sliceitwithwind

"So we're going to be meeting up with the other group in about two hours," Sannish informed the young hunters, "they are a mixed group, human and Katzu. No Weyland-Yutani connections, of course. Mama wouldn't let us into that mess."

Braig glanced at Dilan, who was glancing back at him. The Old Cat seemed less annoyed about meeting up than he usually was...there must have been some kind of merchanting in the making. Or old friends. Or, possibly, one of his children who had moved away and joined the other group. Alright, there were many reasons, but still. "Am I boring you, kittens?" asked the second in command, getting a "SORRY!" from both young men.

They did not want Kiziah to find out that they weren't paying attention. Not with regards to Xenomorphs. Anything else? Sure. Xenomorphs? No. Kiziah would not allow people who didn't pay attention to go on a hunt...and while other dangerous things were led by whoever was there, Xenomorph hunts...

history proved that women had a better survival rate, even if nobody could quite figure out why, so the Clans leaned into it. They had women lead the hunts. Braig and Dilan were just old enough for their first hunt...and this other group? Had a young woman who was also just old enough.

Two weeks to get used to working together. Then?

Xenomorphs.

"I am getting," Dilan said from where he was checking on the food he had cooking, "very tired of feeling Aaron's eyes boring into my back. It's starting to feel like I'm the prey animal and he's the predator. Not comfortable." Braig made a grumbling noise as well, also tired of the whole damn thing. That bastard was in his town and he wanted. Him. GONE.

The problem being how to do it without someone ending up in jail. Someone other than Aaron.

It had been hundreds of years since the mother of Khemrys Clan had tumbled out of a portal into the midst of a multi-Clan gathering in a terrified, panicked spill of pale skin and human size. She'd been covered immediately, white creature that she was the sun was not her friend and Alnat was present and so took her under their care. Decades passed before she spoke with them and told what had happened on the other side of the portal, decades more before she truly became one with the Clans.

Her children, though, bred true to her skin, and hair despite their fathers; although their father's eyes showed - albeit in pale shades, teeth and form were as tall, strong, and not human at all. As centuries moved on the Old Blood bred slowly, but true as well, and the Clan formed as Clans amongst the Katzu do. Not the largest of the Clans, but not quite the smallest, they were as beloved and well come as any other new Clan if rather more likely to cast away from their Clan and live with others to gift their powers and abilities to the Katzu as a whole than many.

Their Mother, though, was always and ever the central hub of the Clan and her own powers, indeed her very existence, was a Katzu secret and she was to be protected as strongly as the Territories themselves.

Hundreds of years, but even in the life of the Katzu that was not too many generations, and so some of the aged and some of the young found themselves at the place their Mother had come from, and when their power opened it they stepped forth to see what would be seen.

A ruin, not the place that she had come from but rather the place she had been raised, and although the Katzu were not ones with great love for buildings still it seemed right to put back what once was there and raise the building she had spoken with such love about. To be certain there were bad memories as well, but in the lives of the long-lived there comes a time when the familiar is as dear be it ill as be it good.

In time men came, as men do, and the great size of these Old Ones came as useful to battle as it was to the hunting they preferred. Powers were not used, other than the healers, for it went against the Katzu culture to destroy what might instead be changed and powers would turn more hands against them than mere size and strength.

A time later the Wereriders came, and then the fights grew serious. True, both sides began with speech; but as the 'riders demanded that the Katzu follow the law they followed they were met with a gentle derision for the culture of the Katzu was millennia long and the addition of Old Blood was very new to it indeed.

Things became strained when the 'riders showed their strength; great pards and wolves and the giant bears that lumbered amongst them; and more strained yet when from the top of their stone wall the 'riders of the Katzu lept from two limbs and landed on four limbs with subtle patterns and bold - and teeth longer than the legs of those bears. They wove and twisted around each other until spots and stripes and splotches seemed almost to climb onto the skin of those who had none of their own and the women above poorly hid their laughter behind upraised hands at the expressions of the Old Ones native to the world they stood on.

There were plenty of places on the rim as barren and wild as the universe could possibly create. Places where the settlers were as hard as the sun baked ground they mined or farmed, as harsh as the plains of a starving man's face.

Then there were the places that the central worlds craved as badly as they did money, rich worlds that beckoned to the sentient species like catnip to a Katzu. Those worlds either fell to central's forces within a generation or two, or bred people that made the rest of the rim seem like a series of feather pillows.

Tyaba, circling the star Ilanga, was one of the latter. Originally settled by the Katzu, who wanted nothing to do with being forcibly 'civilized', it and the other two planets that circled it's sun within the sweet spot for sentient life had become the bane of central's plans.

The hottest of the three, Tyaba was a world practically designed for Katzu; large, open plains filled with giant beasts, and tangled jungles filled with smaller and more dangerous ones. It was populated almost entirely by Katzu, but was also the place that the three worlds had planned to fall back to if central took over the other two. Deep caverns were expanded into empty, underworld cities built to house the citizens of Aarde and Žemė.

Humans and Olia dominated the other two planets, Žemė for it's agriculture and Aarde for the biggest reason that central wanted Ilanga's planets: medical technology. Focused mainly on reproduction, Aarde's citizens had bent themselves to the task of Katzu survival with a ferocity eclipsed only by it's defensive technology. From Aarde came the early warning systems for the solar system, the majority of the militia that kept their space theirs, and the closest thing that Ilanga had to 'civilized society'.

For central, Aarde was the planet to consume; they couldn't conceive of a system with modern cities and technology that didn't have that planet as the heart of it's political society. After all, in the central worlds only the powerful had a voice. It never occurred to them that a system settled by Katzu would be run like the Clans; one adult, one vote.

Citizenship was conferred onto settlers after two years of employment. Spies were dropped on islands near Tyaba's equator with nothing but what nature had granted them.

All in all, Illanga was a very, very attractive place for people who didn't want to live by central's laws. It was also a good place for an ex-soldier to retreat to when his best friend's family was targeted for reasons none of them knew, costing Jerrig his wife and one of his twin daughters.

Waiting for them, when they got to Tyaba, were one of Nevada's old war buddies along with members of his Clan and a scattering of Olia who lived the life of the Clans happily. Amongst them were a pair of children not too much older than Aya, brought so that they could start giving her something new but familiar to focus on. The twelve year old Olia boy had one hand around his eight year old half-Katzu friend's.

"No, Dilan." Braig said in a long-suffering tone, "The girls do not need a particle accelerator for their birthday. No!" he held up a hand as the larger man started to protest about all of the nifty features, "That would be a present for me, not for the girls. They're med students, remember?"

"...You already have a particle accelerator." Dilan said with bemusement, tilting his head and blinking. Braig ran his hand over his head, disturbing even more of the silky hair out of the pony-tail, and counted to ten slowly. Twice. Then a third time for good measure. Just because he knew what he was getting into by taking Dilan present shopping with him didn't mean that it wasn't making him desire a beer. Strongly desiring a beer.

"What about," Braig braced for his lover's next suggestion, "new hazmat suits?"

"No, that's school supplies. Not a present. Think about things they enjoy doing."

Dilan started to wander again, peering into the windows of the stores in the mall with interested glances for the few seconds it took him to dismiss whatever was on offer. "They like cooking, but we don't have room for more pans. We could find them a boyfriend?"

"...No." God no. "They should find their own boyfriend. Or boyfriends. Don't try to find them a boyfriend." Why, God? Why?

"Books?" It was offered with a very I keep doing this wrong hesitance in his voice and expression, which lightened when Braig nodded firmly,

"Books are good, Dilan. You're better at remembering things than I am, what kind of books do they have? Other than school books."

Dilan beamed happily at finally having something concrete to go on, and began babbling as Braig pushed him towards the store.

"Just calm down." the short Olia man was saying gently, "It'll be okay, sweetheart, just calm down. Deep breaths, nice and slow." He was looking up, a surprisingly gentle expression on his amazingly interesting face. Only the signs of a life long lived saved him from looking unreal.

His partner, though, the tall man with heavy dreads all the way down at his knees, was not nearly as beautiful. He was good looking, it was true, but in a much more realistic way with good humour and a sweet smile doing more for his looks than his physical body. Really, a Katzu with a Katzu's teeth shouldn't really manage to look as gentle as he did.

The little girl bobbing in mid air was pure human, from the looks of her, with a face screwed up with terror and anger combined. She was reaching down towards the big man, who kept stretching up more. "Braig, I'm scared!" she cried, "They kept yelling and yelling and hitting each other..."

"I know, baby-girl." the little man said, "They won't hit each other any more, I promise." The look on her face was that of a much, much older woman than her six years; "Okay, well, they won't hit you any more. Just come on down to Dilan."

"Yup." the big man agreed, "You don't have to go back. Mom and dad are going to take you in." That made her eyes widen, and she bobbed down just far enough that the big man was able to sweep her into his arms. "There you are, kitten."

The slamming of a car's door made all three faces turn towards it, the three eyes of the two men widening at the blonde woman making her determined way to them.

The briefing room for talking to Spartans was never filled. It didn't take that many, after all, to do...whatever needed to be done. The two scientists at the front, well. They looked like they had at least some field experience. One of them was scarred up and missing an eye, the other one was big enough to be a Spartan, but lacked that...something that marked Katzu Spartans. He was, in so much as one could be, just Katzu. He did, however, show markings of peripheral nerve damage...signs of an attempt at making him a Spartan that failed.

Neither of them moved like paper-pushers, though. They moved like ODST, highly trained but not quite at that level. The taller one exhibited obvious signs of Spartan drug failure, but didn't appear to let that phase him. The smaller one had indications, but nothing as dramatic.

The group that was waiting outside the gym where Breaker was to meet Kyle was...colourful. Some of the local thugs and bodyguards...both legit and non. A couple of people who looked as dangerous as weasels, and a couple of people who looked as bland as wall paper.

None of them were smoking, but somehow they looked like they were.

It'd been a week, but Dilan...was nowhere near used to his new size. He kept banging into walls, doors, low hanging objects. Anything dangling from the ceiling, and he kept forgetting how wide his shoulders were as well. It was driving him insane.

Not to mention the fears that his size and new, distinct lack of "cuteness" meant that he was hideous looking. He wasn't ready to go back to college, not while still recovering from the agony of the growth spurt, so he was curled up at home trying to get used to himself. Braig had needed to go back and pick school work up for the two of them, trusting that Aya would take care of Dilan until he got back.

Dilan was curled up on the back porch with a couple of blankets and a book. And a protein shake the size of a monster slurpee cup.

From the time he was young, he sat at his father's side on the softest of pillows to watch the movements of Court. Great books, of fantasy and adventure or of scholarly pursuits, served as his barrier between the social aspects and gave him the chance to learn even more without seeming to do so.

When the new vizier came to power he knew something was wrong, stripling though he was, and retreated farther into his books to instinctively hide himself from the too-knowing eyes. He watched his father change from a gregarious man of stern discipline and certainty into a vague and ineffectual leader. He saw his own lessons go from being about rule and law to being nothing more than distractions and how the vizier was always there with a new toy to keep him from seeking true knowledge.

It didn't stop him from learning, from striving to be the best prince that he could be, from fighting in small, slow ways to keep his people safe, but it taught him to be small, and subtle, and quiet while appearing to be indolent, larger than life, and loud.

He was riding the desert in a bid for some small freedom from watching eyes and listening ears as he turned over the latest changes the vizier had made to the castle's servants and he attempted to figure out how to keep his own still employed and still his, and how to keep the harem safe from the vizier's appetites.