Ariana quickly tried to slip away before her owner entered the room and spotted her. She jolted out of her seat, heading for the opposite door, but it was too late. A raspy female voice barked out another order, making her whole body go tense. Ariana skidded to a stop, then reluctantly turned to face the bossy female.
"I said come here stupid"
Ariana inhaled a deep breath, willing herself not to get angry. She had issues with authority figures, which equated pretty much every yautja she came in contact with. Her owner was no exception. The female had bold orange and yellow stripes, dreds almost down to her ass, and just they way she carried herself said 'boss'.
Ariana drug her feet, trying to stall simply because she could. Instead of tolerating her slow movements this time though, the yautja female marched over and violently drug her forward. Ariana held back the urge to jerk away. She already had long scars down her forearm from being roughly held by the yautja. Her owner had left the scars as a reminder to behave, and they served their purpose.
Rather than fight her, Ariana allowed the tall female to lead her off the ship and onto a dark strip of beach without fussing. Ariana blinked in the darkness, her eyes trying to adjust. She hadn't even been aware that they'd landed before her owner drug her out there. She thought there next destination was still a few days away.
The yautja walked her about thirty feet from the ship before dropping her arm and spinning back around. When Ariana tried to follow her, the yautja let out a low growl. So Ariana rocked back on her heels and watched the woman walk away. She went back inside the ship, and the door sealed shut behind her. Ariana was always getting yelled at or hit for something, so she remained right where she was, even as she heard the ship's engine fire up.
The engine hummed louder as the craft lifted up from the sand, then quickly disappeared from sight. Ariana continued staring up at the night sky. Her heart immediately began to quicken and her palms started to sweat. Her mind was going in a million different directions, but she knew her owner couldn't have just left her on an uninhabited planet alone at night. She touched the cold metal collar around her neck, trying to reassure herself.
Her eyes slowly started to wander to her surroundings though. Ariana timidly surveyed the jungle beside her, at the looming trees and dark foliage. Thick tangled vines hung from the trees, and snaked along the forest floor. A few dark tendrils even reached out onto the sand at her feet. She shuffled away from the shadowy jungle, getting closer to the dark void of water.
After a while, her feet started to ache but she didn't dare move in case her owner came back for her. After what felt like hours though, Ariana finally had to sit down in the sand, still trying not to panic. The yautja female was probably just teaching her a lesson. Ariana liked to act childish, pretend she didn't hear commands or do them slowly and this had to be a form a punishment, nothing else. She numbly stared up at the foreign constellations, the cold night air giving her goosebumps.
The humid rainforest climate was a breeding ground for mold and bacteria. It rapidly grew on his loincloths, on the walls of his cave, and in other areas as well. Anunnaki broke off a thin twig and fed it between his toes where there were accumulations of dirt and mold. He was vigorously scratching away all the foul smelling gunk when he spotted the yautja craft. He carelessly tossed the twig behind him and climbed higher in the tree to watch it.
The small ship landed, but then quickly departed, and he knew that meant someone was dropped off. His own ship was in a hibernative state in space, circling the planet like a satellite would to save energy. He assumed they had come to hunt the same animal he was after. It was an elusive dragon-like creature endemic only to this one island on the planet, and not found anywhere else. To kill the animal would automatically push someone's status to an elite hunter.
Anunnaki wasn't concerned about prey at the moment though. He was more interested in whoever had been dropped off. He'd been on the island alone for several long cycles, and was simply looking forward to anyone to talk to. He left his belongings behind and hiked all night to greet the new hunter.
However, as he reached the beach early in the morning, the scent wasn't what he expected. Anunnaki lingered in the trees, curiously peeking around. With the contrast of temperatures due to the cold night air, a fog was rolling in, but he didn't have any difficulty spotting the ooman. It was a scrawny female, with short dark hair and light blue eyes. She was pacing back and forth down the beach nervously.
Anunnaki was immediately disappointed that he didn't see a yautja accompanying her. He had been looking forward to some company. The ooman had on a slave collar, but when he checked his wrist computer, he found that his ship was still the only one circling the planet. It appeared that the ooman had been dumped and left for dead.
The island hosted only one predator able to kill a yautja, and that was the one he was hunting. The rest of the animals wouldn't stand a chance against him. On top of that, he had shots that would kill any parasites he contracted. His tough skin was impervious to all of the hematophagous insects and small animals on the island that drank blood. Oomans however, were prey to a wide range of things, and he did not think she would last long at all.
Ariana knew that she had to come to terms with the fact that she'd been abandoned, start to build a shelter, and find water. However, she couldn't even bring herself to leave the beach. She didn't think she'd ever acted out bad enough to deserve this. Ariana continued pacing, wanting to believe that the yautja female would come back.
She suddenly lost hope though when she lifted her gaze to the jungle and locked eyes with a metal mask. There was a hunter crouched on a lower branch, staring dead at her. His mask was more detailed-like the guardian predator mask, and had larger eye lenses. Various animal pelts were strapped to his back, giving him a slightly hunchback appearance. Her heartbeats rapidly increased with her panic. She was afraid her owner hadn't just left her there to starve, but rather to he hunted down and butchered.
Anunnaki anticipated the ooman's fear of him, but not what she did next. The little female scoured the ground, ripped a stick out from under a tangle of vines, then held it defensively. Though a stick was a pathetic weapon, he took it as a challenge. Anunnaki confidently clambered down from his perch and began sizing her up. To his surprise, the ooman looked determined and more than ready to lash out at him.
He took one step too close though, and the ooman suddenly flung the stick in the air and bolted for the treeline. His muscles tightened, his body ready for a chase, but he resigned himself. The ooman wasn't a threat, and wasn't a worthy opponent. He watched the light fog swirl behind her, then chuffed dismissively. He decided to head back to his camp and forget about the ooman.
Ariana quickly realized that picking up that stick was a huge mistake. The yautja had just been observing her before. She had provoked him. Yautjas couldn't kill what wasn't armed or dangerous. If she was going to avoid being turned into a trophy, she couldn't react defensively at all. She probably couldn't even make a weapon to hunt with, lest she catch his attention.
Ariana placed a hand on a tree to steady herself. She didn't run far because she didn't think he had followed her, and if he had, she doubted she'd be able to outrun him. Lounging around in a spaceship for hours on end didn't exactly put her in the best shape of her life. Her owner had rarely let her loose outside. Her owner hadn't let her eat at the table either. At night she had been made to sleep in a cage.
The more Ariana thought about her life with the yautja female that had abandoned her, the angrier she grew. She didn't have an owner now, but she wished that the female had at least taken the time to remove the collar. Ariana fed a stick under the metal to try and snap the hinges, but only succeeded in scratching up her neck. She grabbed a rock next, and furiously tried to break the lock on the front. She sawed at the metal, tried everything she could.
When a warm line of tears ran down her cheek, she realized how ridiculous she was being. Ariana chucked the rock as far as she could and wiped her face with a sniffle. A rock wasn't going to break yautja metal. She'd likely be stuck with the ugly collar up until the day she died. And that day would be sooner than she hoped if she didn't pull herself together. She had other priorities before the collar-finding water, food, and building shelter.
