They asked to see me? Why did they ask to see me?
The thought was not exactly comforting, and she was not exactly sure why R'chnt would tell her that before seeing her off on the narrow path up the mountain, just as he had told her. They had spent one night on the plateau which was a little less than halfway up the mountain, and much to her surprise, they were not the only Yautja utilizing the training and prayer temples either.
There were a few dozen hunters of all ages, some preparing themselves for their own journey to see the Ancients, some returned and trying to absorb whatever information they were told. It was such a quiet, strange place. Nearly no one talked to anyone at all, they all just sort of gave glances, nods, and stares and for the most part that seemed to be the only form of communication.
It was like being in a church or library, or a church's library. The silence was beyond awkward; it was flat out uncomfortable. It was not like most Yautja were great conversationalists anyway, but in this temple, the winds echoed instead of whispering voices. K'Shai had spent most of her time wandering around and exploring the very small grounds.
They were clearly ancient; the worn rock faces and etched carvings were enough of a giveaway of that fact. There were rounded sleeping chambers, set up around a central core. It was much like the training temple R'chnt had taken her to so many years before when she was still in child with El'tude. Old memories came flooding back into her and she analyzed them as she walked around the inner corridor and peered into the dozen or so doorless sleeping rooms until she spotted a walking trail out into the forest beyond the grounds and followed that.
It did not take long for that path to end at a drop off which offered a beautiful view of the forests beyond the cliffside and the river and waterfalls far below. She stopped and watched the scenery around her for a while; listened to the birds and animals in the trees chirp, cricket, and howl, and allowed the serenity of the place to ease her mind for a short while as the suns slowly began to set.
When she finally turned to head back towards the temple and some food with R'chnt, she noticed another small trail through the forest which quickly caught her attention. It was not well beaten, it was just barely wide enough to allow for foot falls, and looked more like someone had just pushed and cut their way through the trees, vines, and plants that were in the way of where they wanted to go.
K'Shai stepped curiously onto the trail and followed old, hardened footprints to see where the path went. It followed near to the edge of the cliff, rounding about the side of the mountain and the training temple and at one point split off into a Y. The left path clearly headed back to the cliff, for another view of the river in the valley below no doubt. The right path continued on around the mountain edge.
She decided to check out the edge of the mountain before moving on down the path again. The short path to the edge of the cliff felt alarmingly ominous. Many trees were carved into totems, etched with prayers, warnings, and scripts from the Ancient texts. There were two monuments on either side of the trail, just a little into the woods; cold white stone slabs that raised up into a curve with a bent tip, looking quite a bit like talons of a giant Q'atza-rij reaching up from underground to grip whoever came near.
This was a sacred place; though dark and foreboding.
It made her skin crawl. Even the ground below her feet seemed to somehow radiate a warning as she lightly treaded down the walking stone path. When she got to the drop off point, she looked down beyond the river and noticed lights in the woods all the way across. It was, from what she could tell without the use of her helmet, apparently a small dwelling of some kind. If it was someone's home or served another purpose, she did not know. It was definitely time to leave, though. She began to turn.
Suddenly, a soft rustling sound in the woods behind her caught her attention, and her senses went into high alert.
She instinctively whirred around and gripped the shaft of her spear tightly, warily watching the darkening forest around her, silently cursing herself for wandering off without her helmet on and simply not being fully prepared. It was a strange land, with creatures of the forests she had not seen before, and Yautja around who might not appreciate her presence.
One of the many lessons R'chnt always tried to reinforce to her, and all of his students, was a simple, common sense one; always be prepared. She had managed to violate that particular rule on many occasions, and had just done it again. She watched the dark trail before her and heard the rustling moving closer and closer until finally, a shape appeared. It was a shape that made her grip the spear firmly and prepare it for use.
A Yautja male loomed in front of her and quietly eyed her. She hovered for a moment, trying to analyze what this male's intentions and next action would be, but he said nothing for quite a while. He seemed to be analyzing her right back, and the awkward quiet moment gave her time to really assess him.
He was thin; far thinner than she had ever really seen a hunter to be. She could clearly see his ribs and he just looked tired. He was worn, weathered like the rocks of the ancient temple, and his narrow, though still generously tall, frame was etched with scars of many battles; though he looked very young. He was definitely not anywhere close to an Elder in age; perhaps not even an Elite by age. His eyes stared at, almost through, her, with a burning look of vast experience, though haunted. Like he had seen, done, been, and tried too much in too short a lifetime.
He grumbled a cough, huffing like an unfit animal that had just run too hard too quickly, When he finally caught his breath, he spoke in a raspy, worn tone.
"You are the huntress K'Shai? The arbiter, the one who killed a Q'atza-rij with nothing but your hands?"
K'Shai raised her eyebrows. The details weren't exactly right, but she neither refuted nor confirmed. She momentarily wondered exactly how embellished tales of what she had done had gotten, and not even realized they would be so worth telling that they would make it quite literally around the world.
"You are mighty and bold from all I have heard. Your accomplishments are well noted. I never imagined I would see you in my lifetime."
She was not exactly sure how to respond to that, so she still remained quiet.
"Is your mate, R'chnt, with you?"
"He is." She responded simply, still warily eyeing the hunter who had not moved at all.
"Another fine Leader I have never had the opportunity to meet." The hunter said, and then turned his eyes towards the darkening skies, eyeing up the faint stars just beginning to appear as the suns set.
"Many hunts… I have been on many hunts… proving myself in every way I can. It was all I wanted…."
He stayed quiet for a moment; his words trailing off in a tone of sadness. Much sadness.
"What was that?" K'Shai questioned and the hunter before her looked at her quizzically.
"What was all you wanted?" She clarified.
He harrumphed sharply. "Greatness."
"Greatness like you. Greatness like your mate. I wanted it all."
K'Shai swallowed and pressed her lips together.
"Do you, K'Shai, know why I came to see the Ancients?"
He slowly started moving forward, quite like a lion prowling towards a zebra, but yet K'Shai did not perceive a threat from him. She stepped to the side of the narrow trail to allow him space to pass her and he did so without even barely looking at her. He stopped at the edge of the drop off, studied it for a moment, then turned back towards her as if he was expecting an answer.
"Because you could not have it all. You wanted too much." She answered.
"Some are naturally great Leaders, and some are great in other ways." He responded, eyeing her up very deliberately, almost a bit disrespectfully if she was an easily offended proper female Blooded huntress.
"You are here to see the Ancients?" She asked of him.
He turned his back towards her, and she noticed his hands move towards his chest.
"I already have."
He paused for a moment.
"Do you know what the Ancients told me?"
K'Shai straightened her body and eyed him carefully.
"That is between you and the Ancients. It should not be repeated."
He turned towards her, a large blade in his hand and K'Shai went rigid; gripping her own blade, ready for anything. Always be prepared.
"You are right. It should not. I wanted greatness. I was willing to do anything for greatness, including get my entire hunting pack which also had my only two offspring as a part of it slaughtered. Slaughtered by my own hand. Right after I slaughtered my Leader."
"Had the situation been something else, you might have been charged with hunting me down."
K'Shai barely moved, unsure of exactly what the hunter's next move would be after making such a colossal confession.
"Now, do you have an idea what the Ancients told me?" He growled.
She raised her head, tipping her chin high as she looked solidly at him.
"I think I do."
He bowed his head deeply; a graceful gesture that reflected a once proud, non-starved,
young hunter, long before his soul shattered, his body withered, and his pride drove him. She took a deep breath, not relaxing her grip on her own weapon in the slightest as the tattered young hunter before her raised his own blade towards him.
She gaped her mouth and sucked in a gasp as the mighty, sharp curved blade plunged into his chest by his own hand. Within a moment, he gasped for air, fell backward, and tumbled out of sight over the cliff's edge. Without a word or sound, just a huff of shock, K'Shai lunged forward, dropped down to her hands and knees, and peered over the edge at the plummeting body of the hunter. He was soon washed into the water and disappeared.
She noticed across the way that the light she had spotted on the dwelling moved. She suddenly realized it was a door, and someone had opened, then closed it. She watched as best as she could under the rising moonlight and spotted two elder Yautja walking the river's shore hastily. They were headed to retrieve the lost body.
K'Shai looked around the trail, totems, and monuments around her and sucked in a sharp breath, stood and hastily made an exit from the treacherous place. Nerves frayed, she spent most of the night pacing around their sleeping chamber while R'chnt watched her, and tried to get her into the mindset of her journey the following morning.
"I just don't… I don't understand what that was all about, R'chnt. He sacrificed himself because the Ancients told him to? Because he was some kind of a failed hunter?"
"There is no way to truly know what the Ancients told him, or if anything they said to him had any impact on his decision to dispatch himself." R'chnt told her, trying to comfort her. "You well know that there is only one way to redeem a dishonor you have done."
Those words did very little to comfort her as she found herself trekking up a mountain pass that was alarmingly devoid of any apparent life. Even the trees and grass seemed to avoid the solid rock of the mountains for there was very little of either creeping out from random crevasses throughout the mighty stone slab. From the base of the mountain, even from the temple below, it did not look like a long or difficult climb to the summit of the mountain.
However, when she started on the trail and made her climb through a full day, and another day, and another day, a fourth day to just rest the entire time, half of the fifth day due to the dropping temperatures and thinning air, she realized the journey she had heard the Yautja describe to get to the Ancients was definitely not to be taken lightly.
She donned her helmet for assistance with breathing, and activated her thermal netting for warmth. The cold air still seemed to whip at her and chill her to the bone, and she continued on the narrow, rocky trail.
It was simply forbidden to fly a vehicle anywhere near the mountain, or take the lazy way up to the Ancients and land right on their front lawn. The climb was symbolic, K'Shai had been told, but the only thing it symbolized to her as she continued on the path, was a massive lack of desire to be there.
Finally, on the morning of the sixth day, she had made it to the top of the treacherous trail. She was exhausted and hungry and found herself standing at mighty gates that gave her a chill through her body not caused by the cold air at the top of the mountain. The white stone slab gates, topped in round golden orbs at the tips of the support posts were entirely too eerily reminiscent of childhood teachings she could recall. She stopped and pondered the gates, the wall, the very tip of what looked like a castle spire that she could just see over the top of the wall.
She looked to her left and to her right, but did not move off the path. Yautja skeletons, two of them on either side, graced the trail. They were devoid of armor, but they were laying down on the rocks along the sides of the path, as if they came to seek the Ancients, and remained outside until they simply died while waiting. Someone clearly retrieved the armor, but did not think enough of the hunters to remove and burn their carcasses.
K'Shai gritted her teeth, feeling that despite what R'chnt had told her of the Ancients' desires to see her, that they would not actually let her in. She hoped there was warmth and food to be found inside, but she rather imagined that the Ancients simply wanted to see how long it might take her to starve or go mad waiting outside the gates. She stood in the middle of the path for a lingering moment, not really sure if there was some kind of doorbell she was supposed to ring, or if she was just supposed to sit on the sidelines until she died as well.
Pondering the gates for a moment longer, as if they read her mind, they suddenly opened with a great grinding noise. The two doors slid apart from one another, slowly and noisily almost as if they had not been opened in a long time, and the weather had frozen the gears solid. They stopped just a few feet apart from one another and K'Shai slipped through easily.
Immediately the gates closed behind her, and she glanced back at them, somehow feeling even more uneasy now that she was locked inside this strange temple. She turned again and faced front. Before her stood a mighty castle, truly carved right into the stone slab of the mountain. It was nothing more than a cave; a very fancy and elaborate cave with high and mighty white walls etched and shiny and smooth.
She took a deep breath and started inside, rather surprised that there seemed to be no signs of life at all. Someone must have been there to open to the gates, she thought. Or perhaps she tripped some kind of door sensor. While she walked down the elaborate corridor carved into the mountain, shaped and polished out of the very rock it was embedded in to, she began to notice that the Ancients had every sort of modern luxury and technological necessity they could want; it was so plainly hidden in perfect view, it was almost easy to miss.
Thankfully, it was warm. While there were lighted flares along the walls casting an amber glow and generating heat, the ambient temperature in the temple was quite warm enough that K'Shai deactivated her thermal netting and removed her helmet, for a look around the place with her own, light-reactive eyes. She did not notice with the helmet scanning her world for her, but the walls, floor and ceiling, so smooth like marble, were so glossy it sparkled as if someone poured glitter into a clear sealant coat.
She continued on, noticing the walls lined with skulls and bones and weaponry; centuries of trophies from the skilled hunters that had earned a place in the temple. One of the trophies in particular caught K'Shai's attention; it was like nothing she had ever seen before and she stopped to gawk at it for a moment.
A massive skull loomed in a rather inconspicuous area, not near an entry door, or in a prominent location, but it looked like it should have very well been placed in a more proper location, at least she thought. Her imagination suddenly zoomed. What did the rest of the creature attached to that skull look like? The thing had fangs as if it was a massive vampire.
It's head was easily three times the size of a Yautja and there, right in the center of the prominent forehead between two curved, horizontal ridges in the bone was a single eye hole that looked nearly as big as K'Shai's own head.
"An interesting hunt and interesting prize." A voice echoed from within the chamber.
She jumped around with a start and noticed an ornately garbed elder in front of her. The thin looking male must have been at least two-hundred years older than R'chnt, she thought. He was garbed in golden-hued leather robes, and his skin was nearly as white as the walls around the chamber. Surely this was an Ancient, and clearly he had not been outside in the sun, or performing much physical activity in years and years, she assumed quickly, judging by his withered, discolored body.
"What captivates you about it so?" He asked, his light voice echoing slightly in the wide open, granite walled room.
She raised her eyebrows and shook her head slightly.
"It's… I've never seen anything like it before except in story books." She whispered and glanced back at the skull.
"Was it killed in a cloud castle?" She asked somewhat sarcastically, but also a little bit curiously.
"It was hunted and displayed here long before I was even conceived. I don't think anyone truly knows the real story any more. Just as most of the others."
He vaguely indicated around the room as if the trophies on the wall were rather meaningless, but K'Shai looked at them all again, realizing they were surrounded by some of the wildest looking, and glorious, creatures she had never seen before, and some that she was all too familiar with. Everything from massive dragons, full bodies of serpent like giant eels, the cyclops, and even tiny little skulls that could very well have been from the real-world version of a Pixie adorned the walls. And so did many hard meat skulls, and two of the mighty hard meat Queen skulls.
"Are you an… Ancient?" K'Shai asked reluctantly as she scanned the elder before her.
He chuckled slightly.
"No, K'Shai, I am not. My name is T'buk-de. I am a Servant to the Ancients."
He spoke with such pride in his voice it surprised her. Servants were eto, they were cast asides of Yautja society. Not something to be prideful in. Perhaps being a servant to the Ancients was something worthy of aspiring to if you were an eto she wondered. She wanted to ask, but then as she drew closer to the elder, she noticed a faint scar on his already pale and faint forehead, hidden under years - centuries- of withering.
"You're Blooded!" She suddenly whispered
He chuckled again.
"Of course!" He responded as if that answered all of her questions.
"Come with me." He then prompted.
She followed along quietly through dimly lit, white-walled corridors, sure she was getting lost in the mazeworks that led deeper and deeper into the mountain Suddenly she noticed light shining brilliantly into the hallways, and T'buk-de led them through an outdoor courtyard. It was cold, but very sunny. High up in the mountains, the air was heavily chilled, but the non-existent clouds made for a brilliant day in the massive outdoor courtyard rich with flowering shrubs, winding vines, tall trees and brilliant blue-ish deep purple blades of grass.
Beyond the courtyard, he led her through another set of doors, into a long straight hallway. T'buk-de stopped at the entry to the hall and said nothing. He simply stopped and stared at her. She looked at him, then down the long corridor, which is oddly plain walled compared to the elaborate entry chamber. She looked back at him, motionless and not at all acknowledging the puzzled look in her eye.
Finally, she turned and started slowly down the hallway, tipping her head as if she might hear or see something otherwise hidden. She could feel her heart pumping harder and more erratically as she headed down to the lingering doorway at the opposite end, wondering wildly as her imagination got away from her, just what was on the other side.
When she reached the closed white-tone doors, she paused for a moment. She hesitated to put a foot forward to open the doors, but at the same time realized that whatever was behind the door was probably well aware that she was there and hesitant to enter.
So she stepped forward and the door slid open.
She stopped, trying hard to not to overtly react to the sights before her. Not far into the room she stepped into, which was far darker than the golden-hued, white-walled long, empty corridor behind her back, sat three mighty thrones, as gnarled and twisted as the ones who sat in the chairs.
Each throne was different looking; one like a twisted tree, that seemed to somehow have roots from the rock slab below it. One like a crooked skeleton as if it was made directly from the bones of a creature with warped, twisted bones. The third looked forged from all the various weapons that the Yautja relied so heavily upon.
The Ancients that occupied those thrones looked every bit as aged and forbidding as their seats. Each Ancient wore garmentry that matched their chair; not armor, but some pieces of armor plating. K'Shai could feel her heart fluttering and uncertainty washed over her. It did not help much that the room was so dark she could barely see. There was hardly any light, just two very small lanterns on a far wall behind the Ancients.
There were no servants, no one else, and no apparent signs of technology at all.
She swallowed and tip-toed forward as the three Ancients watched her. As she approached and saw them more clearly, she realized the bone Ancient was female while the other two were male; an incredible rarity, she knew.
K'Shai licked her lips and stopped as she stepped into the hazy light just enough that she was illuminated and she could see the Ancients well enough; well enough that they could no doubt see her shaking, she thought.
"Why are you here, human?" The weapon Ancient asked quietly, in a whisper of perfect English.
K'Shai gazed at him quizzically.
"I thought you wanted to…," she started back in perfect Yautjan.
"Why… are you… here?" He asked again, in perfect English.
K'Shai took a deep breath and stared at him.
"I… I…." She paused. Never before could she recall feeling such like a child. "I'm not sure." She finally said after an awkward pause in which the Ancient Yautja before her were clearly awaiting a response.
They looked at each other with gazes that were hard to interpret. Were they figuratively rolling their eyes at her? Did they just acknowledge she did not belong in their space?
"You are quite unique, K'Shai. Quite." The bone-clad Ancient said. "You came to our world for what reason?"
She raised her chin slightly and answered firmly.
"R'chnt."
"Indeed," the middle seated Ancient confirmed.
"And you have proven your worth, proven your abilities, fought for your trophies, fought for your mate, proven your offspring have worth and value in the Clan. You have fought for them as well."
"I have." K'Shai said proudly.
"You have hunted our own kind, become an Arbiter, and hunted your own kind, too." The Ancient in the tree-root throne on the left said. "Hunted, fought, proven, hunted."
"And now you are here. Why?" The Ancient on the far right spoke.
Again, she just let her mouth gape for a moment.
"I don't know how to answer that." She finally said, feeling like she had just been punched in the gut.
Somehow she was sure that these three Ancients could see right through her, and were simply waiting for her to show them how unworthy she actually was. She was expecting some critical remark; some sneer; some snide comment. Instead, she received silence, like the Ancients were waiting for her to formulate her own come back to her own response.
"I have…" she finally said. "Done all of those things. I don't know if it's been enough or if it will ever be enough."
"Enough to prove yourself to the Yautja people? To become a Blooded and Honored part of the Clan?" The Ancients all spoke, one after the other. "Have you not done this already?"
"Well… I… Yes…" K'shai stammered over her words, realizing in her own mind how ridiculous she must have sounded.
"Your Mate," said the bone-clan female. "What do you have to prove to him?"
"Nothing." K'Shai said with a simple smile. "I never had to prove anything to him. I just… I suppose I want to always please him."
"And you believe he is not pleased?" Said the weapon-throned Ancient.
"Well. No." K'Shai rescinded, feeling quite a bit deflated suddenly.
"What of your offspring? Must you prove something to them?" The Ancient on the left continued.
She glanced to him with a surprised look.
"No." She said simply, locking up her jaw.
"So, you do not need to prove anything to earn the Blooding mark which you have already earned. Nothing must be proven to earn your Honored place in your Clan, be it as you choose in the mei'sa or as a huntress, which you have already earned." The female Ancient spoke.
"You need not prove your mettle to your mate for he has chosen you." The Ancient on the right said.
"Your offspring need nothing proven from you, as you have already been their mother and teacher." The Ancient on the left concluded.
K'Shai suddenly felt like she wanted to shrink down into the marble slab below her feet, perhaps slither into some kind of liquid and pour herself right out of the room.
"Yet you are full of unrest." The female Ancient stated; definitely not a question.
K'Shai lifted her eyes and peered deeply into the withered ridges and pale orbs that made up the Ancients' eyes.
"You have not returned to your homeworld in more than two decades of your lifetime, yes?"
She looked over to the Ancient on the right with a surprised grin. Had it really been that long?
"Twenty-three years, by your Earth calendar." The rooted Ancient on the left confirmed and K'Shai looked to him.
"Tell me, what would you do if you returned? Would you stay? Would you frighten your lost companions?"
She twisted her head and pondered that thought, finally shaking her head.
"I don't know."
"What was your world like when you left?" The female asked, though K'Shai strongly suspected she already knew the answer to that. All the same, she responded.
"It was in shambles. The hard meat were still running rampant. The battle continued on long after I left. Everything I knew was destroyed."
"And those memories haunt you to this day, do they not?" The Ancient on the right said.
"Yes, I suppose they do."
He remained motionless, while the other two leaned slightly forward, almost as if they were getting ready to listen more intently, but no one spoke for a moment. The weapon-throned Ancient continued to eye her, as if waiting for more, while the other two looked on eagerly.
"You think I should go back to Earth?" She said, a flash of anger welling up in her quickly. Were they telling her she did not belong on Yaut anymore?
"And do what?" She said with a shaking head. "See the place that was in ruins when I left? Find out my old friends are all long dead? My family is gone, my life is gone from that place." She fired up, no longer concerned with where she was or who she was talking to.
"Everything I've done has always been to honor the Yautja way. To learn and do as R'chnt taught, and find my place here. You say I don't have to do any more, but then you say I should go back to Earth?"
"You must flush the anger; move past that which causes you this unrest."
"The only one who demands you prove yourself, K'Shai, is you."
"There is only one way for you to see."
Each Ancient had their words for her, cryptic and confusing How could they know anything about what she was feeling, and what exactly did she need to see? The root-throned Ancient moved forward a little more in his seat and indicated with his arm towards a door to K'Shai's left, one that she had not even seen before.
She wanted to ask a dozen questions, but she stayed silent instead and slowly started towards the door, knowing full well that her questions would be answered when she stepped through.
As she approached the archway, the door slid open and there was nothing but total darkness. K'Shai stepped through and the door slid back closed behind her with a dull thud, slamming quickly as if to warn her that she was not coming back through it. She could not see anything. There were no sounds, and only a faint, musty scent in the air that vaguely hinted of mildew in a closet that had not been opened in decades.
She popped her helmet off its holster on her back armor and put it on, lighting her path which allowed her to quickly realize that she was in a training chamber. The inscriptions in the walls were familiar to her, as they were very similar to the training rooms in the mei'sa. Suddenly, the wall behind her closed. There was no door. The wall itself, on both sides, simply leaned in towards each other and shut her path behind her. Forward was the only way. She gripped her spear and pulled it out, ejected her wrist blades into readiness.
Everything about the place around her screamed danger, and training temples were not used for sparring with other Yautja. They were hunting grounds. Ancient hunting temples as she had learned, still used, but only sparsely by clans that still hung on to the Ancient ways that most others had moved far past in place of easier technology. Training temples demanded a hunter equipped with minimal weapons and their senses, combat foes of the most deadly sorts, to prove their place and earn a Blooding rank.
Even though she was armored and had the comforts of her spear, blades, and a helmet, she still felt somehow naked and vulnerable and she could not be sure quite why. Every little step caused her to shudder, every sound she thought she heard, even if it was just her own breathing, made her hesitate and listen harder.
She continued on for what seemed like an entire rotation before suddenly, all of her senses exploded as a scene, scent, and sight of familiarity hit her all at once. The walls changed from carved and etched stone faces to ribbed, textured and slightly slippery; a long past memory, never forgotten, came flooding back to her and she braced up rigid as she felt her heart pounding and her throat getting tighter.
From somewhere before her, difficult to see even with the assistance of her helmet on, she could hear a hissing, like steam escaping a tea kettle under pressure, only far less reassuring. She knew exactly what was causing the hiss, and she readied her weapons, blades in both hands, wrist blades out and prepared for use. Her hands shook.
Stop it, K'Shai. Stop. You've done this, you know this. You can do this.
The last time she ever encountered a hard meat, she was most certainly not alone. In
fact, she was never alone. Not once. Her mind raced with memories and feelings of the past and anger at the present. Why did the Ancients lock her inside a training temple, alone, with a hard meat? Did they not just say she had nothing more to prove to anyone? Was this a game for them? She was a rat in a maze and there was a very aggressive cat lurking, and it definitely knew she was there.
Suddenly, she saw movement above her, and she tossed her spear reactively. The spear lodged itself into a grid opening in the wall and the hard meat skittered away, she noticed its tail disappear into a square shaft opening in the stone ceiling right before the walls started to move. Conveniently enough, they moved in such a way that made climbing up to the lodged spear easy which was a good thing, otherwise her weapon would have been lost already.
Stupid, stupid, stupid… She thought, cursing to herself while she scaled the high wall to get to the spear.
After she retrieved it, she stood firm, held her breath, and looked around.
OK. Pull yourself together. You did this for years. You can do this.
C'jit, c'jit, c'jit!
Her mind rattled as it tried to convince the rest of her that she was prepared and ready to face off alone with a hard meat while locked inside a maze of catacombs. She could feel her heart beating wildly as it fought an internal battle, amplified by the sound of the creature hissing from somewhere in the distance.
Currently, she was trapped in a room while the hard meat was apparently trapped outside of that room. Once the walls moved, another twenty-minutes she estimated, she had no way of knowing if they would end up in the same room, or dispersed in different directions. She tried to prepare herself for either possibility, and accept that she might well never see R'chnt or her offspring again, but the time flew by so quickly there was definitely not enough time to do so.
The walls moved and the race was on again, each trying to find the other in the maze. Both were hunters, both capable of seeing, smelling, hearing in the darkness, both in search of the other as prey, although K'Shai could not help but feel eager to find a way out and escape this hell without any real concern of finding and killing that which sought her.
The dance continued on for endless hours, so many so that when there was a quiet time waiting on the walls to change, K'Shai found the last bits of meat in her satchel and took one last quick drink from her flask before both were empty and again, the walls moved, the maze changed shapes, and the hunt continued on and on and on, running in endless circles looking for something she could hear, feel the presence of but never see.
Is this even real? She wondered. She felt like she was chasing phantoms. She did see the hard meat, didn't she?
After enough time hunting a shadow, a sound, she began to wonder if perhaps it was all a rouse. Maybe there were projectors she was not aware of. Maybe what she hunted was just in her mind. She began envisioning that she had the power to simply end the simulation, or turn off the projector and it would come to end, and slowly, her search changed from looking for something that probably was not there in the first place, to understanding the reason for her to be in the maze in the first place, and to find a hidden control panel to turn it all off.
That thought, that task, set her mind more at ease. She walked more confidently through the corridors as they changed, realizing slowly over time that she had been herded into a full circle, because she had definitely been down those particular corridors and into those chambers before.
The walls moved again, and she was quickly ushered into a large, round chamber with solid walls. The room was fairly massive, and oddly reminiscent of a training kehrite, with all the elaborate carvings in the walls, and just one entry in or out.
She went in first and could hear the walls out in the corridor behind her continue to change. She quickly looked around the circular stone area and confirmed that there was no other way out, no vents, no opening in a ceiling, not a crack in the floor, no hidden control panel under a stone slab, nothing. When the door shut behind her, she would be sealed in complete darkness with no chance of moving on until that door opened again.
She turned and watched the open doorway with a concerned gaze, just idly wondering how long it would take for it to open again and what would be on the other side when it did. She took a deep, long, slow breath as the door slowly started to close, and then suddenly, her breath locked mid-inhale, and her body turned rigid.
The long clawed fingers of the hard meat grabbed onto the closing door rim, and she watched it longe itself towards her instantly, like a rock from a slingshot, without hesitation. K'Shai huffed in a surprised breath and darted around the room quickly, spear and blades at the ready and put into use as she tried to avoid getting hit by the wicked serpentine creature as it attacked towards her relentlessly.
K'Shai stabbed at the beast with her spear, barely having any time to think, fret, or succumb into her fears. The hard meat in front of her was definitely no illusion as she had suspected. It hissed and shrieked and clawed at her, whipped at her with its tail. It jumped up on the walls above her, pulling down little shards of rocks as it clawed into the stone.
K'Shai squealed and howled as she leapt, rolled, jumped, and dove out of the way, trying to somehow remain more agile that the most agile creature she had ever seen, which she quickly found to be an impossible task. Jumping, rolling, and being spry had helped her against some Yautja sometimes, especially when she was younger and quicker, but there was nothing in existence, not even a Yautja could be more agile than the nearly-gravity defying cat-like athleticism of the beast in the fighting chamber with her.
The door was closed and they were trapped together, locked in a deadly dance that was only going to end one way. When the hard meat leapt above her, clung to the wall, and whipped her right to the ground with its tail, K'Shai was pretty sure she knew how this battle was going to end. Her head was ringing, her ears shot with a painful piercing sound, but she had absolutely no time to stop moving for a moment. Her prey definitely had the advantage, being well above her now, and she was on the ground.
It did not take even a moment to decide its next move; the beast sprung off the wall and landed right on top of K'Shai, making her instinctively and reactively slice at it with her wrist blades. They hit the mark, digging into what would be the hard meats' rib cage, which also resulted in releasing acid that proceeded to burn into her armor as she tore herself free from under the withdrawing animal.
The hard meat hissed and sucked back, hunkering down and staring off at her while she quickly released the entire right side of her rib armor. It clattered to the floor and the hard meat lunged forward again, running at her as if it had pulled back like a spring and released itself again.
She was more ready more quickly this time. K'Shai howled loudly and stabbed forward with her spear, punching another hole into the hard meat, drawing out more acid blood, but this time at a safe distance. K'Shai bellowed in both surprise that she had struck the beast, and empowerment that she stood her ground and the creature withdrew, again, once more clattering its way up to the ceiling dangerously dripping acid all over the room.
There was not a single moment to be missed as K'Shai hopped around the room, avoiding the acid drips, which the hard meat acted as if it well knew what it was doing and was intentionally trying to spray its target with its blood. The thing flung its tail around wildly, after whipping it past its own injuries, which successfully sent a wild splatter of acid blood around the room. One small drop managed to hit K'Shai's left shin armor and she paused to unlock it and remove it before the blood gave her an impromptu amputation.
The armor repelled the acid heavily, and Yautja blood replled it more, leaving a memorable scar on most hunters that had worthy stories to tell about their hard meat hunts. K'Shai's body and blood could not, and whatever seeped, however slowly, through her protective armor, would have left much more than a simple scar. As she pulled off parts of her armor, she felt more and more vulnerable. She wanted to get out of the room, she wanted to run and hide. The hard meat, though, was also getting more and more vulnerable with each attack; and angrier.
K'Shai kept her head together enough to notice both.
It was bleeding and injured, stabbed enough to almost make it slow down, but it was getting more enraged, becoming even more defensive if such a thing was even possible. She focused on the fact that it was injured more than its rage, but she stayed very aware of that, too.
The hard meat lunged at her again. K'Shai did not give herself time to think; she just reacted. She reacted the way she was trained and taught by R'chnt. She spun, she sliced and stabbed, ducked, and danced around the hard meat with all her might and power and prowess she could muster and then, suddenly - crunch- just like, that, the spear in her grip finally landed on its mark, square in the mouth of the creature, right through the side of its skull above its neck.
K'Shai stood motionless, stunned. The creature hung limply on the end of her spear, deadly silent. It was quickly pulling out of her grip as the weight of the animal slithered down towards the ground, and she finally released the spear, allowing the carcass to clatter down with a thud and a hiss.
She swallowed and stood, shaking on the spot, staring at the twisted black mess before her, as it sizzled into the stone floor it was slowly melting through. Thoughts, memories, some long forgotten, all flooded into her mind as she shook on the spot, eyes locked onto the creature before her.
When K'Shai finally gathered her mind together enough to look about, she listened carefully, wondering if there was another hard meat lurking near by, wondering how much torture the Ancients were going to put her through, wondering why they did it in first place. Suddenly, most of the fear in her slipped away. The worry she had about meeting the Ancients, the fears of what they might think of her just disappeared. She wanted to make them afraid of what she thought with them, and when she got out of the maze, whenever that might be, she was going to make sure they knew.
She leaned over the hard meat and pulled out a small knife from her belt; one that would hold up to the acid blood of the creature for the most part. Carefully, she grabbed a talon and lobbed it off; a souvenir trophy very much worthy of going on her necklace once it was properly prepared. It was at that moment when a door she was absolutely certain was not there before, opened from the wall behind her.
The sudden sound of the moving rocks startled her and she jumped around and peered down the corridor that was being revealed by the doorway that slowly pulled backwards from the wall, and slid off to the side. The hallway was plain, without inscriptions or statues or trophies on the walls. It was illuminated only by a continuous strip of pale yellow hued lights embedded into both sides.
She strode confidently, angrily, down the corridor and quickly found that it went only one way, slightly uphill, and ended at a door that seemed to refuse to open. She looked for a panel and there was none. She paced before the door, looking for a foot release, an activation pad, or even a handle, and there was nothing.
Another test? She thought, annoyed.
Echoing far back in the corridor, she could hear the door to the sparring arena close once again, and she settled into one spot, expecting that the door before her would open. Silence filled the rocky hallway and she eyed the door in front of her, waiting for it to release. She waited in silence, suddenly unconsciously counting in her head before she even realized she was doing it. Seconds turned into minutes and then more. Slowly, the number in her head surpassed 900 and she lost count. Such a silly thing to do anyway; count the seconds.
She was getting irritated, and wanted to get out of the corridor but no matter what she tried, from calling out loud to knocking to pacing, did nothing to prompt the door to open. Finally, she had been in the corridor so long that fatigue set in and she simply sat down on the ground and stopped moving.
The hallway was so silent; there was not even a noise coming from the other side of the doorway that she could hear. If there was anything on the other side of it, it was not making audible noises.
Her eyes kept trying to close and the more she forced them open, the more it seemed they wanted to shut on her. Eventually, her eyes won that particular battle. K'Shai had no more fight left in her.