(Before we begin, I have a few announcements. I want to make it perfectly clear that the name "Darth Venison" is indeed a joke. But later in the story and even in the sequel is it going to be revealed why that name was chosen for him. And this story is constantly updated; I will always be updating with new chapters in the sequel story, and I come back to fix one to fix any mistakes or errors in spelling, capitalization, etc. That's about all I have to say now, I hope you enjoy the story, feel free to favorite or follow if you so desire, leave a comment or review too. I always look forward to anything ya'll want to say. That being said, I hope you like the story, follow, favorite, review, all that stuff, and I'll talk to you guys later.)
My name was Eyt Pezymn. I was a Zan-Deer Warrior back on my home planet, Zant. I lived a good life back home. I was intimidating, I was respected, I had friends, until I lost it all. Everyone lost all respect for me, especially my fellow warrior partner Rooda. I hope she'll forgive me for what I've done. It started out as a normal week. Then, a sudden change in our daily routine.
It was a calm morning in the desert of Zant. My home village was quiet, peaceful. It was if I had nothing to do that day. But that wasn't true. We have a very specific series of tasks to carry out throughout the day. Then my warrior partner, Rooda came to me, with her blue double-edged light spear in her left hand.
"Good morning, Eyt." She said to me in her calm and monotonous voice as she tightened her warrior's suit.
Our warrior's suits cover the smallest amount of our bodies as possible, to allow for free movement in battle. The males traditionally wear a simple loincloth over the front of our bodies. But for Rooda, it's a different fashion. On her chest she wore two cloth straps over her shoulders and down her back, to cover her breasts and she wears a tightened loincloth covering her at the waistline and around her legs. We can only wear nothing in our beds, and that is just to relax our tightened bodies from the grip of the loincloth. Other than that, nudity is a sign of dishonor on Zant.
"It's quiet here." I looked in the direction of the warm desert wind, blowing through my Zan-Deer antlers. "Too quiet."
"The village is safely asleep today," Rooda nodded. She beckoned me to follow her to the outskirts of Randin, our village. She pointed to the butte just on the outskirts. "The ticking desert spiders live up on these buttes and monuments ever since we took control of the flat sandy desert. We can hunt for a breakfast feast."
And of course we can. The ticking desert spiders spiders are a meal enjoyed on Zant, awfully big spiders. One spider can feed three Zan-Deer fawn children. We may be deer, but we are hunters, and the spiders are our natural prey. But they're dangerous.
"All right." I walked into the Warrior's Hut and grabbed my weapon, a sword with a black blade made of light, from the side of my bed. I built it from debris from a crashed starship near the desert gorge, same as Rooda's light spear, the traditional hunting weapon. We are primitive, any technology we find, we take advantage of.
"Let's go." We walked to the butte closest to Randin in search of the ticking desert spiders.
"Eyt, Rooda, wait." We stopped and turned around to see the village chief, Tzano, hovering in his chair, also built from the starship ruins.
"You two wish to go hunt for food to feed the village?" Tzano scratched the stumps at the ends of his knees.
"Yes, Chief." Rooda stood straight. "We were going to find ticking desert spiders. For the village."
The old chief nodded, "I see. You two be careful. The bites from those spiders are very poisonous. One bite can swell and paralyze your limbs." He looked down to the stumps at his knees. "Too many bites will kill you, much like it did your father just days ago, Eyt."
"Yes Chief." I nodded slowly, knowing what those monsters have done to him. My father was the Head Warrior of this village, training both me and Rooda before he was killed by those spiders.
"We understand. We'll be careful," Rooda nodded.
"Good." Tzano glanced at us with a weak smile. "Best of luck to you both." He waved a hoofed hand in the air as we moved on to the butte, to find the ticking spiders.
"Rooda, do you remember how the ticking desert spiders got their name?" I looked to her as we trudged the desert.
"To easily find them, in the light and dark, they make little ticking noises." Rooda said. "And they're only native to the desert on this planet."
"That's right." I chuckled.
The butte wasn't far. And the rays of the two suns don't stop us from our hunting trip. Zan-Deer can withstand the cold snow in the mountainous tundra to the humid canopy of the western jungle. Even this region, the desert doesn't easily stop us from our quests.
Rooda raises an ear and stops me, holding her arm in front of me. She stands still, listening to something.
"Ticking. Let's move." She runs ahead and sneaks through the rocks with ease. She climbs up a small rocky wall closer to the clicking sound, and with one thrust of her light spear, she has caught a ticking desert spider through its thorax.
She chuckles.
"That was too easy."
"Good," I smirk. "Now try catching more. For the whole village."
Rooda nods and accepts the challenge. She proceeds to venture the dark caves of the butte and constantly follows the sounds of the quiet ticking from the spiders. I try to follow the small bar of blue light as she quickly walks further. The ticking sounds grow louder the further she goes. Suddenly the bar stops moving then starts swinging and Rooda grunts in the darkness. Then the bar floats still again, all the ticking stops, and she walks back towards me.
"To the cave exit." I hear her voice and I go back and let her pass. She's carrying at least five spiders on her back, with the spear in one hand and the other holding all the spiders. She chuckles as she walks by,
"Let's get a move on." She drops the spiders in a big pile and drags the first in the pile. "Just a few more should feed the village."
"Rooda-" I look at her in surprise, "how do you do the things that you do?"
"I'm a woman. Remember? We women have to work and fight harder than men. Remember? Being a warrior is a man's job." She folds her arms. "I have to be at my best to remain a warrior. So I am more lethal and vicious than average male warriors."
I nod, because I know what she means. Does mostly do stay to care for children and perform daily laborious tasks in the village while the stags typically go hunt and fight to defend the village. Not like ours though. Rooda and I are the only warriors left in Randin. Most of the Zan-Deer in this village do not reach following requirements to be a warrior. I was the only stag to qualify, and Rooda has proven her worth time and time again as the only doe on Zant to be a warrior.
"I suppose we should gather more spiders for the village," Rooda picked up her light spear and left me with the spider corpses. I start picking them all up in my arms as she comes back with more in her arms as she sticks her light spear under her left strap, to hold her haul of spiders.
"That ought to do it," she grins and walks ahead of me, then looking back. "Hurry Eyt."
I follow closely behind as we make our way back to the village, watching both suns float overhead and feel the warm wind brush against my face and my long, spider-like antlers. I sniff the air and look closely to the village.
"It looks like they've started a bonfire, to start cooking these spiders to feed the village."
"Chief Tzano must have gathered everybody and told us of our morning mission." Rooda looks back at me.
"Most likely." We walk back into the village and all the Zan-Deer make way for our arrival as we walk to the bonfire in the midst of the village. Chief Tzano grins as we set the spiders in the fire so as to cook the hard shells and warm their insides.
"Now this village has enough food to eat for the whole day." The chief clapped his hands and the Zan-Deer all started applauding at us.
"It was no trouble at all, Chief." Rooda smiles and held her light spear in her hands. "We can do it again if you want us to."
"You are a wonderful pair of warriors. But for now, we don't need more food. We will enjoy what we have now." The chief stuck a spider with a metal beam and pulled it out of the fire, and with a powerful sniff from his weak nose, he smelled the spider's aroma.
"Cooked to perfection." He bit into one of the spider's legs, pulled it from the body of the spider, and took a bite out from it. He started chewing the chunk of leg and when he swallowed the food, he grinned.
"It's perfect." He began taking more spiders out of the bonfire and passed them around to the Zan-Deer.
"Enjoy this feast, fellow Zan-Deer. Today we eat in Eyt and Rooda's honor. For if they haven't gathered this feast of spiders, we would go hungry another day."
The Zan-Deer happily began eating away at the spiders and Rooda began taking an abdomen shell off a spider and filled the shells with water from the oasis just outside the village. She passed the bowl-shaped shells to the Zan-Deer to drink the water with their feast. After giving the abdomen shells to the Zan-Deer, she walked back into the Warrior's Hut and set her light spear against a leathery wall and watched me enter after her.
"They are happy. This feast will last some time." She looked at me with her blank face. "What is it, Eyt? You seem troubled."
I sat down on her leather bed and thought for a moment.
"Rooda, don't you think of getting tired of the same routine?" I looked up at her then back down to the sandy floor. "We go hunt, we rest in the late morning, we train with our weapons, we eat, we rest again, we train more, we hunt, we clean ourselves from the sweat and exhaustion, then we sleep, waiting to do the same thing tomorrow."
"Well," Rooda sat beside me, "I see what you mean, but the repeating cycle, I don't think there is anything we can do about it. We have to follow the same thing each week to keep this village alive. Without it, we might all be dead."
"I know." I sigh. "It's just kind of getting a little too repetitive. It's almost boring me." I get up and move to the opposite end of the hut, to set my weapon down and lay down in my own leather bed to stare at the bony structures that make up the frame of the hut.
"Just you wait, Eyt." She sat in her own bed across from me. "Maybe some day, something will happen. Something to change our lives."
She got under her blanket and pulled her straps over her shoulders and off her back, removing their tight grip from her upper body. She reached down to the loincloth around her waist, pulled the strings on the side of her loincloth, loosening it, then took her clothing and rest it on her blanket, and watched me as I'm laying on the bed, as I look from the bony frame, to the leathery walls of the hut.
"You shouldn't just expect change so quickly, Eyt. If you get too caught up thinking about how repetitive our daily cycle is, you'll start messing with your own head. Change is good, but waiting for sudden change is- it's like an act of desperation. And we Warriors are not desperate. Remember that Eyt." She lays down and looks at the wall above her, with a sigh, then turns to a wall and closes her eyes.
"I know," I whisper.
I look back at my bed and pulled my blanket over my body. I untied the knot which holds my tight loincloth to my waist. I sighed in relief when the tension on my waist was released, and I set the loincloth on the blanket of my bed. I rolled into my side and closed my eyes, thinking of Rooda's advice.
"Don't expect change." I decided to try and rest my mind and close my eyes, trying to catch at least an hour or two of sleep.
The feasting continues outside and the day continues to roll over Rooda and I, as we rest in the late morning. Just another step in our daily cycle. Until I heard something break the atmosphere. Something large.