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...
"It brings shame, Ancient One." The warrior looked out over the landing pad where a small group was loitering about the newly-arrived craft. "How can you allow this nonsense to continue?"
"You question my judgement?" The Ancient being's tone was flat but the threat was clear as day.
"No, Ancient One. It is only that...to allow a pyode-amedha to participate in the ancient tradition passed down through our generations...it is unspeakable."
"Then do not speak of it, Di'shin'ku." The warrior growled quietly to himself until the Ancient One stepped alongside him, looking over the edge of the elevated walkway. "She has proven herself in the eyes of the clan. She is blooded, and you must show her the same respect as the others." ———————————————————————
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The two newly-blooded warriors were led from the ship to the ceremonial chambers where they were instructed to prepare for their announcement to the clan. They went to separate rooms, healed, bathed, dressed in ceremonial garbs, and waited.
T'ahrou's equipment consisted of armor that was passed down through twenty-seven generations of his family; the most important part being the bio-mask which had a spiked crest and the names of each of his ancestors engraved on the dome.
Dahdtoudi wore the ceremonial armor of her mother (which had been adjusted by the blacksmith to accommodate her excessively smaller build) that was created out of the defensive plating of the great death worms of the dessert planet in a neighboring star system. The helmet had been custom created on request of her father to resemble the wendigo, a legendary spirit which would possess humans and was said to invoke acts of murder. The horns were shaped from the vertebrae of large snakes that were found on a neighboring planet in their system, while the skull was taken from a highly aggressive creature that greatly resembled the deer of earth.
Of course there had been other side effects of the wendigo besides just murder, but the entire thing was only a legend, and he was most concerned with the murder part. He believed such a characteristic to prove handy to the girl during great hunts that she would face in the future.
When the two were led from their designated rooms and met in the adjoining corridor, they stood motionless for a moment as the thoughts of their victory began to meld with reality. Soon enough they were ushered on until they arrived at the training hall where their journey had first begun. The room erupted into deafening roars and cheering.
The newly blooded warriors were momentarily drunk on the euphoria caused by their clan's victory cries, but before long the addictive sound was shadowed, then matched, and finally overtaken by the rhythmic chants of 'kill the outsider' flooding the building.
"So much for finding a sperm donor..." Dhadtoudi nodded slowly as she looked at the angry, tusk-flaring faces surrounding them.
