Issa stayed in her room for the rest of the night, creating a tensed atmosphere among the males in the house, particularly An'nu. A'luet glanced sideways at him through dinner, noting his father's unusual grave expression. J'mper emerged from his room he shared with Issa in the back of the house.
"Anything?" An'nu asked.
J'mper shrugged and shook his head with a snort. 'She'll come around.'
"You've always pushed me to take my training to a higher level than my peers," A'luet took this time to continue his argument; not that he was going to take what the adults said to heart. He was going to complete the Kehrite de Kantra whether they liked it or not.
An'nu's head twitched, yet he didn't fully look at A'luet.
"I'm not chang-"
"A'luet!" An'nu snapped.
He fell silent, stewing. Hoping maybe J'mper would come to his defense, he spared a look at him; but the coal colored yautja adverted his eyes.
"Kehrite de Kantra is difficult, just about the most difficult choice you could have possibly chosen as young as you are. Upon further reflection, I don't understand why you would have thought you could go in and come out impeccable-" An'nu continued.
"You did…"
An'nu was staring at him now, unblinking. "I was three older than you and had been on many hunts before my Chiva. Back then; they made you break up your Chiva before taking the final test. These days they train you for an asinine amount of time and then drop you off at your Chiva and make bets on how many pieces you'll return in."
They both fell silent, A'luet because he had no comment to his father's argument and An'nu because he was feeling the raw pain of having lost Illeya. She would have known what to say to him to get him to understand the risks.
"What happens if I disobey your request?"
An'nu was quiet for a moment. "I'm not going to force you to do as I ask." He paused and then added tiredly, "if you are really going through with this, then you need to be trained…really trained; none of this fluff shit."
J'mper straightened. "An'nu-"
"It's the only way J'mper," An'nu snapped. Almost embarrassed, he choked out, "I can't lose him too."
"You won't lose me, Osh'da," A'luet tentatively reached out to his father, laying his hand over his. "Dtai'Kai-dte sa-de nau'gkon dtain'aun bpi-de- The fight begun would not end until the end…"
An'nu clicked and then snorted. "Who gave you that bullshit?"
A'luet grinned. "Some yautja who thought I was a pain-in-the-ass burden once."
An'nu reached out and laid his hand against his son's face. "He was the ass," he murmured.
"No, he is better than that," A'luet whispered.
…..
It was blazing hot the next day; enough for A'luet to ignore the usual netting that crisscrossed his limbs and torso under his light armor. Leaving his room he saw Issa tapping her foot by the front door, "good, you are up. Eat quickly."
"What's going on?"
"I'll explain on the way." She snapped her fingers at him. "Eat."
He did as she asked, wolfing down some left over Cicil'Is before following her out the door.
"Your father and J'mper went to the arena to spar," she answered his unasked question. "They should be meeting us shortly." She led him away from the obscurity of their house and to the busier parts of their village. Yautja, male and female alike moved out of their way, Issa was famous among the inhabitants for being some what of a bitch, though a likable bitch. Just don't piss her off and you were generally fine. She turned a corner, leading him down a quickly narrowing alleyway to a less populated street. In front of them was a large house made of a sort of clay. As they drew nearer, A'luet saw that the house actually expanded like it was breathing.
Issa noticed his observations, "it is F'luk, it is supposed to do that, keeps the heat out by expelling it."
"They must be prosperous…." A'luet murmured. He saw Issa give him a look before pulling him up the shadowed porch like exterior and to the door. In the impossible gloom, set absurdly contrasted against the bright sunny day, An'nu and J'mper were waiting. J'mper seemed on edge.
Either ignoring or oblivious to his friend's plight, An'nu put a hand on his son's back and guided him into the house.
"Shouldn't we have knocked or something?"
"No, he knows we're coming and he hates formalities," An'nu answered.
"Who?"
A'luet trailed off as they entered a large room with sparse décor save for an ornate chair with an aged yautja in it. Despite his age, he seemed agile and strongly built.
"Father," J'mper acknowledged.
Stunned, A'luet could only stare at him and then at the yautja in front of them.
"J'mper," the yautja greeted somewhat stiffly. "It's been a while." He turned his head part way to the right, still tilted towards the floor. In response, a strangely petite female came forward and picked up two small objects off a tray by his side. A'luet realized with a jolt they were fake eyes. The yautja in front of them was missing eyes. He made a stunned noise before clamping his mouth shut.
There was awkward silence as the yautja was fitted with his prosthetic eyes, then he stood up and came forward, his attention settled severely on A'luet. The young woman backed out of the room, leaving them.
"This is your boy?" He barked at An'nu.
"Yes."
"Turn," the yautja twirled a finger to emphasize his point.
A'luet glanced uneasily at his father who jerked his head. "Turn A'luet."
He did so, and was quickly stopped by the yautja who reached out and felt his hair. "His dreads are the right length…."
A'luet resisted the urge to make a face; he didn't know that anyone's dreads could be the wrong length.
The yautja pushed him again carefully as he observed him, occasionally studying his limbs. "Who was his mother?"
"Illeya, Roan'keh Illeya."
The yautja abandoned his study of A'luet. "Really? Illeya, she was one of my best students. Why is she not here?"
"She's dead," A'luet answered before An'nu could. Immediately he winced, it had just slipped out; he knew he wasn't supposed to talk to those of higher rank than him unless they addressed him first.
Instead of getting mad at his rudeness, the yautja sighed, "my condolences, to both of you, An'nu."
An'nu inclined his head, "thank you."
The yautja grasped A'luet by the shoulder and made him face him, his eyes becoming eerily visible to the young yautja. Pale blue, almost white, the fake eyes were set back in his head like all others of their kind. Scars lined, crisscrossed and zigzagged along his sockets and spider-webbed down the sides of his cheeks. Realizing he was staring, A'luet quickly tried to look somewhere else and was met with more scars, deeper and thicker across the yautja's chest and hips. Where ever he had been, he had been in deep at one point or several points in his life. Suddenly J'mper's missing jaw was looking like a superficial scratch compared to this male as A'luet's eyes followed the scars to places where at one point flesh had been missing entirely and had to be stretched to heal.
The yautja cleared his throat to get his attention. "I am Kainde."
A'luet must have made an expression because the yautja trilled in amusement. "My own father thought it would be ironic for a Kainde to slay Kainde Amedha…therefore he named me as such. Have you faced the pauk-de?"
"-the-?" A'luet didn't understand what he was being asked.
"Kainde Amedha, have you faced one before?"
"No. Only a Z'skvy-de…full-grown."
"An abomination?" Kainde growled. "Really? When?"
"When I was ten, I didn't do anything to it really…"
"What did you do?" Kainde interrupted.
His face burning in embarrassment at the memory of Kulak having to come to his rescue, A'luet answered, "tried to kill it with my mother's combi-stick."
Kainde grunted. "Brave of you. All the ten-year-olds I know would have wet their pants and laid down to die."
A'luet risked a look at his father next to him, a look of help. An'nu felt his son's eyes on him and he glanced at him, two of his fingers coming up to his eyes and then pointing towards Kainde's back. A warning to keep his attention on Kainde.
Kainde abruptly turned around and shooed the three adults away from A'luet, leaving him alone in the middle of the cavern like room. "How strong are you? You look skinny."
Indignant at being called skinny, A'luet tried hard to keep himself calm, though he knew the older yautja could smell his annoyance. "I don't know. Strong enough."
"Who is your teacher now?"
"Mordi."
Kainde snarled. "Mordi doesn't know a fart from the passing wind."
An'nu glanced at J'mper next to him, his friend's top mandibles drawing inward against his remaining teeth.
"This isn't going to be a picnic, you are going to be my hult'ah, observer. There will be no slacking. I am not going to make you ready for your Chiva, I'm going to make you ready for life, I will be your teacher. There will be no whining, if you walk out once you are done, you will not be invited back here, I do not associate with quitters."
"I understand," A'luet said, hoping to get away from the commandeering yautja so he could recover from the hounding of questions and physical exam.
Kainde cracked his neck. "He's skinny An'nu, it could either make him or damn him. Illeya was built like him and she was a fine hunter; so if he takes after her it'll be a blessing. In the meantime I want you to run each morning and I will see you here tomorrow."
"How long do I run?" A'luet asked.
Kainde paused only for a moment. "Until you feel you will drop. J'mper I would like to see you in the back room."
….
"How did you survive that?" A'luet asked once they were far enough away from the house. J'mper snorted in amusement at the question.
'Tuned him out most times,' he signed.
"He's going to kill me," A'luet continued. "Run until I pass out? How am I supposed to train half dead?"
"That's the point," An'nu joined them from a vendor's cart where he had been buying supplies to fix his combi-stick that had been damaged in a recent hunt. "The Kainde Amedha isn't going to give you a time out when you are tired from fighting it for four hours straight. You saw from the abomination, it doesn't stop. It's kill or be killed. Kainde is the best, you'll do well under his tutelage."
"If he doesn't kill me first," A'luet muttered darkly.
The three adults grinned.