CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The corridors of the massive jag'd'atoll filled up quickly as the Yautja began their steady return from the alien world.
K'Shai recalled once wondering what the 'big deal' would be about her roaming the corridors of the atoll for the past many months as she began adjusting to life with the Yautja and they began adjusting to having her around, but now as the hallways became packed with hunters, she figured out the big deal on her own.
The Yautja, in the small numbers she had become accustomed to, were far easier to deal with than the large groups suddenly crowding every corridor and every room. K'Shai found solace in the quiet of the K'ojol, but getting there had become a skin-prickling event.
As Yautja filed back onto the Clan ship endlessly throughout every hour of the day, returning in groups of five or ten or twenty shuttle by shuttle, walking corridors had become more challenging that K'Shai had ever imagined.
She had grown comfortable perceiving the massive vessel as one with large, wide, easily passable corridors and rooms that were almost vacant. Suddenly, everywhere she looked, Yautja were packed shoulder to shoulder, in various states of wearing full armor and carrying weapons and skulls or wearing nothing but loin cloths, if they were clothed at all.
Some of the returning warriors came arrived with wounds still bleeding, some missing limbs entirely. Some limped their way to medical care, by way of the cantina first, just to gloat loudly over how they got the injury in the first place.
Instead of being worn, defeated, and traumatized, the hunters piling back into the ship were ecstatic, jovial, and beyond casual about the injuries they returned with. The energy level on the ship supercharged as amped up hunters loudly retold tales of their adventures on the alien world in their deep rumbling and bellowing bass voices.
The cantinas that had once held maybe a dozen Yautja at the most, incuding 'asiegan, were now bustling to the brim with twelve or fifteen dozen.
They all acted like they had just returned from a fun vacation, retelling their experiences with as much enthusiasm and vigor as children who just returned from their first time at Disneyworld would exude.
K'Shai watched and listened in wide eyed wonder horrified by the notion that the hunters had enjoyed their experiences on Earth and thought of the massive war as the most glorious challenge they had ever partaken in, certain to reap them great rewards in elevated rank, status, and breeding rights.
For many of the hunters, it was their first time on Earth or seeing humans, even if they weren't hunting them. For others, it was also their first time even hunting the hard meat.
Not every Yautja achieved their place in the Clan by hunting the hard meat for their chiva trials, she had come to understand. Each Leader had their own preference for how to challenge young would-be hunters.
Each hunter had returned with their own version of how they mastered their undeveloped skills, outwitting their prey and their own hunting mates, and etched themselves up in rank amongst their groups and status in the Clan while on the alien world.
Many of the males proudly boasted about the number of mates they would claim as soon as breeding cycle occurred. Talk quickly turned towards breeding, and K'Shai became acutely aware that not only was a breeding season looming in the near future, but also that there was more than enough curiosity about her ability to be re-bred that she had become quite the topic of conversation.
K'Shai remained amongst gaggles of females as she caught more and more stares from males as the days passed. Though none approached her or even spoke to her directly, she could hear her name brought up in conversations all too frequently.
While she did think she would eventually get used to being gawked at, she felt more and more uncomfortable with each new set of burning alien eyes surveying her to the point that she either remained well enveloped in a group of females, or within the confines of the mei'sa.
At least, amongst the females, K'Shai felt safer and protected. Much of what they had spent months trying to make her understand began to make sense, making her feel more than a little foolish.
If they did not go directly to the cantina after arriving to the atoll, many of the hunters did not delay in heading straight to jut-cha'hal or visiting one of the tattoo dens to have their victories etched into their bodies while they were still so fueled up with adrenaline the pain would be minimal, no doubt.
The cantinas filled up with returning hunters to the point where it was almost impossible for her to squeeze into one and make her way to the food, despite her smaller size. The musk of the many Yautja, all wreaking with excitement, sweat, days or weeks of uncleanliness, and blood was overpowering.
She was not sure if it was the surge of hormones from alien genetics in her, or simply the overcrowded rooms, but she began to grow sensitive to the musk that all the males emanated.
She stopped in one open doorway to a cantina and refused to enter as many heads turned her way to gawk. She simply turned and went about her business as though going to the cantina was not important enough to her.
Having similar experiences at two more, she gave up and returned the mei'sa, commanding an 'aseigan to bring her food instead.
The vocal rumblings of all the returning Yautja grew so loud and boisteroius around the clock that it made the floor grates rattle. K'Shai could feel the vibrations as she approached the main door to the mei'sa, she could hear their bellowing growls and roars rising up through the hollow gridwork of wiring and pipes in the walls.
Many of the hunters turned the communal bath houses into something more along the lines of frat houses. They spent hours soaking off the sweat, blood, scents and crustiness of their exertions on the alien world and continued to regale their peers and comrades with stories over drink and food, acting loud and boisterous enough to draw attention of any female nearby.
K'Shai spent a short while in one bath house with five other females in a pool.
The males dared not enter the females' pool or even get too close, but they certainly presented themselves prominently, hoping to draw the females to them.
In attempts to do so, many of them disrobed completely, proudly displaying not only their scars and injuries from the hunt as silent monuments to their fighting experience, but also their muscles and dangling rods and large sacs as silent statements to how they would feel inside any female who had them.
Their purpose worked, too.
As K'Shai sat with her small group in the soaking pools, watching the males come and go and stride around displaying themselves as deliberately as possible as they boasted and even playfully sparred with their friends, the females certainly took notice of them.
Youngblood and elder alike all poised and displayed themselves and fought like eager children trying to put on the best show. Though the various ranks remained carefully away from each other.
The ranks between the males quickly became clear as higher ranked or older Yautja would growl and bellow and thud into the younger, lesser males, giving them harsh reminders of who stood the best chance against what female.
K'Shai couldn't help but blush a little in human modesty as she watched the parade before her. She watched how the females would eye up the males, taking in their pride as they offered it up, and commenting amongst themselves who stood out the most to each of them.
The energy aboard the Clan ship was strong, the Yautja musk was strong, and the females were pleasantly entertained.
K'Shai pulled herself free from the soaking pool when the hot water grew uncomfortable for her. She tiptoed carefully out of the pool, naturally body shy as her human upbringing demanded of her and she suddenly felt flush with embarrassment as she realized just how many eyes turned her way.
She quickly robed herself, though it was a rather pointless undertaking, and scurried out of the bath chamber. As she made her way back through the corridors, in nothing but a light, nearly sheer cloak, with one arm supporting her swollen belly, she tried to pass through corridors that had become more packed with Yautja than they were a few hours before.
She wanted to drop her eyes to her own toes and shove her way through the many hunters jam-packed in the corridors, but her Yautja training told her to stand tall, chin up, shoulders back, and keep her eyes focused on her destination.
Once she made the subtle change in her body posture, she immediately noticed that many of the hunters began to clear a path, allowing her through.
They still stopped and gawked and chattered and growled amongst themselves as she passed, making her feel a little like she was walking through some kind of gauntlet, but they did move.
At first, she braced for the onslaught of ridicule, and her heart sped up as she tried to figure out how she was going to respond to dozens and dozens of male hunters all chastising her for existing as she tried to push her way through them, but the sharp remarks and growled insults never came.
By the time she reached the far end of one corridor and turned into the adjacent passage, K'Shai had realized her heart rate had slowed and her pace did too. She kept her back braced tall, as if she could somehow add a few feet to her frame by doing so. Her eyes remained up, locked onto her destination somewhere before her.
She heard mutterings from the packed halls as more returning hunters got their first looks at the alien amongst them. Many of the hunters simply commented about her quickly and went on their own business.
A few backed away from her as if she was eyeing them up for a challenge they wanted to decline, and a few simply dropped their gazes as though the very idea of even looking at her was uncomfortable.
A very few of them nodded at her in a subtle gesture of acknowledgement, but much to her surprise, none that she heard chitter, click, growl, or mumble, issued any kinds of insults or threats. Rather, the corridors fell somewhat quiet as she walked through them, which prickled her skin even more.
Day by day, the ship packed with more and more Yautja. K'Shai grew more uncomfortable with each passing rotation as the child in her felt like she was performing acrobatics Yautja style nearly non stop.
"You're starting your sparring training a little too early, baby. You've got to stop." She whispered to her unborn offspring after a restless night of more tossing and sitting up and trying again than actual sleeping.
K'Shai took to remaining in the mei'sa or the command room and did not venture anywhere else, which seemed to please Neh'rti as they worked on continuing to direct remaining troops on the planet.
She focused on the concentrated forces on the planet, and backed them up by directing the ship and aiming the main cannon, spending much of her time watching the formations of glowing little icons on the holographic display move and change.
"K'Shai!" Neh'rti barked sharply as she entered the command room, noticing her slumped over a console. "You have been working longer than usual."
K'Shai groaned and stretched.
"You need to eat. Your offspring is restless."
"Oh, I know she is." K'Shai groped her belly and eyed Neh'rti, who remained motionless near the door surveying her.
"Come."
K'Shai frowed suspiciously as Neh'rti guided her out of the control room. Instead of taking her to the mei'sa for some food and rest, she diverted towards a lift that would take them to one of the bustling levels full of hunters and K'Shai went rigid, trying to come up with a good way to get Neh'rti to understand that wasn't where she wanted to be.
"Neh'rti, I think I am going to the mei'sa," she said with a groan. "As you say, I need some food and the baby is restless. I would rather…"
"Follow me, K'Shai." Neh'rti barked without concern, headed directly to the door to the main corridor.
K'Shai gritted her teeth, trying to stifle down a protesting groan and whine, feeling quite torn between the composed and strong hunter warrior expectant mother she was supposed to be, and the moody, tired, and sorely temperamental barely-out-of-being-a-teenager about to throw a tantrum that she felt like becoming.
As she approached the ominous looking doorway to the lift, she could not only hear, but feel the rumbling Yautja voices echoing up the shaft to their level.
She knew that a typical capacity for the Clan ship was around twelve-thousand, and throughout her entire stay thus far, there had been less than one quarter that amount on the ship at any given time, making most of it feel like a ghost town.
Instead of being threatening and forboding, though, the empty vessel, with its massive and wide vacant corridors, and only the occasional resounding echo of metal on metal creaking, or ticking of some Yautja passing by, was warm and comforting, easy to get lost in, and interesting to explore.
In the past many months, K'Shai had definitely been through every corridor, every level, whether she was supposed to be there or not, at least once. She found empty corridors, empty rooms, empty kehrites, empty temples.
As she became nothing more than a familiar sight aboard the ship, an oddity that was now normal in the hallways between the docking bay, the mei'sa, and the cantinas, she drew less and less attention from any Yautja, and the empty corridors felt oddly even more empty as each adjusted to the other.
Now, as almost ten thousand Yautja piled back into the ship in a matter of days, the corridors became heavily congested and uncomfortable, and yet more were due back.
Over the next several weeks, as the war effort concluded according to plan, more than triple the normal occupancy would all pile into the ship. She had been told that on the initial trip to Earth, there were even more aboard.
With so many new hunters arriving hour by hour, everything she had long since adjusted to was new again.
All the Yautja who had never even seen her, only heard stories, turned her comfortable living environment into an uncomfortable spectacle and all she wanted to do was remain out of sight and mind in the mei'sa or the command room and await R'chnt's return.
Even just getting to the quiet comforts of R'chnt's vessel had become such an ordeal, it had been at least four rotations since she had even tried.
K'Shai felt queasy in her stomach as she thought about the numbers aboard while silently trailing a few steps behind Neh'rti, who indelicately punched the panel on the wall to the lift and stepped in. The rumbling voices drew nearer as the wall-less platform descended down the shaft.
How the ship could possibly house so many Yautja for the journey back to the homeworld, without bursting at the seams, was hard for her to imagine. And to think, less would be returning to Yaut than had come to Earth in the first place.
As it was now, the corridors and rooms were so heavily packed it was uncomfortable to move or even breathe.
She could not fathom how the Yautja themselves handled the even more crowded accommodations on the ship during the inbound flight.
Visions of Yautja fighting endlessly, sleeping in corridors, drinking, sparring, and generally making a mess for the 'aseigan to clean, while parading around trying to impress each other and the females with their displays filled her head as the lift glided to a stop and the door opened to the main level of the atoll.
"R'chnt!" K'Shai beamed and bolted past Neh'rti with no regard.
She did not hear the Clan Leader growl her displeasure as she howled her delighted laughter and threw herself into him, wrapping her arms tightly around his neck and tucking her head under his jaw line.
He clicked and chortled deeply, eagerly greeting her as he said her name in a rumbling purr that sounded filled with pleasure at the sight and feel of her.
"You're back early! I'm so glad you're back… and early! Are you done? Do you have to go back? Why did you come back early? You didn't even let me know."
"Matters to attend here, K'Shai." He said simply with a chuckle and delicately lowered her to her feet.
He nodded to Neh'rti and turned through the corridor. K'Shai followed readily along with him, but kept herself wedged more behind him than next to him.
He glanced to her as he started through the corridors, noticing how she was walking, pressed close to him, and yet partially hidden behind him. Her scent the moment she saw him had been strong and pleasant; that now familiar mixture of alien and Yautja pheromones that told her mood far more clearly than she could even convey in words.
Within a few moments, barely by the end of the corridor as R'chnt growled the aisles clear for their passing, he sensed her h'dui-se had changed again. It was permeated with an alien aroma that overrode the Yautja scents she could emanate and it was message he was all too familiar with from her, and had once thought was gone.
He thought back to one time on Earth during a hunt when K'Shai and her human group of friends had willingly followed R'chnt and his hunting pack into a hive underground.
Though they had followed along obediently, it became clear once they were well enough underground that the humans had no idea what they were getting themselves into. The pack of would-be fighters were about as inexperienced as mei'sa children, and R'chnt had learned something about the species that he had not realized during that experience; how poor their vision was.
As K'Shai and the others clattered into one another and grappled the walls of the hive around them trying to figure out where they were, K'Shai herself had walked right into the back of him, and spent the next few minutes clinging to his belt as she followed him.
He had growled under his breath to her in annoyance, but he hadn't known her quite so well at that point. As he thought about it though, he was not convinced that it was the physical contact that had annoyed him, nor the cumbersome way she handled herself in the tomb void of external light; it was the scent of fear emanating off of her that had caught his attention the most.
She was frightened and it was exceedingly obvious.
He recalled thinking how any creature so full of fright could have ever managed to survive, other than by fleeing like a pyota.
Yet the thought did strike him that despite her fear, there she was, clinging to him moving forward and for perhaps the first time since they had first met, she was putting her trust into him fully, to guide her safely, to protect her.
Now, though the scent was far more subtle, he knew it well enough to recognize it instantly. He walked with her slowly and carefully, studying her quizzically as they moved from one corridor to another, trying to comprehend why she emanated fear, and noting that yet again despite her obvious concerns, she still followed him.
He eyed the hunters that crowded the hallways with enough of a glare to send most of them scattering away from his presence, eyes dropped. Each time a crowd formed, he felt K'Shai nudge into him a little bit tighter and although he could not figure out why, he suddenly realized that she was frightened of the Yautja around them.
He had returned to the Clan ship earlier than he expected for several reasons, and amongst those reasons was K'Shai. She was adapting well to life with the Yautja; he could see that much for himself just by looking at her.
He had certainly not expected the level of interest she would attract for herself amongst the hunters and it alarmed him.
While he was pleased by her displays of strength and dominance, which were ever growing and enough to impress the females on the council, he had heard far too prolific talk about her from males, young and elder alike.
He knew she had previously spent much of her time defiantly away from the mei'sa, and in the last few rotations had suddenly taken to withdrawing into it and avoiding all contact with the now growing population of returning hunters at all.
This pleased him, to see her adjusting to life in the mei'sa so well. By remaining notably separate, K'Shai had not only confirmed her status as a Blood female of the Clan, but also simultaneously, and undesirably attracted even more attention than when she made her presence known.
As it was when they spent time hidden away in the K'ojol while he was recovering, once again, talk of the alien who kept out of sight seemed to flood the ship. With the returning numbers, the rise of such talk was alarming. As she walked with him, he had expected her display to announce yet again to the new eyes spying them that she was his and only his.
As he headed towards his destination with K'Shai in tow, though, the message she delivered was something quite different.
She was heavily pregnant, and perhaps that was the reason for her discomfort in the corridors amongst the Yautja, all of whom stepped well out of the way to let them pass. Still, she continued to press herself into him.
She walked by his side, but only just barely, with a portion of her body still hidden behind his. She was silently asking him for protection, when she had established herself without it. He considered her curiously as he continued to the meeting hall on the far side of the ship.
He had other matters that the council had elicited him to perform, which pulled him away from the hunt, much to his disinterest. The hunt was slowing.
On the planet's surface, he had done more walking and surveying than actual killing in the last many short rotations of the alien sun and moon. While he was more inclined to continue on with tracking and pushing for more chances to eliminate the hard meat, he was far less inclined to facilitate in council matters.
He was, however most certainly inclined to return to the Clan ship and rejoin K'Shai.
He thought about her unique position, and the unique attention it was drawing to the both of them while they walked towards the hall. Once they got out of the busier sections nearer to the cantinas and common areas, the corridors became more notably quiet and with that, K'Shai more relaxed.
He eyed her quizzically as he guided her into the meeting hall. Her scent had shifted, telling him she was no longer anxious or fearful, and he had found himself wondering, as he stepped through the threshold into the hall, if she was anxious about the crowds, or about his sudden return, or perhaps their destination in the ship, since he was clearly not taking her towards the K'ojol.
R'chnt pondered K'Shai as he gazed at her while she walked into the meeting hall as though she had been there a hundred times, and he assumed she probably had frequently visited it while it was empty, no doubt to gaze at her world beyond the windows that lined the elongated room, just as she did now.
He focused his thoughts so deeply on to her and the child in her womb, so quickly matured that K'Shai looked about ready to give birth at any moment, he did not even hear one of the council elders bark his name, or another one chortle a comment about his mate's distracting musk.
"Does K'Shai have an interest in inter-clan negotiations?" One of the elders in the room balked to her.
R'chnt approached the long meeting table with a growl. K'Shai turned and stared quizzically at the four elders already gathered around it as R'chnt reached for a pitcher and casually poured himself a mug of drink, saying nothing. She turned to face him and he clicked his tusks for a moment.
"I have been summoned here to help with clan diplomacy." He growled.
She couldn't help but notice the utterly displeased, almost sarscastic chuff with the last two words. He had told her many times that he was a doer not a thinker, and as she smiled thinly, she unconsciously rubbed her swollen belly.
"Why?" She asked.
R'chnt bellowed in absolute amusement as he approached K'Shai and prominently offered her a second mug of the a'gha juice.
"You see, even K'Shai knows my place in not at the negotiable table. I prefer my negotations be conducted in the kehrite. Spear or no spear." He laughed heartily.
"No, that's not what I…" K'Shai started, obviously seeing that R'chnt misinterpreted her question.
She realized she may possibly have offended him or embarrassed him by implying that he was not up to the task of interclan diplomacy, whatever that meant exactly. She had a worrying notion that perhaps the matter involved her in some way she probably wasn't going to like.
"Some of the council seemed to have gotten the idea that I might be a good choice for diplomat, K'Shai." He said with a tone of amusement, not embarrassment.
"I can't imagine why." A booming voice echoed in from the doorway.
K'Shai craned her neck past R'chnt as he turned and noticed, R'gyhn-de one of R'chnt's brothers that she had met on Earth. The two greeted each other with a hearty and brisk hand-on-the-shoulder gesture that they displayed as almost a little more like a "fist bump" than a handshake; an aggressive, but good-natured greeting between two well-acquainted Yautja.
"R'chnt had an entire pack of humans following his orders and joining him on hunts." He boasted loudly to the room.
R'chnt grumbled, apparently displeased by the compliment on his diplomacy skills. K'Shai smirked in amusement, thinking vaguely about a joke W'rsa had once said to them both that R'chnt clearly knew something the Yautja did not about how to interact with humans, especially the female ones.
R'gyhn-de approached K'Shai and surveyed her, clicking his tusks together in consideration for a moment before he dropped his head, bowing respectfully to her without a word. His manners towards her suggested he was not only pleased by what he saw of her, but also aware enough of her status to stay quite formal and respectful and well away from her.
He bore more injuries than the last time she had encountered him, but he carried himself with such power and presence K'Shai thought an intimidating posture must just run in their bloodlines.
Slowly council elders from other clans began to fill the room with heat, chittering tusks, strong musk and the alcoholic aroma of c'ntlip, which nearly intoxicated K'Shai just by smelling it.
She moved away from the scent as much as she could and watched R'chnt move around the room, pacing like a caged wolf, drawing an invisible line between K'Shai and the rest of the room, which no one dared cross including K'Shai.
The inter-clan negotiations, she thought, were shockingly mundane. The males mingled amongst themselves and drank their brews. There was no fighting, no real displays of aggression, and K'Shai watched with curious interest, suddenly finding herself wondering when the arguments were going to start; when the weapons were going to come out; when someone was going to start bleeding or be flung across the room in a furious fit of "diplomacy".
Then she realized there were still twice as many chairs at the table than Yautja in the room. It seemed they were all waiting on more arrivals.
Some of the Yautja, perhaps serving roles of apprentice, she couldn't be sure, stayed well out of the way and watched with varying degrees of interest. Two more males entered the room, followed soon thereafter by females, and the room fell alarmingly quiet at that point.
Neh'rti and S'ridi appeared in their own due time, showing minimal interest in many of the lesser clans' representatives and only really acknowledging their own Clan's leaders, including R'chnt, and even nodded respectfully to K'Shai, who promptly bowed her head in return.
One more male, a bulky looking Yautja with blue-tinged skin and whitish-yellow eyes stomped into the room, flanked by two, significantly shorter and scrawny looking, but heavily armored youngbloods.
He marched proudly, though a bit cumbersomely, into the room. He was a large framed hunter, not as slim and graceful moving like R'chnt, who could tiptoe with cat-like stealth.
Immediately, the hunter's eyes locked onto K'Shai. He started directly towards her without acknowledging a single Yautja, as if he was specifically there to see her. K'Shai suddenly felt like withdrawing from the room entirely.
The way the newest male approached, as if she was somehow his business, caused her mind to flash with an entirely fictitious chain of events in which she was traded off to this Yautja for some reason.
She did not know what was about to transpire, but she did not want the new hunter anywhere near her and R'chnt was entirely too far away from her as far as she was concerned. As if feeling her sudden nervousness, the baby in her womb kicked as hard as she possibly could, revealing new levels of Yautja strength K'Shai would never imagined a baby could possess.
She noticeably flinched with an uncomfortable grunt to accompany it. Poor timing at best, because it made the blue-skinned hunter looming towards her chuff heartily and spread his upper tusks widely; brimming ear to ear in a heartily amused smile as it were, as if his presence had caused K'Shai to falter.
"So this is the ooman who threatened to destroy my ship?" He bellowed. "Somehow, I thought she would be bigger. Fragile looking little thing. You have Yaujta tenacity, though don't you? You no doubt make a fine mate."
R'chnt, Neh'rti and S'ridi all approached without delay, growling and jumping into action around K'Shai and suddenly K'Shai was rather well buried behind a protective wall of Yautja bodies, with the Clan leader at the forefront, and R'chnt closest to her.
She could feel his warmth emanating from him soothingly, a stark contrast to the deep growl that was emanating while his glaring eyes burned a warning right through the blatantly disrespectful hunter, who backed down quickly.
Neh'rti barked her command to the entire room and without delay, all took their seats. K'Shai remained close to R'chnt, who guided her to a seat next to him at the table. Though she had nothing to add to the conversations that ensued for the next several hours, K'Shai remained attentive and quiet. The matter at hand, much to her relief, did not concern her at all.
The Clan councils of five of the largest Clans and the Leaders and their aides of three smaller clans had all converged to discuss territory and population issues. K'Shai was rather surprised at the level of Yautja diplomacy extended around the table during the discussions.
By the time they had broken for the day, little had been resolved and there was much arguing, but tempers remained at acceptable levels for Yautja, and no fights broke out. No blood was shed.
After a few hours spent between sitting with R'chnt over drinks and a meal in an overcrowded cantina, and switching to a table full of females, K'Shai was sufficiently exhausted enough to tackle returning to the K'ojol for some rest. She rose to do so and was utterly relieved when R'chnt joined her immediately.
Instead of K'Shai trying to glare her way through the corridors, R'chnt did it for her with his powerful presence and deep growl to anyone who did not move quickly enough. Although, with the way the infant was kicking and pounding on her, she was annoyed, moody, and tired enough to produce a quality Yautja growl of her own.
"Soak?" R'chnt asked as he slipped out of his loin cloth and prepared to enter his bath.
K'Shai pressed her lips together and shook her head slowly. "I'm just tired."
She crawled into the bed, between the luscious sheets and before she dropped herself into the warm comfort they offered, she looked to R'chnt with a soft smile.
"I'm so glad you came back," she said quietly.
With that, he headed into the bath and she soon found herself in a deep sleep that suddenly became interrupted. She wasn't sure how long she had been out, but she woke groggily and tired, feeling her heart pounding. She was in pure darkness.
There was nothing familiar around her at all; no scents, no sounds. She could not see anything. Where she was and how she got there she had no idea. She groped around her in the darkness and tried to find any walls, any hint of where she was; locked in a room perhaps?
She could not control her pounding heart and in a few moments, the rapid beating and her own parched, throaty rasps of breath filled her ears. Suddenly a form took shape in the darkness, appearing out of the incomprehensible depths with its shimmering metallic teeth like the stuff of nightmares.
The hard meat lunged at her with its claws forward. Its wild shriek seared through her body in an instant, and with a scream, K'Shai jumped.
Howling, K'Shai leapt upright, finding herself in the familiar surroundings of R'chnt's chambers, still under the golden colored sheets. R'chnt, alarmed by her sudden outburst appeared into the bed chamber, soaking wet from his bath.
K'Shai glanced around the room to make sure she knew exactly where she was as R'chnt drew close to her. She threw herself forward into him and wrapped her around around him, feeling his heat, comforted by his strength.
She shook off the nightmare although she did not release her grip on R'chnt. He purred gently as he shifted himself under her and she leaned in against him, finally falling asleep again pressed into his wet, bare chest.
R'chnt did not move, he simply held K'Shai and watched her sleep while the infant within her kicked and shook her fists from time to time.
He had never seen K'Shai have such a restless sleep, but even in his arms that night, she grumbled and fidgeted while never opening her eyes. She had been relieved to see him return, elated to know that the effort on her world was coming to a close, and yet she was disturbed by thoughts and worries and fears of all she had experienced.
He was perplexed by her tendency to fret over past events, and now, it seemed that that process had begun to invade her unconscious mind as well.
K'Shai spent her days attending to the negotiations and Clan business alongside R'chnt if she was not in the mei'sa. She had nothing to contribute in the meeting hall, but she did quietly learn, absorbing all that she saw and heard.
The visiting leaders grew more accustomed to seeing her as part of the proceedings, but K'Shai had a legitimate excuse to be away, as well. She was female, bearing a child, and it was understood that any child-bound female was prone to quirky at best behaviour which the males most certainly did not even attempt to concern themselves with.
The strain of the baby was causing her fatigue, but more so were the sleepless nights that began to plague her. Night after night, K'Shai would lay in the safety of R'chnt's chambers aboard the K'ojol and by the time seven rotations had passed, she had dealt with nightmares so consistently, it could almost be planned for. R'chnt preemptively cradled her into his arms and she slept more soundly, but still, the kainde amedha always came to frighten her in her dreams.
"This is crazy. The war is ending, R'chnt. My world is getting safe and cleared, and I don't even live there anymore. I don't understand this. I know I'm safe here. I just want this to stop." She whispered to him from the security of his arms. "Why does this keep happening?"
He said nothing, merely reassuring her with purrs and the warmth of his arms, as he continued to do night after night while she grew more restless, more discontent.
"What happened to it?" She asked in shock one day, when she returned to his chambers to find the kainde amedha trophy skull head that was once above the bed missing. The spot had been filled in with other trophies and weapons.
"It will be returned to my home, displayed somewhere else."
She looked at him with a gracious smile and felt immediately guilty, but grateful. That night as she slept, the blackness in her mind still filled with terrifying images of salivating metallic teeth and ferociously wild hissing. Again and again, K'Shai was disturbed from her sleep by the shrieking calls of the deadly beasts.
She pulled herself tightly into R'chnt and he wrapped his arms around her, purring soothingly, trying to settle her as she broke down sobbing over and over. R'chnt was not sure what she needed from him, or how to make her dreams stop. Neither of them understood why, in the threshold of the finality of the war, the nightmares took hold.
He had inquired with some of the other elders in the vaguest way possible, so as not to give away any indication that K'Shai was troubled, but none of them were familiar enough with humans to really offer insight. He had even gone to L'ruch to discuss the matter, knowing full well that K'Shai and he talked readily.
L'ruch had no real input on the matter, either, except that he should continue to do what he was doing, and allow whatever process she was going through to pass.
"This is a challenge for you, K'Shai. One for you to battle and master." He said to her supportively as he held her.
"I don't think I can." She whispered in a soft moan.