As Azdrei’in showed Artemis images of different aspects of his life, he paid attention to the words she spoke to describe each one, learning how humans referred to them. She threw a lot at him at once, but he was able to keep up easily enough. Like the rest of his kind, he was a rapid learner, absorbing new information and piecing it together with the limited context he had to understand it. He picked up on the way she strung multiple words together, memorizing the patterns of her speech and storing each word away in a mental bank from which he could draw it out again when he needed to reply to her. The language she spoke slowly became more complex as she introduced more terms other than things he could see or touch, but he was determined to grasp it, so he observed her closely.

He found it interesting that she compared his people to a type of six-legged creature on her own planet. Apparently the nuances of their society existed in other species as well. He watched the screen as she went on to give him examples of the jobs humans took up. Many of them reminded him of similar roles among Lunvalgans. His people also had physicians, teachers, scientists, mechanics, and other specialized workers. There were plenty of duties that needed to be taken care of on their ship, and every individual played a part in helping the craft run smoothly. There would be even more jobs to fill when they began colonizing the Earth.

He followed along as she described the nature of predatory animals with their prey, understanding the concept right away. It was interesting to him that humans had abandoned hunting as they’d evolved. His people had also developed methods of trapping and killing prey with tools, but that had never become their sole method of hunting. Instead, they had more of a hybrid between humans’ resourcefulness and other species’ basic tactics of stalking and pouncing.

“I hunt,” he spoke slowly, trying another attempt at her language. Alongside the statement, he sent her a memory he’d seen from one of his elders, one of a group of Lunvalgans chasing down an animal not so dissimilar from the antelope she had showed him. The creature in the vision had bluish hair though with white stripes that luminesced under the light of Ashad’te’s three moons. The group of Lunvalgans, who shared similar swirling patterns on their skin that glowed in the darkness, had separated the beast from its herd and drove it into a trap. Only when the animal had collapsed did they finally shoot it between the eyes at close range with a gun.

“No hurt antelope,” he explained, trying to convey that his people didn’t torture their prey when they hunted. When possible, they killed their food swiftly, so it wouldn’t suffer. The mercy they showed was both for the beast’s sake as well as for their own, since the meat tasted better when their prey hadn’t been panicked and fighting for its life before it died. To him, it seemed like a superior method over the way humans apparently slaughtered their food in masses. His people took what they needed one day at a time and left the other creatures to roam free when they weren’t needed to feed the Lunvalgan tribes.

Artemis’s following description of how humans were like a plague to their planet lined up with what he’d been told. It interested him that she viewed her own species that way though. There was no pride in the way she spoke of the other Earthlings, only condescension of their violent ways. He found the diversity of her kind fascinating though. Among the pictures she showed him, he saw some humans with fair skin and bright features like hers but also some with darker pigmentation that reminded him of his own people. However, even the darkest among humans were different because their coloring was a shade of brown rather than gray, and their eyes and hair matched. In contrast, Lunvalgans had dusky complexions with pale irises and white hair.

The videos she showed him of other species captured his attention, and he watched them with his head cocked slightly to the side, wondering if humans had encountered people from other planets in the past. However, when she spoke about something being untrue afterward, he concluded that the video hadn’t been real. Creating images like those on the screen were probably her kind’s method of telling stories, since they didn’t share tales telepathically like his people did.

He turned toward her when she explained the word ‘story,’ understanding it to mean an imaginary history. Lunvalgans had plenty of those as well, although they weren’t told using technological devices. Her example with a race of people with pointed ears entranced him, and he leaned toward the screen, intrigued by the way they spoke. The sounds were similar to his own language, and he almost felt like he was listening to a different dialect spoken by a high-pitched Lunvalgan.

When Artemis suddenly spoke in the language as he was hearing in the video, Azdrei’in turned back to her with a surprised expression. He hadn’t expected her to speak more than one tongue. “You are a captivating creature,” he mused in his own language, his pellucid eyes wandering over her smaller frame. Although he was still a little chagrined that a human had been able to knock him out, he was glad that he hadn’t killed this one right away. Earthlings may have been a violent species, but he was discovering that there was much more to them than just the wars they fought amongst themselves. He wouldn’t have learned that if he’d shot her among the cows.

Interest piqued, he reached out to take her by the wrist, lifting her arm to touch her light skin with his other hand. She was softer than his own people, more fragile. He felt like he could snap the limb if he applied enough pressure. However, he wasn’t cruel enough to experiment with the theory, so he let her go as he circled her once, taking in her lithe figure from every angle before he left her side to wander the room. He found the fake cat he’d seen in the picture, but he also found a living creature. There was a small, hairy animal inside a box-shaped container. He leaned over it, wondering if it was a source of food for her like the cows.

“Mouse prey?” he queried, turning back to Artemis and gesturing at the tiny creature. While he explored the Earth, he was going to have to eat at some point, and he was interested in finding out which animals made the best meals.

At the thought, he frowned. He was enjoying learning about humans and their planet, but he was getting sidetracked from his orders. He couldn’t stay here forever. He also wondered what Artemis would do if she knew that he hadn’t forgotten he was supposed to kill her. Would she become violent, as her people were known to do? [i]That is a question best saved for later,[/i] he decided, reaching into the container to scoop the animal up with one hand. The hair on its body was exceptionally soft, and its pink nose twitched in a curious manner.

“Food?” he rephrased his question to make it clearer, idly trailing a clawed finger down the length of its back.