are you going to get this thing off me anytime soon?” Jennifer asked, watching him wade through the water toward her. “I think it’s soft enough to pull off,” she stated in a matter of fact tone speaking in his natural speech, comfortable with their mutual nakedness, but not with his appealing and desirable masculinity. She was falling for him and she knew it. Yet Taric hadn’t shown any signs of being interested in her. He always treated her kindly and would do anything for her, almost in respectful reverence, but he never really opened up or let his guard down around her and she wondered why.
“Let me get this wrap off your leg,” Taric said to her cheerfully, grabbing the wrap in his strong hands and with a good pull on the stiff, overlapped hide, he pried it open, allowing Jennifer to slip her leg free. Taric then let the flowing water carry the hide downstream. “Wait here, I have something for you,” he said smiling, with his eyes glinting in anticipation. He left her guessing as she dried in the warm sunlight watching him with an expressed interest in her eyes.
Taric quickly ran up the embankment, retrieved the bundle, then turned around in time to see her stand up and face the morning sun. Her radiant red hair was being blown carelessly about her shoulders and breasts by a gentle breeze, accenting her golden tanned skin and slender build. The sight of her standing naked in the morning sun took his breath away as it always did. She was incredibly beautiful and extremely erotic, but living in such close proximity as they were made it extremely difficult for him to express his forbidden feelings of love.
Taric returned and handed the bundle to Jennifer with a smile. He then retrieved his clothes from the shore and slipped them on while watching Jennifer excitedly open the bundle.
“Oh my God! Clothes! Did you make me some clothes? When did you do this? I can’t believe it! Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you so much,” Jennifer exclaimed with delight, examining the soft moccasins, skin trousers, and a beautiful tunic. She held the light, soft skin tunic in front of her admiring the pretty green, blue, yellow, and red feather adornments he had carefully sewn onto the tunic to hang loose in front of the shoulders and down the gentle slope of her breasts. Taric’s estimation of her size was nearly accurate. The beautiful tunic laced together under the arms and up between her breasts fit her slim figure nicely. Her new trousers, consisting of a loincloth and leggings, required a little adjustment for them to fit comfortably. But oh, the moccasins, so soft on the inside fit her feet perfectly, as they could be drawn and tied snugly around her shin’s just above the ankles.
“I made them while you slept,” he answered, grinning with the success of his surprise. “Sky clothes not good for life on land. You need new ones,” he commented, watching her as she admired the new outfit, pleased with her reaction to his gift, wishing once more for her to be just a girl. He loved her, but she was too perfect, too beautiful, and too unique to be a mere girl; she was something else. He witnessed her fall from the dark, mysterious heavens and take her first steps on the land with his own eyes. There was no other explanation within his mind for her presence—she is an ancestor of high rank in her sky tribe and he was not worthy.
The land had blessed her above all others, but Taric was only a lowly unmated hunter without status or rank in his tribe. He had nothing to offer a mating, so why would she choose him? he thought sadly to himself while smiling with her obvious joy, delighted as always to be near her.
Dressed in clothes for the first time since climbing into the hibernation pod aboard her doomed starship, Jennifer felt complete again as she twirled around, and then she stopped suddenly seeing something black and unmoving in the grass. She began to walk along the river’s edge toward the spot that had caught her attention.
“What’s that over there?” she asked as Taric began to follow her, looking ahead in the direction she was moving.
Taric immediately recognized what she was looking at and reached out a hand, grabbed her arm, and forcefully pulled her back to his side. “Walk backward very slowly, I need my bow,” he warned, urging her back with a gentle tug on her arm, never taking his eyes from the spot. “It’s a lycur.”
They reached the crest of the river’s embankment where Taric had left his bow and quiver of arrows, but the animal still didn’t move. “Do you think it’s dead?” Jennifer asked him, watching the spot for movement as Taric notched an arrow onto his bow.
“If it’s dead, I’ll throw it into the river. If it’s not, I’ll still throw it in the river. The body will get tangled up in the roots of some trees downriver and draw the scavengers away from this area,” Taric explained, realizing for the first time, Jennifer required a weapon and needed to learn how to shoot a bow. Taric kept Jennifer behind him as they approached the animal’s position until it was obvious to him that the beast was dead.
“Why, it looks very similar to a wolf on Earth,” Jennifer remarked as she knelt to study the dead animal’s wounds.
“It looks as if it was kicked in the head a few times. The lower jaw is broken, probably crushed by a hoof. It’s female, and she looks to have recently given birth. She must have a den around here. There might be pups still alive in her den,” she informed Taric with an excited smile he did not understand as he kicked the corpse into the water to float downriver.
“So what? If there is a den nearby, leave it to the scavengers. They will find it soon enough,” Taric said with indifference and added, “Life is hard on the land.”
“No! It doesn’t have to be that way. If there are pups in a nearby den, they don’t have to die. We may be able to tame and train a couple. That lycur must be a member of this planet’s canine species. Wolves were the first wild animals to bond with us. They’ve proven to be the most loyal, useful, and valuable companion we have enjoyed with another species. Maybe as part of your natural development, your people are supposed to bond with these animals? Maybe, just maybe, no one has thought of it yet? So what’s the problem?” Jennifer announced defiantly, then turned away from him as she began to search the area along the riverbank for the animal’s den.
Taric was at a loss for words, her reasoning, actions, and astonishing empathy for a dead animal eluded him, but to go in search of a predator’s den was just not done. “Leave it,” he said again just as they both heard the faint yelp of a pup nearby.
Jennifer followed the sound to its source and found a hole dug into the bank behind some shrubs and between some large stones. She knelt beside it and listened, hearing the cries of a pup calling for its mother inside the dark den. She extended her arm down into the den until she felt a squirming soft little ball of fur begin to nibble at her fingertips and pulled it out. “Well, look at you. It’s a girl!” she exclaimed with an exuberant smile, holding a black puppy in her arms next to her breasts. “You’re such a cutie,” she whispered softly, smiling down at the pup.
“Jennifer, what are you doing? That is a lycur, a predator, an unpredictable killer! Put it back!” Taric ordered sternly, dumbfounded by her actions and attitude toward the little beast.
“I will not!” he heard Jennifer reply defiantly, holding the puppy in one of her hands, letting the creature nibble on her fingers as she stroked its tiny head and body with her other hand. “I’m keeping her!” Jennifer announced as if that was the end of their discussion as she wondered how he could be so callous toward a little puppy.
“It will grow into a killer. You can’t keep it. People will not understand. I don’t understand, and I’ve grown to know you,” Taric tried to explain but was cut short by a tart angry reply with fire blazing in her eyes.
“What people? Look around, Taric! There’s no one here but us!”
Taric, was at a loss for words as he heard Jennifer’s stern forceful voice lash out at him and then turn soothingly soft to say. “She’s just a little puppy. I promise you, she will not grow into a killer, but she will become our friend. She’ll grow to become our partner and protector when we’re out hunting. All it takes is a little love and a bit of training. What’s wrong with that?”
To Taric, Jennifer’s statement of the creature’s future was impossible to believe because people can’t and don’t command animals, but to hear her speak,