Tah'kath was told as a pup that the eyes were a doorway leading to the soul. While responding to a kiande-amedha (xenomorph) attack on a human farming settlement, Tah'kath finds a surviving child whose eyes seem to hold the stars themselves. Against...
The master had dismissed the Young Bloods for the day and they filed out of the training dojo when the sun was still low on the horizon. T'ahrou and Dahdtoudi walked alongside one another as they strolled down the sidewalk. They passed an unmarked vendors building and Dahdtoudi watched the door from behind her bio-mask, a tinge of the familiar sweet aroma swirling in the air around them.
T'ahrou could feel his muscles cinch as he took in the scent, but he fought to ignore it. "Is everything alright?" She turned to look at him, hesitating a moment before cocking her head to the side.
"What's wrong with your eyes?" His pupils were dilated. She hadn't seen it that day in the lab, and she hadn't been allowed around Zaiyu during her heat cycle...she was oblivious to the situation.
"Nothing is wrong." She said something in the human tongue that he didn't understand, but the tone suggested that she didn't believe him. "If you are going to argue, at least have the guts to do it where I can understand you." His tone was threatening but the girl brushed it off. "Why are you so concerned with the mating shop?"
Dahdtoudi stopped dead in her tracks as she stared wide-eyed behind her mask, her neck flushing a deep red color. It reasoned to believe her face did the same. "Excuse me?!" T'ahrou said nothing, only waited paitiently for her answer. "Am I not allowed to be aware of my surroundings?!"
"Do not deflect, Dahdtoudi. What is your concern with it?" T'ahrou's mandibles flared as he spoke; he was on the defensive. But he didn't seem to know...Ath-Meye had not told him of their encounter..! The girl took a deep breath in before looking up at T'ahrou from behind her eye shields.
"I was only thinking how your mother must have an iron will. I don't think I would be able to work in a mating shop."
"Why not?" She hesitated again, this time because of his tone. It was quick and almost harsh, like he expected an insult to be brought to light at any moment. "Pyode-amedha are meant to speak incessantly, correct? Speak already!" He struck a nerve. Her rage spiked, and he didn't need any kind of scanner to know it. Her stance was rigid, her breathing slow but deep, and her fingers twitching ever so slightly against her thigh. This was a tic that T'ahrou had noticed whenever she was frustrated in a public space; likely a way of easing the urge to move without foolishly reeling back and punching whatever happened to be in front of her.
"I am not one of them."
"You are not Yautja, so what are you?" Low blows: everything he was saying. To insult one's bloodline was to insult one's very existence. And although Dahdtoudi had not been born of Tah'kath's bloodline, she had been raised as one of the clan. She had worked her ass off to fit in; to learn, understand, and follow their ways and beliefs. Until recently they had been the only life she had known. And here he was, denying her even this. "You are small. You are soft. You are weak. The matches tomorrow will be set by random selections. If we are not placed against one another, I will be unable to protect you. If we are matched up, I will not go easy on you. I will not put my position in the clan on the line for you, do you understand this?"
"I never asked you to protect me!!" Her voice was harsh, unlike anything he'd ever heard from her before. "I never asked for your help with any of it!" She looked as though she would say something else, but decided against it. Instead she moved past the Yautja, his eyes tracking every step. "N'dhi-ja, T'ahrou. Fight with honor." Dahdtoudi left him there, standing on the sidewalk with the rising sun enveloping him with its warmth. He watched her walk away until he could no longer decipher her form from that of the others in the area. Once she was out of sight, T'ahrou turned and entered the building that had been the cause of this unusual exchange between the two. ————————————————————————
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When Dahdtoudi arrived at the dwelling, she crossed the gathering area before storming through the corridor and into her quarters, completely disregarding her older brother who was in his room with a few of his fellow pilots. She entered her own room before activating the locking mechanism and more or less throwing her mask onto her work table. She lost control of her emotions briefly, crossing the room and kicking the outer wall with all of her capable force.
How dare he say such things! How could he be so disrespectful? She'd known from the beginning that his niceties would be hollow displays; a Yautja pitying the pathetic human that was trying oh so desperately to fit in. Nothing more. She flipped her work table onto its side and sent it crashing to the floor. She had been right to know she could never trust him as a friend. Granted, though he had said nothing inherently malicious, the fact that he would compare her to those uncivilized, psychotic occultists was enough to make her blood boil. She was not one of them. She may not be Yautja, but she was no human. She was above that.
She fought to regulate her breathing as she removed her armor, discarding it to the floor before she moved to look out the viewing wall to the city below. It was still early, but more of the locals were beginning to get out and about. She watched them walking along the streets below, as well as the various ships and cruisers traversing the sky. For sixteen years this place had been the only home she'd known, yet she felt like such a stranger to it all. She knew it all, knew the people...but it was not familiar.
Perhaps she would be killed in the chiva, and she would not have to worry about it anymore. Her family would no longer be dishonored by the act of taking in a human. Part of her hoped that if she did well during the chiva and returned as a Blooded Warrior, that the Dark Blade Clan would accept her more openly, but deep down she knew it would do nothing if not cause more hostility.
Again she tried to regulate her breathing, to steady her pulse...but again she failed. Her entire body was trembling with rage, and her eyes stung from sweat or tears - she wasn't sure which. She looked for something else to throw, but found nothing. This only deepened her anger and she screamed at the top of her lungs, and she held the sound for as long as she was physically able.
She would not allow herself to be terminated during the trial tournament, however...she couldn't allow it. It would be more of a dishonor to her family to die before ever making it to the chiva than it would to die as soon as she landed on the chiva grounds. So she trained. She trained continuously that day, only stopping for water breaks to stay hydrated. She trained every way she knew how; armed with every weapon she was capable of using (skilled with it or not), hand to hand combat, physical conditioning, and once her body finally gave out and she was unable to continue her exertions, she pulled herself onto her bed and lay there, imagining every possible combat scenario and finding ways around them.
Dahdtoudi noticed that after several minutes no matter how hard she tried to stave it off, the thoughts would slowly transition from battle scenes, to T'ahrou, before finally halting at the items in her bedside drawer. "Stop it..!" She scolded herself, squeezing her grey eyes tightly together as she tried to reign in her mentality. "Focus on your task..!" Her frustration began to build once again before it morphed and mutated into an overwhelming, fiery rage. She focused on this rage, learning to access it while still maintaining her self control. She would use this to her advantage at the fight, and she would prove herself to the clan.
