Chapter Text
Elijah woke from a fevered sleep, gasping in a lungful of unsatisfying humid air. The motion of breathing set aflame the wounds on her back, and she groaned, pressing her face into the large pillow beneath her. Her back throbbed with each inhale and pounded with her heartbeat. Distantly, in the back of her mind, she knew she wasn’t home, though it took her a few minutes more of breathing and holding back sobs before she looked around to confirm the fact. Indeed, the room was not hers. Large and comfortable, it looked built for a creature far bigger than herself. The bed she was in engulfed her, positioned high off the floor and laden in lush pelts and furs. The room itself was barren of personal touches, reminding her of a hotel room, something a person occupied briefly with only their most necessary items from home.
The room, however, offered little indication of where she was. Her haggard mind brought back images of monstrous demons with glistening teeth and black exoskeletons, of behemoth keepers with their mottled flesh, and the devil himself standing proud and strong before her, contemplating her crucifix with some alien fascination.
And she’d thrown herself between the Father of Lies and one of his spawn, hadn’t she? Her father would be mortified, furious. She deserved hell. A burdensome heathen, a harlot of sin, God’s shame.
Elijah closed her eyes, willing the images, and the painful thoughts, away. She wanted to think all of this nothing more than products of feverish dreams, but the excruciating throb and spikes lancing through her back suggested otherwise. This wasn’t a strange fevered dream.
It was real.
She willed herself to move more, but the length of her spine protested. Her insides roiled, her lunch from the day before lurching into her throat. She gagged and forced it down. Her mouth tasted terrible enough as it was. All of her felt warm. A dull ache resonated over the rest of her, as if to say the pain in her back wasn’t the end of it, like a bad flu was coming on. Unable to do more than turn her head side to side, Elijah contented herself to studying the strange room she was in and the furs that lined the bed she’d been set on. They were damp with her sweat. She hoped the owner wouldn’t hold that against her.
The room itself held mystery to her. It was otherworldly, the walls made of dark stone mosaiced in intricate patterns, pillars arching up along the domed room into what appeared to be a mosaic glass-like ceiling. The walls and ceiling emanated amber light.
It’s like a cathedral, Elijah thought. But in hell.
Wherever she was, she needed to leave.
Elijah sucked in a deep breath through her nose, and then released. Taking in another lungful of rich, hot air, she brought her right hand up. She planted it on the bed, close to her chest, and repeated the motion with her left hand. The position of her arms aggravated the raw skin on her back and sent shrieks and slices through her. Shaking from that effort alone, she closed her eyes and clenched her teeth against the pain she knew was coming.
She thrust up onto her knees. Agony shot through her back and down her arms, sharp enough her shoulders went momentarily numb and she wondered if perhaps she hadn’t lost consciousness. She screamed. Heard it more than really felt herself do it or knew it was her screaming. It was a sound disconnected from her body. But who else was screaming? Lord though, she prayed there was no one else here screaming.
She panted with her mouth open, taking in more lungsful of humidity. Tears coursed down her cheeks, snot dripped below her. Unable to do anything intelligent, she began to sob “ow,” again and again. Keeping up her pathetic mantra, she turned her head to look at the other side of the room. Much like the first half she’d seen, it was completely devoid of defining features. Masculine in nature, she supposed. Well-kept and organized. In the distance, she spotted a rack of weapons, all advanced in design.
A pressurized hiss sliced through the air, snatching Elijah’s attention across the room. A door slid open, originally hidden in the intricate designs and moldings of the wall.
Inside stalked the devil from earlier, another master following behind him, taller by a few inches, but lacking in the same girth and brawn. He was leanly muscular by comparison, his dreadlocks pulled back and twisted together.
While before the devil’s face had been hidden by an emotionless mask, something of cold steel and battle scarred, now their faces were revealed. The devil’s eyes were yellow, almost golden, like a wolf’s, while the one beside him were more dark amber in color. Elijah knew in a distant part of her mind she should be horrified by these creatures with their broad skulls, deep set eyes, and exposed teeth and mandibles. But in the deep pain coursing through her limbs she couldn’t force other emotions to surface. She noted other things instead, the different posture and air between the two males. The devil carried himself with the same strength and determination as before. He seemed to fill the entirety of the room with his presence. The other moved with an odd, casual swagger. His shoulders were relaxed. His arms swung nonchalantly at his sides.
They both paused to see her up, as up as she could manage. They looked as surprised to see her as she was them. Elijah stayed still, panting from her position, chest heaving. The two males stared at her, and she became aware of her own body, naked and exposed.
Around the pain, Elijah heard herself slur, “Where’re’m…clothes?”
Her vision swam on her, darkness looming, and she fell back down onto the bed. She could not have been out long, but when she woke again both males were on the bed beside her, the bulkier of the two holding what looked like forceps with carefully bundled fabric on the end. He dipped the fabric into a bowl at the side of him, swirling the clear liquid within. The slender male sat near her head, stroking his claws through her hair. It felt fantastic, and her eyelids drooped, almost closing. The two were chatting, the conversation casual sounding, though there rang a hint of annoyance in the devil she knew, or the one she was more familiar with at least. She couldn’t understand the language. It was foreign, a series of clicks, growls, and thick words. The devil brought the forceps and cloth around to her back. It dripped a clear, astringent smelling liquid. Elijah winced in anticipation, but felt only pressure, no pain. Still, she made a sound, and it drew the attention of both males. The slender one’s motions paused, then returned to teasing at her scalp. The devil barked at him, smacking his hand away, and the slender one had the decency to look wounded, sulky even.
“Wher’m I?” she muttered into the pillow.
“Quiet, Ooman,” the devil said. His voice was deep, resonate. She could feel it down in the pit of her stomach. The words sounded heavy in his mouth, almost unwieldy for him, so he spoke slowly and with care, somehow managing to form them. “Wounded. Need rest.”
“I hurt,” she agreed, allowing herself to slump more.
The slender one beside her trilled, an amused sound, and resumed the lazy teasing through her hair, despite the disapproving grumble of the devil behind her. She sighed, closing her eyes. The pressure resumed, tapping at different spots along her backside. It started near her shoulders and worked down progressively. When it began to brush over her buttocks, her sense of modesty returned. She shifted in protest. A large hand settled on her hip, the palm calloused against her left buttock and claws pricking her hip bone.
“I need m’clothes,” she whispered. “Not modest.”
The chuffing sound behind her and the trilling above her. They were laughing at her? The claws along her scalp brushed her hair away from her face, and she was able to peek back over her shoulder. The devil behind her was laser focused on his work, dipping wads of fabric into a progressively reddening liquid. He would bring the wet cloth to her skin where she felt the pressure of its contact, and then either re-dip, or replace the cloth entirely depending on how red it came back. His arm held an intricate pattern of crisscrossing scars, each one seeming to tell a story.
“So brave, little one,” the one above her clicked. He curled some of her hair around his slender fingers. The words seemed to come with more ease for him. While they remained thicker, unwieldy still in his mouth, he seemed more practiced at their strange positions and sounds than the other.
The devil scoffed again and said something particularly clipped. The one above her responded, the tone hard to determine, but it still seemed amused. She felt flooded in confusion and fear as the devil and his companion tended to her wounds, their strange language washing over her like an otherworldly melody. She struggled to comprehend the situation she found herself in. Her body was weak and something terrible had happened to her. She knew beneath the odd numbness there would be pain. She wasn’t home anymore, that much was clear also, but where she was she did not know.
“Why are you helping me?” she whispered, and the clarity of her question brought a pause to their conversation. The devil shook his head, adjusting lower still in his ministrations. He was tending to the back of her thighs now. The bowl of liquid was primarily red now, and the bitter, medicinal scent of its contents filled her nose. He dropped the last of the cloths into it and stood, picking up the bowl and carrying it across the room to set on a table. He returned with fresh looking bandages and another bowl in his hand.
“You will rest here,” he said. “Sleep.”
“I’m not tired,” she lied.
One of his mandibles lifted, and he tilted his head. “Tired,” he said to her. He dipped one of the bandages in the new bowl, this one made of a thicker liquid. Once dredged in the second bowl he applied the poultice to her back. The scent of this one was much more pleasant. Warm, woody, cloves and patchouli wafted to her from it. While she felt the pressure of it, a warmth began to radiate wherever they touched.
“Not tired,” she repeated, the words more drawn out, taking more effort.
“Rest, little, brave one,” the one above her encouraged. “Many fights remain for when you rise.”
“Tired,” the other said again, and applied another poultice. The earthy scent was becoming headier, and her eyelids felt too heavy to hold open. She finally closed them, let herself focusing on the sound of their conversation to each other. Their soft clicks were reassuring. The one resumed his delicate stroking through her hair. Their touches were all so gentle for being such fearsome creatures.
As she lay, balancing on the beam between wakefulness and sleep, her mind drifted headily to memories of her mother rubbing her back, to a time before Pa’s fits of rage and when he’d told them they’d be doing church at home from now on. There was a memory of something almost normal.
Between the sensations, the thrum of their conversations, the swirling scent around her, and the warmth of her back meeting the warmth of the room, she felt a strange sense of safety.
If this is hell, it’s not so bad…
Elijah embraced sleep.
Djei’kiand stood above Elijah’s sleeping form, arms crossed over his broad chest and brow heavy as he thought. Khanu’te continued stroked through the girl’s hair and then allowed his claws to wander lower, brushing over the massacre of her backside. Even bandaged as they were and soaked in healing pastes, it was a horrific sign. In her sleep, she shifted, and Djei’kiand growled in warning at Khanu’te. Khanu’te’s mandible lifted in amusement, and he seemed almost charmed at Djei’kiand’s reaction.
Djei’kiand remembered his mei’hswei’s response to him carrying the female into the ship, her blood dripping from her back, running down his arms in rivulets, and her fiery hair a tangle around her face. Khanu’te had looked mystified, delighted.
“So soon?” he’d asked at the time, hurrying alongside Djei’kiand as he stalked through the ship. Unbloodeds, now recently Bloodeds, he supposed, followed in his steps as well, fascinated by his capture. The n'dui'se of their excitement and dying bloodthirst had filled the ship, a potent odor of masculinity, conquering males. And here he carried a young Ooman female into their domain. Indeed, while she was not Yautja, she smelled so very female and their violence addled minds, still on the high of successful hunts and on the precipice of trophies to be gathered, were eager to see her. Word had already traveled fast amongst them. The little Ooman with fire for hair had braved the kiande amedha with nothing but a trinket of religious nonsense. She was mad and enticing to them.
“So soon?” Djei’kiand had sneered back to Khanu’te. “She is nothing.”
“She is something.”
Now, the conversation played in his mind again and again. She is something. She is something. But what was she? A small, silly Ooman who threw herself into danger foolishly. Mad perhaps, sick in the brain. Nothing of value certainly. He’d brought her here from a sense of honor and duty to her own stupid effort to protect him from a threat he was perfectly capable of managing.
“Her wounds will heal,” he murmured, his voice a low rumble in the otherwise silent chamber. The air felt thick with tension, heavy with the unspoken between them. Here was this girl, and what would they do with her now?
“She has bled so prettily for you,” Khanu’te mused, tracing alongside a particularly deep gash that even now bled through the bandage.
“Not for me,” Djei’kiand snarled, bristling.
“Not for me,” Khanu’te retorted, his tone crisp. He leaned forward, the amber of his eyes challenging and eerily lucid for once. “For who did she offer her back, my mei’hswei?”
Djei’kiand growled, turning, and began to pace. He had too much energy. He needed to move.
“She has bled for you. This must be the vision I saw. You said she spoke. Tongues of fire. She is—”
“Do not say it!” Djei’kiand snarled, rounding back on his friend. “She is nothing.”
Khanu’te stood, tilting his head. He held Djei’kiand’s gaze, unabashed. So rarely did Djei’kiand see him look so certain. More than certain, he spoke with an authority that made his blood rush.
“These foreign words mean nothing to me, my hunt brother,” he said, voice eerily quiet. “They mean something to you. Your Ezer Kenegdo.”
She is something, the words floated through his mind again, and he shook his head.
“She is nothing,” he repeated. “She is not this thing you dreamed of. She is of as much import to me as the house that also burst into flames thanks to the fool Mua’ytuih out there!” He gestured furiously at the door, where even now he could scent the young males, still lurking nearby, waiting to investigate what he’d brought in. “She cannot stay here.” His voice was firmer now, commanding.
Khanu’te’s laughter filled the air, a stark contrast to the seriousness that hung between them.
“To where shall she go then?” he inquired, his eyes glittering mischievously. “To the flames she escaped from? To the dark woods? To whatever claws gave her these?” He gestured to scars, old ones, not the newly rended flesh from a wild kiande amehda, but something else. These scars were old, long and short slashes, horizontal across her back. They reminded him more of the scars that came from staffs instructors would use when training youth. Usually they only left bruises, but an overzealous teacher could easily split the skin with a well aimed strike. Djei’kiand stared at them, a cold, simmering rage boiling in his gut. Never before had he felt this emotion before. He didn’t know what to place it as. He was—torn. They needed to return to their home, yet to bring her to the world beyond this one was dangerous for a lone Ooman, especially one so freshly hurt. But the thought of returning her to where he’d found her and to whatever had caused— he glanced to her wounds again, and felt the same twist in his innards like a blade piercing him— those, it did not sit well with him.
“We take her with us,” he finally conceded. His words were measured, deliberate. “And we keep her here for now. The recently blooded youths are restless, curious. Such curiosity could lead to violence.”
“Ah,” Khanu’te hummed, nodding his head. “So we are to be her guardians then.” He rose into a stand and approached Djei’kiand, a hand rising to grip his shoulder. Khanu’te tilted his head, studying the shorter, stronger male.
Their friendship should not have worked, Djei’kiand thought. Friendship was already such a rarity amongst their kind. In a world of constant battles, vying for supremacy and climbing the ladder of conquerors and warriors, friendship was something to be questioned at every turn the highest echelons of clans. Yet, somehow Khanu’te had eased through Djei’kiand’s high walls.
“There will be risks…” Khanu’te cautioned.
"Every choice bears risk," Djei'kiand countered, his fingers absently tracing the hilt of his ceremonial blade.
They contemplated the little creature on the bed. The n'dui'se of the males outside the room signaled their growing impatience and curiosity of what rested within the master’s quarters. Djei’kiand took a cleansing breath, exhaling the musk of the New Bloods from his mouth and focusing on other scents instead. The poultice he’d put on the little one’s back, its earthy and herby notes, the faint touches of the little one’s personal scent. There were traces like cinnamon and sandalwood. The warm notes reminded him of basking in the sun after a grueling sparring match and of the rich teas that were passed at ceremonies. There was something faintly sweet too, a touch of a flowery scent he barely recalled from his youth. She was pleasant to smell and the young males probably thought so too, despite what she was.
He would need to assert authority, he decided. The New Bloods were fired up and eager for more. They felt assured of themselves and their mettle. He needed to remind them they were not in charge here, however it would be unwise to break their spirits entirely in a show of dominance. This would require finesse on his part. A show of strength and authority that did not humiliate them all too greatly.
He turned, resolved, and moved for the door. Outside, he found himself on a precipice of surprise and expectation. Not merely three or four, but all of his New Bloods were lingering near his quarters. Their n'dui'se buffeted him as he opened the door and he shook his head to clear his senses again. His own n’dui’se flared in instinct, his dreads lifting as his scalp pricked, his mandibles flaring low in warning. It drew their attention immediately. Some of the young males had taken to pacing outside his door, back and forth they stalked, hands clenching and unclenching into fists. Others were trying to look far more casual, as though they were more curious what all the fuss was about with the others, but he could tell by their musk and their darting eyes, what really intrigued them.
He made a show of the deliberate pace with which he met each of their gazes. His posture flared with an intensity that brooked no defiance, no rebellion. He felt himself expand with authority and energy. Some of the younger males shifted under his attention and backed down. A few others held their positions, upstarts who had already attempted to challenge his authority. Their vigor and passion were not inherently bad. It’s what could make a clan stronger. It defined future leaders. He didn’t wish to dissuade that, however structure and hierarchy had a place in a clan as well.
“New Bloods,” he rumbled. “You have tasted the hunt and the kills. Trophies you will carry with you for your life have been claimed. Your place in the clan is secured and of worth.”
“There are other such trophies in this ship,” one interrupted, a pacer. His speed had picked up some, almost frenetic with his energy. He remembered the New Blood’s name as Tauch’all. Young, brazen, already boasted an impressive scar across his face and down his jaw.
“This is not a trophy,” he growled.
“Then prey.”
“We are not mindless savages,” he barked. The tone, the threat in his voice, jolted the New Bloods. He drew forward, pulling his shoulders back, his head higher. The pacing male paused in his step, attempted to match him, but the youth was still gaining height and stature. He could only look up at Djei’kiand and his presence lacked the authority to create the illusion of height. “We are hunters and warriors. Bound by honor.”
“Such honor,” Tauch’all groused. “To hide an Ooman female in personal quarters.”
Laughter sliced through the tension. The New Bloods looked behind him to Khanu’te. His hunt brother leaned with a casual air against the door frame, his arms crossed.
“Honor indeed, to protect a helpless treat from frenzied males out of control of their own urges,” Khanu’te drawled, glancing down at the claws on his right hand.
Tauch’all bristled, stalking forward. “So speaks the weakest of us here.”
“He speaks truth, this New Blood,” Khanu’te said pleasantly to Djei’kiand, turning his attention from the youth entirely. A greater insult. “I suppose I couldn’t heft something as hefty as his head upon my shoulders.” Khanu’te’s mandibles quirked in wicked amusement.
Tauch’all snarled and drove forward, fist raised. He took a wild swing and then was throwing himself backward. In the seconds between his leaping forward and falling away, Khanu’te had drawn a large dagger, raised it, and imbedded it deep in Tauch’all’s fist.
The room fell silent, only the dripping of Tauch’all’s blood pattering on the floor breaking the stillness. Tauch’all’s eyes were wide with shock and pain as he stared at the large dagger protruding from his fist. Khanu’te’s expression remained amused, casual. Djei’kiand stalked forward, reaching out without looking at the New Blood and took the hilt of the dagger firmly. He twisted and tore it free, causing Tauch’all to cry out in agony. Djei’kiand’s gaze was like steel as he surveyed the other New Bloods.
“You dare challenge my authority on this ship?” he rumbled. He took his time to look each one in the eyes, and one by one, their gazes drifted down, shows of quiet deference. “Remember your place in this clan, young ones. Let this be a lesson to all of you.” He gestured with the bloody dagger, sweeping it amongst them. “Do not underestimate any fight. What you see as weakness could very well be strategy. Strength. Brilliance.”
He glanced down to Tauch’all, sneering. “Take this one to the medbay.”
Some New Bloods helped the young warrior to his feet, guiding him down the hallway. He watched them go and then snapped for the others to go collect their remaining trophies and clean their weapons. They would leave before daybreak.