Chapter Text
The ship lands with a thud. He exhales, rolling his neck to the firm pops of joints held in place for too long. Good for overwatch, not so much for FTL travel. A reinforced neck to take the whiplash and it still aches his neck like he's still just a youngling that had to be cradled to avoid being injured. He snorts and huffs as he double-checks, triple-checks, quadruple-checks the display and surrounding monitors. Fuel is acceptable, and he has stores of it to replenish it when need be. Cloak is stable, like he's not even there. Good. Last thing he needs is this hunt ended before it even began because he failed the most basic of steps.
Even the mightiest of beasts can be felled by the smallest of wounds, after all.
He rises from the central chair, typing away to set the ship to begin scanning the nearby region. No point prowling the surrounding jungle if it was devoid of worthy prey. The ship responds quickly, he connects his wrist gauntlet to download the data provided, and he checks his Sat-Com, ensuring the data transferred properly. When he has the routine down for this planet, he can relax the procedures, but today demands more than a solid hunter.
It demands the best. It demands his best.
Wristblades sharpened, map acquired, weaponry packed, twin swords strapped to his back properly this time. The entrance bay door opens and he activates his own cloak to the screech of what the scouts had said were dubbed ikran by the natives. They are impressive beasts. He cannot wait to hunt one. But he must start small. Work his way up. He tilts his head, tapping away at his wrist-gauntlet to bring up the Sat-Com map, identifying the blinking lights as areas of notable activity. A green dot against the southwest of the mountainside cliff he's landed on appeals to him the most. He has no idea what he will find. He has names and images, but that is not the same as engaging, as hunting the prey. Only through The Hunt can something be understood.
He's giddy, excited, taut with anticipation as he begins to sprint through the foliage. Normally one of his hunting partners would chastise him, tell him to temper himself, lest he end up dead like the s'yuit-de he pretended to be when not on The Hunt. But he is alone this time, for the first time. No fellow Unblooded to bicker with, no kindred Young Bloods to watch his back. He is Blooded, and so he is to hunt alone unless otherwise requested. Which he doesn't. He does not need it. Not this time, this time he will prove himself without a doubt in his or his clan's eyes. The landscape is enriching, he muses to himself as he continues moving through foliage and treetops alike, silent save for the occasional shot and thud of his grappling hook to pull him either back into the trees or merely to propel himself forward. The sun moves at a pace he doesn't dislike. Not slow enough that he will find himself bored due to the pacing this hunt calls for, but not fast enough that he feels rushed. A happy medium, as his people of birth say.
Humans. How little he shared with the majority of them after all these years of enhancements and training. But he knew enough about them. His clan-mother had seen to that. Some had called her weak for that, and even though he lost those fights, he fought them anyway. His clan-mother deserved that respect, and he was grateful they gave it to her and him after he proved he was willing to bleed and be bled to prove it. The Hunter was knocked out of his musings by the sudden approach of the cliff's edge. The fall wasn't too extreme, meager platforms born of natural rock formations and erosion would provide a path that would be nonfatal. But the pain of enduring such a fall would distract him, delay him. He refused to be delayed. Caution would have to be taken if he didn't want this to end in disaster.
He unhooked his swords from their scabbards and, with the use of his grappling hook, slowly descended downwards. Sharpened bone pierced rock again and again as he reached one lower platform after another, the firmness of the beast he'd slain as an Unblooded still enduring to this day. Unbreakable jaw indeed, he humored to himself. When he reached a platform that could go no lower, he'd swap to his hook and swing across to a platform that could. The Hunter wouldn't deny his nerves as he worried his grip on either hilt would fail him, or that the next platform would give out under the combined weight of himself and his gear. But The Hunt must have seen him with favor because he reached the jungle floor, the true jungle floor, with minimal struggle beyond a few close calls he swiftly corrected.
He shoots up into the nearest, and largest tree, scaling the side of the bark after sheathing his swords once more. The bark is strong, and so too are the branches. His cloak is humming quietly, not really of course as that would defeat the purpose of cloaking technology, but ever since he was a child, the Hunter swore he could hear his cloak hum. Perhaps it was a psychological delusion to ease his nerves at the idea of being discovered whilst cloak. He never bothered to look deeper into it, just happy in the comforting notion that as long as the hum remained, his cloak did too. He scales the tree higher and higher, eventually finding no more branches that could support his weight, he scans around to find a new tree that could solve both issues. There, a tree to the southwest. Not quite the direction he wishes to go, but it'll suffice. He has daylight to burn, he can afford a longer journey-
He is not alone.
The Hunter doesn't curse, doesn't make a sound beyond a silent exhale through his nostrils that is further muffled by the bio-helmet. He swaps from standard vision to thermal vision as quietly as he can, and so the Hunter spots it.
It is a curious thing. It's about a nok shorter than him, but much thinner and much frailer. Two arms, short legs, gliding wings. His bio-helmet fills in the gaps; syaksyuk. Weak prey, but not defenseless. Prey is prey, the small hiss of shame at striking down something so lesser is set aside in favor of the challenge. How will he kill this creature? He looks at the distance between himself and the syaksyuk. It is not much. A proper leap will have him practically on top of the prey. And in that moment, an idea strikes the Hunter. He shimmied across tree bark to the best branch he can find that will support his, admittedly foolish, plan. He finds one that manages to put him even closer to the syaksyuk and he knows for certain that this creature will perish by his hand. And he feels wonderful at that fact, at wetting his blades before he's even had an hour off of the ship. Truly, Cetanu favored him today if this was how the rest of his nain-de was to be.
He takes as long and as fast of strides as he can, and he's already in the air and descending upon the creature before it even realizes it's too late. The sudden extension of his wristblades only alerts the creature to a new sound, and by time it turns back around to begin fleeing, it's been speared through from chest to back while the Hunter grabs a hold of the branch to hoist himself up onto it. He assumes a comfortable position upon the branch and, after ensuring he is alone and unseen, deactivates his cloak and retracts his wristblades to inspect his quarry. The wound is large and clean, Its theia-de must have been instant, lungs and heart pierced in a moment causing shock to snuff out any chance of a struggle or sound. Good, he hated causing suffering in his prey. It so often led to any nearby prey or threats becoming aware of his presence and moving to either investigate or worse yet, respond.
The creature is hardly worth his time. It was killed to maintain his stealth. Not quite the glorious kill he wanted, but its death serves a purpose of the Hunt, so he'll swallow his pride and make use of this kill. Perhaps as bait? Yes, the Hunter muses. Bait would work just fine for this particular kill. He reaches into one of the pouches on his belt, producing a small knife, hand-carved by his clan-mother to celebrate his tenth year of life. He had better knives, true, but sentimentality was a human trait he’d been unable to shake. He puts himself to work on skinning the syaksyuk, hoping to use both the skin and the flesh for two separate sources of bait. Less wasteful, he decided, even if he decided this on impulse to make this meager kill slightly less shameful. He hummed as he worked, not wanting to play his music through his bio-helmet in case he was ambushed, so he made use of his voice as best he could.
Eywa'eveng. The native name for this planet. It was…Acceptable. Logical, he mused quietly even if he preferred the human name for it.
Pandora just sounded so much more dangerous, after all.