Camp Drybone, despite its name, had no dry bone as its most prominent landmark. That was something that always bothered K'airos. The camp was really a hole in the ground, with white and sand walled buildings protruding from the cliffs and a large Aetheryte in the center of town. Why didn't they call it "Camp Crater" or "Camp Hole-in-the-Ground" was beyond her comprehension. However, her annoyance at awful naming on part of the Ul'dahn denizens stopped quite abruptly every time she stepped inside the town. Then the reason became obvious: water was scarce and the dead refugees piled up, only the priests of the nearby Church or some of the Immortal Flame members bothering to pick the corpses up and move them away from civilization. "Camp Drybone". If you were here, you would eventually become a pile of those.

K'airos sighed and entered the inn, on one corner of the town. She greeted the innkeeper cheerfully and joked about midges swarming her chocobo and eating it. She headed straight for the room she had taken for both her and her sister. It was the cheapest one. Two beds, a table, two stools, a drawer. There was a lamp too, and a small box on a corner. She opened the door without knocking and exclaimed inside with an exhausted voice. "I'm back!"

D'aijeen was presently engaged in reading through one of the great tomes she had piled on the table. If one thing was true of D'aijeen, it was that she read a great deal. The lamp illuminated her as she looked up to greet K'airos with a smile. Her voice was energetic to counter K'airos' exhaustion, and it was thick with cheer. "Welcome home!" The younger Thalen still stank faintly of the corpses she'd spent that day helping the priests move from one pile to another. Her dark robe sat open to show off the white garb which she somehow managed to keep pristine despite the grotesque nature of her hobby, which she called 'volunteer work'. She looked K'airos over and mocked a frown, "Well, aren't you pretty? You're making me look bad!"

"Wha- ah! What did I do? Do I have something over me?" K'airos looked down and examined herself. All she could see was the rusty-looking chainmail issued to every Brass Blade, but she kept staring wide-eyed for a moment before her eyes turned upwards and her hands started checking her hair. "It's on my hair, isn't it?!"

Her sister's reaction drew a giggle from D'aijeen, who said, "Oh, stop, stop! I'm not kidding. Did you get worked hard today?"

K'airos kept brooming her hair. The success of such action was debatable: the Brass Blades were issued with mitt gauntlets, meaning they were very good at protecting one's hand but terrible for grooming. When she noticed this, she started to take them off

"We chased off some Amalj'aa to the south, then had to chase some angry buzzards near Highbridge, then some imps a bit more to the north...I'm tired!"

"Oh. Well, I've got some bad news for you, then." D'aijeen pushed her book aside and turned to face K'airos head on. "We'll have a visitor presently. If you don't wish to see him, though, I'll take a turn chasing something away and get rid of him."

The gauntlets were mercilessly dropped on top of the box at the corner. "A visitor? Who is it?" K'airos asked, focusing her attention now on taking off the pauldrons.

"Oh, it's just D'hein. You remember him."

The pauldrons were added to the pile the gauntlets had formed. "D'hein." she echoed, unsure of what she was saying. Then she jumped in place, turning around in sudden realization. "D'hein! Of course I remember him! Why's he coming over?"

Letting her lips droop into a frown, D'aijeen averted her eyes and fidgeted with the pages of her book. "He said he wanted to see you, but I'm sure he's going to try and get me to do something for him."

"I guess... Why would he tell you he wanted to see me, though? It would be easier to ask you directly." K'airos approached to her bed and sat.

The smile returned to D'aijeen's face quickly, but it was sly this time, and she looked at K'airos sideways, "I'm sure hes trying to charm you. Your eloquence has charmed far more discerning men, I'm sure. And," he tone went flat, "If he had said he wanted something from me, I'd have told him not to come. As it is I only just barely allowed it."

K'airos played with her hands, giggling faintly. It looked like she was still trying to get her gauntless off, even though she had none on. "You think? I...ah...I guess I better put on something more presentable for visits."

"Just be careful not to make him melt." D'aijeen said. "You've a few minutes to change. I told him to meet us at the tavern an hour ago, so he should come looking for us any time now."

"Just be careful not to make him melt." D'aijeen said. "You've a few minutes to change. I told him to meet us at the tavern an hour ago, so he should come looking for us any time now."

"What? Why did you do that! I don't...ah!" K'airos stood up in panic and spent a full minute in that state, doing nothing, before snapping out and opening the drawer to get her civilian clothes out. She didn't have many clothes, so it didn't take her as long as her panic took.

D'aijeen seemed to enjoy seeing her sister in a panic, laughing at the scene. "Oh, don't worry so much. No amount of dirt, sweat and rust can dull that glowing beauty of yours!"

"I'm...I'm sweaty? And rusty?!" her panic only increased with each passing moment. She forgot how to take off the belt around her waist, then spent more time than needed taking off the chainmail. She took her boots fairly easily, however, and replaced them with leather ones that only reached slightly higher than her ankle. The shirt she put on was of a faded purple, and it was the last thing she put on. She was still wearing her armored trousers.

Bouncing one knee and smiling at her sister, D'aijeen chuckled, "It's Thanalan, Airos. Everyone's sweaty. Don't worry about it! Your natural scent isn't so bad. You're wearing rusty pants, though."

"Isn't so bad?" K'airos frowned. "What does that- rusty pants?" Her attention drifted to her legs. She dropped on the bed, raising her feet to take off the boots she had just put on. "Azeyma! I'm sure with my luck he'll barge right in any moment. "

D'aijeen hopped up from her seat and seemed to bounce a few times while she took of her dark robe and threw it aside. She was wearing almost pure white underneath: shoes, pants, a frilled shirt, even gloves. The only interruptions were the silver buttons and a pink bow. "I'll watch the door for you. If you wish to bathe I can find some errand to send him on and buy you time."

"Yes!" K'airos exclaimed. "Do that...! No, wait!" she changed her mind mid-sentence. "If you send him off, he'll just ask you whatever he wants to ask you and then leave! So don't do that!" She hurried to finish dressing herself, thing she achieved in short notice.

D'aijeen had taken up a position by the door as soon as K'airos had begun to change, and she stood leaning against the doorframe waiting. "We can go out and collect him whenever you're ready. Do you have perfume? Do you want to borrow some of mine?"

"No, we'd smell the same. I'll the one I confiscated!" K'airos said, clapping both hands together. She rummaged through the drawer and took out a very cheap looking bottle. When she opened it, the smell was fairly acceptable, if faint.

"It wasn't in the manifest." she said while using it in moderate ammounts.

"Ever-prepared K'airos! I shouldn't be surprised!" D'aijeen daintily sniffed at her wrist. Her own perfume was a subtle lilac that mixed with the clinging stench of corpses to make her smell like a decorated grave.

"Alright. I'm ready!" D'aijeen's sister declared with enough confidence to sink a boat. She looked once at herself just to make sure she wasn't wearing anything the wrong way, then nodded. "Yes, I'm ready!"

"Alright, then. Let's go find him." D'aijeen open the door and step swiftly out, turning to her right to head down the hall and not half a step later walking into D'hein, who had been coming the other way. Before she even realized what had happened, D'aijeen huffed in modest offense and instinctively pushed against him in very not modest retaliation. D'hein, being larger, was unmoved, and D'aijeen stumbled back off him.

There was, however, the crash of glass, and a few seconds later D'hein was looking down at a puddle of liquid and glass shards and exclaiming "Godsdammit why!"

K'airos, who was following behind her sister, raised both hands to cover her mouth. "Azeyma! Are you all right?"

D'aijeen quickly recovered from her stumbling and immediately began to adjust the lace on her shirt. "I'm fine, K'airos," and then, sounding meaner, "That was not very gentlemanly, D'hien."

The man in the red robe, with the full blond main and the ears that shifted about asymmetrically looked confused for a moment, "Eh? But that was my..." then looked up at D'aijeen, "Oh and it's very lady-like to just dash a man's drink from his hands! I'd thought that I-" he stopped suddenly and stepped smoothly around the puddle in the hallway. He put himself directly in front of K'airos and extended a hand to her, "I'm sorry, I'm distracted. K'airos has captured my attention with her radiance."

K'airos kept one hand in front of her mouth, and lowered the other to meet D'hein's "Ah...thanks, but...you don't have to...to..." She giggled and looked away, unable to find any words to complete the sentence.

"Oh, but I do!" D'hein exclaimed, "I cannot help but to reach out to you! Your beauty demands worship! Won't you come to Ul'dah and let me build a shrine to you, K'airos?"

D'aijeen perfunctorily walked over and kicked D'hein in the shin, "Stop it."

K'airos blushed, her eyes still examining some random point of the hallway with extreme attention. "I...I think you told Aijeen you wanted to talk?" she vaguely managed to ask.

Not reacting to D'aijeen's kick, he continued speaking to K'airos. "I came to see you. Even though your image blesses my every dream, I must see you in the waking world sometimes as well! But, oh," he finally at D'aijeen, "How she selfishly keeps you to herself."

Rolling her eyes and groaning, D'aijeen inserted herself between D'hein and K'airos so powerfully that she knocked his hand into the wall, "Seriously! Knock it off!"

"You sure you didn't want to ask Aijeen some favor?"

"As it just so happens, no," D'hein said with his arm pinned to the wall by D'aijeen, as he whether the green-haired girls glare. "I did wish to inquire regarding and make you both aware of something I read in the paper some week or so ago while in Limsa.

K'airos stopped blushing for once. "If it's anything about a missing comb, I must say it wasn't on the manifest! It was smuggling!"

D'aijeen took a long enough break from glaring at the man to laugh at her sister, but quickly resumed her former activity.

D'hein, however, was simply confused. "Uhm... no. It's..." he tried to free his arm from D'aijeen's trap, but she didn't allow him to budge. So with his free hand, he awkwardly reached over to his opposite pocket and fished out an old copy of the Tonberry's lantern. "It's a bit of a missing person's article. You'll see. Here!" He deliberately reached over D'aijeen to hand it to K'airos.

She grabbed the paper and extended it in front of her. She blinked once and read out lod "Hipparion tribe seeks lost members..."

Hearing what her sister read, D'aijeen's tail suddenly bristled, "What!" and she spun, grabbing at the paper, "What is that? What is that!"

K'airos pulled to keep it for herself. "I don't know! There's pictures...hey, that's you!" And with that said, she turned the paper so Aijeen could see. She pointed at her picture. "And I'm there too, look!" she sounded amused.

D'hein observed somberly, "Yes, you're both on there. And a sister, and your mother. And some others."

Grabbing at the paper again, D'aijeen hisses, "That's not me! That's... what is this? This is a deception!"

"Let me read!" demanded K'airos, struggling with her sister for the ownership of the paper. "It must be some mistake!"

"Fine, you read it!" D'aijeen spun on D'hein and pointed a finger into his face, "What are you playing at, D'hein Tia? Some sort of blackmail? How heavy-handed!"

D'hein flinched back a modicum, "I'm not playing at anything. I know you've dropped the K-tribe, but K'airos hasn't. I thought she would care. And you both deserve to know."

K'airos spent some time reading the article in absolute silence, mouth shut and not an ounce of her usual awkardness showing. When she was done reading she looked at D'aijeen. "Maybe some survived the Calamity! We should tell them we are well...but..."

There was a pause. "We should let them know that mom's dead, too."

The green-haired girl exuded a growl, turning back to K'airos, "I want no part of anyone who would go looking for that crone! This is a deception! A trap! A trick from one of the D-tribe trying to get one over on me! We won't believe a word and we'll do nothing about it!"

D'hein chuckled awkwardly and pulled on one of his ears. His tail whipped around behind him and kept noisely whacking the wall.

K'airos frowned, looking at D'aijeen. "Don't talk about her like that! She's my mother, too!" She lowered her gaze, keeping her eyes on the last name mentioned on the article. "Why would they lie? It's signed by K'mana." She handed the paper to her.

“It's not signed by K'mana. It just has his name on it! Anybody could've put it there." She looked the page over, looking deeply upset. "K'mana's probably dead."

K'airos' hands clenched together over her chest while she started giving short hops in place. "I also was surely dead, according to the Immortal Flames. But you found me alive! Why couldn't it be the same with them? What if they survived?"

D'aijeen directed her finger at K'airos' face now. "Oh, no! No! Stop that! No hopping! I don't want you getting any false hopes going!" She turned back to D'hein again, "One of the Dodos is responsible for this and if they get my precious K'airos all worked up just to disappoint her, I'm going to take it out on you first! Do something about this!"

At that, D'hein could only laugh and say, "I'm sorry, but I think it's legitimate. And hopeful K'airos is cute!"

K'airos only stopped hopping for as long as it took to D'aijeen to turn around and stop pointing at her. "I'll arrange a meeting! Then we'll know if it is or if it is not K'mana." Her hopping gained speed. "We've known her since kids. We'll tell right away!"

D'aijeen threw her hands up in the air, "No! I forbid it!" She turned and waved her hands in front of K'airos' face, "It's forbidden now! You can't do it because I have forbade it!"

K'airos stopped her hopping. She lowered her head but mantained eye contact with her sister, lips curved downwards. "Okay. I won't!" she said.

"Good. Thank you." D'aijeen put a hand on K'airos' shoulder for a second before turning back to D'hein and crossing her arms, "What are you going to do about this, D'hein Tia?"

D'hein chuckled again and said, "I'm leaving town again for awhile, so I can't do anything. That's all you. But, before I go, I'd like to ask a favor!"

"I'm not...sure Aijeen would be in the mood for that right now..." K'airos muttered.

The scowl on D'aijeen's face supported K'airos' thesis.

D'hein countered this by declaring, "It's a favor from K'airos, actually! My company has someone coming into town who has business with the Blades. One of those tribeless city Miqo'te. Her name's Antimony. If you see her around, help her out. She's rather terrible at everything."

K'airos blinked, throwing her head back. "Antimony? That sounds... Oh! Is she looking for the comb? It- It wasn't in the manifest!"

"No," D'hein said, "She's not. It's got nothing to do with you. I just thought you might want to help her out."

D'aijeen began to wave her hands in D'hein's face rudely, "You're leaving now! You are leaving now. You were just leaving!"

K'airos just nodded with her lips forming an o, in some sort of half agreement with D'hein. "Safe journey!" she waved.

"Okay, okay," D'hein brushed D'aijeen's hands aside, and said, "I'm taking D'ahl with me this time, D'aijeen, so go by Ul'dah sometime so you don't miss her too much while we're gone."

He then gives K'airos a wave and says, "And you come by my place in Ul'dah, too. I've got quite a place to show off! And while you're there we can get married like acculturated city miqo'te!"

D'aijeen swatted at D'hein, "Stop that! Leave!"

K'airos would have probably melted and let out an high pitched screech while doing so. However, this time, she just smiled awkwardly at the Tia. "I'm looking forward to...seeing your place! Not...marrying...not, not that I wouldn't want to...but...and..." Inevitably, both hands covered her blushed face while she turned around and walked straight into her room.

If D'hein wasn't already in full retreat, he might've been in danger of getting knifed. D'aijeen looked angry enough for it. As it was, she just kicked some of the broken glass at him, which he ignored, and followed K'airos back into their room. "Don't be like that! He says that to everyone! He proposes to me twice a week and I'm practically his daughter!"