The nighttime of this planet was cool, but not terribly unbearable. The heat from his suit kept him comfortable as he ran through the trees of the forest leading along the small human, his savior. She was keeping up fairly well, but he could tell she was straining herself to do so. So he stopped and turned, grabbing her hand and yanking her up onto his back. Small hands wrapped around his neck, which should have made him nervous but her fingers were above his neck rings, and he knew this human would not do anything to harm him. He touched the marred flesh of her hand briefly, as if assuring this was the same human that had saved him, then he was off again.
Her weight did not slow them down. In fact not having to keep pace with her allowed travel to be much faster, and he climbed to the trees to make it even easier. He had seen her rage, the bright heat on her face in the recognizable pattern. She was angry at the man who hurt her suckling, adopted as he had to be for the scents did not match. He had not seen such wrath in any female yautja robbed of her suckling, and the emotion behind it was difficult for him to place, but he knew what righteous fury was like, and this was close.
This would not be vengeance like the shameful thing he had been pursuing. To attack sucklings was the mark of a bad blood. They had every right to hunt down and eradicated him. This was justice, and it was the human's to have.
The suckling, Tyke his name was, had shown great courage and ferocity, throwing himself at the larger adult when he had tried to attack Jitar. The child would make a great yautja, but Jitar had no intentions to bring anything back with him from this planet save the trophies he already harvested, and the ones he would harvest from the bastards that had taken his ship.
Jitar paused and bunched his legs beneath him for a split second before springing up into the trees, his preferred method of movement that this planet happily provided in excess. The human on his back clung tightly to his shoulders, making no complaint as he moved freely. He could feel her breath on his shoulder, slow and steady. He had seen anger in her, unlike he had ever seen before, even when she had saved him, no such wrath heated her face. It had been another emotion she had then, one he had no experience with.
This righteous fury did well to make him feel guilty for his desire for vengeance. Already he had thought of ways to atone for straying from the path. Another kainde amedha hunt, a trophy more valuable than a drone. Perhaps that would appease Ciujim, Goddess of the Path.
Jitar stopped and heard a small gasp. He looked over his shoulder at the human, flipping through visions to see if something was wrong. Her heart was beating faster, but it was not from injury or pain. She was becoming excited, no doubt for the hunt.
He turned and looked again. This place was where he had picked up the trail of the bad-blood human with his scout. From here he had tracked the human himself to the west, where the human had made a small camp for the night.
Jitar was careful now. Without the computer, he had no capability for cloaking, and only basic technology with his mask. Jitar looked over his shoulder again and lifted his hands in view of the human. He made the hunting sign for silence, then again, slower, when she did not respond. Now she gave an affirmative motion and he turned, leaping to the next tree and moving down its trunk to lower branches.
The human woman was still as she could be and silent. He could tell she was watching her breathing, as it was now very slow and shallow and he could barely feel it on his skin.
He followed the trail from memory, soon able to see the flicker of heat through holes in the cooler jungle. He moved slow, creeping carefully through branches until they were close enough. Very slowly he lowered himself and the human woman to the ground and crouched. The woman needed no prompting to remove herself from his back, also bending down beside him, giving him a startling revelation of how small she really was; a ball of heat he could easily carry in his arms, no bigger than a four-cycle old unblooded novice. This was really the human that slayed a group of her own kind? She seemed so much larger in his memory….
He caught her attention with his hand and pointed at the heat through the foliage. She acknowledged and looked, but still seemed unable to see the human man. His fire was gone, he was probably asleep. Jitar stood and moved closer, hearing the woman behind him. He could tell she was trying to be quiet but she was no sain'ja.
Jitar settled and pointed again, again the woman looked and searched, her strange vision blind to what was so obvious to Jitar. It was frustrating. Then he saw her shift, a jerky motion downwards to be more hidden. He watched to see what she would do, and she turned to look at him. He nodded, and from his leg removed his ceremonial dagger. It was not very different from others like it, but this one had been given to him by his sire, a master of knives. It held important meaning, and he handed it to her.
She looked at the blade, lifting her hand as if to take it and hesitating, just barely touching the warm hilt. He saw the marred flesh of that hand and, in his mind again, the female wielding her tiny blade in a whirlwind of panicked humans, ferocity dictating every strike as she brought one after the other down with a knife only a fraction of a nok. This would be a better blade. This fight would be better. He wondered what thoughts of glory must be going through her mind, gazing upon the weapon.
She retracted her hand. She stood abruptly and stormed out to the human male.
Jitar couldn't help but snort in confusion, watching her heat approach the prone form of the male human. He couldn't believe it. She was doing everything wrong. He watched her kick the form of the man, who jolted upward and she began yelling at him. His mask automatically picked up and recorded her voice.
"You!" she hit him again and the human male stood to his feet.
Jitar also stood and approached, bemused. Might as well throw the whole hunt off the path with the approach the female wished to take.
"You tried to kill Tyke!" she hit him again and he grunted and doubled, stepping backwards. She had hit one of the injuries Jitar had inflicted on the human as he had fled, he was not in good shape, Jitar didn't need his mask to see that.
"You stabbed him!" her shrill roar broke the air again, hitting him in the same spot, causing the man to cry in pain and fall back to the ground, "he trusted you! I trusted you! Why!? WHY!?"
"Do you really think I could have made that key?" grunted the male through his teeth, "this was all planned, every move, until that thing managed to escape"
Jitar stepped out of the trees. He didn't understand the words, but he knew when he was being insulted. The male crawled backwards, scrambling as Jitar approached and stopped behind the female.
"How did you know he was at my house?"
"I didn't," the male spat, "I was contacted, they told me it escaped, I knew it would go to you first."
"How could you possibly know that?" Jitar looked at the human female, her voice was getting gradually lower in tone, which was more pleasant on his ears, but with the lowering of her voice, her heat of anger was growing brighter. But this last statement was quiet, almost whispered.
The male scoffed still moving backwards, "because you helped it the last time."
The female suddenly grabbed her hand, rubbing the scared flesh and her anger was disappearing, "how did you know?"
The male human laughed, and the female tensed, "because I didn't kill my wife. You did."
Jitar heard the female stop breathing and figured now was a good time for their meaningless human conversation to end. He extended his wristblades and stepped forward, but the female's hand flashed out and grabbed his arm, stopping him. He looked at her. She did not look away from the human male.
"I'm the operations manager for the company. They told me that if they failed to catch it, it would run to you. I was supposed to report it when that happened, then I could do whatever I wanted with you," the human female didn't move as the male stood up, arm wrapped around his stomach, "and I promise you, I won't do it quickly."
The female's grip on Jitar's hand slipped away, and moved to her mouth. The anger was all gone now from her face and body, and she was breathing erratically. The three stood in silence for a long while, the male being the first to move, walking backwards from them. Jitar would not have any of it, jumping forward.
He heard the female scream at his back but he did not stop. His maul was off his back and in his hand in the time it took for him to close the distance between him and the male. The sleek warm metal slipped through the human easily, before he had time to fully turn to run. Jitar rattled, lifting the male's body from the ground, growling at the male's face before dropping him off his blade.
He felt small hands pull and push him as the human female fell to her knees by the human male. She put a hand on his wound but it was far too late. He would die, and she could do nothing about it. She made a small pitiful noise as the human male spat his warm blood on her face and moved his mouth as if trying to say something.
Soft noises continued to emanate from her throat, then his mask picked up words again, "I'm sorry," she whispered, "I'm sorry," Jitar jumped when he felt her hand on his leg and heard the ring of metal. She had his dagger in both hands, held above her head, "but your wife was a monster."
She stabbed the dagger deep into the male's head, ending his suffering swiftly. More than he deserved. Her hands fell away from the weapon and into her lap where she looked at them, hot with the male's blood, and whispered, "just like you," she swallowed,"just like me…."
She was still and unmoving, and her breathing was still erratic. Jitar let her be, walking around the dead human's body and wrenching the blade out of his skull. It didn't matter; it was not a good trophy anyway. Jitar cleaned the viscera off on the ground before replacing it on his leg. The human female still hadn't moved, and now she was making the sounds he knew to be mourning. But why?
Jitar cautiously walked towards her, looking down at her small form as it shook and heaved. He scanned her over then crouched beside her. With his claw, he gently prodded the side of her face. It turned towards him, hot now in a different way from anger. He did not understand why she was sad so repeated her words, "just like me."
The human female quieted down a little, shoulders still heaving every now and then, but then she grimaced in that way that meant humans were happy, though the heat still showed sorrow. She took his hand and used it to help herself up and he stood.
"Let's go Jitar," she said very quietly.
Her hand slipped from his and she turned her back to him, and he bristled a bit but let it die. She walked away, towards the direction they had come from; Jitar followed her into the trees. They were both silent as they moved at her pace, and he gave her a respectable distance, she was being noisy, which peeved him even though they weren't hunting anymore. He let it go. She was not sain'ja. She would never be sain'ja. She made this much clear in her actions. There was no real fight in her, she was too pacifistic. Too soft-hearted.
He clicked in quiet amusement. Maybe that's what he should call her.
His thoughts stopped when she stopped. He went still and silent when her heart suddenly raced. She stepped backwards, then turned running towards him.
"Run Jitar! Run!"
Jitar snorted. What was she screaming about?
"Run!"
He then heard a soft noise and she buckled. Out of reflex he caught her in his arms then looked around. There was nothing but jungle, what had hit her? What was she seeing?
Then he felt something hit him. He grunted and dropped the female, grabbing and pulling out a dart. He saw one similar in the female's back where she was on the ground, trying to lift herself. Jitar roared, maul back in his hand, wristblades extended on the other and stepped over the human female, standing above her. His head whipped left and right but he could see nothing. Where were the humans!? What was going on!?
He was hit again, then again. He swung his maul blindly, hitting nothing. Then he saw movement, a part of the forest shifted. It had the same temperature as the trees but he could see the shape of a vague human outline where an otherwise straight tree stood.
His gun swiveled and the human was obliterated by a ball of fire; the hot pieces of his body spraying outward. The humans were wearing some kind of suit that kept their body-heat contained. Clever animals. Now they were yelling and shooting him with more of those things. He knew how many he had been hit with before, and he knew it was only a matter of time before they made him sleep again. He stepped and swung at one voice, watching hot liquid pour from his wound, but he quickly stepped back to stand over the female as she was resting on her hands and knees still whispering that word and his name over and over again. He understood now that she was trying to get him to leave, to flee and not be captured, but not being able to see his enemy gave him no direction to run to.
He could feel his limbs tingle and go numb. His knees buckled as his legs seemed to forget how to hold his weight. He shifted so that he did not fall on the human, still trying to get back to her feet. He felt her hand on his leg and he turned his head to her.
"Run," he repeated to her the word for leaving.
The human female, breathing heavily, stared for a moment, then shook her head. Jitar groaned in his throat, trying to get his legs to obey, to stand on them and face his enemy. If she was going to keep fighting, so was he. But his mind felt heavy, and his body disobeyed every command, even the heat from his frustration struggled to reach his face. The maul dropped from his hand and his hand hit the ground, keeping himself up, from falling to the earth and losing consciousness. He had no bomb to detonate this time.
As he slumped under his own weight, he felt the human female push against him. He turned to look at her as she stood, using his shoulder for support, and when she let go, his dagger was in her hand.
His tresses fell over as he collapsed to his shoulder, watching with the last of his vision as the blazing heat of the human female stumbled forward, blade in hand, to fight his invisible enemy. He saw a spray of blood before cold darkness took him against his will.