Title-- Honor in the Hunt
Rating and Warnings-- PG for light violence.
Species and Characters-- Species = Denaith werecats & humans. Yes, I said werecats, not werewolves. Werecats are rather cheetah-ish in build, female-dominant, and can only shapeshift in the day (as opposed to the werewolves at night) and are forced to shapeshift on the solstices and equinoxes (rather than the full moon). Chars = Mandhatri, a Yumerantha gentleman who is lower-middle class but still carries himself nobly, and his good friend Ambika, a werecat huntress. (You can find info on the countries and cultures in the link to Denaith above.) Oh, and since Yumeranth is much like pre-colonial India, I tried to use Indian/Hindu names. Ambika means 'goddess of destruction' and Mandhatri means 'prince'.
Summary and Notes-- I randomly started writing this with the intent to put a ____ (you'll see in the end scene) in Denaith somewhere. I think it came out rather well. =^_______^=

Note to Amy--this comes chronologically after Nightless. Yes, these are the same two chars in that. =D

...you know, this is the first piece I've ever written in Denaith that doesn't involve werewolves. =O_O=

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"There are beasts in Chui'techanth that fetch a pretty penny in certain Yumerantha circles, you know," a man said to a woman who was crouched outside his doorway. "Giant slug-like creatures covered in scales and slime with human faces and fangs two feet long--I know some fellows who are looking to speak with someone who has seen one of those first-hand and who brings back its fangs." The man grinned at his expressionless comrade, whose dark eyes were on the lowly mountainous horizon rather than his well-groomed dark face. "You may not care for money as much as we humans, my friend, but the hunt is what I think might interest you. A beast a mile long that has never before been faced and survived--"

"Hunting a slug, no matter how large, is no challenge to a great cat." The woman turned her angular face upwards and to the right, her black eyes looking straight through the hide-clad man with an unreadable light. Her voice was sharp and matter-of-fact. "Why do you want me to come with you?"

The dark-skinned man laughed, a rich, mild chuckle that expressed more mirth than a roaring laugh could have, white teeth flashing under an oiled black moustache. "You're a werecat, my friend. As a human or as a beast, you are stronger and faster and more agile than even the best of my hunting companions. You know how to track and stalk and kill anything that breathes." The lean man folded his arms across his chest, a toothy grin still set on his handsome face. "I am a good hunter and an ambitious man--I would get killed within two days of crossing the border into Chui'techanth if I went alone. I have no intention of dying."

The woman laughed, in her own way--a flash of bared teeth and a hiss, but a glint of dark amusement was in her eyes. "If I try to deny you," she murmured in a hard voice that held the semblence of pensiveness, "you will remind me that I owe you for borrowing your woman for a night--"

"--and for turning her wild! It was weeks before I could--"

"--so I won't bother. I will go with you and help you get your prize."

The man smiled broadly. "Excellent."



Chui'techanth looked boringly like nothing more than the deepest wilds of Yumeranth to the man's eyes, and two days after crossing the border without seeing any of the famed beasts that roamed that untamed wilderness, Mandhatri was frustrated. "Can't you find anything? A trail of slime, a scent of slug, something?" He paused, bow strapped to his back and quiver full of perfectly crafted arrows slung over one shoulder, a smaller quiver with poison-tipped shafts bound to his thigh--he looked the part of the human hunter, and even the noble hunters of Yumeranth would have lauded his preparation. Inside, though, he knew that his live rested in the dangerous, capable hands of his werecat comrade.

"Shut up," the woman hissed from her typical crouch, wrapped in a strange outfit of wide strips of tanned hide that covered her from neck to wrists to ankles under her looser tunic and leggings, fingerless gloves and light but durable boots protecting her hands and feet. "There is nothing to track here, not this close to the border. You move so slowly--we aren't far into the country." She raised flashing black eyes from the moist earth to the man's impatient face, a tightness of her lips showing a tiny sliver of white teeth between them. "Hasten, and we'll find your giant fanged slug before winter sets in."

The human snarled at her, having learned to mimic the sound that she so often spat at him, and was rewarded with a full bared-teeth grin in return. "Then stop trying to track and start leading me inwards, you asinine cat!" he snapped, one hand still toying with the haft of the small axe strapped to the thigh without the extra quiver--the talismans of protection and ferocity clicked quietly against the solid wood, beads and silver rings that made the cat shake her head and roll her eyes at his foolishness. He scowled as she did so again, shooting her one of his honed you annoy me looks.

Ambika smiled coldly in return and then lunged, running low to the ground with her hands occasionally aiding her gait or shoving brambles and branches away from her face. Mandhatri stared after her, amazed as ever at the speed and stealth of such an inhuman sprint, and followed her as quickly and as quietly as he could. The jungle was not dense yet, though thorny and occasionally swampy, and even a human could move through it efficiently--for now.



It was day four and they had made good distance--mid-afternoon's slanted sunlight cast erratic tree-shadows and beams of luminance through the canopy at odd angles. The foliage had become more green with stored moisture, the ground had become more black with fertility, and the beasts and birds they'd seen from a safe distance had become larger as even the hours went on. With Ambika's keen senses, they had avoided encountering anything that looked like trouble, but the high population made both man and woman worry for the aftermath of their battle with the giant slug--if they managed to kill it and remain conscious, other creatures would no doubt be drawn by the commotion and attack them at their weakest. The trees might be safe, for neither had yet seen a predator to reside in them, but the cat doubted there would be any sense of shelter once they found the slug.

Ambika was running ahead of her companion by a hundred yards, low to the ground and using her hands as a second pair of feet as she always did, thick black hair bound in a long braid that thumped against her arched back and looked like a strange sort of tail. Her fingers were black with the dirt and her muscles burned lightly with the strain of moving inhumanly, but it was a fire-pain she'd long learned to ignore. Mandhatri was running full out, secure that the trail she was forging was as safe as possible and held no hidden traps. Yesterday, he had even tripped over a root in his security, and the cat had laughed at him as he lay face-down for a long moment, too embarrassed and angry and amused to move. Today, he'd been watching his step, and she had grinned out of his sight to notice.

The werecat landed from a particularly high leap over a bubbling pool that smelled of acids and chemicals, fingers splayed and feet arched to silence the impact. A jolt ripped through her mind, buzzing at her nerves--and of a sudden, a bellowing roar boomed through the lush jungle, startling colorful birds into flight and drawing out an answering roar from a too-human throat as Ambika whirled, a snarl on her dark face. Mandhatri, a ways behind his hunting partner, pushed his tired body from a mile-eating lope into a purposeful sprint, unslinging his bow from his back and nocking an arrow to the taut string. By the time he breached the fallen tree directly in front of the yellowed pond, everything survival-oriented had initiated in his mind--and then he saw the blood-soaked soil and the tattered form of his friend prone and still on the leaf-littered earth, and he froze. A slavering beast hovered over her, a hulking monstrosity like one of the bull-hunting dogs that Yumerantha farmers bred to keep wild steers away from their prize cows--only this was ram-horned with a scorpion's tail and a skull as big as an elk's.

Unintentionally, Mandhatri snarled, his face contorted into a grimace of fear and pain and anger as he drew the bowstring to his cheek, arrow aligned between two of three fingers that drew it back, and let it fly at the beast that was now charging him with a furious howl. The arrow flew true, sinking deep into the creature's left eye, and it jerked but kept running with a now twitching gait--the right eye began to glaze, but with a wave of horror, Mandhatri realized that it would reach him and kill him before it died. The beast splashed through the foul-smelling pool and left half the fur on its paws behind in the bubbling waters, steam rising from its claws as it prepared mid-run for the leap that would end with him a second bloody rag left to rot in the wilds of Chui'techanth.

A liquid snarl broke the sudden false silence as a long-legged, lean dappled feline tore into the dog's haunch--the dog spun and snapped its heavy jowls, but the agile cat had ripped out its throat and sprang away before those jaws could so much as close twice on naught but pungent air.

Mandhatri was shaking hard, a second arrow that he had nocked without conscious thought quivering between his fingers, as the lanky cat turned its crimson-stained muzzle towards him, round ears pinned flat against its streamlined skull. His eyes flickered to where his friend's body had lain moments earlier in a pool of her own blood to find it gone, and he allowed himself to breathe when the tall feline rocked back on its haunches and shook its head vigorously as though to rid itself of hunt-rage. It was leggy and sculpted and sleek, its fur thin but glossy with health--black rosettes dappled its spine and flanks and hips and shoulders, clumping on its head and face to create a hood of darkness over its dark brown eyes, the same color as its base fur which lightened to tawny yellow on its undersides and toes. A human would pay gold to have that pelt on his wall or as a coat, but gods knew only werecats wore those pelts.

"Ambika." At the name, the beast glanced over, slitted eyes hard but quizzical. "Gods, Ambika, I thought you'd died." The man hit his knees, hard, the bow falling from limp fingers and the string twanging with the still-nocked arrow as it dropped to the earth, his eyes fixated on the feline's face. The cat curled her lip to reveal crimson-smeared fangs, long and glistening and deadly, and she padded forward to snag his thigh-quiver with the wickedly curving claws of one paw and tug on it. Move now, was the message in her eyes and paw, and she choked out a snarl to find the man's arms around her neck and constricting around her shoulders. The fur along her spine rose in stark bristles and her tail fluffed, and she growled deep in her throat as the man pressed his face into the wiry ruff that covered the back of her neck and shoulders. She waited a few more seconds, growled again--and when Mandhatri didn't release her, she pulled away and shook herself.

The dark-skinned man didn't say another word, the tremors gone from his fingers--or maybe just suppressed--as he rose and replaced the arrow in its quiver and the bow in its makeshift sheath on its back. "I follow you," he murmured in an uncharacteristically subdued tone, and the cat stared at his face for a long moment before turning and trotting forward, leaping over the pool and making sure he could make the jump before continuing.

Once the werecat was gone, the birds began chirping again.



Seven days in, they had ceased to stop to sleep for more than an hour at a time--too many beasts of too many varieties swarmed the lands. On the morning of the eighth day, when they awoke after forty minutes of blessed unconsciousness, there was a distinctive smell in the air that said prey.

"I've found it in the winds," Ambika whispered in the man's ear, crouched close to him as he sat up and shoved at his fraying braid of hair, too much like hers for his comfort. "I can track it now."

Mandhatri's hands dropped to his axe, and he grinned a weary but fiercely pleased grin. "Track it, then. I just need you to keep it distracted once we find it while I fill it with enough poison arrows to fell a dragon.

"Hopefully we don't find a dragon afterwards, then," the werecat quipped, her dry humor surfacing only briefly before submerging under the mindset of the hunter. "Come." She moved, swift and silent, and Mandhatri adopted her stance and gait as much as he could with his quivers and bow and axe to follow.



On the tenth day, Ambika bounded in silent leaps back to Mandhatri's side and gripped his forearm so hard that he stifled a curse, trying to tear away from her iron fingers. She shook her head, hip-length braid now chopped to the base of her neck after it kept getting caught in brambles, and pointed ahead with her free hand to the clearing she had been about to enter. The man looked, caught the glitter of midday sunlight on polished green scales that undulated in a slow rhythm, and felt his heart leap into his throat. He swallowed and sought his friend's gaze, catching it only after he tugged his arm free of her now-lax grip--black eyes met black eyes, and there was fear in only one gaze.

The werecat stole forward, followed closely by the human hunter, and both pressed themselves to the earth to finally see of their quarry. What Mandhatri saw shocked him--his sponsor had told him of slime and a thick, fat, bulging body with a grotesque human face and giant fangs jutting from a foul mouth. What he saw, what Ambika had found... was not this. Several dozen feet of lean serpentine coils, clean and dry and glittering greenly in the light, slithered across the short-grassed clearing, curving upwards to hold a lean and shapely human torso upright eight feet from the ground. The scales were small and flat on the torso, but they still glittered over the creature's slim shoulders and sleek back, and though no mammalian hair graced the smooth skull, a transparent golden-green crest flared and fell minutely with each undulation of coils.

Ambika raised a black brow to her comrade, questioning her accuracy in finding the right beast, and Mandhatri was about to shake his head when the snake-creature turned, its torso twisting about to face them. Its face was fine-featured and sculpted, much like the high-blooded of Yumeranth, and two small fangs indented its thin lower lip--slit-pupiled eyes, wide and unblinking, darted from shadow to shadow as it leaned forward in the air, straining to find them.

This must be it, the man decided, seeing the beauty and power in its graceful body. A man defeated by this creature would never tell stories of its delicate face and small hands--he would mutate its image into something grotesque and fearsome to salvage his own dignity and reputation among his kinfolk. But he couldn't nod to Ambika, didn't dare move for fear of betraying their position in the shadows of thick brush.

The serpent-beast turned away after almost two minutes of silent, swaying searching and began its quiet slither again. Cat looked to man and man nodded, and cat shook her head in denial. Mandhatri nodded again, face earnest--yes, this is it!--and the werecat caught his eyes again. I will not kill it, something in those black depths said to that which was wordless in him, and he must have looked shocked, because Ambika nodded resolutely. Her lips transferred the explanation that he struggled to follow: It is a creature made of man and beast, as I am, as werewolves are. Were it to attack me, I would not hesitate to kill it--but I will not treat it as prey to be hunted and harvested.

Mandhatri's eyes fell, then flicked upwards to see the empty clearing--a chance lost, and a truth spoken. He understood--he would no more hunt and slaughter a fellow human than she would a fellow werecat. It was not a principle of their races as a whole, but they had been friends for years, and they knew each other as individuals, not as human and werecat. Their trek into deadly Chui'techanth was for naught, then, and his head fell as he began to push himself up with his hands pressing into the fertile soil--

Ambika roared, painful through a human throat, and lunged over his back--he dropped and rolled backwards, wide eyes searching, only to see the green serpent rearing to strike, having flung the human-bodied feline away with one lash of its coils. One hand closed on his axe and the other locked around a vine as he leapt upright in one movement, landing bent and taut like a bowstring with an arrow nocked to it, and like the arrow, he flew forth before drawing his next breath, weapon upraised to slice cleaning across the exposed scaly belly of the coils.

The snake-creature was too swift--it jerked back and then struck as though its humanoid torso were a true snake's head, its thin but strong arms seizing him with such suddenness that his axe clattered to the ground as he was swept a dozen feet into the air as the green beast rose again. He vaguely heard the sickening crunch of a broken body beneath him, but it was not his, and that surprised him--but the man-snake was staring him in the face, eyes unnerving and jaws slightly agape to show those twin fangs, now dripping poison.

Why did you not strike when you had a chance? Mandhatri suddenly asked himself, and he wondered why that thought came up right then, but he answered it honestly in the way of a true man who had best settle terms with himself before he died--She would not hunt kindred any more than I would, and the snake is kindred to her. He was held still, clawed fingers digging painfully into his biceps, pinning his arms to his sides and making his bow unreachable, as the next question came, spoken in his own thought-voice: Why did you not strike without her? He heard a guttural snarl below him but he knew that Ambika would not attack and risk ending the snake's momentary stillness. Because she is my friend, and she is a better hunter, and I would die without her, and I did not want to shame her. If the snake were a man, she would refrain from attacking for my honor.

The fingers suddenly pulled out of his flesh, leaving inch-deep punctures in lean but muscular arms and letting him drop almost fifteen feet to land hard on the jungle floor. The green snake hovered above him, hands tipped in crimson, and Ambika was there suddenly, standing over him--literally--and bristling, snarling, tail lashing, her claws out and teeth bared and ready to spring, and Mandhatri was beginning to wonder what in the six hells of his gods was going on--

The serpent-creature hissed with a forked tongue and slithered backwards, still facing the werecat and the stunned human, but its lidless eyes were still focused on the man's confused face. Thank you, Mandhatri told himself in his mind, and he shook his head hard--he must be going crazy.

Then, the realization hit him, and he sucked in a startled breath as he raised his dark eyes to the emerald serpent again. It bowed, a movement more graceful than any a noble lady could manage, and twisted away to slither swiftly into the slowly-forming shadows of early afternoon. Mandhatri stared after it from between Ambika's legs as the cat's snarl gradually quieted and then died off, her fur smoothing and tail stilling, and he knew that he would not describe his sponsor so much as the creature's appearance.

"Even the beasts of Chui'techanth understand our honor," he whispered, and the werecat glanced under herself at him with an unreadable expression. Suddenly, inexplicably relieved, he simply smiled.