Extra territorium ius dicenti impune non paretur
After watching her hunt in two of the mob houses, the weaponsmaster had been satisfied with how she was adjusting to her modified armor. She had adapted her techniques to the armor well, although he thought she was still concentrating too much on the two long blades clipped to the inside of her calf armor. He considered requiring she leave them behind the next time they hunted, he'd have to discuss it with the Second. The size adjustments had been harder to make, the metal of the armor not being easy to reshape, but he'd managed to remove the chafing issue completely.
He had been surprised when she had still only severed the spinal cords of her prey and removed some of their teeth, rather than taking what he considered to be 'proper' trophies, but she explained that she didn't want to change that policy, preferring that her future prey know it was the same one attacking them. Her decision made sense, and was a good indication to him that she was starting to come to terms with the idea of what she was, and was becoming.
Daylight was still several hours away as they crouched in a multi-storey parking structure near the third building of the night, watching the comings and goings as she prepared to make entry, when she noticed the scent. Smiling to herself fondly, she turned just as the Second turned off his cloak and stepped up to join them, crouching down partially as convention, and partially to avoid being noticed over the low wall, even this high up. He looked at her modified armor and its color scheme critically, before turning with a clicking laugh to the weaponsmaster.
"So that is what kept you awake throughout the day. You were being very mysterious." Blade laughed in return, removing his mask.
"She had some curious changes she wished made, they were a challenge to produce." The Second growled in understanding and turned back to her, removing his own mask as he did so. She was getting better at reading Yautja facial expressions, and could see he was concerned.
"How do you feel?" he asked her. In answer, she turned to one side, bringing the two skulls hanging from her hip into view. His eyes widened with surprise, and he looked from her to Blade and back again. Deliberately, he raised one hand and placed it on her shoulder, giving it a gentle shake and purring with pleasure. She inclined her head in gratitude, letting out a purr of her own, and he laughed as he removed his hand and dropped it to his side.
"I was going to question you hunting again so soon, I was finishing scouting this area when I saw you both move into position. I see now that I had no need to be concerned. I am curious as to what helped you, though". She looked out into the night sky for a minute before answering.
"That first night, when the Elder had me wear armor, he sent you back to the ship to fetch the pieces I was missing." The Second nodded, remembering. "Before you came back, we came across a pair of pyode amedha attacking someone. I was going to intervene but the Elder stopped me. I made sure to remember them though, for later. Tonight, Blade was having me test the changes he made to my armor, we were resting for a bit, and one of those two men showed up with some of his friends. They had a human female with them, they were going to rape and probably kill her."
The Second's eyes narrowed in annoyance at the concept, but he kept silent as her voice grew quiet.
"I don't know what I felt, if anything. I was moving and killing before I even thought about the why. I looked in his eyes as he died, the guy from that first night, and I didn't feel anything really. He was just prey, and he'd lost." The Second nodded, before Blade interrupted.
"She did vomit afterwards, but that is perhaps understandable. She had hunted two humans, taken trophies. She was the one that suggested the remains be hung." The Second looked at her in surprise, but held his silence as the weaponsmaster continued. "I thought it would be helpful to let her hunt the human bad bloods, to help her remember hunting that she has had little difficulty with emotionally in the past. She has hunted two locations well, this was to be her third of the night."
The Second looked over the wall to the building below thoughtfully, then growled a negative. Both she and the weaponsmaster cocked their heads.
"There has been no trace of kainde amedha anywhere tonight", the Second explained. "Both Elders find this of concern, and have instructed all hunters to stand down and rest. They believe that we will all need it soon." He looked at her. "You should return to your nest now. These bad bloods will be here still another night." She nodded. "We will return to the ship, and meet at your nest just after nightfall." The Second paused, looking at the weaponsmaster, who looked positively embarrassed.
The Second cocked his head to one side in interrogation, and Blade reached into a pouch at his waist and pulled out a small black stone on the same sort of thread she had used to hang the bodies of her kills with. He held it up in front of her, and she held out a hand to cup the dangling medallion, her turn to look at him curiously.
"It is a hunter's symbol", the Second supplied, respectfully, and the weaponsmaster growled in agreement.
"While I was modifying your armor, I made that for you. I had thought that perhaps it would help you with coming to terms with yourself. It might not be necessary, given the events of this night's hunting, but it might yet make things easier for you." He released the pendant and she caught it easily, turning the flat stone over in her hand and feeling the design embossed on either side.
"It is given by a trainer as a mark of faith in a student", the Second noted helpfully. "When the hunter is blooded by someone other than the one who trained them, this adds their trainer to their history and lineage. It means that he", the Second inclined his head to the weaponsmaster, "permits Yautja to know that he has tested you and considers you worthy. By his standards, that is, although those are held in high esteem amongst Yautja." She thought it over for a minute.
"And the Elder who has trained me hasn't given me one because ... ?" The Second laughed.
"Probably because he will be the one to blood you properly, when he decides you have earned that." She nodded, and looked to the weaponsmaster as she removed her own mask. Once it was clear of her face, she bowed her head and crossed her hands over her chest in the gesture the two Yautja had come to recognize as her way of showing respect. Blade inclined his head in acknowledgment, and as she straightened up she hung the pendant around her neck, then replaced her mask.
"I will honor it as I do the mark my armor wears, and will the mark I intend to wear." The Second looked at her and clicked a laugh.
"She still has a young blood's confidence." Blade laughed, and both Yautja placed their masks over their faces once more. "Get some rest young blood. You have earned that much at least." the Second continued, standing. She grinned behind her mask as she and Blade followed suit, and as they cloaked she felt a pang of camaraderie with those two blunt-spoken aliens. If the time came where they hunted her, she would do her damnedest to be worth the effort for them.
-
She came in through the balcony door and was startled when there was no sign of Marisa, who had become almost a permanent feature in the past week sprawled out asleep on the couch. Then she smiled to herself as she remembered. Moving quietly, she entered the bedroom and stood there for long minutes, looking at her friend through the heat-sensitive eyes of her mask. Marisa had curled up into a loose ball, cuddling one of the pillows, looking so peaceful that she hated to risk waking her up. The hidden warning of the Second's instructions to get some sleep, that she would need it soon, came unbidden to her mind though.
Once the closet was opened and the security device had half blinded her making sure she really was supposed to be there, she quickly removed her armor, stowing it back in its drawer. It was only as she started unfastening her belt that she realized she still had two human skulls hanging from it. She looked quickly to the bed, right into Marisa's eyes. She had woken as her friend was disrobing, and was watching her curiously. Marisa smiled up at her friend, but said nothing, so she turned back to the closet and unhooked the skulls before placing them either side of the shelf where her mask rested.
Once she had finished undressing, all her equipment tucked away securely behind the booby-trapped closet door, she hesitantly slipped between the covers. She shivered as Marisa stroked a fingertip down the curve of her spine, but when her friend spooned in behind and wrapped her arms wordlessly around her, she realized that everything was still going to be OK, and finally allowed herself to fall into a deep, dreamless, sleep.
-
When she woke, Marisa was already dressed and bustling around in the living room. She yawned, then after managing to find a clean nightshirt wandered out to see what her friend was up to.
"You need to wear more than that, babydoll." Marisa greeted her. She blinked in confusion, walking over to the counter and pouring herself a mug of coffee. After a few sips, she was finally coherent enough to risk articulating a "huh?", and Marisa laughed.
"It's a beautiful day outside, there are vampires have seen more daylight than you lately." Marisa paused and looked at her. "Er, vampires don't exist too, do they?" She laughed, shaking her head, and Marisa smiled brightly before continuing. "So I figure you need to get out some." She began to shake her head and explain she needed to catch up on rest when Marisa came over and looked at her seriously.
"Babydoll, they said you sit on both sides, right? That means you need to have a life as a normal person too. You need to keep your perspective." She blinked. Her trainer had said Marisa was perceptive, but she hadn't expected that sort of comment from her. She thought it over while Marisa stood there, and eventually had to agree with her friend's logic. She tossed off the last of her coffee, and started back towards the bedroom, but as she drew level with Marisa she impulsively gave her a hug and a kiss. Marisa laughed and licked the tip of her friend's nose, then extricated herself from the hug.
"Go get dressed, babydoll, and we can go shopping!" She groaned theatrically - Marisa was still Marisa, despite meeting aliens, coming within an inch of being killed out of hand, revealing her taboo love, and coming eyeball to eye-socket with two fresh human skulls. She sighed to herself, she had no idea what she'd ever done to deserve a friend like that. She wasn't going complaining, though. She was coming to believe that her chances of being able to find herself and remain sane might have increased exponentially with Marisa becoming involved, although she still was afraid for her friend's safety.
As she dressed, she looked regretfully at the gap in her armory. The long blades she'd worn for so long had been made for her specifically, perfectly balanced, just the right length to be concealed under her clothes and not bind as she drew them. But she had lost one when the kainde amedha had almost killed her the other night, its tempered blade molten to vapor in an instant's exposure to the corrosive blood of hard meat. She tried just wearing one, but it didn't feel right, until she had an idea, and rummaged in one of the side drawers of the weapons closet ... no, her trophy vault, now.
She quickly dug out a scabbard and fashioned a harness to run under both of her armpits from an old shoulder holster. Fashioning a loop from the cord contained within her armor, she attached the scabbard to the cross-over section of the improvised harness, adjusting the hang until it the scabbard sat against her spine. She fastened the bottom loosely to the belt loops of her slacks, and tried drawing the blade from behind her. It was a little awkward at first, but with some adjustments to the length of the loops, and the harness itself, she was able to get everything arranged in such a way that she could still draw the blade fast if the need arose.
She added a handful of other small blades to their hidden pockets in her clothes, and turned to head back to the living room to see Marisa standing quietly in the doorway.
"Why do you need those, babydoll?" She looked down, unsure how to answer. "I'm not upset or anything, I just want to understand you some more." She nodded.
"Remember last time we were at the mall? Those two guys wanted to rape and kill me. If I hadn't been armed, they might have had a better chance of being the ones to win. And ever since I started hunting, my life has been in danger. It's easier to have them and not need them, than need them and not have them." Marisa nodded,
"Makes sense. Let's hope that you don't need them!"
Three hours later, she was considering using the long blade to slice up Marisa's credit cards, it seemed like she'd gone wild, and for a while she wondered if Marisa was really handling everything as well as she'd appeared to be. She knew Marisa was reasonably well off, they both were, living from investments they had made over the years that had matured incredibly well, but when she looked at the receipts at each store, she thought Marisa's funds were getting hit harder than a kainde amedha tail could slam into someone's chest.
They had made their third visit back to the car to drop off bags of shopping when Marisa finally decided it was time for something to eat. She had picked a different mall for this trip, one a little more upscale than the one where her friend had turned her would-be rapist into something almost, but not quite, resembling chunky salsa, so she decided to skip McDonald's and instead dragged her friend to a bar that she swore blind served good food too.
She had to admit, Marisa's taste in eateries was better (in her opinion at least) than her taste in clothes, and she dug down into the first proper meal she'd had in nearly a week. She reasoned that it was actually probably for the best, if she was going to need her sleep as much as the Second had hinted at during the night, then she should probably stock up on food too. It took them a good forty minutes to finish their meals, and when they were done both felt bloated and contented. As Marisa was waiting for the waitress to return with the check, she was going to have words with her about putting tomatoes in her "packed lunch" of the night before, when she sensed someone come up behind her, crouching down.
"I know who you are, bitch", a voice hissed in her ear, venomously. She turned slightly to see who had spoken, and came face to face with a woman. She looked disturbingly familiar, but there was a maniacal look in the stranger's eyes that made her consider reaching for a weapon on the spot. Marisa noticed the newcomer to the table and looked on nervously.
"I'm sorry, do I ..."
"I'll bet you're sorry. I know who you are", the woman interrupted, repeating herself. "I know what you've been up to." She blinked as her mind worked furiously trying to figure out who this was, and what she was talking about. A chill hit her suddenly as she finally came up with a name to place with the face.
"You're that reporter from ..."
"Yes, and if you don't do what I tell you to do, I'll plaster you all over the six o'clock news!" She was beginning to get irritated at the interruptions, but she wasn't about to take being threatened. Marisa beat her too it, though.
"I'm sorry, but we're just trying to have lunch here, and you're bothering us. Please leave, or I'll call a cop." The woman laughed, a short sharp laugh on the wrong edge of insanity.
"Shut up. Go ahead, call the cops. See what they think about your friend here being a mass murderer." Marisa's mouth opened and closed a few times as she tried to think of an answer, her heart beating a thousand times a second in her chest. "She knows!"
"I'm sorry, you must have me confused with someone else." The same fear had gone through her mind at the reporter's words, but her reaction was the opposite of Marisa's. She could feel her mind slowing, focusing, switching gears into the hunter's headspace instinctively. This woman was a danger. What to do about her?
"Oh, no, I remember you, bitch. Remember your big alien friends? The warehouse that blew up? I saw the whole fucking thing. And I saw you." The reporter prodded at her with one perfectly manicured finger, most of her hand covered in white bandages. Her voice was becoming shrill, but thankfully was still low enough that the general noise of the bar drowned it from being heard by the other patrons. "So if you don't want film of the whole thing all over TV, you'll do what I say." Playing for time, she nodded slowly, trying to put a dejected, resigned look of surrender on her face.
Marisa tensed across the table as she saw her friend apparently capitulate to this crazy woman, but a slight shake of her friend's head stopped her from saying anything further.
"Fine, but not here. She", she said, inclining her head towards Marisa, "has nothing to do with anything. Leave her alone, and we'll go talk." In her deranged state, the usually perceptive reporter missed the signs of her caving in too easily, and didn't recognize the dangers. She gleefully stood and imperiously gestured for her to follow, so sure of her victory that she didn't even bother to wait, but instead started towards the door direct to the street outside. She slowly rose, leaning over to give Marisa a quick reassuring kiss on the forehead.
"Head back to the apartment. I don't want her following you, I can lose her easier", she whispered. As she drew back, Marisa caught her eye.
"Are you ...", Marisa's voice trailed off as her friend shook her head.
"She's unarmed as far as I can tell, so she's safe. For now." Marisa didn't like either the way she said it, or the 'for now' part, but nodded quickly, trusting that her friend wouldn't be impulsive. She waited until her friend had left, before quickly paying the check and leaving.
As she got outside, she noticed the reporter a few yards along the sidewalk. She forced herself to maintain the impression she had been cowed into submission as she walked slowly up to the woman, who snapped impatiently at her.
"Let's get something straight from the start. When I say you do something, you do it quick, got it?"
She came up to the reporter and looked up, and it was the turn of the reporter's blood to turn to ice. The look in her eyes was cold, hard, emotionless. But it was the smile she allowed to spread across her lips, a smile that didn't reach those killer's eyes, that caused Kylie's heart to leap into her throat. She was about to back away when hands toughened like steel through training reached up and grabbed her by the upper arms, swinging her until her back slammed into the wall of the mall. Vice like fingers tightened, pressing deep into her bicep muscles until she tried to scream in pain, but the look in her opponent's eyes held her, and all she could manage was a whimper.
"Let us get something straight from the start, lady. When you say something, pray I ignore you. You do not want me noticing you. You do not want me seeing you. And you very much do not want to get involved." Her voice was soft, patronizing, but held the promise of dire consequence. She looked down as she heard a pattering noise, and laughed inwardly as she saw the reporter had wet herself in fear. How quickly the reversal of fortunes.
Kylie tried to bluster, running out her threats of exposure again, the curses, the insults, but she simply looked at the terrified reporter, and realized that she was too far gone into some irrational hatred to reason with. Briefly she considered the utility of simply killing the obnoxious pyode amedha, but her reassurance to Marisa rang in her mind – she's unarmed, off limits. Not worthy prey.
She doubted if this woman would be worthy prey if she was armed to the teeth. That perhaps was the ultimate condemnation, and as the thought came to her, the reporter could see it in her eyes. She wasn't making any headway with her threats, because the bitch simply didn't care.
There wasn't anything more she could do. She'd given the reporter fair warning. If she didn't back down, then she'd be fair game, for threatening to expose the Yautja. Part of her hoped she'd be just that stupid. She let go of the terrified woman's arms, and simply turned and walked away, leaving her sobbing gently, surrounded by a growing puddle of her own wastes.
-
-
He'd waited on the rooftop across from the pyode amedha's nest for hours. The Second's decision to abandon hunting for the kainde amedha early had seemed like a blessing in disguise, giving him the opportunity to get some rest, then awaken early. He had explained his leaving the ship during daylight as being his wanting to check something he thought he'd seen during the night, and it had been readily accepted by the guard on the ship ramp.
It had taken him all of his willpower not to speak up when the weaponsmaster had recounted how this mere human, this prey, had dared to take trophies. It wasn't enough that the Elder had blooded her, but they were treating her like she was somehow different. He knew the truth, she was there simply to be hunted. To give her armor, to blood her, to let her hunt – all these things were making a mockery of everything it meant to be Yautja. It mocked him.
The solution was simple. She had to die. And she had even provided him with the perfect scapegoats to take the blame. She had hunted kainde amedha, and she said she killed all of them that she had fought, but they only had her word for that. Who could say that she hadn't missed one? After all she was just a human. Who could say that she hadn't been tracked back to her nest, and the hard meat hadn't exacted their revenge on her?
Let her own arrogance be his alibi.
It would mean having to forgo collecting her skull for his trophy vault, the kainde amedha didn't take trophies, but he could live with that. She would be dead, and things could return to normal. He could participate in the kainde amedha trial, kill many of them, and be marked as a blooded hunter, to return home in pride. No prey was going to get in his way.
He fingered the short stabbing spear he had fashioned from a kainde amedha tail spike. He had taken it from the site of one of the battles with the hard meat another team had been in the other night, curse them for having had the chance he kept being denied. Curse her for denying him. He should have been selected to hunt the egg storage, he should have been training under the Second and the weaponsmaster, catching their eye with his skill. Not her!
"Let us see what they think of her skills when they think she fell to kainde amedha in her own nest."
He stiffened as he watched through the window in the balcony door as a human entered the nest. He quickly changed vision modes, scanning and magnifying, until he could see her heat characteristics.
"Yes!"
He rose and padded across the rooftop, checking his cloak was still active, before dropping down to the ground, maneuvering across the quiet road, then beginning to ascend the metal structure affixed to the side of the building. He quietly made his way to the correct level, then edged out across the wide stonework to the balcony, until he was there, within reach. He looked in through the window again, but had a momentary panic as he couldn't locate the pyode amedha. Only the sound of rushing water could be heard, and after a second he clicked a low laugh. The human was bathing herself.
"Good. That means she will not be near her weapons."
He quietly entered the living room, and located the bathroom easily. Still cloaked, he looked through the door just as the sound of water stopped, and he froze. Ste stepped out from behind a fabric partition onto the tiled floor, reaching up for a large cloth hanging from the wall. He was grateful to her for concealing her ugly body with it, and once she had secured it around herself, she leaned forwards to allow her hair to drape downwards. She wrapped another cloth around it, and as she rose up he saw the perfect opportunity, with her hands busying themselves securing the smaller cloth. He stepped forwards, bringing the short spear up and plunging it into her chest.
He saw her eyes widen with shock and pain, and he turned off his cloak, so she would know who had beaten her, who had proven themselves more worthy. He watched as her eyes showed alternating fear, questioning, and betrayal, and he twisted the kainde amedha tail inside her. It was only then that she screamed, a long quavering cry of despair and agony. He wrenched the barbed tail free, dragging a spew of blood and viscera with it, and her cry was choked off as blood bubbled up from her lips.
Knowing it would only be moments before other pyode amedha, hearing the scream, would come to investigate, he turned quickly and activated his cloak as he ran through the open balcony door and leaped out into space, confident he could handle the fall with no difficulty. As he left, he heard the soft thump of her body landing on the tiled floor.
"All so easy."
-
He heard the scream, and knew it to be a death scream. From her nest! He had been climbing the fire escape, planning to see for himself the changes the Second and weaponsmaster had reported in her, and he started to run, jumping six steps at a time, the metal treads bending under his weight at speed. He glimpsed from the corner of his vision something falling from above ... a cloaked Yautja? He ran faster, fearing the worst. He leaped across the intervening gap between the fire escape and the balcony, swarming over it and barreling into her nest. He switched vision modes quickly, looking for the heat signature of footprints, and tracked the hot-red trail of human and Yautja feet to the bathroom.
He roared in anger as he spied the body on the floor, the rapidly spreading pool of blood beneath showing as crimson in the heat-sensitive mode of his mask as it did in visible light. He rushed to her and turned her over, then was confused – the heat pattern wasn't her. He looked at her wound, a jagged slice to one side of her breastbone. Switching modes, he scanned her internal organs and saw they were severely damaged, shredded by the removal of the cruelly barbed ... "kainde amedha tail?" He dropped her back to the floor, whirling round and checking the rest of the nest, but he found no trace of her or kainde amedha.
Perplexed, he returned quickly to the bathroom and looked down on the female, noticing her breathing was ragged and shallow, her heartbeat stuttering close to failing. If this wasn't her, then it must be her friend. Thinking quickly, he started trying to save her life.
-
She was in the elevator when she heard it, and her heart stopped. She knew. Frantically she stabbed at the button for her floor, as if that would speed its ascent, but with maddening frustrating slowness it continued its stately progress.
An eternity later, the doors opened, and she was through them before there was anything closely resembling a gap wide enough for her. But her desperation, her terror, drove her through, ripping the long blade strapped over her spine loose to dangle by one cord.
She slammed into the door, stumbling as she went through the only-latched barrier.
"Marisa?" she cried out, running into the bedroom, then headed to the bathroom to stop dead at the doorway. Crouched over the bloody remains of her friend ... her love ... was him.
She screamed, and tried to draw the long blade from behind her, but with the cords having come loose she couldn't grip it well enough for it to come away. As she struggled to pull it free, he stood and in one long stride was on her. He wrapped his arms around her, trapping her own arms against her sides. She struggled and kicked, trying to bit his shoulder, all the time looking at the body of her friend in a circle of scarlet blood and flesh. All at once she moaned, a long drawn out exhalation of despair, and he released her to collapse to the ground a boneless heap.
-
When she regained consciousness, she was lying on her bed, her closet open and her mask on her face, with him sat on the end of the bed, watching her. She was eying the distance between the bed and the drawer with her armor in it when a voice from his loop recording made her pause, blinking hard.
"Cally."
Her voice.
Her name.
She backed down from the brink of her own madness for a moment, stunned. He had never used her name, not once, not ever.
He growled something, and she read the words as they scrolled inexorably across the bottom of her vision.
"I did not kill her." He said it perfectly calmly. "If you wish to arm yourself and challenge me now, that is your choice, but your death will not bring to justice the one who has done this." It took her several tries to make her mouth form coherent words.
"You never used my name before", she mumbled.
"I thought it might help in preventing you from doing something rash before you had the opportunity to hear an explanation", he replied, simply.
"So explain", she demanded sharply. He didn't react to her tone, instead laying out what he had seen, and encountered when he arrived.
"I did all I could for her. I know she was your friend." She started crying, then, huge sobs wracking her body as the tears flowed freely. He watched her, impassively, until she was reduced to rapid coughing sobs.
"Who?", she asked when she was finally able to take a breath.
"I could not identify the Yautja responsible. But it is probable that he will betray himself", he replied. She nodded, then looked at him, but he gave no other response. After a few minutes, she stood and crouched before the closet, opening her equipment drawer and beginning to equip herself.
"If you go there in anger, or seeking vengeance, you will lose", he said. She whirled on him, still crouched down, and the tip of her spear, the one the Second had given her, sprang out to come to a halt an inch from his mask. He didn't flinch.
"I won't lose."
