The conversation went over about as well as K'Shai had really expected it to. R'chnt was highly displeased to say the least.
"K'Shai!" He growled at nothing less than a high yell at one point in the conversation. "Bad Bloods are just that! They have no honor, they have turned their back on the ways of the Clan, the ways of the Paya, the very Path of the Yautja itself. They will kill anything they desire - innocent, unarmed, incapable. All ways to dishonor."
"It's not like I'm going out to become one, R'chnt! I want to do something for the Clan, that's all."
R'chnt shook his head.
"You are still trying to prove something."
"Yes, I am. And don't tell me I don't need to. I see you do it every day. I see all Yautja every day, always proving they are still capable, because you know exactly what happens to hunters who no longer have the abilities to prove themselves." She growled.
R'chnt sighed; it was hard to argue with her logic. Clearly he had taught K'Shai the finer points of living amongst the Yautja well enough that she understood so much it was a little alarming. She was fierce and she eyed him down with such anger and demanding in her glare that he saw very little left of her flesh and blood species.
"Our offspring - every day- they will have to live and fight and try ten times as hard to prove themselves too, and you know that." She pointed out with a softened tone.
"I will not stop you, nor will I try, K'Shai. But you have not ever yet hunted a sentient creature at all, let alone a Yautja."
K'Shai raised her chin a bit and eyed R'chnt closely.
"I've killed humans before….. I had to. It was done."
R'chnt shook his head.
"Not the same thing, and you know it."
"Maybe not. But I've been hunting along side you for years now; even with our children. Just like they are learning and growing, I too want to continue to grow. I'm ready for this. I've seen how bad bloods tarnish the Clan's honor. I need this. R'chnt, I am not asking you for permission."
"K'Shai, hunting a creature like that - a sentient one that does not purely run on instinct, but on higher thought; there is nothing like it in all
this vastness of the universe. Nothing. It is cautious work. A hunter too foolish, who makes a move too quickly or in the slightest bit
underestimates the intelligent prey will not get another chance to learn." He lectured firmly.
"There truly is no real preparing for what an intelligent creature - one that uses weapons and thoughts and power - will do."
"Are we talking about hunting Yautja or humans?" K'Shai asked grittily.
R'chnt dipped his head, unappreciative of the sarcasm, but yet also acknowledging a definite validity to her question. He paused and said
nothing.
"You miss it don't you?" She questioned with a prying whisper. "You miss hunting humans. You miss killing them... us...the sound of our
bones breaking and our warm blood hitting your face?"
"K'Shai!" R'chnt flared up, mandibles spread. "Enough!"
"No. You do. You wish hunting on Earth was not banned still. You want to hunt humans. For the sport. You like that challenge."
"No other creature will challenge you more than intelligent prey. Any intelligent prey. Not the weak ones that run, flee, urinate themselves.
Those are not worth the time or effort. But the ones who hide behind weapons, calculate their attacks, and surprise you in all kind of ways.
Those are the best scars. The best trophies. They are the hunts that remain with you." R'chnt responded as vaguely as possible.
"I am going to do this. I need to do this," K'Shai stood firm and R'chnt offered no more protest.
Thankfully things finally quieted down after spending most of the early morning certainly giving every neighbor in the building quite a show to listen to at least. The city would be talking this morning, no doubt; not only about K'Shai who made a show of herself walking through the most public locations with her three new hunting companions, but also of the shouting and arguing that echoed through the male's habitat that morning.
None of it mattered. K'Shai did not care. She knew her children were safe as they could be in the mei'sa, and she had truly spent years training for all of this. She might never have actually hunted to kill any Yautja, but she had sparred with dozens and dozens of different partners, and actively "hunted" experienced Yautja like W'rsa and others in the jungles around R'chnt's personal hunting grounds for training exercises.
Three days later, K'Shai had heard that R'chnt had headed back to his hunting grounds. There was no goodbye, he did not communicate with her. She was training and sparring daily with the huntresses, getting to know how they moved, how they thought, and how they worked together as a group to bring down whatever bad blood they were after.
K'Shai grew more comfortable with their techniques, and chose not to question them when something was different than what R'chnt taught. She simply just did, and because of that, it felt like she was getting along well with the group and it felt good. Weeks passed and thankfully, K'Shai had what she felt was plenty of time to train with the huntresses. She spent most of her time with them, and the rest of it
alone.
Once in a great while, she saw W'rsa in the clan city and would hold brief, awkward conversations with him, but it was clear that R'chnt was not about to interfere with her. He had been hunting on his lands, and hosting his closest companions to hunt along with him; returning back to the life of any male Yautja while K'Shai discovered life as a true female Yautja huntress; not a mei'sa mother.
The arbiters spent little time actually hunting much of anything else. Their position in the clan was so honored and revered simply because they were part of an elite few who chose to do what most other hunters did not. They had plenty of eto to service their needs and food, housing, bath houses, all of it, every luxury needed outside the mei'sa walls was available to them from the clan.
And as promised there was a lot of nothing to do but wait. The huntresses were not kidding about how infrequent it was that a noble hunter turned bad. Weeks went by and while K'Shai missed R'chnt and her children, she forcibly put all such thoughts to the side. The mei'sa was definitely not where she wanted to be and thinking about spending her time with R'chnt again only made her feel more isolated.
So, she sparred and idled away her days in conversation, prayer, and hot baths. Day after day, the routine became a bit mid-numbing. The Yautja were more than content to spend long spans of time doing absolutely nothing it seemed. Perhaps it was just that K'Shai knew her natural life span was so short comparatively that she just wanted to get out and do something.
Still, there were plenty of things going well for her. Her sparring seemed to meet the approval of the huntresses, and so did her company. Actually it seemed like the huntresses did not care one way or the other. They were curious about K'Shai and they often shared their own stories of their time on Earth, while K'Shai shared very little about those chapters of her life.
On the hunting side of the matter, so long as she did what they expected and followed the established leadership requirements, her hunting skills would only best be put to the test when they actually had something to do. The huntresses did not care at all if K'Shai lived or died; they were definitely not out to protect her during a hunt the way R'chnt, W'rsa, and even S'aruch-de always had done. Such things did not matter to them at all.
The Path of the Yautja meant you die; it was simple as that. The only real concern was to die with honor. Ironically, dying at the hands of someone that the Clan had dishonored carried with it no real honor at all. The honor in the eyes of the Clan came in the form of hunting such bad bloods, and bringing them back dead or alive, for others to learn by.
That much K'Shai was ready for.
The chance to hunt for some purpose along with a group of hunters that would not protect her and sacrifice themselves for her, all in the name of bringing down Clan justice to disgraced hunters.
It sounded great… if there was actually anything useful to do ninety percent of the time. K'Shai took to soaking in the hot tubs more often than not because she was sick of sparring for hours and hours out of the day. She missed R'chnt, but she also did not want to disappear off to him, all the way out at his personal hunting grounds, for it would look very bad to the huntresses.
As it was, months passed before anything even remotely interesting for the huntresses happened.
"There he goes!" One of them called; the four huntresses working swiftly in a group formation, easily tracking down their prey through the very near jungles just beyond the Clan City.
"He didn't get far, did he!" Another laughed.
K'Shai remained silent and simply honed in on the prey. She kept her eyes locked on him as she ran on the ground.
Mara'di sailed through the trees, like any Yautja could so easily do. She used her powerful legs, heavily clawed feet, large upper arms and solid hands to grasp, leap, and propel herself with amazing grace and agility, even while covered in armor. To see any Yaujta perform in such a way truly was an incredible sight, and K'Shai took the time to notice, especially while she ran as fast as she could on the ground, trying her best just to outpace at least one of them to make it seem like she had no trouble keeping up.
As it was, the hunt was brief, and hardly worthwhile of the mighty huntresses power; a poor display of their true prowess, for sure. Still, their target ran. He stumbled briefly and turned back and eyed K'Shai. She could see his furrowed brow and the glare of his deep brown, sunken eye.
He looked angry, but he also looked like he knew damned well what was coming to him. He turned again and tried to run off, but L'tdi caught up to him with an unforgiving spear through his calf. The hunted one howled and roared, and then did something that none of them, judging by their howling and laughter, had expected.
The hunted one pulled the spear from his leg and whipped it around. He stood there growling and howling as the four huntresses pulled in all around him, circling him like hyenas, the three others laughing and cackling as they circled their intended prey.
K'Shai remained quiet, pacing around the prey in synch with the others, but her eyes stayed locked on the shaking and howling prey threatening them. She stalked around him as he moved in synch with their moves, watching them watch him, circling around, plotting how he was going to strike.
"Look at this!" L'tdi called with laughter. "This pauk-de eto is going to attack us!"
"Let him!" Mara'di snarled.
"Come on then, c'jit."
"Attack us!"
"Give it your best try, you only get one chance!"
The females howled and taunted their prey, having fun with the chance to bring honor to their Clan. It was when the prey whipped around again that K'Shai noticed it, now that she was close enough.
He had a Clan blooding mark etched into his forehead. It was faint, long scarred, faded, but clearly this former hunter's spirit had not been lost. K'Shai eyed him briefly and then saw it; that look.
It was the look that said he was about to do something royally stupid and actually attack, and it was directed at her. He lunged forward suddenly towards K'Shai, and she reacted without thinking. She raised her k'cit-pa bearing arm and swung at the spear now coming at him, and with a quick evading left side step, she ejected a third, hidden k'cit-pa blade on the underside of her left arm, and penetrated it deep into the side of her prey.
She completed her maneuver by spinning out of the attack and taking a wide-legged stance just out of reach of the prey, ready to strike again, but the other three huntresses were already moving in, pouncing on their intended victim, still howling and cackling.
They bound him, gagged him with a wicked face mask that K'Shai had never even seen the likes of before. It looked like a surgical mask made from strips of barbed wire, and definitely encouraged the prey to quite literally keep his mouth shut. One wrong move from a single
mandible, and he would impale himself repeatedly for no reason and no benefit to himself.
"What did he do?" K'Shai asked.
She had no idea what the prey's name was, for eto were stripped of such rights. She had no idea what his history was, for which leader he hunted, or if he was a leader. She did not know anything other than what the huntresses were told by the Clan. He was an eto that had now crossed a new line and became a Bad Blood.
L'tdi looked at her with a sneer that said it doesn't matter, but then surprisingly, she told K'Shai of the Bad Blood's offenses to the Clan.
"He was a hunter once; Blooded and respected. He was stripped of his honor and cast to the eto for stealing another's glory."
"Then," S'nji'di continued on the story with a disgusted tone directed towards the chained prey, "he killed his keeper and ran. Ran! Like any eto c'jit!"
K'Shai nodded and said nothing more. It truly was a disgrace to steal another's kill, that much was just as much common sense as it was a rule of honored hunting. Usually, the false claim was made if one hunter died during the kill and another saw, but often times, such incidents also arose questions of whether or not the surviving hunter killed the other.
One thing was for sure, K'Shai thought silently as she later watched the shamed and ridiculed eto be strung up, abused, and tortured for the entertainment and education of the Clan, as Neh'rti narrated her way through all of it about Honor and walking the Yautja Path, the Yautja version of justice was simple and concise.
The punishment was always the same. Any Honored hunter that was cast down to eto was truly done so to be disgraced. K'Shai had learned from the huntresses that their job was to either bring back their quarry to the Clan for further punishment, humiliation, or death before all, or to dispatch the dishonored themselves.
The sentencing of a disgraced hunter was also a message as to the level of dishonor they had brought down on the Clan. If the huntresses were given the freedom to kill their quarry, as K'Shai was told, it meant that while disgraced the Clan deemed a swift death at the hands of the arbiters worthy enough. If the huntresses' job was to return their prey back to the Clan, it was because they had done something much much worse.
Stealing another's kill and claiming it as your own, was definitely worthy enough of a crime to deserve to be strung up and humiliated in front of the entire clan. K'Shai imagined, while the disgraced hunter howled in agony, anyone that R'chnt had ever taught doing the same thing, and she clenched her jaws as she concluded that this was well deserved.
Briefly, she saw R'chnt and went to him with a smile on her face. She threw her arms around him and squeezed him tightly.
"You came to see?" She asked nodded towards the platform.
"I came to see," he said, eyes focused completely on her and his hand grasped her chin in just the way he always did.
K'Shai lowered her eyes for a moment and tilted her head into his hand. It was amazing how soft and gentle he, the mighty killer, was capable of being towards her.
"I've missed you so much. I've missed your touch, R'chnt." She whispered swiftly without holding back then looked around quickly as if to check that someone might have overheard, like it was forbidden. It just wasn't Yautja.
"K'Shai," he said, "will you stay long? Will you dine with me?"
"Of course," she said, looking around for the huntresses as if she was in need of their approval. Why she was so jumpy just being seen around the very mate that was the entire reason for her presence there confused even her, and she thought about it quietly during their conversation as she sat with R'chnt and ate. They were later joined by a waning and ebbing flow of fellow hunters, friends, respected comrades, who all seemed to appreciate the moment sitting with the two of them.
"You seem different," R'chnt pointed out well into the night after they had long finished eating, and merely gazed at their drinks rather than consumed them.
She moved from her spot across the table from him finally, nudging up right next to him. His scent wafted into her nostrils.
"I do?" She whispered softly. "How so?" She questioned while gently stroking his arm, feeling the rise and fall of the muscles in his forearm with intent.
"From what I hear, you have done well amongst the arbiters."
"You hear about that?" She asked with a smile and a hint of surprise.
He chuckled. "Of course!"
She raised her eyebrows. "Well, it isn't like we did much yet. We just dragged that one in."
R'chnt growled with dissatisfaction. "Yes, well, only a fool turns bad in the first place. Perhaps they mean to all along. Perhaps it was just
one dumb mistake in the heat of the moment."
"You mean like bringing an alien home with you?" She asked sharply.
"K'Shai!" R'chnt turned to her and looked at her. He glared at her, but not a harsh glare, more of a hurt and saddened glare and that made K'Shai's heart ache.
"Do you think I regret that? Do you think I made a mistake, or that you did? Is that why you've decided to go off hunting bad bloods with the arbiters? To prove your worth, or just take out frustration?"
K'Shai's heart bounded. It felt like it was going to rupture. She was burning with sudden pain of a rash of thoughts running through her mind.
"No, no, R'chnt… I didn't… mean...Look I just…"
"Speak! Speak your mind, K'Shai. What is this anger you have?"
She smiled and shook her head. He did not understand and she simply could not formulate the words.
"I don't regret any of it. Our children… they are worth this life. I just want to see the best for them, and I know you do too."
R'chnt quieted for a moment. He seemed lost in thought until K'Shai's hand on his thigh distracted him.
"R'chnt," she whispered. "Have you ever done it?"
He tipped his head towards her.
"Killed a Yautja?" She tried again.
"K'Shai…" He grumbled and gripped her hand that was upon his thigh. "Let us walk."
He stood. She followed. They walked casually through the training arena courtyards, down a path of large slab marble-like stone, and weaved their way along a trail that turned from stone to packed dirt as it headed into the woods, and towards the massive waterfall cliffs.
They stopped along the riverbank, near enough to listen to the raging sound of the waters but yet far enough away that it made for a soothing white noise. R'chnt sat down on a large boulder and watched the water pass him by for a moment before he spoke again.
"I have hunted many creatures, K'Shai. I have had Yautja die under me, through hunting mistakes. I have had hunters that I trained die when they have hunted on their own. Forgotten my training, or thought they were ready for more."
She slid in next to him and quietly listened, noting how he sort of glared at her when he made that last statement.
"You know that's not what I mean." She said flatly to him in a whisper, barely audible above the distant roar of the waterfall.
"I know." He answered simply, then continued on with what she was looking for.
"Back before we realized what happened on your world, the only thing we knew for absolutely for sure was that young disgraced hunters
had stolen a ship full of the kainde amedha eggs. We did not know where they had gone with it. They were too stupid to listen to their leaders and repsect the Yautja Way, but they were clever enough to dismantle the tracking system in the ship, and in the armor on it.
So a hunt began. These young hunters had simply been disgraced by being passed up for better positions within their hunting packs. They were blooded. They had all known each other in the mei'sa, two of them were half-brothers. They were stupid and bullheaded, but they still had rank and position. They were not eto. At least not yet.
Not until they decided to still that ship. They were typical young Yautja, simply not ready enough to fulfill a better position in their packs, and the three of them conspired one night, probably while very drunk, to steal that ship and prove how great of a hunter they all really were."
K'Shai pressed her lips together mournfully and nodded her head.
"And did you have to hunt them down?"
R'chnt shook his head slowly.
"Their disgrace went far deeper than just the three of them. They were tracked down eventually by the arbiters. Well, the ship at least was found on Earth. You know one of the three was found still on Earth, but the long after the damage had been done. The other two had already been killed.
But, I was one of the many elders tasked with eliminating the scourge from ever happening again within that blood line."
"What does that mean exactly?" K'Shai asked.
He glanced at her and bowed his head slightly. "I was part of the many elders tasked with purifying the blood line. This disgrace was spread wide, and needed to be eradicated from ever having the chance to happen again."
"So…" K'Shai paused with a gasp. "Wait… wait… you're telling me that the entire bloodlines of all three of those … pauk'de eto had to be hunted down and killed?"
R'chnt shook his head dismissively.
"No, of course not K'Shai. Some of the disgraced bloodlines, who faced their dishonor directly came forth and publicly destroyed themselves."
K'Shai raised her eyebrows widely, nodding. "Oh, well, of course they did." She groaned with deep element of sarcasm in her voice that was well missed by R'chnt.
"So, who did you have to hunt down? Who did you kill?"
R'chnt sank back a bit, collapsing a little as if the thought of a response physically hurt him.
"It was no easy task, K'Shai. Not any kind of honorable task at all, really. But it needed to be done. The blood of the Clan must be pure. There is a reason why eto are altered to no longer reproduce. They are disgraced, dishonored, but their deaths are less meaningful to the
Clan's service than their servitude.
But when a bloodline must be purified, this is not a challenge, nor even an honor. It is a disgrace that it even needs to be done."
He paused. She held motionless, waiting for him to continue.
"One young male, too young really to understand the impact; but yet Blooded, barely even knew he was part of the bloodline. He was so distantly removed, but yet it had to be done. I took no honor in it. None at all. He was leaning over a table at a catina, visiting with his young friends. I still recall how silent they all fell as they saw me approaching from behind, with my blade drawn. The cantina grew completely silent before he even stopped talking long enough to realize something was off."
R'chnt looked at her with a deep, sad, gaze.
"He was telling something amusing. They were all laughing before I appeared, and when he turned, he still had a smile on his face as he analyzed what was happening."
His voice deepened and slowed.
"It was over just that fast. His grin just sort of faded off his face and he looked down. I don't know if he even realized he had been run through already before he fell to the ground. The eto were already heading over to move him off. I wiped my blade clean, walking back through the courtyard. The silence, K'Shai…"
He looked right at her.
"It was so silent. Everyone knew what and why. Everyone except the one I killed that day I think. The reality of what he was, how he could contaminate the future of that Clan, simply did not even crack into his mind, not even when my blade went through his ribs and heart and out the back of his body.."
K'Shai remained silent for a while, absorbing the story she had been told. She felt empty and hollow and tried to reconcile that inside her mind.
"Were there others?" She asked before she could even stop herself, and immediately regretted it. She really did not want to hear the answer to that, but before she could tell him to disregard the question, he nodded.
"I was part of a team that was scouring the world, Clan to Clan to Clan. I killed many in those weeks. Many. So many were young. So many really had no idea they were being hunted. There was no honor in what I did."
He turned to her with a serious, concerned, look in his eye.
"K'Shai, you will mostly likely not be hunting down young ignorant children freshly out of the mei'sa. If you do this, you take on this challenge of hunting bad bloods, you will be hunting in ways you could not imagine. You will be hunting true criminals. Not only Blooded hunters, but ones that are going to defend themselves and hunt you back."
"Do you think I'm not ready for it?" She huffed immediately defensively.
He remained silent.
" You do. You don't think I can hunt down bad bloods any more than Neh'rti thinks I can even be a true Yautja."
"Is that what you are trying to do, K'Shai? You are still after all these years, after having five offspring, you are still trying to prove something to someone else?"
"Well, apparently I still need to!" She howled and leapt up. "What more do I have to do?! I've had two of those children die, I nearly died how many times? You have had to save me over and over and over. Tell me R'chnt… you spoke of how many hunters have died under your instruction; did you go and try to save any of them? Did you use your own blood to help save another hunter?"
He remained silent.
"I didn't think so," she snapped bitterly. "You do what you do for me because you think, even after all these years and everything I've done, that I still can't be a true Yautja. No wonder Neh'rti thinks it too."
"No, this is something I need to do for myself," she continued. "I don't feel like I have a place here. I never really fit into the mei'sa. I can't be a real hunter with you. I had S'ruch-de die for me because of some misplaced sense of… of…"
She stopped mid-sentence.
"And W'rsa…" she muttered.
She raised her hands and shook her head, turning away from R'chnt.
"I just can't… I can't."
"What about W'rsa?" R'chnt questioned quietly, and K'Shai turned back to him with a look of absolute guilt on her face.
"That W'rsa wanted to claim you as a mate when he figured me for dead?" He questioned.
She eyed him widely, stunned. She had not told him. W'rsa told him? She presumed.
"Why would he tell you that?"
"Because it is respectable Yautja honor. He told me what happened. He told me you nearly cut his maniless off in refusal of his advances. He wanted to honor himself by being yours, figuring me for dead, as is the Yautja way." He paused for a moment.
"K'Shai, you seem to refute Yautja way and then fight your very refusal of that way. You are treated as a Yautja, and you are respected as one. If you go off and hunt bad bloods, you will…"
"Die?" She interrupted.
R'chnt nodded.
"Yes, possibly," he said simply. "You will also not influence or alter how the Yautja perceive you. You are a Yautja in their eyes."
"Well, I guess we'll just have to find out." She responded.