#predator drabble

She was right. Dragging the carcass of her kill through the streets of her clan home was truly enjoyable. To be stared at with awe and fear by the little Sucklings barely reaching her knees as they ran and hid behind their keepers as to not disturbed the giant huntress. The look of respect and acknowledgement by the other females from where they sat under a shade. And clicks and chirps or congratulations as all gazes fell onto the pray she dragged back home.

She had an entourage of slaves behind her carrying crates of her hunts to her home.

Captive badbloods with their dreads cut or ripped off, runts too small and weak and even a few humans wearing collars and chains. As the youngest female child of the Matriarch she was doted on. Meaning, she did not have to make multiple trips to her ship and back. And the slaves would work day and night to repair her hunting gear since they are forbidden to join the mating feast.

She never understood this custom of her people. Why let the badbloods live? Why have such contempt for the runts? Perhaps she didn't understand the latter because everyone, even the great Matriarch, was small and short like a runt to her.

If something was so weak that it would die, then why bother killing it? There is no honor in that. Why kill something that is already dead? Why beat someone that is already down? Why hunt a being that has mo winning of winning. A Yautja runt is no different than a defenseless weak pray. No honor in killing it. She will not comment on this to her elders of course. She know better than to start a conflict.

Reaching home is a bittersweet feeling. Her home is a large hut built in a modest and traditional fashion. With little technology and mostly carved into the side of a mountain and decorated with carvings, bones and volcanic glass shards. It's in the outskirts of her clan home, up the mountain with a clean vantage point of the clan beneath. She can already see the people bustling about downbelow. She over sees the captives drag and carry her crates to the overflowing trophy room which had leaked out to the rest of her living space.

She can see the two humans looking around with fear and curiosity. The badblood was clearly beaten into submission long ago as the pathetic creature doesn't dare to look amy higher than Nakkai's ankles. And the four little runts each sporting an injury of their own huddled together like rats.

Xhor'Nakkai was not a gentle female. She was not kind or nurturing. She was beastly, she was violent and brutal.

But she was fair. And she has no hatred for the weak. That was the one thing she had that made her a less monstrous Yautja than the rest.

She clicked her mandibles as she opened her food storage. She grabbed small pieces of meat. "You two, and you four. Come here." She said cold and clipped.

The humans and the runts looked up with doubt and worry. As if expecting her to lash out in violence or hatred. "Move. Fast." She snapped.

It was one of the runts that shuffled first. He was a small, all runts were small really but he was thinner rather than shorter, his face was gaunt. His lower mandibles were undeveloped and seemed to habe not grown from his Suckling days. Their range of movement was less, they looked like little nubs and has only the smallest sign of fang. "What's your name." She asked. And the runt only wiggled his mandibles in what seemed to be the most pathetic way of trying to make clicking noises.

"He can't talk." Says another. She looks up at the second runt. This one was sickly ash color and seemed to have limp as he came next to the fangless one.

She sighed. Honestly the runts were such a hassles to deal with. She pointed at the fangless one: " you are...fangless." then she turns to the limping one "you are....ash." then she grabbed a small piece of meat and tossed them in their hand.

The two other runts came closer. One was surprisingly a female. A small and petite little one white and bluish. She seemed so strongly un-ayautja like. "You are a hybrid." She accused.

"Yes. Yes i am....my father was...human. my name is spearhead." she says meekly as if expecting Nakkai to react violently towards this news. She then turn and grans the arm of the last male and pull him closer.

"This is Battleborn. He was a youngblood. But then...." she gestures to the missing leg of the angry growling Yautja. He had a metal pole working as makeshift prosthetic. "Those have their own names too... that's, Trapper. But I guess Ash is a good name too. And that one's name is Bonebreak. He can't talk but he is really good at ....."

Spearhead's sentence was left unfinished as Xhor'Nakkai shoved a piece of meat in her mouth.

"You talk to much." She snarled. Then turned to the humans and tossed a piece of meat to them as well.

"They are Steven and Eduardo." The surprisingly talkative spearhead continued with her mouth half full of meat. "And that one...he's name is Twinfang. He killed another Yautja that's why he's a badblood."

Xhor'Nakkai was known to be relatively patient and enduring when it came to runts. She was known to have no hatred for them and allow them some leisure. But she was also known for her antisocial and loner behavior. She was known to seek solitude and silence quite often.

She growled low and flared her mandibles in an uncommon aggression. "Shut the Pauk up runt."

That seemed to have shut the yapping runt up as she seemed frozen in place. The legless runt quickly grabbed her and pulled her back. All six slaves seemed to huddle together in fear of the crimson huntress.

"Your work is done. Get lost." She said. And they quickly shuffled away and out of her home. She growled and hissed as she watched the legless limping thing wrap his arm protectively around the yapper. The humans seemed to cling to the gray on in worry. How strange.

How sad for her.

It seemed that even runts and captives had a full life.

She stared at the empty space for a few more seconds before she was brought out of her thoughts by the looming shadow of her Matriarch.

"The hybrids are always talkative." She says as she cones to sit on a chair at her daughter tables. The Matriarch very aptly named 'Mother of fire' is one of the oldest female Matriarches on Yautj prime. Her skin a charcole black with specs of red and orange and flaming red eyes. She is a terrifying beast in her tribe. Crowed with bones and leather she is what many males would die trying to impress. And many have in fact. As she is very quiet literally the mother of many many Yautja. 50 female amongst the 300 children she has had in her long long life. And Xhor'Nakkai is the youngest of those 50. She was the last female child born by the Matriarch.  And a female to end all females. Nakkai has 200 older siblings scattered amongst the planet and 100 that are younger. The Matriarch was a breeding queen of their people.  Not many females care to devote that much of their time to the continuous growth of their clan.

"Why do we even keep this many runts around? Other tribes just cull them when they are born." She grumbled and and sat beside her mother.

"If you hate it so much, then you can challenge me for the title of Matriarch. Once you win you can establish any rules you want." She snaps happily as she begins to one by one take out every bone out of Nakkai's crown.

"You know i have no interest in that." Nakkai grumbles as she lowers her head.

The Matriarch laughs. "You will take your rightful position one day." She says. "You cannot pretend you are a youngblood for much longer."

"Mother......" she snaps.

"No. No. I won't hear any complaints. I saw the captives leave with meat. You are the only one that feeds them after they work....." the Matriarch smirks happily, having caught her daughter red handed. "You will make a fine mother."

"Mother...." is all that Nakkai can say.

"I will not have it." The Matriarch snarles this time. "You will attend this season. You will find a mate. You will breed. It is your duty. At least Pauking try." She growls yanking at Nakkai's  hair. "I have over 300 Sucklings in my life. One day i will leave to join the council of ancients. One day you will be the Matriarch. You will be mother of many. No other child of mine is good enough for this.  You will be my legacy."

"Yes mother." Nakkai finally gives in. She bowes her head and allows her mother to fully take off her bone crown.

"The temple is empty tomorrow. You will bathe and cleanse yourself for the mating season. For me...at least. For your clan, try to find a mate. When i was younger i too feared i would never find a mate, your father was an unexpected visitor, you know. He was from another clan, i have told you this. And i have not found any male as wonderfully  worthy. You too will find one. At least for this season. You will see many new faces...."

"What do you mean? I have met every male in this clan before." Nakkai says.

"The council was ecstatic to hear you will join this season. And...news was spread through many clans that a Matriarch to be is finding her first mate." She said with a condescending smug tone.

"Mother!!! I did not agree to this." Xhor'Nakkai all but shrieks in outrage. She had no interest in mating and breeding. Much less being put through a spectacle for horny needy males of multiple other clans she has never met before. Of course, its not like she's going to find anyone. At her height and built even the biggest female, her own mother namely, was smaller than her. She is not very optimistic in finding anyone that would make her instincts burn and her need to consume her the way it did her older sisters.

"It was agreed to by your Matriarch. That is enough." She says. "Look at you, 350 and still not a single suckling. When i was your age i already had 10 Sucklings at home, raised by 10 different males." Her mother flicks her on her head and clicks.

"I already know i am going to hate every moment of the next few months." Nakkai huffs and lays her heavy head on the desk.

"That's because you haven't had a male writhing under you. Wrestling a male who is fighting for his life with a broken leg and biting on your shoulder as you...."

"Mother please...." she shrieks again.

"What? You are not a suckling anymore. You are a grown female. Your sisters were running around chasing males when they were barely 200. It's just breeding instincts. It's perfectly honorable to pounce on any males that strike your fancy. I never let your father to leave...."

"Mother please.  Please. I get it. Ok. I will. I will go to the temple. Just stop talking about you and father." Nakkai hisses in annoyance.

"Why of ally children, the one most worthy is acting like some sort of neutered runt. Tomorrow you will go to the temple and the priest, you remember him his names was Yellow Tusk, yes he is still alive surprisingly. He will show you what to do. Since today, as per the laws of mating season you will refrain from wearing any armor. Tomorrow the priest and i will help you fully prepare but until then....just don't wear armor and don't carry any weapons."

"Yes mother."

"Ah... i almost forgot.  You should go and visit the nursery. And the training grounds. Your older sisters want to see you before they become too busy with the Sucklings. Same with the younger ones."

"Oh?? How is RedSand? Last i heard she had twins again." Nakkai asked about her older sister. Of all of her sisters, that is all 50 females birthed by the Matriarch, Red Sand was the second youngest and Nakkai's closest sibling. It was Red Sand that remained by Nakkai's side when she was separated from her peers.

She remembered those days when she cried and angrily threw tantrums demanding to see her siblings who where males. It was after she effectively bit off a few fingers and her mother grabbed her by the dreads and dangled her off a cliff that she sniffled into silence long enough to understand that the reason was, because she was bigger, meaner and more violent that she had to be separated. That all females were separated.

She knows she has many male siblings as well. Younger and older. But it is only with her sisters that she felt a close bond. Sadly enough, she would not recognize her brothers for anything other than their scent that deters her in mating season.

"She's fine. A bit cranky since she hasn't had any females yet. But she's just been busy, these two youngest Sucklings are annoying her. And her mate is....well, let's just say he will die soon."

"I'll visit the Training camps and nursery today the." Nakkai  rises to her feet and bows her head to her mother.

Her mother huffs and finally leaves her daughter alone to shower and eat but not before running her strong and aged hands between Nakkai's dreads and commenting on how 'appealing' their length has become. 

Xhor'Nakkai never thought or cared about mating much less about the process of beginning the mating season. The ritual cleansing at the temple, the symbols and writings, the ribbons, the rules and laws and the grueling process of being around so many prospects.

Years before, she would just hide inside her home and burry her head in her furs and bones deep enough not to hear the sounds of growling and clicks of mating. And luckily, she was infamous enough to never attract any unwelcomed guests.

But it seems that this year, she will have no chance to escape.

What was the poin? She thinks. To humiliate her in public? So that everyone can see that she has no males wrestling for her attention? Yes she can have any that she wants but still.... it's  embarrassing, that a runt would have mates amongst themselves and she would have to go looking across many clans to find one, only one, brave enough to approach her.

It's painful. It hurts in her chest, somewhere deep in her chest. It hurst like she has been stabbed. She knows the feeling. It's loneliness.  The deep aggression and desperation melting into frustration and gnawing at her bones like a chestburter xeno. It's that feeling of instincts gone ignored. Of a mating cycle left alone. It's a feeling of not having a mate. It's a mating rut. All females go through. Only Xhor'Nakkai's hurt like a wound to the gut.