CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
"The offspring belongs there, K'Shai. Even if you choose not to remain, A'ryin'di's place is in the mei'sa. It is proper, and it is safe. Safe for her, as you can see how accidents happen easily especially amongst hunters." S'ridi said smoothly and factually. "And it is safer f…" she paused.
K'Shai stopped and looked directly at her.
One rotation was hardly enough time for her to say she was feeling better. The swelling was worse and her skin, if it was even possible, was darker.
The black tattoos branded into her skin along her shoulders had some tough competition from the color of her eye and cheek. At the very least, the heavy doses of pain killer she was taking, nearly twice what L'ruch had instructed for her physiology, was helping to abate the pain. She still felt like she was walking through fog on a mattress, but she was managing better.
"What?" She snapped in a low tone, unable to really open her mouth enough to make a projected sound. "Safer for me?" She mumbled.
S'ridi grumbled.
"You are not Yautja, K'Shai. But you are strong. Still, you can be killed easily. Even accidentally. It would do your A'ryin'di no good for you to die if you wish to rear her yourself. You are Blooded and you are female. In that, your place is in the mei'sa."
"I'm not going to get killed," K'Shai protested with a flaring mumble. "R'chnt is teaching me. Utik'de never meant to harm me. Even R'chnt said that it was my fault and he's right. I know he was right."
"It is still proper to raise the offspring in the mei'sa. She should be with children. And away from the hunters."
"They wouldn't…" K'Shai said with a growl of doubtfulness.
"It is strictly taught that the Gods do not welcome the strong who kill the weak. Preying on sick, weak, or immature because you are stronger, will not bring your blood Honor, nor honor the clan, nor find favor with the Gods."
S'ridi nodded in vague agreement with her assessment, then added, "K'Shai, blood can turn bad."
K'Shai said nothing.
She stepped with S'ridi onto the transport platform and it slid quietly into motion, gliding with all the silent ease of a hot knife through soft butter. The vehicle left the main part of the city, followed a clay dirt trail down the backside of the mountain and glided over a stone bridge that stretched a wide bredth of the river, before heading down another dirt pass, through the jungle and finally, rounding a turn into a massive open field.
K'Shai's jaw widened as far as it possibly could without pain. She gaped her lips and gasped in amazement. She had only seen the mei'sa from the mountain top view from R'chnt's home. She did not realize that the place was simply massive. The wall surrounding the stretch of the mei'sa she could see was far taller than she had realized. As the vehicle drew closer to it, she stared up.
The wall was easily two stories tall, with a look of stone. It was beautifully adorned with skulls and bones and inscriptions. It was solid and strong and proud, rather like the Yautja themselves, especially the females. She could not imagine it being penetrated by any force.
The tall grass field before the stone wall swayed in the breeze and the transport floated easily along the dirt trail up to the massive metal gate, which popped open as they approached. The doors opened inward and the vehicle continued along more grassy fields, as long as wide as any vast pasture K'Shai could have ever imagined. Far in the distance, rising up like peaks of mountains were the stepped side of one of the pyramids of the mei'sa.
As K'Shai and S'ridi exited the vehicle at the bottom of the stairs of the main structure, Neh'rti and four other females approached the entry all surveying K'Shai with the usual look of scrutizing displeasure she had become accustomed to. K'Shai grimaced as she walked up the stairs, somehow suddenly feeling like a runaway child being woefully returned by a social worker to a stern grandmother she did not really want to be with.
Considering her options as she clung to A'ryin'di, suddenly convincing R'chnt to just leave and settle down somewhere on an uninhabited world seemed like the best choice. They could go to a world with plenty of challenging hunting, and no Yautja, and raise their family in peace, she thougth quickly. Deciding in the time it took to walk up about thirty stairs that she could never put him in such a position, K'Shai pressed A'ryin'di closer to her and stepped up to the Yautja before her.
Neh'rti turned without a word, only a typically annoyed sounding clicking, and K'Shai followed along silently. She had been inside several of the other pyramid buildings throughout the clan. All of them were functional, rather utilitarian, but each had their own character mostly dependant on the purpose they served. The mei'sa, from what she had seen so far, was completely different.
K'Shai gaped in wonder as she walked down an ornately decorated, golden hued corridor. The combination of white marbled stone and shimmering gold statues made the entire facility look as though it sparkled and gleamed. Sunlight poured in through the many open windows and vertical panels, casting both heavy shadows and glistening beams of light into the wide corridors.
As they moved further into the center of the structure she noticed that the entire middle of it was one wide open floor space, shooting straight up to a petal-like tip that was open for the suns to shine through. K'Shai stopped and stared.
"Wow." She whispered.
She did not even realize the entourage of females moving along with her stopped. She finally looked back to them for a moment before she was destracted again, this time, by noises. Not just any noises. K'Shai focused on the sounds echoing into the building.
They were high-pitched trills, squeals and shrieks and vocalizations that were not sounds any Yautja could make, she thought. At least, not adult Yautja. K'Shai suddenly realized she was hearing the sounds of children. Happy children, playing, laughing, fighting, getting dirty, doing as they would, exactly as children should be.
She turned and focused her attention out one of the four massive doors that were at each end of the pyramid and moved past Neh'rti towards the echoing voices. She stepped out of the doorway and smiled, huffing in surprise as she surveyed the sights in the heart of the mei'sa.
"Beautiful…" she whispered in stunned shock as her eyes scanned green rolling hills, a massive sparkling lake in the distance, and the vine-covered pyramids.
Seven pyramids were all interconnected via the same overhead walkways as she had become accustomed to in the clan city. The structures all formed a complex around a center courtyard that was so massive it was difficult to see clear to the other side of it, as part of it rolled away out of view down the gentle slope of the hill.
Massive and green, the courtyard areas between the mei'sa buildings had all the acreage and peaceful beauty of vast rolling farmland. Every square inch of the place was meticiulously maintained, the grass level, and the buildings kept up beautifully, complete with accents of flowering vines and of course, bones and skulls inside and out.
K'Shai soon found her feet gliding down the stairs into the courtyard as if they moved without her knowledge while she gaped in stunned wonder. Freely running through the grass yards, properly supervised by mei'sa females on keen guard, were hundreds of children as far as K'Shai could see.
It was like grade school recess and every child was out on the playground. Some of the cubs were barely able to walk, barely older than toddler age, others were about the height equivalent of a human teenager. Each group of cubs, segregated by size, was involved in either play or patterned practice or skill building games.
As K'Shai watched them all slowly begin to notice her and turn away from their games and fights, she surveyed them. Slowly, like a wave of change sweeping over the massive field, the children came to a stop as the closest ones noticed her first, and then the further and further groups all caught on to something different in the air.
Some of the children, bigger and braver, than the younger ones, slowly stalked over to her. Most of them held their ground some distance away, but watched in wonder none the less, taking in the sight of her and an offspring in her arms that on the surface certainly looked Yautja.
One young male, as scrawny and gangly as any young human might be, stepped almost to arms' reach of K'Shai; the bravest of the bunch, she thought. He gaped at her, eyes notably wide, and K'Shai, reacting before she could keep herself in check, turned and smiled at the child warmly.
He growled in alarm and jumped, backing off suspiciously with a wary warning to his friends. If he was a dog, he would have had his hackles up. His sudden reaction to the ominous threat of the alien before him was enough to cause his pack of friends behind him to trill and squeal in alarm and sway on their feet, clearly torn between running away and waiting to see what was going to happen next.
Neh'rti, S'ridi and all the other females simply stood nearby quietly, in a quite typical female supervisory position; close enough to intervene if needed, but far enough away to allow events to unfold as they would so the youths could establish their ranks as they would.
The boldest and toughest of the group, though still wary, approached K'Shai again and she began to hold very still. His friends tip toed in behind him, happy to let him be in the lead position. They watched her warily, clearly ready to jump away if necessary. Every time she moved at all, the children jumped away with shrieks. A'ryin'di, from time to time, kicked her legs or flailed an arm, reminding the children that there was a suckling Yautja in the alien creature's arms, which seemed to help spur some of them to try again and approach.
Suddenly several of the children eyed a point behind her, and K'Shai realized she was being approached from behind. For the slightest flicker of a moment, well aware of the natural aggression that young Yautja were capable of, she had an alarming worry over what exactly what was going on behind her, and she stiffened. She inched her shoulder and bent her body slightly in such a way to allow a non-threatening, yet still wary view behind her, and dropped her eyes.
A young female had boldly and bravely walked right up to K'Shai and was reaching to touch the back of her thigh much to the stunned horror of the older children who were still not sure what to make of the unusual creature.
The young female cub placed her tiny palm on K'Shai's thigh with a hard and quick little smack, as if she was trying to gauge if the creature before her was even real. When her palm made contact, the speckled little child stopped and stared at the leg in front of her and then tipped her head backwards to look up at K'Shai's face. K'Shai turned and grinned tightly, trying hard not to show her teeth and frighten any of the children into thinking she was a threat or there to be hunted.
"Monster." The little female said roughly and slowly, in a typical display of the slow to develop mental and vocabulary skills of young Yautja.
K'Shai, stunned by the girl's observation, withdrew slightly and dropped to her knees, trying to be less threatening.
"No. I'm not. I'm just… different…" she said quietly and slowly, trying to reassure the child. She extended her hand towards the little female, with intention of gently touching her cheek.
With that, the young female, bold and obviously the bravest of the entire group, grabbed at K'Shai's hand as firm as she could and inspected it, as if checking again to make sure the alien was real. Her grip was almost painful as she paid no attention to how hard she squeezed or dug her talons into K'Shai's far more fragile skin.
She ran her other hand along K'Shai's forearm, past the leather bracers she wore and up onto her branded tattooed skin along her elbow and bicep. Seeing that their youngest leader had done what the others were too afraid to do, the older children finally stepped forward and followed suit.
In a matter of seconds, K'Shai was swarmed with curious children all trying to touch her anywhere they could. They were curious and excited. Though they yanked her hair and even scratched her skin as they groped her feverishly, she allowed them to satisfy their curiosity until a few of the mei'sa females stepped in finally.
"Youngsters, this is K'Shai. She is part of the Clan. A'ryin'di will be raised amongst you." One of the females announced, bringing the children into silence as they all stopped and listened to the elder speak.
"What is she?" One of the older children asked.
"I've seen skulls. Bones. Spines. Like her."
K'Shai swallowed and shifted uncomfortably as a shiver ran through her body. S'ridi and Neh'rti, judging by their silent glances towards her, clearly noticed it.
"K'Shai is a human." Another of the females added.
The children clearly all knew the word well enough. Many of them gasped in stunned acknowledgement. A whispering murmer filled the air. K'Shai could hear some of them say words like ooman and earp and other poorly pronounced misunderstood alien words. But the implication was clear; the children knew her species even if they had never seen one alive before.
"No hunting," one of the children called out.
K'Shai, for a fleeting moment, wasn't sure if the boy had said it to clarify that she herself was not there to be hunted, or if he was acknowledging the decree that had been passed banning all Honored Yautja from hunting humans ever again. Enough damage had been inflicted on the human home world thanks to the Yautja, and hunting a species into extinction was very poor behavior.
The Yautja frowned upon such things. K'Shai had heard plenty of Yautja were displeased with the idea of no longer hunting humans ever again, or at least until the species repopulated enough. She knew such things would certainly draw the line between Honored hunter and bad blood; if a Yautja could not resist the temptation to hunt the pyode amedha again.
"K'Shai is a Blooded Hunter of the Kaunte Dar'een Clan, youngsters." One of the females responded to the statement; vaguely implying she was not there to be prey.
Hoping the point was made clear enough, K'Shai watched the children depart once they were beckoned to return to their games and practice and learning. She watched the youngest children trot away quickly with barely a concern at all as they resumed their activities. The older children, taller than her, and strongly muscled, lingered a bit longer, clearly contuining to scan her and formulate their own opinions about her presence before they slowly stalked away.
K'Shai spent the better part of the day touring the mei'sa by foot. The campus of interconnected structures took most of that time unto itself. Massive barrack-type facilities housed the youngsters for sleep, separated by both gender and age groups. Females were housed on one side of the mei'sa and males on the other. While the genders were generally well segregated for sleeping, meals, learning groups, and sparring, they did still intermix in the massive acreage of the courtyard between all the buildings, while well supervised.
"The older males are more than eager to show off for the females," K'Shai was informed by one of the mei'sa females who watched a small group of older youngsters, nearly old enough to begin their own journey towards Blooding under a leader, intently. It was an usual thing, K'Shai thougth, that the older children were the ones that truly required the most amount of wary watchfulness, and that was really saying something.
Sucklings were almost never put down by their mothers or caretakers. Only when they were asleep were they deposited in large resting groups for a short while. The toddlers would play and fight, and required enough supervision to make sure they didn't seriously harm one another or get into anything that could hurt them. Older children spent much of their day in learning groups. Not all that much unlike human school, the children learned from different matriarchs on subjects of spirituality and fighting.
The eldest of the children, the ones who were advanced enough with their preparation for the hunt that they were nearly of age to be taken on by a Hunt Leader, were definitely the ones that needed the most supervision. Hormonal, powerful, full of themselves, K'Shai quickly noticed how easily they took to fighting amongst one another. Establishing dominance was a necessity, and even within a single day in the mei'sa K'Shai noticed how frequently dominance shifted and was challenged within groups.
Oddly, once dominance was established, each group seemed to continue on with their newly sorted out ranks, without further issue. Friends still talked to one another; the fights over position and status, regardless of how bloody, did not seem to cull any relationships.
There was a healthy respect between all of the Yautja, and weaker and smarter Yautja seemed to be more prone to back off and accept their new place, without losing respect of the one who put them there. That, K'Shai thought, was vastly unlike high school as she knew it.
K'Shai looked on from the ledge above a few dozen stairs at the gaping mouth of the pyramid. The suns were low in the sky now, the moons above were glowing more brightly, and a wind was picking up, bringing in another storm. Five females supervised a group of older students who were still sparring amongst themselves while one matriarch paced around them, carefully making sure none of them got too out of hand considering they had training staffs in hand. Even without metal slicing tips, the dull weapons could easily serve as deadly implements, and hot-blooded Yautja youngsters, as K'Shai had observed, were quick to allow their tempers to fuel them.
"At that age, all they want to do is impress females." The elder matriarch sneered.
"At what age don't they want to impress females?" A younger matriarch responded quickly.
K'Shai chuckled aloud, but their attention was quickly drawn back to the group, bringing all three of them to their feet, just in case.
The female that the males had been keenly trying to impress with their fighting skills had somehow gotten entangled with the three males. K'Shai had missed what happened exactly, as she had look away for the briefest of moments, but the female growled loudly and had already knocked one of the males down in front of her as she nearly strangled him. Clearly, K'Shai thought, she was not impressed by him.
Before any intervention was necessary, the young female released her grip and backed away. Neh'rti, having noticed the whole show from an adjacent platform, strode over casually, surveying both the group of children in the grass below, and K'Shai and the other females.
"Amused, K'Shai?" She sneered.
K'Shai quickly straightened her facial expression, but did not respond, she turned her attention to scanning the rolling grass grounds, overlooking the many children before her.
"It is the task of any of us to watch our youths. To protect them. From themselves, if needed." Neh'rti continued on.
"They are the future of our Clan. The strongest of them will keep this Clan strong long after we all have died. K'urindi, daughter of Esra'di, is of excellent breeding. Her lineage will be one that will continue this Clan for centuries. Many males will wish to breed her, but only one who is truly worthy will survive to accomplish it."
K'Shai glanced to Neh'rti quickly, acknolewdging her presence, but not really sure if she was supposed to respond in some way. With her silence, Neh'rti continued on.
"Your daughter… what will she learn from her ooman mother?"
"She will learn to be Yautja, as she is." K'Shai blurted out immediately, with no attempt to hide the biting tone in her voice. "She is of excellent breeding, too."
"She has R'chnt's blood in her veins," K'Shai added with a stutter, to clarify what she meant about good breeding, suddenly regretting taking the sharp tone. "She will add strength to this Clan and help continue it for centuries."
K'Shai immediately went on the defensive, stiffening her position, sucking back A'ryin'di to her chest, wrapping her tightly in her arms as Neh'rti's gaze dropped down to the baby with a definite sort of I don't think so type of look that K'Shai did not approve of. The other two females stood like statues, tusks spread in drop-jawed shock at the showdown, unaccustomed to seeing a female snap at Neh'rti in such a rude manner.
"We shall see, K'Shai. We shall see." Neh'rti grumbled before moving away.
Once she was well out of sight, K'Shai finally remembered to breathe. The other two said very little on the matter, looking rather uncomfortable with the mere idea of snapping to Neh'rti in such a way.
"… so, what am I supposed to do? Just let her act like A'ryin'di is unworthy? Treat me like I haven't earned the right to be here?" K'Shai growled the end of the day's tale to R'chnt, who held his child quietly and merely watched her pace in frustration.
"Every day, every time I see her, she has to have some way of reminding me that I don't meet her approval or that A'ryin'di doesn't. Or never will. What else do I have to do, R'chnt? What am I doing wrong? She doesn't give anybody else as hard of a time."
"K'Shai!" He finally said in a forceful whisper. "You have always said this of Neh'rti, but I think you are misjudging."
"I'm not judging anything. She is." K'Shai bit back unwarrantedly to R'chnt who dropped his head softly and ticked his tusks together.
"I'm just… I'm trying. I really just don't understand what her problem is. I've been doing everything I can to learn the Yautja ways and to make sure that A'ryin'di will learn them too, when she's old enough. I'm just not willing to be away from you."
"Time, K'Shai. Time." He reminded her. "You are fatigued, you should rest."
Pacing, K'Shai shook her head. "Oooh, no," she said with a light chuckle. "I'm not fatigued. I'm completely wired."
R'chnt stood, walked across the patio into his home through the kitchen and down the corridor to the bedroom. K'Shai paced agitatedly behind him, still muttering under her breath about Neh'rti. R'chnt, seemingly unconcerned with his mate's heightened level of annoyance, delicately placed A'ryin'di into her basonnette.
The child had long since fallen asleep in his arms and since her needs were already tended to, it was time to tend to K'Shai's.
She hovered in the doorway and watched him put the baby to rest, finally falling quiet and settling her body for a moment as she watched a delicate moment between father and daughter as the mighty and fearsome warrior that he was tenderly laid his child to rest as if he was handling an eggshell. He turned and approached her and she did not budge from the doorway.
He pressed himself into her as she held her ground. He felt her heart pounding through her skin, he could smell her anxiety and frustration.
"Come," he said to her and pressed into her until she shifted into the corridor.
He put his hands on her shoulders and guided her to his personal kehrite for training. He stood her in the center of the kehrite, where she immediately took the proper stance and awaited her cue to begin. She had been focusing entirely on jehdin jehdin training.
K'Shai was learning to use her body, to fight unarmed, hand to hand and she was growing in her skills, despite her error which led to her current injured status. He scanned her as she stood ready to move into a sparring pattern. The bruises on her face were prominent and adding a variety of hues to her typical color.
He left her waiting his cue in the center of the arena and stalked over to a wall, retrieving two training staffs. They were as simple as they come; solid wood from the mighty zuchal trees that grew in the jungle. Their nubbed ends ensured that no one could be impaled. Though they were used for basic training, they were still a capable and deadly enough weapon and needed to be wielded as such.
"It can be used to bludgeon. Bones can be broken." He warned K'Shai as he finished introducing her to the training staff and offered one of them to her.
K'Shai reached for the weapon with reservation and suddenly fell still and quiet. Suddenly her mind, which had been running furiously, settled and her focus turned onto the weapon in her hands. She had only sparred a couple times with weapons, mostly as a way for R'chnt to gauge what she already knew, back on Earth, which now seemed so long ago.
When he realized that she knew very little, he started with her from the basics. As he handed her the weapon now, she suddenly felt completely unready for training with it, but she took it all the same, eyeing him warily, waiting for his next cue.
She clearly became nervous upon taking the staff. Her heart sped up and her jaw locked in place. He was preparing to take her to the next step of her training soon as it was. He had been impressed with how quickly she learned and was able to repeat what he had been teaching her. She would repeat the actions without really owning them or understanding them, but she was trying. Slowly, her jehdin jehdin had grown and she was finally adapting her own ways, her own style, though she seemed to not even realize it.
He could tell by her reaction to the staff that she felt she was not ready to possess it yet, but she trusted his judgement. He moved into her, teaching her how to hold the staff; how to move with it, how to feel comfortable with it.
"It will become part of you. Just as the awu'asa you will eventually wear. It will flow like blood in your veins, just allow it to come." He said as he glided his fingers lightly along her arms, directing her through a series of movements.
The weapon was light enough to carry, which she was surprised by. The size of it at first made it seem like it would be cumbersome to move with. It had a thick shaft and was a solid foot taller than she was, well sized to be a useful training tool to a Yautja, but it was so long for her that she had to pay particular attention to not trip herself as R'chnt guided her in formations around the kehrite.
Sure enough, she tripped over it.
"Do not lose focus, K'Shai." R'chnt said plainly as she spat a curse over her own foolishness.
"It's too long for me. My hands barely fit around it." K'Shai protested.
"Focus, K'Shai. Allow the weapon to move with you."
She shifted her foot pattern again, trying the movement he just showed her once more, and once again, tripping.
"Agh!" She growled in frustration. "Just another thing I can't do properly."
"K'Shai!" R'chnt grumbled dismissively.
"Show me again," she snapped angrily.
Watching him move around with prowess and power, completely in synch with the weapon he possessed, dreadlocked hair and loin cloth coverings flapping as he moved, she sighed and huffed.
"No," she muttered, shaking her head. "I can't do this. I can't do any of it."
R'chnt paced the kehrite for a moment backing away from her, allowing her to regain her stance, but her frustration flushed again. She had a few moments of quiet stillness, which were quickly overridden by flustered temper. He ticked his mandibles softly, pondering briefly the similarities between humans and Yautja.
Both were clearly prone to lack of control over their tempers, but it seemed that humans had the added tendancy to doubt their abilities while Yautja were usually entirely too overconfident in theirs.
It was obvious K'Shai was in no condition to focus on the quiet methodology of working with the training staff. He circled part of the perimeter of the kehrite watching her fluster herself more and more on the spot. A change of tactics was in order, K'Shai was in need of a distraction.
He bellowed a mighty roar. "Defend yourself!"
K'Shai jumped with alarm, caught completely off guard as R'chnt charged, roaring at her. The sight of all three-hundred-fifty-plus pounds of him, with a staff in his hands, muscles rippling, tusks flared, running her down was enough to send chills down her spine. He immediately waved the staff at her and she responded in turn, raising her own weapon up to defend her head from being bashed in.
The two wooden staffs banged together with a resounding echo and R'chnt immediately shifted position and attacked again.
K'Shai whipped up, jumped, evaded, and slammed the staff forward, wincing as she withdrew slightly upon impact between the two staffs. Suddenly the two of them were off, dancing around in an unplanned choreography. There was no time to think, only react. In an instant, everything he had been trying to teach her made sense, and it was all so oddly different than trying to survive against the hard meat.
The kainde amedha charged with the effectiveness of a clawed, fanged, spikey tailed stampede. They cared not about their own safety, nor did they use any real tactics. Facing them was a matter of making sure your gun was loaded, you had plenty of extra ammo, and you were fast on your feet.
Pirouetting around a sparring arena with a full-on raging Yautja bearing down upon her, K'Shai realized the dramatic difference in a way that she had not before. She had never faced off with R'chnt in such a manner. He seemed angry, or at the very least annoyed, as he pressed her harder and harder to fight him back until they were both glistening in sweat.
He howled and growled and spurred her into furious motions, battling him away and urging her to come at him, which she suddenly realized she was doing, without even thinking about it.
She lunged forward with the staff and swung it through the air, colliding into his forearm with a dull thud. R'chnt paid it no mind at all he simply countered the attack after blocking her assault.
She jumped up, spun around him, avoided his strike and whirled around the staff to come at him again against his back. R'chnt, without missing a beat, spun around, bringing his staff right along with him, making her jump and forfeit her attack in order to get out of the way of his retaliation. Strike, evade, jump, lunge, evade, spin; it all began to flow naturally, his constantly reiterated words making sense to K'Shai as they moved in brutal harmony.
Feeling the power of the ferocious spar, K'Shai began to brim with confidence. The movements came easier and as she swung and meleed and lunged and evaded full speed with R'chnt, she allowed the rush of adrenaline to fuel her.
She whipped the staff one more time, swinging it high above her head and bringing it down hard, certain she was going to drive the end of it between R'chnt's calves and twist enough leverage through her body to pull him off his feet.
In a fraction of a moment, K'Shai was lifted off the ground and slammed hard onto her back under R'chnt, who glared over her in amusement, ticking his mandibles lightly.
"Hey! What did I do wrong? I thought I was doing well." She groaned, remaining motionless under R'chnt's straddled legs.
"Overconfidence." He said simply.
K'Shai paused, considered his words for a moment and then laughed loudly. R'chnt was pleased to see her ease up her body's tension. The spar had pushed her hard enough to make her forget her earlier troubles. Her mind was cleared and he was pleasantly surprised to find that she did spar rather well for her first time, rather unprepared, with a staff. It seemed that pushing her a little more as a Yautja, instead of progressing slowly, would be a benefit to her as it would force her to focus more on improving her skills.
He watched her tense and agitated body relax. He could taste her dai'shui building as she huffed under him, her heated body glistening with sweat. R'chnt purred and lowered himself down atop K'Shai, his thighs straddling her hips as he allowed part of his weight to sit on her, certainly not enough to cause any harm, but enough to keep her still and allow her to feel his sac sitting against her.
K'Shai responded almost immediately, so quickly and assertively it surprised him a little. She was not often so aggressive, as she usually preferred to allow him to dominate her. This time, she grappled him so feverishly it stimulated him to force himself upon her more.
K'Shai moaned in enticing protest and R'chnt pressed himself against her further. She triggered his natural instinctive nature to overpower her and make her his mate as she huffed below him and aggressively spurred him, grappling his forearms, running her delicate fingers along his chest, pressing her lips into his bicep so feverishly her teeth dragged against him.
R'chnt allowed his aroused purr to turn to an echoing growl. K'Shai picked up on his guttural sound and its significance and smiled thinly at him, a look of pure dare on her face.
With that, R'chnt pulled himself off of her and rose to his feet quickly, grappling her by the hips and bringing her with him. K'Shai heaved and moaned as R'chnt backed her against the wall and supported her with one arm under her butt.
He removed his loin cloth with his free hand and stripped away her garments, tossing each piece of laced hide to the ground some distance behind him. He eyed her with flared tusks in pure pleasure. His body throbbed and he could feel his heart beating rapidly pumping his heated blood through his veins into his extremities.
K'Shai, he could feel from his first grip under her, was growing wet and ready. There was something about her scent now that he had never noticed before. It was a foreign smell, not Yautja at all, but it clearly stirred her into a hormonal high as she allowed her to voice to echo throughout the oval chamber.
Without any delay he inserted himself into her and she howled with a gaping jaw, then quickly clenched her teeth shut and groaned mutedly. He pumped and thrust into her, furiously driven by the dai'shui she was emanating.
He watched her panting heatedly as he emptied his load powerfully into her with a long deep rumble. When he released her from his grip and lowered her down to the ground, K'Shai collapsed in a heap and rested. R'chnt slid down to the floor next to her and she leaned into his chest. As she caught her breath, he found himself purring effortlessly as he, too, allowed his body to cool from the powerful experience.
"I hope we didn't wake A'ryin'di." K'Shai whispered after a short while and stood without further word, quickly with a jump, almost as if there was some kind of emergency she needed to attend to.
He stood and followed her into their bed chamber and watched K'Shai quietly hover over the bassonette.
"She can sleep through anything, I think…" she whispered to him with a smile.
He walked over to her and pressed his body against hers, still sweaty and nude. He wrapped his arms around her and his skin tingled as she caressed his arms and pressed her lips to him.
"She is content, no reason to worry. She is safe." He said quietly. "And her mother?"
K'Shai turned and looked up at him. She eyed him widely, then took a deep, calm breath.
"I'm alright. Really. I am. You just knew exactly what to do, didn't you?"
R'chnt smiled widely, pleased to see that she was relaxing more.
"We will do it again tomorrow." He said simply.
"Oohhh," K'Shai hummed playfully. "All of it?"
"All of it," R'chnt said in his deep voice, without the slightest hint of play.
K'Shai laughed deeply and nodded, then offered him a smile and retrieved her sleeping child into her arms. She sat back into the bed and allowed her mind to clear, figuring that tomorrow would be the start of a new and better day, a different frame of mind.
She hoped perhaps for the few hours left before the sun would come up, that her dreams would not be invaded by the shrieking echoes of satan itself. She finally drifted off to sleep with the infant cradled against her. R'chnt moved in next to them and sat quietly in the misty heated hours of Yaut's version of night.