Desperation makes people do things they never would've done otherwise, though that is not always a bad thing...
The skirmisher led McArthy through the winding trees, the environment slowly becoming more familiar to him. Soon, he realized they were going back to the cave. McArthy would've assumed it abandoned it, seeing as an Elite had followed it there. But if the bird thought it was safe, he had no choice but to trust it.
They entered the cave, McArthy particularly unsure of what to do. He stood at the cave's mouth, watching the skirmisher wandering in, seemingly looking for something. After a few seconds, they chirped and walked to the wall, then picked up McArthy's silenced smg. It turned to him, then carefully held it out.
He chuckled as it stopped in front of him, then he gently took it and said, "Thanks for the offer, but it doesn't work anymore. Look."
The skirmisher backed up with a squeak as he swung the smg around and aimed it at the wall, then pulled the trigger. Nothing happened. He kept clicking it, then turned back to the skirmisher, a frown under his helmet.
It stared at the gun, then held out their hand and made a few soft chirping sounds. McArthy looked a them, confused, then noticed the dismantled weapons on the ground. He huffed, then handed it the weapon and said, "Yeah, you can go ahead and use it for whatever project you're working on, it's not very useful to me anymore."
He watched as it held the smg, then it walked over to some of the weapons on the ground. Curious, McArthy walked into the cave to get a better view, then watched as it expertly began dismantling the smg in front of him, using a tool it had hidden on it's waist.
They carefully took out its components, giving them a long observant glare, before placing them neatly beside themself. Soon enough, something caught their interest, making them let out an enthusiastic squawk. They pulled the part out, then lazily tossed it over their shoulder, McArthy side stepping away from the flying piece. He looked at the piece with confusion, then turned back to see the skirmisher moving to another dismantled smg.
They took the second gun apart, before they had an identical piece in their grasp. McArthy slowly nodded his head as he realized it wasn't just taking his gun apart, it was fixing it.
After a minute of working, the skirmisher rose with smg in her hands, fully reassembled. It then held out the weapon to McArthy once again. He grabbed the gun, looked at it for a moment, then turned around and pulled the trigger, sending a few rounds into the snow outside.
He was more than impressed with the bird. Then again, seeing how many weapons they had dismantled, they would definitely know more than even him about the inner workings of human weapons.
He lightly chuckled, then turned back around and asked, "So, what is up with all the weapons anyway?"
The bird looked at him, then tilted its head in confusion. McArthy sighed, then gestured to all the weapons on the ground, then asked, "Why?"
He watched as it looked to the weapons, then its eyes seemed to light up. The skirmisher ran into the cave, then removed the lamp from the wall and presented it to him. He stared at it, then the skirmisher placed it onto the ground and gestured to the two partly dismantled beam rifles sitting off to the side.
McArthy watched as it quickly and efficiently took the weapon apart, then removed a strange looking battery from it. It took the battery to the lamp, then removed a cap from the bottom and carefully pulled out a similar battery. It plugged the new one into the lamp, then McArthy watched a bright glow return and heat began radiating from it.
McArthy nodded his head, finally understanding. He then looked at the human weapons with a chuckle and said, "Yeah, our guns aren't exactly battery powered like yours. Can't fault you for trying, though."
The skirmisher looked at him, and he could sense the frustration in them. They were each other's only allies at the moment, and neither of them could understand a word each other said.
McArthy fel a sudden hunger pain in his stomach, then grunted and walked towards the wall. He swung his sack around, noticing the skirmisher carefully eyeing him. He pulled out an MRE along with his jug of water, then sat the sack against the cave wall.
As he put his sack down, he felt a sudden yank on his free hand, then spun around to see the skirmisher holding his MRE. McArthy jumped at it, grabbing the food from the skirmisher's grasp, making it yelp in surprise. He gripped the MRE, watching the skirmisher go through multiple wild gestures accompanied by what seemed to be a few words of it's native language.
McArthy wished he could understand at least a word so he could get an explanation, then the skirmisher simply gestured at the heat lamp, then at his MRE. He looked at the two items, then watched as the bird fiddled with a knob on the lamp, then it's glow brightened, and it started giving off a more intense heat. It suddenly struck him, this was how it prepared the other MRE's. It obviously couldn't start a fire, so it was using the lamp.
He nodded his head, now understanding, then held it out and said, "Sorry, thought you were just stealing from me."
The skirmisher eyed him, then pulled the food from his hand and walked towards the lamp. McArthy took a final sip from his jug as he watched it place the MRE down, then pick up a metal bowl from against the wall. It gave it a small shake, then turned and walked out of the cave.
He shut his jug and looked at the bend leading out until the skirmisher returned, the bowl now full of snow. He nodded, it must have had the same idea when it comes to water. It placed the bowl on top of the lamp, the snow quickly melting under the heat. The skirmisher lightly snorted, then turned and eyed the jug in McArthy's hand.
He gave it a light shake, then said, "I'll need to boil some myself. Ran dry."
As usual, the bird simply looked at him, not knowing what he said, then huffed and turned back to the water.
The two sat in a lingering awkward silence, though McArthy knew this was something he would have to get used to. At least, if they kept together. Maybe the bird felt pitiful and was just giving him shelter for the night. Either way, he was grateful, it was just painfully irritating not being able to communicate.
An idea struck his mind as he heard the water begin bubbling, then he turned to the skirmisher and asked, "You can't speak, but can you write?"
It turned to face him, tilting its head, then McArthy used his hands to make a writing gesture. It slowly began bobbing its head, then turned back to the water.
McArthy groaned, then said, "We need some way to communicate."
The bird perked up at that sentence, then turned to him with a soft squawk of curiosity. McArthy raised an eyebrow under his helmet, maybe he said another word it knew.
"Communication?" he asked hopefully.
It began nodding it's head, then its eyes lit up once again, the idea flooding into their mind. They copied his writing motion, then croaked out, "C...communi...cate."
Finally, something. McArthy was almost giddy at the realization. If this meant what he thought, perhaps the bird could write and read English, at least better than it could speak. Unfortunately, he didn't exactly have a pen and paper on him.
He wondered where he could get some, then the base came into mind. He did see drawers in that research room full of tech, but that place was a hotzone for all kinds of Covies. To go there was risky, but maybe it was worth the risk to get some kind of understanding between the two of them.
At this point McArthy had a good idea in mind, but that wasn't for at least tomorrow. Right now, he was hungry. The water was boiling, then he watched the skirmisher turn around and walk around the bend. McArthy, confused, got up and followed. He watched the skirmisher walk into the forest, next to a tree, then they began digging into the ground.
After half a minute of digging, he watched it pull an MRE out of the dirt and refill the hole. It turned back and walked past him into the cave. He watched it walk past, then looked at the refilled hole. Maybe they had a few of those scattered around, that might explain where they had gotten a carbine out of nowhere, and why they no longer have it.
McArthy took his seat next to his sack once again, watching as the skirmisher went to work with the MRE's. After a minute, the bird turned to him with his MRE and held it out with a soft chirp. He took a metal spoon from his sack, then gently took the food with a nod, then watched the skirmisher turn around to tend to its own food.
As night fell, the temperature began quickly dropping, even lower than the last few nights. If McArthy remembered right, it was near the end of fall here before they were ordered to evacuate the planet completely. That only meant it would keep getting colder, and right now, the only safe shelter they had was a short cave.
He finished his food and set the empty bag off to the side, unknowing whether the skirmisher cared if he cast it aside along with the other bags. Once he was done, he noticed the skirmisher didn't use a utensil to eat. Instead, it simply tilted the MRE back and poured the hot food into its mouth, not caring for the heat one bit.
McArthy let out a huff at the sight. He didn't know much about the Covenant and their eating habits, but the sight was amusing to him. Seeing the same kind of alien he's seen mowing down marines with advanced plasma weaponry eating in that manner, even with less than human features, was a strange sight. But, they weren't in comfortable positions, McArthy should be glad he had a spoon himself.
The ODST's curiosity of the bird grew the more he watched it. Unlike most of the people he served with, McArthy has always had a certain fascination with the different species of the Covenant. He always found it disappointing that the first intelligent species humanity ran into decided to wage a genocidal war against them. Despite some of his peers looking down on his curiosity of them, a lot of his knowledge of the Covenant species came in handy more times than not. It was an asset his team was more than happy to have.
With his last thought, McArthy's mind quickly switched from observing the alien before him, to thinking back on the team he had served with. For 2 years he had served with those three. For two years they had been thrown into the middle of a roaring firefight again and again, pinned down, bombarded, charged at, and through it all they never wavered.
Well, McArthy willingly admitted he had a lighter stomach than them, the smell of a rotting corpse and the sight of someone's corpse always made his stomach turn. It was usually only a problem when they weren't getting shot at, when adrenaline wasn't pumping through his veins. He always attempted to avert his gaze from the dead, especially when they're corpse was disfigured by the weaponry that killed them.
He'd never seen their sergeant, Kenzie, even bat an eye at the dead. Most called her emotionless, but McArthy knew better. She was just… hard boiled.
Mark was the emotional one. McArthy remembered after his first combat deployment, once the dust had cleared, he was staring out at a field of dead marines. There was even guts and blood on his armor. The Covenant were pounding them hard, but they managed to push them back in the end, unfortunately taking heavy casualties. Though, at the time, he couldn't focus on the victory, and only at the dead. Mark was the one who took the time to make him feel better, to feel more at peace. Mark was very soft spoken, and he knew how to talk to someone much younger than him. He was basically the father McArthy wished he had, but the universe was a cruel place.
Belle was what he'd call the problem child. She was a hot head who didn't know how to speak without slipping a curse into every sentence. She constantly berated someone for fucking up, and would not let an argument end without getting in the last word. McArthy vividly remembered her getting into a fight with a combat officer on one deployment. It took a full minute before they could get pulled off of each other, and given the circumstances, she barely dodged any punishment. Despite all that, he knew it was more of a façade she put on, like she was trying to be someone other than herself. She told him this when they were trapped in a bunker for a couple of days. Belle held some kind of hatred towards who she was before the military, and saw the war as a chance to completely change herself.
As McArthy let the memories flow and remembered them, he hadn't noticed the tears running down his cheeks. His mind cleared a little from his thoughts, then noticed the skirmisher staring at him, a hint of concern in their eyes. It took him a moment to figure out why, then felt the tears and threw his helmet back over his head.
He grunted as he shifted the helmet on his head. Why was he even thinking about them? They were dead. After everything that happened, they died in a ship trying to retreat from a lost planet. McArthy was never going to see them again, they were simply shadows now. Memories.
His attempts to quell the memories only made his tears run harder, embarrassing him further. Not only is he stuck in a cave with an alien, but now the alien's seen him in such a vulnerable state. He hasn't cried in front of someone in almost a year, and now he did it in front of an alien.
McArthy moved his eyes back up to the skirmisher, watching as it looked at him curiously. It was obviously curious to his crying, its head tilted as it watched him.
He waved his hand dismissively as he stifled his tears, then said, "It's nothing, it's… nothing. Just…"
The skirmisher seemed to sense the emotions behind his tone, then quickly dipped their head and turned away. He watched as it turned the dial on the lamp, making it's bright light dim only a little, then it set it between them.
A cold breeze drifted around the bend and brushed past McArthy's armored body, still getting a shiver out of him. The lamp was giving off a nice warmth, but it definitely wasn't enough to stop him shaking in discomfort. He turned to see the skirmisher was far less affected by the cold. They were taking their shoulder armor off, followed by their chest and back piece. It then laid them against the wall and walked back to its side of the lamp. They kept their leg armor on as they laid their body against the cave floor, obviously trying to get some rest.
McArthy let out a small chuckle at the idea. He'd be surprised if he got any rest himself in this bitter cold. He watched the skirmisher's chest rise and fall, surprised they trusted him enough to turn their back and fall asleep. Though, he didn't blame it. It's obviously been on the run from the Covenant for a bit now, and he was probably its first real ally. Desperation makes you do strange things.
McArthy let out a soft yawn, realizing he might as well try and get sleep. He scooted closer to the lamp, then lowered his body onto the ground. He kept the helmet on his head as he laid down, he wanted to keep as much warmth trapped inside his clothes as possible.
He already had a plan for the morning to get some paper and pen, though the issue came with communicating the plan to the bird. McArthy yawned again, feeling his eyelids begin to become heavier. He didn't want to think about the plan too much right now, he'd figure it out in the morning. Right now, he more than happily accepted the darkness as his eyes shut, and he fell into slumber.