RPC has moved! These pages have been kept for historical purposes

Naunet · **08-10-2014, 12:53 AM**

Stepping backwards out of Illira's room, D'hein shut the door and forgot to stop walking backwards until his head hit the wall. He ducked forward, feeling a strange tingling rush from the back of his skull to his face. It was either pain or exhaustion, and the way his eyes fluttered told him it was likely the latter. He wanted nothing more than to walk down the hall, step into Antimony's room and collapse in bed for the next hour, and he was too tired to really understand why some part of him thought that was a bad idea. It must have been a silly part of him.

Lifting his numb arms over his head and then dropping them, flicking his numb tail back and forth and then letting it fall against the floor, D'hein urged himself away from the wall with some difficulty and turned to lumber in the direction of Antimony's room which was, after all, only a few modest doors away.

As one miqo'te began making his way down the hall, the door that was "only a few modest doors away" opened to allow for the exit of one Antimony. Looking weary herself, posture drooping, shadows under her eyes, and an expression dragging on her face that could only be described as despondent, the woman turned to head the opposite direction, intending to visit the bar long enough to order tea and bread.

She never got that far, nearly running right into D'hein on his way. She did manage to pull up short, however, sidestepping just in time to avoid a collision. "D'hein?" She muttered in surprise, having half expected him to have run off on his own after his "chat" with Miss Carceri.

D'hein continued walking several paces after nearly running into Antimony, having not noticed. Belatedly, one of his ears ticks up, and he pauses to turn very slowly. "Yes? Oh, hello." He smiled. "Well, you're a refreshing face to see. A reminder that beauty and sanity can coincide and magnify."

Antimony's lips pressed flat. "Yes." Well, not yes, not at all. "Well... Where are you going?"

With a sigh, D'hein shifted and shrugged. "I had a talk with Illira. It seems she's been harboring fantasies about murdering me. Therefore, I invited her to come along on the search for D'aijeen. We will have a merrily awkward time, and I'd like to take a nap before it occurs."

"Oh, that all seems completely reason--whaaat?" Antimony did a visible doubletake, green eyes widening significantly behind her glasses. Her eyes flicked down the hall to her room, then back to D'hein, then towards the way he'd come. "... No. Absolutely not. I will not have her involving herself with my daughter."

"She's a smart woman with decent connections and, besides, I just invited her on a walkabout so that she could have a few days' break from all this corruption and... well, death. Didn't you recently take one yourself?" His ears had both fallen over like men passed out, though in different directions. Rubbing one temple, D'hein tried to turn away. "I told Illira I'd be back to get her in an hour, so, if I'm going to nap, I'd best get to it."

For a second, Antimony just struggled with the fact that D'hein had invited a woman who had, in all past instances, expressed an extreme lack of caring for their personal problems on an outing meant to deal with said personal problems. It made her want to smack the Tia. But then she caught him attempting to head to her room, and her thoughts landed on another problem: "A-aah wait, one moment! Perhaps... perhaps it is not the best time to... rest there."

"Augh, by the twelve!" D'hein paused midstep and buried his face in his hands. "Why can't I at least try to sleep? Nald, have I not been honest in my paperwork?" He dropped his hands and slumped against the wall. "Oh, that's it, isn't it? As the Nunh, I must take on the punishment for D'themia's sins. The twelve know D'edy is too weak."

Antimony's ears shifted with a moment of guilt. She hesitated, thoughts careening between options. "It's only that..." Her tail curled, twisted, pushed against one leg. "There... is someone else in there, and..." Oh damn it all to the seven hells. She heaved a resigned sigh. "... and I'm not entirely sure what to do with her yet."

"What?" D'hein twisted, still against the wall but his arms dropping away so that his weight was leaning entirely upon his forehead. "Antimony, have you additional suitors? I'm not afraid of competition, but..." He paused, blinked. "No, you said 'she', and... Well, nowhere, I'm a modern Miqo'te. It could still be."

"What?" Antimony echoed and paled, briefly. "Ah, ah, no, not--nothing like that! She--" The older woman forced herself to stop, take a deep, slow breath with her eyes closed. Her ears shivered. "... No. An acquaintance who... I've helped in the past."

"That does not discount the possibility." D'hein lifted himself from the wall and took a steadying breath. "But, very well. I will... sleep on the floor. In the hallway. Over here." He lumbered on.

Antimony kept her eyes shut, tail fuzzing. She could not necessarily blame Loughree for piling on the trouble - though another part of her thought she very well could - but Antimony was getting rather sick of dealing with it. And D'hein, as much as he annoyed and infuriated her to no end, was far too much of a pathetic sight at the moment. She let out her breath in a sudden huff. "No, rest in the room," she spoke sharply and reversed her path back towards the door. "Miss Loughree will simply have to accept company."

"Ah, good." D'hein spun on his toes, losing his balance and thudding heavily against an adjacent door. He pulled himself off of it to walk back towards Antimony, though that may or may nt be the present direction of her room -- probably not. "I always do enjoy the company of a Miss."

A few steps later, the door that he'd fallen against opened and a curious Lalafel poked his head out just in time to get whacked in the face by D'hein's tail as the would-be-Nunh flailed it to try and keep his balance. The Lalafel spie, scowled, glared and disappeared back into his room.

"Although," D'hein muttered in ignorance, "That name sounds rather familiar."

Antimony only winced, grabbed D'hein by the shoulder, and turned him back around so that he would walk in the proper direction. "Perhaps," she muttered, recalling the first, and as far as she was aware, only time the Tia had met Loughree. It had not been pleasant. She opened the door when they approached, cringed anxiously, and then called out, "Miss Loughree, I don't have the warm drink and food yet, but... I must ask you to not make a scene. A... ah, friend is resting here briefly."

The largish woman on the floor hadn't moved since Antimony had left. She lay curled up on the floor, her knees close to her chest, her fuzzy tail bundled against her face. She didn't even react to Antimony's entrance, more than to sigh and mutter, "I won't do anything."

D'hein gave the woman a strange look, pursing and twisting his lips. He eyed Antimony as he walked in. "You need to sleep, too. You mentioned food? Hopefully nothing that will take more than a few minutes."

"No," she wasn't certain which statement she was saying no to. Regardless, Antimony gave Loughree a wary, surprised look that was quickly followed by relief. "Thank you." Then to D'hein, a sharp, "Rest." Then she turned and was out the door once more. She would only be gone for a few minutes.

As soon as Antimony left D'hein and Loughree broke everything, did drugs, got pregnant and raised their children to be Republicans.

As soon as Antimony left, D'hein spun to the center of the room and made his way towards the bed. As he walked around Loughree, he ventured a, "Good to see you again," but when he didn't get a response, he just muttered, "Well, good night then," and collapsed on the bed. He indulged in a small inappropriate smirk that the bed smelled like Antimony, his Miqo'te senses forcing him to notice and acknowledge that, then he just shrugged at it and closed his eyes.

((Not mentioned is the fact that the bed is missing its baseboard, having been ripped off to serve as K'luha's stretcher, and that the table and chair in the room are both still broken by earlier fits by Loughree.))

As promised, obtaining food and drink did not take long, though Antimony did suffer through several dubious looks from the bartender. She left with her head ducked in embarrassment, carrying a small tray with three mugs, a pot of tea, and a plate with crusty, likely stale bread and dried strips of meat. She hesitated outside her room, ears twitching, straining to pick out any sound of trouble, but after a minute all seemed quiet. A surprise, but a welcome one.

Letting out a faint sigh, she shuffled the tray oddly into one arm and pushed through the door. She'd opened her mouth to speak but kept quiet when she noticed D'hein across the room, sprawled across the bed that had definitely seen better days. Like the Tia. Mouth twisting, she swiveled her gaze towards where she'd left Loughree; the young woman did not appear to have moved and had not acknowledged her presence. Rather than greet her, Antimony just stepped over and carefully set the tray down next to her.

The click of the tray next to her seemed to startle Loughree, making her legs twitch and her tail shift in her hands. She lifted her head subtly and stared at the tray that Antimony had set down. She muttered, quietly, tonelessly. "I wish I could feel hungry."

"Regardless, you must eat," Antimony's tone was quiet but firm. She took the pot and poured out some of the tea before holding it towards Loughree. "And drink this. You will feel better."

Loughree stared at the floor. She released her tail from her hands and the furry limb arched over her to fall on the ground behind her with a soft slap. She pushed herself up to sit crookedly against the bed, and then took the cup from Antimony. "I know that I'm intruding by being here."

Green eyes flicked away with a wince. "Ah, that... not at all. No." Her ears shook, tail curling around her feet where she crouched. Then she just gestured towards the plate of bread and meat. "Eat, too."

"Did you catch Lamandu? The business with the Blades, the paperwork? You were investigating him, right?" She flicked her brown eyes, almost red, bloodshot, to look at Antimony through the haze of steam.

Antimony looked away again, fingers moving to touch the side of her face still discolored with bruise, though it had begun to shift more towards greens and yellows, giving the skin a sickly color. She took a breath. "The investigation is resolved, yes. You shouldn't worry over that."

Setting aside the cup, Loughree reached for the bread like it was something she didn't know how to eat. "You get beat up?"

Antimony coughed, returned her eyes to Loughree and watched the woman hold the bread. "Eat," she said encouragingly. "Feed your body and you feed your soul."

"I don't know much about souls." Loughree ripped a piece off the bread and forced it into her mouth with a look of distaste. She rolled it in her mouth for a moment and swallowed without chewing. "I don't know what he told you about me. I treat him like a monster, but he's clever. He lies. I've never killed anyone."

Grey ears dropped slightly at that. "There's no need for you to worry about him now." She pulled in a breath and then made to settle more comfortably on the floor, her tail curling into her lap. Her joints ached with the action, but it was something she felt she needed to ignore. "And whatever he told me... You've done more than enough on your own to tell me about you."

Putting down the bread, Loughree muttered sullenly, "Right. That's not much better."

Antimony pursed her lips. "Perhaps not. You do have opportunities to change that, though."

"I don't do well with opportunities." She took another sip of her tea, again expressing disgust at the taste. She turned her gaze away, to the rubble of the furniture she'd destroyed on a previous visit. "I don't know why you keep tolerating me."

"Ah, well, it's hardly..." Antimony wove her hands together, watched Loughree and then looked in the direction the Moon Keeper had. She couldn't hold back the wince at the state of the bed, and then immediately regretted it, ears flattening. "It would not be... very kind of me, to turn you away under the circumstances."

"You don't need to be kind to me." The near-red eyes turned back to Antimony, watching her carefully.

"Nonsense," Antimony huffed at that and, after a pause, poured herself her own mug of tea. She held it between her hands and let the heat ease the aching joints of her fingers. It soothed some of the strain in her mind, as well.

"It isn't. We're not family and I've done nothing to make us friends. Up here, trusting people is a good way to get hurt." She leaned against the bed tiredly, but her eyes had opened wider. Her neutral tone was growing bitter, but not agitated.

Lips pressing together, Antimony watched the dark liquid in her mug and the faint trail of steam leading up from it. "I am not going to argue this," she sighed after a moment.

A smirk found Loughree's face for an instant before disappearing. She pulled her knees up and let the tea sit limply in her fingers over her lap. "Where do you come from?"

Brows knit behind Antimony's glasses. "That is an odd question." She hesitated then, considering a nervous flutter in her gut. Or was that guilt? She wrestled with the answer for a moment - claim Limsa to keep secure many, private memories, or claim the desert? The woman sighed. Perhaps a month ago she would have answered differently. "A very long ways into the Sagolii desert," she murmured.

Loughree's head leaned forward to watch Antimony's hesitation, and then she ventured. "The man from whom I descended came from a tribe out that way. Did you have a tribe?"

A soft smile pushed at Antimony's lips when she looked up at Loughree, but it drifted away almost immediately. "I did, yes." Then she blinked, processing the younger woman's words. A strange sensation settled around her brain, like a thin silk curtain. "... The Drake tribe, perhaps?"

"It doesn't matter where that man came from. The Desfosse Clan -- my family -- butchered him when I was young." She leaned her head forward against her knees, the steam roiling over her pale features and clay-red eyes. "If you're from a tribe, you understand. I was taught never to trust anyone outside the Clan. Outsiders hated us."

That word - outsider - stung far more than it should have, especially since Loughree had not been using it to refer to her. Still, Antimony couldn't help how her heart clenched. "I do understand," she replied quietly, watching the blonde Keeper with a subdued expression. She tried for a smile, though it was small and somewhat forced. "But when you have so few, it becomes easier to accept others."

"I have no one." Loughree leaned her head forward, her tired ears finally lifting from their sad repose to turn towards Antimony. "The Desfosse clan was too ruthless; more so than even I could stomach. They have all died, now, but for the one responsible, and I will never again call him family. I need a clan to live, though, which is why I needed..."

She turned her face away, pressing her forward back against her knees. "I found her in the refugee camps. She needed me and I need her. But she is gone now, and I am alone again." With a slow and careful hand, she lifted the tea to her lips again.

Antimony's expression softened as the Keeper spoke, shifting to one of sympathy and a hint of understanding. To lose family in such a way, only to reclaim it way and lose it again... it was an awfully familiar story. Her heart clenched as she thought of K'airos, of D'aijeen, and even of K'ile. The need to reunite with them was almost overwhelming, but watching Loughree struggle with such a similar problem was nearly as painful. "I am sorry," she murmured, struggling with a want to help and a want to continue her own personal mission. "Perhaps--ah, if... there is anything I can do..."

"I kind of doubt it." Â She spoke with her lips against the cup of tea, staring down at the surface, seeming to concentrate on keeping it sitll. "I'm tired. Maybe you told him about her and maybe you didn't. I don't care. I can't run away and I can't be close to anyone. I don't care."

Antimony's expression dropped, but only briefly. Her fingers shifted around the warm mug. "Then why did you come to me?"

"I don't know." She dropped the cup and set it aside, almost too quickly. A few drops spilled out onto the floor. "To everyone who knows me, I'm crooked. To everyone who doesn't, I'm just another refugee who's lost something. I-"

She stopped when a tail smacked her upside the head, D'hein murmuring and shifting where he lay. Taking this in stride, Loughree remained stationary for several seconds, scowling in a general upward direction, and then the tail moved. She dropped her gaze to Antimony and said, "you've never thrown me out before."

Silence passed for several seconds as Antimony watched D'hein's form. Then her eyes shifted back to Loughree with a sigh. It wasn't as though the Keeper hadn't given her reason to do so - destroying the furniture in the inn during a fit of rage, outright tackling her, being a potential murderer... But despite all that, it had never occurred to Antimony to toss the younger woman out. "I... do not like giving up on others, I suppose."

"Giving up implies there's something to work towards." Loughree's furry tail lifted up and dropped beside.

"Happiness? Family?" Antimony drew a deep breath and then let it out in a heavy sigh. She recalled then the pure bliss that had been seeing K'airos for the first time in five years that single evening in Drybone. She desperately wanted that back.

"Oh, I get it." The large woman lay her head against the bed and watched the ceiling. Her ears lay flat, though her expression didn't otherwise change. "Well, I think I give up on me. I was probably just looking for... I don't know."

Ears flattening, Antimony was quiet for a moment before setting her mug down with a sharp clack against the floor. She stood then, and took the couple steps needed to move in front of Loughree before dropping down to one knee, ignoring the way her joints protested the action. Her hands moved to grip Loughree's shoulders as she spoke in a sharp, firm tone, "Stop this." She felt older than she had in a while, kneeling before the Keeper, but she pushed on, frown deepening, "You will not give up on that girl, not if she means so much to you, as you likely mean just as much to her. To give up on yourself is to give up on her."

Dropping her gaze to Antimony's features, one of her eyes twitched: the one that had been stabbed with a needle previously. There were small scars around that eye from where she'd hurt herself, clawing at the needle with her gauntlets. Now, though, she turned her gaze away and bunched up her calloused, pale hands in front of her. "I sent her away to protect her and it didn't work. Even if she isn't dead, finding her would just make things worse."

"Don't be ridiculous," Antimony snapped. "You've no way to protect her if you don't know where she is."

Loughree actually flinched, however suddenly, when Antimony snapped at her. Her expression remained stoic, her eyes facing away, though her tail fluffed up a bit and shivered. "And I've got no way to find her, so what am I supposed to do?"

"You find a way." The older woman squeezed Loughree's shoulders. "Don't give up on her."

"Find a way? Are those magic words?" She curled tighter on herself, dipping her head forward to hide her face behind her knees. "I'm going to choke."

"Drink." Antimony pulled back, her ears shifting restlessly.

"Not like that." As Antimony retreated, Loughree pushed herself up to her feet, the movement jerky and coming with a slight stumble. She pressed a hand to her forehead. "I don't want to think about this. I don't want to talk about it."

Green eyes slid shut tight for a moment, tail shivering. She wanted to tell Loughree to not run away, to not make the same mistake she did. It infuriated her that Loughree had set herself in such wallowing misery. "That is not what someone who cares about that girl would say," she warned the younger woman, lips pursed.

"You don't get it." Loughree sidestepped out from between Antimony and the bed, knocking over her cup of tea. At the clatter, her tail fluffed out all the more, but she just shuffled away from it helplessly. "You don't get it! She's not just lost. The only reason this happened is because she was with me. If I go after her it gets worse. So whether she's dead or hurt or..."

D'hein finally stirred in bed, sitting up crookedly with a sour, half-aware look on his face, one ear down, the other folded inside-out on his head where he'd been laying on it. He stared at the air between the two women.

"I need to give up!" Loughree backed further into the room, gesturing with her hands. "If I give up, and I don't care anymore, then there won't be any more reason to hurt her!"

Antimony flinched away from Loughree as the cup went clattering, spilling still-warm liquid across the floor. Her hands lifted slightly towards the mess, a wince on her features as she opened her mouth to protest, but then the Keeper continued speaking and Antimony fell silent.

When Loughree finished, Antimony found she could only continue to be silent, at a complete loss for words. To abandon someone she cared for... that girl would surely be better off if she were directly under the care of someone who loved her. Ears pressing back, she shifted her eyes uncertainly towards the bed, only to flick away when they came across D'hein's waking form. Her mouth worked, tail twitching. "You are wrong," she finally said quietly. "You don't know that to be true. And you risk her life testing it."

"I don't know what else to do. I tried! You just need to tell me 'don't give up' so you can sleep at night, but there's nothing else I can do. Where is she? Is he alive? I've got no way to know!" Loughree spun as she talked, her tail large and flashing around vibrantly, stirring up an angry breeze in her vicinity.

Antimony's own tail twisted up behind her, writhing in conflicted emotions, while her eyes watched Loughree's. Then suddenly she sighed, and stumbled back until she was leaning against the wall. One hand lifted to press at her forehead where she could feel the beginnings of a splitting headache. "I don't know how else to help you," she spoke quietly.

"I didn't ask for help. I don't know why I came here!" The large woman spun, her shoulders, neck and back tight as rocks as she stomped into the bathroom at the rear of the room and slammed the door behind her. In the next instant, there was a heavy thud and scrape against the other side of the door, and the whole structure sagged from its hinges.

Several seconds later, one of D'hein's ears flipped and he flinched belatedly.

Experts on Voidsent and Comfort

RPC has moved! These pages have been kept for historical purposes