I awoke that morning from Crusoe whining and licking my face. All things considered, I slept pretty damn well.
I yawn loudly, and Crusoe barks once.
“Yeah, yeah. One moment, boy.”
I know that at about this time, he does hear the call of nature, so I don’t waste much time opening the stone door for him so that he can take care of it outside.
He instantly runs outside, and I grab a couple of fruits from the basket that the natives left before exiting the cave myself.
I took a bite out of the fruit as I scanned the environment.
Huh, the native female was still here.
Why hadn’t she left and gone back to her people?
Sadly, it wasn’t like I could ask her. After all, she didn’t speak English, and I lost my translator together with the rest of my tools on the ship.
Well, not like it would have helped much. The chance of the translator containing the language of these natives, who were still using stones for tools, was infinitely small.
And well, she seemed to be currently asleep.
I sneaked a bit closer to examine her without her dying from fright.
She was thin, and looked quite similar to the male I saw earlier, except that her face had smoother and quite frankly more pleasant features. She also seemed to have breasts, much akin to a human female, something further brought forth by the fact that she was wearing nothing but a loincloth.
I find myself staring at her a bit too intensely.
Damn, I must look like a pervert…
I back off, and leave her in peace as I return to my day, which proceeded as normal.
Well, beyond the fact that I was avoiding the place the female had chosen to sleep.
When I returned to my cave, the female hadn’t yet woken up.
I ventured back inside, bringing Crusoe with me. If she woke up and he started barking at her, it might frighten her even more than she already was, last time she saw me. I gathered some fruit and smoked meat in one of the old baskets the Natives had left me, and I ventured outside quietly.
I placed the basket next to the sleeping female, and then returned to my cave.
I didn’t sleep too well that night, and I awoke in the middle of the night needing to relieve my bladder something fierce.
As I move the door out of my way, I can hear rustling outside the cave.
What? Is she still here?
I set her free, so why is she sticking around?
I crawl outside, and the female is on the ground, kneeling with her face in the dirt, with the empty basket in front of her.
Was this her way of thanking me for the food?
Why was she on the ground like that?
It almost looked like she was a Muslim during prayer, with her face towards the ground like that.
Wait a minute.
The air is nearly driven out of my lungs, and I have a hard time keeping my breathing steady.
Did she think I was some kind of god?
I stood there for a while, feeling awkward beyond belief as she didn’t move from her position on the ground.
That is, until my condition decided to remind me it was time to piss. Urgently.
I turn around and run away into some bushes, so that she wouldn’t see my sergeant Johnson.
I did my thing, and it was heavenly.
When I turned back around, she was now sitting, looking at me in puzzlement.
Well, I didn’t really know what she was expecting.
And it was then that Crusoe decided to follow me out of the cave.
I hadn’t really bothered to close the door behind me, after all.
He went up to the female native, and sniffed her thoroughly. She froze up, not moving a muscle as Crusoe’s wet nose was only millimeters away from her.
Crusoe snorts, licks his nose and goes up to one of the stumps I had created when I chopped down the trees for my barricade.
And he continues to lift his leg and piss on the stump.
Once more the female seems puzzled.
Well, if she did think me some sort of god, I guess it was understandable. After all, if I saw Jesus come out of a cave, and then proceed to take a piss behind some bushes, it’d be something of a surprise.
As I went back towards the cave, I picked up the basket and brought it with me, and then I whistled for Crusoe to come with me.
After he joined me in the cave, I closed the door, and went back to sleep.
Maybe tomorrow she would have gone back to her people.
She was still there the next day, and the day after that, and the day after that. Eventually I came to terms with her living there, and after a week I had allowed her to live in my cave. It really wasn’t much of a hassle for me. She started spending the nights picking fruits in the jungle, and we spent the morning and evenings together.
I started teaching her English, and picked up some of her native language myself.
She was a very attentive, though distracting, student. And I soon became quite fond of her.
She also got along fine with Crusoe, after she had gotten over her initial fear of him.
I started to learn a great deal of things from her. She hadn’t returned to her people because she couldn’t. She had been taken from her tribe during a raid from another tribe, and to get there you had to trek for days through the land belonging to said enemy tribe.
And in fact she had been grateful that the enemy tribe had decided to sacrifice her to me, rather than the alternative, which would have been far worse, and likely would have resulted in her death.
I also learned their name for me.
Master-of-beasts.
I also learned her name, Quiet River.
In return I told her tales of my home, of sailing through the stars.
I told her about the many aliens I had seen, and the wars that had been fought.
That was new concepts to her.
She had never even conceived that there was such a thing as aliens before I had appeared. And she had never even dreamt of wars in her worst nightmares.
Her people weren’t new to conflict. Tribes often raided other tribes for females, food, or disputes over hunting grounds and foraging.
I also learned that their people were nocturnal, something I could have guessed from her sleeping habits, large eyes and sizable pupils.
She also didn’t take to wearing anything on her upper body, and I think she knows the way I look at her.
I think I’ll come to enjoy her staying with me.
One day when I decided to clean out the cave and bring in some fresh dry leaves for the beddings, I discovered my experiments with fermentation, and I found that it had become something akin to very sweet wine, or non-fizzy cider.
I offered some to River, and she started to become intoxicated after just a couple of sips.
I finished the rest of the wine, and I must admit I didn’t remember the rest of the night.