The sharp bark of the tree dug into Dron’s shoulders.

He was used to sleeping outside when he was out on duty. What he wasn’t used to was sleeping outside when his bed was mere feet away.

He had to get his head back on straight. What happened last night in the tub could never happen again. Not if he wanted to make sure that he survived his ordeal with Tempest. He nearly lost himself to desire.

Dron left the night before under the guise that he was going hunting for the kraznok; that wasn’t completely the case. He would hunt for it if he had to, but he also knew that once a kraznok was spooked away, they rarely came back to the same place right away.

He’d slept out here all night, trying to gear himself up to go back in the house. As of yet, he’d not come up with the courage.

It bothered Dron to no end. He was known for going in first to the most vicious of monsters. Never afraid of any enemy, and here he was cowering in the bushes from some little omega woman. It didn’t make any sense.

He groaned and tried to get comfortable again. The sun was already starting to rise, and he believed that she would be up soon. He’d have to go inside and make her something to eat. It was his duty.

Surely he could go inside and be civil with her. He just wouldn’t let the woman get under his skin. That was the solution. He gulped down hard and felt the nerves inside of him tighten like a ball.

"Stop the madness." Dron reprimanded himself.

He pushed himself up from where he was sitting and started walking over to the house. His bones creaked in annoyance at the sudden movement.

He moved slowly toward the door, but in the distance he could hear her moving about already. He stopped for a second when he realized that she was talking. It wasn’t very loud, but it was panicked all the same.

Dread descended on Dron when he realized that she might be in danger or hurt, and he rushed to get inside the house.

"No, no, no!" Tempest groaned.

Dron broke into a run and skidded to a stop in the cooking area doorway.

He expected her to be on the communicator talking to someone or, even worse, on the floor bleeding out. Instead, she was looking down at a plate of mush. Arid burnt smoking coming off it as she tried to swipe the fumes away with her hand.

"Tempest?" Dron called out to her, and she looked up at him sheepishly.

"Oh, you’re back." She bit the corner of her lip and tried to grab something to drape over the plate in front of her.

"Yeah, I wasn’t far." Dron took a few steps into the kitchen, his eyes now glued onto the plate of what he assumed to be food. "What are you doing?"

"I don’t know. That’s the problem. I was trying to make you some breakfast. Obviously, I got it wrong somewhere." She lifted the plate to show him.

The words that were coming out of her mouth made sense, but they were foreign. "You were trying...to make...me breakfast?"

"Yeah." She tilted her head to the side and blinked at him a few times as if she couldn’t understand what he was missing about the statement. "I don’t know what happens when you hunt, but I know you wouldn’t have had to hunt that kraznok if it wasn’t for me. I was just trying to show some appreciation." She shrugged her shoulders and put the plate back down on the table top.

In all of his life, minus his mother, no one had ever even attempted to feed him. Not buy him something from one of the shops, not hand him a fruit, nothing. And yet here she was trying to cook him something from scratch.

"You didn’t have to do that." Dron grabbed for the plate and tried to identify the substances on it.

"I know I didn’t have to, but I wanted to. It was supposed to be a nice gesture, not this travesty." She sighed and leaned her hip against the table.

It was in that moment that Dron noticed she had changed, and her hair was still a bit damp. She must have used the shower.

"I would’ve made you something to eat." Dron continued as he put the plate down.

"I know that too. Again, like I said, it was just a gesture. And as you can see it didn’t turn out how I would’ve liked it to."

Dron nodded his head, "It’s a little over cooked."

Tempest let her head fall back, and she made that tinkling sound again, accompanied by a smile. "What is that?"

She jerked her head back in his direction. "What’s what?"

"The sound you just made. You do it often."

"A laugh? You guys don’t laugh here?"

"Laugh?" Dron waited for his translator to explain what that word meant, but there was no direct translation into Thraqen.

"No, I don’t know what that is."

Tempest pouted a bit. "Oh, that’s sad. Do you cry here?"

Dron nodded. He’d seen many people cry. His mother more than most.

"Do they make sounds when they cry?"

"A wail or a groan." Dron replied.

Tempest nodded, "Well, laughing is the opposite. It shows a higher level of happiness. Joy so intense that it can’t be contained in the body. " She made the sound again, but this time it didn’t seem genuine.

Dron tried to copy it.

It sounded robotic.

Tempest scrunched up her nose. "That was close but not quite there. Try smiling first."

Smiling. It was something that she did often. Dron once again tried to mimic her. It felt strange on his face.

"Close...you just need something to laugh at."

In an instant Tempest started moving her body in the most ridiculous ways. Waving her hands in the air, wiggling her body. It wasn’t sexy in the least. When she started pumping her arms and running in place, Dron smiled and let out a noise.

It was deep and somewhat melodic. He slammed his hand over his mouth to stop it.

"No! Don’t stop. You did it. That was a laugh."

Dron didn’t want to admit it, but she was right. It was like joy being released from the inside out. She continued to do the strange moves. Some of which Dron had never seen in his life, and the more ridiculous it got, the more he allowed himself to laugh.

As he laughed, she laughed, and something about watching her laugh made him laugh more.

After a few moments, she settled herself and stood up straight, folding her arms around her midsection. She still wore a smile on her face. "Are you suggesting that my dance skills are bad?"

The sudden whiplash caused Dron to stop laughing all at once. "What... no. Do you dance?"

Tempest shook her head and laughed again before she reached over and patted his arm, "I’m just playing with you. I danced badly on purpose. It’s nice to see you laugh. You definitely should do it more often."

Dron sighed and looked back at the plate of food. "I doubt that would ever happen. There’s not much to laugh about here, especially not for me."

Sadness started to take the place of the joy that was pouring out of them. He didn’t want to make her sad after she’d been just so happy, "What exactly were you trying to make?" He gestured to the plate.

From what he could see, there seemed to be some Timyn fruit, mixed with luuix meat and something else he couldn’t quite identify.

"Honestly, I just went to the cold box and pulled out whatever looked and smelled good. I still don’t know what anything is in there. I just figured if it was in your fridge it was something that you would eat."

"Fruits and meat don’t typically go together."

Tempest’s eyes widened. "That was meat?"

Dron tried to hold it in but now that he knew how to laugh there was no stopping it. He laughed with her, and it felt absolutely wonderful.

Once Dron and Tempest got their laughing under control he took her to the fridge and tried his best to explain what each thing was inside of it. Tempest asked him what he would normally cook for breakfast hinting that she was hungry.

Dron took that as another teachable moment. He decided to make a simple meal, one that included the eggs of a kexil bird and some meat from the luuix he had in the fridge. Also some bread made from tymiz grain.

Dron expected Tempest to simply sit back and wait to be served, but Tempest wanted to help in every aspect. From cutting up the luuix to helping him make the simple tymiz dough. They worked quietly and well together. Dron would tell her different facts about the food they were preparing. Even when he thought he’d answered every question she might have had, she’d always come up with a new one. Usually ones that really made him think.

Finally the meal was made, and she made those longing groans as she put it in her mouth.

"Goodness, this tastes better than the last meal by far. You could really be an all-star chef on my planet. This is wonderful." Tempest licked her lips and went for another bite of her food.

"Thank you." Dron finished off his food and pushed the plate away from himself.

"Are you going to have to go hunting again? Is the animal gone?" Tempest asked, and he felt like a bit of a jerk for making her fear more than she had to.

"It’s gone. You don’t need to worry."

"Great..." She hesitated before she continued, "So do you think you could possibly take me out for some exploration? I’d like to see what’s around here without the threat of some big animal taking a chunk out of me."

It seemed like a tedious activity, but Dron tried to see it from her perspective. If what she was saying was true and she was indeed taken straight from her planet to here, then all of this was new to her. It made sense that she would want to explore.

"Yes, but you have to change. Some of the plants may aggravate your skin." Dron looked down at her legs which were bare once again. He loved the look of her bare skin, he wanted to lick up the corners and bends of them. The last thing he needed was to be distracted while they were on their trek.

"Oh, darn, okay. Honestly, I don’t know how you all deal with all this heat. I feel like I’m about to jump into the sun every day." Tempest laughed softly.

She pulled up her device, and quickly the skirt that she had on transformed into pants. Dron was shocked for a second. It wasn’t usual for women to wear pants, not even the servers in the lower levels wore pants. Dron figured that Tempest’s culture was different and that was normal for her.

He didn’t want to bring too much attention to it. If he just ignored it. But when the top of her outfit began dipping lower and lower in the breast area, he couldn’t look away. The top she’d chosen to wear seemed to be held up by two small strings, leaving her arms bare.

It was a salivating sight.

"Okay, I’m ready. After you, guide master." She smiled and walked out of the room that they were in.

Dron groaned as she walked away.

Not only was he about to spend hours out in the wilderness with the one woman who consistently proved that she could get under his skin, but he would have to do it while she looked delectable enough to eat.