HELLO BEAUTIFUL

Ch 21

Shazza kept her eyes on the ground as they made their way back across the grassland towards where they had found the Moorglade the day before. Much of the grass was still flattened from their previous trip, and she didn’t really need to watch, probably. But she did anyway. Her conversation with Riddick as she lay curled up with Jack had left her quiet. It had felt so good to hold Jack as the girl had cuddled up to her in the night. Shazza looked ahead at Riddick and understood how he could be so taken with her.

It had hurt so badly when she lost her baby, and she had sworn she would never think of it again, she would put it aside and get on with what life had given her. At least she was alive, a lot of women wouldn’t have been. That was harder to do when she held the young girl. It was even harder when she looked ahead at Riddick’s broad back ahead of her. She had told Zeke about her husband of course, but she had never told anyone before about her child. There was something in the way he touched her, the way he looked at her, that made her know that she could open that pain again, that Riddick would understand. That if anyone could understand pain and loss, it would be Riddick.

She was lost in thought as she walked beside Jack; the memory of that pain mingled with the gentleness of Riddick’s touch, and no longer paid attention to her steps. Shazza looked up from her feet as Riddick leaned in to kiss her; he had turned back to her without having made a sound. Her skin tingled all over again, like last night, and she realized that they stood now in the spot they had been the night before, out under the moonlight. His hand touched hers and squeezed once, and he had already turned again, to continue through the grass. There was that spark again, like last night. That moment of a connection deeper than anything she had ever felt before. That Riddick had reached back at that very spot to kiss her let her know that he felt it too. She hurt less at the touch, like it was something aired and left behind.

Pulled out of her thoughts, she looked up to watch Jack, at Riddick’s side. The girl crept silently beside Riddick, like a smaller version of him. It was a strange sort of thing to smile at, she knew. They were so alike. She looked back at Theo, who walked through the grass without a care in the world. He was aware of everything around him; he took it all in and missed nothing. Like Riddick, he looked like he belonged here.

They stopped when they reached the rocks; it was almost as if they were afraid to cross them and realize that the ship was gone, just a figment of their imagination. It was Jack that snorted at them, the broken goggles she still wore pushed up on her forehead, and scrambled up to the top of the rocks to stand and look at the other side. Her whoop had everyone else scramble over the rocks to join her. The Moorglade was still there; like the skiff had done before her, it taunted them with her reality and made them laugh a little in spite of themselves.

“Jack!” Riddick called the girl back before she could touch the ship; he still didn’t feel any threat but he didn’t want her to touch the ship until he had checked it out nonetheless. Theo was another matter, and he would not be stopped, not by him anyway. The only thing that stayed Theo’s hand appeared to be a sense of awe. It was hard to look at the way Theo ran his hand over the outer skin of the ship and not feel that sense of wonder right along with him.

“The damage isn’t as bad as I thought…” Theo muttered under his breath to Jack, who was right at his side and helped him pull vines and carpets of moss from the wreck. A wreck that appeared to be less of a wreck the more she was cleared of debris. It looked as though she had just come to rest here. Shazza and Riddick had given up their efforts to keep Jack from touching the ship; they had asked her and they had held her. Nothing short of physical restraint would work and that was in doubt.

Underneath the moss and the layer of dirt, the wooden skin of the ship was almost warm to the touch. And smooth. It was impossible to know how long she had lain here; it had to be ages, to end up covered with moss and vines the way she was, but the hull wasn’t broken with growth. The sails, if that’s what they were, had suffered the most damage, and even with that, it was to the fabric of the sails themselves, the structure was intact.

Riddick reached out to encircle Jack’s waist as she tried to scramble up into the ship. “Not until we check it out first.” He hid his grin at her muttered complaints. Riddick looked over at Theo and then glanced up past the graceful out flung wings. Jack was right about how to get into the ship. His hand rested on her shoulder, “You were right Jack.” Shazza smiled at the exchange, at Riddick as he leaned down to compliment Jack, and at Jack’s radiant smile.

Riddick swung gracefully onto the deck of the ship, everything in him becoming crouched and tense the moment he touched solid ground. He didn’t know specifically what he reached out for but he felt for anything. Theo pulled himself up and over, onto the deck, and Riddick reached out to grab his arm and help him up. Riddick grinned at him and chuckled under his breath before he let Theo go. “She’s real, Theo.”

Theo laughed out loud as he looked around him; at the low slung cabin of the ship and down the length of her deck. “I see it; it’s just so damned hard to believe it.”

They both stepped back to the edge of the deck to look over at the women below. Riddick crouched down and rested his chin on his arm as he looked down at Shazza. Her face was hard and her eyes swept the area all around them, they never rested, but settled here and there. On the grassland, on the forest beyond. One hand rested on Jack’s back to keep the girl in constant contact, and the other rested with her finger at the trigger of the weapon slung across her body. He closed his eyes and thought of her as she stood in the doorway, as she raised a weapon and shot the merc before he had a chance to escape the loading bay. The strength in her was undeniable, and neither was the way it made him feel.

She turned and their eyes held for a moment, hers still hard, with that spark of determination that he found irresistible. Riddick extended his hand down to her in invitation. It was safe enough on the ship, and he didn’t want to leave her there alone any longer than necessary. Shazza kept her hand on her weapon and her eye out for danger as she pressed Jack into taking Riddick’s hand. As if the girl needed any encouragement; Shazza knew she couldn’t wait to check out the ship. Only when Jack peeked down from the ship deck did Shazza’s finger leave the trigger and she was pulled up onto the deck by Riddick, who held her hand a little longer than necessary. ‘He’s starting to like doing that, just holding my hand,’ she thought.

The deck of the ship was as well made as the hull outside and, aside from moss, vines and leaves, just as undamaged. Riddick stayed a step behind Jack, whose curiosity had her circle the cabin on deck, to look for a way in. “Let us check it out first Jack.” Her muttered string of profanity had him cock an eyebrow as he looked back over his shoulder at her. A lot of people probably would have looked away, apologized or blushed, and he knew that some, after having said such things to him, probably would have been scared to death. Jack grinned defiantly at him, with that half crazy grin that lit up her whole face, her arms crossed arrogantly across her chest and her chin raised. Fearless, absolutely fearless. Jack wormed her way a little further into his heart. “All right, Jack, but stay RIGHT behind me, and don’t you dare touch a fucking thing.” He had to step into the darkened cabin of the ship to hide his grin from her.

Riddick crept forward and scanned the interior of the cabin. Dust coated everything in a fine layer, and motes of it stirred in the air, disturbed by their entrance. Other than that, nothing else moved. He took in the feel of the cabin; the air was strange, a muted version of the electric feel as he crossed the ley line. Of course he thought of Shazza and turned to look back at her as she stood in the doorway of the cabin. He wondered if she felt it too. Theo stood behind her and nearly vibrated on the spot. He turned back to the task of clearing the cabin, before the man burst into flames out there. “It’s clear, but be careful. I don’t know what half this crap does.”

Riddick lowered his goggles once again as Jack crept forward in the dark, silently, to touch his back before she flicked the switch on the powerful flashlight they had brought from the Odyssey. Jack didn’t need the flashlight, he knew. She would creep carefully across the floor and stay in the dark until her eyes adjusted. That she couldn’t see in the dark didn’t matter to her at all, the flashlight was an afterthought. He grinned and bit his lip and watched to see what she would find first; her curiosity fascinated him. Of course he wasn’t at all surprised when she found the console and crouched down to see how it could be opened, if she couldn’t deal with any of the buttons.

Shazza moved out of the way to let Theo past her, and she watched him as he padded behind Jack, his eyes took in everything lit by the beam of the flashlight. Like Riddick, she too felt the current in the air. It was faint here, a pale echo of the ley lines, but it was enough that she couldn’t help but feel it and think of Riddick. She stood beside him now, their bodies barely touching, and took in the rest of the cabin.

Everything was crafted from the same wood that made up the hull and deck and there were no straight lines. Even things that felt like they should be straight had the smallest of curves to their surface. A hand that rested on the edge of a railing could move everywhere, and never encounter a place to truly stop.

The hollow sound of the floor let him know there was a deck below this one, and Riddick touched Shazza and whispered quietly that he would check it out. He moved back towards the door where they had entered. Off to the side there was a tight spiral staircase that led to the deck below. He had walked the entire length of the ship in search of an engine room, more to tell himself that his first thought was right, and that he wouldn’t find one. It appeared to be crew quarters down below, one large cabin that appeared to have been used more as a communal area, and several smaller cabins. All were empty, and all were neatly kept, as though they waited for someone. Everything was covered in dust, like the deck above.

He turned sharply at the sound of Jack’s whoop, and just barely managed to slip his goggles back over his eyes as a very low light flickered and struggled to come up in the darkened space below decks. He didn’t need to be up there to know that Jack had been the one to make that find and he felt a flush of pride at her again. Riddick scanned the lower deck one last time to be sure before he took the steps of the spiral staircase two at a time to rejoin them.

He watched Jack, who had crawled halfway inside an opened console at the very front of the cabin, which he now guessed was a bridge of sorts. Theo sat on the floor with the front of the console on the floor beside him. He held the flashlight for Jack and the two talked excitedly about the innards of the ships works. Theo startled a little and began to pull himself up when he realized how close he was to Jack, and that Riddick now strode across the deck to him. Riddick put his hand on the other man’s shoulder and leaned on him as he crouched down. He didn’t take his hand off until Theo relaxed and they shared a look again. “You’re blocking my…” Jack let loose with another muffled swathe of profanity, which had them both smile at her.

“We’re not going to be able to take her anywhere, I’m afraid.” Theo leaned in again and held the flashlight so that Jack could see.

“I’m going to take another look outside, to make sure we don’t get any surprises.” Theo had been about to stand up again but Riddick left his hand on his shoulder.

“Stay here, you two are doing fine.” With that Riddick stood up and, with Shazza a step in front of him, they left the bridge. Theo watched him until Jack muttered again about the light and he focused on her again. Riddick trusted him to be here with Jack. Alone. Nothing the man could have said would have meant so much.
—
“Theo won’t leave here. He says there’s a chance that we could convert generator power for the ship, but he’s not sure about fuel. He’d do it, if we wanted to leave, but he won’t leave.” Riddick stood at the rail and looked out over the grassland. He wanted to look at Shazza, as she stood at the railing beside him, but he couldn’t. Her hand nudged his at the railing and he covered it with his own as his voice dropped to a low whisper. “I don’t want to leave either, Shazza.” He didn’t know what he asked, or even how to begin. There was something, he couldn’t define it, but when he looked out over that expanse of grass, he knew he would never want to leave here. Much of his life had been ugly, dark and brutal; beauty wasn’t something he knew he needed until he saw it. He closed his eyes to shut out the serenity of that sea of grass and looked over at Shazza and felt his heart slam in his chest again. How he felt started long before he got to this strange planet. It started with Shazza. “I’m not very good at this.”

Shazza watched his face carefully as made his admission, and resented the light of day that made it easier for him to hide his eyes, and his true feelings, behind the mask he needed so badly. ‘I’m not very good at this’. How could he be? Then again, how could she for that matter. There had been Zeke of course, but before that her world was a sort of prison as well, with not much of a chance for this, for what she and Riddick, and Jack, shared. Shazza leaned closer to him, until barely a sliver of sunlight separated their bodies and answered his whisper with one of her own. “I’d like to stay.” She knew that the moment that she said it that it was the absolute truth. She had run to a life as a settler, she had originally thought, because she thought she had no other choice. Looking back she realized that it wasn’t the whole truth. She could have made other, easier choices. And she would have hated every one of them. She wasn’t made for an easy life. Life as a settler was a hard life, and often cruel. But it was real in a way few things ever were. Riddick was like that, real in a way that had him stand apart from everyone around him. She could see Riddick building a home, and knew that he would know what it really meant, that it became yours in a way that couldn’t be explained to anyone that had never lived that way. Riddick would understand. “I’m not very good at this either, Riddick, but I’d like to stay. With you.”

She watched him swallow hard, and felt the tension in him as he briefly squeezed her hand before he relaxed. They didn’t discuss whether Jack would stay with them, that was a foregone conclusion. He remained absolutely still for a moment longer, and then leaned in to kiss a spot over her ear, only to stand back and look over the grassland again.

Somewhere within the Moorglade a deep low thrum began, a sound filled with power that had Riddick and Shazza turn back towards the bridge.

Copyright © October 2006 xxxevilgrinxxx