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Post by Alma on Jul 23, 2023 22:55:30 GMT -6
Jeff took longer to tire this time. Alma was not sure if it was being in the caves that gave him some new reserve of strength, or if she had accidentally been throttling him when she held him, or if he just wanted to be the biggest ass he could be and waste her time. She had thought to open the cart, toss some meat to him when he inevitably realized that he could not reach her without the light stabbing into his eyes, give him some praise and pats to get him more used to her as he ate.
But no. Jeff was an ass, a stubborn little worm that crawled out of the pit again and again to lunge at her, only to be chased back into the pit seconds later with a blinding light. Oh, she did shake it up every once in a while, stepping farther back from the pit so he could have time to see the flashlight and hesitate, but he never did. She even picked him up a few times as his squirming began to slow, once telling him, “I am growing tired of this. Please stop.” When his only response was to gnash his digging teeth together, she sighed and chucked him back into the pit.
[Jeff: No Bites-3]
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Post by Alma on Jul 23, 2023 22:57:19 GMT -6
And it went on and on, seemingly for hours. Lunge, recoil, lunge, recoil, no variation in his path, no attempt at luring her close or waiting to avoid the light that he had to have recognized came from the flashlight. He stopped only when his body seemed to give out, collapsing on the floor, body pulsing, dropping into whatever passed for sleep as his red eyes continued to stare.
She had taken to swinging the mallet, or pickaxe if she moved further from the pit, at the floor in hopes of finding something, anything to occupy her mind beyond scaring him back into the shadow-filled pit every few handfuls of seconds. She found rocks, splinters of the living rock that surrounded her, and some looked a bit like the head of a formica, or a tooth of the worm, and it was those she directed her attention to, chipping at with the chisel, managing a few good scrape before turning the light on Jeff.
But this time he had stopped, no spasm backwards to avoid the light, not even coiling his head away from her to hide that set of eyes away. After a few more seconds, she grabbed her pickaxe and nudged him with the broad side, asking, “Finally done, Jeff?”
[Jeff: No Bites-4]
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Post by Alma on Jul 23, 2023 22:58:36 GMT -6
Of course he wasn’t. She had seen this before when holding him by his throat, waiting for him to tire enough that she could have a free hand. Jeff was an asshole, and the instant he was no longer tired, they would resume the mindless repetition of lunge and light, recoil and wait.
A hundred credits. She could make that much with a good haul of gemstones in a day, with her stubby-legged gem drake Walker. She could leave Jeff there, either to wake up and hunt whatever small thing wandered into the caves, or be eaten in turn if another predator thought the smell of sarane was too faint. She wouldn’t even need to splatter him herself, and the mines were where the seller had to have caught him, so leaving him there would not be an issue.
She looked at Jeff, then reached inside the cart to pull out a bucket of meats, rejected bits of some murp or bwee that the seller sold as chum. It was still capped, the cold pack stuck to the side radiating cold that seeped into her gloves, and she set it down. She looked at Jeff one last time, then walked away from him to strike at likely walls with her tools, willing for some humming feeling or a hint of whatever it was that let Walker find gems.
It was later, enough for her to be sticky with sweat and dust that she went back to Jeff, and sat down to face him. Not so that the pit was behind him this time, the flashlight on the ground and pointing at a far off wall. She did not have long to wait, and there was no warning, no flicker in the red of his eyes before he twisted and struck out at her, teeth reaching like fingers.
[Jeff: No Bites-5]
[Jeff- 3.0|3.0]
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Post by Alma on Jul 23, 2023 22:59:50 GMT -6
She grabbed him as she had before, and he thrashed as he had before, body pushing against the ground as he fought to move closer. “I am starting to think, Jeff, that you might not be so much an asshole as an idiot.” He did not respond beyond continuing his attempted attack, and Alma sighed as she popped the lid off of the meat bucket. “If the light ain’t enough on its own, I pray this will.” She dug her hand in and pulled out some unidentifiable sludge, some part of her mind still insisting she scuttle away from the bits of flesh and bone despite the majority reminding her that she had been feeding her balgor much easier to identify pieces for a while.
And when Jeff, the newly determined idiot failed to change targets, she twisted his head to the side so his teeth pointed at empty shadows. She felt him try to fight, to turn back to her, but she dropped the sludge in front of where she pinned his head, scooting him closer to the meat like a child trying to feed a doll in reverse.
There was no moment of realization that Alma saw. She forced him towards the pile of slurry, he fought her, and then there was a slight change in direction from where he was trying to break free of her grip, and only a smudge of red remained on the floor and across his head as she pulled him back.
[Jeff: No Bites-6]
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Post by Alma on Jul 23, 2023 23:01:30 GMT -6
She talked to him throughout, stopping only when some shadow flickered and seemed to conceal a shape more solid than air, but the flashlight never showed anything hiding there. She started using it too, moaning to the worm about the meaty residue that now coated part of the plastic, shining the light into his eyes when she allowed him to face her and he continued to undulate his maw at her, turning him away to drag him over a handful of sludge. “That’s a good Jeff, feel free to eat but no eatin’ me. Or gnawin’ or chewin’ and so on.”
It felt almost as stupid as she was sure Jeff was. And had it been any other creature, from a tailypo to a young salaves, she doubted the creature would have done anything but spend the time trying to escape. But this was Jeff.
Eventually, after a long cycle of turning and another nap for Jeff, and a quick meal of dried jerky and fruit for her that was carefully never touched by her hands beyond the packaging, she turned him to face her and he did not lunge. She barely stopped herself from aiming the flashlight into his eyes, giving a puzzled, “Good job Jeff” before turning him back to the sludge of meat. He tried to lunge one time after that, but it was almost reluctant, and the flashlight encouraged him to be more than reluctant.
[Jeff: No Bites-7]
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Post by Alma on Jul 23, 2023 23:02:42 GMT -6
She expected him to lunge when she finally let him go, scooting backwards to add space between them. It would have fit him, asshole or idiot that he was, to have wasted an entire bucket of what was loosely identifiable as meat and an unknown amount of time, ruining all her hopes with one heave of his body.
What he chose to do was throw himself upon the stained ground, scooping up dirt and less savory red bits and swallowing the lot. Alma stood after seconds of watching him him eat dirt, and he turned to face the sudden movement, the ring of teeth inside his mouth flexing as he pushed down his latest treat. And then he looked away, slithered into the pit the light had chased him into so many times, and curled up to sleep.
“I think that counts.” The cave echoed the words back to her, and she nodded. “Good enough for now at least.” She ran her glove across the ground, to scrape off what she could, then went back to the cart to better clean it and the flashlight. She did not want to get that slime on her tools after all.
[Jeff: No Bites-8, End?]
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Post by Alma on Jul 23, 2023 23:31:34 GMT -6
She wondered if the dirt would fill him up the way the meat had not appeared to, the worm sucking down all the sludge she had offered him like a one of those crab robots with garbage. Alma had no intention to waste any more time trying to train him, so long as no other issues cropped up in the caves, and she hoped he would wake up and somehow start helping her find gems or metals or whatever else the worm would be good at hunting.
It occurred to her that he might be better suited to finding the little pocket-sized life that formed the bottom of the food chain in most caves, and she slipped back on her newly cleaned gloves with a curse. She couldn’t trade the tiny things for anything but credits, and, even had she wanted some to add to her thinning supply, she had chosen this cave because the kid had told her it was empty of anything to bother her.
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Post by Alma on Jul 23, 2023 23:32:58 GMT -6
Or to make the trip worthwhile, she thought as she looked at the pitted floors and walls, all worked over by man-made tools and crystalline claws. The next cave on this path was supposed to have a small tunnel leading to it, one that she would have to half crawl through and the cart would scrape its finish on. It would be small and largely untouched for that reason, and she had hoped Jeff would help tunnel through the walls and spit out gems. Or for the earth itself to open up and spit out a sarane whelp, if she had been set wishing for ridiculous things.
Jeff continued to digest his stony meal as she dropped into the pit, pickaxe held ready as she looked at the walls. The worm had chosen to crawl back in there, so there was a chance she would find something in there, or at least distract her for a bit while she waited for him to wake up. She rather not find out the lesson not to attack her did not stick in a tinier space that granted him easier access to her face.
[Jeff:4.0|4.0, Alma: 268.0]
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Post by Nadia on Jul 23, 2023 23:49:19 GMT -6
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