[center]Regime Goon and Blizz[/center][hr]
Itxaro had to stop herself from shrieking with delight when she caught Silbermine's golden band, her hands eagerly working over the artifact to explore the item's craftsmanship. She managed to keep her composure. It wasn't so much the value of the object - Itxaro had never been one for jewelry or trinkets - but what it meant. The first exchange of gifts between humans and aliens, and she'd been part of it. Looking up, Silbermine seemed just as enamored with his gift. The cheap pens could hardly compare to the handcrafted ring she held in her prosthetic hand, but nonetheless, they seemed impressed. She bowed gratefully to the Glen before following Zey back to the ship. The tension between the natives still worried Itxaro, and she suspected this wasn't the end of the conflict. She studied the gift once more before wearing it proudly on her bicep, feeling like ancient royalty. "Could have gone worse, right?"
[hr]
Itxaro was still reeling from the whirlwind of activity to contribute much during the staff meeting. Their situation, already precarious, was becoming even more so as the hours passed. Priorities were shifting from just repairing the ship to defense, long-term supply issues, and negotiations with the natives. Itxaro didn't mention they might not be able to return home even [i]if[/i] the standard engines were repaired, given the sorry state of the FTL drive. [i]Problem for another time.[/i] Aside from voicing support for the various plans crew members proposed, the engineer remained uncharacteristically silent.

Meeting adjourned, Itxaro joined Vigdis and the other engineers in the shuttle bay to patch up the hull. It’d been a while since she'd used a plasma cutter, but her quick hands flew about their work, still remembering the motions. She cleaned up the ragged edges of the hull breach, allowing Vigdis to seal it up with the pre-cut sheet metal. The manual labor was a far cry from crunching numbers on theoretical FTL drives, and frankly, Itxaro welcomed the change. It was something real, something tangible. That, and it allowed her mind to wander, turning the day's events over in her head. [i]Sentient life form was big, but magic? Really?[/i] She kept flipping up her welding mask to look at the natives in the distance as if to reassure herself the whole day hadn't been a fever dream, and she wasn't comatose in the ship's medbay. 

After hefting up the sheet metal while Vigdis welded them into place, Itxaro, now sweaty and exhausted, quietly slipped out of the shuttle bay to end her shift early. The hull now sealed, she figured they wouldn't miss her too sorely. If not, she'd probably be chewed out. [i]I've been chewed out before. Fuck it.[/i] Rather than scour the ship's guts splicing wires together, Itxaro assigned herself a new task. She scrounged for what she thought she needed and set out to find Shirik.
[hr] 
Itxaro found Shirik at the native's camp, a short walk from the Jo's crash site. She carried a bag slung over her shoulder and set it down before the Iriad. "Gifts," she explained with a small grin. She'd been worried that the first natives might have been offended they didn't get a trinket like the Glen, so she'd brought along a few party favors. Itxaro opened the bag and set her offerings out. A simple combat knife for Nellara, who she assumed was some kind of soldier; the knife, oversized in human hands, would be closer to a letter opener for the massive Tekeri. Two blank journals, bound in durable plastic, for Kareet and Kolvar, along with pens. They seemed more scholarly than the others, and she'd seen one scribbling on paper during their interactions, so it seemed like a fitting gift. She also included her personal, beat-up copy of [i]The Years of Revolution[/i], an early history of the USASR written in Spanish and heavily annotated by Itxaro. She doubted they'd be able to read it anytime soon, but it was the thought that counted. She wasn't sure what to give J'eon, though. He seemed somehow different from the others. Itxaro noticed the anvil medallion he wore, and managed to slip a ball peen hammer out of the machine shop that probably wouldn't be missed. 

"Gifts," Itxaro repeated, sweeping her arm over the items now on display. She reached into her pocket and produced her electric arc lighter, fully charged. She pulled a page from one of the empty journals and lit it as a quick demonstration. The paper smoldered quickly and fell into the wind. "For you," she said, handing the lighter to Shirik. [i]Been meaning to quit smoking anyways.[/i]

The two sat in the soft moss and continued where they had left off, expanding their shared language. They still relied on Itxaro's datapad and Shirik's patience, but now free from the previous session's stresses, the two were able to establish something akin to real communication. Yes, no, the idea of a question, some verbs, and a plethora of nouns. She made sure that there was no one-way translation, with Shririk understanding the English version and Itxaro the Kanth-Aremek version. It was tedious, sometimes frustrating work, but rewarding nonetheless. She supposed the ship AI, keyed in to her datapad, could have accelerated the process, but frankly she didn't trust the semi-sentient machine. 

Between translations, Shirik would spread their hands between the two, and draw flaming shapes in the air to help depict things easier. Eventually, depictions became written, bilingual script in both of their languages. Shirik would further portray what sentences they both formed in the other’s tongue with moving images. The sentence, “House Silbermine wants Jotunheim,” for example, was depicted by several Glen drawn in flame, picking up the ship and carrying it away from the “Sky People.” 

During their translation attempts, Shirik made no attempts to speak to Ixtaro in the same way they spoke to Nellara earlier, or the Glen knights who appeared with ill intent. Shirik was about as calm as one could imagine a being made of fire could manage.

Itxaro felt strangely comfortable in the alien's presence, free from the human prejudices that she felt aboard the Jotunheim. Any quirks or eccentricities she had, Itxaro assumed, would be chalked up to typical behavior by the locals. As the sun began to set, Itxaro stood, stretching her long limbs, and smiled at the Iriad. "Thank you, Shirik. Tomorrow, more talk?" She asked in her rough dialect.

Shirik nodded. [color=d68300]”Yes. Tomorrow. Find me. We will speak more.”[/color] They said, speaking in human language in a way that seemed like they weren’t actively trying to sound fluent. Having learned multiple languages over the last millennia, it wasn’t entirely difficult to pick up one more. 

When Ixtaro left, Shirik put up the hood of their cloak, and clasped their hands together. Iriad did not sleep, ordinarily. Shirik, however, did not enter the usual hibernation state that most of their kind did. Dim flames began to spread across the ground, faint like old candles. Shirik’s head tilted downwards, and they entered a dormant state. The flames did not burn anything, but they simply [i]existed[/i] around Shirik. To the humans, this would have seemed like sleeping, though it was not.[hr]
Itxaro fell into her bunk, feeling the warmth from the previous occupant. The room was dark and filled with the sound of shallow breathing from sleeping crew, but faint blue light bathed Itxaro’s face as she opened her datapad. She shared the first edition of the English-Alien Dictionary, complete with a rudimentary pronunciation guide for each word and an alphabet, on the ship's network for her crewmembers to review. [i]80 words. Not a bad start,[/i] she mused. Itxaro also compiled a brief report to Zey, filling her in on what Shirik had said. [i]House Silbermine wants Jotunheim.[/i] Despite her exhaustion, it was a long time before sleep found her.