So here I am, writing this and kind of taking it a direction I had not intended it to go. But I am still writing it. So I want Your reviews. Tell me what is good, what is awesome, and how YOU would like the story to go from here!
She could've gone without being exposed to the masses around her. The plants waved cheerily in the winds, the moistness of the air soaking her and making her feel as wet as she had been in the baths. The wounds ached but she silently bid them to leave her be. And thoughts waged war in her mind. So many questions and no one to answer them! What had the female meant by saying 'she would know' and that he 'has already chosen'? Would she be permitted to meet this female? Would she be allowed to see her? Or the child that would result from such union? A pang of jealousy shot her stomach and Xochyotl frowned at her idiocy. She could not be his choice, that would be more than dishonorable for him wouldn't it? Not to mention her King and the Queen of his peoples would never allow such a thing. But nonetheless she could not get the knowing jealousy to subside. She would resign herself to the fate of a slave though. He had done much for her since her rescue. Too much for her to ask for even a smite more. The white sheets betrayed her purity. She was not pure, now that she had thought of it. He had touched her already, and he deserved a pure woman didn't he? Pure as the white flowers surrounding this temple. She had been touched…wrongly and with false accusations, but she had been touched nonetheless. She was no longer pure. The girl shook her mind of despair that crept like vines to her heart and focused on the thought of a child from Cit'lal-I. What a sight it would be to see.
The hunter, the Amini, had decided his fate, his choice. He would fight for her heart, make her forget past aggressions, and teach her to love him. The way he had come to care for her. His armor clacked into place, shifting into more natural positions as the Amini, the hunter, strode the steps of the temple of healing. He would charm her the way humans charmed their mates. Wait…how was that again? He had never cared to look toward human rituals or mating procedures. And he knew from the odd "marriage" ceremonies they held that it was not always the woman's choice as well. He had to find someone who knew…and would not castrate him for his choice. The hunter shook his head as he mentally listed every human male or female he knew. The list was painfully short. He growled to himself, sending a few human workers in his wake fleeing. Stomping past the main hall, oblivious to his surroundings and to the young girl watching him leave, the hunter stopped at the topmost step of the temple of healing. He had none, no one to guide him in his little quest for love and life. He had a hidden path before his feet and a little girl waiting for him on the other end of it. He would have to slip, to stumble and fall until he reached the end. Until he reached her.
Wait! There was one, one person. He had wronged her, taken her only way of lively hood (that was honorable) and she might hate him for everything…but she was a chance. She could help. The mother. Xochyotl's mother. And sister wasn't it? Perhaps she could help too. He would go there, to the mud ridden grass fields of peasantry.
The grass was shorter than he remembered; the mud huts were more root-ridden. The people looked scared at his sight; they looked more than worried at his presence. Had he forgotten what he was? An Amini, a Hunter God. He ruled these people, they were his toys. He hunted them, these pathetic creatures. The mud hut in front of him, one of the most run-down but clean in the village, was supposedly the family of Xochyotl. It was clean, though looked as if it were made of dung. And the smell coming from the walls was terrible. The hunter god shook his head and grumbled before lifting the flap that served as a door. The sight that greeted him was more than gruesome.
A woman laid, the sheets of grass beneath her soaked in juices. Blood seeped between her legs and something was coming out. Another woman, much older and worn-out looking, was holding a cloth between the younger's legs and wiping what she could up. The Amini growled his disgust at human reproduction and stopped himself abruptly. Wasn't this what he was trying to accomplish? This horrid scene was the birthing of another human. Wouldn't his Xochyotl give birth this way? The hunter, armed with this train of thought, burst forward from the door and toward the women. Screams followed and shock glazed the eyes of the women present. The hunter, Cit'lal-I, sat down by the birthing woman and did what he knew to do for bleeding creatures. The kit at his back would stem the bleeding, but as for the young one coming from the girl, he didn't know what to do. The old one seemed to know what she was doing though…he hoped that helping them would earn something in return.
"Amini, why come to this hovel? Childbearing cannot call one of your status." The Old one frowned at the small child that ley still in its mother's arms.
The woman, silent now after her pained cries, cradled the blue child in her arms. It was still, hadn't moved even for the efforts of Cit'lal-I and the old woman. Many other women, whom had been present to help at the time, were gone now. Only Cit'lal-I, the old woman, and the young mother remained. The hunter, mask still on, stayed silent for a moment.
"I come for myself." Cit'lal-I growled "care not for the pains of human children."
"So it is. You come for selfish reasons? If the Amini can be called selfish." The old woman smiled
"Brazen human. U dare talk this way? Do you not fear my blade?"
"Have you seen my home, Amini? Look around you. Look at my daughter, the last surviving of my children. Look at her child, stillborn in the womb. Look at me, old and withered enough to have no uses left to my body. Amini, I cannot work and I cannot slave. I cannot whore myself for I am too old and withered to be attractive. Amini, I fear no blade or hell, for I live in it already."
Cit'lal-I was silent. He did look at the place he sat in. this place….had Xochyotl lived here? Slept here? Been abused here? A growl escaped the hunter's fangs and he looked at the sodden dirt floor. These people couldn't help him. They too didn't know what love was, they had never lived it. The young mother and her dead child, whom she attempted to breastfeed and the old woman, were in hell already. The hunter shook his head and looked upward at the small cracks in the ceiling. Light dare not even shine through to this hell-ridden home. The hunter stood to leave. He heard a sad sob and looked toward the young mother again. She was staring at him.
"Kill me. Save me. Save my baby. Save…save…" the woman fell on his feet, her dead child sloping against the sandals and clawed toes. The Amini, the hunter, felt pity for the women in this hut. In a moment of pity, the hunter made a decision. The wristblades at his arm unsheathed with an ominous schlang!
Something about the women disturbed him. The smiles they bore as he saved them, the woman holding her dead infant and singing softly. He didn't like this. Was this the fate of human women? Bear children, be raped and abused until they were used up and then to be spit out into the hells of this civilization? The hunter didn't want that for his human. She was…the only one of them that mattered. The hunter would never use her…would he? Cit'lal-I stopped at the hill to the village. Was he using her now? For his own gain? The hunter shook his head and grumbled. No, he wasn't using her and he never would. He would use himself; throw himself and his heart at her until she could see what he saw…until she felt this as well. And he would start…by treating her like a Queen.
Xochyotl stood; the bed she had used was nothing like the one in her…or rather his bedroom. The cot was comfy thought, and the bruises and cuts and broken things on her body were almost healed in just a few days. Cit'lal-I had been gone thought and she wondered what she had done to anger him. The white clothing she had been given still betrayed her feelings. She looked up at the main hall and frowned in confusion. There had been many more males in the temple than the past few days, of both species. Xochyotl shook her head in frustration and sadness. The mating season would start in a few days' time, and Cit'lal-I would be forced to choose a mate and…make babies. Xochyotl looked down at her feet; clean as they were she knew they weren't clean enough for Cit'lal-i. The hunter, the God's Messenger…tears welled up in her disobedient eyes. The first dropped to the floor. The second hit her white pants…and something shadowed over her.
Cit'lal-I, his mask on and armor shining against all of the plant life in the temple, towered over her for a moment. He growled a greeting and held out his hand.