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I turn around to find the human in the small confines on the shuttle, safe and sound, but gasping for air, a red ring of human hand around her throat. Because there was no time to release the dust, she is not sedated. She is aware of absolutely everything that just happened to her, and she is not happy about any of it. Far from being relieved to find herself rescued, she is clearly still flooded with adrenaline and ready to fight.
She turns around, looks at me, and I brace myself for what feels like the inevitable scream. Humans almost always shriek when they see me for the first time. I am an intimidating creature, much larger than they are, and impossibly strange. My lower tusks cause significant consternation in most cases.
The human stares at me, her eyes sweeping down my body and then back up to my eyes.
“The fuck are you?”
The question is succinct and sounds faintly offended. I detect no discernible fear at all. I suppose I am not accosting her, so compared to her immediately previous circumstances she is much safer.
“My name is Arkan,” I explain. “I am a merchant and human trainer. I am not intending to hurt you.”
“Human trainer? What the fuck is happening?”
She is still charged with adrenaline, terrified, agitated, and ready to fight. I wonder if I should provide a little in the way of sedation, but I want to inspect her and make sure that she was not harmed by the brutes who attacked her, and I want to talk to her.
I set the controls of the shuttle to send it skimming back to the main ship. I need to get her safely contained before she becomes unruly. This human has unruly all over her. She needs a bath too. Not because she is particularly personally dirty, but because the stench of the human city clings to her. It smells like smoke and toxic waste mixed with plastic micro-particles and petrochemicals. They do love to burn things down there. If something can be set on fire, a human will set fire to it.
Her clothing has seen better days. The leggings are ripped and torn horizontally across her thighs and knees. She’s wearing a light piece of fabric that does little to cover much of her upper body, and a great deal of strapping that is studded and clearly designed to mimic the spiky plumage of certain animals on their planet. She is a study in attraction and repulsion.
I have the urge to bathe her and replace these sweaty, dirty scraps with a nice, cozy onesie suit that will cover her more modestly, and much more comfortably for that matter. I have had these suits designed from an absorbent and soft material that humans seem to find very comforting to be encased in.
“I noticed that you were in distress,” I tell her. “What is your name?”
“Jennifer,” she says, spitting the word as if it is an insult to me somehow. To say she is combative is an understatement, but she is still recovering from combat, so that makes sense.
“Would you like something to eat, Jennifer?”
I never go near a human without a bar of chocolate. Having harvested cacao seeds from the planet, I’ve made a point of having a small plantation back home in order to be able to manufacture organic chocolate treats for humans. It is the one substance that almost all of them will obey for and makes the training process much more smooth.
She perks up at the offer.
“Is that chocolate?”
“Yes.”
She lunges for the bar, clearly intending on consuming the entire thing at once. I have no intention of allowing that, so I pull it away before she has a chance of snatching it away.
“You may have a piece,” I tell her as she comes to an abrupt and offended halt before me. “But I need you to sit down first, please.”
She takes a seat in my chair, throwing her leg over one of the arms, looking immediately and completely at home.
“Not there,” I smile. “On the floor.”
“On the… why?” She challenges me immediately.
“I need my chair in order to continue to pilot the shuttle, and there is not a second chair, so in terms of securing you as best as possible, the floor is it. Unless, of course, you’d like to sit in my lap.”
I watch a hot flush of red rise up through her skin. I like that. She is responding to me on a basic chemical level, which means she is open to me.
She doesn’t say a word, just gets up and stands at her rather limited full height, arms folded over her chest in what I recognize as a self-protective gesture.
“I would like you to sit down,” I say.
“I’m not sitting on the fucking floor.”
“Then I can’t give you the chocolate, I’m afraid.”
This is about more than a sweet treat. This is about starting her training while she is hungry. It is not easy to survive in the human world, and it is even harder to obtain treats. The chocolate I have to offer her represents a very high value reward.
