Without a word, Yoath shrugged off his jacket and placed it on my shoulders.
I declined but he wouldn’t take no for an answer.
His jacket swamped me and reached down to my knees.
It was heavy and its weight made my shoulders slouch.
But it was warm and that was the main thing.
Kayal had been cautious when Yoath had first stepped forward and offered his hand and help.
“I saw you fall from the sky and thought you might be in trouble,” Yoath had said. “I was just settling in to enjoy my evening beer too but don’t worry. I don’t hold it against you.”
He introduced himself and Kayal hesitated before doing the same.
Kayal glanced at me before bowing his head in what I assumed was the traditional way of welcome in their species.
Then he did a very strange thing.
He placed his hand on his jacket pocket and said:
“Froah. My name’s Froah.”
I blinked at that but quickly recovered.
After all, it was possible these alien creatures had alternate naming conventions to humans.
Maybe they had different names for different people they met.
Or maybe Kayal wasn’t his first name at all but his surname.
“Pleasure to meet you, Froah,” Yoath said.
Then he turned to me.
“And you are?”
I opened my mouth to answer but Kayal beat me to it.
“Nem,” he said. “Her name is Nem.”
Yoath smiled broadly and bowed his head.
“Nice to meet you too, Nem. My farm is just around the corner there. If you like, you can stay with us until you get back on your feet. I have an old barn you can use to store your ship for the night. In the morning you can decide what you’ll do next.”
“We don’t want to intrude,” Kayal said.
Yoath waved away his concerns.
“You’re not intruding. The only way you can intrude right now is if you decline an old man’s kindness.”
Old man?
I ran an appraising eye over his straight back and muscular torso.
He didn’t look much like an old man to me.
He was strong and tougher than a house brick.
But if I looked—and I mean if I really tried—I could notice little things that might signal the age gap between the two males.
His horns weren’t as shiny as Kayal’s and had a dry wooden look to it.
His hair was a little thinner too and lightly speckled with grey.
But his horns were longer than Kayal’s—maybe that was how they showed their age here?
Still, I wouldn’t have ever described him as an old man.
“I can probably fix my ship tonight,” Kayal said. “No need to cart the ship anywhere.”
“Still, it would be better to do it away from the forest, don’t you think?” Yoath said. “There’s a lot of dangerous creatures out here. Especially at night. And with your young lady friend here… Well, I just wouldn’t feel right about it.”
Kayal shook his head.
His eyes caught on mine and he hesitated.
His expression softened and he let out a deep breath.
“Sure. That sounds great. Thank you.”
Something was going on, I thought. Something didn’t quite feel right.
After what we’d suffered with the fall through the sky, I would have thought Kayal would be appreciative of a little help.
Maybe that wasn’t a common trait among his people, although it was hard to believe with how easily Yoath had offered it.
Something was up with Kayal but I wasn’t sure what.
The barn Yoath brought us to was dilapidated but big enough for the ship to sit inside comfortably.
A dozen gaps in the large slats let stiff breezes dance down my spine and a mound of blue poop alerted me to the existence of the current inhabitants.
We were the intrusive visitors here.
Tools hung on the walls and were covered with something that looked like cobwebs but weren’t.
It was slimy in appearance and I wondered what sort of alien creature could excrete something like that in such large quantities.
I shuffled away from the walls and edged closer to Kayal.
No doubt half the creatures here could kill me if I so much as looked at them in the wrong way.
“We’ll stay here for the night,” Kayal said. “If it’s not too much trouble.”
“It’s fine but you’re more than welcome in the farmhouse,” Yoath said. “We have a spare bed no one’s using.”
“The barn will be fine.”
There was that sense of Kayal pushing the older man away again.
“As you wish,” Yoath said, bowing his head slightly and spreading his arms. “Any time you change your mind, you just let me know. Let me go grab some food from the kitchen. I’ll be right back.”
He took his leave.
He crossed the open expanse of the front yard that ran perpendicular to us and the main barn still in use.
It felt strangely familiar to the farms back home, but also very different.
It was like looking at the world through a warped mirror.
Everything was the same on the surface but when you took a moment to peer a little closer, you noticed these strange little differences that somehow made it feel a little… alien.
Alien.
It was a calm night and I could hear the crickets singing in the long grass outside.
The sound was a little different from what I was used to.
More of a low howling, weeping song that seemed to echo across the farmland…
Except it didn’t.
Another member of its species picked up the original song and played it quieter, passing it along to the next creature, and the next.
I expected Kayal to probe at the ship and check it for more damage and begin working on it right away.
He didn’t exactly strike me as the kind of creature to take a break even when his body demanded it.
In fact, he hit me as the kind of creature that wouldn’t take a break to spite his body and punish it for being weak.
So it came as a surprise when he took a seat on a pile of dusty old pallets and leaned forward with his elbows on his knees.
He stared distantly and saw something I couldn’t make out—because it wasn’t really there,
