Star Side

Chapter 55

I don't know what I had been expecting going into the bowls of the Earth. Maybe I never realized I was stupid enough to believe everything was just shaded with dark colors like when you watch a cartoon or movie and they're just shading it so you know it's dark, but can still see what's going on. Or perhaps I was imagining bioluminescent moss, or loads of firelight when the dwarves were running away from the goblins in the Hobbit. You know. Lords of the Ringsie stuffs.

But the absolute depth of the black was frightening. I wished I could take off my helmet so I could smell Gilrack and better know he was there. I don't know when I got so dependent on his smell, but for some reason his arms around me weren't enough. Probably because the space suit stopped me from feeling his body heat.

I hugged my eggs for comfort. They'd understand. They'd never been down here either.

I don't know how much time had passed when bouncing echoes of clicks met my ears.

I opened my eyes wider, hoping to catch something as Gilrack clicked back.

At first, I thought I was just seeing things, like when you stare too long at something bright and then close your eyes to see the afterimage against your eyelids. It was so dark I couldn't really tell if my eyes were open or closed, so for all I knew, I could just be seeing an afterimage.

But then the faint, afterimage glow became a distinct light, dim as it was, greenish in hue and painting soft shadows behind the outcropping of rock.

A demon, wingless, slender, and hunched down on the legs of a dragon, glided towards us soundlessly. It had short, wild light hair tied into a short braid down the side of its head, which bore a face that was eerily human. Black eyes glittered back at us.

The light came from around its neck and tail in broad, green bands.

"Hochak," said Gilrack.

"Gilrack," said the other, though they said it as none of us humans ever could: as though a stone had been chucked against stone. It even echoed deep into the tunnels behind the other alien.

I squinted through my helmet, trying to make out the new guys colorings. But in the green glow, Gilrack just looked a different shade of green.

The other alien sniffed the air with a flattened nose, his dark eyes on me. He gestured to me, then clicked. Gilrack clicked and huffed back, along with several other guttural words of his language I only understood half of. Like the word 'mate.'

Hochak seemed just as surprised as I was to be called 'mate' right after the back. He sniffed some more and took a step closer, only to get a warning growl from Gilrack. The other alien did their version of an eyeroll, which was all in the ears.

"Stingy," he said. I knew the word because it was one of the few words Gilrack had in his language outside of just sound. One didn't need an insult to know direction and pass knowledge in a cave.

"Man-child," Gilrack said in return, or, rather, their version of the insult.

Hochak didn't seem offended, though. Rather he pivoted on the spot, his tail not so much as brushing the narrow walls, and gestured over his shoulder.

Thus, with Hochak's arrival, we now traveled in light.

I stared at the walls, riveted like a washboard with the mark of claws. I remembered Gilrack breaking his way through the metal door of my bathroom and racking threw the air vents like cheese with his own claws. Nice to see they had a purpose other than ruining space accommodations.

Hochak didin't stop asking questions, clicking whirring and throwing in words at a speed I could barely keep up with, if you could call what I was doing that. I managed to pick up enough to get the gist of what he was asking, like how he'd found me, what the hell I was, what the heck did Gilrack have wings, what the flippety yack crap, etc. At some point I felt Gilrack's rumbling laughter vibrating through my suit.