D'hein was lagging behind, trying to keep pace with Illira and make sure she didn't go running off. He'd planned on making this trip to deal with one misbehaving daughter, but now the Elezen woman was acting like another. As much as he loathed letting Antimony go on ahead in such a state of desperation as she appeared to be, D'hein would not permit himself to see permiting Illira to leave as an option. Most likely Antimony would not find D'aijeen immediately anyway.
Vesper Bay was well within view, but it seemed a thousand miles away at the rate they were moving. He gave Illira a hard look as he rode, not a scowl or a glare, but something rigid and stern nonetheless. For now, however, he left her in silence.
The sea town looked so much darker than Illira remembered from the last time that she had paid it a visit. Having calmed slightly since the argument in Horizon, she didn't turn around as soon as D'hein showed her his back and moved onward at a faster pace.Â
She followed, grey eyes casting about ahead of her for the trouble that practically eminated from the town now.
The blond-maned Tia remained unaware of the different air of the place, even as the shadows became as thick as puddles beneath his chocobo. He was looking for the twitch of Antimony's ears, or the flick of K'airo's red tail, or D'aijeen's glaring white clothes. What he saw first was a number of disembodied, strangely-shaped blue mouths flocking like birds around a giant hat and the Lalafel beneath it. This was just the kind of nonsensical image he had the luck of having frequent business with, and as he turned his chocobo that direction, he caught sight of K'airos and Antimony staring down a strange black blot and a derelict building. Odd sight.
He pulled his Chocobo up short. "Oh." He blinked, and one of his ears lay down, and his tail moved absently behind him as his expression moved from one flavor of stoic to another. "Unexpected." D'hein looked over his shoulder for Illira.
The woman stopped next to D'hein, "Something very foul is afoot." Noting the lack of... any persons outside those that she recognize, she came to at least one assumption, "It seems most of the village has fled."
"Foul is a word, yes." D'hein looked at Illira and gestured towards the corner of town where the ruined inn was. The place seemed to be lost in shadow though the sun shone full on it, but in the occasional splotches, Antimony and K'airos were in full view, as well as splashes of red from D'aijeen's new dress. "My daughter stands entrenched in Voidsent, and I find myself losing hope in her innocence as to the crimes of which she has been accused."
Illira looks sharply at D'hein, seemingly more interested in the lines and planes that made up his face than what loomed all around them, "What will you do then? That Roegadyn is not so far behind and Antimony looks to be pleading with the girl. I know where I will stand."
"I think that for now." He leaned forward on his chocobo, allowing his exhaustion to show, though it was not audible in his voice. "I'm going to let Antimony plead. I don't know what this is. I don't know what my daughter is doing or why."
"It looks rather simple to me. She unleashed a deadly plague on this town. Why doesn't matter." She shouldn't be surprised by his choice, and she wasn't. But she was surprised that she was disappointed.
"The fact that the 'why' doesn't matter is the reason you're degenerating into a psychotic," D'hein muttered in reply. "I've never actually seen D'aijeen interact with her mother, so I don't know if the pleading will do any good. I want to see."
On the steps of the inn, D'aijeen turned her gaze to K'airos, the eyes on her darkened features looking hurt for a moment before curving with a smile that seemed to flatten out the shadow of her face. "I need to stop? It isn't true? So I'm wrong, I'm lying. I need to stop. I always need to stop! Always telling me to stop! Oh, Airos." She walked off the steps and onto the road, heading towards her moth and sister. "I don't think you understand what you're saying. The rejection. How hurtful it is."
K'airos stomped her foot down and yelled in response. "I don't like you like this! I want you back to how you were!"
Illira's chocobo paws at the ground, obviously uncomfortable with their current position and proximity to voidsent, "Oh good, you want to see. Well. I suppose we should not stir the hornet's nest ourselves."
Antimony took D'aijeen's approach as invitation to move closer as well, even if it wasn't what her daughter actually meant. The need to be near her, to show that she still supported and loved her, in spite of everything, overrode even K'airos's fear. "It's not rejection, dear," She stepped towards D'aijeen, slow but certain. "I promise you. If we ask you to stop, it is with good reason, because we love you and don't want you to hurt yourself!"
"There's nothing to go back to." D'aijeen shook her head as though K'airos were asking her to transform into another species. "This is how I've always been. You either love me or don't, and you don't. You don't. You want me to stop. Stop being me. Because I'll hurt... what, me? No. You hurt me. You hurt me."
D'hein's ears stood up on his head, almost facing the same direction, but not quite. One turned slightly towards Illira. "If there's a hornets nest that does get stirred up, I'll have to do something about it. But I won't kick it. I've been a father too long to make that mistake."
"You weren't like this back in the tribe, before you found that acursed book!" K'airos replied, not moving an inch from her spot. She was tapping her knuckles together, and her eyes were about to burst into tears once more. "I want my little sister back! Not this!"
Antimony shook her head, green eyes pleading with her daughter as she approached. "Aijeen, look at you. Look at everything around you! How can you think this is safe, for you or for anyone? You're--you're playing with demons, Aijeen, and I don't want to lose you to them! Please," she held out both hands to her daughter, close enough that only a few, quick steps would take her right to her, "we can help you."
"You know I couldn't even read that book at first. But I didn't have to. I remembered." D'aijeen chuckled a bit. "I already knew everything in the book. It just reminded me. I was always, always this way. I was always just like this." With her arms at her sides, D'aijeen walked forward towards her mother, closing the distance, but not lifting her hands to embrace the woman. "And I always loved you. But you loved a make believe Aijee that never existed."
Antimony stepped forward one last step and brought her arms around her daughter without hesitation, ignoring the way D'aijeen's body was stained as black as void. She didn't say anything, just hugged her and kissed the top of her head.
Illira smirks, watching the reunion, "I'm sure it'll all be fine now. Don't you think you?" sarcasm nearly dripped from her mouth as the inky shadows dripped off of the rootop edges.
"See, mom. It's perfectly safe. I'm completely in control." D'aijeen turned her gaze up to her mother, the smile on her lips just visible through the shadows. "Like I'll be in complete control of you." She lifted her hands and put them behind her mother. "Once you're dead."
D'aijeen pulled Antimony into a tighter hug, a real one. She lay her head against her mother's jawline and her green hair, dappled with shadows, fell over the woman chest. Her tail twitched behind her. The sound of the nearby surf against the shore slid through the shadows like thunder through a stormcloud. D'aijeen sighed, her mouth opened wide.
Shadows poured out of her body, out of her very skin, out of her open mouth, from beneath the shadows of her hair. Ink-dark and oil-thick, they rose like a plume and washed over Antimony, bearing her backwards and downwards, completely obscuring her. The strange matter roiled like igneous fluid, suffocating.
K'airos let out a scream and ran towards them. Behind, Ulanan lifted a finger. Three of her pets flew in the same direction, passing her and leaving her behind quickly. Two of them tried to bite and push D'aijeen away with a charge, while the other headed behind her, its top colored orange instead of blue.
The black, liquid shape that was now all that was discernible of Antimony just writhed on the ground.
On seeing Antimony get brought downward, sinking into the town's stones, Illira urged her chocobo forward. But it refused to have any of that and instead hopped in place, turning, and then backing into D'hein's chocobo.
Releasing the pillar of matter that she'd summoned around her mother, letting it fall to the ground, D'aijeen spun in place. Two of the summoned maws found themselves biting shadow at her back as she stood weak, buckling under her own weight, unmoved. She dropped her gaze to the red maw, but the many faces of a Baalzephon rose lazily between them.
Surrounded by thick, dark matter, in front and behind, D'aijeen shouted as loud as her thing voice could manage, "Airos, I command you to kill the Lalafel immediately!"
D'hein had been in the process of dismounting his own chocobo when Illira's bumped into it, startling his bird and causing it to stumble backward and squawk loudly. D'hein was tossed off by it's tiny, flapping wings, landing on his feet and falling flat. He was on his feet quickly, though, his scepter in hand, running in the direction though he was still far removed from it.
"I don't want to!" K'airos cried, yet spun towards the lalafell immediately as ordered. She ran into one of the tiny mage's summons, which had reacted to the command in the opposite direction, inflating itself until it was the size of the Miqo'te. With its mouth open, it seemingly swallowed her whole.
Ulanan pointed at Antimony, making another one fly to her, inflating and trying to swallow her too.
The pets harassing D'aijeen changed targets and bited on the interposing shadows, changing colors. However, the already red one simply exploded.
As one of the blue summons expanded as though to engulf the black form of Antimony, the writhing slowed, growing sluggish like molasses. The pitch matter shimmered with an oily sheen.
Despite strong urging and kicks to the chocobos sides, it continued to do anything but go forward. So Illira abandoned the bird, hopping off of it. She didn't bother to watch it run back off towards Horizon. Instead she put her hand to the short sword hanging off of her belt. She let it lay there for a moment before opening the small container clipped next to it, pulling out the round of wire it contained, wrapping one end of it around her around her hand before walking towards a building that sat near the confrontation, intending to duck out of sight behind it.
The exploding maws made the Baalzephons expel strange, groaning sounds, sending them drifting downward as though sinking in water. D'aijeen was safe behind them for a moment. In the next, however, the shadows around her snapped open on the side where Antimony and K'airos had been, forming a quick, dark hallway to trap her inside with them. Not even pausing to watch the shape of her mother stilling on the ground, D'aijeen lifted her hands, one holding her scepter and the other holding a conjurer's wand adorned with rodent skulls. Between the two handfuls of casting implements, power grow, and a powerful concussive blast shot from D'aijeen towards the maw that had captured her sister, hot with crackling sparks.
D'hein ran at full speed towards the inn, and when he thought he was close enough he skidded to a stop and began to cast a spell. It took time, however. He didn't know how or when D'aijeen had become so much faster than he was at spell casting.
The maw holding K'airos took the concussive blast as well as a balloon, the force of the attack deforming its shape and making it roll on a side. It's surface cracked, and it spit K'airos out of it before collapsing like a house of cards. The girl crawled for a moment before trying to push herself up, confused by what just happened.Â
The one with Antimony opened its mouth and bit down, taking her inside it. It turned around, mouth open towards Ulanan. The lalafel's book lighted up as she casted a cleansing spell on the Miqo'te, trying to dispel the darkness enveloping her.
D'aijeen turned her attention the maw that had taken her mother a moment before. Shadows splashed around her, the sound of the surf shaking through them, as black matter continued to drip from her every gesture. She raised her arms with a spell to destroy the maw, and a shadow moved with the motion to block Ulanan's attempt to dispel her curse.
D'hein unleashed a spell that was so driven by instinct and need that he didn't even have a name for it, just muttering, "Ice... spell!" out of habit and mostly in confusion at himself.
The frigid spell cut through the line of shadows and struck D'aijeen sideways, knocking the girl to one knee and freezing her hands rigidly in front of her. Her spell broke as unformed mana, harmless, and the shadow she had been raising melted away. Ulanan's spell succeeded. D'aijeen turned furious eyes on her "father".
The shadow matter that had wrapped around Antimony pulled away from her skin like water, dripping to the ground and either fading completely or rejoining the shadows it had come from. The woman remained still in the summon's maw, however, eyes closed.
The shadows didn't scare Illira, though as she made her way around the building and behind the fight she couldn't help but shiver as the unnatural cold settled into her bones as she traveled through the dark depths that the girl had created. Closing her hand around the wire that she'd wrapped around it, Illira tried to simply focus in on that as she picked up the other end with her left hand.
Ulanan waved her small arm southwards. The maw holding Antimony seemed to nod and started moving away, closing its mouth to protect its hold.Â
"That's a good idea, keep doing that!" she yelled towards D'hein, though she didn't bother looking at him. She jerked her book forward, its pages lighting up to form an unaspected ball of aether that was directed at D'aijeen's head.
K'airos lifted up from where she was and ran towards the Lalafell, crying, but with her whole body telling her to kill the woman.
D'hein intended to continue. He was already conjuring his next spell.
But compared to D'aijeen, he hadn't even begun. The shadows washed away from the small, tired woman, long enough for her to snap her arms apart and thrust her hands forward, the scepter in one hand and the wand in the other glowing with the respective magics.
Biting wind struck D'hein's eyes like sand, sought to sting his nostrils and lips and the skin of his face. Closing his eyes, he tried to ignore the strange sensations of non-pain and continue conjuring his spell. But the wind was joined by fire a moment later, striking him hard and knocking him off his feet. He felt his clothes catch fire and the flame get caught in the wind, and he released the ice spell he'd been conjuring to put the fire out.
He rolled to his feet just in time for a Baalzephon to brush past him. Cold and swift in its own lazy way, it disregarded him as insignificant in the same moment it knocked him away once more. The shadow chased the maw that carried Antimony away.
Coming around the back corner of what Illira remembered to be the inn, she peeked around the corner. The cool metal of the wire feeling familiar in her hands, though it had been sometime since she had felt them there.Â
She could see D'hein fighting against the wind his supposed daughter had conjured. Tall masked pillars haunting the lalafel and Antimony who was being carried away. The girl stood not but a few feet from her, facing away towards the small battlefield as she weaved her spells. Tightening her grip on both ends of the wire, Illira's lanky form crept forward towards frail, greenhaired girl.
K'airos reached the lalafell mage in that moment and kicked at her with all her might. A spell was fired from between Ulanan's clothes, a paper sphere interposing between her and the attack, making K'airos strumble backwards. The last of Ulanan's maws headed towards her, inflating as the other ones had done.Â
The tiny mage conjured a new spell from the book. A purple circle of aether formed at K'airos feet and trapped them in a magical web. The lalafell moved away, then, sprinting towards the maw holding Antimony.
D'aijeen watched her "father" fall away like the clumsy oaf he was. She didn't give him another thought. She imeediately turned her attention to the Lalafel that was escaping with her mother. Her mother. Hers. Being taken away, right in front of her. She wouldn't stand for it. Almost wihtout thought, she conjured fire in her scepter and threw it towards the enchanted construct.
Once again displaying his oft-useless talent of standing back up very quickly after having fallen down, D'hein was present to intercept that spell. He couldn't conjure  fast enough to stop it, but he found it in himself to place his own body in the path of the fire. To let himself be burned by his daughter, for his daughter's mother, the woman whom he would never be allowed to love. It was a fate he could accept. He deserved no better.
A bizarre paper shape slipped out of a hole burned in his robes and inflated into a geomteric silhouette with comical eyes. They looked at him with sadness, as if to say that it was not his time. Then the paper figure turned and expanded, and the fire struck it without mercy. In the same instant it was born, it had died. And it had died a better death than most men D'hein knew.
In that moment, D'hein knew he would remember that little paper box-baloon thing with the eyes for the rest of his life.
Incensed, D'aijeen almost failed to notice K'airos fall. She saw another one of the Lalafel's constructs moving towards her, opening its mocking maw to steal her away. D'aijeen could almost feel the curse holding her sister's legs together. With a wordless hiss, D'aijeen, swung the wand and the skulls that hung from it, muttering words she'd heard her own mother say once and reinforcing them with the conjury of the Shroud, ripping the binding's from her sister's legs. The Baalzephon that had been chasing the Lalafel turned to intercept the construct that would have stolen her sister away. She was not going to let her K'airos be taken from her.
"Airos!" D'aijeen shouted, surprised at the volume of her own voice, the urgency in it. "I command you to let the Lalafel go! I comm-"
But that voice was cut off in a sudden instant as something thin snapped tight across her neck, pulling her backwards and up. She felt her skin giving way, something inside of her throat crumbling.
Now that the elezen felt tugging weight at the apex of her wire, there was a part of her that couldn't help but feel that it had been too long since she'd snuffed the life of someone that needed to be extinguished. The world would be a better place without this girl who summoned demons and tried to kill her own mother. The irony was lost on her. And while the feeling was satisfying, it wasn't personal the way that it would have been D'hein. If only he'd been demon summoner instead of his so-called daughter.
She tightened the wire, drawing the girl up to her toes. As tiny as she was, it wasn't hard.
The maw heading towards K'airos found something better to chomp on: the Baalzephon in its way. It tilted its whole body to bite it sideways, then changed colors and imploded with it.
K'airos obeyed her sister and stopped chasing the lalafel. She fell to her kness and curled down, hiding her head between her arms. She grasped forcefully at her own ears, trying to quench all sounds. "Stop! Stop! Stop!" she repeated a few times loudly. "Don't...don't hurt anyone!"
Ulanan jumped inside the big maw, falling into a sitting position next to Antimony. She prepared a quick, weak healing spell at her. The maw continued to float away. Antimony would remain still in the maw, visibly unresponsive to Ulanan's healing, though it bought her a brief extension of time before permanent death neurologically.
D'aijeen hung like an executed prisoner. She wasn't sure from what. The line that had snared her cut up behind her jaw, destroying her thoat. Her sense were all blood and a steely, cold taste that spread from her extremities to the rest of her body. The shadow and discoloration that had wrapped her ran from her body as though melting away, leaving her clean, except for the blood. Everything turned from black to red in a moment, and her blue eyes dimmed.
She stared forward. She looked for K'airos. But she could barely lift her eyes. Just her eyes were so heavy. And getting heavier. Everything was heavy. She couldn't move. She choked and shivered and hung on the line, looking for K'airos and seeing only dirt. And then she stopped shivering, and she stopped looking.
Ulanan held the book above Antimony's head. The curative aether gathered in its pages, flowing across and out of them towards the dying woman in a steady stream.
Illira let young girl's weight hang from the thin, sturdy wire. Heavy breaths found their way into her chest as she looked at the other daughter kneeling on the ground traumatized.Â
She stood there like that for a couple of minutes. Anyone watching her might think that she looked relunctant to put the Miqo'te down. Maybe she was, she didn't really know how felt now that it was done. Satisfaction, she decided. She'd done her job.Â
The tall woman slowly lowered her hands, and D'aijeen with them, laying the brightly dressed girl on the ground, unlooping her garrote from around the too-thin neck.
D'hein stood transfixed on the site, his tail swinging back and forth behind him. For once, both of his eyes stood in concert, out to either side of his head in bemusement. He lingered as long as Illira did, and when the Elezen woman lay his bloodied daughter's body in the dirt, D'hein dropped his scepter in the dirt and turned away. He took crooked steps without destination. Just walking away.
Vesper Bay was well within view, but it seemed a thousand miles away at the rate they were moving. He gave Illira a hard look as he rode, not a scowl or a glare, but something rigid and stern nonetheless. For now, however, he left her in silence.
The sea town looked so much darker than Illira remembered from the last time that she had paid it a visit. Having calmed slightly since the argument in Horizon, she didn't turn around as soon as D'hein showed her his back and moved onward at a faster pace.Â
She followed, grey eyes casting about ahead of her for the trouble that practically eminated from the town now.
The blond-maned Tia remained unaware of the different air of the place, even as the shadows became as thick as puddles beneath his chocobo. He was looking for the twitch of Antimony's ears, or the flick of K'airo's red tail, or D'aijeen's glaring white clothes. What he saw first was a number of disembodied, strangely-shaped blue mouths flocking like birds around a giant hat and the Lalafel beneath it. This was just the kind of nonsensical image he had the luck of having frequent business with, and as he turned his chocobo that direction, he caught sight of K'airos and Antimony staring down a strange black blot and a derelict building. Odd sight.
He pulled his Chocobo up short. "Oh." He blinked, and one of his ears lay down, and his tail moved absently behind him as his expression moved from one flavor of stoic to another. "Unexpected." D'hein looked over his shoulder for Illira.
The woman stopped next to D'hein, "Something very foul is afoot." Noting the lack of... any persons outside those that she recognize, she came to at least one assumption, "It seems most of the village has fled."
"Foul is a word, yes." D'hein looked at Illira and gestured towards the corner of town where the ruined inn was. The place seemed to be lost in shadow though the sun shone full on it, but in the occasional splotches, Antimony and K'airos were in full view, as well as splashes of red from D'aijeen's new dress. "My daughter stands entrenched in Voidsent, and I find myself losing hope in her innocence as to the crimes of which she has been accused."
Illira looks sharply at D'hein, seemingly more interested in the lines and planes that made up his face than what loomed all around them, "What will you do then? That Roegadyn is not so far behind and Antimony looks to be pleading with the girl. I know where I will stand."
"I think that for now." He leaned forward on his chocobo, allowing his exhaustion to show, though it was not audible in his voice. "I'm going to let Antimony plead. I don't know what this is. I don't know what my daughter is doing or why."
"It looks rather simple to me. She unleashed a deadly plague on this town. Why doesn't matter." She shouldn't be surprised by his choice, and she wasn't. But she was surprised that she was disappointed.
"The fact that the 'why' doesn't matter is the reason you're degenerating into a psychotic," D'hein muttered in reply. "I've never actually seen D'aijeen interact with her mother, so I don't know if the pleading will do any good. I want to see."
On the steps of the inn, D'aijeen turned her gaze to K'airos, the eyes on her darkened features looking hurt for a moment before curving with a smile that seemed to flatten out the shadow of her face. "I need to stop? It isn't true? So I'm wrong, I'm lying. I need to stop. I always need to stop! Always telling me to stop! Oh, Airos." She walked off the steps and onto the road, heading towards her moth and sister. "I don't think you understand what you're saying. The rejection. How hurtful it is."
K'airos stomped her foot down and yelled in response. "I don't like you like this! I want you back to how you were!"
Illira's chocobo paws at the ground, obviously uncomfortable with their current position and proximity to voidsent, "Oh good, you want to see. Well. I suppose we should not stir the hornet's nest ourselves."
Antimony took D'aijeen's approach as invitation to move closer as well, even if it wasn't what her daughter actually meant. The need to be near her, to show that she still supported and loved her, in spite of everything, overrode even K'airos's fear. "It's not rejection, dear," She stepped towards D'aijeen, slow but certain. "I promise you. If we ask you to stop, it is with good reason, because we love you and don't want you to hurt yourself!"
"There's nothing to go back to." D'aijeen shook her head as though K'airos were asking her to transform into another species. "This is how I've always been. You either love me or don't, and you don't. You don't. You want me to stop. Stop being me. Because I'll hurt... what, me? No. You hurt me. You hurt me."
D'hein's ears stood up on his head, almost facing the same direction, but not quite. One turned slightly towards Illira. "If there's a hornets nest that does get stirred up, I'll have to do something about it. But I won't kick it. I've been a father too long to make that mistake."
"You weren't like this back in the tribe, before you found that acursed book!" K'airos replied, not moving an inch from her spot. She was tapping her knuckles together, and her eyes were about to burst into tears once more. "I want my little sister back! Not this!"
Antimony shook her head, green eyes pleading with her daughter as she approached. "Aijeen, look at you. Look at everything around you! How can you think this is safe, for you or for anyone? You're--you're playing with demons, Aijeen, and I don't want to lose you to them! Please," she held out both hands to her daughter, close enough that only a few, quick steps would take her right to her, "we can help you."
"You know I couldn't even read that book at first. But I didn't have to. I remembered." D'aijeen chuckled a bit. "I already knew everything in the book. It just reminded me. I was always, always this way. I was always just like this." With her arms at her sides, D'aijeen walked forward towards her mother, closing the distance, but not lifting her hands to embrace the woman. "And I always loved you. But you loved a make believe Aijee that never existed."
Antimony stepped forward one last step and brought her arms around her daughter without hesitation, ignoring the way D'aijeen's body was stained as black as void. She didn't say anything, just hugged her and kissed the top of her head.
Illira smirks, watching the reunion, "I'm sure it'll all be fine now. Don't you think you?" sarcasm nearly dripped from her mouth as the inky shadows dripped off of the rootop edges.
"See, mom. It's perfectly safe. I'm completely in control." D'aijeen turned her gaze up to her mother, the smile on her lips just visible through the shadows. "Like I'll be in complete control of you." She lifted her hands and put them behind her mother. "Once you're dead."
D'aijeen pulled Antimony into a tighter hug, a real one. She lay her head against her mother's jawline and her green hair, dappled with shadows, fell over the woman chest. Her tail twitched behind her. The sound of the nearby surf against the shore slid through the shadows like thunder through a stormcloud. D'aijeen sighed, her mouth opened wide.
Shadows poured out of her body, out of her very skin, out of her open mouth, from beneath the shadows of her hair. Ink-dark and oil-thick, they rose like a plume and washed over Antimony, bearing her backwards and downwards, completely obscuring her. The strange matter roiled like igneous fluid, suffocating.
K'airos let out a scream and ran towards them. Behind, Ulanan lifted a finger. Three of her pets flew in the same direction, passing her and leaving her behind quickly. Two of them tried to bite and push D'aijeen away with a charge, while the other headed behind her, its top colored orange instead of blue.
The black, liquid shape that was now all that was discernible of Antimony just writhed on the ground.
On seeing Antimony get brought downward, sinking into the town's stones, Illira urged her chocobo forward. But it refused to have any of that and instead hopped in place, turning, and then backing into D'hein's chocobo.
Releasing the pillar of matter that she'd summoned around her mother, letting it fall to the ground, D'aijeen spun in place. Two of the summoned maws found themselves biting shadow at her back as she stood weak, buckling under her own weight, unmoved. She dropped her gaze to the red maw, but the many faces of a Baalzephon rose lazily between them.
Surrounded by thick, dark matter, in front and behind, D'aijeen shouted as loud as her thing voice could manage, "Airos, I command you to kill the Lalafel immediately!"
D'hein had been in the process of dismounting his own chocobo when Illira's bumped into it, startling his bird and causing it to stumble backward and squawk loudly. D'hein was tossed off by it's tiny, flapping wings, landing on his feet and falling flat. He was on his feet quickly, though, his scepter in hand, running in the direction though he was still far removed from it.
"I don't want to!" K'airos cried, yet spun towards the lalafell immediately as ordered. She ran into one of the tiny mage's summons, which had reacted to the command in the opposite direction, inflating itself until it was the size of the Miqo'te. With its mouth open, it seemingly swallowed her whole.
Ulanan pointed at Antimony, making another one fly to her, inflating and trying to swallow her too.
The pets harassing D'aijeen changed targets and bited on the interposing shadows, changing colors. However, the already red one simply exploded.
As one of the blue summons expanded as though to engulf the black form of Antimony, the writhing slowed, growing sluggish like molasses. The pitch matter shimmered with an oily sheen.
Despite strong urging and kicks to the chocobos sides, it continued to do anything but go forward. So Illira abandoned the bird, hopping off of it. She didn't bother to watch it run back off towards Horizon. Instead she put her hand to the short sword hanging off of her belt. She let it lay there for a moment before opening the small container clipped next to it, pulling out the round of wire it contained, wrapping one end of it around her around her hand before walking towards a building that sat near the confrontation, intending to duck out of sight behind it.
The exploding maws made the Baalzephons expel strange, groaning sounds, sending them drifting downward as though sinking in water. D'aijeen was safe behind them for a moment. In the next, however, the shadows around her snapped open on the side where Antimony and K'airos had been, forming a quick, dark hallway to trap her inside with them. Not even pausing to watch the shape of her mother stilling on the ground, D'aijeen lifted her hands, one holding her scepter and the other holding a conjurer's wand adorned with rodent skulls. Between the two handfuls of casting implements, power grow, and a powerful concussive blast shot from D'aijeen towards the maw that had captured her sister, hot with crackling sparks.
D'hein ran at full speed towards the inn, and when he thought he was close enough he skidded to a stop and began to cast a spell. It took time, however. He didn't know how or when D'aijeen had become so much faster than he was at spell casting.
The maw holding K'airos took the concussive blast as well as a balloon, the force of the attack deforming its shape and making it roll on a side. It's surface cracked, and it spit K'airos out of it before collapsing like a house of cards. The girl crawled for a moment before trying to push herself up, confused by what just happened.Â
The one with Antimony opened its mouth and bit down, taking her inside it. It turned around, mouth open towards Ulanan. The lalafel's book lighted up as she casted a cleansing spell on the Miqo'te, trying to dispel the darkness enveloping her.
D'aijeen turned her attention the maw that had taken her mother a moment before. Shadows splashed around her, the sound of the surf shaking through them, as black matter continued to drip from her every gesture. She raised her arms with a spell to destroy the maw, and a shadow moved with the motion to block Ulanan's attempt to dispel her curse.
D'hein unleashed a spell that was so driven by instinct and need that he didn't even have a name for it, just muttering, "Ice... spell!" out of habit and mostly in confusion at himself.
The frigid spell cut through the line of shadows and struck D'aijeen sideways, knocking the girl to one knee and freezing her hands rigidly in front of her. Her spell broke as unformed mana, harmless, and the shadow she had been raising melted away. Ulanan's spell succeeded. D'aijeen turned furious eyes on her "father".
The shadow matter that had wrapped around Antimony pulled away from her skin like water, dripping to the ground and either fading completely or rejoining the shadows it had come from. The woman remained still in the summon's maw, however, eyes closed.
The shadows didn't scare Illira, though as she made her way around the building and behind the fight she couldn't help but shiver as the unnatural cold settled into her bones as she traveled through the dark depths that the girl had created. Closing her hand around the wire that she'd wrapped around it, Illira tried to simply focus in on that as she picked up the other end with her left hand.
Ulanan waved her small arm southwards. The maw holding Antimony seemed to nod and started moving away, closing its mouth to protect its hold.Â
"That's a good idea, keep doing that!" she yelled towards D'hein, though she didn't bother looking at him. She jerked her book forward, its pages lighting up to form an unaspected ball of aether that was directed at D'aijeen's head.
K'airos lifted up from where she was and ran towards the Lalafell, crying, but with her whole body telling her to kill the woman.
D'hein intended to continue. He was already conjuring his next spell.
But compared to D'aijeen, he hadn't even begun. The shadows washed away from the small, tired woman, long enough for her to snap her arms apart and thrust her hands forward, the scepter in one hand and the wand in the other glowing with the respective magics.
Biting wind struck D'hein's eyes like sand, sought to sting his nostrils and lips and the skin of his face. Closing his eyes, he tried to ignore the strange sensations of non-pain and continue conjuring his spell. But the wind was joined by fire a moment later, striking him hard and knocking him off his feet. He felt his clothes catch fire and the flame get caught in the wind, and he released the ice spell he'd been conjuring to put the fire out.
He rolled to his feet just in time for a Baalzephon to brush past him. Cold and swift in its own lazy way, it disregarded him as insignificant in the same moment it knocked him away once more. The shadow chased the maw that carried Antimony away.
Coming around the back corner of what Illira remembered to be the inn, she peeked around the corner. The cool metal of the wire feeling familiar in her hands, though it had been sometime since she had felt them there.Â
She could see D'hein fighting against the wind his supposed daughter had conjured. Tall masked pillars haunting the lalafel and Antimony who was being carried away. The girl stood not but a few feet from her, facing away towards the small battlefield as she weaved her spells. Tightening her grip on both ends of the wire, Illira's lanky form crept forward towards frail, greenhaired girl.
K'airos reached the lalafell mage in that moment and kicked at her with all her might. A spell was fired from between Ulanan's clothes, a paper sphere interposing between her and the attack, making K'airos strumble backwards. The last of Ulanan's maws headed towards her, inflating as the other ones had done.Â
The tiny mage conjured a new spell from the book. A purple circle of aether formed at K'airos feet and trapped them in a magical web. The lalafell moved away, then, sprinting towards the maw holding Antimony.
D'aijeen watched her "father" fall away like the clumsy oaf he was. She didn't give him another thought. She imeediately turned her attention to the Lalafel that was escaping with her mother. Her mother. Hers. Being taken away, right in front of her. She wouldn't stand for it. Almost wihtout thought, she conjured fire in her scepter and threw it towards the enchanted construct.
Once again displaying his oft-useless talent of standing back up very quickly after having fallen down, D'hein was present to intercept that spell. He couldn't conjure  fast enough to stop it, but he found it in himself to place his own body in the path of the fire. To let himself be burned by his daughter, for his daughter's mother, the woman whom he would never be allowed to love. It was a fate he could accept. He deserved no better.
A bizarre paper shape slipped out of a hole burned in his robes and inflated into a geomteric silhouette with comical eyes. They looked at him with sadness, as if to say that it was not his time. Then the paper figure turned and expanded, and the fire struck it without mercy. In the same instant it was born, it had died. And it had died a better death than most men D'hein knew.
In that moment, D'hein knew he would remember that little paper box-baloon thing with the eyes for the rest of his life.
Incensed, D'aijeen almost failed to notice K'airos fall. She saw another one of the Lalafel's constructs moving towards her, opening its mocking maw to steal her away. D'aijeen could almost feel the curse holding her sister's legs together. With a wordless hiss, D'aijeen, swung the wand and the skulls that hung from it, muttering words she'd heard her own mother say once and reinforcing them with the conjury of the Shroud, ripping the binding's from her sister's legs. The Baalzephon that had been chasing the Lalafel turned to intercept the construct that would have stolen her sister away. She was not going to let her K'airos be taken from her.
"Airos!" D'aijeen shouted, surprised at the volume of her own voice, the urgency in it. "I command you to let the Lalafel go! I comm-"
But that voice was cut off in a sudden instant as something thin snapped tight across her neck, pulling her backwards and up. She felt her skin giving way, something inside of her throat crumbling.
Now that the elezen felt tugging weight at the apex of her wire, there was a part of her that couldn't help but feel that it had been too long since she'd snuffed the life of someone that needed to be extinguished. The world would be a better place without this girl who summoned demons and tried to kill her own mother. The irony was lost on her. And while the feeling was satisfying, it wasn't personal the way that it would have been D'hein. If only he'd been demon summoner instead of his so-called daughter.
She tightened the wire, drawing the girl up to her toes. As tiny as she was, it wasn't hard.
The maw heading towards K'airos found something better to chomp on: the Baalzephon in its way. It tilted its whole body to bite it sideways, then changed colors and imploded with it.
K'airos obeyed her sister and stopped chasing the lalafel. She fell to her kness and curled down, hiding her head between her arms. She grasped forcefully at her own ears, trying to quench all sounds. "Stop! Stop! Stop!" she repeated a few times loudly. "Don't...don't hurt anyone!"
Ulanan jumped inside the big maw, falling into a sitting position next to Antimony. She prepared a quick, weak healing spell at her. The maw continued to float away. Antimony would remain still in the maw, visibly unresponsive to Ulanan's healing, though it bought her a brief extension of time before permanent death neurologically.
D'aijeen hung like an executed prisoner. She wasn't sure from what. The line that had snared her cut up behind her jaw, destroying her thoat. Her sense were all blood and a steely, cold taste that spread from her extremities to the rest of her body. The shadow and discoloration that had wrapped her ran from her body as though melting away, leaving her clean, except for the blood. Everything turned from black to red in a moment, and her blue eyes dimmed.
She stared forward. She looked for K'airos. But she could barely lift her eyes. Just her eyes were so heavy. And getting heavier. Everything was heavy. She couldn't move. She choked and shivered and hung on the line, looking for K'airos and seeing only dirt. And then she stopped shivering, and she stopped looking.
Ulanan held the book above Antimony's head. The curative aether gathered in its pages, flowing across and out of them towards the dying woman in a steady stream.
Illira let young girl's weight hang from the thin, sturdy wire. Heavy breaths found their way into her chest as she looked at the other daughter kneeling on the ground traumatized.Â
She stood there like that for a couple of minutes. Anyone watching her might think that she looked relunctant to put the Miqo'te down. Maybe she was, she didn't really know how felt now that it was done. Satisfaction, she decided. She'd done her job.Â
The tall woman slowly lowered her hands, and D'aijeen with them, laying the brightly dressed girl on the ground, unlooping her garrote from around the too-thin neck.
D'hein stood transfixed on the site, his tail swinging back and forth behind him. For once, both of his eyes stood in concert, out to either side of his head in bemusement. He lingered as long as Illira did, and when the Elezen woman lay his bloodied daughter's body in the dirt, D'hein dropped his scepter in the dirt and turned away. He took crooked steps without destination. Just walking away.
![[Image: AntiThalSig.png]](https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/179079766/AntiThalSig.png)
"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)Â - Â Antimony Jhanhi's Wiki
