CHAPTER ELEVEN
"No! You must brace your elbow!"
"I am bracing!" K'Shai snapped.
Her sparring partner swung before she was ready. Neh'rti glared, unimpressed, from the sidelines as she supervised and critiqued. Her opponent's strike caught her off guard, sending K'Shai to the ground. K'Shai grabbed the side of her face, howling in agitation and pain as the rock solid forearm of her opponent collided into her jaw.
"I thought R'chnt has been teaching you to fight," her opponent growled. "Do you spend any time sparring or just mating?"
K'Shai felt herself growing more furious by the moment and could not prevent herself from casting a glaring sneer. She could feel her bones rattling as she nervously took to the middle of the round training dojo again.
She did her best to improvise on the formations she was learning, but she moved slowly, trying to think her way through each action, rigidly avoiding contact and springing around her side of the circular sparring space.
The sparring training R'chnt had been patiently developing with her seemed to go right out the window. K'Shai braced her body and clenched her jaw, trying to channel her frustration that she could not apply the methods he was teaching her in slow motion into real use during a fast-paced spar. Her opponent struck again and again and each time, K'Shai shifted, avoided and tried to counter. She lost her balance and dropped to the ground after narrowly avoiding a powerful blow that probably would have broken her jaw.
"Again!" Neh'rti commanded and K'Shai sprung to her feet with a deep, frustrated sigh. "Keep your back straight, K'Shai. Allow your body to move naturally."
K'Shai barely heard one of the other spectators mutter something about 'natural' meaning on the ground for her. She just glared and gritted her teeth.
"How am I supposed to brace and move naturally?" K'Shai protested. "It makes no sense."
"These are basic moves, K'Shai. Every Yautja is born knowing such things on an instinctive level. Clearly you cannot understand them because you are human."
Somehow, thinking about the toddlers she saw in the mei'sa falling over each other clumsily, she doubted that, but she turned again to her partner. Neh'rti did not care in the least that K'Shai was now bruised and hurting.
The goal of the training session was not to cause serious injury; any Yautja was expected to endure a good thrashing and blood loss during most spars with no complaint. She tried again, feeling her nerves fray a bit as she did so.
R'chnt had only been gone a few rotations and K'Shai was already counting the days until he returned for supplies. When he left with W'rsa, he assured her he would return to the jag'd'atoll personally and see her and he allayed her worries over him reentering the war zone by teaching her how to use the computer console in his chambers.
With it, she could not only track his whereabouts, but also, by direct link up to his awu'asa, she knew his vital signs and she could communicate with him.
It was comforting know that he was alive, strong, and well, even though it had only been three days on Earth, according to her watch which she pulled out from a drawer and started eyeing again. She placed it on the computer console and the first time she looked at it, she was quite surprised to find that the date was January eigth.
A new year had begun and she had not even given the passing of time a second thought. She knew she had been aboard the ship for a while, but time passed differently amongst the Yautja. The child kept track of time for her according to her own schedule, growing steadily over what K'Shai realized now had been more than two months. It had been six weeks since R'chnt had been gored nearly to death and she left Earth with him.
It was amazing, she thought, how strong and solid he had healed in such a short period of time. She had watched him in the days before he left, sparring with others, whirling and dropping and jumping and spinning, growling and bellowing, without ever looking the least bit fatigued. On his last day before he returned to Earth she stood in awestruck wonder watching him during a spar amongst three other elders.
Each of the aged males wielded two weapons, some long like spears, some short like sais, some swords, some dual-bladed axe-types. Each of the fighters used them in a manner that suited the function of the weapon and the style of the warrior that possessed them. The four Yautja spun and twirled and thrusted around the kehrite in a fierce display that made it hard to tell it was actually a friendly spar.
The weapons clanged and banged together and sparks flew from the impact and yet none of the hunters slipped up so much as to give a paper-cut to one of their opponents as they moved, dancing in utter control with pure focus and purpose.
They also made it look easy; far easier than the simple sparring routines she had been enduring amongst the females since he left. She was beginning to understand the difference in how Yautja taught each other and how R'chnt was handling her training.
When K'Shai made an error, it was usually immediately followed by physical contact; punishment for failing. She was bruised and black and blue, and most of them were just from not holding a position long enough the right way, rather like a teacher who slapped a student on the knuckles if they didn't hold their hands right while playing an instrument.
The Yautja seemed to know only one method of training; do it right or face the consequences. They expected acceptance of those consequences without rebuttle as well.
R'chnt had never once struck her, not even by a slip up through a motion. He displayed incredible control over his own body and she trusted him that he could lash out towards her full force and end a fraction of an inch from her skin and not make contact.
He was also endlessly patient with her and encouraged her to develop her body and reactions naturally over time. He seemed to just know that she could not hold up to full-on Yautja training and avoided not only causing her discomfort and pain, but also pushing her too hard. He was content to make her training last a hundred years.
The females seemed to enjoy proving that she was not on par with Yautja methods and obviously expected her to learn and succeed in minutes. K'Shai tried her best to understand their thoughts on the matter, though; she was already Blooded.
R'chnt had deemed that she had already survived enough to justify the mark being branded on her forehead. Although she had skipped Yautja sparring 101, she had essentially survived the equivalent of a chiva based on her experiences alone. The females expected that she would be able to hold her own in a simple, friendly, easy spar.
She knew she would need to try harder and with R'chnt gone to Earth, she was essentially stuck doing things their way. K'Shai's daily routine was already starting to take shape. It took a bit of adjustment on part of the females to understand that K'Shai needed more sleep and more meals than they did, but they were successfully adapting their expectations of her based upon those needs.
Though they had already been familiarized with some of the differences that's K'Shai's humanity had over the Yautja, she was now living in the mei'sa and the females were beginning to see what life was like with her on a daily basis.
They were conscious of her pregnancy and ensured that she had the rest and food she needed to be healthy in order to gestate the offspring. Neh'rti especially, despite her rough manner and sneering dominance, was hyper-vigilant about the growing hybrid in K'Shai's womb and expected her to have daily check-ups to keep track of the pregnancy.
The females were curious about her and did question her frequently. She tried to answer to the best of her abilities whenever she was asked about anything biological, physiological, or cultural. She felt too little lacking in her ability to respond to the questions if she simply did not know an answer. Had she somehow known what her future would have been like, she would have paid more attention in biology and science classes.
As it was, the Yautja had very little use or care for her interest in fashion design, although that conversation did spark some unhelpful comments from the females, as she explained to them about her life on Earth.
"Maybe you are best suited to making garments!" One of the mothers barked mockingly.
"I can get you started into it, K'Shai," another offered. "Leave the hunting to other females. I am sure living amongst us must be difficult for a human."
K'shai felt her face flush. She turned red with anger and embarrassment in a moment. Later, S'ridi, having overheard the conversation did approach K'Shai in a helpful way while they walked through a corridor.
"If you chose to pursue something other than hunting, K'Shai, it may be best. You can fill a valuable role in the Clan and rear your offspring in the mei'sa."
K'Shai eyed her widely, flickering furiously, but realized S'ridi was trying to offer up an alternative way of life for her and she sighed.
"That's exactly what they expect, isn't it? For me to just live in the mei'sa for the rest of my life?"
S'ridi nodded.
"Almost all females remain attached to the mei'sa to raise their offspring. Very few females hunt after breeding and those who do charge others with caring for their offspring. Do you really plan to do both? You say you can have multiple breedings. How will you hunt and breed? Do you think you are strong enough to breed many times, hunt, and live out of the mei'sa with a male who knows nothing about child-rearing?"
K'Shai pondered it all for a moment, unable to really come with a solid response.
"On Earth women have babies and work along with the men. That's just how it is. I just want to be with R'chnt and raise our children like a family. I'm not going to live in the mei'sa away from R'chnt for the rest of my life!" K'Shai snapped, agitated. "And what? Just see him when it's time to breed? That's not how humans do things. I'm not going to live away from him."
"We'll make this work." Her voice lowered and she muttered. "Somehow."
"Well, you are certainly confident and strong, K'Shai. You may want to think well on just how much you defy the Yautja way." S'ridi warned. "You are with us, not on Earth. Your actions reflect on R'chnt and your offspring, and the entire Clan, along with yourself. The entire planet is now watching this Clan to see what happens with the human living in it."
K'Shai suddenly felt sick to her stomach. She hadn't considered any of that.
"Is it really that uncommon for females to hunt and raise children?" She asked, exasperated. It seemed to her that she would never understand Yautja ways and they would never understand her human need to be with R'chnt and her offspring as a family.
"It is." S'ridi said simply.
"Hunters leave and may never return. Females that breed and then leave for the hunt may never be seen again. It falls on the rest of us to raise their offspring. It takes great strength to raise our offspring and oversee the Clan. You still have much to learn and the half breed offspring you carry will have great challenges ahead."
K'Shai pressed her lips together for a moment in silent consideration then questioned S'ridi more.
"Why does everyone think this baby isn't going to be able to manage just because she's half human?" She said with a little snap.
"K'Shai, your offspring will need to do more than manage." S'ridi rebutted. "She will need to grow strong and prove herself as a capable Yautja, fierce and powerful. She must prove your bloodlines are worthy."
"You're right. That exactly why she needs a father." K'Shai said firmly.
S'ridi ticked her tusks and turned on her way. "Many challenges," she mumbled.
"Well, it is as R'chnt said," K'Shai added in as they continued and S'ridi tipped her head towards her in consideration. "I must hunt. There is no other way."
"R'chnt is very wise, K'Shai." S'ridi added in agreement.
K'Shai stroked her belly for a moment, quietly pondering the growing fetus. "She'll never be accepted otherwise."
S'ridi paused and glanced at her, considering her for a moment.
"Perhaps not. It is an unusual situation, K'Shai. I suppose you will have to adjust the same as we must."
K'Shai mumbled words in English that S'ridi did not understand but she did hear R'chnt's name amongst them.
"Such a curious thing…" she said, resuming on her way to their destination.
"What?"
"You and R'chnt have a bond that is hard to understand. You can mate and breed many times, and you want to remain with him. Do all human mates remain paired for life?"
"Yes. Well… no. I suppose not. Not always. I mean, generally yes, but not always." K'Shai rambled, trying to come up with the best response. "We do raise children in families. It just isn't the same thing as the Yautja. I guess it's hard to explain."
S'ridi glanced at her, obviously dissatisfied with K'Shai's explanation but K'Shai offered nothing further.
The ways of the Yautja were too different and any way she tried to clarify human beliefs seemed to only confuse them more, which slowly made K'Shai realize why R'chnt always called almost every human custom confusing and complex. She had never even considered for a moment that her normal way of life; the things she was most familiar with could be called confusing or hard to understand until she actually tried to explain them to people who had a completely different culture.
It seemed to her that the Yautja way was far more complex than she had imagined it, and as she pondered the not-so-fine-line between males and females and the general lack of compassion the Yautja elicited, she found their way harder and harder to understand. She let her thoughts drift back to R'chnt as she returned to her chambers in the mei'sa and considered all that she had learned in just a few days' time.
As time moved on, she continued to try to pay close attention to all she was taught and all she observed so she could understand Yautja ways while hoping to make them understand why to her, life without R'chnt was unacceptable.
She spent her first waking hours of each day engaged in learning groups, amongst the children and their mothers, learning about culture and spirituality and keeping company with the other mothers in the community bath houses and sitting rooms, learning about the nature of raising and caring for offspring.
She was able to meet her needs for rest and food without any issue and at least despite all the differences between them, the Yautja had accepted K'Shai's differences physical requirements. When it came to being healthy and bearing a successful cub, the females were surprisingly accommodating.
As a Blooded female, there was nowhere on the ship she could not venture into, but the females continued to maintain that she should learn to remain within the mei'sa and levels of the ship restricted to females and youngsters only.
It infuriated K'Shai that they seemed to always consistently imply, no matter how hard she trained, that she was too weak or frail to even walk down a corridor without supervision. Although she had proven herself worthy as far as R'chnt was concered to carry the Blooded mark of the Clan, she could not help feel like she was as disregarded as much an 'aseigan by the females.
She made it a point to get her meals in one of the cantinas and take her time walking the corridors between the mei'sa, the cantina, and the docking bay, which seemed to infuriate Neh'rti and the other elder females daily. The younger females seemed to delight in K'Shai's direct refusal of the Yautja way, as if they were waiting for the situation to implode on itself.
Her afternoons were spent in the kehrite working on sparring maneuvers and watching more experienced fighters as well as supervising some of the older children with other mothers while they played and interacted for more aggressively than the toddlers.
She worked on her own fighting motions, slowly honing her muscles and training her body to do as R'chnt had begun to show her and as she watched how the females taught their children, the differences between theirs and R'chnt's methods of teaching became clearer to her.
Once again, she faced off in a supervised spar with a young Blooded female while Neh'rti and three others watched eagerly. They were sparring by hand, though the line between friendly and educational, and outright brutal and potentially dangerous was quite thin.
K'Shai watched her opponent, trying hard to stop her heart from eroding away her chest wall as it thundered away while the females on the sidelines growled and urged each opponent to make a move. Much like how they taught their offspring, the females focused on sparring that developed strength and superiority through brute force. K'Shai had seen it now over and over amongst the youngsters.
The children were urged to simply be the strongest and it seemed to be all they could really understand. Their education into fighting was brutal and unrefined and the females now urging the spar in front of them between K'Shai and her two-meter tall opponent, were attempting to provoke a fierce attack.
R'chnt, tempered with wisdom, age, and experience, had learned to refine his skills through necessity. As K'Shai watched her opponent circle the kehrite facing off with her, the differences made more sense.
When R'chnt was young, he learned to fight exactly the way K'Shai was being taught now. When he prepared for chiva under the direction of an experienced leader, he learned to hone the brute skills he had been taught through his childhood.
For R'chnt specifically, his mental acuity grew and he took his training to an entirely new level that most of the young hunters she had witnessed aboard the atoll likely never would. She had a hard time even imagining any of the youngsters in the mei'sa would grow to be anywhere near as capable as R'chnt.
Although it was hard for her to understand, in the time it took to grow to the age of the blooding hunt, while on Earth a full century would have passed, the Yautja would only then be about as mentally developed as a human teenager.
R'chnt, able to use the refined education of his own Leader to survive chiva, had continued on to improve his skill and further challenge and train and hone himself until the point that he had become so adept of a warrior, he was sought to become a teacher of others; a Leader himself. For him, teaching came naturally, she thought. For the females, savagely barking out encouragement for fierce attacks came naturally.
K'Shai's hands shook as she moved in again, trying to counter her opponet's brute force attack. The strong female fought in a way that K'Shai had not yet learned to handle. The females expected her to know how to fight or learn as she went along while they urged her, because this was the manner that the youngest children learned.
Because she was a Blooded hunter, they expected her to have these basic skills and know how to defeat her opponent without fail and audibly scoffed at the idea that she just wasn't ready.
Again her opponent moved in with a threatening growl and jabbed her clawed hand forward. K'Shai leapt aside, avoiding the contact and continued to circle warily, avoiding the confrontation for noticeably long enough that the small crowd of spectators began to mock her for it. Egged on by the calls about it being a spar, K'Shai moved in on the offensive for once.
Clearly being defensive wasn't working and holding outside of physical reach of her opponent as they both circled the sparring ring was hardly a worthy endeavor. K'Shai recalled one move that R'chnt had started teaching her in the last few days before he had left, and she thought if she could just get the opening, maybe she could perform it.
She moved in, preparing to attempt to grab at her opponent's arm and try to use her own body as leverage to pull her opponent off her feet by sweeping her body behind her and kicking out her opponent's legs, using her arm as a pendulum to gain momentum. It sounded like a plausible theory. Although she had yet to master the move against R'chnt, she was hoping maybe the raging anger and frustration fueling her now might produce a different outcome.
It did.
Her opponent, somewhat taken back by K'Shai's sudden and final switch to offensive, whipped around to avoid the contact. K'Shai did manage to grab hold of the intended arm and tried to swing her body around behind her circling opponent.
The sheer force the Yautja moving away was enough to cause her to topple back down to the ground, more from her failure to keep her own momentum flowing properly than anything her opponent really did. K'Shai laid there for a moment, completely humiliated as Neh'rti loomed over her sneering, bringing the spar to an end for the day.
"If you are going to fall so many times, you may injure the offspring. You must learn to steady yourself. You must learn to stand firm on your feet. Not on your back."
K'Shai grimaced and pulled herself up to her feet, angry and humiliated and grateful for the end of the session. She was directed out of the kehriteand joined S'ridi in the corridor, who walked with her to the elder healer's lab.
"I don't think I'll ever make Neh'rti happy." She said dismissively to S'ridi.
"Are you trying to?" S'ridi asked.
"I thought I…" K'Shai started but stopped mid-sentence, not really knowing what to say.
They rounded a corner and turned into the healer's lab and K'Shai was directed by the grumpy and unimpressed elder to sit on the exam table, while she surveyed her and ensured the health of the offspring.
"You are both fine. You should eat again, rebuild your strength. I suggest that you do not engage in such matches as this child develops further."
"I don't think I'll be able to get out of sparring," K'Shai said to the healer as she hopped off the table.
"Well, then you may want to consider not losing." The healer sneered.
K'Shai glared at her, but said nothing. She and S'ridi made their way to the cantina for a brief meal before they headed to the bath house.
K'Shai grabbed up a plate of fruits to take with her, which she continued to eat while she soaked in the nearly empty room, before returning to R'chnt's ship just to take a cold shower before making her way back to the mei'sa for the night.
"If you insist on leaving the mei'sa, K'Shai, you should at least not leave S'ridi's company." Neh'rti reprimanded her the moment she had returned. "She will watch over you."
K'Shai felt a little like a kid trying to sneak into the house without getting caught by her mother after being out past her bedtime. Neh'rti accosted her the second the mei'sa door opened and reduced K'Shai again to nothing more than a spattering toddler. She did not want to be watched over, nor did she want her comings and goings monitored constantly.
The Clan ship itself was fairly quiet and Neh'rti's objections to her being out in the corridors alone seemed unwarranted. Not only were the corridors almost completely empty anyway, K'Shai was quite sure that the 'aseigan and workers had all gotten the message loud and clear through R'chnt's displays that she was off limits. Even though he was not on the ship, his looming shadow over her made a lasting impression.
The hunters that she did see here and there did their usual gawking and chittering about who she was, but kept to themselves and well away from her. It was the females, ironically, that were giving K'Shai the hardest time.
K'Shai returned to her chambers in the mei'sa, a private accommodation the likes of which was not typically assigned to a young blood. She found the silent still of the room unappealing. She returned instead to one of the communal sitting rooms where she found four females all with offspring of various ages.
While she enjoyed and needed the lonely comforts of her assigned sleeping chambers in the mei'sa, or the echoing silence of the K'ojol, she was grateful for the company at that moment, even if only to sit in a chair eating fruit while not talking to anyone. She stepped into the room and received a few disinterested looks from the others as she slid into an open chair and curled her ankles under her butt, taking up the seat with her entire body.
For a while, K'Shai listened to the conversation, eaves dropping more aptly as she was not included in it. They were talking about their offspring and K'Shai listened intently, learning bits of information every time any of them spoke.
Eventually one of the females turned to her and curiously, if not a bit disparagingly, asked her about some more human customs. K'Shai sat up, smiled softly and joined the conversation.
Most of the females, especially the younger ones, seemed quite curious about her, as she was curious about them. The culture and customs were so different than anything K'Shai was used to, and the more the Yautja found out about human nature, the more they felt the same.
Each tried to understand the other's way, and as time passed, slowly the differences were becoming skewed. It was slow progress, but an understanding was beginning to develop, and K'Shai was at least grateful for that.
She continued to venture through the Clan ship, despite many of the females strongly worded suggestions that she stopped going out alone, especially as the offspring grew. They did not understand why K'Shai was compelled to return to the K'ojol so frequently; daily. K'Shai did not even attempt to explain, she simply did as she wished.
She would contact R'chnt in private from his ship, and sometimes fall asleep in his chambers, clinging to one of his bio helmets, which helped her sleep. Though it had been cleaned, the one that he was wearing when he was injured still carried his scent in the metal.
R'chnt had selected a new one for his return to Earth and K'Shai, reluctant to bring the biohelmet to the mei'sa with her, would instead wrap up against it in her arms and rest in his bed on the hunt ship.
For two weeks, K'Shai would watch hunters arrive back for supplies and medical care and listen to the stories they brought with them. Sometimes the jag'd'atoll was quiet; empty corridors and vacant rooms. Sometimes, the hunters trickled in in small groups at a time, and sometimes, they returned in droves.
The more hunters that returned at a single time, the more the energy on the Clan ship seemed to change. The larger groups almost always brought with them good news of the way the hunt was progressing. Of course, for the Yautja, good news did not always mean no loss of life.
As with all other things, the Yautja also had very different views on death. They returned with wild stories of hunters who had fallen, retelling their final moments and how they brought honor to the Clan with demonstrations of their strength and bravery.
Such things elevated a bloodline, and any particularly noteworthy victories, or deaths became a passable part of the lineage, bragging rights for the hunters, essentially. They served as both boasting points for status elevation and breeding.
Though the Yautja did not mourn in the sense that humans thought of, K'Shai did observe some of their funeral practices. Whenever it was possible, a fallen hunter was collected and returned to the Clan ship. The morgue was packed. K'Shai had ventured into it with Neh'rti once, and once was more than enough.
Hunters with severed limbs, bodies torn in two, heads missing, bodiless heads, and leaking internal organs adorned the morgue in every available space. Each body, though, was carefully prepped and laid out. Neh'rti had a daily duty, along with the other council members, to pray over the newest bodies before they were incinerated.
Only the highest ranking of the deceased would be stored for eventual return to the Clan for cremation in a public ritual; a funeral essentially. All others were disposed of aboard the Clan ship, but not before their Honored hunting spirit was prayed for. K'Shai watched the ceremony once, saddened and disturbed, and chose not to return to it again.
The Yautja were unsympathetic towards loss of life. They accepted death readily; it was as natural to them as breathing. There was no question that if a hunter ventured out, he could likely not return. They were unphased by the trauma, the blood, the scent of the bodies that wafted through the levels as each new one, sometimes rancid, was returned to the Clan ship.
However, they believed that each fallen hunter brought Honor to the Clan by fighting, and dying, so each one was deserving of, and received, honored prayer. It was an odd thing to see the prayer ritual performed so eloquently, but yet, there was no real display of sadness or sympathy.
There were no sobbing mothers crying over their dead child. There were no funeral notices posted, no list of names of soldiers who gave their life in the battle, no crowds of people trying to check and see if their friend or loved one was on the list.
They were honored, but not mourned. They were respected, but not loved. They were valued as hunters in the Clan, but there was no attachment to them beyond that. Their hunting comrades spoke of their accomplishments in a delighted, boastful way, with no real consideration for the fact that they had lost their lives doing it.
It was alarming to K'Shai, and her experience in the morgue spurred her to spend that night alone on the K'ojol, cradling R'chnt's biohelmet in one arm and her unborn offspring in the other.