As I walked back from the lockers, I heard a voice from one of the doorways in the barracks hallway.
"Going to be up awhile, Harkaal?"
It sounded like Sartari. I was quickly starting to recognize them by voice, and my suspicion was confirmed when I turned to look. Her icy blue eyes leveled to meet my gaze, evaluating me as she had just a few minutes earlier. It was hard to keep my inner wolf from rearing up. We were of equal stature, and something in me desperately wanted to know which of us was stronger. I curled a lip, my teeth sharpening for a moment before I managed to shake it off. She nodded after I regained my composure, an amused smirk spreading across her lips. She was standing in the doorway of a well-lit room, padded mats on the floor behind her.
"I might be," I said. "My energy levels are still pretty crazy, even after the run."
"Par for the course. Every newbie feels about like they could kick the world's ass their first week. Might've noticed that with Eira, too."
"Eira wants to do something with the world's ass," I chuckled, "but I'm not sure it's 'kick it.'"
"I heard that!" Eira called down the hallway at me.
"Yeah, but you like it!" I called back, teasingly. I turned back towards Sartari. "Damned Lycothan ears."
"You're not wrong, though," Sartari said with a smirk. "You've both just awakened to bodies that excel at the three F's."
"Three F's?" I asked, quirking a brow.
"Fighting," Sartari responded, holding up a long-nailed finger, "Fucking," she continued, holding up two, "and Feeding," she said holding up a third.
"Crude way to put it," I replied, making a bit of a face.
"Just being honest, you know? You've done two already tonight. Felt good, right?"
I nodded slowly.
"No sense in being ashamed of it, Harkaal. It's part of us, and everyone goes overboard a bit when they're new. Drives Lartara crazy, but the smart ones shape up pretty quick."
"And the ones that don't?"
"Combat duty. If you get to stay here, it's because you showed them they can trust you with the prisoners. If you're too rough around the edges, they stick you where it doesn't matter if you scare the humans."
"Aren't we all going there eventually?"
"Not like that we're not. Those are the grunts that fight with tooth and claw. No style. I met a couple that stopped up here to resupply, and even the bitches had just plain nasty attitudes. They're not bound for anything better than that. Us though? If we don't wash out here, we'll be the elite of the caste. The best get sent to command training, and the rest of us they'll put into special units."
"So I might still be with you guys?"
"Some of us. The officers pay attention to who fights well together. I've got a feeling you just might."
"Think so, huh?"
"Don't go getting a swelled head yet," she laughed. "Anyway, you wanna see the hardware? The workout room's great for restless nights."
"Sounds like a plan," I replied. "You spend a lot of time here?"
"Damn right," she said with a smirk. "Pays to get to know your body. Plus, a good sparring session is almost as satisfying as sex."
She turned around, heading into the room. Her skin was just as pale as mine was, but without any freckles. Instead, the light showed me a number of jagged scars on her shoulders, her arms, even her legs. Oddly, the marring of her skin didn't detract from her beauty. If anything, they made her more attractive to me. Her frosty white crest of hair swayed along her well-muscled back as she walked into the workout room, dangling over and partly obscuring a tattoo between her shoulderblades of a stylized hammer, intricately detailed with what looked like nordic knotwork. My eyes followed her hair down to the tip of her crest, hanging to the small of her back. I'll be honest, at this point I was staring, in particular at the confident saunter her hips and ass gave as she walked.
"...nice ink," I mumbled, trying to play it off. My eyes darted to the walls, a flush coming to my cheeks as I tried to look at anything but her. The weights, the treadmill, almost anything.
"You like it? I know a servant at the commissary that does good work. Can't take you until you're done your training. Lartara would kill me."
"Yeah, I'm not into getting anyone in trouble," I spoke up, glad we were on another subject.
"Don't worry," she said, walking over to one of the equipment racks. "Usually when a sister passes training, we throw a party. Booze and all."
"Sure that's a good idea, with how we are?"
"Good doesn't even enter into it. Hilarious does, though." She slipped on what looked like a glove, but with a metal plate in the palm. It apparently didn't have a mate, as she was already browsing down the rack with it on her right hand.
"What's the glove for?" I asked.
"You'll see in a minute," she replied, hefting a seven-foot handle in both her hands. At the end of it, glinting in the light, was a massive hammer head. It looked every ounce of the hundred pounds she said it was, and though I could see her muscles tense as she lifted it, she had a far easier time of it than I'd expected. In the center of the hammer head there was an odd shape, almost looking like a motor of some kind, though I couldn't tell what it did.
"This," she said as she turned back around to face me, "Is a Stormbringer Mark IV breeching hammer."
"Fancy name. Not just a warhammer?"
"Hell no. Not with some of the fortifications we go up against. Right now, it's an expensive paperweight. I'm sure you could bash someone's skull in with it just fine, but that's not where these babies really shine."
"Then what does it do?"
"What does it do, she asks? Oh, you're gonna like this," she grinned toothily and pressed her foot against a trigger at the edge of the mats. Further down in the room, the air seemed to shimmer like a heat mirage. I watched with interest.
"Lycothan weaponry plays to our strengths. In this case, you and me are both built like a brick shithouse. We could just club people to death like savages, but this is much better."
She pressed the metal plate on the palm of her glove to a spot on the haft. The motor-like structure I'd seen in the hammer head started to spin, giving off a low hum.
"That," she said, canting her head towards the hammer, "is a force multiplier. It takes what you put into your swings, and magnifies it. You remember when I said the smaller girls can't control it too well?"
I nodded in response.
"Well I wasn't kidding. If you're not paying attention, this hammer can get away from you. Now mind you," she said, taking a few steps away from me, "sometimes you want it to get away from you."
Gripping with both hands, she swung the hammer around, making almost a full circle, building up momentum before she let it go. It shot off like a bullet down the room, only to collide with something I couldn't see with a noise I could only describe as a small thunderclap. The area around where it stopped shimmered again like a mirage, and it clattered onto the mats.
"But hey, now I'm unarmed, right?" Sartari said, still grinning. "Wrong."
She held her hand out in front of her, and the hammer shook on the floor for a moment before it jolted upright and sailed through the air to be caught in her gloved hand.
"That's... fucking awesome," I blurted out, clapping my hand over my mouth after my outburst.
"I know, right?" Sartari said, laughing as she turned back to face me. The motor on the hammer's head spun back down to a halt. There was a faint sheen of sweat on her from the exertion of handling it, and she looked like nothing so much as something right out of Earth's myths to me.
"...okay, I'm sold," I said, a flush coming back to my cheeks in spite of myself.
"I thought you would be," she replied, striding towards me with the hammer still in hand. "Still, here's a little incentive."
I didn't even really have time to react before she was right up against me, the long-nailed fingers of her free hand reaching around to clasp the back of my head, digging into my wild hair as she pulled me into a kiss. I could feel the corded muscle beneath her scarred skin, our breasts pressed together as I found myself hungrily returning the kiss, my teeth once more sharpening into fangs.
After what seemed like an eternity, we both came up for air, me with a deep red blush that reached all the way to my eartips, and her with a rakish smirk, enjoying my reaction as she ran her tongue along a fang of her own.
"Don't wash out, Harkaal. You complete your training, and we'll... talk."
She turned back around, sauntering towards the equipment rack to put the hammer away.
I'll confess again, I watched her the whole way.