D.A.B. day 9
See the light
It's dark and my smartwatch wakes me up. I have my arm around Reiley, and feel her arm and leg around me. She is awake, and rest her head against mine as she notice I'm awake, and give my neck a gentle kiss as she caress my beard. Reiley won't complain if I grow a full beard as lots of facial hair is a sign of a strong and wise male in her culture. Her own long hair looks good either loose or in a braid, but it's a rebellious youth vanity thing, as in her culture women should have practical short hair and at most two fingers width. I sure don't mind her long hair and told her so. I gently caress Reiley's back and grab her butt and kiss her lips. Right now and here, life isn't so bad even on dinosaur planet, and I could spend hours like this. I want to spend hours like this.
That was a hell of an evening, and I want to experience more of them. Seems very likely that I will. Reiley's sense of smell is far better than mine, and those Sanctuary flowers made her horny as we worked chopping trees down in the clearing. I feel a bit bad about it as I want Reiley to have a clear head, but apparently it doesn't affect her mind the same as me, probably helped by her not being in a fertile period, and Reiley have high hopes for today's work down there, now that she knows how the sex might be. Human women being fertile around the year is a very alien concept for her, and she mainly see downsides with it due to periods, work and food situation over the seasons. But Reiley likes that human men don't have a fertile period, and that I took my time as I gently explored her body. She makes such lovely satisfying sounds, and I want to make her do more of them.
"What would you say about making the next bed wider and good for two?"
"Yes!"
There is hunger and determination in the way she said that, and it is a bit of an ego boost to hear. Reiley might have been very inexperienced sexually, and her culture sure doesn't have sexual education, but Tiola's culture was far more exploring and hedonistic, and I can visualize Reiley having wide eyes while hanging on to Tiola's every word when she talked about sex. I was careful to make sure we were sexually compatible organ wise, and Reiley loved that I sensually explored her with my fingers, hands, lips and tongue. We are honestly way too compatible and close, and she react like I expected. Reiley even taste nice, although her clitoris is different, and she have another on the inside. My back aches a bit as Reiley have claws more than just nails, and in her blissed out state she wasn't really thinking, but thankfully they're not sharp claws. Still, I kind of don't care if I end up marked for life.
The alarm buzz again and we need to leave for that ridge. I should soon see what she means by vision. If I get one. Living completely without privacy with a bomb in my head or body and with damn alien bastards fingers on the trigger is a hell of a thing, and if I don't get a vision I will know they're listening and watching, and are petty bastards too. Eh, what the hell. Might as well make sure we get our blood going. Life here will be damn short for one reason or another. So I use my free hand to caress Reiley's thigh and start to kiss her, and she start to caress my manhood as she sticks her tongue in my mouth.
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The sky is cloudy and grey with light fog, and we don't see that far as we sit beside each other on ridge in our cloaks. Me facing south towards the river while Reiley looks north. There is still the occasional kiss and smile and Reiley rest her head on my shoulder as we wait. This is nice and I could just sit here and let the day go. I don't think Reiley is faking attraction, especially since I heard her pray to the Spirits about finding some kind of contraceptive. She agree that children is a very bad idea right now, and even though she isn't fertile right now, we were careful and I pulled out. But there is no doubt animals are going to die by her hand so I can get some kind of condom and finish in her. Reiley just really want to have sex without condoms, and I guess it's a matter of time until that happens.
"There!"
Reiley whispers and points north, and I turn around. I see a faint light far to the north in the flatland beyond the ridges. No real pillar, but there is a light, and it's a no go. If we had that canoe we might get there in an hour or two, but I'm not that keen to spend a night in the open now that I have a nice hut and a beautiful sexy woman eager to share my bed. I just shake my head and Reiley nods and looks around. I see her react and I turn around before she points. There is another faint light in the hills to the south west. Closer, but still at least 4 km away, and on the other side of the valley and Dinosaur lands. Same problem. We will try to keep a lookout over the coast and river as we work today, but we're simply unprepared, it's unexplored ground and it is simply too dangerous. We sit and watch but those are the only two lights, and it's time to move.
"Good luck."
"My the Spirits guide your path and keep you safe." Reiley make a sign and bow her head, and repeat the saying and blessing it towards the other light. She looks at me and worriedly asks: "Still no vision?"
"Nope. I don't think the Spirits like my thoughts of them and why we are here. Yes, it would be useful and might save my life, but I'm not going to grovel and pretend to worship them as it is their fault we're here in the first place. As I said: They took our futures and lives without asking. We owe them nothing. They owe us."
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We kiss and just lean against each other. Reiley was surprised I didn't get any vision, as she got a new 'vision' just before we left, and as she explain it she heard the ethereal voice explain the same kind of navigation slash direction sense Tiola had, and I heard her say: "Mighty Spirits, set location Home."
Everything I learn just reinforce my idea of this place and our overlords, and I think there is some kind of accomplishments to unlocking visions and maybe gifts. I think you get that 'find home vision' if you travel a certain distance during your time here, and it wouldn't surprise me to learn that it is possible to unlock a higher level and get more locations to set. When I didn't get a vision, I told Reiley a sanitized version of what I believe about this place, and that I won't pray to them or pretend. She didn't like my thoughts, but appreciated my firm stand and honesty towards the Spirits. Damn Alien Peeping-Tom Petty Bastards!
"Come on, lets go find a good place for a terrace or two, and more berries, before going down to feed the kiln and start working."
For this kiln burn I add the two crucibles with brass and copper. It got my keys and most of my so called 'Nordic Gold' coins in the brass one, and all the copper coins in the other. I've already decided to save four 'Nordic Gold' coins since the planned knife blade should be a fairly good size as is, and Reiley is happy about that choice. She thinks the coins are fabulous works of art, and the paper money even more so, but paper money and finance will be something to talk about as we work. Reiley is very uneducated, so I plan to improve her general knowledge and math since we got time. Reading will probably be a no-go due to the translation, but it will be interesting to try and it might be a way around this whole 'gift of understanding'.
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We do the usual run to check the traps and gather material, and it's good we have salt as we caught two fish and will have food for a couple of days. Smoking and salting helps keep food, but we need to make some kind of food storage and we will use one of those pot-in-pot-refrigerator. We have clay and water, and sand that work shouldn't be hard to find. The fine soil in the jungle might work. I will direct a bit of air for the pot-in-pot, like I did for the kiln-forge-kitchen since the kitchen bench will be over by the front wall. We will probably do two pot-in-pot and build some type of cabinet for them.
We go for a small exploration loop for vegetables in the jungle while setting traps, and to avoid loosing our minds in a Sanctuary flower fueled fuck fest, we use newly improvised nose clamps. It really helps and I'm proud over that idea since it turns out that the jungle is bloody full of those flowers. Reiley have never seen even a twentieth so many flowers before as they're rare up in the valley, and here they are in clusters everywhere. And it's not like our jungle exploration takes us far, and we are silent and careful. I trust Reiley's tracking and hunting skills more than mine, and she cannot find any dinosaur tracks in the jungle. Plenty of other tracks, but no dino looking tracks. We collect more coconuts and some of those weird fruits before we dig in the ground to see if certain plants have good roots or tubers. Some of this ground is really more grey sand than dark soil, but there sure is stuff growing in it.
We can still see flowers ahead but we turn when we reach a small creek slowly running down from the ridge and hills towards the river, and start to follow it upstream. I guess the creek have much more flow following rain. While looking closer in the creek I notice a medium sized rock with a round water caused erosion hole in it, and I do need a mortar for crushing or grinding, so we take it. Huh. That water looks weird with puddles of orangey cloudy mud in some parts, and clean water just above or beside. It kind of reminds me of orange mud, but doesn't behave like mud. Like it isn't dissolved like mud should be, and it is slimy to the touch. Could this be some form of iron forming bacteria? It kind of reminds me a bit how creek water can be in parts of Sweden, but it's not that 'oil on the surface' that bog iron leaves. Might be worth to check out if I can some how filter it out or boil it. It will probably take a lot. Maybe just a large porous pot as a water filter? We could just leave the pot here and collect it later. Might be worth to try instead of boiling the water and wasting wood. There are actually quite a lot of dried old branches, timber and free standing dead trees, so we will gather it and chop it up or throw heavy stones at raised branches to split it into better size pieces. It will be a heck of a lot of work, but it's free dry wood. I will do a charcoal mound in the jungle working area, as it is a bit hidden, fairly safe, and closer to the materials.
On the sunnier higher slopes heading back we find plenty of berry bushes and some vicious trees with long nasty looking thorns, like 3-4 cm long thorns and strong. Might be good as sewing needles, so I chop some off. We also find a few roots and tubers that is worth trying out, so we bring them with us. It will be the usual procedure to test the plants for safety, and I've already taught Reiley about tree number 3, and we've tested and she had the same itching reaction from just a drop. Reiley signals 'Stop', 'Stay' and 'Quiet', and I worry about danger but see that Reiley isn't as she starts to backtrack and her hunting mode is switched up a notch as she carefully make a flanking movement while drawing her bow. Damn, she looks badass and she is a bit hard to see. I really don't like her going away from me, but I have to trust her skill and judgment and I try to focus on looking around in the environment. She raise her bow, aim and shoot, and quickly charge forward while drawing her knife. The hurt animal noises are quickly silenced, and Reiley returns with one of those fur pigs, and a happy smug pleased smile spread across her beautiful face, but she is still alert for dangers. I'll admit that was impressive, and damn hot. And I now know why her bow have that weird grip with prongs as she use it to clip her spear to the bow. I though it was a form of arrow shelf or sight, but it kind of make sense she don't want to just leave her spear against a tree or on the ground while using the bow. Must make the bow unwieldy, but she have the option if needed.
We share an intense kiss and let our lips linger. I feel her smile widen and her tongue seeks mine as I grab her butt, and we just enjoy this moment. A distant roar reminds us that this is a bad spot to get lost in each other and we make our way back. It's a slightly weird reverse role since I as the man should be home and taking care of the household, while she is the hunter and food provider and Reiley seems eager to prove herself. It feels a bit strange, but I am convinced that there really is a lot of lonely women in Reiley's culture that simply can not marry and have children due to gender imbalance and their social status.
And that Reiley was one of them.
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