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K'nahli · **12-18-2013, 05:15 PM**

"Eh..e-e-eh?" K'nahli whimpered in confusion, now turning to look past her father toward the motionless body that lay silently behind him.

The girl said nothing further for a few moments. Her pale, unsteady eyes were locked on the motionless form before her as she tried to analyze what her father had just said, trying to find an alternative meaning as she resided in complete determination that the literal meaning was false, impossible. A number of soft, muffled hums, emanating faintly from the depths of her throat could be heard. Failed attempts to find the words to begin speaking as her gaze failed to interpret the situation that lay blatantly before her.

A warm smile slowly cracked across the girl's face while tears slowly welled up across the surface of her pallid eyes. Her body trembled slightly, each one of her muscles submitting one by one to the churning conflict of emotion that tugged against and strained her stomach as she slowly lost control of her own stability.

"Wha-What are you talking about? He's right th-there! He's fine!"

The girl finally spoke. The crippled and disfigured form from moments ago had disappeared from her vision. All that she could see now was the slumbering form of her mentor, peaceful and quiet as he lay seemingly bathed in a faint beam of ethereal light, undisturbed upon the ragged bed much like the old days when she would find him sleeping late into the morning on the days he had promised to take her out early for practice. He was so close to her now, like a prince that lay dormant and needed only for her to reach out to him to awaken.

"K'yhaega..." her frail voice called out to him innocently, her smile unfading all the while.

"K'yhaega, I w-was looking all o-over for you.." she pleaded softly as her voice, slowly losing its new found composure and returning to its previously, crackled state, reached out desperately towards the lifeless tia.

K'yohko's embrace was unrelenting on his young daughter. In response to the girl's weak, yet growing efforts to try and slip free to escape his eternal bind, her father held on to her even more tightly, denying her any further movement beyond where she stood.

"P-P-Please, let me s-s-see him!" she stuttered with a false laugh as a thin, channel of moisture traversed quickly down across her face. Her gaze had turned back to her father now, staring down into his shoulder as she directed her request toward him. He was unmoving all the while; holding on to her as though she needed protection. Though she didn't understand. Everything was alright now. She had found him, he was here, alive and well.

"I n-n-need to wake him up! I need..." she cried against her father's defiant hold, her eyes slowly growing puffy and red in appearance. She pushed against him vehemently, yet at the same time, calmly, in attempt to coax him to release his grip on her.

"Please, dad... let me go" she cried again.

The few, salty tears that had slipped free from her eyes had dampened her cheeks, leaving a bitter taste across her chapped lips as she spoke.

Despite her tears, she kept smiling.

Nauta Lyehga · **12-19-2013, 05:36 AM**

It was difficult to listen to her. The trauma was too great for young K'nahli. She simply couldn't accept the truth in his words. She couldn't accept the severity of his wounds and the brutality of his death. K'yohko could not let her near the body. It was cruel perhaps, but whatever she was seeing... it was not what was happening. How could he offer his daughter comfort? In what way could he make her see? There were no ways. There were no words. Only pain.

"He is dead K'nahli. I am sorry." K'yohko breathed out quietly, the comforting tone he had so subtly tried to weave broken. Now there was no comfort he could give. All he could be was cruel to her, and cruel he would be. K'yohko could not indulge her delusions. There was too much to do. Too much at stake. Should he allow her to mourn and indulge that idea that K'yhaega was still alive, he feared she would turned into another K'piru. K'yohko could not handle yet another useless body, mourning and flailing in the sand while he ground his bones to dust keeping away Bloatflies and Sandworms and Jackals, and Sun Drakes.

"K'nahli..." K'yohko spoke sternly, a once tender hug turning more into a stranglehold on his daughter. "You have disobeyed your mother and worried her greatly. There is much to do for those of us who remain. I am going to take you back to your mother, and I ask that you aide her in whatever way you can. Honor K'yhaega's memory by helping those who might still live." That was the only wisdom he might impart to his daughter. The only things he could say that might even try to patch the wounds. And so K'yohko moved to stand and hold his small daughter to his broad and broken chest, lifting her with him no matter what fight she may put up. He desired to walk her back to his treasured mate and hope that the woman could console K'nahli, when all he could do was be cruel.

K'nahli · **12-19-2013, 06:52 PM**

"He is dead, K'nahli"

The nuhns declaration was both solid and blunt, though entirely necessary. Regardless of whether it had been his intention or not, the result of his spoken words, powerful and direct as they were, was instantaneous, crashing into her with the pulverizing force of a freight train and rattling her naivety violently to the core.

His embrace upon her served as the sharpened chisel and his words the striking hammer as the chains that had bound her shattered fiercely in that moment, freeing K'nahli from the plaguing shackles of denial and releasing her into the cold, dark embrace of reality. The mere mention of the one word she had dreaded the thought of hearing had triggered an immediate response within the girl. An inexplicable feeling of immense pressure slammed into her stomach, forcing a pained gasp past her quivering lips as her world came crumbling down around her. Tragic eyes, wide as saucers refused to release themselves from the image of the man she had come to love and respect like no other as he slowly began to lose the false, pristine appearance her mind had insisted upon creating only moments ago. The protective, celestial light that had caressed his entirety was fading while familiar wounds began reappearing across his exposed flesh, destroying him. Piece by piece.

"No, no... please let me help him!!!" the girl cried out in anguish. Her arms reached out for K'yhaega desperately, yearning for even the slightest brush of skin as though such a trivial thing would breathe life back into him once more and save him from the wounds he was slowly accumulating before her eyes.

"Y-Y-You can't do this.... you can't.."

His body came to be consumed by an unworldly flame, licking at his flesh, it burned him throughout, torturing his soft and motionless form and returning the wounds he had earned from the hellish massacre at cartenau, wounds K'nahli had refused to even acknowledge. The flame engulfed him whole, slowly returning him back to the wretched, disfigurement that the girl had first beheld when she entered the tent, the body of a mysterious tia whom she 'knew' was anyone but her mentor. The brutish image tormented the girl as she strained against her father's arms desperately, screaming out his name in torturous anguish while her heart heaved and ripped inside, feeling no less than were it being torn apart by a pack of ravenous wolves.

"Our promise, K'yhaega... don't you remember it? You said you would come back.. y-you said..."

The girl, finally overcome by the tempest of emotion clawing at and defiling her mind, collapsed into her father's arms as he slowly hunkered down to lift her.

"You promised..... you can't.... don't break it, please... don't"

For the very little awareness K'nahli held toward her father in that moment, his motion at the very least seemed uninhibited. He moved slowly and calmly, resisting her weak struggle rather easily despite his condition. Tender, cradling arms carefully raised her up to his chest, as he moved to carry her away from the detestable scene that was the inspiration for her unfaltering trauma. The moisture from his bloodied arms did not hinder the warmth of his body as they held against his daughter's frail form with enough delicacy to offer her as much emotional comfort as he possibly could, but with enough strength to prevent her from slipping free and indulging in her delusionary state.

"What are you going to do with him, father? Tell me!" her attention snapped toward him as he slowly carried her outside. The tent flaps fell back in place all too hastily, as if cruelly intending to deny her any further watch upon her beloved mentor. Her cheeks, still sensitive from the light burns she had sustained, had grown soft from her tears as they tirelessly pumped free from her eyes like an endless torrent and soaked her skin thoroughly.

"Answer me! What are you going to do?!" she pleaded with the nuhn desperately in vain, her hysteria growing more wild as his lack of response only brought her closer to the answer, another answer she so badly wanted to deny. K'nahli pressed her face into her father's chest tightly, seeking comfort and hope from the soft rhythm of his beating heart. A number of soft, muffled sobs stemmed out from her throat and echoed through her father in the form of soft, indecipherable murmurs as another crushing wave of sorrow crashed down over her.

"Please.... please don't put him in the ground..." her voice had become so, very, soft and fragile now as she spoke. The words were barely audible, though just enough that K'yohko could still understand in spite of her pitiful, clouding whimpers.

"I won't...... I won't ever see him again if you do.."

She continued to weep softly for a short moment before a very, light inhale indicated yet another attempt at self control as she slowly released herself from the burrowing pressure she had placed upon her father and brought herself to meet eyes with him. Her watery stare shimmered tragically against the faint, saffron glow emanating from a nearby campfire. Her tortured eyes only echoed the grief she was enduring as they pierced fearfully into his for a brief moment while she nervously waited for her convulsing body to relent and give her the chance to speak, unhindered by neither sobs nor tremors.

"I don't want to hate you.... please.. don't make me hate you"

Throughout the young miqo'te's life, her father's stony expression had been a source of her strength in her weaker moments. Though they hadn't shared a particularly special relationship, K'nahli had always held her father in high regard. In her young eyes, his power as a warrior and seldom-expressed, but everlasting, gentle nature had left him no less than a gleaming icon in her quietly-lived life; a person she could only aspire to be half as strong as when she came of age.
His steady gaze, perceived by many as something cold and uncaring spoke to her only of strength and composure. Before today, she hadn't ever seen it falter, not even once. It had always been an assurance that he was in control and that no matter what happened, he was there; resilient and proud... their silent protector.

Up until now, that gaze hadn't once failed to place her mind at ease, it had always offered her nothing but unfaltering confidence and a comforting sense of placid serenity.

Tonight, everything changed.

His defiance in that moment, his absolute determination to deny his first-born daughter what her heart yearned so desperately for, created a boiling sensation of savage hatred in her chest. It rose high up inside her, churning viciously as serenity was soon replaced with spite.. and confidence quickly replaced with a loss of faith.

Anger, however, was soon swallowed by devastating grief once more, quickly sending the frail girl into another fit of sobs. She threw herself back into his chest instinctively as both her body and mind desperately sought an end to the pain in her heart. Even in that moment where she could feel nothing but undying resent towards her own father, all she could do was embrace him even more tightly, forever seeking the comfort of his presence.

Swallowed whole by a vicious swell, raw emotion drowned out all sound to the young miqo'te as she clung despairingly on to her crumbling rock for dear life. Ceaseless sobs tore out of her throat to the point that even crying became intolerably painful. Her wails of anguish resonated throughout her body, carrying outward and drawing attention to physical aches that she hadn't even known existed. The black abyss of despair consumed her weak form, dragging her down deeper and deeper until the last of the light, her single ray of optimistic hope that had lingered for so long had finally begun to fade. On the other side, the fleeting silhouette of a familiar tia bounded further and further away.
A weak hand reached outward in a final, twisted attempt to deny the reality that had presented itself before her, but to no avail.

Everything went dark in that dying moment.

The young miqo'te, K'nahi Yohko, was lost forever.

Naunet · **12-20-2013, 03:36 AM**

The thought K'piru had not finished in the tent K'ile had hidden them away in coalesced into action a day and a half later. During this brief time, the bereaved mother drifted in a shell-shocked silence as K'ile, struggling in his own mind and with his own body, did all he could to anchor her. The food he had brought remained largely untouched, the water drank only out of absolute necessity. As the hours ticked by, the air in the tent grew dense with thoughts unspoken and tears that had run dry.

The air had cooled significantly at some point, suggesting to K'piru as she pulled herself slowly to some measure of external awareness that it was night. She smelled K'ile before she saw him, the scent sparking a pain in her chest that left her breath short and her eyes burning uselessly. He lay next to her on his side, body still save for a faint sign of breathing.

He seemed asleep, or unconscious.

Her limbs ached and protested, joints moving with stiff reluctance as she slowly unfolded her legs beneath her to stand in the tent. Small tremors shook her, echoes of a grief that still clouded her thoughts. For a time, she simply stood still in the tent, trying to ignore K'ile's scent, the flashes of memory, of her daughters' smiles or Thalen's warm hands. She tried to ignore the fire that raged as a nightmare in her mind and that left a pit deep in her belly charred black and empty.

K'piru had wanted K'ile's comforts to be enough, but the pain was not receeding, and even his simple presence seemed only to make it worse. The guilt that hazy thought came paired with nearly brought her to her knees again, but instead she stumbled forward sightlessly until she was, very suddenly, standing outside under a sky obscured by a shadow of smoke and dust. She didn't remember walking, but once she started, she found she couldn't stop.

Like a ghost, K'piru slipped wearily around the edge of the small camp, expression dazed and lost and desperate. In the twisting of her chest, that fiery grip around her heart, she found only a need to escape. Her daughters voices haunted her, and she turned many times to her left or right at a familiar weight at her side only to find Thalen's memory fade and burn. These delirious thoughts pestered her at a frenetic pace, dogged her every step until she wanted to drop into the sand, scream, and simply die. Her body did not obey this want, however, and through the shroud of ghosts around her, the only other way she could think to flee those faces and smells and memories was to leave entirely.

In the middle of the night, without a single word to the rest of the remaining tribe, K'piru simply disappeared. If one checked later, they would find a chocobo missing - the eldest and least valuable - as well as a small portion of water, though no food.

***

Hunger had caught up to him. By the time he'd tried to eat anytihng, shivering and pale, his body was ready to collapse, and so it had. K'ile lay still in an exhausted haze at K'piru's side, taking solace at least in the fact that she was fairing better than he was. As long as he survived, and she did better than he did, then she would be just fine. He stared up at her, but all he saw was shadows. All he heard was his own breath.

K'ile concentrated on the scent of her, as it wavered in the tent, as the stink of death and fire seeped in and tried to obscure it. He held the scent at the front of his mind, and for maybe a few seconds, he actually pondered why he so feverishly needed to reach K'piru, and way she was so intangible. The answer he found strangled him, though, smothering out his thoughts and senses until all that was left was inky numbness and the strong, all-important scent of K'piru at his side.

The scent decieved him, though, for it lingered longer than she did. When he was finally able to stir from his state of exhaustion, his body's desperate pleas for food, water and sleep were like distant echoes that he just barely heard, and ignored outright. K'piru's scent had aged. She was gone.

The Tia was a pathetic thing tracking that scent around camp, picking out the shaman's footprints in the sand. She'd gone this way, then there, where was she going? To him, there was nothing else around him. There were no tents, no tribe, the smell of fire and the ehat of the desert were just the sensations of an empty world.

It wasn't difficult, once he'd tracked her to the chocobos, to discern what she had done. He didn't even need to count them. The mingling smells and the tracks in the sand told him everything he needed to know.

He lingered in his haze, for a time. His body was shivering. He'd stopped sweating, dehydrated. There was a voice of reason in his mind, shaking him, telling him to go find food.

K'ile wasn't the best at riding chocobos. He hated the animals so greatly that he refused to even take one on hunt. But everything was upside-down right now. Any sense of comfort or reason, even basic needs like food, were now secondary to this new, bizarre need that he did not completely understand. He thought, it probably wasn't even about K'piru, and yet...

He'd taken the first Chocobo he'd been able to get his hands on, barely taking the time to throw a saddle on it, securing its straps with his shaking fingers, before he took off to follow K'piru. The desert around him was wounded, with vast black scars, but he onyl cared about the scent of K'piru and the chocobo she'd taken.

***

K'piru had found north, an easy task even in her half-delirious state thanks to decades of plotting the skies of Sagolii, and set the old, confused chocobo on its path. She had no real concept of what lied beyond the desert save for scattered stories of trading towns brought back by tribe members on their occasional forays for goods, but as she half lay over the chocobo's back, hands shaking around its reigns, K'piru found this didn't matter. She wouldn't stop in Thanalan. She knew it wouldn't be far enough.

For a brief moment, she wondered if she could find the battlefield K'ile had returned from, but no sooner had this thought skittered across her mind did she recoil from it. Against the backs of her eyelids, she saw the bodies of her daughters, of Thalen, splayed out on decimated ground and shriveled the same black as the corpses she had spent an endless week tending to already. Her stomach wrenched and she nearly toppled from the chocobo's back as she gagged back bile, then buried her face in the feathers ringing its neck. The beast chirped in confusion but continued on; she hadn't given it the signal to stop.

The dunes rolled by unnoticed by K'piru. At some point, the chocobo's pace slowed as it tired, and she became aware of a dull hunger pressing at the edges of her stomach. It had not seemed right to take much from the tribe, not even in her manic state, and she knew enough about the lay of the Sagolii to find her way to food of some kind when she needed it. But for now, the grief in her gut crowded out much of the hunger.

She didn't notice when the chocobo lifted and turned its head, sensing the approach of someone familiar.

There was no hesitation in K'ile's approach. He spurned his chocobo into a full run as he sensed himself nearing the source of the scent, and the younger, stronger chocobo caught up the K'piru's easily. Overcoming the summit of one final dune, K'ile's mount uttered a warble to alert him, and he urged it in the direction. He instructed it to ride faster, not slower, as they approached, and the only thing that stopped the two birds from colliding was the stubborn good sense of K'ile's Chocobo. It stopped and squawked, feet tearing up the sand, feathers on its neck rubbing against the feathers of the other bird.

"K'piru!" K'ile said, harsh and breathy, reaching out and taking hold of the reins of her bird. "What are you doing!?"

For several, long seconds, K'piru sat in confusion, hands hanging limp where they had once held the reins. Then that achingly familiar scent caught up to her senses, bringing with it memories that once had been warm and caring but now carried only fire and death. She cowered as though hiding from it, or K'ile's words, or K'ile himself.

"I can't," she whispered, voice cracking. The chocobo beneath her had stopped and had begun to exchange a few, quiet chirps with K'ile's, but K'piru tried to urge it forward. "It's too much. Just leave me... leave me be. It's better--" She could feel her throat clenching and her body wrapping around sobs, but she'd run out of tears a day ago. That didn't mean it hurt any less. But it was better. She was useless to the tribe like this, and she knew, without any shadow of doubt, that she could not overcome this. Not like she had overcome K'aijeen's loss. This was just too much.

His hand tightened on the reins of K'piru's chocobo. They tightened so his hand hurt, and his teeth ground. He could feel himself starving, but for everything except food. The woman felt far away, and she was getting farther. "That's not..." She didn't understand. She wasn't listening. "K'piru, there is nowhere to go. The world is barren. It is empty. And there's nothing in the tribe, either! There's just... us." He pulled against the leather, and looked down into the sand. "I could be everything K'thalen was, if you need me to be. I'll learn how."

"You can't!" K'piru nearly screamed into the empty night, and her thoughts flashed back to that singular, first moment - stifling heat, the shadows of a tent, and that grinning boy promising he wouldn't give away her secret, that he'd let her be what she wanted. Then that boy was wreathed in flame, his image shrouded in smoke, and there was nothing she could do. He had left her. Her daughters had left her. She was alone.

"You can't!" She repeated and turned her face to finally look at K'ile, eyes wide and shaking. "They're gone! Nothing--no one can replace... I can't be..." She could only hold the look for a few seconds before the sight of him became too much and, feeling utterly trapped with the ghosts closing in all around, she slid down the opposite side of her chocobo and dropped unsteadily into the sand. It wasn't rational. It wasn't reasonable. To anyone but K'piru, it would have been an act of stupity. But she could not be here. It was all she knew.

"I can," he said, but the words were uncertain and weak. "You just... Won't accept..." K'ile wrenched his hand free of the other chocobo's reins and threw his arm out angrily, "I'm not trying to replace anything! I'm not Thalen! But I know I can be enough if you'd just accept that! I'm alive! But that doesn't mean anything to you!"

She started to walk. The chocobo K'piru had taken turned its head to watch her and shifted its large feet in the sand anxiously. At his words, she flinched, hunched her shoulders and wrapped her arms about her stomach in a childish gesture. The tattered and dust-and-blood stained wrappings she word shook in a faint, brief breeze just like her voice shook when she spoke without looking at him, "It means..."

She swallowed. She should be glad K'ile had made it back. If not happy, then at least relieved. Maybe she could have been if his return had not also meant the absence of his brother. There was a keen guilt in that acknowledgement; K'ile didn't deserve resentment, didn't deserve the arrow of her grief and cowardice.

"It means you should go back to camp, and care for the others left alive," she finally managed. Her tone was low, defeated, lost. In a far corner of her mind, where the flames did not reach but for the press of thick shadow, a somber voice told her that whether she made it out of Thanalan or died in the desert didn't matter. At least she would escape.

"And what if I don't care about the others?" K'ile steered his chocobo towards her, causing more confusion in the older bird that she had abandoned. The thing warbled in bemusement and followed awkwardly. K'ile followed K'piru slowly, distantly, as though there were some reason to stay away from her. "What if you're the only thing left I care about? What if I'd rather go with you into that empty world than go back to the tribe alone?"

Squeezing her eyes shut until she saw small spots of light against the backs of her eyelids, bright flashes that echoed the seemingly sourceless explosions of flames that had battered the tribe to ashes, K'piru hesitated but did not stop her walking. She couldn't. Her legs moved without her conscious input, carrying her slowly away from the ghosts.

Then without warning she stopped, so suddenly that her body swayed forward before she jerked in place, spinning around to stare wide-eyed at K'ile. Her chest ached, heart pounding wildly against the cage of her ribs, the dull beat of blood mixing with the roar of flames in her ears. She wanted to flee and hide and cry and scream. Instead she found her voice tearing from her throat in a broken shout, "I can't keep you with me!" A blinding heat distorted her vision, and she leaned back, turned away, suddenly breathless. "I can't," she added smaller, quieter. "I need to go away. You need to..."

In a sudden bout of frustration, K'ile kicked himself off of his chocobo suddenly enough that the bird started in ran a short distance away. The Tia hit the sand heavily and reached out to grab K'piru by one arm. He considered, however briefly, forcing her to stay. He could hold her until she came to her senses, and she would come to her senses. She might die out here in the desert if she just walked off like this. Especially if she walked off like this.

"K'piru, we need each other. You want to run away, but you need to stay." He felt the muscles in his arm and hand lock down about his grip on her arm, his fingers numb. "Everything will be alright, if you stay. I promise."

"Please don't," the words shook from deep in her chest as she leaned away from K'ile, against the pull of his hand. She didn't want to hear his words, didn't want any more reminders what she was abandoning, what she had no choice in abandoning.Â

His scent pressed in all around her, suffocating. His voice merged with the warmer tones of Thalen's, and she cried out, suddenly frenetic in her attempts to get away. "Just leave me alone! I don't want you to--I need to go! I can't... Leave me to die if I so choose!"

Part of him tried to let go, but most of him couldn't. Just like his starving body was supposed to be seeking desperately after food, he was driven to hold onto her, to drag her back. "You choose to abandon home, and family. You won't be okay. I won't be okay! There is nothing! Why would you choose that?"

He pulled her towards him, a forceful gesture. "I'm not going to let you walk off and die. You wouldn't even make it out of the desert like this."

Wasn't that half of the point? If she died out here, if she made it out of the desert, out of Thanalan - it made no difference. The flames had held no pity for her daughters or Thalen; she would take none either. When he dragged her forward, K'piru brought her other hand up between them, palm flat against his chest as though to ward him away. Her face she turned away from him, denying his presence as much as she could.

"I don't need you," she choked out, shivering with overwhelming emotion. "I need my daughters. I need Thalen. I don't--not you. I need /them/, not you!" Her hand curled into a fist and she slammed it against K'ile's chest with her last cry.

K'ile let go of Antimony suddenly, releasing all the force with which she was pulling away, and said sternly, "You don't get to die."

Behind K'ile, both chocobos chuffed and chirped in agitation, sensing their riders' distress but unsure of the source. When K'ile released her, K'piru stumbled back, nearly falling into the sand. When her feet found purchase, she hunched away from K'ile, hugging herself.

How could she respond to that? Her mind churned, along with her stomach, and soon those ghosts of memories were vying for her attention once more. She couldn't bring herself to say that it wasn't his place to tell her such things, that if he had lost as much as she... but that wasn't fair. K'piru knew it wasn't fair, but it hurt too much to care. She shuddered and could only beg once again, down towards the sand, "Please, just let me go."

K'ile turned and took hold of the reins of both of the chocobo. His hair hid his features, and in the dark, his fire-red hair seemed dim, as if burned down to a coal. His tail hung limp about his legs. "I could just force you back to camp and hold you there. You would get over this. You would learn to live, if you just waited."

"No," she uttered, the word dropping from her lips like a stone, matching the weight pulling down her gut. Her ears drooped, nearly disappearing in disheveled hair. "Not with--not with you... with everyone... Without Thalen. My--my baby girls." The words came with effort and from a tight throat, but the tone was final and somber, as though delivering a death sentence.

Walking back to K'piru, reins of both chocobos in one hand, the birds seemed hesitant but complied. They both huffed and pulled back in surprise when K'ile reached out and grabbed K'piru by her clothes, just at her neck, pulling her towards him again. "You don't get to die. Not when the whole reason we went out there was to protect you. Respect that. It's why they're dead."

A strangled noise of protest escaped her throat as he spoke, and she tried to pull away from him, shutting her eyes tight. "No, it's--that's not--I didn't ask him--I didn't ask them to... it's not my fault!" She shrieked and turned, heedless of his grip on her clothes, and shoved roughly at him. "Don't say that--I couldn't stop them! I didn't want them to go! I want them..." Her limbs went limp, including her tail. "I want them back..."

When she turned away from K'ile, there was the sound of tearing cloth, but he ignored it. On impulse, he let go of the reins and wrapped his other arm around her, pulling her against his body with a powerful desperation. "It's not your fault. It's mine. I should have brought them back. K'piru, you can run if you want to. But you can't die."

K'piru sobbed lowly, hanging limp in his arms. Like this, with her back pressed against him, if she closed her eyes, she could almost...

"Let me leave," she shuddered out, and her hands moved up to clutch at the forearm holding her firmly in place. She didn't pull and struggle against it, though, just gripped it white-knuckled. A long silence settled over them until, barely audible over the dull thudding of her heart in her ears, "It's okay. I won't... I won't die. Please just let me go."

"K'piru," he exhaled, and lowed his head so it was against hers, filling his senses with her smell and warmth, and the taste of the air she breathed. "You're my sister. I love you. Be alright." And then K'ile ripped himself from her and stepped quickly away, almost stumbling. He spun so he wasn't looking at her anymore, taking another step. "And take the chocobos. Trade them for supplies. No arguing."

When K'ile removed himself, K'piru felt suddenly very, impossibly small, a single grain of sand in an endless desert beneath an equally endless sky. She felt as though she would be crushed by the weight of that perception, but then he spoke again.

She lifted her head, blinking slowly through the tears that still refused to fall in confusion and turning her head slightly to catch K'ile's form out of the corner of her eyes. "You..." She couldn't finish the thought, tried to swallow back the sob that wanted to stutter from her chest, clawed at the loneliness that settled in at his actions. This is what she needed.

She wouldn't argue though. Her head bowed and she sighed out, "Okay."

Okay.

K'ile paused, and his entire body seemed to tanse to the breaking point and shutter against its confines. In that moment, K'ile had a thousand thoughts about K'piru, each of them unwise, beyond reason, and impulsive. He wanted to scream at her. He wanted to cry. He wanted to carry her back to the tribe kicking and screaming. He wanted to set her on fire and watch her burn. He wanted to throw her down in the sand and...

And he wanted to do all of it, right then. K'ile decided to do everything that occured to him, and to do them all at once, but when he tried to move in a thousand different directions, he just stood still and closed his eyes. In his chest, he uttered a curse so powerful that it had no words, no thought. It was the darkest thing he'd ever felt, a point of black that would make even the scales of the dragon that slew Thalen seem bright by comparison.

But in all of this, he paused only a moment, before he continued to walk away.

K'piru did not move, did not breathe. She said nothing as K'ile walked away, though her ears strained to catch the fading shift of his feet in the sands. When another gust of wind picked up, she felt as though she would join the sands, broken apart into a million pieces and washed away in the dunes, forever forgotten.

As the sounds grew so distant that they merged with the white noise of the desert, she was gripped with a desperate urge to turn and charge after him. She even felt her legs moving, muscles burning and straining to carry her through the sand, but when she blinked, K'piru realized she had not moved at all. One of the chocobos chirped behind her, a low trill, and nudged its head against her back.

Something hollow and dead tolled in her head, echoing against the inside of her skull, and K'piru dropped to her knees in the sand. One hand moved to loosely grip the reins of the chocobo that had wandered near.

She remained quiet and alone in the sands until well into the morning. Then, when the last of the dew was evaporating off what few plants eked out an existence in the Sagolii, she stood, climbed onto one of the chocobos, and continued on the same northward path she had begun.

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The Dunes Would Bury Them [[pre-2.0, Hipparion Tribe, ooc welcome]]

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