#original yautja clan

[tallships-and-starlights]

Not me using leftover yarn so that just can better visualize how braiding and weaving tresses would look like. Not me also realizing how inherently difficult it is to do with more than 5 strands at a time.

[thecleanbean]

Say hello to Ghato'ti! His Ref is made by me, every other piece is from amazing artists from ArtFight! ( _MARA_ - KaleSaladStarfish - Starlight-Of-Arraya) Ghato'ti is a calm, collected warrior. He is one of the youngest among his many siblings. He is the son of to the great Nain'hult, who was leader of the Lo-nyth clan.

Even for his royal blue blood, he is not against his older siblings for the throne, but rather respected to honor his old father. He did a lot of badblood spying and assassination's in his younger days, but stopped after a traumatic event, from him falling for a badblood.

Now he is just a scouting warrior, riding on his Ar'jans and training his 3 small scraotchi, meanwhile entertaining his older sister Zaoli and keeping his older brother Zabue at bay to order him around.

I love this boi so much

[tropes-and-tales]

The Enemy of My Enemy

(The Predator/Yautja x F!Reader)

CW:  Violence; smut (monsterf*cking; fingering; PiV, unprotected). 18+ only.

Word Count: 9889

AN:  This was originally requested by an anonymous person!

The distress call is what bring Mah’tu to Earth:  a Yautja ship infested with a single xenomorph that escapes its cell to wreak havoc before the ship crashes onto the planet of the oomans.  Mah’tu, in a nearby star system, is the closest to handle it.

Thank the gods he has the foresight to call for aid.  A single xenomorph on a planet full of soft, weak creatures…it turns into an infestation almost immediately.  Mah’tu is grateful the Yautja ship at least crashed in a small ooman settlement

Still, the small settlement is overrun quickly.  Mah’tu finds himself outnumbered, outgunned, overpowered.  He sees some oomans as he fights:  they scurry around, they try to run.  Few manage to escape before they are slaughtered.  He pays them no mind.  They are a weak species and only worthy prey because of their inventiveness, but these oomans are panicky and stupid with fear, and easy prey for the serpents.

He finds himself cornered in a large building.  He hears the faint crackle in his comms of other Yautja as they approach Earth, but he himself is lost:  he’s trapped with two of the xenomorphs, and he dispatches one easily, but the second stabs him with its barbed tail, sprays acid blood, and Mah’tu falls. 

The Yautja are strong, durable.  They heal quickly, and neither of these injuries would be fatal, but he feels his vision edging in black, and he knows once he’s unconscious, the serpent will kill him.

Mah’tu is a noble warrior.  He was Blooded young.  His bloodline is ancient, and he’s sired many Yautja that will live on beyond him, so he does not mourn his own lost life as he slips out of consciousness.  At least he won’t feel the blow, though there’s little honor in that sentiment.

It surprises him, then, when he doesn’t die.  When he instead wakes up, comes to, and finds a ooman—small, trembling—crouched beside him.

No, not beside him.  Not exactly.  The ooman is crouched between Mah’tu and the second xenomorph.  It lies dead and twitching as it oozes its acidic blood from where the ooman has impaled it with a metal pole through its long skull.

The ooman is a female of the species, even smaller than the males, and Mah’tu sits up with a grumble and takes in the measure of his savior.  A small thing, filthy.  Stinking of fear and sweat and the rich metallic tang of ooman blood and the acrid, biting odor of serpent blood.  Trembling as she turns and stares at him, her too-wide ooman eyes studying him warily.

How did something so small and cringing manage to kill a serpent, and with a piece of scrap metal, no less?  Mah’tu had seen better trained, better armored Yautja fall to serpents, and yet…

He knows what it means to kill one of the kiande amedha.  The Yautja revere them as the ultimate prey, and to kill one is a feat to be celebrated. 

He does it with little thought:  the ceremony is ingrained in him, as it is ingrained in all of his kind.  To kill a kiande amedha means the ooman is Blooded by Yautja culture, so Mah’tu reaches down and drags a claw through the pooling acid blood of the serpent.  Then he reaches out to the ooman, who flinches away from him, makes a whimper of fear.  But he reaches out his other hand to grasp the filthy face.  He holds her still and traces a small mark onto her forehead that makes her cry out at the sting of the blood as it scars her. 

He marks the ooman—you—as Blooded.  In Yautja culture, it means you are an adult, capable of Hunting alone.  But more than that, it marks you as a full member of the clan, and given the strange circumstances of this moment—Earth, a xenomorph infestation—he marks you as his clan.

When the crackle comes through his comms that his fellow Yautja have arrived, that the military oomans of this sector have loosed a missile of some sort to level this infestation, Mah’tu again acts with little thought.  This is ingrained in him too:  marked as his clan now, he grabs your wrist, tugs you to the roof of the building, and narrowly escapes with you before your settlement is leveled by your government.

He realizes what he’s done once the ship is safely away from your star system.  He’s marked you as Blooded, as his clan, which means you’re his responsibility now.

-----

A famous ooman once wrote that the course of true love never did run smooth.  Mah’tu, without the benefit of any sort of literature course in his Yautja education, never heard the quote, but it doesn’t make it untrue.

Who would have thought the cringing little ooman would be so relentlessly furious at him, once the fact of her situation became clear to her?

Reason must flee your little skull.  There is nowhere for you to go unless out of the airlock into the void of space, yet you fight him.

Or you try to.

The first night you attack him, Mah’tu is taken unawares.  Why would he ever think you’d try?  He’s sitting in the pilot’s seat of his ship when the sensitive appendages on his head alert him to someone behind him, but not quickly enough:  there’s a dull bloom of pain in his shoulder, and it comes accompanied by you yelling some ooman word he does not understand.

He turns in his seat and appraises you.  He takes in the fury on your face, as it cedes to confusion, then dejection.

From the meat of his shoulder, a small shank of metal is half-buried.  He pulls it out, the pain minuscule, the cut already mending.  He examines the weapon, a pathetic thing that you’ve found and tried to shape into something that could kill him.

It makes him chuckle, which sounds like a trilling to you.  Then he stands, takes your arm in his paw, and drags you back to the storage area he cleaned out to house you. 

“Stay,” he orders you, and he locks you in anyway.  He cannot know how you bristle to be ordered about as you would order a dog.

The second time you attack him?  You’ve loosened the bolts on a seat in the cockpit.  You must have been at it for hours at a time, working your feet against the fastenings while you slouched beside him and stuck the fleshy part of your mouth out in a pout.  Mah’tu bends in his seat to recalibrate a certain piece of equipment, and a moment later, the loosened chair smashes against his skull.

The chair breaks into several pieces.  His skull doesn’t break at all.

“God fucking dammit,” you breathe out as he straightens out, stands to his full height. 

He locks you in again, and as he drags you to your quarters, you try to punch him.  Your little fists aim for his face, his eyes, his throat, and they glance off of him with no effect.  You land a punch to his mouth and it cuts your hand.  Mah’tu smells the metallic tang of your blood as he tosses you into your cell.

He thinks on it a beat later, then tosses in a med-spray so you can heal your fragile ooman skin.

-----

From there, you change your tactics.  You abuse him verbally.  You narrow your eyes into slits and call him all sorts of names:  monster, alien, crab-faced motherfucker.  Slimy fucked-up lizard.

When he’s alone in his quarters, he must look up some of the words you use.  A crab, for example, is a harmless water creature on earth that oomans eat.  Mah’tu cocks his head, considers it.  Have oomans ever eaten a yautja before?  The records are silent on the matter. 

The verbal abuse is much like your physical abuse.  It glances off of him.  His kind have little capacity for metaphor, for simile or abstract thinking, so when you call him a “motherfucker” it does not bother him because you are wrong—he has never mated with his dam.  A silly thought.

-----

Your fury never seems to lessen, but it does cool into something more refined and less ruled by passion.  You finally seem to grasp that he means you no harm and that attacking him could leave you stranded in a star system your kind has never even heard of before.

You don’t try to attack him anymore, and your verbal assaults have lessened as well.  You still twist your too-soft mouth around into a look that means displeasure, and Mah’tu senses that you are assessing the situation.  Waiting for an opportunity to escape him.

So be it.  You may be a Blooded member of his clan now (a fact he must remind himself, as your behavior often puts him in mind of a youngling, rash and stupid), but he is your elder both in age and tradition.  He has followed all the protocols:  he’s alerted the head of his clan, who required several confirmations that yes, you were a ooman and yes, you had killed a kiande amedha.  He registers your DNA in the clan’s codex.  Lists both your ooman name and the Yautja one he chooses for you (his name means “Swift Judgment,” but yours translates roughly as “Vexing Thorn”). 

And though you are Blooded, as your elder, he takes up your training.  Against his judgment (swift or otherwise), it is protocol, so he trains you.

Wisely, he starts by teaching you defensive moves.  Why put a blade or worse, a plasmacaster, in your twitchy little paws?

If he hadn’t seen the evidence of your killing the kiande amedha, Mah’tu would doubt it now.  Even accounting for the general weakness of oomans, their lack of speed or agility or flexibility, you are terrible.  Your reflexes…do you even have reflexes? 

Mah’tu shows you how he’ll attack you, he shows you how to counter, he comes at you at quarter-speed, and still you fail.  You take his punches, his slaps, the sweeps of his leg, and you always end up on the mat in the training room of his ship.

As your elder, he tries to give you helpful advice.

“You are very slow,” he tells you.  “Move faster.”

His advice is not well received.  “Fuck you,” you spit from your place on the floor, wheezing as you try to catch your breath.

Mah’tu shakes his head.  “No, you must train more.  How will you ever join the Hunt?”

“I’m not a hunter, asshole!”

“You are Blooded.”

“I’m a goddamned dispatcher at a heating and cooling company!”

He considers this—he did not know that the oomans could control the weather or environment in this way.  He will add it to the codex so that other Yautjas may investigate it.  But it likely will not help you on the Hunt.

He holds his hand out to you, and you glare at him for a long moment before you take it and allow him to haul you back onto your feet.

“Again,” he says.  “I will attack you from the front, and you must feint and then counter by striking me low on my arm.”  He pauses and adds, “I will go as slowly as I can.”

You make a growling noise in the back of your throat.  “Fuck. You,” you grit out, but you change your stance as he shows you.

A second later, you’re on your back again, but at least you land a blow before Mah’tu puts you on the floor.  Your weak little fist glances off his arm, but he is feeling generous and counts it as a win for you.

-----

At his next Hunt, Mah’tu judges that you are not prepared, so he leaves you behind at base camp.  He’s not concerned that you’ll try to escape:  if you run off, he’ll easily track you.  If you try to steal the ship, you won’t get far, as you don’t know how to fly it.

“Stay here,” he orders anyway, and you do that thing with your too-close eyes where they move in their sockets.  He believes it may mean you are displeased, but most of your expressions seem to mean that.

“Aye, aye, captain.”

He shakes his head, touches his hand to his chest.  “No, I am Mah’tu.  Not cap-tan.”

You do the thing with your eyes again.  “It’s an expression.  Sarcasm, in this case.”

He tilts his head, and you clarify, “a kind of joke.”

Ah.  He nods, then turns back to his weapons.  He inspects them one last time, then holsters them on his body.  The different blades, the net-gun, the darts and spear.

“I will return victorious.  You will stay here, little sain’ja.”

You scowl at the nickname but say nothing, and Mah’tu doesn’t tell you that it means “warrior.”  It is a jest because you are no warrior.  A kind of joke, as you’d say.

-----

It is a successful Hunt.  It brings him much honor and new trophies. 

You are unimpressed, but when he strings up his kills and begins to clean the skulls, you make an injured noise and dart to the edge of camp to retch.  The retching goes on and on, so much so that Mah’tu pauses in his efforts to check on you.

“You are ill?” he asks.  “You have eaten something poisonous, perhaps?”

“No, you fucking psycho!”  You stand up, swipe the back of your hand along your mouth.  “You killed those creatures just for their skulls?”

“Oomans kill for trophies as well,” he points out reasonably.

“Yeah, but we also eat the meat.  Venison, turkey, whatever.  Some humans, you know, use all of the animal.  The skin and horns and stuff.”

Ah, a misunderstanding.  It’s bound to happen.  Mah’tu puts his hand on your shoulder and lowers his head to show he is sorry for not explaining better.

“Do not worry,” he tells you.  “We will eat these creatures’ flesh as well.”

You blink at him, and then you turn away quickly to retch again.  Perhaps there was a misunderstanding, but perhaps you are ill as well. 

“I will get you a med-kit,” he tells you.  “It will cure your illness quickly.”

“Dude, really?”  You heave again, but your stomach seems to be empty of any contents.  “Honestly, fuck you.”

-----

Living with you is never easy, but it does reach moments of ease, especially when considering how you tried to kill him at first.

He trains you, or tries to.  You do get stronger, leaner.  You lose some of the ooman softness you had, and through your spat-out cursing, Mah’tu learns small details of your life on earth.  How, for example, your role as weather-shaman was a passive one that entailed a lot of sitting and little movement.  You apparently were a leader of sorts, ordering other weather-shamans on where to go to bring heat or coolness to other oomans. 

There is a limit to your abilities as a fighter, though, and you reach them quickly under his tutelage.  You can block many of his attacks, and you can land a blow occasionally, but in twenty sparring sessions, you are lucky to draw his blood once. 

He finds that the sparring helps to spend your general fury at him, and the time afterwards—your muscles trembling, your body fatigued and bruised—is almost pleasant.  Mah’tu has always been interested in the ooman civilizations, and when he asks his questions, you usually answer them honestly.

“Who were your sire and dam?” he asks.

“My mom and dad?”

“Yes.”

“Then say ‘mom’ and ‘dad,’ you weirdo.”

This is how Mah’tu learns that word choice is important to oomans, that your species uses words to differentiate things that are essentially the same thing.

“I never knew my dad.  He took off before I was born.  My mom was an alcoholic.  She died when I was twenty.”

“You did not know which clan sired you?”

You narrow your eyes at him.  “Fuck you.  I knew my dad’s name, but that was it.”

“Did you share your si…dad and mom with others?”

That, for some reason, makes your mouth turn up at the corners, your lips curved upwards.  “We call those siblings.  Brothers and sisters.  And no, I was an only child.”

“Ah.”  Mah’tu nods knowingly.  “Your dad was not worthy to sire many oomans.”

And that, for some reason, makes you laugh.  It doesn’t sound like a Yautja’s laughter, but it isn’t unpleasant, Mah’tu finds.

“Mom would have liked that.  Not worthy.  Well, the bastard never paid a cent of child support anyway.”

-----

The two of you continue like this:  misunderstanding each other, clarifying what confuses the other, navigating your two separate species and cultures.

It’s not easy, but it grows easier with each passing moment.  He no longer has to lock you in your room each night, as you no longer try to escape.  He no longer fears your fury (not that he feared it much anyway), so he doesn’t keep such a close eye on you.

He deems you worthy of a blade.  He knows you’ll likely never be trained to a level of plasmacaster, but a small blade, designed and weighted for your size and strength seems appropriate for the rare Blooded ooman.

He spends long hours in his workshop crafting it for you.  His sire was a renowned weapons master, and he passed his skills onto all of his offspring.  Mah’tu forges the metal, hones the edge to such a sharpness that it could split one of the hairs on your head.  He carves the handle to fit your hand perfectly, and finally, he tools a fine sheath out of leather, because he worries that you’ll cut yourself sooner than you’ll cut an enemy.

On the leather sheath, he picks out the symbols for your Yautja name.  His Vexing Thorn.

-----

Mah’tu learns much from you, and he adds all of it to the great shared codex of information so that other Yautja may know and learn.

Your mention of child support, for example.  It is a thing that a sire must use to support his offspring—money, which is the paper goods that represents wealth.  He questions you heavily on this point; Yautja honor is derived from the Hunt, but ooman honor seems to come from which of your species can acquire the most of those paper goods.  It determines who may live in a fine home and who may starve, and when he explains it back to you—to make sure he understands it correctly—you stare at him, then nod.

“I mean, basically.”  But then you try to explain a thing called a stock exchange, and a thing called capitalism, but when he presses certain points, you get confused too.

“I dunno, dude.”  You throw your hands up, a gesture of helplessness.  “I never went to college, and if I had, I wouldn’t have majored in economics.”

-----

Early on, he calibrates to the ebb and flow of your body, and the questions he asks you in regards to your biology is what makes you the most anxious.  Through his bio-mask, he can see how the heat courses to your face.  He can hear your heartbeat increase in cadence, but he cannot understand why you respond in such a way.  A body is a body.  It’s systems and rhythms are what they are.

“You are injured,” he tells you, early.  He’s still locking you in at night, and you’re still scowling at him and calling him, among other things, a fucking lizard asshole. 

“’m not,” you reply.

He breathes the air of the cockpit.  “I smell blood.”

The heat floods your face; it shows white-hot in his mask.  “Shut up.”

“If you are injured—”

“I said I’m not.”

“If you are bleeding, I can get a med-kit—”

“Fuck, dude!  I’m on my period, okay?”

Mah’tu tilts his head and thinks back to the rudimentary studies he’d read about oomans.  “Ah, you are menstru—”

You cut him off with another scowl, but your eyes fix on the stars in front of you outside of the cockpit.  “And by the way, having one’s period in deep space is not as fun as it sounds.  I bet Princess Leia never had to worry about it.”

He does not understand your ire.  “Is this Princess Leia a famed statesman on your planet?” he asks, kindly as he can, but you cut him an icy glare and launch yourself out of your chair and out of the cockpit.

You manage to toss a strained “fuck you” over your shoulder before you leave, as you often do.

-----

So Mah’tu comes to understand the seasons of your body.  He also comes to understand how your feel about those seasons.  He does not mention when you are on your period, though he can tell.  He is sure to give you more privacy, and that helps ease the strain between the two of you.

But with other things, your face does not get inflamed.  When your head aches, or when you twist a joint in sparring, you are free with discussing these things with him.  When you feel hunger or thirst, when you require a blade to trim away the excess hair that grows from your head.  When you feel tired.  You share these things with him.

The only other thing  you don’t share is when you are in heat.  Mah’tu can tell that too, can scent you when your heat is upon you.  It runs in the same rhythm as your period does, the two part of the same cycle that seems to come every thirty or day earth days.

It happens so often, he thinks.  Yauja females only have a handful of heats in their entire long lives, yet you could spawn eleven or twelve oomans in one earth year.  His mind is baffled by the math of it until he checks the codex and learns that no, oomans do not spawn that much.  Despite their numerous heats, they only produce roughly the same number of pups as a Yautja female would. 

Mah’tu sighs and leans back in his seat once he reads that.  He has so much to learn.

The next section in that part of the codex details observed ooman mating rituals, and below that, known instances of Yautja and ooman mated pairs. 

It is the latter that makes Mah’tu lean forward, then glance over his shoulder, then lean forward more:  a furtive move that would put one in mind of a teenaged human boy looking at pornography for the first time, though of course Mah’tu would not know that.

*****

Sometimes you wonder if you were in an accident that has left you in a deep coma somewhere.  How else can you explain the hell that broke loose that night, your small town overrun by monsters?

And how else can you explain the monster who…what?  Kidnapped you?  Saved you?  Because he stole you away from home, but you also saw that mushroom cloud from the porthole in his ship.  Did earth even still exist?  If you could escape, where would you go?

It’s easier to imagine this all as a fever dream.  A coma.  Some consequence of a broken brain throwing out insane story lines around monsters and aliens and space travel to worlds you couldn’t even fathom.

But then reality comes rushing back at you, usually in the form of the giant beast named Mah’tu, swiping at you or tripping you or hitting you with the dull blades of his goddamned fucking spaceship dojo.

Then you realize, arm or leg throbbing, bruise forming on your stomach, eye swelling shut or lip split:  this is no coma.  It’s real life.

-----

He doesn’t kill you.  You learn, over time, it’s because you killed one of those disgusting black things with the giant head full of teeth.  He had traced its blood onto your head, and you finger the scar sometimes when you struggle to sleep at night.

“You are Blooded,” he explains, like you know what the fuck that means.  “You are a member of my clan now.”

Great.  Wonderful.  You finally had a found family of giant lizard aliens.

You try to explain it to him.  Killing that thing was dumb luck.  It was some animal instinct, flailing as it cornered you.  Your hand had found the piece of metal, and the monster came at you, and you had swung in a move of self-preservation. 

“Dumb luck,” you tell him.

But his beady little eyes shine at you, and he lays a heavy paw on your shoulder.  “A warrior’s instinct,” he corrects you.

You snort.  You, a fucking warrior.  You barely passed gym class in high school, cringing during dodgeball, puking during the timed mile run. 

“A mistake,” you counter.

He shakes his head.  “Fate.”

-----

It’s not terrible.  You’re no warrior, but your childhood with an unsteady mother left you with the ability to adapt pretty easily.

He trains you, or tries.  He goes hunting for his psycho room of trophy skulls, but he doesn’t force you to eat the raw, dripping meat he harvests.  He takes the time to feed you a fruit-type stew, great chunks of roasted vegetables, some kind of flatbread.  You recognize the hypocrisy of it—you loved a good burger on earth—but now you’re a vegetarian by default.

He gives you your own space, a narrow storage closet that he cleans out and makes a little nest of furs.  When you hurt too much or get sick, he administers some sort of alien medicine that heals you and gives you a boost of energy, like you imagine old-style Coca-Cola used to do when they made it with a little cocaine.

So you endure, and sometimes—you’ll never admit it to him, the goddamned asshole who stole you away from home—sometimes, you actually enjoy this new life.  When the stress of work and debts and making rent each month and trying to save up for a new car fall away, when you are whittled down to a more essential sort of life, you find that your anxious mind calms. 

You find that you sleep pretty well in that nest of soft furs, all things considered.

-----

The training, though.

The goddamned training.

He is unfailingly patient, at least.  He never once gets frustrated when you fail to move the right way.  In the rare off-chance you land a blow on him, his happiness is outsized, like a parent crowing when their toddler takes their first steps.

It should be humiliating, but sometimes his praise makes you smile in spite of yourself.  You know he’s humoring you, but still.  You’ll take your wins where you can get them.

The problem with your handful of training successes, though, is that he thinks you ready for more.  He introduces weapons with dull blades.  Today, you’re training with some fucking spear thing, and he raps you over and over with his own.  A stinging blow across your knuckles.  A stab to your belly that lands like a punch.  Finally, a curt jab to your ankle that strikes you right on your ankle bone, and you hit the ground with a shriek at the pain that crackles like lightning from your foot.

“Asshole!” you wheeze.  You pull yourself into a fetal position on your side, and you pull your injured foot up towards you.  You flex your foot.  It doesn’t seem broken, but you know it will bruise.  And you know he’ll make you swallow a vial of whatever healing shit he has, and the bruise will heal within the day, and tomorrow you’ll be back here, tears leaking out of your eyes as you stare up at him.

“You were supposed to move to the left.”  He tilts his head, studies you.  “You stepped into my blow instead.”

“Fuck you!”  You spit it out with all the venom you can muster.  Sparring is as much choreography as it is strength and speed, and guess what?  You’ve never danced in your life, aside from some drunken flailing at bars and wedding receptions when you were younger.

At your words, though, he tilts his head the other way, and his bright yellow eyes bore into you.

“Not now,” he replies.  “Perhaps when you are in heat next.”

That immediately takes your mind from the throbbing in your ankle.  You gape at him, and he stares down at you wordlessly.  Did you misunderstand him?  It seems a miracle he can speak at all, and English at that, but he is very literal. 

“What?” you finally manage to choke out.

“If we are to mate, we should wait until you are in heat again.”  He says it so matter-of-factly, and you can feel the blood flooding your face and neck.

“I don’t—”

“It will be upon you in four or five earth days.”

You uncurl yourself and sit up.  “How the fuck do you know that?”

“I can smell you.”

You curl your nose in disgust.  “Oh, gross.  You can smell me?  You sound like a fucking serial killer.  Hannibal Lecter in space.”  You struggle to your feet, and when he reaches out his hand to help, you bat it away.

He tilts his head again, but now there is a question in his eyes.  “Is this a misunderstanding, little sain’ja?  You have said numerous times you would like to mate with me.”

“The fuck I have!”

“Is that not what it means, when you say ‘fuck you’?  The codex indicates that ‘fuck’ means ‘to mate.’”

You gape at him again.  Then you close your eyes, pinch the bridge of your nose.  You take a deep breath.  He’s not wrong.  You’ve said ‘fuck you’ a thousand times to him.  Goddamnit.

You keep your eyes squeezed shut, and you manage to say as politely as you can, “yes, it’s a misunderstanding.”

You hear the huff he breathes out, the low growl, and then he replies, “another instance of ooman words meaning different things, then.”

“Yeah, update the codex, dude.”

“I will.”  A beat, and then he adds, “this Hannibal Lecter.  Is he a great warrior in your species?”

-----

The problem is, once he says it, you can’t get it out of your head.

Why do you seem more open to it as time passes?  You read once that Stockholm Syndrome wasn’t real, but perhaps it is and you have some version of it.  Or maybe you’re just lonely, and had been lonely before you got kidnapped by him, or saved by him, depending on the lens you took on the matter.

It’s true that you had been in a dry spell on earth.  You lived in a small town with few prospects.  Everyone your age was already paired up, many married with kids.  You and your ex had broken up a year before the alien invasion, and you’d had no dates in the interim, no offers, no tempting moments with another person.

And anyway, your ex hadn’t been that great.  It had been a relationship of convenience until you had gotten wise to the fact that life with him was not convenient at all.  The sex was mediocre at best, he was always borrowing money from you, and never rinsed his toothpaste down the drain when he brushed his teeth.

He never got you anything as a gift either.  Mah’tu, in comparison, crafted a custom knife for you…which isn’t exactly a necklace from Tiffany’s, but there is no other knife like yours in the known universe, either.

He’s also considerate to your temperament, your likes and dislikes.  He makes sure you have food you’ll eat.  He does his skull-cleaning grossness out of sight now.  More than once, he’s taken a detour to a planet just to show it to you, just to watch you stand on alien soil and gape like an idiot at flora and fauna that no other human has ever seen.

The craziest thought you’ve ever thought:  maybe this fucking alien is the closest thing to a healthy relationship I’ve ever had in my life.

“You’ve lost it,” you whisper in the darkness of your quarters one night.  “You’ve lost your goddamned mind.”

Because you lie there for a long moment, thinking about it, and you find that you don’t need to be in heat (the word alone makes you groan in disgust) to feel the sharp knife of desire lance through your belly at the thought of him.

-----

One night, around the fire of a planet where he’s hunting, you ask him.

“Why did you save me?”  You watch him as he looks up from polishing his knife.  He seems to consider his answer.

“Because you are Blooded, in my clan.”

“Yeah, but you didn’t have to do that.”

He shakes his head, the dread-like things on his head moving as he does.  “It is required.  You killed a kiande amedha.”

“I’ve told you, that was an accident.  Dumb luck.”

“Many Yautja die in the attempt to kill one.”

“But I’m no warrior.  I could never kill another.”

He makes a low trill, which seems to be his version of a chuckle.  “No.  But you only need kill one to be Blooded.”

You look down at your hands.  They are calloused now from all the training, the nails trimmed short.  “So it’s just that, then?  Just dumb luck that got me here?”

“Not only that, little sain’ja.  You could have killed me but did not.”

“So you owe me?”

“No.  There is no debt.”  He pauses.  “Why do you question me?”

You lift your hands in a helpless gesture.  “I dunno.”

“The codex says that oomans often question their fate.”

“Yeah, I guess so,” you snort.  “I just was curious.  I thought maybe it was that thing, you know.  The enemy of my enemy is my friend.”

“You think I brought you here because we mutually aided each other against the serpents?”

You nod.  “Sure.”

Mah’tu shakes his head again, and he chuckles in his way.  “No, little sain’ja.  I brought you here because you are Blooded in my clan.  I’ve kept you with me because I enjoy your presence.”

It’s not Shakespeare, you suppose, but it’s a sweet sentiment, in his own sort of way.

*****

There is a series of Hunts, and Mah’tu fails in one, succeeds in the others.  His trophy room has much more Honor added to it, though you remain unimpressed by his prowess.

“Gross,” you say when you peek in at it.

He points to the long skull of the kiande amedha, the one he killed to become Blooded.  “Had we more time, I would have beheaded yours so you could keep your trophy.”

You make a face and lift a hand to touch the scar on your forehead.  “I think I have plenty to remember it, but thanks.  If I ever end up back home, I’ll need to look up a plastic surgeon to handle this.”

It takes some explaining what you mean, but when Mah’tu grasps your meaning, he is outraged.  You think the mark makes you unworthy.  Ugly, you say.

“It marks you as worthy.  A special ooman,” he spits out.  “The others of your kind would be fools to not see you as such.”

Normally, you’d do that thing with your eyes, but instead you study him.  Stare at him, steady and unblinking.  Finally you say, “you may be the only creature who sees me that way.”

He huffs.  “Then I am the only creature with eyes to see and a brain to think.”

-----

He is not sure what changes with you.  Perhaps you only needed time to adapt to life with him.  Oomans, he knows, are highly adaptable.

You have stopped the verbal abuse entirely.  You make an earnest attempt when training, and by applying yourself, you earn the right to learn the net-gun.  You earn your own bio-mask, and Mah’tu labors over it for several star cycles.  You have such a tiny skull, and your eyes are so far apart.  It must be custom made.

You join him on a Hunt.  It is just a small one, a training to whet a new spear he has made.  The prey is hardly worthy, but Mah’tu uses the opportunity to teach you how to stalk, how to move silently, how to be still and watch.  You are much better at that than you are at fighting, and though you kill nothing on your first Hunt, you earn Honor for yourself by successfully stalking a herd of very jittery prey.  They never once suspect you, and Mah’tu trills in pride when he sees you get close enough to reach out and touch one.

That night around the fire, he gives you much praise.  You like that, he finds—you duck your head as if ashamed, but it is to hide your smile.  Which means you are pleased. 

“Had you been a moment quicker, you could have killed one,” he tells you.  “Though it would be a small skull.  Our younglings often kill them to learn their blades.”

You laugh.  “Oh, fuck you.  Our younglings.  Yeah, yeah, I get it.  This weak-ass human is less skilled than a Yautja infant.”

That phrase again.  He knows what it means now, though he was greatly disappointed that it wasn’t what he thought.  Still, he bristles; he sits up straighter and looks at you when you say it, and when you realize what you’ve done, you give him a sheepish look.

“Be at ease,” he says.  “I know what you mean.”

Incredibly, you lower your head, and he sees no smile there.  You kick your foot in the dirt, scuffing it, and you mumble, “maybe I meant it the other way.”

“Which way?”

You groan, and you place your hands over your face.  He isn’t wearing his bio-mask, but he can guess that your face is inflamed. 

“Don’t make me say it.”  The words are muffled, and your voice is tight.

“Say what?”

“Ugh, the gross way you phrase everything.  You know what I mean.”

“I do not, little sain’ja.”  Though he does—it is a lie to say he does not understand.  As you’d say, it’s a kind of joke.  Pretending one thing when another is true.  A ooman sort of jest.

“You know what I mean.  Fuck’s sake, I mean mating.”  You whisper the last word, make it small in your mouth, but he hears it anyway.

He wonders what changed in this respect too, but he can consider it later.  “We should wait until your next heat is on you.”

That makes you squawk, a sound of outrage.  “Absolutely not!  I’d never survive it if I got pregnant!”

He chuckles at your horror.  “There would be no risk.  There are no Yautja-ooman hybrids.  It is an impossible thing.”

You sag in relief.  “Then why wait?”

“We cannot if you are not in heat,” he points out.

Now it is your turn to laugh at him, and then Mah’tu has another clarification to add to the codex:  oomans can mate nearly any time, any place, so long as the mood is upon them.

As it turns out, the mood is upon you now, and Mah’tu is grateful that his face does not show his emotions as blatantly as yours does—otherwise, you may see how he is flustered, then aroused in equal measure.

*****

He would take you outside, you think, but you douse the fire and lead him back into the ship.  For one, you don’t want this to be out in the open, where any creature could witness. 

For another, you want to be as close as possible to his array of med-kits and healing sprays.  God knows how this is going to work.  He’s bigger than you in every way possible.  It may not work at all.

He seems confused, but he lets you lead him.  You, for once, hold your hand out to him.  He makes a low trill, and takes it, and he follows you into the ship.  You start to lead him into your quarters by habit, but he stops, tugs you towards his.

“More space,” he says.

In his quarters, he only stands and watches you.  Waits for you to make a move.  Which is novel, for you:  you’re used to letting your partner lead, though your partner up until now has exclusively been a disappointing and generally clueless human male.

“Um.”  You kick off your boots.  You fiddle with the hem of your shirt, then take a breath and pull it off, as quick as you can.  “How do you usually?”

That curious head tilt of his.  “Usually what?”

You swear to god that he’s toying with you.  His stupid face gives nothing away, but he’s not usually so dense.

“How do your kind mate?”  You undo the snap on your pants, the zipper, and you push them over your hips.  You kick them off, peel out of your socks, and stand in front of him in your underwear.

They mate like they do everything else:  with ceremony, rules, customs, elaborate steps that either mean honor or dishonor.  They mate due to some confusing clan alliance, and the mating is always towards breeding the next generation of Yautja.  They don’t generally mate for pleasure, though of course it is pleasurable to mate, he explains.

“But you are not beholden to those customs,” he adds.  “As you cannot add glory to our clan by breeding with me.”

“Noted.”

“Even if we could have offspring, they would be very weak.”

“I said I got it, thanks.”

While he gives his explanation, he strips too.  He lays aside his greaves, his gauntlets, his weird footwear.  The data pad he wears on his wrist.  The fine netting of his invisibility tech.  The thick belt that holds more weaponry than Batman’s setup.  He leaves his loincloth-thing on, though, and stands to look at you.

He makes no move.  You give him a long moment to lead, but when he only stands and watches you, you decide to lead.

You bridge the few steps between you, and this close—sans most of your clothing and most of his—the size difference has never been more stark.  Hell, the difference in your damned species has never been more stark.  He’s objectively ugly, you suppose.  You must be just as ugly to him, but you wonder if he finds you as fascinating as you find him?

He's a greyish green at first glance, but you’ve noticed that his coloring depends on the light.  Sometimes he looks more like a gem, glimmering a darker green like an emerald.  Now, in the lower light of his berth, he shimmers almost iridescent. 

You’ve touched him plenty in the training sessions, so you know that your first impression (cool and slimy) is incorrect.  His skin is dry, warm to the touch.  You reach out a tentative hand and lay it on one of his massive pectoral muscles, and when you do, he lays his own hand over yours.  Engulfing it.

“How do your kind mate?” he asks, and honestly?  He kinda nails the bedroom voice because he lowers his register and growls it, and the sound makes the ache between your legs grow stronger.

Who knew he had it in him?

You think on how to answer him, but he adds, “show me, little sain’ja.”

*****

It takes much of his strength to not overpower you.  He can smell your arousal, sharper even than when you’re in your heat.  He can hear your heartbeat growing faster, can hear your breathing getting a harsh edge to it.  Mostly, though, it’s just his instinct to want to fight you, to submit you to him.  To treat you like a Yautja female, really.

But you’re not Yautja.  The sight of you in your thin underthings is proof of that.  Your fragile skin has no variations aside from a few scars.  Your fleshy mouth, your too-wide eyes, the strange lifeless hair that sprouts from your head…he should find you repellent, but when you touch him, he leans into the sensation of your hand on his chest.

He orders you to lead.  He does not want to hurt you, so he puts the moment in your hands.

You pause, considering your moves.  Thoughtful of what to do in order to make this work.  You nod then, and remove the remainder of your clothing, and Mah’tu takes in what has been hidden from him:  your breasts, despite having no younglings to nourish.  The curls that cover your sex.  You gesture to him, and he removes his loincloth, and your already-wide eyes go wider to the point where he fears they may fall out of your skull.

“Fuck,” you breathe out.

He nods.  “Yes.”

You laugh at him, and it’s the merry version, not the frustrated kind.  “We have to go slowly.”

“Yes.”

“I mean it.  You have to….”  You pause, and he hears the way you swallow as you study him.  “You’ll basically have to not move until I, uh, get used to it.  Once we…start.”

Another nod.  “Yes.  I understand.”

"But you can, uh, touch me. If you want. Before we start."

He lies down on his furs when you tell him to, and you approach him carefully.  You cast a wary eye on him as you kneel beside him, then shuffle closer.  He takes a hand and chances to touch one of your curves, the one from the dip in your waist to the swell of your hip, and you like that.  He can smell the way your arousal blooms, so he continues touching you.  Slowly.  Carefully.  He leads you to lie down beside him, and he touches all the parts of you he never has touched in your training sessions.

Each place is a revelation.

Your breasts are soft, malleable, yet they are tipped with firm nipples.  He molds his hands around the shape of them, which makes you moan, but when he skates a blunt nail carefully over each nipple, one and then the other, you part your lips and swear at him.

“Fuck’s sake,” you say, and your voice is tight, like you’re pained.

“Did I hurt you?”

“No.  God, no.”  Another hard swallow.  “That’s…that’s good.  You can do that again.”

So he does.

Oomans, he finds, perhaps like their pleasure with a little pain, or even just the threat of it.  He is gentle with you, careful of his strength and his claws, but your arousal grows sharp when he draws a nail over your tender skin or when he wraps one hand around your neck to hold you still from your wriggling.

His exploration leads him lower, to the source of your arousal.  He slides a gentle finger between your legs, feels how hot you are, how wet you are, how the slick seeps out of you in anticipation for the joining with him.

All the same…

“Your sex is very small,” he mutters.  He drags the pad of one finger through your folds and finds your entrance.  He tests it, pushes it into you, and it goes fine with how wet you are, but a lone finger is nothing compared to his cock.  Still, when he breeches your entrance with his digit, he hears the breathy way you whisper his name.  Better, he feels how your sex twitches against him.  Like it seeks to draw him in deeper.

So he adds a second finger, which makes you curse, but it is much the same.  The same twitching from the smooth muscles of your sex.  A fresh pulse of wetness coats his fingers, and he pushes them in, draws them out, mimics mating in this way.  Spreads his fingers inside you, to stretch you in preparation.

“God,” you whisper.  “Please, don’t stop.  Keep…keep doing that, okay?”

He nods.  He’s an eager pupil, and you can teach him this.  A moment later he feels it:  your tiny hand, fumbling for his cock.  Circling your slender fingers around his girth.  You have little strength but it’s enough to give him pleasure, and he wonders how much is due to your grip and how much is due to the fact that it’s you, his Vexing Thorn, gripping him there.

“This gives you pleasure?” he asks.

“Yes.”  You hiss it, draw the word out.  With your other hand, you reach down yourself and show him another part of you, a firm little bud also slick with your arousal, just above your entrance.  “If you, you know, touch that carefully.  Rub it?  Carefully.  It will be…ah, fuck, yes.  Like that.  Just like that.”

As he works his hand, he feels you relaxing.  Loosening.  You are still very small, but it seems more likely that you can take him now, so he keeps going, and you writhe against him, stroke him as you whine out all sorts of words he’ll have to study later. 

You reach some point where you deem yourself ready, and you push his hand away.  You take your own hand from him, and he grumbles in disappointment, but then you are on him, on top of him, pushing him back, and he lets you.

“Are you okay with this?” you ask.  You straddle him, and he feels the hot slick of you pressed against the length of him.  “I mean, I don’t know the politics of this.  Is this even consensual?”

“Explain your question more.”

You sigh, but you also slide against him, your lower body moving back and forth in small motions as your hands brace on his stomach.  He feels how you’re coating him in your arousal, and the mechanics of it make sense.  If your sex is slick and his is as well, it will make the mating easier—

“I mean, we never reviewed consensual sex with other species in high school sex ed.”

“I do not understand.”  He grips the fat of your ass, you’re so soft there, and he urges your movements.  There is pleasure even in this, and he feels himself growing harder underneath you.

“Am I…fuck, I don’t know how to say it without just saying it.  Is this what you want?  Am I coercing you for sex?”

He chuckles under you, trills deep and long.  “Little sain’ja, how could you coerce me?  You are so weak.”

You pout, the fleshy lower lip of yours stuck out and wet.  “Asshole.”

“I could throw you off me in an instant.  I could be on top of you before you could even blink.”

That makes a fresh beat of arousal pulse out of you, coating him more.  He notes it.  Perhaps you would find pleasure underneath him, just as he is enjoying being underneath you.

“Okay, yeah.  Good.  So we’re good, then.”

“This is what I want,” he clarifies to your question.  “You can feel how I strain to seat myself in you.”

“Well, then.”  You gaze at him a beat longer, but you shift, reach your hand down.  You grasp him at the root of his cock, and you lift yourself up enough to slot the flared head of him against your entrance.

“I mean it.  Please don’t move at all until I tell you.  This is…”  You trail off, and your pink tongue darts out to lick your lips.  “This is a lot.”

He nods.  “I will not move until you order me to.”

At that, you begin to lower yourself onto him.

It goes so slow.  It must, despite your arousal.  You are so small, and he is large, but your anatomy is such that it can take far more than he thought.  But it must go slow, so your sex can adapt to him.  Wonderful, adaptable oomans:  your sex twitches and grabs at his cock as you work yourself onto him, but he enters you bit by bit, and you breathe deep and mumble curses, but you also groan at what you’re feeling, and it sounds like a pleasurable noise to him.

But you take him to the root, in time.  In time, you sit flush on him, no space between where he ends and you begin, and Mah’tu has never felt a mating like this in his long life.

“Fuck, I can feel you in my throat,” you whine, and you wriggle at where you sit on him.  It sends him a fraction deeper, and he can feel the end of his cock nestled against some inner part of you, though he assumes it is your womb and not your throat.  But he also assumes it is one of those things where you say a word and it means something else, but he doesn’t ask for clarification because he needs all of his strength to lie still and wait for your command to move.

It doesn’t come just yet.  You sit on him, the back of your thighs flush with his hips.  You don’t move much; you move and resettle, you wince and then move, and your tense face cedes to one of panting pleasure.  Little by little, you start to move:  lifting yourself off of him a fraction, lower yourself back down.  Your arousal keeps it as easy as it can be, and in moving, he feels your sex relax more, molding itself to the shape of him.

“Is this okay for you?” you whisper, and he nods his head.  He keeps his grip on your ass but only as a place to touch you, not to harry you along.  How can he describe what he’s feeling?  He has no tricky words like you do, and he fears his blunt speech may anger you.

If he could say what he’s feeling, it would simply be this:  that you’re his mate, and now that he’s felt this once, you’ll be his mate for life.  He would not give you to another, nor allow another to touch you, and if you wanted to return to earth, he’d go with you and find a way to live amongst the other weak, tricky oomans.

Eventually, you begin to move in earnest.  Riding him in a steady rhythm:  raising off of him until only the broad crown of his cock is nestled in you, then sinking back onto him.  Over and over, in this way, your constant phrase of ‘fuck you’ is realized, and Mah’tu growls at this new way of mating.

“You can…you can move,” you finally tell him.  “But slowly, slow….ah, fuck!”

You don’t finish the thought because he moves.  Not as you expected, probably, but Mah’tu is a quick study.  He shifts one hand from where it kneads at the softness of your ass, and he draws the pad of his finger at where the small nub peeks out at the apex of your sex.  He rubs it carefully, mindful of his claw, and it makes your hips jerk against him.

“Yes, don’t stop.  Jesus, you’re….keep doing that.  Just that.”  The pace you’re riding him picks up in speed, and it makes your breasts bounce, drawing his gaze for a moment before it snaps back to where he disappears into the confines of your body.

“I’m close,” you tell him a moment later.

“Close to me?” he guesses.

You laugh, breathless.  “Close to coming.”

“Coming where?”

Another laugh, and your rhythm falters for a moment.  You reach out and steady your hand on his chest, and your face is perfectly relaxed, radiant in happiness, and Mah’tu thinks that even if you are ugly with your ooman features, he finds you beautiful.  Perfect.

“Close to…my pleasure,” you clarify, and you resume the quick pace of fucking him, riding him, drawing him into your body.

“Ah.”  He strokes the hot, swollen bud above where he slides into you, and he considers himself.  His own pleasure has been close for a while now, his seed close to bursting.  “I am close too, then, little sain’ja.”

“You can….come….with me.”  You’re panting now, pushing out your words in time to each time you reseat yourself.  A sheen of sweat glistens along your skin, making you look almost part Yautja in the low light.  “If you…want.  Want to…feel you.”

He nods.  “I will do as you ask.”

Another breathless laugh, but then you say no more, and he can only observe your body for any clues.  Ooman pleasure is blatant, he finds, because your sex gets wetter, and then you moan loudly.  Then your entire body seizes in a way, trembles and shakes above him, but your sex tightens against him like a fist, and it’s easy for his pleasure to break as well.  He feels it in a way he never has before, like a great wave carrying him towards you, and he spills inside you with a roar that must shake the walls of his ship.

-----

With Yautja mating, once it is complete, the two part.  If they meet again, it is only incidental, a consequence of sharing younglings.

So it is strange, how you nestle against him after you both reach your pleasure.  He remains nestled inside you, a snug fit that keeps his seed confined in your body—but you lean your upper body down onto him, nuzzle your face against his broad chest, and just lie there.

It is very strange.  But it is not unpleasant.  A beat after you settle, he places a hand on your back to hold you firmer against him.  Your skin is warm and soft under his palm, and he strokes you softly.

“I did not hurt you?” he asks after a long while of lying like this. 

“Only in the best way.”  Your mouth is near his skin, and he can feel your warm breath against him.

“Explain your meaning.”

“I’ll definitely be aching in the morning.”  You pause, seem to think on it.  “But it’s a good ache.  Like…the ache of training really hard.”

Mah’tu chuckles, and he drags the blunt tips of his claws along the skin of your back, which makes you squirm against him.  The motion makes his cock, only half-hard now, twitch back to life.

“You are much better at mating than training,” he tells you.

“Asshole.”  You turn your head against him, and he feels the blunt edge of your teeth.  You are biting him, but there is no pain.  The sensation—your wet mouth on him—makes his cock twitch harder, make the blood pool there to make him grow harder.

You can feel it.  You breathe against the wet spot you’ve put on his chest, but then he feels you move—a deliberate rocking, very carefully. 

He has many questions he’d like to ask you—other ways your kind mate, for example—but he saves them for later because the mood is upon you again, just as the mood is upon him.  And anyway, in the course of your second mating, some of his questions are answered by showing, and Mah’tu is an eager pupil.

[killershrike]

Ok no but seriously guys let's just.. compare Yautja and Klingons for a moment

First physically:

I think it's pretty easy to spot the immediate physical similarities.

• Non human colored and textured skin- (yes the actors for original Klingons were covered in shoe polish or brown paint because that was the era of the time) if you read Gene Coon's only physically written description of them he says they are "Oriental, hard-faced". The Klingons were heavily based on North Asian people, specifically Mongols. Later, their skin tones are depicted in varying colors, such as jet black and almost purple. (This helps easily identify clans and families.)

• Large foreheads with protrusions, bumps, lumps, etc.

• Even some of the Klingons' hair is very similar to a Yautja's dreads.

• Even their armor has many similarities. Of course, yautja have different armor among them, but from some we've seen in canon:

• Their general physique, being extremely muscular and tall, as well as the females, and the males and females looking very similar in general

And then culture, and honestly, I'll have to cut myself short cause there are so many, but the obvious ones are:

• Both races share an honor code as the keystone to their entire culture and belief system

• Both races are naturally and intrinsically drawn to battle, violence, and aggression

• Both races are extremely prideful people who feel compelled to prove their worth (honor) and view themselves as the apex

• Both races share a distinct tribal culture mixed with modern technology

Like... guys.. am i Crazy?? Were the Yautja at least softly based off Klingons??? It just feels like a LOT of coincidences, you know??

[yaut-jaknowit]

New Feelings

Pairing: We'ar-ow (Female Yautja) x GN!Reader(Platonic)

Word Count: 3057

Summary: During this time, We'ar-ow takes a momentary step back from ruling to care for you. Just in the confinements of her private room though. You come to realize how different she acts in front of company.

Author Note: Had a bit of a mix-up on the masterlist but it's resolved now! I've also got the next chapter finished about to finish the one after that so I'm getting back to writing book. Not beta read. If there is something confusing or stupid, let me know and I'll fix it.

Masterlist

Ao3

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18

In We’ar-ow’s throne room, many Yautjas have come to report to their leader. It was a short line at first when she had originally dragged you from the safety of her room early this morning. A regular amount of people, you had thought at first. It doesn’t just take one person to lead a clan like this. But more later filled the throne room that it finally hit the door.

It’s not like you paid a great amount of attention to them. Just enough to see each of their faces and file them away for a later date. All for sake of one of them being your stalker. Whoever hunted you through the halls of this very ship could possibly be in this room with you. Would they slay you before the Monarch? And what would their thought process be? Cleaning the ship of scum? Disturbing We’ar-ow?

That had you rolling your eyes, head bowed to hide away your emotions. We’ar-ow did not care that much about you to have your death disturb her. Just a fucking pet. Your senses still completely open for an attack. Anyone of them could slip out of line and slaughter you without remorse. These are hunters. Born, bred, built to maim anything in their way. A shiver ran its course through your body.

The tablet in hand was momentarily discarded mentally. The thoughts of decapitation or dismembering filled your head. None of them would blink an eye about it. Just your blood staining the like-carpet material blanketing the stairs and floor. Or the cushion gifted to you. All would be brushed off. Their day would continue like normal. You sighed heavily through your nose and tilted your head back to stare at the strangely decorated ceiling.

A mural of sorts had been painted over the expanse of the ceiling. Only spots of flush lights broke the illusion of how intricate. You shook your head and focused back on the line.

Someone bypassed the entire line and marched up the stairs that lead to We’ar-ow’s throne. Your back tensed at the sight, on the verge of snapping in half. This Yautja, male by his shorter stature, ignored you and stopped before her seat. A nearly playful look twinkled in his sea green-blue eyes. He gave a polite bow to his leader then begun to discuss with her, short, sweet.

“May I?” he questioned and motioned over to you. Your heart dropped to the floor. Instantly, you rapidly shook your head to deter him or her from getting close to you.

We’ar-ow nodded her massive head and returned her attention back to the figure before her. Your jaw dropped at her abandonment. A week ago you had almost died! Maybe, possibly. You didn’t know if death was going to happen that day but it made it all the scary of not knowing.

The new figure smiled with his alien mandibles and spun on his heel to face your sitting form. Terror ran cold in your blood at his first step. The next had you trembling. He knelt down a step just before yours. He wasn’t a young Yautja anymore. The lines and many scars the decorated his skin were an indication. What caught your eye like shining gold was his right arm. The elbow and below was gone, poof. Just a nub and gnarly scars. A well decorated hunter who’s earned his title by the looks of it.

You swallowed thickly but stayed seat on the cushion. Somehow. The Yautja huffed, the lightest of smirks playing his face. He reached out with his only hand and plucked the tablet from your grasp. “Whatcha got here?” he questioned and began to scroll through the page you were on. An article about Yautja Prime, their home planet.

He snickered and gave a look that ‘really?’. The device was tossed back into your lap but your attention was solely on the potentially dangerous figure before you. But… We’ar-ow seemed at ease around him and allowed him to approach you. Something you hadn’t expected after that night and the following days.

“If ya wanna know about home world, you could get it from the source,” he spoke in a voice that gave you smoker vibes. It almost drowned out the translator tucked underneath your skin, behind your ear. Automatically, you glanced over at We’ar-ow hard at work. A light tap to your knee had you snapping back to him. “Not her, ooman. Me!”

Your brows furrowed in confusion. Him? You just met him. Not even completely! He hadn’t told you his name. He saw the puzzle look on your features and snorted. “Monarch may say she could care less if I dropped off into the space port but she cares, doesn’t she?” What was his point? His angle? What did he want? And why was he being so friendly to you? Did he get knocked up side the head far too many times?

Plus, why did his last two words sound like there was an underlying tone in his voice. “I don’t, don’t even know your name,” you stuttered and gave him a look as if he was crazed. Curse the stutter!

“Oh, right. Thought she would’ve said a thing or two about me. Hurts the heart a little.” You just kept staring at him, puzzled on this whole attitude. He was completely different from any Yautja you’ve met before. Even if the list is fairly short. They’ve never acted so… carefree. Was this the crazy old man of the ship?

“Call me Xilo, short for Xilomere,” he finally introduced. Still tensed painfully, you stiffy nodded your head and murmur a ‘okay’, hoping it was enough to get him to leave. It wasn’t. “And you’re the Monarch’s pet. An ooman who’s been talk of the town for the last half solar cycle! You don’t realize the uproar you caused when the newly blooded brought you here. If it wasn’t for her, you wouldn’t have survived to see the next day.”

He said it so causally. You could’ve died when Dwainet brought you here… death. This was all a horrible mistake with consequences hard to live with.

We’ar-ow stopped them from killing you. She allowed you to stay. Why?! Your eyes drifted back over to the hard-working Yautja ensuring her ship and community don’t collapse on itself. Did… did she want you back then?

A hunter at their core must be patient.

That what it is to be a hunter. What did this all mean?! You gnawed on your bottom lip when the green Yautja before you patted your knee. “She didn’t tell you? Whoops.” Then, he leaned in close to whisper something of importance. “Don’t tell her I told you. Act natural.” All you could do was blink dumbly at him.

‘Act natural’? ‘Act natural’?! He was just as irritating at We’ar-ow with their up front, uncaring, idiotic words! How could you just go one knowing that if it wasn’t for her you would be dead!? Or the fact she might have been wanting you for her own pet this entire time?! Just waiting like the hunter was born to be for the right moment to snatch you up.

All of this was a mistake. You wanted to breakdown all over again. The wounds still fresh enough to ache in your poor heart.

Xilo pulled back with that same cocky smirk. “If you ever need to chat, dear ooman. My contact has been inputted into your toy. Now, I should dip before I spill more than I should about our lovely Monarch.” He pushed back up into a standing position, knees popping with the action. He gave you a two-finger salute, spun on his heel, and left through the way he came.

On his only hand, he was missing his entire pinky and the tip of his ring finger. Something you realized after he already left. You grumbled underneath your breath for a few minutes after the interaction and messed around on your tablet. He didn’t need to announce to the whole throne room what you were doing on the tablet. Yes, you were gathering information about their planet. It’s not like you freely look for ways to escape the mothership right in front of her. You were on the steps, before her throne though to the side. One turn of her head could expose your whole plan.

To be honest, you’ve thought about this. She has to have some knowledge of you wanting to escape. But if she’s not worried… that means she is confidence there isn’t way to escape. But there is. At least to get off of here. Away from being her damn pet.

The like-leather encasing your throat is a feeling you’ve started to grow accustomed to. At nights, We’ar-ow allows you to take it off. Thankfully. But in the morning, it’s back on; with complaints almost every time. It’s a loosing battle at this point. The only way to gain back what you’ve lost is to escape. Away, far from this place.

So, you learned, research what you could about Yautjas. From their planet to the motherships they use to roam the universe to the different subspecies to hunting styles. Everything. To know your enemy is the way to defeat your enemy. To outsmart them, her. It’s the only way to escape.

But is that what you want?

.

Once the day ended, in the middle of the afternoon, the two of you retired back to her quarters. The safety away from prying eyes and possibly danger. Though, to be frank, this was the lions den you not only eat and bathe in, but also sleep and relax in. You ran your fingers through your hair after the door seal shut, leaving you alone with We’ar-ow.

Said salmon pink Yautja strolled across the living room and into her room. Door left open. That struck you. The door always shuts after her. Why leave it open?

Curiosity may have killed the cat… and now you.

You tiptoed across the length of the main room and peered around the entrance of her door. You’ve been in here before. With her permission. She’s never left the door open before though. You didn’t dare take another step into the bedroom.

For a moment, you couldn’t find her until a light flicked on and caught your eye. We’ar-ow’s back was to you as she stood in the doorway of another room to the right wall. The new light shone on what looked to be clothing. She has a walk in closet, what else did you expect from her?

Then, the Yautja began to strip. You felt your eyes bulge out from your head at the sight, but unable to peel your sight away. Its not like you hadn’t seen Dwainet naked before… plenty of times, plenty. He had bulk similar to We’ar-ow but she has honed in to be able to be agile and lethal. Move faster than you could process sometimes.

You chewed on your bottom lip, eyes partially glazed over. Her muscles weren’t well defined as some you’ve seen. That didn’t mean thickly corded muscles didn’t lie underneath her thick, pink skin. No wonder many Yautjas looked at not just respect/fear of her being Monarch but for her beauty as well.

Her thumbs shimmied under her waistband and began to push down. This is where you slam your back against the wall outside of the room and slapped a hand over your mouth.

Boiling heat flushed to your cheeks, eyes clenched shut. Why had you done that?! That… that-

“You are missing the show,” We’ar-ow’s voice funneled out into the main room where you were. Your knees nearly gave out right then. She knew. Oh my god. She fucking knew! “Come on out, pet.” She used a honeyed voice as an attempt to coax you out from hiding. She already knew that you were right there.

With whatever courage you still had after all this time, you stepped back into the doorway with your head bowed. She would have to rip your head off to make you look at her.

Pink feet entered your vision. A knuckle tried to tilt your head up at first before you felt her lean down, mouth close to your ear now. “Did my pet enjoy the show?” she whispered softly into your ear. Your spine locked up, chest heaving with unsteady breaths. “Calm, little one. I asked a question.”

Anger flashed to life in your veins was quickly stomped out from the embarrassment. She wanted you to speak! Why does she keep doing that? You felt on the verge of crying. “S-sorry,” you sputtered then pressed your lips tightly against each other. Her knuckle was still firm against your chin, not relenting. But neither were you.

We’ar-ow softly huffed and corralled you to the nearest wall. Her free hand wrapped around your neck and locked you against said wall. “That is not the answer I was looking for, pet.” You best believe she could hear how wild your heart was pounding in your chest. On the verge of jumping out into her hands.

From past experiences, you knew she wasn’t going to stop until she got your answer. Lying was off the table too. Yautjas have a keen sense of smell. They know. You swallowed the lump down, feeling her hand twitch slightly around your throat. “Yes,” you murmured just above a breath. She was able to tilt your head up and you met her eyes.

Far from anger. We’ar-ow looked down at you with an alien smirk gracing her face. Your heart stuttered, but not from fear. She wasn’t furious, not at all. It’s like… oh my god, she wanted you to look, to watch even. It was all a setup. Your face soured. You had nowhere to go though. We’ar-ow had you trapped to the wall.

“Smart ooman.” She read you like an open book. You scowled at her. “I am glad that enjoyed what I offered. I will know what to do for next time.” Then, her body heat left you as she pulled away. “Go eat. There are some berries in the cooling containment for you.” Sometimes the translator wasn’t the most accurate about words.

Blindly listening to her, you unsteadily stumbled your way into the kitchen-like room. In the refrigerator, you pulled out the bowl and berries then added a couple of fruits to it as well. You were still dazed while sitting down on the one-seater in the living room.

A berry was tossed into your mouth. The taste bursting over your tastebuds. They were delicious, not something you expected from a species that looked like they had a stick always stuck up their ass. You scoffed and curled up more on the couch. Your legs tucked underneath your body with the bowl placed in your lap.

As you sat peacefully on the couch, you couldn’t help but remember what We’ar-ow had said earlier. Something on the lines of knowing what to do for next time. Next time? Why would there be a next time?! She… fuck, you couldn’t deny the fact you were watching her, curious on what lied below her clothing. Though, there wasn’t much fabric she used to cover herself. None of the Yautjas did. Nudity wasn’t frowned upon like it is for your species.

Your brows furrowed the more you thought about it. They way you watched… and she wanted you to. She set you up and you enjoyed it!

All thoughts came to a halt… Enjoyed? Did you enjoy it? You didn’t dare answer that. You frowned and shifted once more to have your legs over the arm rest, back to the other side. Another few berries were tossed into your mouth, mindlessly munching on them.

What is wrong with you? You sighed and curled more in yourself. This was all wrong. After Dwainet, you sworn to never feel a thing for any of these monsters. That’s what they are. Dwainet took you from your home, away from everything you knew and promised you love that he clearly lost for you. Now, look where it got you. In the worst place possible. Escape was hard enough but if she was interested in you… that was a whole either situation you had to worry about. At a later date. Today, you had to survive the stalker.

Warm arms scooped you up from the couch. You yelped and scrambled to right yourself but the limbs tensed and kept you firmly in place. When a familiar pink flashed in your vision you stilled, eyes wide and glancing up at the Yautja holding you. “What are you doing?” you questioned, voice faltering.

We’ar-ow held you close to her, against her bare chest, turned around, then stole your spot. A grumpy look fell over your features as you were ready to flail around to escape. The Yautja chuckled and patted your cheek. “You look cute when you are pouting,” she teased and plucked a piece fruit from your bowl. There was nothing you could do to fight her.

Stiffly, you hesitantly relaxed into her lap once realizing there wasn’t a chance to wiggle free. She let a slackened arm fall over your lap. You tensed but returned to your former position, half-mindlessly munching at the berries she snacked on as well. The Yautja didn’t say anything else and seemed to enjoy your company.

Despite the will to fight her, to fight this; after the last week living in the terror of being hunted down by a Yautja has worn you down. She was there. She willingly protected you. She carried you to her room, set you down in her bed, and locked you in her room. For your protection. She cares. To what extent is a great question you would love to answer.

For the time being, you would enjoy her warm body and food she provided. Though, it came with an unfortunate title: pet. Your lips pressed against each other at the reminder. There was always a trade off and maybe it had to come with that title to live a life worriless.

You’ve yet to come to terms with that though. The pain still far too fresh to think of lying and rolling over for her. Or anyone for that matter.

Special tag: @michellefoster12

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18

[isei-bleeds]

More of the old big gal herself, Leader of the Koroth'Ul, Mother of Many: Kindut'ru Kindut'ru is not her birth name, but it is one given herself after being one of the few survivors of the the Temple Massacre, long ago. It's spoken in the clan's original tongue, Old Korith, and means 'Once Dead'.

All Koroth'Ul leaders are given the honorific of Mother/Father of Many, as all of the clan are under their patronage. Remember that the Koroth'Ul do not adhere to number of children as part of their grandiosity. One's glory is their own. A yautja only needs to have one Koroth'Ul parent to be considered Koroth'Ul themselves. Kindut'ru has birthed and raised many children herself, and her mammary glands are stretched and loose over her pectorals.

Only the Leaders wear the 'crown', as Koroth'Ul like to bring attention to themselves, unlike many other yautja. The rest of the Koroth'Ul will wear their traditional, hallmark crest. In combat, they will viciously shake their heads so that the metallic clasps of their tresses strike against the bones to create a thunderous, terrible rattling sound.

Kindut'ru may be getting up there in age, but she is still Leader for a reason and has held her crown for a generation longer than most.

[scarlettaagni]

The Flayed Thing under Tlega Oasis

An allegedly cursed spot of vegetation in the desert off the outskirts of the Bleached Bone Clan. Despite being such a convenient respite from the harsh climate and suns, all travelers are warned from entering, at least too far into the oasis. It is said those who go too deep come back changed, and unlike gods who impersonate mortals, who relinquish when the original mortal returns, they stay changed. Those who keep their distance and return well report a voice in its depths.

Tlega Oasis was said to have been placed there by the gods themselves long ago, not as a gift to the people, but the consequence of them punishing a wayward Ancient, Tlega. For his pursuit of power that did not belong to him, he was flayed by Paya and cursed not to die by Cetanu, trapped under the ground, his blood feeding the ordinarily dry soil and raising an oasis above his prison. The voice heard is Tlega begging for reprieve, not a true victim of a fall as one may think. Said the gods, “the flayed one will remain there for eternity.”

Hidden in the oasis’ verdure is a crevasse, from which a whispery voice begs for help, unresponsive to questions. The cautious will recognize someone truly in distress would likely be yelling and avoid the trap, but the compassionate few may wish to help someone too weak to raise their volume. When the victim makes their way down, the sweet smell of a rotting Yautja will waft, along with smears of luminescent blood around the cavern.

The occupant of this space is an entirely flayed, quills included, Yautja with a cut throat, who will emerge and ambush the victim. With an abnormally grown claw on its left middle finger, the Flayed Thing similarly flays the newcomer before slashing their throat. As the newcomer reels, the Flayed Thing picks up the pristine hide and slips it on as if it were cloth, the flesh sealing as if never cut.

Now appearing exactly as the newcomer, the former Flayed Thing has the strength to escape the pit and resume normal life under the newcomer’s identity. Meanwhile, the newcomer, body essentially stolen, takes its place as the Flayed Thing; with throat cut and in such a state of pain, they can only weakly beg for anyone to come down, so that they may steal the next newcomer’s hide and free themself of the curse they had been handed.

Each Flayed Thing was once a Yautja unfortunate enough to be lured into the chasm, who must now deal what they had been dealt, passing their pain onto the next one, a process that can take centuries as they cannot die. Desperate enough to escape the endless pain, they pursue their desire to continue their natural life, even if under a different face and name, even if stealing it from someone else innocent.

With the last of the power that was never his, Tlega had exploited a loophole in the gods’ command by casting his own spell. He could not break the curse, but instead pass it on.

Tlega grew himself a weapon in the form of an extended claw that can cut through nearly all things, with which the passerby, young Aganon, was flayed, and cursing him to near-silence, Tlega cut his throat. Finally, his spell allowed him to wear the hide of his reluctant rescuer; in doing so, Tlega both escaped punishment and his natural death, living the rest of his young and healthy replacement’s days.

This was allowed to occur because of the gods’ exact wording: the eternal punishment is not broken as long as any “flayed one” remains down there, not Tlega himself.

However, humbled by his millennia of torture, Tlega ensured his spell would also pass to his replacement, so that they may escape as he did. Once skinned by the Flayed Thing, their victims will grow a talon with which to silence their replacement and steal their visage. Ad infinitum, ad nauseum.

The spell makes the Thing’s muscles, skeleton, blood, eye color, voice, sex— everything, become indistinguishable from their replacement’s. It is irreversible, to everyone’s chagrin. Even when they die, they will take their replacement’s place in the afterlife, only identifiable via the stolen life and name. Tlega, never having escaped as “Tlega”, known to everyone only as “Aganon”, evaded the gods’ attention this way.

Those who had been the Flayed Thing do not speak of it, and quietly live out their replacement’s life. It would be difficult to, under Tlega’s curse of silence. It is unwise for any former Flayed Thing to confess otherwise, for fear of retribution.

The public is completely ignorant to the current nature of the Flayed Things. As far as everyone who had heeded the warnings is concerned, the voice and skinned figure is, and always has been, Tlega.

A former Flayed Thing returning to the crevasse cannot be attacked by the current Thing. The claw cannot pierce flesh already cut by it, as that would undo the work of its own spell.

[cuntasaurus-rex]

Yautja Headcanons

Originally posted at @tichindesfattits

NSFW/mature themes

Hierarchy

Clan Leader/Matriarch

The leaders of the clan. I feel that both pretty much have the same amount of power, both working together to run the clan, though clan leader has final say on the most important decisions

Also, I think that either males or females can be clan leader; in the case that a female yautja holds the title, their counterparts are referred to as "Patriarchs."

Clan Leaders focus more on off-planet matters, dealing with warriors and hunts, while the Matriarchs focus more on on-planet matters, and focus a lot on child raising related issues in particular.

Both positions are earned through through challenging the former leader/matriarch to a fight to the death; although in a minority of cases, it's simply passed to another member of the clan (such as offspring or one considered worthy), or earned through a contest of some kind (such as a hunt demonstrating leadership skills or getting a better trophy).

Ancients (Title)

Ancients are elderly yautja that are old enough to have written the laws that the yautja abide by now. They are older, and are usually off doing their own thing. They will occasionally advise the leaders of the clan, as well as give guidance to younger members of the clan.

Elders (Title, Rank)

The most experienced of yautja, they make up the smallest class of yautja. Used for warriors, but unlike the Elite title, it is often used to refer to older yautja of other professions as well.

Elder Warriors often also hold the title of Clan Leader/Matriarch. There is a council of Elders, made up of both male and female yautja who advise the clan leader and matriarch. They are also the ones responsible for assigning Enforcers to hunt down Bad Bloods.

Chiva Masters are one of the positions that an Elder Warrior can hold, responsible for overseeing the rite of passage of all young unblooded.

Elites

Also known as "Veterans", Elites are yautja who are highly specialized in their field, and there are many subsets of them.

Arbiters/Enforcers: Yautja that are either assigned to hunt down Bad Bloods by Elders, or hunt them down themselves for the honor of the clan.

Pack Leader: In charge of training groups of unblooded yautja.

Adjutants:

A hunting captain's/pack leader's second,-in-command. Help Leaders train packs of unblooded yautja.

Blooded

Regular Blooded yautja, who are above youngbloods, unblooded, pups and sucklings. They are also above servants and slaves.

Youngblood

Freshly blooded young adult yautja.

Unblooded

Any young yautja that hasn't been blooded yet. Most known for being used for unblooded warriors.

Pups/Younglings

Children's rank isn't really considered, but they do answer to anyone above them.

Sucklings

Infants are below everyone else in rank for obvious reasons.

ALSO:

Servants:

Servants are younger yautja who don't know what path they want to take; they perform public service jobs until they decide (though there usually is a certain amount of time they have to do so).

Slaves:

Usually yautja who have passed their Chiva but have become crippled in some way, and so can't pursue their path any longer.

If they choose not to kill themselves, they become slaves to other yautja. No yautja is born a slave, and yautja born to slaves are raised with the same opportunities as other children. Slaves can't be beaten or killed without good reason, and must be provided for.

Note: Not all clans practice slavery, some having abolished the practice entirely.

Ages

*Human equivalents are in parentheses

1-10: Babies to toddlers (0-4).

Nothing's really expected of them for obvious reasons.

10-20: Children (5-10).

The time period of learning the basics like reading and writing, all the normal things expected for young kids. The concept of the honor code is introduced early on, but not really enforced yet..

20-30: Preteens (10-12).

This is where they start learning more about their culture and life skills.

All young yautja go through basic combat and hunting skills throughout this period.

While not all yautja will go on to pursue the warrior's path, it is expected that they learn some skills, as they will be beneficial for them to know as they get older- particularly fighting skills, as it is their main way to settle disputes and prove themselves worthy to potential mates.

They also begin learning more advanced subjects in their schooling.

The honor code begins to be enforced, though being underaged, the punishments aren't harsh or extreme and are just treated as learning opportunities.

30-40: Young teens (13-16).

Have started learning more about their culture, and are expected to uphold the code(though death and banishment are usually not on the table still, except for extreme offenses).

Usually have a 'graduation' before they start having to pick a trade/career to learn.

40-50: Older Teens (16-18).

Have either started their apprenticeships for their chosen trade/career or have chosen to begin training to become a hunter.

In the case of choosing the warrior's path, the first real segment of their training begins (starting with basic survival skills, learning about future prey, and being taught the fundamentals of the warrior's path). Combat training also begins.

The honor code is fully enforced for all young yautja.

50-60: Young Adults (18-21)

The age Yautja begin reaching/reach full physical maturity. While they are adults, they're not fully recognized as such until they pass their tests (which vary depending on what their career is).

In the case of warriors, the second stage of their training begins, where they are taken to other planets and begin to prepare for their Chiva.

90-100:

Of Blooding Age/Have been blooded, which is what all young yautja are referred to after passing their respective trials.

While warriors in training are the only ones to battle kiande amedha, other younglings also have to hunt a prey creature as a rite of passage.

After being blooded, all young yautja are seen as official adults.

100+:

Blooded. Makes up the bulk of the population, all various ranks competing to gain status and honor.

500+:

The age where yautja reach the rank of Elite, highly specialized in their field. This is almost used exclusively for warriors.

750+:

Elders, older, highly experienced members of yautja society.

1000:

Clan Leader & Matriarch, the leaders of clans

1000+:

Ancients, elderly yautja. The smallest and most dangerous faction of yautja.

*These ages, especially for older adults (starting with elites) are baseline and age can be disregarded in favor of skill when climbing in rank. for example, a Yautja CAN reach Elite status at say, 300+ years. Same way some can be Elders/Clan Leaders sooner, etc. Usually not more than a two hundred year gap though.

General lifespan: I feel like 2-2.5k years is a yautja's maximum life span, going off of a canon yautja's age.

Mating

•Males interested in the same female will fight for the right to her. They then have to fight the female in question, in order to prove themselves. I don't think females interested in the same male will fight one another for him. While I'm sure it can happen, particularly for the younger ones, there are too many males to pick from. And anyway I just think that most yautja women are the embodiment of "girls' girls" and therefore won't be caught dead fighting another woman over a man of all things.

•Mostly in the case of two females interested in the same male, the older more experienced one gets him by default.

•Females are definitely more aggressive and assertive during sex, especially during breeding season. Males go into it expecting to get banged up - and they do.

•"Submissive" males are looked down as a whole, but behind closed doors I absolutely believe that there are males that enjoy being dominated by big females- and that are females that enjoy it just as much.

•Sex is a very casual thing in yautja society. It definitely happens outside breeding season, depending on an individual's preferences. Some don't see it as necessary outside mating season, others enjoy it too much not to do it.

Other sex-related HCs

•While all yautja are able to breed after reaching the appropriate age, it's not as simple as that. While they're old enough to be considered, it's just that: considered. Usually the ones most involved in breeding are higher ranked warriors - ie, those who've already produced strong offspring and are therefore most sought after.

•Most clans view mating with anything other than their own as dishonorable. While half-bloods with other species are possible (if unlikely) they are usually viewed as abominations, and the ones who aren't killed and are allowed into the clan usually don't have a very good time of it.

•I feel like there's no way yautja don't know what BDSM is, even if the don't have a name for it. They're freaks, period

Courting

•Males will do a lot of posturing. Flexing, displays of strength, fighting other males to prove themselves to females.

•I also like the idea of them being somewhat like peacocks and dressing up to catch a potential mates' attention.

•While I feel like males are more active in trying to win mates, as there are more of them in the male:female ratio... I feel like females will also participate as well. Particularly young females pursuing a higher ranked male that's sired strong pups in the past. They will also do the same type of things that males do to gain attention.

•Offering not only trophies, but also small trinkets as courting gifts. The latter for cases where the yautja are closer, such as friends or trying to be life mates.

•I think that yautja are not monogamous, as their society is very focused on breeding/producing offspring. However, I do feel that pair bonding/developing affections for one particular partner isn't uncommon, and two yautja will settle down, especially as they get older.

•Because their society is so focused on breeding, I feel same-sex relationships can get quite a variety of reactions. Especially taking into account clan traditions, some being more lenient, and others not so much. I feel that most yautja in same-sex relationships will try to keep it quiet, because depending on the reactions (not caring as long as offspring are made/ if you're a high enough rank and have lots of kids already, to having it be outright looked down upon and risking being ostracized/exiled).

Misc

°Like jaguars, yautja also consume a hallucinogenic plant to not only boost their mood but to enhance their senses when hunting. It's called Guh'ja.

°Yautja don't like milk, and think it's strange that grown humans still drink it. Are especially horrified because humans drink the milk of other species, at that.

°Their dreads shed and peel, and have to be properly maintained, not only for looks but for practical purpose. If they have too much dead skin on them, it can hinder them sensing their surroundings.

°Despite their harsh lifestyle, yautja are very social and touchy, especially with those they are close with (direct family and hunting packs come to mind).

°Yautja can't really speak human languages very well, often having to spend years to learn, and even then it's not perfect. Because of this, most yautja use translators and voice recorders to communicate with humans, especially the younger ones. Also because they don't have lips, they use their throat to help form human words.

Pregnancy

•My personal bc is that yautja females are pregnant around the same amount of time as humans. So roughly nine months. Breastfeeding period is also the same, at roughly 6 months. (credits to partofmycharm for helping me)

•Most of the women don't let their pregnancy get in the way of their day to day life. Though as their due date approaches, they are definitely more mindful of their activities. No fight fights in the kehrite for sure.

•One of the most dangerous yautja females is a pregnant one. Their mood swings are very extreme, especially as the delivery date gets closer.

•When the time comes, yautja women give birth in a nest they've already had arranged, and are assisted by other females. Males aren't involved at all.

Children

•Females are the primary caretaker of children. Usually a group of them will all raise their offspring together in a community type deal. •Males aren't involved in childrearing, and unless they are higher ranked yautja (who make more effort to have an impact on how their offspring develop) usually only active in their kids lives once they've reached their late teens, if not later than that.

•Females are very protective of their young, to the point of maiming/killing anything they perceive as a threat to their offspring.

[partofmycharm]

The Placeholder - Yautja x OC

Originally posted on AO3 under the same name.

A/N: Just something random that I came up with and thought would be fun to write. I also have a Predator/Alien server on Discord! We’re a very welcoming community and would love for you to join. 

Pairing: Yautja (Male) x OC (Female)

Word Count: 5916

Content Warnings: partner betrayal, depression, mentions of suicide, NSFW

Description: Beth hasn't had much luck with relationships. It gets worse before it gets better.

Aun'ta = (awn-tah) Ya'yti = (yah-yih-tee) Yithou = (yih-thow) s’he’ie-te u’sl-kwe = (seh-heh-ee-teh ooh-sel-kweh)

-

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Beth wasn’t stupid. She wouldn’t consider herself intellectually gifted, either. But she was emotionally aware and empathetic — she could read a room the moment she stepped into it.

So, it didn’t go over her head when she noticed the change in Aun’ta’s behaviour. It started small. He seemed peppier — not unusual, sometimes his moods fluctuated, and that was okay. Beth couldn’t exactly pinpoint the day his spirit lifted, but she did notice the gradual increase in effort. This, as a whole, was unsurprising. Recently, the clanship had been visited by a group of martial artists for a temporary program in which Yautjas and humans trained together, all in preparation for the Space Olympics the following year. Aun’ta loved hunting, and, naturally as the himbo that he was, he’d signed up for the program, for which he would dedicate three months of his time. He was partnered with an old hunt brother of his, from which he’d known since they were young, and they’d quickly rekindled their friendship. They worked together to teach two other humans, and it wasn’t nonsense to attribute his spike of energy to that.

Life in a clanship was boring. That, Beth could appreciate. She had joined four years ago under the health program as a Medic Assistant, two of which she’d spent in a relationship with the male Yautja. Aun’ta. He wasn’t exactly the smartest. The best he could do was hit two rocks against each other and figure out it makes sound (Beth would never say that to his face because, alas, she loved him). It wouldn’t be necessary to say anything, however, because Aun’ta knew he’d never been built for any of the complicated clan jobs. He’d taken a fancy to the Arbitrator title, and he’d been pursuing it for as long as he could remember, even if he didn’t really understand the full details of what it entailed. As a result, the most he contributed to the clan was food, as he spent most of his time hunting and honing his skills. With experience came wealth, however, and Aun’ta was lucky enough to trade a lot of the stuff he’d accumulated for the bigger and better. But when he met Beth, his trips became less and less frequent. The last time he’d left the clanship was seven months ago, and Aun’ta was bored.

Beth had encouraged him to take up any of the less complicated jobs. She suggested being a temporary caterer, clothesmaker, blacksmith, anything! She’d even pushed for him to enquire about becoming an Assistant Medic. But he refused! He liked nothing else but the hunt, and he didn’t really have any hobbies besides sex and beating up other Yautja in the kehrite. Beth had given up in the end. Aun’ta was stubborn. His skull was thick. So, when this new program came into talks, they were both ecstatic about the opportunity. Peppiness at this time wasn’t suspicious.

It did become a little strange when Aun’ta grew cuddlier at night. Beth wasn’t opposed to this; he just wasn’t a touchy-feely male. It was different. But perhaps the shakeup of routine had invoked an inspiration for a personality change. And, besides, Aun’ta was large and warm, perfect combinations for sleep, and Beth found herself melting into his embrace every night.

Sometimes shifts as an Assistant Medic were long. The clanship was massive, there was never an empty day, but this particular one had seen quite a few Unbloods. There had been a brawl, and Beth was the lucky assistant to get stuck with the aftermath — lots of blood, bone, and open flesh. The Yautja Medics had also been quite unhappy with this development, as it was the time of the season for the females to start giving birth. They took priority, so it was obviously an annoyance for the invasion of immature, raucous males complaining about their losses. But they weren’t the worst. It was the Unbloods who preened with their chests puffed, the ones who thought their shit didn’t stink because they beat up a fellow child. Most of them refused to get treated because they didn’t want to lose any ‘battle scars’. Whatever. Beth just pretended she didn’t hear them purring to her.

It was a late finish that day. When Beth arrived at their shared room, Aun’ta was already there. That wasn’t a surprise. But it was the first time they didn’t have sex before sleeping, and Beth had told herself it was because she was tired, and sex was the last thing on her mind after the last few hours of chaos. It didn’t hit her until reflection that she realised he hadn’t even tried to initiate anything.

Eventually, sex became a scarcity. And that’s when Beth started to become suspicious. Love blinded people, and she felt nauseous when she realised how much the rose-tinted glasses stayed on. There was a brief period where Beth worried she wasn’t appealing to him anymore, but those washed away when they coupled on the day that had them stuck in their room together, with nothing to do.

With so many individuals on a clanship, most jobs were demanding and busy. Stress was no stranger, and Beth felt it throughout the birthing season. As a mere assistant, she couldn’t do much, but the days were jam-packed, and the clan welcomed over thirty new pups, pure blood and hybrids alike. Beth loved her job, and even though the long days exhausted her body and mind, she’d been talking with the Head Medic about promoting her. Of course, it would entail a lot of study, but Beth was willing to sacrifice an arm and a leg to become a qualified Medic — that alone could even allow her to work as a doctor in human hospitals, the opportunities for these positions new after the alliance recognised and allowed credit for prior learning. This prospect was probably the biggest news she’d learned thus far in the past four years, but she couldn’t share the excitement when she left to retire for bed that night. Aun’ta was growing more and more distant, becoming quieter, and he’d blamed it on the stress from his rigorous schedule (he trained for only half a day cycle, and never more than five cycles in a row).

Beth could empathise. But she wasn’t stupid.

They were almost strangers now. They slept in the same nest, and lived in the same room, but they hardly acknowledged each other anymore. When Beth woke up, Aun’ta was gone. He came back later in the night cycle, sometimes he never returned at all. And when the rose-tinted glasses finally fell off, Beth could see the situation in its entirety. It would take a fool to not see what was happening, and the very idea opened chasms in her heart.

It was a lucky day when Yithou came into the medbay. He was Aun’ta’s old hunt brother, the one who he’d recently rekindled his friendship with. Beth was cleaning the surgery tools from their previous patient when Yithou entered for a bone resetting. While Yautja were taught first aid, they never learnt much beyond that unless they wanted to become a Healer. It wasn’t necessary for them. Emergency first aid was essential during the hunt, anything beyond that could be life-threatening, even if it was easily treated by trained professionals. And besides, resetting bones was actually harder than it seemed, and many injuries had occurred from stupid people thinking they could lend a helping hand. The worst thing for Yithou was getting someone like Aun’ta to reset it for him.

When Beth knew Yithou was treated and recovered, she slyly stood by him before he was signalled to leave. “So, how’s the program going?”

“Better than expected,” Yithou said.

“You’re partnered with Aun’ta, correct?” Beth asked. She sprayed the medical tools with an antibacterial cleanser.

“Yes. And with two ooman females.”

Beth’s face remained placid. “So he told me,” she lied easily. “Are they nice?”

“Stubborn,” Yithou said. “Rude.”

“Well, Aun’ta seems to think otherwise. He’s taken a special liking,” Beth said casually.

“You know of their relations?” Yithou cocked his head.

Big, beefy, and brainless. There was a small demographic of them on the clanship. It seemed like-minded individuals attracted like-minded individuals.

Beth smiled. “You knew they were together?”

“Yes.” Yithou cocked his head to the side. He looked her up and down. “I am sure you will find a more worthy male.”

“I’m not counting on it.”

Beth was thankful Aun’ta never returned home that night. It gave her extra time to think of what she would say to him, and extra time to cry alone in the washroom without worrying about intrusions. She’d suspected as such in the beginning when his cuddliness had bordered excessive. The thoughts had been fleeting but loud, watered like seeds even more so when the wall began to build. Beth thought herself to be confident, however, she couldn’t help but reflect critically upon herself. Perhaps she’d been the problem. Perhaps she’d been too boring.

The dejection didn’t last long; it eventually paved way for deep-rooted anger, nursed by the inner turmoil that stormed Beth’s insides. She’d put up with Aun’ta’s sorry excuse of an ass for two years now — from his tumultuous mood swings and incessant need to speak only of his adventures (while impressive, they grew repetitive, and there was only so much someone could milk their own ego). His personality was as bland as a bowl of white rice, and Beth had fallen head over heels for the only male that had ever shown an interest in her.

But the longer Beth sat with those thoughts flitting back and forth in her mind, she realised that could have just been the anger talking. Aun’ta had been good in the beginning. He’d gifted her skulls, while scary at first, the gesture had become endearing when she’d learned the meaning. He’d been affectionate, with those gentle grazes here and there that she craved towards the end. They’d ridden on a high for the first few months of their relationship, and Beth had quickly grown addicted to the feelings that blossomed in her chest when she was around him.

But it always came back to Aun’ta’s ‘house arrest’, self-imposed, for the most part. Beth had never asked him to abandon the hunt and his chase for the Arbitrator title, though he hardly seemed worthy of it now. But she had always felt there was a level of resentment on Aun’ta’s behalf, and the very idea made Beth see red. Even more so now, in hindsight.

It was halfway through the next day when Aun’ta finally returned. He wore nothing but an unwashed loincloth that Beth swore he’d worn last week. That was something that had always irked her — his laziness. As someone who thought his shit didn’t stink, everything else sure did. Not literally, but Beth had been confounded when she’d learned not all Yautja shared the same hygiene habits. Again, rose-tinted glasses.

“I wasn’t aware the program ran overnight,” Beth said from her position on one of the lounging seats.

Aun’ta paused in the middle of the room. “Sometimes the humans request extra training. It can run overtime.”

“Oh, yeah?” Beth asked casually. “What kind of moves are you teaching each other? Missionary, cowgirl, or doggy style?”

Aun’ta straightened. “Speak plainly,” he said.

“Cut the dominance bullshit.” Beth scrunched her nose in disgust. “Only a coward would go behind their mate’s back.”

“I am no coward,” Aun’ta barked immediately. His chest puffed out at the insult, at the mere insinuation that he was less than a capable, honourable male. He was going to become an Arbitrator, and Arbitrators weren’t cowards.

“You haven’t proved to me otherwise, since you don’t even have the guts to tell me what the fuck’s going on,” Beth said. She could feel her own anger resurfacing, the remnants that had bubbled and boiled for hours before they cooled. The flames had been ignited again, however.

“If you so wish,” Aun’ta said. “I have been waiting for the right time to inform you that I wish to no longer be mates. I have found a female who I believe to be my life-mate.”

That felt like a punch to the guts. No, several punches. Beth tried her best to keep a placid expression despite how winded she felt. Her mouth went dry almost immediately, and though she wished to not clue him in on how she felt, she knew that Aun’ta could taste the change in pheromones immediately.

“Life-mate?” Beth asked. It seemed to be the only words she could speak at that moment. Her mind and heart were racing, and she felt like she couldn’t get a grip on any sense. Aun’ta had never even uttered that term before, and while Beth was familiar with it, she had been naïve to assume… that, well, perhaps he viewed her as that.

“Yes.”

So simple, yet it felt so cruel.

Beth tried to think of something to say, but she couldn’t find anything that was appropriate. After a few seconds of staring down at the floor in an attempt to regather her thoughts, she looked back up at Aun’ta, who stared with such little regard in his eyes it scared her. “So, what about me? The two years that we spent together? It meant nothing to you?”

“You are… a kind female,” Aun’ta said slowly. “But I never felt you were my life-mate. I have found someone more worthy.”

Worthy?! There weren’t many words to describe how Beth felt — gobsmacked, blindsided; that was a good starting point. She knew he’d been cheating, but never in a million years could she imagine these words coming from his mouth. They felt to be more in affront, purposeful to rile her up.

“So, I was just a fucking placeholder for you until you found someone better,” Beth said quietly, more to herself than him. “Cool.”

“It is the Yautja way.” Aun’ta almost shrugged, but he stopped.

“No, Aun’ta. It’s your way.” Beth shook her head. She looked up at him after taking a few deep breaths. “And I’m not going to let you stand there and degrade me. I deserve better than that. Whether you like it or not, your actions are cowardly. No real male would feel the need to go behind someone’s back, and no real male would feel the need to use someone like this.”

Aun’ta sneered. “Then perhaps you don’t have what it takes to live among Yautja.”

He was just trying to offend her. Beth knew it was a self-preservation technique; he felt emotionally threatened, and that much was obvious to her. And though she wanted to play into his pathetic game and snap back, doing so would solve nothing. Beth sighed and stood up. “I thought better of you, but obviously I was wrong. That’s really disappointing.” There was a multitude of things she could say, and as much as she wanted to, there really was no point. Getting through Aun’ta’s skull was like getting through a brick wall with a needle. He had it coming to him — patience was a virtue.

As Beth started walking towards the door, Aun’ta flared his mandibles. “You are best to take your—”

“You don’t have to worry about that,” Beth interrupted. While she wished she could slam the door shut, Yautja’s tended to build automatic sliding doors. It made for rather uneventful exits.

Beth had expected the transition to be easy — the past two months had entailed alienation between the pair of them. They had barely had a conversation, let alone touched each other in bed. But once the anger heightened and dissipated, she felt a particular sense of darkness loom over her head. Something heavy pinched her heart, and it seemed to weigh more with each passing day.

Her work performance suffered; the pungent permeation of her pheromones distracted a lot of the patients and the Medics. To the Yautja, human sadness smelt like a particular white plant that grew on their clan’s moon colony. When in bloom, it possessed a strong odour, while not wholly unpleasant and invasive on their olfactory senses, it smelt heavy and loaded with invocations of melancholy. Sometimes, when the plant was consumed during bloom, it invoked such intense feelings of misery that animals oftentimes committed suicide to end their suffering. The Yautja referred to this curse as s’he’ie-te u’sl-kwe, which, in English, translated as ‘to weave final rest.’

But Beth was of no curse, no s’he’ie-te u’sl-kwe, even if she smelt like it. This was a different kind of curse, one born of heartbreak and self-hatred. Though the Yautja had developed an antidote (necessary, of course, for the stupid Unbloods who thought it funny to consume the white plant as a challenge), this type of misery could not be cured with an antidote.

Beth had gathered her things from Aun’ta’s room when he was gone, and she’d been relocated to the small human quarters a few floors below. The room was tiny in comparison, more like a studio. It was different to fall asleep every night not being able to smell Aun’ta’s strange, alien scent. Like a brewery; cold alcohol with hints of coriander, strong and masculine. It had taken a while to get used to, but Beth had ended up liking the scent, and she always found herself falling to sleep wrapped in it.

Now, it smelt like… nothing. Her nose no longer buzzed with Aun’ta. It felt strangely empty. Beth tried very hard to remain angry at him, but she couldn’t help the heaviness that weighed her head and shoulders down.

It hurt even worse when she finally saw the woman that Aun’ta had left her for. A skilled martial artist, indeed, confident, perhaps a little too much. She was bossy, and arrogant, Aun’ta oftentimes found himself stumbling after her, left in the dust of her parade. She was cocky, and thought of herself too highly, heightened even more so when their relationship became public. It was distasteful behaviour; she thought herself superior for having a Yautja mate. And though Beth reserved judgment, she couldn’t help but laugh at her replacement.

Aun’ta had never been a chaser, but now he was scratching his head at his ‘life-mate’. He very quickly realised their incompatibility, but the sex had been all too appealing. Or perhaps it was the secrecy that made it fun, and while he’d felt a little guilty in the beginning, he rather enjoyed knowing something no one else didn’t. But entering a state of domesticity with her had brought out their flaws. Hell, the room hadn’t been cleaned since Beth left, and Aun’ta had started to feel icky in his own hide.

It wasn’t until about a month later that things started to really change for Beth. She had been more than disappointed to discover that Aun’ta’s new ‘life-mate’ had decided to stay after the program finished, and she’d finish up her Space Olympics training here, which, in turn, forced her instructors to remain on the clanship, too. But, alas, their paths never really crossed, so Beth had nothing to complain about beyond the fact that she was her replacement.

On one random cycle, a small group of Elders returned from a negotiations trip with another clan. Well, that’s what Beth heard, anyway, but she assumed two months was a long time for that sort of business. She didn’t really know how that stuff worked — her concern was in the medbay with the injured and sick.

Beth and Aun’ta’s mateship had been no secret, and their split hadn’t been, either. The sight of him with a new human female had turned a few heads, especially the Elders that had finally returned. One of them was Ya’yti, with a pebbled hide of liquorice brown and jasmine yellow, but his deep, dark green eyes were most capturing.

He was no stranger to Beth. She had never spoken with him directly, but she had often seen him around the clanship. Wherever she needed to go, he always seemed to be there. His gaze was capturing, alluring, intense, scarily so. Beth had always felt intimidated in his presence as if every bit of her was being scrutinised and picked apart just by him. There were times he’d seemed to linger in the medbay, often talking with the Head Medic in their native language, so Beth had easily assumed Ya’yti to be directly involved with the medical team.

So, it was a surprise when Ya’yti approached her when she was alone in the medbay the day after his arrival. He wore nothing but a black loincloth and his thermo-net, and Beth was immediately hit by his overwhelming scent. It was warm, earthy, like digging your toes into soil, with complements of burning sage, all of which permeated her pores and warmed her insides. Her extremities tingled, and her head felt fuzzy.

“Where is Aun’ta?” Ya’yti asked. Of course, that had to be the first thing he ever said to her.

Beth didn’t look at him as she continued her work, all the while trying not to get wrapped up in his scent. “Fucking his new girlfriend.”

Ya’yti clicked thoughtfully. He stood watching her for an extra second or two, before he grumbled the human equivalent of a hum and then calmly walked off. Beth only looked at him as the door soundlessly slid shut, and only then did she release the shaky breath she’d been holding.

She had expected that to be the end of it. Beth almost fainted in the middle of the corridor when Ya’yti stopped her the next day. He got onto one knee and bowed his head as he offered his most prized skull.

“For Beth,” he rumbled.

There were others watching, Beth was keenly aware. She was also aware of what the gesture meant, though she admitted it befuddled her. Ya’yti had never shown any interest in her before. Well, at least, to her knowledge. But she kept thinking back to how she felt the moment Ya’yti stepped into her vicinity. It was nothing she’d ever experienced with Aun’ta.

Beth accepted.

They moved slowly at first. Beth wasn’t really sure what they were to each other, she couldn’t really say she knew much about him. So, when he invited her for a night at the viewing port, she accepted again. It was a private, rounded room that allowed a front row to the breathless views space had to offer. Beth had never really taken the time to stop and appreciate the beauty around them, but she quickly grew to fall in love with the sights.

Ya’yti touched her for the first time that night. It was a mere caress on her face, so gentle and feathery, it was almost as if he was afraid of hurting her. He purred deeply that time, so different to Aun’ta, but Beth couldn’t deny it felt so right.

Meeting in the viewing port became somewhat of a normality. Nobody ever really ventured there; only a few times did another Yautja or human show up for some downtime. Beth learned a lot about Ya’yti. He didn’t tend to speak much, but he found himself talking more and more with each passing night. He’d been a renowned Hunter in his prime, and he’d been the clan’s most sought-after weapons maker. When he reached Elder status, he retired from those days, and he’d joined the clan council, where he worked for the better of his people. Beth had been surprised when he said that, no, he’d never been much of a Medic or a ‘Healer’ as the Yautja’s called them.

Anyways, there was a scary amount of intelligence that simmered within, the likes to which Beth found herself becoming attracted to. He was wise beyond comprehension; articulate in his words and thoughts. Ya’yti still enjoyed the occasional hunt, but he much preferred exploration, and taking advantage of everything life had to offer. He’d tried his hand at being a green thumb but found that plants often died in his care. He didn’t really know what he was doing wrong, but he swore he’d nurture one through its entirety.

“You are lucky. Ya’yti has never considered a female before,” the Head Medic mentioned one day.

“I never expected it to be me,” Beth said.

“He has liked you for a long time. You were just too busy with that lump of a male to notice.”

Surprisingly, Beth found herself quickly forgetting Aun’ta. She never really saw him anymore, anyway, and with Ya’yti, he grew to become somewhat of a distant memory. She felt things she’d never felt before, experienced things she’d never experienced before.

Those innocent, curious touches they shared became frequent. Ya’yti held her for the first time in the viewing port. He wasn’t buff like Aun’ta, but he wasn’t particularly lean, either (his thighs, though… they were another story altogether). His arms, with his defined, rippling muscles, encircled her smaller body so delicately, she felt like fine china. Beth had never really been held like this before, and she fell asleep with her cheek pressed to his warm chest, lulled by the rhythmic beating of his twin hearts. They fell silent that night, just enjoying each other’s presence. Ya’yti almost fell asleep, too, because, for the first time, he felt safe with someone else. He felt as if he could be loved by someone else; he could love someone else.

As imposing as Ya’yti was, he was a warm-hearted individual — for Beth, anyway. She felt confident enough to touch him, too. Grazes along his face; gentle caresses over his mandibles and tusks, eliciting soft, hypnotic purrs and half-lidded eyes. Curious explorations of each other’s bodies, following lines and curves of muscles and scars. Ya’yti would roll her hair between his fingers and then he would gently weave them between the strands and brush out any tangles before resting his palm against the back of her head. He’d become fond of hand-holding, the concept completely human and unnatural to him, but he felt closer to her when they did. His fingers often sought hers, and hers often sought his.

A month after he first courted her, Ya’yti held her in the viewing port. Stars twinkled, an expansive array with barely any space between them. In the distance, a blueish-magenta nebula, so very far away, leaving much to desire. Beth wanted to get closer, see it in its full glory. She thought this as she lay tucked into his side, her head on his chest. Ya’yti held her close, his other hand gently running up and down the side of her face. Affection had also been a strange concept for him, but it felt completely natural here, with her.

“My Beth,” Ya’yti said, quietly, as if afraid to disturb the peace.

“Yeah?”

“Come. Live with me in my quarters.” Ya’yti purred as if to drive the idea home. He’d mentioned once that, as an Elder, his quarters were larger, much more luxurious than those of lower status. He’d said there was plenty of space, especially if they wanted alone time, but Beth was sure she couldn’t get enough of Ya’yti, anyway.

Beth pushed herself up to look at him. She looked between his eyes, so beautifully green she found herself entranced every time she even so much as glanced at them. “You’re okay with that?” She asked, trying to hide her smile.

“Of course,” Ya’yti said. He brushed Beth’s hair behind her ear.

“Okay,” Beth whispered. Her fingers ghosted his lower mandible.

“I have one more question.”

“Yeah?”

Ya’yti took a deep breath, the likes of which fanned across Beth’s face. “Will you be my mate?”

This time, Beth didn’t even try to hide her smile. She pulled herself further up his body. “Of course,” she said. She pressed a soft kiss to his lower mandible, before moving up to his upper one and then the space between his eyes. Ya’yti sighed in contentment, the action encouraging a light purr that rumbled through both of their bodies.

Beth moved in the next day. And Ya’yti was right, his quarters were luxurious. Large, spacious, and even finely decorated. He had a particularly large nest filled with the softest of furs, a sizeable alcove in the floor that was their bathing chambers. It’d been decorated to resemble a natural pond, and the water was comfortingly warm. Ya’yti even had a kitchenette-like area in the corner of the main room, and another corner dedicated to his gardening. There was currently a rare plant he’d been trying to nurture, but the leaves were dying. Beth would fix that.

For the first time that night, their touches went further. Surrounded by the plushness of the furs Ya’yti had accumulated himself, they found each other in close embraces, hot breaths fanning over each other’s faces. Beth had never felt so tingly and warm, so safe in Ya’yti’s arms, the weight of his body pressing gently against hers. Her fingers threaded through his greying tresses; the warmth, fleshy protrusions squeezed softly in her grasp, encouraging shuddering growls from Ya’yti, and harsher bucks that drove him deeper inside her. Beth lifted her hips, pressing kisses to his mandibles as a moan breezed past her lips. His gentle thrusts slowly brought her to a cresting peak, a heat like no other building like a tight knot in her lower abdomen. Beth had never known sex like this; intimate, romantic, they came together as one. Their hands explored their bodies in a way they hadn’t before, and their tongues met in a passionate dance, tasting each other in ways neither had done so with anyone else. And when that tight knot finally snapped, and Beth quite literally felt a white glow encase her body, she vocalised his name and squeezed his tresses, her heart tattooing rhythmic affection, leaving a permanent place for Ya’yti in those chambers. And his beat similarly when he felt a tightening and tingling sensation, his thick ropes of cum filling her inner walls, blooming a hot, intense heat.

Beth had started studying. She was to become a Medic — a qualified Yautja Healer, a human doctor. She still worked part-time in the medbay to continue her contributions to the clan. Every day, she felt ever closer to Ya’yti, an experience she never quite had with Aun’ta. Months continued; she never saw him anymore. Beth was to be qualified in a few short years if she kept at that pace, Ya’yti took her to places she never dreamed possible, he made her gifts, she made him gifts, and they spoke of pups in the future. The scent of s’he’ie-te u’sl-kwe, while not exactly that, was only a distant memory.

It was one night Beth found herself alone in the viewing port. Ya’yti and the clan council were in a meeting with another clan, something to do with a trade route that had been recently disturbed by Bad Bloods. They were working together to rid of the problem, each side offering their best Arbitrators for the job. Ya’yti told her everything — there were no secrets between them.

That night, the door slid open. Beth would be lying if she said her heart didn’t stop when she caught Aun’ta’s reflection in the glass. He stepped down onto the padded platform she was on and sat just a few ways from her.

They were silent for what felt like an eternity.

“Beth,” Aun’ta eventually awkwardly acknowledged.

“Long time, no see,” Beth said lowly. She stared at the distant nebula, hoping that she could get lost in its beauty to avoid this conversation.

“I have been searching for you,” Aun’ta said. He wasn’t exactly a great conversationalist; Beth had quickly come to find out early in the beginning.

“Yeah? Your girlfriend know about that?” Beth asked.

Aun’ta flexed his mandibles in discomfort. “She is… no longer my mate.”

That’s unsurprising. Beth finally looked over at him — he appeared worse for wear. It was pitiful even glancing at him. “I thought she was your life-mate.”

“We are too different,” Aun’ta said. “She is leaving in a few cycles.”

“What does this have to do with me?” Beth asked. She dreaded the answer. She picked at the material of the dress Ya’yti had made for her.

“I was wondering if you’d like to move back in with me,” Aun’ta said slowly. “And try again.” He never met her eyes.

Beth exhaled quietly. She’d been expecting it. “No, thank you,” she said, though Aun’ta hardly deserved the pleasantries. “I’m with Ya’yti now.”

It was a surprise Aun’ta didn’t know that. Perhaps he’d been so caught up in his personal drama, he’d lost his awareness. At least the clan life wasn’t boring anymore. Or perhaps he did know, and he was just so self-entitled, he didn’t care. But when Beth closer observed him, she couldn’t exactly pin it on self-entitlement. It felt like desperation; a last claw at normality before giving up. He probably wanted his old life back, and any semblance of that would remedy the shame and self-hatred that bubbled like lava in his blood. He could have realised what he’d lost, but in that realisation, Beth had learned just exactly how unfair the relationship had been.

Nevertheless, she wasn’t an ornament he could put on his trophy wall when he wasn’t interested. That was the problem with Aun’ta, and at least this way, he could learn a very important life lesson. Karma always made its deliveries, sometimes faster than expected. Beth wasn’t complaining, she just wished he saw her as more than a trophy. A living, human being, with thoughts, feelings, likes and dislikes, goals, and family, and friends. It wasn’t a matter of love, it was a matter of respect, to which Beth quickly realised, she would receive none.

Aun’ta never responded. He kept his head lowered. Beth eyed him for a moment longer. “You’ll find someone one day, Aun’ta,” she said quietly. When he didn’t respond again, Beth pushed herself to her feet.

The male quickly rumbled a response. “What if I don’t want someone else?”

“You will,” Beth said. She trusted Aun’ta would learn to let go as she had. It was never an easy process, another trial to overcome. But through that, Beth had found Ya’yti. And though she despised what Aun’ta put her through, harbouring animosity was a sure way to ensure the mind never healed. “I wish you the best, Aun’ta. You still have so much to live for.”

Aun’ta would never respond. He kept his head low, and Beth took this as her cue to leave. Ya’yti would have finished his meeting by now, and she wanted to see him before they slept. He probably hadn’t eaten much the last half of the cycle, so she could make him something to eat and then, whilst he held her in bed, he would tell her of his day, and she would tell him of hers. And while it seemed boring to others, Beth couldn’t help but feel as if she was floating.

And though Beth thought she’d moved on, leaving the viewing port that night after her brief conversation with Aun’ta helped her feel as if she was truly walking away from that aspect of her life forever. Aun’ta would live to move on, to achieve what he wanted, and Beth would, once again, go home to Ya’yti, her real home, to achieve what she wanted, with her life-mate.

Aun’ta would never respond. He kept his head low, and Beth took this as her cue to leave. Ya’yti would have finished his meeting by now, and she wanted to see him before they slept. He probably hadn’t eaten much the last half of the cycle, so she could make him something to eat and then, whilst he held her in bed, he would tell her of his day, and she would tell him of hers. And while it seemed boring to others, Beth couldn’t help but feel as if she was floating.

And though Beth thought she’d moved on, leaving the viewing port that night after her brief conversation with Aun’ta helped her feel as if she was truly walking away from that aspect of her life forever. Aun’ta would live to move on, to achieve what he wanted, and Beth would, once again, go home to Ya’yti, her real home, to achieve what she wanted, with her life-mate.

[tallships-and-starlights]

Basics from the clan that most of my OC's hail from that most of you know nothing about

The Ju'dha-Vak'ra, or Vak'ra for short, are a unique Yautja clan deeply connected to the sea, embodying the spirit of Earth Mediterranean cultures in their family and community structures. Despite their fearsome reputation as hunters, the Vak'ra are known for their jovial and friendly demeanor, fostering strong bonds within their clan and with neighboring communities.

Clan Name and Meaning: Ju'dha-Vak'ra, meaning "water weavers," signifies their mastery of the sea and the intricate weaving of their lives with its rhythms.

Settlement Design:

The Vak'ra settlement is carved into a sheer cliffside overlooking the sea. Homes are constructed halfway between the sea level and the cliff's top, ensuring safety even during storms.

Interconnected by bridges and ladders, the homes form a tight-knit community where families thrive.

Below the cliff, a sandy beach provides a natural harbor for the clan's boats. Docks line the shore, bustling with activity as fishermen prepare for their journeys.

At the summit of the cliff, guild artisan buildings stand proudly, each dedicated to a specific craft such as boat building, weaving, and other traditional arts.

Beyond the settlement, farmer's fields sprawl out, where livestock graze and crops are cultivated. This sustains the clan's agricultural needs and reinforces their self-sufficiency.

The surrounding forests act as a protective barrier, shielding the clan from outside threats and providing a hunting ground for game.

Family and Community Structure:

The Vak'ra emphasize strong family ties and communal bonds. Extended families often reside together in the same home, fostering a sense of unity and support.

Clan gatherings and celebrations are frequent, with feasts and festivals celebrating the sea's bounty and the clan's achievements.

Elders hold revered positions within the clan, serving as guides and advisors, passing down traditions and wisdom to younger generations.

Each member of the clan contributes to its prosperity, whether through fishing, boat building, weaving, or other crafts. Cooperation and collaboration are fundamental values.

Cultural Practices:

Rituals honoring the sea and its creatures are central to Vak'ra culture. Offerings are made to appease sea spirits and ensure bountiful catches.

Traditional dances and music are passed down through generations, reflecting the rhythm of the waves and the spirit of the sea.

The Vak'ra hold a deep respect for nature, viewing themselves as stewards of the land and sea. Sustainable practices are employed in fishing, farming, and resource management.

Hospitality is a cornerstone of Vak'ra culture, with travelers welcomed warmly into their homes and feasted upon with generosity.

Relations with Other Clans:

Despite their amiable nature, the Vak'ra are fiercely protective of their territory and resources. They maintain diplomatic relations with neighboring clans but are prepared to defend their homeland if necessary.

Trade and alliances are forged with coastal and maritime clans, exchanging goods and knowledge to mutual benefit.

The Vak'ra's reputation as skilled fishermen and artisans earns them respect among other Yautja clans, enhancing their standing within the broader community.

Education and Training:

Young Vak'ra children begin their schooling at a young age, where they are taught the history of the clan, including its traditions, legends, and the pantheon of gods and deities they worship.

As they progress through their education, they are trained in essential skills such as combat, hunting (both on land and at sea), and weaving. These skills are crucial for survival and play integral roles in Vak'ra society.

Graduation from schooling requires mastery of these skills. Students must demonstrate proficiency in combat techniques, hunting strategies, and weaving techniques before they can proceed to the next stage of their lives.

Chiva - Rite of Passage:

Upon graduation, students are formed into groups of three, each member possessing a different set of skills learned during their schooling.

These groups are tasked with a significant challenge: to build a boat, weave a sail, and craft necessary weapons for their Chiva, or rite of passage.

The group isolates themselves on the beach, living in their own homes for a period of six to seven moon cycles (roughly six to seven months). During this time, they dedicate themselves entirely to their work, honing their skills and preparing for the ultimate test.

Once the boat is completed and the necessary equipment is crafted, the group sets sail to hunt a large sea serpent, believed to be the progeny of the sea god's mount.

Successfully defeating the sea serpent is a symbol of maturity and prowess. The entire serpent's body is brought back to the clan, where it is utilized in various ways, including consumption of its flesh and crafting of clothing, weapons, and trophies.

The group that felled the beast is now considered adults within the clan, earning them the right to participate in mating season and to build their own homes within the cliffside settlement.

Career Paths:

As adults, Vak'ra clan members have the freedom to choose their career paths, based on their skills, interests, and the needs of the clan.

Career options include weaving, boat building, smithing, farming, soldiering, fishing, or dedicating oneself to the role of healer, which involves serving in the clan's temple and providing spiritual and physical aid to fellow clan members.

God of the Sea:

The god of the sea is depicted as a powerful figure, with large tusked lower mandibles and a scaled cape, wielding a massive bone spear.

He rides atop a massive serpent, using it to traverse the depths of the sea and reach the horizon to meet his lover, the goddess of the moon.

The tale of the sea god's love for the moon goddess begins with his declaration of love. Despite his swimming prowess, he cannot reach the horizon to meet her.

The moon goddess sends down a serpent from the heavens, tasking the sea god with taming it to ride to the horizon. After days of relentless effort, he successfully tames the beast using a net woven from ocean plants.

Riding the serpent, the sea god reaches the horizon and weds the moon goddess, uniting the realms of sea and sky.

Goddess of the Moon:

The goddess of the moon is portrayed as ethereal, with a large crest adorned with a white mark symbolizing the cradle of the moon.

She calls to the sea god, inviting him to meet her on the horizon for their wedding. When he struggles to reach her, she sends him the serpent as a means of transportation.

The moon goddess's union with the sea god results in the birth of twin boys, who became the twin suns that illuminate the earth.

However, the playful nature of the sun's leads to them scalding the sea, revealing the land beneath. To console her husband, the moon goddess molds clouds into various animals, which she casts into the sea to amuse him.

Despite her efforts, the sea god grows lonely over time. In his loneliness, he swims to the edge of the sea and creates a daughter from the clay formed by the waves battering the rocky coast.

The daughter of the land becomes the steward of the earth, shaping its landscapes and populating it with flora and fauna. Her creation of life brings balance to the world and sustains both sea and land.

These myths, passed down through generations, serve to explain the origins of the natural world and reinforce the interconnectedness of the sea, the land, and the celestial realms in the eyes of the Vak'ra people.

God of the Sea: [God of the hunt and weaving]

Name: Thal'rok, meaning "Master of the Depths"

Goddess of the Moon: [Goddess of light, creation, fertility]

Sel'thara - Combining "Sel," referencing the moon, with "Thara," representing divinity

Twin Suns: [Gods of light, fire and mischief]

Names: Ra'kar and Ra'thar, signifying "Sunrise" and "Sunset" respectively

Daughter of the Land: [Goddess of art, fertility, earth and the hunt]

Drakara - Combining "Draka," meaning earth, with a suffix denoting femininity

If you actually read this whole thing than you are the coolest person ever thank you so much. Please feel free to ask me questions. I will be posting more art about this soon. Been drawing everything traditionally so...

[thecleanbean]

-Huntress from the Empire-

Sorry I haven't posted for so long, I had some trouble IRL and forgot to be active- BUT now I'm back! SO! Here are some mighty fine huntress, warriors from the Empire clan! They are from that same clan, yet they are all three so different! And I had a blast making them! (I really wanted to set a foot into my brain and give my gurls some more love, and provide them with art-)

-Meet Shi'kan!-

A young blooded hunter, born from a powerful bloodline from the Enforcer Squad, her father being the Captain is born to be something great! Her goal to become an enforcer herself, gets closer within each day, as she improves her skills, she grows to be a very efficient role to become a lead huntress. But don't take her very flamboyant and feisty demeanor at first sight, she can truly become dangerous in the jungles! With her passion outside of hunting, she loves to put up a show, dancing a dangerous performance with her scythes and her flowy accessories.

-Meet Matra'ya!-

Matra'ya. The matriarch. Leader of the Empire. She hasn't lost her elegance nor her burning soul of what it means to be a leader. She does everything in her might for what's best for the Empire and will fight teeth and tusk for it. She is calm and collected, taking part in what she finds most important, wanting only victory and safety among her people. She is strong, quick, and even young in spirit! With her hundreds of years of experience, she will always lay a great aura among her folk, even if sometimes she can be strict or even too cold, she only does what's best and takes consideration before acting.

-Meet Myr'vah!-

With her top archery skills in her veins, Myr'vah became a mentor/teacher in her early years as a warrior. She teaches blooded who successfully passed their chivas. Those who have a passion for long-range shooting that isn't plasma caster, she has a good eye for, she usually expresses it with her very old funny accent of what is old spoken yautja language. Given her at first glance, she looks rather tough and cold, but giving her time to warm up her personality she would be one of the best teachers out there.

That is it, for now, hope ya enjoy it! :]

[jacklings]

finally getting around to designing other characters from my main oc story. khos is around 900 years old and is kai’lo’s biological peepaw, as well as the clan leader of clan yhar’kah, one of the two main clans :)

Not much is known about Khos’ life before Clan Yhar’kah other than that he was exiled from his birth clan and planet not long after his blooding ritual, though the reason as to why remains unknown. His cold palette suggests that he may have originated from the dubbed Bhu’ja Kv’var-de, an ancient clan of Yautja that had moved and adapted to the cold, harsh winter climates of a distant planet eons ago — but he has never confirmed nor denied anything. Perhaps the mystery is amusing to him, or perhaps it is something he wishes not to think about.

[thenomadclan]

NOMAD HAS A NEW LOOK!!!

Huge shout out to @black-suns-rim for this awesome post card looking art and how it almost looks like the style of the “Bad Blood” or “Concrete Jungle” Dark Horse Comics! Not only does Nomad (my Yautja OC) have a new look, but also a updated Clan Symbol. Below are arts of his old look:

Art on the left was made by a TikToker by the name of yasna1388, picture on the right us custimization from Predator Hunting Grounds. Bottom symbol was originally made by black-suns-rim as well.

@a-z-u-l-g @araghorn07 @burninggladiatorprincess @bunnyraptor69 @captainraye @captainrayessketches @chillxxdash @daswhox @exileraptorda-goat1906437 @gracecelestial @ghostwraith7 @himbo-in-limbo @heleboro @kazumiabi @loser-brain @leechandoki @lunaerebus @predatorsmp @queenlybeastly @skadi-gemini @vinylghast

[the-starry-seas]

So I guess it's as good a time as any to have a pinned post?

Hi, I'm Sticks! I use vae/vaer/vaers/vaerself and it/its pronouns. This is a multifandom blog with a dash of many other random things. I'm a proshipper, cloneshipper, multishipper, and polyshipper.

I'll tag things to the best of my ability if you ask. Sometimes I'll forget. I love being tagged in ask games, WIP games, last line challenges, literally whatever. Mutuals can DM for my discord.

You can check out my fics on AO3 at lizardwrites (Star Wars) or purpleturtle9000 (Rise/Bayverse TMNT). Or check the tag for sticks' fics to see drabbles and previews. My askbox is open for requests for more drabbles, headcanons, and general rambling.

Consider this a blanket permission for any and all transformative works of my writing. You may post translated versions of my fics on other sites but you may not repost the original work. And please show me what you've made!

I have a lot of OCs and I love talking about them. I also want to hear all about yours! In the meantime, there's a list of mine below the cut. tumblr wouldn't let me link all of them, but you can try copy-pasting the-starry-seas.tumblr.com/tagged/ and put in the character name (I tag with ranks, so put in CT Racer instead of just Racer).

The Murderbot Diaries:

Jude (she/they rogue SecUnit)

ROTTMNT:

Kestrel

Star Wars:

212th Squad (Boot, Mik, Squeaker, Moxie, Onion, Crumpet)

Aces Squad (CT Racer, CT Fury, CS Blue, CT Whisper, CT Ember)

B Roll, all-girls clone squad formed of Bark, Bite, Bumble, and Bee

Clone Force M (CT Winter, CT Bee, CT Indigo, CT Jewel, CC Nebula, CT Zenith, CT Sunny, CT Star, CT Sky, CT Silver)

Mar'eyce, modern AU Clone Force M, featuring the Smokejumpers

Ghost Squad (CL Harlow, CS Karla, CT Shay, CT Cavalry, CT Boom, CT Ray, CT Nox, CT Tally) and their associated Mandalorians

Green Squad (formerly) now civilians Aralyn, Berry, and Prey Drive

Royal Squad, five tubies adopted by the royal family in a nobody-dies Bail/Breha/Fox AU (Bug, Jaonyc, Yancy, Helio, Vidal)

Shili Squad (Chen Nihaan, Alyx, Bella, Corvin, Watcher, Atlas, Ginger, Circuit, and Synch)

Shiny Squad: Kit's batchmates CT Lucky, CT Shrike, and CT Carno

Grafitti & Rence of the Corrie Guard

Kit also of the Corrie Guard and Fox's shiny/adopted son

Prim Fett (clone, Mandalorian, and adopted daughter of Boba)

Riye Verda (Kamino-cloned, Mandalorian-raised)

Switch (clone, reconditioned, cyborg, mercenary)

Kryndi (florist and Kit's girlfriend in the royal OT3 AU)

Cathedi (Jedi)

Xerin (Jedi)

Clan Merit, composed of Quin, Aya, and Amery (Mandalorians)

Mirshko (Mandalorian)

Torrak Varkus and Torrak Vermil (Mandalorian)

Vinir (Mandalorian)

Soruli and Seryla (Nautolan Jedi and Force-sensitive smuggler)

A'Hidayat (Tusken)

U'Rajya (Tusken)

Tusken OC umbrella tag

Ripper (Yautja in Star Wars)

Valkyries (all-women pirate crew-slash-polycule)

CC Kamor, Eixes Judarri, and Padawan Rivi from the Better or Worse AU, where a clone captain finds and adopts his general's padawan, with the help of the Zabrak smuggler who becomes his queerplatonic partner

Chen Xunielah, a Togruta ambassador and duchess, and her clone husband Chen Nihaan, who form the Chen family with their kids

Scrapper Crew, a collection of troublemaking ladies

Transformers:

Button

Chromeblaze

Demoiselle

Goldshot

Neutrobolt & Nitroblitz

Nightflash

Stormbrake

Voltcast

Various:

Rowan

[chuck2076]

Log 1279. Subject: “R’ka Sain’ja”

```PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION```

Height: 8’5”

Gender: Male.

Skin Pattern: Orange

Eye Color: Red

Identifying features: The subject had dyed orange dreadlocks with armor with the design of fire. After a deadly ambush, subject was left badly injured and needed to have a replacement augmented right arm and eyes. The arm, while containing wristblades, contained extendable claws from the fingers, a built in plasma caster, and wrist launcher. **Caution** Don’t let the eyes fool you, for they can look through walls and scan surfaces and buildings for signs of life and possible heat signatures.

```SUBJECT ANALYSIS``` The past of the character determines, he is one of 3 siblings of the original Jungle Hunter. While growing up in the clan of Arditi, he learned to control his anger he had for Dutch, and finally accepted his father’s death and moved on, and started experimenting with augmentations and weapon desgins.

```FINAL NOTES``` After the ambush which cost him his eyes and arm, R’ka started fiddling around with the possibility of creating a cybernetic version of himself, in the event if something were to badly damage his body. As that were the case due to his brother Shirome and frenemy Ralanax or now known as Stitch he was able to fully transfer his organs into the body, but everyday the body sort of glitches and shocks him every now and then. Not much is known about his future plans, if he choses to die within the armor, or transfer a part of himself into a new body. But all we know now, is that he plans to live his life out to the fullest with his family.

(R’ka continued)

```Threat? ``` Over the years R’ka has grown in strength, but since he has now an augmented suit, his strength has nearly doubled to even possibly rival the great Empresario, though at this time it can’t be determined since the two have been in only 1 fight but it was before R’ka’s augmented suit. His ideology is based off the traditionalist hunting method of Yautja Prime, at this time, it is guaranteed he will never be a bad blood unless mind controlled, though it hasn’t happened.

[gothikangelica]

Another preddy OC, Gehrath! This is also a remake of the previous design (trust me, you don't want to see the originals...)

Name: Gehrath / Shadow Chain

Species: Yautja

Gender: Male

Sexuality: Bisexual and Polyamorous

Age: 259 (mid 20's in human years)

Height: 7.3ft / 2.21cm

Weight: 168kg / 370lbs

Rank/Occupation: Elite Enforcer

Equipment: Dual wrist blades gaundlets, Shoulder cannon, Combistick Cloak, Bio helmet, SpearGuns, Smart Disc, Dual chained kunai, Sword,  Medicomp

Personality: Reserved, Easy to anger, Cautious, Honorable, Over-Protective, Flirtatious

Likes: training, studying human behavior, meat, silence with the sound of water running, fresh places like forests and jungles, flirting

Dislikes: Bad Bloods, xenomorphs/facehuggers/chestbursters, seeing his loved ones in danger

Family: T'akein (father / Clan leader); Ha'tui (mother, deceased); Julie (human step-mother); Tahtill (hybrid step-sister)

Love interest(s): Ga'dqeb-Du, La'ayi-Han

His lore will be added soon.