It was easier to sleep there in the mountain training temple, under a sky that turned nearly fully black at night. The suns were bright during the day, but the temperature was considerably cooler than she had gotten used to, and at night it was downright cold. It was no surprise that the Yautja had multiple fires burning all the time.
The inner complex, built into a massive mountain, was warmed throughout with simple old-fashioned even by human standards, lanterns, which also provided a healthy light to see by. Although the Yautja did not need the light, K'Shai silently appreciated the amber illumination.
A'ryin'di and K'Shai spent time exploring and learning. R'chnt ensured the training she received was constant, but also catered directly to her physical limits as her belly grew.
Training of the mind and spirit were emphasized as well, and A'ryin'di, as she grew steadily, also received early training that was not typical for such a young Yautja. Each day, K'Shai and some of the other elder females would take time teaching A'ryin'di to speak correctly and introduce her to reading and writing; something that Yautja never learned until they were Blooded and felt like investing the time. For K'Shai, it was vital that A'ryin'di, who was intelligent and aware enough already to learn such things, did learn them.
For K'Shai, her days were full of training in and out of the kehrite, and while much of what she continued to learn on a physical level greatly resembled tai-chi, much of what she was beginning to learn from texts and lessons made her feel a bit like A'ryin'di; just starting out with something that seemed overwhelming. The Yautja culture was rich and varied and full of well-accounted history that seemed impossible for one person to learn.
Time passed faster than she could keep up with, it seemed, though she enjoyed it all considerably. The experience at the training grounds was almost surreal, and every day was full of new exploration, challenges, and learning.
The cavernous inner mountains were carved into a mighty spiral, all woven together with circular stairwells etched right into the marbleized looking natural stone walls. K'Shai found it somewhat disorienting to walk down circular stairs with no railing. One wrong move, and it was an easy fall two hundred feet to the bottom; where the few 'aseigan that catered to the hunters above, resided.
She gripped A'ryin'di's hand quite tightly every time they navigated the stair cases, and R'chnt certainly noticed how severely she clung to him until she got more used to it. A'ryin'di, of course, being half Yautja, had a natural ability to balance and climb, combined with an inherent resiliency against injury that far surpassed her mother's contrastingly frail bones and body.
The child had quickly learned, not long after mastering walking, how to climb, and with her father's careful guidance, was climbing higher and higher without any reservation at all.
Many of the elders, and the other elite hunters that resided at the training grounds, found the hybrid offspring quite interesting. K'Shai had thought she had heard the last of the comments about the child's heritage after the entire clan mei'sa finally got used to her, but once again, she was run through the gamut of questions and comments and observations.
This time, though, the general consensus was that the child was something of a perplexing scientific curiosity; a fascinating one and not the unusual abomination that would never make it as a Yautja that seemed to have been the consensus of most of the clan's females.
The Yautja at the training grounds were intrigued and curious of A'ryin'di, and as such, she was welcomed and looked after when K'Shai was otherwise occupied. Although she and R'chnt usually brought the child with them on their daily long treks through the vastly unending terrain to hunt and explore, learn, climb, and experience the Yautja homeworld in the best way possible, sometimes it was best to have her remain in the training temple, and K'Shai felt comfortable knowing she would be well looked after.
There were no Yautja at the temple with dishonorable intentions; it was quite the opposite. The Blooded hunters who showed up there were there to learn, to explore their spirituality, gain an education they lacked.
That was also why R'chnt had brought K'Shai there, she quickly realized. She was too far along in her second pregnancy to fully train in sparring, but he seemed quite convinced she was trained well enough to begin true hunting for things other than prey, though she disagreed.
It was her own wariness, her natural fear, or her innate need to be self-doubting, as he put it, that had made him bring her there, away from the clan, the mei'sa, the females she complained about constantly. And his belief that the training grounds would provide her with the environment she needed in order to grow as a Yautja, embrace the hunter burning inside of her, and fully mentally prepare for her future as a huntress, was right. K'Shai found the quiet of the place, the idyllic beauty, the dark night skies and the unlikely comforts of the ancient grounds comforting and restful.
By day, usually in the early morning light, she and R'chnt would head out into the jungle, sometimes with a group of other hunters, sometimes on their own for more private hunting practice, mating, and basic training.
By the afternoon, they would return back to the temple grounds to spar or listen to stories. Like children at story-time, the Yautja would all gather around a fire and listen to whoever was speaking about whatever topic. At night, often while R'chnt was sparring with other males, K'Shai and A'ryin'di would retreat into the core of the tempel and learn by books with a group of Yautja.
The heart of the training grounds was of course the beautiful, stone adorned kehrite that took up most of the grounds outside the rock-walled entrance to the sleeping chambers, but the tempel was massive inside and had many rooms. There were dozens of sleeping chambers; simple abodes carved out of the swirling blue-tinged walls of white rock, that had only a small cot and something like a Yautja version of an armoire for keeping armor neat and organized.
There were six bath houses throughout the mountain, all for the use of the hunters training there, in addition to one bath house far below for the 'aseigan. The tempel had a massive prayer hall which was utilized nearly every moment of the day by individuals seeking time with the Gods, and daily by the entire population of hunters.
There were rooms throughout the mansion for everything from weapon storage and repair to food preparation, medical quarters and leather making. It was a completely self-sufficient clan within the clan, but it also had another heart beyond the sparring arenas.
Inside the central core, in the middle of the round shaft carved right up to the tip of the mountain, was a library. It was an ancient archive full of resources on history, science, and art that went all the way back to the founding of the Kaunte Dar'een Clan. This is where K'Shai often spent much of her time along with A'ryin'di, who enjoyed playing with the various trinkets and exploring the bony carvings that adorned the massive, single level round room. Reading through the archives had usurped much of K'Shai's free time, but it was interesting.
"Well done, K'Shai!" The elder females accoladed to her as they hovered together over a large, leather-bound text. "You are reading far more fluently than when you began, and I believe you now have a beter understanding of our clan than most of the Yautja living in it!"
K'Shai smiled and glanced back to the book, although it was hard to call them "books" exatly. In her mind, a book was something one would curl up with on a sofa and read quietly while sipping tea. These monstrous sized texts were so large they had to have their own complete table to support them, and turning the pages was nothing short of a task. They were ancient and well preserved, but still screamed fragile as their wrinkly pages felt like they might crack. They never did, though K'Shai held her breath every time she flipped through one.
"Thanks. That was quite a history! I can't believe how far back these records go. Every detail of the entire clan is in these texts, right up to Neh'rti's progression into Leader."
Her eyes scanned the round room, across table after table, book after book that N'ruchi and she poured over during every spare minute they had.
The massive library was a sacred and special place. Although it was available for any Yautja who desired to access and learn and gain the education that the mei'sa failed to offer, such things were not a priority for most Yautja, so the library was nearly always empty, dank, and dusty.
The life of a hunter generally lacked the time to pursue such things, unless a hunter, such as R'chnt, lived long enough to become wise enough to endeavor into higher learning. Brutality first, and worry about the finer points of living if you survived long enough; that was the unspoken Yautja motto.
"Do your humans not log such history?" N'ruchi asked, drawing K'Shai out of a gazing stare across the room while her mind wandered.
"Well, they do, very much, yes. As young, we are taught human history in school, it just isn't as… detailed as all of this."
She glanced across the books again. They were chronologically organized, and each new author began on his own page. Some of the hieroglyphic looking scripts simply ended mid-story, because one author died, and the following page began where the story left off and a new author started. The characters and symbols, that K'Shai thought once looked so foreign it was impossible that anyone could read or understand them, told a detailed account of the history of the Kaunte Dar'een clan all the way back from the first hunter who founded it.
"I mean, this is like… like A'kaunte had a scribe following him around recounting every single thing he did. There's more information in here about him than probably most people want to know. It's amazing to see that someone actually kept track of his hunts and… and.. his mates …offspring.. everything he did… it's all recorded right here.
I can't even believe there was a time when Yautja didn't have space travel, or were actually enslaved by these white demons. A'kaunte's rise to leading the rebellion against them, conquering them, founding the clan, it's really pretty amazing. It certainly makes the ancient statues in the clan square make a lot more sense now."
She paused for a moment and glanced to A'ryin'di.
"So any Yautja at all can come here and research their own lineage, then right?"
N'ruchi nodded. "Of course, that is why there are such records and record keepers to this day."
She drifted over towards one more table in the room and stood by a text that was open.
"You will perhaps find this one the most interesting of them all, K'Shai." She said simply.
K'Shai sidled over to the table and glanced down onto the page that happened to be opened. It was a current entry and K'Shai flipped back only a page to read it more completely, then whispered in surprise to N'ruchi.
"This is A'ryin'di. A'ryin'di is in here... I'm in here! The history of the clan …"
"And you are part of it, K'Shai. You are a Blooded female and you have bred and added to the hunting lineage of the Kaunte Dar'een Clan."
K'Shai huffed softly and turned the leathery-feeling pages all the way back to the beginning.
"I can't believe I'm in here," she muttered.
"Why would you not be? You are extremely important to the Clan. You are unique, and your offspring are going to be some of the most important historical truths of our Clan. A Clan is always fighting to grow strong and have their distinctions that they are known for in history. Ours will be the Clan that freed the Yautja race from the dragons and brought a human into their midst."
K'Shai glanced up to the elder female and studied her for a moment, not totally sure if the latter of those achievements was actually a good thing or not, but supposed it was definitely noteworthy. She then looked to A'ryin'di and smiled proudly.
"Well, someday, her own children's children will be able to come here and learn about R'chnt and I. He's in these texts so many times I'm not surprised. He's the only reason Neh'rti even accepted me at all."
"That is true," N'ruchi said without a moment's hesistation and K'Shai caught herself giving her a sideways glare.
"But you have earned your merit on your own."
She offered the elder female a small smile, grateful for the compliment, and the continued to quietly scan the pages before her.
N'ruchi had a genuine interest in history, and as she had helped K'Shai work through the texts over the course of the last many months, she described the events they were reading with an enthusiasm that reminded K'Shai of someone uncovering buried treasure. K'Shai liked N'ruchi. She was definitely not a fighter by any stretch, but she was blooded and well respected as a historian.
N'ruchi was intelligent and cool-headed, wanting to learn and understand, and her areas of expertise stretched from history to sciences and everything in between. She was as comfortable and eager to study A'ryin'di's behavior like a science project as she was rooting through giant leatherbound texts for some small factoid about the Clan from 5,000 years prior that she recalled seeing once.
She was also an excellent and surprisingly patient mother with no concerns at all about A'ryin'di wandering about the library with them, although K'Shai remained hyper vigilant to make sure her now fully mobile, curious, and absolutely into everything child did not cause any damage.
She eyed her daughter now and thought about how the current record keeper would be keeping a detailed log of the half-breed children born into the Kaunte Dar'een clan. Probably not what A'kaunte had in mind for his clan when he freed his people from terribly cruel opressors, K'Shai imagined, but none-the-less, they were part of written history now.
K'Shai looked back to the most current book, that they had just finished, and glanced again at her own entry on the pages.
"It's strange," she muttered.
"What is that?"
K'Shai shrugged softly.
"To see myself written on these pages."
The two of them glanced to A'ryin'di, who clicked and trilled loudly as she kept herself enterained with a toy in the middle of the room; something that looked like a little like a mobile for over a crib, made of bone, and complete with moving parts to keep her interested, like she was solving a giant moving puzzle.
"You are very much a profound part of our history now, as is A'ryin'di, and the child that grows in your womb that is very soon to arrive as well." N'ruchi informed.
"Of course." K'Shai nodded softly and cradled her swollen belly.
N'ruchi grumbled, a cross between a chuckle and a harrumph of sorts.
"K'Shai, you are far more intelligent than I would have expected," she started, and K'Shai raised her eyebrows in agreement. The history books of the clan certainly did not portray humans as anything more than somewhat more intelligent than most animals, with enough haphazard skills to construct weapons to make them dangerous enough to be challenging.
"Why would you think you would not be a part of our Clan's history? A very important part."
She eyed N'ruchi silently for a second and then returned her gaze to the pages before her, still flipping back idly through it, mostly skimming over the entries that contained information on herself. She carefully studied any contents that included A'ryin'di, and was satisfied when she found a truly impartial, historical recording of the hybrid offspring. There was even a pending entry that recorded K'Shai's second pregnancy.
The texts were not opinions, nor were they written for entertainment. The texts were more like a massive database with entries of facts. The texts listed dates, names, descriptions, hand drawn illustrations of various creatures and buildings, even maps that paid attention to topographical conditions and elevations, but there were no added elements to spice up what was on the pages. It was not like reading a drama story, or a love story. There was no exacerbation of events.
It was actually pretty bland reading for the most part. N'ruchi made it more appealing by recounting various events with her own added embellishments that weren't in the recorded texts.
"Oh…" K'Shai muttered in surprise as her eyes locked on to some text nearer to the beginning on the book.
"It says here that Neh'rti became Clan leader before she had taken a mate."
"Neh'rti was trained from birth, by her blood legacy to command the clan. Her dam Suh'rti and her dam's dam Kuh'rti both paid careful attention to making sure she became the solid huntress she was bred to be. She made a smart choice to wait until she held the position before determining a worthy mate. Neh'rti's path from the day she was born was clear. She was bred to be our Clan Leader."
"But…" K'Shai paused and thought about it for a moment.
"I never met her offspring. Has she ever bred?"
N'ruchi nodded towards the book silently, indicating to keep reading.
K'Shai's jaw soon dropped with the information she read, and she shut the book and walked away, pondering the texts quietly, realizing now that many things that suddenly made sense to her.
Eventually, she eyed N'ruchi again, who did not press her for conversation, seemingly understanding of her stewing silence. Finally, K'Shai did ask one question.
"So, this might be a dumb question, but what happens if Neh'rti dies? Who gets to be Clan Leader then?"
"Who ever is worthy, K'Shai. Hunters freshblooded and eldered will have the chance to vie for Leadership. It's typical for leadership of the Clan to go to a female, but there have been, as you've read, fifteen male leaders in the history of the Clan."
"Yes, they all share bloodlines." K'Shai acknowledged.
"Bloodlines of strong leaders become strong Leaders themselves."
"So why wouldn't the leadership go to one of Neh'rti's sisters, or aunt or some other female kin?" K'Shai questioned.
"Not all that share a bloodline are equipped to be leaders, either, K'Shai. My own dam's dam was…"
"Kai'luchi and she was an honored hunts Leader. She trained many incredible female hunters." K'Shai interrupted, reciting from the text of N'ruchi's bloodlines.
N'ruchi nodded.
"And I was genetically blessed with more intelligence than a hunter deemed necessary. I managed to get through my Blooding hunt, but I knew from the time I was very young, that I had no desire to blaze off and get myself killed trying to prove how unstoppable I was."
K'Shai smiled widely, trying, but failing, to stifle a chuckle.
It was a vast truth that she saw put into common place every day. Hunters were the strength and backbone of the Clan; honored and revered. They looked down upon the Blooded who chose not to continue hunting, respectfully of course, when their backs were turned. And it was the Blooded who pursued other paths in life that also respectfully when their backs were turned, pointed out the many many hunters who were severely depleated in intellectual skills.
"Well," K'Shai said as she stepped away from the large table with the texts upon it, and headed towards A'ryin'di. "It is normal for humans to teach their children from a young age about all kinds of things, and then, when ready, the child chooses their path and goes from there. I want to give A'ryin'di… both of my children… that right to choose."
"K'Shai, your children are half Yautja," N'ruchi quickly corrected. "They must take on the thwei- (blooding hunt..) and receive their Blooding mark, or the only choice they will have is death or 'aseigan."
She glared at N'ruchi for a moment, obviouisly showing that those options were unacceptable.
"I know they must hunt, but while they are growing up, they will learn all that they can, and be prepared for whatever choice they want to make when they are older."
"How odd," N'ruchi mumbled softly.
K'Shai let the comment slip without remark. She wasn't sure if it was meant to be overheard. She reached down to pick up A'ryin'di and straightened her back as she cradled the child around her hip and swollen belly, then gasped harshly and squealed in surprised and sudden pain.
"Oh, it's time. He's coming," she whined loudly and N'ruchi was already jumping into action.
K'Shai's howling disturbed the camp-fire stories, as they echoed all the way out of the central core of the mountain through the chambers and out into the open air. She just barely noticed R'chnt leap across giant logs that served as seating and bound towards her as N'ruchi helped her to their small bed chamber.
"K'Shai!" R'chnt grunted as he barricaded the entire doorway with his body.
"It is time," he added with a tone that bordered somewhere between a factual statement and question. K'Shai wasn't sure which it was intended to be, but responded with a groan all the same as she laid on her back in the bed.
"Yes it is! He definitely wants out."
"K'Shai, you must not lay in such a way," N'ruchi corrected, trying to physically yank K'Shai into an upright position.
In protest, K'Shai bent her knees and spread her legs, assuming the position she was instinctually aware of for child birth. Yautja had quite different instincts about child bearing and would deliver their offspring from a kneeling position.
"No. I need to be this way. I just can't… it isn't…" K'Shai protested, gasping between squeals of pain.
She began pushing as she felt her body telling her to and howled loudly over and over, bringing the entire temple to a halt while she strained to deliver her second hybrid offspring. The room very quickly filled up with entirely too many Yautja who were healers or females with delivery experience.
Quite quickly three of them began barking to one another about how unsmoothly the delivery was going and what needed to be done to correct it. Each had their own ideas and K'Shai continued to howl and wail while R'chnt merely gripped her hand and remained quiet and motionless, his eyes switching from K'Shai to the others like he was following a fast-paced tennis match.
K'Shai groaned out displeased growls as she tried to wordlessly protest entirely too much activity around her while she was nearly completely naked on the bed trying to push out what felt like a bowling ball through a lemon-sized opening. Surely the mechanics of such a thing was not possible and she screamed in a high pitch as she was certain she was going to explode.
"The child is large. Too large for her to pass."
"We must remove it for her."
The voices around her started to say and through the pained tears in her eyes, she was pretty sure she agreed with their decision, although the thought simulatenously terrified her, too.
"K'Shai if you cannot pass the offspring then we must…"
One of the female healers began as K'Shai managed to pull herself upright despite the pain. She stood on two very shaky feet, leaning heavily on R'chnt for support and suddenly bent her knees allowing him to fully support her. Lopping sideways somewhere between trying to actively knee and just outright falling over, K'Shai suddenly felt a wave of relief. The pain nearly dissipated completely and although she had already discharged a large amount of fluids on the way up to her chambers already, more evacuated her abdomen quickly.
With a relieved howl and a rush of fluid, from her half standing position, the oversized male offspring found his way out into the cool night air as a surprised hush fell over the room. Spectators gawked much to K'Shai's chagrin as she and R'chnt gathered themselves and their two children. Another little flurry of activity happened briefly afterwards as 'aseigan and healers tended to the room and to an exhausted K'Shai and her overly hungry newborn.
Once K'Shai grumbled and complained enough, the room finally fell silent and she had fallen asleep herself in R'chnt's tending arms while her new son nursed.
"R'chnt…" she mumbled sleepily.
He purred a soft reponse to prompt her to speak.
"He's a big boy."
He chuckled quietly.
"He is as a Yautja child would be. Strong and solid."
"Well, I picked A'ryin'di. I told you a while ago, I want to pick your son's name. What are you going to want to call him?"
"He is nack el'tude." R'chnt responded.
K'Shai moaned softly as her heavy eyelids fluctuated between open and closed while her tired mind searched for the translation of the words she heard.
"I like it. El'tude," she repeated. The closest translation she could think of was strong blade, but strong implying something a little more along the lines of giant, powerful, or fearsome. It was certainly an appropriate name for the child given his size, and K'Shai found herself quickly falling asleep to the absolute certainy that the boy would indeed grow up to be a powerful contender amongst the ranks of hunters, under his father's tutelage.
By the time she woke up in the morning, El'tude seemed as if he had grown already. She picked him up and while he whined softly in protest of being disturbed, he quickly found his way back to sleep in her arms while A'ryin'di occupied herself by getting into absolutely everything she could find around the sleeping chambers, including her father's weapons.
"A'ryin'di!" K'Shai scolded harshly with a hiss. "R'chnt!," she bellowed and he appeared without delay into the room from the inner corridor.
She eyed him flatly, "would you?" She said with a authorative question in her tone.
He spotted what was amiss as soon as he stepped in. His young daughter, fully mobile, learning to read and draw already dozens and dozens of cycles ahead of every other Yautja ever born, was inquisitive and highly intelligent, yet also slightly disasterous. Perhaps this, he thought, is why children are always kept in the mei'sa and away from all the fascinating and dangerous aspects of being a hunter.
"A'ryin'di," he said with a barely-veiled amused growl, "you need to wait at least another rotation before you begin hunting training."
K'Shai pressed her lips into a smile and shifted El'tude once again, trying to find a more comfortable position to hold and nurse him while supervising every inch of the small room to help keep an eye on A'ryin'di.
"So," K'Shai asked of R'chnt after much of the day had been past primarily resting and adjusting to a new life with two children. "Are we going back to the Clan City soon? Has Neh'rti decreed my return so I don't corrupt our children with human beliefs?"
"Is that what you think she…" R'chnt started, but reading the glare on K'Shai's face he dropped the subject wisely and immediately.
"No, K'Shai," he said. "We will remain here in the temple until you are fully ready to return to hunt."
"Well…" K'Shai said with a concerned tone. "How long do you think that will be? Another year? Longer?"
"You have come far, K'Shai," he said as he guided her out of the sleeping chambers and towards one of the large fires so they could sit and join the others for a meal.
"Your training has progressed well and soon you will be ready to hunt. When you are, we will return to the Clan, and there will be no question of your
Yautja worthiness, nor of our offspring."