If she didn't ache so much, she could swear that she had been beaten to death.
Her entire body racketed as she pushed herself up in her cot in the familiar infirmary and raised a hand up to her throbbing skull. Having been hit by every single NASCAR racer in the Sprint Cup couldn't even begin to describe how sore she felt. She groaned, even as a hulking shadow cast over her form and a large hand placed a cool slab of meat against one eye.
"Ok, ok," she managed to get out in a choked whisper, "Enough of the silent treatment. How bad was it?"
"Very," Sain'ja replied, eyes never leaving his work or meeting her own, "but then not so much." She raised a brow in question: It wasn't quite the reprimanding she had been expecting from her teacher and friend. "You showed great courage," he explained, "Great honor in the face of certain failure. To continue fighting despite the odds is a thing to take pride in, but," he placed his free hand on her shoulder and gripped it in a caring way, "there isn't any shame in admitting defeat when you know when you're beaten."
She hissed sharply through her teeth when he shifted her position to examine the large cuts along her back. "I don't suppose you have anything for that?"
"H'ko," he answered, "Let them scar. Not many young hunters can say they were challenged by an Arbitrator and lived to tell about it—especially right after their blooding; it's unheard of. No humans can either."
Gee: Don't I feel special? she could've said. She could've, but she doubted her sarcasm would've been taken kindly. So instead, she asked, "Not that I don't enjoy the company, but what are you even doing here? I'm fine really, tending to wounds is the job of a healer—not a warrior."
The growl was so low, it was barely noticeable, but still she caught it. "You're my student. That means you're my responsibility." It was a poor response—after all, Ehawee's and Liwanu's trainers weren't so attentive in this sense—but it seemed to be the only one she would get.
"The ceremony has been postponed," Sain'ja exclaimed, breaking the silence, "Again." Even though it was her Blooding, he seemed more perturbed than she about the continuous delays.
"Well, a few days spent in the kehrite and time will fly by." When he chittered in reprimanding, she added sheepishly, "But you're going to tie me to this cot if you have to to keep me from doing that, aren't you?"
"Sei-i," he nodded.
She sighed, "Figured as much."
"My father had a saying." He took a disinfecting salve from where he had placed in out the floor and began to smear it on the cuts, ignoring the way she cringed in pain. "'A hunter brings pride to himself and the Goddess when he hinders himself to honor his prey in battle. But only a fool forgoes his health in a blind pursuit of strength.' You will hunt soon, Dto-Raija, but only when you are fit to."
"So that's where you get your daily proverbs from," she teased. She grunted as one of his claws accidently scratched against one of the deeper cuts.
After that, the pair fell silent. Rarely did they ever mention their fathers to one another, for the topic was too awkward and unsettling. Each had grown into adolescence spiteful of each another's species, the deaths of their fathers causing them to long for blood spilt in return. Sain'ja had wished for her skull to mount his wall as a prize worthy to honor the memory of his sire: Nina had wished to slaughter the monstrosities that haunted her nightmares and took away so many of the people she loved. When they had met, it was with a loathing raised to new a height by the latter's capture for sport and training.
Not a soul from either race would've ever guessed that such hatred could've existed between them. They were a team unlike any other, and long buried grief had been relieved by further knowledge of the final moments of their sires.
But what occurred to lead to their alliance and later companionship had been such a questionable, strange thing. When Nina had gained the upper-hand in the hunt, she had been so close to ending his life with one downward swing of her blade. And yet she hadn't struck the killing blow she so craved to make.
Often Sain'ja had wondered over the eternal question of why. It was not that she was afraid to kill—she had proven that fact many a time by the trail of Bad-Bloods she had butchered like cattle. And there was always a hunger in her eyes when combating the Bad-Bloods; something strong that possessed her whole being until she bathed in the neon green blood of her opponent. The longing for vengeance had never truly ebbed away, but she had found a means of pacifying her wrath. What spared him from the blade others had fallen upon?
Perhaps there were better times to discuss such things, but he had let too many opportunities slip by to do so—whether it was a fear of losing the friend he'd grown so fond of or the fear of the answer itself, he didn't know yet all the same denied. And from the way fate had dealt them recently, it seemed that a time would soon come that he never would have the chance to ask. So, with a breath, he finally forced it out.
She didn't respond for the longest time—to the point where he wondered if she was even awake and the relief of what might've been a mistake had washed over him. But when she finally spoke, he froze still and tensed as is whatever she said would bear physical harm.
"You have to know," she sighed, "that I hated you and the others more than anything in the world. When your father came to Earth, he took away my entire family from me. Not just my father, but Hawkins, Blain, Mac, Poncho… They were all I had left—them and Dutch. I know they're just names with blank faces to you, but they were people to me. They raised me just as much as my own father.
"Call it intuition or whatever you want, but when that scout kidnapped us from the military school… Well, I think a part of me expected that day to come—even when I was little. I might have even been hoping for it, just to face the creature that destroyed everything even if it meant I died." But she couldn't face him now: She could only stare at the far off wall with her eyes somber and blank. "I was determined that if I could've survive in that jungle, I would murder every single hunter who faced me until I was either blasted with a plasma bolt or ripped apart by someone's wristblades. And when you killed Mike…" Her voice turned soft and she shut her eyes, gripping the mat beneath her with trembling hands.
She would never forgive him for that: He had always understood that and accepted it as an unchangeable truth. But he didn't apologize, for no such guilt existed for him to give. It should've been her, he thought, for he knew that would've been the only other outcome had the young human male not angered him so and sacrificed himself in her place so that she might breathe for a little while longer. She likely thought the same and that probably ate her alive more than anything else.
He had never really pondered over it before, but now he found himself thankful that the human had made the foolish act. Though she would've made a handsome trophy, he preferred Dto-Raija alive and well. He preferred her warm gaze kindled by the fiery spirit behind it to empty stare of a skull, her haughty laugh to a silent and slack mouth, and waking each morning to the light in her smile as they planned for the day to rays of the sun pouring through the window and glistening off of her bones set on a mantle. The once favored alternative now struck him as horrifying. To think of what was nearly lost…
"I wanted you dead," she whispered. "I wanted it more than anything, but when I got the chance I couldn't do it. Because despite the monsters I thought you were, you were willing to give me every opportunity to fight back. You didn't torture me, or toy with me, try to kill me when there's nothing I could've done to save myself: You always played fair, which is more than can be said about a lot of humans. I learned that you were sentient instead of a beast like I imagined.
"So I couldn't kill you. Or at least, not while you were down. You deserved the same respect that you showed me," she smirked, though her gaze remained dull. "Of course I wasn't expecting what came next—you capturing me only to heal my wounds from our fight. And I hated you even still then.
"But I fell in love with your clan fast, Sain'ja," she admitted, and finally a twinkle appeared in her eyes. "I love the devotion of community and brotherhood. I love that worth of a hunter's actions are placed above the worth of their looks or name. I love the honesty in the Yautja way. And you…" She reached back to clasp his hand. "You and the others were just like the friends and family I never thought I'd have again."
"Is that why you came back?" he asked, rubbing the soft skin of her hand gently with his thumb.
She nodded, "That and, for some reason, I feel like I'm closer to my father as a Yautja than as a human. Not just because of his remains being in the clan, but… I don't know. He was usually the silent type, but he could talk from dawn until dusk about what was wrong with the world and the way things should be, and a lot of what he believed the Yautja seem to think the same."
"Maybe if things had been different," Sain'ja said softly, "Your father and mine could've been like we are."
Nina snorted, but gave a single nod of agreement. "Who knows: Maybe they're up in heaven right now, sitting at a bar and sharing a drink as they watch over us." She laughed a bit when he tilted his head in confusion and then corrected, "Sitting in Centanu's hall."
"Maybe they are," he trilled back. It was a pleasing enough thought anyway. Helping her sit up as she gritted her teeth to contain a cry of agony, he began to wrap clean bandages around her torso. Once the task was done, he carefully laid her back down and said, "You need rest. I'll be back later to check on you, so don't even think about moving." His mandibles lifted in a grin. "Until the ceremony, I'm technically still your teacher and your senior: You have to listen to what I say. Therefore, that's an order, my student."
She laughed, "Ok, ok. I'm staying." She fluffed the pillow with one hand as if to further address that point.
As Sain'ja left the medical bay, he felt as though a great weight had been lifted.
That Pyode Amedha! That infuriating female!
Megedagik paced his chambers relentlessly. He had been counting on proving to this entire clan the nature of the human race—the follies and weaknesses that rooted within the heart of every member of their kind. They were pathetic, dishonorable, cowardly creatures who won their battles through the use of little tricks rather than true strength.
But the girl hadn't known when to quit: She knew all the right cards to play and when to play them. And for her to demand from him the defeat of an equal… He cringed with anger. Even Unblooded students on the Homeworld who he had taken from the streets and under his wing and had taught all essences of the hunt in his youth, had known better than to have the gall to get back up and press on futilely.
He had been given the task of keeping an eye on a Pyode Amedha apprentice once before—when one had been inducted into his own clan. He knew what to expect and what to look for before casting a judgment. By all means, he was through with his observations and it was clear enough that she followed the laws of his kind. But then again, so had the human male of so many decades ago before betraying the Yautja for the sake of another human. He wouldn't doubt this one to do the same, and he would not see another hunter lose his life for placing trust in the hands of such a despicable creature.
No matter. This was just a setback. When they reached the human world of Urth, all would see the truth. Dto-Raija—he sneered at the name—would have to draw the line where her loyalties lied and would cross a point of no return.
Even if by some miraculous chance she did pick the Yautja over her own species, she would be viewed in all hatred by her own race. A traitor either way, but then she shouldn't care, for she would've seen the light where the rest of her kind choose to remain in darkness to dishonor their species as they had done for thousands of years.
Even with the certainty in this plan, he was impatient to see it carried out as soon as possible. He couldn't stand the very memory of her scent and wanted this job over as soon as possible—to forget all about the Jungle Hunter Clan and their wretched human pets unless he could claim one for his wall.
He sat on his bed, folding his arms over his chest as he glared daggers at the few choice trophies he had brought with him on the journey. A Pyode Amedha skull stared back at him. Either he was losing his mind due to the boiling rage within or it was mocking him.
He couldn't let it happen again.