Aquila non capit muscas

The hunter managed to open the balcony door without dropping her, uncloaking as it entered the apartment. It looked around for a few minutes, unsure where the human's sleeping quarters were, but eventually discovered the bedroom, and placed her gently down in the middle of her bed. It looked around the room, and went over to the dressing table, curious at the array of strange scents coming from it.

It was examining a bottle of perfume gingerly, when a soft cough from behind got its attention. It turned, and saw her looking over at it, calmly. Slowly, it replaced the bottle on the dresser, unsure if it had somehow committed a breach of protocols – this situation was unlike any it had been in before. It walked over to her and crouched down beside the bed, then after an awkward moment, reached up to its mask and disconnected the two hoses leading to its armor. As it broke the pressure of the mask from its skin, lifting the mask away, it watched the human's reactions carefully, but she didn't flinch.

She nodded respectfully as a curious scar on its forehead was revealed. Judging by the trophies on its belt, she already knew it to be an experienced hunter, but the scar, and all that it implied, meant this was a Yautja she should respect. And be wary of. She started trying to remove the tattered remains of her clothes, realizing only then that she had been mostly naked due to the efforts to reach her assorted injuries. Happily, it didn't bother her, she had no idea if Yautja had genders to begin with, she'd never asked, and it was unlikely that one would find her remotely attractive as anything other than a trophy to place on their wall.

The hunter watched her struggle for a moment, then made a decision, extending its wrist blades and gently parting the rest of her clothing. She shivered slightly as the cool metal sides of the blades came into contact with her skin once or twice, but she knew that she was still safe, at least until the Elder spoke to her. After that, it was anyone's guess, but for the moment she offered a heartfelt "Thank you" to the hunter for his help. As she spoke, she yawned, trying to put a hand over her mouth politely, and winced as both actions sent shooting pains through her. Whatever anesthetic effect the paste had provided was wearing off.

She gestured to the medical kit still hanging from the hunter's belt. "The healer did well sealing my wounds, but there is still pain." The hunter cocked its head to one side, the Yautja body language for curiosity, and retracted its wrist blades back into their housing while handing her the kit. As she pressed on the discolored area, the segments unfolding to display the contents, she noticed subtle differences between this kit and the one she had been using before. She picked out a few of the items and examined them closely, some of them she recognized from her old kit, and some she had no idea of the function of. She shrugged.

"Guess I earned a new toy this visit." The hunter looked at her curiously, but she just shook her head, it would take far too long to explain and right now she needed to concentrate on the more pressing problem of the pain. She spotted an injector tube, and lifted it out, placing one end against her stomach and her thumb on the other. She braced herself for the pain that was coming, and pressed down with her thumb to trigger the injector, but was surprised when it didn't hurt her as much as doing this usually did.

She withdrew the needle from her flesh, as a warmth began spreading through her body, her aches and pains fading to a dull glow, and stared at it. It was much narrower than the version in the kit under the bathroom sink. She put the injector tube back into its socket within the kit, knowing that the medicinal reservoir built into the casing would be able to refill the injector fully several times before it needed refilling itself, then closed the kit back up. Exploring her new gift could wait until morning. She looked at the hunter then, trying to think of a way to phrase her next question.

"Are you staying here tonight?" The hunter nodded, and she was going to say something more when a new wave of exhaustion came over her. She muttered "Good night" around a bigger yawn, and pulled the covers up to her chin, not caring about anything else at that moment. She looked into the hunter's eyes one more time, then hers closed, and soon she was fast asleep.

-

It was resting easily beside the human's bed. It knew daylight had broken long before, but the human's life signs indicated she was still sound asleep. It wondered when the Elder would arrive, although it wasn't impatient, having spent far longer periods of time virtually immobile waiting for prey in hunts in the past. Idly, it considered the events of the past few days on the planet – the trial being disrupted by the hosts relocating before the kainde amedha hatched, the death of three unblooded hunters, the discovery of this pyode amedha. Another Yautja was certainly involved in the latter issue, it remembered the spoor it had scented at the building it had taken the human from. It wondered when the Elder would allow the hunting party to challenge each other for the right to hunt this human, and was considering taking part, when a metal-on-metal sound from outside the bedroom got its attention.

Quickly it placed the mask back over the front of its head, connecting the pressure hoses to its armor and feeling the tug as the face seal tightened, holding the mask in place. It activated its cloaking device, fading from sight in an electromagnetic shimmer, as its sensors picked up the sound of the door to the human's nest opening. It looked quickly across at the sleeping form of the human, but she seemed undisturbed by the noises. Quietly, it moved through the door, and watched as a pyode amedha female made her way towards the food area.

"Hey babydoll, you awake yet? I bought you some coffffffeeeeee!" it heard the intruder call out. Most of the words made no sense to it, but the body language and tone of this human's voice gave the impression that its presence was not an intrusion, but rather that the human hunter would welcome this one's presence. Unsure as to what it should do, it resolved to wait and watch, alert for any threat to the human hunter, but not to act yet. The human female had been manipulating a device on the top of a counter in the food area, filling it with water taken from a metallic long necked tool mounted next to one wall.

As the device began to make strange bubbling noises, the human re-entered the main area, and picked up a small hand-held device from the low table. It tensed as the human depressed a button on the device, and was startled when the electronic box the female pointed the device at suddenly powered up and started displaying images, the sounds of human voices coming from within. It relaxed a fraction as it processed the human's actions, the box was obviously some form of communications device she had activated. It tensed up once more however when the human female moved purposefully towards the bedroom, and its sleeping charge.

It was only a few steps behind the pyode amedha as she entered, and it watched with alarm as the stranger turned and dropped down to sit on the foot of the bed and began bouncing on it rhythmically.

"Wakey wakey, sleepy head!" it heard the human state in a sing-song voice, before reaching over to grasp one of the human hunter's ankles, and then shake it gently. It realized too late that the human was grasping at the female hunter's damaged leg, and could only watch as she let out a scream of pain, jerking upright from her sleep.

Marisa let out a shriek as her friend screamed, and fell off the end of the bed onto her butt. She picked herself up and was turning to ask her friend what was wrong when she stopped. As she had woken and sat up, the covers had fallen from around her, laying bare the thick blue-tinted areas, rimmed with angry red pink skin of her chest and stomach. More disturbingly, her clothes from the night before, which had laid on the bed under the covers, were revealed in all their torn and blood stained glory. Marisa let out a gasp and ran to the head of the bed, trying to put her arms around her whimpering friend but not knowing if her touch would cause more pain, ending up with her arms fluttering helplessly between them.

"Oh hon, I'm sorry! I didn't mean to ... Are you OK?" Marisa was trying hard not to panic, as her friend curled up into a ball, holding her leg gingerly. Marisa could see the bottom of her leg had more of the blue stuff on it, and she worried. She gingerly place her hand on her friend's back, and said softly "Do you need to see a doctor, babydoll?" After a moment, her friend took a shuddering breath inwards.

"No," she croaked, "but if you grab my leg like that again, you will.". She turned and grinned weakly at Marisa. "What are you doing here?" Marisa looked embarrassed.

"I got that delivery of Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee this morning, I figured I'd bring some over and surprise you with the good stuff to wake up to ..." Marisa's voice trailed off and she looked seriously at her friend. "Are you really all right babydoll? What is that stuff anyhow? What happened?"

She levered herself into a sitting position, pulling the covers back over herself in the process.

"If I tell you nothing, that everything is OK, will you let it be?" Marisa picked up the pile of bloodstained clothes, noticing that there was more of the strange blue stuff on them as well.

"Sure. For about thirty seconds, beloved." She sighed.

"Marisa, I'm serious. You could get into a lot of trouble if you don't let this go." She raised a hand to forestall the reply on Marisa's lips. "I know, you don't care. But I do care, about you, and you don't want to know. Trust me." Marisa thought this over for the promised thirty seconds.

"If you're in trouble, I'm going to help if I can, you know that babydoll." She grinned, trying to defuse the tension. "Is this anything to do with your man problem?" She looked at Marisa with her mouth open for a few seconds, trying to remember how to breathe, before doubling over, trying to laugh and not cry out at the pain at the same time. After a minute, she composed herself, and tried to thwap Marisa with a pillow, without much success.

"No, it's actually more like a case of a woman problem." She grinned as Marisa's eyes opened wide, then got serious again. "I know you hon, you're not going to let go of this until I tell you. I can't though, if I do you could get hurt, bad." Marisa didn't hesitate.

"Your point?" She sighed again, as Marisa continued. "Babydoll, I'm a big girl now. So spill."

It watched the two humans interact, confused about the hunter's reaction to the other human having caused her pain. As they spoke, it began to understand that this new human was a friend to the hunter, a conclusion it felt was confirmed when the hunter playfully attacked the newcomer. It relaxed more, but kept a careful eye on the two, appreciating this opportunity to observe and learn more about this prey species. It tried to move so that it wasn't blocking the doorway, where it had halted as the second human jumped onto the bed, and saw the human hunter's eyes flicker up, noticing its cloaked movement.

Marisa was waiting for her friend to just admit defeat and tell her what was going on, when she saw her eyes focus on something over her shoulder at the doorway. Marisa turned, but didn't see anyone. She was about to turn back when out of the corner of her eye she saw something ... or didn't ... it was like looking at an outline in glass. She looked harder, trying to see what was there, when it moved, shimmering towards her impossibly fast!

"She sees me!" it thought to itself, and clenched its fist to deploy its wrist blades, moving towards Marisa. Humans couldn't know of the Yautja.

"No!" She called commandingly. She saw the hunter's shape pause for a second, a query of clicks and growls coming from nowhere. Marisa didn't know what was going on, but she felt the air move around her and could see an outline inches from her chest. She didn't dare breathe as she heard animal sounds coming from somewhere in front of her.

It halted, almost making the killing thrust. The Elder had said to respect this pyode amedha, until they knew more about her worthiness, and this other one was her friend. It might offend her to kill her friend, and that might interfere with the Elder being able to learn more. It was still torn between the edict against prey learning of the existence of Yautja, and the instructions of the Elder.

"Marisa, listen to me very carefully." Her friend's voice sounded like it was very far away, a combination of the blood thundering in her ears and her friend speaking softly. "Don't move. Don't say anything. Don't do anything. Trust me, if you do, you're dead, and there's no way I can stop it. Just stay perfectly still." Marisa caught herself trying to nod, instead doing exactly as she was told. She didn't know what was going on, but she could feel she was in grave danger. She thought about the blue patches on her friend's chest, and began to wonder what they were covering. She could hear her friend's voice, patiently explaining, although she had no idea who she was talking to.

"This is my friend. She is no threat to me, or to you. She will not reveal the presence of Yautja on this planet."

"Yautja? This planet?" she thought in confusion.

"This is my nest. If you wish to challenge me for the right to hunt this pyode amedha later, then do so. But in my nest, she is my friend, not prey." She was thinking fast, trying to remember the right buttons to push that might persuade the hunter to back down.

Awareness started dawning on her, her friend was pleading for her, Marisa's, life. Whatever that shape was, it wanted to kill her? After a few seconds, she watched dumbfounded as the air in front of her sparkled, and slowly a shape came into view.

The human was right. For the moment, the status given her by the Elder meant that her nest was to be respected. To hunt prey within it would be to dishonor the human's nest, and if this human behaved as Yautja in that as she had done in other respects, that would involve a challenge. The hunter had no doubts that it would win such a challenge, she still was, after all, just pyode amedha, but the Elder would not be pleased. It cursed silently to itself, and disengaged the cloak. If its presence was now unavoidably known, perhaps it could attempt to salvage the situation with a show of intimidation, to persuade this human female that it would be unwise if it did reveal their presence.

"Whatever you do, hon, don't move."

As it became clearer, the first thing she noticed was a pair of swords pointed at her chest, then the arm they were attached to. As the shape became clearer, her eyes flickered from place to place, trying to take in all that she was looking at in one go, details resolving themselves slowly. It was big, maybe eight feet tall, and stocky too. Some sort of gray metal armor covered its shins and thighs, as well as its shoulders, chest, and back, topped with a mask of the same material, a grotesque face marked into the metal. Against its skin it wore some kind of fishnet body stocking, but its skin ... creamy white, with dapples of brown underneath the fishnet material, the bulges of obvious muscles under the surface pressing the skin taut.

Marisa couldn't resist the urge, and looked around its midsection, but her somewhat odd curiosity was thwarted by some kind of loincloth like garment. The arm that the blades at her chest were attached to withdrew, slowly, and the ... whatever ... relaxed its large claw-like hand. With a soft ringing click, the blades retracted back into some kind of forearm armor, and she saw a similar looking object on its other forearm. It stepped back a few steps and stood there, and even though its eyes were hidden behind reflective lenses in its mask, she could feel it watching her, waiting. She almost screamed as her friend put a hand on her arm.

"It's OK hon, you can breathe now." Marisa let out the breath she had been holding with a gasp, then stared once more at the being in front of her. She rounded on her friend and thumped her on the shoulder, hard, ignoring her friend's sharp intake of breath and the wince that crossed her face.

"You almost gave me a heart attack!"

-

"So let me make sure I have this straight." They were both sitting on the bed with mugs of coffee in hand, the hunter stood by the doorway watching them intently. She'd managed to find out a clean jogging suit to wear to cover herself. "They're a bunch of aliens who come here planning on hunting people for sport?" She nodded, smiling slightly at Marisa's tone. "But this time they came here to hunt those candy things?"

"They're called kainde amedha, it means hard meat in the Yautja language. Yes."

"So why was one of them in your bedroom? And what's all that blue stuff?" Marisa eyed her friend. "You aren't ... you know ..." She laughed, Marisa always had a one track mind, even now!

"No, we're not! I don't even know if it's male or female, let alone if the two species can mate. Jeez!" A growl from the corner told both of them what the hunter thought of the idea too. She sighed then, dreading trying to explain the rest to Marisa.

"The blue 'stuff' is a healing paste. It's in my bedroom because it brought me home last night because I wasn't in any condition to make it back myself."

"What happened?"

"I got into an argument with two kainde amedha. I lost." She figured it might be best to avoid mentioning her own hunting activities if she could get away with it. Marisa might be able to deal with the idea of killing aliens, but killing humans might be another thing entirely. Then again, it might have been a better topic to cover than Marisa's next question.

"How did you manage to get into a fight with a couple of aliens? And how do you even know them? You told it I wouldn't say anything about them, so I figure they kill anyone who knows about them, right?" She nodded slowly. "Well you know about them, and they haven't killed you yet. And I guess they bandaged you up too." She sighed and considered her response for a minute, then stood up unsteadily. Both Marisa and the hunter made as if to help her, but she waved them both off.

"I guess the easiest way to answer is to show you hon. Promise you won't hate me?" Marisa looked at her friend with one of 'those' looks, before sniffing disdainfully.

"I won't hate you babydoll, you should know me better than that by now." Marisa walked over to stand beside her friend, and put an arm around her shoulder gently.

She looked at Marisa and smiled softly, then reached over to the wall and pressed against it. They both stepped back as the door opened, the hunter moving across to get a better view. Marisa gasped as the weapons attached to the wall came into view, her friend crouching down to open the bottom drawer inside the hidden closet, revealing a near complete set of hunter's armor. The hunter clicked and growled in appreciation, as she straightened up again, lifting the mask from its shelf gently, and turning to her friend, who stood there in stunned silence.

"I know about them because one of them has been training me to be a hunter ever since I was ten years old, hon."

For once, Marisa was speechless. She looked at the mask in her friend's hands, at the one covering the hunter's face, at her friend's face, then back to the mask, unable to come up with a reply. She jumped, startled, as a voice came from the hunter.

"You got a name?" Her friend grinned at Marisa's reaction.

"You get used to that, don't worry. They can understand us, but they can't speak human languages, their mouths are shaped all wrong for it. They can play recorded voices though." She turned her attention to the hunter. "I don't know it's name, it never told me. I only know the mark it wears from its blooding." She traced the pattern of a mark on the forehead of the mask in her hands, and the hunter nodded, but didn't recognize it. It made a note to draw the symbol for the Elder when it had the opportunity.

"Can I hold it?" Marisa asked, curiously, and her friend handed it across. She raised it to her face.

"Press it to your face firmly, it will activate. It won't do much, it needs to be connected to the rest of the armor to have the full power it needs, but it has internal batteries or something for basic stuff when it's not connected." She did as instructed, but quickly pulled the mask away from her face.

"Everything looked so weird!" Her friend nodded.

"The default mode is a thermal one, it displays levels of heat. It can see a lot more, but not when it's disconnected." Marisa handed the mask back to her friend, and waited until she had put it back on the shelf.

"So what's it like in all of that stuff?" Her friend looked away for a moment.

"I don't know, I haven't worn it all at the same time yet." Marisa blinked.

"Why not?" Her friend took a long time to answer.

"Because I'm afraid that once I'm in all of it, I might lose myself to it. That somehow, I will stop being human."

"Don't be silly babydoll. No matter what you did, you'd still be human. You're too strong to let yourself be lost like that. I've known you for too many years to believe anything else." She didn't reply to this, not trusting herself to talk about the hunting she'd been doing, and her recent self-discovery. Hopefully, they could avoid the subject altogether - now that Marisa had seen the armor, maybe she'd be content with the idea that her friend was only hunting kainde amedha. They returned to the bed and sat on the edge.

"So the alien that's been training you gave you all of that?"

"A piece at a time. I had to earn it all, including this." She patted the case beside her. "Medical kit.", she explained. Marisa nodded.

"What happens when you've earned all of it?"

"I guess it will consider me ready." Marisa looked at her friend, something wasn't right about the way she said that.

"Ready for what?" Her friend looked her straight in the eye.

"To be hunted."