Naunet

As the Amal'jaa spoke, Thal felt himself relaxing little by little, enough at least that he felt comfortable enough to chance a glance towards where he'd seen K'aijeen run. His jaw tightened at the sight of her, and he quickly shifted his gaze back to the giant, black, lizard-man. He tensed at the hunter's last sentence. "Okay... well. They did kind of attack me - you can't really blame me for defending myself. I don't think that counts as a debt?"

Lifting his gaze to the hunter, Thal winced, though not out of any pain. "Believe me, if I'd had a choice... I probably would've preferred to long before this." He rolled his still intact shoulder, a bit weirded out by the sensations his other arm was sending him. Letting out a sigh, he tried to ignore the way he could feel air pushing through one side of his chest and lifted both arms to either side of him. "So, I can respect your honor, but... sorry. Can't we just go our merry ways? There's plenty of other stuff to hunt out here... though you chased away the orobon."

Thal hit the ground with a grunt and rolled for several more malms across the mud. He came to rest halfway in the shallow water of the stream, and the water stained almost instantly with blood. For several seconds he just blinked at reflections of rocks above him in the ripples and the weird, wet, empty sensation across his chest. Then he grimaced, rolling onto his back and pushing himself up in the mud. The first thing he noticed was his mask lay a good malm away from him, face up in the mud, apparently having been jostled free in the combat. Then he looked down and immediately regretted it. "... okay, we're just gonna pretend that isn't there," he muttered to himself, shoving the gory image into one corner of his mind. "I guess maybe I should be thankful." With another grunt, he pushed himself to his feet. His left arm felt weaker than the other but impossibly functioning, and as he stood he called out to the Amal'jaa, "How about we call this a truce?"

"Hey! Stop that - I'm not for eating!" The hand that had been straining for the arrow changed course and delivered a solid punch to the Amal'jaa's jaw. He kicked again at the beastman's gut.

Thal grunted as his straining was brought up short abruptly. He'd nearly managed to stretch far enough to get purchase on the arrow when the Amal'jaa's arms closed in around him. He felt the pressure strangely, not as pain but still aware of the bruising of muscle and cracking of ribs. He could feel the curve of the mask Megiddo had given him digging at his hip. Kicking his feet against the Amal'jaa, he tried to ignore the pressure and strained his arm as far as he could reach towards the arrow.

The response was expected, but came far quicker than Thal would have liked, as though the beastman had barely even felt the jab of his weapon. Even more frustratingly, the arrow-spear tore from his hands when the beastman whirled about, leaving Thal with nothing but his body as a weapon. There was no time to think about it. As the Amal'jaa brought down his mighty arms, Thal ducked forward, putting himself right up against his opponent's body and thus too close for those powerful fists to properly land their blow. Grunting with the effort, he grasped scale and armor and tried to whip himself around to where he could just see the arrow sticking out of the beastman's side.

As soon as he hit the ground, Thal tucked himself into a ball and rolled forward, around the Amal'jaa's back legs. One hand grabbed for the spear on his way, and he brought it around as the beastman was turning to jab it deep against his side again, aiming for the gap of scales he'd knocked off with his first blow.

Thal tried to dodge away from the arm, to use his size to his advantage in close quarters, but the Amal'jaa was both powerful and fast. Though his weapon struck home, dragging across the beastman's side and gouging a gap along his scales, the massive, black arm caught Thal broadly across the chest. He let out a silent "oof", bouncing against the arm as though it were a wall of solid bricks. He tried to go limp and slip beneath it - if he could get behind his opponent, he might have a better chance.

Thal had a flash of a thought for some witty comeback. It would have been very impressive, for sure, but there wasn't time for it as his legs powered him towards the Amal'jaa. There also wasn't time to think about the girl impaled through the skull behind him. All there was time for was considering the size of his opponent and figuring out the best way to get out of this alive. At the last moment, he swerved out to the right, skidding on bare feet, and then thrust forward towards the man-beast's side.

Thal caught the swift movement out of the corner of his eyes but couldn't turn to watch the arrow as one of the drakes lunged snapping jaws at him, its teeth dripping with something that both looked and smelled unpleasant. The other reared back, seemingly in preparation for something, its jaw opening wide, and Thal took the opportunity immediately. Skirting away from the teeth of the first, he thrust the arrow-turned-spear forward at an upward angle and drove its pointed end into the drake's softer throat. The thing let out a gurgling roar and thrashed, forcing his grip to break on the weapon, and he leapt back away from an attack from the other. Eyes wide and ears flat, he spared just a moment to glance back towards the kid and felt his heart drop to his stomach. Then he was running, past the drakes and tearing the spear from one of the beasts as he went, and charged straight for the giant, black-skinned man-beast ahead.

The drake thrashed beneath him, and it took all of Thal's strength to hold onto the beast. He barely noticed when some of them retreated, but he did notice when the remaining drake closed in, its maw hissing and snapping at his legs and tail. Feet scrabbling against the armored, pointy scales along the creature's back, he leaned away from the second beast. A voice behind him brought his head up, ears swiveling back towards the sound, and it was pure coincidence that he saw the massive arrow come flying from somewhere outside his vision, clattering into the muddy ground nearby. It was just long enough to be a spear. Grinning despite the danger, Thal lurched to one side of the drake's back and pushed off the beast. It toppled sideways and thrashed wildly to right itself, but Thal was already scrabbling in the mud towards the arrow. When he took it up in both hands, it settled into his grip with a casual familiarity. "Hah, the god of death, hunter extraordinaire always comes prepared!" He decided to ignore the glaring hole of logic in that statement. Drawing in a breath, his nose caught a harsh, acrid scent on the air, completely foreign, and he squinted at the beasts before flicking his eyes past them. He spent only half a second watching the massive, dark form some distance away before the drakes, having recovered from their tangled tumble, pressed at him. He lunged at them both with the arrow, driving its pointed tip towards them and growling.

When the arrow struck K'aijeen, he couldn't help the flash of fear and worry, even though he knew it wouldn't actually kill her. At least he didn't think it would. Gritting his teeth, he made to alter his course towards the girl only to find his path cut off with the scaled, hissing bodies of the drakes. "Kid!" He called out to her, backing up only to stop in his tracks when others closed in from the opposite direction. "Fu... K'aijeen! You okay?" Crouching over his knees, tail quivering behind him, Thal darted his eyes between the drakes. He didn't have time to wait for them to make a move; if he did, he was sure those nasty teeth and claws of theirs would make quick work if his body. And he was pretty sure he still needed his body functional, even if it didn't have to be entirely puncture free. Letting out another curse under his breath, he felt his spine curve, his tail moving with it, felt his muscles coil up against his bones. And then very suddenly they released, launching him up and towards the nearest drake. He slammed against its neck, which the beast had lifted high in preparation for striking, and swung around to latch at its back. He kept his grip on its neck, though, locking his forearm and twisting as hard as he could.

The second stone that had been meant for the first drake was thrown with a startled, choking sound as the other two rushed forward. It struck one of the advancing drakes straight between its ridged eyes, and the thing let out a screech. Thal scrambled backwards, dragging his hand low to pick up a third rock as he went. "Kid, you need to get moving, now," he called out. Rocks weren't exactly an effective weapon against these creatures, and he wished for the kind of spear that man who claimed to be family and yet hated him had carried. If he could get on its back, maybe...? He ran at an angle to K'aijeen and, a few steps into his retreat, spun to whip the third rock at the drakes behind him. He didn't pause to see where or if it struck, instead whirling back around to continue running. "Find some place to hide behind, kid. I'll distract them!"

Thal's feet shuffled backwards in the water, urging the girl to move back with him as the drakes approached. His ears remained upright, swiveled forward, his senses alert and focused entirely on the beasts closing rapid distance between them. Blue eyes left the beasts only glance minutely towards the mud at his feet, then back up. "Kid, I want you to run. On the count of three." He didn't listen for any protest from her; there was no point in giving her an opportunity to do so. Instead he simply began, "One.... two..." He could feel his muscles drawing up against his bones, tendons ready to spring and jolt action into his limbs. The sensation didn't distract him, however, and his eyes flicked a second time to the ground immediately to his right. "Three, go," he didn't shout but he gave the girl a light shove behind him to get her moving. At the same time he lunged down and right, kicking up a stone with one foot and catching it in his opposite hand. A breath later he hurled it with every ounce of strength he could muster. The rock struck the foremost drake in the side of its head, snapping its skull to one side and sending it stumbling with a squawk. Thal didn't wait; he scooped up a second rock and let it loose, calling out, "Hey, ugly face, back off!" Some instinct in his gut told him running was not an option with these creatures.

He let his bare feet slap through the water as he searched, aware that it wasn't the most stealthy thing to do but not particularly caring. The cool damp mud felt good on his calloused feet and he was determined to enjoy the sensation, so different was it from the countless unenjoyable sensations that now composed his body. At the girl's - he still couldn't bring himself to think of her as his daughter - exclamation, he looked up from where he'd been stomping around, only half keeping an eye out for fish. He grinned and spread his legs into a mockery of a crouch, lifting his arms to either side of his head and curling his fingers into fake claws. He shifted from side to side, red hair swinging. "Ahah, our prey is in our sights! Now watch as Thal, god of death and hunter extraordinaire, catches us some din--" A crackling roar covered up the rest of Thal's boasting, and he froze, ears lifting straight up and tail stilling out in a banner behind him. "Eh...?" Ice blue eyes blinked upwards, following the sound, and then his posture very slowly pulled back into what outwardly looked like a relaxed stand. "Well, kid, looks like our prey was already claimed." He kept his voice steady and low, relaxed. "How about we leave 'em to it, huh?"

Wonder why they didn't just make it a UI toggle like weapon...

The girl turned them south well before they reached the town that had chased them away. As much as she wanted food and clothes, she didn't seem to want either of them going there. They hadn't gone far east before she had them walking southward, just east of a cliff face, heading for a narrow pass that would lead into the larger expanse of the Sagolii sands. The climate didn't quite reflect that yet, however. As she walked, she broke a small limb from a scrub brush. It still had some greenery on it, though it was dry and mostly dead. She turned it one way and the other in her hands, then wagged it around in seemingly random gestures. Her expression was very concentrated as she did this, though didn't pause in her walking. Her tail twitched in agitation when nothing happened. The pass they were heading towards loomed perhaps a half kilometer ahead. She tried harder with the twig, but the nothing continued. Thal had grown increasingly uncomfortable as they walked, though not through any fault of the girl's. He paused when he good, moved his hands through patches of tall shrub and brambles, lay it against the dry trunk of a thin, twisted tree, and even managed to find a few stunted cacti. He stopped at them, under the pretenses of of trying to tear off some of the chunky leaves for them to eat. The spines were annoying - and occasionally painful - but it was the only truly green thing he'd seen in this desert. He left the remains of the cactus brown and shriveled when he pulled away. The girl had been distracted with some twig she'd found, and he watched her a moment, picking back up his walk to catch up, before speaking, "Hey, look what I found!" Smiling, he idly pulled spines from the cactus bits he'd left undrained. "They look nice and juicy." Looking back curiously, the girl made a dusty sound in response and then fidget around looking for somewhere to put her twig. She tried to stick it in the dangling threads of the dress, seemed to consider slipped its end into the band of her underclothes, and then finally wedged it into her tangled hair like a decoration. Finally, she reached for the cactus. Double checking one of the cactus chunks for any more spines, he handed one over to the girl. "Eat up." He glanced past her, towards the pass they steadily approached, and let out a low whistle. "Well that looks impressive. Hey, how far is your home? And what's it like there?" Casting a smile her way, he worked on getting the last of the spines from his own cactus chunk. She bit into the cactus chunk well before she was able to answer. Her shifted strangely as she chewed, her throat and muscles make strange sounds beneath the tied cloth that concealed them. There was no war she still had the prerequisite muscles to chew, and her mouth and jaw moved as though she did. Her attempt at swallowing, however, was a miserable failure. She choked violently, staggering, and tried to squelch instinctive coughs and heaves that made her entire body convulse. She fell to the ground and pulled the cloth away from her wound with one hand, reaching inside of it to try and fix whatever had gone wrong. "Ah, hey, are you--" Thal hurried to her, dropping down to rest a hand on her back. "Hey, just try to breathe." He grimaced, rubbing her back. Amal'jaa moved in the crags of the pass, dark shadows falling over their black-scaled forms. This was not a normal place to find them, and they were an unusual sort for this part of Thanalan. They carried the weapons of Zan'rak. The air around them shimmered with the heat of the tempered. Ifrit's blessings warmed their breaths. They moved in silent stillness, as though waiting, wrapped in eddies of concealment. Their scents did not blow away from their bodies, nor did the heat reach through the earth and air away from them. Perhaps this is why the other figure on the crags, standing well above the Amal'jaa and in the light, appeared not to notice them. He stood with his small body glistening with sweat, shoulders and arms reddened from sunlight and harsh, biting sand. He looked down, taking in the length of the pass, and shifted his spear in his hand. His tail flicked. His ears stood high and listened. The gaze he wore was suspicious, aware, and yet he did not turn on the Amal'jaa. They eyed him like meat they did not dare hunt yet, and he eyed the pass below him. The hair on his head shifted like heavy fire as he lifted his gaze suddenly. The concealed Amal'jaa shifted deeper into the shadows at this. He did not turn it on them, however. He looked northward and narrowed his blue eyes. The girl in Thal's arms pushed hard against something inside her throat, and there was a crackling, sucking sound. She moved her neck and jaw as though to swallow again, and stopped coughing. Her eyes closed, and she shuddered again, but was still. After a few long moments, she did as Thal instructed her and breathed. She had not been doing so before. On her exhale, she muttered, "South. Very far. Days." Still rubbing her back gently, the man nodded, his red hair shifting across his face. He swiped at his bangs with the arm holding his cactus and watched the back of her head a moment before looking forward, towards the pass. "Mm, that's not so bad. I've been walking for a lot longer." He chuckled at that, then let the sound fade into a calm silence. "... Feeling any better? Maybe you should hold off on eating until we get that throat of yours fixed up." The girl huffed a rough sound. "I'd get sick." She rose then, and plucked the sprig of wood from her hair. She concentrated very hard and waved it in front of her. A few particles of sand shifted. She huffed and put the stick back against her ear, taking another bite of the cactus. The fiery-hair man on the crags turned his gaze north and squintted. He sniffed at the air and his ears lay down. Thal straightened as well. "Alright... Just take it slow and easy, okay? No need to stress yourself." Then he smiled and started walking again, taking a hearty bite out of the cactus. The moisture held in its green flesh was a welcome feeling on his tongue, even though the sensation of his jawbone moving against skin and muscle was not. His tail swung lazily as he walked. "What're you trying to do with that stick, hm?" "Magic," she grated out, simply, two fingers of one hand still in her throat to help her speak, breath, and eat. She turned away to continue walking. The man on the crags groaned at any inward thought, and his features twisted into something unpleasant that was just past the wrong side of annoyance. "Every time it's something, isn't it?" He muttered to the rocks around him, and then turned and began to walk. This small movement made the Amal'jaa beneath him all but vanish into shadow. He began to clamber down, and still did not seem to notice them. He moved as one accustomed to climbing desert stones, and did not slip on the drifts of sand. His spear and tail swung about to help him balance has he moved. "Fancy," he grinned, clasping his hands behind his head and tilting it towards the girl as he walked. "Kind of reminds me of the conjurers in Gridania. Not that I talked with them much... they were pretty uptight." He laughed, ears shifting. She just nodded at this and continued to eat. The fiery-haired man landed in the silt at the base of the crags, then walked into the path in front of the pass. There were only about a hundred meters between him and the pair at this point. "Hey!" He did not sound friendly. "... Huh, really now? Didn't know they had conjurers outside of the--hrm?" Turning his head, hands still clasped in his hair, he squinted ahead of them. "Is that... oh, must be another wanderer! Heh. Maybe he has something to help your throat? Or knows where we could find some clothes for you... Hey there!" Thal lifted on arm over his head and waved it in a broad gesture. The girl jumped up and grabbed Thal's arm, pulling it down with both hands. The cactus fell into the sand forgotten. Her fingers were still sticky with cactus juice and whatever was inside of her throat. She coughed forcefully, the sound somewhat coming from her neck instead of her mouth, but she forced some intonation into it. "No!" The small man with the spear continued towards them. "Huh?" Thal glanced down and let his arm get pulled down, though if he'd wanted he could have resisted the girl's meager strength. "Hey now, I don't think he's from that crazy town, so it's all good." He flashed her a grin and made to keep walking forward, towards the stranger. She pulled on him desperately, however, with every ounce that her tiny, thin, sickly body could muster. It wasn't much; like a piece of thread pulling against a rolling boulder. "K'aijeen!" The man shouted, now only fifty meters away. His voice carried a growl. The spear in his hand turned. "What have you done?" Red ears twitched at the anger in the voice, and Thal turned a frown towards the small man approaching them. Setting a hand on the girl's shoulder, he moved to stand slightly in front of her. "Hey there, friend, why so angry?" He flashed a grin in an effort to ease whatever tension the stranger was bringing to them. "We're just passing through." "Oh no you're not!" The man did not pause in his approach. His features knit into an ugly expression. "Is this some plan to get yourself back into the tribe, Aijeen?" The girl concealed herself behind Thal, trying not to let herself be seen. She put her fingertips to her throat and pressed hard, whispering to Thal. "Killer." "What?" When his attempt at easing things didn't seem to have even an ilm of effect, Thal's expression sombered slightly. Glancing down and behind him, he gave the girl's arm a gentle, reassuring squeeze, and then squared himself against the approaching man and let his arms hang loose at his sides. "Hey stranger, I don't really know what you're going on about, so you might want to consider you're directing these hostilities at the wrong people." The girl stood on her tip toes to whisper to Thal. "He killed us." The fiery-haired man didn't slow. If anything, he walked faster. "I should've known this would happen. As soon as I heard you were in Ul'dah! You might have found mercy from Airos and Piru! But you won't from me!" She whispered to Thal. "Murder." "What?" Thal repeated down at the girl, features shifting in brief confusion. "He's not anywhere near the Shroud, kiddo, and I've never met either of you before." Shaking his head, he held his arms out to either side, both blocking the girl from the approaching miqo'te and demonstrating his willingness to be nonaggressive. "You mind explaining yourself, friend? Before someone here gets hurt." The laugh the man let out was a bitter sound of disbelief. He paused long enough to incline his head. "K'ile Tia. I remember that twisted stink of yours. I ran into you in Gridania once. Of all the places for her to hide you. If you'd been anywhere else I'd have recognized you in an instant." Thal leaned his head back slightly, and then squinted towards the man. A moment later he let out a laugh - not a bitter one. "Oh, I remember you now! By the falls. Didn't I tell you to relax?" He forced a chuckle. "I guess that advice didn't stick." He drew a deep breath, tail flicking behind him and to one side of the girl he half-hid. "But really, I don't know you beyond that, so whatever business you think you have here..." He shook his head, ears laying back slightly as his thoughts settled on something the girl behind him had said. Small fists beat on Thal's back. "Sure, sure." K'ile Tia's lips smirked, then twisted down into a scowl. He began forward again. "She should've left you in the dirt. She should've stayed in the sand herself." His hand moved on his spear again. Blue eyes narrowed sharply, and Thal broadened his stance just a bit. "Alright, we're going to be that way, huh?" He muttered, half to himself. He was pretty tired of this kind of thing coming up, over and over and over again. But unlike Megiddo, or the Qion brothers, or the young girl, this man was overtly aggressive. He tried not to think about the familiarity with which the other miqo'te was addressing him; it was a disquieting thought. "Look, friend, no one pulled me from the ground but myself," not exactly true, but he didn't need to bring the old man into this. "I don't know what grudge you have against this kid, but it needs to end here." "I need to fix this before the rest of the tribe sees you." K'ile muttered, his features twisting. "And besides. If I can beat you as a monster? Beating K'yohko will be like kicking an infant." He was close enough now that he lost his casual demeanor. He swung his spear in front of him so that he had it in both hands, pointed it at Thal's gestured, and ran forward with it. The girl made a grating, panicked sound, and ran in the opposite direction, away from Thal.

The woman appeared, for whatever reason, to chafe against her relative nudity. She crouched in the ankle deep water with her back to Thal, pulling the charred red rags of the dress up over her chest and scowling at the water. She still wore the torn strip of fabric around her neck, but it was loose now, and her fingers slipped underneath that rag to touch her wound. She moved her wrist as though she thought she could force her throat to work by pushing on it had enough. Her tail twitched back forth in the water behind her. Her ears lay flat in her tangled hair. Thal had been content to just relax against the stone near the water. Watching the night sky had not ceased to be an exhilarating experience even after the week or however long it had been (he honestly lost count of the days - it could have even been a month, for all he knew) since he'd left the Shroud. He'd begun to be able to pick out particular shapes in the bright specks above, which entertained him. Sometimes the shapes were not very wholesome. Much of this night, however, had been spent watching the girl he'd pulled from the sea. And thinking. Lots of thinking, which was something he usually had a rule against, but... the situation seemed to call for it. He kept silent, though, letting the girl adjust on her own time, and every so often allowed his own thoughts to drift towards the hypothetical Megiddo had briefly proposed. The girl who had supposedly buried him had green hair. When he sensed the coolness of night fading, the sun inching its way past the horizon, he straightened from his stone seat, leaning forward over his knees to peer towards the girl. He tilted his head to one side, so long, red bangs hung away from both his eyes for once, and smiled. "Feeling any better, kiddo?" She didn't look it - in fact, her body language seemed extremely frustrated. But he figured she'd had enough time to stew. When Thal spoke, the girl lifted her head. Her ears swiveled back, and she took several slow, careful, difficult breaths. Then she turned her head towards him. The cloth had slid town her neck enough that her fingers could be seen reaching deep inside the wound, inserted near her chin and curling down inside her throat. Almost completely insert. She blinked, and then made a sound like a frog's final croak. "No." The man leaned back with a grimace, looking away. "Okay, first off, just because you're dead doesn't mean you can just... stick your fingers in places fingers have no right being." The girl's frown shifted to annoyance. She grated out, "Trying-" and chocked, gagging as though she'd triggered some kind of reflex. Her shoulders bunched up and her body curled forward. She didn't withdraw her fingers. She did mover them, however, and the gagging ceased. She spoke with a voice of grating sand and clicking cartilage. Her jaw moved strangely. "Trying to learn. To speak." Thal heaved a sigh, "Yeah, yeah," and ran a hand up his face, through his hair. He held his bangs back a moment, and then dropped his hand, letting them fall forward again. He grimaced again at the sensation of every single one of his hair follicles shifting minutely to accomodate the change. Idly, he lifted his gaze beyond their little lake, scanning the shore. Megiddo was right - plants were scarce out here. Still... Pushing away from his perch, he splashed his feet into the water and stood. "Do you feel up to a walk? It's nice around here. Would be good to stretch your legs anyway." "I need food." She kept her fingers stubbornly inside of her throat as she rose to her feet, tail dripping behind her. She turned to Thal, and it was clear that the hands crossed over her chest were trying to conceal the charred flesh there. She took a second to gag again, and then groaned out. "I remember eating." "Ah, another thing a walk will help." Grinning, he held out one calloused hand towards her. "I bet we can find something around here. Cactus, maybe, if we take all the spines off." His extended hand provided an opportunity which the girl took to step forward and lay her body against Thal's, laying her head against his neck. "Not hungry. Dead." She said in that very quiet, very rough breath that could barely be called a voice. "Still have to eat." "We're gonna work on that, kiddo." Her sudden closeness caught him off guard, but he patted her back gently. He felt the cartilage in his joints giving against bone with the gesture and bit back another grimace. Then, taking her loosely by the shoulders, he turned her to start walking out of the lake. "Don't ya worry." "Nothing worse." She walked with him. "I don't remember. Dying." "There's not really any point in dwelling on it," he kept his tone calm and even, hopefully soothing. When their feet found dry sand, he paused to stretch and look around to pick their new trajectory. Staying near water seemed wisest for finding plants, so for now he just angled them to walk near the shore, around the lake. "It'll just upset you, and... well, that won't do you any good." He grins a bit. "But hey, at least you didn't get stuck in the Shroud." The girl averted her eyes. "Sorry. Do you remember?" "Hm?" He paused to consider a thin patch of grass. It looked green enough... Bending down to set his hand on it, he tilted his head to keep the girl in his sight. "Remember dying? Heh, nope. Wouldn't want to. Really, kid, let's talk about what you wanna do now, not what happened in the past." She stood there, watching him. "I remember." It was a lot easier without thick, leather gloves, Thal thought as he curled his fingers through the grass. Still, the aether running through them was thin, as dry as the desert they walked upon, and it pulled up into his bones in an almost imperceptible trickle. As he did this, his brow drew down in a frown. "Really, kid, it's not a subject we should talk about. Now, I'm thinking cactus is our best bet." The girl took two steps away from thal, her tail swishing back and forth behind her. With her ears laying down on her head once more, she whispered as loud as she could. "I want to go home." Straightening, he cast a look towards the sky and then sighed towards the girl. Sand crunched beneath his bare feet as he took a step to wrap one arm around her shoulders. "If I could help with that, I would." She dodged away from him, and then gagged. She shifted her fingers inside of her throat, and then pointed eastward. "Home." Blue eyes followed her gesture, then frowned. "Nothing but cliffs over there. Well, that I saw at least." The girl gave him a pouty but stern look. "... No, really. I was walking around over there just the other... day... week... something like that." He shrugged, offering the girl an apologetic look. "Let's keep walking though," he added when shrugging pulled on each individual muscle fiber running along his back. His vertebrae shifted upon one another to adjust his posture. He held back a wince. Continuing her glare for a long moment, the girl's tail twitched at its tip. Then she abruptly turned to walk eastward, in roughly the same direction Thal had gone to get ot the settlement where people had tried to burn her. "Aah, hey, wait up a second!" He caught up to her easily and grabbed her shoulders - though with as gentle a grip as he could manage. "If you mean that town, it's not really the best idea to go back there, I don't think." "Home. Desert!" She turned towards him, and gagged when she did so. She moved her fingers to ease the sensation, but this time it didn't work immediately. He shoulders bunched up and her back bent, and she leaned her head against Thal's chest. "With mom." She managed between choked spasms. "Mom?" He shook his ears. Of course the kid had a mom, who was probably worried sick all things considered. Petting her back lightly, he worked his jaw in thought and cast his gaze over the top of her head, towards the direction she'd wanted to go. "... you still can't go back to that town, kiddo. They didn't like you. Does your mom live there?" Taking a moment to work her fingers inside her throat, the girl croaked out. "East then south. Very south." "Very... hm." Pulling in a deep breath, Thal dropped his hands to the sides of the girl's arms. His tail swung in slow, thoughtful arcs behind him. "I guess... well, no one else would have a reason to not like you, I guess. How far south?" Almost as soon as he asked that question, he shook his head and let a smile cross his face. "Nah, doesn't matter. So long as we steer clear of that town, we should be just fine. And maybe find some cactus along the way." She lifted her chin to show the wound on her neck. "Need to clean. Close cut. Find clothes." Thal hummed at that. "Right, right... Well..." One ear quirked. "... if you hang back, I could... probably find some clothes at the place. Not sure if that's the only town around here or what." The girl shook her head, looking unsure. She stared at her feet, and curled her toes. "Well, I'd give ya the clothes off my own back, kiddo, but... I think that'd leave me indecent for your eyes." He gave her a lighthearted wink and then patted her reassuredly on the head. "We'll figure it out, okay? For cleaning... well, got some nice, fresh water right here. I can give ya some privacy." She rolled her head again, "Not body. Neck. Inside." Thal watched her a moment and then bit on his tongue to try and suppress a shudder. "Eeeheh... right. That. Hrm." He sighed. "Well, uh, you seem like a smart kid. Who... strangely knows what she's doing... help me help you out here." She blinked, then frowned. She looked at Thal and then looked away, appearing hurt by something. After pouting for a moment, she turned to face east, as though to start walking. All she did was lean that direction, though, before stopping and looking back at Thal. "Home." "... Okay, then!" He shrugs after a moment. "Guess it can't hurt. Not like I had anywhere else to go." Tossing a grin down at the girl, he gestured for them to start walking. "Lead on, little lady." The girl finally pulled her fingers out of her throat, gagging and making a sound like she was coughing them up. Her chest shuttered and she staggered as she shook from her shoulders all the way through her diaphragm. Her tail shivered. Thal decided it was better to just ignore all that grossness, though he did rub her back in a gentle, reassuring way. When she was done with her fit, she gave Thal an apologetic look, and then ducked her head away so that her face was hidden in her tangled hair. She moved forward to push herself against him again, wrapping an arm around him and pulling him off eastward.

Thal was certain he'd passed by those rocks, their dusty forms jutting up from a ragged cluster of bone-dry weeds, and so he felt assured he was at least roughly retracing his steps. He'd passed a town at some point during his wandering from the north, but he'd avoided it half on instinct and half just because he was enjoying the freedom of being alone in such an open area. Now, however, with a gravely wounded young girl in his arms, he had need of civilization. Every so often he wondered if the girl was what Megiddo had wanted to show him, and if so why, but these thoughts were shrugged off for the moment as far too heavy. Though his limbs did not tire from walking or carrying, he grew weary of mysteries. The old man was just very strange. But hey, so were they all. He'd found what looked like a road after a few hours of wandering and so took to following it. It would be another hour until he could just make out shapes on the horizon that seemed less natural. The sun glared lower to the west and was beginning to color things in orange hues. The near-sunset light seemed to emphasize the dark gashes in the girl's body when he looked down at her. But at least she didn't seem to have gotten worse. The girl's tattered body shone with salt from the evaporated seawater, sand still stuck to the insides of her arms and legs. Her green hair swung long behind her in tangled clumps. Her blue eyes stared at the man carrying her. For the most part, she was limp. Her tail twitched, and her ears turned about on her head. The attempts at breathing had ceased making gurgling noisy and become grotesque, meaty sighs. As the sun cooked her through, she appeared no better or worse. She appeared to be in a kind of half-conscious stasis, her fingertips resting against Thal's chest the only gesture she had made. Until, very slowly and out of nowhere, her back curled forward and her head lifted, sitting herself up in Thal's arms and laying her head against him. Red ears swiveled in momentary confusion as the girl's weight shifted in his arms, and he adjusted his grip a bit to accommodate her new position. "Hey little lady," his eyes wrinkled in a confused smile. "You awake now? That's good, I guess. Won't be long til we get to a healer who can patch you right up." The woman lifted one hand and pressed them into the wound at her throat. She made a strange, coughing sound and shivered. "Yup, they'll fix that for sure." He didn't really want to look at that gruesome slash any longer than necessary. He'd been deliberately trying not to think about what kind of situation could have led to a young girl - she couldn't be more than a teenager - being injured so. It made his tail curl. "See there, just ahead!" The shapes he'd picked out on the horizon had coalesced into visible, man-made structures, the foremost of which seemed to be a wooden awning. A number of dusty, yellow chocobos lazed about beneath and around it. Pulling her hand from the wound on her neck -- she'd inserted her fingers two-knuckles-deep in her own throat -- the woman pushed her head against Thal's neck. Her tail curled up around his arm. Bare feet plodding along the dusty path, Thal approached the settlement with the only hope that it was actually large enough to contain a healer. While conjurers were a dime a dozen in the Shroud - though he'd always tended to avoid them - he wasn't sure what it would be like out in the desert. "Don't go exerting yourself too much," he spoke to the girl, lifting his head a bit so her own settled into the crook of his neck more comfortably. As he approached the chocobos, he became aware of another scent that seemed to be wafting from the area beyond. It was an old smell, rotten but not like the ocean, and there was a sharp tanginess to it entirely foreign to Thal. It stung at his nose and made him wrinkle his face up in distaste. "Sure hope their healing is better than their cleaning," he chuckled to himself, and a few steps later he realized that the path he walked split, with one branch dipping down sharply. Of course. A place that smelled like a corpse would be a hole in the ground. The concept of it left him uneasy, but he pressed on for the sake of the girl he carried. Why an entire town would want to submerge itself beneath the surface was beyond him; he'd spent as much time as he possibly good above ground for the past five years. The chocobokeep gave him an odd look as he passed - not surprised, but... sympathetic? The expression confused Thal, but there wasn't time to waste in figuring it out. Instead he followed the path down into what was clearly an established town of some sort. It opened out into a courtyard - at least they could see the sky from here - and was fringed by a number of stalls and larger buildings built into the cliffs. As he wandered across the courtyard, eyeing the buildings and finally settling on one to approach, he shifted his grip on the girl and glanced down at her. "Still with me, kiddo?" The woman didn't answer, or even attempt to. Her chest had begun to swell subtly with breath, though she still made strange sounds each time. She leaned her head back and looked up at Thal. By happenstance, the motion put her wound on display. The man grimaced and shifted his arm against the girl's head so that her neck wasn't... hanging open like that. Really, that could not be a good thing. His pace took him through the door of one of the buildings then, and he silently mourned the loss of the sky for a few seconds before glancing around. A woman stood behind a counter some yalms in front of him, and she lifted her eyes in greeting. "Hey there, miss! My little friend here got into a bit of trouble and could do for some healing. Uh... heh, well more than a bit. Anyone around here who can help?" He shrugged his shoulders a bit helplessly, though careful not to jostle the girl in his arms. "How long does she have? Our hospice is unfortunately full at the moment." That statement took Thal off guard, and for several seconds he just blinked. The woman didn't even react to that. She remained mostly limp in Thal's arms, though she did stubbornly shift her position to look at him, once again showing off the vicious garrote wound on her throat. The flayed skin opened up with the motion, showing the whites of her ligaments and a crooked, cracked hyoid bone against the tattered cartilage of her larynx. At this, the receptionist blanched, eyes widening. Her professional demeanor fell away as she said very slowly. "She. Should. Not. Be able to move her head." She blinked three times, and then seemed to lapse back into her helpful, cheerful tone as a self-defense mechanism, and empty smile pulling at her cheeks. "Maybe I'll just go ask someone about... something." The woman in Thal's arm ducked her head forward when the wound was noticed, hiding much of the gash behind her jaw, but it didn't do any good at this point. Her tail curled tighter around Thal's arm. "Uh... alrighty then! I'll just.. wait here, I guess?" Swiveling one ear, he dropped his blue eyes towards the girl in his arms, wincing. "... Well, what does she know about neck wounds, huh? You're gonna be fine." The woman in Thal's arms pressed herself up against him, but remained silent. A few seconds later, not long at all, a Hyur garbed in black robes emerged from the inner hall of the hospice. The receptionist was behind him, as though hiding, and whispering fervent but inaudible words. As the man saw the pair, he stopped in his tracks, and then observed, "I recognize this girl." And then to Thal, "Please sit her down. We don't have any open beds but I'll take a quick look. What's happened to her?" The red-haired miqo'te half-turned one way, then the other, and finally crossed to a corner where there was a small bench, like to accommodate waiting visitors. Or something. Thal didn't really question it. He did give the man a sideways look, however. "Recognize her? Eh, that's doesn't really... Hm." He shook his tail and knelt to set the girl down on the bench. "I don't know exactly what happened. Found her washed up on a beach like this. Couldn't exactly leave her, y'know? So you're a healer?" "She used to volunteer at the church. You carried her here all the way from...? There are no beaches nearby!" The man crouched in front of where she'd been set down. The woman gave the black-clothed man an empty look, without recognition and a bit of fear. Despite this the man proceeded to take her head in both hands and push it back, gazing in to the wound. He had only been looking at it for a half second before he snapped his hands away and stood tall. "By the Twelve!" The woman curled her head down to hide the wound, turning her face away. Her ears fell down on her head. "Well, I dunno. Maybe it was a lake or something... But hey, that doesn't much matter. She needs healing help, so if you can give it, that'd be appreciated." Thal leaned his head back slightly away from the man as he swore in apparent disbelief. The man looked first at the receptionist, then at Thal, and then back to the green-haired woman. "This girl cannot possibly be alive." "Hah, well she's moving, so she definitely is. I know it's a pretty big scratch, but..." He shrugged at that, and then gave the man an impatient frown. "Look, she doesn't have all day. If you're going to help her, do it." Shifting anxiously in the seat, the woman cast her eyes towards Thal again, the only time she had a look of recognition at all. The black-robed man eyed Thal for a moment, and then shook his head. "Don't worry. This is, sadly, not the first time that one of Drybone's dead has refused to go quietly into the ground." His eyes went to the receptionist. "We should burn it. We'll dig a grave and put oil-" The chair the green-haired woman had been sitting in clattered to the floor when she bolted for the door. She did this clumsily, weakly, barely able to move, but managed to get out of the building in mere seconds. Only to fall into the dirt when her legs failed her. Thal jerked back at the sudden movement, blue eyes blinking rapidly. A moment later, he was pushing past the robed man and the receptionist, hurtling after where his nose told him the girl had ran. How she'd managed to run, he wasn't going to ponder just yet. Her burst through the door and hurried to where she lay in the dirt, bending down. "What are you doing, kiddo? You're gonna hurt yourself," he spoke quickly, tail swishing behind him as he set his hands on her shoulders, to lift her. "I'm thinking there's a misunderstanding here, so don't worry." The woman squirmed in the dirt, trying to get her footing once more, to continue getting away. When Thal's hands fell over her, however, she stopped, letting herself be moved by him. Right behind Thal, the man in the black robes appeared in the doorway. "Sir, please keep your distance from it! Don't worry. It can't get away here." Scooping his arms beneath her, Thal lifted the girl with ease, her fragile weight next to nothing in his grip. At the words behind him, he turned and frowned. "What're you talking about? First off - she's a she, not an it. And second... what?" His ears gave a baffled shake. "Sir, that woman is undead." He lifted his hands in placation. "I know it is disturbing, but trust us, she died long ago. We've handled situations like this one before. We are very capable of destroying it." The man's words unnerved Thal in more ways than just worry for the girl. They made his bones itch. His ears shifted to point behind him as he took a few steps back. "Yyyeah... I didn't come here for you to, uh, "destroy" the kid." Mouth twisting, he continued backing up a ways. "So... I'll just be on my way, I think. Nice meeting you." As the woman in Thal's arms curled up closer to him, the man in black robes rushed down the steps. "Please, that girl deserves to be buried at the church where she worked for so long. Her body deserves rest. I don't think you understand what it is that you hold." Blue eyes shifted left, then right, then back towards the black-robed man. The smell in this pit of a town was suddenly overpowering, choking his senses like earth and worms. "Yeah... I'm just gonna go. See ya!" He spun around then, holding the girl to his chest, and picked up his pace, angling towards the ramp he'd entered through. "Wait! Are you mad?" The black-robed man chased him for a handful of steps, and then shouted out, pointing. "Someone stop that man! He's harboring an aberration!" The response did not take long, since there was an Immortal Flames office just across the square. Laying his ears flat against his head, Thal turned his hurried walk into an all-out run for the ramp. The woman in his hands curled up against him and vocalized a haggard groan. He put one arm around his neck, but didn't hold any of her own weight. Behind them there was a distant clatter of armored pursuers. A number of townsfolk fell back with frightened looks as he ran past them, but Thal didn't really pay them much mind. He took the ramp without losing a beat, legs hauling himself and his lightweight charge up towards the surface. The clanging thud of metal and leather and heavy foot beats continued behind him, and as he crested the top of the ramp, he forced his own legs to extend their stride. The pursuit was disorganized. The call had been so sudden that the chasers hadn't had any organization. There were no chocobo involved. Just heaving, overheated soldiers in full armor. And unlike Thal, they tired. Thal ran south from the town, or as best he could estimate as south, breaking from the road almost immediately. He didn't stop, even when the pounding and shouts from his pursuers faded and gave way to the ambient sounds of desert. He would run all the way back to the lake Megiddo had first found him at, unless the girl in his arms stopped him. She didn't. She remained tense the entire way, as though they were still being pursued, though her groaning ceased. She lay a hand over her neck, pressing down on the flesh about the wound on her throat, sealing it. She breathed. When his feet hit the shallow water, Thal finally slowed, first to a light trot, then a walk, and finally, as he approached the rocky plateau jutting up from the center of the lake, to a complete stop. He didn't really know why he came back to the water, but the liquid was soothing to his feet and helped him ignore the way he had begun to feel each individual joint in his toes, and the way his muscles twitched along calves and thighs to hold him steady. Dropping his gaze to the girl in his arms, he frowned in silence for several seconds. There really wasn't any denying it now, he thought. At least... for certain things. Damn that old man. It was a half-hearted damning, though. Not like he could really blame Megiddo for all this. Swishing his tail and trying not to think of how he could feel each vertebrae sliding against one another, Thal forced a smile at the girl. "Well, that didn't go exactly as planned. You're... looking a little better though, so there's that." The woman took several long, deep breaths. She then intoned an indiscernible series of croaking syllables, her lips moving to try and form words. She ceased after a few moments, however, a frustrated look on her face. His brow wrinkled. "Not all better, though." He hummed to himself for a few seconds, looking up and around at the lazy toads that croaked nearby, and then back down to her. "I'll admit, not really sure what to do now. I'm thinking taking you to any other healer is just going to get the same kind of unhelpful reaction." He twitched one ear and stepped along the rocks, finding one he could sit down upon. Settling onto its surface and letting his feet dangle into the water, he shifted the girl until she was more resting in his lap than he was holding her. A thought occurred to him then. "... Huh. Hey, do you know how to pull on aether?" She nestled in comfortably on his lap, sitting up and remaining against his chest. Keeping one hand over the wound on her throat so she could breathe, she shrugged, and looked up at him with a curious expression. Her ears shifted against him, all salty, sandy fur. "Mm..." He felt her shrug more than saw it, along with the tickling of her sandy ears. "Eh, it was a thought. Not sure how else to help you, but if you don't know... well. You don't seem to be getting worse, so maybe if we just wait?" He tilted his head, glancing up towards the sky, which was lit with fire to the west and darkening to the east. "... And clean ya up a bit, miss sandy-pants." Her blue eyes left the man to look down at her legs. She certainly wans't wearing pants. The burnt-and-torn red remains of what had once possibly been a dress were more just string tangled up around her body than any kind of clothing. She tightened her hand around her throat and tried to speak again. "I... d..." She groaned. The miqo'te blinked in surprise, snapping his gaze down to the top of her head. "What was that? Don't hurt yourself, okay?" She shook her head. "I... died?" Red ears shifted at that. "Hrm." Bringing one hand behind his head, he offered a lopsided smile to her hair. "Well now, it's not all bad." Her head fell against his chest again and she made an unhappy sound, pouting. "I'm serious!" He laughed despite himself. Not like the kid needed anything more to worry about. "You hardly notice it." She grunted out a number of syllables that sounded not only unconvinced, but bitterly so. Then she just pouted again and kicked one leg. This drew a grimace from him, and something unsettled shifted in his gut - something that made him keenly aware of the way his organs sat atop one another, tucked within his abdomen, between his ribs. Her worked his jaw side to side. "Don't believe me, huh? Can't say I blame you." There just wasn't any ignoring it anymore, was there? The Keepers, the old man, that healer who wasn't a healer... Thal shut his eyes for a long moment, but when he opened them, he smiled. "Well just look at me. Going on five years now, and it isn't a thing to worry about." "I.. ne..." She began, but then stopped, and kicked one leg in frustration, unable to express whatever it was she wanted to day. After a pause, she angrilly ripped a large swath of cloth from the once-dress she was wearing. Not that this could have made it cover any less of her. "Hey now, don't get mad. Tearing up your clothes isn't gonna change anything." He moved his hands over her's to keep them still for a moment. "Best to just accept it and move on. Enjoy life." He snorted a laugh. She smacked his hands away from hers and proceeded to tie the torn piece of cloth around her neck, closing off the wound beneath her jaw. At least, mostly. Holding up his own hands in surrender, Thal watched the girl expectantly. Once the cloth was in place, the woman put her hands on either side of her neck. Then she tried very hard to speak. "I... ne...ver... live..." "Eh?" His tail twitched across the stone as he tried to piece together the syllables. A sigh escaped him then. "I don't know what got to you so young like this, kid. For what it's worth, I'm sorry." "N-!" He hit his chest with one tiny fist, the blow exceptionally weak. Then she put her hands back on her neck. "Never!" "Hey, it's not a license to go hitting people, so stop that." His reprimand was gentle, though, in proportion to the weakness of the blow. He barely felt it. Brow lowering, both in concern and confusion, he tilted his head. "I'm not sure what you're trying to say, kid. Maybe you should just rest up for a bit? I'm sure your head's a bit jumbled. I know mine was." This pulled another groan of frustration from her, but then she cuddled up against him again. "Don't... want. Dead." "Yeah," Thal muttered, holding onto her and shifting on the rock he sat upon until he could lean his back up against more rock. "Just rest a bit, alright? You'll think clearer when the sun's up." She huffed unhappily, but pulled her legs up against her chest -- putting even more weight on Thal -- and curling her tail around her ankles. Thal took her shifting around in stride, waiting until she seemed to have settled into a comfortable position before he moved an arm around to steady her. Something about it felt entirely natural, and he leaned his head back until his blue eyes were looking up towards the stars. The woman was silent, breathing calmly and carefully. Her eyes rested on the water for a very long time. Then she looked up at Thal's chin and said with great effort. "Thanks... Dad." The quiet voice brought a slight furrow to his brow - confusion, and pity. Unseen by the girl, his mouth twisted, and then he lightly patted her arm. "We'll talk tomorrow." She dropped her gaze again, but didn't close her eyes.

((Somewhat simultaneous and somewhat after Definition of a Parasite)) *** Water had never felt as good as when it was running down Thal's back under the scalding glare of a midday sun. He knelt in the partial shade of a strangely isolated rock that jutted up from the middle of a shallow lake. A short distance away, massive toads croaked out dry, wobbly sounds. His bare feet were as grateful for the cool water he crouched in as his back, and he wriggled his toes in the sandy mud, stirring up little flurries of silt. A few tadpoles fled the underwater disturbance. Not really caring if he got his pants wet, he slid with his back to the rock until he sat in the water, and then leaned his head back towards the blue sky. He didn't think he'd ever grow tired of seeing so much sky, and he grinned lazily at the satisfaction of such a thought. "Maybe I should've thanked those weirdos," he wondered aloud, referring to the Keeper brothers who'd been rather dead set on learning things from him that Thal was quite certain didn't exist. He chuckled at that, lifted up palm-fulls of water, and splashed them across his face. Yup, this was the life! A great, gray reed bent in the shadows of nearby stones, well above the water. it shifted like a dead stalk, a withered drunk carved with bugles at shoulder and hip. The wind moving through the crag carried a stink of foreign filth: Gridanian mud and Ul'dahn rot. A bent piece of wood fell in the water, splashing in front of the bathing Miqo'te. Carved into the shape of a head, with crooked holes punched out for eyes, it was like any other Woodwailer mask, though lines had been carved onto the outside of it, not unlike the tattoos born on a familiar, elderly face. One red-furred ear twitched at the splash, and blue eyes blinked from behind calloused fingers at the smoothly curved object floating in the water. Lowering hands to pick it up, running a thumb along the grain, he wrinkled his nose. Then he looked up. "You should come down here and take a bath, old friend." He grinned upside-down. In the shadows, the figure shifted. Greasy hair parted and a silver eye glowed out of the darkness like a moon trapped inside a hollow tree. "There is less vegetation in the desert. You will want to learn how to sustain yourself from other sources if you remain." "Mm, it's worked okay so far." That topic tasted strangely uncomfortable on his tongue now, after the events in the caves. He shrugged it off. Lifting the mask up, he waved it towards the Duskwight. "Y'know the Shroud can't get me out here. Least I don't think so." "That is not what that particular mask is for. Keep it." The Duskwight's tone was a monotone thing, leaking out of the crags like a distant echo. "Now, I have something to show you. It's rather important." "Ya can come down here to tell me all about it so I don't get a crick in my neck," Thal chuckled and spun the mask idly between his hands. The face in the shadows shook, and the eye vanished. "Leave the water. Walk in the sand and do not thin of your movement. Wander aimless. It will not take long." "Hah!" The man stood, though he didn't move immediately. The water was just far too comfortable. "That's what I've been doin' ever since we parted ways. Well, I think I've been roughly headin... south? West? We...outh. Eh, doesn't matter." The shadows did not respond. They appeared empty. Thal waited a moment longer, breathing deeply through his nose and filling it with the dry, clear scents of a desert he'd so quickly grown at home in. "Eh... Y'don't take no for an answer, do ya old man." Tucking the mask into the waistband of his soaked pants, he kicked at the water a bit and glanced around. One of the giant toads croaked loudly. He threw up both arms. "Alright already! I'll humor ya this once, you hear? I've got places to... oh who am I kidding." The miqo'te man laughed at that. Then he started walking, slowly at first with reluctance to leave the water completely. When he finally hit dry land, the sand stuck uncomfortably between his toes, but it was a minor annoyance easily forgotten in the joy of just being out in the open. Clasping his hands behind his head and shaking out his tail, he ambled on. It wasn't long before the sounds and sights around the ambling man coalesced into a static din, a strange off-brown sameness. If he even noticed as he walked. The sand beneath him would feel the same, the air on his skin growing slightly salty. There was nothing but brown limbo stretching to white horizon, until the limbo along one side began to darken as though falling away. The dark pit turned into a flat surface at foot-level a dozen meters to one side, and took on a bluish tinge. The sound of the static began to throb, falling away and then growing to a crash before falling away again. The air cooled and grew salty. Thal walked on a beach. The blue sky was still above him, and the scents of Thanalan surrounded him, but thick white clouds marred the air, dark storms far off over the sea. The surf roared and reverberated off of tall cliffs nearby. The cove was small and closed in, wrapped on all sides by cliffs that had no clear path of ascent. Several meters ahead of Thal, an elderly Duskwight stood, impossibly thin. The man's dark skin glowed with sweat and filth in the sunlight, his greasy hair shining where it lay over his bearded face. Silver eyes looked away from the open sea, watching Thal. The Duskwight, Megiddo, inclined his head to the man. "Hello." Thal didn't notice the change in scenery immediately, but the smells disoriented him enough that he stopped walking. He blinked, wrinkled his nose at the completely foreign scent of a strangely rotten saltiness. Then one ear quirked towards the greeting, and he startled. "What the--" White foam gathered a short distance away, where water washed up along a sandy shore. One arm dropped to his side, though the other reminded behind his head to scratch at his ears. He swept his tail behind him. "Hey now, this is new. Where'd you learn a trick like that?" A lopsided grin tugged at his mouth, wrinkling the dark markings beneath his eyes. He turned around, peering up the cliff face. "... Huh. Y'know, I was liking that sun." "I apologize, but I can return you there as soon as you've had a look around." The Duskwight cross his arms and gestured to the ocean with one hand. "Weren't you also enjoying the water?" "Well, sure." He turned back to the Duskwight, kicked one foot in the sand, and shrugged. "This place smells weird. What's up? "It's salt water. All oceans smell like this." "Huh, that so..." He wandered a bit further down the beach, until he was only a few steps away from the edge of the surf. The sand grew cool and damp beneath his bare feet. "Well! Learn something new every day. Wouldn't mind learning that trick of yours either. Seems handy." He tossed a wink of one blue eye Megiddo's way. "It cannot be taught, unfortunately. Oschon keeps his talents to himself." The Duskwight shrugged and looked down at Thal's feet. A moment later, a large wave rushed toward Thal, the tide rising and push up towards his ankles. Something rolled out of the sea against his feet, a mud-colored figure wrapped in shredded red cloth. The woman was practically naked, flesh burned on her chest and shoulders, a gash tearing through her throat and up behind her jaw. Her eyes were closed, her green ears and tail limp. "Waggh!" Thal jumped back, his tail jutting out straight, fur standing on end. "What in the--hey, that's a..." His ears shuddered back, features twisting for a moment, unnerved. Megiddo watched, unphased, as the body rolled onto its back. The wave that had deposited it receded, leaving the sopping, tangled heap exposed on the beach. Water seeped from between the woman's green lips. Her tail shivered. "Uh... old man, you seeing this?" Thal grimaced, flicking his eyes between the jumbled body and the sand next to her as though unwilling to go too long looking. "That's a body right there and--woah hey! Did she just move?" The Duskwight shrugged. "Possibly. I'm no expert on Miqo'te or corpses." "Uuh... okay then. Huh. This is... well. Beaches aren't supposed to have bodies, I don't think." He laughed despite himself, rubbing at the back of his head. A beat passed, and then he shuffled his feet across the sand, inching forward as though the body might explode at any moment. "Uhm... you awake over there? Sheesh she's got a... no way she's alive." His tail drooped a bit as a hint of the gravity of the situation settled in. The green ears shifted as Thal began to approach the body, swiveling as thought to listen to him. The tails shivered again, and the features twitched. Reddened water leaked from the green lips and from the gaping wound on her neck. Thal jumped again, catching on the movement of the body's ears and biting back a very unmanly squeal. Dead animals never really bothered him - it was natural - but dead people? And she looked young. Except she didn't seem dead. "Hey, uh... lady!" His own ears swiveled uneasily. "Damnit, old man, I think she's alive. Help me out a bit? Is she... like, do we have to get water out of her lungs or something?" Megiddo brushed the back of one hand over his face. "Perhaps we do, but how would one do such a thing? I have no idea." The body moved one arm pathetically in the sand. "Eh, I dunno?" Thal wavered a bit and then, finally, dropped down in a crouch next to the girl. He grimaced again at the ugly slash across her throat. There was no way she could be alive after that, and yet... "Hey," he repeated and touched her arm, lightly shaking it. The girl's eyes shot open, staring directly up at the sky for an instant. Then they turned towards Thalen. The man leaned back slightly, still a bit disconcerted, but flashed a grin down towards the girl. "Oh, awesome! You're awake. Good thing, cause I don't know the first thing about drowned people... or..." His gaze slipped over the gash across her throat, and then he laughed. "You okay there? Er, well. What happened to you?" The woman beneath him did not react. She watched him with a look of empty observation. Water continued to seep from the wound in her neck. After a moment, she made a strange gurgling sound as she tried to breath. "Uhm..." Blue eyes lifted a confused glance towards Megiddo, then back down to the girl. "... Okay, let's get you out of the water first." Moving near her shoulders, he worked his arms under them and made to drag her back away from the surf. She was light, so it would be very easy. The woman did not respond to this, though her eyes followed Thal's movement. Megiddo paced over towards the two of them, his long arms still crossed over his chest. "Now I wonder why Oschon would guide you here to this little girl in her moment of need. Do you have any ideas?" "Nope! Not a one." Once the girl was a good distance from the surf, he lay her down and moved to crouch by her side again. The smallness of her features struck a certain chord in his chest, and he pushed wet hair away from her face, mud from her cheek. "Hey, what do I do, huh?" He asked her, not expecting an answer. Going mostly on instinct, he set his hands over her small chest and pushed down in a sharp, hard motion. The girl coughed, hard, eyes snapping wide in surprise as water shot from her lips and the wound in her neck. She then curled forward and exhaled a gurgling groan of displeasure, her arms moving to cover the spot in her chest that Thal had just pressed on. Megiddo paced around the pair. "I have a thought. Do you remember what I told you once, that the person who buried you was small, dark Miqo'te woman with green hair?" "Eh?" Thal didn't look up from where he was inspecting the girl worriedly, though his ears swiveled towards Megiddo. ".. Hey, that isn't anything to go joking about right now. Little lady, can you hear me?" The woman didn't respond. She collapsed flat again after a moment, staring up at the ceiling. "It wouldn't be a very funny joke, would it? But think about it." Megiddo leaned over to look down at the girl. "She could very well be the one. And Oschon definitely thought you had business with her." Thal shifted his tail across the sand at that, and sat up slightly. That Megiddo was pressing on the same topic those Keeper brothers had been so adamant about bothered him, especially when it was something he'd rather just not think about. Who really wanted to think about what it was like to wake up buried alive? "I bet there are hundreds of green-haired kids out there," he said after a moment, squinting down at the girl. She didn't seem to be improving. Should he take her somewhere? Hells, he didn't even know where he was, much less where he could take her. "Maybe we should find a doctor, huh?" "That would be a great idea. The problem with that is, however, that I am not so great at finding things." Megiddo gestured to himself as he began to pace again. "An Acolyte of Oschon wanders, finding nothing himself, only those things to which his footsteps are guided." "Augh," he ran one hand through his bangs and over his ears, shaking them out. He thinks. "... Well. Even if she, uh... is that - and it's SO unlikely I'm not even going to give it serious thought here - she doesn't look all that good. So. How do I get out of this place?" Megiddo shrugged again, spreading his hands. "I don't know. How did you get here?" "Well I just... hey, that was your trick, not mine, old man." He gave Megiddo a knowing grin. "I don't have any tricks. I work by the will of Oschon. But, if it worked once, perhaps it would work again?" "Maybe... Man... why couldn't you've just let me relax in that lake," he griped mildly even as he moved to scoop his arms beneath the girl to lift her up. "It was the will of Oschon." Megiddo replied, smiling. "I could not help it." As Thal lifted the girl, she made that ragged gurgling sound once more, but she remained mostly limp. Her eyes turned on Thal. Her persistent silence except for the gurgles was really starting to bother Thal, but he focused on the pity and concern he also felt for her condition. "Yeah, so... Hngh. Guess we should try will of Oschon-ing our way out of here, huh?" He turned from the surf and lightly shook the girl in his arms. "Stay with me, kiddo. I'm gonna... get you help. Or something." Megiddo ceased his pacing, watching Thalen with a sly smirk. "It is good to see you trusting yourself to the will of the Twelve. It will only work out for the best." "Eh, I'm thinking it's got more to do with you, old man," Thal tossed the Duskwight a raised brow and sharp grin. Then he shifted one ear and briefly wondered how one consciously didn't think about where they were going. He started walking while he did this. Megiddo stared at Thal's back for a time, then turned his gaze back out over the ocean, just watching the surf. Thal was too busy worrying about not thinking of where he was going to actually pay attention to where he was going. By the time he thought to check if anything had worked, he found the strange smell of the sea was gone, replaced by clear if hot air that carried the light scent of dust and dry plants. He hummed a bit in satisfaction and didn't bother calling out for Megiddo; chances were the old man hadn't followed him, and even if he had, Thal knew him well enough that he wouldn't respond unless he wanted to be known. Instead he glanced down at the girl in his arms. Under the harsh light of the desert, her wounds stood out all the more, and he winced at the sight. "Ookay... So I guess the thing to do is find... people, huh? People who know more than me about fixing you up." The girl lifted one arm over her stomach and lay her fingertips against Thal's chest. That would be all the response he'd receive. When nothing else seemed forthcoming - no real surprise there - Thal tried to remember if he'd passed any signs of civilization. Then he tried to remember what direction he'd come from. Then he just rolled his eyes and started walking.

Neither was I, to be honest. o.0 We're all just RPers in my book.

A little moment in the Forgotten Springs between K'luha and K'tahjha. :3

Managed another FFXIV art today... Just a bit silly.

I finally put together something that's as close to traditional tribal wear as Anti is going to get. Alas, light, wrap-y cloth is apparently really hard to model for SE. But I think I made it work! And I wanted to share. ^^; K'piru being pretty in the desert. It comes in two versions! This last one amuses me because it has such a down-home prairie feel. But, desert!

I found a winner.