Naturalia non sunt turpia

She crouched down and ran her fingertips through the slime gingerly, before holding her hand up and showing her two companions.

"They've been here, but I can't tell how recently." Blade stepped over and took hold of her wrist as he looked at the mucous strands beginning to drip slowly off her hand back to the ground.

"Recently. It has only just begun to solidify." She nodded as he let go of her wrist, and flicked the remnants of kainde amedha saliva onto the ground before wiping her hand in the dirt. She flipped the protective shield covering the computer mounted on the front of her thigh up, pressing a combination of keys to bring a hologram up in front of her, then zooming the display in on their location to document their latest find. She shook her head as she stared at the display for a moment, then the hologram shimmered and disappeared as she closed the cover and stood.

It had been two days since they had attacked the garage where the eggs had been. Two nights of hunting, and two nights with no results. Again, the Elder had paired her off with the Second and Blade, and they were sweeping an area away from her usual hunting grounds, traveling along the rooftops to make detection less likely when they had come across the slime.

"This isn't making any sense", she muttered. Blade growled a query, and she looked up at him. "They're on the move, we keep finding where they've been, but we're not finding them."

"Neither have any of the other hunters", the Second pointed out, joining them. The two Yautja had grown to enjoy her company, and her insights. She had understood immediately that night the reasoning behind their request for permission to enter her nest, that her status now meant that they would accord her respect under the strict codes the Yautja lived by. Each night, once they had finished their search, they had tested her skills further, and all three would retire in the morning needing the healing effects of the blue liquid in their medical kits.

"That's my point. None of have. By now this area should be crawling with kainde amedha, but it isn't." She shook her head, staring at the puddle of saliva on the ground helplessly. "They're up to something", she said eventually. Both Yautja cocked their heads. "We took out, what, nine the other night? How many did the others kill?"

"Another five, but those were chance encounters", Blade responded in his usual short manner. The usually quiet weaponsmaster had been especially hard on her in the training sessions, criticizing most all of her techniques as being sloppy. He had pointed out that she had been hunting pyode amedha almost exclusively – the techniques might work against such prey, but against a Yautja she would need to be much tighter in how she fought. That hadn't prevented him from demanding she teach him some of the tricks she had developed herself, though, and often they had ended crouched down together comparing notes, as he returned her instruction with tricks of his own.

"We had the largest single group, but we were attacking an egg storage site, so it is reasonable that it would have had more guarding it", the Second added. "What could they be up to?" She shrugged.

"I don't know. Maybe we hit them harder than we thought, or got closer to the nest than we realize, and they're looking to relocate." She slammed her hand into the ground in frustration, kicking up a small spray of dirt and stones. The attacks by the copycats had continued, and escalated, with more places being hit, and she burned with the desire to find those responsible, but that was a minor issue as far as the Elder was concerned, he had instructed her to concentrate on the bigger problem – the kainde amedha and their queen.

"Are you that eager to earn another trophy?", asked a voice from somewhere behind her.

"I'm that eager to figure out what they're ...", she responded almost absently but stopped, her voice trailing off. Her heartbeat quickened and she started to breathe faster, her hand straying to the spear clipped to her right thigh, but the two Yautja with her simply stood and took a few steps back. She closed her eyes under her mask, willing her fears down.

"Now?", she asked quietly, amazed at how steady her voice came out. A laugh, deep and growling. Yautja.

"Not yet." She stayed crouched, looking ahead still, but her hand relaxed from the spear shaft.

"Do you have any idea how much I loathe those words?" A pause, then

"Yes."

She stood and turned slowly, and crossed her hands across her chest as a Yautja emerged from the air, turning its cloak off. The Second and Blade both inclined their heads in respectful greeting. Tall, his body crisscrossed with a large number of deep, ugly scars, the Yautja returned the nod while stepping closer to her. He put a claw under her chin and tilted her face up, the other tracing the mark scribed in the forehead of her mask. She stiffened slightly, but remained in position while he did so. After a moment, he released her head, then stepped back and nodded to her. She let her hands fall to her sides and looked at him, as the Second and Blade came up and stood either side of her.

"I forgot to thank you for saving my life the other night." He inclined his head towards her, then crouched, motioning to the three of them to join him. As they crouched down, he looked at her.

"I am glad to see you are finally using the armor you earned, although", he motioned to the weapon over her shoulder, "I see you have gained additional pieces."

"It's a loan, until this hunt is complete." He nodded.

"Honored Elder", the Second began, "you are the one who has been training this pyode amedha?" He growled an affirmative, still looking at her.

"As much as she has allowed me to, yes." She looked at him sharply.

"Allowed you to?", her voice rose, but a look from the Second made her hold her tongue, and she inclined her head apologetically as her trainer continued.

"As you can see, we still have some work to do on the subject of manners", he said lightly, to the clicking laughter of both Yautja. He looked at her again, and she could feel his gaze piercing past her mask as it always seemed to do.

The two Yautja had seen the stranger approach quietly and cloaked, but recognized the body language as non-hostile, at least towards them. When she had reacted to this new Yautja's voice, they had both realized who he must be, and had stepped out of the way to give them room, in case this was the time when he would hunt her. The Second had been relieved when the Elder had confirmed that she wasn't ready yet, as he didn't believe she was at the stage where she would have much chance against an experienced Yautja. Both of them watched curiously while the Elder spoke almost compassionately with her.

"You did well earning the mark. If it means anything, I was proud." She blinked ... He was proud? She took a moment to try and recover from the shock of his words, settling simply for inclining her head acknowledging him. The group was silent for a few minutes, and she finally collected herself.

"So why are you here?", she asked him, forcing herself to ask casually.

"I decided it was time to check on your progress and perhaps train you further." She cocked her head to one side.

"How am I doing?" She cringed inwardly, at his blunt response.

"When I arrived, I saw little improvement since last time." She growled an affirmative. Over the past two days she had been using the limited Yautja vocabulary she knew, and was capable of producing with human vocal cords, more and more, without thinking. She had even answered a question from Marisa earlier in the evening during a telephone call with a Yautja-like growl. At the same time, she had been understanding more without needing to "read" the words that the translator built into her mask projected in front of her eyes.

The way he had responded struck her, and she thought for a minute before asking her next question.

"And now?" He purred gently in pleasure at her understanding.

"A great deal of improvement." She was about to say something more when he continued. "You still will not survive hunting the queen." She blinked. He had said that so calmly that she had almost missed the meaning.

"Why not?" She asked eventually, her companions listening intently to his answer.

"You have a decision to make. You are still making the same mistake you have done from the beginning." She cocked her head to one side and listened.

"You try to being Yautja, or you try to be human. You will never survive hunting the queen, or be ready to hunt, until you stop trying to be either of those things." She looked at him dumbfounded, but both the Second and Blade nodded in understanding, many things becoming clear to them.

"I don't understand."

"You separate the two parts of you. You are human, yet you have received Yautja training, have adopted Yautja outlooks and practices. You try to be one, or the other, at different times."

He had decided it was time to speak with her when he had heard she was finally using the armor and had found out about the translator. Until that point, he had been forced to use loop recordings exclusively. He hadn't told her about the translator, a device he had taken as a trophy hunting on another world, even though it would have made things much easier for him, because he had been trying to force her to discover things on her own, as part of training her. Her obstinacy with regards to using the armor he had given her had been frustrating, and he was enjoying his ability to speak clearly with her now. It was time for him to break her out of her denial.

"It is for you to take your place as you, who and what you are. A synthesis of the two. Your worth as prey is for your uniqueness. You can never be Yautja, but you are not really pyode amedha any more either."

"You refused for so long to wear the armor, and only now wear it because it is necessary, because the Elder you hunt with demanded it of you. Every piece I created for you was given as you reached a symbolic point in your training with me, and in exploring each piece you would have discovered a new part of yourself. By refusing to do so, you have held yourself back, slowed down your training." He clicked a disappointed and frustrated noise that didn't translate.

"If you had accepted the armor as you earned it, you would have been ready for the hunt many planetary cycles ago." She stiffened in surprise. "Even now, you simply use it, you do not explore the limits, or understand the lesson you were given in the act that earned you each piece." The Elder cocked his head to one side.

"If you were still hunting humans during this hunt, would you do so wearing the armor?", he asked her, almost gently. She didn't reply, but she knew the answer, they all did. She wouldn't.

"The armor does not make you more of a Yautja, or less of a human. It is simply symbolic expression of who, of what, you are inside." He fell silent, watching her closely as she absorbed this new information. She would have been ready long ago, if she'd worn the armor? A thought came to her.

"My friend says that you want to hunt me because of my humanity." He growled a soft laugh.

"She is perceptive, but incorrect. You will be the challenge I seek when you accept your self and embrace it. I wish to hunt you because of what you are, when you are both, yet neither. It does not mean surrendering your humanity, it is a step beyond it." He leaned forwards and rapped the knuckles of one clawed hand against the shoulder plates of her armor.

"This is yours. It is Yautja armor, worn by a human. Find the point between the two worlds that is yours, and take hold of it. Make it your own." He rocked back from her, pointing to the mark scored across the forehead of her mask.

"You are blooded, you earned the mark hunting kainde amedha. It is a Yautja tradition, a Yautja practice, yet you only wear it on your armor, the Yautja part of you. You cannot keep the two separate. You can only be complete, and have a chance against the queen, when you realize this."

"That is what I have been attempting to teach you these many years. Each time you have come close, you have run away from it. You think you are running away from losing your humanity, but that is not the case. This is why I say 'as much as you allow me to'. Have faith in yourself. Your friend does, she accepts you. Why can you not accept yourself yet?" She was a long time in answering.

"Because it scares me, what I might become, what I might do", she almost whispered, and the three Yautja could sense her fear.

"You can not run from your nature for ever. And you can not control it until you embrace it."

"I can't hunt just any humans!" she exclaimed, plaintively. His response was short and blunt.

"Until you can, you will not be ready."

"Then I'll never be ready!" She near screamed at him, before leaping up and sprinting away from them across the rooftop. As she dropped off the end to a lower roof beyond, the Second made as if to follow her, but Blade held up a hand to stop him, looking to the Elder.

"Let me speak with her." He looked at her, as the Second crouched again, wondering what the weaponsmaster had in mind. After a moment, her trainer inclined his head, growling an affirmative.

"She will be returning to her nest." Blade nodded, and in moments was cloaked and gone.

-

He found the balcony window wide open as he turned off his cloak, spotting a human inside the main chamber of the hunter's nest – her friend. Tentatively he growled, and she spun to face him. He was taken aback as she strode towards him, he could feel the anger radiating from her in waves as palpable to him as the increased heat signature his eyes showed him .

"What did you do to her?" the human demanded. He braced himself as he saw her move as if she would attack him, but she calmed herself visibly, then shrunk in on herself. He recognized the shaking of her body as being a human expression of sadness they called "sobbing", and he searched the memory of his loop recordings.

"Can I come in?" "We need to talk." He watched her jump slightly, startled. They hadn't used the loop recordings often since the hunter had begun using the translator. She thought for a moment, then, resigned, motioned with her arm. Taking this as assent he stepped inside.

His hearing could detect the sound of the hunter crying from behind the closed door to her sleeping area, as he looked around the room. He could see her armor, scattered around the room as if thrown haphazardly and with force, as he followed the hunter's friend to the long seat. As she sat down heavily, he spotted the hunter's mask, thrown into a corner of the room, and thinking quickly he strode over to pick it up, then returned to the human and held it out to her.

"Take it" "We need to talk", he played on the loop. The human looked at him, then at the mask, and took it gingerly from him. Slowly she raised it to her face and he raised a hand to press it gently back, activating its electronics.

"Can you understand me?" he growled in his own language. She gasped as she saw the words scroll across her vision, laid on top of the disturbing heat-sensitive view the mask had activated with.

"Y ... y ... yes, I can. I can see what you say." He nodded, reaching down with a claw to lift one of her hands, pressing it against the mask. She understood immediately, and he was able to remove his own hand, before moving around in front of her and crouching down. Eye level to eye level, the two looked at each other. Eventually the human broke the silence.

"What did you do to her?"

"The Elder that has trained her came to speak with her." Her body went rigid. "She did not like some of the things she was told, and ran." The human nodded slowly to him.


He had watched her run from the Yautja, but he had been in the wrong place to follow her. When the weaponsmaster had left to find her, he had followed him instead, staying behind and using all the stealth he was able to. He was fortunate the weaponsmaster was so distracted, else he'd never have been able to stalk him.

He had watched as the weaponsmaster had ascended to the human's nest, and reached a vantage point on a rooftop opposite in time to see him speaking with the human. She had removed her armor, but retained her mask, with its undeserved mark. Using the abilities of his own mask, he magnified the view, noting down the details of the human, so he would recognize her in the future. He had been so angered by the Elder's acts that he had forgotten to do even that basic thing when this human had defiled them in their council with her presence, but he was not going to make the same mistake again.

Once he had her characteristics committed to memory, he left as stealthily as he had arrived, leaving no trace behind. His inexperience, and ego, meant he didn't notice the shadow that followed him.


"She came back in here and took everything off, she was crying and screaming but she wouldn't talk to me. She threw her armor all over the room then locked herself in the bedroom, she hasn't come out and still won't talk to me." He could tell the human's emotions were rising, her voice cracking. He made the same soothing clicking noises Yautja use on distraught children, but they didn't have any effect.

"She refuses to accept", he tried. The human looked up at him.

"Refuses to accept what?"

"Herself. She wishes to deny what she is."

"What is she?" They both started as the bedroom door slammed wide open and she stood there, naked.

"So now you're trying to turn my friend against me? Get out! I didn't give you permission to enter!", she screamed at him. The human pulled the mask away from her face as the hunter stalked towards them, but he remained crouched. The human spoke, trying to placate the hunter.

"No babydoll, he's not. He only just got here." The hunter rounded on her friend.

"And he's leaving too!" The two humans stood there for a moment, facing off against each other.

"No, babydoll, he isn't." Both the hunter and Blade were surprised at the quiet determination in the human's voice. "I want to know what's going on, and you aren't telling me. So I'll find out from him if I have to."

"No, Marisa, please. Don't." the hunter pleaded, beginning to cry. The human went around the seat to the hunter and held her gently as sobs wracked her body, stroking her forehead around the braids.

"You're my friend, babydoll. I can't help you if I don't know what's going on." She looked into Marisa's eyes, tears streaming down her cheeks.

"He says I won't be ready until I learn to kill people, humans. Even if they're not mobsters." Marisa looked to Blade, who growled. She looked at him without understanding, but the hunter translated for her. "He said 'Yes'". He growled again, a touch of anger in the sound. That was not what he had said. He gestured to the mask again. Marisa looked at her friend, the pleading in her eyes, then to the hunter. She lifted the mask, but handed it to her friend.

"Talk to him, babydoll. Find a way to get this sorted out."

"You don't understand!" she sobbed.

"No love, I don't. I don't need to." Marisa took a deep breath. "It's not easy accepting things about yourself, love. I know how hard it gets. I know how hard someone can fight against themselves too", she continued in a wistful voice. Her friend looked at Marisa, she'd never heard her talk like this. Marisa grinned, sadly. "I know because I've been trying to deny something about me for years, babydoll." Her eyes widened as realization slammed into her, and Marisa smiled softly, a scared look in her eyes.

Impulsively, her friend hugged Marisa back, hard, Blade crouching on the other side of the sofa, forgotten and unnoticed, as both humans cried, even the soft hiss of escaping gas as he released his mask from his armor and removed it being unheard. He had no clue what they were discussing, but waited patiently. It took time for the two humans to separate, their hands dropping but fingers laced in each others hands.

"Why didn't you say anything sooner, hon?" the hunter asked. The human looked embarrassed.

"Remember what you were scared of when I saw the teeth in the closet?" She nodded. "Same thing babydoll. I was afraid of losing you because of being me." The hunter laughed, taking her friend by the shoulders and shaking her playfully.

"You stupid, impossible, silly, beautiful girl!" Marisa blushed, then her face took on a serious look again.

"We can talk about it later, if you want to?", she asked in a small voice. The hunter raised a hand to wipe away the tears from Marisa's face, then bent her head forwards before placing a soft kiss on her forehead.

"Yes love, I want to."

Marisa smiled hesitantly, then raised the mask, and looked over at Blade. "You need to fix your problem first, babydoll."

She looked as well, then sighed.

"Yeah, I guess I do." She took one of Marisa's hands in her own, and her fingers felt the supporting squeeze of her friend. They both moved back around the sofa and sat down, and she looked into Marisa's eyes.

"The Elder that trained me said that I was trying to be two things – Yautja, or human. He said that I wouldn't survive hunting the kainde amedha queen until I learned to accept that I am both of those things, and neither." Blade growled an assent, nodding as he did so, and Marisa nodded in gratitude at his confirmation.

"Why can't you, babydoll?", she asked.

"You don't know what it feels like, hon. I felt it. When we hunted kainde amedha, and I took a trophy."

"I know, I saw you when you came home, remember? You were different, like you'd had a thousand orgasms." She laughed, trust Marisa to come up with such an analogy. Even in the midst of emotional meltdown by both of them, she still was able to maintain the personality that she loved in her friend. Blade growled something, and indicated Marisa place the mask against her face. Looking quickly at her friend, and seeing the slight nod she gave, she complied.

"She finally allowed the hunter within her to emerge. It has scared her that she could feel that way, her understanding that it is not the kill that created the feelings, but it was the hunt itself." Marisa nodded and removed the mask, repeating Blade's words to her friend, who thought about it for a minute.

"He's right, I guess." They were silent again, while Marisa tried to come up with a way to say what she was thinking without annoying her friend. Eventually, she spoke up.

"Babydoll? The hunters see it. That explains why they let you know about them and hunt with them, even though you're just a human. How many more do you need to accept you before you will accept yourself?" She took a deep breath and took the plunge. "You need to let go and just be yourself babydoll. They accept you for what you are. And I love you for what you are." She reached up and stroked her friend's braids, tracing them down as they fell across her naked chest, trying not to show any hesitancy that might deny what she was saying.

"If you are a hunter, then I fell in love with a hunter. If you have to let go so that you can be yourself, then let go." She reached up and took hold of Marisa's wrists, lifting her hands to her own cheeks to caress them gently, before kissing the palms of her hands softly. She took a deep trembling breath, and turned to face Blade.

"Do you believe what the Elder said?" He growled assent loudly, nodding his head. He pointed to the mask, and she raised it to her face.

"Would I have come here if I did not? I meant it when I said I would hunt with you again." She reached over him and placed a hand on his shoulder.

"We will have the chance soon enough. We have a queen to hunt." She thought for a minute. "You're the weaponsmaster for the group?" He nodded. "Would you help me with something?" He cocked his head to one side, and she smiled under her mask, looking around at the armor laying where she had thrown it. "I need some work done on my equipment before I hunt again."

-


-

She hissed her pleasure as the news reached her. One of her children had spotted one of the accursed creatures that had killed so many of its siblings, and had watched it from the shadows, undetected, as it had returned to its nest. The foolish creature had felt so secure that it did not bother to conceal its presence.

It would pay for its arrogance. She summoned her children back to the hive. Now it was time to plan.

They would all pay.

-


-

She woke slowly, stretching the sleep ache from her muscles. She was disorientated for a minute as she tried to remember where she was, but then memories came flooding back, and she purred. She could hear voices in the living room, one human, the other the gravelly growls and clicks of an alien. Seeing the sky outside the window was darkening, she figured that they had slept through the day. She rolled over and stood, stretching deliciously once more and savoring the feeling as her muscles tensed then relaxed, then grabbed one of the extra long t-shirts lying at the foot of the bed and draped it over herself, before padding quietly through the door. Hearing her entrance, the two figures by the sofa turned to face her, and she gasped.

Once uniform gray metal had been changed, the armor down the left side now marked with black and pale gray tribal patterns from mask to legs, the stylized TT burned into the forehead of the mask highlighted in muted silver. As she turned, Marisa saw the pattern repeated on the backpiece of her armor, even the barrel of the weapon mounted to her shoulder was marked. Her breath caught in her throat at the disturbing way the pattern highlighted her friend's form, and shivered when the shape wavered and faded into air, before returning to view.

Her friend walked towards her, and took her hands once more in her own, the soft otherworld fabric of the new fingerless black gloves rubbing against her flesh. Marisa stared into the now black coated eyeshields, before letting her gaze wander over her friend's head, seeing the freshly braided hair drape across her friend's shoulders. She pulled her hands from her friend's grip, and traced her fingertips over the hard surface protecting her friend, stroking briefly the armored housings of the vambraces that contained the jagged twin blades on either forearm. She looked over to the weaponsmaster.

"Nice job." Her friend giggled behind her mask, as Blade inclined his head in acknowledgment. She looked back as her friend disconnected her mask from her armor, and removed it. She could see a change in her friend's face, determination, perhaps peace as well. She saw trust there too, and her heart leaped with joy.

"Why the decoration, babydoll?" she asked.

"It's neither Yautja, or human, it's a combination of the two. Same as I am. If I'm going to be that on the inside, then I'll be that outside too." Marisa nodded, understanding.

"Good hunting, babydoll."