Woot! Chapter 50!
SNOW!
“Bailey?” the voice spoke her name quietly, trying to wake her gently, but when Bailey didn’t respond the voice became louder, more insist with barely restrained excitement. “Bailey!” Bailey snorted and woke up with a jerk.
“Wotsmatter?” she muttered groggily,
“C’mon Bailey!” cried the voice exuberantly, “You gotta wake up!”
“Don’t wanna.” Bailey muttered, drifting off to sleep again,
“Ah no, you gotta get up Bailey!” she felt an almighty shove and fell out of bed with a yelp, hitting the floor with a muffled thud. Bailey sat up quickly cursing,
“I’m up dammit!” she blinked and rubbed her head and was confronted with Haigar standing on the opposite side of the bed, grinning like the Cheshire Cat, with a knitted hat with ear flaps that tied under his chin, mittens and a thick jumper. “What the hell was that for!” Bailey exploded throwing up her hands. Unperturbed Haigar went to the chest of drawers cupboard by Bailey’s bed and threw it open rummaging around and throwing her warmest clothes onto the bed. “What the heck are yer doin’!?” Bailey asked in confusion.
“Get up! Get ready!” Haigar yelled, “It’s SNOWIN’!” Bailey blinked long and slow.
“Haigar…” she said, in a tone that suggested she was trying to reason with a mentally unstable, flame-thrower toting homicidal maniac. “It’s bin snowin’ for ages…”
“Yeh,” agreed Haigar enthusiastically, “But it’s clear enough to go outside!”
“It’s early Haigar,” Bailey whined, “And I’m too old for snowball fights and whatnot.”
“Awww, c’mon Bailey, it’ll be fun, and you can meet some other Steef kids.” Haigar wheedled, Bailey groaned, well, she
was up already and playing in the snow
might be fun. Plus Haigar was on the verge of pleading, opening his blue eyes wide. Bailey rubbed her hair, and broke into a smile,
“Alright, alright, I’m comin’.” Haigar cheered and punched the air in triumph,
“Yeah!” and barrelled out of the room,
“One of these days boy, you’re gonna charm some lass so good you won’t know what you’ve let yerself in for.” Bailey muttered wryly and went through her drawers.
She pulled out the Grubb warmsuit Jolee had supplied her with and laid them next to her thickest trousers and shirt, the green woollen jumper, balaclava-hood, scarf and hat as well as her fingerless gloves and woolly mittens.
She considered wearing her bandana and hat and pulled them out of the draw. Stranger had returned them to her when she’d been in the Grubb infirmary. The bloodstains, though the bandana had been washed copiously, could still be faintly seen and not amount of skill could fix the raggedness it had acquired. But Bailey didn’t mind, it was her bandana and she liked it just the way it was. She picked up the hat and fingered the soft leather. The jagged hole that the stake it had been impaled on, had put through it hadn’t been fixed either, the brim now looking like it had been bitten. Bailey smiled quietly, it looked more like Stranger’s hat now. She wondered briefly why his looked like it had been attacked by a Fuzzle. But just then, she heard Haigar’s voice;
“Hurry up Bailey!” and decided that it was something to be pondered another time, she put the bandana and hat back in the draw, pulled off the shirt and baggy pants she slept in and began to change.
When she was quite ready she left the bedroom and found Haigar waiting impatiently outside in the hall.
“C’mon! You ready?” without waiting for an answer he grabbed hold of Bailey’s wrist “Let’s go!” and practically dragged the dazed human down the hall, passed the kitchen where the adults and baby were having breakfast and to the door. Just before Haigar could open the door Stranger’s voice called them,
“Whoa you two! Where’s tha fire!?” the two youngsters turned, Stranger was walking down the hall towards them, he stopped before them and put his fists on his hips. “Where you two goin’?” he asked,
“The snow’s stopped.” Gushed Haigar, “We’re going outside.” Stranger raised an eyebrow. Then he sighed and shook his head,
“Not without me you ain’t, someone’s gotta watch yer.” He said, glancing at Bailey in particular. “Don’t Move.” He warned before leaving them. Bailey waited patiently for him to come back, while Haigar fidgeted. Soon Stranger came back looking weird to Bailey in woollens and not the hat and poncho she was used too. “Alright, let’s go.” The two Steef and human shouted goodbyes to Daimen and Alika in the kitchen and left the Steef home, through several winding passages and finally up, out of the underground civilisation and outside.
Bailey squinted and blinked rapidly as the reflected glare of the watery sun on the sun blinded her. When she got used to it she took a deep breath of cool, crisp air, held it for a second and then let it out again.
She saw many young Steef, chaperoned by smiling adults, shrieking with glee while they played in the powdery snow. The sight of them was infectious and Bailey felt the joy she had felt when she was younger and the excitement of playing in snow.
With whoops of childish delight Haigar and Bailey plunged into the games. At first the other Steef children were wary of Bailey and the adults tensed up and their smiles faded.
Stranger watched them closely, his arms folded, unsmiling. He watched Bailey in particular, not sure how the other Steef adults were react to her, and ready to defend his little one if necessary. His concern seemed misplaced, for after a few minutes of skirting around the human and avoiding her, while watching her warily, a very young Steef, about Haigar’s age and Bailey’s height approached her. He had shocking blond fur and hair and blue eyes. Bailey had noticed that many of the blue-eyed Steef also had pale fur, she realised that Haigar, being dark but still blue-eyed was pretty unique as Steef went.
The young Steef was male and seemed part of a little gang, his friends a little way off, watching him. Maybe he was trying to show off, maybe it was a dare, but regardless of the reason, a young male Steef had come up to Bailey and looked at her intently.
Bailey held the eye contact, knowing it was important, she had to let him know that she was neither afraid of him, not considered him her superior, but she also had to remain non-threatening.
The Steef circled her slowly, Bailey kept her face impassive, but felt surprise. The young Steef male was inspecting her as if she were a Steef too and a male Steef at that. Luckily she knew what to expect and how to react to send the appropriate message for both male and female Steef.
Haigar stood back but by the tenseness of his stance, it was clear he would leap to Bailey’s defence if this other Steef got nasty.
But he didn’t show any threatening signals. After circling Bailey twice he stood in front of her again and leaning forward until his nose was only an inch from Bailey’s. He let out a breath that washed warmly across Bailey’s face, Bailey didn’t flinch in anyway but instead let out a small growl.
The Steef returned the growl and then wrestled Bailey to the ground, not roughly but not gently either, a scrap of this kind was the Steef’s way of assessing another’s strength and guile. They tussled for a bit, throwing up snow as they grappled. Eventually Bailey managed the upper hand and as the snow cleared Haigar hid a grin, Bailey was sitting on the Steef’s back, his arms pulled behind him.
Bailey waited a few seconds just to establish she’d won and then got off him, she offered and hand and the Steef took it, hauling himself to his feet. He drew back slightly, not alarmed but with an impressed and almost friendly look. After looking at Bailey for a moment, he spoke, his voice a shade deeper then Haigar’s;
“Chiron.” He said, put a hand over his heart, Bailey copied him,
“Bailey.”
“It was a good fight.” Chiron said, Bailey shrugged lightly,
“Only because you underestimated me.” She commented, Chiron chuckled,
“I won’t be guilty of it again, I can assure you.” Bailey grinned,
“Then I should watch my back.” She held out her hand, Chiron looked at it confused, “It’s how we say hello.” Bailey explained, Chiron took her hand and shook it. “Strong hand shake.” Bailey nodded.
“So you’re the human.” Chiron said,
“So what if she is?” asked Haigar, coming to stand beside Bailey. Chiron put up his hand,
“I mean nothing by it Haigar, I’ve just heard rumours.”
“About the human who came last time.” Said Bailey, “I’ve been told what they did.” She nodded to Chiron’s and Haigar’s expressions, “I hope I can maybe get the Steef’s confidence back and try and take back what the others did. I mean nobody any harm here and even if I did, I don’t think I’d have much of a chance.” Chiron gazed at Bailey piercingly but then he nodded.
“You have truthful eyes Bailey,” he said, “I think you are different from your kin.” He put a hand on Bailey’s shoulder, “I hope we can be friends?” he asked mildly, Bailey grinned and put a hand of Chiron’s shoulder,
“I’d like to have you as a friend.” It was only then Bailey noticed that she, Haigar and Chiron were surrounded by all the other young Steef that had been only a while ago playing in the snow. She also saw the adults not too far away. She was sure that they’d heard Chiron and herself conversing and most of them looked less wary of her then before.
The young Steef children, seeing that Bailey really wasn’t all that scary and seemed to have bonded with Haigar and Chiron, came forward shyly, wanting to say hello to the human Bailey as well, but held back by their own shyness.
Finally, one Steef, a female with ruddy-brown hair and toffee brown eyes steeped forward and inspected her as Chiron had done, but in the way that female Steef did, and as Chiron had, as if Bailey were a Steef, but this time, as she was female. It was less tense and didn’t have a tussle.
“Laylana.” She introduced herself when she and Bailey had ‘met’ in Steef fashion.
“Bailey.” Bailey replied. And so it went on, the Steef circled her and according to if they were male of female, fought her as well. Sometimes she won, sometimes she lost but all of the Steef were amiable and Bailey could almost feel the wariness and distrust they had had for her dissipate.
The adults to glanced from Bailey to Stranger and back to Bailey, seeing how she treated their young ones. Her facial expression and her body language all said she was truthful and trustworthy, unlike her predecessors who had been continually guarded with devious eyes and dubious speech. Bailey seemed easy-going and open.
Soon the children threw aside all constraints and soon were all laughing and screaming, pelting snow at each other.
Bailey found that even in play Steef were more serious then human children, even a snowball fight seemed organised. The Steef roughly made up two teams, under a leader and built little barricades of snow before plunging into snowy warfare. There seemed to Bailey, an unspoken but unbreakable rule that if you were hit in a way that would kill if the projectile was deadly, then you had to die and join the other ‘victims’ on the sidelines. All the Steef children were amused when Bailey ‘died’ dramatically, lingering for half a minute before kicking the bucket.
After the snowball war, they made snowmen, or as Bailey thought, snow-Steef. Once again the Steef children were delightedly amused as Bailey built a traditional snowman, made from two giant snowballs with twigs for arms and nose and little pebbles for eyes and mouth.
Bailey showed them how to make snow angels and she couldn’t help laugh when Haigar tried it, his snow angle looking like some kind of mutated, six-winged butterfly.
She mucked around for hours in the snow with her new Steef friends, but eventually the adults began calling the children in to the warm. As was expected there was half-hearted griping but they said their goodbyes - many calling to Bailey that they’d have to meet up again sometime – and went underground again.
Stranger came up to collect Bailey and Haigar who – like everyone else – were soaked and bright eyed. Stranger smiled,
“C’mon you two, let’s head off.” Bailey and Haigar didn’t argue and followed Stranger back into the Steef winter quarters, as they made their way back home, many older Steef stopped them and introduced themselves to Bailey. It was obvious they were trying to make amends for their earlier suspicions and Bailey was only to glad to accept their advances.
She reached home with Stranger and Haigar feeling happier and lighter then ever. Nothing could darken her day now.
¤§¤
Later, feeling warm and dry and full of good, warm food, Bailey dozed, leaning against Stranger, eyes drooping and half listening to the adults talk. She yawned widely and cuddled up closer to him. Stranger put an arm around the small human and stroked her hair. Bailey made a muffled contented sound and snuggled her cheek more deeply into Stranger’s fur, putting an arm around his stomach. Soothed by the sound of Stranger’s breathing and the regular thud of his heart, Bailey drifted off to sleep.