The Alien Reindeer's Wish

by Thanika Hearth

  “Oh, a lantern,” she says, excited. “I’ll use my phone light and you use that, and we should be able to see pretty far in the moonlight.” She leads the way, bouncing with every step, and tightening the straps of her snow outfit. “Brax, dear, aren’t you going to get sick without more clothes on?”

  “I’m not a deer,” I say instinctively.

  “Oh, I’m sorry. I was being overly familiar, huh?” I don’t know why, but she looks a bit disappointed. What just happened? But the silver lining is that she stops asking why I’m not freezing to death as we step out into the snow again. Elle tucks her hair into her hat and wraps her arms around herself as a chill wind sweeps down the slope. I’m cold, yes, but only mildly. She’s wrapped up tight but she still seems to shiver.

  I wrap my arm around her shoulders and pull her in close. I know my skin is warm, and she responds after a short hesitation by sliding her arm around my waist, leaning in to fit perfectly against my body, and relaxing.

  We fall into a rhythm as we walk together like some three-legged being that would stick out like a sore thumb on this planet, and yet feels so natural. We step through the snow five feet, and then use our light sources to search around for ‘clues’.

  We find scratches on nearby pines that she identifies shakily as a bear’s work, and then bites her lower lip. “Should we keep going? There might be bears in all these caves. You’ve never seen one?”

  “I’ve seen bears,” I say with a nod. “They are usually far away, and leave me be if they spot me.”

  “That’s not very comforting,” she mumbles, and I understand I think. Bears are predators, which means they pose a threat to humans. It’s so funny that these little things run their planet without question, and yet still must be frightened of wandering into the wild and facing predator species. How have they advanced so far when they aren’t the apex predator of their own world?

  “We’ll be fine,” I assure her. Bears hate me. They keep their distance, and only pass me in a large arc, keeping plenty of snow between us. I understand: if I was on my home turf and an alien was dropped in my path, I would probably take a detour until I knew more about it.

  “I see … tracks. Do you see tracks?”

  I turn around to see Elle bent double, nose almost to the snow and her hands firmly on her hips as she eyes up some potential prints in the white blanket. It’s so damn cute I want to laugh. “Tracks? Bears again?” I know I haven’t been in ‘deer’ form recently enough for there to be evidence in this fresh dusting of snow.

  “No. Look.” She points. “Is that hooves? Maybe … I’m not sure, I’m no expert. There’s two, uh, toes. Could it be a moose?” Her voice lowers and she looks just as frightened as when she’d mentioned the bear.

  “Mooses scare you?” I ask, lowering my chin to look her right in the eye. Deadpan, she nods slowly.

  “Of course. Have you met one?”

  “I haven’t. Are they very big, these moose?” The word is being translated to me in real-time but my translator isn’t doing a great job at painting a word picture. And it seems like something I’m supposed to know.

  “Oh man, they’re enormous.” She’s off, gesturing wildly with her arms and wading ankle-deep through a shallower snow patch that curves around to the right. “I wish I knew what these tracks were of, but they’re probably … no, they’re not big enough to be moose. You’re right.”

  I breathe a sigh of relief. “Sure do know my artiodactyla,” I say confidently, following close behind.

  “Your what?” she shoots over her shoulder.

  “Even-toed ungulates,” I quickly correct. It’s confusing trying to speak a language with so many unused terms. “Sorry, uh, English is my second language.”

  She shakes her head. “I swear, people who learn English as a second language sometimes know so many more words than I do.” And it’s quickly forgotten as she leads us into the woods that line the slope. Now our feet only crunch through a half-foot of snow as the canopies above, and the towering mountain to either side, protect from the bulk of the snowfall. It’s picturesque here. Our respective lights reflect on the bright white snow, the deep green of the furs, and the occasional red berry bush.

  Elle suddenly stops and crouches, running her hand over more prints. “What does this look like to you? These two separate halves like this.” I crouch beside her, knees apart, brushing against hers. She glances up at me, and then looks away again. “Don’t deer have, like, horselike hooves?”

  I look at the tracks and see, indeed, there are two separate toes. My own prints in my regular form has three separate toes, and is almost twice as large, but I see the similarity. “I know what these are,” I say with some unhidden triumph in my voice. “Let’s follow them.”

  She is behind me, holding onto my arm to avoid losing me or slipping, I don’t know, and in rapt silence as we navigate after the set of tracks and through the dark, quiet, snowy forest.

  Something snags at her foot and she tugs at it. While she’s occupied, I concentrate golden light to the palm of my hand and light up the ground more intensely for her until she shakes her foot free of a frosty root. By the time she turns to look up at me, my hand is back to normal, and I give her a smile as if I hadn’t even noticed. We continue.

  Soon, we come to a grove, and as we push past the thick pine needle branches of the final tree, I raise my lantern and she turns her phone light towards the grove too.

  Elle tries to gasp, but her breath hitches in her throat. Slowly, but surely, her small hand reaches over and intertwines with mine.

  Chapter Seven

  Elle

  The grove is small, circular, and seems so removed from anything real and true. At least forty huge, beautiful reindeer graze at the patches of visible grass. When we arrive with our lights, they all lift their magnificent heads, some sporting antlers several feet wide, and regard us with careful eyes. But none move, and none run.

  It’s Braxen that moves first. I would have been content to stand, holding his hand tightly and leaning against his strangely warm chest — any excuse to get closer to him — but he takes a couple of steps forward, and takes me along with him as he goes. I hop after him, nervous of so many long, curved head-weapons so close to me, but they remain still.

  I see breath misting from their velvety-looking nostrils, and soon we’re standing among them. One of them, the largest antlers I’ve ever seen, crunches slowly through the snow towards us. The others part to let him through.

  Braxen throws me an awkward smirk, and then lowers his head to the deer. The deer lowers his head back, and I squeal before clamping my glove to my mouth before my sharp noise startles any of the wild animals. They seem fine, though, and Braxen wraps his arm around my shoulder again. It’s comforting.

  “They must be used to people,” he murmurs, leaning in so that his breath is hot against my ear. My entire insides turn to jelly. This is all too much. The stag is side-eyeing us, and I turn to look Braxen in the eye.

  My heart is hammering like it’s never hammered before. “They’re beautiful. Do you think we’re, um, in danger?” I whisper back.

  He stares back, and there’s a twinkle in his eye. Then there’s something else. A hunger; a heat. Brax leans down, and very gently traces the backs of his fingers against my cheek.

  My legs are jelly. My core aches. I’m frozen to the spot, but it isn’t the cold. I feel so warm when I’m with him.

  “You’re safe when you’re with me,” he murmurs. “Promise.”

  I could lean forward and press my lips to his. So soft, pink, full. And in his lantern light he almost seems to glow with some kind of otherworldly light. I could, and I don’t think he would stop me or move away. I imagine him sinking into the kiss, kissing me back, and my entire body is weak at the thought.

  But, for some reason, I don’t. There’s something so magical about this secret moment between the two of us, and I want to treasure it. Pause and keep this one frame. This second right now where ei
ther of us could lean in and break the thick, delicious tension with a kiss, but neither of us has yet.

  I’m the first one to break the heated eye contact and look back at the stag, who gives a small snort that mists in the air.

  “We should leave them to it,” Braxen says after a moment. “They’ve been kind enough to let us in, but we can’t overstay.”

  His seriousness makes me smile. “You know,” I say, “I interviewed someone today who said the monster looked like a deer to them. Golden antlers, four long legs.”

  He looks skeptical, if I had to assign an emotion to the way his face scrunches. “Deer aren’t very intimidating,” he says, and places a hand on the small of my back and guides me out of the clearing. We navigate our way back through the forest, and then trudge a little way up the side of the slope before making our way back to the cave he has his monster-hunting nest in. It astonishes me how he finds the way without hesitating or making a wrong move at any step.

  Once back in the cavern, he stokes the bare embers until it’s roaring, and I rub my arms hard to try to warm up.

  “You get so cold so easily,” he teases, and once he’s sitting on a crate in front of the flames, he pulls me onto his lap and wraps me in his impossibly comfortable arms. Every firm angle of his perfect body seems like it should be rough and hard, but his skin is toasty and smells delicious. Like hot spiced apple.

  “We didn’t find any sign of any monster,” I say with a sigh as he rubs his palms up and down my arms. His motions begin rapidly to create friction, and then they slow down. Soon he’s rubbing me gently up and down, looking me right in the eye, and then he grips my elbows and rearranges me. I’m straddling him in my ski suit, in front of an open flame, in a cave in the mountains. It must be after 11pm, and I wonder if Liara is worried about me or off enjoying her vacation with a new beau.

  I guess just once, it’s OK for me to think about what I want — and I mean really, actually want — instead of what I’m supposed to be doing to please others or advance in a cutthroat career.

  I squeeze his hips with my knees, and he pulls me into his chest, wraps his arms around me, and just as I feel like I could not feel any cozier or safer, Braxen presses his lips against mine.

  Emotion floods me, and my arms and legs tingle like I’ve had a cup of hot, sweet cider. The taste of apples even lingers on his tongue as I open my mouth to let him in. We’re kissing soft, and then hard, and I push off his cap so I can run my fingers through his thick hair, gripping it close to his scalp as I feel him get impossibly hard against my core.

  “Brax, what do you do to me?” I mumble against his lower lip just as his hands reach for the clasp at the neck of my ski suit. Slowly, tantalizingly slowly, he grips the zipper and drags it down, across the swell of my breasts, past my ribs and navel, and stopping right before where I wish he’d touch. “I’ve never …”

  I want to tell him I’ve never quite done this before, and definitely never with a stranger, but I feel like I don’t have to. As he lays me down on the ground beside the fire, I feel like somewhere, deep down, he knows exactly what I want to say, and that he feels the same.

  I want to tell him that I want to do everything with him. I want to give him everything. But I don’t know how to say it, and I don’t know if he needs to hear it.

  My instincts are right, because before I can get any more words out, Brax is nipping at the sensitive skin below my navel, right above the lace edge of my underwear. Anything I had been considering saying out loud is gone; lost, and dissipating into the crisp cave air along with pine-scented smoke of the blazing fire. He nuzzles at my panties, half-concealed still by my ski suit, and grips at the lace with his teeth, pulling back to give me the tastiest grin I’ve ever laid eyes on before letting the fabric snap lightly back onto my skin.

  He mumbles something against the zipper and I lift myself onto my elbows to get a better look and say ‘Hmm?’ When he locks eyes with me again, there’s no humor left in his expression. It’s only lust, passion, hunger.

  “You are the most beautiful creature I have ever laid my eyes on,” he says, adjusting my panties so he can see everything. I have never felt more exposed and vulnerable, yet cherished and seen. I want to snap my knees back together, but feeling his hot breath against my oversensitive bud makes me completely weak.

  “You are the strangest,” I whisper back, feeling myself smile at the thought of all of this. My heart absolutely warms when I think about my time with Brax from start until, well, now. When his tongue first laps against me, tasting how wet I am for him, feeling my legs start to tremble on either side of his head, I let out a cry.

  “Is that OK?” he asks, his words breathy with arousal, tickling against me, making me squirm. “I just needed to taste you.”

  “It’s more than OK,” I tell him, listening to the crackle of the campfire next to us. I am about to say something else, but he adjusts the zipper lower, and then my panties, and presses the flat of his tongue against me before lapping at me. He lets out a groan, and then licks and sucks at my clit. I start to shake, unable to stop myself, and my vision sparks with bright light as I teeter off some internal cliff.

  He never stops whatever he’s doing with his tongue, even as I writhe, pressing my hands to my face to stop from screaming. But then I remember … we’re in a cave. I don’t need to do or not do anything. As I feel the most intense orgasm of my life wreck my body and mind, I let out a cry.

  Beside me I could swear the fire grows and sparks along with my own intensity. And then finally he releases me and I slump, and when I turn, the fire is back to normal.

  I catch my breath, and then when he slides up to lie beside me, I allow myself to rest my head on his chest when I’ve zipped back up my insulated suit, and look up to see the look of pure, real happiness on his face. He’s staring up at the cavern ceiling, looking blissful with a hint of surprised. “Everything good?” I ask.

  His watch gives a small beep, and his lips open to reveal white teeth in a pleased grin. “So good, my beauty.” He turns and kisses me full on the lips. The scent of him hits me like the strongest shot of sweet alcohol, and I groan into his mouth. “So good.”

  Chapter Eight

  Braxen

  Not sure what came over me. I wasn’t supposed to get personally involved with any of these humans. I’ve kept myself at a distance since I got here. Observed, gifted, groused when nothing significant happened. Then when the shimmer of happiness ended up stepping right into my life, I grabbed it with both hands.

  It’s like Elle is the light in my increasingly frustrating darkness.

  It’s like she’s my wish come true.

  I know what came over me … she did. And I don’t know if I’m willing to let her go. The only thing worse than never finding a spark of light in the dim void of space? Finding one and then losing it forever.

  I’d love to claim her as my mate, but when my people arrive, what would they think? Elle rests against my chest as I think this through, staring at the shadows dancing on the cavern walls. My people. When they return for me, how do I explain what’s happened? That I’ve been hit by a bolt of lightning. Hit right in the chest.

  That I don’t know anymore if I want them to return. If what they do when they get here is take me away, do I truly want them back at all? Would I rather they believe I was dead?

  It’s all too much to take in right now. It’s like the universe is taking me on a giant spinning spacecraft, dodging asteroids and beaming through wormholes until I’m sick and dizzy and I just want to get off. First, life drops me on a faraway planet to see what energy I can harvest. Then, my people cannot contact me and assume I’ve died in a hostile environment.

  I thought I’d lost everything, but then … this. What is this?

  I lean down and nuzzle the top of her head as she sleeps. Her body is warm against mine, and her skin so soft and smooth. She smells like raspberries and cream and feeling her heart beat against my chest is making my stomach fli
p and my cock hard. I should have claimed her. I should have entered her and claimed her as my mate, but what then?

  I close my eyes and try not to think about it. Soon, sooner than I expected, I fall asleep, and the sun is already beginning to rise when I crack my eyes open to see Elle awaken at the same time.

  She smiles at me, bites her lip, blushes, and I know she can feel how hard I am already, even in my transition from unconsciousness. I guess this beautiful woman turns me on even when I sleep.

  “Morning,” she says, and I’m surprised by the shyness to her voice. She rises, stretches, and begins to gather her things back into her pockets, frowning when she realizes she can see her breath in the air again. “How is it I feel so much more comfortable when I’m with you?” she huffs, but thankfully it seems to be a rhetorical question so I just smirk and stretch out my muscles one by one.

  She stares. I catch her staring. She grins, and I finish stretching out my back muscles, and arm muscles, until we hear a small but satisfying ‘pop’.

  I like this form. Back on my home planet, we generally stay humanoid, but it’s ordinary practise to shift several times a day to get other things done faster. Faster travel, and travel through the air, are just two reasons, and I miss the freedom of having a second form whenever I’m around humans for too long.

  “What should we do to hunt the monster today?” I ask abruptly. She zips her suit up and pulls on her hat, and gives a little shrug.

  “I’m going to get some more interviews done. I only really casually asked stall owners, but I got a lead. There’s a couple staying close by to me and I arranged to meet them for brunch. I just have to go let my friend know I’m alive, and then that’s where I’ll head.” She fidgets with her ski goggles. “I guess you’ll be at your stall?”

  Honestly, screw my stall right now. I’m so lost when it comes to interpreting and creating happiness, and I feel like it would be more useful to me if I follow Elle around today instead. She seems to be more effective at making people happy than I am.