CHAPTER SIXTEEN
"It's time!?" He thought with a start as he watched K'Shai grapple her abdomen and double over, making her way out of the control room with his help while grunting and moaning in distress.
He could see her body temperature rising and K'Shai howled in pained agony as her body released fluids uncontrollably. R'chnt supported her as she lurched into him and stopped moving. He grabbed her up and carried her the rest of the way into his chambers as alarmed and curious heads all craned towards them.
"K'Shai," he said in a concerned bellow as he made his way with her in his arms into the sleeping room of his chambers and laid her on the bed, watching her groan in protest against the painful but natural process in her body.
She strained again, more powerfully than all the rest.
"It is not normal for a child to be born so quickly." He said quickly.
"Maybe not for Yautja, but this has been a longer pregnancy that normal for humans. It's time. Oh, this is really uncomfortable…" she said with a trailing wail in her voice.
"We are almost to the atoll. You must wait until we arrive. The females wi…"
Interrupting him with pained laughter in between groans and howls as her contractions intensified, K'Shai bellowed to him.
"It doesn't work that way! This baby is coming - NOW!" She said grittily through clenched teeth as she huffed another deep breath.
In the last nine months aboard the clan ship, K'Shai had only witnessed two births, and even those were from a distance.
It was not typical or even appropriate for pregnant females to leave the homeworld, or even the mei'sa. The only females in child on the atoll were a handful of whom of such rank or position in the Clan that they simply had no choice but to leave their world to handle affairs of the Earth war.
While the other females were still gestating their offspring over what would be the equivalent of five years of Earth's time, two of them had come to full term while on the atoll.
The mei'sa was a home for all females and their offspring. It was equipped with every luxury any female could want or need, but from all that K'Shai had been told and learned, the mei'sa on the a'toll was nothing in comparison to the one in the Clan on the homeworld.
The females that had given birth both noted how it was not ideal to do so under such conditions. K'Shai could not imagine what was so different between the homeworld and the atoll mei'sa, and as her body shot with pain unlike anything she experienced before, she could have cared less where she gave birth, just so long as the offspring would finally come out.
"K'Shai… I…" R'chnt started, stammering for the first time since she had ever known him. His voice sounded rattled and outright perplexed.
"I do not know what to do. You must wait. This is not for males…"
She squeezed his hand tightly, maybe too tight, but he did not seem to mind that she was likely cutting off his circulation as she dug her fingernails into his tough skin as she huffed and focused on her own breathing, certain that it was hotter in his chambers than it had ever been before as she realized she was sweating profusely.
"R'chnt," she said through a gritty whisper. "Just… catch."
Instincts she never knew she possessed kicked in, and as the painful contractions pressed on, she removed her belt, releasing her leathery loin cloth that draped almost like a braided and shaped kilt under her overgarment and howled as she felt an uncontrollable need to push.
She slammed her head back into the fur-packed pillows and groaned again, gritting her teeth and pushing again and again as R'chnt's attention focused between her legs. He did as he was told and, somewhat notably nervously, cupped his palms, ready and waiting as the head of his offspring emerged from K'Shai.
As she wailed one more time and bore down, the first hybrid offspring in Yautja history slipped in a bloody and gooey mess into his palms and immediately trilled as the sac around it pulled free. K'Shai relaxed, flattening out against the bed, taking in a deep, relieved sigh as the pain slowly passed, along with a large glob of bloody tissue from her womb and she stilled into quietness.
K'Shai took another deep breath and opened her eyes as her body settled. She could hear the baby trilling quietly and she eyed R'chnt with a thin smile through pressed lips.
He held his own offspring for the first time in his entire life. Perhaps, it was the first time in any Yautja male's life that he was present for the birth of his offspring, she did not know for sure, but assumed that it was.
In a still and silent, nearly totally quiet moment in his chambers, if not for the quiet clicking sound of the baby, K'Shai watched the might gray-haired elder stare in stunned silent wonder at the tiny little thing he carefully supported in one hand.
The baby was so small she was almost not even visible cupped in just one of R'chnt's massive palms as he supported her from head to toes which barely reached passed his wrist. K'Shai could just see two very tiny little feet, with miniscule black nub-claws kicking back and forth slowly as the child moved in her father's powerfully still grip.
R'chnt's tusks were clenched tightly; a look K'Shai recognized one as one of subdued submission, certainly something that one would never expect such a highly respected and honored elder would normally project.
He surveyed his tiny infant daughter, holding so still he looked statuesque, almost as if he was afraid to move as if he might damage the offspring. K'Shai focused her gaze and pressed her lips together into a brimming smile, holding her breath and making no sound as she watched a fascinated new father watch his child watching her father back.
K'Shai did not want to interrupt them, but as the child grew somewhat restless, trilling away once again in a tiny little voice, she whispered softly.
"R'chnt," K'Shai said as she lightly touched his armor-clad forearm. He shifted his head and shoulders slightly towards her, little beads in his heavily adorned tresses clicking together as he did so. He clearly began breathing again, and ticked his tusks together quickly.
"She needs to eat." K'Shai whispered, shifting so she could take her child into position. "You can hold her again, when she's done."
R'chnt gazed at her, back to the child, and again to K'Shai as he turned to offer the baby to her mother. Just at the very same moment, K'Shai only barely noticed the door to the chambers open and Neh'rti and three females step through.
K'Shai had hardly paid attention to the feel of the K'ojol landing back inside the atoll; she had other things on her mind. But judging by the hurried, and somewhat perturbed, appearance of the females into R'chnt's chambers, clearly word had quickly spread that she had gone into labor.
Normally, females would not enter into the chambers of a male, especially a highly honored male, unless for mating. It was more than unusual for them to do so, but the circumstances were extenuating and R'chnt, far from displeased that his doorway had suddenly filled with elite females, moved aside as Neh'rti barked aloud upon entering the room.
"Why is that offspring not with its mother?" She growled, interrupting the tender moment with her typically scoffing demeanor.
R'chnt slid the offspring to K'Shai and stepped aside, quickly, but perhaps not as readily as the females might have preferred, K'Shai noticed as they glared at him as though he had no business being anywhere near them.
Though he stayed near K'Shai, he bowed his head respectfully and stood a little awkwardly, no doubt uncomfortable with the peculiar situation he had been put in and caught somewhere between trying to be respectful of Neh'rti and the others, obedient to the Yautja Way, and still managing to display a protectiveness over K'Shai and his newborn daughter.
K'Shai said nothing and only glared at Neh'rti for a moment before the elder female healer leaned over and drew her attention away.
"This infant has been born abnormally early. It is too small and weak to survive." She said with certainty as she reached for the child and K'Shai withdrew slightly.
"Well, look at the size of the mother." One of the other females said. "Of course it's small."
Neh'rti gazed on, her tusks closed tightly, with one raised just slightly; a look of dismissive contemplation, K'Shai knew. It seemed Neh'rti always had that kind of look around her. S'ridi stood amongst the females and surveyed the scene in silence, with R'chnt standing just within arm's reach of K'Shai's shoulder as mother cradled child on the bloodied bed sheets.
The elder healer reached to pull the child away from K'Shai right as she had latched on and started suckling her first gulps of milk.
K'Shai found the sensation unusual, uncomfortable, and slightly painful, as the baby's fleshy little toothless mouth took tight hold and formed a vacuum. The inner skin folds of her mouth were perfectly sized and shaped for suckling; it was no wonder Yautjan infants were usually referred to as "sucklings".
A'ryin'di latched on quickly once K'Shai pressed her against her chest; the baby naturally and instinctively seeking out her first meal. She didn't feel small or weak. She was similarly sized to any human newborn, and she felt as though she weighed twice as much.
As K'Shai held her infant for the first time, she understood why she always felt a little sour-stomached through most of the latter half of the pregnancy.
"She's fine. Leave her alone," K'Shai hissed guardedly, pulling her child and herself away from the healer.
"K'Shai! I just want to examine her." The female healer growled.
"You both need to return to the mei'sa immediately. It is completely unacceptable for a lone female and offspring to be on a ship full of males. Especially so many young males." Neh'rti chastised immediately as K'Shai withdrew again.
"I'm fine. We're fine right here. This is where we both need to be." K'Shai combatted back, with an annoyed tone in her voice that did not sound too unlike a Yautja growl.
"The infant…" the healer growled agitated.
K'Shai, tired, sore, and in no mood for anything other than peace and quiet, wanting to be alone with R'chnt and their child, snapped.
"She's a baby. She'll be fine out of the mei'sa for a few days. She is with her parents. She's fine. I'm fine. I'm not going to the mei'sa right now. We're staying right here. Enough! No more. "
R'chnt braced rigidly not exactly sure of how to respond to the showdown between the females. It was, as Neh'rti said, completely out of the ordinary for a female to even want to bear her offspring away from the mei'sa. Though K'Shai had remained adamant about raising the baby alongside him, R'chnt had assumed since she was adjusting so well to Yautja life and life in the mei'sa, she would naturally transition to raising his offspring according to the proper way.
Still, he also wanted her to remain in his chambers with him, and once back at the homeworld, he thought about having his mate by his side, always ready to pleasure him and wanting his company.
It was an enticing thought, and having seen and held his child, something males neither were privileged enough to do, nor cared about in the first place, he did want to be a part of the child's life, as K'Shai had deemed so important.
Perhaps, he considered silently, he was wrong in thinking K'Shai would shun her human ways as easily as he may have thought.
Neh'rti growled apprehensively, but made no aggressive movements, clearly recognizing a mother's protectiveness and respecting it. It was, perhaps, one of the first times R'chnt had seen K'Shai behave so aggressively, though he had heard she was capable of acting quite fierce, earning and securing her reputation as a tough female, not all that different than the Yautja themselves.
The effect of her aggressive display was immediate and the females backed down. At Neh'rti's gesture, they retreated and headed out of the chambers, not wanting to interfere with the natural bond between mother and child that was already developing.
"K'Shai," Neh'rti grumbled before she stepped away, "you must accept your place as a mother within this Clan."
Neh'rti glared towards R'chnt with a definite look of exasperation at the situation; he bowed his head graciously and she turned without a further word.
Once they left, K'Shai settled her aggravation and R'chnt slowly watched her body temperature return to normal levels before he approached the bed warily and sat lightly on the edge of it near his mate and the still-suckling child.
He sat rigid, alert, and quiet, not wanting to interrupt the pair or aggravate K'Shai who had finally settled enough to let her defensive posture ease up.
It was still and peaceful inside his chambers. R'chnt sat on the edge of the bed surveying both of them as the child suckled. K'Shai remained silent, tuning out the distracting noises coming from the corridor and eyed up every detail of the little creation that she cradled.
The infant gave away no hints of her human heritage at all. If not for the alien mother cradling her to her breast, A'ryin'di would not appear any different than any other Yautja child K'Shai had seen.
The baby's coloring was a darkened red and mottled with hues of yellows and orange and heavily dappled with black coloration. Only the peachy white skin over her belly and inside her legs and arms looking anything close to a human shade, even if just barely.
She had tiny cranial ridges protruding from the sides and back of her head where eventually tresses would grow through from the large porous indentations under them. Two barely noticeable ridges over the crest of her head from the brow to the back of her skull hinted at her gender; ridges that males lacked.
Her deep amber eyes appeared only just slightly different than a typical Yautja's upon closer scrutiny. R'chnt's eyes were bright gold rings atop black orbs. A'ryin'di's eyes were of such a dark amber color, they almost looked brown, with a slight tint of green; a reflection of K'Shai's own eyes.
The baby had everything else in place that any baby would have. She had two small wrinkly little arms, with tiny little hands capped in five small fingers. Her two puffy little legs, which she twitched as she shuffled for comfort while suckling bore petite feet with perfectly shaped, tiny toes.
Her digits were all capped in little nubs of black claws, round and soft, and unable to grip or damage the delicate skin of her mother. Her mouth was toothless, and she lacked any tusks on her mandibles, which were just little pads of soft skin connected by a thin fleshy cheek. She flared her mouth parts and wriggled the skin over her upper gum as she nursed a large first meal.
Though the females considered the infant small, too small to survive as they put it, A'ryn'di looked exactly about what size any typical human child would look.
Not small, not big; just perfectly sized and healthy, round and portly like any healthily gestated baby should look. While R'chnt sat, nearly motionless, watching his mate and daughter with a certain fascination, K'Shai soon found herself humming to the baby, who eventually finished her meal.
Though she did not know the exact words of the song, it was a Yautja song that she had heard; one of many she liked the tune of. It had a certain lullaby quality to it and as she hummed to the offspring, she slid off the bed and swayed around the bed chambers and into the bath house to tend to the baby.
R'chnt followed, watching K'Shai from the doorway as she cleaned the baby's soiled wrap and rewrap her in fresh linens the way she had learned from the females.
"I'll get an 'aseigan to come clean the bed," K'Shai whispered quietly as she emerged from the bath house with the baby now drifting off to sleep, warm and full, peaceful and content in her mother's arms.
"No." R'chnt said. "I will do it."
K'Shai looked to him widely, a little surprised. Cleaning was certainly not a task for an honored elder such as him, but he confirmed it again at her questioning.
"I do not want anyone in here."
She nodded in understanding appreciation and R'chnt headed towards the door as K'Shai sat on one of the large chairs in the middle room and curled her knees up, nestling the baby completely against her.
"What's going on out there? I hear a lot of commotion." K'Shai asked as the door to the chambers slid open and K'Shai finally tuned in to the sounds she had been ignoring in the background the entire time.
"Taking on passengers for the return home."
"Not enough room on the atoll?" K'Shai asked in a sarcastic tone.
The atoll was massive, and could easily hold over ten thousand hunters at any one time. During the final two weeks, as the ship did begin to take on more passengers than she was accustomed to, it did make her feel uncomfortably crowded, but there was still so much room in the vessel she could not imagine it ever being so full that the Leaders with their own hunt ships would be obliged to take hunters back to the planet.
She had expected R'chnt to agree on the point, but he stood tall in the doorway and glanced from the hallway, packing with young bloods out of K'Shai's sight, and back to her.
"Yes." He said simply, and K'Shai tipped her head quizzically at him.
She remained curled up on the chair cradling the child as he strode off, clearing a path in the sea of youngblooded passengers by emitting a deep growl.
He found W'rsa and two others of his hunting pack standing in the middle of the kehrite as young bloods filed in. They looked a bit exasperated as they turned to him, surveying him with a definite curious gaze.
The young blooded hunters continued to make their way onto the ship, finding spots to sit along the walls or in the middle of the kehrite. 'Aseigan hurried around servicing them as they needed, taking armor to be repaired, or brining food and drink as commanded.
The war was done and what was left of the hunters of the Kaunte Dar'een Clan made their way back onto the atoll, with overflow getting rides back on all the hunt ships that were available.
R'chnt looked around his kehrite and watched the youngsters pack in. They were high on spirits and ready to celebrate the end of a trying situation. He had specifically left the trophy case doors open so everyone who entered would see the collection of bones accrued over the last three centuries, and he eyed one in particular, noticing several young hunters gazing at it as they chittered to one another about the alien who had killed it.
R'chnt clicked his tusks proudly, watching the youngsters share their version of what they heard about K'Shai's kill of a Yautja.
The story had been inflamed beyond what had really happened, but that was expected. R'chnt nearly never talked about his own hunts, except only to K'Shai in private. He told them as they happened, exactly as he had stalked and killed, with no embellishments.
Usually, the over-inflation of a story happened in retelling after retelling, and from what R'chnt overheard amidst the rumbling chatter in his kehrite, the newest incarnation of the fight K'Shai had with the young Leader of the M'jnor clan seemed to line up with her reputation as a fearsome, though unusual, creature.
He made his way through the shoulder-to-shoulder crowd in the kehrite only to find another one in the docking bay. He found one 'aseigan standing idly nearby and ordered him to bring him directly fresh bedding.
The 'aseigan bolted off promptly, doing his best to dance through the crowded docking bay without accidentally getting too near any of the hunters who were all shuffling into the waiting hunt ships.
R'chnt worked his way to a cantina, found the hunters he had wished to have brief conversation with, and then turned to leave, spotting Neh'rti as he did so. She approached him with a courteous bow, which he returned deeply.
"R'chnt, your K'Shai is quite the difficult creature."
"She is strong, Neh'rti." He said with certainty.
"Where is she now?"
"Resting with the suckling in my chambers. She wishes to remain by my side. She has always wished that." R'chnt said simply, trying to press the point in a non-confrontational way.
"Her place is in the mei'sa. She must decide if she is to live as a Yautja or a human. She cannot be both, and if she chooses to be human, her place is not here."
R'chnt restrained a perturbed growl. "She has already proven her place is here. She has proven she can live as a Yautja, has she not?"
Neh'rti's lack of a response was about as close to confirmation of his point that he was going to get, so he continued on.
"K'Shai is different, she believes in different ways and she has been teaching me those ways."
"And you accept those ways?" Neh'rti asked with alarmed surprise.
R'chnt nodded quietly, without hesistation.
"I accept the challenges she has asked of me; to provide her and the child with protection and support. She has adjusted on the atoll to life in the mei'sa, but now she must re-adjust to the homeworld, and I will help her with that as much as I can."
"She still looks to you for guidance as more than just her Leader, R'chnt. You must make her understand that both she and the infant will be best in the mei'sa." Neh'rti barked, unimpressed.
"In her world, Leader, females raise their offspring together with the sire. Humans mate for life, and K'Shai has chosen me as her life's mate. She feels it is best for the child, and her, not to be apart from me. That is why she resists being in the mei'sa."
"She is free to mate with you as she pleases," Neh'rti countered dismissively. "She continues to resist our ways, but the offspring must be raised as a Yautja."
R'chnt bowed his head deeply. "Of course, Neh'rti."
The Clan Leader, agitated, ticked her mandibles together in annoyance.
"If she wishes to continue this nonsense, R'chnt, the child could be in danger. So could she. She can be bred again and again. Mating season will be beginning soon, and her appeal could put her in serious danger. It may spur challengers to kill A'ryin'di. It will spur plenty of challenges to you."
"They are mine to protect." R'chnt responded simply, pulling his strong shoulders back slightly, stretching his frame and flaring his mandibles notably at the mere thought of such a situation. "I accept the challenge."
"You have yet to mark her, R'chnt. I suggest you do so, quickly… and publicly. I do not understand why you delay. Are you certain you wish to claim her? Or are you considering changing your intentions?"
R'chnt tapped his upper and lower mandibles together for a moment before bowing his head.
"She will be marked."
Neh'rti seemed appeased for the moment by his unwavering position on the matter and departed. R'chnt turned to notice his brother standing nearby, making no attempt to hide the fact that he had tuned into the whole conversation.
He walked back to the K'ojol with his brother who discussed his opinions on the matter whether he wanted to hear them or not, before retrieving the bedding from a waiting 'aseigan at the base of the ship. He departed from his brother and headed up the ramp as the door shut behind him. In a few moments, after his command, the vessel was taking off, clearing out from the docking bay to follow the atoll back to the homeworld and deposit its overload of passengers.
The flight would be several rotations long, but it would provide K'Shai and R'chnt some much needed quite time in their chambers, he thought.
As he approached his chambers, the first thing he noticed in the air, besides the musk of all the young hunters chittering away in their own little groups or sleeping on the floor, was an unfamiliar yet still Yautja scent of blood and urine and h'dui'se of a human and her hybrid offspring lingering faintly.
Judging by the conversations he overheard, which quickly silenced as he walked passed the young bloods, each one of them was taking their analyzing the scents and formulating their own opinions of the unusual situation as they watched an Honored Elder Leader carry belonging to his quarters.
When he opened the chambers door with bedding tucked under one arm and a tray of food in one hand, growling lowly from the back of his throat to warn away anyone who might dare try to crane their necks too much to spy in on his mate and child or comment about the almost comical sight of him carrying supplies, he found K'Shai sleeping soundly in a chair with the child cradled in her arms.
The scent of K'Shai and the offspring erupted into the corridor upon opening the door, causing a hush as curious eyes followed his backside into the chambers, but none dared to even shuffle a toe out of place for fear of getting too close. R'chnt ticked his upper mandibles with satisfaction.
Of course they were curious; that was simply undeniable.
They would judge and make their opinions of the entire situation known to their friends; that was without question. The more daring of the young bloods, R'chnt thought, may even go so far as to insult him, his mate, or the offspring she cradled, when they were absolutely sure he was out of ear shot.
They might have found reason to snigger a muffled chortle at the sight of him carrying bedding and food instead of walking down the corridor with a wary 'aseigan behind him, but he had ultimately conveyed a point, and it was a point well received, judging by the reactions in the hallway and by the elites of the Clan; the other elders, and Neh'rti herself.
K'Shai was his, and he would do what was needed for her and his hybrid child.
Neh'rti pressed upon him one more matter that he had been delaying in. It was a matter that he and K'Shai had discussed lightly, and it drew in great curiosity from youngbloods and other elders alike for why R'chnt had not tended to the matter upon the first mating, as typical for a Yautja. Nothing with K'Shai had been typical anything as far as he was concerned.
He thought about it for a moment as he lightly crossed the floor of his chambers, approaching his sleeping mate and offspring. Neh'rti questioned if he still wanted to claim K'Shai as a mate, and he knew others would as well.
Perhaps they would think he had simply lost his mind, harboring a female alien and a hybrid child tucked away in his quarters. He considered for a moment that he would likely think the very same thing of any Yautja who had done exactly as he had. Had he not experienced it, grown to know K'Shai, and come to desire her, he probably would have thought he had gone insane for even considering any of it.
As it was, K'Shai had impressed upon him her own alien ways and they were markedly different than the Yautja customs he was born and raised to know. He had learned to consider her ways as he progressed with her, and he was graciously humbled to think of all that had transpired thus far.
Still, they were returning to Yaut, and K'Shai, he knew, would face challenges as she adjusted to life on another world. He doubted that she would find the environment too different, and considered proudly the fact that she had adapted so well to life aboard the atoll with relative ease.
K'Shai was strong; a worthy choice for an alien mate if ever there was one. He would mark her in his own way at his own time, and that time was drawing near.
K'Shai, he thought as he watched her sleep, had adjusted well, had made her mark in the clan, and he would soon make his mark upon her in a way that would ensure no Yautja would question his dominance of her, protection of her, possession of her, and commitment to his offspring.
He only stirred her awake after the bed was ready with new sheets, gently stroking her face with two long, trailing fingers, feeling her soft and delicate warm skin as he clicked quietly.
The infant stirred as her mother shifted upright and smiled at him, then back to the child, wrapping her arms tightly around the baby and lowering her lips to the child's head. R'chnt slid onto his haunches on the floor and watched K'Shai cradle the baby, before she turned to him and slid the child into his arms.
"Hold her please. I have to pee!"
She laughed lightly and deposited the child into his grip, kissing him gently along his cheek as she allowed her hands to slide down his powerful biceps, feeling his warm and textured alien skin.
R'chnt watched the infant in his arms as K'Shai disappeared out of the room. He cradled her, quietly sitting in the middle of the circular room as the stars zoomed past outside the massive viewing windows surrounded by trophies and watched the child gaze back up at him as his long fingers stroked her delicate skin.
The offspring barely covered half the length of his bare forearm; small and fragile, and gazing up at her sire as she flexed her fleshy, toothless mandibles and clicked softly. Her tiny fingers extended towards R'chnt's tresses and beads as she kicked her small legs, shifted her body, settled, and did it all over again.
He barely noticed that K'Shai had returned after some time and was hovering just at the edge of the steps with a smile on her face. She was clean, fully showered, and looked stronger and more rested after the strain of childbirth.
She approached the pair softly after he noticed her and knelt down on the ground next to them before sitting beside R'chnt, who continued to cradle the offspring while K'Shai watched with a certain wondering awe in her own gaze.
"Males really … just… don't… do anything with their babies?" She asked in a tone somewhere between a question and a statement.
"No." R'chnt answered simply, never lifting his eyes from his child who had nuzzled against him and began shutting her eyes, clearly relishing the heat of his body much the same way K'Shai would.
"I am no father, K'Shai. I do not know what is expected of this… challenge."
K'Shai rested her hand upon his shoulder and lightly squeezed his powerful muscles and thick skin.
"Well, you look like you're doing just fine so far." She whispered quietly as the baby drifted back to restfulness and she kissed his cheek.
"Besides," she added. "I don't know how to be a mother, either. So we'll just work it out together."
He looked at her widely. "You are female."
K'Shai stifled a chuckle.
"That doesn't mean I know how to be a mother."
"The females in the mei'sa…" R'chnt began.
K'Shai stopped him mid sentence. "Do things very differently than humans. I don't think I can…."
"K'Shai," he cut in. "You must. You have already learned Yautja ways. Soon, we will be home. I know it will be different for you, but you will adapt there as well as you have on the atoll."
Not agreeing with his view, but trying to understand it, K'Shai let the matter drop by diverting her attention to the care of the baby.
As the time slowly passed, such a tactic seemed to work any time R'chnt brought up anything about the mei'sa, and especially anything to do with how well she had adjusted to Yautja life already. She pondered how it was that R'chnt had an absolutely convinced view that she had adapted well and settled in to Yautja life when she felt anything but adapted and settled, and still had a fleeting suspicion that Neh'rti likely would kill her and her new baby.
She hoped she could live up to the ideal that R'chnt seemed to believe she had already achieved.
She did not want to see the innocent and fragile little creature in her arms treated brutally in the Yautja form of "education" she had come to learn. She had a natural, instinctual drive to offer the child doting affection and protection while both parents nurtured her and watched her grow into something that would outshine both of them.
Over the course of the rotations while the ship sailed silently through the stars, K'Shai and R'chnt both began to figure out how to tackle being parents. K'Shai rarely put A'ryn'di down, though when she did need a break from the infant, R'chnt readily held her and watched over both of them. She knew from her months aboard the atoll learning the Yautja ways, that females were highly attentive, especially to their sucklings, and as she cradled her own suckling, she learned why very quickly.
A'ryin'di constantly shifted between brief intervals of rest with progressively longer intervals of feeding, and in between, she was either in need of cleaning or general attention.
She would become extremely restless when she was put into the bassinette of silky leathers that served as a cradle near her parent's bed, and slipped into purring sleep the best only when she was being held by her mother or father.
True to the bright green blood running in her veins, A'ryin'di savored heat and warmth and became equally as settled as her parents in the soaking pool's heated waters.
R'chnt, for the most part was busy with the excess flood of hunters aboard his ship, and while he made time to check in on his mate and child, most of the hours of each rotation kept him elsewhere. K'Shai sat quietly in the oversized chair which she had turned to face the windows in his chambers, and had made star gazing just as much a part of her daily routine as nursing her baby and sleeping.
She did not leave the chambers, but she paid close attention to the commotion beyond their doors, especially when R'chnt entered and the doors were open for the briefest of moments.
The sounds of weapons banging against each other, rumbling howls of entertained young bloods, and almost endless chatter echoed through the corridors non-stop. At first, K'Shai found it annoying difficult to sleep with the rumbling sounds, but when R'chnt offered to warn all the Yautja to keep silent or risk his wrath, she stopped complaining and soon enough she was able to tune out the echoing noises.
A'ryin'di did not seem to mind the constant noise; her sleep needs were never interrupted. K'Shai had learned very quickly that the Yautja offspring had one major difference over human babies.
Yautja babies did not cry. A'ryin'di certainly would get restless and discontent, and she would make her situation known with throaty clicks, chittering, and poorly-formed growls, accentuated by flailing hands and feet and some high-pitched calls, but actual crying as humans knew, was not even a sound a Yautja could produce.
A'ryin'di did not need to wake her mother up with cries of unrest anyway, because the periodic rise in decibels of the crowded Yautja in the hallways of the ship did it for her.
As K'Shai was aroused once again from a brief round of sleep by the momentary raise in howling voices accompanied by the unmistakable metal on metal clatter of one Yautja disarming another and sending him and his weapon skidding across the kehrite floor, she glanced around R'chnt's chambers.
He was absent. A'ryin'di was still sound asleep, undisturbed by her mother shifting positions or the sounds echoing through the ship. K'Shai could not help but to think, don't they ever get tired?
Even the mei'sa, with rowdy and energetic toddlers, was quieter for a few hours out of each rotation than the K'ojol had been at all in the last several days.
Of course, she knew the answer was no.
Despite the sleeping bundle of spots and claws in her arms, Yautja required very little sleep in comparison to humans.
For days, the K'ojol had been experiencing non-stop action from the overcrowded hunters piled into it, but there was a certain energy level that seemed to permeate the ship suddenly, and as K'Shai focused her gaze on the windows before her, she knew why.
She gaped her mouth and the corners of her lips began to draw back into an anticipatory smile as her eyes locked onto a glowing orb in the distance.
She noticed that the ship had slowed down and the white blaze far off in the distance was growing ever larger as the ship made its approach. When the vessel turned slightly, the windows of R'chnt's chambers ended up on the wrong side of the ship and her view was lost. As A'ryin'di stirred, K'Shai tended to her needs and then, finally, for the first time since they had left the atoll, she tiptoed her way to the chamber doors and opened them.
Immediately, dozens of curious heads turned her way. Though there were no young hunters immediately near R'chnt's chambers door, no doubt out of fear of even appearing like they were trying to get too close, the hallway on both sides was well packed with about twenty hunters, standing or sitting, sleeping or talking, in the curving corridor headed towards the kehrite entrance and the other way, which curved towards the control room.
Whatever conversations or activities the young bloods were doing all screeched to a sudden and disconcerting halt when K'Shai and her offspring appeared in the corridor.
She could feel her heart pulse nervously and the uncomfortable silence spoke volumes about the young bloods' uncertainty as well. K'Shai glanced to her left then to the right and left again, surveying all the hunters who craned their necks to see her. She noticed a few more heads pop out from the door-less kehrite entryway as more and more hunters packed like sardines into the ship became aware that she was out.
Most of them, she knew beyond a doubt, were seeing her for the first time; catching a glimpse of the alien that had taken up residence with the Yautja.
She could not help but wonder, as she started slowly walking to the right, towards the front of the ship, if only R'chnt's ship was so overpacked with stragglers looking for a ride home because they all wanted to say they rode back on his ship and saw the human.
R'chnt had mentioned that the atoll was simply so overfull of hunters there was just not enough room for anyone else, and as she looked around the packed hallways in the K'ojol now, she found it hard to believe that he had carried double this number to Earth; it just seemed like there was no way that many Yautja could even fit on the ship.
She headed down the corridor, slowly gaining more confidence as the hunters around her stopped, gawked and backed into the walls to allow her to pass while they watched her and the offspring with silenced wonder.
As she stepped on, K'Shai looked about at the young bloods and noticed something about them as well. They were all very young indeed.
She felt herself clinging tightly to the baby in her arms and suddenly realized that she had become so familiar with the Yautja life cycle that she could easily tell just how young the children piled in the hallways really were.
Many of them had been born around the same time the automobile was even invented on Earth and yet they appeared to K'Shai to be even younger than she was.
Even the shortest of them still had a solid six inches on her in height. Some of them were clearly genetically blessed with peculiar height for their age and were absolutely massive; the superiors of their own groups, K'Shai assumed.
Any one of them at all could make any human think of them as fully grown, blood thirsty and savagely aggressive monsters that felt neither fear nor pain nor fatigue; all the things she had heard all the humans call the Yautja as the two species merged together for the first, though short-lived, time.
But as she looked around and considered the baby she cradled, K'Shai could only see children staring back at her through burning gold and yellow inexperienced and curious eyes.
Many of them stood stock still because they simply had no idea what to do in her presence, or how to react to her, or what to think.
She considered the probability that some of the children before her had been shipped off to fight a war they had nothing to do with, because they had reached an appropriate age.
They had been recruited, in a sense, by obligation to the honor of their species. It was also possible some of them had not even seen a living human being, despite spending time on Earth.
K'Shai found herself pausing mid-corridor just to have another look at the youngsters, who seemed eager to eye her just as much as she watched them; both silently familiarizing themselves with the other.
She realized that the implications of the Earth War extended far beyond anything she had once realized. It had not just destroyed Earth. As with any war she knew of, the youth were sent out to fight for the greater cause, with only the Yautja way of honor and pride to fuel them.
Her mind furiously considered the fact that her small and innocent child she pressed against her breast now could someday be called on to fight to the death, without remorse, on an alien world for a cause she knew nothing about. The thought alarmed her.
She knew that the Yautja were a proud race. They were a people who took a decidedly arrogant, heavily prideful stance on the fact that they were Yautja; superior to all, and willing to fight to the death to prove it, or face honorable defeat.
The youngsters she saw were indeed proud. Some were heavily injured, but their bore their injuries well. They were not traumatized of spirit, or worn and defeated looking. Like any Yautja, they were boastful, exuberant, and alarmingly indifferent to how close to death they all had likely come.
K'Shai soon pulled herself back into focus and headed towards the control room, where she drew in the attention of the four hunters in the room. R'chnt stood and readily approached her as if to cover her, shielding her from the others and displaying his protectiveness over her in a silent warning.
For a moment he seemed alarmed by the fact that she had left his chambers with the baby by herself, but that quickly gave way to a sort of pride as he righted himself near her as if he was pleased that the she left his chambers with the baby by herself.
She smiled softly at him, but her eyes quickly turned elsewhere in the oval command room to the floor-to-ceiling viewing window and the glowing whitish orb in the distance.
She watched in silence as R'chnt clicked softly and returned to his chair, extending his arm towards her in an open invitation to stand next to him, which K'Shai did. As the baby shifted in her cradling arms, R'chnt lightly stroked her with his fingers, drawing in fascinated curious glances turned into unrepressed stares from the others in the room.
R'chnt did not mind the gazes. Let them see and watch, he thought. Every time K'Shai was out on the ship, it solidified her place just a little more and for rotation after rotation she had done so aboard the atoll.
Now it was time for her to do so again on the K'ojol amongst the Blooded hunters that were not only part of his hunting pack, but also crew aboard the ship as well. Her proud presence in the corridors, walking about her own business amongst the crowded hallways full of Leader-less youngbloods also made a statement, and K'Shai, whether she realized it or not, was telling everyone exactly where she belonged.
Normally, the direct stares would be considered a dire offense, and open the unabashed starer to receiving challenge, but R'chnt instead sat quietly, allowing W'rsa, Nei'tuk-de, and L'vynde to see K'Shai and the child, and take their fill of the sight as K'Shai's gaze remained locked on the viewing window before her, seeing his world for the first time.
Just when R'chnt thought the group in the control room had seen enough of K'Shai to tend back to their duties, he reached for the baby, distracting K'Shai's gaze for only a moment as she readily slid the sleeping child into his arms.
He watched the infant, who had grown unusually much in just a few days, with equally as much interest and fascination as the others in the room now watched him. He found himself paying none of them any mind as he quietly held his offspring and K'Shai slowly stepped away, closer to the portal.
"Is that… your world?" She said finally after a long silence, simply watching the planet and its moons and suns slowly coming closer into view.
"K'Shai, that is your world, too." He said with an intrigued click.
He could not help but notice she always referred to their chambers as his, the world as his. Habit, perhaps, he thought, or a display of unreadiness to accept the transition she had already begun, he could not be sure. He corrected her softly, just a passive reminder that she should consider the chambers, the world, the home she will come to know, as hers as well, for she would have a place there now, beside him.
K'Shai did not even glance back at him. She merely watched in wonder as the planet loomed closer and closer.
On one rather memorable trip around Earth, R'chnt had taken K'Shai into Jupiter's rings. Besides the colorful gaseous beauty of the yellow and orange and white world and the dark rings of space dust that encircled it, K'Shai marveled at the size of the planet.
Earth itself had looked simply massive when seen from a shuttle craft from space, but Jupiter had look enormous. Now, as Yaut drew closer and closer, and K'Shai could just start to make out colors of oceans and land masses, compared to the only other two worlds she had seen, this one outsized them all.
As the hunt ship continued on, the world, and its three moons nearby, all began to become clearer and clearer. Two of the moons were on one side of the world, while the third one orbited opposite them. The dual moons on the nearer side both had prismatic rings with every color of the rainbow dancing around them.
As the view drew closer and closer, K'Shai did notice the rings appeared to be moving, sparkling, as the white clouds in the atmosphere of them swirled around slowly.
Beyond Yaut, on the side of the single moon were two bright whitish yellow and orange globes. Despite how far in the distance they were, the suns burned so intensely she shielded her eyes and squinted. She had become so accustomed to the subdued amber lighting inside the clan ship and the hunt ship and constant darkness beyond them, that even the single sun of Earth was a little much for her the first time she stepped back onto its soil.
She supposed it made sense for the Yautja people; they basked in high height, it was simply natural for them, and seeing the planet where they originated from she now knew why.
Her mind lit up with visions of what the surface of Yaut would be like, how different the planet looked already with its dual suns and triple moons, and nestled into a completely unfamiliar backdrop of stars.
The world's oceans came into view followed by the land masses. From so far above, neither looked terribly different than Earth's. Both views offered up blue waters, white swirls of clouds, and land masses of browns and greens. Perhaps, she thought, Yaut would not be so different after all.