The Absurdity of it All (Birdy x Nivvy)

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Aram stood, perfectly still, as Samantha approached the small creature in his arms. Under its words, the creature stopped struggling, although it aimed one entirely ineffective kick at his stomach before going still. But it seemed that Aram had been right in his guess that Samantha didn't want anyone else to know about him. The shout that the small creature had been about to release before Aram had grabbed him would undoubtedly have drawn unwanted attention. But he was willing to trust Samantha when it mimed that he should uncover the creature's mouth. Its desire to keep him from being discovered seemed, if anything, even greater than his own desire. As ever, he would have to trust its judgement.

His hand moved away from the creature's mouth, easily avoiding the snapping teeth that it threw after his fingers. However, two other fingers came to rest lightly on the creature's throat, settling in at the point where sound was produced. If the creature did decide to scream, despite Samantha's apparent certainty that it wouldn't, Aram would know and be able to cover its mouth before it could finish making a noise.

Aram was undoubtedly curious about the creature in his arms. Other than the difference in size, it really didn't look all that different from Samantha. Compared to what he had been expecting, based off of the strange, grey creature of which he had seen a picture and the shirt with the very long armholes he now wore, he had been expecting a much greater physical variation between individuals of Samantha's species. Maybe these two were very closely related, which could explain the similarities in form.
 
Samantha smiled at her little brother, who tried to bite the alien. "Jason," She scolded fondly. Straightening once again, she fondly rested a hand on her little brother's head. "Be good to our guest. I'm going to let Aramdalx stay with me for a while, so he's going to be in my room. That means that you can't let momma or papa know, and you can't let them into my room for anything."

"But Sam," Her brother began,

"But nothing, Jason. He was hurt, and he needed help. What he doesn't need is people poking and prodding at him while he tries to heal. He's only going to be here until he can heal up enough to make his own way. I think."

"But Saaam," Her brother whined, "He's scary. He looks like a spider."

"You don't have to be around him if you don't want to. Just... Don't tell momma."

Again, she glanced up to the alien, and gave it a reassuring smile.

"And you need not to tell any of your friends about him, either. He's not a toy to be shown to everyone you know. He's a person, and he deserves his privacy."

"Okay," said her brother, although a pout was forming on his face. "Will you ask him to let me go now?"

"Sure," She said, stepping back from the two. She pointed to the alien, and pantomimed opening her arms. "Would you please release Jason?" She asked, more for her brother's benefit than for the alien.
 
Aram hesitated for a good two seconds before he finally released the small creature. Ultimately, it was a decision based on necessity. He could not hold the thing forever, so he either had to let it go and trust that it wouldn't do anything stupid, or he had to kill it. Samantha was obviously attached to the thing, though, and killing it would probably be a serious offense. The life-debt tugged at his heart. He set the small creature down gently, before releasing it. Immediately it hurried away from him, putting Samantha between it and him. They stared at each other in silence for a moment, but eventually Aram decided to simply ignore the creature and hope for the best.

He returned to the surface where he and Samantha had been sitting before this rather unwanted interruption, adopting a posture almost identical to the one he had held before. Of course, he had little desire to resume the lessons in imitation, but it did, at the very least, create an admirable impression that he wasn't the least bit bothered by this whole situation. Which was mostly true. Ultimately there wasn't much that any creature in this house could do to him. If it came to a fight between him and any creature on this planet, Aram would undoubtedly win. So long as the creature wasn't Samantha.

He hated life debts. He would have to get rid of it as soon as possible.
 
Samantha smiled, as Aramdalix released her brother, and resumed it's seat on her bed. She sat as well, and glanced at her brother, who was still gawking awkwardly.

"Jason, would you bring a few of your baby books here, please? I'd like to try and teach our guest some English."

He nodded slowly, before realizing that the task required him to break his stare away from the thing that was sitting on Samantha's bed. He shuffled out of the room, closing the door behind him.

Back to work then, Sam thought to herself. She touched her chest once more. "Samantha," She pointed to the alien's. "Aramdalx." Her hand moved to her bed, which had been made earlier. There was a fluffy comforter on top of the sheets, and a plush mattress beneath. "Bed," She added in the same tone.

"Can you say 'bed'?" She asked, patting the bed once again.
 
Aram played along, burying his frustration under a wave of cool patience that was normally only present in the midst of a deep cover operation. They moved through the objects in the room for a few moments, before the little creature Samantha had saved came back with a number of flat objects with thin, delicate strips inside. Here their progress slowed even further, as the translator was not equipped to deal with written language. But still Aram played along. If anyone who had ever interacted with him could have seen him in that moment, they would have likely exploded from a sheer inability to process what they were seeing. But all that mattered to Aram was gathering enough resources to complete the assimilation. The creature did not seem capable of providing any more acceptable sustenance at the moment, and Aram had enough so that he could complete his healing to an acceptable stage. It would have to do for now.

When the light began to fade outside Aram quickly brought the lesson to a halt, standing up and moving towards the window with a quick gesture of holding thrown in unconsciously. He watched the gathering darkness with a practiced eye, and quickly began to get a sense of how long a solar day was on this planet. His assessment: It was remarkably short. He would likely be able to go nearly eight solar days on this planet before he needed to rest. If he could get proper quantities of sustenance, he could probably avoid rest of any sort until one of his own ships came to collect him once more.

Satisfied, Aram returned to the "bed" and sat back down. There, he mimed out the motion for eating once more. The sooner he could gather the necessary resources the better.
 
For all of her efforts, Samantha got her guest to say very little. She thought he might be getting impatient with her efforts, but she was doing the best she knew to do.

She glanced at the window, as the light began to fade. Where was she going to keep the alien? Did they even sleep? She glanced at her brother, who had seated himself on her floor, stealing glances at the none-too-tiny alien as frequently as he could manage.

Sam gave a start when Aramdalix sprang from her bed, and moved to the window. Perhaps 'sprang' was the wrong term, but the alien moved so fast! She raised her brows.

"Oh god, you're not an alien werewolf, are you?" She muttered, more to herself than for the alien's benefit. But no, he wanted food.

She let out a relieved sigh, and nodded her head. It wouldn't be strange to pop downstairs for a late-night snack.

She took Jason gently by the arm. "Time for bed, kiddo. No arguments. And don't tell anyone about our guest."

He fussed a little, but went along anyhow.

Sam made her way downstairs, to dig through the kitchen for enough food to appease her guest. She gathered half of a ham, a fresh bag of potato chips, celery, lettuce, and a pair of sweet peppers that she was particularly fond of munching on herself. They hadn't any spice to speak of.

Cradling the lot in her arms, she hurried back to her room.
 
Although he still spoke very little, by this point his translator had gathered a working knowledge of the creature's language. Now, Aram planned to bring their lessons in imitation to a halt. This was, in part, because he could no longer actually hear what Samantha was saying when it spoke. The translator intercepted the signal from his ears and converted it into the equivalent, or closest equivalent, word in the common language. If it did not have an adequate substitute it would not translate the word, but often it could fill it in simply from context. The translator was a clever little machine, albeit not as clever as his own assimilation.

The food quickly vanished, and while both the greasy and rich ham and potato chips were the best received he did not turn up his nose at any of it. He could feel his own reserves starting to restock, and as it grew better he felt his own impatience beginning to rear higher. Already he was making plans to depart from the house in the darkest part of the night and see what prey he could scrounge up on his own. It did not really matter to him what he found. Big or small, one of Samantha's kind or not, it would become his food once Samantha became satisfied, and put an end to these impractical and unnecessary lessons.
 
As exciting as having an alien all of her own was, Samantha was growing weary. She'd had a full, and exciting day. And her eyelids felt like they were being weighted down with lead.

It was still shocking, just how much food the strange creature could put down. And bones. And platewear, though she hadn't provided any but the one the ham had been on. She laid herself down in bed as she watched her guest eat. Soon, her head was on her pillow. Not long after, her eyes were sliding closed.

She was only vaguely aware of mumbling something about sleeping to her guest, before the darkness of a dreamless sleep overtook her.
 
When Aram looked up from his meal, Samantha was laying on its bed, eyes closed. He studied it for a moment, before stepping up and gently rubbing his fingers together next to its ear. When there was no response, he turned away, towards the window.

It was easy to slide it open, and he quickly made sure that it wasn't going to slip closed again after he departed. He stripped out of the ill-fitting clothes, dropping them in a pile against the windowsill, and his black flesh was quickly lost in the shadow of the night, rendering him nearly invisible. After that he carefully assessed the distance between the window and the ground floor, primarily to make sure that he would be able to return to the window without the aid of the ladder later tonight, before slipping out and dropping silently to the ground outside the house. He remained crouched for a moment, reminding himself that he had only about a sixth of what he would normally consider night to hunt, before racing away from the house. He would return later.

Samantha lived near a forest, and those people who were nearby were not close enough to each other to notice the dark shape that flitted from yard to yard. He took a brief period of time to familiarize himself with the area and ensure that he would be able to pick out Samantha's house again before settling quietly into the hunt.

The first thing to fall prey to his efforts was a cat, a sleek and well-fed creature that would no doubt be missed by its owners. It hissed as he drew near, but in a flash of motion it was in his hands, and a crack echoed through the night. When he departed the space, there was nothing but a pile of bloodstained fur and a few small bones left.

The list of his kills grew slowly, much to Aram's disappointment. Many of the small mammals that normally populated a semi-rural neighborhood had already retreated to safe dens for the night, looking to avoid far more earthly night hunters. He got a raccoon, not that he knew what to call it, a couple of squirrels, and finally, much to his satisfaction, a coyote. When he finished he was bloated and off balance, and his night cover had been ruined by both wet and dry blood. A small sheen began to build on his skin as he crouched in a dark corner, and the blood slicked away from his skin like water running off a duck. He wiped off the last few drops by hand, before standing and making his way slowly, at least by his standards, back to Samantha's house and room.

He was forced to crouch underneath her window for a good portion of the night, uncertain that in his weakened state and with the undigested weight in his body that he would be able to make it up to the window. But his body processed the resources with a quickness and efficiency unknown on earth, and began to put them to work almost immediately. Before even the first hints of sunlight were cresting the horizon, Aram safely jumped up to the window and silently slipped back into Samantha's room. He donned the clothes in equal silence before settling into a corner, and giving his body the time it needed to process his meal.

Before the end of the next earthly day, he would be ready to assimilate.
 
Samantha slept soundly throughout the night, and with no hint of her newfound companion's midnight adventures. Not a soul stirred, even when the alien clambered back into her window, and dressed himself. It wasn't until well after sunrise, that Sam began to stir, wrestling with wakefulness, and the desire to cling to pleasant dreams.

Eventually the urge to open her eyes finally became too great to suppress, and she sighed, rolling onto her side, and swinging her legs out from under the sheets. She ran a hand through her hair, and blinked her eyes sleepily to clear the cobwebs from her mind, and reached her arms above her head in a luxuriant stretch before sliding off of the bed. She found Aramdalix in one of the corners, dressed in the same clothes she'd left him in. "Good morning," She greeted him, waggling her fingers.

"I'll bet you're hungry. I'll go see if I can scrounge up something for breakfast." She chimed pleasantly, pantomiming eating once again. She stepped to the door, and poked her head out. She retreated almost instantly again, as a smaller face peered into the doorway once again. Jason had returned.

"Can I see him?" Asked the boy.

"No. I've got to get him some breakfast, and I don't know that he likes being stared at."

"Awwe, Sam, c'mon."

With a firm frown, the girl moved out through the door, gently forcing her brother back. "I said no, Jason." The rest of her words were muffled, as she closed the door behind her. Her footsteps faded away from the door, and sounded on the steps to the main floor.

A moment passed.

The doorknob turned, and Sam's younger brother poked his head in again, his eyes going wide as he laid them on the alien guest. He hurried inside the room, closing the door quietly behind himself.
 
Aram was content to remain still, one set of arms tucked into the small of his back, one resting over his stomach, and the last cushioning his head. He was not particularly attracted to the thought of food, not after his meal of only a few hours ago, but it was not as though Samantha would bring him enough that he wouldn't be able to finish it, no matter how full he was. Unfortunately, there was a point where more food would not speed up the process of healing, and would simply weigh him down. He was ready to assimilate.

His rest was disturbed by the sound of the door opening again. His eyes quickly locked on the door, and he abandoned his relaxed posture. It had been two short of a time since Samantha had left the room for it to have returned, basing on its standard rate of movement. That meant someone, or something, else was coming in. He tensed, prepared to defend himself. However, a moment later, he leaned back against the wall, his hands laying down limply again. It was just the younger version of Samantha.

It took Aram a few moments to realize that the little thing was staring at him, hardly moving and barely making a sound. Did it want something from him? Aram was not accustomed to something so flagrantly and disrespectfully staring at him, and if this creature wasn't beloved of Samantha, who he owed a life debt, he would be certain to teach it its place before it could even blink. Instead, Aram closed his eyes, trying to remain calm, and forget about the little thing until Samantha returned.
 
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