Author's Note: Well, Chapter 3 is here! I know it's rather short, only a thousand words, but length will have to be a thing for me to work on. Anyways, thanks to all of you for the continued support and reviews (I just got another one! I'm positively jubilant!), and enjoy! Remember to favorite, follow, and review! Well, maybe not the favorite and follow part. But at least review! If you have any ideas for the story, I'm open! Next update will probably be next Saturday. Enjoy!

AESEARIA

"I would greatly appreciate it if you would redirect your gun, please," Aesearia intoned to the Terran. "Unless, of course, you no longer find interest in the living world." The Terran gave a blunt grunt at this.

"Look, pal, I've got a gun in your face, so I don't think you're in much position to threaten me. Now let me ask again: are you Protoss or are you native to this planet?"

Aesearia, out of pride, immediately turned herself to pure energy and Charged behind the Terran. Her psi blades were up within the blink of an eye and pressed against the (nearly non-existent) neck of the Terran Marine suit.

"You gun is no longer 'in my face', and my psi blade is now in yours. Now, before you agitate me further, lower your gun."

The Terran took quite a while assessing the situation, and finally seemed to have arrived at the conclusion that the fight was lost. He lowered his gun with much reluctance. Aesearia, however, did not lower her psi blade.

"Now, now," the Terran said. "I've lowered my weapon. I guess you're about to do the same?"

"To lower my weapon willingly would be a great display of trust, you realize. I don't trust you in the slightest."

"Well, considering that we seem to be the only sentient beings around here, I don't think we should antagonize each other."

"I wouldn't be so sure," Aesearia sniffed. Despite this, she still lowered her blades.

"Thanks," the Terran grunted.

"Do you have any shelter?" Aesearia asked bluntly once the Terran sat down (noisily) at the foot of a tree.

"No. If I had shelter, don't you think I would be in it at night? I've seen a damn load of caves, but I ain't too eager to get in one of those."

"Why?"

The Terran finally opened up his visor and scratched his chin absentmindedly. His face, dotted with two brilliantly green eyes, was scarred badly on the left cheek. He barely had any hair, and his chin jutted out slightly defiantly.

"Well, you see, these caves, as far as I can tell, go down rather far. Very dark. And these… things… come out of the dark. Skeletons. And these things close to Banelings. Very deadly. Speaking of which, you don't think there are Zerg here, do you?"

"I'm not sure," Aesearia said slowly, "but that is a possibility never to be ruled out. I know the creatures of which you speak. Are there any smaller caves around here? I'm not too terribly thrilled by the idea of staying out in the middle of the night in an unknown, very hostile world."

"Heh," the Terran chuckled. "Never thought I'd hear that from a Protoss. You are Protoss, right?" Seeing Aesearia's nod of confirmation, he added: "By the way, name's Ethan. Ethan Carter."

"And my name is Aesearia."

"I would say that I'm pleased to meet you, but I'm not sure that's true."

"Fret not. That feeling is mutual."

Aesearia, Arf, and Ethan travelled in a random direction until sunrise, passing the time by discussing the similarities between Arf and a Terran animal called "dog". They would not have stopped either, had Ethan not complained loudly and obnoxiously about the need for food.

"I need food," he would say over and over again, much to Aesearia's annoyance. "All humans do. You're Protoss. You wouldn't understand that. Humans can't survive without food."

And so every minute or so, he would repeat some variation of this to Aesearia. It finally got to her after a while.

"Well, if you did not waste so much energy in complaining, perhaps you would not be so famished yet!" she yelled. "Conserve your energy!"

"Well, I'm bloody starvin'! I need to eat something!"

"And what exactly do you plan to eat? Exactly! I've not the remotest idea as to what are and what aren't poisonous around here, so if you'd like to try, by all means, proceed!"

Which shut Ethan up.

They continued to travel monotonously until Ethan saw a desert.

"Woah!" Ethan yelled. "Desert? But over here it's still grass!"

Aesearia, for her part, merely looked on somewhat curiously. The sudden climate change wasn't the most alarming thing she ever discovered on the planet. In all likelihood, even the curious cube structure of everything would pale in comparison to what is to come.

"Cow!" Ethan yelled for what seemed like the millionth time. The sincerity in his voice convinced Aesearia to look over, though.

Ethan was screaming at yet another cube animal, mostly brown. Ethan was firing at the animal (did he call it "cow"?), while Arf was assaulting it with his ("its" or "his"?) bare teeth. The poor animal died in about a second, and it dropped something. More than intrigued, Aesearia walked over to observe more closely.

Ethan picked up a raw-looking thing from the ground. Eyeing it hungrily, he tore off a piece and ate it whole, throwing the other half to Arf, who subsequently tackled the "meat".

"Has it not crossed your mind that the meat may be poisoned?" Aesearia chastised.

"Well," Ethan said after swallowing, "that's easy for you to say. You don't need to eat. When humans are hungry, we'll eat anything."

"Anything?" Aesearia asked darkly. Ethan rolled his eyes.

"Well, don't know about you, but I need to find myself another one of those animals. I'm far from satisfied." With that, Ethan tore off into the desert with Arf at his heels.

Aesearia heaved a great mental sigh.

Of all creatures I could have met, why, WHY, WHY a Terran?