40 BULLETS

Brightness shined over my closed eyes, and my body was one total mass of aches. My teeth clenched and I tried to breathe out slow through the pains.

Heavily, my lids finally opened and scaley green bulk was taking over my vision.

Green?

And then my moments before rushed back in like a geyser.

Dragon!

I screamed in horror and grabbed my rifle from beside me and didn't even take the time to aim.

One.

Two.

Three.

Four.

Five bullets blasted into the beast.

35 BULLETS

My finger kept pulling and arm kept cocking, but I was out of loaded bullets. Desperately I looked around for my pouch for a reload when Thann's voice finally reached me.

"El! El! Wokuduma. Kulungile. Safe."

My eyes dashed to him beside the beast, hands held up in calm.

"El safe. Indizayo kill."

I looked back to the dragon, my vision and thoughts finally catching up to my adrenaline and took in the scene.

The dragon, the indizayo, was laying prone; dead on its stomach, arms, wings, and legs out at odd angles, head dislocated in the dirt a foot away from its body. With closer inspection it was covered in its blue blood and heavy gashes from teeth and claws; flesh torn from bone.

Did Thann kill it?

My rapid breathing slowed, and I turned my attention to him. He was again wearing his leather pants and pouch and had a white paste covering his wrist and bite marks sliced into his pants.

Was he hurt?

My eyes widened with remembrance of my own wound.

I was supposed to die!

I was laying on my stomach, in the same area that I passed out but now on a soft fur blanket. Quickly I bent over my shoulder to try to see what happened to me.

The wound ached and burned, but the searing white hot pain that pushed darkness to my eyes was gone. My back was covered in the same white paste as Thann's wrist and every few inches yellow leaves were laid down.

I recognized them.

The shut your mouth leaves.

"Thann?" I whined pathetically.

He kneeled beside me. "Myedicine."

Medicine? I strained back over my shoulder and the leaves looked positioned just over the deepest gouges in flesh like bridges from side to side. They held like glue. Or even like stitches.

"These are Indawo planet stitches?"

He didn't speak so I just laid my head back down on my arms and tried to center myself. Now that adrenaline was ebbing, the pain was strengthening. I tried to breath out and in.

I had gotten hurt, but Thann seemed to patch me up. The dragon was coming at me, but it was now dead, most likely from a werewolf Thann attack. I think the ultimate dangers had gone, but I did still have a wound and I did not have Thann's freaky healing. This would be a life changer.

Would I even be able to aim my rifle again?

Sure I just shot Mr. Dragon a round, but it's not hard to hit a monster the size of a bus ten feet away. And the pain in my shoulder now said that recoil was no joke. I moved my fingers of my right hand and arm, rounding through my shoulder and hissed at the burn.

"No," Thann called out, fingertips pressing my shoulder back to the blanket. "Stay."

"Again with the stay?" I complained and let my head fall to my hands in defeat. "Why am I always getting hurt here?"

My hair was still down and now completely dry, so I must have been out for a few hours. The position of the sun said it was nearing sunset and that was the brightness stabbing my eyes that woke me.

I lifted back up and gazed to Thann. "Why did you push me? Huh?"

"Udinga ukudla." He dug into his basket and brought out two bread disks and set them in front of me with a handful of red raspberries, nearly double the size of berries I was used to. Then he set a bowl of a yellow paste with a long flat utensil and the pouch we used for water. He then took a knee in a continued bow. "Eat Wokuduma."

"Which is Walkodooma?" I looked at the foods and my stomach growled, eyes hovering over the berries. I picked one up and twisted it between my fingers before popping it in my mouth. Closing my eyes in appreciation, I moaned at the goodness. It was as sweet as any candy on Earth, maybe a toffee like flavor.

I missed sugar.

Leaning up to my elbows made my shoulder complain, but if my stomach didn't devour the rest of those berries in another minute it was going to tear out of my skin on its own.

I hadn't even registered that I was finished with them when I went to grab another. I could cry. My new favorite thing.

"Thann," my voice was a purr. "Those berries are the best thing ever."

"Eat," he pointed at the rest of the offerings, staring at me but still from bended knee.

"Okay," I spoke softly, leaning back to the furry blanket and nibbled on my bread.

Oh, bread and candy for dinner. I was a queen now!

After the last chewy bite of the thick bread, I washed it down with the water and looked at the bowl. "What's this?" I asked Thann, a finger swiping through the yellow. It was thick but pushed easily with the flat spoon. "Is it butter?" I grabbed another disk of bread a broke a piece, smoothing the butter over the bread. I put it in my mouth carefully and let the flavor melt to my tongue.

It was not butter.

It was sweet again, super sweet with floral undertones. It was... pudding?

The flavor reminded me of honeysuckle dew and I was transported to my teenage home out in front of the bush bursting with white blooms and pinching the flowers away with my brother.

Using the flat spoon like a spatula, I scraped the bowl clean savoring each precious mouthful. Then with a content sigh, I laid back into the fur, letting my fingers comb through the long brown hairs of the blanket.

"Eat," Thann suggested, and he pointed to the last bread.

"Sure," I hummed and nibbled at the corner while still snuggled down in the blanket.

I was pretty much in my happy place, or at least as happy as I could be under this atmosphere. Three weeks without a tasty meal could make one very grumpy.

If you ever wanted to know the real definition of hangry, just hop a wormhole to a planet with nothing but potatoes and goats to eat.

Okay, so I shouldn't complain. I'm guessing any of those other people who got transported here were a lot worse off than me. I did have some Earth food in the beginning. Imagine getting tossed here and then having to live off those weird spinachy strawberries. They were probably begging the dragons to take them.

I bent off the blanket just enough to see the dragon. Pointing to it, I asked, "Thann eat?"

Was I selfish to not share my pudding?

He stood and tore an arm off the beast and I reeled back to again see his strength. That he could just be like 'sure, I'll eat this arm!' and then rip it clean away like I would pull a banana from the bunch was still disconcerting.

He moved to the pond and rinsed the limb off on the water's edge, the blue blood flowing clear and he sat and ate.

"Sorry I didn't offer any bread. I didn't think you'd be interested in a dragon bigmac."

His eyes met mine for a moment, but then he continued eating, staring out over the water.

"Sheesh," I complained to myself. "Didn't mean to hurt your feelings. Maybe I didn't know you hadn't eaten already. It is sundown."

I watched him clean the limb down to bone and toss the last into the pond.

When he stayed there, arms moving around his knees to hold himself up, I sighed and called out. "Okay, I'm sorry alright? Come over here."

He didn't respond, so his word for come was sometimes go. "Thann. Go El."

When he turned, I smiled and patted the blanket. "Come here."

His face dissolved of expression and turned back to the water. "No Thann Wokuduma."

"Fine," I crumbled and started lifting myself to a painful seated position starting to stand. If he wouldn't come to me, I'd go to him.

"Cha! No!" He yelled and in an instant was kneeling before me and holding my arms to stop me from standing any higher.

It was probably a good thing because my head went light. My hands rested on his arms, best I could around his hold and I stopped and took deep breaths until the lightness went away.

"Okay, I'm good now." I opened my eyes and he released me, sitting back on his toes.

"Sleep," he commanded, pointing to the fur.

"Okay," I grinned playfully and tried to lean against his chest. "El sleep. Thann sleep."

His face fell, almost to horror, pushing me to arm's length. "No Thann."

I giggled. "We have to go through this again?" I trailed a finger up his arm, but he caught it in his hand.

"No."

"Yes," I leaned forward a hand on his neck to pull his lips to mine.

He did not let me pull him forward. He even leapt back a foot from my reach. "No Wokuduma! No Thann!"

I sat back down sheepish and rejected. "Okay okay. Sorry. I can take a hint."

I laid into the fur, my fingers combing through it and sulked.

After a few minutes and the horizon flooding with the colors of the setting sun, he finally spoke as if it was painful to do. "No Thann El mate."

I turned to him face reddening. Mate? "Oh? Well, I didn't necessarily mean we had to do it. Just kiss?"

He swallowed and bent his head to the ground in inner pain. "No. No kiss. El, Owesifanze Wokuduma. Wokuduma mate Inkosi Olimazayo. El kiss Inkosi Maza. El mate Maza."

"El mate Maza? Is Maza a name? Who the freak is Maza? That jerk that kissed me? News flash Thann I killed Maza before he tried to mate me."

His eyes reached me with a desperate shake of his head. "No! No kill Inkosi Maza. El go Maza. El mate Maza."

"What are you talking about? Go Maza?" I nearly raged. "I'm not having sex with some random Maza dude." My voice lowered, "I want you. El mate Thann."

He closed his eyes in pain and shook his head no. "No. No Thann mate."

"Yes. Yes Thann mate." I leaned up and reached for him.

Thann stood up and out of my reach.

"Oh come on, I already said we didn't have to have sex. Why would you think I'd rather mate some other guy?"

He started walking away. "No Thann mate."

"Grump," I complained and set my head down on my arms.

When he hadn't come back for several minutes and the sunset's colors were fading into darkness, I stretched and stood wobbly on my feet. Before I blacked out, I stepped to a tree and held myself up until the feeling past.

My shoulder was still stinging, but the white paste was numbing well enough and I needed a human minute.

I grabbed my pants and shirt from the fur. I'd also need to do it, not half naked. I grinned at my inner joke and then dressed the best I could with one good arm.

Slipping my feet bare into my boots, I stepped a few feet into the trees and did my business.

When I had finished and was zipping up my pants, Thann came thundering through the bushes. "Wokuduma!"

"What?" I jumped and held on a tree branch to steady myself. "Goodness Thann, I'm peeing. Give me a second."

"Wokuduma fire!" He pointed back to the pond and grabbed around my wrist and tugged me back to the blanket. He pointed with an angry expression.

"Good grief Thann. What's gotten into you?" I sat on the blanket and he kept pointing until I laid back down on my stomach.

He was finally happy and stepped over to a pile of sticks and logs.

I rolled my eyes and huffed as he started a fire off to my side.