CHAPTER FIFTEEN
As the days turned into weeks, K'Shai found her dreams plagued by dark, hissing, and shrieking images. She awoke from interrupted sleep after interrupted sleep sweating, trembling, heart racing. She would instinctively clutch her abdomen, whether to guard her unborn offspring from dangers that were not really there or to reassure it that they weren't there she was sometimes unsure.
She would press herself firmly into R'chnt, who would always wrap his arm around her and purr his reasurrances to her.
He helped her with focusing her mind, though she got the definite idea he did not understand the nature of her anxiety. Still, every time she slept, whether it was during the day or night on Earth, she couldn't be sure, and it did not seem to matter, she found herself fretting and tossing and turning and ultimately startling bolt upright only to fall asleep again in his arms.
If she woke and he was not there, she would go find him. R'chnt was frequently occupied with the Clan affairs his elders had requested him to participate in. Though he consistently maintained his disinterest in such business, it was obvious to K'Shai that his input was considered invaluable. When he spoke, the room silenced and even Neh'rti graciously allowed him uninterrupted dialogue.
Each time she found R'chnt amongst the other elders, either in the meeting hall, or elsewhere on the vessel, he greeted her readily and chased someone away so she could sit next to him.
K'Shai had little to offer at the negotiations, but her presence was allowed, almost seemingly preferred. Two lesser clans had petitioned for acceptance into the stronger clans, including the Kaunte Dar'een.
Too weakened by great losses of hunters, the lesser clans knew they would head for certain extinction as there were not enough numbers left to continue their progeny, protect their territories, and provide strength to their clans.
The females of the lesser clans worked out the matter of which stronger clans would accept them rather easily; the Kaunte Dar'een Clan had enough issues with accepting new unexpected females into it, and Neh'rti made a point of noting that.
She also maintained that any lesser females who petitioned for acceptance into her Clan would be stripped of all status and be recognized as something barely over 'aseigan until they earned their place on the social ladder.
K'Shai had come to understand that the two clans that had been nearly completely devastated by the Earth War were so weak in status even before it, that Neh'rti almost completely disregarded them. The matter only involved the Kaunte Dar'een Clan at all because both lesser clans had territory that bordered an Eastern edge of Neh'rti's Clan and it was good land to expand into; a worthwhile venture for the Clan.
When the lesser Yautja, disheveled from their former territories by the arrangements that had been reached, naturally petitioned for admittance into the Kaunte Dar'een, Neh'rti gave the request exactly so much consideration as she deemed worthy of her time, which was nearly none.
She was not impressed by the clan's trophies or lineage and considered the fact that they were so weak they were nearly all killed off during the Earth war proof that they had little to offer to add to the strength of the Kaunte Dar'een.
Neh'rti was unbudging on the point and the lesser female Yautja, now territory-less and clanless, and essentially powerless, wisely chose not to protest the fact.
K'Shai could not quite figure out if her presence during the meetings was to prove a point or aggravate the Yautja who were turned away. Either way, she realized it was all a display of power and pride on Neh'rti's part, and rather insulting to the weakened clans.
K'Shai felt the burn of the stares from the members of the other clans as they eyed her up with a definite but you'll accept that thing sort of gaze and towards the end of the negotiations K'Shai could not help but feel like they were right.
Neh'rti demanded strength above all else, especially from the females of her Clan. She knew the reason she was, however reluctantly, accepted into the Clan was only because of R'chnt's powerful status to back her, and not anything she had done on Earth during the war. The scars she bore, the proof of her victories, the mere fact that she even survived, while enough to at least pique R'chnt's favor, did nothing to impress Neh'rti. K'Shai was certain nothing would impress Neh'rti.
The females of the lesser clans had only lesser females to petition for their acceptance, and the few males left in the weakened clans likewise did not earn much merit in the eyes of the Kaute Dar'een Clan leader. She based her decisions on bloodlines and she was openly prejudice to Yautja not of the Kaunte Dar'een as it was. At least to that end, the offspring K'Shai carried would stand a better chance of finding favor with Neh'rti, due to the strong bloodlines that sired her.
K'Shai considered that thought as she watched the negotiations end, watched pure-blooded Yautja be rejected from acceptance into the strongest of the strongest Clans while she and her hybrid offspring stood amongst them. She could not help but feel tremendously inferior and undeserving. As the past two years caught up to her and reminded her through her nightmares of what she had seen and been through.
She felt as though no matter what she tried, she would always be unworthy of Neh'rti's approval, though she hoped that her growing daughter would not have the same difficulties, since she was fifty percent comprised of R'chnt's powerful bloodlines.
As she watched R'chnt dance around the kehrite slamming his bladed weapon against his opponents' counter attacks she thought about his position in the Clan and on the hunt, and her continued problems with the terrible memories that haunted her.
R'chnt was used to a violent existence and he handled that unmistakable brutality with composure and elegance and without any consideration. He fought, he bled, he killed and he dominated, and he did so without compassion or regard. He maintained that K'Shai had a strength and power that she was quite sure he was mistaken about.
She stood in a doorway at the perimeter of the kehrite watching him fight his opponents. He growled and bellowed with each powerful strike.
K'Shai stroked her belly silently as she eyed him, so enraptured by the presence and sheer controlled brutality of him she could barely take her eyes off him. He moved confidently, strong, and forcefully, oozing dominance with every blow. His tresses whipped around him and the beads that adorned them clattered together as they settled for a moment and then whipped around again as he flared his mandibles, howled emphasis everytime he slashed at his opponents or landed a striking blow with his unarmed fist.
The males handled the matter of acceptance rather differently than females, always up for any good excuse for a spar.
Though Neh'rti made the final decision of who would be accepted into the clan, the males preferred to settle the matter of admittance from the middle of the kehrite.
R'chnt was perfectly at home testing out the mettle three of the hunters who were amongst the group wanting to join into the Kaunte Dar'een. To K'Shai's momentary horror, the large male who had approached her in the meeting hall was amongst them.
Compared to R'chnt's lean and muscular build, the larger Yautja looked like a gorilla, she thought. R'chnt moved with power and precision, flexing his toned muscles as he danced around the oval sparring room. He was built like a racehorse; honed to an absolute pinnacle of performance and power.
One of the opponents he squared off with was considerably shorter than him. Another was almost as tall and so lean he looked anorexic, with every bone showing through his skin.
The leader of them was large, boorish, and compared to R'chnt's narrow and fit frame, looked outright fat. He had oversized upper arms that almost made him seem like he stood lurched forward.
He moved heavily, cumbersomely; not at all like the catty athletic elegance of his opponent. R'chnt was teaching her the same ways as he, to move with precision and careful, light steps.
Though she doubted she would ever manage to stalk and move and strike like him, she had at least hoped to some degree she was able to move more agily than the oversized hunter R'chnt faced off with.
He bellowed throatily every time he took a hit and shook spittle around the room as his thick, mostly unadorned tresses flopped dully. Though the goal of the challenge was not to kill, merely to test the worthiness of the hunters who sought to enter the Clan, blood was certainly drawn.
It was simply expected and understood; seek to prove your worth, and you will prove it by bloodshed, especially when you boast your sparring skills under the glaring scrutiny of a lock-jawed and unimpressed Clan Leader.
K'Shai glanced around to the rest of the spectators watching the display with waning interest. R'chnt was single handedly proving that none of the would-be new members were worthwhile. Neh'rti had turned her back on the spar all together; a sure sign that the males would not be entering her Clan.
The other females quickly followed behind her and then some of the male spectators slowly began to leave.
Only a few continued to watch the spar. K'Shai had found herself casting her eyes down towards her belly; not out of boredom or disinterest in the fight, but more out of deep contemplation of the child growing within her when a booming howl echoed out and the clattering of weapons hitting the ground caught her, and everyone else's, attention.
R'chnt had had enough of the spar. The two flanking youngbloods looked hesitant and lackluster as they had been commanded obviously against their desires, by their leader to square off against him.
They took one look at R'chnt and he immediately saw their hearts skip a few beats and the color drain from their spots. They feigned fake assaults just enough to look like they were doing something and it was getting annoying. It was obvious the two young hunters were worn and weary from their efforts on the alien world, but that was of no concern to him.
He knew immediately that the youngsters were not up to the challenge of joining the Clan, but they were left little choice as it was their leader, who eyed K'Shai up entirely too much, that had petitioned and they were obligated to follow his command or challenge him to the death to become leader themselves so they may make the decisions.
R'chnt had a suspicion that the two youngsters were hoping he might accidentally kill their Leader for that very reason. A poor Leader, R'chnt was certain. No doubt he had edged his way up to that rank by a combination of luck and lack of challengers due to his unusual size. He was intimidating to look at, but it was backed up by a poor level of skill and mostly obvious, brute-force attacks.
As R'chnt worked through the spar, carefully calculating his attacks, he noticed how the leader of the clan-less Yautja continually eyed up K'Shai on the sidelines. He bellowed to draw her attention and over emphasized every strike he made at R'chnt, moving awkwardly and deliberately, clearly trying to put on quite a show of his undeniable prowess.
His efforts made him more cumbersomely belligerent than he already was. He howled toyingly with delight as if he was somehow getting the upper hand beyond R'chnt's wit, and yet continually danced evasively without really ever acting on all the dramatics he was generating.
He smugly acted as though he was drawing worthwhile attention, as if he was accomplishing something other than bleeding and spitting all over the kehrite, when in fact the spectators were losing interest quickly at the lack of fighting in the fight.
Neh'rti had long since exited the kehrite, but R'chnt's bulky opponent glanced to K'Shai yet again, clearly trying to see if her attention was still on him. It was not; she was looking at her heavily pregnant belly, and the brash Leader had eyed her too long for too many times.
R'chnt howled out an attention-catching roar, to which K'Shai immediately looked up. He grappled the leader, lacing one arm behind both his arms and landed a powerful kick to his lower legs, sufficiently pummeling the obnoxious leader to the metal floor grating.
R'chnt allowed his bellowing growl to fade away in a long echo as the downed leader, looking rather humiliated, tried his best to continue with his show as if being down, bruised, and now bleeding from a crack in the back of his cranial ridges, was all part of his intention.
Noticing his poorly veiled attempts at eyeing K'Shai yet one more time, R'chnt growled angrily and lunged forward, grabbing him up off the ground and tossing him into a pillar a dozen feet away just for good measure before he spun on his heels and strode prominently over to K'Shai.
He clamped his hand down on her shoulder and she gazed at him with a small smile. R'chnt pulled his upper tusks apart slightly, returning the grin and bowed his head gracefully as he surveyed her, watching the child in her womb kick and thrash her mother with her tiny fists.
"Not exactly Kaunte Dar'een material?" K'Shai asked quietly as they both turned out of the kehrite.
"Hardly." R'chnt grumbled dismally, sounding rather disappointed that the spar was not more challenging. "Not even a good spar. His bones would be best ground down."
A severe insult, K'Shai knew. Bones of worthy opponents were prized and valued. Even bones of animals hunted for their meat were used for jewelry and room ornamentations or smaller trophies on hunting sashes. Every part of the prey was ultimately used in some fashion.
Although the Yautja were violent, brutal, and vicious, they had a profound respect of life and death that K'Shai was barely beginning to understand. Even prey hunted for food was respected enough to be fully utilized.
Bodies of valued hunters were incinerated, either in a massive furnace, such as the one in the lower level near the morgue on the atoll, or in a more formal ceremony on the homeworld dependent on status. For the bones of an opponent to be only worth grinding down, was the equivalent of treating them like mud on your boots.
The only other insult as severe as that would be for one Yautja to display the tusks of another on a sash around their neck or body, or use a Yautja skull as armor adornment. K'Shai had learned that such things were usually done when an arbitrator hunted and killed a bad blood.
R'chnt poised himself proudly as he glared back across the sparring arena. The burly leader pulled himself up off the floor rather clumsily, gripping his now bleeding lower jaw while the other two of his group looked on from a wary distance, seemingly a little uncertain of what the small, clanless pack would do next.
Such matters were of no consequence to R'chnt or K'Shai and without any more consideration, R'chnt turned, directing K'Shai out of the room with his hand lightly pressed between her shoulder blades.
They walked through the bustling corridors of the atoll and K'Shai wedged herself as close to R'chnt as possible, trying very noticeably to avoid being crowded. R'chnt sensed her h'dui'se displaying her discomfort once again.
They visited a cantina for a while; R'chnt was certain some relaxing activities and a little food and drink would do K'Shai well.
"You must eat, K'Shai. You have barely touched your food."
Distracted by the thunderous noise in the room, K'Shai barely even heard the low pitch of R'chnt's naturally growling-toned voice. He repeated his words, this time with a little prod to her shoulder, catching semi-stunned stares from the other males at the table who were still uncomfortable with the idea of touching a female without her direct say so. They marveled at R'chnt, who lived through the experience, as K'Shai turned to him.
"What? It's so loud. What did you say?"
"Eat!" He said again in a supportive tone.
Understanding R'chnt's tones was something of an acquired skill, K'Shai briefly thought. Discerning between a pleasant growl and an annoyed growl or an angry growl and a playful growl was something she had never before imagined would be necessary for her to do. He raised his voice only enough so that she could hear him as he urged her to nourish herself and the growing offspring in her womb.
K'Shai cringed at a sudden elevation in noise that just happened to coincide with a disturbed thunk to the inside of her uterus.
"Why does it always have to sound like a party in here? Is there something to celebrate every hour?"
R'chnt chortled a laugh and the others at the time chuckled the same.
"K'Shai! A hunter lives to tell the tale, is that not celebration enough?"
"But they're not singing about a living hunter! They're singing about a dead one!" She combatted quickly in momentary annoyance.
A small group of elite hunters, fueled by drink and hormones, had begun blaring out lyrics and soon, it had turned into a large group of Yautja.
R'hyju-de was proud, the strongest of them all. He hunted that which was mighty and strong. His trophies upon the wall, the scars in his skin, the blood on his hands, the blood runs true! The mighty hunter stalked his prey until the end of day, and the trophies one by one, came down. The trophies came down. The hunter, strong and fierce, lost his trophies as well as his head!
Over and over the hunters repeated the words, drinking every single time they hit the end of the verse. It barely made sense as a song, and the emphatic way they sang it made it sound like a bloody-version of '99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall'.
"Ugh!" K'Shai exclaimed, finally popping a piece of fruit into her mouth that was entirely too large.
"I want to go lay down," she muttered over the squishy fruit.
Without question, R'chnt stood and started to follow her out of the cantina. She walked quickly towards the door, through the aisle between the tables as hunters sat and bellowed and drank around her. As soon as she turned the corner out of the cantina, she immediately hesitated and tucked against R'chnt, nearly behind him.
Contrary to a typical Yautja female, who would simply barge through the packed crowds with little regard for anyone in her path, physically knocking down a male if he was too slow to get out of her way, K'Shai preferred to use R'chnt as shelter.
She transitioned between walking firmly or stepping with reservation, and R'chnt had noticed that it seemed to depend on her mood, which could switch hour to hour, sometimes even minute by minute, especially as the time drew nearer and nearer to the inevitable birth of their offspring.
She grew quiet and carefully withdrew from the crowds around her, pressing so close to him she may well have been trying to crawl under his body netting. He welcomed the contact and flared his tusks warningly to the hunters crowding the hallways before them, pridefully accepting the position she had silently requested of him.
He growled a deep warning, broadcasting to to clear the path and give his heavily in-child mate plenty of room. They responded accordingly, pressing themselves as far away from him and his alien mate as they could.
Immediately, K'Shai's scent changed as she grew somewhat more relaxed, but she continued to press herself so close to him that their bodies brushed into each other as they walked while she stroked her belly absent mindedly until they had finally reached the quiet of the hallway just outside the mei'sa.
"She's getting close, R'chnt. She'll be here in a few rotations. What are we going to name her?" She asked in a whisper as they stopped in the corridor.
"Name?!" He bellowed with a deep chortle. "No name until she is ready for chiva."
"Oh, no!" K'Shai retorted with a dismissive laugh.
"None of that waiting until I'm dead to name the kid. I don't have a hundred years. I'm having her now; she's getting a name now. Humans name their babies before they even are born. She's getting close and she needs a name."
R'chnt shook his head slowly, amusedly contemplating K'Shai's position on the matter and yet again considering the many differences between Yautja and humans.
"So strange, your people, K'Shai. Naming an offspring before it is even born? Why?"
K'Shai smiled thinly, pressing her lips together as she nudged R'chnt with her body delicately. She followed him through the corridor, rattling off Yautjan names idly.
"You prefer a Yautja name, not a human name?" R'chnt asked.
"Don't you?" She asked with a curious nod of her head.
He had not thought of it, for naming the offspring seemed like something so irrelevant as it would be years before a name was given to it, he had not even remotely considered it. Males would not be responsible for naming their offspring anyway. He tried to contemplate why humans would name an offspring before birth and why the sire was even consulted on such matters, but he simply could not truly understand the confusing nature of the human species. He supposed that as she learned more about Yautja ways, her unusual human tendancies would subside.
For now, he indulged her.
"Yes." He said simply, as she still stared at him with wide waiting eyes.
"What about A'ryin'di?" She said after running through half a dozen more names.
R'chnt nodded approvingly.
"A good choice. A strong name. Do you know what it means?" He said.
K'Shai hummed aloud. "Something about a fiery sword?"
R'chnt chuckled quietly, clicking his tusks together amusedly.
"Fire of the Sword," he corrected. "When a strong Yautja truly burns with the fire of the Gods, they are said to have the fire of the sword in their very bones and when they die, that fire burns their bones in honor of the Gods they have pleased."
"I think it's perfect. She will have her father'sfire, for certain." She said with a brimming smile.
"I was going to say the same thing about her mother." R'chnt ticked lightly pulling jut one tusk away into a sideways grin.
He eyed K'Shai with tightly-knit tusks. The matter of naming the offspring, settled, K'Shai knew his gaze was telling her she was not coming wherever he was going.
"What is it?" She asked apprehensively.
"Final matters on your world I must tend to, K'Shai. You will remain in the mei'sa and we will be united soon."
"R'chnt…" she whispered softly, carefully scanning her surroundings to ensure no one was around to overhear. "This baby is coming. Soon. I don't want to be away from you when I go into labor."
"K'Shai… females…."
"I know. I know," she growled emphatically, briefly shutting her eyes, and shaking her head and hands. "Females give birth in the mei'sa surrounded by other females. Males aren't part of that. I don't care, R'chnt. I want you with me. How long will you be gone? I don't want to be away from you."
"Soon, my K'Shai. Soon."
He departed after a brief goodbye, though K'Shai remained in the corridor outside the mei'sa door until R'chnt had long since disappeared out of sight. She had watched R'chnt depress the keypad at the lift to wait for it's arrival. She watched the door open and he stepped inside, turned and nodded deeply to her before the door slid closed.
She felt her skin prickle as she watched the closed doors and she continued to stand quietly in the corridor outside the mei'sa, being passed by the occasional Yautja who did not even acknowledge her.
R'chnt was gone, she was feeling a bit frustrated, tired from the strain of the baby against her womb, and finally hungry now that she was less disturbed, she suddenly decided she was in a bad mood. As she walked towards the mei'sa door, she must have conveyed a more familiar prescense to the Yautja in the corridors because she took note how they moved aside to allow her to pass, despite not having R'chnt has a buffer.
She strode her way through the rest of the corridor, into the mei'sa, down the adjacent hallways and into a females only lounge full of a delectable buffet. She filled a platter with meats, nuts, and fruits, and something sweet, that was called lo'tau that rather seemed to resemble cheesecake, before returning to her assigned chambers where she laid back to sleep. It was a restless sleep and K'Shai awoke before her terrible dreams once again became overwhelming.
She could feel her heart racing, feel the baby kicking sporadically. She sat in the quietness of her amber-hued room on the bed, listening to the murmurs of female Yautja rumbling to each other down the corridors of the mei'sa, the subtle hum of the lift at the end of the corridor, not far from her chambers and trying to fill her mind with the quietness that R'chnt had always helped her find.
She found herself unable to contain her mind, spurred on by the solitary emptiness of her chambers. The unborn child kicked a reminder that she was growing ever more restless as the hours passed. K'Shai fretted over R'chnt's departure. She did not know what remaining business he had on Earth or when she would see him again or when the baby was coming and how she was going to manage giving birth to it in his company against the ways and will of the females.
She quickly found herself frustrated over being left behind, though she did not want to return to Earth, she felt as though she should, and most of all she should have been with him. She continued combatting the nightmareish dreams of alien hissing and bone-chilling terror in blackless depths by filling her head with thoughts of the Yautja, their strength, their power, and their absolute indifference to what a human would consider traumatizing.
Despite her agitation, the following few days seemed to fly by. K'Shai kept her time occupied in the mei'sa as she had been during R'chnt's previous absences. Still, her mind constantly fluttered back and forth between what was going on on the planet's surface and what the next journey of her life would be like when A'ryin'di was born.
Almost as if her mind summoned it to happen, Neh'rti appeared in the doorway to the sitting room where K'Shai overlooked three little toddlers playing raucously before their mothers and female kin. All eyes, except for the youngsters who were gleefully oblivious as they tested each other's mettle to figure out who was the strongest, looked up to the towering Clan Leader, but her eyes were locked like a hawk on its prey onto K'Shai.
"Come with me." She barked.
Although K'Shai was comfortable, content watching the young children play, and mid-bite on a fruit that was a little like an orange in taste and texture with a deep purple rind that reminded her of an eggplant, and had no desire to join her for whatever intentions she had in mind, the tone in Neh'rti's voice was unquestionable. She stood immediately, without a word, and strode into the Leader's shadow.
K'Shai had much preferred to remain planted in the sittig room in the company of the young females and their offspring, succumbing to the feelings of her own unborn baby kicking at her nearly non stop, the almost constant state of nausea that seemed to linger in her during every waking hour, and the fatigue that she was enduring from endlessly interrupted sleep over hearing the wild shrieks of the hard meat every time she closed her eyes, while trying her best to focus her thoughts on when exactly R'chnt was going to return to the atoll and if he was going to make it back before A'ryin'di made her appearance.
All of that sounded much more pleasing to her than joining Neh'rti's company to go wherever for whatever the end result was going to be, she thought grumpily as she rose out of the oversized bone-framed leather chair and walked over to the Leader as commanded. Neh'rti did not say another word, merely turned on her heels and stalked out of the mei'sa with K'Shai following warily.
The pair was joined on the outside of the mei'sa doors by half a dozen other females, S'ridi included, who positioned herself near to K'Shai's side, silently offering up a little bit of reassurance to her just by lingering nearby.
Males of every caste cleared a path for the eight females of the Kaunte Da'reen Clan that strode through the corridors without the least bit of consideration to the coming and goings of anyone else around them.
Even from her mostly blocked position amidst a ring of alien females more than twice her size, she could see the 'aseigan jumping clear as if their very life depended on it, which of course, it most likely did. Each seemed to flash a slightly different color in alarm as the color quite obviously sank from their markings. She watched workers bow their heads deeply and flatten against walls or disappear completely into open doorways if they could. Hunters stopped in their tracks, even the highest-ranking elders and leaders, and bowed respectfully while clearing out of the way of the females.
K'Shai decided it was all a little like walking through a gauntlet of knights, especially as hunters pulled to a halt, sometimes with weapons propped before them, holding them as if presenting them to the females passing them by.
The hunters who propped up swords, spears, and other bladed weapons on long or short staffs somehow reminded K'Shai of Marines during a formal ceremony. It was like the females were getting some kind of send off. K'Shai watched them all warily as she passed them, and then eyed the corridor ahead, realizing where they were headed.
She suddenly felt nervous as the silent group of females headed prominently towards the hunt ship docking bay. Her stomach groaned and she was sure her heart had just dropped to her feet. Moving forward became difficult. Something had happened; she was sure. The Yautja were too stiff and rigid, and acting too formal as they surrounded her and walked in alarming quietness.
When the docking bay came into view, she feared looking around, certain she was going to see something awful that involved R'chnt. Had he gone off to his death? That had to be it. She found herself watching her own toes instead of looking up through the threshold of the docking bay. Her heart pounded so heavily in her breast, it was causing her to choke and as her nerves and anxiety shot upwards uncontrollably, she thought she might break down in tears right there on the spot.
Suddenly her mind flickered through an entire scenario that she found terrifying; the thought of raising her baby in the mei'sa with the females, without R'chnt there after all. In a flicker of an instant, she realized why females and males functioned the way they did, and for the briefest of moments, she understood the reasons behind the compassionless and emotionless Yautja nature.
As her toes crossed into the metal plate floor of the docking bay, she found the nerve to look up. What should would see, she did not know, and she feared it. Would the K'ojol be there? Maybe it had crashed? Would R'chnt's hunting pack be gathered around solemnly as the females escorted K'Shai to view him? She found her eyelids suddenly heavy as she forced her head up and held her breath while scanning the docking bay.
The females continued on their path without stopping and as K'Shai looked all around. Nothing was amiss. Nothing she had just imagined in the last thirty seconds had come to fruition. In fact, instead of a packed docking bay full of sullen looking Yautja, the docking bay was practically empty. There were barely even any hunt ships left in it. Before R'chnt had left, the bay was well packed with dozens of hunt ships all crammed together.
Only three remained and K'Shai suddenly was hit with the immense size of the docking bay as she looked around the emptiness of it. Only a handful of 'asiegan went about their duties in the massive space, and no one else was present at all.
Neh'rti led on, headed directly for a hunt ship with a ramp open and as the female entourage stepped on, K'Shai followed, still apprehensive about exactly what was going on, but also feeling relieved that it wasn't what she had expected.
Neh'rti and three others headed to the control room and K'Shai followed. Without a function to perform, she did not have a seat or a proper place to stand, but she tucked against a back wall and stayed out of everyone else's way as they brought the ship to life and powered on the engines. With as much ease as turning a car key and slipping it into drive, the ship was moving and blasting its way out the docking bay containment field in a short moment.
K'Shai watched the scenery change without a word.
She listened to the chatter between the females as they informed everyone of pertinent information about their progress, but her attention was mostly tuned out the massive viewing portal that comprised the entire front of the room, from the floor all the way up the front of the ship and along the roof until it ended in a pointed tip at the center of the domed room.
K'Shai looked up at the round ceiling and watched the stars above her head and then eyed the front view once again as familiar, amazing, and slighty nauseating sights, filled her eyes once again.
The ship sailed quietly, smoothly, and quickly past the empty void of space and K'Shai watched as the great grayish-white glowing orb of Earth's moon grew larger and larger as the ship approached it. Just beyond it, glowing blue and green in the background, Earth was lit up like a mighty beacon.
Far beyond the blue sphere, which looked oddly small compared to the sizeable mass of the moon floating nearby, K'Shai could see the yellow flames of the sun shooting up, illuminating the planet.
As the shuttle headed on towards its destination, she found herself watching the sun and the moon hovering on opposing sides of Earth, with the glowing halo emanating from both seeming almost to extend to one another as if they were trying to embrace one another with the entire planet caught between them. The view was specactular.
As she gaped in awestruck wonder at the beauty of the three orbs, she also glanced around to the Yautja who paid it at all no attention whatsoever. How it could possibly be that such incredible beauty was simply ignored, she could not imagine.
She doubted there would ever come a time in her life when the stars and the planets and the sights of space would be inconsequential to her.
She watched the grayish curve of the moon disappear past the hunt ship and slowly, the blue, white, and green Earth grew bigger and bigger in the front window of the ship. K'Shai could make out storm clouds over England and as the ship rounded the curve of the planet headed towards its destination, she watched sparse white clouds swirl around it as they headed towards the Eastern American seaboard.
As the ship was guided closer and closer towards its destination, K'Shai saw dark silhouettes of dozens of other ships all converged into a wide-open area of fields and parking lots, between demolished buildings.
She curiously went over to a computer console, somewhat certain she should not do so, but she drew no looks of detest or growled warnings from the four females in the room. In fact, none of them even bothered to watch her actions at all. It was perhaps the first time that something she did was not scrutinized with a commanding, sneering gaze.
K'Shai found herself even more apprehensive about using the computer at that. She was so sure she would be chased away with a firm barking growl, she felt tense, ready for it in anticipation, ready to square off and insist on her right to do what she wanted.
Halfway waiting for the sharp biting tone to ring out reprimanding her, she focused half her thoughts on the computer panel in the wall before her, and brought up a map of the area, and the locations of all the other ships, including the K'ojol, which was barely three hundred meters away at the edge of a field.
It was a landing party. The first landing party K'Shai had ever seen was to deposit hunters on the planet.
Since then, a whirlwind relationship over six months with R'chnt and nearly an entire pregnancy had passed, and now, the hunters had completed their task. K'Shai popped up another view of the area and noticed hundreds of Yautja working their way back to the ships waiting on them. As she widened the view, she saw dozens of landing parties full of ships and thousands of hunters approaching them.
The war was done. It was time to leave Earth.
K'Shai turned towards the viewing window once again as the ship rounded on its landing spot and thudded dully into the ground. The sun was shining outside and the bright blue skies, which looked so very different when seen from above, constrasted so dramatically to the bronzen hues of the many hunt ships converged throughout the area.
She stepped out of the ramp eagerly, pressing forward amongst the group of females deployed all around her and for the first time in more months than she had realized, her exposed toes touched the green grass as she stepped her sandaled feet onto the planet's surface.
Her face broke into an immediate smile as the long-lost scents of her own world hit her. Oddly, the scents in the air were as unfamiliar to her now as the scents of the atoll once were so many months ago when she first stepped out into it beside R'chnt.
It seemed that she had forgotten what Earth was like as she glanced around, squinting a bit at the almost overpowering bright sun while taking in the green grass below her feet, the blue skies over her head, and the tall amber grasses waving in the gentle breeze in the distance.
She realized that it been weeks, if not months, since she last really paid the planet any mind outside of the atoll, and it occurred to her that she had indeed come to disregard the planet and the stars and the sun and the moon, just as the Yautja paid them no mind either.
She glanced around the landing field as Neh'rti and S'ridi broke off from the group to confer with two elder males and two more females who all had their own ships already landed. K'Shai eyed her surroundings for R'chnt, but he was not there, and the K'ojol was not in sight.
She wandered around the landing zone but did not go far. For some reason, she could not quite figure out why, she felt uncomfortable getting too far away from any of the Yautja.
She delicately cradled her belly with one arm and tugged a bit on the flowing silky leather garments she wore, pulling the deep split between the lapels a bit closer together as the wind gently twirled the split front of it around her legs.
She lightly brushed over the armor pieces that she wore over her thighs and her forearms; not awu'asa, but naru'asa; more of a formalized training armor that K'Shai had slowly earned. Thinking about the events that were about to come in the course of the next few minutes or hours, K'Shai returned into the hunt ship and prepared.
She returned to the field just as two more hunt ships landed and Neh'rti and the other females approached her, having finished their business.
"K'Shai, your mate will rejoin you shortly, come with us." Neh'rti said with an unusually magnamanous tone.
Neh'rti directed the group out of the landing zone and they headed towards the lingering buildings in the far distance. As she looked around the empty cities, K'Shai suddenly realized how out of place she felt; like a foreigner in a world she should have belonged in.
She glanced for a moment to her tanned skin, highlighted by deep bold black brands of alien artwork down her legs to her pinky toes and all the way up both sides, over her shoulders and lacing across her back like a shawl.
Her garments and her hair both adorned with jewels and bones that served of symbols of her place and status amongst a people that she once thought of as alien. As Neh'rti nodded her horned head towards K'Shai and silently directed her to take her place, it seemed even she was suddenly no longer regarding K'Shai as an alien, just part of the group.
The formality of what had transpired since leaving the mei'sa was high, and as K'Shai eyed the Clan Leader in silence, she lowered her head gracefully and respectfully. Somehow, being back on Earth just felt wrong to K'Shai, and as she looked between the sea of hunt ships, the several dozen Yautja that held position there waiting on the return of troops, and the empty abandoned stretches of streets and fields all around her, she realized with a heavy feeling in her heart and belly, that her definition of home had changed more than she had ever considered.
As K'Shai walked along with the group, feeling the infant within her stretch and wriggle, she considered that perhaps Neh'rti's apparent change in demeanor was out of recognition that the end was coming near. At least, the end of the Yautja war, which inevitably meant also the final time K'Shai may possibly see her home world. As she looked around the scenery she recognized the familiarity of it, though it had changed somewhat in appearance since the last fateful night she saw it.
She knew the group was headed directly to the city of New Haven, and as they continued on through vaguely familiar streets, K'Shai felt her body going a little numb with every step. She thought about the destructed cities she had seen the last time she was on Earth, and terrible images of smoke and fluorescent green blood and R'chnt's body fading from consciouness filled her head as sounds of gun fire and roaring and the terrible hissing of the hard meat queen whirred up in her waking thoughts.
As she walked, she had an odd sense of having once been on the very same streets, but yet they looked totally different. Piles of rubble sprawled out between grassy patches where buildings once stood and slowly, as buildings in the distance became clearer and clearer through a long stretch of quite purposely leveled off flat land, the sights around her became unfamiliar.
Demolished buildings had been repurposed into low walls that were covered in vines which were bursting with grapes. Other brick structures, standing chest height in long rows were repurposed supports for tomatoes, blueberry bushes, and strawberries patches. Squash, cucumber, other vegetables grew in neatly tended rows from massive elevated dirt beds that rested on long-emptied plots where buildings once stood.
The structures in the distance, K'Shai realized as she drew closer, were once office buildings, businesses, a firehouse, and police station. Now each had been renovated to clearly serve a new purpose in the city of New Haven.
The sounds of children laughing, a sound K'Shai had forgotten entirely, rang up through the streets from beyond the wall and open gate that guards surveyed the crop lands outside from. Slowly, the adults around the city came to a halt one by one in rows, all looking up at the alien entourage approaching.
People began flowing out for blocks as voices rang out calling everyone's attention. Though the Yautja females remained quiet, rigid and undisturbed by the excitement of the humans before them, K'Shai immediately felt tense, alarmed, and full of anxiety. The males that flanked the small female group growled apprehensively, but held their ground and kept their weapons sheathed.
K'Shai nervously moved amidst the group, certain that everyone could likely hear her heart pounding and smell her nervous dai'shui, including the now-gathering humans, for it was certainly drowning her thoughts and filling her head.
She shifted slightly between the Yautja bodies, silently drawing herself to a position nearer to the front. She felt her heart skip a few beats when no one rebuked her. She had changed position in the group, to nearly the front, and the females accepted her sudden change without argument or challenge.
First, dozens then dozens more, until finally hundreds of people filed into the broadway between the structures of the city, under banners strung up across the street that displayed the name of the city and large arrows pointing towards various parts of the city.
Down each adjacent street, banners were strung up from building to building all with names of people written on them; monuments to fallen loved ones, or a way for current residents to reconnect with long lost friends, K'Shai could not be sure. Then, once in the midst of the city, Neh'rti brought the Yautja group to a halt and K'Shai peered around from just behind her, between the elbows of more than a half dozen Yautja surrounding her and spied two familiar faces emerge awestruck from the crowd.
K'Shai dropped her eyes graciously as she slid out from between the females, a smile filling her face.
"Lewis! Carlos!" K'Shai said with a shocked and excited whisper.
Her smile broadened and she lifted her eyes, making direct contact as she stepped forward. Two females stepped out of the formation behind her, flanking her. They stayed out of arm's reach but broadcast their presence enough to make Lewis and Carlos both stop in their tracks and eye them. K'Shai extended her hands forward and greeted her friends with a firm grip on their shoulders; a Yautja greeting.
"Look at you!" Lewis said in an exasperated whisper as both of them scanned her.
"You look completely different. I wouldn't even recognize you," Carlos said.
K'Shai tipped her head curiously at them, and nodded silently.
"You are definitely different," Lewis confirmed. He paused for a moment and extended an arm behind him, directing a rather alarmed looking woman forward.
"My wife, Diana."
K'Shai smilled widely, and bowed her head respectfully. She was pleased to see that Lewis had found a mate. That made her feel almost relieved in an odd sort of way. Lewis was, and always would be, a kind and dear friend, and K'Shai was not oblivious to the fact that he had been disappointed by her involvement with R'chnt, though he adjusted well enough to it. To see him moving forward with his life, clearly settled into a new human way in the new city, and taking a mate, was comforting.
"Incredible," Carlos whispered again, watching K'Shai intently.
She eyed him with a thin smile as she unconsciously cradled her belly; a simple habit that she did nearly every moment she was awake.
"You truly are quite different. You know, you're something of a celebrity here." Carlos said.
"And by "here", he means, basically here on planet Earth." Lewis added with a chuckle that Carlos echoed.
K'Shai smiled but remained quiet.
"We've all heard so much about you." Diana confirmed. "You and… R'chnt, is it?"
K'Shai nodded, pressing her lips together in a smile.
"Where… where is he?" Carlos suddenly asked, eyes scanning the Yautja party. "Is he…" his questioning tone morbidly trailing off.
K'Shai smiled softly and gripped Carlos's hands tightly.
"Carlos," she said in a soft whisper. "What you did for him that day; will never be forgotten. I will always be grateful to you."
"Oh, Cassandra, did he…" Lewis started to clarify with a solemn tone.
K'Shai smiled graciously at him, pulling her posture tightly erect as she shook her head slowly. "He will be along soon. I am glad I could see you both again. I cannot stay long. This child will be here soon. Very soon."
Lewis, Carlos, and Diana offered K'Shai brief congratulations and a short bombardment of questions about her life and pregnancy which K'Shai, feeling a little overwhelmed suddenly did her best to answer.
It was like an odd turn around from many months earlier when she had been once overwhelmed by a similar barrage of questions about her unusual species from aliens. Now, as she did her best to answer the curious questions about her experiences and unusal nature of her pregnancy, she thought about the blurred line between exactly which species was the alien.
Suddenly, Kelly burst from the gathered crowd and ran to K'Shai with a leaping hug while Nancy and her mate, Matt looked on with gracious smiles. As K'Shai scanned the crowd again, she noticed more familiar faces appearing all to get a look at her and she nodded acknowledgements to them.
Just as her gaze met Russel's eyes for a moment, she saw his stare, and everyone else's around him, shift towards the entrance gates as a murmur rumbled up through the crowd.
As the two dozen hunters in the street shifted out of the way, K'Shai spotted R'chnt leading his hunting party, along with a dozen others she did not know. They brought with them on a hovering platform, a giant head of a kainde amedha queen; a trophy and symbol of the end of the hunt.
K'Shai beamed radiantly at R'chnt as he strode towards her and clamped his hand over hers while she bowed a respectful greeting to him, resisting the urge to throw herself around him in a great embrace, much the same as Kelly just had her.
"Ki'cte bpi-de," R'chnt announced in his resounding voice to a stunned silent crowd.
K'Shai looked to Lewis and Carlos. "It is done."
She spoke louder than she realized, perhaps just exhaling the excitement that had been building in her. Her voice carried across the gathered crowd and a sudden booming rejoicing erupted.
The Yautja shifted their stances and eyed the celebrating aliens, notably disconcerted by the sudden outburst, but understanding of the reaction all the same. K'Shai was sure that there would be celebrations aboard the a'toll as the hunters finally left this world behind.
Many of the celebrating humans broke off to enjoy their newfound freedom in their own ways, while others remained still and continued surveying the aliens before them. When a man appeared from the crowd, a quiet slowly filled the air once again and K'Shai and R'chnt turned to see the man approaching, extending his arm to shake K'Shai's hand.
R'chnt growled in alarm and stepped forward, as did Neh'rti and the two females who had flanked K'Shai nearly the entire time, each growling out their own warnings over the male's attempted physical contact with K'Shai.
The man took the hint and lowered his arm, looking at the four aliens towering over him with wide eyes as Lewis slid closer to him, positioning himself between the man and the Yautja.
"President Atwater," he said firmly. "This is K'Shai and R'chnt."
"Thank you. Thank you both so much," the man said.
K'Shai knew this man was a leader, worthy of respect, and yet R'chnt remained apprehensive and guarded while the females pressed in close, warily eyeing the situation without trust, interest, or acceptance. The man continued on.
"Our world has already begun to change and rebuild, and now, we can move beyond the walls of New Haven."
K'Shai was not sure if the President was speaking to them or for the crowd instead, as he announced his words loudly, clearly trying to draw in attention of the spectators, just as much as R'chnt's previous opponent in the sparring arena tried to draw in hers.
"Thank you to the both of you. You have forever changed our history. I'd like to get a photo with you both, if I could. This day will always be rememberd. August the Seventeeth will be forever known as the day the world changed."
K'Shai remained just as motionless as the Yautja around her and when the man stopped his speech, an uncomfortable silence filled the air. She reached into a satchel on her hip and pulled out two necklaces.
The dangling pendants, which looked like gold-embossed bones with a glowing blue crystalline center, served a purpose that K'Shai hoped someday she would put to use. Ignoring the man all together with disinterest, K'Shai looked to Lewis and Carlos.
"We must go," she said to Lewis, warily eyeing the leader of the humans that had tried to touch her as she shifted her hands forward and allowed Lewis and Carlos to each take the dangling pendants from her.
"There will be a celebration tonight," the President said. "Won't you both… you and… your people… stay for that? It would be an honor. I would like to learn about you."
K'Shai eyed Lewis again and repeated her words, not certain if she was unclear the first time.
As R'chnt, K'Shai, and the rest of the Yautja turned to leave, K'Shai gestured for Lewis and Carlos to follow. They followed her out of the city, curiously questioning her as they shadowed the Yautja group until they reached a ship with a ramp down, and W'rsa waiting tall, spear in hand, keeping guard.
"This is R'chnt's ship," K'Shai said as she stopped and turned to the group of humans following her.
Some of the Yautja disappeared inside the ship up the ramp, while others headed away from that hunt ship towards their own. Neh'rti paused and looked to K'Shai with a dismissive gaze, silently acknowledging that K'Shai would not be riding back to the atoll with the females and turned to walk away.
R'chnt stood next to K'Shai, watching the humans survey him, her, and the ship behind them one last time.
"Will we see you again, Cassy?" Lewis asked softly.
K'Shai produced a thin smile, and a subtle nod as her body remained straight and proud.
"I will return one day. I will find you."
"Good luck to you… K'Shai," Lewis said as he and Carlos both clasped their hands to hers in a departing gesture.
"To you, too. You have a planet to rebuild. I only have to get used to a new one." She smiled, and turned, walking with R'chnt up the ramp and into the Kehrite.
She passed the trophy cases as the doors closed down over them and barely glanced to the skull of a Yautja with a broken lower right mandible mounted in one of them as she walked through the kehrite and towards the control room, passing by several dozen youngbloods who had all hitched a ride back to the atoll aboard R'chnt's ship.
She stopped in the center of the control room as R'chnt moved around her and she let her hand whisk down his arm and across his abdomen, over the scarred injury on his abdomen.
"We will be home soon, my K'Shai." He said in a quiet tone as he stroked her face, similing softly at her.
She tipped her head into his palm, nodding and watched the ship take off from the planet's surface, suddenly feeling more content than she could recall feeling before. She watched the blue orb of the planet slide behind the ship as they zoomed away towards the atoll far in the distance, and she turned to head back to R'chnt's chambers to await the rest of the ride.
She spun slowly on her heels and suddenly bellowed a pained howl, grabbing her abdomen tightly as the four hunters in the control room all looked at her in alarm. R'chnt jumped from his chair at her sudden outburst and faced her.
"It's time!"