Trophy: Jungle Hunt

[Morag Prime]

Lightening forked across the turbulent night sky, its blinding strands licking the broiling rain clouds which had yet to release the first of their burden. Three seconds later a corresponding clap of thunder sounded, rumbling its deep baritone across the night to echo into the deepening dark of the jungle.

Morag lifted amber eyes skyward. The rain was only minutes off. Unharried, even as the wind picked up in strength and howled restlessly through the leaves of the gyun trees, and creatures small and large, sought shelter from the coming storm, Morag continued methodically the ritual which she conducted at the beginning of every hunt.

Crouched on her haunches, she stretched forward her mottled green hands over the smokeless fire she had built and wafted the heat toward her. She breathed deeply.

...Ig na shamina tse lo-na Ke, lo-na ke, lo-na ke...

With one sharp fingernail extended, she pricked her own wrist and dripped darkgreen blood into the flames.

...Ig na shamina tse es-na ke, es-na ke, es-na ke...

Another flash of lightening, another thunderclap. The rain was very close now.

Undaunted, Morag took her ceremonial Krit - a short handled blade that curved cruelly into a crescent at its tip - from the blazing coals at the heart of the fire and dipped it into a dish made from rare Kaminoan tortoise shell. Pricking now into her forearm, the Yruvian half-breed began a tattoo which would find its completion only upon the success of the impending hunt. With a steady hand, the first portion of her quarry's name was etched into her fesh in blue-black ink, the letter symbols in the ancient text of Yruvia. Six other similar tattoos, different only in that the names were complete, were already in place along her arm and stretched from her wrist to her elbow where now the seventh took shape.

As the first fat drops of tropical rain sizzled in the flames of her fire, Morag continued her blessing chant, calling upon her ancestors in her low gutteral dialect, to favor her valour, to favor her skill, to favor her strength, to Ig na shamina tse ra-na ke, her kill, her kill...

[Morag Prime]

With increasing force, the rain fell. The wind also gained strength and the lightening was flashing now with the barest intervals between each strike. Morag's usually lightless amber eyes shone irridescent in the reflected light.

She continued her droning chant, rythmic with the steady thrum of the downpour. Somewhere, in the distance, a wild cat called, its chilling screech a sobering reminder of the untamed territory surrounding her.

The flames of the fire shrank and were eventually extinguished by the deluge and Morag's darkened outline was thrown into relief against the flickering night sky.

As a warrior, she was an impressive site. Standing over 6ft, her crown of medusa-like tendrils added to the overal impression of height. Thick limbs, and solid torso, the Yruvian-Nautolan interbreed weighed an easy 220 lbs. Her skeletal structure was reinforced with extra cartilage, making her exceptionally strong and resilient.
Being an amphibious creature at ease both on land and underwater, she had small gills underneath each of her shoulderblades, as well as two sets of eyelids, one set completely transparent. She had large hands and feet, all slightly webbed. Her skin, tepid and clammy to the touch, was genetically designed to sustain her both on land and underwater. Minute pores all over her body emitted an oily secretion that helped insulate her, keeping her internal temperature at an even level, adjusting as required to the extreme changes in her environment. The secretion was also a defensive mechanism of the Yruvians - its scent mimicked a variety of species and could be used to confuse an attacker. It was also used to draw would-be suiters -- however the paramour runs a great risk, as many secretions are incombatible between the species and can often result in paralysis and even the eventual death of the weaker partner.

She wore a simple tunic that clung to her body, giving her minimal protection but allowed maximal freedom of movement. Each arm was decorated with a brass bangle coiled around each bicep.
Strapped to her back was a long blade called a "Gorra" which stretched from the tip of her left shoulder across her back and down to her right thigh. It was a larger version of the Krit, crescent in shape, but had no hilt. The Gorra's grip was made from Allso wood and ran the length of the blade's spine. Hanging fom a belt about her waist were a variety of items of shamanistic value. Small bones, a Yrute feather, a leather pouch containing siennelle powder, a rattle made of viper fangs, a coil of wire and her Krit.

On six of her ten fingers the warrior wore rings, as distinctive as the creatures they originated from. Laquered and mounted in the center of each circlet, which was made from bone and twined skin, was the right eye of Morag's previous defeats - the unseeing orb a trophy to the wearer. According to the Yruvians, the eyes were where all things were perceived. Where all glory was acknowledged. Where all wisdom and insight entered the soul. To loose an eye, the right eye especially, was to loose the essence of who one was. It was the symbol of the embodiment of the spirit. To loose it - or worse, have it taken - was the final and lasting defeat and humiliation of a warrior. Yruvians would die before giving up such a trophy. Such rings as Morag wore were a declaration of status and were honored highly. She was the first female of her tribe to wear more than five.

And Morag intended to have a ring for every finger.

The rain eased now and Morag crouched to her firepit. Separating the wood and ashes, she exposed the remnants of glowing coals that had escaped drenching. With her face lit sinister in the faint red light, her dead eyes returned once more to their emotionless gaze.


It was time. Let the hunt begin.

[Morag Prime]

With the passing of the storm, the night creatures began to mobilize again, bringing the darkness alive once more.

Slithering pythons propelled their great bodies along overhead branches or through the jungle floor foilage in search of prey. Their unfortunate victims caught in their tremendous coils with no hope of escape. Their only reprieve to be crushed unconscious before yawing jaws hinging open would devour them whole to be digested within the great body.

Predatory birds, owls and the twin-headed cyross, plucked slower moving rodents and small sloths from their own forraging among leafy trees. Gripping them in taloned feet, the birds would rise high on broad-spanned wings in order to drop their capture to its death below, and swoop once again to collect the tasty corpse.

The balmy night air was permeated richly with danger and death - paralyzing fear and violent demise mingled with the sweet aromas of the fern blossoms. Morag breathed deeply. Her body felt charged with the carnal energies of the life and death struggle that was the status quo of this brutally beautiful world.

Moving skillfully through the blackness, Morag began the task of locating the initial track of her quarry. Sure-footed as a shadow and every bit as silent, the Yruvian warrior began the search for signs that would put her on the trail of the Zygros - a fierce humanoid flesh eater whom she had marked for the next trophy on her finger.

[Morag Prime]

The Zygros froze, listening.

His hand, paused halfway to his mouth, threatened to drip some of the river water he had scooped to drink and so he lowered it gently, slipping it silently once more into the rippling depths.

He held still, his pink tongue slipping between blue lips to moisten, then canted his head to one side, focusing, pinpointing the subliminal shift of night sounds that had just barely whispered for his attention.

A footfall. Noteworthy for its deliberate stealth.

A bristling of awareness played its warning chorus along the Zygros' boney spine and his body taunted in preparation. The blue skinned humanoid whose horned head and bonecrested back made him look like some prehistoric creature trapped in time, swivelled black liquid eyes from left to right, his vision sluicing in, what to others, would be a perpetual nauseating wave.

He continued to listen, but the footfalls were conspicuous now for their absence. The intruder, too, had stilled.

Nesteled in the shallow valley between twin calcified growths on either side of the Zygros' temple was a red-fleshed gland, extremely sensitive. This gland pulsated now as his mind, and his body reacted to the unseen threat, and began to produce three times the usual adreneline his body needed.

Already powerful limbs were quickly being fed a natural super-charge of energy making the Zygro's a stunningly volitile fighter of formidable strength.

Behind him, the scratch of a pebble against rock indicated movement and was the signal for action. Twisting around and out from his crouch, the Zygros leapt forward and launched himself bodily at his creeping assailant with an enraged roar.

Three miles from where the Zygros fought with his only natural competitor in his jungle home - a large carnivor of the raptor family - Morag examined closely the day old prints that were drying slowly in the mud, oblivious to her quarry's fight. Deadpan eyes looked up at the faintly lightening sky. She had smelled the morning on the air a short while ago. It was time to rest.


Bared teeth, and extended claws sunk into brittle flesh, tearing and ripping as the Zygros hit his target hard, pitching the hunter backward -- only the creature's prehinsile tail kept the two from crashing to the ground under the force of the Zygros assault. Instead, the two antagonists locked in a bizare dance as jaws snapped in each their own defence and clawed hands grappled together, struggling to gouge a lethal hole in the others flesh. Shrieking cries of exertion and fury echoed through the jungle night as the two titans crashed through the tropical rain forrest foilage.


After careful scouting, Morag found a large tree, heavy with thick glossy leaves and, with ease, climbed its heavy boughs. Camoflaged within its foilage, Morag stilled herself to fall into a light sleep.


He pinned the raptor now beneath him, one knee compressing against the animals heaving chest, one foot stretched out stamping against the ground the angry twisting tail that attempted to unseat him. One of he raptors' lower legs was broken and hung askew at an unnatural angle, white bone jutting through the leathery skin.The other had an ugly gash running the inside of its thigh. Zygros held the flailing foreclaws of the raptor in one huge hand and smiled a bloody grin into the raptors golden eyes. Those eyes, wild in panic, were fading now. The life blood pulsing out of the ragged hole lately opened in his throat made them duller with each ebbing throb. The raptor had never had the upper hand in the contest. This had been an easy victory for the Zygros, but that had not diminished his victorious satisfaction in it. A few more seconds, a few last heart beats, and the Zygros would reward himself with the hot steaming entrails of his subdued enemy.

[Morag Prime]

Though well pleased with the overcoming of his enemy, and flush with the gratification that came with feeding on a still steaming corpse, the Zygros' satisfaction was rudimentary and came from a most basic level. He was a brute beast that lived to the simplest laws of kill or be killed. He felt no glory, or self exaltation in his victory, only the natural awareness that he had escaped danger and would live yet another day with a hot meal being his to gorge upon. Though he was a creature humanoid in form, the similarities ended there. He lacked that sentient driving force of striving to achieve greater and loftier goals other than the carnal instincts of breathing, feeding and reproducing. A brute beast.

And this could be at times more dangerous than a thinking, calculating enemy. The inate instinct to survive was the singularly most powerful force Morag had ever encountered in all her hunting. Every creature had it and some had the physical ability to equal it. Some, like the Zygros. And it was in this that she saw such great challenge.

Having rested for a time and now moving steadily forward toward her prey, Morag considered her target and formulated her strategy against him so she might earn the right of completing his name tatoo on her forarm and wearing his eye in a ring on her finger.

[Morag Prime]

The jungle was a beast of its own. Its breath hot and steamy, cloying at every pore in its stiffling humidity. Its voice was a constant hum of clickings, slitherings and shrieks. Its body a continually seething, heaving form undulating in waves of a thousand movements overhead and underfoot. Morag passed through its limbs and belly like a tick on a dog, crawling, leaping, climbing as necessary in a steady progress toward her goal.

She had stopped at strategic points and lit small smokey fires that smouldered for a time and then burned out as the moisture of the undergrowth defeated the small flames ignited through her siennell powder.

On the wind, the smoke was borne forward, a warning recognisable to every creature who's nostrils were tickled by its acrid smell and they moved instinctively in the direction of the river. With each new fire, Morag engineered the movements of the Zygros in the direction she desired. While sensing no immediate danger, he had the natural sense to move closer to water and each time the smoke was stronger he veered ever nearer the river.

Morag could see him now from where she paused hiding in the shadows of the hollow Rideraki tree trunk, ignoring the thick yellow grubs that groped around her head. He was sniffing the air, the red gland on his forehead pulsing as blood rushed through it. He was not panicked, but he was wary.

He was huge. His powerful shoulders rippled as he moved. She must be careful to not let him get a good hold on her when it came to it. She must kill him quickly. Very quickly. Morag felt her pulse rush.

One more fire, a big one, will do it. She needed him nearer the river.

Stepping from the hollow, she took her siennelle powder and tipped the remainder of it to a pile in her palm.

[Morag Prime]

The fire ignited in a bright flash, visible to the Zygros from where he crouched. The unexpectedness of the flame shooting up from the jungle so close to him made him skitter slightly on his feet as he sprang upward to stand and scrutinize his surroundings.

A wild bird took to flight, crashing through the tropical leaves and barely clearing the Zygros' head in its haste to escape. The Zygros roared his outrage at whatever creature it was, he now assumed, deliberately tormenting him. Dark eyes scanned the jungle carefully, but saw nothing of threat. He knew it was there, however. And Morag knew he knew.

Coming at him from his left side, the trophy hunter rushed the Zygros, her muscular legs propelling her forward into a leap at him. He twisted away from her, quicker even than she had anticipated, and punched out with his balled fist, hitting her in her exposed underbelly. Morag convulsed with the blow and fell to land sprawled front-down on the ground, but not before she had looped her coil of wire about the Zygros neck. As she came to her knees, she pulled with great force on the wire, its noose tightening to bite into her opponents throat.

In the few seconds it took for the Zygros to clutch at his throat and discover his thick fingers could not possibly get beneath the wire, nor could he break the leash that momentarily held him, Morag regained her feet completely to stand positioning herself between him and the river. The Zygros rushed her.

Morag reeled in the wire with practiced skill, keeping it as taut as possible, while backing quickly to the river edge. She had precious little time, as the Zygros was on her in seconds and as he charged her, the pair fell into the roiling water in a deadly embrace.

As they fought together, Morag fending off more blows than she was giving, she managed to maneuver their battle further and futher from the bank into deeper water. The Zygros discovered her krit lashed to her waist and ripped it out for his own use. His strength was devastating. They grappled together, the Zygros landing one, then two stabs with the blade into Morag's thigh and back respectively. He then, too late, realised he had no footing, the river bottom had fallen away and he was well out in a depth above his head. Morag moved in for the kill.

Wrapping herself around the Zygros completely, legs and arms acting as steel bands to pin him immobile, she clung visciously as he jerked and twisted in an attempt to break free, both sinking as were a heavy rock. Clouds of her own blue/green blood from her stab wounds mottled the water around them as they sank.

Morag, a Nautolan half-breed, breathed water as easily as air. The Zygros had no such genetic advantage and after what seemed a very, very long time he stilled his struggle. His lungs had filled with river water and the red gland on his head had turned black. Slumped in Morag's arms, the Zygros yeilded his life to forces domininant to his own.

Leading him by one lifeless arm, the trophy hunter eventually pulled the Zygros from the river and towed him up the bank and back into the jungle. She would take him all the way back to her original camp, the site of her hunt's beginning ritual, and there, before attending to her own injuries, do honor to his death. And to her own victory.

[Morag Prime]

The fire she built this time was a stark contrast to the smokeless predecessor Morag had made at the beguinning of her hunt.

The former one had been subdued and utilitarian, a testament to the huntresses respect of the hunt and seriousness of task. It had sent up in its understated presence an acknowledgement of the great balance between elements of air and fire - symbolic of the subtle converging energies and spirits of predator and prey. It was a prayer, a beseeching. It was a request for blessing and the recognition that destiny and deed are not the doing of earthbound creatures alone.

The fire Morag built now was not a symbol of humility.

This fire blazed. It was a celebration.

It's brilliant, candescant flames leaped heavenward in a loud and crackling roar - declaring the return of a victorious warrior. Shadows it cast danced in ethereal joy against the jungle foilage, its raging heat shimmered in waves against the light. Morag stood, arms raised overhead with the Zygros' blackened temple gland resting in her palms and shouted her pride.
She was the victor. She had taken her latest trophy.

"Ig tith lasenne ne ah-ahmme tei rathinne' "
"I am the victor! I am the firebrand!"

The body of the slain was fast becomming charcol in the base of the blaze, Morag having made her ceremonial removals of his bone, skin and right eye. She had sung her respect for the dead - the traditional releasing of the conquered opponent's spirit to the elements. The gland would join the conflagaration last. It was to honor the Zygros that this was so.
Kneeling now, Morag lifted her Gorra from its place laid before her feet and returned it again to the swag holder on her back. She then took her krit and, with it, completed the seventh tattoo on her forearm.
After intricate labor to correctly inscibe the Zygros' name in Yruvian symbols, he now joined the company of the Prime's vanquished.

One thing remained to do.

Between thumb and forefinger, Morag crushed a small amber sac - the third small stomach of a Sarruushin eel brought with her in anticipation of such a moment. As the flimsy lining tore, from its insides oozed a thick amber fluid. This the huntress drizzled over the ring she had made of the Zygros' bone, skin and eye and then tossed it complete into the fire.

For some hours yet the fire would burn and Morag would stand in triumphant vigil until the last remnants of her conquest was consumed. From the ashes, she would then pluck the ring, hardened by the heat into a perfectly laquered gem that only she had the right to adorn.

That would make Seven rings in all.

Her tribe would be proud. She would find great honor upon her return - should she chose to return. But she was not ready to go home. She would savor this trophy for a time. And then she would seek a new foe, worthy to die at her hand.

And then the hunt would begin again.