JESSIE

After my outburst, Luc kept me close all night, holding and consoling me, making soft cooing noises as he mumbled my name under his breath, coaxed by multiple words in his language I didn't understand. I didn't get much of an explanation for why he was gone so long until the next day when crouched beside me, emptying his bag next to my sitting form, before pressing two carved and intrinsically painted small figurines into the palms of my hand. I brought them to my line of vision, observing the one that was a Helli, and the other that was an alien animal I had seen once in a while in the colony base's parameters.

They were beautiful. I smiled softly at him, watching him chur a bit before emptying the whole bag. There was something soft like paste wrapped up in leaves, a bracelet carved out of wood, and slabs of what looked like the writing material I had found in his cliffside nest. There was a hollow container of what I assumed was ink, and a wooden stick, shaped with a sharp curved point.

"T-thank you..." I trailed, realizing that they were tools for me to write with. I looked up at him, staring into his large pupils as he stared at me expectantly. I wished he could understand me — hear and acknowledge my gratitude. I looked down at the items in front of me, noticing one of the rubber leaflets was rolled up, I unrolled the top half with a few fingers, cocking my head when I noticed it was some type of map. Luc made a nervous sound, and I looked up at him before using my other hand to open the map even more. I didn't understand the writing, but I understood the landmarks. I recognized the colony settlement. There was a huge number of drawn slashes and points right by it, and then I noticed similar slashes around other landmarks on the map, but none had as many markings as the landmark for the primary colony. I sat up straight, bringing the map to my eyes. It was a population density map.

I blinked hard, realizing this was what I had been looking for, as my eyes scanned settlement to settlement. Many I didn't know about, and some I had some vague idea of, but now had an actual pinpoint for.

Why did Helli need a map specifically to show human settlements?

Maybe Luc was asking around for how to return me? The thought had made me upset — just a little bit, but I didn't let it show in my expression. Of course, he would be trying to connect me back with other humans. He'd taken in an injured animal, and now that it was healed, what usually followed was releasing it. He wasn't stupid. He knew I wouldn't do so well on my own if I was dropped just anywhere. It had to be close to a settlement, and this map showed him his options.

I forced myself to smile, reaching out to touch his knee. He was still in a squat looking at me with an intensity I couldn't quite read. It didn't matter why he had got the map, I still needed it. If I could get the black box to someone who could do something with its information, maybe my guilt would wane.

And, if Luc tried to leave me behind.

Well, I wouldn't just let him.

My eyes shifted to the map again, and I swallowed feeling an uncomfortable lump in my throat. I needed to show him more words. I would need them to explain anything. The situation with the starship, what I needed to do, and most of all — I needed the words to express my feelings... express that I had no intentions of going back to a settlement. And... I wanted him to have the words to tell me that he didn't want me to leave either, and all the context clues I had picked up on were not nonsense. I wanted him to say he wanted me as much as I wanted him.

I rolled the map up, putting it back in his bag without saying anything. I shouldn't be making a fuss about it now. I couldn't even if I wanted to. I didn't have the words to express the situation to him. Deciding to put it aside, I put one of the rubber slabs in front of me, before opening the ink bottle and then finding the right end of the writing stick. I drew two faces — one with a smile, and one with a frown, writing the words 'happy' and 'sad'. Luc seemed to perk up, shifting closer to me so he could see what I was doing. The wing closest to me stretched out, before curling back to enclose me in its feathers. I kept making more drawings and writing more words. Most of them were words for emotions and phrases for expressing time.

A while.

Afraid.

Soon.

Here.

Excitement.

Today. Tomorrow. Yesterday.

After being apart from him for four days and almost losing my mind, I needed to be able to express how I felt in more terms and share a better concept of time with him.

***

Maybe it was because of crying, or just Luc being more vigilant, but he started taking me out of the nest with him. He kept me within his visual range when he went hunting or scavenging. I was thankful because I wasn't sure if I wanted to be alone anymore for hours at a time.

I hadn't been able to explain what had happened on the third day when he was gone — the grey-green hand clawing at the air as the Helli tried to barge into the nest was printed into my mind. I still looked at the entrance with worry from time to time, nervous that whatever had tried to get in hadn't just been passing by. But for all I knew Luc might have known the Helli and was on friendly terms with it.

Right now, I was sitting on a pitiful turf of grass a little distance from a creek that Luc was mucking around in. He seemed to be looking for a specific type of moss. He would occasionally pick up a rock, and examine the growth on it before either throwing it back into the water or stuffing it into his belt bag. The water didn't come up very far. The slow-moving stream only brushed just above the heels of his permanently raised feet.

I ate a bit of shortbread, I had packed a bit of the the pasty substance Luc had gotten for me, and was using it as a kind of dip. I watched him for what felt like another half hour before standing up and dusting the crumbs off my pants. I approached the creek, watching him turn to look at me when I stopped at the edge of the water. He always looked tense when I was around water.

For good reason.

I reminded myself, smiling a little at him. "Jessie, okay," I assured him, using the front of one boot to edge my foot out of the other. I had to raise my leg to deal with the other foot, before rolling up my pants and taking a step into the creek. The bottom of the creak was rocky — littered with petals and small mushy plants. I wadded through the water, walking up to Luc who was currently inspecting a rock. He threw it back in the water, letting out a churring noise before looking down at me. I grinned when he reached out to pat my hair, not upset that his fingers were wet and sandy.

I lingered beside him for the next few hours, and he would occasionally stop what he was doing to touch me. The feeling of affection that swelled in my chest anytime it happened dulled the ache I was starting to feel in my feet. My toes were no doubt prunes by now, but I didn't want to sit in the grass and watch him from a distance.

I listened to him say words to himself in his language as he inspected the rock. I had no idea what he needed them for or what he was even doing, but I was just happy to stand there with him. I liked our simple days, even though the situation with the black box never left my mind.

It was just nice to have simple days where all that was on my mind was eating, reading, and being with Luc.

I was working as quickly as I could to create some sort of structure around teaching Luc English. I would have to explain I needed to go back — but not to the main colony site, and I would also have to explain I still wanted to be with him. I was in my thoughts when Luc suddenly froze in place, his eyes darting to the distance ahead of us, turning right. A frown played on his face as he pulled the hand he was using to pet my hair. It lingered between us as if he was trying to make a decision.

"Jessie, here," he mumbled, looking back at me with intense eyes. I nodded my head, understanding that he wanted me to stay put. His eyes softened a bit before the heels of his feet bent into the water as he launched into the air, flying in the direction of whatever he'd heard.

I stared after him, wondering what had caught his attention, but I didn't have time to dwell on it because my whole body ran cold when I heard the sound of gun calibers clicking into place.

A male voice. "Civilian, you have to stay calm. We're attempting to perform a standard extraction. The Avian was successfully distracted, it will not harm you. Turn and walk towards my voice."

I turned as my heart started to beat quickly. What did they mean the Avian was distracted? Was that what Luc had gone to investigate?

My palms opened and closed as I tried to stop them from shaking. I looked towards where I heard the noise, just off by some boulders. I could barely distinguish a person from the rock, but if I paid attention, I noticed the four people crouching on the ground — the color of their tactical gear blending into the landscape's sandy brown color. I wondered how long they had been there. It couldn't have been when I was sitting on the grass. I would have noticed them.

One of them raised a hand, probably deducing that I couldn't see them, but my worry had me frozen in place. I had no idea where Luc was, or what they had done to lead him away, and I needed to know.

"Civilian," the man said standing up, probably annoyed with me. "Walk towards us. We are attempting to save your life."

I did as I was told, deciding to ask my questions within better range of them. I stepped out of the creak, making my way towards them. I stopped just short of a few meters, trying to calm myself as I looked for words to say.

"Er... thank you, can I leave now...?" I asked, looking from one soldier's face to the other. There were two men and one woman.

The man who had spoken to me shook his head, and the woman — who had ginger red hair was staring at me hard.

"If we extract someone from no man's zone, we have to bring them in to get processed. I'm assuming you're part of the defectors?"

Defector was the term used by the main colony to refer to the population of human settlements that had an estranged relationship with the human military and weren't under their control. No man's land wasn't a term I had heard of before, but I assumed it meant everything not claimed or under rigorous surveillance by the main colony settlement.

"I—"

"He's one of the sick bay surgeons are you fucking blind," the red-haired woman said, standing up. "Something English, he got kicked out for administering a procedure he shouldn't have."

"I remember, a little over two months ago?" one of the crouching men said, looking at me. "You look healthy."

The man I'd been talking to looked over to the woman and then back at me. There was a hint of recognition in his eyes. "Ah..." he trailed. "Well, can't blame me for thinking an exile wouldn't last that long."

The group chuckled like there was an inside joke I wasn't privy to.

The man who had been talking to me smiled a little. "Looks like you've suffered enough, doc. We can still bring you in, and get you in a warm bed."

I shook my head. "I'm fine."

"You just tell the commander you won't do it again, and he'll let you off—"

"I'm fine," I repeated strongly. "I don't want to go back."

The red-haired woman cradled her gun to her chest. "We just saved your life. We won't be here next time when one of those picks you up. You were sheltered. We're soldiers. There's been reports of those things just swooping down and stealing people. We don't know what for yet. We're trying to find out. Can't even shoot one down, they can take a lot of bullets before they get tired, and you don't want to get one angry, they'll gut everything in radius without warning. We're trying to see if we can get one alive — get it to talk. You know Josephine? She's been working on their language stuff."

The woman's description of Helli didn't sit right in my mind. It wasn't like anything I knew — well, it was nothing like Luc. The part of her rambling that stuck out to me though was her point about the military trying to get a hold of one alive. On one hand, it eased my thoughts to know that Luc wouldn't be dead, but on the other hand, I was worried about where he was.

"I'm okay."

"You want us to leave you here to die?"

I shrugged. "I'm fine..." I scratched my arm. "So were you trying to catch that H-Avian?" I said, correcting myself before I used the proper name.

"Simple catch trap. Lured it in with a sound of one of their own. They seem territorial," the man still crouching said.

"Did it work?"

"You're asking a lot of questions doc," the man who had spoken to me first said. "You don't want to come back, but you seem mighty interested in what we're doing. Are you some sort of defector spy now?"

I shook my head, raising my hand. "No, I was just wondering..." I trailed, taking a step back. "I'll leave you guys to it," I said, starting to turn when every single one of them raised a gun at me.

The first man I had talked to gave me a sympathetic look. "We meant it when we said people don't get a choice about how these extractions go. The processing? You have to do it. Sorry doc, you're coming along."

I opened my mouth to say something, but nothing came out. Instead, I was deafened by human screaming and the sound of wayward gunshots as a corpse dropped to the ground. Luc dropped to the ground in front of me with a heavy thump. What looked like an overgrown bear trap clinging to one of his feet. The jagged teeth tore into white flesh and exposed bone. There was blood everywhere, but somehow... He was still standing.

I watched as he snarled, showing rows of sharp teeth as he lunged at the soldiers. The man who had been crouching had lost his gun, the man I had been talking to seemed to have fired all his rounds into the corpse Luc had dropped in fear, and abandoned it, making a run for it. The female soldier was the last one with a working weapon, and Luc seemed to know it. He pinned her to the bolder, kicking the crouching man as far away from his gun as possible as wrestled the gun of the woman and hit her square in the face with the base of the rifle. The man he had pushed away got up, but instead of helping the red-haired woman he ran as well.

Luc turned to look at me when he was sure the woman was knocked out, and I took in the whole of him. He had blood on him that wasn't his on his chest and arms, there was a bullet wound on his shoulder, and the stupid bear trap was still clinging to his leg. He made a move to step forward, wincing as he dragged the leg stuck in the bear trap.

I shook my head as I began walking towards him, reaching out to touch him with my hands once I was close enough. "Luc..." shaking as his name left my mouth, it felt like there was ringing in my ears. A part of my left arm was throbbing but I didn't want to look at it right now.