Nagith Chronicles: Discovery
Chapter Eight

Rachel frowned, poking another insect at the fluffy mass on her table. The cal eyed the flailing insect between her fingers, its big eyes blinking.

“I know you eat bugs, come on, open up.”

Dumb thing, dumb man leaving this dumb thing with her. Where was he? She hadn’t seen him in a couple weeks now. What was that idiot up to? It had even been making sleeping difficult. How could such a fool invade her thoughts to the point they got in the way of her own relaxation? She kept finding herself wondering where he was and wondering if it had to do with the cal.

What kind of world would it have come from? Was that where he was? A world with a blue sky, a world with green plants, did cals live there? Did they just scuttle and roll around there, in the small green carpet of plants? So odd. Had that idiot gone? Had he left? Perhaps he did, then there was no point in expecting him to come back-

“Rachel! Rachel!”

She rolled her eyes and got to her feet, walking for the door.

“Where have you been you eccentric freak?” she scoffed, opening the door. “I thought you weren’t coming back-“

“Rachel look what I found!”

She had never seen the color before and she nearly fell backwards in her reflexive back-step, her mouth ajar.

“Wh- what-?”

“They’re called orange! Can you believe it?! Look!”

She stared at the bunch of ‘orange’ objects he had in the basket he held. There was an assortment of spheres, shreds of cloth and odd plant-looking things. Charin had already closed the door behind him, racing to the table and placing the basket upon it.

“Proo?”

He absentmindedly patted its fluffy head, hit other hand pulling out his assortment of treasures and placing them on the table.

His eyes seemed bigger, wider at least, and that odd light from before was back.

“I found out what this color was called and I just grabbed whatever I could that had it. I don’t know what they are but look! These rounds things are squishy, I think they’re eggs or food of some kind! And there’s these!”

The weird plants were what he picked up, showing them to her with blatant enthusiasm. Their stems and leaves really were green, like he had said, but the top was that surreal color. It looked like it was made of …smoother, leaves, of that ‘orange’, circled around each other in some pattern like- like overlapping scales, but in a circle, oddly.

“Rachel, it’s like that plant I told you about! That white plant I saw when I was sleeping!”

He grinned, then calmed a bit, eying the plant with an almost serene smile.

“I don’t know what they’re called yet but I’m going to find out. There’s a lot like these, there were some blue and purple ones, some red ones too, but I’d never seen this color before. I had to show you.”

It was like he was lost in a completely different world. In a way he was, she supposed. All he had to do was look at those strange treasures and she knew he was seeing the entire expanse of the strange place had had become so enamored with.

“Isn’t it beautiful, Rachel? There was an entire field full of them, all these different colors. I wish I could show you, I want you to stand there someday with me…”

“Get out.”

“What?” Charin blinked, looking up at her.

“Get out. Get out, take your ‘orange’ and take that fluffball. Get out and don’t come near me again.” She snapped, her body stiff.

“Rachel, what are you talking about?” he frowned at her. “Why are you saying this? What did I do-?”

“You’re- what you’re doing is dangerous. If you keep this up you’re going to end up getting yourself killed.” She glared, crossing her arms. “I won’t have any part of this. I won’t get dragged into your mad worlds with you. So get out and don’t let me see hair or scale of you again.”

He hesitated, his brow furrowed in thought as he scanned the alien objects he had presented to her. What was so dangerous about this? Well granted going into that world could be dangerous, he’d run into a few aggressive creatures already; but what could possibly be dangerous about what he had brought to her? What was dangerous about the cal rolling around on the table? Now, he chided himself, he had been wary of the strange beast at first too. Rachel just wasn’t used to these things, they were strange and threatening to her. He could understand that, but…but he couldn’t understand it.

How could she see these things and not be utterly enthralled? How could she look at these bizarre, brilliant things and not be absolutely fascinated? They were amazing! They were so new and strange, so different, so intriguing! There was so much he could learn about them, so many things he could discover about them, and they held the promise of potentially even more new, strange things. It made his mind race to think of just what he could possibly find next, what new sight would take his breathe away and what new experience could make his pulse race. How then…how could she not see the same thing? How could anyone look at these things and not have them consume their thoughts?

“Did you hear me? Get out, Charin.”

Now she wanted him to go away, why? Why did she want him to leave her? He had thought that she liked him, he thought they were- well, he didn’t know what he thought they were. She had always been so…special, different, just like-

“Rachel, I don’t understand. Don’t you see?” he lifted the flower, showing it to her. “These make me think how I think about you. Beautiful and different and...and amazing. That’s why I had to show you, I wanted you to understand for yourself the way I think of you.”

She was staring at him like he was insane. Though that wasn’t really anything out of the ordinary, but something it was different this time. The way she was looking at him wasn’t an expression he really had seen of her before. Not knowing what else to do he slipped his hand around hers, rubbing it with his thumb.

“I know you think I’m strange, Rachel, and I am. I’m not going to deny that. Even so, I- I don’t want to stay away from you. I don’t want to leave and never see you again. If I’m scaring you, I’ll take all this stuff away. Just…I just wanted to share it with you. When I’m away from you I think about seeing you, when I’m in that place I think about showing it to you. There’s just so many amazing things, Rachel, I do want to see them all but that doesn’t mean you’re not one of them.”

He looked at her in silence, awaiting her response.

“I hate you.” She said sharply.

Charin flinched and began to pull away. Rachel pulled him to her and threw her arms around his neck, kissing him deeply. He twitched, staring but then closing hiss eyes to return her kisses. As abruptly as she had kissed him she pulled away, her arms still around him.

“You selfish bastard,” she said, glaring at him. “Stop making me like you.”

“I- I’m sorry-?”

She kissed him again. This time it ended with them in her bed for the remainder of the day.

Sᴇarch the FindNovel.net website on Gøøglᴇ to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.