The storm and the peace it brought along lasted only a few hours more hours. During the time Alec wrapped their arms together, securing the line that connected him to life-giving Aamaranth. He used the belt from his holster and the bit of fur to insulate it, and when it felt secure, he made a move to stand. She did not realize the cue, and he stood up with such swiftness she could not anticipate the move. Their arms became the chain connecting a moving ship to a stationary shore. Alec fell flat. T’sala giggled and kicked her feet with glee from her place in the snow. He made the move to stand again, going slowly and motioning with his free hand for her to stand alongside him. She hesitated a moment with a smirk, and he huffed out an exasperated breath. Yet he waited patiently as she took her time to slowly stand with him. Feigning a few falls herself in the process. The last finally broke his patience, and he breathed out hard through his nose. He lifted his hand as if to sign something and then thought better of it and instead gathered his coat and the blanket.

  He placed the blanket over both of them, and she adjusted it to place it on him. With his suit, she did not need the warmth. He breathed harshly again and took time to sign with the broken speech one hand could give him. “We are slow. Much effort to move, we must shadow.” He looked frustrated at only being able to speak in such broken words. That gave T’sala more reasons to smile, as much as he huffed through his nose, she could see in his eyes he enjoyed her laughter, even if he didn’t join in.

  “Do you mean we must blend in?” She asked as a mother would a child learning to talk. His eyebrows took a downward turn in frustration. He motioned by raising a closed fist with a raised thumb. She had seen him do this before; it meant their views were aligned. He began to pull the fur over her again, and this time she helped pull it free. He gathered up the bundle of rifle pieces and picked up his revolver and tucked it in the belt looped through his trousers. He looked at her with a stoic expression and sighed. “Ready?”

  “Ready!” She said loudly and stepped forward. They both ended in a pile of fur and snow just outside the cave mouth. Alec stood with a face full of snow, and T’sala began to laugh again. This reminded her of games the children used to play with legs tied as one. With their height differences and the bound arms, this threw off their balance just as much.

  He motioned to her with his one hand; this was not Teretha's hand speak but a simple gesture. “Slow down”. He deliberately put one foot in front of the other, indicating to her to match his rhythm. Within 3 paces, they were out of sync, and she lagged behind, almost pulling them off balance again. She hopped and landed beside him, and that is how they continued. Step. Step. Step. Hop. The rhythm became a game for T’sala, who imagined shapes that she would hop through as a child. Alec was much more focused on the surroundings. He seemed not notice the cold, but T’sala could see the exposed fleshy parts of him fluctuate with an icy blue to renewed flesh. She realized it matched the rhythm of her pumping heart and could almost feel the efforts his body made to heal him. He hid the pain well, but she felt it in their connected blood.

  The crested the first rise, and T’sala pointed out her traps. They were broken, and what pieces they pulled from under the snowstorm were unusable. “There was a great beast,” she lowered her head in shame, “It took your knife.”

  “Beasts don’t knife.” Alecs' hand symbols and face were both flat in delivery. Was he trying to be funny? Maybe he missed her smile. It took some of her guilt from losing the knife, and she added more detail, trying to honour the last actions of the knife.

  “It found its mark in a beast that could not be stabbed anywhere but one spot. It found it, here.” She singled to the back of her neck where the knife had stuck on the beast, and Alec considered her words.

  “Where?” The hand speak did not require added words.

  T’sala’s face fell. “It nearly ate you. When I hurt it, it escaped me and ran into the storm. I failed you, offworlder, the knife was lost, and the beast yet lives.”

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  Alec knocked on the metallic part of his chest plate. “No good eating. This time his hand speak did garner a laugh from her, and she lifted her head. His expression did not hold the same condemnation she felt for herself. Yes, he seemed to be seriously considering, but that was focused on a plan. He had already moved beyond the failures of the past, and they truly didn’t matter to this man. Her father and brother had not been the same. Even before the baron had taken her, she had always felt on display in the family. Her mother had passed in the giving of T’sala to the world, and it felt like the protection her father and brother gave her was suffocating. Every mistake had been highlighted; she knew it was because they wanted her to survive. It made her the hardened woman Alec had pointed out in the cave.

  “Show me…” Alec couldn’t find the word for slugger with the handspeak and instead mimed a car driving. T’sala got the point and took him to the edge of the rise that overlooked the ice road the sluggers drove down. They arrived just in time to hear and see a slugger pulling its cargo down the road. She observed the offworlder taking it all in, but his expression fell from hope to the still calmness when he saw the truck.

  “Not this,” Alec indicated his vial port after the handspeak, then followed with “this.” As he mimed eating with his one hand. T’sala understood that these trucks carried food. Something neither of them required in their state. The offworlder turned his attention back to studying the truck, but at this distance, there was not much to be made out for her eyes. He reached down to the snow and pulled gently on their attached arms, indicating for her to join him. In the snow, he drew a symbol she did not recognize. She indicated as much with her shoulders and looked to him for any explanation. He drew again in the snow, something that looked like a long winding line and then a large circle surrounded by squares. She looked at it, confused, and Alec gently touched her chin while pointing down at the truck receding down a winding road. The offworlder had drawn a map. But how did he know? Maybe he had been on this world before? That thought gave T’sala hope, and he looked down at his drawing. He pointed to his vial arm and then pointed to each square. Was he saying they would search the city for his vials? He must be. She understood it was inevitable and they must separate soon to find success, but she was enjoying the hand-in-hand walk in a wintry snowland with the offworlder named Alec.

  The slugger disappeared down the road, finally and the sound with it. Alec stood and began to walk in the direction the vehicle had gone. He stuck to the ridge and kept T’sala step, step, step, hopping at a consistent pace. What she felt could be romantic before quickly turned into a special kind of torment. As the sun crossed its heavenly path and turned finally to darkness, his pace never slowed. She grunted in disapproval quietly under her breath. Step, step, step, hop. He didn’t hear her and kept the pace. She grunted louder. Step, Step, Step, Hop. He appeared not to have heard her again and kept pressing on. She grunted loudly enough to cause some snow to fall from the needle trees to the ground. Step, step, step, hop. His pace quickened.

  Quickened! She thought in outrage. This man clearly had a purpose, of which she shared, but his disregard of her indication caused T’sala to light up the night with a purple glow. This caught the offworlders' attention but he motioned with his free hand to keep moving and pressed on. T’sala did not grunt. T’sala did not step, step, step, hop. She simply stopped dead and focused on planting her feet firmly with Aamaranth strength. The man, Alec, lurched to a stop and, with his momentum, went clear into the snow on his back. She was laughing halfway through the fall until she realized the metal man weighed more than she accounted for. Mid laugh, she was pulled into the same lurching, awkward fall in the snow.

  Her purple glow lit the white snow around them as they both tried to scramble to their feet, pulling the other down in the process. Within a minute, both were laughing as the inability to stand without limbs caught at awkward angles took them to the snow once again. Alec firmed his free hand's grip around T’salas’s waist and pulled her close, and then rolled her overtop of him. In the same movement, he stood, righting them like a swoop in a dance. The feeling was exhilarating and left them both breathing hard, face to face. She thought she saw a faint blush in his skin, but her purple glow may have been tricking the eye. She held his gaze for a moment, and then his eyes left hers suddenly, and the moment dissipated.

  Her glow turned frustrated for a moment, then winked out in fear. Alecs gaze drew her to look behind her shoulder, where a beast stood tall. The dark fur was familiar, and the shimmer of the knife still stuck in its neck glistened in the moonlight. It let out a roar that hurt T’salas’s ears, and she froze as it charged her and Alec where they stood.