Total pages in book: 40
Estimated words: 36875 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 184(@200wpm)___ 148(@250wpm)___ 123(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 36875 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 184(@200wpm)___ 148(@250wpm)___ 123(@300wpm)
“Well, so far, so good,” she says. “What shall we do next?”
“I intend to remain here until the last of the dregs of the local system’s bounty hunters fry themselves in the atmosphere and everyone has forgotten about me.”
“And then what?”
“I don’t know. They’ve been coming for quite some time and show little signs of slowing. The more that perish, the more that come. It’s almost as if they enjoy dying for no particular reason. What’s the bounty on me now?”
"A lot of zeroes,” she says. “I do mean a very great many. Enough for anybody to set themselves up independently for a lifetime.”
“That’s very flattering,” I muse.
“Eventually, they might just send an army.” She laughs as if it is a joke. It would be funny, but not for the reason she might imagine. I would enjoy doing battle with an army. The weather and atmosphere have done most of my fighting for me of late.
“They might,” I say. “And they might all perish horribly.”
“If you don’t mind me saying,” she says, looking at me curiously. “You are very big, and very strong…”
“Flattery will get you nowhere, human.”
“It’s not flattery. It’s just facts, but that’s not what I was saying. You’re very big, and strong, but there's only one of you. How would you ever handle an army of hundreds or thousands?”
I wink at my little human captive. “That’s for me to know, and you to possibly find out.”
* * *
Lyssa
He’s being coy. It’s very strange to see a ten-foot-tall alien with a reputation for casual atrocity — a reputation very well earned given the bones absolutely fucking everywhere — become coy. There’s a smirk around his generous lips, and a particular wrinkle to his scaled nose. I do find him handsome, though I am sure I shouldn’t. After all, a creature like him would no doubt cause great damage if he were to…
I blush at the very thought. My mind is taking entirely unwholesome avenues. I blame it on shock, trauma, and the fact that he insists on being shirtless and muscular right next to me.
“What do you want from me?”
That’s a dangerous question to ask. He might say something awful, and then I’d have to know about the awful thing before it happened, which is always absolutely terrible. One of the worst things about being sentient is knowing about awful things before they happen.
“I don’t know,” he muses aloud. “You are fairly useless, but most pets are. I find you weak and pleasing. That may be enough for now.”
Weak and pleasing, like a pet. He left out the word dependent, but that is also very much what I am. Suddenly and desperately dependent on him for my very existence.
“You’re hungry,” he declares. “And I bet you’ll turn your nose up if I defrost some bounty hunter for you, so that leaves you with a vegetable ration. Pumpkin soup. Will you eat that?”
“Yes. Please. Thank you very much.”
“With or without bounty hunter croutons? They’re crispy and high in protein.”
“Just the soup, please.”
“These pumpkins grow further back in the cave,” he explains. “I had seeds, and this planet has no shortage of light and water. I use ice windows to help them grow. Come and see.”
I would like to go and see, but I do not want to leave the warmth, comfort, and modesty of my blanket. “May I have some clothing?”
He looks at me. “I forgot your kind enjoys covering itself for the sake of covering itself even if you are at a comfortable ambient temperature. What do they call it again? Furshorn?”
“Fashion?”
“That’s the word,” Manik says. “You want to be fashionable.”
“Humans have a lot of dangly bits they like to cover and strap up and generally contain. We’re made weird,” I agree with him.
“I have a fabric collection from…”
He doesn’t even need to finish the sentence. I already know where his collection comes from. He saves and uses every part of the bounty hunter.
“I can make something to fit you,” he says. “It will amuse me to do so. I think you would look quite cute in pink. Yes. I am sure you would.”
I’m not a person to him, but frankly, that’s probably a good thing because Manik kills people. If I can stay in this mental box called pet, where I don't have to be objectively useful, I might just survive him.
“I like pink!”
There is a certain balance to his idea. Me pink, him blue, hunter and hunted, captor and captured all tucked up in a nice hole in the ground.
“Very good,” he says. “Soup first, and then clothes.”
I take some time to look around while I am somewhat alone. So this is where the terrifying Manik has made his home in the most inhospitable part of the world. It’s… Well... It’s not homey. It is well ordered, and there are a lot of things here. Most of it is technical in nature. A lot of machines, not a lot of spaces for comfort, though there is a chair made to Manik’s scale next to a screen. He’s been eating snacks and watching shows. Aliens really are like us.