Yeyinde pt. 1

She hit the wall angrily with her left hand. Only one hour had passed since Vraa'hn had taken her back to the cabin and she was already getting tired of staying in bed. She needed to be training, needed to get stronger. Whenever she closed her eyes she would see Mahwa's gleefully smiling face. He was hell bent on making her realize her place as a lesser hunter; a soft meat. She hated herself, hated the way she looked, hated her pale, fragile skin and small form. She gave herself a once-over in the mirror on the opposite wall. It wasn't a pleasant sight. Her nose was broken I so many places it wasn't funny anymore. Her hair cut short so that it wouldn't get in the way and her green eyes were obscured behind black and blue swellings. She snorted at her body's proportion. It was thin, athletic but lacked strength. She hated that too. Even if she could avoid getting beaten she still never succeeded in hurting her adversaries as badly as they could hurt her.

It was a good thing she was aboard the male yautja's ship and not the female's. She had only seen female yautja three times in her life and that sight had been terrifying. They were huge and she had heard from Vraa'hn that they were lethal in battle, even to a honored hunter. Yeyinde didn't dare to think about how badly beaten she would be if she was forced to train with them. Yeyinde starred at her reflection and thought about how much she would have liked to have a body like a female yautja. They were long, graceful, strong and deadly. Merely their reach was frightening. Her short arms had nothing to put up against theirs where reach was concerned; even her legs were too short. Still, however much she feared the females, she missed the company of others from the same sex.

She stared out in space, lost in thought. The yautja didn't often mate for life, as she had been told that soft meats did, they sailed their own ships, hunting their own preys and only met up on the home planet to mate every ten years or so. It did happen though that a male and a female would like each other so much that they never mated with anyone else and then a life-bound was created. Those two would hunt together and live together until death. Yeyinde sighed; the thought of mating was a distant one for her. To begin with it wasn't even certain that yautjas and soft meats could mate and have pups together. And even if that was possible, against all odds, then there still was the fact that she was terribly ugly and weak. No self-respecting hunter would have her and that was that. She knew that she was fertile though since she bled every month. Yeyinde snorted; remembering three months ago when her bleeding had started. Her first thought had been that she had hurt herself and that some interior organ had collapsed, the pain she felt certainly suggested that. She had gone to the medic that had given her an examination and when he explained to her what the bleeding was she had felt embarrassmed beyond words. Yeyinde wondered if female yautja also bleed as often as she did or if they felt the same pain that she did. They probably didn't.

"C'jit!" she cursed, hitting the wall again and felt the welcome pain in her fist. "I can't stay here."

If she couldn't train then she needed to find some other way of improving her fighting. Yeyinde got up from bed, feeling a bit wobbly but paid her legs no mind. They, at least, wasn't broken. She got out in the corridor and stood still for a while. It could be dangerous to walk around the ship on her own since some yautjas liked to torment her. As far as Yeyinde was concerned there were two kinds of hunters on this ship; those who bullied her and those who ignored. The former often being un-blooded or young bloods and the latter being older hunters and Elders. She preferred to be ignored. The only one that paid her any mind without hurting her was Vraa'hn, her Yau-th. She smiled at the fond memories she had of him; of the times he had played with her when she was young and the times he had tried to comfort her when she was sad.

Yeyinde started to walk down the corridor, constantly on her guard. It wouldn't do to be surprised in this condition. She wouldn't be able to defend herself and even if yautja didn't hunt weaker pray (due to the code) there was nothing that stopped the un-blooded to prey upon her. She wasn't exactly pray. She was considered to be a very weak clanmember, something that was despised and the young learnt at an early age to hate weaklings.

'Weak', she thought to herself and grimaced. 'There must be a way to make up for it.'

She took the stairs to the next level of the ship and ended up at the service floor. The space ship was huge and there was always the risk of getting lost. Yeyinde had done so many times in the past. Even ending up at the commando bridge once; something she had severely regretted afterwards. As far as she knew the lower levels of the ship was the engine levels. She had her cabin on the sixth level together with the other un-blooded hunters. The thirteenth and fifteenth levels she knew very well, they were the infirmary and training levels. She rarely ventured higher up than that except for when she visited Vraa'hn on the nineteenth level where he had his quarters. Higher up was the commando bridge and the Elders' quarters.

She came to a standstill when she heard familiar voices further along the corridor. Her blood ran cold. It was Kwo-hn and Kul'vir, two of her seniors in the training group. Two bullies with too much muscle and no sympathy. Mahwa favored them and often allowed them to get away with being cruel to her. They were not as skilled as Duh-kwe'h, whom she actually respected even if he had beaten her black and blue this morning. She had actually almost beaten Kwo-hn once or twice, but Mahwa had always stepped in and stopped her. She licked her lips, any moment now they would come around the corner and spot her. In her current state she wouldn't be able to defend herself. Not as if she ever had been able to stand her ground when they were more than one, but at least she would've been able to avoid major damage. She didn't have the time to end up in the infirmary for two weeks again. A broken arm was enough and there was a limit to how many times the medic would be able to patch her up again. She drew a deep breath and prepared herself as the two un-blooded yautja came around the corner. They stopped and starred at her. As if they never had seen her before. They always did that, Yeyinde suspected that they were playing some silly game of 'look it's a soft meat aboard the ship' to make her feel even more alienated.

Kwo-hn was huge for his age, standing almost as tall as Vraa'hn with enough muscle to keep up the appearance of a small Quw'leh. He had greenish skin with black stripes and yellow eyes. Yeyinde didn't care for his appearance. There were far more attractive hunters around; her Yau-th only to mention one. Kul'vir on the other hand was a different story; he was a sly bastard and not as tall or bulked as other yautjas his age. He was quick though and deadly in his finesse. His skin was dark, almost black with only a couple of brownish spots. His eyes were almost red. They made an odd team; where Kwo-hn was the muscle and Kul'vir the brain. She bit her lip and hoped against all odds that they would leave her alone and for once consider her not worth the effort.

Hoping, of course, was in vain. Kwo-hn's face split up in a huge grin. His mandibles clicked eagerly.

"Tarei'hasan", he said mockingly. "Are you already up and about? I thought Duh-kwe'h taught you to stay down today."

"As he taught you then", she retorted. "If I remember it correctly you fell down on your ass too."

Kwo-hn growled at her, showing of razor sharp teeth.

"Kwo-hn, at least, had the dignity not to faint from fright", Kul'vir answered for his friend.

"I didn't faint from fright", she growled, becoming angry against her better judgment. The best way of tackling the two giant bullies would be to ignore them or just let them have their fun and be done with it. A pray that didn't fight back was uninteresting. "He knocked me out. You too would faint if Mahwa allowed Duh-kwe'h to batter you the way he does me."

"Don't compare me to yourself", Kul'vir snarled. "I can take a beating."

Yeyinde was about to retort that she too could take a beating but realized just in time that they probably all too willingly would provide her with that. Instead she shut her mouth firmly, pressing her teeth together.

"That shut you up good, didn't it?" Kwo-hn said, disdain all too evident in his voice.

Yeyinde lowered her head. She didn't want a fight but she couldn't back down either, that would be cowardly and she was many things but a coward was not one of them. Vraa'hn did, after all, constantly remind her of that she was the brave one. She didn't fight back when Kwo-hn's large hand gripped around her neck, not even when his claws buried themselves in her flesh, drawing blood. He pulled her off the ground and she stayed completely still, trying not to think about how it became harder to breathe. Fighting him on his terms was out of question. She couldn't use her right arm and even if she could have the odds were against her. He brought her face close to his own and she imagined that he could smell her fear and perhaps also her anger. She didn't know what amused him the most.

"It would be so easy to break your neck Tarei'hasan", he whispered, his breath hot against her cheek.

"Then why don't you?" she answered. "Are you frightened?" She knew that urging him to snap her neck probably wasn't a good idea but she also knew that he was forbidden to kill something that was unarmed and didn't fight back.

Yeyinde did her best to stay perfectly still.

"I'm not frightened", Kwo-hn roared in her face, spraying saliva all over her face. "Are you calling me a coward?"

"No I I'm not", she answered. "I was just wondering."

"Don't let her get to you Mei'hswei", Kul'vir said, always the clever one. "She's winding you up."

Kwo-hn gave her a dirty look that told her that he very much would've liked to pound her into a bloody mess on the floor. She gave him a passive glance back even though she had trouble breathing in his iron grip.

"It's not as if you really count", Kwo-hn hissed. "You're not prey, you're Tarei'hasan and no one would speak up to defend you if I just-" he squeezed her neck a bit harder. "-happened to snap your neck."

"Vraa'hn", she gasped.

"Ah! Him", Kwo-hn sneered, almost sounding happy as he did so. "He's as bad as you. It's an insult to the clan to keep Lou-dte Kaleis like him aboard."

"Don't insult-", she gasped feeling more and more faint and angry. No one insulted Vraa'hn in front of her while she was still alive and breathing. Though Kwo-hn, would probably have the latter fixed soon.

"What, do you get angry when I talk about Lou-dte Kalei?" Kwo-hn taunted.

Yeyinde felt that this was about as much as she could take and remain passive. Crying out in rage she grabbed hold of Kwo-hn's arms and used them as support when she drove her right foot straight into his groin. She earned a satisfying groan from him as he bent over in unmistakable pain. Yeyinde was prepared when his grip around her neck loosened and she landed on the floor gracefully. She had no time to celebrate, though, as Kwo-hn reached out to grab her again. She fell backward and avoided his swipe for her legs. She turned around and found Kul'vir standing there, not actively participating in the fight but he made it clear that he wouldn't let her leave if she tried to make a run for it.

Kwo-hn lunged at her, fist closed in a way that would shatter her bones if it connected.

She saw it coming and sidestepped, on the principle that the best way not to get hit was to not be in the way of a punch. He passed so close to her face that she could feel the wind on her cheek. She came to her senses quickly as she saw an opening in his defense. She got in range and smashed her knee into the softer flesh of his belly, just below the ribs. Kwo-hn grunted in surprise and she danced away, circling, alert for an opening. It was imperative that she stay out of his grasp since he easily could crush her with one fist. This environment was to her advantage though; she was quick on her legs and could maneuver far better than the huge un-blooded could. She danced in range again, keeping well away from his heavy punch. She was used to this kind of fighting, the problem was to finish it. She couldn't muster all of the strength that was necessary to take Kwo-hn down. She landed a heavy kick on his knee, earning herself a satisfying crunching sound and her opponent roared.

She was about to go for his head next but misjudged his reach and was mercilessly tackled to the ground; her head hitt the hard floor and her broken arm hurt like hell when she had to suport her weight on it. She screamed in rage and pain. Kwo-hn's huge fist came down toward her head. She would die if it connected. She closed her eyes, bracing herself for the oncoming punch and-

It never came.

She stared up and found Kwo-hn's fist only a few inches away from her face. She gulped and realized that someone was holding the gigantic un-blooded back. She caught the sight of an even larger hunter behind Kwo-hn. Someone she recognized, but it wasn't Vraa'hn. It was-

"K'han", Kul'vir growled upon recognition.

"Get out of my sight", K'han growled and literally threw Kwo-hn off her shivering form.

Both Kul'vir and Kwo-hn growled their excuses and left without as much as a protest. Yeyinde got up from the floor on shaky legs; feeling the adrenaline high in her veins. She stared at the huge hunter for a while. He was perfect in every way, strong and tall without looking out of proportion and his skin was all black except for a few greenish spots on the forehead. His dreadlocks were long as well, adorned by silver rings and ornaments. He had a lot of trophies hanging from his belt; some of them from soft meats. Yeyinde felt how a cold shiver traveled down her spine. She bowed to him and prepared to leave but was stopped by a heavy hand on her shoulder.

"Not you", he growled.

She swallowed against her dry throat.

'What did he mean?'

Yeyinde - ("Brave one")

Lou-dte Kalei - (child maker (female) and a male insult)

Pyode Amedha - (Soft meats, humans)

Yau-th – (guardian, someone who's family)

Pup - (child)

Tarei'hasan – (insect, lesser being)

Quw'leh – (a huge lizard)

Mei'hswei - (brother)