#nadti

Art fro a friend of mine 💕💕

Zika belongs to me. Nadti belongs Cryptid from discord(love her <3)

This is based in the game Horizon Zero Dawn. But instead of people it is yautja.

Warning! This will be an 18 and up fic.

Kind of slow burn.

  These things happen.

Rocking back and forth in a wooden box, Zika knew he was about to be sick. This sick bubbling just under his lungs, mouth sweating, and eyes near crossed. He knew he had to get out of there or things where about to turn nasty.

“Oh, come on! Why are we the ones packing the slut?” A shrill voice complains, almost as nausea inducing as the rocking.

“Because. You where the one stupid enough to let the twat in on our secrets!” This time a brutish, heavily accented voice booms in in time to the cart stopping.

“Why we sto—OH SHIT!”

Zika swallows his sick the best he could and attempts to look out one of the cracks in the boxes. He sees the two males draw their weapons in time for the gut curdling sound of a sawtooth’s roar to fill his ears. Zika flings a hand to his mouth in an attempt at silencing himself, not wanting to tip the thing off to his presence.  By the sound of things, it was only one of the hellish machines, odd since they like to travel in twos.

Zika had no true clear clue as to how he ended up where he was, in a box being carted off by two shadow carjar to be sold or kept as a slave, now listening to them being murdered by a machine. Just earlier that day he was handing a large number of shards to a silks dealer for an order of fine silk he had been dying to get his hands on for months. He never made it home with them. The two, now most likely dead, men kidnaping him in an ally. All he could now was silently hide in his box.

Sounds of the sawtooth sparking from its injuries came close to the box, snapping Zika back to the very real reality that his little box might very well soon turn into his coffin. He had no means or way to break out of the box, he far to weak to do so. But even if he was able to break free, what was he going to do? Zika is a crafter, an artisan. The only self defense he knows is to kick for the groan and run like hell and that doesn’t work on machines. Zika is a dead man no matter which way and how he looks at it.

Hours later Zika snaps awake, haven dozed off, when he hears fighting outside. ‘What the?’ He mentally says to himself while he tries to look out a crack. The sun was gone, replaced by the moon and the stars. He couldn’t see much, but his heart did sigh with relief when he heard the machine die. ‘Please don’t be shadow carja!’ He begs to what ever god that might be listening when footsteps come straight for him, a large hand slapping the top of the box and causing Zika to yip from fear.

Fear soon gripped his lungs as the box was very literally torn apart. Zika shakes from fright, a blue painted face locking eyes with his. He wanted to scream but couldn’t, something about the face looking in at him breathed dominance and control. He dared not piss it off. The only sound he makes is a yip when the painted blue warrior reaches in and pulls him out as easy as one would pull a tool off a shelf.

The warrior casts Zika to the side, clicking their mandibles together in concentration as they look inside the box and through all the belongings on the cart. Silently Zika sat to the side out of the warriors way, looking around at the dead men and now dead machine. His nervous wouldn’t calm down no mater what, sawtooths traveled in two’s. So where is the second one?

“You’re not going to find much.” Zika clicks, holding his head down and dare not moving from the spot the warrior sat him in. “They where slave traders.” The blue figure looks at Zika with knitted brows and growls at him, turning slowly and stalking over. They stop with only inches to spare between them. Zika gulps and looks up at them, blood running cold at the sight of their deadly eyes pined on him like they where a weapon. “Sorry?”

The warrior growls at Zika and picks up their discarded weapon from earlier and starts to march on into the night. Zika doesn’t move for a moment, not until he heard the call of a watcher in the distance. He runs after the warrior coming up behind her and does his best to stay close to her. The warrior didn’t pay him no mind at first, not until they made their way into a patch of forest and Zika promptly became the loudest thing around. The warrior turns and growls at Zika once, trying to run him off but he doesn’t take the hint.

Zika gasps when the warrior climbed a tree and seemed to disappear among the treetops. “No! Please!” He calls out in frustration before frantically trying to climb a tree.

The sounds of a low metal growl behind him makes him still. Slowly he turns his head, looking over his shoulder. His green eyes widen in fear as he stares down the yellow light of the second sawtooth. Zika turns back to the tree begging, “Please help me! Please!” His hands clawing at the thick tree trunk, the sawtooth stalking up towards him.

The sawtooth roars, light turning red and charges Zika. Zika closes his eyes as though that will make things better and sobs as he waits for the pain of the attack to fill his body before death. But it never comes. Instead Zika opens his eyes when he hears the crunch of metal. A spear now lodged in the sawtooths’ hip. Zika wastes no time scrambling away from the machine.

The warrior leaps from the trees and onto the machines back, using metal blades to gauge out its lights and canasters. Zika new the thing to be dead when his ears where met by an ungodly silence. Zika looks at the warrior that now stared him down from where they still stood by their kill, mandibles held wide as they calmed their breathing. Zika breaths a sigh of relief, thankful to still be alive.

“Thank you.” Zika bows his head to the warrior as he stands. “You saved my life, and for that I am eternally thankful.” Zika picks his head up and gasps when he see’s the warrior walking away, already a good distance away form him. “Wait! Wait for me!” Zika fusses and chases the warrior down. “Hey you.” He reaches for them but earns himself the back of the warriors’ hand across his face and is sent flying to the ground. “The hell was that for?” He growls holding himself up with one and holding his face with one hand.

“Leave me. Go.” The warrior growls turning on their heal.

“Go?” Zika questions angerly. “Go where?” He stands up and tries to wipe away the dirt on his body. “I can’t go home. The shadow carja will just catch me again and this time kill me. Even if I did go home, I’ll just get picked off by some machine.” Zika growls when the warrior just keeps on walking. Pissed off, Zika runs out in front of the warrior and uses his body to keep them from taking another step. Zika doesn’t even flinch when the raise their hand against him, ready to hit. Instead Zika looks into their yellow and greens eyes with his jungle green. “You saved me just now. From the sawtooth. You really think you can just walk away from that? I now owe you debt.” Zika looks the warrior over and see’s that their spear had been damaged. “How about this.” He starts, an idea coming to mind. “You let me come with you and I’ll be your personally little crafter/artisan. I can fix that spear of yours and make it better than before. I can fix anything. I can even bring machines from the old world back to life. I am useful and you are a fool if you think you are going to just leave me in the wilds.”

“I am no fool.” The warrior booms looking down at Zika with a scowl.

“Then why not do it now?” Zika opens his arm, exposing his body to the warrior and steps back to give her a clean shot. “Take me with you and I will make sure your weapons are the best of the best and supply you with wonderful things that will make you the better than the rest. I know how you tenakth are. I can help you become better than the others. But it you want to, go on ahead. Kill me now.”

Zika didn’t expect what came next. The painted blue warrior grabs him by the throat and has him lifted in the air, using such speed he never saw it coming. “If I take you, you best not disrespect me or question me ever again.” They drop Zika and snarl down at him. “And for your own safety, you better stay true to your words. You slack in them in any way and I will cut you down and eat your flesh.”