Cold & Native Ch. 02

He opened the chamber, used the extractor to pull the only fired finger long shell out and replaced it after some searching in the box next to the entrance with another massive shell. With five loaded cartridges in the gun he carefully shut the revolver drum again, shoved the revolver in to it's holster and fastened the belt over his snow trousers. Then he donned the jacket, slung the rifle across his back and headed out in to the snow.

The snowfall had decreased, but the sun had finally settled and wouldn't rise for more than a month.

The clouds overhead blocked out every bit of light which meant that the only source of light Ryan had was his torch. The cone of light projected by the torch showed him about two feet of snow had fallen while he was inside. They would not make his job any easier. It also showed Ryan more snow flakes falling from the heavens. They were not as thick as the ones he had driven through not that long ago, but they still meant that wherever he went, in a couple of hours nobody would be able to tell where he had been.

Ryan strapped the snow shoes to his boots and went to work, dragging the first pair of wolves by their back paws out in to the dark.

After reconsidering for a second, he took a piece of rope out of the Defender and bound all of the wolves together, then headed forwards through the deep snow and in to the woods behind his house. The wolves were heavy and their fur quickly filled up with snow, which melted and soaked the fur, then they froze solid. The falling snow quickly caked the rest until they were just a big white bundle, somewhat reminiscent of a flower bouquet.

He kept going until he couldn't see the light of his home, then marched twice as far, following the compass on his sleeve. Nothing happened, besides the absolute silence of heavy snowfall.

When he felt he had marched far enough, Ryan tried to open the knot and failed. It was frozen solid. Instead, he just cut the rope and left the wolf bouquet in a small ditch he had dug with one of his shoes, shoved some snow over them and started his journey back.

For a few minutes he could follow his own footsteps, but then only the trench dug by the wolves remained until even that was filled with fresh flakes. From there on, he relied on his compass, which reliably led him home. He saw that Hiiyeh looked out of the window and he waved hello to her, but she did not seem to understand what he meant to say and so Ryan quietly continued on outside. The old man was next and Ryan bound his arms to his sides and his legs together, so as to ease with the transport. It was surprisingly difficult. Not only had the old man had time to freeze but he was also beginning to stiffen. Then he set out to drag the corpse that was going to freeze solid now out into the dark, somewhat in the same direction that he had taken the wolves but offset by a few degrees.

The old man was considerably easier to drag since he didn't dig quite as deep in to the snow as the wolves had. With his wide wolf coat, he flattened the snow behind Ryan and felt like a bob to him. He marched on for another half hour as he had with the wolves previously, then dug the old man a shallow grave in the snow with his mittens.

Finally, Ryan crossed the old man's arms across his chest at considerable force and stuck a simple cross he fashioned out of two branches in to the snow about a foot away from his head. Then he looked at him again, feeling sorry that the man had to end his life in such a pitiful way and move on to an even more pitiful resting place.

With remorse, Ryan began shoving snow in to the shallow grave until the old man was completely covered.

He tipped the edge of his hood as a sign of respect, looked over his handywork and then turned around and headed back home, following his compass.

In the end, the rifle would not have been necessary at all it seemed, just as he saw the light from his kitchen window. Hiiyeh was not waiting there for him this time. Ryan rounded the house, then remembered the coolant from the Defender and left the rifle on the hood. He quickly shovelled an opening to get underneath the car, took the full tray which was frozen solid by now and placed it next to the front door, then took the rifle and opened the door, slipped back inside and left the tray in the small room between inner and outer door.

With a quiet push, Ryan opened the inner door and saw Hiiyeh flinch at the fire place. She had settled there again and looked distressed until he unveiled his face, at the sight of which she relaxed.

Ryan unloaded the rifle and propped it up next to the coat hanger, then pushed the ejected round back where it belonged in the clip and stored it in the box with the others.

Finally, he climbed out of his heavy snow gear and looked around. Most of the blood and brain bits were gone, at least from the walls and floor. Instead, in the middle of the floor, right next to Hiiyeh, sat a neat pile of blood soaked and dirty furs.

She pointed at it and raised her eyebrow.

What was she supposed to do with that?

Well, either dump them or wash them. While it was nice to see that she was showing initiative, he had wanted to use something less... costly and easier to clean. Oh well. It was done now and he would have to deal with it.

The best way was probably to wash them, since they apparently were the only clothing Hiiyeh had brought along.

Ryan picked the mess up, transported it in to the bathtub and opened the taps just as Hiiyeh walked in behind him, obviously curious as to what he was doing. She quietly watched as he dumped a good amount of soap intended for clothing into the bathtub and how he started pulling the individual pieces apart, then knelt down next to him and helped.

They silently knelt on the rug in front of the bathtub, rubbing the furs down individually. Hiiyeh went through the motions, somewhat curious looking at what Ryan was doing as he massaged aspirin deep in to the fibres.

It wasn't the most rewarding of experiences, as it was hard to tell whether their work had enough of an effect to make matters better, but they silently kneaded the fur and bumped in to each other from time to time. It made his heart rate bump every time. It really had been ages until a couple of hours ago.

Once he felt that the had done enough to really knead in the chemical and to let it do it's magic, he stood back up and was surprised to see Hiiyeh follow suit almost immediately. She looked at him, seemingly waiting for him to do something.

As soon as he left the room, she followed him, a now steady clop clop clop behind him as her hooves hit the ground in a regular pattern. The painkillers must really be working wonders, he thought. Then he wondered about her leg and whether he should look at it again. But first, he wanted a seat and some hot chocolate... Did he even have chocolate? Maybe tea then.

He went in to the kitchen and started opening his storage cupboards and ended up settling for tea after briefly wondering about chocolate and Hiiyeh's health.

She stood behind him in the kitchen, watching everything he was doing as he heated some water and prepared an insulated flask with tea bags,

He took the fur off his shoulders and put it on a counter top, which Hiiyeh didn't take to too kindly. She walked in to the kitchen, took it from the counter top and laid it around his shoulders.

Ryan raised his eyebrow and Hiiyeh seemed to think for a moment, but then just shook her head.

"Hih."

He raised his eyebrow again, but she just shook her head and he gave her a few more curious glances until the water boiled.

Ryan poured it in to the waiting thermos, then took two mugs and then thermos and gestured for them to return to the fire.

As soon as they sat down, Ryan took the fur off his shoulders again, setting it next to them on the ground.

Hiiyeh took the fur up immediately and settled it on his shoulders again with a certain finality about the issue, as if to say 'Do NOT take it off again.' She seemed a bit exasperated at his constant subversion as far as this seeming rule was concerned.

She took the pencil and paper he had been using earlier and started drawing. It wasn't much more than stick figures, but they clearly represented things not quite human. First, she drew many similar ones, then one with three legs. Hiiyeh put her index finger in front of her chest, pointing at her, then tapped the group of horse people.

Ryan nodded. She had been part of a group. Then she drew an arrow towards the three legged figure and looked up at him. He had to raise an eyebrow. Did they go towards the three legged figure? What for?

Hiiyeh in turn raised an eyebrow. What was her question? Was she unsure as to what he did not understand?

This was going to be a lot more difficult than he thought it would be.

Ryan tapped the figure with three legs and raised an eyebrow.

Hiiyeh looked at the paper, then at him. She pointed at his chest, then her head, then at the paper.

This was even more enigmatic of an answer. Ryan reached behind his head and scratched it. How did he relate with a three legged horse people... god? No, they were all the same height, it probably wasn't someone elevated above him. Or her.

Why did it have three legs?

Hiiyeh obviously grew impatient, finally just tapped the middle leg, scooted to his side, reached in to his pants with the other hand and squeezed his dick.

"Oooh."

So that's what the third 'leg' was. All of these were following a guy with a huge dick. But none of the others seemed to have any genitalia. Was that not important? Ryan tapped the other ones, then tapped his own parts and raised an eyebrow.

Hiiyeh immediately shook her head.

He tapped several of the ones in the crowd, but he always got the same answer. Then he circled the entire group and Hiiyeh shook her head impatiently.

She wanted to continue, but he stopped her and tapped the arrow.

That stumped her for a few seconds, before she drew an elliptical shape, and something with lots of... a tree.

"Okay."

She smiled, then drew an arrow to from the male horse person to the tree. She looked at Ryan meaningfully, then an arrow from the group to the tree.

He looked at her and at the paper again, not quite sure. The male goes to the tree the group goes to the tree...

She drew a thick web of lines over both arrows, effectively crossing them out. Then another from the male to the... lake? stone?, gave him another meaningful look and then drew another from the group to the thing.

"Okay."

So they were following him where he went. A leader? Probably. He took hold of the pencil, until she released it. How do you ask whether someone is a leader or whether someone was chasing him?

It took him a second of chewing on the end of the pencil.

He drew a few more males, and drew arrows from her group to them, then raised an eyebrow and handed the pencil back.

Hiiyeh looked at the drawings, then crossed out the arrows. Instead, she drew other groups following the other males.

So males were always leading? Hiiyeh was about to squiggle over the other... herds, when Ryan stopped her and took the pencil.

He flipped it over and erased one of the herds, then handed it back. Hiiyeh prodded the eraser at the end a few times, then cautiously erased the drawings except for her group and leader.

She drew some sort of edge, then put two horse people close to it. A cliff. Ryan nodded, and she drew another cliff, then the male of the two falling over the cliff as a piece of the cliff broke off that he happened to be standing on.

She corrected the drawing, making the piece of the cliff a lot smaller and only under one of his feet. Then, she drew another picture of the cliff with a horse figure up top, then halted. She'd clearly meant to draw the male, but couldn't figure out how to draw him. Ryan reached for the pencil, and drew him with a twist around the midsection, as if the spine had been broken.

Hiiyeh nodded.

Ryan could feel how tense she was and looked at her. With watery eyes, she proceeded to draw on, another arrow from the group, towards a few heads. The heads were opening and closing their mouth.

They were speaking.

Ryan laid his arm around her, intending to offer some consolation but was gently pushed back as he was crowding her working space.

The speaking figures were followed by another version of the cliff, but this time, the figure up top had pushed the male down the cliff.

He tapped on the figure on the cliff in the first version then pointed at Hiiyeh. She nodded, tearing up. So her herd had suspected her of murdering their leader and only male.

His arms open, he gestured for her to let him embrace her and she fell in to it. While she sobbed, he caressed the back of her head in silence.

It took Hiiyeh a while to regain her composure enough that she let go again. This time, she reached for the stack of paper again, started on a new page and drew the broken character again. Ryan had left his arm around her, and she was leaning in to him a lot more.

It was somewhat distracting, having a body like hers pressed against him. But he kept his eyes on the paper as she drew a slightly more elaborate male, then touched the fur around his shoulders, tapped the male and looked at him.

Ryan wasn't sure he wanted to understand. It seemed to him like what he was wearing right now was a piece of fur from her former leader?

That seemed a bit fucked up to him.

He looked at Hiiyeh, who immediately started drawing again.

The same group, now with long arrows pointed at her. She drew rather frantically now, always looking at him again and again while Ryan finally made the jump to what this would mean in the human world in the back of his head.

Who in their right mind would carry around a piece of human skin from someone they were supposed to have murdered but did not?

Hiiyeh then pointed at the things she had quickly drawn, trying to explain, it seemed to Ryan. Well, right now was a very good time to explain.

The group used the long arrows to push Hiiyeh.

So those were not arrows, more staves or spears.

Then Hiiyeh was using... a stone? Maybe a knife?

She was using it on the dead male while the others pointed spears at her. A single line came out of the male's broken back. Hiiyeh tapped it and the fur, so those were the same. She was forced to cut it out of him.

Ryan felt easier at that. Right. So that's why she was supposedly a murderer.

She drew herself with the line around her, then the fur being thrown away.

The group made another entrance and the spears now pointed through her.

That, finally, eased Ryan's nerves. She had to wear it. Which was still messed up, but it firmly moved her out of the realm of psycho killer. But why was she so insistent on him wearing it?

He pointed to himself, then the fur, then raised an eyebrow. The atmosphere was a lot less tense now and Hiiyeh's spirits were obviously up, now that he seemed to have understood where the skin came from.

It dawned on Ryan that cutting a piece of skin out of your own species, as a vegetarian, must have been brutal. He stopped Hiiyeh's drawing hand and held her tight to him, which she happily returned after a second of surprise. Then she cocked her eyebrow at him after letting go.

He tapped the skinning image, then put a hand to the side of her head.

"Okay?"

He raised his eyebrow.

She shook her head very gently and her eyes were watery but kept the tears back.

Ryan pulled her in for another long, long hug during which she quietly wept.

After a few minutes, she pushed him away again, but not as far as he had previously been. Just far enough so she could draw.

She continued on, now drawing a figure of a male and what he now knew to be a female. The male was handing the female something. Ryan had no clue what it was, so he asked.

Hiiyeh made a motion of her head going down, her lips pursed but open.

What was that supposed to be?

She looked around, then drew again, this time a U shape with a squiggly line in it. Water! Okay, so the male handed her water.

She led to another scene of the male handing the female something, this time a different item to the one before. It was round, but otherwise featureless. He asked again, and Hiiyeh pantomimed an act so universal, it could only be eating.

So the male was handing the female food.

She proceeded to draw an arrow to another scene, this time the male used spears to push four legged creatures away from the female. Ryan nodded. This one was easy, the male was protecting the female.

Hiiyeh drew another arrow, then a scene in a semi circle with waves on top, the male clearly doing something to the female.

Ryan stopped her again and asked.

She laid down pencil and paper, then held on to his wrists, using his hands to brush her lower arms.

When he still looked perplexed, she pointed in the direction of the bathroom, then escalated rubbing herself with his hands.

Oh, washing her. Okay.

He nodded. She then drew a line from the female to a new group, and another from the line to a leader position. These were followed by two more arrows, clearly showing a female being taken from behind from the leader.

A little surge went through him, being that close to a female like her and talking about sex was something his imagination wouldn't ignore and it had an effect on him.

Hiiyeh had definitely noticed him shifting but just smiled.

Then she pointed at the female group and its new member, then to herself. Ryan nodded. She then pointed to him, then the leader on the paper. Ryan froze, then looked at Hiiyeh in shock. Her smile grew wider, but placed a hand on his chest, then took up the pencil again.

She drew another figure with a line like the skin, which was entering a group via arrow. However, the line did not stay with the female, instead, another arrow transported it to the leader.

Then, she drew the leader throwing away the skin, with a lot of other males sticking spears though him.

"Okay."

Ryan grabbed the skin and pulled it tighter around his shoulders and felt uneasy about this new responsibility. He had taken up her crimes? And if he he ever met any more like her, he'd have to keep the skin of a sentient being on him or be speared?

Hiiyeh watched him, looking for an understanding in his eyes. Ryan gently nodded.

"Alright, alright..."

He mumbled to himself.

Hiiyeh drew a smiley face, then another horse person and a male, but the male had a round face. She pointed to herself and the horse person, then Ryan and the round faced thing.

Then the smiley.

Ryan smiled at her. She smiled back, then rearranged herself, pushing herself against him and handing him the clipboard. Then she fiddled with her braid for a second and put her head on his shoulder and sighed.

Ryan guessed he wouldn't be in a bad mood either, if someone else had to stand for mistakes he hadn't made in the first place.

He stared in to the fire for a few moments, until Hiiyeh lifted her head and tried to catch his eye. When he looked at her, She pointedly looked at the paper on the clipboard. He looked to her, somewhat perplexed, then raised his eyebrow.

What?

Hiiyeh sighed, then sat up so she could use both of her arms, took the clipboard and pencil and started drawing stick figures, human ones, male and female.

Ryan looked at that and then at her, still perplexed. She tapped them, then raised her eyebrow.

Humans, crowd, what? It didn't really make sense to him, but then Hiiyeh looked a the paper again. She circled all of the things she had drawn about how their tribes or harems worked and drew a horse person next to it. Then a circle around the human crowd, with a human next to it.

Her eyebrow went up and she looked at Ryan, who understood. How do humans work?