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Bring the Daughters Home


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Bring the Daughters Home
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Naunetv
Naunet
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Leech of the Aeons
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Posts:1,749
Joined:Jul 2013
Character:Antimony
Linkshell:Hipparion Tribe
Server:Balmung
Reputation: 108
RE: Bring the Daughters Home |
#8
08-14-2014, 12:09 AM
Horizon's inn was a small one, and quiet compared to the busy traffic of the waypoint settlement. Word had not yet reached Horizon of what had occurred at Vesper Bay, and it may never as the shadows and things that moved within them had been very thorough in their sweeping of the coastal town. No one here knew of the death that had befallen an already bereaved family, and the hostess that gave them their room offered them smiles.

Antimony would have been grateful had she the energy to notice. Her mind welcomed quiet of their room as she shuffled inside, K'airos at her side. Illira had gone off to see her vicious wound tended to, which also suited Antimony who had no wish to lay eyes on the woman who had so wickedly taken her daughter. D'aijeen, who she had thought lost only to find again, only to lose her again and this time witness it. She sagged against K'airos - her only remaining daughter - and felt the tears return at the backs of her eyes. She saw the water with its slowly stilling ripples, a black, bottomless maw that had swallowed D'aijeen without hesitation. Even the comfort of sending her body to the sands had been taken from her.

She dropped to her knees in the room, one hand still on K'airos, and bowed her head in exhaustion.

K'airos had been speechless through all the journey. All she could afford to do was cry. She didn't even remember walking to Horizon. As far as she could recall, they had simply appeared there after leaving the pier. She'd likely forget about her time in the inn, if given time.

Falling to her mother's side, the young woman rested her head against Antimony's shoulder, sobbing and still speechless. She couldn't find the strength to do anything more.

Turning slightly towards K'airos, Antimony brought her arms around the young woman, who would have been a proud huntress by now had the neglect of uncaring gods not twisted their paths. She ran her fingers through K'airos's hair, pulled her close, breathed in the smell of blood, of family that still lingered after all these years.

And yet it could not dull the screaming pain in her heart.

"I will never let you go," she murmured, voice low and trembling. She should have never let K'aijeen go. She should have watched her, gone to fetch her from the racks that day, taken her back to the tent, listened and helped her. She should have... Shivering, Antimony buried her face in the top of K'airos's head.

The girl crossed her arms, placing each hand on the opposite shoulder and pressing against her chest. "It's my fault." she sobbed.  Her speech was broken by intermittent crying and lack of breath. "I should have done what she asked me to do. Then she wouldn't have...! And we could find a way to help..."

"It's not. It's not. There was nothing..." Her heart ached as she held her daughter, tried to soothe her even when she herself felt inconsolable. "You've done nothing... nothing wrong. I am sorry," her tail shifted to wrap against her daughter's side, a deeply loving and parental gesture. "I am sorry I wasn't... there."

"But it is!" K'airos cried. "If I had, she wouldn't have summoned those demons. She'd still be here! But now she's gone! Gone! Gone again!" She sunk deeper into herself, crying more than she had before as her mind continued circling around that thought.

Antimony pulled K'airos closer, until she was nearly bending over her daughter, shielding her with her very body. For a long time she could find only actions to try and comfort her daughter, and despaired at how ineffectual they were. Just as her efforts to guide K'aijeen had proven ineffectual. She had always been an ineffective mother.

Swallowing through the silence, Antimony pet the red hair beneath her face, between ears that seemed to want to hide from the world. Her own tears dampened the fur there. "It would have only delayed this," she murmured, voice choking as the muscles in her jaw and throat clenched around the words, as though her body wanted to physically reject them. And yet a part of her knew them to be true. "Anything you could have done... I'm sorry, Airos. I'm so sorry."

K'airos nodded briefly. It wasn't an acknowledgment of her mother's words. Rather, it was her own answer to her own silent thinking. "I don't want to stay in Thanalan." she said, trying to distract herself with a tangent. Her thoughts weren't fooled, though. She tried harder "But I don't know where to go."

"Alright," she breathed, felt her hands trembling against the back of K'airos's head. Her stomach had twisted itself into knots, leaving a quaking, threatening nausea in her gut that pushed up her at her throat with each restrained sob. Her voice was barely over a whisper, "It's alright. You don't need to worry about that. I'll... I will take care of you."

A gentle rapping came upon the chamber door.

"Who is it?" K'airos managed to say after a very long pause. And even after gathering her breath to speak up, her words bordered on being a whisper.

Antimony sighed, recognizing the vague scent through the door, but she couldn't find the strength in her legs to stand for it. Instead she just muttered low, "Come in."

The door cracked opened and the burned, dirty man with the loud mane leaned his head into the room. One ear twitched. The other seemed to be sleeping. "It's me. Are you both uninjured?"

She couldn't be sure how much of the weakness in her limbs was due to her grief and how much was her body not yet recovered from its brush with death, but Antimony only nodded at the Tia's words. She didn't unfurl from her position around K'airos.

She didn't either. She did move her eyes to look at the man, and she felt the sudden urge to rise up and stop looking in such a bad shape. Yet she didn't. She couldn't muster the motivation to quench the shame she felt.

"We are fine." she said, rubbing one hand against her eyes.

D'hein hesitated. He looked at the wall of the room as though to share a private thought with it. Then he eyed the women on the floor. "May I come in?"

Grey ears laying out low to either side of her skull, Antimony finally lifted her head, just enough to turn it slightly towards D'hein. Eyes reddened with tears behind smeared glasses watched him in silence for a moment, and then she sighed. "Alright." He had suffered a loss here as well, she knew, though she, perhaps selfishly, couldn't fathom how it might be comparable.

K'airos didn't say anything, chosing instead to sob against her mother's shoulder.

D'hein slipped into the room and shut the door on his tail. When it bounced open her tried to shut it again without looking, once again on his tail. He did this four times before turning to see what was the matter, his tail swinging out of the doorframe, and the door shut successfully. It did not appear as though he would ever understand.

Antimony just shifted her gaze back to the top of her daughter's head, fingers working through her hair gently. The gesture was just as much meant to comfort herself as it was K'airos.

K'airos looked to D'hein. She couldn't find his door antics funny. She considered asking how he was, but quickly assumed that was the most stupid question she could ever ask in her life. She kept quiet.

Feeling the silence heavy in the room, D'hein looked around. He wasn't really sure what to do with himself. He reached up and tugged on his ear, then on his mane. "... I left Ulanan with... So she's... Well." They probably didn't care about that right now.

Antimony felt the muscles along her spine tense. "I hope she sends that woman into the water where she belongs," she ground out.

The girl barely moved when she spoke. "I don't know who she is."

"Now don't worry about that right now." D'hein paced over, looking down at the women. He flapped his arms limply.

K'airos chose to worry about that and everything else at once. Anything was better than the fresh memories of what happened to D'aijeen.

"I should report to the Blades. Send a letter or...and fetch my things from...and hers..." 

She buried her face on Antimony's side, breaking into a cry again.

"Hush," Antimony murmured, resting her chin atop K'airos's head and lifting her gaze dully to D'hein again. Her tail curled, brushing K'airos's back. "I will take care of everything, Airos. Just..."

"And I'll help, if I can." D'hein lifted his hands. "So there's no reason to worry about anything, definitely not right now."

K'airos paused, unable to find any avenues of distraction. "It's my fault." she said a moment later, voice muffled with her sobbing. "It's my fault!"

Antimony's expression crumbled at that. "Stop," she begged, pressing face into red hair. "Airos, stop. Please, it's not. I promise... you're perfect, you're... I love you. I'm here. I'm sorry...!"

D'hein put his hands on his hips. "Listen to your mother, K'airos."

The young woman just dropped her head. Her tail curled up against her leg. She stared at it, crying. "I want to sleep." she mumbled.

"That's alright. Rest will..." Antimony murmured shakily. She hesitated and then moved her arms to her daughter's sides. "Let's get you to bed, Airos."

D'hein shifted as though he were in the way of the bed, though he hadn't even looked to see where in the room the bed was. "Oh, right! Sleep would be a great idea for everyone!" Suddenly he remembered his exhaustion, and it rushed over him renewed so that he might fall asleep where he stood. But he tried to ignore it.

K'airos rose up dully, though her head was slightly lowered. She nodded once, saying "We should sleep." before moving towards the bed without lifting her sight from the floor.

Antimony kept close to K'airos, arms around her as though one or both of them might fall at the slightest breath. Pulling the sheet back for her daughter and pulling it over her body struck a deep pain in her chest, and she rested one shaking hand against K'airos's cheek, head bowed. In that moment her daughter seemed so small, and she felt like she might have been transported to a time fifteen years ago years ago. Their lives had been so clear then.

"I will take you anywhere you wish, Airos," she murmured. "I will keep you safe. I promise you. Nothing... nothing will hurt you again."

D'hein walked over and put a hand on Antimony's shoulder. "You should sleep, too."

K'airos shifted on the bed, giving her back to everyone and facing the wall.

Hand dropping to the bed, Antimony bit back a whimper as she watched her daughter's back. "I cannot," she replied quietly to the Tia. Then she turned and let the strength give way in her legs until she was sitting once more on the floor, her back against the bed.

D'hein lowered himself beside Antimony, putting his hands on either shoulder. "At least lay down. At least sit on the bed. Why can't you sleep?

"After all that has... my--" she couldn't finish a thought, felt her jaw trembling, her ears shivering against her head. She would be quiet for K'airos, strong for K'airos. But she could not sleep, not now with the images so fresh. Her vision blurred.

D'hein pulled her into a hug, which wasn't something he'd expected himself to do.

She stiffened briefly, fingers curling against the floor while her tail twisted up over her legs. Then she just closed her eyes and let her head drop.

"Mom, you should sleep, too." K'airos said. She pulled her pillow closer to herself and inclined it in front of her chest to wrap her arms over it. "You should go to sleep."

"You'll be able to sleep," D'hein assured her. "If you try. You should."

When she shut her eyes, she saw the bottomless water and the roiling black again. She opened them and saw the smooth fabric of D'hein's shirt. Her ears shifted back towards her daughter's voice. "I will, Airos," she breathed. "Don't worry for me. Rest your spirit."

K'airos didn't have anything else to say. She closed her eyes.

D'hein leaned forward, his head against the bedframe, his weight easing slightly out of his control. "That's good. Listen to your mother."

Swallowing thickly, Antimony let her back relax somewhat against the bed. The position was not doing well for her joints, but she couldn't fathom standing again, not when the water that had dragged K'aijeen under seemed so close to doing the same to her. "Aijeen... was not always..." She blinked at the white fabric and sighed wearily, unsure why she felt the need to speak this defense to the Tia.

"I did not think she was, either." He started then, suddenly, and leaned back. He shook his head. "I'm sorry. I wasn't meaning to crush you. I think I was falling asleep."

"You weren't," Antimony replied numbly, hesitated. She felt as though she were drifting from the room, from Horizon, from D'hein and K'airos. "She... was always trying to help me when... when she could barely walk herself." Her words shook at the end.

"Perhaps it's too soon to be having this conversation."

Her brow knit, eyes shutting tight, and she felt her heart sink with weary resignation. "Perhaps."

"You shouldn't stay on the floor." K'airos interrupted in a tired voice.

"Come on, Antimony. Let's get you into bed." He tried to pick Antimony up the same way she'd picked K'airos up moments before.

A weakness gripped her muscles and joints and made her sag heavily against D'hein's hands for a moment before she came back to herself. Her own hands moved up to grip the edge of the bed, to shakily pull herself to her feet and then sit upon the thin mattress. Resting this close to K'airos reminded her of nights in the healing tent, their sleeping blankets tucked up right alongside one another, out of necessity for space and warmth but also because of family. She felt so distant from that memory and yet so familiar with it.

Numbly she pulled the rest of her body up and lay alongside K'airos. A moment later she shifted to make enough space on the bed for D'hein, turning her head to remind herself of her daughter's scent.

The girl had moved again, making space for her mother by pushing herself as close to the wall as far as she could. No sound came from her, except for some sniffing.

D'hein was about to stand and move away to let the women rest when he detected Antimony's movement, pushing herself further on to the bed. He thought she might be leaving room for him there, but surely that was just his tired brain mixing dreams with reality. Still he rose and sat down on the bed next to Antimony, checking to see if she was going to stab him or something.

Antimony did not stab D'hein, or protest when he sat. She felt far too empty to do so, and if she closed her eyes, she could almost pretend she had her family back were it not for the sharp, spicy scent of Ul'dah that the Tia brought. She focused on K'airos's scent instead and pictured broad skies and even broader sands.

K'airos looked over her shoulder when she felt a third person on the bed. She saw the D'hein and quickly looked away, feeling a bit uncomfortable. But sadness and fatigue made her not care.

D'hein wasn't really sure what to make of this, but given everything that had happened? He just stopped thinking and stopped caring and lay down. They could kick him out if they wanted. It was bed time until then.

[Image: 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) -  Antimony Jhanhi's Wiki
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Messages In This Thread
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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