The hunt was a rich one. This particular planet was one R'chnt simply had not made time to visit in many long years. He smiled in unadulterated pride at the hunt and this was just day one, he thought as he led the group back to camp.
The world was vast and uninhabited by any form of intelligent life, but the animal creatures that owned the place hunted like they were intelligent. And with so many different types of creatures to hunt, there was no short supply of challenges and dangers. Some of the group returned back injured.
E"jul had a marred thigh that he tried to look as if it did not hurt him at all as he casually limped home carrying an elongated horned skull on his back that was larger than his back. H'bpe-gk'de lived well up to his given hunting name of Bloody Warrior.
He was speared through both the chest and shoulder with spikes still in him from the prey he had chosen to hunt; a giant beast with a whipping tail that was nearly as deadly as any good kainde amedha. He carried the tail of the animal that left its mark on him from his waist, and the skull over his shoulder.
Koo'ni-de, young and more robust that perhaps any of the others in the hunting pack, not that R'chnt would readily admit out loud at all, chose to show off his skills hunting under the lake that was some distance from the ship. He had scaled all the way to the bottom to tackle a serpent four times his size with nothing more than his k'cit'pa blades, and had emerged unscatched. It was an impressive victory.
M'jniir-de took to his strongest element, immediately going up to the tops of the mighty trees to hunt the animals that lurked through them, and ended up being the only one of the group to return with two kills of two different animals on the first night. One was a serpent of the trunks instead of the waters, and the other was a beast that swung through the trees with two arms and two legs similar to a Yautja with a thick hide that made it almost impossible to cut into.
The group had all hunted well and made R'chnt proud. Still, he silently admitted he was proudest yet of his own kill. While the others were of course eager to clean their trophies, rest for a short while and returned to the hunt later that night, R'chnt was already planning on what his next kill would be. The first one had been a dramatic challenge for the first night, and rather unexpected.
Ironically, R'chnt's own kill was less than half his size; barely even the size of K'Shai. He returned with easily the smallest animal of the first hunt, but one that was vastly more intelligent and cunning that could be appreciated unless one tried to hunt it.
His group, all young and more interested in hunting the biggest and strongest, if not particularly the most intelligent, each took to prey that appealed to them. It was typical hunting fashion for young robust males looking to make a mark; bring home the biggest trophies possible. It was exactly the reason why elder hunters preferred hunting prey that could think its way through hunting you back.
Large boorish animals that charged straight into their enemy were certainly interesting, challenging, and not at all to be underestimated; but hunting prey that did not particularly want to be found out or hunted down in the first place made things far more interesting. The creature R'chnt spied had caught his attention because it was spying the Yautja back, from a distance; warily watching with a sort of plotting glimmer in its eye that immediately drew his focus.
Trying to decide if it was just an oddity that the little creature, parked halfway up a tree and completely unnoticed by any of the Yautja, was so taken with them, he pressed into the creature's domain and immediately, the animal jumped to another tree and attempted to hide itself behind large leaves. R'chnt could see the creature watching him back, so he tried again to push the animal's comfort. In response, the creature changed colors, attempting to blend so perfectly with the trees around it that it would have been incredibly difficult for anyone to spot if they weren't looking, or if they saw by any other means than heat signature.
But hiding was not the animal's only trick. The beast was fast and agile and strong and in a fraction of a second, it was gone from sight completely, leaving R'chnt with a near miss of being struck by a large branch the thing had ripped off and threw at him.
Smiling with certainty that it would be an interesting hunt indeed, R'chnt went off in a direction away from his group and tracked the animal for hours before he finally caught up with it.
Apparently, the head start had given the creature plenty of time to find a precarious place to hide in a cavern that offered up a variety of obstacles like trip falls, falling rock, and difficult to navigate passages that ended in frustrating dead ends that it almost seemed like the animal had pre-planned it all; even the giant spiders that lurked in the cave which also attempted to catch R'chnt in their web, literally.
What a hunt.
Perhaps, he thought as the group howled and celebrated their way delightfully back to the ship, if K'Shai was feeling better, she would join him tomorrow.
"R'chnt, is it true there are flying creatures here more deadly than the ones on the land?" Mora'th-de asked, wiping a small stream of blood off the crest of his head.
With a grunting off of acknowledgement in response from their leader, suddenly the entire group stopped and turned their attention onto him like mei'sa youths listening to their teachers in a class. Feeling the wide eyed excited glares of sixteen eyeballs on him, he stopped and repeated the affirmation again.
"They live on the other end of this territory, in a desert land full of heat and dryness. They are like lizards that fly, and stories speak of their breath being so hot it can burn a hole in a Yautja like focused beam of fire."
"Like a plasma charge?" Kor'aun-de questioned with a hint of disbelief.
"Does such a thing really exist?" H'bpe-gk'de questioned.
"Perhaps tomorrow," R'chnt started, turning again towards the ship, "we will find out."
He thought about what the hunt be like tackling such a creature with this particular group. He doubted they were fully ready for such things, but there was only one real way to find out, after all. As he moved on, he could hear the youngest in the group teasing each other over who would end up fed to the animals as bait and who would make the kill. That would be an interesting hunt, R'chnt decided right away.
Just as the sky had turned completely light, despite the rain peppering them the entire time, the K'ojol came into view. From the distance, all appeared as it should, though R'chnt was a little suprised that K'Shai wasn't sitting the open ramp door waiting for them. He had told her to always shut the ramp on any hunting world, but still somehow it seemed like a simple directive she would disobey if it meant seeing him approaching in the morning light.
As he drew closer, he slowed his gait, surveying the area around the ship. The trees and underbrush near the ship were disrupted a bit and in the dirt leading all the way up to the back of the ship, were odd hash marks that looked to have been made by five matched pairs of sturdy legs; the same legs that would support one of the whip-tailed beasts same as H'bpe-gk'de had hunted.
All was quiet and at a glance, it did not appear as if there was any concern. Nonetheless, R'chnt tapped his communication panel and attempted to raise K'Shai as the group halted behind him.
"K'Shai, we have returned. Opened the docking ramp." He commanded and paused, awaiting both a verbal confirmation and welcome return, and the door to come down.
Nothing but silence greeted the hunters.
Kor'aun-de moved up near R'chnt and grunted disapprovingly as if he had some business involving himself in what was happening. A warning flare from R'chnt's tusks quickly silenced him
"K'Shai! Release the shuttle door! Are you there?"
With no response after a long-enough pause, R'chnt was now well convinced that something was not right. K'Shai had been sick before he left for the hunt. She could have been sleeping, he supposed.
He nodded to Kor'aun-de who seemed overly eager to offer up his ability to remotely open the door as if he was somehow the only other one in the group who could possibly do it. As the door cracked open, immediately the scent in the air changed, and every Yauta in the group was suddenly aware of it.
Trophies dropped to the ground and weapons came out. The ship reeked of blood and stale air. Something was very wrong and it seemed for a moment that the hunt was still on. He couldn't raise K'Shai, and the lack of any signal suggested only three possibilities; her armor was badly damaged and not working, she wasn't wearing her armor, or she was dead. Suddenly he found himself feeling an uncomfortable rush of unwanted emotions as he searched through the ship with his hunters on high alert.
The lower level was free of any obvious concerns, save for one; a faded bio trail of one of the animals from the planet and a few claw marks. It was obvious that the creature had entered through the docking bay door and wandered randomly around the ship. There were claw marks here and there where the creature obviously had tested the wall's integrity.
How had the creature even entered the vessel? He had instructed K'Shai, as always, to shut the bay door and activate the self defense shielding. She would be protected in an impenetrable shell that could keep out even the smallest insect. The only way the animal could have gotten on the ship at all was if she failed to obey his command.
He found himself growing in displeasure and annoyance as he stepped into the ship. How could she have not listened to him? What was she trying to do? Her need to take in the view as she liked to call it, was something he could never understand. Had she really risked her own safety and the safety of the ship by disobeying his orders just to look at a planet full of trees that was absolutely no different than any other planet full of trees they had been to; not even Yaut or Earth.
Suddenly angered, he immediately began deciding exactly what reprimand he was going to issue to her. She was a hunter on his hunting party. She disobeyed his orders; an offense that would result in a severe beating at the very least for any full-blooded Yautja he commanded. She risked the ship; an unwanted side-effect of the first offense. She risked herself; a stupid mistake that could potentially have serious, if not fatal consequences as a result.
What punishment for K'Shai, who had a completely different, and seemingly unadjustable, mindset on certain ideas, would be appropriate? He thought about it for a moment and then decided he needed to first see exactly what was going on aboard the ship and what K'Shai's condition even was.
He cleared his mind and focused on hunting down the animal and determining what threat there might be. The walls closer to the front of the ship were more and more clawed up, as if the animal had grown desperate looking for a way out.
It was a burrowing animal by nature. H'bpe-gk'de had hunted one, and told the tale of finding the thing burrowed into a large cave it had dug under a rocky cliff. It was quite a challenge to hunt the animal in the tunnel of underground shafts dug out by the creature's large front claws.
"Here! It made its way here!" Kor'aun-de called.
The group turned their attention to the communal quarters; specifically the shower area. Where the piping to carry water back and forth through the ship, the animal had found the easiest and widest point it could to allow itself to get through. It was hard to imagine that the thing could even fit up through the wall space, but the animal did have an extraordinary ability to flatten its body to slip through narrow spaces in rock caverns.
So, the group headed up to the upper level, and following R'chnt's direction, they split up, half taking one side of the ship, R'chnt leading a group through the other half. The stench of blood staled air was intense and seemed to amplify as the small group drew nearer to the front of the ship and then suddenly, the hallways started to turn dark. The floor grates were covered with the black blood of the animal.
Before R'chnt even had visual sight of the scene, the scents that hit him told a story that left many questions. The stench of the animal's blood suggested that the creature was dead. K'Shai, no doubt, had killed it.
The other scents in the air were far more worrisome however. They were lighter and sweeter; unmistakably human blood. There was still yet another scent mixed into it all; a familiar scent that only added to the confusion of what they would be walking into. The scent was vague, barely existent but distinctly Yautja.
What has happened here? Where was K'Shai? R'chnt couldn't help but wonder. But as he rounded the corner, and the carcass of the animal came into view, his questions would be answered. Just beyond the dead creature that stood partially blocking the hallway between the group of hunters and the front section of the ship, lay K'Shai. She was motionless, bloody, and her body was far too cold.
He could hear her moaning softly; whimpering. She was shivering. Without hesitation, as the group behind him came to a shocked halt and the other half of the hunters, who just rounded the corner and came into view, likewise did the same, R'chnt dove forward, jumping up and over the tangle of legs in the corridor past the long dead creature.
"K'Shai! K'Shai!" He growled loudly and the group around him backed off a bit, stunned by the bloody scene sprawled before them, each one assessing just what they were looking at.
R'chnt carefully shifted K'Shai into his arms. She was cold, weak, her skin was pale. She had lost so much blood it was amazing she was still alive. He did not think she was even aware of what was going on. The only sounds she made were a sort of garbled crying whimper; nothing coherent. She was drenched in sweat, vomit, and blood; most of which was her own.
Separated from her by a few inches, but still connected via the bloody cord, was the limp corpse of a fully formed, yet utterly tiny little hybrid offspring; a male. R'chnt quickly sliced the cord with a blade and scooped up both the dead offspring and his weakened sickly other and disappeared out of the hallway with only a few grumbles to the rest of his stunned-silent hunting party.
"Get this ship off the ground, and clean that up."
He carried his mate into their quarters and right into the wash area. R'chnt gently deposited the offspring somewhat gracelessly near the doorway and then lowered K'Shai onto the shower floor where he thoroughly cleaned her in hot water before sliding with her into the heated soaking bath.
Once she was cleaned, warm, and he had given her injections of both medication, painkillers, and vitamins, he tended to the offspring, swaddling up the little fetus in leathers, but not before he surveyed the child. It was a perfectly formed fetus; every part of the baby right down to tiny little nub claws on the tips of his fingers. It was not in any way deformed, but it was also so incredibly tiny there was no hope for it to have ever survived.
K'Shai's body had rejected the fetus. He didn't know why, but as he had placed the bundle of leathers with the corpse inside into the furnace he couldn't help but think that L'ruch would certainly have loved to have the opportunity to figure out exactly what went wrong.
R'chnt watched over K'Shai as she laid and slept. Sometimes she came to into incoherent episodes that included anything from sobbing hysterically to mumbling about A'ryin'di and El'tude. She did not eat, but he supported her body with injectable nutrition; hardly enough to keep her alive forever but it would at least keep her going until they made it home. The hunt had been cut short. K'Shai needed to be home, he knew.
"R'chnt?" He heard a voice softly calling finally.
He looked across the chambers and eyed K'Shai in the bed. R'chnt glanced out the window one more time and then headed over to his mate, cautiously helping to support her as she weakly tried to sit upright.
She let out a great moan and slumped into him, sobbing and shaking. Without any words, he knew the memories of all that had happened were flooding back into her mind and she had no other possible response than to simply cry in his arms, pressed against his shoulder with her head tucked under his ropy hair.
"K'Shai," he whispered finally.
She quieted for a moment and felt the ship suddenly convulse; a familiar sensation that meant only one thing - the vertical thrusters had engaged. The ship was landing.
"Where are we?" She asked as she wiped her face and pulled away from his shoulder a little bit.
"Home, K'Shai," R'chnt responded with a gentle dip of his mighty crested head. "We are home."
K'Shai smiled in relief. "A'ryin'di, El'tude," she whispered and tried to pull herself up off the bed as if she wanted to move closer to the window just to somehow assure herself that the ship was indeed landing on Yaut. R'chnt gripped her tightly because she could barely stand.
"Yes, K'Shai. Rest and wait. We will be home soon."
"I can't…." she suddenly whispered with a quiver in her voice and turned to stare at R'chnt with wide eyes.
"I can't!" She repeated, glancing down at herself; weak and thin, and barely able to stand.
The children were in mei'sa. If the mei'sa females saw her in that condition, they would likely kill her, and if anyone saw her in that condition at all R'chnt would become a laughing stock or worse.
She heard the foreboding thud of the ship setting down and suddenly wished she had died instead of coming back home like this. Because of her, a hunt had been cut short. Eight hunters returned with only half the trophies and glory they had expected, and they had all
seen her plight. They all saw her curled up and crying, covered in blood with an aborted fetus hanging out of her abdomen. Word would
spread; if it hadn't already.
Feeling for the first time, a true sense of embarrassment, she finally began to understand the Yautja mentality. It was simple really. Always be seen as strong. Everything else, no matter what the reason, was a death sentence - be it socially or literally.
"I'm not getting off the ship." She said suddenly with worry.
R'chnt chuckled softly, as if he was oblivious to her concerns or it just simply did not matter to him.
"K'Shai, you cannot live on the K'ojol. We will return home. We had a private transport pad. I have already summoned for A'ryin'di and El'tude to be brought to us."
He reassurances were comforting; at least no one would see. But still, she made R'chnt wait until every other hunter on the ship had left, and that the entire landing field had been emptied of any prying eyes.
She tiptoed her way through the corridors of the ship; halfway so numb from the painkillers that she could barely feel her feet as it was, and halfway exhausted from the loss of blood and injuries that just staying awake and alert long enough to even make it to the transport pad was an effort.
It wasn't a terribly long ride back to R'chnt's home, and thankfully the pad was smooth as it hovered its way quickly down the trail. Before long, the whitish walls of the adobe-like home was visible. Two 'aseigan quickly made their way to the pad once it stopped in front of the house, to respectfully acknowledge their master and his mate's return, and to see if there was anything he commanded of them..
He growled at them with his usual short tone, as if the very sight of the 'aseigan was an annoyance, and the very idea of even talking to them caused him great pains. He gave them their directives and they were off in a flash, clearly wanting to hurry away from the elder. R'chnt turned and offered a mighty, clawed hand before him to help K'Shai step down off the transport pad when suddenly from the house rose a high-pitched howl that caught their attention.
K'Shai looked up and beamed with a smile. El'tude and A'ryin'di both darted down the sweeping stairs at the back side of the house, which was the side that faced the transport pad. An immediate sense of relief swept over her, and a slight bit of shock as well. Her children; the tiny little, entirely-too-pink-skinned to be truly Yautja had grown. She found herself quickly doing a sudden double check in her mid of exactly how long they had been gone.
The old phrase she remember about children growing like a weed had nothing on El'tude and A'ryin'di. Though almost a full cycle older than A'ryin'di, the first born son of K'Shai and R'chnt had nearly doubled in size. He was huge. He was easily fifty percent taller and wider than most other youngsters his age, and he nearly inched his height taller than A'ryin'di. He looked like a two-foot tall weight builder. A'ryin'di had about one head ridge of height on her brother and that was it.
The children howled and shouted for their parents and ran to them. K'Shai dropped to her knees and threw her arms around both of her progeny, smiling widely with her arms wrapped around them, and her eyes closed. She let go of them just before she suffocated them with her enthusiasm of seeing them. A'ryin'di turned her attention to R'chnt and what followed made K'Shai beam even more at them both.
The mighty leader bowed down and gripped his daughter. He grabbed up her in a great embrace, practically twirling her around him as she clicked a Yautja laugh and crawled up over his shoulders, using him like a jungle gym. She moved across his back, crawling from one shoulder to the other with ease and agility just like any Yautja.
She couldn't help but smile at them as she remembered a time not too long before this when a very reluctant R'chnt had told her that Yautja males were inherently not fathers and lacked any type of parental nature whatsoever. Couldn't have ever guessed that, she thought, as she watched the seemingly proud father grab up his daughter and hold her and make her laugh.
K'Shai's attention turned towards the house as more movement caught her eye. Suddenly her heart dropped, her throat tightened, and the smile on her face and ease in her body left. Instead of just having a mei'sa matron escort the children home, or sending even a female 'aseigan to do the job, K'Shai was slightly horrified to see that Neh'rti herself had appeared on the porch.
She was sure her skin had turned completely white as she walked towards the house with an ominous feeling. Neh'rti simply glared at her and him as they approached. She did finally gesture softly in acknowledgement of R'chnt's presence before she whisked K'Shai away as if they should not have been in the company of the leader in the first place.
Neh'rti strode powerfully through the house, leading K'Shai right off to the opposite end and only stopping once they were in private, overlooking the territory which was R'chnt's personal hunting and training grounds. The sounds of animals echoing through the trees was the only noise between them for some time.
K'Shai barely even moved, even though she wanted to sit down, cry, sleep, or hold onto her offspring; she wasn't exactly sure. She let her mind race through the number of possibilities as to why the Clan Leader Herself was standing there looming over her in silence, and none of them seemed good. As silent time passed, she found herself bouncing somewhere panic and annoyance that R'chnt had not appeared to intervene, even though she well knew that he would not do such a thing. Female business was female business, and that was definitely one area that males most certainly did not intervene.
It was Neh'rti who finally broke the incredibly awkward stagnant silence.
"Is there something wrong with you?" She asked flatly.
K'Shai had no idea what Neh'rti was even getting at. The possibilities of how to interpret and answer that question were endless. Of course there was something wrong; more things than she could even put into words at the moment; though the start of that was that she did not want to stand on the front porch next to Neh'rti having the most awkward conversation in the universe.
Clearly annoyed at the lack of immediate, explanatory response, Neh'rti growled.
"What has happened to you, K'Shai?"
Once again, K'Shai thought quickly, there were far too many possible answers to that equally incredibly vague question.
Neh'rti turned towards K'Shai with an intimidating posture and K'Shai wanted to peel herself away from the scene, but instead remained glued to the spot eyeing the Clan Leader quizzically.
Neh'rti growled again. Finally, K'Shai unloaded.
"I don't know what you want me to say! What isn't wrong here? I lost a child, I nearly died, I made a mistake that could have gotten all of us killed. I am trying, Neh'rti. I am trying. And all I wanted to do was come home and return to our children. I don't know what you expect of me?!"
She blurted out in a half screaming, mostly disrespectful tone, and no longer really cared. Keeping up with Yajutja pretense was almost impossible, and the whole idea of their private return to the planet was to avoid any contact with the mei'sa; not to have the Clean Leader staring her down at her own home and wondering what was wrong with her.
"Sit, K'Shai." Neh'rti said. "Sit."
Without another word, K'Shai melted down into a chair and found great interest in her own toes.
"Yautja females, you do know I'm sure..." Neh'rti started, not really even bothering to notice if K'Shai was paying any attention at all. "Mate once. I find it very odd that you can mate and bear offspring multiple times. But I do have to remember that you are no Yautja."
That caught K'Shai's full and complete attention. Neh'rti had to remember that K'Shai wasn't Yautja? Like that was a thing anyone could forget? And it was the way she had said it too; not with the usual distasteful tone of hate in her voice, but with a sort of tone of acceptance, as if she did actually forget that K'Shai "was human.
"We choose our mate very carefully, since we want the best possible breeding. We do not want to breed a natural born 'aseigan! Such a shame when that does happen. Weak pathetic little offspring that could never survive on their own on their own planet, let alone on a hunt."
Neh'rti paused for a moment, and glanced at K'Shai as if expecting some kind of response. Receiving nothing, she simply continued on lik the whole conversation was going exactly as she had planned.
"I chose my mate carefully, too."
K'Shai did glance up at her at that. She didn't know Neh'rti had even mated at all. No one had ever mentioned Neh'rti's offspring.
"I chose a powerful mate; a strong young hunter with proven bloodlines and many trophies to his name that was well on his way to earning his rightful rank as Leader. I was young, of noble and proud lineage, and I selected my mate very carefully."
Neh'rti continued on, not really apparently caring to hear any response from K'Shai, or she had simply stopped expecting one.
"It was such an unusual feeling," she said quietly, "to feel the offspring growing in me; to know that if it was male, he would make a fine hunter, a true Leader and if it was female, she would likely replace me as Clan Leader one day should she earn it. Of course she would have earned it. She would have had the ability bred right into her."
K'Shai remained quiet, but interested. Neh'rti recollected her child with a tone in her voice that K'Shai had never heard before. There was a pride and power, but also a sadness. It was obvious just by her tone that the child was not alive.
"Then, one day, K'Shai; the child came out. She was two months too early. The pain was intense and I did not even think I would survive birthing the offspring. The dead offspring."
K'Shai swallowed and pressed her lips together, still silent because now she really had no idea what to say.
"That was it. My offspring; my contribution to the Clan, to my bloodline; gone. Yautja females cannot bear offspring again and again. But you can."
"Neh'rti...I …." K'Shai started in a whisper, but at a loss of words, she really did not know how to continue.
"Your offspring are strong, K'Shai. They have powerful noble blood in their veins. And their sire is just as powerful and noble."
K'Shai eyed her widely and appreciatively of the one and only compliment she was sure she would ever get from Neh'rti.
"Who was the… sire?" K'Shai asked, halfway regretting it as R'chnt stepped into the archway of the door.
She remained silent, turned on her heels, but as she dismissed herself back to the mei'sa, the subtle flick of her lower mandibles towards R'chnt gave K'Shai the only answer she needed.
Great, she thought. No wonder she hates me.