At a soft wark from by his feet Xha'li grinned slightly and reached his hand under the table conjuring a small chunk of aetherial ice and giving it a small toss to the Chocobo chick by his feet who chased after it and pecked at it curiously. With a soft chuckle he returned to nibling on his meal while perusing the thick tome in front of him. Glancing around he nodded to Mimidomi when she waved at him, he'd been staying here for several days, and after explaining his situation she had agreed to send any K tribe members who came in his way if he was around.
Shaking his head he shut the tome and put it in the bag hanging off his chair before starting on his meal in earnest, he'd picked it up on a whim and to give him something to do while hanging around the Quicksand waiting for members of the tribe to show up.
His meal finished he leaned back and signaled one of the waiters to collect his plate and replace his drink before turning his attention back towards the chocochick who was still playing with the chunk of ice.
K'luha sat not to terribly far away from Xha'li. She had been sitting there longer than he had, and would have probably noticed her drinking and short confrontation with a pale miq'ote. It was a brief confrontation in which they somewhat loudly talked about a tribe and addressed several people with K's at the beginning of their name. The confrontation ended with the miq'ote male darting out of the room at full speed, and K'luha simply sitting there looking as pale as the tanned women could look.
She sat shivering in her seat for a time, hands pressed to her face and wailing occasionally but quickly going quiet. Her thoughts revolved around her daughter and niece. How could she have been so.... how could she treat K'ailia like that? Sure he daughter was infuriating but, it was her daughter. No matter what she had to be there for her. No matter what...
Luha looked blankly ahead for a moment before she shakily stood and limped by Xha'li's table. But her hip managed to hip out somewhat conveniently next to a chair at his table, and she stumbled into it for support. She lifted her head weakly and looked to Xha'li himself.
"S-sorry... I didn't mean t-to..." Luha nervously shirked back and quietly cursed her hip for putting her here. If only she could run again... but that wasn't an option now. She could only hope the male wasn't going to be rude or angry... although something about him seemed a little familiar.
Xha'li looked up as some limped by his table, looking at her he realized she'd been having a heated discussion with a maleqo'te a few minutes ago, and he could of sworn he heard things about a K tribe.Â
"No worries, I'm here alone anyways." As he speaks a small chocobo chick with white tips on its crest, tail, and wings waddles out from under his table and looks up at K'luha before turning and running to hide behind Xha'li's legs. Shaking his head Xha'li reaches down and chirps reassuringly to the chick as he picks it up before smiling apologetically at K'luha, "Sorry about 'im, little guys less then two moons old and would still be with his mother if she hadn't rejected him and kept trying to nest with his egg shell the crazy bird."
Luckily for K'luha, the male seemed to be nice. Or nice enough not to get angry with her. She looked down at the soft peeping noise and blinked as a baby chocobo appeared. How... adorable. She smiled warmly at it, only to watch it run away from her. Her ears flattened a bit and glanced back up to Xha'li.
"A-ah... that's unfortunate. Sometimes Chocobos are like that though..." K'luha agreed vaguely, glancing back off towards the direction of her room. Her hip ached terribly, and she wasn't sure if it was the alcohol or K'hai's sudden appearance.
Xha'li nodded, "It is indeed unfortunate, but thankfully I had been apprenticed to my villages chocobokeeper before circumstance forced me to leave." Inclining his head with his ears facing forward Xha'li continued, "Is your hip bothering you? I studied Conjury for several months, and while I'm by no means an expert I am qualified to use healing magic unsupervised." Pausing for a moment Xha'li bowed his head respectfully, "Name's Xha'li by the way, and if you want to shorten it please use 'Li', Xha's my mother."
Leaving home... K'luha felt sick. Probably home sick but sick nontheless. She had never spent so much damn time in Ul'dah before, and she really didn't want to spend anymore. If K'ile wasn't going to show up again sometime soon, she was going to drag her stupid broken hip with her back to the tribe. Or worse, call K'yohko or something.
She sharply shook her head no to his offer however.
"No, please. No conjury. I don't... I don't like conjury or magic. I would rather have the pain..." Luha trailed off a moment before she finally looked back at Xha'li. A mother with the name Xha? Was he a keeper then? But he looked a lot more like a seeker really... A hybrid then?
Xha'li shrugged, "As you wish, if you don't like magic then all I can suggest is to avoid putting to much stress on it." Leaning back in his seat while scratching the chick on his lap behind his eye Xha'li continued, "If I may ask though, why do you not like magic? Sure it can be misused for great acts of destruction, but by the same token it can be used for to save those who otherwise would die or live in pain for the rest of their lives."
Pausing her thoughts on the matter of his heritage, K'luha blinked a bit at his question. Why was it that she disliked magic? Well... it was hard to place and then again, it was easy to place. Luha frowned at the question regardless, thinking on how to answer it.
"I'm not from here. I'm from the Sagoli. Part of the Hipparon Tribe. Magic isn't common there. I don't... It just feels wrong to me. Invasive and... just wrong." K'luha shook her head. "And it's magic that broke my hip. And it's magic that hurts my family. And magic that brings down the moon upon our heads. I don't trust it. I don't understand why others do."
Xha'li blinked at her explanation but nodded, a dark look momentarily coming over his eyes "It was magic that got me kick out of my village, but I won't let the expectations and fears of others shape me. This past year I've seen just how helpful magic can be, and it /is/ a part of the natural order of this world."
Shaking his head he grinned, a more cheerful light returning to his eyes, "But I expect we could argue back and forth for moons and not change each others minds. You said you were from the Hipparon tribe, would you happen to have known a K'zhuzu Tia?"
The expectations and fears of others shaping a person... K'luha didn't like the way he said that. Nor did she like the somehow darkness that seemed to surge from him for a moment. It was... strange. She subtly scooted back on the chair, wanting to leave but being unable to. Luha tried not to act uncomfortably, especially as he asked about her home. Maybe she shouldn't have said so much.
She looked up at Xha'li, trying to hide her nervous expression and failing. "K'zhuzu Tia? I... vaguely remember a name like that... do you have any more information on him?"
Xha'li noticed K'luha scooting away from him, but ignored it, instead focusing on her question, "Not much, I know I take my ears, fur and hair coloration, along with my left eye from him." Pausing for a moment Xha'li continued, "He'd be about 38 cycles old and from what I've been told he failed his coming of age trial or ceremony and was cast out. He met my mom when he quite stumbled into the camp her adventuring party had made while they were handling some task or other in the area. Other then that and that for some reason he left her to raise my brothers and me along when I was about 4 that's all I really know about him."
Xha'li's description of the K'zhuzu Tia matched with all of K'luha's limited knowledge on the matter. Which was to say, not much. She had mostly remained with her own sibilings, and his close blood relation to K'ile hadn't endeared him to her as a younger woman. Although, a lot had changed now...
Still, he made K'luha uncomfortable with the way he'd acted earlier and she looked towards her inn room for some sort of escape route if she needed it.
"Yes... I do remember him..." K'luha answered tentatively, her eyes slowly moving back to Xha'li. "He had a son with a... was she a Keeper?"
Xha'li nodded, still absently scratching the chocobo chicks head, "Three sons actually, I have two older brothers, Xha'a who's about 5 cycles older then me, along with my twin Xha'to who has not more then a few bells on me."
"Aaah, that would explain it..." K'luha nodded faintly as if agreeing with him, although she was not sure why. It was strange to think this man at the Quicksand was related to her. Well, not entirely. Her blood line didn't cross with any of K'takka's children. So technically speaking, they weren't related at all. However, he would be another one of K'ile's nephews. K'ile had a lot of nephews now thank to his brother. Even more now it seemed thanks to the exiled brother.
Still, K'luha wasn't sure what Xha'li wanted from her. He seemed to trying to track down his family and yet... While she supposed Tahj was similar in a way, she didn't really think this city miq'ote would want to come to the desert and live with a tribe. So K'luha remained awkwardly quiet and looked at the chocobo chick.
Xha'li lifted his hand from scratching the chocobo chick as it curled up and fell asleep in his lap, waving a waitress over he ordered a cold drink before turning towards K'luha, "Anything you want to drink? Don't worry I'll cover the bill."