the sleeping ooman on her floor, silently she retrieved her mask and clipped it to her face and instantly the night vision kicked in and the room lit up, then she sat back on the bed and pulled out her diary and quill before retrieving a small vial of shimmer lizard blood from behind the bed, she took out her quill and dipped it and began to write.
She kept find herself stuck on what to really say about the last day or two hitting something the scribes she'd known often referred to as writers wall or was it block?
So she decided to do something that she often did when she found herself stuck and just to let her subconscious mind do the work, she would place her quill to the page and let her mind go blank, she would go into a self-induced mediatory trance by slowing her breathing and her heart and at some point her sub conscious mind would realise that it suddenly had free reign to express itself and the quill would begin to move on its own.
After about half an hour she brought herself out of the self-induced mediatory trance and she looked down at the diary and discovered to her surprise that she had written four full pages, she flipped back and began to read what she had written and her eyes went as large as dinner plates as she realised that she had written three complete pages about her new ooman ally and also a poem about his valiant victory over the giant lizard, she placed her quill into its place as a page break and closed the book with her hands shaking slightly, she placed the diary and the vial back into its place behind her bed and laid down under her covers while she stared at the ceiling, these couldn't be her most inner thoughts surly? The words on the pages confused her deeply but as she thought more on them sleep crept in and clubbed her over the head and dragged her down into the realm of dreams where her sub conscious mind had some more surprises waiting for her.