Page 17 of Dealing With Drak

Besides, I think I am going to like seeing An-nana’s former home. I wish to know many things about her, and now I am going to get to see many things about her.

“The leaves are not so green anymore,” I comment casually, hoping to continue speaking with her. It is a dull flight when you are not speaking, shooting, or speeding through the sky at rates An-nana would find alarming.

“It’s Autumn,” my Mean One tells me.

“Crisp months?” I ask, not understanding the translation.

An-nana sighs, but she does not snarl at me. “Earth has four seasons,” she explains slowly, giving me time to absorb the information. An-nana is a fine teacher. “Winter, the coldest, at least on this part of the planet. Spring, the time when it rains more and flowers bloom. Summer, the hottest time, and then Autumn or what some people call Fall. It’s when the leaves turn orange and brown, draining the green from them in the process, and then they fall off of the trees to prepare for Winter. Because of snow.”

“Ahh,” I hum, considering her words. Aprix’s seasons are not like what she has explained. We do not experience such drastic changes.

“Which is your favorite?”

“Huh?” she asks.

“Season,” I clarify. “Which season is your favorite?”

“Before the world ended?” she mutters under her breath. “Autumn, I guess. That’s hunting season here.”

A sound reason to prefer one season to the next. “You must only hunt one season per year?”

An-nana shrugs. “Depends on local laws, but yeah. It’s to control animal populations so they don’t let a species die off or something.”

“This deer is the animal you described to me before, yes?”

“Yes,” she answers, and I try to picture it in my mind once more.

A four-legged creature that has horns as a male and tastes very good when cooked in many hu-nim dishes. It has short tan fur and is skittish by nature. I should like to see one of these. Perhaps An-nana will be happy if she slaughters one.

I will not stray from my task in assisting with looking for her family, but I will keep an eye out for such a creature. I will be disappointed if she wishes to keep it as a pet. So far, I have not been impressed with Urth’s pets. Harold the very dumb chick-han is amusing, but I do wish he would die already. I wish to cook him and test if his meat is poisoned like An-nana believes it may be.

Stee-vee, the hu-nim mated to Marrec, swears that Urth has creatures like Ch’ta. Cats, they call them. But I have not seen proof of this fact yet. Maybe I will look for these cat creatures too. If they truly look like Ch’ta, I will recognize them immediately, much easier than the deers.

“What building is that?” I ask, gesturing to a particularly large structure below us.

“It’s an abandoned mall,” An-nana answers, but she does not look up to see it. She has this area memorized well. “It’s full of a bunch of stores and restaurants and stuff. They used to be really popular because it’s convenient to have so many things in one place, but now—I mean, before—everyone just started shopping online.”

Virtually she means, like we have on Aprix.

“I like to gather things myself,” I muse, scratching my chin. “I like to hold things before I decide if I want them.”

Mean One blinks at me like she does not know how to reply. She makes that face at me a great many times during the day. I hope it is because I fascinate her. Surely, it would be unkind of The Mother to let a female mesmerize me so greatly without making us even.

“I like to shop in person too,” she finally states, turning to look out her window.

Another thing we have in common.

“The flying contraptions hu-nims use, have you been in one before?”

Stee-vee has explained these to me. Planes, she called them. An inferior version of even the most primitive ships. They do not leave this planet’s atmosphere, but they do soar through the skies much faster than their typical ground travel.

“A plane or a rocketship?”

“I do not know this rocketship,” I reply, mangling the unfamiliar word through my teeth. “Is it like this ship?”

“Not even close,” she says humorously. “Humans have gotten to space with them before, like to the moon and stuff, but they’re nothing like this. They’re huge and really hard to make. It takes years and years to get them ready for flight.”

“So you have not been in a ship-rocket?”

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