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Twinflame · **12-14-2013, 05:01 AM**

The Tia leaned close to K'piru, so close that he could feel her breathing. He could've smelt her misery malms away, but here, he could feel it. The emotion pulled at him, and he wished he could share it, but he could not. "You don't need to do anything," he said to the woman, "Not a thing. You can stay here as long as you want. I'm not going to leave. K'piru." He put one hand on the woman's face, "I'm here. I will do whatever I can. Anything you need, lay that on me."

Naunet · **12-14-2013, 07:02 PM**

K'ile's voice rolled over her shoulders like waves of fine sand. Dimly she thought that his words should be comforting, but every word he spoke only called up memories that now seemed stained with loss. She no longer tried to pull away from him, but neither did she turn to him, or lean against him, or open herself to his comfort. She couldn't; even if she wanted to, and perhaps some part of her desperately wanted to, she couldn't.

Even his scent reminded her of them.

"I need my girls," she whimpered after a long silence broken only by shaky breaths and tears. "I need Thalen." She knew. She begged and screamed at the world for otherwise, but she knew. They were gone.

Twinflame · **12-15-2013, 12:06 AM**

He could give her anything she needed, but he couldn't give her Nunh and daughters back. It was too late for that. "I'm sorry," he said. "I already did everything I could, but, they aren't..." He couldn't finish. But he was sure that she was going to be okay, because she had survived this long, and he would take care of her.

The Tia held onto the woman, and watched her shiver. He watched the pallid skin, burned and dirty, dappled with salty sweat. He watched the way her blood-shot eyes shifted on her face, her ears twitched. He watched her fingers and her shoulders, the way her tail writhed like a sick worm in the sand.

* * *

Hours had passed before he had carried her back to camp. K'piru still wasn't moving under her own power, but she hadn't objected when he'd sought to move her either. They couldn't hide forever from K'yohko, and the tribe was still home, was still family. K'ile had found a fallen tent and hoisted it up, secured it in place. It hung as a broad, tattered triangle of skin, small and dark. But it was shadow against the rising sun, and the walls gave privacy. It was enough.

K'ile left K'piru there, and returned an hour later with scavenged water and food. As he stepped form the morning into the shadow of the tent, lit only by the pink light leaking through tattered holes in the shelter, K'ile Tia stopped and let his weakness pull at him another moment. He carried water and food, but partook of neither. He did not for a moment give thought to his injuries. None of these comforts were for himself.

K'piru's scent had filled the tent in his absence. The stink of death and fire still leaked in to a significant degree, and it clung as well to the shaman he'd left in the dark. Still the fear and sadness wrapped about her. But it was K'piru, and her smell was familiar and comforting, sisterly, dear blood preserved when all else had drained away.

"I have food and water, K'iru," he said, moving into the dark, towards the shaman, "Have you slept? Are you... alright?"

Naunet · **12-15-2013, 12:39 AM**

When K'ile left her in the tent, the emptiness in her chest seemed to grow to take his place, filling the entirety of the tent until she felt as though she'd suffocate in it. She didn't dare leave its walls, risking the sights and sounds and smells of the tribe, their words, their accusations, their grief. Somewhere amongst their tattered tents, K'yohko patrolled, and he too she found herself cowering from.

Instead she clawed weakly at the sand, mumbled teary pleas to Azeyma for relief, for the return of those precious things taken from her, but nothing but the emptiness and the silence of the tent answered. Their Warden had failed. Their Warden would not answer. In that silence, she found a smoldering heat deep in her belly. It twined around her grief with a stifling strength that reminded her of the smoke that had choked their lungs as they fled across the sands.

When K'ile returned with food and water, K'piru no longer lay curled uselessly on her side. She sat in the middle of the tent, legs folded beneath her, and she looked to him where he stood. Her tail still twisted weakly in the sand, her ears drooped low to the sides of her head, and her eyes and face were red and puffy from the tears that still gathered and fell. For a long moment, she took in his bowed form, the dirt and blood smeared across skin and bandages, the dull look in his usually brilliant eyes.

Swallowing back the pain his image brought, she spoke, "You saw it." Her voice carried faintly, barely more than a whisper, but the tone was low and almost calm. "I want... you to tell me how they died."

Twinflame · **12-15-2013, 12:49 AM**

He approached K'piru, and set aside the items he'd brought. A canteen of warm water. Dried meats, hunted days ago. Pitiful offerings. His answer to her question would be no better, he knew. He would give her whatever she needed, but it wasn't as much as he felt she deserved. They all deserved better, but her especially.

K'ile dropped to his knees in front of her, and reached out to touch her, laying a hand across her wrists, pulling them nearer to him. Trying to connect with her. "It wasn't fair," he said, and the simple, childish honesty of it was chill in the air. His tail shivered. "It wasn't anything anyone could fight. Magic. They broke the sky itself. Everything was on fire. The sky, the earth, our bodies. My eyes were on fire, and I saw vicious light breaking the ground. Everything... fell..."

He stopped. The nightmare overwhlemed his words. He couldn't speak the sight of Thalen's body burning, of all the bodies burning around him. Proud voices crying out as though the screams were being squeezed from their lungs. K'ile averted his eyes from K'piru, looked at the red stones on the bracelets he wore.

Naunet · **12-15-2013, 01:06 AM**

She kept her eyes on his hands on her own, scraped and dirty knuckles set like an anchor against her hardly cleaner skin. She couldn't speak for a time after, losing herself in her own memories of flame and terror, feeling her heart catch in her throat as her thoughts created an unbidden and unwanted image of Thalen and her girls in that inferno. She could hear their screams.

K'piru blinked back tears and realized she had curled forward so that her forehead pressed against her and K'ile's hands. She could feel herself shaking but didn't know how to stop it. "It burned here, too. So many. I don't... I don't understand what it was," she whispered. "Or why it... it took my... Azeyma's forsaken us, K'ile. If she--if she ever watched over us at all."

Twinflame · **12-15-2013, 01:39 AM**

Releasing one of K'piru's wrists to lay his hand on her head, he said, "I know it burned here. It's not fair. We were supposed to be protecting you, but... We were just..." He shook his head and bent forward, breathed the air he shared with the woman. Looking down at her disheveled hair, watching the sweat catch the light at the base of her ears, K'ile managed to whisper. "I'm sorry. If I'd known. I would've never left. I would've never let anyone leave. I'm not... I'm back. I'm here. I'm going to be here for you. This will never happen again. You'll never lose anything again. I promise."

Kailia · **12-15-2013, 02:20 AM**

Little eleven year old K'ailia was in shock to say the least. Her tail firmly tucked between her legs, even her clothes had not escaped much of the flames. In her hand, a little stuffed doll shaped like a miqo'te. She had remembered hundling with the other children, and a few cinders had landed on her. She remembered her mother grabbing her up and patting the flames out, excessively hard.

But unfortunately, a lot of hair on her little head was singed, to the point she hardly had any real hair left. Yes, even some of her scalp had burn marks. But since she was burned, her mother kept trying to comfort her, and wouldn't let her out of her sight. Believing her mother now asleep from exhaustion, she found herself stepping out into the ruins of her home. Her little scalp still hurt, as she walked along trying to find K'piru. K'piru would make the hurt stop.

Thus she walked, carrying the doll wrapped in both arms as her only comfort. The sun seemed unusually hot to her, and she was starting to see double and tripple vision as she walked.

Naunet · **12-15-2013, 03:13 AM**

K'ile was very close, so much that his scent might have been enough to chase away the death and blood and fire that clung to her nose if he too hadn't also been shrouded in it, but K'piru had never felt so isolated. His words sought to comfort, but all they did was remind her of what she had already lost. "There's nothing... nothing left," she breathed and sagged forward. "And K'yohko is..."

She had barely processed the words the nunh had flung at her out in the dunes, so stricken and hysterical with grief she had been, but now they settled over her and joined the emptiness. She heard them again then, the nunh's voice racketing from the corners of her mind and pushing at the fear, the pain, the loneliness. The guilt for her grief was almost too much.

Nauta Lyehga · **12-15-2013, 03:31 AM**

"Luha..." the voice was deep and hoarse, racked with pain and unbearable for K'luha to listen to. She slowly lifted her head. The exhaustion weighed so heavily on her shoulders, just lifting her head was a strain. An act of sheer will power. Her eyes looked blurrily down at the figure in front of her. Once pale perfect skin, burnt and singed into something almost unrecognizable. The burns were so bad even if K'piru had gone on treating him he... "Luha..." The dying male called to her, his burnt and bandaged hand lifting up from the padding on which he lay in the sand.

"N-no Haega... don't... s-save your strength..." Luha whimpered softly, taking his hand desperately and pushing it down again. She could only faintly bare to look at his burnt and mangled face. The fireballs had hit so hard... and he couldn't run as fast anymore since...

"It's time... I can... I can feel it..." Again K'luha's brother spoke and with every word K'luha felt as if she might crumble. She shook her head no, although she knew he was right. Ever since they had started treating him they knew, she knew, and even he knew he was going to die. The burns were too severe, in too many places to ever recover fully.

"N-no. You're wrong! Y-you're... it's not..." K'luha sobbed desperately, like if she just kept denying it that he would live. If she could believe hard enough, he would stay a little longer with her. The once handsome face smiled at her and K'luha could barely make out the movement through the bandaged and burns. It shattered her heart to see him like this. "Brother..." she choked, grasping tightly at his hand and pressing it to her forehead. "This isn't... you can't leave me... it's all my fault... y-your leg... if I hadn't... all those years ago... then you could r-run and...!" The words came in broken pieces. She couldn't string them together properly, but he smiled again and K'luha knew that he understood her.

"It's not your fault Luha... it's okay.... I forgive you..." K'yhaega called weakly, his once strong and deep voice fading as he spoke. K'luha cried harder as his hand began to weaken in her grip. She gripped at him harder and pulled at his arm like it would keep him alive.

"No! K'yhaega! No! You can't leave me! You can't die! Stay with me! K'yhaega! Brother!" K'luha screeched the words with a terrible desperation that everyone in the tribe had been feeling since the Calamity. She pulled and shook at her brother's arm but he only smiled until he went completely limp and was gone. K'luha grasped at his face, shook him more and more violently and screeched for him to come back, but he did not stir. It was not until a strong arm grabbed her shoulder that K'luha looked back. K'yohko stood behind her, shaking his head. For all of her bitterness at K'yohko, she could not help but to stand shakily and hug him tightly. He stood as a rock for her when everything was falling to pieces. Even that emotionless face that drove her crazy, she was glad to see him unchanged in the aftermath.

They stood for a few moments in an embrace before Luha pulled back, crying in small choked sobs.

"I'll take care of his body." Was K'yohko's only words. K'luha could only nod and wipe her eyes, looking down at her brother's body again. If only she hadn't... his death was her fault. She could have saved him if she hadn't... K'yohko spoke again and broke her thoughts. "Find K'ailia."

"K'ailia...?" Luha echoed back. It was then that she realized K'ailia had left her side while she was watching over K'yhaega and trying to tend to both of their wounds. She must have passed out from the exhaustion. "K'ailia!" Panic struck K'luha and she pushed past K'yohko, still crying. Sand kicked up behind her as she ran across the sands of the tribe still, looking every which way. Her burnt hands and feet and hair and face didn't matter. "K"ailia!?" K'luha screeched again, searching for her daughter. Where would she go? Why would she leave? K'luha wasn't good at medicine like K'piru and the others. She had tried to fix K'ailia's burnt head but she knew she hadn't done very much to help. She wasn't even looking where she was going. She opened her mouth to scream for K'ailia gain but instead tripped over a rock and skidded into K'ile and K'piru's tent. Luckily it was through the entrance, but she skidded in hard and fast, enough that she might have knocked into both of them if they weren't paying attention enough to avoid her. Then again, she hadn't been quiet in coming.

Twinflame · **12-15-2013, 04:43 PM**

With one hand on her wrist still, K'ile placed his other open K'piru's shoulder, and at these two points he clutched at and very slightly shook the woman. "K'yohko is a liar!" he hissed. "He's a coward. He's wrong! He'll be sorry when his senses return. You've done nothing wrong." Â None of this was fair. Not the loss, and not the wounds, and not the accusations. It was...

"Don't worry about him," the Tia said, his voice begging. "You still have the tribe, and you have me. You have a family still. I'll even challenge Yohko to be Nunh, if you need me to! If it... helps... if it's..."

The tent was torn open, and a gust of death and grief washed in and wrapped the Tia and the shaman. There was the compartively subtle sound of shouting, and movement, the feeling of thrown sand against his skin, a flash of morning light over his shoulders to light up K'piru's thin frame for an instant.

An unfamiliar body collided with his back, but he recognized her scent: one of K'yohko's women. He flinched away from her, his motion as though trying to protect K'piru from this very non-threatening entrance, and moved one hand to push her off of him. "K'luha! What!"

Naunet · **12-15-2013, 04:59 PM**

When K'ile's words - desperate words, pleading words - cut off, K'piru felt the jarring collision through him and cringed away, ears flattening. She felt suddenly frightened, terrified of facing anyone, let alone someone like K'luha, of seeing the grief and the judgment in their faces. Hearing their own accusations, their own losses. She couldn't bear it.

The air in the tent grew thick in her lungs, suffocating, and she scrambled back away from K'ile and K'luha, not wondering how or why the other woman had come crashing into them, only concerned about avoiding her fear and pain and grief. She had to get away, before the weight of it all crushed her, and in this panic she made for the exit.

Kailia · **12-15-2013, 05:10 PM**

K'ailia continued moving through what remained of the tribe camp. Her scalp burned and the heat wave continued playing tricks with her vision. And for a brief moment, she thought she saw a lake, but was just a mirage, a charred bit of land where one of the fireballs had hit.

She approached the charred area and instantly broke down. There were three bodies there of her family. But they were no longer recognizable. They were cooked till just bone was showing, their bodies broken. Tears streamed down her cheeks as she sunk to her knees. Who were they? So many died when the fires rained down.

Rising to her feet she turned back towards camp, and saw a trail of sand traveling through camp and slamming into one of the tents. She continued clunching the doll as she slowly made her way to the tent. But even as she did, she was feeling dizzy. And arriving to the edge of the tent she finally collapsed, falling through one of the walls.

"K'piru... where are ya... it hurts..." was all she could manage as she landed practically into K'piru's hip, the doll falling to the ground.

Nauta Lyehga · **12-16-2013, 12:14 AM**

K'luha hit something rather hard that was most certainly not the ground, but a person. A tent so far away from the others wasn't something she had expected. All of the tents over where she was running were burnt or ripped or down in some way, so running face first into one in the first place, much less one with people, was surprising.

Luha didn't quiet pick up her whereabouts as quickly as K'ile and was shoved somewhat roughly off of his back and onto the floor again. This was mostly due to her being somewhat limp at the shock of having fallen into... something and someone. After a moment or two, K'luha blinked and sort of squirmed against the floor to sit up and try and figure out what had happened.

"K-k'ile?" She stammered, looking up through singed and frazzled hair at the red-haired tribe member. He didn't look much better than she did, but she looked much more tired than he did. Deep purple circles stained her face along with dried blood, tears, dirt, and ashes. "I-i'm sorry..." Kluha didn't notice it, but she was shaking. Her eyes darted around the scene, somewhat panicked as her mind quickly tried to refocus on its task. "I-i p-passed out w-watching over K-k'yhaega a-and now h-he's..." K'luha voice cracked as she tried to pronounced 'dead'. It cracked so high and brokenly that the word was barely intelligible and it was all Luha could do to pull up at her filthy shirt and wipe her eyes again."B-but I lost K-k'ailia... a-and sh-she's so hurt... h-her head... I don't k-know where she went... S-she shouldn't b-be in the s-sun with her head l-like that... where..?" K'luha lost her train of thought as her mind focused in intently on finding K'ailia again. Where could her daughter be? It would be just her luck that she was looking everywhere but towards the direction K'piru had started to flee in.

Twinflame · **12-16-2013, 02:26 AM**

I K'luha looked any more tired than K'ile did, it was because he was wearing his exhaustion well. And that might be the case. He barely eaten or slept since Cartenau, pouring himself wholly into returning home to be with K'piru, and then into taking care of her. He needed to be stronger than she was. Strong enough to convince her that he could hold her together.

K'ile did not miss K'ailia's presence either. He could see and hear her clearly enough, but even more, he could smell the burns on her body. Turning from K'luha, he moved towards where K'piru had retreated and pulled K'ailia away from her by one arm. This was not the kindest of gestures, but he didn't hurt her, either. He moved the child so she was closer to the light, more visible, and away from K'piru.

"Your daughter is here, K'luha," he spoke impatiently. At any other time he might've been kinder, but he couldn't be sure that K'yohko wasn't two steps behind K'luha. Or that K'luha wouldn't tell K'yohko where he had hidden K'piru as soon as she got the chance. "She's not that hurt and she's old enough to know better than to wander around alone."

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

RPC has moved! These pages have been kept for historical purposes