This is a part of Akhutai Khatayin’s story. I have not written a story for many years now, so please bare with the lackluster writing. I prefer not to receive feedback unless you know me really well. This story contains headcanons about a sub-segment of the Khatayin tribe, descriptions of their culture is not intended for universal use.
Trigger warnings: Death, implied slavery, implied violence.
Suggested music: Any song from Two Steps From Hell - Miracles album.
“He’s just been sat there with this far off look in his eyes.. What do you suppose happened to him?” A young barmaid whispered to her older colleague, her eyes stealing another fleeting look at the young, dark skinned and bandaged man that had entered the drinking-yurt some three bells ago. She had served him kumis a few times, but he had scarcely even looked at her, nor answered her question as to if he wanted something to eat.
“I saw him come to camp a few suns ago. He was carrying a mangled girl. If I were to guess, they might have tried to get out through Yanxia.” The colleague responded, tugging at the girls shoulders to get her to look away and resume her duties.
- - - - - - - -
Everything had been underway for long. Several cycles, with careful planning. From the moment he saw them drag her into his tribes stomping grounds, along with a few other unlucky survivors. She had no doubt never heard of a tribe residing in the mountain, nor imagined that one such would rival the Dotharl with it’s brutality. The Khatayin were proud of their traditions, and fiercely protective of their reclusive part of the world.
She was unlike anyone he had ever seen before, even among her fated, she stood out. Her skin was pale, like the kind of marble he had once seen on an excursion into the mountain they resided on at the time. Her eyes had the same shade of blue as the deepest lakes he had ever visited. Her hair was black- so dark that one did not really notice her horns until they protruded out from her face, with a slightly upwards curl. The way cuts and bruises littered her body told him that she had at least put up a fight. Likely, he thought, it may have been a mercy that she had been brought here.
Life among the fated - as slaves were called before the sun of selection, was not easy. They were lodged together in a dirty yurt, bound on hands and feet to tall poles that had been carved out from the mountain itself. They were fed once a week, and only given a minimum of water each day so as to keep them alive. The idea was to break their will, their identity - sometimes at the cost of their sanity, and then re-introduce them to a life at the very bottom rung of Khatayin society. Once they were deemed ready, they would be allotted to any yurt that would lay claim to them, in a ritual that branded them forever as property.
He had found himself volunteering to guard the yurt at night, carrying with him concealed pouches of cured goats meat. It was a staple of their diet which a man could survive entire weeks on, if things got dire. She was reluctant at first, but the hunger had swayed her to accept his gifts, and listen to his words. He cautioned her that things would get worse before they got better, he whispered to her promises of a tolerable life, and pleaded for her to play along. It struck him as he left her on the final night, that she had never spoken a word yet.
The selections were held three moons after the first arriving slave since the last selection. The Khatayin did not descend often from the mountain range they called their own, but when they did, they would not shy away from taking every opportunity that came their way. Smaller hunting parties from other tribes, or young Xaela who had irresponsibly strayed too far from their tribe. In Akhutai’s twenty cycles of memory, he estimated there had been ten new slaves every cycle. Not all of them were suited for life in the heights, or the wear and tare of their lifestyle, and every cycle the weakest would either perish on their own, or be left on the mountain at the winter descent.
He was one of the few of his year that had not presented a claim for his yurt. It was an expected event, one that would help impress a future life-mate, as they would know they had not to do the most bothersome chores in life. It wasn’t that he disagreed with the practise - But none had looked strong enough to handle his part in the Khatayin life. He stalked their herds of mountain goat, wherever they might go, and made sure they did not stray too far from the tribe’s given haunts. To him, she was different, and he envisioned how she might grow stronger as soon as she was in his care.
The selection came and went. He successfully laid claim to her without being challenged by anyone in the tribe more influential than him, and she had not demanded to fight for her freedom- A fight they were always rigged to lose. The ritual had not been pleasant however, and by the time they made it back to the yurt, she was so weakened from her ordeal that he thought nothing else but to place her on a pile of skins and nurse her back to health. It was during these tender days that she first looked at him properly, and he came to realize she would never have any words to give. Instead, she appeared to communicate only with gestures and actions.
She was stronger than he had assumed. Within a moon, she had not only recovered from her ordeal, but also mastered the basic and most tiresome tasks that she would need to do; from domestic chores, to field work and the preparation of skins. At the end of each sun, she would walk with Akhutai to the nearby stream - one of the sources for some of the steppes life-nourishing rivers. Some had commented that he should let her make the trip on her own, but he insisted that he needed more water retrieved than what any man or woman could carry alone. In secret, it had become something he looked forwards to.
He had enjoyed the silence on the trips, and yet they had talked much. He slowly learned what her gestures meant, and he had found himself adopting them into his own use of language. One summer sun, a cycle after she had arrived to the camp, they paused to witness the sun lowering itself beneath the horizon. She had leaned against him, and as if it was the most natural thing in the world, they had shared a kiss so forbidden, Akhutai was sure he could feel his ancestors turn in their graves.
That was when his mind had set. They had to flee- He would turn his back on his tribe, his parents, siblings- everyone that mattered to him before no longer mattered as much as she did. He never told her, but during the descent of winter when he pulled up two horses to their yurt at the base of the mountain, it was as if she understood what it meant.
They rode away in the dead of night, and did not stop for three suns.
- - - - - - - -
Akhutai lifted his gaze from the carpet he had stared at for what felt like an eternity. The kumis had soothed the worst of his aches away, and he struggled to get on his legs. The curious barmaid rushed over to assist him- a gesture he reluctantly accepted. He managed a few drunken words, about wanting to see her, and without complaints he was lead there.
She looked as beautiful as the day he had first seen her, but unlike then, now also peaceful. No longer distressed, no longer plagued by the pain and agony of living. He knelt down to cradle her, whisper words to her, just like he knew she loved. For two cycles had they managed to roam on the steppe, without ever seeing a shadow of the Khatayin again. They had made it to a new trading post at the edge of the great grasslands, and they had decided they would make the leap. Beyond the steppe, beyond Yanxia, to see what else the world held of beauty. But they had not made it.
By dawn, he was gone from the outpost - some say he walked towards the last known location of the Kahkol, others speculated that he wanted to seek out his end by fighting the Dotharl.
