it out in her head.
"So…" Cara scrunched up her face, trying to put her thoughts into words, "does your planet glow?"
"Yes it does. Braxis doesn't receive much light from other stars so it is its own light source." He seemed impressed with her curiosity as he spoke proudly of his home. "My people, the Daxians, can also see in the dark as a result of it."
"Oh, cool."
Cara and Egrix went back and forth asking questions of each other. Egrix had collected resources from Earth that he was curious about. He spoke with Cara about them, taking down notes based on her answers. When he ran out of questions, Egrix stopped and scratched his head, then set down the pad of paper.
"I guess that's all I have right now." He smiled, clearly pleased with how much they'd been able to figure out with just a short conversation.
"Oh, are we done for today then?" Cara asked, tilting her head to the side.
"Yeah, but…" Egrix seemed hesitant, as if he didn't want her to leave so soon.
Cara could sense that he didn't want to be alone so she decided to invite him out to the beach.
"I was planning on doing some underwater shots with my camera today. I brought a wetsuit so I can get in the ocean. Do you want to come with me?"
Egrix nodded. "I won't be in the way?"
"No, not at all." Cara smiled warmly to reassure him. "Would you mind if I changed here? Alone I mean? Would you trust me inside your pod by myself?"
Egrix nodded, but then said, "I do believe I trust you not to harm anything in my home, though we Daxians never wear clothing, nudity is normal on my planet."
"That may be, but it's not here on Earth. So if you wouldn't mind?" She kicked him out to get herself dressed, as he sat alone at the table, outside the pod where she could see him frowning..
After a few moments of irritated grumbling as her insistence of being alone to change, Egrix sighed heavily to clear his mind. It was fine, she just wanted some privacy. He decided to drop it, reaching up to his ear to activate his cloaking mechanism. He wondered if the water here was going to be colder than it was on his homeworld, as he hadn't thought to enter the water here. His thoughts faded into memories of Braxis.
He felt a tap on his shoulder and jolted out of his imaginations of glowing lagoons. His gaze flitted around until it found Cara standing behind him a few paces back. Her head was cocked to one side while she studied his distracted face.
"Egrix? That is you right?"
He looked down at himself, remembering that he had cloaked his form, then smiled at Cara.
"Yeah, it's me. This is my disguise." He felt a little embarrassed with her eyes on his human body, so he stood up, shoving his hands into the pockets of his shorts which he'd grabbed, along with a shirt from the pod before she'd kicked him out of it. "You ready to go?"
Cara nodded, but then looking at him, as he pulled his t-shirt over his head and tossed it onto the table, she said, "Are you sure you want to wear those in the water? It's only going to be like fifty-nine degrees in there."
"I'll be fine," he said before heading up to the mouth of the cave, his human ears turning red as he walked away.
While following behind him, Cara admired the human-looking Egrix. Most of his features had remained the same, except his once white hair was now black, but it was still long and tucked behind what looked like rounded human ears. Each of his hands and feet now had five digits. His skin was caramel-toned which made his yellow eyes even more vibrant and almost cat like. She could feel a heat rising in her body as she admired his toned back. Egrix stopped just before touching the sunlight, almost causing Cara to crash into him.
"Oh, sorry!"
"That's alright."
Still blushing after admiring his built body, Cara smiled at his concern. He had really changed his tone with her since they had first met a few days before. Cara set to work getting her gear ready. After putting on her mask, so she could see under the water, she left her bags on the smooth rocks. Then, with her waterproof digital camera in hand, the only time she used digital, she walked into the salty waters