K'luha Haaz: K'luha materialized softly next to the Aetheryte in the center of town. She floated for a moment before landing softly and shaking her head. A strange day indeed. Becaue of the heat of Limsa, she had taken to wearing a black bikini top and a short khaki shirt with a side pocket that wrapped around her right leg. Her shoes were a fairly freqently worn gladiator style.Â
The mother Miq'ote rubbed her temples and frowned. Maybe she shouldn't have promised to visit the actual garden grounds. She wasn't even sure she could convince the others to come... and of course there was the matter of Maka's daughter. K'luha's ears flattened to her head thinking of all the things that had happened.Â
"Egh... shit."
*
Twinflame: The Tia that would never be Nunh was lingering in a corner of the pit where the wind mostly chased off the smell of corpses. He hated resting, and resting in Drybone was the worst fate he could imagine. His keen senses could pick out the differences between the smell of most of the corpses, could tell where they'd been by smells they carried, could even make out a hint of the fetid food in their bellies. It was sickening, and he'd been stomaching it for days.
He was trying to nap, because if hewas unconcious he would at least be able to kill some time without suffering. He didn't want to miss his appointment with K'luha, but he figured she'd find him soon enough anyway. The spot he'd chosen was within sight and earshot of the Aetheryte.
Still, it was not by sound or sight that he first dedected K'luha's presence. Instead, it was by smell; her particular scent, mixed with salt air and the appealing stink of fish and bait, managed its way through the corpses just barely enough to be picked up.
He rolled to his feet eagerly, swaying with dizziness for a moment while his blood tried to catch up. And then he chased after the smell, down to the Aetheryte, hoping to get his weapon, get K'yohko's woman, and seek the less unpleasant smells of the desert and Amal'jaa encampments.
"Luha!" K'ile called out, well before reaching the Aetheryte, and again when he got closer, "K'luha!" Quickly he picked out her bronze skin, clad in the light garments that clouder skies and humid air provided the oppourtinity for, and began towards her.
*
K'luha Haaz: K'luha blinked hearing something that sounded much like her name. Not many people called her Luha, but she had always allowed such a thing to happen if they did call her that. Still, it was enough to snap her from her recent thoughts and glance over as the fiery haired tia ran at her. She smiled a bit and waved back towards him. Strapped across her back were indeed a very well crafted lance, a bow, and quiver.Â
"Waiting for me long?" she questioned as he got within proper earshot. As he came closer, she began unstrapping the lance from her back and offered it up to K'ile. "One lance, it's very good quailty so don't loose it."
*
Twinflame: "Let's see!" he said, taking the lance with a big grin on his face. He tested it in his own way, which was pretty much just shaking it back and forth and seeing what the head of it looked like int he light. "Good? It's okay. It'll do. Don't lose it? So don't throw it that anything that won't die? Like I'd miss!"
He dug the blunt end of the lance into the dirt and leaned on it, turning his smile on K'luha, "So when do we go?"
*
K'luha Haaz: "Well, now." she raised a brow and reached a hand forward to flick K'ile's arm. "Well, let me change again into something more suited to hunting." K'luha added before walking over towards a nearbye market stand. She took a minute to argue with the person at the stand before she was handed over clothing and finally she ducked behind a large building to quickly change in something more similar to what she'd worn on the way there.
She came out again and adjusted the strap for her quiver before looking to K'ile.Â
"Let's go."
*
Twinflame: K'ile pouted that he had to wait. He stayed leaning on his spear for a moment, then swung it around a bit. He whavked the ground a few times, then got a warning glare from a Brass Blade who didn't appreciate him swinging a deadly weapon around a populated away. K'ile responded by swinging the weapon around faster and whacking even more things, the logical conclusion would've been him getting run out of town were it not for the timing of K'luha's return.
"Awesome," he placed the spear in the strap over his shoulders. "You have no idea how badly I want to get out of this town. Buildings and corpses and walls." He didn't wait for her, taking the lead to head for the southward ramp.
*
K'luha Haaz: K'luha shook her head at K'ile, but followed him without another word. He was so impatient. Just like a little boy. For all his brawn and attractiveness, he really was a little kid still. Maybe that was why he had decided not to be a nuhn. Too young in his head to handle such a responsibility.Â
Luha mused on it for a time as they walked in relative silence. Eventually her thoughts shifted in her meeting with Ventus and some of his folk in Limsa. He was so much different than what she had originally though. He was weak and flimsy. Under pressure he seemed to crumble, though with a bit of encouragement he seemed to improve. She wished she had at least impressed upon him the gravity of his position. If he was stealing K'ailia away, she thought perhaps she also wished to understand him a little more. Him and his people, she would have to understand them more if she ever wanted to understand what K'ailia saw in them.Â
She almost spoke up to mention to K'ile about visiting the actual garden with K'haali and K'ailia but saved it for another time. Perhaps after they returned. In any case, she would go by herself if need be. She had made a promise after all.Â
Eventually K'luha broke into a soft song to pass the time. A song she had learned from her mother, but was unsure a little about where her mother had learned it from. A ballad about two princesses, one of the sun and the other of the moon. K'luha liked to think it was a ballad about Azyema and Mephina.
K'luha Haaz: (( interested in the song, I'm stealing it from a fanwork based off ponies. will link momentarily. ))
K'luha Haaz: ((Â replace pony with princess. xD ))
*
Twinflame: When K'luha started singing, K'ile's ears at first lay flat on his head. He walked ahead as if nothing had changed, his hands reaching behind him to idly pull the spear against his back, bowing it forward subtly on either side. He continued on ahead of K'luha, not setting a difficult pace at all. They'd left the pit and the smell of corpses behind, and moved well out into the desert.
It can be assumed that K'ile had heard the song before. He couldn't remember so well the stories that might of inspired it, but he wasn't a story teller. He wasnt one who thought deeply about the kinds of relationships and emotions that sad song appealed to. He knew songs as well, but they were sand by the desert beasts, or perhaps one or two the huntresses sang of their kills. He didn't think much about songs.
The smells of beasts that had gone before them was as plain as the sun in the sky to K'ile Tia. He could sense the Aldgoats of the morning and the wolves of the night, the moles beneath the ground a distance away. He could smell the leaving plants that helf stagnant puddles of dew, the sweet-scented places were insects would lay their eggs at the bottom of the foo chain.
These things were peaceful to K'ile. There were more peaceful than the song, though he did not dislike it. K'luha's voice was not unpleasant in hsi ears. Moreover, he eventually appreciated the simple fact that she sang.
He let quietness slip back between them when she was done. Her song faded back into the song of the desert. Once that familiar song, more readily interrupted, had returned, he said, "Have you thought much of Maka?"
*
K'luha Haaz: K'luha paused mid word, the song dying in her mouth while they walked. Maka... of course she thought of her sister. Her eyes fell to the ground, brows furrowing. It was... unfair. What had happened. It seemed there was so much in her life that was unfair.Â
"Have you?" Luha countered, picking up her walking pace to surpass K'ile and continue on into the sun across the dusty landscape.
*
Twinflame: Watching K'luha walk past him, he didn't immediately pick up his pace to keep up with her. He tried to judge her body language, the way she walked, the way she spoke. He answered her question, "Some. Everything waits for the Umbral Era to pile on, doesn't it?"
*
K'luha Haaz: Lhua paused in her walk, stopping to look up as the sun started to set. "Yeah... yeah it does..." she answered vaguely before hopping down a rock and starting to walk again. She walked with a heavy silence for a time more, not wanting to really talk about all that had happened. Loosing Maka, her daughter now, the tribe's decline, K'raqi's sudden injuries and abscence... She felt like more and more of herself was being chipped away from her soul everyday. Still, she walked towards the Amal'jaa with a feeling so heavy on her shoulders that it almost physically showed in the way she walked.
*
Twinflame: He allowed himself to be outpaced. The distance she'd put between them was one filled with wind and sand, and she seemed to lurch steadily away from him as he kept stride. Just trying not to let her get too far away. He wished that he knew some song to sing that wasn't so sad, and maybe she'd accept that, but she dind't. At least she wasn't crying again.
Walking, he could handle. It was good and healthy. The strain and the silence snuck into a person's mind and slowed their thoughts.
Sunset already, and they met at noon. As he realized this, he took a quick series of setps to get closer to K'luha, so he could talk to her more easily. "This area's pretty rough and the Amal'jaa are far enough east that the if the tribe takes sort of circumtuitous route and heads west for awhile out of Sandgate," he pointed with his spear, "The Amal'jaa probably we're migrating through."
*
K'luha Haaz: A sort of dark and anger look crossed K'luha's features as K'ile approached her to talk of the Amal'jaa. Her tongue clicked in a sort of signature tell-tale sign she was angry or annoyed.Â
"There will not be an Amal'jaa camp to avoid when I am done with it." she answered somewhat sharply and picked up the pace of ther walk again.
*
Twinflame: The response stopped K'ile in his tracks for a moment, his ears laying back in his hair and his eyes narrowing to a squint at the woman. Then, with a huff, he dashed forward to get up alongside her and said in a harsh tone, "You know better than that. We're scouting. That's it."
*
K'luha Haaz: K'luha looked back at K'ile dangerously before continuing to walk without another word.
*
Twinflame: "Don't be a child," he bit, keeping up with her and growling sideways. "This is already too dangerous without you throwing some kind of fit!"
*
K'luha Haaz: Luha refused to speak to him any further and marched on, ignoring K'ile as much as possible.
*
Twinflame: As K'ile waited for an answer, there were long moments of boots crushing sand and the desert shuttering in the evening wind around them. Shrubs bent by the breeze reached bor his feet and legs, and he kicked them away, knocked small stones skittering as he kept even pace with K'luha. His patience thinned and he began to bristle, the incredulity on his face downing down into a scowl.
Very suddenly, he reached to grab K'luha by an arm, and his feet took a stubbonrn, frim stance on the dusty ground. "You need to stop!"
*
K'luha Haaz: K'luha stopped abrupbtly as her arm was grabbed. She tried to pull herself free and continue walking, but K'ile had a firm grip on her. She looked to K'ile, mouth turned into a thin frown.Â
"Why? We have to keep walking. We're not even close yet." she retorted, ears and tail bristling with annoyance.
*
Twinflame: "I'm not going to wait until we get close to ahve this conversation." It was difficult not to grab her arm too tightly. The breath in his chest pulled at every muscle from hsi shoudler to his fingertips, trying to turn them to iron. But he didn't want ot hurt her. Grinding his jaw, he forced himself to speak quietly, to feign calmness, "We aren't going there to fight any Amal'jaa. We should try not to be seen or heard. They shouldn't know we were there at all."
*
K'luha Haaz: "Of course." K'luha answered back with a chilly tone. "It's a scouting mission. I know what that is." she snapped, pulling and trying to pry her arm free from his grip. "Let go."
*
Twinflame: His hand felt paralyzed there. Of course she knew. She was just upset. K'ile frowned down at his hand on her arm, at how the meat of his fingers pressed into the lines of her muscle. He was numb; he couldn't feel her. All he could feel was the tightness of the grip, and the need to hold it back. And for a long moment, he couldn't let go.
Jerking his head to one side, his gaze breaking away to look on the desert instead, he spat, "Fine. Don't foget it when we get there." And he wrenched his hand from her arm. It fell to his side, still half-curled, and he reached behind him to grab the heft of his spear instead. Just to give his fingers something to dig in to.
*
K'luha Haaz: K'luha winced faintly as he tore his grip away so harshly. She quickly pulled her arm back and rubbed it, starting to walk on without him. She didn't answer him, she couldn't. Of course she wouldn't forget it... but that didn't mean she would listen to him either.Â
"We still have another hour or so we could walk." she called as she continued walking, rubbing her aching arm where K'ile had held it moment's ago.
*
Twinflame: The Tia waited. Yohko's woman walked away from him holding her arm, but didn't say anything to condemn the gesture. She called back to him, but kept on, and K'ile stood still as she once again went ahead of him.
The desert filled his senses again. Animals and plants, life and death, dirt and water on the wind. The only sad songs that the desert knew where those that others sang to it, and it would never sing them itself. His hand choked the spear, and he strained it against his back so that it might break.
His voice caught in throat as he muttered to the breeze, "What a selfish bitch, right?"
When he let go of his spear it snapped back into a straight line with an audible shuff of air and treated wood. Even in the desert, K'luha's scent stood out, and it clung to his body like the stench of the corpses in Drybone.
He turned to follow, at a meandering pace, his mood unimproved and his expresison still dark. K'ile watched the woman moving away from him, and walked on behind her.
*
K'luha Haaz: To underestimate K'luha's hearing was to invite death to your door. The mother had honed her sense of hearing through fifteen years of listening for any sign that K'ailia might be in danger. The soft murmur, the faintest mutter, the most distant of moans, groans, or any such word were her specialty. She did not have the nose that K'ile did, but she had ears far more sensitive than he would ever have. In the desert's quiet dusk, the wind carried his muttered words the short distance between them and stopped K'luha in her tracks.Â
She stopped abrubtply, stiffly, as if something had caught her by the tail. With all of her might and dexerity she turned and lunched to K'ile to pin him to the ground, hands grabbing for his shoulders and neck.Â
"I have given up EVERYTHING for you and my family! Don't you EVER call me selfish! EVER! What more must I give up K'ile before I am generous enough for you? Am I not good enough? Is that why you refuse to take a place as nunh, even when we need you? Am I not good enough? Are our children not good enough for you!?" K'luha raged, eyes ablaze with unleased fury.
*
Twinflame: The sound of his spearhead crashing down on stone broke the quite of the night when he fell, a harsh steely crack that seemed to silence the night around them and leave it in a nervous hush at Kluha's words. Even the desert wouldn't interrupt her. K'ile lay in the dirt with an unbecoming calm in hsi features, even as K'luha's anger broke against him like hot steel breaking the surface of water.
He could feel her anger as much as he could hear it. That fury was red hot in the hands that pinned him down. He remember the way his own hand had felt on her arm, the way his muscles had been alive with energy he couldn't describe.
K'ile didn't struggle. He just lay there, and listened, and he watched her face as he words assailed him. When she was done, he took a breath, but didn't feel his lungs fill. He confessed, "I don't know, Luha. Maybe there's just something wrong with me."
*
K'luha Haaz: "Tell me K'ile..." The fury that burned in her eyes came out as a quiet intensity in her words. "What more do I have to give up? You know everything don't you? What is it that I still have to give before I can make things right? My eyes? My heart? My body?" K'luha clenched her fists around her hold on K'ile's shoulder, nails digging sharply into his skin. "Tell me!" she demanded, her voice raising to a yell again.
*
Twinflame: His lips were a straight line on his face. He couldn't frown. There was nothing in him like her sadness or her anger. There was nothing in him stronger than annoyance or bitterness. "I don't know," he repeated. Then, struggling for something with more substance, he said, "I'm sorry. Why do you even care about what I say? Just treat me like everyone else does."
*
K'luha Haaz: K'luha bit her bottom lip harshly before standing up. She dusted herself off coldy, turning her back from him and adjusting her bow and quiver.
"Then go home K'ile. You're not needed for this." she answered, the chilling anger in her voice not even bothered to be hidden.
*
Twinflame: Once she was off him, he sat up quickly, glaring at her back. "Bullshit. You can't even finish yelling at me, and you think you're going to go in there, kill a bunch of Amal'jaa, and then what? I'm nto going anywhere."
*
K'luha Haaz: "Bullshit yourself!" K'luah turned around again, anger surfacing in a red hot blaze. "If you really wanted me to treat you like everyone else does, you'd go home! Because they treat you like a worthless Tia and I have always valued your opinion K'ile! So pick one! You want me to treat you like them, or do you want me to treat you like I always do!?"
*
Twinflame: Exhaling a curse, K'ile pulled himself off the ground and readjusted the shaft of his spear where it had dug into his back. He spoke with a groan, "Alright, I get it. You're not selfish. You're not. But you can't go putting this mission at risk just because you want to kill something."
*
K'luha Haaz: "I know that K'ile!" she snapped, staming a food into the ground angrily. After a moment she sucked in a breath of air and looked away. "I know it." she added, a bit more calmly.
*
Twinflame: Pulling at one of his ears, he muttered, "I know you do. I don't know why I made a thing out of it."
K'il felt suddenly heavy. He felt like he'd lost something that he hadn't know he had, left it behind in the dirt somewhere, and was burdened by the desperate need to find it. But he didn't know what to look for, so how could it? He couldn't, so the feeling into the pit in chest, and he crossed his arms to hold it there.
*
K'luha Haaz: K'luha looked up to the sky. With all their arguging it had gotten darker and darker and very soon now there would be no light at all. She straightened herself out a bit before starting to walk. "We need to find a good place to camp for the night."
*
Twinflame: A reluctant, "Right," was all he exhaled. He didn't look at K'luha. She had become like a point of light that chased his eyes away. He followed her, but he followed the wake of heat she left in the dirt, the sound of her footsteps. After a time he said, "Just pick whatever rock you want. Something that will be shadowed in the monring. I'll keep watch."
*
K'luha Haaz: K'luha continued walking, her mind wandering from distressing thought to distressing thought until she felt like her mind might explode from all the tension. It made her dizzy and her lack of eating along with the heavy labour she performed while in Limsa made her all the more tired.Â
Still, he feet carried her somewhat clumsily up to a rocky outcrop with a small inlay above the grounds. She clambered up and slipped herself into the outcrop, storing her bow and curling up into a ball, her back pressed to the wall.
*
Twinflame: Managing well enough to follow K'luha, he stopped when she clambered away from him. He remained with his feet in the dirt as she vanished from view, standing alone. He was not one who enoyed solitude, but he felt K'luha was different. The last thing he said to her was, "There will be food in the morning. I'll keep watch. You don't need to worry." And he stayed awake.
*
K'luha Haaz: K'luha did not sleep well in that outcrop. In fact, she did not sleep at all. She took shelter it in more to try and hide from her head that made her dizzy with thought and responsibility. The more she thought, the more sick she seemed to feel until she finally climbed down at some point during the night to curl up inbetween to two larges boulders nearby. Her ears faintly listened for K'ile, wondering if he was still nearby.
*
Twinflame: K'ile was nearby, but he wasn't going to insert himself into K'luha's evening. He had absolutely no intention of lseeping that night himself. He loitered about the stones, deliberately keeping a distance between the two of them, but still keeping watch just as he said he would.
*
K'luha Haaz: After a long silence K'luha finally found her voice. "K'ile..." she called for him, her voice sounding hoarse and a little weak. She was too dizzy to stand really with her head turning in mental circles constantly.
*
Twinflame: Well within earshot, at first he thought he'd imagined his name on the wind. After a few seconds, he decided that was stupid, and that he was being an idiot. Finding K'luha was easy. He'd heard her moved and avoided her as if she was something to be afraid of. The boulders weren't as good for shelter as the outcropping had been, but maybe they were more comfortable.
The Tia appeared between the boulders, but did not initially approach K'luha. He said to her, "I'm here."
*
K'luha Haaz: There was a long moment where K'luha thought he wasn't around. Maybe he had just left in the night. It seemed all of her family wanted to leave her these days. It wouldn't have surprised her that much. But the thought was perished when she heard him call out, appearing out of seemingly nowhere. She was grateful he hadn't left.
"Is there anything around here that might help settle a headache...?" she mumbled, pressing a hand to her head, which was drenched in cold sweat.
*
Twinflame: "Maybe," he said, but added a few seconds later, "I'm not much for my knowledge of herbs, unfortunately. You're not getting sick, are you?"
*
K'luha Haaz: K'luha was silent for a few moments before dropping her arms limply to the ground. "I'm not... no. Just... too many thoughts all at once..." she breathed out heavily before beginning to take deep even breaths.
*
Twinflame: Leaning against one bolder, beneding far enough back that the back of his head was against the stone and his hair fell out of his eyes, K'ile stared at the stars and said, "Headaches are punishment for thinking too much. That and insomnia."
*
K'luha Haaz: Luha grunted in reply and pressed her hands to her head again. "Punishment...? I thought that was your thing... are you punishing me now?"
*
Twinflame: "Well," K'ile chuckled, stretched, pulled at his ears some. "If we're being honest I had at least a little hand in that headache, didn't I? So, maybe, a little bit?"
*
K'luha Haaz: With a soft groan K'luha turned onto her back and flailed a hand weakly out to hit K'ile's leg. She had no idea if she actually hit him or just the rock. "Then fix it. And sleep. You'll be useless if you don't get some sleep."
*
Twinflame: Hearing the movement but not feel the smack, K'ile muttered, "How am I supposed to fix your headache?" He moved further into the boulders and lowered himself down beside K'luha. "Your best bet is to just go to sleep, and that something you have to do on your own."
*
K'luha Haaz: "I'm blaming you." she grumbled, feeling him move closer. She paused for a moment, feeling a little more relaxed now that they had spoken again on better terms. Maybe that was all she really needed. "Make sure you sleep." K'luha insisted again, her hand groping across the floor for his leg.
*
Twinflame: Feeling her hand touch his leg, he reached down and took it in his own. "Yeah, sure."
*
K'luha Haaz: "No. Seriously. Don't make me tackle you the whole night." A frown made its way on her face as she squeezed his hand and pulled it towards her. "Sleep."
*
Twinflame: Letting himself be pulled around limpy, K'ile responded, "I said I'll sleep."
*
K'luha Haaz: K'luha tugged K'ile down next to her before using his shoulder as a pillow. "Don't believe you. Stay put." she grumped, making herself comfortable. "And wear a shirt damnit." She added before piching lightly at his side. "And I met Ventus again in Limsa. I said we would go to the Garden to tour it. Mostly because I want to see where K'ailia will be going to stay without us. Please come with me when I go."
*
Twinflame: Flinching at the pinch, he groaned at the suggestion. "Don't start tolerating him or he'll take it as approval of whatever he's doing. I'll go to their damn gardening school but I'll wear whatever I want."
*
K'luha Haaz: "Sounds agreeable to me." she sighed, feeling more relieved at his agreement. K'luha had been very worried she would be the only one going. Getting K'haali to go might be a little more difficult but... K'luha was sure she could probably bribe the girl into going. If only to perhaps see K'ailia off.
*
Twinflame: "Good," he sounded absolutely unentertained. A bit annoyed. That wasn't a remarkable tone for him to take, though. He lay rigidly, feeling pinned by K'luha. The interaction didn't make him feel any better. He had suspected it might, but in the end K'luha's prickly affection -- if that's what this even rally was -- did nothing. He was honestly annoyed by the thought of going to the Garden, of pretending he cared about Ventus and that place.
K'ile still felt like he'd lost something out in the desert. Perhaps a heavy portion of his patience for things like this. Still, he stayed, and he endured the contact with K'luha's clammy body. He knew it was odd that only days ago he'd drawn her to him, and now it was all he could do not to wish he was elsewhere.
Maybe there really was something wrong with him. Maybe there always had been. Maybe K'luha's propensity to think herself into headaches was contagious.
He muttered, "Let's just shut up and go to sleep."
*
K'luha Haaz: Something still felt off. She was glad K'ile had agreed to go with her, and he sounded as per usual about it but... there was something different. K'luha had no idea what or why, but that sixth intuative sense was telling her that K'ile was repulsed by her. Even if he didn't act like it.Â
Maybe he didn't like girls. Maybe he didn't like her. Maybe he only tolerated her because he had to. Maybe he was just waiting for the perfect moment to rain hot fiercy punishment down upon her. The thoughts were unsettling even if they were far-fetched. Because if they were true, what did K'luha have in her tribe?
When K'ailia left, K'ailia who had been her whole world for the last sixteen years, who was left for her? K'ile, if he truley disliked her and merely tolerated her out of duty, would not be. K'mih and K'nahli were adults now and not her own children, though she liked them and thought them dutiful. K'haali was similar to K'mih and K'nahli that way. Her mother was still there, but her sister was long gone. Her sister's daughter? They had never met and it was because of K'luha herself that her daughter was banished without a real crime.Â
Without having a real reason why, K'luha turned her back to K'ile and adjusted herself to try and sleep. "Sorry..." she muttered, and with that would say no more.
*
Twinflame: To K'ile, all of K'luha's body language was beginning to blend together. Was she upset or what? Did it even matter? He'd come here and lain down by her, which was far more than he'd intended. There was nothing left to do, so he just lay beside K'luha and closed his eyes.
*
K'luha Haaz: K'luha had already closed her eyes, but sleep did not come easy. Even when sleep did come it was filled with stressful iamges and thoughts. What would the garden be like? How would K'ailia leave her family? What if she were exiled from her own family for K'ailia's actions? What if Maka's daughter hated her and wanted revenge? If they hadn't fought, would Maka have lived with the tribe even now? Or would the calamity which claimed so many lives, have claimed her anyway?Â
By the time morning had awoken her again, she was grateful to stand even with her headache and walk around to try and clear her head.
The mother Miq'ote rubbed her temples and frowned. Maybe she shouldn't have promised to visit the actual garden grounds. She wasn't even sure she could convince the others to come... and of course there was the matter of Maka's daughter. K'luha's ears flattened to her head thinking of all the things that had happened.Â
"Egh... shit."
*
Twinflame: The Tia that would never be Nunh was lingering in a corner of the pit where the wind mostly chased off the smell of corpses. He hated resting, and resting in Drybone was the worst fate he could imagine. His keen senses could pick out the differences between the smell of most of the corpses, could tell where they'd been by smells they carried, could even make out a hint of the fetid food in their bellies. It was sickening, and he'd been stomaching it for days.
He was trying to nap, because if hewas unconcious he would at least be able to kill some time without suffering. He didn't want to miss his appointment with K'luha, but he figured she'd find him soon enough anyway. The spot he'd chosen was within sight and earshot of the Aetheryte.
Still, it was not by sound or sight that he first dedected K'luha's presence. Instead, it was by smell; her particular scent, mixed with salt air and the appealing stink of fish and bait, managed its way through the corpses just barely enough to be picked up.
He rolled to his feet eagerly, swaying with dizziness for a moment while his blood tried to catch up. And then he chased after the smell, down to the Aetheryte, hoping to get his weapon, get K'yohko's woman, and seek the less unpleasant smells of the desert and Amal'jaa encampments.
"Luha!" K'ile called out, well before reaching the Aetheryte, and again when he got closer, "K'luha!" Quickly he picked out her bronze skin, clad in the light garments that clouder skies and humid air provided the oppourtinity for, and began towards her.
*
K'luha Haaz: K'luha blinked hearing something that sounded much like her name. Not many people called her Luha, but she had always allowed such a thing to happen if they did call her that. Still, it was enough to snap her from her recent thoughts and glance over as the fiery haired tia ran at her. She smiled a bit and waved back towards him. Strapped across her back were indeed a very well crafted lance, a bow, and quiver.Â
"Waiting for me long?" she questioned as he got within proper earshot. As he came closer, she began unstrapping the lance from her back and offered it up to K'ile. "One lance, it's very good quailty so don't loose it."
*
Twinflame: "Let's see!" he said, taking the lance with a big grin on his face. He tested it in his own way, which was pretty much just shaking it back and forth and seeing what the head of it looked like int he light. "Good? It's okay. It'll do. Don't lose it? So don't throw it that anything that won't die? Like I'd miss!"
He dug the blunt end of the lance into the dirt and leaned on it, turning his smile on K'luha, "So when do we go?"
*
K'luha Haaz: "Well, now." she raised a brow and reached a hand forward to flick K'ile's arm. "Well, let me change again into something more suited to hunting." K'luha added before walking over towards a nearbye market stand. She took a minute to argue with the person at the stand before she was handed over clothing and finally she ducked behind a large building to quickly change in something more similar to what she'd worn on the way there.
She came out again and adjusted the strap for her quiver before looking to K'ile.Â
"Let's go."
*
Twinflame: K'ile pouted that he had to wait. He stayed leaning on his spear for a moment, then swung it around a bit. He whavked the ground a few times, then got a warning glare from a Brass Blade who didn't appreciate him swinging a deadly weapon around a populated away. K'ile responded by swinging the weapon around faster and whacking even more things, the logical conclusion would've been him getting run out of town were it not for the timing of K'luha's return.
"Awesome," he placed the spear in the strap over his shoulders. "You have no idea how badly I want to get out of this town. Buildings and corpses and walls." He didn't wait for her, taking the lead to head for the southward ramp.
*
K'luha Haaz: K'luha shook her head at K'ile, but followed him without another word. He was so impatient. Just like a little boy. For all his brawn and attractiveness, he really was a little kid still. Maybe that was why he had decided not to be a nuhn. Too young in his head to handle such a responsibility.Â
Luha mused on it for a time as they walked in relative silence. Eventually her thoughts shifted in her meeting with Ventus and some of his folk in Limsa. He was so much different than what she had originally though. He was weak and flimsy. Under pressure he seemed to crumble, though with a bit of encouragement he seemed to improve. She wished she had at least impressed upon him the gravity of his position. If he was stealing K'ailia away, she thought perhaps she also wished to understand him a little more. Him and his people, she would have to understand them more if she ever wanted to understand what K'ailia saw in them.Â
She almost spoke up to mention to K'ile about visiting the actual garden with K'haali and K'ailia but saved it for another time. Perhaps after they returned. In any case, she would go by herself if need be. She had made a promise after all.Â
Eventually K'luha broke into a soft song to pass the time. A song she had learned from her mother, but was unsure a little about where her mother had learned it from. A ballad about two princesses, one of the sun and the other of the moon. K'luha liked to think it was a ballad about Azyema and Mephina.
K'luha Haaz: (( interested in the song, I'm stealing it from a fanwork based off ponies. will link momentarily. ))
K'luha Haaz: ((Â replace pony with princess. xD ))
*
Twinflame: When K'luha started singing, K'ile's ears at first lay flat on his head. He walked ahead as if nothing had changed, his hands reaching behind him to idly pull the spear against his back, bowing it forward subtly on either side. He continued on ahead of K'luha, not setting a difficult pace at all. They'd left the pit and the smell of corpses behind, and moved well out into the desert.
It can be assumed that K'ile had heard the song before. He couldn't remember so well the stories that might of inspired it, but he wasn't a story teller. He wasnt one who thought deeply about the kinds of relationships and emotions that sad song appealed to. He knew songs as well, but they were sand by the desert beasts, or perhaps one or two the huntresses sang of their kills. He didn't think much about songs.
The smells of beasts that had gone before them was as plain as the sun in the sky to K'ile Tia. He could sense the Aldgoats of the morning and the wolves of the night, the moles beneath the ground a distance away. He could smell the leaving plants that helf stagnant puddles of dew, the sweet-scented places were insects would lay their eggs at the bottom of the foo chain.
These things were peaceful to K'ile. There were more peaceful than the song, though he did not dislike it. K'luha's voice was not unpleasant in hsi ears. Moreover, he eventually appreciated the simple fact that she sang.
He let quietness slip back between them when she was done. Her song faded back into the song of the desert. Once that familiar song, more readily interrupted, had returned, he said, "Have you thought much of Maka?"
*
K'luha Haaz: K'luha paused mid word, the song dying in her mouth while they walked. Maka... of course she thought of her sister. Her eyes fell to the ground, brows furrowing. It was... unfair. What had happened. It seemed there was so much in her life that was unfair.Â
"Have you?" Luha countered, picking up her walking pace to surpass K'ile and continue on into the sun across the dusty landscape.
*
Twinflame: Watching K'luha walk past him, he didn't immediately pick up his pace to keep up with her. He tried to judge her body language, the way she walked, the way she spoke. He answered her question, "Some. Everything waits for the Umbral Era to pile on, doesn't it?"
*
K'luha Haaz: Lhua paused in her walk, stopping to look up as the sun started to set. "Yeah... yeah it does..." she answered vaguely before hopping down a rock and starting to walk again. She walked with a heavy silence for a time more, not wanting to really talk about all that had happened. Loosing Maka, her daughter now, the tribe's decline, K'raqi's sudden injuries and abscence... She felt like more and more of herself was being chipped away from her soul everyday. Still, she walked towards the Amal'jaa with a feeling so heavy on her shoulders that it almost physically showed in the way she walked.
*
Twinflame: He allowed himself to be outpaced. The distance she'd put between them was one filled with wind and sand, and she seemed to lurch steadily away from him as he kept stride. Just trying not to let her get too far away. He wished that he knew some song to sing that wasn't so sad, and maybe she'd accept that, but she dind't. At least she wasn't crying again.
Walking, he could handle. It was good and healthy. The strain and the silence snuck into a person's mind and slowed their thoughts.
Sunset already, and they met at noon. As he realized this, he took a quick series of setps to get closer to K'luha, so he could talk to her more easily. "This area's pretty rough and the Amal'jaa are far enough east that the if the tribe takes sort of circumtuitous route and heads west for awhile out of Sandgate," he pointed with his spear, "The Amal'jaa probably we're migrating through."
*
K'luha Haaz: A sort of dark and anger look crossed K'luha's features as K'ile approached her to talk of the Amal'jaa. Her tongue clicked in a sort of signature tell-tale sign she was angry or annoyed.Â
"There will not be an Amal'jaa camp to avoid when I am done with it." she answered somewhat sharply and picked up the pace of ther walk again.
*
Twinflame: The response stopped K'ile in his tracks for a moment, his ears laying back in his hair and his eyes narrowing to a squint at the woman. Then, with a huff, he dashed forward to get up alongside her and said in a harsh tone, "You know better than that. We're scouting. That's it."
*
K'luha Haaz: K'luha looked back at K'ile dangerously before continuing to walk without another word.
*
Twinflame: "Don't be a child," he bit, keeping up with her and growling sideways. "This is already too dangerous without you throwing some kind of fit!"
*
K'luha Haaz: Luha refused to speak to him any further and marched on, ignoring K'ile as much as possible.
*
Twinflame: As K'ile waited for an answer, there were long moments of boots crushing sand and the desert shuttering in the evening wind around them. Shrubs bent by the breeze reached bor his feet and legs, and he kicked them away, knocked small stones skittering as he kept even pace with K'luha. His patience thinned and he began to bristle, the incredulity on his face downing down into a scowl.
Very suddenly, he reached to grab K'luha by an arm, and his feet took a stubbonrn, frim stance on the dusty ground. "You need to stop!"
*
K'luha Haaz: K'luha stopped abrupbtly as her arm was grabbed. She tried to pull herself free and continue walking, but K'ile had a firm grip on her. She looked to K'ile, mouth turned into a thin frown.Â
"Why? We have to keep walking. We're not even close yet." she retorted, ears and tail bristling with annoyance.
*
Twinflame: "I'm not going to wait until we get close to ahve this conversation." It was difficult not to grab her arm too tightly. The breath in his chest pulled at every muscle from hsi shoudler to his fingertips, trying to turn them to iron. But he didn't want ot hurt her. Grinding his jaw, he forced himself to speak quietly, to feign calmness, "We aren't going there to fight any Amal'jaa. We should try not to be seen or heard. They shouldn't know we were there at all."
*
K'luha Haaz: "Of course." K'luha answered back with a chilly tone. "It's a scouting mission. I know what that is." she snapped, pulling and trying to pry her arm free from his grip. "Let go."
*
Twinflame: His hand felt paralyzed there. Of course she knew. She was just upset. K'ile frowned down at his hand on her arm, at how the meat of his fingers pressed into the lines of her muscle. He was numb; he couldn't feel her. All he could feel was the tightness of the grip, and the need to hold it back. And for a long moment, he couldn't let go.
Jerking his head to one side, his gaze breaking away to look on the desert instead, he spat, "Fine. Don't foget it when we get there." And he wrenched his hand from her arm. It fell to his side, still half-curled, and he reached behind him to grab the heft of his spear instead. Just to give his fingers something to dig in to.
*
K'luha Haaz: K'luha winced faintly as he tore his grip away so harshly. She quickly pulled her arm back and rubbed it, starting to walk on without him. She didn't answer him, she couldn't. Of course she wouldn't forget it... but that didn't mean she would listen to him either.Â
"We still have another hour or so we could walk." she called as she continued walking, rubbing her aching arm where K'ile had held it moment's ago.
*
Twinflame: The Tia waited. Yohko's woman walked away from him holding her arm, but didn't say anything to condemn the gesture. She called back to him, but kept on, and K'ile stood still as she once again went ahead of him.
The desert filled his senses again. Animals and plants, life and death, dirt and water on the wind. The only sad songs that the desert knew where those that others sang to it, and it would never sing them itself. His hand choked the spear, and he strained it against his back so that it might break.
His voice caught in throat as he muttered to the breeze, "What a selfish bitch, right?"
When he let go of his spear it snapped back into a straight line with an audible shuff of air and treated wood. Even in the desert, K'luha's scent stood out, and it clung to his body like the stench of the corpses in Drybone.
He turned to follow, at a meandering pace, his mood unimproved and his expresison still dark. K'ile watched the woman moving away from him, and walked on behind her.
*
K'luha Haaz: To underestimate K'luha's hearing was to invite death to your door. The mother had honed her sense of hearing through fifteen years of listening for any sign that K'ailia might be in danger. The soft murmur, the faintest mutter, the most distant of moans, groans, or any such word were her specialty. She did not have the nose that K'ile did, but she had ears far more sensitive than he would ever have. In the desert's quiet dusk, the wind carried his muttered words the short distance between them and stopped K'luha in her tracks.Â
She stopped abrubtply, stiffly, as if something had caught her by the tail. With all of her might and dexerity she turned and lunched to K'ile to pin him to the ground, hands grabbing for his shoulders and neck.Â
"I have given up EVERYTHING for you and my family! Don't you EVER call me selfish! EVER! What more must I give up K'ile before I am generous enough for you? Am I not good enough? Is that why you refuse to take a place as nunh, even when we need you? Am I not good enough? Are our children not good enough for you!?" K'luha raged, eyes ablaze with unleased fury.
*
Twinflame: The sound of his spearhead crashing down on stone broke the quite of the night when he fell, a harsh steely crack that seemed to silence the night around them and leave it in a nervous hush at Kluha's words. Even the desert wouldn't interrupt her. K'ile lay in the dirt with an unbecoming calm in hsi features, even as K'luha's anger broke against him like hot steel breaking the surface of water.
He could feel her anger as much as he could hear it. That fury was red hot in the hands that pinned him down. He remember the way his own hand had felt on her arm, the way his muscles had been alive with energy he couldn't describe.
K'ile didn't struggle. He just lay there, and listened, and he watched her face as he words assailed him. When she was done, he took a breath, but didn't feel his lungs fill. He confessed, "I don't know, Luha. Maybe there's just something wrong with me."
*
K'luha Haaz: "Tell me K'ile..." The fury that burned in her eyes came out as a quiet intensity in her words. "What more do I have to give up? You know everything don't you? What is it that I still have to give before I can make things right? My eyes? My heart? My body?" K'luha clenched her fists around her hold on K'ile's shoulder, nails digging sharply into his skin. "Tell me!" she demanded, her voice raising to a yell again.
*
Twinflame: His lips were a straight line on his face. He couldn't frown. There was nothing in him like her sadness or her anger. There was nothing in him stronger than annoyance or bitterness. "I don't know," he repeated. Then, struggling for something with more substance, he said, "I'm sorry. Why do you even care about what I say? Just treat me like everyone else does."
*
K'luha Haaz: K'luha bit her bottom lip harshly before standing up. She dusted herself off coldy, turning her back from him and adjusting her bow and quiver.
"Then go home K'ile. You're not needed for this." she answered, the chilling anger in her voice not even bothered to be hidden.
*
Twinflame: Once she was off him, he sat up quickly, glaring at her back. "Bullshit. You can't even finish yelling at me, and you think you're going to go in there, kill a bunch of Amal'jaa, and then what? I'm nto going anywhere."
*
K'luha Haaz: "Bullshit yourself!" K'luah turned around again, anger surfacing in a red hot blaze. "If you really wanted me to treat you like everyone else does, you'd go home! Because they treat you like a worthless Tia and I have always valued your opinion K'ile! So pick one! You want me to treat you like them, or do you want me to treat you like I always do!?"
*
Twinflame: Exhaling a curse, K'ile pulled himself off the ground and readjusted the shaft of his spear where it had dug into his back. He spoke with a groan, "Alright, I get it. You're not selfish. You're not. But you can't go putting this mission at risk just because you want to kill something."
*
K'luha Haaz: "I know that K'ile!" she snapped, staming a food into the ground angrily. After a moment she sucked in a breath of air and looked away. "I know it." she added, a bit more calmly.
*
Twinflame: Pulling at one of his ears, he muttered, "I know you do. I don't know why I made a thing out of it."
K'il felt suddenly heavy. He felt like he'd lost something that he hadn't know he had, left it behind in the dirt somewhere, and was burdened by the desperate need to find it. But he didn't know what to look for, so how could it? He couldn't, so the feeling into the pit in chest, and he crossed his arms to hold it there.
*
K'luha Haaz: K'luha looked up to the sky. With all their arguging it had gotten darker and darker and very soon now there would be no light at all. She straightened herself out a bit before starting to walk. "We need to find a good place to camp for the night."
*
Twinflame: A reluctant, "Right," was all he exhaled. He didn't look at K'luha. She had become like a point of light that chased his eyes away. He followed her, but he followed the wake of heat she left in the dirt, the sound of her footsteps. After a time he said, "Just pick whatever rock you want. Something that will be shadowed in the monring. I'll keep watch."
*
K'luha Haaz: K'luha continued walking, her mind wandering from distressing thought to distressing thought until she felt like her mind might explode from all the tension. It made her dizzy and her lack of eating along with the heavy labour she performed while in Limsa made her all the more tired.Â
Still, he feet carried her somewhat clumsily up to a rocky outcrop with a small inlay above the grounds. She clambered up and slipped herself into the outcrop, storing her bow and curling up into a ball, her back pressed to the wall.
*
Twinflame: Managing well enough to follow K'luha, he stopped when she clambered away from him. He remained with his feet in the dirt as she vanished from view, standing alone. He was not one who enoyed solitude, but he felt K'luha was different. The last thing he said to her was, "There will be food in the morning. I'll keep watch. You don't need to worry." And he stayed awake.
*
K'luha Haaz: K'luha did not sleep well in that outcrop. In fact, she did not sleep at all. She took shelter it in more to try and hide from her head that made her dizzy with thought and responsibility. The more she thought, the more sick she seemed to feel until she finally climbed down at some point during the night to curl up inbetween to two larges boulders nearby. Her ears faintly listened for K'ile, wondering if he was still nearby.
*
Twinflame: K'ile was nearby, but he wasn't going to insert himself into K'luha's evening. He had absolutely no intention of lseeping that night himself. He loitered about the stones, deliberately keeping a distance between the two of them, but still keeping watch just as he said he would.
*
K'luha Haaz: After a long silence K'luha finally found her voice. "K'ile..." she called for him, her voice sounding hoarse and a little weak. She was too dizzy to stand really with her head turning in mental circles constantly.
*
Twinflame: Well within earshot, at first he thought he'd imagined his name on the wind. After a few seconds, he decided that was stupid, and that he was being an idiot. Finding K'luha was easy. He'd heard her moved and avoided her as if she was something to be afraid of. The boulders weren't as good for shelter as the outcropping had been, but maybe they were more comfortable.
The Tia appeared between the boulders, but did not initially approach K'luha. He said to her, "I'm here."
*
K'luha Haaz: There was a long moment where K'luha thought he wasn't around. Maybe he had just left in the night. It seemed all of her family wanted to leave her these days. It wouldn't have surprised her that much. But the thought was perished when she heard him call out, appearing out of seemingly nowhere. She was grateful he hadn't left.
"Is there anything around here that might help settle a headache...?" she mumbled, pressing a hand to her head, which was drenched in cold sweat.
*
Twinflame: "Maybe," he said, but added a few seconds later, "I'm not much for my knowledge of herbs, unfortunately. You're not getting sick, are you?"
*
K'luha Haaz: K'luha was silent for a few moments before dropping her arms limply to the ground. "I'm not... no. Just... too many thoughts all at once..." she breathed out heavily before beginning to take deep even breaths.
*
Twinflame: Leaning against one bolder, beneding far enough back that the back of his head was against the stone and his hair fell out of his eyes, K'ile stared at the stars and said, "Headaches are punishment for thinking too much. That and insomnia."
*
K'luha Haaz: Luha grunted in reply and pressed her hands to her head again. "Punishment...? I thought that was your thing... are you punishing me now?"
*
Twinflame: "Well," K'ile chuckled, stretched, pulled at his ears some. "If we're being honest I had at least a little hand in that headache, didn't I? So, maybe, a little bit?"
*
K'luha Haaz: With a soft groan K'luha turned onto her back and flailed a hand weakly out to hit K'ile's leg. She had no idea if she actually hit him or just the rock. "Then fix it. And sleep. You'll be useless if you don't get some sleep."
*
Twinflame: Hearing the movement but not feel the smack, K'ile muttered, "How am I supposed to fix your headache?" He moved further into the boulders and lowered himself down beside K'luha. "Your best bet is to just go to sleep, and that something you have to do on your own."
*
K'luha Haaz: "I'm blaming you." she grumbled, feeling him move closer. She paused for a moment, feeling a little more relaxed now that they had spoken again on better terms. Maybe that was all she really needed. "Make sure you sleep." K'luha insisted again, her hand groping across the floor for his leg.
*
Twinflame: Feeling her hand touch his leg, he reached down and took it in his own. "Yeah, sure."
*
K'luha Haaz: "No. Seriously. Don't make me tackle you the whole night." A frown made its way on her face as she squeezed his hand and pulled it towards her. "Sleep."
*
Twinflame: Letting himself be pulled around limpy, K'ile responded, "I said I'll sleep."
*
K'luha Haaz: K'luha tugged K'ile down next to her before using his shoulder as a pillow. "Don't believe you. Stay put." she grumped, making herself comfortable. "And wear a shirt damnit." She added before piching lightly at his side. "And I met Ventus again in Limsa. I said we would go to the Garden to tour it. Mostly because I want to see where K'ailia will be going to stay without us. Please come with me when I go."
*
Twinflame: Flinching at the pinch, he groaned at the suggestion. "Don't start tolerating him or he'll take it as approval of whatever he's doing. I'll go to their damn gardening school but I'll wear whatever I want."
*
K'luha Haaz: "Sounds agreeable to me." she sighed, feeling more relieved at his agreement. K'luha had been very worried she would be the only one going. Getting K'haali to go might be a little more difficult but... K'luha was sure she could probably bribe the girl into going. If only to perhaps see K'ailia off.
*
Twinflame: "Good," he sounded absolutely unentertained. A bit annoyed. That wasn't a remarkable tone for him to take, though. He lay rigidly, feeling pinned by K'luha. The interaction didn't make him feel any better. He had suspected it might, but in the end K'luha's prickly affection -- if that's what this even rally was -- did nothing. He was honestly annoyed by the thought of going to the Garden, of pretending he cared about Ventus and that place.
K'ile still felt like he'd lost something out in the desert. Perhaps a heavy portion of his patience for things like this. Still, he stayed, and he endured the contact with K'luha's clammy body. He knew it was odd that only days ago he'd drawn her to him, and now it was all he could do not to wish he was elsewhere.
Maybe there really was something wrong with him. Maybe there always had been. Maybe K'luha's propensity to think herself into headaches was contagious.
He muttered, "Let's just shut up and go to sleep."
*
K'luha Haaz: Something still felt off. She was glad K'ile had agreed to go with her, and he sounded as per usual about it but... there was something different. K'luha had no idea what or why, but that sixth intuative sense was telling her that K'ile was repulsed by her. Even if he didn't act like it.Â
Maybe he didn't like girls. Maybe he didn't like her. Maybe he only tolerated her because he had to. Maybe he was just waiting for the perfect moment to rain hot fiercy punishment down upon her. The thoughts were unsettling even if they were far-fetched. Because if they were true, what did K'luha have in her tribe?
When K'ailia left, K'ailia who had been her whole world for the last sixteen years, who was left for her? K'ile, if he truley disliked her and merely tolerated her out of duty, would not be. K'mih and K'nahli were adults now and not her own children, though she liked them and thought them dutiful. K'haali was similar to K'mih and K'nahli that way. Her mother was still there, but her sister was long gone. Her sister's daughter? They had never met and it was because of K'luha herself that her daughter was banished without a real crime.Â
Without having a real reason why, K'luha turned her back to K'ile and adjusted herself to try and sleep. "Sorry..." she muttered, and with that would say no more.
*
Twinflame: To K'ile, all of K'luha's body language was beginning to blend together. Was she upset or what? Did it even matter? He'd come here and lain down by her, which was far more than he'd intended. There was nothing left to do, so he just lay beside K'luha and closed his eyes.
*
K'luha Haaz: K'luha had already closed her eyes, but sleep did not come easy. Even when sleep did come it was filled with stressful iamges and thoughts. What would the garden be like? How would K'ailia leave her family? What if she were exiled from her own family for K'ailia's actions? What if Maka's daughter hated her and wanted revenge? If they hadn't fought, would Maka have lived with the tribe even now? Or would the calamity which claimed so many lives, have claimed her anyway?Â
By the time morning had awoken her again, she was grateful to stand even with her headache and walk around to try and clear her head.
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