Part Two
CHAPTER 4: NOVALYN
This creature was designed at the intersection of the beautiful and the terrifying, and when the glass of the pod shattered and rained down, I felt his gaze on me long before we made eye contact. When I finally did look up, it was the terror I saw first. His skin was the color of bronze, and it shimmered where it caught the light. He had thick, black horns like those of a ram — no, not two, just one, and it curled around his head like one half of a twisted demon’s crown. From the shoulder of his left arm, all the way down to the knuckle of his middle finger: scales, black and pointed. But there were no scales anywhere else on his broad, sinewy form. His hair was black and worn in a ponytail that hit between his shoulder blades, and his eyes — like his horn — were black and flecked with gold. I had never seen eyes like his before: still pools at night full of bioluminescent starbursts. They were haunting; they were beguiling.
Beautiful but horrifying: the creature was easily two feet taller than I was, with hands that looked as though they could snap my bones as easily as I pull apart chicken wings. Can you blame me for screaming when he pulled me out of the pod? Can you blame me for running when he set me down on the earth?
I ran as fast as I’d ever run, weaving in and out of trees larger than some Manhattan studio apartments, until they gave way to a clearing. I turned back to look over my shoulder at the humanoid alien who, though several yards back, was in pursuit, a look of utter bewilderment on his face. I had only just registered that he was holding out his hand, that he’d quickened his pace, that he was crying out, when the ground gave way beneath me and I slid painfully down a ravine into the icy waters of a river.
I scrambled to swim to the surface, my lungs burning, but I wasn’t making any headway: my foot was tangled in a waterweed that looked like the evil progeny of a Venus flytrap that had mated with a hydra, its thin green teeth sinking into the soft flesh of my leg. I screamed, and only bubbles erupted from my mouth.
And that’s what panic gets you: a sprained ankle, and a leg all sliced up from the hungry jaws of a flesh-eating waterweed. It became very clear, very quickly, that the Echelon had not sent us girls back to Earth.
After the creature had pulled me out of the water, I thought, perhaps, his designs on me were not to kill and eat me, but rather to discern my reasons for coming to this planet, even, perhaps, to help me. He cradled me in his arms as he tromped across the plains, and I rested my head against his bare chest as he moved. He was wearing what essentially looked like raw leather overall shorts with straps that crisscrossed before hooking over his shoulders, but aside from a belt that boasted a knife and a small sporran at his hip, that was the only garment that adorned him.
He held me carefully as he moved and when I asked, “Do you speak any English?” he peered down at me with a shrewd, intelligent gaze, and puffed a huff of a sigh that gave me all the information I needed: no, he didn’t understand me, and it was no use continuing to jabber my gibberish at him while he was carrying me in his arms across an open field.
But when he pointed out the other pod, my heart swelled: maybe the girl in there knew more about all this than I did. Maybe her pod hadn’t been destroyed and there was a communicator of some kind that we could use to call for help. Maybe I simply wasn’t the only human alive on this planet. And he could sense my enthusiasm about finding the pod and he set off at quite a clip to reach it.
But there were three other creatures there when we arrived, all speaking in a language that sounded harsh and sharp, Germanic or Scandinavian. And I saw one hand a girl to another, and I saw him push her to the ground and lift her skirt above her head.
I cried out, “Stop!” And I was silenced.
He carried me quickly away, and I was staring over his shoulder as a horned monster, mad with lust, thrust himself into the small, trembling girl beneath him. I wondered why she had opened herself to him: perhaps she saw no other choice. And I had been powerless to help her. I was powerless to help myself. I deflated into tears, inconsolable, and thought I might be able to spare myself further pain if I just submitted to the devil’s desires, as the other woman had. So, I wept racking sobs all the way back to his little tent, I leaked hot tears as he laid me atop a fur, and remained inconsolable as he pulled off my bloodied gown. I wept as he laid me down and pried my legs apart, certain that he was about to plunge himself home. But he didn’t: he cleaned my wounds with stinging liquid and wrapped them in clean cloth. He wrapped up my ankle as well, careful to set it straight before he did so. And then he covered me with fur blankets and lay down beside me and went to sleep.
He went to sleep. I shrugged his arm off of me and sat up, staring down at him. It was the middle of the day, or so it seemed, and I could see him clearly in the shade of his little hut, and he seemed totally at ease. I furrowed my brow, reaching out to gently brush a stray black hair out of his face, and still he slumbered. This was my chance. This was it. And God only knew when my next opportunity would come.
I slipped quietly out of the tent, snatching my wet and bloodied gown as I went, and doing my best to make even steps. I couldn’t move quickly at this pace, favoring my injured ankle as I was, but I could move, and I thought that I had to get back to my pod. I had to do anything I could to get off of this bizarre planet. I had to do whatever it took to get myself home.
The plain was full of tall grass and wildflowers, and it felt good to have the sunlight beating down on me. The planet was warm and lush, and I didn’t need any coverings to feel comfortable because I appeared to be the only living thing in a three-mile radius. I had my wet gown around my neck to cool me, and to keep my shoulders from getting sunburned.
I approached a patch of stunning pink flowers the size of my fist, their orange pistils sent skyward, and decided to walk through them. Even though I was in pain, I thought I might as well try to make the trek as pleasant as possible. I stepped through the patch of wildflowers and marveled at how they bent their heads toward me; I felt a little like Alice through the looking glass, and these were Wonderland’s wonderful flowers.
They waited, the little bastards, until I was in the middle of the patch of them before they struck. The pistils, it turned out, were mandibles, and the stigma opened into a tiny mouth. The petals themselves were razor sharp, rendering the head of the flower into a hungry jaw that latched onto my leg. I tugged myself free and the flower came up with it, dead but still attached. Then more bit into me, and more, and more until I couldn’t move, until my legs were a feast for the flesh-eaters.
I shrieked, trying desperately to wrench myself free, but found myself being tugged to the earth by the foliage. This is absurd, I thought and began pick the flowers up out of the earth and toss them aside.
The skin on my legs was on fire as they bit into me, but I was making some headway, plucking up patches of them by the fistful. But mere moments later, I felt myself being tugged free and held aloft. There he was, my savior, my protector. My captor. He gave me a long-suffering look, hoisted me over one shoulder, and headed back to the dwelling. My gown he left in the field with the flowers.
“Rimosha,” he said, then rattled off a few more words.
“Yeah,” I muttered, “I get it. Bad. Flowers bad.”
My cheeks burned with embarrassment, as he had me ass up over his shoulder, but I just swallowed down my pride and let him carry me. I had been hurt, again, by the foliage. I shifted uncomfortably, my breasts pressed against his shoulder blade, my stomach rubbing against the scales of his left arm, and heaved a sigh.
Back in the dwelling, he laid me down on the furs once more and went through the entire process of cleaning and bandaging me up, but with a look of utter annoyance on his face as he did so. That finished, he lay back down himself. “Svefn,” he said sternly and draped his arm over his eyes so that he could go back to sleep. It didn’t take him long, bless his heart, to relax and resume his dreaming.
I got up after a while, hobbling slow
ly around the space. It wasn’t terribly large, but large enough for him to move around in. It had the straw mattress and fur bed in the center, and a trunk behind it. I opened the trunk and peered inside: more furs, weapons, leather, linens, trinkets… Linens! I tugged at a piece of fabric, and a tunic came free. It was roughly hewn in white linen, with a brown leather thong laced through the front at the collar. I tugged it over my head and it fell to my knees. The armholes were wide, and the fabric was thin; it didn’t do much to save my modesty, but it was better than nothing.
Closing the trunk, I noticed that he’d left a carving knife and some half-finished figurines on the packed earth floor. I picked one of the pieces up and turned it carefully over in my hand: it looked like a jungle cat, or a saber-toothed tiger, about the size of my palm. The artistry was exquisite: the wood was cherry, gleaming with oil rubbed into it. Another was a sharp-toothed flower with petals like razor blades and gaping jaws, just like the ones that had feasted on me, lovely and frightening like everything else on this planet. The third was too underdeveloped to be able to make out, a man, perhaps. With two horns.
I set the items aside and headed to the front of the dwelling, stepping gingerly around a fire pit lined and surrounded with neatly placed stones. The creature still slumbered behind me, and I held myself up against the mouth of the tent so as to not put much pressure on my injured foot.
I allowed my gaze to rove idly over the surrounding area: the dwelling was nestled in between a collection of trees in an otherwise vast and open field. A few paces in front of me was a pond with shimmering still water. It was an echo of earth: green grass and wide-trunked trees, crystalline water and colorful wildflowers. But everything was just a little off: the flowers bent, their tiny jaws searching for food; the trees had leaves larger than me, and the grass was stiff against a gust of wind. Familiar, but foreign at the same time.
I rubbed my eyes, sniffling against the crisp, fresh air, before limping over to a log that he’d clearly placed to serve as a bench. I sat, holding my breath to stave off another tidal wave of tears, but it was no use. I was in the middle of nowhere, cut up and aching, stranded on a strange planet, miles and miles from any civilization, without a way to communicate with anyone, in the company of an alien.
But then it struck me: No. He wasn’t the alien. I was.
I buried my face in my hands and wept bitterly, wishing for something as simple as a shift at that bar that I’d grown to hate, or going to class, or riding the subway, or walking down First Avenue in the rain. Anything familiar, anything at all.
I don’t know how long I sat there, minutes or hours, before he emerged from the dwelling, clearing the ceiling and uncoiling to his full height. He stretched his hands up high over his head and peered down at me, his head canted gently to the side.
He asked me something and I shook my head, not understanding, not even trying. He tried again, but I wasn’t looking at him, couldn’t look at him, didn’t want him to see that I was crying again. But he sat beside me and placed one of his huge fingers beneath my chin to turn my face toward his.
“Odrik,” he said, and put his free hand on his chest. His dark brows were raised high over his wide black eyes, and he pointed at me.
I blinked, owlish, so he repeated the gesture: “Odrik,” he said, and put his hand on his chest. Then he pointed at me and raised his eyebrows.
“Your… your name?” I asked, turning my body toward him. I pointed at him: “Odrik,” I repeated. And he smiled, nodding enthusiastically.
“Odrik,” he said, and then pointed at me one last time.
“Novalyn,” I said, holding my hand over my heart. “Novalyn.”
“Nov…ah…lyn,” he repeated slowly, still pointing at me. He pointed to himself: “Odrik,” and then to me: “Novalyn.”
I mirrored his smile and nodded my head in confirmation. It was a relief to have at least that much known between us. A name was better than nothing at all.
He lifted a hand to my face, gently cupping my cheek, running his large thumb over the line of my jaw. “Vaenn,” he murmured, but I didn’t know what that meant. He locked his eyes on mine, and I was drowning in the depths of them. That is, until my stomach growled noisily and completely disrupted the little moment between the alien and me. I laughed, and put my hand on my tummy.
“Hungry,” I said, and mimed putting food into my mouth, chewing, and swallowing. I patted my tummy again. “Food?”
He was staring at me, nodding along slowly. “Soltimm,” he said. “Gjor.” With that, he rose to his feet and headed back into the hut. When he emerged again, he had a bow in his fist and a quiver of arrows slung over his shoulder. He rattled off something in his harsh language and gestured for me to stay put before he bounded off to one of the far trees. I watched him start to climb up it until he disappeared, until he was nothing more than a rustle of branches. Suddenly, a group of birds took wing, and I saw them fly for mere moments before one was gored by an arrow and dropped, lifeless, out of the sky.
I watched with wide and startled eyes as Odrik descended the tree, fetched his kill and returned to me, brandishing it triumphantly. “Gjor,” he said and pressed the dead bird into my hands, skewered as it was by the arrow. I stared down at it: it was large, the size of an eagle perhaps, but black, with the blunt, curved beak of a bird of prey. Odrik set about lighting the fire, but he came over to me when he saw I wasn’t doing anything and rattled off a few sentences in his language before plucking some of the feathers out of the bird. Then he pointed at me and I realized he intended for me to pluck the thing so we could cook it. I swallowed hard, and set about relieving the fowl of its feathers.
He cooked it over an open flame, and we ate pieces of the meat off of the tips of diamond-sharp knives. The meat was savory, if a little gamey, and I was pleasantly full by the time we’d sucked the scraps from the bones. We sat together on the log, eating in companionable silence, and I was desperate to ask him about himself, desperate to know if he came from a city or if all of his people were like him. I needed to know if he had access to technology that could get me off of this planet, back to the Atria, and home. But so far, we had ascertained only the words for “food” and “knife,” “hurt” and “thank you.” And our names; at least we had that.
As we ate, I made a decision: I was obviously relatively safe with Odrik, who — despite his odd appearance — was clearly a decent man. He had tended my wounds, fed me, given me a place to rest, rescued me more than once. So I would stay with him until I was well enough to walk. Then I would steal away in the night and head to one of the fallen pods to see if they could give me any answers. I’d bring one of his knives with me, and I’d try to figure out what was and wasn’t edible on this planet before I left him. That way, I could survive on my own. Sure, I could do that. Couldn’t I?
The sun was beginning to set as we finished our meal, and the strangest thing started to happen: plants began to close up into themselves. The little flowers hugged their petals in tight, looking like fresh buds; the grass, once tall and stiff, was sucked back down into the earth; the fronds of the trees hugged in close to the trunk, making the landscape look oddly barren where once it was overlush with vegetation. “What’s going on?” I asked Odrik.
“Vetrnott,” he said, plucking the knife from my hands and rising to his feet. He hugged his arms and pretended to be shivering, then closed his eyes and rested his head on his own shoulder, making an exaggerated snoring sound.
“Cold sleep?” I guessed, but he could neither confirm nor deny it. Instead he went about stoking the fire, and the longer I lingered outside of the dwelling, the more I could feel the temperature dropping. By the time the twilight had set in, the air was somewhere just above freezing. So much for stealing away in the night.
Odrik and I settled in to sit on the furs by the fire, warmed by the flames, and by his gentle proximity. He said something and shook his head, and I furrowed my brow, trying to understand.
He said something else then, and I recognized the word for “cold sleep” in there among a bevy of other utterly indecipherable words.
“What…?” I asked, watching his gestures. He took the front of my pilfered tunic and tugged at it, shaking his head. “You want this back…?” I asked, somewhat confused. “Can’t I just wear it so I’m not, like… totally naked…?”
Odrik heaved a long-suffering sigh and stood up, sliding the straps of his leather overalls off of his shoulders and shimmying out of the shorts themselves. I couldn’t help but stare as his very sizable member became visible. I was stunned by the sheer length and girth of it — and he wasn’t even erect. He folded his clothing neatly and set it aside, then gestured for me to do the same. I gave a very stern and insistent shake of my head. He spoke to me again, and I caught none of the words, except for a very exasperated use of my name.
He put his hands on me and stilled his movements when he felt me jerk away, my response almost automatic. But he was gentle, if insistent, and he slid his hands up my outer thighs, pushing the tunic up until it was caught under my bum. Then, he moved forward and wrapped one arm around me, lifting me with ease as he freed the fabric, and tugged it up over my head. He folded the tunic and set it on top of his shorts, and I moved to cover my breasts with my arms. Maybe this was when everything would turn violent, I thought. Maybe this was when he would reveal his true colors, when his monstrous nature would make itself known.
Alien Prince: (Bride of Qetesh) An Alien SciFi Romance Page 25
