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I didn’t see Silar out there but I heard him. At least, I thought I did. The methodical sound of hammering had to be coming from someone human or, er, Zabrian.
It was coming from the direction of the barn.
I passed around the edges of the gardens, walking under the fruit trees Silar had told me about earlier. The hammering sound got louder. It rang out from a smaller structure built onto the side of the barn. I circled the entire thing to find Silar in a sort of open-air workshop. He had something wooden up on a workbench and was pounding away at it, his muscled back to me.
He sure isn’t bothered by the cold, I thought somewhat bitterly, noting his eternal lack of shirt. Or maybe it was just that his activity was keeping him warm. He seemed to be working hard on building something.
He stopped hammering then bent slightly, examining his work. But he didn’t maintain that posture for long. Half a second later he stiffened, straightened up, and turned around.
I was at least five, maybe even seven or eight metres from him. And I hadn’t said a word.
“How did you know I was there?” I asked, startled.
“Heard your breathing.” He hefted the tool in his hand before setting it down. “Hammering must have covered the sound of your footsteps.”
“My breathing? Jeez. You weren’t kidding about the good hearing,” I said, drawing my blanket/scarf combo tighter around myself as I walked closer.
For such a rural landscape, it was surprisingly bright out here. Three moons and infinite stars sent silvery light pouring down. Silar’s little workshop area was lit with a large candle.
“What are you working on?” I asked, my words puffing up in front of me like smoke. Once I was beside him, I took a look at the pieces of wood he’d been fitting together on the workbench.
“I had all this lumber to build out your room and make your bed. But I guess I don’t need it for that now.”
“Then what are you building?”
“A table,” he said, turning those odd blue-and-turquoise-veined eyes onto me. My breath caught. “And a chair.”
“Just one chair? Does that mean you won’t be sitting to eat with me?”
I meant it to come out like a joke. But it just came out sounding pathetic.
Silar didn’t seem to notice though, thank goodness.
“No,” he replied, rubbing his knuckles along the underside of his jaw. “It means there’s already a chair in the house.”
“Oh.”
Duh. I knew that. I’d told him to sit his alien ass down on it earlier, hadn’t I? When I’d tended to his ears. There was a very good chance Silar was beginning to think he’d married a total airhead. But I couldn’t make myself get too upset or embarrassed about that now. No, right now I was just basking in the completely unexpected delight at the fact that Silar wanted to sit down and take his meals with me. He was building a whole freaking set of furniture simply because I’d mentioned the lack of it.
I sniffed, worried I’d get all teary-eyed again. God, I hadn’t realized how lonely I’d become on Terratribe I. I hadn’t shared a meal with someone since Mama had died. I mean, I had my lunches and snacks in the shuttle factory cafeteria, but sometimes that was even worse than eating alone. Loneliness when you’re surrounded by people feels different than loneliness in the empty quiet.
I used to have friends on Terratribe I – like Maggie – but she’d moved to Elora Station. I would have done anything to join her. But I wasn’t able to snag one of the coveted seasonal work contracts there and I wasn’t a super-talented baker able to open my own business like Maggie had done.
She’d also fallen in love on Elora Station and was now married to an alien orc. I’d known for some time she wasn’t coming back.
I wondered now if that wasn’t some small slice of the reason I’d jumped at this marriage program. Certainly, I needed to get away from Magnus’ men. But had another, tiny part of me been looking for something beyond that?
Was Silar looking for that, too?
He was building the table, after all…
“What are you doing out here?” he asked. “I thought you were going to bed.”
“I did. But…” I shook off the feeling that I was being way too whiny and just bit the bullet. “It’s too cold!”
He blinked his lashless eyes at me.
“Cold?”
