"Let Garv get to the end of the path first, then walk. Walk when I walk not before or after."

"Understood," Her eyes were set forward on the red leather cape that the clan leader and arbiter, as Hannah had found out, in front of her and Jar-hidda.

"When I kneel, just kneel as well, don't bow, you have an honorable kill, at the very least you should be considered unblooded rather than prey."

"Should," clicked Garv in front of them and Jar-hidda's sharp eyes glared daggers at the red cape. His gaze cautiously returned to Hannah.

"If the eldress shows any sign of…."

"Disgust?" Hannah offered, stone-faced, "contempt? Hatred? Loathing?"

Jar-hidda rattled a warning, showing wordlessly that the situation was to be taken seriously.

Hannah was being serious.

"Then bow," Jar-hidda finally continued, "remember, this is how we will know."

Hannah didn't like the lecture, standing still as the ship's auto-pilot landed the craft and Jar-hidda's ship onto the ground. The air here was supposed to be breathable to both humans and yautja so Jar-hidda had said that she didn't need her mask. Hannah wasn't sure how but she wasn't any sort of biologist or chemist. It worked, that was all that she cared about.

The impact rattled through the ground and only now did Hannah feel a little nervous. This was the first time she had heard anything about an eldress. She knew the women ruled but it seemed some were more powerful than others. Where Jar-hidda could stay the blade of a clan leader if he so chose, the order of an eldress to kill Hannah would not be ignored by any that heard. Jar-hidda could maybe take down a few, but a whole clan? A clan large enough to have its own planet?

A strange colored light blinded her momentarily and she blinked. The ramp continued to lower and the sliver of light gave way to a field of spears. Hannah's stomach felt like it had rocks in it suddenly. As Garv stepped out she steadied her breath. The wind caught his cape as soon as he was out of the ship, billowing it to the left as he walked brisk and assured down the path. The field of spears slammed in greeting with eerie unification. This was definitely the most yautja she'd seen on one place to date.

Garv seemed to be suddenly small as he stopped beside another male standing before an elegantly adorned female several feet before the both of them. Hannah already knew that females were taller than yautja and proportionally bigger as well, but the male Garv stood next to was enormous, almost as tall as the female, but with the male's muscular build. He too had a leather cape, but his was brown in color, and as the wind moved it Hannah could see two jagged scars running parallel to his spine, going down the length of his back. Wristblade scars, she could tell, there was no other scar quite like them. But it begged the question, how had he gotten them? No, the obvious answer was another yautja ha attacked him. What then were the circumstances? A regular fight? The scars didn't seem to indicate such.

Garv uttered a greeting to the eldress, pounding his fist to his chest with an inclination of his body in a small bow. She made a movement and said something that was lost to the wind and Garv turned on his heel. The other male followed suit and Hannah couldn't help but notice that he looked a bit like Jar-hidda, green with dark spots, save the spots were more mottled than spots, and the colors were off enough that Hannah felt sure they weren't related. Let alone the sheer size difference.

Her muscles reacted without her thought when Jar-hidda moved, starting forward and keeping pace with him, hitching the r'ka skull on her hip a bit higher as it started to slide along her kilt. She couldn't hear if there was muttering from the ranks as she walked by; the wind was a little too heavy, or they were being too quiet about it. Either way, she kept looking forward and kept her imagination to herself. She was huffing as they neared, glad that the short way down the path was almost over.

And then her breath was lost on the breeze. From the ranks moved a small figure, sun-kissed colored skin, bright crimson deadlocks adorned conservatively, vivid green eyes, one yautja, one human. Hannah could not take her eyes off the small figure standing to the other side of the clan leader, standing before Jar-hidda. The human woman, maybe a bit older than Hannah, cocked her head in that familiar inquisitive yautja way and rattled.

Hannah stopped when Jar-hidda stopped, knelt when he knelt, and finally tore her gaze away to set the r'ka skull down before her. She slammed her fist to her chest and bowed her head, mirroring jar-hidda, but her wide eyes were staring blankly at the skull in front of her, tracing the seams where it had been put back together, but her thoughts were far from the trophy.

"Legendary Jar-hidda," Garv's voice echoed over the ranks. This is where Chul-yaun had lost Hannah on his greeting ceremony, but now she knew the language better, "we the Mi-kv'var-de clan, with the agreement of the high-eldress, welcome you to the planet Yaweo, our homeworld. You have journeyed long and far and we receive you willingly. We open our homes to offer you rest and reprieve."

Well this wasn't the same speech she had heard on the Resh'skama but it was close enough. Hannah found herself distracted, though, by the feet and the legs of the enormous male in front of her. His muscles were tight; she could see the stark lines and shadows across his skin. He was twitching and the hand at his side holding his mask trembled; his fingers flexed and curled back against the metal. Hannah had by now learned the subtle signs of a yautja ready to pounce. Jar-hidda's plan failed, she was already not accepted and it was going to turn into a fight. The hand she had on the metal landing pad shifted as subtly as she could, inching her way to the hilt of the dagger on her thigh. She kept her breathing even and her eyes ahead on the legs of the male, waiting for the sign to dodge.

"— until the path takes you again to the hunt!" two resounding raps of a thousand spears against metal completed the speech of the clan leader. His mandibles shut over his mouth and there was only a second of silence before he tapped a single tusk and rattled in displeasure, "alright Mithwei, get it out of your system."

The male's tendons in his legs snapped. The blade was in Hannah's hand and she rolled to the side as the male shot forward. She turned with blade in hand but the male, Fireblood, was not on her. Instead the large male had grappled Jar-hidda by the shoulders and had pushed him back a few steps. Jar-hidda grunted, roared, then was lifted from the ground by the oversized yautja.

Hannah, without thinking, moved forward to interfere, not having expected that her role would be reversed from Jar-hidda and she'd be doing the rescuing. But a hand stopped her; the thick white and red beam crossed her chest and held her back. Her eyes snapped to Garv, and the clan leader only gave her a downward glance before looking back at the fight with a rattle of warning.

Right, helping was against the laws….

The dagger in Hannah's hand lowered back down to her thigh as she turned to watch. Jar-hidda, now lifted above Fireblood's head, grabbed onto the Fireblood's arms just as the larger male made to throw Jar-hidda to the ground. The force of his own throw with Jar-hidda's weight and iron grip dragged the large male with him and the two tumbled across the metal. The combined weight of the two bodies continuing to slam against the ground, made the floor shudder, and Hannah had a slightly small fear that the landing platform would collapse. Something distracted her from this quickly, though. As she watched, she noticed small signs in Jar-hidda's movements, the tension of his muscles, and the glaring lack of any real action on his part. Jar-hidda didn't really seem to be trying. Rather than fight he kept grabbing the massive yautja and deflecting him away or just grappling him, trying to hold him still, but the large predator was deceivingly agile, slipping away to put space between them and then charging forward again.

Why was this happening? She looked back at Garv but the male merely watched the fight with some irritation. She then looked around. The ranks, though they had been dismissed, had stayed to watch, roaring and jeering, Fireblood's name being the one cheered loudly. She even dared a glance over her shoulder to the other yautja, the large female behind her watching with some interest still standing silently.

The mask tilted slightly downward and Hannah felt chills run down her spine and she looked away.

"I don't want your females Fireblood," Hannah heard Jar-hidda snarl, dragging her attention back to the fight.

"Doesn't matter," growled the giant, pinning Jar-hidda to the ground, a broad arm pressed against Jar-hidda's throat, "I just have to make them not want you."

"Every time!?"

"Every time, 'legendary' Jar-hidda," the large male smiled. Hannah's brow furrowed. Was he being sarcastic? Could yautja other than Jar-hidda be sarcastic? What was going on here!?

Hannah heard Jar-hidda cough, he was being suffocated. There was no way she was going to let that happen, laws or no laws. Hannah pressed forward against Garv's arm. She heard the clan leader give a few short quick clicks that had no meaning to Hannah as she made her way to move around the clan leader's blockade.

Hannah felt the knife suddenly slip from her fingers and she looked over to the redhead as the armored woman slipped the dagger back into its sheathe on Hannah's hip. Oh right. Her. She was a thing. And Hannah hadn't even heard her approach.

"You…."

The woman's green eyes snapped up to Hannah's, as hard and intense as a yautja's.

"You're human."

Hannah had thought that Jar-hidda was talking about just a non-yautja sain'ja, like Hashi, but female. Never in a million years would she have guessed another human would be in the same exact situation she was in.

"I don't speak the human language well," the woman said, and Hannah blinked at the clicking she made with her mouth, her hands completely still on her folded arms.

"Walk with me," she ordered.

The woman turned her back to her instantly and Hannah felt a pang of disappointment get thrown into the already tumultuous mix of emotions. She did not immediately follow, looking back at the wrestling males where blood now was smeared on the metal. Jar-hidda had gotten out of Fireblood's chokehold but was still struggling in the fight, and the giant male's movements were punctuated with amused clicks.

"Leave them, they will be like this for a while. Fireblood will win, he always does."

Hannah's brow furrowed trying to comprehend the meaning of the words. The touch of a soft human hand, calloused as it was, was like a shock. Hanna flinched as her arm was grabbed and she was made to follow the redhead. As they passed by Garv, Hannah caught the gaze of the high-eldress, her mask following the two of them for a moment before returning to watch the fight.

"My trophy…," Hannah said, startled out of her half-daze, hurriedly snapping her fingers. She looked back at the r'ka skull at Garv's feet. She didn't want to go through another mess of putting it back together if it was damaged in the two males' fight.

"Will be fine," the woman's voice was sharp and abrupt. It did not have the soft flowing accent that Hannah's did. The woman led her from the platform and to the actual floor of the jungle, leading her further within, into the shadows of an alien jungle.