Jaxon

Book

     Hace couldn't believe he was having a conversation with his pet! With Ardent. He knew he was smart, but this was way beyond what he thought was possible. He'd have to do some more research on this. Until then, he was enjoying the conversation.

     Ardent's words were a bit jerky and there was really no sentence structure, but he was getting his points and questions across just fine.

     Hace and Jaxon had moved to the table for dinner. This dinner was going to be different, and Jaxon was really looking forward to it. "Name that?" Jaxon asked as he pointed at the items on his plate.

     "This is fruit." Hace said with a smile as he pointed to the food. "This is Jarmma."

     Jaxon sounded out the word a few times before he got it right. Hace just smiled and held a piece of the food close to Jaxon's mouth. Jaxon happily opened his mouth and accepted it. It was very juicy, and the flavor popped in his mouth. He was never going to get used to how good the food was here.

     "This is cheese." Hace held up another piece of food and Jaxon happily ate it.

     "Good food." He said with a smile. Hace just sat there shaking his head as he laughed a bit. He looked so amazed at Jaxon. 'Had no one really bothered to learn the language?' Jaxon thought. 'Who were the first humans here? Why didn't they bother? What was wrong with them? Or did no one here want to teach the humans before?' Hace was holding another piece of food in front of Jaxon. He smiled and opened his mouth for the next flavor.

     "Did you have food like this growing up?" Hace asked, pulling Jaxon out of his train of thoughts.

     Jaxon almost violently shook his head. "NO! Bad bad food." Hace laughed at his quick answer.

     "What would you like next?" Hace asked.

     Jaxon looked over the plate and pointed to the square fruit he had tried on one of his first days there. It had quickly become his favorite.

     "That?" Jaxon pointed at the fruit. He wanted to know the name of that one especially so he could ask for it again.

     "Nuoo." Hace handed him the fruit and pet his head a bit.

     Jaxon had a hard time getting this name. As he thought before, names were the hardest. Both the names of the aliens themselves and the names of the food. He hoped he'd be able to be completely fluent one day.

     As he was about to bite into the fruit, he noticed something a bit odd. Every time they had this type of food. It was always the same shape and size. The exact same shape and size. It must have had something to do with the way it was grown, maybe? It was just another thing he was going to have to see if he could find out more about.

     As Hace watched Ardent happily eating all the food, he started to wonder. 'How old is he? His actions seem very childish at times. They had said the boys were underage, and they estimated them to be in the early teens, but no one really knew.'

     "Ardent?"

     Ardent looked up at Hace and smiled, a bit of juice running down his chin. Hace smiled back and grabbed a napkin from the table. He wiped up the juice and pet his head.

     "How old are you Ardent?"

     Ardent swallowed his food and looked at Hace for a moment. "Old?" He asked.