Disclaimer: nope, me no own.
Author's note: Good to see more people getting back in the groove and reviewing, thanks folks! And yea I know, I know, BIG gaps in between updates but that's what happens when you have a job and rent to pay :P I also hope you notice and like the layers in this new style!
Days had passed… or maybe it was hours. Either way it felt like an eternity as she stood, body pressed into the red rock of the cliff side. Her eyes, her face, her hands covered in the red-brown dust of this forgotten planet. Though her clothes attempted to protect her from the elements it didn't change that feeling that the grit of this planet covered more than just her skin. It seemed to permeate into every cell. She blinked one eye at a time so as to be ever vigilant on what was before her: dinner.
They circled him like a pack of hungry dogs, eager and ready to tear Lord and Dame Beryl into shreds. Inch by inch the crowd of crazed ambassadors and valets stepped toward the pair.
The great animal stood as still as she, a natural predator, built by Nature Herself to blend seamlessly with the land. Its craggy flesh mimicked the rock faces, and it's splotched and patterned pelt also bore the colors of the dust. It shifted its shoulder, making her freeze. It was beginning to finally relax and lower it's guard. If measured by Old Earth standards it might have been named a dragon for it looked much like one. Though perhaps a dragon would have been kinder. This species would bite and paralyze its victims with a kind of suspension fluid, then spend months eating its immobile victims one small bite at a time until naught but shards of bone were left. These beasts had all the patience in the galaxy and the speed of the wind that whipped over the barren lands.
She tried to remember what had brought her here, flying, speeding, running through the stars; but she was only rewarded with a light kick to the gut. She quickly opened both eyes. The small almost imperceptible movement had alerted her prey. Silent and deadly as the wind she raised her spear of bone and rock, estimating where the dragon-animal would go and not where it had been. She was getting good at this.
Jumping down she carefully avoided the barbed tail of the animal, and with a second spear plunged it straight through its skull causing it to thrash about. She'd need the meat and pelt for what was to come. She knew it wasn't long now. Dragging the body back brought beads of sweat to her face and more protests from her stomach.
Reaching her enclave she cut expertly into its throat, below the massive jaw line to reveal two yellow egg-sized sacks, scent glands. Storing one in a ready pouch, she carefully mashed the other inside and along the barely visible entrance to her own cave and nearby rocks. The long winter was coming; great sandstorms would demolish the planet's surface for 4 of its months.
Kyra knew that in order to have this baby she'd have to survive.