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Bring the Daughters Home

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Naunet Naunet Find all posts by this user Visit this user's website Leech of the Aeons Posts:1,749 Joined:Jul 2013 Character:Antimony Linkshell:Hipparion Tribe Server:Balmung Reputation: 108 RE: Bring the Daughters Home | #2 08-10-2014, 01:16 AM Cypress pressed one foot in front of the other, the familiarscent of sulfur and decay present to her trained senses. It used to be all she smelled, untainted air an almost foreign thing to her. But now it was a rarity, especially a trail as strong as this one, for as long as it had been since it had been left. If she extended the effort to pull its traces from the air surely it would have formed a dusty, ugly trail, it seemed that way today at least, the air as dry and arid as it was. It had taken sometime to pick up around the city though, with so many other distractions. It had taken the news of mauling to find an epicenter of the shed traces for her find what she needed. D'ahl. Like D'aijeen. Or so she remembered of Miqo'te familes. Coincidences were only wishful thinking for those who needed them to exist. She knew better. Althyk made all such things happen for a reason.   Either coincidentally or by the will of Althyk, D'hein wasenjoying his Chocobo ride. He figured that getting Illira out of Ul'dah without a homicide was a victory, and furthermore it was another that Antimony had not had a complete breakdown over the woman's presence. Yet. The Tia who would be Nunh pulled a bottle of milk from a satchel on his chocobo's side, eliciting a small clatter of the dozen other bottles the satchel contained. He hadn't packed any water. Water was not known for strengthening bones.   He held the bottle up to show to Antimony and Illira."Anyone feel like increasing their overall health and spirits with some milk? Just me?" He turned forward again and thought he saw a Roegadyn in their path, walking on foot. Not an uncommon sight out this far, but the woman looked to be almost exactly the same color as the dirt. Perhaps his lack of sleep had him halucinating.   Out of curiosity, he pointed ahead, "Is that awoman?"   Antimony had kept herself quiet, face forward and down asthe chocobo she rode did most of the work of guiding itself along the well-trod path. She recalled another time she'd ridden between Vesper Bay and Ul'dah, but that had been a happier event. Ulanan had made a good traveling companion.   That was a silly thought, and it was quickly banished byD'hein's sudden question. Lifting her head, Antimony turned green eyes towards his chocobo, then ahead to where he pointed. She blinked, squinted. "I... think so? It matters little, though."   Not being particularly fond of Chocobos, Illira was not inany particularly happy mood than she was earlier. It didn't help that her Chocobo didn't seem any happier to have her on its back than she was to be there. "We're not the only travelers around, you know," Illira snapped.   The rough sandstone of the bridge spread out before Cypressas a leather covered foot stepped onto it. Whispers brushed past her ears pulling at them to turn her attention from her path. But she ignored them, instead, setting her other foot onto the bridge.   Antimony furrowed her brow as they came closer to theroegadyn. Something about the color and the manner of that figure was familiar, and not in a good way.   "Oh, I know. But we should take every chance to befriendly to passersby, especially when traveling. Allow me to demonstrate." The Miqo'te kicked his chocobo forward towards the woman, then stood up in his saddle and waved the bottle of milk over his head, calling with undue cheer. "Excuse me, Roegadyn traveler! Could your mouth do with some refreshment and your bones with strengthening?"   The whispers formed more complete words, asking, begging forher attention even if they didn't deserve it. She turned now though, as they wouldn't stop. Not if she didn't trim them at their source. Orange and pink bangs fell over one stern eye. "What do you want?" She asked, graveled voice booming over the distance.   Antimony flinched. They were close enough now that she couldrecognize that face, and she felt she'd had enough of trying to pass things off as coincidence.   "Oh, hi there!" D'hein pulled his chocobo upalongside the woman, extending the bottle of milk so that she could see it. "I was just going to offer some refreshment, traveler to traveler. These roads are unfriendly enough without us... Waaaaaait!" He pulled the milk away and appeared horrified. "You're the mean lady!"   Sighing, Antimony drew her own chocobo to a halt a few fulmsaway. She frowned with pursed lips towards the roegadyn. "I should hope you have abandoned your previous task."   The furry-eared figures were faintly familiar. But then allMiqo'te kind of the looked the same. But from the leveled accusation, Cypress knew which ones these were, "You can believe what you wish, Miss."   Illira's thick brows came together, she didn't knwo thewoman, but the other two obviously did. "Who is she?" the elezen asked of Antimony as she pulled up next to her Chocobo.   Antimony swallowed, frown deepening. "A... threat to mydaughter," her tone is grave.   "If I recall properly..." D'hein withdrew theoffered milk, a dramatic gesture of condemnation. "This is the woman who said that if she found D'aijeen, she would kill her. And where do we find you walking to now?"   "I did not threaten. I merely stated what may have cometo pass. I only follow the path left behind. It could very well be your daughters. For your sake, I will hope that it is not."   "You will follow another path now," Antimonysnapped. "I will not have you anywhere near Aijeen."   D'hein placed his chocobo in the woman's path, letting thatgesture speak for him.   Cypress didn’t even need to look up at the man, such was hersize. "You really should not stand in my path. Though it is not your fault that you don't understand what it is I follow, I suppose."   "I understand threats to my children well enough. Turnback." Steeling herself, Antimony moved her chocobo in Cypress's path as well.   Illira didn’t move hers forward with the other, confused atwhat anyone was talking about. So she lets the scene play out before her, for now.   D'hein hummed. He looked at Illira, and then at Antimony."At this rate I'll have to be more rude than I prefer to be in the company of women. Could I ask you and Illira to continue on a ways that I might privately discuss this woman's opinion of my daughter?"   "So that you... what?" Antimony huffed. "No,you may not. You will discuss her in my presence."   The elezen shrugs, "This is not my business." Sheurges her chocobo forward, into the open space on the bridge to squeeze past the others. The chocobo's head snaps towards the others, craning its neck, but it doesn't actually do anything.   Cypress merely stood there, waiting for the pair to maketheir decision.   D'hein looks at Antimony, blinking. "Uhm. No. I thinkyou missed something I was implying. Anyway." He points. "Please don't leave Illira alone. I'll follow and just a moment. Once I've helped this poor refugee whose mind has been so shattered by the war. Or something."   "You should go ahead, Miss. More heads is not always abetter thing," states Cypress.   "I am not going to leave you to handle mattersinvolving my daughter on your own!" Antimony snapped.   D'hein rolled his eyes and leaned towards Antimony, hissingconspiratorially. "I want the option to intimidate her with violence if I need to. Get it?"   "And you would not give me the opportunity to see itdone?" Her green eyes narrow.   "Now... who is threatening who with violence?" asksCypress evenly.   "No!" D'hein ignored the Roegadyn. "Nor wouldI give you the opportunity to get hurt. Because I'm not a moron."   Antimony's hands tightened on her chocobo's reins, and the birdshifted, perhaps sensing her heightened emotion. Grey ears laying back, she finally turned from D'hein, wordlessly, and made to move the chocobo a short ways down the road.   D'hein sighed in satisfaction as Antimony turned away,moving off. After a few seconds, he smiled and looked back at the Roegadyn. "So, as I was saying. Would you like some milk?" His smile fled, replaced by a dark expression. "Because you can't have any of my milk."   Ears laying back as she put some distance between herselfand D'hein, Antimony angled her chocobo towards where Illira had continued on. She didn't entirely approach the woman, however, keeping an unhappy distance before turning back to look towards the Tia and the strange roegadyn.   The red woman didn't appear particularly concerned about themilk. Indeed, she ignored his rescinded offer completely. "What was your name?" She asked, "I assume that its starts with a D. Since you claim D'aijeen as a daughter. So I believe it is likely that you know of a D'ahl's passage into void."   "Such a thing is none of your business." D'heingsnapped, lifting his leg to drop himself off of his chocobo. His tired legs didn't take him as smoothly as he'd intended, and she stumbled and dropped to one knee. Then he stood again, dusted himself off, and resumed his aggressive tone. "I don't take it as a coincidence that you're on this road. I can't let you go on after that unwise display of honesty back in Ul'dah."   "Such a thing is my business and there is no such thingas a coincidence. For it’s the trail of the voidsent which killed her, that follow now. I tell you, so that you might understand better why I am here," explained Cypress, her voice steady, bordering on monotone.   "I understand your suppositions and your intentions.Yes, I think I understand them better than even you do. Therefore." He plucked a small, decorative golden scepter from his robe, the end of it pointed like a stake. It gleamed gold in the desert sunlight. "I shall make you an offer of free internment should you wish to continue. I am a trained thaumaturge. I shall see to it that your remains are properly dealt with."   "You should step aside, because I cannot and I do notwant to have to go through you."   "Don't. What?" D'heing shook his head, confusedand gestured with his scepter. "No, that's what I'm saying. Not that I'm going through... See, you're supposed to turn around because if you don't I'm hurting you, see?" He held his scepter forward to indicate it. "See, look. You know what this is?"   "I simply don't care what it is," Cypress steppedtowards the Miqo'te. Looking down at him, she reached out to grab the shiny-looking cudgel from his grasp.   D'hein pulled it away as though keeping a toy away from achild. "No! You don't think it'll be that easy, do you?"   Cypress lifted her hand upwards towards the man's face,ingesting a deep breath through her nostrils that flared widely with intake of air. Closing her eyes, she drew a spark on aether up from within her core, letting it fall down through her arm and into the palm of her hands, feeling the almost pleasurable shiver viscerally as small cracks formed at the surface of her red skin.   The large hand closed, letting the heat build up as herfingertips blacken, the effect spreading around her hand and up her forearm as pink-orange lines drew their way in its wake - a burning log having set too long in the fire. She opened her palm to reveal a flame that danced along it. "It could be, if you let it."   "I'm not very easily intimidated, you'll find!"D'hien lifted his head, stepped back and summoned Aether into his scepter, smirking stoically. "Are you sure you want to make a fight of this? I've taken down entire Garlean ariships before."   "I do not want a fight. But I cannot step aside."Cypress drew her other hand to the flame, her finger manipulating it into a growing ball.   His demeanor not demonstrating any concept that he is beingthreatened, D'hein drops into a casting stance and begins to conjure a spell. "I've warned you excessively. Now you shall endure one of the mightiest attacks the ossuary has ever devised. It is called... Blizzard Two."   Not pausing to call out what was forming at her fingertips,Cypress merely stepped back with large strides as she pulled back the hand that held the flaming ball and hurled it at D'hein and his chocobo.   D'hein was focusing on casting his spell, happily thinkinghe was about to chase the woman away, when the fireball struck him unawares. He felt a numb tingling across his arm, shoulder and back, which was enough to confuse him. But he was thoroughly disoriented as he was knocked off his feet and his body slammed into his chocobo, which made an unpleasant sound and bolted.   The man then fell on his back, feeling strangely hot evenfor the desert, and listened to the clatter of the milk bottles in his chocobo's saddlebags growing heartbreakingly distant. He gazed at the sky in vexation. The spell he had prepared in his scepter unleashed without target, freezing the ground next to him and making half of his body very cold.   With the distance she'd put herself at, Antimony could onlywatch with a sort of slow fear as the Hellsguard woman charged and released her fiery attack. She hadn't quite fathomed what the Hellsguard would be capable of, but now it bolstered her fear even further - both for D'hein (she hadn't intended to watch him get hurt, however annoying he was) and for her daughter. Gripping the reins of her chocobo, she didn't look to see if Illira had responded to the attack, instead driving her heels into the beast's side, at a point just in front of the legs that she knew from many decades would startle it just enough. The chocobo squawked and surged forward, and she rushed to angle it between the Tia on the ground and the roegadyn. "Stop!" She shouted and threw out one hand. "By all that is--just stop! Are you so heartless that you'd pass through us and murder an innocent child?!"   Illira watched on as D'hein fell to the ground and Antimonyrushed to the scene. A smile twitched itself into existence. He shouldn't have picked a fight that he couldn't win.   The flame fed by her aether continued to dance aboutCypress's ember of a hand, a little bit of it occasionally tinkling down into the sands below her, "What I track isn't innocent. It pulled a woman apart, leaving the trail that I'm now on."   "You don't understand, she--she doesn't know what...she can't control it! I swear to you it is not her fault!" Her joints ached as her hand shook around the reins, but she kept her wide-eyed stare on the Hellsguard.   Cypress's gaze was steady, "Excuses you have no rightto make. It does not matter if can't keep what she calls forth in a cage or not. She is still the reason they’re here and not where they belong, back beyond the voidgate. Now, you should either help me fix what she broke or step aside."   With a pleading look to the roegadyn, Antimony could onlyadd, "Please. Don't hurt her. You can kill the--the thing, just... please don't--if you hurt my daughter, I will--"   Shaking her head, Cypress said, "I cannot make promisesbecause I do not know the end tale."   "Then you are a monster just as much as what you claimto hunt!" Antimony shouted suddenly, gesturing roughly towards the other woman. "I won't let you hurt her! If it comes down to it, you will have to kill me first!"   D'hein sat up in the dirt, part of his shirt blackened andone of his sleeves frosted open. He looks at his feet. "I'm not sure what just happened."   Antimony's features tensed and she backed the chocobo up,away from the roegadyn. "Get back on your bird, now," she snapped to D'hein. "We will find her before this monster." And then she twisted the reins and sent the chocobo off running in the direction she'd left Illira.   "So you would let your... daughter continue to leavemore death in her wake because you believe that she doesn't know how handle what she does? You only enable her and should responsibility for the monster you birthed and look at in the mirror." Long fingers drew up enough fire from the seed to throw miniature flames at the feet of D'hein's chocobo.   Looking around in a confused daze, D'hein muttered, "Mybird's run off. I must have been very frightening." He stood and turned, watching Antimony ride off. He said again, quietly, "My chocobo has fled. I think I must..." He looked at the ground, noted tracks, and nodded. "I will follow it."   The chocobo stood ten meters away. He would have found italmost immediately, indeed he did see it and began towards it, but fire burst along its feet and it squawked, running further off. D'hein trotted after it.   Illira helpfully remarked to Antimony as she approached,"We should run along without him."   Antimony did not slow for D'hein's confusion, or theroegadyn's words. She would pass Illira without comment, a desperate look on her face. If the elezen followed, then she would, but Antimony was focused on pushing her chocobo as fast as physically possible, on reaching D'aijeen as fast as physically possible.   Cypress picked back up her walk and the trail that she hadnever really left. Slowly, the cracks present in her skin receded as she let the fire melt off of her hand and into the sandy, dry ground below her. Despite the speed and desperation that the woman had fled with, she was not hurried.   Finally catching up to his terrified chocobo, its feetburned, D'hein clambered up on top of it. The first thing he did was pluck a bottle of milk from the satchel on the side, open it and drink some. Then he turned it to follow after Antimony, still appearing deeply confused.   Illira narrowed her eyes at the approaching roegadyn, beforeturning after Antimony, nudging her stubborn, grounchy beast into a trot. At the very least, she should investigate the situation of Antimony's daughter. Anywhich way this panned out, somebody innocent would be in danger. And it was not in her to simply walk away from that.   When D'hein finally noticed pace set by Antimony, he was aways behind, and he found himself urging his chocobo into an unpleasantly speedy pace, chasing after her. "Song dogs barking at the break of dawn, lightning pushes the edges of a thunderstorm; and these streets, quiet as a sleeping army, send their battered dreams to heaven." Hipparion Tribe (Sagolii) -  Antimony Jhanhi's Wiki

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Bring the Daughters Home - by Naunet - 08-10-2014, 01:06 AM RE: Bring the Daughters Home - by Naunet - 08-10-2014, 01:16 AM RE: Bring the Daughters Home - by Naunet - 08-10-2014, 01:21 AM RE: Bring the Daughters Home - by Naunet - 08-10-2014, 01:24 AM RE: Bring the Daughters Home - by Naunet - 08-10-2014, 01:32 AM RE: Bring the Daughters Home - by Naunet - 08-10-2014, 01:44 AM RE: Bring the Daughters Home - by Naunet - 08-10-2014, 05:56 AM RE: Bring the Daughters Home - by Naunet - 08-14-2014, 12:09 AM

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