I had spent the most of the night into the early morning shivering, wrapped in the blanket to keep warm atop of my bed, pistol ready. Each time I heard a creak or a rattle of the ship I impulsively rose the pistol at the main entry door of my living area. Maybe I drank too much. I had a lot to bury. I didn’t think I’d actually fall asleep, I didn’t want to.
I knew at some point I’d run into Akima again. We were flying in slipspace into unrouted territory. We used the computer to plot the most efficient route that appeared before us, but every few hours the ship would slide back into normal space and stop with a routing error - the route wouldn’t work. The alarm was deafening. One of us would have to return to the cockpit, fumble with the computer to reroute, backtrack a few hours back, whatever was needed to get us to Eveny. There was no clean autopilot for this. At first, we went a whole day without any navigation issues, but as we ventured further and further outside of the usual traffic lanes they were coming more and more frequently. Now ever few hours. Eventually one of us would need to stay in the cockpit. We were bushwhacking the stars. The next time the alarm went off, who would take it? If nobody did, and I went out there and I saw Akima, I would just try to play it cool.
The truth was, I wouldn’t have to wait that long to see how I would react. The truth was, she was an apex predator with a cold knack for silently stalking her prey until it was most vulnerable. And the final truth was that despite my fear, I had indeed fallen asleep. Her long, warm fingers clamped around my muzzle, snapping me awake into the shock of it. I tried to raise my chest from the bed, but she pressed her weight down, forcing my head deeper into the pillow. An angered growl caught in my throat as I raised my right arm, but she smacked the pistol from my hand. In the same motion, a glint of light in the shadow, a knife lunged for my throat as her elbow collapsed onto the pressure point of my now useless right arm, her thigh squeezing my left wrist against my side.
Akima held the blade close, flat against the underside of my gripped jaw. With a jerking motion she tugged my muzzle down, my eyes pulled to match her glare as she tucked the knife against my throat, between my chest and chin.
“I thought of multiple things," she started, softly, a hair above a whisper with her head hovering above mine, “…that I could start this conversation off with. I wasn’t sure which one I’d open with." She licked her lips a moment before continuing. “For starters, that was very rude of you." She squeezed my muzzle again, tightly, but felt no pain. “I told you I had questions. You walked away from me in the middle of our conversation. Did I scare you?" She lowered her gray muzzle next to mine, still gripping my maw closed tightly. After a long and drawn in breath through her nose, she chuckled lightly. “Are you afraid of me? I just wanted to talk some more, and because I can’t guarantee you won’t just up and walk away again I think something a bit more intimate is necessary."
The frantic pulse in my own throat was a drumbeat she could surely feel. My eyes were wide, fixed on hers, the only part of me I could still move. I focused on the cold weight of the knife, the pressure of her body, anything to anchor myself against the rising panic.
“You drink too much, Rio, and it makes you vulnerable," she said, a long sniff of me again as she pushed her snout against my hair. “I had no idea how long it would take for you to fall asleep and I don’t like waiting."
Finally, she leaned upward, resting upright with her knees still locking my left arm to my hip. With her upward motion she softly, slowly, pulled her elbow off my pistol arms pressure point. She tilted her head slowly, watching my reaction as she loosed her hold. Her red eyes said everything her voice didn’t need to. They said: I am releasing this arm, don’t try anything funny, or I will detach it from your body. No words were required. As her elbow came up, a release of breath and a moan from my nose as the pain started to subside. She even moved the blade of the knife from my neck to my chest, just between my breasts, just above my heart. And finally, after what felt like an eternity of her slowly untangling herself out of the many ways she could have killed me, she released my mouth, holding her fingers open wide. Now sitting upright on my stomach, she put her left hand on her hip, right hand still on the blade, and squeezed her hips one more time to make sure my left arm was secure.
“I’m sorry," I faintly said, finally. “I wasn’t trying to be rude." I knew what she was doing. An animal playing with its food. A warrior showing off. She must have been used to this where she was from: being seen. Maybe going a full week without her peoples' adoration resulted in this animalistic urge to have some fun and get a dose of someone recognizing her dominance. Feeling withdrawals from her addiction to power.
She raised the knife finally, and playfully tapped the broadside of the tip against the tip of my nose. “I said I had a question, and here it is: What the fuck are you doing here, Rio?"
I peered my eyes. A surprisingly simple question with some serious weight that I didn’t truly have the clarity to even start processing right now with the adrenalin still flowing.
“I know your type," she continued, raising her chin and squinting at me. “You’re a washed up and flushed out has-been. You got what you wanted, you were out. You were living your sad little lonely excuse of a life in retirement and now you’re here, thinking you’re strong enough for," she waved her knife around a bit, gesturing to our surroundings. Not just the ship, but full surroundings. The mission. “Strong enough for this."
I remained silent, I was still catching my breath. Another moment passed. Nothing. The silence stretched and stretched, and she cracked first.
Her left hand snapped forward again with a blistering speed, the audible animal growl escaped her maw as she snatched my long muzzle again, like before, and yanked it forward. From her sitting on my lap, she pulled so hard that my head was pulled up off the pillow, my back arched upward. It hurt, a lot, and my pinched closed eyes and inescapable whimper probably gave her a serious rush of satisfaction. Through my closed eyes I could feel the cold steel against the fur of my throat again.
“We are traveling into the den of monsters, Rio. A reality where only the strongest can survive. Where things we’ve only ever dreamed about become real, and where true nightmares can exist and walk amongst their peers as equals. Do you think you’re really ready?"
I slowly opened my eyes and saw her face. The red frustration. She saw me as weak and must have taken insult to being paired with me, but deep inside, I knew why Kaisara paired us. She needed a counterweight. She needed someone who wouldn’t be drawn into this predator’s orbit. That was my purpose here, and surviving this moment was the first test.
The new moment of silence once again tipped Akima off. She released my mouth once more, in a moment snatched my right ear instead, pulling it tightly to the side a bit. In a flinch of pain again I slammed my eyes shut, raised my arm a bit, and opened mouth, but then I felt something else. I was used to feeling her hand, her knife, and her knee holding my left arm in place, but I didn’t expect to feel her wet lips on my mouth. She really did it. While tugging my ear with a firm grip, she pushed her mouth against mine. Pulling my head back only went so far while her tongue went into my mouth. Biting down would mean my death, but with my now free right arm I finally dared to push her away. I flung my arm up and pushed, forcing her away with my hand just below her neck. With an explosion of laughter she again leaned back and her maw rose to the ceiling laughing. All a game to her. My hand remained on her collar bone.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?" I gasped out, air stinging my lungs.
A few more moments of amused chuckling escaped her, and she lowered her gaze at me again, still beneath her, right where she probably liked me. She raised her hands up to her head and fixed her gray and red her hair a bit, pulling it behind her back, knife still in hand. As she finished she casually threw the knife forward, over me, where it slammed into the bed frame and remained. Her hips squeezed again, reassuring her that my left arm was still pinned, and she leaned forward again. Her hands came to rest on my shoulders but from her body movement I didn’t think she was about to try to …uh… kiss me, again. Instead, with her head was an arms length from mine, she sharply inhaled and stared at my eyes.