Shared by the Alien Hybrids

by Lia Nox

Keen to learn the others’ names, she turned her attention from me and looked to Axar, pointing.

  “Axar.” He retorted back to her, his chest stuck out proudly. Her finger now moved towards Zuvo, though it wavered before she pointed directly at him; it was like she knew he was still wary of her. A frown adorned his features once more, a personal warning from him to her that he didn’t welcome constant probing. I nudged his arm in encouragement, in an attempt to assure him that this would help us better understand one another.

  “Zuvo.” He muttered, his voice low and deep.

  To say that she looked delighted would have been only one small section of the full picture, as there was another emotion stirring behind her eyes: it was one of hope. After aimlessly wandering about together - the shock of us finding her, our first tryst, the journey to the plains station - it had all been through stunted communication. Now we were getting somewhere. I stretched my hand forward now, one of my clawed fingers pointed at her, my question the same as hers had been to us. Who was she?

  “Delia,” she said with a smile.

  I twisted my face into a scowl, not aimed at her but at not being able to sound the word in my head. I turned to see if the others had the same struggles and was relieved to see that I wasn’t alone.

  “De-li-a.” She sounded it out, remembering to keep her voice monotone and slow, so that each sound could be both heard and registered. For such a feisty little thing, she knew exactly when she needed to soften her temperament and provide a comforting, inviting space for us.

  Subtle progress had been made, with all of us now pointing from one to the other and saying our names.

  It was like a roll call. Even Zuvo’s frosty outer shell had started to thaw by the fourth round of name pronunciation; it made me smile. As it did Axar as well, while Zuvo did little more than manage a forced grimace, unhappy that he was having to put up with what he considered to be our foolhardy trust of this girl.

  His trust of her had grown since our very first encounter, but I knew all too well that such an admission counted for little; you had to earn trust from Zuvo with actions. True, she’d also fiddled about with the technology, and found some food, but Zuvo would expect and demand more of her.

  Eventually she moved on to pointing to objects around the room, demanding our word, repeating it, then making her own strange sounds. Almost as if she were trying to teach us, or herself. Though what mind could learn with only a single repetition of each thing?

  After much verbal exchange, we returned our thoughts to the half-finished map we’d started.

  It didn’t take long for Axar and myself to complete it, adding the coast as one of the final destinations we’d have to traverse.

  “There are more stations, here and here,” Zuvo added, marking the locations. Delia touched each spot on the map, repeating his words, murmuring to herself.

  Zuvo shook his head, as confused as the rest of us by her actions. “I expect we will find them destroyed as well, but we can’t pass up the possibility of more rations.”

  Axar was grim. “Not if the hunting continues to be so poor. By the end of tonight’s hunt, I thought I could tell the not-animals by their smell. But we’ll need to be cautions, not waste our energy taking down something that can’t provide us with food.”

  I felt bad that Delia couldn’t follow along fully, but the odd nod of her head here and there told me that she knew enough.

  She was satisfied that she’d been kept in the loop.

  The map completed and our names learned, I observed as Delia now tried to fashion a conversation.

  She wasn’t even a few garbled words into the topic before I already knew that this was going to be a greater battle than any monster we’d faced. Axar looked happy, almost smug, at the prospect of taking on the challenge, but Zuvo was having none of it.

  As the soft glow surrounded us in a stronger yellow hue as shadows danced on the walls, all of us quietly admired the determined woman before us. Even Zuvo in his own little way. If it had taken her all night, she wouldn’t have cared, so resolute was she in finding out more about our lives before.

  Zuvo

  The vantage point I had from where I sat made it all too easy to see how taken in Tarnan was by this… Delia. Personally, I much preferred calling her a prize until I knew, without any doubt, that she wasn’t going to cost us in the long run.

  It was easier to see her as a way to enjoy myself, of bringing mutual pleasure to both of us, than a person that could betray and incapacitate us.

  But now wasn’t the time to discuss those thoughts, and not with her. Besides, she was having far too much fun trying to learn more about us.

  Tarnan had settled down closer to her, as had Axar, but I had preferred to remain on the outskirts of this circle; readily sharing bits of my life wasn’t a pastime I cared for.

  Not that Delia was finding it easy to get new information out of any of us. We, or should I say Tarnan and Axar, had been trying to tell her how we were a team of three, and that it had always been that way, but she didn’t seem able to follow. Part of me felt the topic was better off shut down for now, with our energy best reserved to make our way towards the forests and jungles to the coast.

  “Family?” She enquired, her eyebrows knitted not in a frown but a sorrowful expression, her eyes big and doe like. She mimed one finger and wiggled it and then brought another finger and crossed them.

  It was a basic gesture, one which didn’t resonate with me like the mother tongue of my own people, but it appeared to hold meaning to her. She was empathetic to us without hesitation, an unusual trait in someone new to any group, let alone ours. Even though I would have liked to have told her that I understood what she meant and that we’d had families of our own, I couldn’t, nor could either of the other two.

  No word in our language sounded like that. Assuming she referred to an idea of togetherness, I supposed our shared barracks would be the closest thing to this “family”, if I was grasping its meaning. Between the cryo pods for another forced bout of sleep and our barracks however, there’d been nothing much in between. My fists balled up and flex at the thought of it.

  “No family?” Came her second question, to which we all replied with the same blank expressions we had worn before. Unwilling to give up her quest for discovery, no matter how mundane it appeared, I watched as she scraped her finger along in the dirt next to the map.

  She had drawn one stick figure. Next to it she had drawn more of the stick figures, with this image being of them together in some sort of group; it reminded me of the teams we’d worked with before.

  “No family.” The word was connected to the lone figure. “Family.” Was the phrase she used when turning her finger to the group of stick people.

  Each of us in turn, with me the last to do so, had pointed what we’d summarized to be the no family option when answering her, a response that had seemed to lower her spirits no end. Before I was able to stop myself, I had smiled at how sweet she was to have wanted us to have had families. It clearly meant a lot to her.

  Axar suddenly jumped up and grabbed Tarnan, throwing his big, bulky arms around his shoulders while motioning for me to come join them. I had gotten to my feet, not sure as to why such a demonstration was needed but had felt it best to join in anyway; Tarnan had seemed unhappy about my lack of effort earlier. Once we stood side by side, Axar gave Delia a big grin and said just one word.

  “Iginti!”

  It took her a moment to take in our word for “brother”, which I hoped her strange device would translate to her “family” phrase. But thanks to the enthusiasm Axar was wearing, coupled with how we were stood shoulder to shoulder, she started beaming back at us.

  Even despite our word sounding nothing like hers, and without us knowing if it was completely fitting, we’d managed to convey a sense of belonging to her.

  The grin she now wore wasn’t as big as Axar’s, but it showed that he’d managed to lift her up and make her feel happy again. It please
d me to see that quick change in emotions, to see her so overcome by them that they affected all that she did.

  I’d become used to keeping my thoughts guarded and to myself, choosing to instead reflect on what was happening rather than sharing it. But not Delia. She wanted to embrace the world openly, even if it meant getting hurt.

  I could see that renewed energy had taken hold of her, as her finger started wiggling about in the dirt once more. This time she was drawing a machine of some kind, something that resembled a pod, and it was crashing onto a planet, a planet I assumed was ours.

  It all bore a striking resemblance the situation in which we’d found her: next to a dented but otherwise intact pod, with cuts and bruises on her arms, and why she had looked so afraid as we’d circled her. How she had survived so well amazed me.

  “I crashed.” She enacted, her fingers flying around rapidly as she went from identifying herself as the “I”, before saying how the ship on the floor symbolized the “crashed”.

  Enthusiasm now having taken hold, Delia had joined us all in the standing position, as she’d reached out and gathered up bits of tech; all the while I had remained the least unmoved by this.

  Inwardly I couldn’t wait to see what she was doing, what its purpose was, but I wasn’t about to show it the way everyone else did.

  One of the pieces she had in her right hand appeared dead, yet after a few well-placed taps of her fingers, it had lit up and made a loud beeping noise.

  I had tensed at the sound, as instinct had taught me too, as it had Axar as well. The masters’ devices had never been our friend. Far too often, it had been the instrument of our punishments.

  But Tarnan had instead smiled with delight, as he’d watched her connect another piece of tech to the glowing one.

  Whatever she’d been doing with it, it could now make noises and work together with other pieces, a clear sign that she knew what she was doing.

  Her smile lit the room, as she chattered a long stream of words, her eyes searching mine the most for approval.

  Sadly, while I had assumed that what she was doing was cause for us to be happy, her adding more words into the mix had only helped confuse things.

  Her cheeks turned pink, but instead of being the flush of pleasure it was one of irritation. She’d gotten over-excited and had wanted to share… a side of herself, perhaps… with us, and being unable to do so, after the small steps we’d taken with other words, seemed to frustrate her.

  “Ikanoperatetek…” She whispered, the sounds slower now.

  I had been ready to call it a night, eager to put this song and dance behind us when Tarnan had walked over and took hold of the device.

  “O-oper-ra-te.” The way he’d said it sounded butchered compared to Delia’s phrasing, but the fact that he’d made the effort to try had that smile back on her face in no time. Once again, I had allowed myself a smile, only this time I didn’t criticize myself for doing so.

  For whatever the reason, we had found this creature, a female who so desperately wanted to not only survive but to be a part of our team. It had always been a team of three until her arrival, but that didn’t mean I thought she couldn’t be one of us. She was proving in her own way that she was useful, and most enjoyable, to keep around.

  I still intended to watch her closely, as I’m sure Axar and Tarnan had prepared themselves for. But I wasn’t going to dismiss her worth either. And, if I was being truthful to myself, at that moment I knew I liked her and cared for her in a way most foreign to me.

  I planted myself back down on the ground, crossing my legs out in front of me, as I watched Tarnan and Delia repeat words back and forth to one another. Axar occasionally joined in, but he’d lacked the excitement that Tarnan was answering her with. Eventually Delia afforded a glance my way, her eyes still searching as they had done before. She wanted me to join in, the one person yet to say anything other than my name.

  My golden eyes searched hers back, though what I was looking for was unknown to even myself.

  “Op-er-rate.” I mumbled, almost feeling foolish at not being able to pronounce it. Not that she was trying to make us feel bad, quite the opposite, it was just I didn’t like not knowing what was going on. I felt out of my depth, a feeling I wasn’t used to.

  Still, her head bobbed up and down with glee, so I assumed that I’d done something right. Axar must have felt left out because after she’d been so animated, he immediately said the same word to her that I had, only he’d gotten more practice, so it sounded better.

  After years of him competing, that sort of grandstanding had become a part of his personality. And still, he was a reasonable team leader. He deserved respect, even when he was distracted by such games.

  I soon wanted to come back to battle plans and plotting out a course for where we were headed next. I didn’t think the world would have changed much since our absence, as nothing had seemed too out of place so far, but we needed to be ready just in case.

  No matter how much I tried, there was no getting around the dangers of the jungle and the beasts that lived there… one very deadly beast in particular.

  The time was right for us to talk about it, but as I looked on and watched her and my teammates converse, I decided I could give them a bit more time before I brought the jungles up.

  Right then, I didn’t want to be the one to drag us back into the more serious aspects of this mission.

  I wanted to be able to be as high spirited as Tarnan and as confident as Axar, not the brooding outsider that I knew I must have looked like to her.

  Delia

  Delia

  It wasn’t the first time I’d wished that Grumpy, who I now knew was called Zuvo, would be a little more inviting towards me.

  When we’d been enjoying each other’s bodies, my hands wrapped his thick, hard cock, and his fingers rubbing and teasing my pussy, we’d felt close.

  How could we not have done so?

  But now, in this spot, he was the one who felt the most distant to me.

  He’d been happy to join in from time to time and had even surprised me when he’d repeated several words back to me that I’d said, but progress with him was the slowest of the three.

  And it wasn’t because he was less intelligent, it was because he was less inclined. My annoyance could wait though, at least for now, as showing my displeasure wasn’t going to change his behavior. Then there was the fact that I just wanted him to like me, beyond my body and my sex but for who I was as a person.

  Could he ever get there though?

  Having established that it had always been just them, together as a trio of warriors, I hadn’t felt like going into dramatic detail about my own life. I’d done my best to act out the crash to them, a moment where I’d felt both stupid but also important; stupid for having to do it, and important because of how intently they’d looked at me.

  As I’d laughed at Tarnan being his usual cheerful self, I’d started to notice that Zuvo looked unhappy, even more so than normal. It wasn’t only me that had picked up on it either, Axar had done so too, and had even wandered over to him to ask him about it.

  The two had been in a deep conversation for some time before they’d come back to Tarnan and I. I loved how Tarnan hadn’t been bothered about what they’d spoken about, that he’d trusted that they’d tell him and so had instead spent more time with me. His emotional vulnerability made me more forgiving of my own.

  “Cghree.” Is how Zuvo decided to explain what was going on to me, and it was far from helpful in settling my unease.

  Word by word, phrase by phrase I’d been training the translator, having nothing left but blind hope that with repetition of my terms followed by the language of the guys, it would start making connections.

  Hope was a terrible strategy, but it was what I’d have to work with until I found more compatible parts. Or a working commstation. Anything.

  But “cghree” on its own gave me no information, nothing to compare it to.

  I assum
ed that he was referring to the next terrain we’d have to navigate, but more due to where he pointed not the word itself.

  Wherever it was he was pointing to, it gave them reason to all look somber. Even Tarnan had lost his smirk once they’d mentioned the place.

  “What’s wrong?” Even as the words left my mouth, I feared we’d fall back into the pattern of repeating phrases until we turned blue in the face. As fun as it was when the atmosphere was light, when Zuvo, Axar, and Tarnan were all so tense, it was hard to find the fun in things anymore.

  Zuvo had fixed me with a cold stare, but it had felt like the coldness wasn’t aimed at me, something which I’d been relieved about; for such a smoldering extraterrestrial, he could give you a look that chilled you.

  Knowing that a look was all I could hope for now, I hadn’t pressed the issue on what the jungle held.

  Instead, I went over to the tech I’d been playing with before and started to tinker about with the pieces - I wouldn’t get much juice out of them, but it was good to see that I could see get things working in a pinch. Bit by bit, I’d learn the logic behind how the people who had operated these buildings created things.

  As I’d toiled, a hand had taken the piece from mine and had placed it back with the other broken sections scattered around us. They’d never tried to stop me playing with the tech before, so to suddenly start now seemed so out of character, even for Zuvo. “Too heavy,” he started to explain. “Leave. Jungle. Go fast.” Zuvo didn’t expand further on that, though it made sense in spite of it annoying me: the more I carried, the heavier our supplies were to move.

  With a quick movement, he ordered Axar to take me. Axar bundled me up in his arms like you would a tiny kitten. I know I’d been with them for several days now, though it felt more like weeks given the hardships we’d gone through, but their effortless strength, especially his, had the ability to always take my breath away.

  I wasn’t the damsel in distress kind, but I knew I could get used to all of this fawning. Hopefully they could as well - they’d seemed to do okay with it so far.