Fire

by Fire [Evernight] (mobi)

  Chad took Flame into his galley and said, “I’m the chef for this group. It’s my job to cook for everyone, but Duncan will be doing that today since I’ve only just found you. But later you will learn to help me produce the food for all of us.”

  “How is it possible to gather enough food for so many people, especially when you eat more than once a day?” she asked.

  “We bought a lot of seeds with us to start planting crops. Of course we’ll need to raise some animals for food as well. With the ocean right beside us we shouldn’t have any trouble catching plenty of fish. All of us will work together as a team to make it possible.”

  While he was talking he took two big serves of oats, then added raisins, pumpkin and sesame seeds, walnuts, cashew nuts and pecans, some dried goji berries, and then four servings of barley and rye flakes and mixed them all together in a large bowl.

  He grabbed two meal bowls and piled his high with the mixture, serving her about half a bowlful. There’d be some mixture left over if she was still hungry and wanted more. He poured milk over both bowls and then placed them on the counter and handed her a spoon as he took one himself.

  He scooped up a huge mouthful, chewed, and swallowed. His version of muesli always tasted good to him, and it provided a warrior with enough nutrients and energy to function until midday when a proper meal would be provided.

  Chad looked at Flame. She had a very small amount on her spoon and ate cautiously, but she seemed to enjoy it.

  “Why don’t you fill your spoon and eat faster?”

  “I’m sorry, sir,” she began and then she relaxed and answered in Mu Araen. “You forget we are scavengers and have only what we can carry. I’m not very used to eating with a spoon and don’t wish to spill the food off it.”

  “But it doesn’t matter if food spills. Hold your spoon over the bowl and whatever falls off goes back in the bowl for later. But no one will chastise you even if you drop food on the floor. You can relax. We’ll never let you starve.”

  Then he had a thought. “Is that why you are so thin? Do your people starve?”

  “Oh no. We almost always have a meal every evening. We gather food all day and eat at night. My friends caught a fish several times on the journey here as well.”

  “What happens in winter when there are fewer fruits and berries to gather?” he asked suddenly curious to know how these Earthlings had survived over the years since the world was destroyed.

  “We always find a proper shelter before it gets too cold. Sometimes we stayed in old houses. They were the best as there were plenty of things we could burn to keep the fire going all the time without having to gather wood.”

  He was about to tell her she hadn’t answered his question, and then he realized she was answering him in her own way, so he waited.

  “Once we had located a proper, weather-proof shelter, than everyone would go out every day in groups looking for tubers, vegetables, edible grasses, the sweet inner bark of trees, nuts, and maybe even an animal or two. Catching an animal was always good because meat and fat helped us stay warm in winter.”

  “So you have never grown crops? Do you know what is involved in caring for a garden?”

  “No, sir, but I will pay attention and learn.”

  “What is your special skill? What are you best at?”

  “Skill is a new word to me but I think I understand. I’m the keeper of the firestones for Terah, Skye, Raine, and me. When I strike the stones together they almost always produce fire for me. I understand them and they show me where and how to hit them. But I don’t know if that’s a skill. I think Terah might understand the plants for you though. She has an uncanny ability at uncovering mushrooms, tubers, and hidden edibles. No one else is as good as her.”

  Chad finished his breakfast thoughtfully. Terah was Andreas’s bride so it seemed the power had worked perfectly in choosing her. What might Flame’s talent be?

  “Who named you Flame? Were you named that after you showed skill with the fire stones? What was your name before?”

  “My name has always been Flame. Old Anny named each of us at birth. All four of us were born close together in time. Terah is the oldest. Everyone always thought I was named Flame for my red hair. I was the only redhead in our community, although the seniors remembered there had been a redheaded woman once before, many years ago.”

  Chad didn’t really know how creating fire would be important to the new community. They had alternative sources of heating on the spaceship and weren’t reliant on actual wood fires for any of their needs, although he supposed when they first began to live in the village houses a real fire might be nice. It would burn the rubbish caused by their building and renovation work as well as heat the house and keep them warm at night.

  He shrugged and said, “The easiest way to learn what your skill will be is for us to explore the village. Besides, today is my only opportunity to take a full day off work. After today, likely Duncan will expect me back at work in the kitchen at least part of the time. Let’s go.”

  ****

  Flame walked through the village with her master—no, with Chad. He was her master but she wasn’t his slave. She was his bride, his equal in the work they were to do.

  Flame still didn’t really understand how she’d learned to speak Mu Araen just because they’d fucked, even though they’d fucked a lot. Although she’d been a virgin until Chad had claimed her she wasn’t completely naive. She’d lived in a community. Men and women fucked under their blanket at night, usually distant from the fire so they had some privacy, but she heard their grunts and their sighs of happiness.

  She’d seen plenty of naked bodies as they’d bathed in rivers on hot days, and she’d seen engorged cocks and men and women disappearing behind trees sometimes in the daytime, too. But she’d never guessed it would be so much better than touching herself had been. She hadn’t appreciated the spine-tingling feeling of a man’s fierce possession of her body, and the rush of heat his touch would send along her nervous system. Her honey dampened her pussy and her nipples hardened inside the soft shirt she wore at the thought of his touch on her delicate skin. Especially on her naked pussy. He’d been so right about shaving her. Even now her bare pussy reacted to the touch of the harsh clothing on her genitals. That aroused her, too.

  Flame forced herself to ignore Chad’s tight grip of her hand, and look around the village. She hadn’t had the opportunity for more than the briefest glimpse as she’d been rushed into the spaceship.

  Fortunately the gaining of his language told her what some things were that she had no English words for. The center of the village was made of cracked old concrete. She knew that word from places she’d stayed in the past. But now she knew that the buildings around them had been people’s homes, even though they were much, much bigger than anything she’d known before. Chad led her inside one of the houses. There were four rooms on the first floor, and a stone staircase up to four more rooms upstairs.

  “Our community would only need one of these rooms for everyone to fit in. It’s hard to believe a single family had so much space.”

  “We’ll need several houses. Each man will want a room of his own, and they will need a living room to relax in as well. But we also need to find houses suitable to use to set up our hydroponic gardens. Establishing our food sources will be more important than making a living space at first.”

  She shook her head. Even her new language didn’t help her understand him this time. “What is hydroponic?”

  As they walked from house to house he explained how they would grow their food to feed the entire group. Finally he said, “So the vegetables all grow in the tray of soil or other medium, and several times a day nutrient-rich water is fed into their tray, draining out the bottom to be reused. The amounts and needs of the various plants have to be carefully monitored. The seeds we bought with us have been tested to work well on Earth and are hardy, so we should have crops in plenty of time before we absolutely need to rely on them.”
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  “But how could you bring so much food with you? It takes many hands and feet of years to grow a tree.” She remembered his lesson on how to count and blushed as she said, “More than twenty years.”

  “But it only takes three or four years before a tree starts producing fruit, and vegetables can be grown in just a few months. Besides, we have cheated by bringing some semi-mature trees with us as well as seeds.”

  The path became very steep and narrow but was still concrete, so much easier to walk on than dirt. Flame thought that even in the middle of winter it wouldn’t be hard to climb the hill to these buildings thanks to that path. The concrete might become dirty, but walking wouldn’t be as problematic as slipping and sliding in mud and slush.

  While a lot of the buildings had lost their roof or part of it, some of these buildings, constructed hard against the hill, were still in good condition. One of them was a long rectangle with one very large room downstairs and several smaller rooms upstairs.

  “This building would be better for your crops. This one room would hold your trays of seeds wouldn’t it?” she asked.

  “Possibly. The roof appears better. Let’s climb higher up the hill to check it properly.”

  She followed him outside and they walked to the end of the path. It twisted up to one level higher up, but there were no more buildings. She looked down on the rectangular building, staring at the roof. It would need mending, everything in the village required some maintenance, but it seemed in surprisingly good condition really.

  Up here, the sun shone brightly and glinted off the rocks that formed the roofing material. The roofs in the village were quite strange with rows of rocks lined up on wooden frames, and the entire buildings covered in green plants from their roofs down to the ground.

  Flame opened the front of her coverall and pulled it off her arms, tying the sleeves around her waist and relishing the heat of the sun on her arms and face.

  Chad looked at her and rubbed his cock through his uniform. “You’re giving my dick inappropriate ideas. We have work to do this morning, although I’d very much like to fuck you instead.”

  Flame went to untie the sleeves of her coverall to put it back on.

  He took her elbow. “I’m not chastising you, simply stating a fact.”

  “The sun is hot. See how it shines off the rocks on the roof of that building?” she said. She didn’t want to annoy him. Even though she knew now she wasn’t a slave who he could simply kill if she annoyed him, she liked him and wanted to please him, not distract him.

  “Yes, I do see how the roof catches the sunlight. It’s high enough up the hill that nothing overshadows it.”

  “The sun is so warm. It reminds me of a fire. It’s such a shame we can’t use the sun to warm us all the time instead of only during the day time in summer,” said Flame, She pushed her sweaty bangs off her forehead, glad he didn’t tell her to put the coverall arms back on.

  Chad grabbed her and hugged her. “Damn it, woman, that’s the answer. That’s your power.”

  “What?”

  “We can use the sunshine to power our village all year around. It’s called solar power. The sun’s energy can be reflected and multiplied and stored to use to light the buildings, warm them, and run the hydroponic system. I’m sure we’ll have the makings of solar panels in the ship. They sent us with everything they thought we might need. If we don’t have a particular item, we do have the information source to build something similar that’ll work. But Mu Araens have been coming to Earth for years and our spaceships are very well equipped. I’m sure they’ll have thought of solar power. It merely took your comment to bring it to my mind. Well done. Now, let’s go explore the rest of the village before I succumb to temptation and fuck you right here and now.”

  Flame felt all bubbly and happy inside that she’d pleased him, been useful to him. She’d have been very happy if he’d pushed her back down on the grass and fucked her, but she understood about needing to complete his work. That was how her life had always been. Scavenging for food and all the community’s needs always had to be the top priority. Even little children learned to play only after they’d helped gather firewood and collect the day’s food. Survival came first, relaxation and happiness second.

  Flame hurried ahead of him down the narrow path, and began exploring all the buildings on her way down the hill. She ran up the stairs to the upper level in each one that still had stairs, checked the rooms and looked at the roof.

  “There are enough buildings left with parts of their roofs in place for all your men to have their own home. But how would they ever use so much space?”

  “I think that’s what will happen eventually. Each warrior will have a house with space to live in, and also plants to tend. One bedroom for him and his bride, a living room to relax in, and rooms of seeds growing into food. And one day a room for the children to share.”

  He pulled her back into his arms and pushed his hand down inside her coverall, sliding his fingers over her naked cunt and then inside her channel. Instantly her inner muscles gripped him, welcoming his touch.

  “I want to fuck you right now although I’ll wait until I can do it properly. But I plan to keep filling you with my seed over and over again until your belly fills with my child. Another warrior to build this planet and redeem it, but he must have your red hair, so everyone will know who his mother is. My bride. Mine.”

  His fingers drove deep inside her cunt, making her damp with need. Greatly daring she lifted her hands to his head and pulled his mouth down so she could kiss him.

  Flame kissed her warrior with all the passion in her body. He’d been so good to her, given her so much pleasure that she wanted to give him something back. She slid her tongue inside his mouth, tasting his flavor, teasing her tongue along the insides of his cheeks, behind his teeth, and over the roof of his mouth.

  He kissed her back harshly, his thumb rubbing her clit and three fingers driving in and out of her cunt. His tongue fucked her mouth until they finally drew apart panting.

  “Watch me,” he gasped. She lifted her gaze to his face and watched as he sucked her juices off his fingers.

  “Tonight I’ll suck your cunt. You taste so good I want all of your cream for myself. And we won’t just have one child. I’m never going to stop fucking you, my bride. We’ll have a dozen. I won’t be happy unless your belly is always full with my seed and my children.”

  Flame liked the idea of a child of her own. One with its father’s purple eyes. But the idea of giving birth wasn’t so good. There was no older woman to guide her through the pregnancy and labor. Just her three friends, none of whom had ever delivered a child.

  “Do you have a wise woman on your spaceship? I’ve only seen men.”

  “A wise woman?”

  “One who knows how to heal injuries and how to deliver a baby.”

  “Oh, a paramedic. Fletcher is a qualified nurse and has delivered several babies. He’s also studied the diseases of Earth in case we catch any of them.”

  Flame wasn’t completely reassured. The idea of an unknown man watching her give birth seemed strange to her, but she supposed if she ever did get pregnant any wise woman was better than none, even if the wise woman was a man.

  “Come. We have a lot more buildings to check before we can fuck.”

  Chapter Five

  Despite his bride being so much shorter than him, and her legs being far too skinny, Chad had to admit she had boundless energy as she followed him and up down the hillside, and in and out of the various houses. As they went he took pictures and measurements of the various houses to help them decide what plants should be grown where. One building had a very high ceiling downstairs. It was as tall as all the other houses, but had only one room upstairs leaving half the downstairs with its ceiling two stories high.

  “This will be the perfect place for us to grow our trees. There’ll be no need to limit their height here. Some trees can get very tall and this is where we’ll cultivate th
em.”

  Flame smiled at him. “I’ve walked through a forest where the trees were so tall it was almost impossible to see their tops. But those trees were very old. Some of the elders said trees can live far longer than the oldest people.”

  “That’s right. I’ve heard of trees over a thousand years old, but it’s not usual.”

  “What is a thousand?”

  Chad smiled at his precious bride. He liked that she was curious and willing to learn, instead of just ignoring what she didn’t understand.

  “I showed you twenty. Imagine if each of your fingers and toes was twenty. Even then that wouldn’t be halfway to a thousand.”

  She stared at him in amazement. “That’s very old.”

  “Exactly.”

  His communicator beeped and he took it out to look at the screen. They were much too far from Mu Arae 7 to have contact with their home planet on their personal devices, although the spaceship still could contact their base perfectly well. It was more than thirty light years away from earth, but that was nothing for a spaceship. Their personal coms units could still be used to talk to the other warriors and to the ship itself. He’d been sending all the pictures and data he collected back to Herman on the ship. This time it was Andreas the pilot calling him.

  “The men have made a big net and we’re all going fishing. We need to learn what species are available here and in what kind of quantities. Gabriel has assembled a holding tank for our catch, but we need everyone to process it quickly as some of the fish will likely eat the others and I’d prefer that we ate them ourselves.”

  “We’re about halfway up the hill. We’ll be there in ten minutes or less.”