Vigilant - 4. Confront

The next morning, Ardant is in a much fouler mood than the day before. It hadn't taken him much time to hook his vessel back up to Natibo Port's utility system. He occupied himself by peeking around the curtains throughout the previous evening. Then, he retired early only to be left staring at the ceiling all night. At the crack of dawn he scoured the kitchen for coffee and went to his pilot seat. He's been there for the last few hours, staring vacantly through the cameras.

'This is obsessive behavior isn't it?' Ardant thinks to himself, contemplating if he should hunt down his therapist's contact information.

Nothing interesting or noteworthy has happened around the Adventurer all night. Perhaps he is just fabricating the worst of their nature. Maybe most Gahlamons aren't as deviant as the warrior class or maybe this is where the Gahlamons wait until they're lulled into a false sense of security...

There's some shuffling above his head where Sarklet sleeps in the real bedroom. He barely pays it any mind until her heart-shaped face appears, leaning into the shuttle's cockpit. "Ardant... What are you doing?"

"Just," What exactly is he doing? Keeping them safe? Being nosey? Maybe an awkward mix of the two? He shrugs, suddenly self-conscious and whispers, "couldn't sleep."

She hums eyeing the mug between his calloused hands, larger but more practiced than her own stocky pair. Mother used to wax poetic on how potential personalities came out in the lines and shapes of their palms. The older woman would tickle and pinch Sarklet, teasing her about how creative she is and popular among suitors she'd be. With Ardant though, Sarklet remembers catching more subdued moments where mother would simply hold his hands in hers, smiling at the boy babbling about the latest space exploration and how neat it would be to join the Academy. Thinking back on it, Sarklet can now pick out the sadness and worry born by all mothers for their sons. Especially a son like Ardant.

There comes a mumbling sound of Xar stirring, forcing a groan of protest from Sarklet. Ardant snickers lowly at his sister's misfortune. Lifting the mug to take a drink, he catches her peering at with a heavy gaze. "What?"

"Just thinking."

"Don't." She slaps his shoulder in false irritation.

"We need to talk about what we're doing eventually."

A stoniness crosses Ardant's face. "I already made the decision."

"Maybe for yourself, but we need to think more about this opportunity."

"There's nothing to think about."

"Ardant! You need to accept that this is happening." She folds her arms, shifting her weight as more urgent muttering can be heard from above, but unwilling to walk away from the conversation just yet. "What if we move, only to find a similar situation once we arrive somewhere else? And what if we do find somewhere without Gahlamons only for a month or so to pass before that place too is open to them? Are we going to keep moving? Forever? Or until you can face your own fears?"

"I'm not afraid!" He bursts aloud in indignation.

"Then stop acting like it!" Sarklet's voice bounces around the metal cockpit, adding a ringing quality that dissolves around their tense forms.

The tense silence is interrupted by a long warbeling croon.

Ardant's perplexed expression is almost laughable. "What in stars name is he doing?"

It takes a second for Sarklet to listen to the rise and fall of Xar's inexperienced voice, before her lips spread into a brilliant smile. "He's singing!" gushes in excitement. "Isn't that adorable?"

"No. It's weird."

Sarklet rolls her eyes. "I'm going back to sleep. You need to reconsider about us staying Ardant."

He tries to respond only for her to exit the room, speaking loud enough for him to hear-

"Oh, and you should sleep too if you want to survive work later."

Work. He'd forgotten with all the drama surrounding him that it's a workday. Dropping his face into a hand, he runs his fingers through short strands of hair and glares at the black coffee. There's no way he'll be able to function properly. 'I'll just send an email...'

Sometime between the hush of quiet in the bedroom overhead and the constant humming of electricity, Ardant nods to sleep.

There's a cramp in his neck as he wakes. After images of rampant dreams, distorted into nightmarish figures fades away. The screams stay, piercing through his skull. A woman's shrill, bloodcurdling wail rising in unrestrained pitch.

Ardant's heart jumps and he launches himself from the pilot seat for the second time in the last 24 hours, worst possible scenarios playing in his mind's eye. He comes quickly to a halt in the living space, watching distantly as a rerun of an old horror movie plays on the drop-down screen. The heroine on the holowall lets out another blood curdling shriek.

Ardant remains stiff as he fights to regulate his heartbeat. Amber eyes close, he sucks in air and holds it. Muscles twitching with adrenaline, Ardant releases a steady breath and glances to both fists. They continue to shake.

His energy crashes and he collapses onto the small sofa closeby. Taking the moment to just breathe, he chortless viscously at himself. It's time to give Dr. Qino a call again.

As he retrieves a remote device for the holowall and turns it off, Sarklet steps down into the kitchen from the upstairs suite.

"Sorry about that, I had to keep Xar occupied while I dressed."

Sure enough, Ardant turns to see the child inspection him from a baby seat. The babe had keenly watched the older males mental breakdown. To know the child has seen him at so out-of-it, causes a flush of embarrassment to darken Ardant's sun-kissed face. Thankfully, Xar quickly loses interest and begins mashing bananas.

"You're supposed to eat those!" Sarklet scolds. She tries desperately to keep Xar from smearing the fruit into the buttoned top. The young mother feels exasperated when he switched from his hands to a bare foot. "Stars you’re a mess!"

"Didn't you get the fashion memo? You wear bananas now." Ardant teases, overly amused at the sight. He begins to chuckle in earnest, feeling emotionally unbalanced from little sleep and the rude awakening. It reaches full-body laughter until he can finally shut it down.

Sarklet lifts Xar from his seat, who's looking at Ardant curiously again. "Let's go buddy, before we catch madness."

"Ha!" He shakes his head and stands as well. "Where are you going?"

"Xar has a Playdate."

"Sarklet-"

"I'm not running away with Gahlamons Ardant, I'm just handing him to the playground attendant for a bit."

He chews on his lip, realizing that if they keep this up, there is inevitably going to be a nasty fight. Some sort of agreement needs to be reached. "Alright, I'm taking a shower."

"Have at it." Sarklet replies sharply and leaves through the port door.

With a sigh, Ardant peels the pullover off. The rank smell of stress making him cringe. He steps into the storage chamber, his makeshift bedroom and chucks the offensive shirt into a corner. In the small bathroom, he eyes the scar resting jaggedly across the slight swell of his muscles. Out of sight, it's appearance begins on his left shoulder blade, trailing down and around his ribcage, ending in a fading indent near the dip in his belly button.

Ardant can still remember the painful stab of the horn. How he'd been thrown up and over... Shaking his head, he stops himself from revisiting that particular memory.

In the cramped shower, hot water beats a rhythm into tight muscles, turning tanned skin to almost a blistering red. It feels divine against his sore neck. Maneuvering around the compact space, Ardant finds the dispenser of soap and works the body wash into the slopes of his arms and chest. Frothing suds slip down his abdomen and sculpted legs. No longer at the pinnacle of his soldiering days, Ardant lost most of his bulk due to the injury. His entrepreneur days made him more lax, but it was getting the security position in the Toha District that put him back into something of a workout routine. He doesn't believe he'll ever get those rippling abs from once-upon-a-time ago, but he's in better shape than two years prior.

He ends the shower abruptly when his stomach gurgles loudly from the absence of solid food. It doesn't take him long to hunt down a shirt and cargo pants, within the disaster that his room is rapidly becoming.

Searching the cot, he finds his portable carrier. The red and gold circlet devise fits snuggly on Ardant's left wrist. There's two different colored lights blinking, one signaling an app update and another alerting to a message on his social profile. He presses an accept button on the side, watching as a hologram of a downloading bar shoots vertically from the circlet and completes itself before disappearing. The next button down opens a hologram connecting to the spacenet, a screen appears along the flat surface of his palm. Widening his hand, it expands to the tips of his fingers and Ardant scrolls around absentmindedly.

Shuffling into the living room and passing the kitchen island, he goes down into the cockpit to retrieve his mug. Just as he closes his palm to cut off the spacenet and pick up the empty container, his eyes flick up to the cameras he left on and he freezes in place.

The Gahlamon, the one who keeps making eye contact with him, Dathar, is right outside. Right. There. Sliding a hand along Ardant's shuttle's main hull!

Before even realising it, he's out the port door and shouldering past Sarklet's hanging plants. Jumping from the built patio, Ardant rounds the front of his craft-

"Ah, good morning." The Gahlamon turns to the human with a saccharine smile.

Disturbed, Ardant slows to a halt to take in the full profile of the deadly being. Dathar Su'klythop, or Dathar Suyi for short, is taller by a few inches and leaner in build. Two sets of dark red horns crown his skull. As if underwater, black unbound hair drifts lazily, framing an angular face. This close, he can see the icy flecks of blue in those slitted-orbs.

It dawns on Ardant that the last time he was close to this species, he had been locked in combat, a violent fight to the death. And miraculously, against all odds, he had won.

"I was just admiring your shuttle. It's a space cruiser isn't it?" Dathar appraises the other with open enthusiasm.

"Yes..." Preparing himself for a collision, Ardant focuses on the center of the Gahlamon's neck. Seeking any physical signs of weakness, he falls back to the Corps training. Dather Suyi is distracting though, the formal robe of blues and greens parting just under a deceptively delicate collarbone. It must be a natural occurrence for their species to appear so attractive, the seductive qualities more dangerous than some of the natives to other planets in the UPA. He suddenly wishes the alien would stop forming words with those maddeningly plump lips. It isn't like the Gahlamon absolutely needs to for Ardant to be able to hear it. "Is there anything else?"

The taller male must have recognized the inflection of barely hidden revulsion, because almost instantly the Dathar is shifting back and takes on a defensive posture. His voice drops lower as well, jaw hardly moving as he says, "It was a fighter vessel?"

Body tensing under scrutiny, Ardant bristles as the other's tone sounds too much like an accusing statement. "You got a problem with it?"

"Possibly." Dathar’s lips curl into a forced smile. "Do you have a problem with mine?"

Ardant peeks at the sleek housing shuttle purchased by the government. The United Planets Association went well over the top in their budgeting for this project. It makes Ardant wonder how much money was spent on their former enemies than the families that served during the war. An ugly tinge of jealousy twists inside. Hardened with hatred, Ardant meets the Gahlamon's eyes. "Possibly."

The circlet on his wrist suddenly alights in red door an incoming call. Ardant takes a step back and presses a button on the side. "Hello?"

-"Harthen! Where are you? "-

"Boss?" His stomach sinks when he realizes that he forgot to send a message in earlier this morning, he glances at the Gahlamon who feigns disinterest. "I got caught up with some things."

-"Well hurry up! I've got some things to go brief you on that can't be heard over com-link."-

"Wait, I'm sorta in a crisis-"

-"Get here now, Harthen!"- The blue light flickers out on the circlet, cutting into Ardant's protest with little to no room for argument.

Weighing his options, Ardant decides that confronting the Gahlamon isn't worth losing a tolerable job over. There's about a fifteen minute drive on the hover-path, winding upward to the next station where the Toha and Wollo Districts reside. It'll take him five minutes to change and another five minutes to get his hovercycle fueled and ready to go. He might make it there in a half hour if he hustles.

Ardant runs a hand through his hair, cursing darkly. Ignoring the unwanted neighbor, he rushes back towards the corner of his airship. Right about now he wishes he actually sent that text. His neck still hurts, exhaustion battling his senses and already a dull headache is starting. Today is not his day. He might actually strangle someone!

"Harthen!"

Ardant glances backward in bewilderment at the intelligent creature standing under the canopy of the Adventurer, half of his body in shadows and the other half in the light of morning. The effect makes Dathar Suyi's skin shimmer and eyes flash unnaturally. It unnerves Ardant who stumbles slightly at the otherworldly effect.

"Have a nice day at work!"

The extremely false cheerfulness, said by the last thing he'd want to exchange pleasantries with in the universe, displaces him even further. What is the Gahlamon doing with its face? Smirking at him? Stars, that's terrifying!