ROLECLearning names was simple enough. It was everything else that was difficult.

  Vexarok sat only a few feet away, his whole body animating as he spoke, trying to expin something new to me. I had no clue what, but I gave him my undivided attention. I noted the way his ears lifted and lowered, the way the little tufts of fur at the ends twitched. His tail moved too, rising, falling, swishing, spping. He seemed to use all these things while talking.

  From what I could read of his body nguage, I thought he looked happy.

  "Well, I guess this is better than the alternative," I told him, smoothing out the bnket I'd pulled over my shoulders. "But it's not how I expected my night to go."

  The alien suddenly grew still, staring at me expectantly while his tail swished in wide arcs behind him. Sometimes it caught on the vines, allowing more moonlight to spill through. The glow framed the giant man in a silvery outline, catching on his waist-length hair.

  "Is this your home?"

  My eyes drifted away from him and slid over the room. The vines fell back into pce, making it difficult to see clearly. All the same, I knew the bed I sat on was the only thing in the cave. He had no furnishings, decorations, or other comforts; just a rge animal skin and a single bnket. Nothing about it felt like a home.

  "Do you live here alone? The logs said the people on this pnet had developed some kind of civilization. Are there other caves nearby? Or maybe a whole city somewhere?"

  Despite all my questions, they went unanswered.

  Perhaps that was for the best. I didn't need to know where his people lived. It was bad enough that I was interacting with Vexarok himself, and it was even worse that we'd made physical contact.

  The spread of disease was something I hadn't considered before.

  "My medkit is still in that cave," I said, thoughts suddenly shifting there.

  But the alien didn't share my concern or reservations. Vexarok inched my direction, leaning forward before dropping beside me at the center of the furs. He was soaking wet, much as I was, and seemed not to care that we were effectively dirtying the few things he owned.

  A nervous ugh worked its way loose from my throat, and I angled my head before resting it on my arm. "Don't suppose I could trouble you into going back to get my stuff, huh?"

  Vexarok eyed me, yet his expression remained warm.

  Releasing a sigh, I rubbed at my face.

  Given everything, I couldn't actually ask that. It was dangerous outside. I already knew as much. Hell, I had half expected to wake up staring down death. I had awoken, of course, but rather than some monster trying to eat me alive, I had someone pying my knight in shining armor instead.

  It hadn't felt that way in the moment, but I had some context now; slung over his shoulder, I'd been given a clearer picture of everything behind us. I'd seen the shadows moving between the trees as Vexarok carried me up and away. Had he not been there — had he not reacted as quickly as he did — I was sure that the sabers would have found me. I didn't even want to imagine how that might have gone.

  Badly seemed like the only answer, especially when I considered that the purple alien was wary of the saber-tooths too. He was an eight-foot tall behemoth with a sword at his hip, and I was a human with a stick. If Vexarok chose running over fighting, it spoke volumes.

  "Well, thanks for the help. This is definitely an improvement over the hole I'd crawled into. Fewer things to kill me up here. Unless you have pns to eat me too, hm?"

  The alien frowned, a long and heavy rumble peeling from his chest. He seemed just as frustrated by our inability to communicate as I was.

  Then he started to undress.

  Immediately, I jerked my gaze away.

  Logic, or perhaps denial, told me that the expnation was simple; his clothes were wet too. He wanted to get warm.

  That's all there was to it.

  Thankfully, I was proven right when Vexarok shifted away from me. He neatly id out his clothing near the bed to dry, then settled back onto the fur and stretched out across it. He still watched me, waiting to see what I might do, but I didn't move. Not at first.

  Tentatively, I reached for my ces and loosened my boots just enough to peel them off my feet. Socks quickly followed. That was as far as I ventured, left wearing only my filthy pants.

  Seemingly satisfied, Vexarok patted the space between us then reached for the bnket I was hogging. He gave it a tug. I didn't fight to keep it, and Vexarok shook the bnket loose. He spread it more evenly across the fur.

  Everything about this situation was strange. I should have felt something; panic, fear, distress. Instead, there was just a sense of relief. There were no smugglers or bounty hunters, no giant saber-tooths or mysterious creatures circling my pod. There was just a friendly alien.

  Blowing air past my lips, I flopped over where I sat. I occupied only a small section of the fur. Which he took issue with. Vexarok rearranged the bnket, this time so it was over me. Then he slid closer, using his whole body to form a cradle around my own. I was nested between wall, bnket, and body. I felt incredibly warm as the heat from his bare skin seeped through the thin material separating us.

  For long minutes, I id stiffly in that embrace. More than once, I thought I felt Vex nuzzling my hair, but decided it was more likely to just be his breath stirring at my crown.

  Before I could dwell too deeply on the thought, exhaustion nipped at my heels. It caught me only a moment ter.