T’sala and Alec had first collapsed on the couch out of necessity to decompress. Since the battle on her home world, they had not known a safe place to rest. T’sala looked around to see a windowless room that looked more like a cell than living quarters, but still, to her, it felt like a place to finally rest. She allowed herself to close her eyes and let her mind wander in the way she did to replace sleep. She felt the offworlder do the same as the hours ticked by in silence, with their shared blood and held hands connecting them still. She stared at the man, Alec, and took in each line of his jaw and where his noble cheeks met his clear eyes. They contained that electronic glow, but they were still his, and she found they held mysteries she wanted to unravel. The same eyes were guarded by a sadness that T’sala felt it would take many lifetimes to understand.
She faded into her uneasy dreams at some point, but only realised as she stirred awake to the offworlder tugging distractedly at their connected arms. She looked around, trying to see if there was any danger, but he wasn’t even looking at her. He was staring at the door they had entered, and his free hand was picking at the lint lines on the couch arm. She tugged back playfully at the arm, and he looked down. When their eyes met, she felt that same desire to unravel his mystery and wondered what he was thinking behind them. He gestured past the food box, neither of them required that, to a table that housed some odd rectangles with wires. He raised an eyebrow to her and nodded while he made the move to stand. She did as he did in unison, and they made their way over to the odd collection.
T’sala had not seen this before; it looked like technology left over from ancient times. A large box with two metal posts that had an odd fluid in it was connected to a large flat square. This, in turn, was connected to a box on each end of the table. The offworlder smiled and began to turn knobs and flip switches that the boxes offered. Nothing happened. The man, Alec, frowned and began fiddling with the wires. He touched one of the posts in the largest box and then the other side of the wire. Electricity sparked high into the air. T’sala tried to jump back in self-preservation. She stuck firm on Alec's arm; the silly fool was smiling.
He gestured them over to the door they had used to enter this room. She followed, again in unison with their blood connection. T’sala watched him test the locking mechanism on the door that hid them. She smacked his hand as he unlocked the first.
“The Rumsey said to stay here, she said it is safe.” The offworlder pressed on, his electronic eyes scanning the locks and removing the next one. T’sala’s voice took on a panic, and her glow lit the room brighter than the light as she grabbed Alec’s arm. “She said it is safe, here!” The last word was stated with a panicked crack in her voice, and T’sala reflectively pulled her hands to her mouth in embarrassment. It did not help her glow.
She looked up to the offworlder, expecting to see him laughing at her panic. He was not. Instead, his eyes held a softness and awareness of her emotions that T’sala did not need his words to explain. Her offworlder did more than hear her; he had paused mid-action at her concern. Alec gestured with his hands, pointing to his throat, to the boxes they had just left and outside. He realised he was just pointing without using hand-speak in his excitement, breathed, then signed.
“We safe. In and out. The eyes tell me.” He finished the last by pointing to his digital eyes and scanning the room again. T’sala was unsure; they were on a planet strange even to this man. She could see that clearly. She trusted this man, however, and had yet to see this level of excitement in him since they arrived. His urgency gave him a life that contrasted the stillness of his sleep in the cave so harshly that T’sala felt it was best to give in to her trust over her fear. She reached out and grabbed the door handle while Alec smiled and undid the last lock. They cracked open the door into the empty warehouse Rumsey had driven them into hours before.
The air felt heavy, though there was no dust like her home world to make it so. In fact, the coldness of this world seemed to keep everything sterile and clean. The soft blue moon of this planet filtered through windows that were high on the building's front door. Unless the people of the planet could fly, they had no need to fear being seen. She looked up to Alec to see why it was so important to leave the safe haven, hidden in the tool shed. His eyes were focused on the shelving that held rows upon rows of junkyard technology. T’sala was practising trusting the offworlder more, but it was hard not to look at the stuff as garbage.
She walked alongside him while he searched through the various pieces of gathered junk. His eyes flickered with an electric gaze, and his movements took on more purpose. He passed her an empty box and began placing pieces and wires in it. He smiled at her, and she felt her heart skip; her memories used the skip to jump back in time to memories of her mother and father in the market together, before the baronhood had interrupted life. She happily followed along through the aisles as the man, Alec, gathered what tools and materials he would.
Finally, happy with his selection, he wandered back towards their secret safe haven. On their way, he gathered a large canister that was connected to two long tubes and what looked like a smaller version of his pistol at the end. Once they were safely locked behind the doors, the offworlder gestured to her to pick up the table alongside her. Even with the large boxes on it, with their Amaranth strength, it was a simple task. They placed it by the couch and resumed a sitting position.
In the same way she had guided him during the stitching of the hide jacket, he now guided her in the sorting and connecting of various pieces. T’sala enjoyed most of it. The moments she didn’t enjoy it was when the man, Alec, would become excited and begin operating too fast without any instructions to her. She would simply stop and allow him to stumble in the work to get her point across. She wore his frustration at this like a badge of honour, and he would slow down and become more patient with instruction. One pile was sorted onto the table, the other, made up of smaller items, the man, Alec, worked on in his hands. One piece looked like one of the rectangular squares on the table. The offworlder was focused on this so intensely that he attached a wire to it, and T’sala found herself leaning in. She jumped back as it sparked and let out a loud “Werrrampch!!” Noise.
It sounded as if it wanted to be an alarm, a word, and an animal growl all in one. T’sala laughed, and her glow took on a soft tone. Alec looked hopeful and began to work more quickly with his one hand. T’sala held the piece as still as she could, but almost dropped it when the offworlder took the canister with the small gun and turned some knobs, producing a bright white flame. He steadied her and showed her it was safe by leaning his face, holding a wire in his teeth, toward the device. He made a connection, and where the flame touched the wire, it was fused to the box. Soon, a fist-sized object stood complete with two wires dangling from it.
The offworlder directed T’sala to hold it to his neck while he wrapped it tightly there with a cloth. He connected the wires to his own electronics in his neck, and T’sala felt wonder as she saw electricity power the device. It began to hum as the man, Alec, tightened his throat muscles as if speaking. He was looking more hopeful by the second. He took in a deep breath and mouthed her name. Nothing came out of the newly crafted device except a loud squawk. Sparks fired up, and the popping force launched it from his neck to the floor. T’sala went to laugh, surely the offworlder did not see that coming.
He clearly did not, for he was still not moving, in shock. The look on his face was fury and dismay combined, and he lifted one boot heel and placed it over the device. T’sala felt anger at this man. They had been here for hours at this, and it was just as much her creation as his. She placed a hand on his knee and firmly pressed it away. He looked up at her, and his expression softened, and he moved his boot heel. He picked up the device and set it gingerly between them, like a pet that needed care. He raised one finger, indicating he had an idea, and changed his focus to the boxes on the table.
This direction went quick and T’sala found herself settling into a rhythm as the offworlder let his frustrations at the failed voice device fade. Soon the rectangles were also lighting up with electricity as the two of them worked in unison. The man Alec grabbed a flat black disc from a box that sat near the couch. It had many discs in it and why he picked this one T’sala had no idea. He flipped a switch and the disc began to spin. A loud thumping noise entered the room and T’sala turned to face the door, ready for combat. She did not feel the man Alec pull on her blood however and turned to look at him.
At that moment, other tones joined the thumping noise in a musical combination that had T’sala feeling that her feet wanted to move. It had a driving spiritual force to it like the chants and dances her people used in ritual, but something about this was nonsensically free. There was no “proper” ceremony for him; it was the offworlders' ceremony, and he looked as lost as she did. He was, however, smiling ear to ear as he nodded his head to the rhythm T’sala’s feet wanted to take. He extended their bound hands together in front of them and drew his free hand around her waist. Hers fell naturally on his back, resting on the muscular shoulders she could feel even under the jacket. He lifted her gently by the hip and guided her, tapping the rhythm with his feet.
She joined in his movements, like how they did in battle, but this time it was in joy. They spun, they moved from side to side, and all the while they looked in each other's eyes. T’sala did not care that he did not have his voice; in this dance, his eyes said more than they had in all the time they had spent together so far. She wanted to live these moments forever, but she knew soon the Rumsey would come back and the danger would resume. If they could successfully find the purple vials, then they would be separated. As she spun with her heart close to his, she wondered if she wanted that; she could live forever. That was unfair of her, though, and a part of her felt guilt at mimicking her own captor's thoughts. To hope the man, Alec, remain bound to her by defect instead of by choice was a quiet kind of capture. To make him dependent on her to keep him would be to never know the truth of this moment? His glow dissipated at the thought. Once he was free, would he still choose to dance with her? Or was this something for the moment, something to take the time of waiting for the Rumsey, waiting for the purple?
As if sensing her discomfort in her own guilt, the offworlder began to slow his spinning and returned them once more to the couch. The musical thumping from the collection of rectangles continued, and T’sala still tapped her toes as the offworlder picked up the voice device they had worked on and began to examine it. In the time between beats, they would catch each other stealing glances. Those moments had T’sala on a ride in highs of trust while their eyes met and lows of unease when she was left in her own mind. They worked like this as time passed unnoticed. They exchanged the discs in the boxes as they finished their spinning, and like her emotions, some of them, T’sala quite enjoyed, but some brought her feelings of unease or distaste. She anchored herself finally by interlocking her fingers with his on their bound together arms. He looked up from his work and smiled at her. T’sala decided she would rest there and let her mind cease the ups and downs. In this moment, he was still her offworlder and would not be going anywhere without her anytime soon.
