CHAPTER FIVE
It was dark. There was stillness.
The silence tore at K'Shai. She wanted there to be commotion, somehow it seemed more appropriate. Sitting in the quiet dark of the medical room, listening to nothingness was agitating, unsettling.
The ambient heat added to her discomfort as she sat sweating, having stripped down to nothing but her tank top, bra, and jeans which she cut off to shorter than Daisy Dukes. She had even removed her shoes and socks in an effort to help stay cool.
The dim amber hue of the back lighting behind the barely illuminated the red-tinged metal walls, emitted heat, making the ship essentially a giant oven, perfectly suited for the Yautja, and incredibly uncomfortable for a human.
The only additional light sources were the bright white and red flickers information that scrolled along a series of monitors above her head, above the bed where R'chnt lay in deadly silence.
She thought about removing her bra and shorts, doubting anyone would notice or care, but the discomfort of the heat in the jag'd'atoll Clan ship was the least of her worries.
She wanted activity; commotion. She wanted a bustling busy scene; a distraction from the silence, the waiting, the nothing that was slowly suffocating her.
The only sounds she could hear were those of her heart beating frantically in an alarmed pace that had not ceased in days, and the weak, raspy breathing of R'chnt, which she could only hear if she held her own and put her ear near his mouth.
He was so strong, so proud, so powerful, full of life and vibrancy that never conveyed his four-hundred-thirty years of existence.
R'chnt was mighty. He was a warrior. He was cunning and intelligent and deadly. He had survived and hunted and lived as a Yautja should, and she had come to know him as nothing more than a totem of alien confidence and certainty; her steady and strong rock that could power through anything.
Now, as she sat next to him, refusing to leave his side, she clung to his hand, rested her cheek against his chest and held her breath, listening for those two powerful hearts pounding away inside that had always brought her comfort and reassurance.
One had stopped entirely, the other had been beating so weakly and erratically that the smooth and steady rhythm she could rely on to soothe her was gone.
For days, she listened to him struggle to breathe while his body fought to recover as his second heart slowly resumed normal function, weakly, thanks to keen medical intervention from L'ruch, the elder healer of the Kaunte Dar'een Clan charged with tending to the needs of the hunters that came to him for treatment of their injuries.
K'Shai had watched him work on R'chnt, when his battered and gored body was brought from her world to the Clan ship after prompting a visit from Neh'rti herself to gauge the events that had occurred.
K'Shai was barely aware of what had transpired after it all happened. It seemed like time froze and flew by all at the same time, like she had no real power to understand what was going on while everyone else whirred around her.
W'rsa had said leave R'chnt to die; not out of desire to take his place, nor desire to see K'Shai pained by the loss, but because it was the Yautja way.
R'chnt had lived a powerful, noble, fearsome life, and was honored with status higher than most others of his kind ever achieved. It was right, it was proper, it was expected that he should die with honor in battle on a hunt, exactly as had taken place.
Her body shook, she clenched her jaw tightly, fighting the urge to vomit from anxiety, stress, and panic as she watched Carlos work quickly to tend the wounds, barking orders to nurses and Lewis and any available hand nearby who could help while W'rsa stood questioning her motives.
K'Shai had tuned out of the scene entirely. Her hands and shirt and pants were soaked in R'chnt's blood, her skin was pale, and she felt ready to collapse.
She clinged to him, squeezing his hands, unrestrained tears falling down her cheeks as she sobbed over him, then she fell silent, standing over him watching the trauma unfold around her like a movie on fast-forward.
R'chnt had started convulsing, someone cried out to hold him down and even W'rsa moved in to do so along with one other Yautja; Human and Yautja together, working over R'chnt for her sake, trying to save his life and neither group really knowing or understanding why.
Carlos moaned a concerned evaluation of the injuries. Skin, fat, muscle, and internal organs he had no idea the function of, were tattered and shredded. Arteries were spewing blood and Lewis who had been tasked with listening to R'chnt's heart rate had announced it to Carlos.
"I've got two-eighty, maybe three hundred, it's hard to…"
"That's more than four times…" Carlos had started. "He's in massive shock. Hold him!"
K'Shai recalled that was when she tuned out. Everything and everyone bustled around her while it was just her and R'chnt in the stillness amidst the storm.
He was seizing, gurgling, coughing rattled breaths, spewing blood from his mouth, his eyes rolling into the back of his head, his skin turning pale.
K'Shai could not move, breath, or do anything except stand in shocked horror, fighting the urge to collapse. She vaguely recalled noticing the sun billowing in from the afternoon sky through the window nearby.
It seemed so strange to her that the sun could be shining so happily oblivious to what was transpiring on the conference table-turned operating table, under a spotlight of duct-taped together flashlights someone was holding.
When she refocused herself, she removed his belts and body armor with W'rsa's help, exposing his body from the chest down to the thighs so Carlos could access the injuries more easily.
"I'm going to try to stop this bleeding. If there's some kind of medical facility on his ship, he really should be taken there right now."
She looked to W'rsa, who called for a shuttle after some additional protest that this was not the Yautja way. K'Shai did not care if he thought the gods were calling R'chnt; she would fight them, she would not lose him.
Carlos had said the shuttle was too far out, too long of a ride; R'chnt did not have that kind of time, so he got to work doing the best he could, announcing his observations and process as he went.
Whether he was looking for help, correction, or guidance, she did not know, but no one spoke except for W'rsa who warned K'Shai again to leave R'chnt's fate to the gods. The medic of the Yautja group was dead and any additional help was simply too far out.
"He will not live," W'rsa said again.
She watched him now, laying in utter quiet stillness and thought back to the events of that afternoon. She turned on W'rsa; an anger raging in her that she had not ever experienced before; certainly not towards any Yautja.
She struck him, screaming, crying, fueled with shock and confusion. W'rsa backed away, bowing his head respectfully, taken by surprise by her sudden outburst.
She did not even notice the look of complete shock on the humans gathered around who were stunned that anyone would dare start beating a massive alien hunter with their fists while screaming at him.
W'rsa turned to leave the room as Carlos demanded everyone who did not need to be there get out. K'Shai did not let go of her grip on W'rsa's arm and quieted herself, asking him to stay, which he did.
Eventually, she wasn't sure quite when, he left. It was long after Carlos did all he could and R'chnt was lowered to the floor to rest on a clean spot of blankets.
She tucked herself against him and tried to hear those powerful hearts, but the familiar and comforting sound was gone. When Neh'rti appeared hours later, she greeted K'Shai and R'chnt respectfully, but did not hide her surprise that he was still alive or her disgust that it had been managed at the hands of aliens.
He was taken back to the Clan ship and put under the care of the elder healer L'ruch, who was currently tapping buttons on a computer console in of the adjacent rooms. The healer's clinic, the jurite, was fully equipped to handle any medical emergency, although L'ruch did not repress his comments that he had never seen anyone survive such an injury.
"I am amazed he has made it this far, especially with such primitive medical attention. Look at this!"
He growled as he pointed to R'chnt's bandages and stitched together wounds to the onlookers in the room, Neh'rti, two other elders one male and one female, L'ruch's two male assistants, and K'Shai, standing stock still next to R'chnt amidst all the Yaujta, not sure what exactly was wrong with the fantastic repair job Carlos had done that saved his life.
L'ruch promptly lasered the whole thing open, draining blood, cutting sutures and preparing to heal the injuries the Yautja way.
"Keep me advised," Neh'rti grumbled as she left the elder healer to do his work, K'Shai standing numb at R'chnt's side, still clinging to him.
L'ruch nodded as the extraneous Yautja turned and removed themselves from the round jurite, then turned back to R'chnt and eyed K'Shai, but said nothing as he worked with his two assistants to attend to R'chnt injuries, narrating the damages as he performed the surgery to repair the wounds.
"This is too damaged. Needs to be removed."
He indicated what looked like intestine and promptly, the assistants cut it away using long instruments to grab the tissue and cauterize cuts and fuse fresh tissue together.
K'Shai slowly scanned her eyes across R'chnt's tattered and bloody body, back and forth again and again, trying to process how it was that he was not the mighty and unsinkable fortress she naively envisioned.
The thought that he could not be killed was just foolish. He was powerful and bold, cunning and ferocious, but he was still flesh and blood. The sight of him laying as he was, unconscious, bruised, battered, swollen, bleeding, was unimaginable and even after hours had passed, it still had not settled in her mind that he was really so badly injured.
She silently chastised herself for even thinking it; blindly disregarding every time he returned with a cut, a gouge, a broken bone, as if that was all the damage he could ever possibly sustain; just enough that a couple days' of rest could whisk away.
It was easy, though, she considered, to think of him as an unbreakable force. His vast experience and skill proved that he had never been so severely injured before because he was unstoppable. She lowered her eyes and watched her own fingers tenderly stroke his arm she had not let go of the entire time.
She slowly caressed his skin, now free of all of his armor, and felt the texture of it. She could feel how tough and thick it was and the gaping hole in his side had confirmed that to her; Yautja skin was far thicker and stronger than human skin.
R'chnt's skin, grayed from his age, still had contrasting shades that were like a shadow of his once no doubt brightly patterned hide.
Even within his own group of hunters, K'Shai had already learned that the colorful variation of Yautja skin was diverse. Aboard the Clan's ship, she had noticed colors ranging from almost solid black, even on the lightest areas, to blues, reds, and every imaginable shade of brown, green, and yellow possible.
Some Yautja color patterns were blotchy and circular, dark interconnecting colors highlighted with brighter rusts and yellows, all flowing along the lines of their muscles and sides, draped over a pale base visible along their thighs, abdomens, chest, and head.
Some of the patterns looked more like stripes, like a tiger, as W'rsa's coloration was, and K'Shai had noticed a few Yautja that seemed to sport both stripes and spots; a hybrid of sorts, she presumed.
Beneath the naturally tough hide and a thin layer of fat cushion, was a dense layer of connective tissue that Carlos had commented on after having seen the innards of a Yautja for the third time.
The fibrous layer was as tough as braided nylon, he said, comprised of a mesh work of thin layers of staggered lattice fibers, creating quite literally, a flexible, stretchable, puncture resistant shield over the muscles and precious internal organs.
Suddenly, the amount of trauma that a Yautja could endure and survive had made perfect sense to Carlos, and he explained to anyone who turned a working ear towards him how well built for extreme survival the alien body clearly was.
L'ruch commented in much the same way, noting how much sheer force was involved to go through not one, but two different layers of protection twice.
The kianda amedha queen had impaled R'chnt from the back, a few inches below the end of his protective chest armor and the tip of the tail had emerged through his front, just above his hip, before she sent him flying, whipping him off of her and into the side of a building some forty feet away on the opposite side of the street, which as L'ruch informed during his progress, accounted for the heavy bruising below his protective chest armor.
The armor itself, combined with a thin layer of leathery padding atop R'chnt's thick and resilient skin, densely formed protective tissues, and powerful, well developed musculature, all likely worked together to save him from dying on impact due to blunt force rupture of internal organs, L'ruch surmised.
The Yautja armor, K'Shai had slowly begun to learn thanks to R'chnt's teachings, was comprised of an alien metal known as dlex that he said was mined on a moon in the system of their home world.
Though he did not know the composition of the ore, R'chnt had informed K'Shai that dlex was truly resistant to any force he had ever known.
The metal could slow the damaging acidic blood of the kainde amedha, not melting completely through. It was resistant to a variety of weapon fire, acted like a grounding base for electrical impulses, absorbed shock, and even in raw form, it took incredible heat to melt the ore in order to form it.
Dlex workers were well respected for their skills with the ore, turning it into not only armor and weapons which could cut through anything, but also ship hulls, tethers, chains, and even mixed with flexible additives to create the protective neck bracers the Yautja wore to cover their vital blood supplies.
As L'ruch lectured his way through R'chnt's body, K'Shai strained herself to try to follow along with the conversation, but as he began to talk about specific organs, the words became confusing and she understood less of the conversation.
She knew enough from asking R'chnt that he had two muscular hearts, one large and powerful and the other smaller, less powerful, but still essential. It served as a backup, helping the main heart pump more fresh blood faster, to allow the Yautja incredible speed, stamina, and athletic ability.
When R'chnt relaxed enough, and the secondary heart was not immediately needed to jolt blood through his system, it would become flaccid, so much so that it vibrated itself and eventually his entire chest, creating the deep internal purr that she would shut her eyes and listen to with her head against his chest.
Unlike the throaty purr he could make as a conscious choice, the deeper purr seemed to evolve only from truest relaxation that was out of his control.
His powerful hearts were just two of the many strong muscles that created the fortress of the Yautja body; each one in R'chnt's well developed anatomy finely tuned and toned and strengthened to perform the jobs needed of them instantly without fatigue or pain, thanks to a daily life of training.
Supporting those muscles was a framework of bones reinforced with the same lattice type structured marrow inside them, creating a rock solid support system that was extremely difficult to break, could withstand severe impact, and providing a firm support base that allowed the Yautja to quite literally suspend themselves by their talons.
The Yautja, K'Shai knew, could jump or fall, from tremendous heights downward, just as easily and resiliently as they could leap up those same distances.
She knew their finger and toe talons were not fingernails atop skin like a human's, but actual bony extensions of their formidable frame structure. They were bone extremities anchored to more bone, allowing the Yautja to be more than capable of supporting their entire three-hundred plus pound build from their fingertips as they scaled vertically up trees, buildings, or any other surface they could puncture for grip with their talons.
Their entire body was thicker and stronger than a human's, right down to the bones.
The Yautja skull was a unique thing, even in comparison to the rest of their powerful bodies. She had learned that the Yautja never stop growing throughout their lives, which accounted for why elder Yautja like R'chnt were taller and of bigger build, with longer tusks atop their outer four mandibles.
The skulls of the Yautja, slightly varying in shapes, which K'Shai assumed depended upon different origins, were crowned in ridges along the back and sides of their heads. Some Yautja had one row of curving ridges, like R'chnt.
Others she had noticed had two rows and some were pointy while other ridges were rounded. The living tresses that grew like hair extended out from foramen right through the thick bony plates that comprised the back of the skull.
Females, she had noticed, had additional lines of ridges, closer to the center of their skulls along the top of their head.
Elders like R'chnt and Neh'rti and the many others K'Shai had seen and met, grew bony horns in multiple rows along their skulls, which caused their skin to wrinkle more than a younger Yautja's already was.
The tusks, too, that capped their mandibled mouth, would never stop growing and K'Shai had picked up, during many conversations that the length and look of a Yautja's tusks seemed to directly relate to some sort of sex appeal.
In between all that powerful framework, was an internal anatomy K'Shai doubted she would ever fully understand. The Yautja were humanoid in shape – two arms, two legs, two eyes, but there was very little else in common with a human. Their blood was fluorescent green, although K'Shai did not know why.
Their eyes were shades of orange, gold, greens, and white, they viewed their world in a thermal array of heat signatures that could allow them to see through solid objects to detect temperature differences, and allowed them to know the exactly bodily conditions of their prey.
They could taste smells as well as detect them with powerful olfactory senses and scent was as primary of a communication method, if not more so in some ways, than even spoken language. They had stronger senses, finely tuned to hunting and killing. They chose to take their natural abilities at the top of the food chain and put them to the test against prey that could challenge them.
They relied on their keen senses and strong bodies to support them through life or death struggles they willingly endured to prove they were the best and most worthy. None of it would have worked without the internal organs that fueled their bodies efficiently and powerfully. They had organs humans lacked entirely and they also lacked some organs humans needed to thrive.
L'ruch had mentioned at least two organs that she was not familiar with, but she certainly saw plenty of intestines as the trio of healers removed them from R'chnt's body, cleaned them, removed injured sections too far damaged to heal, sealed them together again and put them back where they belonged.
She listened quietly to the deep rumbling voices clicking and trilling of the Yautja spoken language, while she tried to see if R'chnt was still breathing.
Yautja had a five-lobed lung, capable of pulling in and filtering breathable air more than ten times the amount a human could inhale. They were able to breathe alien atmospheres thanks to a filtration process in the first lung, but they also relied on atmospheric controls in their biohelmets and a reserve air supply when necessary.
Their awu'asa ensured they were prepared and supported to handle hunting in any environment. They were also capable of holding their breath and swimming underwater for extended periods of time.
Now, as she listened to R'chnt's ragged, weak breaths, she worried about those lungs, barely doing their job, only just so much to keep him alive.
He was fighting. At least, she hoped he was.
L'ruch continued on, siphoning out blood that was freely pooling in R'chnt's abdomen, causing it to swell. As he laid there, he seemed to be turning new shades of colors, his skin darkening with clotted blood and developing bruises in some areas while other areas swelled and turned ghastly white as they stretched unnaturally.
"He had lost much blood. He has a torn… no… nearly gone…. ataka. I will remove the damaged portion." L'ruch commented, mostly to himself, humming deeply in short bursts as he worked; an eerie sound given the circumstances, that almost made it seem like he was experiencing pleasure taking apart R'chnt and putting him back together again.
She assumed maybe, in a way, he was. He was a healer and he was faced with one of the most challenging cases he had likely every experienced.
L'ruch was engaged in a different kind of battle, using his medical training and technology like a weapon to fight the damage done to R'chnt and heal him. She supposed he was enjoying the opportunity, and based on the comments she overheard, and W'rsa's own statement multiple times that this was not the Yautja way, K'Shai slowly realized that it was likely very few had ever had the opportunity to perform this kind of work.
L'ruch seemed to know what he was doing, though. He worked smoothly, quickly, but not rushed. He was focused and spoke clearly to his aides who jumped into action as they were directed, and he hummed from time to time as he settled onto a particular task. K'Shai listened, trying to decipher the words she did not know.
"De-tau'nankha ki'cte-etoun." He nodded to an assistant, who silently retrieved a device from a nearby counter and applied it to R'chnt's chest.
The little tubule looking thing seemed to K'Shai to look something like a metal syringe without a needle on it. When a button was pressed on the side of it, she could hear a tiny little whirring sound from the device and it appeared to stick to R'chnt, pointing straight up.
If it had pierced his body, she could not tell but in a moment, L'ruch announced words she barely understood, but thought he had said something about breathing again.
She paused, surveying R'chnt and watching the little device's strobing lights dance in lines along its shaft, trying to work out the words she was hearing. R'chnt was already breathing, and nothing had changed with it.
Suddenly, her fingertips, locked around his forearm, became aware of a stronger pulse in the crease of his elbow and she realized it was his second heart that had begun pumping again, however weakly, but it was there. L'ruch left the device attached to R'chnt as he continued on.
The three Yautja repaired the wounds, sealed R'chnt's body closed, and left him to rest after cleaning the blood off his sides and leg and eventually removed the device from his chest, leaving only a small panel over his right arm that appeared to be relaying readings to the monitors.
L'ruch observed K'Shai, who had barely looked up the entire time, had not acknowledged any of the Yautja and had not said a word. Her skin was pale, her look was dark and sullen, her long hair dangled in tattered strands soaked with R'chnt's own blood. She still had his blood dried on her garments and hands, splattered on her face and she was trembling.
Her eyes remained shifted to R'chnt, but she did not appear to be truly looking at him, more like past him, through him; her gaze not really focused. Her scent was rancid, both from the stench of her alien world and lack of cleanliness and a mixture of h'dui'se that he assumed represented stress and sickness and of course, pregnancy; he could see the offspring in her womb as he surveyed her.
"He is dhi'ki-de. Do you understand?" L'ruch said to K'Shai in alarmingly well spoken English, proper questioning inflictions and all.
She finally broke her gaze away from the now sealed wounds and looked at the elder towering over her from the other side of the table across R'chnt's body.
L'ruch's thin body was shaded in heavy grays, his pale pasty colored abdomen barely offering any contrast to the slightly darker colors that lined his sides and legs.
He was not muscular, though he was very tall, taller perhaps than R'chnt. His long tusks looked to almost gleam, shined to a heavy polish and the ridges and horns that protruded from his head in thick rows between wrinkles that ran horizontally across his scalp, gave the impression to K'Shai that he was much older than R'chnt.
His body, she noticed, lacked adornments of any kind save for tattoos that appeared to be etched right into his skin along both shoulders and across his chest and back, like a midriff shirt. She had noticed a few other Yautja sporting tattoos of deep reds and blacks carved into their skin like brands.
L'ruch did not have armor, or bone necklaces, or scars, nor were there jewels and bone or metal beads in his blueish- white tresses. He wore little more than a metal and leather belt that supported a fringed-like loin cloth and sandals with tall shafts of criss-crossing leather, along with some bits of leather that wrapped up his arms and covered his shoulders.
"I …" she started weakly, the first sound she had uttered in hours.
Neh'rti had come for them in the middle of the night, around two in the morning. K'Shai knew it was almost eleven, because she wore a watch on her wrist and though she recalled falling asleep sometime during the night, it was not a recuperative rest at all.
She was exhausted, dazed; full of anxiety and stress, sick to her stomach, locked in fear for R'chnt.
"No. What does that mean?" She whispered, realizing she had no idea what a dhi'ki-de was. Was it a good thing, she wondered. Did it mean perhaps he was better? Worse?
L'ruch hummed deeply.
"How to say in your tongue…" he thought audibly then looked from her to R'chnt and back again.
"He is… in a long sleep. Deep. He may not awake."
K'Shai's heart sank. She felt even more weak and nauseous. Her body trembled again as she tried to absorb what she was being told.
"A coma. He's in a coma." She muttered quietly, eyes cast back to scanning R'chnt for any sign of movement, somehow imagining that none of this was really happening. She felt a burning need to wail and sob over him again.
It seemed so surreal. He was so strong, powerful, confident, brave, and bold. He was unstoppable.
He was an alien warrior who had seen, hunted, and lived through everything there was to live through. This could not really be happening. Surely he would move, wake up, touch her the way he did, tick up a mandible in a comforting Yautja grin, stroke her face, and hold her in his warm arms again.
His body was always warm; much warmer than a human's. It was soothing to tuck in next to, especially in the cold fall nights in a heatless apartment after he heated up with pleasure inside her. Listening to his hearts beat, listening to his deep breathing, both so consistent and strong, were as comforting as a metronome keeping pace with unbreakable certainty.
Now, he was cold to the touch; far colder than he should be and so still is made her skin prickle in alarm. She was used to his ability to hold so motionless it was like he was made out of stone, but as he laid before her now he was not just motionless, he was lifeless.
His breaths were shallow, weak, and as she listened through his chest, she could barely hear his hearts.
She stroked his head, leaned in to kiss him and nuzzled her head against his, oblivious to the life readings that L'ruch noticed on the monitors on the wall above R'chnt suddenly surge with her contact. He hummed ponderingly and brought her a stool to sit upon.
"Stay with him." He said briskly. "Perhaps… he knows you are near."
She looked at L'ruch with a wide stare, hoping he was right.
"What is an ataka?"
L'ruch had started to walk away as K'Shai finally pulled together enough focus to recall the words she heard during the surgery and did not understand. He turned back to her and eyed her carefully.
"You speak Yautja?" He questioned, sounding a little impressed.
"Sei-i. N'tik." She confirmed that she spoke a little.
L'ruch hummed again as he considered her.
"He had been teaching you much. He must truly value you. How unusual. How very unusual."
K'Shai tightened her jaw and sighed deeply, trying hard to restrain tears as a sudden flashback of the last seven months filled her mind. She unconsciously stroked her abdomen as though she could somehow hold the fetus within her and reassure it, as if it knew what was happening on the outside.
"The ataka… how do I say in your words…," L'ruch hummed again as he thought about it. "It is an organ that heals the body."
K'Shai remained silent and eyed L'ruch, trying to piece together the type of organ it was exactly as he continued on, clearly noting that she was working it out in her mind.
"It creates cells for the body to rebuild. His was badly damaged, most of it is removed."
Eyeing L'ruch worriedly, K'Shai questioned what that meant for R'chnt long term.
"If he lives through this at all, K'Shai," he informed her factually, "which he may not, he will likely be slow to heal from injury. He may not live as long as he could otherwise."
K'Shai glanced back to R'chnt, studying him carefully, pressing her lips together nervously.
"I have never seen a hunter this badly injured survive. Certainly never had one come back to me for help. This is unheard of."
L'ruch informed her, after dismissing his two assistants as if this conversation should be held in private.
"But… I suspect that everything involving R'chnt and his K'Shai going forward will be unheard of."
She shot him a wary look, considering his words, but saying nothing.
"Most unusual," L'ruch said as he turned again, humming as he left her to keep R'chnt company.
She sat with him. She clenched her hands around his. She wiped tears from her eyes. She stroked his body. She stood. She paced. She sat again. She picked at some food that L'ruch had made sure she was delivered. She waited. She listened to nothingness.
Unlike a human hospital, there were not even beeping monitors to make any ambient sound. L'ruch had even stopped his humming as he worked quietly over the computer in the other room. There was complete stillness, not a sound, not even an echoing voice from the corridor.
K'Shai had decided she would have preferred some kind of activity; L'ruch working on R'chnt, telling her more about his condition, even Neh'rti checking on them in her glaring way would have been an appreciated distraction from the still silence and the waiting.
She tried not to think about the fact that the Yautja had done their bit for R'chnt, beyond what they were willing to do, and were now merely waiting to see if he lived or died.
She tried not to focus too much on the foreboding thoughts she had that somehow she had defied not only the Yautja, but the very gods R'chnt believed in so strongly, just to satisfy her very alien, her human, need to have him with her. She forced those thoughts from her mind, and sat quietly, waiting more, watching R'chnt's chest barely rise and fall, making almost no sound with each weak breath.
She took a long shower when L'ruch directed her to one of the other adjacent rooms; a bathroom as it was, and offered her fresh garments to don.
She had already been introduced to the awkward things that served as a toilet during her first visit to the Clan ship, in addition to the first glimpses at the way they lived and how very different it was from what she knew. R'chnt had been teaching her about life as a Yautja, but not about life with the Yautja.
Yautja, as she was slowly beginning to understand, did everything in communal environments. She once had been taken through the Clan ship where she passed kehrite training rooms, where groups of Yautja gathered to train under the supervision of their Leaders, or sparred in friendly combats that still resulted in injuries and bruises.
She learned that most other problems such as challenges of leadership, changes in status, even taking a mate as R'chnt explained it to her, were sorted out in public displays, sometimes to the death of one opponent depending on the severity of the matter.
She passed dining halls, like cantinas with huge tables that looked quite a bit like picnic benches, with large buffets of food and vats of drink available to refuel hunters.
The Clan ship itself, despite its vast size, was fairly empty and during her first visit to it, K'Shai was a little surprised at how few hunters there actually were aboard it; then she realized of course, it was because they were all down on Earth.
Most of the Yautja she had seen on the ship were either hunters on resupply errands or workers, along with dozens of females that she was beginning to realize were in charge of coordinating hunting parties; directing the battle.
Neh'rti had brought her into the sections of the clan ship that were restricted to access by females and juveniles only. It was an area of the ship they called the mei'sa, which as K'Shai understood it was a type of female-only community child-rearing area.
While most of the corridors in the clan ship were fairly vacant, and the large rooms which could easily cram dozens of hunters into were occupied by handfuls at most, the mei'sa was busier, bustling.
There were dozens of females of all ages in circular rooms off the main corridors, nursing young of their own, or supervising toddlers that played. K'Shai was amazed by what she saw as she followed behind Neh'rti, and clearly, so were the Yautja.
Each turned to look at the other in wonder, eyeing up the alien before them with curiosity. One young child, barely three years old by human standards, darted towards her hissing threateningly; his mother gathered him up with a growl. The little Yautja was actually adorable, K'Shai had thought and she tried her best to keep her amused giggle to herself for fear of offending anyone.
It was almost a little hard to believe that something so big and powerful and deadly as the Yautja adults she had come to know, ever even were children, but here they were, all around her in comfortable communal quarters.
Many of the rooms, she noticed, had at least two beds, sometimes more. The draping coverings over the beds, the ornately decorated walls- bones and symbols covering the otherwise drab metal hull of the ship, the soothing amber glow that backlit every wall she passed and cast a shadowy haze through the corridors, all made the mei'sa all comfortable place for females and young, though she was sweating heavily just walking through the hallways.
The mei'sa, the feel of the ship, the atmosphere around her, even some of the garments the females wore, flowing satiny garments that were sheer and leathery in various places, and draped down around them from collars, with no undergarments of any kind, to allow their nursing offspring easy access, all had an oddly familiar sense to K'Shai, like something she saw in a movie once, perhaps.
She could not quite place it. Maybe ancient Egyptian, or Roman, or Mayan, or all of them combined.
The babies she saw cradled in the arms of their bare-breasted mothers as they nursed were like little green and yellow and brown and black mottled and speckled and striped miniature versions of the adults, only they lacked teeth and their cheeks and mouth parts, from what she saw of a few that were sleeping comfortably as they basked in the warmth of their mothers, were less developed and more fleshy, built for suckling.
The toddlers were wobbly looking and disproportionate, but they were playful, active, and vocal, fighting and clamoring over one another in fumbling ways that made them look a bit like puppies toppling into each other.
Though they had no tusks on their more developed mandibles, their inner mouths did house tiny little bright white baby teeth protruding from their bubble-gum pink gums.
The one that ran over to K'Shai, a male as displayed by his lack of garments, had tinny little tresses growing from his tiny ridged crown. They looked like little buds, bouncing along as he bounded towards her trying to intimidate her with his stature.
Neh'rti had not seemed impressed and hissed at the mother who withdrew with her child. K'Shai pressed her lips together, remembering R'chnt's initial uncertainty over what a human smile was intended to convey.
She did her best not to expose her teeth and curl the corners of her lips to send a confusing signal to the females she passed.
Neh'rti brought K'Shai and the entourage that followed them to a halt in one of the round rooms, larger, more ornate and comfortable than any of the others, but lacking beds of any kind.
It had large leather chairs, big enough to fit two humans side by side in and when K'Shai slipped into the seat of one, she felt she could easily just stretch out in it and sleep. The room was warm, hot, and the orange glow from the backlit walls, she realized, was emitting heat.
Neh'rti had barraged K'Shai with questions, but they were not the questions K'Shai had been expecting; not that she knew what to really expect or what was really going on.
She figured it was reasonable that Neh'rti, the Clan Leader, the female who determined the direction of all major decisions that affected the Clan, wanted to meet her and sum her up. She had let her mind wander as she walked down the corridors; halfway expecting Neh'rti to turn and strike at her with a weapon just to see what she might do; to test her Yautja mettle in some way.
She expected the questions to revolve around her fighting skills or her intentions within the Clan. Suddenly, K'Shai had begun to imagine Neh'rti conducting something like a job interview and asking her where she saw herself in five years. K'Shai's nerves flared suddenly as she imagined that, but when she crawled in the massive chair, Neh'rti's questions had nothing to do with any of that.
"R'chnt has spoken," Neh'rti had started out firmly, "of you as if you are Yautja. Are you prepared to live amongst us?"
"Yes." She answered simply, smoothly.
"You have proven your ability to survive to him, K'Shai. But you will have to do much more than that to be a part of this clan. Do you understand?"
"Yes." K'Shai answered again, sure that whatever challenges lie ahead, R'chnt would help guide her through.
"If you fail… and as an alien I believe you will… you will bring R'chnt's dishonor, shame. You will bring his death. You accept this consequence?"
"Yes." K'Shai repeated, feeling her nerves fray and her agitation rise.
Neh'rti clearly caught onto the change, and continued to press K'Shai, questioning her for what seemed like hours, which K'Shai confirmed with a quick check of her watch eventually that it had actually been six hours.
With each statement there was a thinly veiled insult. With each question there was some kind of threat to her well-being or R'chnt's honor or status within the clan. Neh'rti threatened death, banishment, stripping R'chnt's entire heritage of its honor and nobility.
She threatened and tested K'Shai, sometimes rattling off about something entirely differently, barraging her with questions about her experiences on Earth, then throwing in another question about her understanding of the risks to R'chnt's standing that she was single handedly accepting the fate of.
K'Shai felt her temper flaring more times than it probably should have. She did not like Neh'rti, and she knew beyond a doubt the feeling was mutual. R'chnt had told her that nothing she would do would bring such dishonor to him, so she trusted his certainty on the matter, but Neh'rti had successfully reduced K'Shai within about thirty seconds to a helpless little child that would never be worthy to walk amongst her people.
She projected that certainty throughout the conversation and K'Shai tried to absorb what she was being told, trying to figure out how she could prove herself, and coming up blank.
She kept herself in check, quelling her frustration, trying to hide her flaring anger. She resorted, wisely, to keeping to simple and concise answers instead, and doing her best to control to her facial gestures, knowing full well that Neh'rti could easily misinterpret them, or worse- interpret them correctly.
Neh'rti was a towering and imposing female, clad in leathery armor and some dlex awu'asa, and K'Shai noticed at least two machete-length weapons hanging from her belt.
It was intimidating being questioned, and threatened, by a nearly nine foot tall elder Yautja female, and it frayed at K'Shai's nerves, making her almost question if R'chnt really knew the risks and consequences of the choices he was making, that she was willing to follow.
She stuck to her answers, not displaying any doubt to Neh'rti, at least, she hoped she wasn't, but she made a mental note to talk to R'chnt about all of this.
Neh'rti also had brought up K'Shai's ability to reproduce and had asked for details about human reproduction, only briefly offering some insight into the differences in Yautja reproduction, but making it clear that she was more than a little surprised that R'chnt had even mated with her at all.
K'Shai flared for a moment, trying quickly to settle her agitation level, not sure if the way Neh'rti worded it was an insult or a question, because she had something about breeding marks that K'Shai did not understand.
Eventually, the interrogation ended, leaving K'Shai feeling a little numb, trying to process what had just transpired.
She answered every question, tried her best to explain reasonable answers to every statement Neh'rti requested, and hoped that she came across as informative and certain of her choices, not refuting and argumentative or doubtful and scared, but she was not sure at all what she had ultimately ended up conveying.
Every chance Neh'rti had she spoke to K'Shai in such a diminutive way it made her feel like a two year old being scolded by a tough old baby sitter. It got under her nerves, but she tried to let it slide, figuring that when Neh'rti dismissed herself and told K'Shai to rejoin R'chnt for a ceremony, she had passed whatever test it was that she was being put through.
On the way back out of the mei'sa, K'Shai was guided by another female, who's name she did not know, towards a closed door that led to the main corridor of the jag'd'atoll, but K'Shai stopped and spoke up, distracting her guide.
"Is that a bathroom? I really have to pee!"
K'Shai did not know how to say the words in Yautjan, and it was clear the female leading her had no idea what she had just said, but K'Shai pointed curiously towards the open door next to her, and the female directed her in.
It was an uncomfortable experience, sharing an open floorplan community bathroom to eliminate her bowels and bladder, but clearly, this was the Yautja way, too. Everything seemed to be communal and without modesty.
K'Shai crouched over a thinly dished portion of the floor, with a hole that led to some unseen bowels of the vessel and despite feeling awkward and uncomfortable tending to her needs with three other females doing the same at the moment and two young toddlers all staring at her curiously, it still felt good to finally release what she had been holding for hours.
As she slid into the shower of the jurite, she was silently grateful for a private place to tend to such matters and she raised her chin to towards the gushing flow of water high above her head and shut her eyes as she leaned against the wall and moaned soothingly.
The hot water flowed down her body, whisking away caked on dried blood and dirt and sweat and easing her tired muscles. She lathered a heavy layer of soap that poured out of a bottle from a shelf she barely reached on the wall and she let the caramel-like scent of it linger.
She dried her body with a cloth the size of a beach towel that had a texture and feel to it like a chamois before returning to R'chnt's side feeling a bit better, clean and comfortable in the garments L'ruch had provided her to wear, which fit her like a robe, clearly not sized for her.
"Let me look at you, K'Shai." He said and reached for her.
She immediately withdrew from his reach and L'ruch stopped.
"I want to make sure you are well." He said with a slightly submissive bow and directed her with a sweeping motion of his arm to another table in the adjacent room.
She stood and allowed him to guide her without physical contact. The hospital area was a series of circular rooms all interconnected with wide doorways big enough to drive a van through, with high ceilings that allowed plenty of clearance for any Yautja.
K'Shai had guessed that Neh'rti was somewhere around nine feet tall; she towered over R'chnt and was of a bigger build, yet still possessed of feminine qualities to her frame. K'Shai had wondered if Neh'rti was the tallest a Yautja could get or if Neh'rti had to look up to someone else, though she could not imagine it.
Still, the tall ceilings in the Clan ship were clearly a necessity. The entire ship was huge, with wide spacious rooms. The Yautja were huge, took up a lot of space, and needed plenty of room to spread out and get away from one another.
L'ruch spoke excellent English and K'Shai inquired about it while he ran scans of her with handheld devices that looked a bit like remote controls and displayed the results of the scan in a three dimensional holographic projection from a computer panel that looked quite a bit similar to the integrated computer system in the hunters awu'asa, which K'Shai knew could project scans of terrain and life forms.
Apparently, it could project highly detailed displays of her entire body, too.
"Did you learn English while hunting on Earth?"
L'ruch chortled, almost a dismissive laugh at the idea, like somehow hunting was distasteful to him.
"No. I studied your language. I have studied many languages. I do not hunt."
K'Shai eyed him in wide surprise.
"You don't? But you have a…"
L'ruch nodded and reached to the crest of his head, lightly touching his Blooding mark.
"You have much to learn, K'Shai. I don't know what R'chnt has taught you about our ways, but I imagine most of it had to do with tracking, killing, skinning and gutting prey. In that order."
K'Shai could not help but to giggle. It was true and the tone of L'ruch's voice was lightly mocking and most definitely etched with a sound of amused contempt.
"The hunters are the life's blood of the Clan," L'ruch continued and eyed R'chnt's still and silent body again.
"Elders like him provide the strength, the offspring, the spiritual guidance, and the power to the Clan to withstand enemies and honor the Gods. Hunters are highly respected, though few live to the age of elder.
Strong hunters make for strong Clans. No Clan can evolve or thrive without capable hunters. They are the backbone of any Clan. They are highly respected and deeply honored.
We are the Kaunte Dar'een Clan, K'Shai. We are the strongest of all Clans, but not all of us hear the call of the hunter after chiva. Some of us turn to sciences, technologies, textiles, art; wherever our Path leads. We all support the hunters who support the Clan."
K'Shai processed L'ruch's words; it was something she simply never even thought of. Everyone she had met was a hunter, or at least bore the Blooding mark, so she assumed they were all hunters. She assumed, naturally, that they all hunted because it was what they were born to do and what drove the species.
As she thought more about it, she considered the meek looking Yautja who were clearly workers, coming and going, bringing food, cleaning, resupplying, taking orders from others. They were not the height of the hunters she had come to know, not even of the same build.
Some of the worker Yautja she saw were barely much taller than any average human male, with far less muscling.
"So, you pass your… chiva… and then, you choose to become a doctor?" She asked, trying to clarify.
"Surviving chiva earns your place in the Clan, K'Shai. As you have done," L'ruch said as he gently extended a clawed finger towards the Blooding mark in her head.
"What you do with that place is yours to choose. Spiritual guidance from elders who honor the gods, like R'chnt, will help you to know if you hear the call of the hunter or not. Once you have your place in the Clan, you can learn from a master of the hunt or a master of medicine; that is up to you.
You can strike out on your own, as many young hunters do, to make a name for themselves alone. Few survive. R'chnt did that when he was young. He killed prey that none would dare take on alone and earned his place as a master to other Yautja."
L'ruch filled K'Shai in on a history of R'chnt that she did not know about him. It was not in his nature to speak of his own conquests, rather he let his scars and trophies speak for him, but when she did get him talking about his hunts, she was an enraptured with his tales as a child at Christmas time listening to her grandparents talk about Santa Claus.
He described hunts against prey that she had a hard time imagining on worlds she could only barely process even existed.
She thought about the giant serpent that adorned the wall in the council chamber aboard the Clan ship. He had killed the thing himself, alone, with a spear, to secure his place as Leader.
R'chnt, as L'ruch confirmed with almost a dreamy hint of admiration as a human might talk about an A-list actor they wished they could be like, had heard the call of the hunter and proven himself time and again.
He hinted, not terribly subtly, that the only reason for K'Shai's presence was because of R'chnt's status, and it been a lesser Yautja that enamored himself with her, it was highly likely both of them would have been killed.
L'ruch continued on.
"He has personally taken you on, Blooded you, performed the blood bond with you. He is protecting you so even if he does die, you will have your place here. You can learn from a master of art, weapon making, whatever function you can put to best use to support the hunters and the Clan. What will you do to earn your place, K'Shai?"
She stared blankly at L'ruch. She had assumed she would learn to hunt alongside R'chnt and hunt with him; the thought that she could even choose to do anything else had never even been a concept in her head. She glanced over her shoulder towards R'chnt and surveyed him carefully.
"I just want him to live."
"You have much to learn first, before you decide. But you should consider the fact that your future may not include R'chnt."
She eyed him with a glare, and clearly L'ruch caught on to her offense, as he shifted the conversation quickly.
"You have proven you are capable of carrying offspring. I am sure you will find your Path amongst the females training the cub."
K'Shai sat silently for a moment, watching L'ruch idly scan her.
"Why do the Yautja hunt?"
He stopped and stared at her, humming again as he contemplated his response.
"I mean to say, if you can choose to be other things, why would you choose to risk your life like this?" K'Shai clarified, eyeing R'chnt again.
The thought was just so overwhelming to her. She really just naively assumed that every Yautja that existed hunted just because it was what they did. She never stopped to consider that there were Yautja who built, studied, and created; engineers and healers and artists.
It was hard for her to process that not hunting was a choice. So what would make a Yautja choose to risk themselves and clearly savor in it, she wondered. It seemed to her, as she tried to process it all, that to be a hunter was obviously risky, but full of rewards.
Although she was not clearly sure what the rewards were exactly, it was obvious that L'ruch thought highly of R'chnt, glorified him even, and that R'chnt being a hunter that he was, one that made it to both Leader and elder, entitled him to privileges other Yautja did not earn. It was all a lot to take in and she quietly pondered it for a moment as L'ruch hummed before he responded.
"I think perhaps that question is best answered by a hunter." L'ruch evaded.
"Well, why did you chose to become a healer?" K'Shai tried again.
He glanced at her, tipping a mandible into a half a smile, apparently amused that K'Shai was being so diplomatic.
"Hunting was not my Path." He said simply and left it at that.
L'ruch hummed again as he strode away, then fell quiet as he reviewed the scans.
After a short while of silence, K'Shai finally turned away from gazing at R'chnt's still and silent body in the other room and looked at L'ruch. She almost thought maybe for a moment he had forgotten about her.
"Everything OK?"
"Sei-i," he said. "I will get you food brought here. You should eat. But you and the offspring are doing well it seems, as far as I can tell of course."
"Has there ever been another hybrid child?" She asked worriedly.
L'ruch rumbled and hummed, a sound she was beginning to learn that he made absentmindedly when he stopped to think.
"Not to my knowledge. I cannot ever recall hearing of any hunter who has even mated with an alien. You are quite unique, K'Shai. This whole situation is most unusual."
After a meal, L'ruch had shown K'Shai her way around the jurite well enough that she learned where anything she might need was located and K'Shai took a sponge, a bowl of hot water, and a dry towel and began methodically cleaning R'chnt as he had instructed.
She tended to him diligently, methodically, carefully cleaning him, spending hours peeling layers of dead skin from his fleshy tresses at the roots where they grew from his skull, working in oils as L'ruch instructed her, stroking him in silence with her palms, rubbing his body, massaging him, stimulating him in any way she could with heated rubs, physical contact, and quiet whispers.
L'ruch left her to it and as days passed, there was nothing to do but wait; wait to see if R'chnt would live or die, and so she sat and waited, endlessly watching over him, never leaving the jurite. L'ruch would come and go as hours within each day passed, there were others who were never introduced, never spoke, and barely even looked at her, that brought food and drink to her and cleaned and resupplied as needed.
Most of those Yautja looked thin, unmuscled, and scrawny, even ragged. Some of them looked to have scars that looked like claw marks, maybe even whip marks, she was not sure.
K'Shai watched them quietly as they bustled about, coming and going about their business carefully avoiding getting too close to R'chnt. Even in his stillness, the worker Yautja seemed to be fearful of him, or maybe they were afraid of her, she was not sure.
It was unusual to her to see meek and timid looking Yautja and she couldn't help but to watch them curiously. Realizing her own staring was making them even more uneasy, she tried to keep her eyes diverted.
K'Shai began to learn that thirty hours seemed to be the Yautjan equivalent of one day. Neh'rti appeared in the clinic with consistent rotation every thirty hours as K'Shai noted according to her watch.
She assumed that Neh'rti was checking in on them once a day, although whether it was the start, middle, or end of her day she could not be sure. Usually Neh'rti said nothing, or kept the conversation to a minimal and factual question and answer session with L'ruch about R'chnt's condition. She never addressed K'Shai directly the entire time, but K'Shai listened to the conversations quietly and knew her name was brought up.
"Has she left his side at all?" Neh'rti asked during another of her visits.
"No, Leader. She watches over him waiting for him to wake."
Neh'rti huffed audibly. K'Shai kept her eyes to R'chnt but listened quietly.
"Does she understand our words?" Neh'rti asked.
"I do not know how much Yautja she speaks, Leader." L'ruch answered honestly.
Neh'rti growled softly. "She should be in the mei'sa, preparing for the birth, and learning our ways. I do not understand this attachment she has to him."
"It is her way. A human way" L'ruch answered simply.
"K'Shai must choose, then," Neh'rti said factually, as if the very concept of her attachment to R'chnt was offensive, "whether she wishes to be human or Yautja."
With that, she left the jurite and K'Shai looked to L'ruch with a worried gaze.
It had been seven Yautja cycles of days and R'chnt still lay quiet and unconscious. It seemed Neh'rti's patience were wearing thin with the situation and K'Shai essentially living in the medical ward was not ideal.
Her mind frantically ran in circles, wondering what her life would come to if R'chnt died, or if he simply never woke up and laid in a coma forever.
She felt her body go numb again as she slumped into the stool next to the table he lay upon. She absent-mindedly stroked her belly and began to think about how she could even begin to adjust to Yautja life without him to guide her.
L'ruch was pleasant and accepting of her, curious about her from a medical stand point and K'Shai had obliged him with scan after scan, although she was a little less than pleased when he appeared in the bathroom with her while she was showering just to continue a previous conversation. She reminded herself again that Yautja had no sense of modesty.
He warily warned her that it was likely almost no Yautja would accept her as readily as R'chnt had, and she jokingly informed him that R'chnt didn't exactly accept her "readily", either. It was a slow process.
L'ruch agreed that it would take time for the Yautja to accept her, and that it all started with Neh'rti. K'Shai thought, naively, that Neh'rti allowing her to be blooded into the Clan was acceptance, and would have been enough to allow her to be welcomed amongst the Yautja. She had gotten the sense as the days passed, though, that this was not the case, and Neh'rti herself had said that K'Shai would need to do much more to prove herself despite the Blooding mark she bore on her forehead.
"You are alien, K'Shai. You have no right to be here." L'ruch told her factually. "Whatever R'chnt saw in you, you will need to make others see, and if he dies…," he paused as she glared at him again for the very notion. "… if he dies, you will have to do it without him to support you."
She felt her heart pounding at the notion and silently sat considering the next days, the next weeks, the gestation of the offspring in her. What would happen? The worry building in her made her start to feel sick to her stomach.
Then, suddenly, R'chnt shifted his arm and found her hand.