Strange Bedfellows (Closed)

[Obuzeti]

Terragriga is on the very edge of the Hades Nebula, way out past the edges of what most people considered civilized space, and even for Garrett it's out of the way; the last interstellar-accredited depot is three parsecs back, which is an uncomfortable fourth of his gas reserves. It's just barely within the range of civilian craft. On the other hand, it's a full garden world with a gigantic variety of life unwitnessed anywhere else, so to the fringes of the free world the scientists go.

And then they had gone silent. Cue his entrance.

He trips the landing sequence - glances down at the planet below, all thick jungle and countless overlapping rivers that run down from towering mountains. It's postcard worthy, and almost definitely capable of killing the unprepared. Garrett runs a gear check as a final test.

Unimesh suit, check. Flexible, immune to gas permeation, water- and acid-resistant, force absorbent, impossible to tear, solid black for camo purposes. Unfortunately, very clingy.

Armor plating, check. Set over vitals, areas he wouldn't like to take a blow. Dark grey and gunmetal, tough enough to break a power saw's teeth or catch a laser round and deflect it without shattering or melting.

Helmet with HUD settings and VI assistant, check. It seals on with a pop, securing his oxygen supply. The planet has a regular atmosphere, but there's no telling what spores and pheromones could be found on the planet below, plus he likes his face pretty. Keeping it that way is a priority.

Lexicanum blaster, check. Personal insurance. A sturdy blaster that slings over his back with gene-coded ID tags.

He takes a deep breath as the ship lands, and blows it back out. Before the helmet's visor polarizes, he stares at his own reflection: Garrett Hawke, dashing space warden / errand boy / bill payer, he of the black hair and green eyes, quick smile, perfect teeth.

Eh, he's alright.

The ship rocks as it settles down. The big man bounces up to his feet - Garrett's an easy six four, most of a head above his fellows in the average crowd - and bounds out the door, his blood up and ready for adventure. The cargo bay slings open for his entry, and he finds upon his exit a great many fucking trees and the absence of the civilian habitats he'd been sent to find.

"Huh," Garrett says, and glances around. They're nowhere to be found, and there was at least one multi-story habitat involved; it couldn't have gone far. He pings the VI for a local element scan and picks up a high concentration of matterweave to the north - so he treks off in that direction after setting a lock on his ship to prevent unwanted entry.

The jungle is thick, but life aside from insect-size pollinators and invertebrae are invisible; he'd clearly scared off most of the native wildlife when the ship landed, and even then he was a big guy himself, and probably smelled nothing like what the locals were used to.

 

[Artemidorus]

Enzebrae had lived a solitary life her whole life. Vlori typically lived lone lives, or in small family units, but Enze's kin deserted her almost immediately after her birth. Vlori were a dying species, one that only mated only once in their life, and only after they hit maturity at 10,000 Terragrigan lunar cycles. To make matters worse, Vlori were weak, squishy, and mainly defenseless. For survival, they evolved amazing camouflage and color changing abilities. On top of that, they developed extremely shy, elusive and wary natures. In fact, very few other sentient species had ever seen one of the few dozen vloren left.

Except Enze. She never had the wariness that her species had adopted to keep them safe. In fact, her rabid curiosity was what earned her an immediate exile from her family. Keeping her around was a danger, not only to her parents, but to the continuation of her species. She wasn't hurt by this, or even upset. It was a fact of life, and she was no more offended by the separation from her family than she was a decision over what to eat.

For years, she poked around the woods of her planet. She slept in trees, interacted with wildlife, and lived a rather feral and nomadic existence. She traveled all over the planet, until she met the Terragrigans. Their settlement intrigued her, the smell of their food enticed her, and for the first time she had decided to stick around.

The terragrigan were insectoid sentients. From what Enze had seen, they came in red coloration, or a golden coloration. The reds were bigger, with better houses and eating better food. Enze found this strange. Her most interesting find was a giant red she had spotted only once. The air around them was thick with a strange smell, and the terragrigans around the big red flocked to it, sucking at its skin and rubbing against it. This was the only time Enze was almost spotted, tripping over the underbrush and almost revealing herself.

She never let the Terragrigans see her. She considered it, working up to the idea that maybe she could show herself to them. But it went against some deep Vlori genetic code. Just the fact that she didn't run the moment she discovered them was an oddity among the vloren. Greeting them? Well, that just went against her DNA.

She had lived in the area for 3 terragrigan years, venturing close enough to see them only every few weeks. But it seemed lately, each visit wielded less and less sightings. The terragrigans she did see were slow, and thin. And for the last several months she saw absolutely no signs of life.

Only when she was absolutely sure that the terragrigans were gone, did she finally investigate. Slowly, carefully, she moved into the settlement. She was nervous at first, but her wary expression fell into a wide grin. She sat on beds, poked at strange machinery and climbed into homes and buildings. Enze was right, the settlement was deserted completely.

She stopped when she spotted movement, frozen in cold terror. She turned slowly, and so did the creature. She cocked her head, as did the other strange thing. She eased. It was a reflection, just like she saw in water. It was just herself. She approached, eyeing the strange reflected version of herself. She touched her hip, and so did her reflection. Her hands moved up to her bare, nipple-less breasts, lifting them up and letting them fall.

This let her see herself much better than any liquid did. Where ever she touched her pale lavender skin, it darkened in a spatter of spots. She bent forward, pulling at the lid of her eye and inspecting the solid yellow sclera. She fiddled with the four long dreadlock like tentacles that ended in a pale green color, as did her fingers and toes. The same green dotted the tip of her nose, and ears. Curvy and short, and not the least bit intimidating.

She moved away from the mirrored surface, hoping to find something interesting. Instead, she was distracted by a strange blinking light. Cocking her head, she approached it. It was a slender metal thing that pointed up towards the sky. She stared at it for a few moments, before she started fiddling with it. Almost immediately it started blaring, and shot to life, shining a bright beam skyward.

Enze was so startled she rushed backwards, but she tripped over something long and shaped like a vine, but made out of something else. Her skin turned a bright yellow from fear. Whatever it was wrapped around her, and the more she struggled, the more wrapped up she became. She cried out in frustration, and panted from the exertion. The beacon stopped blaring, but the light still shot from the end of it, and there was nothing Enze could do but remain bound up nearby.

 

[Obuzeti]

The habitat had been carried off like a hermit crab's shell, if the mucous architecture he could see was any indication. It was set at an angle into the ground with the main door busted open wide, with the second floor down into marshy ground. The hab walls were water-impermeable, and the locals must have seen that and decided it made an excellent nest - tough material, few entrances, and mobile. They'd settled it in between two of their mud-adobe creches and used it without blinking, probably because the ground had started collapsing into a sinkhole there, and using the second story as a hole filler and let them carry right on with business as usual.

Of course, the fact they picked up and moved a building, even a hab with its moorings unattached, meant the local sentients were either freakishly strong or a communal insectile race, and neither was particularly positive so far as Garrett was concerned. He resolved to stay out of sight unless he absolutely had to. Getting eaten sucked, and in a settlement as large as this one, he had no idea how many things could still be poking around or squatting.

He crept along the outside of the clearing it had been settled in, checking for footprints or pheromone trails; none of the latter still existed, which probably meant Senor Building-Bencher was gone. Plus one. On the other hand, he hadn't seen any human traces at all, or other non-native sentients, which mean the scientists were all probably dead. The beacon was still active, but it was easy to trip by accident if someone smashed the giant, foolproof red button.

The antenna was outside the inverted building, having been carted out due to its persistent blinking, Garrett guessed. It's impossible to stop so long as it carries the Net signal, and the locals probably have sensitive eyes if the lack of artificial lighting is any indication. There's some lump moving right underneath it, which draws his attention.

After a moment, he snorts. Whatever it is, it got tangled in the relay cable leading from the beacon back to the hab proper; the cable's anti-cut film has started to dissolve from the constant slight acidity of the local lake's fluid, and has gotten sticky as hell. The short creature managed to get itself stuck like flypaper in between several coils of the cable. Bad way to go. He gnaws on his lip, and then decides fuck it, no one deserves to die in a mousetrap.

Garrett slides around behind the line of adobe buildings and creeps up on the beacon, mostly out of sight of the settlement proper. He can't really get a straight view of what the thing is, especially since it's struggling to get out exhaustedly still, but it's flickering colors like a chameleon, and is at least bipedal - he can see a leg sticking out. Humanoid at least, then.

Silence means predators, he knows, reminiscent of their silent stalking, so he gives a long, low whistle, the pretty note fluting through the air, and then ducks up behind the antenna where the local is stuck. He takes a look at the mess and sighs, then draws out a solvent canteen - filled with petroleum jelly, which binds with and neutralizes adhesives. He whistles another long, musical three-tone note, and then rubs a little bit of the jelly around the loop of cable that winds around the creature's neck; it comes loose with a bit of convincing, which probably lets her breath freely again.

Surprisingly enough, it's recognizably feminine, and she's pretty, with yellow eyes and long head-tentacles that draped back over her shoulders. His whistle, this time, is involuntary, and he keeps working on freeing her.

 

[Artemidorus]

The alien was quite literally wrapped up, and didn't notice the approaching man. She heard a whistle, and began trying to tug herself free even more voraciously. Enze continued to writhe, her skin flashing yellow and orange as the stranger laid his hands on her, and as soon as her throat was freed, she began to squeal.

She was covered in the greasy jelly, and her skin glimmered with it. She sat back, panting, clearly dazed even after she was freed. Finally she pulled her gaze up and eyed the stranger. Enze bolted backwards, pressing herself against the wall, panting from fear and exertion. Her skin flashed a dark blue from fatigue as he chest heaved up and down.

The black and grey creature didn't seem threatening, but Enze couldn't remember ever seeing anything like it on her planet before. She was too tired to run, and there was no where to hide. She waited, and the creature waited. As she calmed, her skin fell back to its usual purple and green.

She rubbed at angry dark purple marks the 'vine' had left. Then she made a face as she pulled a finger away from her slick skin. She pulled the jelly covered finger to her mouth, sniffed it, and then licked at it with her long ribbed tongue. She wrinkled her nose at the bitter taste.

Slowly it dawned on her that this being, who she thought was her assailant, was actually her rescuer. She watched him for a few more moments before scooting a bit closer. She cocked her head, staying this distance for a few moments more. She moved close enough for her head antennae to reach him, and they brushed at his helmet, soft and curious. She didn't want to hurt him.

Taking her time, she brushed her antennae around him, her head still cocked curiously. When he moved, she would jump away, then slowly move back. Why would he save her? Most life on this planet would have taken no time to kill her. She was as grateful as she was curious.

 

[Obuzeti]

She darts back as soon as the cable gets loose, and it's definitely a 'she', now that Garrett has a better look - humanoid and mammalian, judging from the size of her chest. He shakes the thought off, and instead watches the color patterns morphing across her skin, distantly fascinated. They fall from hot pastels to darker purples and greens as he waits, motionless, for her to dart back off into the undergrowth - but that doesn't happen, and in fact she starts creeping back towards him, cautious and curious. In fact, she comes so close that her head-phalanges brush him, investigating him with a surprising lack of fear. Probably antenna, then - like more advanced whiskers, sensing air currents and tasting. Maybe even electrosensitive or capable of detecting heat.

Well, alright then. He slowly steps back, then seats himself on a nearby supply crate that had tumbled out of the hab, and faces off the to side. Body language 101 is that taller things facing you are more intimidating; with his attention apparently somewhere else, and his size reduced, she might be more encouraged to investigate.

Speech will do no good here, not for the moment; so instead, he offers a hand up, moving slow and obviously, fingers splayed. "You're just a beauty now, aren't you?" he murmurs, low and soothing.

It's just noise, a restful tone, but it's also true; there's a devastating sort of innocence in how this little curvy alien acts, having just been rescued from danger and immediately going into investigating something else unknown. It's charming, and he smiles despite himself, though it isn't visible through the helmet's opaque visor.

 

[Artemidorus]

Enze watched as he settled into a sitting position on the ground, and took this as an invitation. She crawled closer, touching her hand to his. Even with her this close, he still made no move against her, and she felt at ease. She moved even closer, straddling him as she peered into the glass of his helmet. Her breasts pushed against his neck, and her feelers moved around his shoulders.

She pressed her eye against the glass, trying to look inside. She got a view of his face, and sat back against his lap, her bare body pressed to his form fitting suit. Her fingers played at the edges of the helmet, pulling at it. Enze offered him a worried expression, fearing his head was stuck in something. The effort had her rubbing against him, unknowingly, in lurid ways. Her body has much more give than a humans. Softer, a bit squishier. Much more flexible.

Giving up on removing the helmet, she made herself comfortable over him. She cocked her head when he spoke to her, and mimicked the sound in a melodic way. She cooed more sounds, as if he had taught her syllables, sounds and notes, and she was remixing and rearranging them. Testing them out. "Beauty?" her cupid's bow lips made a full and curious pout. She pointed to herself. "Beauty?" she parroted. Then she shook her head.

"Enze." she chirped, with her hand over her heart. She placed her hand over his, and looked at him expectantly.

 

[Obuzeti]

Alright, so she's definitely a full-on person. Garrett laughs and holds still as she literally crawls on top of him, poking and prodding him with soft fingers and her antenna. The native's body is malleable and smooth, like tough jello or latex, and he unthinkingly drops a hand on her wide hips to help her balance as the little alien straddles him. And God, what tits she's packing, a little sexy shortstack in his lap, jiggling and fidgeting as she tries to remove his helmet. He grunts a little, low in his chest, and focuses on popping the seal to his helmet instead of the sensation of his cock thickening under the suit.

The helm comes off, and he takes a deep breath of jungle air and peers at this little lady. Garrett has strong features, defined cheekbones and chin, with buzz-cut hair low on his scalp. He wipes his brow and eyes free of the sweat that inevitably collects when wearing a skin suit, and lets her investigate his face too, though the tickling sensation of her antenna makes him chuckle on occasion, low and bouncing in his broad chest.

"You are one," he says, amused, the words calm and pronounced clearly, for her benefit. The spacer lays a hand on his chest. "Garrett," he says, smiling, and then in a moment of silly whim reaches up and places his hand over hers where it rests on his pectoral; it's much larger, and his palm fits easily over hers. "Glad to meet you, Enze."

 

[Artemidorus]

Enze leans back in surprise when he pops off his helmet, then juts forward to put her face right up to his as she looks him over. She runs her hand along his jaw line, brows ruffled. Her hand pokes softly at his short hair, her hands testing the firmness of his muscles.

"Gue-erret?" She pronounces, a strange inflection from her accent. Her eyes locked with his, as if she could learn all about him just by looking. "Gu-arret."

Enze's thoughts rushed. For the first time in her whole life, she wasn't alone. She had a taste of friendly interaction, and it was like a high for her. Exhilarating. So long she had lived solitary, such a boring life. This was the first exciting thing to ever happen to her, and she decided to run with it. She smiled.

Enze jumped up, grabbing his hand and tugging. Decidedly, she wanted to show him something. Her planet was a harsh planet, but a beautiful one. He wasn't from here, that she knew, but how much had he seen? She took off towards the woods, away from the settlement, making it clear he was supposed to follow. She glanced back every few moments to make sure she hadn't lost him. Outside the colony, the brush was thick, but Enze squeezed through it easily.

She stopped suddenly, after about ten minutes of brisk pace in one direction, and it was clear why. The forest gave way to a steep, sheer cliff. About 50 feet down was clear, pink tinted water. Enze gestured to it with a grin. Grazing nearby were strange, elephant like creatures with dinosaur like heads on the end of their trunk. Enze dove off the cliff into the water, and the 'elephants' made a strange trumpeting sound in surprise, and flapped their large ears as they moved away from the splash. Head popped up and she looked at him and laughed.

 

[Obuzeti]

Enze (if that's her name; it might well be her species, or a title) has boundless enthusiasm, and Garrett can't see a reason to hold her back on it - he's got a free timeline on this S&R mission, since it's terribly clear that the original colonists are done for. That in mind, he tags along after the alien girl with a smile. Her body is suited for the tangled, dense foliage: the rubbery flesh slides in between branches and leaves with a flexibility his denser body can't match, but for the most part he's big enough to just walk through it.

He's a few seconds behind, but when he catches up with Enze she's catapulted herself into a pond below. He glances around, but can't see another way down around the cliff that separates the treeline from the rolling plains beyond, so with a shrug he seals his helmet back on and drops himself into the water with a three-point dive. His form isn't great, but it's at least not a cannonball.

Garrett pulls himself out of the water afterwards, scraping a bit of the pink water off and sending a query to his VI assistant for a composition check, then glances around at this new biome they've found themselves in.

The area is sharply divided by crevasses and cliffs of earth, with steaming pits of pink water scattered throughout the low valley and gulleys. At a guess, there's a magma reservoir underneath the earth here and the pressure fractures the surface and heats the ponds with geothermal energy. The pink sheen is probably deep-earth minerals filtered through soil by rising groundwater. The rocky terrain encourages highly mobile life; the elephant-like creatures graze through the watery valleys and use their long necks to nibble at the plants perched on top of the plateaus. A smattering of large lizards crawl through the rocks, frills and fins flaring to catch heat from the thermal springs; in the distance, atop another large rock, something like an enormous cat yawns, eating up the top of an entire rock shelf by itself, and begins to patiently lick at a leg that has webbing attached.

What a wonderful place. Garrett can't help but smile, and he turns back to Enze. She's still in the water, and he wades out to join her, and then trips on an eel with a surprised burble.

 

[Artemidorus]

Enze swims a circle around Garrett, keeping her eyes on him the whole time. She watches as he takes in the scenery, with the biggest grin so far. Its clear that she knows she's done good, and her expression shows pleasure at the fact that her new friend seems pleased.

Enze's body took on a reddish hue as it warmed up, and she seemed to get a little bigger, as if she was soaking up some of the water and it was adding to her mass. She was clearly a little taller, a little hippier, and more than a full cup size bustier. Like this she stood only a couple inches shorter than Garrett as opposed to a full foot. She bounced on the balls of her feet as he waded next to her in the shallower part of the spring, giggling as he tripped and almost fell.

She moved forward to help steady him, almost reflexively grabbing his arm. She wasn't as squishy now, firmer, almost like a gel, or silicone. She settled for a bit, just comfortable being around Garrett, looking him over as if he was a book on her favorite subject. "Gue-arrett?" She asked softly, as if his entire existence was a question to her.

Even with the warmth of the spring, Terragrigan's short day was spanning into its long night, and the air started to get cold. Very cold. Enze's skin lit up, a pinkish purple in the water, and a cerulean blue above, growing a darker color up by her head.

 

[Obuzeti]

Erze inflates a little, apparently much high water-by-volume than a human; it literally expands her up and out, flowering out into what, if he hadn't seen it happen, he would have called an older sister of Erze's. It fills her out from curvy to outright voluptuous, and his mouth goes dry as he takes a look at her, luminescent underneath the water, bouncing lightly and setting those glorious tits awobble.

"God," he says, admiringly, "You really do turn into a knockout at the swimming pool. Look at these!"

He reaches out and cups one heavy breast with a hand - the firm tissue almost overflowing his palm, big as Garrett is. He weighs it for a moment then shakes his head and draws back, already a bit abashed at touching this innocent creature in any sort of way. "Night's on it's way, beauty," he says, pointing at the sun, then down at the horizon, and then miming sleep. "You got someplace to hide out at?"

She's a fine guide, and he'd hate to see her picked off by some predator the night after he arrives. She doesn't look to have a whole lot of defenses, and that enormous cat is starting to stir in the background, stretching and peering around with bright yellow eyes - evidently, a nocturnal predator.

 

[Artemidorus]

Enze shuddered at his touch, her body sparking little bursts of pale pink like fireworks. Pert little buds rose up on her breasts, forming small but noticeable nipples. The same pink flushed her cheeks, and her eyes darted away from Garrett's gaze, but her own hand had traveled to his, holding it against her for just a moment.

She let him pull his hand away, and saw him look at the predator that was watching them. The cat slunk down from its perch and slowly lowered itself into the water, making a bee line for them like a crocodile. Enze shook her head, not understanding any of what Garrett said, but holding onto his hand as she led them out of the water.

Enze's whole body sparked blue in different shades, and her skin toughened even more as temperatures edged even colder. She didn't feel the uncomfortable sensation of cold, but at night her body would get hard from the below freezing air. Enze shrugged. She slept where ever she was when it got cold. After all, nothing could really harm her when she was as hard as a popsicle.

But she did seem to be worried about Garrett. She squeezed him through his suit, and he didn't feel hard. Didn't feel like he was toughening up to protect himself from the dangerous things that lurked in the night. She gave him a worried expression. Was it his clothes keeping him warm? Enze tugged at his suit, feeling her own arm and then feeling his, then looking at him worriedly, and back at the big cat.

 

[Obuzeti]

The cat starts heading for them immediately, the webbing across the gaps of its limbs letting it slice through the water at them like a shark - its fur lies low and smooth, water-resistant. Garrett heaves a breath and wheels around, slinging an arm around Erze and lifting her behind him as the other hand draws his blaster in a smooth motion.

"Sit down, kitty," he advises the big predator, flicks the intensity dial down to medium, and then pops it in the nose with a stun shot. It's a lot like getting a taser combined with a flash burn, and it cooks off the fur on the cat's muzzle, burns the skin underneath red, and draws out a yowling scream as the big cat flails and bucks away. A split-second later, it launches from the pool on springy legs and leaps over the nearest rock wall, still yowling.

"Sorry about that," he says, wistful. It's a big, beautiful animal, but he's nobody's food.

That dealt with, Garrett turns and raises his eyebrows at Erze, and then pads to one of the big rock shelves, where running water has made a little undercut in the stone shelf about four feet high. The temperature's dropping too fast for his tastes, and he doesn't want to be out and about if it hits freezing temp, so he takes a cylindrical rod from his backpack and tosses it down, then hits the inflation key: the entire mechanism begins to expand, eventually forming into a semi-circle rising from the ground, about seven feet long by four wide. It's a cosy fit for Garret, but pouches and bags built into the ceiling make sure it can hold anything he needs while expanded. Putting it up after he wants to take it down is a bit of a pain, but a necessary ill of life on the go. Plus, the material blends in slowly over time, making it the safest way to pass a long night.

"Welcome to the house of Garrett, at least for the night," he says amusedly. The end closest to him has a pressure seam that he parts, revealing the cramped interior. "You still going to be here tomorrow? I'd be glad to follow you around, talk some more."

She doesn't understand him, he knows, but the fact that he wants to communicate with her is just as fine a reassurance as any he can give at the moment.

 

[Artemidorus]

Enze stared at the strange structure. She cocked her head, and slowly approached the material and poked at it. She turned back to Garrett, who opened it. Clearly not understanding, she climbed right on in.

Once inside she shuddered, as her body began to warm up and return to its usual purple color. She poked around, both with her hands and her feelers. She dug into the pockets but didn't find anything. Finally she turned back to Garrett, sticking her head out of the tent.

"Gue-erret?" She asked, as her body shrunk back a bit, to its normal petite size and squishiness. Her face turned blue from the cold, and she squeezed back into the small tent.

 

[Obuzeti]

Garrett's mouth closed and thinned - but then, it wasn't really her fault, was it? She was just curious, extraordinarily so, and unless he missed his guess, also socially deprived; she was so eager to impress and to share that she had to have no one else to do it with. She had no conception of secrets, or tact, and those were only things you got by running up against social taboos. There was a little bit of alley cat in the way she acted: anxiously friendly, and curious.

Well, he was a cat person anyways. He slipped into the tent besides Enze, though it took some wiggling not to just run her over - it was a comfortable fit for a man his size, and though she didn't take up much room, they were still basically spooning no matter what. He seals the pressure seam, momentarily bathing the two of them in darkness, before he unseals his helmet and flicks on its headlamp at candle intensity. The light it offers is dim at best, cozy. Meanwhile, he starts unclipping pieces of armor and dissembling them into their component pieces, sliding them into the pockets overhead and magnetizing them in place. The problem with this, of course, is that no matter what he does Garrett keeps brushing up against Enze, and his bodysuit is still skintight. Her elastic, cool skin is a balm to his own sweaty surface underneath the suit. Moreover, she wobbles; by the time he gets the hip plates off, he's bumped into that prodigious ass four separate times, and had a throbbing erection by the third, both from the sensation and from watching the gelatin cheeks jiggle.

If nothing else, at least Enze will find his predicament amusing.

"Finally," he sighs, as he finishes pulling the last shin plate off, leaving him in just that tight skinsuit. It molds well to a broad frame, but to be frank Enze probably responds to entirely different sexual characteristics. He'll just hope she doesn't catch on to his boner and move on with his life. Hopefully. "I'm glad you're warm at least, hon. Temp gauge says it's about -6 C outside. That's ice cold. Don't want to think about you out in that kind of weather."

He knows better, but Garrett can't help the impulse to reach around with an arm and briefly hug the curvy little alien to his chest. She's soft and squishy and easy to cuddle. "I can barely talk to you, but you're still one more friend than I'd thought I'd have on this grassball. Glad to have met you, beauty."

 

[Artemidorus]

Enze watched curiously as Garrett made himself comfortable, bumping into her as he took off his plating. She stares the whole time, cocking her head every time she got a new view of Garrett's real body. They're pressed against each other, and she goes to work running her feelers over his body again. Slower this time.

She squeezes his forearm, and then her own, trying not to get in the way as he slowly gets undressed. She's prodding at the muscles on his chest when he snuggles her close. Enze lets out an "Oof!" as she shudders against him, half a noise of surprise, and half a noise of pleasure. She relaxes against him, getting even more soft.

Then, out of nowhere, she tenses up. She rolls over so their face to face, and cocks her head. She slowly looks down, her brow furrowed. She had felt something pressed up against her that she certainly hadn't noticed before. Now that she was turned around se could see the outline clearly through his tight suit. "Ga-rrett?" she asked, lowering a feeler to brush against the new shape in his anatomy. His crotch throbbed and she made a cry of surprise and moved away, but with uncertainty in her eyes, and not far to be able to move, so scooched back closer.

She explored again, sliding her tentacle like feeler down the length of this new shape, and blushing dark purple across her cheeks.

 

[Obuzeti]

Garrett laughs - the feelers are faintly tickly, probing into the curves and divots of his body with endless curiosity, poking him between ribs and in his sides. "No fear cavalier, eh Enze?" he teases, and trails a hand up and along her hip and shoulder in response, big and firm and warm along the line of her body. Her flesh, for lack of a better word, is plush and flexible.

Of course, then she gets even more curious, and notices he's packing a hardon within the suit, and his suspicions of how old Enze is keep diminishing. She's clearly an adult in body, and while he had been worried about taking advantage of an innocent or sheltered individual, the interest she's showing in his rigid shaft is putting all kinds of holes in those concerns. In particular, the feeler rubbing on his cock feels like a soft hand stroking him.

Garrett's never been one to leave a lady hanging, so he returns the favor with a quirky smile, reaching around her wide-hipped body to take a firm handful of ass and squeeze it lightly. His other meaty paw comes up to cup a heavy breast and gently knead it - he hadn't been blind enough to miss her reaction to that earlier. "Feel good, hon?" he says, voice gone soft and throaty from rising arousal. "I don't mind playing around, but you better be sure. I'm not a one-pump chump. I will bend you over for hours, Enze. So, maybe be a little careful what you're poking."

There's an element of humor, of course, in the fact she can't understand the warning. That said, she'll probably pick up the meaning from his hands and husky voice better than from words.

Well, she's grown and intelligent; he'll just see where this goes.

 

[Artemidorus]

Enze gasps when Garrett grabs handfuls of her. Her eyes widen in surprise, but then she smiles and her chest rumbles in a chuckle. She had been exploring his body, and now he was touching her. And how good it felt, his strong firm hands on her. She moved closer, dropping her feeler from him on exchange for pressing her whole body against him.

Both her nipples hardened now. Their height distance landed her head against his chest and her legs wound with his. Her hands found his waist and held herself against him there. "Feel good." She parroted back to him, in a melodic voice that was cast down in a huskiness of her own.

She looked up at Garrett, with one hand on his chest, the other brushed across his lips. She trailed it down his jawline, then caught his eyes again, wriggling her ass against his hand as if to remind him she wanted to squeezed more. Her whole body jiggled against him, and she could feel the shaft of his crotch pressed firmly against hers. She laid her head on his chest, feeling down his abs and hips with her small hands.

 

[Obuzeti]

Garrett faintly smiles some, feeling a little more sure of himself here - it's a lazy sort of intimacy that Enze's offering, but probably not a full-on fucking. There's so much easily lost in translation, and he already doesn't want to offend this little sexy alien of his.

Instead, he just gently continues to fondle her; one of his big hands cups a tit in its palm, and his thumb rubs over the hardened nipple and around it in slow circles, the other fingers stroking over the sensitive flesh. Garrett really is a tit man, he won't lie, and she has a fantastic pair of breasts, particularly the form he saw inflated by water, but even this is more curvaceous than almost any human woman he's ever seen, streamlined as the species tends to be for Zero-G by now through gene modding.

The other hand is still gripping Enze's ass, and he's a little firmer there, massaging and fondling the heavy cheek with rippling fingers, bouncing it off his hand with a breathy chuckle - not really a spank, but sending ripples through her thick rear nonetheless thanks to her jiggly consistency. Between the two, his shaft gets fully hard in moments, pressed as it is against her belly; long and hard and throbbing, just beneath the skinsuit's surface, outlined clearly. It's a little bit of a cocktease, sure, but there are worse ways to spend a night, however this goes.

 

[Artemidorus]

Enze chews her lip, and let's out a breathy "Mmm." As she enjoys the feeling of his hands on her. She studies his face with heavy lidded eyes and finds that he enjoys it too. She echoes his chuckle with one of her own, pushing her breasts up against his hand.

She relishes the feeling of his fingers on her nipple, and it causes her thighs to rub together. She writhes up against him, almost impatiently, as she lays her head on his chest. She can hear his heart beat, such a strange thumping sound. Its comforting, and she opens her mouth in a small yawn. She sighs contentedly, snuggling against him and enjoying the warmth. She's never slept warm before.

She strokes his hip absently, less the exploratory proding of earlier, and more a comfort. Her fingers trail lightly down his side and she yawns again. She so much enjoys the feeling of him so close to her, and the feeling of touching someone and being touched. Expirences she had never had before.

She felt his shaft even harder now, felt it throb. There was more exploring she wanted to do with that, but the weight of the day was pulling on her, and she was comfortable and safe and for the first time, not alone. She fell fast asleep against his chest with a small smile, breathing in softly.

 

[Obuzeti]

Yep. Cocktease. And yet, Garrett isn't particularly offended - he smiles down at her mobile, frisky antenna, and slides his arms from her curvaceous assets around the alien's back. She's presenting, because instinct is the only way she knows to interact. There's some sexuality involved, of course, like a teenager learning to strut for the first time, but also just a very intrinsic kind of glorying in the contact, someone who misses touch. It's a complex little cauldron bubbling away inside of Enze, and he can only ever get glimpses of it. It makes a good puzzle.

But for right now, it's time to sleep. He squeezes the bombshell alien against his chest lightly and leans down to brush his lips against her forehead. "Goodnight, little beauty," he murmurs, and then lets himself drift off too - eventually. It does take awhile for him to stop throbbing in his pants, after all, and her sleepy caresses didn't really help that situation at all, whatever she intended.

~*~

Morning comes, the light faintly illuminating through the pressure seal. Garrett stirs and grumbles. He's not stiff at all, like he would be with a vertebrae cuddle buddy; Enze's weight has been on his left arm all night and it has yet to fall asleep, so gelatinous and light is she. He's got a horrible morning wood, as he expected he would, but that's largely irrelevant. He disentangles himself from the drowsy grip of his bedmate and draws a little pocket reader from the tent's overhead pockets, one sealed so that wandering fingers couldn't slip in or the contents fall out. He taps the password in, and settles to producing the first morning's report:

- scientists absent
- colony abandoned
- local sentients active, one friendly (very), at least one predatory megafauna
- investigating further, plan time one (1) week

/end

That done, he sends it off and glances over at Enze, judging how awake she is, as he pulls out a ration bar, discards the wrapping into another pocket, and then starts chewing on it with a disgruntled expression. They had never quite managed to not make these things taste like dry feet.

 

[Artemidorus]

Enze sat up and stretched, awakened by Garrett stirring. She twisted her hips and reached towards the roof of the tent, loosening up her stretchy form from a long night of sleep. She relaxed, dropping her hands to her sides and blinking a few times. Then her gaze landed on Garrett and she watched as he typed on something the size of a rock.

She watched him eat something. She could smell it slightly when he opened it, and wrinkled her nose. She understood the concept of eating, as she had seen other animals and creatures do it, but she didn't eat anything herself. Her body processed water and light to make energy.

She pushed her way outside into the sunlight, and breathed in deeply. Her skin lit up, all bubbly as she warmed up. Dark purple, lavender and green, like a lava lamp. She prodded down towards the water and sat down on the grass, dipping her feelers into the pink liquid. She glanced back to make sure she hadn't wandered too far from Garrett.

 

[Obuzeti]

Garrett finishes breakfast, stores the reader, and then locks the rest of his armor back on and shrinks the autotent back up, a process that takes a couple minutes. When he's finished he sighs and stretches, lazy in the mornings as ever; bones pop as he recovers from the faintly cramped interior of the tent. Then he claps the helmet on and wanders towards where Enze's vegetating out by her favorite pond.

"Getting your fill, hon?" he says, crouching by where she's drinking water - evidently, she's a photosynthesizer, the bioluminescence a byproduct of the chemical conversion and probably produced by bacteria - which, unfortunately, probably means he shouldn't be licking her. That could have been fun, but alas. To be certain he'd have to run a chemical skin test, and they're probably not good enough friends for him to take a surface piece of her off for testing.

He triggers the VI's briefing mode - a calm, female voice tells him to head northeast, away from the thick jungle he'd landed in earlier and through the water valleys, up to where a tall hill rises above the local geography, probably forced up by volcanic activity. It's mostly bare of heavy vegetation, just bushes and herbs thick on the ground, and from there he can get a decent viewpoint of the area, scan everything for a couple miles, and get an idea of the local layout. If there's any trace of where the scientists have gone, that's how he'll find it, not stumbling around down here in the gulleys.

"I'm gonna head up and get a bird's eye view of things," Garrett says, and offers a hand up to Enze. "You want to come or you happy here with your pond?"

He really doesn't know how long he'll stay interesting to this little alien, but he hopes it's awhile.

 

[Artemidorus]

Enze smiled, drawing her tentacles out of the water. She grabbed his hand and let him help her up, but doesn't let go as she follows him.

"Come." She parrots. "Happy." They're the words she liked best of what he said, and even without knowing the meaning, she picked up a rough connontation sometimes just from the tone of his voice. She followed him, realizing after a moment where he was heading.

She climbed up the steep him after him, looking around with wide eyes at the top. "Oooh!" She gasped, and pointed at the water they had swam in yesterday. And the tugged on his hand as she gestured to the cliff the jumped off. She wasn't sure what he was looking for, but she was determined to help.

 

[Obuzeti]

"Can do," Garrett says, pleased by her quick intelligence. They make their way up the hill - it's covered in a kind of climbing vine, explaining why there aren't any trees, since they probably got choked out. It makes for good handholds as they scramble up the rocky sides and over windswept limestone, until they make the top maybe fifteen minutes later. The view from the top is honestly intimidating.

The water gulleys they're above are the remains of a wide river that swept down a canyon to the north; it's drained low over time, leaving these deep, multiple cuts in the ground filled with the bits of flowing water and springs welling up from underneath as the water passes by underground as well, all heated by geothermal energy. A huge lake is to the south, so large that he initially mistakes it for an inland sea; there's a steady archipegalo spreading out from the delta, small islands dotted out from that steady influx of warm water. Those islands are studded with trees and wildlife that he can see from here, even, and mangroves father out holding away the salt water.

The north is the Canyon, and carves directly through a mountain like a sword bisected it about a third of the way through. It's distinctly unnatural, and the rocky expanses look perilous and empty of life. Luckily, no signal's arising from there.

The signal he is receiving is from the east, out away from the jungle, where the water gulleys deepen into a spreading network of valleys and caves, deep and sonorous, wind audible as it whistles through the fantastic rock sculptures sanded into strange shapes by salt breezes. There's a lot of mossy vegetation and crustacean life in that direction, but it doesn't look precisely welcoming for mammalian life - he doubts that any soft scientist type would have headed that direction willingly.

"You know anything about that way?" Garret says, pointing at the Whistling Caves, and glancing over at Enze. He squeezes her hand - she hasn't let it go, and to be honest it's endearing, so he lets it be.