Author's Note: Not dead, and neither is this story. We're almost done. Just one (maybe two) more chapters to go. I will be opening a Q&A as part of the last chapter to question any queries and uncertainties relating to this story and their characters (I know someone mentioned Guan's eyesight, and many are not happy with Terry); so if you would like to have anything clarified by the author please feel free to comment/question it.
Disclaimer: All known characters belong to their respective owner(s); unknown characters belong to me. I am not making any profit from this project. Any questionable and potentially offensive statements are for plot and development purposes only and are not necessarily the thoughts of the author. This story is purely to entertain.
Chapter 7 - Mechanical Pencil
The mornings on this planet , especially on this part of the planet, were cold. They were dreadfully cold for him, and though the sun managed to warm up the woods as the day progressed, the heat from its sun seemed to have lessened. This meant that either the planet's day star was dying at an alarming rate, or the planet had seasons and he was in the cold one. He knew the concept of seasons; learned about them in Hunting worlds when they, his clan and he, would first arrive and it was hot and pleasant, and then return on another time on the same world and find it cold and uncomfortable. There were no such drastic changes on the Homeworld. There were certainly changes in light intensity and humidity, and variations in temperature. However, these seasons usually teetered from "more wet"; when the rains came and would flood the valleys: the cold seasons. And then there were the "less wet", when the rains became air and clung as thick blankets underneath the canopies of the forests that trapped the heat. He liked those seasons - missed them, even.
He did not like this alien planet's seasons and often found himself wondering why the humans chose to settle here when there were warmer areas in this world in which to dwell. There was a human outpost farther south, with more wood and stone dwellings, such as the females huddled close together that suggested a lot of humans lived there; an entire community, or clan, of them.
Maybe, like she, they chose to live here, but it was just as likely that they did not. Were they escaping or hiding? Banished? A curious thought he allowed himself to muse on through the wet hiss his mask made when it was lifted just above his cheeks just barely covering the top mandibles as he brought a fist-sized chunk of dried meat to his mouth; sharp teeth easily slicing off a piece that was only chewed on sparingly. It was just enough to make it moist and soft, before it was swallowed. The mask lowered again with a click and he exhaled. There was only so much of this cold air he could breathe before the sting scratched his throat and lungs and forced coughs.
Guan-da' was crouched on what had quickly become his favorite perch; the boulder at the side of the human female's dwelling that offered a good view of inside when the colorful cloths that shielded sight were parted. Though he had accepted the female´s return of his painting as a graceful, mutually-respecting truce, he still wasn't daft enough to let his guard down completely. For all he knew she must have known he had been there the entire time and had just grown tired of his snooping, sparing his life not so much as a display of mercy, but more so as a warning to not tread nearby again. She wanted her privacy, he could respect that. At least from a distance.
He kept his half-crouched, half-sitting position as he maintained rapt attention to the soft, golden-yellow glow of light from inside. Lifting his mask again, he took another bite and made certain to not breathe in as he did so to prevent any coughing. He didn't want to make a sound; not when she was creating.
The female kept a consistent schedule, which was good for Guan-da' because he liked this consistency; it meant he could settle into a schedule too.
The schedule was thus: The ooman woke late in the morning, which meant Guan-da' could go hunt for food and gather water – later mixed with a chemical that made it safe to drink. By the time the food was consumed and water drunk she would have already eaten her day's ration and started either on a chore or creating, and he would be at the rock, hidden from her sight with the blanket of background to cover him. Some days she would be working or doing things other than what he wanted her to do, and those days were very long and frustrating, and when dusk made its approach he departed to return to the warmth of the ship before the planet's uncomfortable cold reminded him why he hated this place. Other days she would be creating, either sitting on a stool and hunched over a table with a parchment, or sitting on a stool and hunch over that tall wooden structure that held the canvas – or something that looked like a very large, flat tome that held loose pieces of parchment held by tightly coiled rings. He liked those days. Except this one. She was creating, yes, and it was on the canvas-holder, which he liked best because it being upright meant he could see it better, but she was doing it wrong.
He did not look like that.
(-)
It did not look like that.
Terry sighed as she sat back, which meant upright, on the stool, cupping her chin with her free hand and absentmindedly smearing some black charcoal on her cheek with her thumb. Fuck, it wasn't looking right, not that a sketch was supposed to look anything more than a brain barf on paper, but she wanted something good to work with at least, and not only was it not looking good, it was not looking right. She glanced up at the top right corner of the canvas where the sketch paper was pinned. It was the sketch of the other day, the one with the canvas-warrior-thing-whatever it was, a partially done scribble that somehow seemed more like what she wanted it to looking like than the refined attempt of today. Eyes switched from the sketch to the drawing pad, then to the sketch, then the pad again. The only thing that looked reasonably okay was the entire lower jaw; a fleshy, break-like protrusion with sharp teeth that had two elephantine tusks jutting out from the sides that curled inwards, almost touching but not quite, like an upside-down saber cat's skull –
Huh. That could work.
In the minuscule second she mentally mentioned the saber cat she saw her halfway made creature's lower jaw and the saber cat's saber teeth connect with a click that was as good as the chemistry of the two ideas. Yeah... The charcoal returned to the drawing pad with renewed enthusiasm, trying to catch that idea on paper before it disappeared, as was ideas' nature to do. A moment of brilliance that quickly muddled into something unrecognizable.
As her hand made the charcoal scratch the paper pad in wandering loops so did her mind wander as to where the hell she had put her sketchbook. It had been missing for a few days now and though she had looked up and down, and up and down again, and even some left and right through the house that damn thing just wouldn't let itself be found. Fuck. It had almost been full, too. She couldn't find that horrible, ugly painting either and when she had found the door open, unlocked, that morning she figured she must've thrown it into the woods somewhere. Which meant that – damn – she could've just as well thrown her sketchbook out too. Well, she hoped it made a damn good nest for magpies or squirrels.
Whatever.
Still... The sketchbook was hers. Sure, there were only scribbles and studies, but there were several pieces in there she had grown fond of that she was going to use for another time, like another personal project or pitch it to her studio to see if it could fit somewhere, or even to sell for quick money, but now neither of those options were possible for the moment because though she could quickly come up with something else there'd always be that nagging, annoying tick in the back of her head that wanted to really remember what those pictures, those ideas, looked like, but wouldn't be able to recall. Then have that equally annoying feeling that though what she drew was close it was not what she had sketched. Like a damn itch that couldn't be scratched. What she had sketched before was good shit, and what she could come up later would be just okay shit; and though everyone else would like it and coo over it she'd know it was shit. She wanted her skethbook back, dammit.
At least she had this sketch. No longer did she question the nature of her fantasies or the cause of such, it was all mental, all psycological stuff that played with one's mind. Being drunk was like being scared, in a way; shadows that flicked on a response that was nothing in reality, but you ended up feeding it more the more scared you got and it the end you end up running for no reason, just because you thought it was there. Terry had just learned to roll with whatever her mind fed her instead of questioning it. Monsters were nothing to be scared of because she had created them; they weren't real.
Dirty grass green eyes narrowed in concentration. Again, it was important that the sketch look – and feel – right as well as close to her idea as possible because not only was she supposed to like it, but she had to make others like in that singular, excruciating judgemental span of a second called first impressions. Especially to that special species of vultures called producers that had no damn talent but a lot of say and swagger. They wrote the zeros on the checks so this was as close to prostitution as any artist got. Actually, fuck that, it was prostitution except that instead of sex, art was traded.
The sketch started simply enough – two ideas slapped together – and eventually started to mold on its own as though it was the paper that was holding the stencil and guiding over its surface and not the other way around. She was just keeping that charcoal upright and letting it be guided in quick strokes like some sort of freaky Ouija board. She let it happen, and whatever that it was that was letting it happen turned out to be a sharper, more refined version of that original scribble. It sort of looked like a fucked up baboon with a flat, nose-less face, saber teeth on its upper jaw and tusks jutting forward on the sides of the lower jaw. A wild mane of thick, black hair sat atop its head that cascaded down the back. When the jaw closed the saber teeth would fit neatly in between the tusks. Fleshy cheeks fell over the tusks. It wasn´t handsome, but it was right.
(-)
It was so wrong.
His frustration increased in the form of fast mandible clattering as he forced himself to play audience to a creator that was mocking him. There was no denying of the talent she possesed for recreating what she saw to intimate perfection and detail, so he was not exactly certain for the reason behind this... blasphemy. He thought they were in truce! Maybe this was her form of retaliation; mockery through art. Ouch. His tusks were not teeth, his mandibles were not tusks, and was that hair on his head? Clawed fingers twitched in the air, hands high above his head and forward while he moved his hands in a way that suggested he was trying to control the stencil she held from where he was, far away, or at least really, really wanting to; fingers curling in the same way she held the stencil and trying oh so very hard to control her hand and amend that horrible caricature. He was forcing himself to stay put less he barge through the domicile and have his final, courageous act before he was mauled by that female be snagging that stencil out of her hand, shoving her out of the way, and show her on that canvas what he really looked like...!
Even if he had no idea what he really looked like.
Both hands lowered; the taloned nails of one making a near inaudible rasping sound when he raked his fingers down the sides of his metal mask. There were few, if any, reflective surfaces on a yautja ship, or that any yautja would possess. The hulls were dull, as was the armor, and the most reflective thing he had was a hand-wide piece of flat metal that he had polished until it mirrored what was in front of it; such as the parts of his skin – or on the skin of others – that required more eyes to guide the ink blade true as it would have been difficult to tattoo his own chest otherwise, especially his neck, but it had never occurred to him to have that metal look at him, his face. He knew what he looked like, relatively, as he was yautja and looked as other yautja, and yatuja looked different from each other enough to be told apart by sight; though scent was a more reliable confirmation. But no warrior had developed to tell each other's faces apart as a primary form of recognition since the masks were rarely removed outside of one's own clan. Thus, he could tell his clanmates apart from each other by sight, yes, but could he be able to tell apart himself from his clanmates? What did he, Ca'halzao, look like?
Ah. Dangerous thoughts. Individuality was frowned upon and not something ingrained in his culture. Other clans and warriors knew one by name, not sight. It was more accurate to describe, and recognize, a stranger by their accomplishments rather than their appearance. The pack was all, the group was all, the clan was all. Though his clan, the Goib'te, consisted of thirty-seven strong individuals and all Hunted together, his pack were just two others – the fast-footed Sarobe and Ler'ke'me of the dual-swords; and they were waiting for his return, or his lack thereof.
Dark yellow eyes glanced to the window, what was beyond it, and returned his attention to the human and her representation of himself. And scowled. He certainly did not look like that.
An urgent beeping chirped through his left gauntlet and the sudden severing of his attention because of it was so abrupt that he nearly lost his footing, and mentally chastised himself for allowing his thoughts to string him away from focus. It was becoming more common to find himself thinking, and not down the path of linear, focused thoughts that lead to a goal. Instead, it was thoughts he shouldn't be thinking about until he was old and brittle in body. Philosopher's thoughts. Maybe he was born too young.
Guan-da' brought his gauntlet up, flipping the protective cover open to confirm what he already knew those beeps meant: Time was short.
The Elders did not care if Guan-da', or any Hunter, ever returned from these private Hunting excursions, but they did care that nothing of these visits was left behind as evidence for the natives. There was a certain grace period allotted for each Hunter, a reasonable amount of time for them to catch prey and return to their Mother Ship, and after that time was spent their ships and wrist devices would engage in a simultaneous countdown that would trigger self-destruction. Self-destruction could be activated manually by the Hunter if he found himself cornered, but distant activation was a precautionary fail-safe.
Guan-da' pressed a sequence of codes, a return signal that asked for a countdown delay, but an immediate, and angry, return beep confirmed that not only was his code firewalled, but knew that it would not have been possible to grant. All Hunters obliged by the same rules. He had four and a half of this planet's standard day cycles to return with his trophies.
C'jit! Trophies.
He snarled loudly. If he had been mentally finger-wagging before for daydreaming then he was outright kicking himself for this blunderous oversight. So distracted he had grown in observation that he had forgotten about what he had come here for to begin with! Embarrassed and shamed the snarl lingered and slowly faded as his thoughts returned to a strange, linear focus, eyes narrowing when they focused on the female just beyond the glass as he slowly rose. He would amend his err; he was a Hunter. His status against Ler'ke'me depended on it.
There was only one thing left to do.
Dual blades snapped forward with a dry rasp.