(This is an alternative ending. I like a good tragedy, but I got to writing this and figured I'd post it for those who were interested.)
It wasn't difficult at all to find the alien suckling a new home. Yautja females who were pregnant or had just given birth were extremely motherly, and could handle a full work load. If they only had one child, that's usually where problems occurred, as they'd smother the child with attention. Ien'heru found a yautja female that was lactating, and wanting something else to dote on. She had experience with similar alien species, so he didn't hesitate to hand the child over.
Ien'heru had been prepared to buy formula for the suckling, care for it, and would have welcomed the distraction though. Now, he had nothing else to do. He had more names on the list of course, or could have even gone on a hunt, but he just didn't feel up to it. So, he went home.
He hadn't been home in months. He was usually too involved in his work to lounge at his house at all. He sat down in one of the chairs, finally realizing how uncomfortable it was. He numbly looked around his house, how plain and undecorated it was. He did not like to waste time with useless belongings. But now, his house just seemed boring, and lonely.
He let out a slow breath and looked at the collar he held in his hand. The strand diamonds sparkled proudly in the light. As he stared at it though, he wondered why the clasp was undone. The collar was supposed to lock. It had been around her neck when she died, and it didn't make any sense that it would be open now.
He doubled it around his wrist and secured the snap, but when he moved his arm, it unclasped. He scowled at it, and examined the lock. It was bent. She shouldn't have been able to keep it around her neck, broken like it was. He wondered when and why she had tried to remove the collar.
He ran his thumb over the diamonds, pondering it for a moment. On a whim, he checked his list of exotic species within the clan. It did not show that Cassarah had been reported deceased. He lost hope quickly though, figuring that the elite just hadn't reported it yet. He had a full twenty four hours to make a report.
He leaned forward to remove his cape, dropped it to pile on the floor, but didn't get up from the chair. As the hours ticked by, he kept checking up on her status, waiting for it to officially say deceased. Instead, he got a notification that a servant had escaped and made it back to its planet of origin. As an arbitrator, it was his job to deal with things like that. Usually he would have jumped at the opportunity, to make sure when the servant was captured, that it wasn't punished too severely. Now, he hardly cared.
For some reason it bothered him though. Ien'heru sat back in his seat and tried to recall if he'd seen the elites ship outside when he left. He couldn't remember, so he pulled up surveillance videos from the house. As an arbitrator, he had the authority to hack into just about anything. The elite had the money for cameras everywhere, and one faced the spaceship perfectly. He watched someone board the ship and leave, but it wasn't the elite.
He watched Cassarah take off with the elites ship, and it didn't make any sense at first. Yautjas weren't prone to mental disorders, yet what he was clearly seeing was impossible. Ien'heru checked the rest of the cameras around the house, his body steadily growing tense. It appeared that her death was merly a hologram, and the elite hadn't bothered altering the original footage-or didn't have time. Most of what he'd seen in the hologram was real though.
While he was unconscious, she had swiped a vial of solvent and threatened to kill herself in front of the elite. Only a few minor words and details had been changed for the part used as a hologram. The elite told her he'd let Ien'heru buy her, but of course she didn't believe him. She surrendered the vial of solvent, but as soon as he went to the medical room, Cassarah broke her collar and stole his ship. It took the elite too long to notice she was gone.
Afterwards, the elite healed Ien'heru but also gave him a sedative. He needed time to make a convincing hologram, to trick him into thinking she was dead. When he had seen her come into the medical room, it was a hologram. The elite had programmed the door to open in sync with the hologram. The elite had tossed the collar to the floor when the hologram disintegrated, a detail Ien'heru had missed in the shock of the event.
The elite had gone through the trouble of covering up her escape, because he knew if the arbitrator found her first, he could keep her. The elite had let an ooman escape back to Earth, potentially exposing the yautjas. Therefore, he could deem the elite unfit for custody of the ooman. No one would question him. If he found Cassarah on Earth, he could keep her.
He didn't get up from the chair yet. He couldn't believe what he had discovered. It seemed unreal. Ien'heru tried to remember what he'd seen, and if he'd caught her scent in the room. If it truly had been a hologram, there wouldn't have been any smell of her, a detail he hated to admit he had overseen. He was an arbitrator, and was supposed to notice every detail.
He tried to locate the elite, so he could kick his ass this time, but he was away on an unscheduled hunt, on Earth. The elite was going after Cassarah. Ien'heru shot up from the seat with a deadly growl, scooped up his cape, and ran to his ship. His heart was pounding as the door closed behind him, but he didn't head straight to Earth. He needed her DNA to locate her quickly.
He kicked in the door to the elites house, and scoured her bed for a strand of her hair. Once he found that, he had it analyzed and had his ships scanner search the planet for her. He wouldn't let the elite catch her first. Ien'heru called on every favor and backup arrived swiftly.
He would have gone and picked her up himself, but he had the elite to deal with. Ien'heru found him quickly enough. As soon as the elite saw him walking in his direction, he let his cloaking device drop. The elite knew he was in trouble, and did not try to run. Ien'heru went right up to him and slugged him in the face, hard enough that he fell on his ass.
"You are under arrest for obstruction of justice. I should have been informed the second she escaped."
"You were the one that taught her how to fly a yautja spacecraft! It was your fault she ran off! And I knew you'd go looking for her, and wouldn't give her back. What else was I supposed to do?"
"The honorable thing always seems to escape you. You should have left her on Earth when she evaded you the first time. When I fought you, you shouldn't have touched my hair. When she ran away, you should have reported it to me immediately. That, would have been honorable, but instead, you have tarnished your reputation."
Ien'heru took the elite aboard his ship, secured him in a holding cell, then went to check on Cassarah. She had barely made it out of Brazil before she was swarmed. Ien'heru watched several bio mask feeds to make sure she was not harmed. They corralled her into the jungle, then flashed the eyes of their bio masks yellow. She was outnumbered, thirty to one.
Yellow eyes surrounded her in the dark like a nightmare, up in trees and on the ground, but she wasn't going out without a fight of course. They were under orders not to cause so much as a scratch on her. She wounded three males with a knife, but then got her hands on one of their plasma guns. She started shooting, but in the dark she had very poor aim. He watched them carefully subdue her, then four males each grabbed one limb and toted her to a ship.
He had them bring her safely back to him, but they weren't about to untie her themselves. Ien'heru stepped into the room they had her in, and his heart began to beat faster. It was like she had been brought back from the dead. Cassarah was slumped in a chair, her body tied down with soft lengths of leather. They had blindfold her even, to try and keep her calmer.
They should have covered her ears as well if they wanted her calm though, because as soon as she heard the door, she began to struggle. His thick red cape drug the floor as he circled her, checking her for injuries. She was covered in sweat and speckled with green blood, but she was was unharmed. He lightly caressed her cheek, but she jerked away with a snarl.
"Don't touch me! I'll fucking kill you!"
He let out a soft trill, "Your tried that once already."
He tried to untie her restraints, but she began to thrash, "I'm not going back to that pae-ka'mak Elite!"
"The elite is no longer of any concern. I found you, and you are mine now. I intend to have you in my bed as soon as you let me take your restraints off."
He was coming to realize that she still didn't know it was him yet. Cassarah jerked on the restraints, "Get away from me!"
He caressed her thigh, "I cannot stay away. I will have at least four pups from you."
Her heart rate was beginning to soar, and the leather restraints creaked as she strained to free herself, "Never! You won't get away with this!"
"There's nothing you can do about it now. You already agreed." He gently slid his nails across her collar bone.
"Bullshit!"
Ien'heru hovered above her, "On the beach Chuchu, you agreed."
She stopped breathing for a moment, then rubbed her face on her shoulder to try and dislodge the blindfold. She let out a soft whimper, "Get this off me..."
He tugged on the cloth, pulling it down to hang around her neck, and her eyes locked onto his, "...I knew you'd find me."
He worked to untie all of her restraints, but she was still upset with him. As soon as she was free, she leapt forward and slammed her forehead into his, "That's for not telling me it was you this whole time!"
He figured that headbutt hurt her more then it did him, "I'm sorry Chuchu, I thought you would have recognized my voice."
She folded her arms against her chest, not believing him. A slow smile was spreading to her soft lips though. Ien'heru kept to his promise. She was untied, so he scooped her up off the ground and carried her to his bed. He pressed her into the soft marbled grey furs, purring like a happy house cat.
~Ve bpi-de~ (Yautja for "The end")