As she was sleeping, he used this time to maintain his gear, getting it dried and more comfortable, making sure the armour was on him at all times he was not aware of her, just in case. But he also used some time just to try out crafting things. Rope was a problem, he had no idea how they made that. There were some twisting things, yes, but he couldn’t figure it out, in the end, he decided that braiding was plenty strong, however, this made it problematic to extend the fibres he used when they ran out, they just didn’t hold well enough. So no rope for him today.

In her waking moments, though short as they were, she often repeated two words. Dran, and Ral. He had no idea what she meant but when she specified the words she seemed to accept food and water, nothing else seemed interesting. Through time and trial and error, it seemed that Dran was a request for food, and Ral was for water. He didn’t know what they meant specifically but for now, he tried to make note of their rough meanings.

The first night was calm, though he was surprisingly paranoid. She slept through the whole thing except the few times she woke, requesting food or water. Going right back to sleep after. During the following day, she mentioned another word, Druk. He had no idea what that meant. Using her extremely limited strength she did her best in trying to crawl out of the cave. He tried to put her back to bed but she was adamant. In the end, he helped her walk, supporting her as much as he could. She was much shorter than him, if she were to stand upright on her own he expected her to be somewhere around chest-high.

Letting her guide where to go, though he did the heavy lifting, so to speak, she found somewhere to squat down with great effort before she relieved himself.

Sam made a mental note that ‘Druk’ probably meant a variant of needing a toilet.

This process continued for several days. He didn’t have much else planned than checking out the island, but he kept around the cave instead. Fishing when food was nearing out, gathering firewood well before it ran out so he had time to dry it at least a little. And finding small things to occupy his time with. A lot of it was spent sleeping, and waking up as she mentioned one of her few words.

He was incredibly bored, though one could argue that it was good to be bored at times, this was just annoying. He found her intriguing to a certain level but with her unconscious like that, there was not much he could get out of her. He checked her wounds every so often to see how they were healing. Most of them were healing surprisingly well, but a few started getting a bit nasty. He didn’t have any cleaning agents or antibiotics or anything, he knew that some plants or flora could do something good for her but... he had zero idea which did what so he decided against it. It would probably just make things worse.

The only thing he could do was to be a bit heavy-handed and clean that wound a bit harder, trying to not overdo it as he practically scraped the wound clean. It started bleeding again, yes, but from his own experience in the closest he had to this situation, it sucked there and then but it often got rid of the bad shit in there.

Or he might be wrong and it was just a confirmation bias in his earlier years... The result was at least that the wound looked clean... ish...

He spent a lot of time around the cave, just to stretch his legs. He missed his phone and access to the internet, which would have made the downtime much more bearable. There was a limit to how many times he wanted to fail trying to whittle some small figurine with a large combat dagger, or how clean he cared to get his weapons and armour. He often popped his head back into the cave to just see that she’s still breathing, and if she wants or needs something. He placed a bowl of water and another one with some food next to her, in case she were to wake as he was out.

At least he finally found a good way to tie the vines around his coconut canteen, so he didn’t need a whole bag just for that. Working with some bark and thin strips of wood he got some simple scabbards going for most of his weapons, though he struggled with the Scimitar. The wider tip of the blade made finding out how to make the top part a bit harder, he vaguely remembered how it worked on the original scabbard but... not enough to replicate it. Since he had several days to work on this, he eventually found something that worked, even though it wasn’t perfect, but he didn’t consider anything he made to be perfect.

Sitting and sleeping against the cave wall, the fire burning calmly, Sam woke up to the sound of a questioning rolling “Brrr?” sound.

Opening his eyes, somewhat startled, as it was a sound she hadn’t made yet, he was doubly startled as he saw her sitting in the bed rather than close to comatose. She was looking around the cave with a very curious and questioning look, her purple eyes looking much more vibrant now. Her eyes locked with Sam’s in a very strange way, he wasn’t sure what to do with the situation as she made the questioning sound.

“Err... Hi... You’re awake... that’s good.” He calmed down as the shock faded, he felt relatively safe with his armour and gear in top shape, but he was still a bit uncertain about how to handle this situation. She should not be 100% yet, so if it turned bad he should have the upper hand.

Her expression changed from quizzing to a happy smile, looking a mix of glad and content, her smile closing her eyes in a slow blink as she tilted her head. “Lin gur. Lin shok zarvak, kirn var. Var vakra lin.”

She seemed very happy about that statement.

“.... What?” Sam commented, thinking he knew the rough meaning behind perhaps three words, none of which was part of that sentence.

She didn’t seem to stop and continued with a longer string of words, seeming like she was explaining something, perhaps retelling things or trying to explain something to him.

During her explanation she had a wide smile on her face, looking honestly happy, her twin tails almost wagging behind her as she did so.

Sam had no idea what she was saying, but she looked happy and not aggressive, which was good in this context. He let her continue talking, though he opted to not nod or respond, in case he answered to something unknown. Not that he knew if not responding meant anything about what she was saying... he just didn’t know.

When her monologue of unfamiliar words finally stopped, she looked at him with large and expecting eyes. He had no idea what she wanted and decided to steer the conversation to something simpler.

Sitting up properly he used his hand to gesture to her. “What is your name?”

As she didn’t respond, and looked at his hand with an uncertain look, he pointed at himself. “Sam. My name is Sam.” Putting pressure on his name, then he gestured to her. Repeating pointing at himself with his name and back to her with his questioning look.

It took a few times for her questioning look to change into a smile. “Dia!” Her tone was very happy and excited.

Sam repeated it as he pointed at her. “Dia.” Then pointing black at himself. “Sam.” He wanted her to at least say it once, hoping that he didn’t just get the meaning of pointing or something.

Language was hard.

“Sa!” She exclaimed as he pointed to himself.

“No. Sam, SaM.” He tried emphasising the M at the end of his name.

“Sa!” She exclaimed again, her tails wagging behind her like an excited puppy.

“Well... I guess that Sa works as well.” He muttered to himself. It was close enough, perhaps she struggled with the M sounds? He had no idea but if she understood that they were talking with names, it should be good.

“Sa! Sa!” She repeated it almost as if she just learned a magic spell and wanted to try it out. Almost bouncing in excitement where she sat.

He struggled a little with having someone naked like that shout his name excitedly. He also realised that he was considering her a person now, and not just some Beastfolk. Much like the two in the Brothel, there was something about communication.

Remembering the two Beastfolk in the Brothel also didn’t help his situation. However, he wasn’t unknown to nudity it was just something popping into his mind.

This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

“Well, are you hungry? You haven’t eaten much in a while, right?” He didn’t expect her to understand, it just felt natural to say this as he got one of the bowls with fish in it with a Psyhand, handing it to her.

As the bowl came flying in she was extremely surprised. To the point of getting startled as the bowl came closer, she jumped slightly which looked like it moved her in a way she shouldn’t, based on how she grasped one of the wounds on her side. Sam realised that he hadn’t considered how others would react to his telekinesis. Janik was used to it and he only spent time with him.

Using a few seconds to calm down, she inspected the floating bowl, trying to find out how it worked. Her initial expression changed from a mix of surprise and fear to intrigue, poking the bowl with one of her fingers before turning to Sam.

“Sa shirin?” It was toned almost as if she was asking something. He recognized his name but he didn’t know the second word.

He instinctively nodded, hoping that she asked if it was him or something. To prove that it was him he picked up an empty bowl with one of his normal hands and then handed it to one of his Psyhands. To an onlooker, the bowl would just float out of his hands. He floated it around before it landed in his hand again. He repeated this with a random piece of wood so she wouldn’t believe that this was only the bowls.

Her eyes were wide and almost sparkling in amazement. She took the bowl from the air, he let go as soon as it seemed she had a grip on it. Though not heavy the weight moved to her hands as normal. Her eyes widened again and rather than eat she looked like she wanted to test as well. Picking some moss from the bed she held it out in the air, moving it around, almost as if she was looking for where the hand was or if it was to be placed in a specific location in the air.

Sam used a Psyhand and took it from her, making sure to gently tug on it so she could feel that he had a grasp on it. As she let go and saw it float in the air, she let out a happy trill sound as she smiled wide.

“Sa!” She shouted out happily, facing the floating moss more than Sam himself.

He couldn’t help himself smiling at her excitement. He doubted that she knew how it worked, but as long as she understood that it was him, it was enough for now. She started eating the fish with vigour, as she stared at the floating moss, almost as if she expected it to disappear or do something.

Sam was a bit confused at the situation, he had been considering this a bit during the last few days until she woke up, but there was a huge difference in the way she acted compared to the other Beastfolk he had fought before. He would have to inspect this more at a later time.

After she had eaten more of the fish, she looked like she was handing the bowl off to the magical hand in the skies, and let out an excited squee-like sound as the bowl lifted from her hands. Looking around frantically she picked up some more moss as well as a stick, throwing them all in the air.

Not being entirely prepared for that, Sam missed several pieces of the moss but caught some of them as well as the stick. She looked ecstatic at the floating pieces of debris but then noticed the ones that fell. She looked at him with an almost worried expression.

He laughed, to her confusion. “I just missed, that’s it. Don’t worry about it.”

She tilted her head, seemingly trying to analyse the words. To make things better for her he used some Psyhands to pick them up, floating them up to the others. This brought her smile back as everything was now seemingly good.

They continued this for a while more, she tried to find out where the things in the air were, trying to grasp them with her hybrid hands, naturally missing every time. Though once he grabbed her hand in a handshake, which startled her considerably. She let go of the Psyhand by shaking her hand out of the grasp, letting out a series of sharp Yap-sounds. This just caused Sam to laugh even more. She looked at him almost angry, but more confused and annoyed. When he was done laughing a few seconds later, he held his hand up with his palm facing her, motioning for her to do the same.

As her hand and palm were up, he used his other hand to press against the palm of his hand, at the same time he did the same to hers with a Psyhand. It seemed to do the trick as she didn’t freak out this time. Her eyes lit up in intrigue as this happened, pushing against it harder than he could push with one hand, having her push his Psyhand back. He could feel her paw pads and fingers as she did so, which was an interesting feeling. Trying to grab the Psyhand with both her hands, she looked incredibly puzzled and almost panicked as she caught ‘something’ with both her hands. She had caught the Psyhand as she wanted to, but now that she had it she was frantically looking around, trying to find out what to do with this invisible force in her hands.

Letting out a drawn long annoyed and uncertain sound, she ended it with a dissatisfied grimace and “Kirak.” Almost like she was moping that she caught something but didn’t want to have caught it, like someone reaching out to get something and ending up with something weirdly disgusting on their hands.

In the end, she just opened her hands, letting go of the force, he pulled the Psyhand out of her hands which took care of that situation, bringing her smile back again.

After a while of Psyhand shenanigans, she got to her feet, a bit unsteady and shaky. Though she was better, having eaten and drank, she still hadn’t healed completely. Almost falling over Sam reached out to support her. Grabbing onto his hands for support she smiled at him as he got up, helping her out of the cave they were in.

Exiting out behind the waterfall, walking down the little path they ended up next to the pond of fish, there weren’t many left in there but there were still a few they could see. She marvelled at them before they took more steps towards the jungle. She was leading where they went as he was just there for physical support.

Now that she was awake, and even though she was still wounded, her step was incredibly light. The sound of leaves or sticks breaking came every few steps but besides that, he wouldn’t even have known that she stepped at all. The paw pads on her feet might be part of that, or perhaps just her animal nature in how she moved. It was interesting to Sam who had to make a conscious effort to sneak through the woods.

Continuing to support her, he heard that she had started making a purring sound as he held her shoulders, she supported herself against him. It caught him off guard when he noticed it. She was trusting him quite a lot in her vulnerable state, but then again he had been caring for her for a few days, so if he wanted to harm her he wouldn’t have done that. Perhaps it’s a cultural thing? Or a healing thing like cats are said to do?

His uncertainty didn’t stop, but the train of thought did as she stopped moving, causing him to have to make a hard step to stop himself from continuing forward and pulling her along. She bent down, placing her hands on the ground and surprisingly naturally she took a few steps on all four. Had he not seen her walk on two feet he would have thought this was natural for her. She walked over to a tree, sat down and started eating some plants near the base that he had never noticed before. Both her tails slowly waved back and forth as she consumed the mysterious plant.

“Oh... is that... like some medicinal thing?” He asked, for a moment forgetting that they only shared two words between them, which were their names.

After having eaten a few leaves, she turned towards him.

“Thraka-Vrila.” Having said that she turned back to the plant and continued to eat.

Sam sighed, figuring that naturally, she’d reply in her language... He sat down on a nearby log after checking it for bugs, letting her eat and continue as she was. She was most likely much more knowledgeable about the flora on the island, so it might very well be some healing plant. He took notice of its appearance for later testing or gathering, but for now, he needed to find out what to do about the whole situation. She seemed tame enough but he didn’t know what to do with her, nor what he was supposed to do on this island.

[ Conditions met. ]

“Mother fucking now what?!” Sam exclaimed as the window popped up, losing his temper entirely, startling Dia enough to cause her to jump to the side, wincing at the pain caused by her movement.