TF Chapter 84 Exploring

               ***Bora***

"Since you are awake now, there is no need for my lap anymore, right?" I tried to sound as collected as possible, even schooling my facial features into an unreadable expression, yet I was still leaning, with my shadow covering the light that might have fallen on his face. I felt like I could gaze upon him for an eternity without getting bored, or standing up, no matter what, yet I forcibly straightened myself up. It would have been weird if I lingered considering the words I had spouted previously.

He sat up, with me remembering that...weird confession of his and the way I had been prodded into challenging him due to my anger at Danny. Then there was that kiss! It had been just a light brush of our lips before the rude interruption, yet, the sheer electricity that had jolted both my body and mind had been real!

If it hadn't been for the fact my life had literally been in danger, I would have stayed frozen in that one spot. I had never kissed a boy, or dated a boy/guy for that matter. I had always had many other things on my mind, not to mention the fact that everyone I knew was a parasite, making sure to either keep as far away from me as possible, or trying to cosy up to me in case they earned that guy's good graces.

Unintentionally, when I raised my eyes to gaze at him, those brown orbs of his were boring through me with such intensity I squirmed inside. He had caught me staring! It was like a match had been lit and dropped upon the inside of my body which was running on fuel instead of blood. Images of the closeness from before entered my mind. The close contact was so vivid, as if it had been etched into my mind permanently! And now that his gaze was practically undressing me...

I stood up abruptly, and ran towards another branch, where I put the tree trunk between us. I couldn't let him see how he flustered me so.

              ***Nathaniel***

The sun was shining and the forest was still its own gloomy self, yet there was this bright feeling in my mind that was making me feel like everything was bright, or you could say vibrant. The drops of water from the rain of the previous night were still lingering upon the leaves, the stems and the branches of the trees as we continued our trek further into the north. This battle had only cost me some bruises and exhaustion, an otherwise fair trade off that saved us the long rest should there have been serious injuries involved.

The reason I felt light on my feet and body was the fact that since my awakening, Bora had been staring at me imperceptibly. When my gaze fell on her, she hurriedly averted hers with a faint blush upon her cheeks. If this wasn't the way love started, then what else could it be?

My heart was pounding in my chest, telling me how excited it was at the fact that she was starting to find an interest in me.

The sun really was glorious today!

"Get your head out of the clouds, senior Nat. You will make a fatal mistake if you keep grinning like some lovestruck fool!" Danny spoke, his voice a mixture of frustration, rage and a few other dark emotions that didn't put a dent into the bright emotions that were gushing within me.

"Are you a teenager? You should act like the adult you are!"

"I am trying...but my mouth can't stop wanting to make such a curve." I countered back while giving him the widest grin I could.

The forest was teeming with life...if you could call silent critters life. Their movements were the only actions that were producing sounds, causing this creepy melody that was resounding around us. When Bora wasn't actively trying to pretend that she wasn't staring at me, she was scanning the forest with vigilance.

The click of a limb was enough to cause her body to flinch, as if her soul was about to try the impossible, leaping out of her body. She was scared and nervous and many other things, yet she was trying very very hard to appear composed, a task she was failing at miserably.

"Bora, interesting, isn't it? The fact that a big girl like you is scared of some random weak critters!" Danny taunted even as his foot kicked something that almost resembled a spider, down into the forest depths. Apparently it had been in his way.

"Why aren't you retorting back like you always like to do? Are you so scared that the words simply can't make it out of your mouth, huh?"

"Danny! Shut the fuck up!" 

Rage consumed me at his words causing me to blast him with that. There was this budding flower of violence within me, the violence that I wanted to unleash upon the guy. I gave him a stare that said, 'if one more word comes out of your mouth, I am going to burn you to a crisp.' That shut him up and brought about an uneasy silence in the group.

My rage was extinguished by the awkwardness, not to mention the fact that I didn't dare look at Bora because I didn't know whether removing her chance to defend herself by becoming her knight in shining armor had been the best decision or the worst.

I almost chuckled at the fact that previously I had thought I could treat this romance as an adult, yet here I was having devolved into a teenager.

As I was ruminating on what words to use in order to try and initiate some sort of conversation with her, the sound of flowing liquid, preferably, water, entered my ears. This is an alien planet. So, there was a chance that whatever was flowing, wasn't water, even though there was rain composed of H2O.

We slowed down our travelling momentum and approached the direction where the sound was coming from. It had to be a stream or river, though, my money was on the stream as we would have heard the roaring of a river from very far away, not to mention the fact that rivers were a gathering place of large creatures, yet so far, only the small critters were what we were seeing.

Abruptly, we came to a stop on one of the large branches that could handle the combined weight of the three of us, peering down onto the small-meter wide stream that had water as clear as...the sky...? I could see the rocks underneath with such clarity...it was beautiful, the way the rays of the sun simply fell into the bottom, dragging the beauty within into my eyes.

"And here I was, thinking that the big creatures here practiced lonesome living..." 

Danny's words dragged my gaze from the small stream to the creatures occupying the shorter or probably young-looking trees by the banks. The reason they were young probably having relation to the many stumps nearby. Could it be that the trees near the shores were always cut down? Though, the cuts weren't clean, something that allowed a sigh of relief to escape my lips as I didn't want to have another encounter with a native. The previous one had already proved to be a handful after all.

And finally focusing on the things that had aroused Danny's words, I was taken aback. The two creatures I had previously tussled with were probably part of this bunch of hundreds that were congregating by the banks of the stream, playing around with their young, doing something that seemed like fishing...if whatever they were capturing could even be called fish. Then there were those that were doing an activity that caused Bora's entire face to become scarlet, including mine and Danny's. Why? Mating. Even though they were aliens in nature, their sexual intercourse was as close to that of us humans as possible, and it was even more stimulating. Just a few seconds into watching alone, had already caused a bulge within my groin.

"Well. Well. Well. This is surprising! We should watch as long as we want...for research purposes of course! Also, since the both of you are...virgins."

The last word almost had me pouncing on the guy only for Bora to beat me to it. 

"Stop spewing nonsense!" She shouted. Good thing the critters here lacked sound perception... Trust me, you wouldn't want to face the collective groups of these monkey like creatures, which in my estimate were almost over a hundred in number.

"Its nothing to be embarrassed about really! Hahahahahahaha..." He laughed at our expense.

"Danny, I suggest you forget all about this conversation." I spoke while giving him as menacing an expression as I could manage. Because I knew that he didn't respect Bora enough to stop bitching about this.

"Okay! Okay!" He complied, with Bora picking herself up from him, her face a mixture of embarrassment, anger and...shame...? Probably I had mistaken that last one.