Naunet

((Follows an hour or two after Bring the Daughter's Home)) *** At some point in his sleep, or in his wakefulness if he did not sleep (for who can really speak to the mysterious ways of a sleepy Nunh/Tia (Nia?)), D'hein managed to somehow roll himself over on the the bed, just barely three Miqo'te wide. As he moved, he lifted an arm and tossed it mindlessly (or mindfully) over Antimony, carefully (or luckily) not touching K'airos at the same time. Because no kind of gentleman would cuddle both an older woman and her daughter at the same time, and D'hein -- sleepy though he may or may not be -- was still at least one or two kinds of gentleman. When Antimony awoke, she did so slowly and was at first aware of only the deeply familiar scent of her daughter. K'airos's hair tickled her face, and though there were some hints of foreign land - the spices of Ul'dah, ocean salt, and plants that would never have grown deep in the Sagolii - the smell was comforting. It nearly lulled her back to sleep. After a while, she became aware of a weight at her back, and a smaller one over her side. The ear not squished into the thin mattress shifted backwards, catching slow, steady breathing. She resisted the urge to push D'hein Tia right off the edge of the bed. Instead, she found it in herself to feel some pity for the man - who had also lost a daughter, however dubious she thought his claim to be - and instead shifted her own arm to shove his limb back towards him. K'airos didn't seem to notice any of the movements they were making. She was facing the wall, very close to it, with her arms crossed and her tail curved between her legs. The pushing at D'hein's arm did very little to knock the man aside. His arm was heavy, and it remained stubbornly. A moment later, he cuddled closer and pushed his face against Antimony's shoulder, murmuring something incoherent. Her tail curling away from the man behind her, Antimony sighed faintly into the back of K'airos's hair. Then she spoke, in a low and weary tone, "Though you may join us in grief, you must needs watch your boundaries, Tia." A tingling sensation on the back of her head made K'airos insinctively answer with a groan and some mumbling. She was not completely awake, but she opened her eyes, feeling them heavy, and turned her head around. D'hein mumbled once more. Antimony was surrounded by mumbling, and a Tia (maybe Nunh) whose cuddling did not relent. She shut her eyes then, feeling her glasses push uncomfortable against the side of her face and the bridge of her nose. The man was incorrigible. Rather than deliver him a hearty smack, however, Antimony just worked her arm beneath her and carefully leveraged herself up between her daughter and the Tia. Her own heart was too heavy for anger at a grieving man. Without turning her body around, K'airos rolled her arm lazily over her mother to push at D'hein's own arm. "You are cuddling." she said half-asleep, her voice sluggish. "Don't cuddle." With Antimony out of the way, D'hein grabs K'airos' arm and tries to cuddle it. He mutters, "But it's warm." Well that just could not be abided, grief or not. Twisting into a sitting position, Antimony forcibly pulled D'hein's hands from her daughter, pushing them against his chest. "Behave yourself." K'airos returned to her original position. "You can't cuddle people unless you intend to marry them." she mumbled, tiredness avoiding her the trouble of thinking too much. Antimony cast a brief, confused look her daughter's way before returning a frown to D'hein. "What?" D'hein's eyes opened slowly, and evidenced more than a little confusion. "Do people get married in desert tribes?" He turned his gaze towards Antimony, the combination of tiredness and bemusement looking a bit like suspicion. "I'm not sure where you picked up such a concept, Airos... Ah, but that is not the point. D'hein Tia! Keep your hands to yourself." "Marriage is just like mating except the Nunh only gets one mate." the daughter babbled in a dozy tone. "It's a hyur thing." Something in that made Antimony's chest ache and her eyes burn to a disproportionate degree. "Have you so quickly left behind our family's traditions, Airos...?" It was perhaps an unfair thing to say, but with loss so close to the surface still, she found herself hypersensitive to her now-only-daughter's ways. D'hein muttered sleeply and let his hands lay in front of him, closing his eyes again. Like he hadn't yet noticed he was awake. His words were almost inaudible. "It's an acculturated city Miqo'te thing. Lots of lonely ladies out there." "I wouldn't find a hipparion Nunh in Ul'dah." the girl defended herself, somewhat bitter. Then she felt really awkward and not wanting to sleep anymore. Her eyes were still heavy. "I don't like leaving traditions behind." she added, shrinking. "There was no one to keep them with me." Antimony wilted, ears pressing back, and she turned to pet at long, red hair. "I know, I'm sorry," she murmured. "I did not mean to upset you, Airos. I only miss..." Her words faded into a sigh. "There are Dodo Nunhs. We're not that different. Especially now that I'm in charge." D'hein made to roll off the bed but failed to take his weight and fell flat on his face. The noise of him slamming against the floor made K'airos turn around and sit in a bit of a panic. A sleepy one, but a panic in any case. "Are you alright?" Antimony winced. "I am sure he is fine." Still, she shifted in the bed, turning so that she sat with her legs over the edge, and straightened her glasses. D'hein popped up suddenly, as though waking with a start. "Fine!" He straightened his clothes at the collar. "The force of your rejection merely stunned me, is all, K'airos." "Now is not the time to be thinking of Nunhs, regardless," Antimony murmured. "No, it isn't." K'airos, just like her mother, pushed herself to the edge of the bed. She had no glasses to accommodate on her face, so she simply stood up, reaching with both hands over her hair to start combing it. Her next action was to look around the room. She hadn't taken the time to look at it when she arrived. "What... are we going to do?" She threw the question in the air, avoiding looking at anyone. Pulling himself up into a standing position, D'hein turned and offered a hand to Antimony, as she logically would be the next person to stand. Too much of a pragmatist to read into K'airos' question, D'hein ventured, "Eat and try to avoid Illira." Antimony accepted the offered hand, but only because her legs still felt weak with sleep and prior exertion, and she pulled her own hand back as soon as she was standing. K'airos was looking to her for guidance, she thought. She needed to be strong now, for her, even if she felt as though she might crack. "Food will do us all well," she nodded, pursed her lips slightly, and her green eyes shifted towards her daughter. "And... we can talk of where you may wish to start anew." "Okay. Food." K'airos said faintly. She looked down to herself and started adjusting her clothes. "Food would be nice." "We should go someplace where a great deal of Lalafel congregate." D'hein nodded, smiling at his cleverness. Then he snapped his gaze to K'airos and explained. "Thus to minimize the chance of running into that Elezen woman we brought with us." "That is not difficult in these parts," Antimony did her best to not sound completely morose, straightening and smoothing out her robe. She glanced towards Airos and offered a small, faint smile. "As a Brass Blade, have you ever done work here? Perhaps you know of a place to eat." K'airos raised her sight to look at her. "I try not to eat at work. I had a diet that D'aijeen..." She paused, lowering her head to look at her feet and never completed that sentence. Her silence didn't last, though. "Let's go have...breakfast? Lunch? Food. Am I presentable?" she asked, turning around suddenly and gesturing to her clothes. "You shame us all, K'airos!... I'm not sure I'm exaggerating in my case." He plucked at his robe, noting the burned holes in it. He frowned, remember something. "Do either of you recall seeing a noble paper angel flying out of my chest previously?" Antimony's brow creased, and she set her hands on her daughter's arms to still her fidgeting. "You look beautiful, Airos." There was a pause, and then she glanced in mild confusion towards D'hein. "A paper... oh. Ulanan's protective spells." K'airos fidgeting was stopped successfully, though she kept staring at the floor. "I'm glad she...was prepared." He looked to the ceiling wistfully. "So the Angel was Ulanan all along..." "Let us eat," Antimony reminded with a sigh and put gentle pressure on one of K'airos's arms to urge her towards the door. She crossed her arms and, while walking out, actually looked where she was going. D'hein followed in a dreamy state, thinking about the noble sacrifice that Ulanan had made for him by proxy. He looked to be experience divine inspiration. As luck would have it, there was a small tavern attached to the inn they'd rested at, and though its selection of food was nothing impressive, it did boast fresh caught fish and smallshell. Antimony had developed quite a taste for seafood during her time in Limsa, so she readily requested enough for both herself and K'airos. D'hein was left to pick his own meal. K'airos protested against the smallshell menu, asking only for the fish, and prompting both D'hein and Antimony to not eat those. The reasoning behind that was a simple statement of fact: "They are cute!" She saw no need to add anything else to that. Antimony, not wanting to upset K'airos in even the slightest way, acquiesced immediately, with great apology. D'hein had already placed his order by the time the protesting started, resulting in him staring sadly down at his plate in quietness before finally confessing. "... But I ordered the smallshell. They're... delicious..." "We will not be eating smallshell," Antimony spoke firmly to the tavern waitress. It was fish for D'hein, too. The Nia appeared disproportionately upset by this, pouting. "Is it too much to ask to have the food I want to have?" K'airos shrunk on her chair, feeling wrong once again. Speaking and making people feel bad was apparently something she was good at, especially when she didn't intend it. "I'm sorry. You can have smallshell." she said, shrinking a bit more. Antimony turned a hard look towards D'hein. D'hein withered under the emotions of the women. "I'm sorry. I wasn't upset. I was just whining. I'll cancel my order before they throw the poor little smallshells into the boiling water." He stood and turned to track down someone with whom to change his order. Immediately Antimony returned her attention to K'airos, pulling her into a gentle hug. "Don't worry, Airos. It is not so much of a burden as he likes to claim. Perhaps when we have found a place to settle, you can even have a smallshell as a pet." "I had one, but I lost her. He was cute." "I am certain we can find you another," Antimony tried to soothe. K'airos stopped shrinking into the chair, but only because she had run out of space to slide on. "That'd be nice. But where will we live? Do you have a house?" she asked, lifting her sight to meet her mother's. "I..." Antimony hesitated as it occured to her this was the first time in... several months that she had thought of her single-room apartment back in Limsa. She wondered distantly how long it took for a landlord to simply toss out or sell all the possessions of a delinquent tenant, and then she wondered what she would do now for money to even pay rent for a place. "Sit up, dear," she began, to give her suddenly askew thoughts time to settle, and then joined K'airos at the small table. Then she sighed. "I... have lived in Limsa Lominsa for some time." The Dodo affected his return. "I had to run into the kitchen and stage a last minute rescue before they threw the baby smallshells into the boiling pot." He is carrying three tiny smallshells. "Did you know they boil them alive? Also, they're making me pay for them. And the medical bills of the cook, whom was scalded quite incidentally and through no fault of my own." K'airos did sit up, distracted by D'hein. "That's horrible! Why would they do that?" she wondered, more alarmed at the cruelty towards some crabs than the injuries of the cook. She set her eyes on the tiny creatures he was carrying and blinked once. Antimony jumped slightly, casting a worried look towards the door D'hein had returned from, and then forcibly folded her hands in her lap. "Ah, yes, well... I am glad you were... able to rescue them." He sat down with the smallshells still in his arms, held close to his chest as though he were holding a cat. They snapped at his sleeves and collar, but he didn't seem to notice. "Also for unrelated reasons, I believe that our food will take slightly longer than normal to get to us." "Because the cook is hurt and they are upset at you for getting the smallshells?" K'airos pondered out loud. "Airos!" Anxious to change the subject, Antimony gestured towards the three creatures in D'hein's arms. "Were you not wishing for a companion..?" D'hein blinked, then turned to Antimony and blinked again. He smiled. "I thank you for vouching for me, Antimony, but I think any negotiations regarding long-term companionship would be a personal discussion between K'airos and I." He looked towards the red-headed girl and donned charm. "Not that I wouldn't be open to such a discussion." "What?" Antimony blanched. "No! How dare--the smallshells, Tia!" K'airos first blushed, and then pointed flatly at the sea creatures, just to reinforce her mother's words. "Are you going to keep them?" "I'm certainly not giving them back to the kitchen." D'hein tried to put them on the table, but they held fast to his chest. "I would make them an offering of my affection. However, it seems they intend to keep me." That managed to get a smile on K'airos' face. "I could take care of them for you." "I am sure they would be very grateful," Antimony said, pushing a smile to her lips. "If you can get them off me, they're all yours." "I'll try that after eating." was the girl's answer after a very short consideration. Antimony furrowed her brow, glancing towards the clacking claws and scrambling legs of the smallshells. "We should... at least find something to put them in, for the meantime. A box, perhaps..." D'hein managed to pull one off of his robe. The thing carried a piece of tattered, burnt cloth with it. "I don't think it'll be a problem." He stood and shoved it in a side pocket, which was just big enough for the smallshell. "It's going to pick its way through your clothes and pinch your skin." K'airos commented, straightening on her chair as if she was about to stand up. "I'll just get a box to carry them so they don't hurt you or your clothes!" "That's very responsible of you, Airos. I'm sure you'll take excellent care of them." "I don't think it's going to hurt me. They like me. I'm their savior." As he spoke, one of the smallshells crawling on his chest began to pinch his neck, but he did not react. Antimony had a minor panic attack, envisioning the smallshell pinching straight through the Tia's jugular and turning these past days into an even greater horror. Then she frantically grabbed at the thing to pry it off him. K'airos nervously stared, more disconcerted about her mother's panic than about D'hein's neck health. "A box, Airos!" The smallshell popped off of D'hein's neck and left a little red pincher mark where it had been holding on. The Nia looked annoyed. "Don't be too rough with it." Clutching the smallshell between both hands, Antimony held the flailing then well out in front of her, away from her own body. "It has a shell. It is fine. Your neck, on the otherh and..." "Uhm, right. I'll be right back!" The girl stood up and, not wanting to bother the owners of the tavern again, she jogged outside. Horizon was always filled with unused crates nobody would miss...or crates filled with things nobody would miss, anyway. D'hein put a hand over the last smallshell on his chest, as it had been climbing upwards too, as well as a hand over the pocket which held the other. "Well, this is all very fine. And we remain hungry. I couldn't just eat them, could I?" "No, you cannot." As if on cue, the tavern waitress scurried out, laying down a tray with three plates of fish and potatoes. She gave a short look to the smallshells before rolling her eyes and departing quickly. Antimony pursed her lips at the food, still holding the smallshell up and away from herself. K'airos came back fairly quickly. As she had predicted, finding a crate just big enough for the smallshells was easy to find. And the contents had been just as easy to dump around. She only missed leaving a note with an apology. "Here!" she said, holding the box in front of her. Antimony eagerly dropped her burden into the box, yanking her arms away before the creature's claws could snag on the sleeves of her dress. D'hein reached into his pocket, withdrawing the smallshell from there. He dangled it over the box as it held stubbornly onto a gloved finger. He couldn't even get the other off his chest. Grabbing one of its leg, K'airos pulled the hanging shell into the box, where it angrily tried to pinch its way through the box with little results. She placed the box down and walked over to D'hein, reaching for the last one. "Let me help you." she said, trying to pull it away. As K'airos worked to get her new pets into their temporary home, Antimony settled back into her chair and moved her eyes to the three meals set before them. Three... Her ears drooped, and she blinked against a stinging in her eyes. "Come eat before it gets cold, Airos," she said quietly, and took up the fork on her own plate. D'hein watched K'airos continuing to work at the crab, his hands at his sides, not interfering. Patient. She was very concentrated on getting the crab out of D'hein's shirt. Pulling from it only made it clench on his clothes. So instead, she let her hands hang over it, quite far, and then pouted at it for a while. When the tiny creature felt secure, it released a pincer to keep crawling. K'airos swept it off D'hein then and quickly deposited it with his brothers. Or sisters. She'd had to decide about that later. "There we are! Excellent job, K'airos." He patted her shoulder. "The Dodo tribe would always be happy to have you around, you know." Antimony lifted her head at that, opened her mouth, but caught herself before she said anything, instead watching K'airos with a quiet expression. Her daughter sat on the chair, letting out a short smile. "I'll stay with my mom, thank you." She looked down at her plate and decided that the best way to eat the fish and the potatoes was to cut them all into bits and then mix them like a salad. In practice, though, she did not have the patience to do that. She ended up just eating normally. "I would not want Airos amongst such corrupt individuals anyway," Antimony murmured. Her nose still ached from her confrontation with D'themia, though the bruising had faded significantly to just light greens and yellows. "It was more an offer for the thought of it, but I resent the implication that the Dodos as a tribe are corrupt. We've fixed that." He sits and looks at his food. He lifts is knife and fork and eats patiently, one bite at a time. "... Perhaps." Antimony looked away, to the right of her food. "But they are not my tribe. It... would not feel right." K'airos' eating slowed down as she pondered about how off her diet this meal was. The thoughts brought her to places she'd rather not be, making her hunch forward into her plate before she distracted herself with a strange statement: "K'ile said the tribe was moving to Drybone." "Hm?" D'hein leaned forward, turned his gaze towards the wall. "The Dodoes aren't moving. Drybne would be a terrible place to run a business! And... Wait. That's not a Dodo name." Antimony's posture stiffened for half a second. Then grey ears lowered to either side of her head, and she gave K'airos a said, regretting look. "You know I cannot go to them, Airos." "But they can visit! Or...K'ile would." The young woman's ears, for the first time in the day, actually showed some emotion and pulled down. Her tail accompanied this by curling down. "I was just considering options." she finished saying, tone much lower and defeated. D'hein sat up, and one of his ears lifted. The either tilted back. "I don't understand what is being discussed." Antimony ducked her head, feeling as though her heart was cracking. "I am sorry. If I could take back my actions..." "Well. How's Limsa? As a place to live." K'airos asked quickly, predicting where Antimony's thoughts would carry them towards if she allowed it. "Do you have to...learn to sail to live there?" Antimony glanced towards D'hein out of the corner of her eyes for a moment, silently asking him not to press his confusion for the moment, and then sighed, pushing a small smile to her lips. "No, Airos, you don't. Though... it would be wise to learn how to swim." D'hein looked down at his food, appearing dejected. He ate in silence. "Do you know how to swim?" "Ah... well... I'm not the best at it, but..." "I know how to swim." One of D'hein's ears shot up. "Are we going to teach your mother how to swim better, K'airos?" K'airos clapped her hands together, forgetting that she was holding the cutlery and that the fork was, at the same time, holding some fish on it. They made a faint metallic sound followed by a dull wooden noise when her palms found the handles in the way. "That would be nice, I think!" "I know how to swim well enough," Antimony protested. "I only worry about Airos. I wouldn't want her to dr--" Her words cut off sharply and she froze. "Maybe I should train these shellies to serve us as boats. They could carry us around once they are big enough...! Maybe." K'airos, thankfully, missed what had frozen her mother. Or perhaps she knew exactly and chose to ignore it. "Well, if we all know how to swim perfectly well, then we should go swimming some time." D'hein smiled, cutting his fish. "How big do the smallshells get? And... WHY were the cooking infant smallshells? This establishment is wicked." Shaking herself, Antimony forced a bit of the fish on her plate and took the time she chewed to try and pull her emotions back into place. K'airos's lone presence was suddenly even more painful. She smiled at her daughter nonetheless. "It is a good thing you rescued them, then." "Maybe they get too big?" the girl offered as an explanation, with some doubts. "Shelly was..." Still holding the fork and the knife, she made a circle with her arms, with the fingers overlapping slightly over each other. "About this size. I could wrap both arms around her! But I don't know what his age was." "I don't know," Antimony shook her head slightly. Watching K'airos's animated gestures made things nearly bearable, she realized. "You will have to raise them long enough to find out. Which means you will need to feed them." "I think that might be big enough to float around on." D'hein seemed to be seriously considering this. "They wouldn't really be boats, but with a good harness set up, they could definitely bear you around." "But do they swim? I imagine they just...crawl all over under the water, at the seabed." K'airos was, apparently, also considering it seriously. "Oh... Then you definitely wouldn't want to be strapped to them out in the ocean." "Just let them be. If... if we ever go to a beach, you can take them with you and... let them crawl around." K'airos was deep in thought for a time, taking bites off her meal at a steady and perhaps too fast pace. "Maybe." she started, some food in her mouth. "Maybe I should let them go once they are large enough." Antimony gave her daughter a soft look. "That would be very selfless of you, Airos." "Unless they get too used to being taken care of, at which point they wouldn't be able to starve in the wild and then ocn eyou let them go they just die immediately." D'hein took a bite after saying this. "D'hein!" Antimony gave the Tia a harshly chiding look. K'airos looked sad, understandably. "... What?" He looked stunned. "I guess I should...just get them to the shore once we are done." K'airos leant over the table, getting her head really close to it and pushing her plate further away to make place for her arm. She let her chin rest over it. She did not stop eating, though. Her plate was almost empty. "Don't listen to him. He's from the city; he hardly knows the first thing about raising an animal," Antimony furrowed her brow at K'airos. "You can care for them if you wish." "Well, that's true. I've never had a pet. I just hear about people doing things like that with, say, dogs." He cut another bite. "I imagine you could just as easily train them to be very good at surviving in the wild. K'airos didn't seem to gain any morale out of those words. "We'll see." she said in a melodic, saddened tone. "We should find where to live first, then worry about pets." "...Of course." Antimony watched K'airos a moment longer and then dropped her eyes to her plate. "I... may be able to re-establish us in Limsa. But I no longer have... ah." D'hein scratched one ear between bites. "Is there something wrong with Limsa? Too salty, if you ask me, but nice views." Antimony winced, looked off to one side. "It has only... it is only that it's been some time since I have paid... well." She sighed. "I would have liked to be able to offer you greater stability, Airos. But don't worry. Do you wish to live in Limsa?" The girl shrugged. Her plate was devoid of any food. "I don't know. I'd have to quit being a Brass Blade for that." She paused and sighed. "If they don't kick me for being missing for so long." Antimony's eyes widened slightly, and she hurried to add, "I won't make you do anything you don't wish to. I'm sure they could excuse your absence. I would make sure of it." "How long have you been missing, K'airos?" "Feels like... a week, I think? Uhm..." The woman pondered, her ears moving up and then down as she tried to be very selective about what she remembered. "It took me like a day to get to the Cove..." she mumbled, and kept doing so, lowering her tone more and more until she came to a conclusion, for which she spoke up. "Or maybe just like four days." Reaching out with one hand, Antimony lay her fingers gently against K'airos's arm. "It doesn't matter," she murmured. "It is more likely they are worried over your absence than angry. If you wish to stay..." D'hein shrugged, pushing his plate away from him. "I'm sure it won't be a large problem. You have years of good service behind you, right?" K'airos moved her chair away from the table, nearly knocking on the crate where the smallshells were doing their best impression of a rebellion. She lifted the box and stood up. "I'm going to put these outside town. Maybe there'll be some smallshell family willing to adopt them." Antimony started to stand. "Airos, you don't have to..." She hesitated then, sighed. "... Please be careful." "I won't go too far." "I really think you should consider keeping one, K'airos." D'hein watched the girl. "Even if you still have to take care of it when it's fully grown, one won't be a problem." "That would be mean. What if they are siblings and what to stay with each other?" She turned around and started walking outside, her eyes suddenly heavy again. "I'll be back soon. Maybe we should...have dessert... or something. Tea?" she rambled. Antimony sagged back into her chair. "Alright, Airos. Whatever you want. We will have it waiting for you." "Tea and dessert. Right." Green eyes watched K'airos until the girl disappeared into the bright glare of outside. Then the inn's door swung shut, leaving Antimony to watch the grain of its wood cast in warm yellow light. She sighed, shifted her gaze back to the plate of fish in front of her, and after a moment spoke with low ears, "I don't know what to do." D'hein's ears twitched. One that had been standing fell down. The other one rose. He looked at Antimony crookedly. "Well what kind of tea does K'airos like?" A faint crease formed between her brow. "That..." One ear shivered. "... I don't know. She used to like cactus water, but that isn't... they don't drink that here." "Cactus water? I'm not sure that counts as tea, and she did specifically say tea." He leaned back and put fingers to his chin to ponder the situation. "Vexing indeed. I should wish I knew if she had much of a tolerance for caffeine." Antimony winced at that. "I don't know." Her fingers twisted about themselves in her lap then, and she drew a deep breath, suddenly turning to look towards the Tia. "D'hein, I need to ask of you a favor." "Oh, don't worry. I'll cover the bill. I'm sure they'll find extra charges to add on because their sense of justice is just as twisted as Illira's is." He sat forward in his chair, chuckling. "Perhaps if we just order a sampling of different teas." She let out a sharp sigh, frowned. "Be serious for once, Tia. It has nothing to do with teas." "Oh." He had been very serious, but twitched and tried to appear as though he were now looking seriouser. His brow dropped and his lips straightened. He sat up. "Very well." Antimony grew at once reluctant, but she did what she could to not let that show. Still, her tail curled around one leg, and her fingers tensed into the cloth in her lap. She looked away, towards the table. "If Airos wants... wants to return to the tribe. In... Drybone." The concept of their family moving beyond their traditional territory was almost impossible for Antimony to believe, but she had to. K'airos would not lie, and neither would K'ile. She swallowed, pressed her lips together. "... It was not hard to see that she... wants to be near them. Will you watch her and take her there? Make sure that... that she finds them safely." D'hein looked at the table, then at the floor, then back at the table. he grabbed his plate of half-eaten food and pulled it towards him, then pushed it away. "I'm a bit confused by this entire business. You see." He lifted his eyes towards Antimony. "And this is in all honesty. Aijeen told me that your tribe had abandoned her in the desert. And later, that you all had died off. I'm gathering these things were not true." Her hands tightened about one another. "... No. None of it." She glanced up, giving the Tia a distressed look. "I have told you already the true situation around Ai--Aijeen's disappearance!" "I had accepted her account as fact for quite some time. You'll forgive me if it takes some time for my tormented mind to adapt." He made small gestures with his hands on top of the table as he spoke. "I'm sorry to ask, but why can you not see her back yourself? Is it not /your/ tribe?" "... No." The answer was simple and quiet, and painful. But true. He looked to the side, then back again. "I don't think that answer is as illuminating as you think it is." "I cannot return to them," Antimony murmured and bowed her head. "They... are not welcoming of exiles." "Okay, I can get that. Like, D'themia's not coming home anytime soon. No way. But, what's that got to do with you?" Antimony was quiet for a long moment, and seemed to shrink in her chair, though she maintained her posture. "It is very private," she said after a time, and swallowed. "... I left them, and... the circumstances around that... were unforgivable." She lifted her eyes to D'hein. "Just take her to them, if it's what Airos wants. Please." "Well, all right." He continued to cast his gaze around awkwardly. "That's easy enough to say yes to." Antimony tried to relax at that, but she probably just ended up looking sad. "Thank you." "I mean. I'm not upset or anything. I don't take it as a chore." D'hein held up one hand. "The opposite, actually. I'm honored that you would trust me to see your daughter into the sands, and would like nothing more than to walk into such a horizon with her." "Thank you," Antimony repeated quietly. She bowed her head, fell silent for a moment, and then sighed. "... The Quicksand served a tea spiced with cloves and ginger. Perhaps Airos would..." "We'll order that then! Cloves and... cloves and ginger? Really? Well." He shrugs. "I guess paupers can't be choosers. Humble nobility it is: tea of cloves. I'm sure they'll have just such a thing around here." Antimony's mouth twisted at D'hein's rambling, and she tried not to frown. "You may select the.. dessert if such a drink is so dissatisfying." "Oh, it's very satisfying. I'm a student of nobility in all its forms, after all. In fact, I'll choose the cheapest dessert they have, as a way to prove my nobility as well." He gins widely and pats the table in a quick rhythm as he speaks. "Perhaps you could prove it by not being so set on proving it," Antimony muttered and looked towards K'airos's empty chair. "Well how about I just go blace the order then?" He stood from his chair, and his tail flipped out behind him, knocking the chair over. it slammed loudly to the ground, and everyone looked over like they thought he was mad about something. He flinched at the sound himself, and then set to righting the fallen chair. "I apologize! I was really just talking. I did not intend for that to be so emphatic!" "... It's fine," was all Antimony could manage, pointedly not looking at everyone staring their way. "I will... await Airos's return."

These are amazing. I love the richness of the color. I so wish I wasn't unemployed. ._.

Eastern Eastern La Noscea, otherwise known as Marseille, France. Middle La Noscea sure is pretty. Wait, why am I in Italy? Hey there, Lower La Noscea. Er, I mean... Kekova, Turkey? And the Sahagin sure do have a pretty tidal flat in Western La Noscea... But for reals. So Mediterranean it isn't even funny. The climate is clearly rather warm/moderate, given the multitude of orchards and whatnots. Limsa seems to be in a bay and thus probably gets some severe bay effect at times, and certainly plenty of fog. The majority of La Noscea is likely moderate to quite warm, though. Certainly not British Isles levels of brisk, unless you're in the middle of a fog.

Applying materia is like aetherically enhancing one's gear. It is extremely common in Eorzea for combatants to utilize aether to enhance their attacks (just look at pretty much every ability for every class/job). It stands to reason that materia affixed to one's weapon could boost the raw power of the aether channeled with it. Rather than affecting the physical properties of the weapon, it's affecting one's magical attunement.

Considering the levels of fog Limsa frequently gets, I'm not so sure. The surrounding region's climate, however, strikes me as distinctly Mediterranean (except where it becomes randomly tropical... I don't think SE has ever taking a geography class).

If by temperate, you mean freezing your butt off cold and windy. @.@ That bay area ocean breeze is... not pleasant.

So I've mostly been "art"-ing for WildStar lately. It seems to suit my style a lot better, as I've never been really happy with how I portray my ARR character(s). But I did manage something that I'm satisfied with recently. A younger K'piru, holding her third daughter, K'aijeen. Happier times... I got lazy with her clothing once I got past the waist... oh well. It was fun to draw her in the clothes I imagined were traditional non-huntress garb for her tribe. I post my art and screenshots on my tumblr, if anyone's interested in WildStar stuff.

Horizon's inn was a small one, and quiet compared to the busy traffic of the waypoint settlement. Word had not yet reached Horizon of what had occurred at Vesper Bay, and it may never as the shadows and things that moved within them had been very thorough in their sweeping of the coastal town. No one here knew of the death that had befallen an already bereaved family, and the hostess that gave them their room offered them smiles. Antimony would have been grateful had she the energy to notice. Her mind welcomed quiet of their room as she shuffled inside, K'airos at her side. Illira had gone off to see her vicious wound tended to, which also suited Antimony who had no wish to lay eyes on the woman who had so wickedly taken her daughter. D'aijeen, who she had thought lost only to find again, only to lose her again and this time witness it. She sagged against K'airos - her only remaining daughter - and felt the tears return at the backs of her eyes. She saw the water with its slowly stilling ripples, a black, bottomless maw that had swallowed D'aijeen without hesitation. Even the comfort of sending her body to the sands had been taken from her. She dropped to her knees in the room, one hand still on K'airos, and bowed her head in exhaustion. K'airos had been speechless through all the journey. All she could afford to do was cry. She didn't even remember walking to Horizon. As far as she could recall, they had simply appeared there after leaving the pier. She'd likely forget about her time in the inn, if given time. Falling to her mother's side, the young woman rested her head against Antimony's shoulder, sobbing and still speechless. She couldn't find the strength to do anything more. Turning slightly towards K'airos, Antimony brought her arms around the young woman, who would have been a proud huntress by now had the neglect of uncaring gods not twisted their paths. She ran her fingers through K'airos's hair, pulled her close, breathed in the smell of blood, of family that still lingered after all these years. And yet it could not dull the screaming pain in her heart. "I will never let you go," she murmured, voice low and trembling. She should have never let K'aijeen go. She should have watched her, gone to fetch her from the racks that day, taken her back to the tent, listened and helped her. She should have... Shivering, Antimony buried her face in the top of K'airos's head. The girl crossed her arms, placing each hand on the opposite shoulder and pressing against her chest. "It's my fault." she sobbed. Her speech was broken by intermittent crying and lack of breath. "I should have done what she asked me to do. Then she wouldn't have...! And we could find a way to help..." "It's not. It's not. There was nothing..." Her heart ached as she held her daughter, tried to soothe her even when she herself felt inconsolable. "You've done nothing... nothing wrong. I am sorry," her tail shifted to wrap against her daughter's side, a deeply loving and parental gesture. "I am sorry I wasn't... there." "But it is!" K'airos cried. "If I had, she wouldn't have summoned those demons. She'd still be here! But now she's gone! Gone! Gone again!" She sunk deeper into herself, crying more than she had before as her mind continued circling around that thought. Antimony pulled K'airos closer, until she was nearly bending over her daughter, shielding her with her very body. For a long time she could find only actions to try and comfort her daughter, and despaired at how ineffectual they were. Just as her efforts to guide K'aijeen had proven ineffectual. She had always been an ineffective mother. Swallowing through the silence, Antimony pet the red hair beneath her face, between ears that seemed to want to hide from the world. Her own tears dampened the fur there. "It would have only delayed this," she murmured, voice choking as the muscles in her jaw and throat clenched around the words, as though her body wanted to physically reject them. And yet a part of her knew them to be true. "Anything you could have done... I'm sorry, Airos. I'm so sorry." K'airos nodded briefly. It wasn't an acknowledgment of her mother's words. Rather, it was her own answer to her own silent thinking. "I don't want to stay in Thanalan." she said, trying to distract herself with a tangent. Her thoughts weren't fooled, though. She tried harder "But I don't know where to go." "Alright," she breathed, felt her hands trembling against the back of K'airos's head. Her stomach had twisted itself into knots, leaving a quaking, threatening nausea in her gut that pushed up her at her throat with each restrained sob. Her voice was barely over a whisper, "It's alright. You don't need to worry about that. I'll... I will take care of you." A gentle rapping came upon the chamber door. "Who is it?" K'airos managed to say after a very long pause. And even after gathering her breath to speak up, her words bordered on being a whisper. Antimony sighed, recognizing the vague scent through the door, but she couldn't find the strength in her legs to stand for it. Instead she just muttered low, "Come in." The door cracked opened and the burned, dirty man with the loud mane leaned his head into the room. One ear twitched. The other seemed to be sleeping. "It's me. Are you both uninjured?" She couldn't be sure how much of the weakness in her limbs was due to her grief and how much was her body not yet recovered from its brush with death, but Antimony only nodded at the Tia's words. She didn't unfurl from her position around K'airos. She didn't either. She did move her eyes to look at the man, and she felt the sudden urge to rise up and stop looking in such a bad shape. Yet she didn't. She couldn't muster the motivation to quench the shame she felt. "We are fine." she said, rubbing one hand against her eyes. D'hein hesitated. He looked at the wall of the room as though to share a private thought with it. Then he eyed the women on the floor. "May I come in?" Grey ears laying out low to either side of her skull, Antimony finally lifted her head, just enough to turn it slightly towards D'hein. Eyes reddened with tears behind smeared glasses watched him in silence for a moment, and then she sighed. "Alright." He had suffered a loss here as well, she knew, though she, perhaps selfishly, couldn't fathom how it might be comparable. K'airos didn't say anything, chosing instead to sob against her mother's shoulder. D'hein slipped into the room and shut the door on his tail. When it bounced open her tried to shut it again without looking, once again on his tail. He did this four times before turning to see what was the matter, his tail swinging out of the doorframe, and the door shut successfully. It did not appear as though he would ever understand. Antimony just shifted her gaze back to the top of her daughter's head, fingers working through her hair gently. The gesture was just as much meant to comfort herself as it was K'airos. K'airos looked to D'hein. She couldn't find his door antics funny. She considered asking how he was, but quickly assumed that was the most stupid question she could ever ask in her life. She kept quiet. Feeling the silence heavy in the room, D'hein looked around. He wasn't really sure what to do with himself. He reached up and tugged on his ear, then on his mane. "... I left Ulanan with... So she's... Well." They probably didn't care about that right now. Antimony felt the muscles along her spine tense. "I hope she sends that woman into the water where she belongs," she ground out. The girl barely moved when she spoke. "I don't know who she is." "Now don't worry about that right now." D'hein paced over, looking down at the women. He flapped his arms limply. K'airos chose to worry about that and everything else at once. Anything was better than the fresh memories of what happened to D'aijeen. "I should report to the Blades. Send a letter or...and fetch my things from...and hers..." She buried her face on Antimony's side, breaking into a cry again. "Hush," Antimony murmured, resting her chin atop K'airos's head and lifting her gaze dully to D'hein again. Her tail curled, brushing K'airos's back. "I will take care of everything, Airos. Just..." "And I'll help, if I can." D'hein lifted his hands. "So there's no reason to worry about anything, definitely not right now." K'airos paused, unable to find any avenues of distraction. "It's my fault." she said a moment later, voice muffled with her sobbing. "It's my fault!" Antimony's expression crumbled at that. "Stop," she begged, pressing face into red hair. "Airos, stop. Please, it's not. I promise... you're perfect, you're... I love you. I'm here. I'm sorry...!" D'hein put his hands on his hips. "Listen to your mother, K'airos." The young woman just dropped her head. Her tail curled up against her leg. She stared at it, crying. "I want to sleep." she mumbled. "That's alright. Rest will..." Antimony murmured shakily. She hesitated and then moved her arms to her daughter's sides. "Let's get you to bed, Airos." D'hein shifted as though he were in the way of the bed, though he hadn't even looked to see where in the room the bed was. "Oh, right! Sleep would be a great idea for everyone!" Suddenly he remembered his exhaustion, and it rushed over him renewed so that he might fall asleep where he stood. But he tried to ignore it. K'airos rose up dully, though her head was slightly lowered. She nodded once, saying "We should sleep." before moving towards the bed without lifting her sight from the floor. Antimony kept close to K'airos, arms around her as though one or both of them might fall at the slightest breath. Pulling the sheet back for her daughter and pulling it over her body struck a deep pain in her chest, and she rested one shaking hand against K'airos's cheek, head bowed. In that moment her daughter seemed so small, and she felt like she might have been transported to a time fifteen years ago years ago. Their lives had been so clear then. "I will take you anywhere you wish, Airos," she murmured. "I will keep you safe. I promise you. Nothing... nothing will hurt you again." D'hein walked over and put a hand on Antimony's shoulder. "You should sleep, too." K'airos shifted on the bed, giving her back to everyone and facing the wall. Hand dropping to the bed, Antimony bit back a whimper as she watched her daughter's back. "I cannot," she replied quietly to the Tia. Then she turned and let the strength give way in her legs until she was sitting once more on the floor, her back against the bed. D'hein lowered himself beside Antimony, putting his hands on either shoulder. "At least lay down. At least sit on the bed. Why can't you sleep? "After all that has... my--" she couldn't finish a thought, felt her jaw trembling, her ears shivering against her head. She would be quiet for K'airos, strong for K'airos. But she could not sleep, not now with the images so fresh. Her vision blurred. D'hein pulled her into a hug, which wasn't something he'd expected himself to do. She stiffened briefly, fingers curling against the floor while her tail twisted up over her legs. Then she just closed her eyes and let her head drop. "Mom, you should sleep, too." K'airos said. She pulled her pillow closer to herself and inclined it in front of her chest to wrap her arms over it. "You should go to sleep." "You'll be able to sleep," D'hein assured her. "If you try. You should." When she shut her eyes, she saw the bottomless water and the roiling black again. She opened them and saw the smooth fabric of D'hein's shirt. Her ears shifted back towards her daughter's voice. "I will, Airos," she breathed. "Don't worry for me. Rest your spirit." K'airos didn't have anything else to say. She closed her eyes. D'hein leaned forward, his head against the bedframe, his weight easing slightly out of his control. "That's good. Listen to your mother." Swallowing thickly, Antimony let her back relax somewhat against the bed. The position was not doing well for her joints, but she couldn't fathom standing again, not when the water that had dragged K'aijeen under seemed so close to doing the same to her. "Aijeen... was not always..." She blinked at the white fabric and sighed wearily, unsure why she felt the need to speak this defense to the Tia. "I did not think she was, either." He started then, suddenly, and leaned back. He shook his head. "I'm sorry. I wasn't meaning to crush you. I think I was falling asleep." "You weren't," Antimony replied numbly, hesitated. She felt as though she were drifting from the room, from Horizon, from D'hein and K'airos. "She... was always trying to help me when... when she could barely walk herself." Her words shook at the end. "Perhaps it's too soon to be having this conversation." Her brow knit, eyes shutting tight, and she felt her heart sink with weary resignation. "Perhaps." "You shouldn't stay on the floor." K'airos interrupted in a tired voice. "Come on, Antimony. Let's get you into bed." He tried to pick Antimony up the same way she'd picked K'airos up moments before. A weakness gripped her muscles and joints and made her sag heavily against D'hein's hands for a moment before she came back to herself. Her own hands moved up to grip the edge of the bed, to shakily pull herself to her feet and then sit upon the thin mattress. Resting this close to K'airos reminded her of nights in the healing tent, their sleeping blankets tucked up right alongside one another, out of necessity for space and warmth but also because of family. She felt so distant from that memory and yet so familiar with it. Numbly she pulled the rest of her body up and lay alongside K'airos. A moment later she shifted to make enough space on the bed for D'hein, turning her head to remind herself of her daughter's scent. The girl had moved again, making space for her mother by pushing herself as close to the wall as far as she could. No sound came from her, except for some sniffing. D'hein was about to stand and move away to let the women rest when he detected Antimony's movement, pushing herself further on to the bed. He thought she might be leaving room for him there, but surely that was just his tired brain mixing dreams with reality. Still he rose and sat down on the bed next to Antimony, checking to see if she was going to stab him or something. Antimony did not stab D'hein, or protest when he sat. She felt far too empty to do so, and if she closed her eyes, she could almost pretend she had her family back were it not for the sharp, spicy scent of Ul'dah that the Tia brought. She focused on K'airos's scent instead and pictured broad skies and even broader sands. K'airos looked over her shoulder when she felt a third person on the bed. She saw the D'hein and quickly looked away, feeling a bit uncomfortable. But sadness and fatigue made her not care. D'hein wasn't really sure what to make of this, but given everything that had happened? He just stopped thinking and stopped caring and lay down. They could kick him out if they wanted. It was bed time until then.

Agreed. Right now we have not much in the way of evidence that Othard is like eastern Asiatic cultures. What was the 1.0 lore surrounding the yukatas, anyway? Though I suppose that may be overwritten once the new summer event releases.

D'aijeen collapsed on the ground, the shadow that poured out of her crashing down in front of her, having taken form. Fetid innards glistened inside its ehpemeral body. It clawed at the ground with the ribs that had been harvested to shape its toes. The overburdened drake spine that gave its back its crooked curve clacked and shifted, pulled along by the best. It opened its mouth, needlee teeth craft from the beaks of vulture skulls embeeded in its maw. It turned its head towards the fallen Roegadyn, the vulture skulls floating inside the sleek shape of its head turning to regard her. Then it looked at Ulanan. The skulls of the scavengers shifted, and took two steps forward, and lifted its head like a dog sniffing the air. Behind it, D'aijeen lifted herself and gagged. The mask on her own face rose to look at the beast that had ripped out of her body. Still prey of horror, Ulanan wrenched her book towards her side, aether forming above it. She pointed with the other hand at the monster, and the golem warding Antimony floated straight in its direction, maw open and clearly wanting to bite. Illira heard the foul noises behind her and looked over her shoulder, eyes widening, as she tried to wrestle Antimony's face into her shoulder so that she couldn't continue to stare at what was happening. The older miqo'te continued to struggle against Illira's grip, but they were useless in their weakness. She screamed for her daughter though, over and over. "I don't want this to happen." D'aijeens voice seeped from the green mask before her features. She pushed herself upright. Darkness stained her face and chin, chest and stomach, where the monster had ripped out of her. But the darkness sunk into her form, and left no wound behind. Her dress was ripped and burned, her skin burned and mutilated beneath. Her neck hung open with that same hideous wound. She pushed herself up, looking weak. But she'd always been weak. The fetish of rodent bones hung from her fingers once more as she stared at the monster. "I don't want this to be happening. I don't want any of this to happen. I don't want you. I don't want you!" She swung the bones in front of her, and the earth beneath her feet began to move in response, rushing up against the monster. Sensing an oncoming attack, the skulls of the scavangers spun once, and D'aijeen fell back against the steps like animal bones dropped from a shaman's hands; eyes that knew the secret ways might be able to tell the future from how she fell. The ephemeral canine turned in a flash away from D'aijeen, snapped its maw at Ulanan, and turned towards the Lalafel's construct as it came near. It pounced at it, bringing its teeth and claws to content with the paper. Looking over his shoulder, D'hein stared at the monster wide-eyed. "... An animal attack. She did kill D'ahl." The pet rushed to it with its own maw open and wailed silently when they met, the claws tearing and sinking into its structure, deforming its shape and bringing it down to the ground. The torn borders turned orange first, and soon the whole golem changed to that color. A purple mist materialized and vanished at the same time the creatures hit each other. The aether contained sought to settle on the bones of the voidsent and corrode them. Another cloud, green this time, followed with the same purpose. Ulanan moved her tome high up as soon as she was done casting those, preparing for another. Illira knew she wasn't enough of a swordsman to take on the voidsent beast that stared the lalafel down. Antimony had been a shaman though, at least that was what a background check on the woman had turned up, and what her brief encounter with a couple of her tribesfolk had told her. So she shook the miqo'te's shoulders, in hopes of cutting through the hysteria. "Can you do anything here? Or will you continue down this hole your digging?" "Aijeen!" Antimony cried out, not immediately processing Illira's words. Tears dragged wet lines down her cheeks, settled and spread into the creases of her skin around her eyes, her mouth, dripping into the collar of her robe. She hung in Illira's grip, sobbing, and then made to lunge to the side, to attempt to make it to her daughter's side once more. She froze in Illira's grip, however, when her actions brought the skeletal beast into view. Familiar. The color drained from her face. Her ears shook, and she let out a whimper with her daughter's name again. And then came the anger. "DEMON!" She shrieked at the thing. "Demon, I'll banish--I'll banish you! You'll not shadow my family again!" Illira pushed Antimony aside and towards the beast, "Then -do it-. Clean up your daughter's mess." The skulls of the scavengers destroyed the construct beneath it, and pitched upright, throwing its head into the air as though to howl. It made no sound except for the clattering of its bones. The ribs that composed its claws began to decompose. The beaks that made up its teeth discolored. It showed no notice. It was distracted by Antimony for an instant, turning and making an expression as though to snarl. The vulture skulls inside its head just stared, blank. Then it turned and rushed Ulanan, ready to rip her apart. D'aijeen pushed herself to her feet once more, glaring first at the monster, and then the fallen Roegadyn. She shivered, though, and turned away. She couldn't run, too exhausted, but she staggered down the steps and turned towards the sea. Ulanan concentrated her spell over her book, not releasing it. When the creature was only a meter away from her, ready to destroy her, her last envelope vanished from her pocket. A barrier materialized in front of her, looking like a tall wall made of paper bricks. The force of the impact broke it just like a real one, making the structure bend and half of the bricks on top of it fall. Though instead of hitting the ground with the full strength of gravity, they gently floated in all directions. She released the accumulated aether then, all around her, spreading it to the wall. Circular, bulky eyes and a smile formed in each of them and, in the next instant, they flew out to hit the monster as if catapulted. Antimony staggered forward, nearly toppling to the ground from Illira's shove. She simultaneously cowered and glared with wide, green eyes at the demon, and then cringed back when Ulanan's attack struck it. The shadowy canid stopped short in its tracks as it found itself assailed, snapping at the various things that struck it. Still, it made no sound. Brittle bones cracked inside its body, but hung in place unnaturally. As though the bones were conforming to the shape of the monster instead of the other way around. The canid thrust its head upward and snapped at the air, then dropped down again and shook and spun and bit. Finally, it jumped to the side, not freeing itself from the attack but giving itself slightly more room. From this new angle, it rushed Ulanan again, not significantly damaged. Illira drew her short sword and dirk, knowing that her preferred weapon would be useless here. And though she was far too rusty, she didn't trust those that were conscious to hold out. D'hein and K'airos were dumbstruck, and Antimony wasn't much better even after the burst of energy. The lalafell was likely running on her last legs... and her legs were short. So the Elezen strode towards the short woman and the beast, past Antimony. Bowing over herself, clutching with both hands to her chest, Antimony whimpered a string of desperate prayers, words with a rhythm and meaning far more ancient than the stone beneath their feet. Ulanan used the beast's brief moment of confusion to put more space between it and her. "D'hein! Ice! I need time to summon something bigger!" she yelled while running away and plucking pages out of her book, throwing them into the air like a chicken losing feathers rabidly. Her paper bricks kept following the creature and flinging themselves at it. Those that failed to hit it made a circle, floated and then flinged themselves again until they did. D'hein pet K'airos's head. "Stay here. Stay down, please." He rose and took his scepter in hand again, putting a couple of yalms between himself and his daughter's sister. He spread his stance, giving a tired gaze to the monster, as though he were looking at something he knew to be a dream. He began to conjure a spell, feeling slow and outclassed. The monster continued to follow Ulanan, only momentarily slowed. It gained momentum, found it in itself to ignore the distracting bricks. Seeing the monster chasing the Lalafell, D'hein unleashed what of his spell he had conjured, casting for once in silence. The bolt of ice stuck the beast's feet and slowed one of its legs. Most of the delay this provided was thanks to the creature's confusion. The spell cast, D'hein lazily and belatedly muttered "Ice spell" as he began to conjure another. Picking up a run, Illira dashed towards the leg that D'hein had iced, slicing at the back of the near the hollow of the knee before moving back out, dragging her longer blade against the ribcage as she moved towards behind it. This distract the monster far more, as it immediately jumped away from Illira. Bricks slammed into its body the whole way, but it focused on her, turning back and pouncing at her like a great wolf threatened, going for her long neck. D'aijeen reached the pier where the boats to and from Limsa Lominsa would dock several times a day. Now it was empty. Vesper Bay was not a fishing town. There were no small boats currently docks. The pier was empty. D'aijeen stood on the edge and stared down at the water. Black and deep. K'airos did not stay down, nor there were she was. She rose up and walked, staring at the creature, recognizing it. She had trouble breathing, but still she shouted angrily. "I need a weapon!" She wasn't sure who she was yelling at, or what she expected. She looked around in a state of frenzy. The lalafel noticed the beast change of focus and turned around. "Illira! Watch out!" she warned loudly, still throwing pages up into the air. They and those that she had thrown before started to move as if pushed by the wind, slamming into each other on the ground, an aura of aether slowly building up on them. It really had been too long since Illira had done such things as she was tonight. Already breathing hard, the middle aged elezen was knocked down as the beast pounced on her, she'd brought her short sword up though, aiming for its the gap between its wolf-like bone jaws. She tried to pull her head to the side away from the snapping teeth as its paw pinned her down. D'hein glanced behind him. "K'airos, no! Grab your mother and get her away!" The beast opened its mouth to bite at Illira's head. When the sword stabbed into its mouth, it showed no concern, letting the blade pierce its body. It bit down on her arm instead of her head, though, the beaks that were its teeth stabbing into her flesh. The tip of Illira's sword stabbed into the monsters head, pressing against the skulls behind the canid's immaterial face. The skulls of the scavengers did not react. The sharp teeth bore down into her thin arm, causing her to yell out with the edge of pain on her voice, "Just finish it. I won't be bait for long!" Her fingers were forced to drop the hilt of the short sword, leaving it hanging from the beast's head as she tried to drive her dirk into one of its eyes. Ulanan's crazy flinging of papers into the air ceased. Her book had only one empty page left. She cringed at it with one hand over it, gathering into it all the aether that was left on her. Then she tore it and threw it up. The mass of papers that had been piling up in the street reacted to this, lifting themselves high up and quickly taking the shape of a sphere. It inflated, its surface solidifying and cracking, the empty spaces between the sheets shining with a white light. The last of Ulanan's pages disappeared between the cracks and then the paper meteor came crashing down towards the bone beast. The beast saw the light and flinched away from it, like a shadow being pushed away by the cresting of dawn. It dragged Illira by her arm several paces, and then released her to try and evade the meteor. D'hein launched his second ice spell then, this one fully formed, catching the monster across all of its legs and stunning it for the briefest moment. The meteor struck the monster sideways, having arced over Illira to get to it. The thing was knocked back, hard, at first born by the meteor itself and then further from the concussive force of its detonation. As it careened it seemed thinner, almost immaterial, the bones of its body tumbling end over end and only loosely held together. It landed on the pier, immediately behind D'aijeen, and she turned to look at. The monster didn't lay still for long before it began to reshape. D'aijeen flinched at it, stepped back, almost off the pier. She looked back at the water, cold and dark as a sea of ink beneath her. A sea of shadow. "I don't want you." She looked back at the monster, the thing rising. The canid form turned towards her moving its head. "I don't want you! I wish I'd never made you!" Shadows churned beneath her, suddenly dark, suddenly thick, and suddenly powerful. They grew and fell, stretching out beneath the pier. And then they broke it. The pier collapsed under the weight of the monster, all of its braces and pillars snapping into splinters. The monster fell into the water, and D'aijeen fell with it. Shadows rose around them as though the sea were lifting itself to catch them. But the shadows lay over D'aijeen and the monster and pulled them down beneath the surface of the water. Cypress's hand twitched, fine etchings where the magical fire took to her skinshowed through as if she were the burnt wood that she had been named after. It was faint, just below the surface, but ready to be reignited in any given moment. Her eyes shot open, seeing only the sandy flagstones, she quickly tried to shove herself upwards with a grunt. Sitting up against the cracked pillar as she scanned the area. Nothing of interest, except for the same scattered people that had been there earlier. Except D'aijeen. A roar of a splash brought her head whipping around as she scrambled to her feet, dizzy with the sudden movement. "Where is she?" The woman yelled out, desperation and angry making her cracked voice worse than it normally was. Illira's dirk fell to the ground as she clutched at her torn arm. She pulled herself upright into a sitting position, hissing at the movement. It felt like her arm was broken. Or perhaps just dislocated. It was impossible to tell in that moment. K'airos stood still and silent, paralyzed again as she watched her sister, sink with the pier and the beast. Ulanan dropped to the ground into a sitting position. She was too exhausted to answer the Roegadyn, so instead she just pointed towards there. The crashing of wood and water tore Antimony's head up from her cowed position. Her eyes caught the dwindling waves, splinters, and inky shadow, and she didn't have to see D'aijeen to know where her daughter had gone. She cried out brokenly and bolted for the ruined pier. D'hein lingered in a stupor for a moment, idling on the verge of casting another spell even several seconds after the monster and the woman fell into the water. Then he shook himself free. "Antimony!" He ran forward, trying to catch up to the woman before she got too far away. He was far less desperate in his charge than she was, however. Shaking the fuzziness off, Cypress ran towards pier as well, though not alongside the others, stopping at the steps, only to see nothing there, but a too-short dock and the last of the darkness vanishing below the waves. She stood there for a moment, watching for any other movement before letting out a howl. One that could have rivaled any Coerthas dragon in its ferocity. It was a marvel that she didn't spit fire as they did. "Mom!" K'airos snapped out of her own and ran towards her mother to stop her, fearing the beast would come back at any moment. Ignoring both D'hein and K'airos, perhaps not even hearing them, Antimony flung herself to her hands and knees as far as she could go along the shattered remains of the pier. She stared down into the churning, black water and then let out a choked sob. When Antimony didn't immediately throw herself to the ocean in despair, D'hein slowed his run to a trot and came alongside her, standing with the others and staring down into the water. He searched, seeing nothing but darkness and some floating wood debris. Then he turned towards the Roegadyn. "What are you angry about? She's dead. That's what you wanted." K'airos shook at that, not understanding it. She didn' think about it either. She took her mother's shoulders and tried to pull her away. "Mom...it's..." Her words died in her mouth, and she just crumbled, kneeling and hugging her. Cypress gave D'hein a sidelong look, the etchings in her arm pulsing with a deep orange color. "Her body is dead. But it was before too. A little water won't keep voidsent down. There is method to what I do." Antimony did not turn from the slowly settling water, but she did shift her arms to clutch at K'airos. Tears shook her body, and her grey tail curled against her remaining daughter's side. Letting a hand rest on Antimony's shoulder, D'hein snapped at Cypress. "My daughter is not a Voidsent! She didn't get possessed between today and yesterday. Or today and last year for that matter! And she certainly wasn't dead." Illira pulled herself up from the ground after shoving her dirk into its sheath, making her way to the others as her arm hung bleeding and limp by her side, "She is dead, D'hein, I can attest to that much." Snapping at the man, Cypress's normally patient demeanor gone, "That was the entity I found occupying my grandfather's body all those years ago. I am its keeper. I am sorry for your loss, but my hunt is not finished." K'airos cried on her mother's shoulder. "She created it in the Sagolii." she barely managed to explain between the tears. "Maybe...maybe she died when she left to the desert... and..." Her cry was more forceful, breaking her words and not letting her speak. But at least she had found something to excuse her sister's actions: it had never been her sister. "You," Antimony's voice choked out, and she bent forward until her head nearly hung past the edge of the splintered pier. Her ears buried themselves in her hair, shoulders trembling. "You will not... desecrate her body... any further. You've already--already denied her... the sands." D'hein's ears fell flat on his head, both of them. He scowled. "I want you to tell me about this entity." "I threw it back in the pit. I do not know how it got out the first time, for it was when I trekked up to ensure my grandfather's safety was when I found it. Though his body was too sick and weak for it to do much." She paused, thinking, "It remembered and spoke of pieces to me. Though it puzzled over the memories." Tiny footsteps reached the group and stopped some distance away. Ulanan looked very tired, and was not holding any book. She kept quiet. K'airos tried to make Antimony stand up. "I don't want to be here." With no strength in her limbs to resist, Antimony bowed to her daughter's urging. When she stood next to K'airos, she felt as thin as parchment, as ephemeral as the dunes of the Sagolii. She held her daughter weakly to her and could not stop her tears. D'hein shirked his robe from both shoulders, leaving himself standing in a thin shirt and extraordinarily tight white pants, like the kind D'aijeen used to wear. He turned to Illira with his robe in hand like a rag, gesturing. "Wrap this around your arm, and then I want you to go with Antimony and K'airos back to Horizon. See a healer there." The elezen's jaw tightened, but she took the offered material anyway, pressing it to her arm since she couldn't wrap it one handed. She turned away from D'hein, not offering a thank you, but perhaps the absence of snide remarks was as much thanks as she was willing to offer. Stepping down towards the mother and daughter she said, "We should leave now." K'airos didn't even nod, but she did move away from the pier, holding Antimony's hand with her own. Antimony walked with her daughter in silence, head bowed. The lalafel walked past them and stood between D'hein and Burned Cypress. She crossed her tiny arms over her chest and waited. The hellsgaurd looked down at the small woman, "Did require something?" "You seem to know what was going on." was the lalafell's blunt answer. "So what was all this?" "I do not have the answers to everything. But it was not simply a girl who lost control of something that was too much for her to contain. She had a voidsent within her, beyond that... I do not yet." "Well what are you going to do about it?" D'hein stood with arms and tail limp, turning his gaze back to the water. "I don't think there's much to do at all." the lalafel said, taking a short glance over the edge. "I will find it again. I only need time once more." D'hein took a very deliberate step back. "Then perhaps we should return to Horizon as well." Ulanan nodded, turning with D'hein and heading towards the entrance of the Bay. "Perhaps you should." With that Cypress walked down the the pier, significantly calmer than she was when she first came back from forced oblivion. D'hein stopped when he realized that the woman didn't intend to come with them, eying her. Then he looked down at Ulanan. "I don't like just leaving her to wander. She knows more than she says." Ulanan, with tired expression and movements, nodded as if she had just accepted a tiresome task. "I'll stay with her." she said, not walking anymore. "You go with the others. Don't wait for me." Cypress stood at the edge the wooden structure, looking out on the waters that D'aijeen had vanished into, looking very out of place. "I will trust your talents and thus-far limitless altruism, then. Thank you." D'hein turned away to follow the others back to Horizon. "I would insist that I stay, if not for Illira." "Yes." Ulanan found what she identified as a comfy wall and headed to it, keeping her head turned towards the Roegadyn. "You will do better at comforting them, and you'll need your own share, too. I'm sorry for this." she added. When she reached the wall, she sat against it with her hands hanging to the sides lazily. She'd keep watch on that woman and hopefully not fall asleep.

The beast spread its claws forward, opening its beak to screech, lunging towards him. The man had unbound himself fro the ice and stones. His arms were pointing forward, aether gathering around them in a growing golden sphere. It collapsed silently just a moment after, making the floor and the walls a meter in front of him burst inwards, smashing the voidsent between the moving debris. He did not wait to see the result of his spell. Instead, he turned around and ran. D'aijeen leaned forward and stumbled, pushing herself off the ground with her fingertips. As she moved, her shadow extended, spelling far ahead of her like a flood that poured from the building onto the road outside. She couldn't keep up, and she ceased trying, letting hersef fall to her knees and scraping them on the rubble strewn through the building. Chasing the man wasn't necessary. The Baalzephons would act on her behalf. This knowledge came to her as something remembered, as though she'd read it from a book some time ago and only just now thought of it. She was sure, though. They would get him. But would they bring him back? "K'airos!" Dropping back on her haunches, watching the shadows stretching outside, D'aijeen shouted behind her. "Get him! Chase him down, I command it! Drag him back here!" tattered forms lifted from the dark splotches in the ground, sliding forward faster than any being could think to run, pushing the wind aside as though it were a lazy thing. White masks set in dark matter like pillars of stained rags, they surpasses the fleeing man and arched around him in an attempt to contain him. They neared in an attempt to enclose them. Wire-thin limbs with needle fingers reached for him. The red robed man had nowhere to run. He cringed at the situation, stopping and raising his tiny branch one last time. His aether released through it to his skin, hardening it, cracks forming upon it like stone.The creatures surrounding him took hold of him strongly, breaking the focus as they reached for arms. He struggled against them, but he was trapped. K'airos emerged from the room in a hurry, still crying and with the eyes wide open. She stumbled her way towards the man as if drunk. When she reached him, she grabbed him from the shoulders and literally dragged him towards D'aijeen, not waiting for the Baalzephons to release it or follow. The Baalzephons responded to K'airos' movements by permitting her to move the man. They did not shy away from touching her as they moved, instead holding fast to the man to ensure that he would not begin to move and escape from the woman. D'aijeen managed to stand as K'airos brought the stranger back into the inn. She was breathing heavily, and her stance was frail. She lifted her head just enough to watch K'airos bring the man in. "Thank you. I'm sorry you had to do that. But I needed your help." She pointed to their room. "Please take him into the room, Airos." The older sister obeyed, cringing at the touch of the voidsent. "Don't hurt him. He did nothing." she implored lowly, dragging the man to the room. He didn't struggle anymore. She didn't know where to let him go, so she stopped in the middle of the room. She took a moment to wipe her eyes clean with her sleeve. The man remained there, frowning at the darkness in silence. "Did nothing? He came here. He lied. You dond't understand the gravity of the lies he was telling." D'aijeen walked tiredly back into the room, leaning against the tattered doorway. The shadows that had stained the room remained a deep, stubborn black, and the Baalzephons throbbed. The masks among the dark rags twitched. "And I hope you do not, Airos. I hope you never do. Terrible lies that he should never have known to tell. Horrible threats. A wicked man who underestimated me. Leave him there. He will tell me the truth after he sleeps for a time." She stepped forward with the rodent skulls clattering beneath her wand, her pointed scepter not quite shining in the morning light. K'airos rubbed one of her eyes furiously while she moved towards her sister. She stopped one foot away and glanced up to her briefly before dropping her eyes to her feet. "You lie, too. You lied about mom and the tribe! But I don't care! Let's just leave him here. Please!" he begged again. "He said he would find us. Didn't you here? He dared us to hide. The fool." She pushed around her sister, walking slowly towards the man and the Baalzephons that now held him in place. Her blue eyes glared down at him, her face otherwise completely black with incredibly dark shadows. "Oh, foolish. Can you hear me, sir? I implore you to go to sleep, sir. It is a kindness, that I would let you sleep, so these next moments hurt less." Her eyes snapped to the Baalzephons. "Smother him." They responded, laying hideous weight over the man's face, wrapping around his head to suffocate him. Qion'a's stone skin protected him from the pressure, but he could feel the immediate lack of air. He tried to say something, but only managed a deaf sound. He tried fighting, but it was for naught. After a minute, he simply stopped. "Stop!" K'airos pulled her sister's hand, hoping in place. Her voice became increasingly broken by cries "Stop! Stop, stop, stop, stop!" Watching for a moment, D'aijeen's eyes moved to her hand, and the to her sister's panicked features. Beneath her green her, Da'ijeen's skin was painted black, the whites of her eyes a deep gray, her lips and chin barely perceptible. The darkness had stained her clothes, left most of her exposed skin blackened. Still, she lifted one inky hand up to her sisters face, and her eyes curved to indicate that she was smiling. "Oh, Airos, beautiful and innocent. If you want me to stop..." Green light flickered in front of her face, forming like a shield there, a shell that imitate the shape of her face imperfectly and floated just beyond it. "Then you should kiss me. That might improve my mood. It might. You could cheer me up." K'airos closed her eyes, still hoping. "That's not fair!" she cried out. Then, she pushed herself forward abruptly, not thinking about what she was doing. Her mouth touched her sister's, or perhaps the lips on the aetherial mockery in front of her. She supressed the feeling crawling on her lips, hoping she would feel nothing. K'airos faced impacted on that of the green shell. D'aijeen did not appear to noticed that there was any difference. She kissed the air between their faces, smiled, and hummed. She turned back to the Baalzephons and said, "Very well. We can be done now. However, it is too late for the health of our deceitful visitor." The Baalzephons that had lain over the man slipped away and vanished into the floor, but they had already finished smothering him. "However, I can fix him right up, if you'll just take him and put him in the bathtub. And then recover a few other items for me." K'airos nodded and dutifully moved the man as told. "What items?" she asked. "The nice thing about suffocation and drowning is that all of his innards are still in place. However, neural tissues will have been damaged." D'aijeen walked towards the bathroom, watching K'airos, smiling at her. The green shell over her face remained, the blew of her eyes invisible behind it. "Do they have birds around here? They have such tiny brains. But they have useful spines. Maybe two or three good-sized birds." "Birds. Alright...I'll...get you some birds." she nodded and made her way to the door, arms crossed tightly over her chest. "Two or three." The shadows lingered. D'aijeen did not acknowledge them. The green shell that had lain over her face faded away, leaving only the blackness of her own features, but she hadn't noticed that either. Instead, as the darkness leaked into the bathroom, D'aijeen put a modest amount of water in the tub -- just enough to make the stranger's limp tail float beside his dead body, and then a pierced her hand with her scepter. K'airos would have asked about these preparations were she present to witness them, so D'aijeen was grateful that there had been a task to assign K'airos to. D'aijeen sat on the edge of the tub with her legs arching over it, her feet resting on the other side, and squeezed blood from the hole in her palm, letting it drop into the tub and discolor the water. The residents and merchants of Vesper Bay had noticed what had occurred in the inn. The presence of Brass Blades in this particular town was not exactly meager. But D'aijeen did not want them to investigate the inn, and though this desire remained unspoken, the Baalzephons acknowledged it and drifted abroad. In the far darkness of other places, they whispered and clawed. And no Brass Blade or Immortal Flame or curious commoner came to investigate the inn. They were busy. *** K'airos came back to the inn with two small birds. They were trapped inside a bird cage along with the parrot that was originally inside. She had made her way quickly and without being noticed too much, though a few people had shouted warnings at her. Warnings she would have liked to take. She entered the room with an imploring yell. "D'aijeen! You are hurting people outside! Stop!" She didn't stop until she was inside the bathroom, extending her arm and the cage forward. "I brought the birds." "I'm not hurting anyone. If people are getting hurt, it isn't me doing it. Why would you blame me, Airos? That's hurtful." D'aijeen hopped off the tub. Moving was easier now that she was rested. She reached out and took the cage from her sister, smiling at the birds within. "Oh, they're very healthy. Thank you for not bringing me anything mauled or sick. These will be very helpful." She spun away and held the cage to her chest, taking her scepter in hand. She conjured a small ice spell inside of the cage, frigid air blowing through it and out over her body. She shivered, but in a few seconds, the birds froze and fell on the bottom of the cage, dead. K'airos crossed her arms again as if the cold had reached her, too. "Your...those things are hurting them! They are yours. Tell them to stop!" she demanded. "They're just Voidsent, Airos. They're harmless. Like bees. Scary but harmless." She looked over her shoulder and smiled at her sister. "People will get used to them. Can you please go get your sword so that I can borrow it?" K'airos turned around and walked away. "They are not harmless. You know this! They killed that man." she spat out, equal measures of fear and fury. She came back a moment later with her scimitar. She ducked her head and offered it to D'aijeen. "Tell them to stop and I'll...I'll compensate you later! When we are alone. But they have to stop. Please!" "Airos, I can't just boss Voidsent around. What do you think I am, some king of witch?" Looking hurt, she took the scimitar, but as she turned to look at her sister, she sighed and softened. "No, Airos. I'm not going to make deals like that. I adore you. Don't worry. Tonight, you're going to be all mine, and it's going to be like breathing the first breath of a new life. Like stepping into a new sun. Like bathing in the sun itself. I have faith in you and I, Airos. It's a faith of always had." She turned away and set the cage in front of the tub. "But, if you feel so strongly, I will see what I can do to help all of those scared people outside as soon as I am done here. It won't take long." D'aijeen opened the cage and withdrew one of the birds, laying it against the tub and hacking it in half lenghtwise. She reached into its frozen corpse and took hold of its spine, using the sword to peel the chest and wings and legs away. All she needed was the spine and the head, and associated fluids and nervous tissue. "Fine." K'airos replied, turning and walking away again. "I don't want to see this. I'm going outside." "That's fine, Airos. That's fine. I'll only be a few minutes." D'aijeen answered without looking up as she fired a strange, black energy into the hideous offering of avian spine and skull, making the dead eyes glow, making the desecrated backbone writhe. She placed it in the water near the man's head, humming as she turned to start work on the next one. Minutes later, she sat on the edge of the tub once more, this time on the end above the stranger's feet, with her own feet spread to rest further up on the edge of the tub and balance herself. She leaned forward over a hand-written tome resting across both forearms, having just read aloud from it. The shadows that had been writhing in response to her voice eased back into place like tired things going back to sleep. The black streaks on her body remained, though, making it appear as though swaths of her had been cut away. Her blue eyes seemed to shine out of a pit beneath her hair. She smiled invisibly. "All right, sir. Do not pretend to sleep any longer. Stop sleeping. Awaken now and take careful breaths. Do be calm, though, for I think you will understand what I have done." The man opened his eyes, rolling them in place as his sight focused. The first thing that came to mind was the memory of being suffocated to death. Then, strangely, the feeling of being almost or completely wet. He took a breath and looked around. After a moment, he settled his eyes on the woman sitting on the other end of the tub. His hands violently grasped to the sides and pulled half his body up, until he himself was sitting. "Is...a bath your idea of torture?" he asked, extremely confused. "You wanted to know more about how I do what I do. Consider this a lesson. As for you, I command you to answer every question I ask thoroughly and honestly." The book in her hands slammed shut. As she leaned forward, she held the book between her legs, pressing down the front of her skirt for the sake of modesty. Her tone was not nearly so frail nor as cute, though her eyes smiled with happiness. She spoke with words of stone. "How did you find me? How did you know to look for me?" The man smiled. He chose to answer them in the opposite order. "We knew to look for you because a duskwight told us what happened at the Ossuary. I spoke with your mother and got your name from her. Then my brother used it to find you with the Oracle." He stopped smiling at the last word, looking confusingly at his own hands. But then he smiled again, looking up. "Sorry, I guess, brother!" Confused by the strangeness of the last thing the man said, D'aijeen nonetheless took in the implications. What occurred between herself and D'ahl outside the Ossuary was known. And that his man had colleagues. D'aijeen's smile did not fade. "I order you to explain this Orcale to me. What is it? How does it work?" "It's a device used to look almost anywhere in Eorzea, by using the souls of the dead as a conduit for one's consciousness. All we need is a person's name." the red robed man complied. "And... that's how I followed you from Ul'dah, in fact. Can I get out of the tub? I don't like being so damp." "No." D'aijeen's tail swung behind her, back and forth with more energy than her thin arms and legs could likely permit. "Explain to me entirely, in as much detail as you can, why you came looking for me and what you want from me." The man took a breath. He really did not like being wet. "I found an amnesiac man in the Shroud. Thal." he started. "He survives by absorbing the aether out of...anything, I imagine. Plants and crystals, even. I gave him one and he took all out of it without even blinking! Or...maybe he did blink." He shifted in place, making waves, distracted by the detail. Then he continued. "We tried to study him but his Duskwight friend didn't like that. He was the one who helped him when he woke inside the grave, and the one who pointed us to the Ossuary. We were hoping you could tell us how you did that." He looked down to himself and gestured vaguely. "Which I guess you just did!" "In some nonspecific fashion, yes. I've given you a very good hint at least." D'aijeen dropped her feet to either side of the tub and lifted herself off of it, stepping back away and holding the book in front of her, over her chest. Her wand at its small skull fetishes were in one hand, her scepter in the other. "You may get out of the tub now. This is very important: I command that you must never harm nor consider harming me. I command that you must always protect me, and that the same goes for my sister, K'airos." She turned to walk towards the bedroom. "How many brothers have you? Should I worry about them?" Qion'a nodded, at first. But then he contorted forward violently, screaming with mouth wide open and grabbing his own ears strongly. He tilted his head to one side and hastily pushed the linkpearl out of his left ear. It fell into the tub, blooded. An high pitched sound slipped out of it for the brief moment it was out of the water. The man stopped shouting, but kept his hand over his head and his body bent, complaining in mumbles.

Her entire body tensing suddenly, D'aijeen seethed with undefined frustration. She felt the desperate need to continue pulling on K'airos, but she wanted to slap her for the cowardly distraction she'd latched on to. The way her name slipped through the door drew neither curiosity nor anger, but the voice and its sudden interjection breathed a threat into her presence. This was not something that should have been possible. It was not something that could be permitted to happen. Her attention needed to be completely on K'airos, and yet this inexplicable event called to her. As though it were made beforehand, a trap that had been set, a distraction called done for just this moment. The fragmented shards of frustration coalesced into a theory, and D'aijeen's frustration drew cold. Her shadow darkened. He turned her gaze away from K'airos and leaned her head down, so that her features were in shadow. The cactuar earring swung against her temple. Her exposed legs felt very thin and cold and not at all desirable. She shivered, suddenly frail, assured of her hideousness, assured that she was hated. Sap ran through her veins, and she did not feel loved. Something was pushing very hard upon her. "K'airos." Her hand moved up and gripped the collar of her sister's shirt. "Beautiful K'airos, perfect to me, everything that I could ever desire given breath and body. Do not speak to anyone except me now. K'airos, love. Beloved. Ideal lover. Nobody knows that I am here. Who did you tell that I was here? Who did you tell? I command you to answer me. Who did you tell about me being here, K'airos?" "I...sent a letter to mom." K'airos replied immediately, eyes wide with surprise at her own words. Her hands pushed against her mouth, hoping that the words would somehow be unheard. "But I told her no to come! I was clear about it! Very clear!" "I'm afraid that's not how I found you. I just followed you from Ul'dah." the man outside added with a chuckle, as if he was hearing. "I mean no harm! I just want to speak to you about a certain project you left in the Shroud a few years ago. It was quite impressive and we'd like to learn more!" When K'airos answered her, D'aijeen buckled. Her ears fell. her tail swung between her legs and wrapped tight about one thigh. Her fingers tightened and twisted on K'airos chest, and she appeared that she might fall forward. The sound she made was shrill and loud, like a wounded animal, like she wished she had claws. The small woman shivered as if cold, as if terrified. Her screeching lengthened and deepened, it broke and began to cough out of her throat. She sounded like she was choking, and the shivering became a shake. Then the sound became a snicker, and she leaned back to laugh. D'aijeen looked at the ceiling and laughed quietly. Her shadow darkened until her white shoes turned black, and she laughed louder, and she appeared saddened by something she saw on the ceiling. High in the corners of the walls, something white moved inside the blackness. The room seemed darker as D'aijeen watched the ceiling and cried, as she shook and laughed and pulled on K'airos' shirt. Her arms went limp and fell to her side. Her tail went limp and hung behind her. Her jaw went limp and her mouth hung open. Shadows poured down her chest as though cast by a light above her, though there was no such light. D'aijeen didn't breathe. Her ears lifted. The cactuar earring danced with a metallic clatter. When she lifted her head and breathed again, the shadow lingered on her chest. It was black as an ink stain over the white frills she'd decorated herself in. Darkness crawled up her legs from the shadow she cast, like tendrils. The shadows against the ceiling leaked down the walls like water. D'aijeen sighed. "Nobody followed me her from Ul'dah." She lifted one hand and lay her knuckles against her sister's cheek. "I was not followed. So there, we are already lying." K'airos recoiled in terror, mumbling. "No...no! Please don't! Please don't! I'll...! Don't!" she begged, jumping in place, her voice shaking and her breath becoming unsteady. The man outside spoke again. "Sorry, but I did. The mail doesn't travel as quick as you think it does. But that doesn't matter." A wind came from the door, leaking from the crevices in the wood and the tiny space between it and the frame. It carried his voice towards the green-haired Miqo'te and only to her. "I'm here to talk about the man you raised in the Shroud. Tanned skin, red hair, sunny disposition, hated by the Elementals?" His voice sounde all around her, as if the man was inside the room, walking around her. "K'airos, it's okay." D'aijeen patted her sister's face with the back of her hand. "I promise that I will never hurt you. You will never need to be afraid of me." Then she spun around in a violent snap. "I raised no one in the Shroud! The spell failed!" In one hand, a stick appeared, with small carvings and rodent skulls held to it by leather ties. They clattered loudly as she swung her arm towards the door, and a powerful rush of air dispersed the voice around her before slamming into the door and ripping it open and throwing it off its hinges, slamming it against the opposite wall. This was obviously intended to hurt whomever was outside. "Then how do I know about him? " The man walked into view, having been standing to a side of the door rather than actually in front of it. He was wearing red robes and wore a hood over his head. In his right hand, he was holding a very weak looking branch, with dried leaves sticking out of it, ready to fall at any moment. He spread his arms and bent slightly, trying to convey that he wasn't there to fight, glancing at the floor with his golden eyes. "Please! I came to talk! To share knowledge and learn from what you did. I can lead you to him, if you want. He's not even far! Just...forgetful." K'airos, despite D'aijeens words, was very afraid. She curled down next to the bed, grabbing her head with both hands and burying it behind her knees. The shadows in the room spread as though the walls contained ink and had cracked open, allowing the ink to slowly leak out. It bleed up her legs and down from her lips, spreading over her skin and her clothes. Inside of the shadows beneath her and the shadows on the wall, white things moved, polished surfaces. Masks. Looking out at them, but with disinterest. D'aijeen growled at the man, a deep and silent sound that was almost just a groan in her thin chest. "I left him buried and warded. If you did something to him, I'll kill you. That's the only warning you'll ever hear." Qion'a kept his submissive pose. The only change was that he raised his head to look at D'aijeen. He had a slight frown over his forehead, but spoke neutrally and carefully. "We didn't know about him until very recently. He said he unburied himself, with the help of a local. He's quite alive, I assure you. Just let me show you, and you can decide if you wish to kill me or not afterwards." "You think I'm an idiot!" D'aijeen took a step back the other way, shadows snapping free from her feet and reaching after as though desperate to keep hold. The shadows she cast lingered without source she moved. She thrust her wand and fetishes forward, and then pulled them back aggressively. The wind she'd thrown forward seemed to rush back into the room in response, slamming against the back of Qion'a's legs in an attempt to knock him off his feet. "You did not follow me from Ul'dah! You're a liar! You come lying and speaking of things you cannot know. Liar. Confess to me desperately. Eject the truth like a poison from your belly, else I'll extract it." The wind pushed against Qion'a's defensive wards, making them crack like ice under a heavy weight. His back was lighted in a dim blue light as the aetheric lines of the spell unfolded and became visible behind him. He took a step back and straightened. "Not lying! I'm just a good tracker." he said while he took yet another few steps backwards. "But I get it! I will leave! Give you time to hide somewhere else, to keep a tight leash on your sister, make sure you are not followed and that nobody knows where you went." He raised his branch, the dry leaves on it shining as if they were about to be set aflame. Right then he smiled. "Then I will show up again and you'll have to believe me when I say I was just following you." "No. You can stay." The shadows that wrapped D'aijeen cracked like glass and shattered outward, growing and becoming solid, and rushing forward in the speed of a blink to slam into the man physically. The spell was larger than her intended target. Shadows with polished faces cracked the floor and slammed into the walls, breaking the doorframe and making the walls buckle. Shouts could be heard from elsewhere in the building. K'airos was still curled down behind the bed, trying to shrink away. She shrieked when she felt the spell smashing the walls. "Stop! Stop! Please, stop!" she repeated in whispers between breaths, unable to speak any louder. The man barely had time to reinforce his wards before being thrown out of the room, hitting his back with the wall outside and falling towards the floor. His knee managed to meet it first, saving him half the trouble of raising up. He turned to the hallway and started to sprint away. D'aijeen ran out into the hallway, the attack she'd cast already melting away into dark fluid staining the broken room around her, staining her clothes, staining her skin. Its putrid scent curled in the air around her as she turned to watch the man's back. "No!" Now she had a bladed scepter in her hand as well, and her with her stance spread across the width of the hall, she crossed the two focuses in front of her. The bones tied to her wand clattered. Her clothes rustled as the air about her moved with the energy of her spell. When she snapped her arms to either side, the floor beneath her broke and shot forward. A chill wind shot from her form and wrapped about the summoned stone. Earth and ice shot at the man, a two-fold attack meant to stop him in his tracks. The man jumped and turned around in the air, swinging his focus violently to the side. "Victor!" he shouted right before the spell hit him fully in the middle of his leap, the ice and stone wrapping around him, binding his feet to the ground. The wall he had swung his branch towards darkened. A portion of it collapsed into itself like moving sand. A grey snake-like creature, horned, roughly the size of a man but much thinner, emerged from it. It bashed itself against the opposite wall and turned towards D'aijeen, clawing and twisting its way across the hallway before spreading its wings and trying to violently ram the woman. D'aijeen felt weak. Her feeble body seemed suddenly overstrained, first from struggling with K'airos, then from the use of magic. Just running from the bedroom to the hallway felt like it had been too far, and her head ducked forward as soon as the stone and the ice snapped away from her. She didn't see it hit her target, nor did she see the monster he summoned. Her eyes were on the ground, but she looked up just in time for the head-first charge of the stranger's voidsent. The beast slammed against the air directly in front of her head. There was a flicker of light, and a haze of green magic lay between her face and that of the monster, like impenetrable colored glass between them. Through pits in the green shell, D'aijeen's eyes glared into those of the monster, mere centimeters separating them. She barely saw or heard it, but she felt what the creature was, and she hissed at it on instinct. "Obey me. Kill that man gently. Go." In the next instant, the monster snapped backwards as though struck, falling on its back as shadows rushed out beneath it. It splashed down among the white masks of the Baalzephons, but they caught it gently and lifted it up, turning it around, and in a moment, the beast was careening back the way it had come, towards the stranger, Qion'a.

* * * D'aijen controlled herself. She was not immune to K'airos' non-verbal communication. She was actually quit in-touch with it, and as much as she meant to be more in-touch with her sister, upsetting K'airos was never one of D'aijeen's goals. No, as young as D'aijeen was, she liked to think of herself as mature and patient, and so she chose to allow the status quo to linger for a time before trying to push things again. This amount of time was a single day. D'aijeen rose early and left K'airos asleep that morning. When she returned, she had changed. Where and how she found the resources to do so were credited to the talents of procurement she had learned from the Dodos. The change itself was credit to arts she had learned from the Dodos, but there was a measure of instinct in it as well. Not that D'aijeen would ever admit that seduction was an instinct of hers, but she was not so idealistic to think that there was such a being as one born without instincts to attempt seduction. And have at least a general idea of what it looked like. She thought she would be good at it. She was trying to seduce her sister, after all, and how hard could that be? The white leather her shoes were made out of was immaculate, and carefully polished. Her legs, completely exposed up to the hem of the short skirt, were also immaculate, though incredibly thin. D'ahl had said she had possessed a rare and slight beauty; svelteness, she had called it. The dress D'aijeen had chosen was red with powerful white lace and frills everywhere. The black accents barely registered with all the white, except for black collar, from which hung a gem in the shape of a red heart. She'd been happily pulling on the collar ever since she put it on, playing at the feeling of choking herself. The only green left on her, besides her hair and tail, was the cactuar earring swinging about beside her head. She slipped into the room she'd left K'airos in, shut the door behind her and locked it. Then she walked over to the bed where she'd left K'airos still sleeping and clambered right in, sitting directly on her sister's hips with one leg on either side of her chest. She lay her tail out along K'airos' legs and bent forward. Her only verbal warning was, "Wake up, beloved!" before kissing K'airos's face. K'airos reacted as she always did when awakening in the morning: by extending her arms upwards, stretching them, curling her hands into fists and letting out a short lamented groan that was universally understood as "Please let me sleep three more minutes" in any language. Sadly for her, this meant that when the kiss arrived her arms were about to collapse around her sister's neck. Luckily for her, the kiss was unexpected and alarming enough to make her arms fall to the sides immediately. "What...!" she mumbled, eyes wide. Her limbs flexed under her sister and then she was closer to the pillows, with her back over them. That single day had left K'airos unprepared for her sister's advances. In retrospect, she should have seen that coming. "What's going on? Are you... we late for something?" she wondered out loud, moving rebelious locks of red hair out of her eyes. "No!" D'aijeen kept her smile on her face, hopping forward to keep her sister beneath her. "Actually I was hoping we could just take a me-and-you day and spend it together. Right here." She lifted herself upright and smiled down at her sister. "Look, I got new clothes. I wanted to wear something special for you. Help you see me differently. Do you like it?" K'airos pushed herself further, until her back was parallel to the headboard. When she couldn't retreat anymore, she pulled the blanket closer to herself with both hands and looked at an indetermiante point in D'aijeen's shoulder. "It looks fine, but I can't fully appreciate it if you are so close! You should get out of bed and...stand there. Somewhere." was her tenous reply. D'aijeen shook her head. "No, that's not the point. It has pleasant colors and full access. See?" She pulled the skirt up her bare legs a bit for a moment then pushed herself forward to pin K'airos in place. "It's something I can wear for you, so that I can display myself to you. Because I'm all yours from now on, remember? And you can touch me whenever you want. Like right now." K'airos did not see, her eyes naturally averted from her sister. "I don't like full access." she mumbled, a knot formed on her throat and forcing the words out. "Breakfast!" she said loudly, almost yelling, her head still turned away. She quickly corrected her tone into something more diplomatic and tried to smile. "We should talk about this during...after breakfast! I can't think of these things with an empty stomach. And I'd have a terrible breath if I don't eat anything!" "Oh, I don't care about your breath." The green-haired girl who smelled of corpses lost her smile and wrapped her arms around her sister. "Being in love is an all-the-time-thing, not just when you have good breath. And you should need me more than you need food. Like I need you more than anything. K'airos, don't you love me?" Her hands clenched D'aijeen's arms. It wasn't a particularly loving gesture, nor a forceful one. Even if she was ready to push her away at any moment. She couldn't retreat any further, so she ended up meeting her eyes. For a short moment, K'airos leveled a severe frown, becoming a very serious sister. "Yes, but that doesn't mean I want to...or that you want to...or that we have to! Because I don't think that's a requisite for love between sisters." Leaning her shoulders back and her head forward, pushing out her lower lip and averting her eyes, D'aijeen muttered, "But if you love me why are you pulling away?" as though she had missed half of what her sister said. Her ears lay down on her head. "Why are you pulling away and looking away and talking like you don't want me close to you?" "Because I don't think that's something sisters should do." K'airos said slowly, overthinking over each word and then just letting them go out anyway. Her grip loosened and for a second wondered if she should add something. She chose not to, however. D'aijeen's voice dipped suddenly, grating, and her tail shivered. "You're talking to me like I'm an infant. Like I've never head all of this before." She lifted her head and turned her gaze straight at K'airos, eyes wide, lips a straight line. "You think I don't know what you're talking about? Rules and taboos are fences. They're cages. They're chains. Stop thinking and feel. You have no idea." He leaned forward again, pressing her face towards her sister's face. "You have no idea how much I feel. How deeply I feel. Sometimes I think I'm the only person in the world who feels anything at all. But I thought you must. You always loved me like I thought I wanted to be loved. I thought. I thought you did." "I think how I think because that's what I feel!" K'airos protested with a pout. But then her arms moved around her sister, hugging her. Her tone lowered after a sigh. "It's okay. You are just trying to deal with D'ahl's..." She paused, rubbing D'aijeen's back. "You'll get better! I've been always with you. I'll still be! But don't ask me to...do that. You are my sister, and I still love you! But I don't like...you know." Her words were followed by some vague gesturing behind her sister. "We can do other things!" she finished, doing her best to sound cheerful. "I loved you a long, long time before I ever met D'ahl. And I always loved you more than her." D'aijeen pulled herself close to her sister, lay her head alongside her sister's head. This was not a sisterly hug, though. She clung to K'airos body. "You know I could just command you to touch me. You know I could do that, right? But I have faith that you do love me. There are chains stopping you from loving me like you should, and it would hurt you if I forced you to break them like that." "I kno- wait...Command me?" K'airos sounded confused. The knot on her throat had moved, multiplied, and settled all over her stomach and chest. She grimaced and pushed D'aijeen away slowly. "I don't like this conversation! Let's have breakfast instead and look for Shelly. I think I lost her when we got into town." "No." D'aijeen gripped K'airo's sides with her exposed legs, grabbed the woman's shirt with her fingers. She kept her gaze locked on K'airos' eyes. "You kissed me once. You already divested yourself of so many of those chains. Remember that? Kiss me again, K'airos, the sun of my sky. Kiss me now." Her eyes dropped to the blanket. The protest that came after her sister was done speaking was loud. "No! I never asked you to do things you didn't want to do. I don't want to kiss you now, so I won't! Stop pushing!" As she spoke, she kept increasing the strenght of her push, trying to get D'aijeen off her. "Please, stop!" she begged. The harder K'airos pushed, the tighter D'aijeen gripped her sisters shirt. But she was so much weaker than her sister was, and seemed to be getting even weaker the more time passed. "Why are you doing this? I thought that you'd chosen to... I thought... Please don't be like this." She ducked her head forward and felt her fingers buckling. Her shoulders shook. "I don't want this to happen with you. Not you, too. Please." Nausea rushed over her and she bent against it, going from weak to powerless in an instant. She let go of K'airos and fell backwards off of her, red dress and white frills splashing about her. The cactuar earring clattered beside her head. "Why is this happening?" K'airos hung her legs off the side of the bed, ready to get up. She glanced worryingly at her sister, understanding quickly what was happening. The knots went nowhere, and were now joined by a distinct fear. "I'm still here! We can...I just need...! Don't summon that thing!" she said, reaching for her sister's hands, grasping them between hers. "I'm still here, with you!" D'aijeen lay still until K'airos touched her hand, and then D'aijeen gripped her sister's fingers and pulled herself up by them. With desperate speed, D'aijeen was on her feet and in front of her sister again, pushing herself against the other woman. "Please, I need you to try! I know you love me. I know you do! I could feel it when you kissed me, that you really did! So please try." K'airos didn't even have time to think how to answer to that when the door was knocked energically. There was a very short pause and then the knocks came back, fainter, but not by much. She took the opportunity and answered with a loud "Who is it?" She even turned her head towards the door. "Hello! I'm Qion'a from Gridania and I'm looking for D'aijeen Thalen." the door answered. Or, rather, the man behind it did. "We need her expertise on a magical matter. Is she around?"

D'aijeen insisted on going to Vesper Bay to find accommodations, because she still had her heart set on a day at the beach with K'airos. Though she did not say so, it was also because it was further away from Ul'dah and everything that was there, even if very slightly, and that made her feel better. D'aijeen insisted on a small room with a single bed for them to share, because of frugality. Though she did not say so, it was also because she had plans concerning K'airos in bed, either with her sister's enthusiastic cooperation or with more convincing later, while they were falling asleep. D'aijeen insisted on bathing together, because she wanted to make sure K'airos had been taking care of herself and because D'aijeen wanted help washing her back. This was also because she wanted to press her sister for further intimacy, trying to get as much skin contact as possible, eager to feel and taste the woman's body. Perhaps she was too eager. K'airos claimed that the seafood had made her ill, and so D'aijeen ceased her advances. The fish they'd eaten had been well outside of the diet that D'aijeen had designed for her sister's fragile constitution, and she was not sure K'airos had been sticking to the diet prior to that. It could be a real problem! So D'aijeen, dripping wet but clean, ears flat on green hair that stuck close to her scalp, had pulled away from her physical advances, wrapped a towel around herself, and administered a displacement test to check her sister's mass. After the bath she insisted on K'airos wearing the white clothes again, her pants, shirt and frock, plus the ribbon. She leveraged K'airos illness against her, saying she could not sleep in her armor and that she needed to sleep in something warm, and that D'aijeen's clothes were warmest. This was not true, but K'airos was adorable in the ill-fitting clothes. Now, with the bath behind them and the moon half-visible through the window, D'aijeen lay in bed watching her sister fall asleep. D'aijeen lay motionless and quiet, curled up a few yalms away from the woman. But her eyes were wide open, bright blow in her dark face, as she watched her sister's pristine features. She'd spent a lot of time watching her sister sleep over the years. She'd been this close before, memorizing her slack face, her parted lips, the slow movement of her body as she breathed, the hypnic jerks as the woman began to fall asleep. D'aijeen had even touched her sister late at night, in ways that she wouldn't approve of. But this was different. This time K'airos would approve. This time D'aijeen's chest was tense, because she would go further this time, and K'airos would awaken and move with her, touching her back. D'aijeen was already undressed under the covers, and she knew her clothes on K'airos' body would come off so smoothly, so easily, without stirring her. D'aijeen just needed to wait until K'airos was very asleep, dreaming, still, so that she could move more boldly, so that her sister would be well into her love before she even awoke. And so D'aijeen lay and watched, waiting. The tightness in her chest notwithstanding, she was calm. There was nothing to fear with K'airos. There was no fear of rejection. D'aijeen was able to relax, and let her eyes slide half-closed, her lips smile, and enjoy watching her sister. D'aijeen let herself ease forward and listen to her sister breathe. She tried to match the pace of her breath. She lay her tail over her sister's tail, and tried to breathe with her, to make their breath one. It was relaxing. Her sister was warm, but she waited to draw herself close. She silently whispered for her sister to fall asleep, more asleep, to be so deeply asleep. D'aijeen was patient. Her green ear twitched, her earring clattering softly. She was patient, and she relaxed, and she matched her breath to her sister's breath and watched her sister's lips. And she closed her eyes. D'aijeen did eventually pull close to her sister, but she was asleep when she did so. It was not an inappropriate touch, but a little sister pulling herself to her older sibling for warmth. D'aijeen pressed her forward against K'airos' shoulder and curled her legs up beneath her, wrapping her arms around her sister's arm. Their breaths were, different, both slow. D'aijeen was asleep. She was very deeply asleep. And then she snapped upright, startled awake by soemthing unseen. D'aijeen's ears both shot up from her head. her earring clattered, and she flinched away from it as though something were sneaking up behind her. Her eyes were wide, tail flicking around at double its normal width. Suddenly she was breathing quickly, but wordless. Her hands flat against the ma tress, one of them pressing down hard on k'airos' ear, she cast her gaze about one way and then the other, confused and seemingly in a panic. Whatever it was that K'airos was dreaming at the time was interrupted by the sensation of a sudden huge weight on the side of her head that, forceful, made her sink on the floor. She woke up, hurling her head and half her torso away, backwards. She yelled something with a tired voice, a complain about wanting to sleep some more. She took the time to rub her eyes with one hand before opening them enough to notice her sister's head frenetic movements. "D'aijeen, are you awake?" she asked, though her voice was coarse. She still felt tired, but her eyes were properly open. Her arms pushed her up until she was sitting, crossing her legs over each other. She poked her sister with an open palm. "Are you awake?" she asked again. D'aijeen's blue eyes snapped to her sister, going wide. Her ears popped up, then slammed down, expression stiff. She flinched when her sister spoke, and when K'airos touched her she pulled away, kicking herself off the bed and crying out in alarm. When she hit the ground, she tried very clumsily to get to her feet, but she couldn't manage it. Her curled fists and clumsy steps could only manage to drag her a few fulms away while, as she huffed and whined and a wordless panic. Her shaking gaze kept flicking to K'airos and then away from her, as though she couldn't bare to look. Upon her sister's panic, K'airos threw a glance behind her. And up, and down. Everywhere. She wondered if the monstrosity she had seen before in D'aijeen's shadow was the cause of her fear. But that wasn't it, thankfully. She quickly crawled over the edge of the bed and then out of it, saying "Wake up! It's me! You are having a nightmare!" She crouched over her, unsure on what to do besides taking a firm hold of her arms, pinning her down so she couldn't run out of the room into town without any clothes on. That was another cause of alarm for K'airos, but she let it slid off her mind. Groaning and huffing in panic, D'aijeen struggled to try and get away from her sister. But her movements were clumsy and weak, legs kicking uselessly behind her, arms pressing against her sister as though she'd never used them before. It was evident that she was trying to get away from K'airos, but her gaze also snapped to the room around her, searching the walls and ceilings. Her gaze eventually settled on the window, and on the moon hanging there, and there they stayed. The longer her struggles remained useless, the less she fought, though her unwillingness to look at her sister remained. Finally, she lay still, staring at the window, ears flat on her head and face twisted in displeasure. Seeing her calming down, K'airos slowly let her sister free. She stood up, walking backwards over the bed, ready to jump at D'aijeen in case she suddenly found strenght to run. With one energic move, K'airos removed the bedsheet and hurried to cover her with it. She didn't hold her or said anything this time. Instead, she chose to stay away from her field of view. But she remained close, sitting on the floor with her head resting on both hands. Waiting. D'aijeen didn't react to the blanket violently. It was still warm from when she and K'airos had been cuddling, and all she did was clumsily toss an arm over her head to keep it out of her face. In a slow process, ignoring K'airos and her surroundings, D'aijeen moved her clumsy limbs into a sitting position. It was a strange, crooked pose, with both her legs stretched out to one side and one knee folded, supporting herself with her hands, but it was stable enough. She sat like this and looked at the window in silence. After a time, she began to cry, even though she didn't show any sign of noticing this herself. K'airos couldn't remain sitting for long. She watched D'aijeen's back for a while. Then she stopped watching her to look at the moon that enthralled her so much. Another moment and she was on her feet, walking in a straight line to one side, then the other, always behind her sister. Her mind was busy worrying all over the situation. There had always been problems with D'aijeen sleepwalking and dreaming with the eyes open, but she couldn't remember when had been the last time that her young sibling had shown such terror. At worst it had been inconvenient situations. Normal, in a way. But this one had nothing of that. She stopped, head turning to D'aijeen again. Her eyes slipped down to look at her shadow. Then she started walking again, this time with her arms crossed. She waited again. It might've seemed like a long time to K'airos. D'aijeen continued to cry without feeling it or responding to it, her tears running down her cheeks and dripping from her chin, dappling the blanket beneath her. She sat in silence, looking out the window for maybe twenty minutes before she very solemnly and silently stood. She ignored the blanket, her tail limp, her ears relaxed, expression impassive. She seemed to be out of tears. With small, simple steps, she walked back to the bed and lay herself down in it. She rolled so that her back was to K'airos and curled herself up into a ball, knees to her chest, tail laying over her ankles. Asleep again. When her sister finally stood up, K'airos' ears stood straight up, her tail and legs remained still and her breathing stopped until D'aijeen was on the bed. She didn't know what to make of the scene. She took the blanket and covered her. She remained awake for some time, walking in silent, small circles in the middle of the room. She had to think about how to deal with her sister's emotions. How to keep her happy so that no voidsent would come out of her shadows. She fiddled with her fingers, then her hair. She thought for a while. Then her mother came back to memory. She turned around and made another circle in the opposite direction. No, she would not see her. Or speak with her. But she had to tell her something. Dissapearing and ignoring her without explanation, though she wasn't sure if she could do such a thing, was cruel. Too cruel. D'aijeen could be like that to their own mother, but K'airos couldn't. She had to tell her. Hurrying, K'airos tidied her clothes very briefly. Since she was wearing D'aijeen's clothes already, she looked aroudn the room and eventually remembered where she had left the hat. With it adorning her head, she headed to the door and opened it as quietly as she could. She had to write and send a letter. She hoped D'aijeen wouldn't wake before she returned.

There were no further discussions about diets while Shelly kept watch as the sisters got to their proper attires. However, K'airos tried to kept herself and D'aijeen distracted by narrating how awful the food in the Cove was, how evil the buzzards were since they constantly tryed to poke Shelly out of her shell, how the air smell too much of salt. By the time they had changed, K'airos had also spoken at lenght about boats. Even though it was clear she didn't know how they worked or why. Her dream boat was some sort of floating wooden cottage, imagined from what she had heard about Gridanian houses, dragged by many pet smallshells that'd crawl their way across the bottom of the sea. After all, boats were made of wood, and wood floated. So anything made of wood should float. And so her cottage would surely float. She wondered why there weren't any actual floating cottages in the Cove, but she didn't allow that to better her that much. With the awkwardness of the dress up out of the way, K'airos lead D'aijeen closer to the fishing village. She was now dressed in her usual red and rust Brass Blade uniform, though her hair was still dyed green, and her lips were painted green. D'aijeen's bloodied clothes had been thrown into the bad, which, naturally, was now much lighter. She stopped next to one of the large net racks that littered the village and silently 'borrowed' four fishes from a nearby barrel recently filled with them. "I'm not fishing." she offered as an explanation to D'aijeen, though she didn't look at her. "Fishing is silly and boring. I could catch them faster by swimming and using my own hands!" A moment later, she had procured everything she needed to make a small campfire. That is to mean, she found the remains of someone else's and claimed it by right of sitting next to it. "Now we just need fire and we can eat." There was a disappointing lack of nibbling while changing clothes, even as D'aijeen did disrobe her sister and had not passed on any opportunity to make contact. K'airos just prattled on about boats and smallshells, which was adorable but not particularly intimate. It was like K'airos had no sense of romance at all. But that was finel K'airos would have to sleep at some point, after all. Still, they were here on the beach as evening approached, ready to cook and spend the evening together. That counted for a lot, and D'aijeen had absolutely no complaints she channel aether into her scepter to light fire to the remnants that K'airos had claimed. "All we need is each other, Airos. We can light our own fire whenever we want." She sat down next to the fire, letting her sister take care of the fish. Cooking shouldn't be a problem for her; back int he Sagolii, K'airos had learned the skills of survival that the tribe taught. D'aijeen's skillset had always been a little different, though she was sure if she really needed to cook a fish she could figure it out. "I'm looking forward to the next few days," D'aijeen looked her sister over again, still amused by the greenness of her hair and lips. "But what about after that? Are we going home to Drybone?" "I guess. Would you like that?" K'airos asked. She had impaled the fish on sticks and was taking turns twisting them over the fire, then letting them roast in place. Her eyes raised from their future meal to set on her sister. "I still have duties there, but I could find work someplace else. Of course..." she said, tilting her head and combing her head with her hands, as she hadn't brought a comb. "That would set us back on the savings. Though..." she trailed off again. There was hesitation, a short breath and then the words."And I heard that our tribe was moving closer to it. So I don't know if you'd be comfortable with that. Maybe we could set ourselves near Ul'dah? Or maybe even around the Bay! Or in Horizon. There's less Amalj'aa, too, so I'd just have to deal with even more brainless beasts." She tilted the head the other way and combed that side. "Do you really want that?" D'aijeen's brow dropped, her voice fell. She leaned forward under the weight of the subject she'd accidentally broached. Had it been an accident? D'aijeen knew how much K'airos missed her family; she knew it now better than ever. "You would move away from the tribe, avoid them, just for my own comfort?" She frowned. "Or would you just house me in Horizon and then go to Drybone on work constantly, keeping me away from them and going to them alone?" There were a few rebelious locks of hair on K'airos head, and she continued to comb them into submission. "I'd like to see them once per year, at least." she said plainly, as if she was preparing to bargain. "Though I don't know if they'd consider me an exile by now. And...I'd...I'd like to see mom once a moon, too." she added. The rebel locks at last surrendered to her merciless combing. She straightened her posture and smiled. "But I will stay with you all the other days, and we'll continue our plans together!" Still smiling, her fingers started tapping against each other, hands raised over her chest. "We'll buy a house and live together there. And we'll have Shelly as a pet! And she'll keep watch for us. Maybe we could set up a shop! You could then stay with me while I work! We'd sell Shelly miniatures! Or...something. I don't know what's good to sell...and I don't know how to manage a shop." She poked her chin with one finger, pondering about something related to the economy of a Shelly based economy. She then lowered her finger, and continued to tap her hands together. "But...how does that sound to you?" She looked at her sister, expecting her answer. D'aijeen turned her face away, cactuar earring swinging against her temple as he ears dropped to either side. She watched the ocean, and that ridiculous smallshell that K'aiors had somehow obtained. "It's better to keep mom a long way away. I can't stand to look at her." Her whole face folded into her frown suddenly, an ugly expression. Her tail shivered. "Se doesn't love me. I went to her and tried everything, and things only became worse. If you go to her, if you go to them, then they'll only try to keep you. They'll try to take you away from me." And they would succeed, if permitted, for K'airos was more likely to believe their mother than even D'aijeen herself. "I want you to stay with me," she glared at the sand, nodded her head. "I don't want you to see her or the tribe or anyone else." "I see." K'airos sighed, closed her eyes and kept very still and quiet to think what she was going to say. She didn't believe that their mother didn't love D'aijeen, but then her sister had a strange sense of love. "I won't see the tribe." she finally said. Another sigh left her mouth afterwards. "But I still want to see mom. She never tried to keep me with her, or to make me leave you. If she tries to...uhm...separate us then I'll..." Her voice was calm until that moment. It shivered. Her tail moved from one side to the other in one quick swoop. She tapped her fingers again. "I'll stop seeing her. But we'll give her a chance. I want to give her a chance." "I've already given her a chance!" D'aijeen surged up to her feet and spun on her sister. Some ambient aether remaining in her fingers sprang unfocused from her hands and crackled in the air between them, swirling as though on invisible lines between them. "Too many! Too many! Every time she touches us -- every time she comes near me -- things get worse! Things get worse!" She dropped down to her knees again, shivering, her voice getting quieter as her voice strained again. "I couldn't stand things getting worse again. No, no, no. I don't want it!" "It won't get worse! I miss her and I want to see her!" K'airos protested, dropping her hands down to her knees to help herself stand up. Her tail swope to the other side again as she did this. "It won't get worse. I'll only see her every once in a long while! And I can speak with her! She'll listen to me. What does she have to do for you to be okay with this?" She barely managed to stop herself from kicking the sand under her feet with frustration. Instead, the aborted action came out as an emphatic stomp. Tail flicking back and forth behind her at a maddened rate, D'aijeen gripped her shoulders and pulled them inward, making her appear even more impossibly thin. She hissed with almost inaudible disdain, "She can't do anything. She doesn't want to. She doesn't want to! I'm not... discussing this." She didn't trust K'airos. If she were permitted to return to her mother, then she would leave. It was the only thing left that could be taken from her, and every time her mother got involved she lost something. She recoiled away from the fire, on her feet and backpedaling away. "I said no. I said no, I said no. I said..." D'aijeen shook her head, and spun, the world around her blurring into an incoherent plain and identical horizons. Her eyes shook. Her arms felt numb. She stepped in something cold and heavy, something that clung to her and writhed in her shadow, but she didn't look at it. "I'm going to go swimming. I'm going to go for a swim." D'aijeen spun and ran, but not towards the sea. She ran inland. She didn't even notice. With her ears dropping and her tail curving down between her legs, K'airos watched her sister run away. It took her a brief moment before she herself noticed that the direction was wrong. Her memories stirred, and something in her head reminded her of one time when D'aijeen had left to think, to be alone, and then was never seen again, back when they were both part of a tribe. She panicked. "Wait!" she shouted, jumping forward to chase D'aijeen, leaving behind their dinner. "Come back! I won't...I won't see mom anymore, alright? I'm sorry! I won't see her! I promise! We'll even go far away from her! And the sea is this way, too! Come back!" D'aijeen hadn't bathed yet, so she could still feel blood on her skin. She thought she must smell like D'ahl and the voidsent that had killed her. She imagined the Skulls of the Scavengers stalking her in the shadows, waiting for her to get angry again, waiting for her to get upset and lose control and stomp and growl. And at the slightest show of aggression on her part, it would rip out of the shadows and destroy whatever she was angry at before she could take it back. And then no amount of begging would make it stop. Just like what it had done with D'ahl. Her thin legs weakening, D'aijeen stumbled. Something seemed to catch on her feet, like she was stumbling over stones, but she had no clear sense of it. Green dots appeared in front of her eyes as nausea turned her stomach, as iron shot into her veins. Her tail bristled out behind her, her eyes widened, and she spun to face her sister without stopped. She fell backwards, landing prone, feeling like she'd slammed down on something hard but the pain was distant. Something beneath her, cold and oil, pushed her upright. She felt it on her skin, not her clothes, and it almost seemed to push outward from inside her body. The shadows clung to her like ichor, staining her flesh and leaving her clothes immaculate. Darkness poured from her back as she faced the sun, pulled beneath her, writhing. There were faces and pale, muted lights meters beneath the ground she stood upon, somehow visible as if the ground was transparent. D'aijeen had no concept of these things, more for the purple flecks in the whites of her eyes, the subtle glow deep in her pupils. Faster than she'd ran away, the thin, tiny woman who smelled like death ran back to her sister and threw herself upon Airos, clinging to her. "I'm scared." She admitted to this like a crime. "I don't want you to die. I love you. I don't want you to. I love you." K'airos had paused in her run. At first she had just frowned in confusion as to how her sister had fallen and raised so strangely, but then she jumped in place, bringing both hands to cover her mouth as the increasingly terrifying sight before her unfolded. She did not have time to think of any of this before she found herself hugging D'aijeen with all her strenght. Her eyes stared into the abyss below them, and then they were closed shut by her own fear. She pulled her sister as close as she could. More memories were shaken. Her sister had created a monster once, many years ago. A creature made of shadows and bones, covered in dark. A beast that D'aijeen couldn't control back then, that had tried to hurt those on the way of its scape into the desert. The fear of what her sister had awoken back then kindled again, pulling her away from those times towards the present. To just what seemed like a moment ago, when she had seen her sister on the docks, broken and crying. To her words about D'hal's death. To how she had calmed herself. And then she was pushed closer until they were no memories any longer. K'airos opened her eyes, moving them from the abyss to her sister, one hand moved to her chin and pushing up so that they were facing each other. "We'll solve this." K'airos said almost whispering, a collection of tears preparing to burst out of her eyes. She took a breath. Her eyes closed. "I love you too." Her tears came out, and then her lips laid against D'aijeen's. Her ears and tail falling still, D'aijeen melted into her sister. Her thin muscles loosened, her body going weak. She leaned into K'airos and clung to ehr with her hands, closed her eyes and barely even remembered to kiss the woman back. The weight of her body seemed to flee from her, all cold replaced with warmth, all of the shadows beneath them flattening and going still. D'aijeen's senses were full of K'airos, touch and smell and taste. She could feel her sisters teardrops on her face, but they might as well have been her own, for as much as she wanted to cry as well. The fast recoil from terror to this, whatever this feeling was, this strange shock of elation and realization, left her dazed like a blow to the head. Something twisted elsewhere, some emotion and sensation far removed from her. It was as if she had some foreign stomach miles away that was suddenly struck with incredible illness, something that poured out into another person's body. Not her own, but sensed, known. And dismissed. It was so far away, and she didn't want it. This was perfect. This was what she wanted. K'airos had pledged herself to her and then, unbidden, shown exactly the affection she had wanted. What she needed. D'aijeen was being pulled by her sister across the threshold of a home she'd never been to before, but she wanted to live there forever. It was fragrant and peaceful, comfortable beyond reason. She would live in this home, this sensation and moment, for as long as she could cling to it. There was a knot in K'airos' stomach. And in her chest, and throat. Their kiss lasted too long. She would have cut it short just one moment after it was given, but her head was unwilling to move, fearful. She mantained the kiss as she waited to stop being scared. The fear dwindled, but didn't leave. She tried to think, to distract herself, but couldn't. Then she concentrated on what she was doing. The knots inside her tightened and pulled as she felt her sister's warmth and smell closer than it had ever been. She kept crying, her ears dropping as low as they could. At least it was not fear. She opened her eyes, and she saw that the frightening sight that had manifested around Aijeen had vanished. She pulled herself away, but kept close, one arm still wrapped around her sister, and the other hand still placed on her chin. She had trouble breathing, but knew she should say something. "I love you." she repeated with a thin smile. The words came out of her mouth weakly, the knot on her stomach pulling her senses again. They weren't words she wouldn't have said, but they came with a different taste in this occassion. K'airos didn't like them, but she had to say them, she thought. Endure them, like one endures bitter medicine. Her head pulled back, closing her eyes, facing the sky. "We'll be happy again, okay? Let's go have dinner and then we can...remake our plans the way you want them to be. Okay?" "Yes, it's okay." She said this with all the zealousness of a drowning woman reaching for a lifeline. Holding herself desperately against her sister, she nodded emphatically, feeling herself continuing to cry, but smiling wide. They could go anywhere, together, just like she wanted. D'aijeen could finally leave everything behind and take K'airos with her, and it was completely by choice. Her sister knew everything, saw all of it just as it was, and completely of her own will choose D'aijeen. "It's okay. It's okay. I'll be happy for you." She turned her face up to her sister and smiled, showing K'airos the expression. "I'm happy. Airos, brilliant Airos, center of my sky. I can be happy for you as long as you shine for me."

((The following occurs a short time before and during this post in Bring the Daughters Home.)) *** D'aijeen arrived on the ship from the Silver Bazaar in the late afternoon. The cool wind from the sea stirred up the heat of the desert and they spun around one another, pulling on her robes and the bangs hanging out from under her green hood. Her face was downcast; she didn't even look up as the boat moored itself to the small pier and the ferryman disembarked. The burly Hyur who stank of salt and old fish lingered near the boat, beckoning for D'aijeen to step out and telling her over and over that they had arrived. She heard him, but she couldn't move, sitting with her face down, staring at the blood that still stained her clothes beneath her green traveling robe. Her clothes, which had always been so immaculately white, stained now with the blood of her... What would she even call D'ahl, now that she was dead? A passing acquaintance? She had loved D'ahl, but had not thought of her as... and in the end... the hound... The Hyur man stomped on the edge of the boat, making it sway to get her attention. "I am aware that we have arrived!" D'aijeen leapt up. She didn't feel the motion, but she was on the pier in a moment, dizzy but standing steadily. Her stance was wide, the muscles in her body so tight that she might have been stone encased in skin. Her tail stuck out straight behind her, her ears squeezing her skull, the muscles on her face palpably contorted into hideous shapes. She listened to herself shouting, "Such a barbaric, empty-headed animal to not give a woman a moment's peace! Where are you in such a hurry to? What grave or miserable pit must you so urgently drag your massive, hideous carcass to that you would protest to me! Your voice is like the belch of a corpse cut open, but I pity the insects in whatever pit you go to, for your stench exceeds the breath of Thal himself!" "Shit, lady," the man stepped back and raised his hands. "You're the one who smells like Thal's breath. Calm down." "Begone!" Something ripped out of the shadows between D'aijeen's robe and her body, falling through the planks on the pier and sliding outward. The wood beneath the Hyur man broke upward, throwing him out over the water. He landed half-on his own boat and then slid into the water with a confused wail. In the shadows beneath the pier, a man-faced, ink-black Voidsent retreated like a snake returning to its hole. D'aijeen took a step back from it just before the thing melted and rose back towards her, slipping beneath her robe once more. "Stop! I don't want you!" She shouted, shifted, spun and stumbled to try and get away from it, but she could feel the chill of the Baalzephon pressing against her skin. "You killed her! It was you, not me!" She ripped the robe from her body and threw it towards the water. the Voidsent remained inside of it, resigned to the shadows. But as D'aijeen crossed her blood-stained arms over her chest and ran down the pier towards the town, sobbing quietly, others moved in the small shadow beneath her feet, chasing her. The cactuar earring bounced beside her tussled hair, its face dappled with dried red droplets. *** Crescent Cove's coastline was littered with fishing nets hanging over the beach, hurriedly placed over wooden frames, with both men and women going from one to the other to capture the catch of the day and clean them from all the other messy junk the sea threw at them. The town itself was nothing but a handful of wooden shacks and houses, with no tavern or inn. Travelers had to rely on the good will, and greed, of the locals. K'airos had been such a traveler for some time. She was ways off to a side of the village, perched on a rock overlooking the nearby beach, deep in thought. Close to her was another, smaller rock with two long protrusions on the front, two really wide ones next to them and about half a dozen smaller ones to each side, clawing their way into the sand. Nearby, there was a large brown sack, and a scimitar resting against the sand, at arm's reach. Besides moving rocks, there was something else odd about K'airos. The miqo'te woman was lying on her stone viewpoint with the head hanging from the edge, staring at the limbed rock a few falms away. She was dressed in strangely white clothes that didn't fit her shape: they were too tight on the sides, and the front. And everywhere, if she payed attention. A white bilaud with a carefully tied pink bow, a white hat adorned with a silver ornament on the front. At least the hat fit comfortably over her head. Her looks were broken by the sudden black boots covering her feet. But there was something else. K'airos' red hair was now a pale green, and so were her lips. From the pier, the woman looked like a bright white smudge against a brown cliff. "I should teach you tricks!" she said cheerfully to the living rock. It did not answer, but she felt the need to continue. "Maybe you could open the door for us. Or peel potatoes! Your pincers are good for that, right?" The rock raised its antennae slightly and, for a brief moment, it looked like it looked at its own limbs in confusion. "Great! I'm glad you agree with the idea!" the girl said, clapping her hands together and rolling off her rock. With this action, she noticed another mostly white figure with green hair and a tail arriving on the piers and moving quickly across them. She smiled, took a deep breath and brought both hands towards her mouth. "Aijeen! Over here!" The voice pierced through all the panic and screaming thoughts inside of D'aijeen's head, and she stopped in her tracks, leaning forward and bending at her knees. She coughed and brushed tears at her face. The sleeves of her robe were almost more red than white, all with blood from the night before. For a moment, she was almost afraid to look up at K'airos, unwilling to face the sister that she so adored, and that had chosen someone else over her. Everything D'aijeen had tried to make that right had failed. They had collapsed dramatically that somehow, something inside of her had twisted until she had summoned a beast to... No. no, that hadn't been her! She hadn't willed that! She'd been desperate to stop it! Part of her blamed K'airos' betrayal for what had happened to D'ahl. If K'airos hadn't lied to her, D'aijeen would not have tried to renew the love between herself and her mother. If she hadn't done that, D'ahl would not have felt betrayed and would not have tried to hurt the woman. Then D'aijeen would not have been so angry. She would not have chased D'ahl down in the night. She would not have... D'aijeen pulled on her ears violently. Her mind was suddenly full of images from the night before, of the silent fountain, of D'ahl crying alone in the dark, of the monster stepping from the shadows summoned by D'aijeen's fury. D'ahl hanging from its teeth. Her body dashed against the stone again and again, ripped into, split nearly in two. Blood flying everywhere. The dead look in D'ahl's eyes. Screaming. Voidsent stirring beneath her feet, D'aijeen lifted her eyes to look at K'airos. And D'aijeen broke. She collapsed to her knees at first in sobs, but only for an instant, and then threw herself forward in desperation. K'airos stood in the sunlight, in the beach she'd been so happy about visiting together. The woman's red hair had turned green, her lips painted green, her Brass Blades uniform traded out for a too-tight white ensemble obviously stolen from D'aijeen's own wardrobe. The girl had disguised herself as D'aijeen. It was ridiculous. It was annoying. It was adorable. It was K'airos, and everything she loved about her. D'aijeen cried out wordlessly as she ran, embarrassed by the base disregard of the gesture but unable to contain it. She was still crying, felt herself shivering and numb all the way to the tip of her tail, but she didn't care. She ran to her sister, threw herself bodily at the woman and clutched at her, and just cried. K'airos smile broke down into a thin line when her eyes noticed that the red on her sister's clothes was actually blood, and then her expression broke again into mild despair. "What happened? Are you hurt?" she asked, eyes wide open. She glanced at her without letting go, and she quickly concluded that there were no wounds to worry about. Only a gross red color covering her attire. She knelt down, letting Daijeen rest her head against her shoulder. "What happened?" she asked again, her voice lowering. Behind them, the limbed rock moved closer to them and stared at the shadows below them. "I don't know." D'aijeen collapsed against her sister, pulled herself as close as she could get, and then closer still. If it weren't for her weak body,s he might've crushed her sister from her desperation to pull herself into the woman's lap. "I don't know. I don't know. I don't know I don't know I don't I don't I didn't do it! It wasn't me!" She couldn't stop herself from crying or talking, blubbering senseless words at her sister. D'aijeen choked, tried to hold her breath, tried anything to stop herself from crying and reclaim her mind, but nothing changed. She felt like she was bleeding out her sorry, coughing it up like blood. It was not that the warmth and closeness of her sister was not reassuring; it was strengthening beyond compare. But it merely promised that she would recover. It could not stop the sadness before it was exhausted. "D'ahl is dead!" she finally managed. "She died! I couldn't stop it. I wanted to stop it. I didn't want it to happen! I didn't want it to!" She pulled at the bow on her sister's chest. "K'airos, say it's not my fault. I didn't do it! I wouldn't do something like that! Tell me I didn't do it!" "Of course you didn't!" K'airos' answer was quick, a reaction from her instincts. She had no idea what had transpired. Her sister was stained with blood, but she dared not to imagine anything. It didn't matter right now. She felt that her duty as a sister was to soothe D'aijeen first and ask later. Or perhaps never ask about it. She rubbed her shoulder reassuringly. "It's not your fault. Do not blame yourself." she said, and repeated those words two more times, moving her body back and forth, cradling her in her arms. "Just cry until you feel better, alright? Crying will do you good. Don't hold it!" She did cry. She wouldn't have been able to stop herself, but with K'airos' permission, she stopped trying not to cry. She tried to cry all the more. D'aijeen cried for her sister, shaking in the woman's hands. As she cried, she tried to say, "I wanted to fix everything. I wanted everything to be better for us. I went to mom and talked to her, but D'ahl got jealous. And then D'ahl and mom fought, and D'hein got angry, and that Lalafel attacked D'ahl! Everything just fell apart. I tried to fix everything but it just fell apart! It's not my fault. I tried. I tied. Everyone was so terrible and I couldn't do anything." She wailed, "I wanted to make everything perfect for you but I couldn't! I'm sorry." D'aijeen hadn't expected herself to apologize, had almost forgotten that it was for K'airos that she'd been doing everything. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry." K'airos had trouble understanding the words mixed with the crying. She catched glimpes of it, and made a mental picture with what she got: There was D'hal, a lalafell and a fight. That tiny creature must have been her murderer. But there was also her mother. It could not be the woman called Antimony, for she wasn't her mother, and D'aijeen had just said "mom". Not a pretender or a fraud. Not Antimony. Just "mom". She almost smiled at that. Yet she did not. While she was forming these images in her head, she immediately threw them all away, one by one. There was nothing to think about. Nothing mattered more than her crying sister. "That's alright. You did nothing wrong!" the words came out quickly, pushed by her sisterly instincts. "It wasn't your fault." she told her once more. And then again: "You don't have to apologize. It's not your fault!" The words helped. K'airos was the only person in the world whose words meant anything anymore. D'aijeen closed her eyes and held close to her sister, feeling the movement of her chest as she breathed, smelling that unmistakable scent that had been with her for all the best parts of her life. Truly, if there was anywhere in this world that love existed, then it was where K'airos was. If any person who was truly capable of it, then it was only K'airos. And herself. For what else could this be? It was exactly what her mother did not feel for her. "Airos." D'aijeen lay her head against her sister's chest, lay her hands flat against her body. "Why are you dressed as me?" She failed to see the change of subject coming, and so her words strumbled into each other awkwardly, forming a meaningless sound. She tilted her head, looking into the sea. "Well, you told me nobody but you should find me." she started after a short cough. "So...I thought...after a while...that if I was here as a Brass Blade somebody could recognize me. Then I dressed up as you, because if anybody was looking for me, they wouldn't be looking for you! And you wouldn't confuse me with you, because you are you and you know that I am not you! So you could recognize that you were really me! Except I wasn't...you, so you couldn't really confuse me with yourself! But others could...you know, confuse me with you and then they wouldn't find me." K'airos felt satisfied with her logic once she was done explaining. She turned her head again to look at the odd living and limbed rock behind them. It clicked its pincers together. She thought that it must have been applauding at her cleverness. "That's very clever," D'aijeen said, playing with the bow on her sisters chest. She sniffled, the crying having slowed by the tears still flowing down her cheeks. She pressed herself firmly against her sister, closing her eyes again. "Airos, I command you to forget every comman I've given you. Think whatever you want about anything." It took a very long moment for her emotions and thoughts to catch up to each other. Her mother, K'piru, and the imposter called Antimony were the same. She always knew that, but just now her mind could actually accept it in the same way she had accepted it as a fact, back in Drybone. Her tribe was alive and well. D'aijeen had lied to her about her own't family's death, and of her tribe. K'airos remained there, kneeling by her sister, cradling her between her arms. After what must have been a full minute, she tilted her head and looked down, smiling. "I think...!" she cheered "...that we should get you cleaned up. and changed! And then we can eat something. But not here. All the food gives me a tummyache. So we should go to the Bazaar, or to Vesper Bay. Spend a couple of days there by the beach! We could even go swimming! Or rent a boat! Shelly will be our first mate!" She finished by looking and pointing with one hand to the living rock. It was still clicking its pincers together. K'airos smiled broadly, identifying it as another proof of smallshell aproval. "See? He agrees! It's a good idea!" Wishing she could cry again, D'aijeen just curled up tighter against her sister, eyes pinching shut. "You still want to," she breathed, her tone embarrassingly high, cracking. Knowing everything, having a clear image of it, completely in control of her every thought and action, she still chose D'aijeen. It was real, her real sister, really loving her. "Airos." D'aijeen lifted herself away from her sister for just a moment, grabbed her head in both hands and turned the woman's face to look at her. And then she lay her body against K'airos' body, and her lips against K'airos' lips, still crying, but happy. That was the second thing K'airos had not seen coming that day. Her instincts kicked off again almost immediately by demanding a sudden and forceful action. But how could she? Her sister had witnessed someone's death, and she had come to her, broken, covered in blood and tears, looking for reassurance and soothing. Pushing her away could destroy that. She had to react firmly, and yet she couldn't. She placed her hands on D'aijeen's shoulders and gently pushed her away, creating space between them. Her eyes were anchored at D'aijeen's shoulders. She frowned and opened the mouth twice, and twice she failed to say anything. Then she tried a third time, and something did come out of her. "Is that a...a thing of the Dodo Tribe?" she asked, trying to find excuses for her sister's behaviour, even though she had no idea of what any of that tribe's custom were actually like. "That's not something that sisters do. We should talk about that..." she said, and then quickly added in a forced new cheerful tone that was almost the same as the real one: "But first we should get you a new set of clothes! And introduce you to Shelly!" She stood up, and tried to make D'aijeen stand up with her. She didn't wait for her to answer or say anything, interrupting any possible reply with more words that were increasingly upbeat. "Maybe we could learn to sail! That'd be a nice change from Thanalan. Oh, and go shopping! Vesper Bay must have some Lominsan wares before and cheaper than in the city! And I hear they have a pretty statue of a lalafell lord. Some...Lolorito guy? I don't know who he is, but he has his own statue!" Letting herself be stood up by Airos, she smiled, the look in her eyes as she considered her sister one of pure adoration. "Yes, it is a Dodo thing. And a you-and-I thing." She continued to play with the bow on her sister's chest. "I would love to go everywhere with you, Airos, my shining sun, my new Azeyma. But first, yes, a change of clothes. I have brought none, so I'll have to find a private place and undress you." In her shadow, unseen things still stirred, though they did so sluggishly. The sank and lost cohesion, flattening out until they were indistinguishable from her normal shadow. "Take me wherever you want to go, Airos," the small, frail woman breathed. "You are the light of day, the brightest thing in the world, and I want to be the shadow that you cast, as close as skin." "Alright, let's change." K'airos nodded. Raising one arm away from town towards the coast, she said: "I've not seen many people on that side, so we could change somewhere there." She walked back to the rock she had been using to stare at Shelly, the smallshell and living rock, before D'aijeen arrived and picked up the bag that was lying next to it. The sound of metal pieces clashing against each other could be heard when she lifted it over her shoulder. She let out a sigh of relief. D'aijeen had at least come back to her usual inscrutable self. "I'll change first, since you need the clothes I'm using. Then I'll keep watch!" She made a little hop, turning around to face her sister. "Then we'll eat! And while we eat, we'll discuss about your new diet! Because I think that you are too thin." she said, pulling from her clothes to emphasize how tight and uncomfortable they were on her. "Let the smallshell keep watch," D'aijeen said, her expression unchanged, her eyes taking in the tightness of the clothes on her sister. "Nobody will bother us, and you'll need my help to get out of those clothes without damaging them. As for my diet," She followed after K'airos, her tail swinging behind her as she did. The young woman, thin and dark, stained with blood and smelling vaguely of corpses, leaned forward and said in a quiet tone, "Maybe I'll just take a few bites of you while you're changing." She shook her head. "What? No!" she started. But then she let her shoulders drop, turning around and walking towards what she thought was a big enough cluster of boulders near the cliff. "I guess that If I break your clothes you won't have anything to put on." she said, defeated. A few more steps and she spoke again "You also need some actually filling food! And my diet doesn't include myself for dinner. You need actual filling food! Shelly!" The smallshell stopped clapping her limbs around between each other at the shout. It wasn't actually responding to it's name, but K'airos concluded that was the only logical explanation. With a stern but amused frown she commanded the walking rock: "Keep guard! If anyone comes by, pinch them with your...pinchers! Or just look cute and distracted them." The little creature moved one antennae up and down. K'airos interpreted this as a salute, and so she turned happily to continue their march. But Shelly did not move from its spot, instead choosing to keep clapping its pincers. Following her sister in silence, D'aijeen mostly watched the woman's tail. The way she kept talking to the smallshell just made D'aijeen smile wider and wider, energized her tired body more and more, chasing her despair and grief farther away. Surely if D'aijeen loved someone as much as she loved K'airos, she could not be the kind of person who would kill D'ahl. "I think my diet should include little nibbles of you," D'aijeen said wryly, following her sister very closely. "Not with dinner. After. Maybe right before bed. And you can have a few nibbles of me. Yes! I'm adding that to your diet. A few tastes of Aijeen right before bed."

A tall red figure stepped out from the town's cave-like front entrance. Not stopping to take in the dark scenery, Cypress strode in, pace the same as it had always been. Hurry did not exist for her. Althyk ensured that she would arrive exactly when she meant to. The bright big blue maw that held Ulanan and Antimony opened. It started to shrink, most of its mass becoming a tongue that emerged from below them and rolled them out with strange precision, barely disturbing them. It deposited them on the ground in front of it. When it was done, it was smaller than its original size and was missing an eye. It floated around them in circles. The stream of aether Ulanan was casting waned for a moment before regaining its strength. "I need help! Over here!" she shouted out. Antimony didn't notice the strange tongue deposit them. She didn't notice anything. Ulanan's rudimentary healing magic kept neurons firing, but the skin around her lips and extremities had grown a cyanotic blue. Cypress took in the frozen baalzephons and the body that lay on the ground at the foot of an elezen. So she walked to the voice that cried out for help. She would take care of the voidsent in a moment. It would seem that she was meant to help this woman if she could. Stumbling his way to the fountain in the middle of town, somehow failing to sense anything else around him, D'hein paused. He leaned heavily on the edge of the fountain, and then he sat down on it, with his hands joined in his lap, leaning forward and staring at the ground. Approaching the woman that had named her a monster, Cypress kneeled down next to her and the tiny woman. "What is the matter with her?" Even as she asked that though, she laid a large hand on the woman's chest, feeling for the spark of a soul buried deep within. "I don't know. She was enveloped in some kind of blanket spell!" Ulanan explained rather fast. The stream of magic ceased completely, making her close the book and prepare another incantation. In the moments after Ulanan's first spell broke, Antimony faded fast. When Cypress sought out that soul, she would find only tenuous, wispy connections, teetering on the edge of falling away completely. The roegadyn nodded, not actually listening even though she'd asked the question. It was enough, what she felt inside the woman. She hadn't crossed to the void yet. Cypress breathed inward, pulling on her aether as she leaned forward. With her free hand, she pried the woman's jaw open, dipping her head downward to cover open lips with her own. Expelling her own wind-ridden aether into the woman's body through her breath. Breath filled smothered lungs just as aether rushed into her body, spreading along oxygen-starved vessels and racing across flickering nerves. The breath brought a living energy to Antimony's body that had been so easily wrung from it, and her body drank it in with a metaphysical desperation. Her chest rose with the breath and then fell. Illira finally looked up from the body, having stood in a strange sort of vigil over it for a few minutes. She saw people hovering over Antimony. D'hein was off on his own though, wallowing at the town fountain, entranced by the ground next to it. She sighed, stepping over D'aijeen and walking towards the girl's adoptive father. Coming in front of him, she turned her head downward to see him better. The bloody wire still hung from where it was wrapped around her right hand. "Its done." Ulanan stopped her incantation, though it remained over the book in the shape of a glowing orb. She let the Roegadyn do her healing. D'hein Tia lifted his gaze to stare at the wire in the woman's hand. His eyes followed a drop of blood running along it. "Yes. I have nothing left in this world to care about at all. That's fine. It was necessary. Thank you." Illira answered him coldly, "You'll find other things to care about. And keep hope they won't turn out like her." Feeling the breath return to the Miqo'te and her soul re-anchoring itself, Cypress stood up, stepping back. "I should take care of those voidsent now." The lalafell nodded and pointed her book towards Antimony, the open pages facing her. The spell released, washing over the woman's body to help her wake up. "That is shockingly warm, coming from the woman who would see me dead." D'hein raised his gaze to Illira. Several seconds passed before Antimony's body seemed to recall its function, Cypress's influx of aether surging through her heart and sparking beats that had previously stilled. When Ulanan's spell washed over her, her chest rose and fell with a second breath, and then a third. Her eyes shifted behind closed lids, then fluttered open, at first unfocused and confused. Ulanan let out a sigh of relief. "You are alive!" she cheered. She dropped her hands, suddenly quiet. She casted a glance towards D'aijeen's corpse, and then to K'airos, who was still curled down in the middle of the street. Cypress didn't actually turn to the baalzephons though. Instead, she walked to body that lay not far away, finally reaching the end of the trail that she had followed for so long. "Yes, well don't get used to it," replied Illira. Realizing that the wire was still in her hand she stepped around D'hein to rinse it in the fountain. "You'll remember that family is important to me. And I understand it is to others as well." D'hein smiled up at Illira as though she were bathing him in lavish praise. "Important. Yes. It is... of singular importance. To so many. Unparalleled." The corpse beneath the Roegadyn was thin and immobile, face clean but neck and chest stained deeply with blood. Blue eyes lay open and thoughtless, staring. It was the corpse of a child dressed like a woman, painted the colors of the executed. With impossible suddenness, D'aijeen snapped upright, back, like her corpse had been knocked into the air or pulled by some distant chord. Her feet stumbled as she tried to get up, and her head rolled about on the end of her neck, showing off the massive wound beneath her chin. Her voice, however, burst from her body. "Why are you familiar? I know you! I know you!" The voice had an echo to it, as though it were coming from a great ways off. When her head fell forward, her face coming to bear, the shell of green energy lay over it. The shell conformed to her features, floating just in front of them, with an imitation of chin and lips and nose and brow. There were eyes holes, but through them was just black. It was as though D'aijeen's face had been erased behind the mask. "I know you from fire. Fire. You made me sick. You left me sick after the fire. I remember!" Ulanan cringed at the suddenly speaking and moving body, springing up to her feet with the book open and in front of her. Her expression reflected how disturbing she found that. Even more than the Baalzephons. Antimony shifted weakly on the ground. She thought she'd heard something familiar, but thought still took incredible effort as her body worked to recover. Instead her head lolled towards Ulanan and she watched the lalafel's expression with a confused one of her own. It wasn't a surprise to see the body string itself back up, there was nothing the voidsent wouldn't do to scrape their way back and keep their hold in this world. Cypress let her aether sink down into her hands, creating fiery fissure in her skin as it traveled. Reminiscent of where she had come from. A laugh almost tugged at lips, "You broke my gate, voidsent. So I've had to bring the fiery pits to you." "What are you... Who..." D'aijeen hands went to her throat, and her body sagged, knees buckling, as she took on her own weight again. She groped hideously at her own wound. Then seemed to accept it, and her bloody hands feel limp at her sides once more. "How do I know you? Tell me who you are!" Ulanan reached with one hand to her white hat, taking it off and shaking it upwards. The magical yellow envelope hidden within flew upwards and in front of her, unfolding until it had taken the shape of her other constructs . "You and K'airos need to leave." she said, pointing one finger to the paper golem. Aether sparked out of her into its side, and the maw inflated and moved, placing itself between Antimony and D'aijeen. The more the voice spoke, the more familiar it became. She'd heard it right before the shadows had come rushing in from every direction, crushing the breath from her body. She recalled the way her lungs had burned and how everything had flickered, slowed, faded. "Aijeen," she breathed, voice shaking, her ears and tail limp against the ground beneath her. She recalled the last words she'd heard from her daughter, and they made her wish for her heart to stop again. One hand struggled weakly against the ground to push her upper body up. Hands caught aflame as the roegadyn roared, "I am your keeper. You cannot hide behind the body of a little girl. I'll burn your body just as I threw my grandfather in the pit." "NO!" D'aijeen grabbed her head, felt her fingers lay against the green-glowing mask, and then pulled them away as though burned. She backpedaled raggedly, desperately. Though she spook in an ephemeral voice, her tone was ragged and desperate. "No. No. Why do I feel afraid? I'm not afraid. I'm never afraid. Fear is what other... I'm not... Why are..." Shadows moved in her wake as her desperation increased. D'hein stood slowly from where he'd been sitting, watching. "I'm afraid. I'm afraid." D'aijeen spoke quickly, her words cutting in to one another. "Why is she lying? He face. I remember. But I can't. I'm afraid... Airos. Mom... Airos!" K'airos did not want to hear. Some sound reached her, but all she did was yell as loud as she could, burying her head as far as she could between her arms. "Stop! Stop! Stop..." Her voice ran out of air, and was left breathing unsteadily where she was. Ulanan helped Antimony rise up how she could. Being small, that basically meant pulling her clothes and then letting the big woman hold herself up. "Go to K'airos and leave!" she urged her. Her limbs felt impossibly weak, sapped of strength from both her brush with death and the sick realization that had fallen over her. "Aijeen.. she..." Antimony's head dropped forward as she struggled to stand. That voice called out again, desperate, in need, and Antimony feared it. She feared her daughter. Her hands moved to her face as she staggered upright, feeling as though she might topple over again any minute. Ulanan was a small presence next to her, and though she heard the lalafell's pleas for her to leave, she couldn't seem to get her limbs to move to obey. Cypress followed D'aijeen in her desperate backwards steps, reaching her burning hand out hand out to the girl. The flames that licked from the hand came from the molten cracks that had formed on the Roegadyn's skin, fueled by her aether and memories of her post. "You're scared? No more than the fear you've created yourself." "Deception! I've never seen you before!" D'aijeen pitched her hands up as she stumbled backwards, her skulls clattering between her fingers, and the air thickened in front of her. Simple conjury. "Airos! Where are you? Airos!" The girl lifted her head, hands still clenched against her ears. She saw her sister without the hideous shadows that had covered her before. She released her grip and, for a moment, thought D'aijeen had come back to her senses. Then she noticed the blood and the wound on her throat. All she could do in response to that sight was scream and bend over to the ground again Ulanan headed to the side of the Roegadyn walking briskly past her giant pet, book open in front of her. Antimony turned her head to follow Ulanan's movements but did nothing but sway slightly on her feet, a faintness still laying over her thoughts. She could hear Aijeen's voice, hear the fear in it, and she wanted to look for her, to calm those fears as best she could. But the feeling of the life choking out of her, in complete, liquid blackness, of her mouth and nose filled with cold dark and her ears echoing with her daughter's words - these things kept her in place. They kept her from seeking out D'aijeen, despite recognizing that something was wrong. "You do not remember the gate that you crawled from? The trail you've left bears remants. Scant. But there. Underneath all the death and fear and emptiness." The air was thick as Cypress stepped closer, drawing smoke from the flames into a light fog. Illira touched D'hein's shoulder, "If there is nothing we can do here, we should leave as Antimony's pet suggested." "I don't know... why... An old man's hollow corpse, burned in fire. Pathetic man. Why...?" The closer the Roegadyn came, the faster D'aieen retreated, until her feet were on the steps of the inn once more. Her shoes, having trailed through her own blood, left dark footprints. D'hein shifted and glared up at Illira. "Ulanan is trying to protect you. Use her name with respect." The lalafel stopped next to Cypress with a little hop. There was a purple triangle of light hovering and snapping with aether over the pages of her tome. Her free hand was over it, fingers spread as much as they could. "Can we get the voidsent out of her body?" she asked, eyes anchored on her incantation. Cypress only bares the lalafel the briefest of glances, a look of near incredulity before facing the voidsent again, "An old man? Was that who you were before? Found your way into your one?" The elezen snorted, "I don't owe her anything, but I will admit, voidsent are not my specialty." "I guess that's a 'no'." Ulanan grumbled under her breath. "Shut up! Liar. Liars. Telling lies about me! There's nothing inside of me don't do that. Don't do that!" She missed a step and fell backwards, landing crookedly on the stairs of the inn. For a moment, she lay there and tried to breathe, making a strange sound with her clogged windpipes. Her chest shook. And then she screamed, the sound louder and stronger than anything she could have managed with her own chest, but still undeniably her voice. Antimony cringed at the shriek, ducking her head, her knees nearly buckling and taking her back to the ground. It was a sound no mother would ever wish to hear, even after what her daughter had done. On instinct she spun weakly towards it, opened her mouth to call for her daughter but found herself too breathless with fear to form words. Instead she staggered around Ulanan's golem until the felled form of D'aijeen was in view. A roegadyn woman painted in the colors of fire stood above her, Ulanan nearby. She lifted one hand in silent protest. "Whatever you are going to do, do it quickly." the lalafel said in a grumpy voice to the other woman. "There's no need to prolong this." Her golem seemed to remember what it was inflated for and moved in front of Antimony, blocking her view and offering the saddest face a creature made of paper could offer. "Don't hurt her!" K'airos shouted, half crawling towards the inn before raising and turning it into a full sprint. D'hein pulled himself up to his feet and ran out to intercept K'airos. "Stop, K'airos! Don't get in the way!" The roegadyn closes the last few steps between her and the wretched creature that was slumped over the inn steps, placing her hands on the sternum. No heartbeat and naught but a scrambling that was being forced through the lungs. Even as the overwraught red dress caught flame though, Cypress could feel the hum of the passenger within. It was disconcertingly familiar though. She had felt this footprint before as she had dragged the wasted remains of her screaming grandfather into the pit. "You." She hissed, voice cracking, "You descrated my forebear." K'airos was blocked by succesfully by D'hein, being too distracted to notice his approach. "She can't defend herself! She's not a danger anymore!" she protested. Antimony stared back at the sad, blue face for several seconds, not entirely sure what she was looking at. Then she let out a faint, "No, please," and tried to move around the golem again. She smelled ash, a strange, unexpected scent, and her daughter's fear mingled with something dark and oily. The mask and its black eyeholes snapped up to the Roegadyn, her hands lifting, skulls dangling between her fingers. The smell and heat of fire rose around her, and she hung immobile much like she had hung from the Elezen's garrote. She hung as though in the moment of death, frozen in it, trapped in it. Her voice began silently. "I don't... want... to burn again. You can't." Magic burst from her hands, cold, washing over her body and the fires lit upon it, chilling her skin. The weak girl writhed in the massive woman's hands, kicking and struggling, trying desperately to get away. "You won't burn me! You won't burn me! Airos! Help me!" She was screaming frantically, her movements chaotic, the mask floating near her face flashing with green light. "Airos! Mom! Help me! Help me!" "Aijeen!" Antimony finally found her voice, shrill and thin as it was, a desperate cry. Cypress fanned the flames with her aetheric reserves, sending the flames cascading upwards around her, burning her own clothes just as she sought to override the summoned chilly winter, "You are no one's daughter!" Finally stirred to movement by the mother's cry, Illira crossed the courtyard towards Antimony, grasping her shoulders. "She is dead. I killed her, Antimony." Ulanan grimaced. She released the spell prepared over her tome, the triangle vanishing as the aether moved to take hold of D'aijeen's limb to immobilize her. D'aijeen continued to try and summon magic to counteract the fire, but the fire overwhelmed it, and Ulanan's spell made the fetish in her hand drop to the ground. Her limbs were fixed in place, and though she still writhed, it was a tired and weak motion. "Stop it! I don't want to die! I want to go home! I want to back to the desert! Someone help me!" Antimony sagged against Illira's hands, eyes widening as her whole body shuddered. She leaned forward, tried to push past the elezen. "No--" Her voice broke, and her daughter's cries dragged on her body like a physical weight. "No, Aijeen! Aijeen, I forgive you, come back!" Ulanan moved away from the inn, facing the golem that was blocking Antimony's view. "It's not your daughter! It's a voidsent using her body!" As soon as she was done shouting, she felt she was being incredibly and unnecessarily mean, if perhaps accurate. K'airos let all her strength leave her, collapsing against D'hein and staying crouched on the ground, crying. D'hein crouched with K'airos. "It's okay. Don't look. You don't need to listen." He put his hands over her ears. Illira had to practically take on Antimony's weight in her hysteria and desire to reach what was left of her daughter, "Think of it simply as a death throe." Although the well of aether within Cypress was deep she had let a considerable amount burn off into the atmosphere stoking the flames as a blacksmith would in his smithy. Not normally a showy person, the Roegadyn was angry, letting that energy channel through the molten embers of her skin. She dug down now though, forcibly channeling it into the body below her. Willing the part of her that was very much a part of her volcanic post to take back the unruly ward. The fire burned into D'aijeen's body vividly, gruesomly. It burned a hole into her chest and traced lines along her ribs, making her thin form glow internally, making her body arch. Where she had been writhing like a desperate woman a moment earlier, noe she writhed like an insect, limbs mad and thoughtless even to the point of damaging themselves. She slammed her arms numbly against the Roegadyn's limb and body, heedless of the fire, kicking her legs behind and beside and in front of her. Behind her, her tail writhed like a worm lifted from the ground. "Help me! Airos! Mom! Dad! Airi!" Her hair caught fire, her eyelashes burning visibly behind the mask. "Help me! Help! Help!" As her mouth hung open to scream, her words were interrupted by a vomiting of bones and darkness. It began at her mouth, then seemed to tear open her jaw, her neck opening, her collar bursting open, her ribs cracking and her belly splitting. Shadow and bone poured out. Not her own. With the sound of a shout of fear and fury, translucent shadow and expansive gore exuded from D'aijeen's body, crashing against the Roegadyn. Antimony shrieked against her daughter's cries and shoved violently against Illira. "Don't hurt her! Don't hurt her!!" K'airos placed her hands over D'hein's and pushed them as strongly as she could against her ears. The lalafel turned around at the scream. The gruesome display made her raise one hand to hide her face and stand there, paralyzed and horrified. The red figure, much of her clothing burned away to within an inch of usefulness, was tossed from D'aijeen like a ragdoll despite her considerable size. An ocean tide of darkness it was, a powerful wave crashing into its unprepared victim. Thrown against a column a few feet away, the thing cracked though it somehow stood still, a chunk of it knocked out as it did the same to Cypress; her head having smashed up against it.

D'hein was lagging behind, trying to keep pace with Illira and make sure she didn't go running off. He'd planned on making this trip to deal with one misbehaving daughter, but now the Elezen woman was acting like another. As much as he loathed letting Antimony go on ahead in such a state of desperation as she appeared to be, D'hein would not permit himself to see permiting Illira to leave as an option. Most likely Antimony would not find D'aijeen immediately anyway. Vesper Bay was well within view, but it seemed a thousand miles away at the rate they were moving. He gave Illira a hard look as he rode, not a scowl or a glare, but something rigid and stern nonetheless. For now, however, he left her in silence. The sea town looked so much darker than Illira remembered from the last time that she had paid it a visit. Having calmed slightly since the argument in Horizon, she didn't turn around as soon as D'hein showed her his back and moved onward at a faster pace. She followed, grey eyes casting about ahead of her for the trouble that practically eminated from the town now. The blond-maned Tia remained unaware of the different air of the place, even as the shadows became as thick as puddles beneath his chocobo. He was looking for the twitch of Antimony's ears, or the flick of K'airo's red tail, or D'aijeen's glaring white clothes. What he saw first was a number of disembodied, strangely-shaped blue mouths flocking like birds around a giant hat and the Lalafel beneath it. This was just the kind of nonsensical image he had the luck of having frequent business with, and as he turned his chocobo that direction, he caught sight of K'airos and Antimony staring down a strange black blot and a derelict building. Odd sight. He pulled his Chocobo up short. "Oh." He blinked, and one of his ears lay down, and his tail moved absently behind him as his expression moved from one flavor of stoic to another. "Unexpected." D'hein looked over his shoulder for Illira. The woman stopped next to D'hein, "Something very foul is afoot." Noting the lack of... any persons outside those that she recognize, she came to at least one assumption, "It seems most of the village has fled." "Foul is a word, yes." D'hein looked at Illira and gestured towards the corner of town where the ruined inn was. The place seemed to be lost in shadow though the sun shone full on it, but in the occasional splotches, Antimony and K'airos were in full view, as well as splashes of red from D'aijeen's new dress. "My daughter stands entrenched in Voidsent, and I find myself losing hope in her innocence as to the crimes of which she has been accused." Illira looks sharply at D'hein, seemingly more interested in the lines and planes that made up his face than what loomed all around them, "What will you do then? That Roegadyn is not so far behind and Antimony looks to be pleading with the girl. I know where I will stand." "I think that for now." He leaned forward on his chocobo, allowing his exhaustion to show, though it was not audible in his voice. "I'm going to let Antimony plead. I don't know what this is. I don't know what my daughter is doing or why." "It looks rather simple to me. She unleashed a deadly plague on this town. Why doesn't matter." She shouldn't be surprised by his choice, and she wasn't. But she was surprised that she was disappointed. "The fact that the 'why' doesn't matter is the reason you're degenerating into a psychotic," D'hein muttered in reply. "I've never actually seen D'aijeen interact with her mother, so I don't know if the pleading will do any good. I want to see." On the steps of the inn, D'aijeen turned her gaze to K'airos, the eyes on her darkened features looking hurt for a moment before curving with a smile that seemed to flatten out the shadow of her face. "I need to stop? It isn't true? So I'm wrong, I'm lying. I need to stop. I always need to stop! Always telling me to stop! Oh, Airos." She walked off the steps and onto the road, heading towards her moth and sister. "I don't think you understand what you're saying. The rejection. How hurtful it is." K'airos stomped her foot down and yelled in response. "I don't like you like this! I want you back to how you were!" Illira's chocobo paws at the ground, obviously uncomfortable with their current position and proximity to voidsent, "Oh good, you want to see. Well. I suppose we should not stir the hornet's nest ourselves." Antimony took D'aijeen's approach as invitation to move closer as well, even if it wasn't what her daughter actually meant. The need to be near her, to show that she still supported and loved her, in spite of everything, overrode even K'airos's fear. "It's not rejection, dear," She stepped towards D'aijeen, slow but certain. "I promise you. If we ask you to stop, it is with good reason, because we love you and don't want you to hurt yourself!" "There's nothing to go back to." D'aijeen shook her head as though K'airos were asking her to transform into another species. "This is how I've always been. You either love me or don't, and you don't. You don't. You want me to stop. Stop being me. Because I'll hurt... what, me? No. You hurt me. You hurt me." D'hein's ears stood up on his head, almost facing the same direction, but not quite. One turned slightly towards Illira. "If there's a hornets nest that does get stirred up, I'll have to do something about it. But I won't kick it. I've been a father too long to make that mistake." "You weren't like this back in the tribe, before you found that acursed book!" K'airos replied, not moving an inch from her spot. She was tapping her knuckles together, and her eyes were about to burst into tears once more. "I want my little sister back! Not this!" Antimony shook her head, green eyes pleading with her daughter as she approached. "Aijeen, look at you. Look at everything around you! How can you think this is safe, for you or for anyone? You're--you're playing with demons, Aijeen, and I don't want to lose you to them! Please," she held out both hands to her daughter, close enough that only a few, quick steps would take her right to her, "we can help you." "You know I couldn't even read that book at first. But I didn't have to. I remembered." D'aijeen chuckled a bit. "I already knew everything in the book. It just reminded me. I was always, always this way. I was always just like this." With her arms at her sides, D'aijeen walked forward towards her mother, closing the distance, but not lifting her hands to embrace the woman. "And I always loved you. But you loved a make believe Aijee that never existed." Antimony stepped forward one last step and brought her arms around her daughter without hesitation, ignoring the way D'aijeen's body was stained as black as void. She didn't say anything, just hugged her and kissed the top of her head. Illira smirks, watching the reunion, "I'm sure it'll all be fine now. Don't you think you?" sarcasm nearly dripped from her mouth as the inky shadows dripped off of the rootop edges. "See, mom. It's perfectly safe. I'm completely in control." D'aijeen turned her gaze up to her mother, the smile on her lips just visible through the shadows. "Like I'll be in complete control of you." She lifted her hands and put them behind her mother. "Once you're dead." D'aijeen pulled Antimony into a tighter hug, a real one. She lay her head against her mother's jawline and her green hair, dappled with shadows, fell over the woman chest. Her tail twitched behind her. The sound of the nearby surf against the shore slid through the shadows like thunder through a stormcloud. D'aijeen sighed, her mouth opened wide. Shadows poured out of her body, out of her very skin, out of her open mouth, from beneath the shadows of her hair. Ink-dark and oil-thick, they rose like a plume and washed over Antimony, bearing her backwards and downwards, completely obscuring her. The strange matter roiled like igneous fluid, suffocating. K'airos let out a scream and ran towards them. Behind, Ulanan lifted a finger. Three of her pets flew in the same direction, passing her and leaving her behind quickly. Two of them tried to bite and push D'aijeen away with a charge, while the other headed behind her, its top colored orange instead of blue. The black, liquid shape that was now all that was discernible of Antimony just writhed on the ground. On seeing Antimony get brought downward, sinking into the town's stones, Illira urged her chocobo forward. But it refused to have any of that and instead hopped in place, turning, and then backing into D'hein's chocobo. Releasing the pillar of matter that she'd summoned around her mother, letting it fall to the ground, D'aijeen spun in place. Two of the summoned maws found themselves biting shadow at her back as she stood weak, buckling under her own weight, unmoved. She dropped her gaze to the red maw, but the many faces of a Baalzephon rose lazily between them. Surrounded by thick, dark matter, in front and behind, D'aijeen shouted as loud as her thing voice could manage, "Airos, I command you to kill the Lalafel immediately!" D'hein had been in the process of dismounting his own chocobo when Illira's bumped into it, startling his bird and causing it to stumble backward and squawk loudly. D'hein was tossed off by it's tiny, flapping wings, landing on his feet and falling flat. He was on his feet quickly, though, his scepter in hand, running in the direction though he was still far removed from it. "I don't want to!" K'airos cried, yet spun towards the lalafell immediately as ordered. She ran into one of the tiny mage's summons, which had reacted to the command in the opposite direction, inflating itself until it was the size of the Miqo'te. With its mouth open, it seemingly swallowed her whole. Ulanan pointed at Antimony, making another one fly to her, inflating and trying to swallow her too. The pets harassing D'aijeen changed targets and bited on the interposing shadows, changing colors. However, the already red one simply exploded. As one of the blue summons expanded as though to engulf the black form of Antimony, the writhing slowed, growing sluggish like molasses. The pitch matter shimmered with an oily sheen. Despite strong urging and kicks to the chocobos sides, it continued to do anything but go forward. So Illira abandoned the bird, hopping off of it. She didn't bother to watch it run back off towards Horizon. Instead she put her hand to the short sword hanging off of her belt. She let it lay there for a moment before opening the small container clipped next to it, pulling out the round of wire it contained, wrapping one end of it around her around her hand before walking towards a building that sat near the confrontation, intending to duck out of sight behind it. The exploding maws made the Baalzephons expel strange, groaning sounds, sending them drifting downward as though sinking in water. D'aijeen was safe behind them for a moment. In the next, however, the shadows around her snapped open on the side where Antimony and K'airos had been, forming a quick, dark hallway to trap her inside with them. Not even pausing to watch the shape of her mother stilling on the ground, D'aijeen lifted her hands, one holding her scepter and the other holding a conjurer's wand adorned with rodent skulls. Between the two handfuls of casting implements, power grow, and a powerful concussive blast shot from D'aijeen towards the maw that had captured her sister, hot with crackling sparks. D'hein ran at full speed towards the inn, and when he thought he was close enough he skidded to a stop and began to cast a spell. It took time, however. He didn't know how or when D'aijeen had become so much faster than he was at spell casting. The maw holding K'airos took the concussive blast as well as a balloon, the force of the attack deforming its shape and making it roll on a side. It's surface cracked, and it spit K'airos out of it before collapsing like a house of cards. The girl crawled for a moment before trying to push herself up, confused by what just happened. The one with Antimony opened its mouth and bit down, taking her inside it. It turned around, mouth open towards Ulanan. The lalafel's book lighted up as she casted a cleansing spell on the Miqo'te, trying to dispel the darkness enveloping her. D'aijeen turned her attention the maw that had taken her mother a moment before. Shadows splashed around her, the sound of the surf shaking through them, as black matter continued to drip from her every gesture. She raised her arms with a spell to destroy the maw, and a shadow moved with the motion to block Ulanan's attempt to dispel her curse. D'hein unleashed a spell that was so driven by instinct and need that he didn't even have a name for it, just muttering, "Ice... spell!" out of habit and mostly in confusion at himself. The frigid spell cut through the line of shadows and struck D'aijeen sideways, knocking the girl to one knee and freezing her hands rigidly in front of her. Her spell broke as unformed mana, harmless, and the shadow she had been raising melted away. Ulanan's spell succeeded. D'aijeen turned furious eyes on her "father". The shadow matter that had wrapped around Antimony pulled away from her skin like water, dripping to the ground and either fading completely or rejoining the shadows it had come from. The woman remained still in the summon's maw, however, eyes closed. The shadows didn't scare Illira, though as she made her way around the building and behind the fight she couldn't help but shiver as the unnatural cold settled into her bones as she traveled through the dark depths that the girl had created. Closing her hand around the wire that she'd wrapped around it, Illira tried to simply focus in on that as she picked up the other end with her left hand. Ulanan waved her small arm southwards. The maw holding Antimony seemed to nod and started moving away, closing its mouth to protect its hold. "That's a good idea, keep doing that!" she yelled towards D'hein, though she didn't bother looking at him. She jerked her book forward, its pages lighting up to form an unaspected ball of aether that was directed at D'aijeen's head. K'airos lifted up from where she was and ran towards the Lalafell, crying, but with her whole body telling her to kill the woman. D'hein intended to continue. He was already conjuring his next spell. But compared to D'aijeen, he hadn't even begun. The shadows washed away from the small, tired woman, long enough for her to snap her arms apart and thrust her hands forward, the scepter in one hand and the wand in the other glowing with the respective magics. Biting wind struck D'hein's eyes like sand, sought to sting his nostrils and lips and the skin of his face. Closing his eyes, he tried to ignore the strange sensations of non-pain and continue conjuring his spell. But the wind was joined by fire a moment later, striking him hard and knocking him off his feet. He felt his clothes catch fire and the flame get caught in the wind, and he released the ice spell he'd been conjuring to put the fire out. He rolled to his feet just in time for a Baalzephon to brush past him. Cold and swift in its own lazy way, it disregarded him as insignificant in the same moment it knocked him away once more. The shadow chased the maw that carried Antimony away. Coming around the back corner of what Illira remembered to be the inn, she peeked around the corner. The cool metal of the wire feeling familiar in her hands, though it had been sometime since she had felt them there. She could see D'hein fighting against the wind his supposed daughter had conjured. Tall masked pillars haunting the lalafel and Antimony who was being carried away. The girl stood not but a few feet from her, facing away towards the small battlefield as she weaved her spells. Tightening her grip on both ends of the wire, Illira's lanky form crept forward towards frail, greenhaired girl. K'airos reached the lalafell mage in that moment and kicked at her with all her might. A spell was fired from between Ulanan's clothes, a paper sphere interposing between her and the attack, making K'airos strumble backwards. The last of Ulanan's maws headed towards her, inflating as the other ones had done. The tiny mage conjured a new spell from the book. A purple circle of aether formed at K'airos feet and trapped them in a magical web. The lalafell moved away, then, sprinting towards the maw holding Antimony. D'aijeen watched her "father" fall away like the clumsy oaf he was. She didn't give him another thought. She imeediately turned her attention to the Lalafel that was escaping with her mother. Her mother. Hers. Being taken away, right in front of her. She wouldn't stand for it. Almost wihtout thought, she conjured fire in her scepter and threw it towards the enchanted construct. Once again displaying his oft-useless talent of standing back up very quickly after having fallen down, D'hein was present to intercept that spell. He couldn't conjure fast enough to stop it, but he found it in himself to place his own body in the path of the fire. To let himself be burned by his daughter, for his daughter's mother, the woman whom he would never be allowed to love. It was a fate he could accept. He deserved no better. A bizarre paper shape slipped out of a hole burned in his robes and inflated into a geomteric silhouette with comical eyes. They looked at him with sadness, as if to say that it was not his time. Then the paper figure turned and expanded, and the fire struck it without mercy. In the same instant it was born, it had died. And it had died a better death than most men D'hein knew. In that moment, D'hein knew he would remember that little paper box-baloon thing with the eyes for the rest of his life. Incensed, D'aijeen almost failed to notice K'airos fall. She saw another one of the Lalafel's constructs moving towards her, opening its mocking maw to steal her away. D'aijeen could almost feel the curse holding her sister's legs together. With a wordless hiss, D'aijeen, swung the wand and the skulls that hung from it, muttering words she'd heard her own mother say once and reinforcing them with the conjury of the Shroud, ripping the binding's from her sister's legs. The Baalzephon that had been chasing the Lalafel turned to intercept the construct that would have stolen her sister away. She was not going to let her K'airos be taken from her. "Airos!" D'aijeen shouted, surprised at the volume of her own voice, the urgency in it. "I command you to let the Lalafel go! I comm-" But that voice was cut off in a sudden instant as something thin snapped tight across her neck, pulling her backwards and up. She felt her skin giving way, something inside of her throat crumbling. Now that the elezen felt tugging weight at the apex of her wire, there was a part of her that couldn't help but feel that it had been too long since she'd snuffed the life of someone that needed to be extinguished. The world would be a better place without this girl who summoned demons and tried to kill her own mother. The irony was lost on her. And while the feeling was satisfying, it wasn't personal the way that it would have been D'hein. If only he'd been demon summoner instead of his so-called daughter. She tightened the wire, drawing the girl up to her toes. As tiny as she was, it wasn't hard. The maw heading towards K'airos found something better to chomp on: the Baalzephon in its way. It tilted its whole body to bite it sideways, then changed colors and imploded with it. K'airos obeyed her sister and stopped chasing the lalafel. She fell to her kness and curled down, hiding her head between her arms. She grasped forcefully at her own ears, trying to quench all sounds. "Stop! Stop! Stop!" she repeated a few times loudly. "Don't...don't hurt anyone!" Ulanan jumped inside the big maw, falling into a sitting position next to Antimony. She prepared a quick, weak healing spell at her. The maw continued to float away. Antimony would remain still in the maw, visibly unresponsive to Ulanan's healing, though it bought her a brief extension of time before permanent death neurologically. D'aijeen hung like an executed prisoner. She wasn't sure from what. The line that had snared her cut up behind her jaw, destroying her thoat. Her sense were all blood and a steely, cold taste that spread from her extremities to the rest of her body. The shadow and discoloration that had wrapped her ran from her body as though melting away, leaving her clean, except for the blood. Everything turned from black to red in a moment, and her blue eyes dimmed. She stared forward. She looked for K'airos. But she could barely lift her eyes. Just her eyes were so heavy. And getting heavier. Everything was heavy. She couldn't move. She choked and shivered and hung on the line, looking for K'airos and seeing only dirt. And then she stopped shivering, and she stopped looking. Ulanan held the book above Antimony's head. The curative aether gathered in its pages, flowing across and out of them towards the dying woman in a steady stream. Illira let young girl's weight hang from the thin, sturdy wire. Heavy breaths found their way into her chest as she looked at the other daughter kneeling on the ground traumatized. She stood there like that for a couple of minutes. Anyone watching her might think that she looked relunctant to put the Miqo'te down. Maybe she was, she didn't really know how felt now that it was done. Satisfaction, she decided. She'd done her job. The tall woman slowly lowered her hands, and D'aijeen with them, laying the brightly dressed girl on the ground, unlooping her garrote from around the too-thin neck. D'hein stood transfixed on the site, his tail swinging back and forth behind him. For once, both of his eyes stood in concert, out to either side of his head in bemusement. He lingered as long as Illira did, and when the Elezen woman lay his bloodied daughter's body in the dirt, D'hein dropped his scepter in the dirt and turned away. He took crooked steps without destination. Just walking away.

((Be sure to read Breath of Thal for full context of what's been going on with D'aijeen and K'airos in the meantime.)) *** When she reached Vesper Bay, she didn't slow until she'd passed wholly through the gates and then almost immediately jumped off her bird. Her joints protested that action - something that was more appropriate for someone a decade younger - but she pushed it to one side. Standing in the courtyard on the east side of the port town, she looked around with wide eyes. The town that Antimony arrived in was not a welcoming one. There was none of the normal bustle a fishing and trade town should have had. Doors were shut, streets were empty. An inn in the corner had caved in, stained with what looked like a dark liquid. The shadows around down shivered as though with incredible heat, though they were cool. The shadow that Antimony cast grew darker as she approached, likely without her notice at first, but by the time she dismounted she stood in a splotch of blackness. The chocobo would notice that something was off, though its mind would not be able to comprehend what. Something white moving far beneath the ground, visible throught he shadow like a window, would make the bird start and shift. The fur along Antimony's tail bristled at the sight of the town. It was more than clear that something was not right, and the inky blackness that shivered around one building was all the evidence the older woman needed. Her heart twisting with fear, she glanced back the way she'd come, wondering finally how far back Ulanan and the others were, and then took a few steps towards the black-shrouded building. She shouted as she spoke, as loud as she could manage, "Aijeen! Will you come out and speak with your mother?" Ulanan arrived a moment later, jumping off her bird with her book in hand, feeling the strangeness in the air even before seeing the inn. The book burst open and a circle of light extended from her towards Antimony, creating an invisible barrier around her. As Antimony approached the building, the shadows under her feet rose up. They whispered. A mask rose up and lay on the surface of the stone in front of her, as though floating on the top of the shadows. It tilted to gaze at her. Then the Baalzephon rose, its body covered in plain white masks. Thin arms lifted from its sides as it uttered hushed sounds, inaudible voices, and leaned towards Antimony. Breath freezing in her chest, Antimony stumbled back from the masks. "Ulanan, what--" Her eyes skidded past the inky demon, unwilling to look at it, terrified by its presence but still driven by a need for her daughter. "Aijeen, please! It's your mother! I know you're scared; just come and--and talk! I will not hurt you!" K'airos had been wandering close to the inn, shouting at people and urging them to not get anywhere near it. The streets had emptied quickly, but she kept walking around, in a circle, wondering if she shouldn't simply run away. Then she heard her mother, and made up her mind. She ran towards her voice, around the corner and quickly coming in sight of her. "Mom!" she yelled. "Mom! Don't...don't come! Stay away!" A bright blue ball of light was thrown to the voidsent by Ulanan. It unfolded midair into a big geometric open maw with bulgy eyes and a hole on the top. It tried very boldly to bite on any limb of the creature. [8/4/2014 3:42:12 AM] Kyle: The Voidsent was significantly distracted by this simple gesture from Ulanan, snapping its limbs away, the masks turning one way and then another in confusion. More Baalzephons seethed below the ground, though, observing. *** Inside the inn, D'aijeen plucked a bloodied linkpearl from her bathwater. Her blue eyes glared at it from the blackness of her features, the tip of her tail twitching back and forth. Then she dropped it and spun on the man, smiling. "It seems your brothers don't want to learn from me after all." She walked over to the man, Qion'a, leaning forward to look in his face. "And I guess you're deaf now, is that right? Nod yes or no." Her amusement continued until, with the twitch of one ear, she snapped straight and spun towards the room and the hall beyond. She trotted out into it, wide-eyed, looking around. "Airos? I thought I heard-" but her sister wasn't there. She stopped in her tracks and stared at the floor, now covered in darkness. She shook, her mind boiling over with thoughts. *** The familiar voice struck Antimony like ice water and she spun towards it, feeling a deep rush of relief. "Airos, you're alright--" She huried then towards her middle daughter, deliberately not looking at the demon that writhed just a short ways away under Ulanan's attack. "Airos, something has gone very wrong. I need to speak with your sister!" K'airos kept running, not caring for anything that could be on the way or between them. "You need to leave! She'll just get angrier!" she yelled. The blue maw Ulanan had summoned changed colors, still biting on the limb. It became orange, the color spreading from the top along with sparks that came from the hole there. The next moment, its big eyes had busted out in fire. And then its whole body followed, exploding and leaving nothing of itself behind. *** Qion'a didn't answer to D'aijeen. Not with words or a nod. He was truly deaf. He kept his arms wrapped around the head a moment longer. *** The Baalzephon made no sound as it fell, slowly, like a sinking cloud. Its body burned. Its thin arms dwindled like twigs. The shadows accepted it as it sagged away. In the same moment, another began to rise not far from it. Very slowly, unhurried. *** D'aijeen had already forgotten the man. K'airos had said she would wait. D'aijeen could hear... she did hear. No, it couldn't have been. But K'airos had said that she'd told. Her thin legs pitch black, D'aijeen walked into the hallway, book still held against her chest. She turned to walk outside, careful not to hurry herself. Already she felt weary, just from the shivering of her hands, the shaking of her tail, the wideness of her eyes. *** "It will be alright, Airos, I promise." Antimony ran right up to her daughter, made to grip her arms and then, as though she couldn't help herself, hug her close. "Ulanan will help keep us safe. I just need to speak with Aijeen. She's scared, but it's okay. I promise you!" K'airos practically lunged at the hug, collapsing on her mother's arms. "She's not scared! She's...I don't know what she is! I tried to do what she wanted, but it wasn't enough!" she cried, words trampling over each other, becoming barely understandable. She pushed away, but still kept her hands on Antimony's arms. "You need to leave! She'll hurt more people if you don't!" The lalafel hadn't moved an ilm from where she stood. She moved the pages of her book and two other balls of light came from it, taking the same shape as the previous one. One of them did the predictable thing and tried to bite the voidsent's head off. The other followed Ulanan's finger and flew towards the two Miqo'te. D'aijeen stopped on the steps of the inn, just outside, and watched her mother and sister embrace. Her body tensed up, but then it relaxed, and suddenly she didn't feel like anything. All of her tiredness melted into numbness. She felt weightless. The sensation was so strange that she laughed at it. She laughed loudly, and the shadows around her shook as if they were laughing too. Her eyes smiled, and then teared up, she was laughing so hard. Antimony kept K'airos close even as her daughter sought to pull away. She kissed her forehead, pet her ears. "You don't have to be scared, Airos. I will make everything alright again, I promise. I will--" She blinked in confusion suddenly, lifted her head somewhat as laughter reached her ears. Twisting her head towards the sound, her mouth dropped open, eyes widening at the sight of her youngest daughter. She half turned, not letting go of K'airos immediately but still wanting to give D'aijeen attention. The black on her skin made Antimony's stomach roil, though. How far had she fallen with these demons? "Aijeen... What has happened to you..?" K'airos shook, looking at her sister. "You need to leave!" she repeated. "I don't want you to, but you have to! She'll get worse!" She turned to face her mother with a pleading expression. Ulanan walked towards them, hastily, with the book in her hand shining brightly. There were now half a dozen blue maws hovering following behind her, and she probably had another few inside a pocket somewhere. "Happened? Mom, I've made myself beautiful." D'aijeen's laughter fell away, though she still smiled broadly. She paused in her approach to turn sideways and let herself be seen, brushing the wand and rodent skulls through her skirt so the stained frills would bounce. "I wanted to be pretty for Airos. She is my love, after all. My destiny. My most perfect dream. The one lover that can redeem an entire world of hate. My own K'airos." She pushed her hip to one side, stretching her discolored legs in display. "Do you like it, mom? Have you come to reconsider? If you would only accept me, we could all be together." Turning from K'airos while keeping one arm on her, Antimony fought back a rising nausea at D'aijeen's actions. She shook her head slightly, tail quivering, sensed Ulanan moving closer to them but found the bulk of her focus locked on the young girl across from her. "Aijeen... I only want us to be together again, happy again," she breathed. "Is this... is this because of what happened in Ul'dah? That monster... I know it wasn't your fault, love. I know." D'aijeen reeled, taking a step back, ducking forward as if to catch her balance. Then she was upright again, and she ground out in a deep, choking tone. "How do you know about that?" Green eyes looked away for a second, to Ulanan and then past the lalafell towards the entrance to the town. She hesitated, watched the gate for a second, and then returned her near-mournful gaze to her daughter. "D'hein cared about D'ahl very much, too. I know it must have frightened you, Aijeen." She finally pulled herself away from K'airos to take a few steps towards the younger girl. "And... and you are grieving, I know. Please let me help you." K'airos faced her sister, though her eyes were fixed on her mother's back. She tapped her hands together repeatedly. She said nothing, since every time she did or said anything things simply got worse. Behind, Ulanan and her maw squad stopped, not very far, peeking between the two Miqo'te. The Baalzephons continued to move beneath the shadows, as though waiting. D'aijeen didn't even see them. Her eyes were on her mother, though. "Grieving? I'm done. I'm not afraid. Fear is what other people feel instead of love. You're all afraid. I can see it all over you." She gestured with her head. "Airos is afraid of me. You brought the Lalafel the hurt D'ahl. How do you think you're going to help me when you're afraid of me?" Antimony went quiet at that. Quiet because it was true. She was terrified of her own daughter - or rather, what her daughter had become. This was so much worse than the beast in the desert. It was worse than all the hateful words. Shutting her eyes, Antimony took in a shaky breath and then, very slowly reached into her pocket to pull out the letters Ulanan had given her. "Protective spells," she said, her voice as steady as she could make it, but thin in the fear that rode just beneath. She held the papers towards D'aijeen as though showing her and then, very deliberately, dropped them to the ground. "You are my daughter," she said. "I love you. I will not fear you." "I'm not a child anymore." D'aijeen continued forward a few paces, the smile inching its way back on to her face. "You don't love me. You just want to stop me. You don't love me. You don't want to get close to me, or touch me, or listen to me. You don't think I'm pretty. You don't like what I do. You don't love me. You just want to take my Airos away from me." K'airos took a step forward. She was about to burst into crying again, but she kept herself under control. "No! Don't you see?" she shouted to her sister. "You are the one driving me away from you! We would be happy if you hadn't freaked out at mom! You need to stop!" "None of that is true, Aijeen," Antimony managed through a thin breath. "None of it. If I didn't love you, I wouldn't have come here."

Driving her chocobo as hard as she was, it took only a fraction of the usual time to make it to Horizon. A few Blades gave her an odd look as she rushed past the gate of the town, shouting out warningly at her to slow down lest she hurt someone. She did, but not because of their words. Instead she reined her chocobo in to look around the waypoint settlement with quick, anxious glances. Searching. Ulanan was supposed to be here, somewhere. Her tail shivered and curled up around her waist. The lalafel was easy to spot: she was the one wearing an enormous white hat sitting on top of a crate against a side of the entrance, munching happily the contents of a jar of olives. She seemed too distracted by them to notice the familiar Miqo'te. D'hein drove his chocobo hard. Not as hard, though. he didn't really know how to drive a chocobo hard. Chocobo-driving wasn't really his thing, hard or otherwise. He told it that it should try going faster, but it didn't really seem to hear or understand him. He went fast enough to keep Antimony in sight, and too fast to comfortably drink anything while he rode. It was both unplesanat and ineffective. The worst parts of all his intentions. And he still felt strangely warm on one side. He would not arrive until a few minutes after Antimony did, however. Illira kept pace with D'hein, her mind running back through why she was involved in this whole mess to begin with and if she shouldn't just ride off, the worry of innocent fading the more she watched D'hein spill milk over himself as he perched percariously on his bird. She caught the lalafell's scent first, a certain saltiness and the unmistakable aroma of olives. "Ulanan!" Her voice cracked as she spotted the lalafell and her familiar hat. The chocobo beneath her ducked and swung its neck about, perhaps sensing her own anxiety, as she turned it to make her way towards her friend. "Ulanan, please tell me you've found her..." As the rules of etiquette demanded, the lalafel first waved and smiled. Then she jumped down of the crate and nodded. "They left to Vesper Bay not long ago. There's only one road there and I imagine K'airos won't just desert the Blades, and so I determine we will discover them at a distance. If they are leaving town, that is." She took a moment to spin around, take the jar and close it. "Vesper... alright." Antimony sagged, let out a shaky breath, and wavered on her chocobo for a moment before straightening. She cast a brief look towards where she'd come from, back out into the desert, and then looked to Ulanan. "I need to go there. Now. There... that roegadyn is--I need to get to Aijeen before she does." The lalafell blinked. "Roegadyn?" "That--" Antimony blinked, shook her head. "It doesn't matter. She threatens my daughter, and I will protect her. Come with me to Vesper Bay." Ulanan secured the jar of olives to her belt. "I already rented a chocobo. I'll pick it up and we can leave." she said, heading towards the chocobokeep. "Thank you," Antimony breathed and turned her own mount to follow the shorter woman. D'hein arrived promptly after this statement, watching the white hat bounce off towards the chocobo keep. As he stopped his chocobo, he rewarded himself with a sip of milk. Anything to keep his spirits up. As soon as he was done, he began, "Ah, Antimony. So, I was thinking..." Antimony began to walk away from him, following the floating hat. He followed after and tried again. "So I was thinking that we should find Ulanan as soon as we can. She's always had quite a talent for rooting out your daughters, you might recall." "That is what I have done," Antimony replied tersely, after only a brief moment of surprise at D'hein's arrival. "Hello, D'hein" Ulanan added while they moved, not really expecting the man to identify her. D'hein balked in confusion. "That hat spoke my-... Oh! Hello, Ulanan. Have you been able to locate Aijeen or K'airos?" Illira sat on her Chocobo a few feet back from the others. All three of them, she could barely stand. Two of those she found detestable to the -nth degree. And one of them she just wanted dead. And here she was, now having joined a hunt to save a daughter that had been accused of ripping someone apart. The roegadyn seemed capable enough, and if she was in the wrong, surely there was some to take care of her as well. She wasn't needed, not truly. The itch in her feet to run grew as she sat there on the bird's back. "They are on Vesper Bay." the lalafell replied to D'hein. She reached the chocobo keeper and waved at him. The man, also a lalafell, gestured towards the closest bird. Ulanan climbed on it in two hops. It was then she noticed the elezen lingering somewhere behind them. "Is she coming too?" "If she wishes," Antimony's reply was short, and as soon as Ulanan was settled on her chocobo, she jerked the reins on her own bird and pushed her way through the loose crowd milling around Horizon, heading west. "Ah. Like a true Dodo, D'aijeen would know the best remote places to hide out for a few days." He turned to Illira and smiled. "They have decent seafood in Vesper Bay, I'm told. One good thing in all of Thanalan isn't so unthinkable. Do you have a taste for it?" He looked forward again, noticed that Antimony was already well ahead, and frowned. "Ah, we're heading off again." A sneer made its way across her face as a short laugh broke through her harsh lips, "With any luck the Roegadyn will finish what she started with you." With that, Illira turned her chocobo away from the direction that Antimony had charted. "This Roegadyn seems like an interesting person that I should hate." Ulanan concluded out loud, though mostly to herself. She opened her book of spells, laying it on the bird's neck. She took from it a pile of colored envelopes that were being held between the pages. She extended three of them to Antimony. "Do you think D'aijeen will have a violent reaction when she sees us?" Closing her eyes, Antimony bowed her head and let her chocobo walk on its own for a moment. Her fingers twisted about the reins, and she almost said yes, most assuredly so, but a tightness in her chest would not allow such things. Instead she just sighed and shook her head. Wishing to follow Antimony, D'hein grimaced and turned his chocobo after Illira, moving it quickly to intercept here. "Illira, do not forget the reason for this trip. Though I might pretend in my small talk that you are here because of some deep-concealed altruism, I do not for an instant forget that your supply of basic decency must be reinforced by derision. I suggest you keep on behind Antimony." "But you forgot that I am here so that I neither kill you, nor be stuck in a room with you. Leaving your desperate, pitiful party means both of those goals stay intact." Illira makes to steer her chocobo around D'hein's. Ulanan shook the letters on her hand, extending her arm further and basically shaking them in front of Antimony's nose. "Well, just in case take these! If they are not needed, no harm done!" she urged. "No." D'hein puts his chocobo in front of Illira. "You are here because you revealed yourself to be a violent sociopath, and I could neither leave you alone nor abandon Antimony. Helpfully, you offered to come along, solving my problem. If you leave, then my problem, and your problem, is renewed. Understand?" Glancing down at the lalafell, Antimony managed a strained smile of thanks before accepting the papers, tucking them into the single pocket on her robe, by her hip. Not paying attention to whether or not D'hein and Illira were following, she urged her chocobo on and said quietly to Ulanan, "I am sorry for bringing you into such trouble." "I'm only a danger to you. And I can't be, if I'm not around you. I see no problem. Now let me go." "I'm afraid that I am adamant" He lifted his head, then opened his eyes. "Let the businesswoman in you do the thinking. This is a team-building exercise. You can't seem to work with me and that simply can't go on. This is better than forcing Ildur to send us to some kind of group counseling camp weekend or some such event." Ulanan smiled to the Miqo'te. "Friends help each other!" she declared. She turned her head around, making her chocobo turn with her and move towards the others. She stopped once she was next to D'hein. "Here, take this and keep them in your pockets. They are protection spells." she said to him, handing only two yellow envelopes to him. "Why? So that I can help you keep a murderous girl from reaping what she has sowed? I didn't hear Antimony deny her crimes," a deep frown was etched onto Illira's face. "We'll deal with that when we know what happened." D'hein growled. "Five people were killed the other night outside the Ossuary, including a friend of mine. Because my daughter survived the attack, some think she perpetrated it. Does knowing this at all change how you feel?" Antimony watched Ulanan turn back towards D'hein but didn't stop or slow her own chocobo. Shadows fell over her as she crossed into the tunnel that would take them into the saltflats between Horizon and Vesper Bay. The lalafell grimaced and stopped waving the letters at D'hein. Instead, she continued further back and tried the same with Illira. D'hein finally noticed that Ulanan had approached them. They still lingered right where the journey had started, not having moved to follow Antimony at all. As he noticed the Lalafel's sudden presence, he cast his eyes back and noticed that Antimony had moved far ahead. His tail shivered behind him. He looked down at the items in Ulanan's hands, but barely registered them before snapping his gaze back to Illira. "We don't have time for these dramatics. You're an adult and you comitted to this. Continue with us." If it was possible for Illira's frown to deepen, it did as she watched the tiny person wave colorful envelopes at her. Ulanan matched the elezen's frown with one of her own, glaring at her from the shadow cast by her hat. "Protective spells, in case things go awry." she said, tone dry. D'hein snatched the letters from Ulanan, holding one out to Illira. "Put it in your pocket and come on. I don't care about your complaints or your comfort." A few steps into the tunnel, Antimony found the need to reach Vesper Bay far outweighed any wish to let the others keep up. She urged the chocobo into a trot and then, as they took the descending tunnel, into a full-on run. Illira could feel the pressure brewing up inside her, as her energy sapped away. She snatched up the envelope that D'hein held, crumpling it up and tossing it to the ground as she held the reigns in her other hand, sharply yanking on them in the direction that Antimony had vanished into. Having played her mailman role, Ulanan hurried forward to catch up on Antimony, who she noticed was in a hurry of her own. Rolling his eyes, D'hein pocketed the other envelope himself. "Such a rude individual." He turned his chocobo and kicked its sides to chase after Antimony, glad that at least she was cooperating. Leading them like she was meant to. A smart, elegant woman. Her chocobo's feet splashed noisily through the flats, weaving in and out of marshland and following a path it likely knew by heart. Antimony kept her face forward, ears down. If the others caught up, she didn't notice, though with her speed it was unlikely.

Cypress pressed one foot in front of the other, the familiarscent of sulfur and decay present to her trained senses. It used to be all she smelled, untainted air an almost foreign thing to her. But now it was a rarity, especially a trail as strong as this one, for as long as it had been since it had been left. If she extended the effort to pull its traces from the air surely it would have formed a dusty, ugly trail, it seemed that way today at least, the air as dry and arid as it was. It had taken sometime to pick up around the city though, with so many other distractions. It had taken the news of mauling to find an epicenter of the shed traces for her find what she needed. D'ahl. Like D'aijeen. Or so she remembered of Miqo'te familes. Coincidences were only wishful thinking for those who needed them to exist. She knew better. Althyk made all such things happen for a reason. Either coincidentally or by the will of Althyk, D'hein wasenjoying his Chocobo ride. He figured that getting Illira out of Ul'dah without a homicide was a victory, and furthermore it was another that Antimony had not had a complete breakdown over the woman's presence. Yet. The Tia who would be Nunh pulled a bottle of milk from a satchel on his chocobo's side, eliciting a small clatter of the dozen other bottles the satchel contained. He hadn't packed any water. Water was not known for strengthening bones. He held the bottle up to show to Antimony and Illira."Anyone feel like increasing their overall health and spirits with some milk? Just me?" He turned forward again and thought he saw a Roegadyn in their path, walking on foot. Not an uncommon sight out this far, but the woman looked to be almost exactly the same color as the dirt. Perhaps his lack of sleep had him halucinating. Out of curiosity, he pointed ahead, "Is that awoman?" Antimony had kept herself quiet, face forward and down asthe chocobo she rode did most of the work of guiding itself along the well-trod path. She recalled another time she'd ridden between Vesper Bay and Ul'dah, but that had been a happier event. Ulanan had made a good traveling companion. That was a silly thought, and it was quickly banished byD'hein's sudden question. Lifting her head, Antimony turned green eyes towards his chocobo, then ahead to where he pointed. She blinked, squinted. "I... think so? It matters little, though." Not being particularly fond of Chocobos, Illira was not inany particularly happy mood than she was earlier. It didn't help that her Chocobo didn't seem any happier to have her on its back than she was to be there. "We're not the only travelers around, you know," Illira snapped. The rough sandstone of the bridge spread out before Cypressas a leather covered foot stepped onto it. Whispers brushed past her ears pulling at them to turn her attention from her path. But she ignored them, instead, setting her other foot onto the bridge. Antimony furrowed her brow as they came closer to theroegadyn. Something about the color and the manner of that figure was familiar, and not in a good way. "Oh, I know. But we should take every chance to befriendly to passersby, especially when traveling. Allow me to demonstrate." The Miqo'te kicked his chocobo forward towards the woman, then stood up in his saddle and waved the bottle of milk over his head, calling with undue cheer. "Excuse me, Roegadyn traveler! Could your mouth do with some refreshment and your bones with strengthening?" The whispers formed more complete words, asking, begging forher attention even if they didn't deserve it. She turned now though, as they wouldn't stop. Not if she didn't trim them at their source. Orange and pink bangs fell over one stern eye. "What do you want?" She asked, graveled voice booming over the distance. Antimony flinched. They were close enough now that she couldrecognize that face, and she felt she'd had enough of trying to pass things off as coincidence. "Oh, hi there!" D'hein pulled his chocobo upalongside the woman, extending the bottle of milk so that she could see it. "I was just going to offer some refreshment, traveler to traveler. These roads are unfriendly enough without us... Waaaaaait!" He pulled the milk away and appeared horrified. "You're the mean lady!" Sighing, Antimony drew her own chocobo to a halt a few fulmsaway. She frowned with pursed lips towards the roegadyn. "I should hope you have abandoned your previous task." The furry-eared figures were faintly familiar. But then allMiqo'te kind of the looked the same. But from the leveled accusation, Cypress knew which ones these were, "You can believe what you wish, Miss." Illira's thick brows came together, she didn't knwo thewoman, but the other two obviously did. "Who is she?" the elezen asked of Antimony as she pulled up next to her Chocobo. Antimony swallowed, frown deepening. "A... threat to mydaughter," her tone is grave. "If I recall properly..." D'hein withdrew theoffered milk, a dramatic gesture of condemnation. "This is the woman who said that if she found D'aijeen, she would kill her. And where do we find you walking to now?" "I did not threaten. I merely stated what may have cometo pass. I only follow the path left behind. It could very well be your daughters. For your sake, I will hope that it is not." "You will follow another path now," Antimonysnapped. "I will not have you anywhere near Aijeen." D'hein placed his chocobo in the woman's path, letting thatgesture speak for him. Cypress didn’t even need to look up at the man, such was hersize. "You really should not stand in my path. Though it is not your fault that you don't understand what it is I follow, I suppose." "I understand threats to my children well enough. Turnback." Steeling herself, Antimony moved her chocobo in Cypress's path as well. Illira didn’t move hers forward with the other, confused atwhat anyone was talking about. So she lets the scene play out before her, for now. D'hein hummed. He looked at Illira, and then at Antimony."At this rate I'll have to be more rude than I prefer to be in the company of women. Could I ask you and Illira to continue on a ways that I might privately discuss this woman's opinion of my daughter?" "So that you... what?" Antimony huffed. "No,you may not. You will discuss her in my presence." The elezen shrugs, "This is not my business." Sheurges her chocobo forward, into the open space on the bridge to squeeze past the others. The chocobo's head snaps towards the others, craning its neck, but it doesn't actually do anything. Cypress merely stood there, waiting for the pair to maketheir decision. D'hein looks at Antimony, blinking. "Uhm. No. I thinkyou missed something I was implying. Anyway." He points. "Please don't leave Illira alone. I'll follow and just a moment. Once I've helped this poor refugee whose mind has been so shattered by the war. Or something." "You should go ahead, Miss. More heads is not always abetter thing," states Cypress. "I am not going to leave you to handle mattersinvolving my daughter on your own!" Antimony snapped. D'hein rolled his eyes and leaned towards Antimony, hissingconspiratorially. "I want the option to intimidate her with violence if I need to. Get it?" "And you would not give me the opportunity to see itdone?" Her green eyes narrow. "Now... who is threatening who with violence?" asksCypress evenly. "No!" D'hein ignored the Roegadyn. "Nor wouldI give you the opportunity to get hurt. Because I'm not a moron." Antimony's hands tightened on her chocobo's reins, and the birdshifted, perhaps sensing her heightened emotion. Grey ears laying back, she finally turned from D'hein, wordlessly, and made to move the chocobo a short ways down the road. D'hein sighed in satisfaction as Antimony turned away,moving off. After a few seconds, he smiled and looked back at the Roegadyn. "So, as I was saying. Would you like some milk?" His smile fled, replaced by a dark expression. "Because you can't have any of my milk." Ears laying back as she put some distance between herselfand D'hein, Antimony angled her chocobo towards where Illira had continued on. She didn't entirely approach the woman, however, keeping an unhappy distance before turning back to look towards the Tia and the strange roegadyn. The red woman didn't appear particularly concerned about themilk. Indeed, she ignored his rescinded offer completely. "What was your name?" She asked, "I assume that its starts with a D. Since you claim D'aijeen as a daughter. So I believe it is likely that you know of a D'ahl's passage into void." "Such a thing is none of your business." D'heingsnapped, lifting his leg to drop himself off of his chocobo. His tired legs didn't take him as smoothly as he'd intended, and she stumbled and dropped to one knee. Then he stood again, dusted himself off, and resumed his aggressive tone. "I don't take it as a coincidence that you're on this road. I can't let you go on after that unwise display of honesty back in Ul'dah." "Such a thing is my business and there is no such thingas a coincidence. For it’s the trail of the voidsent which killed her, that follow now. I tell you, so that you might understand better why I am here," explained Cypress, her voice steady, bordering on monotone. "I understand your suppositions and your intentions.Yes, I think I understand them better than even you do. Therefore." He plucked a small, decorative golden scepter from his robe, the end of it pointed like a stake. It gleamed gold in the desert sunlight. "I shall make you an offer of free internment should you wish to continue. I am a trained thaumaturge. I shall see to it that your remains are properly dealt with." "You should step aside, because I cannot and I do notwant to have to go through you." "Don't. What?" D'heing shook his head, confusedand gestured with his scepter. "No, that's what I'm saying. Not that I'm going through... See, you're supposed to turn around because if you don't I'm hurting you, see?" He held his scepter forward to indicate it. "See, look. You know what this is?" "I simply don't care what it is," Cypress steppedtowards the Miqo'te. Looking down at him, she reached out to grab the shiny-looking cudgel from his grasp. D'hein pulled it away as though keeping a toy away from achild. "No! You don't think it'll be that easy, do you?" Cypress lifted her hand upwards towards the man's face,ingesting a deep breath through her nostrils that flared widely with intake of air. Closing her eyes, she drew a spark on aether up from within her core, letting it fall down through her arm and into the palm of her hands, feeling the almost pleasurable shiver viscerally as small cracks formed at the surface of her red skin. The large hand closed, letting the heat build up as herfingertips blacken, the effect spreading around her hand and up her forearm as pink-orange lines drew their way in its wake - a burning log having set too long in the fire. She opened her palm to reveal a flame that danced along it. "It could be, if you let it." "I'm not very easily intimidated, you'll find!"D'hien lifted his head, stepped back and summoned Aether into his scepter, smirking stoically. "Are you sure you want to make a fight of this? I've taken down entire Garlean ariships before." "I do not want a fight. But I cannot step aside."Cypress drew her other hand to the flame, her finger manipulating it into a growing ball. His demeanor not demonstrating any concept that he is beingthreatened, D'hein drops into a casting stance and begins to conjure a spell. "I've warned you excessively. Now you shall endure one of the mightiest attacks the ossuary has ever devised. It is called... Blizzard Two." Not pausing to call out what was forming at her fingertips,Cypress merely stepped back with large strides as she pulled back the hand that held the flaming ball and hurled it at D'hein and his chocobo. D'hein was focusing on casting his spell, happily thinkinghe was about to chase the woman away, when the fireball struck him unawares. He felt a numb tingling across his arm, shoulder and back, which was enough to confuse him. But he was thoroughly disoriented as he was knocked off his feet and his body slammed into his chocobo, which made an unpleasant sound and bolted. The man then fell on his back, feeling strangely hot evenfor the desert, and listened to the clatter of the milk bottles in his chocobo's saddlebags growing heartbreakingly distant. He gazed at the sky in vexation. The spell he had prepared in his scepter unleashed without target, freezing the ground next to him and making half of his body very cold. With the distance she'd put herself at, Antimony could onlywatch with a sort of slow fear as the Hellsguard woman charged and released her fiery attack. She hadn't quite fathomed what the Hellsguard would be capable of, but now it bolstered her fear even further - both for D'hein (she hadn't intended to watch him get hurt, however annoying he was) and for her daughter. Gripping the reins of her chocobo, she didn't look to see if Illira had responded to the attack, instead driving her heels into the beast's side, at a point just in front of the legs that she knew from many decades would startle it just enough. The chocobo squawked and surged forward, and she rushed to angle it between the Tia on the ground and the roegadyn. "Stop!" She shouted and threw out one hand. "By all that is--just stop! Are you so heartless that you'd pass through us and murder an innocent child?!" Illira watched on as D'hein fell to the ground and Antimonyrushed to the scene. A smile twitched itself into existence. He shouldn't have picked a fight that he couldn't win. The flame fed by her aether continued to dance aboutCypress's ember of a hand, a little bit of it occasionally tinkling down into the sands below her, "What I track isn't innocent. It pulled a woman apart, leaving the trail that I'm now on." "You don't understand, she--she doesn't know what...she can't control it! I swear to you it is not her fault!" Her joints ached as her hand shook around the reins, but she kept her wide-eyed stare on the Hellsguard. Cypress's gaze was steady, "Excuses you have no rightto make. It does not matter if can't keep what she calls forth in a cage or not. She is still the reason they’re here and not where they belong, back beyond the voidgate. Now, you should either help me fix what she broke or step aside." With a pleading look to the roegadyn, Antimony could onlyadd, "Please. Don't hurt her. You can kill the--the thing, just... please don't--if you hurt my daughter, I will--" Shaking her head, Cypress said, "I cannot make promisesbecause I do not know the end tale." "Then you are a monster just as much as what you claimto hunt!" Antimony shouted suddenly, gesturing roughly towards the other woman. "I won't let you hurt her! If it comes down to it, you will have to kill me first!" D'hein sat up in the dirt, part of his shirt blackened andone of his sleeves frosted open. He looks at his feet. "I'm not sure what just happened." Antimony's features tensed and she backed the chocobo up,away from the roegadyn. "Get back on your bird, now," she snapped to D'hein. "We will find her before this monster." And then she twisted the reins and sent the chocobo off running in the direction she'd left Illira. "So you would let your... daughter continue to leavemore death in her wake because you believe that she doesn't know how handle what she does? You only enable her and should responsibility for the monster you birthed and look at in the mirror." Long fingers drew up enough fire from the seed to throw miniature flames at the feet of D'hein's chocobo. Looking around in a confused daze, D'hein muttered, "Mybird's run off. I must have been very frightening." He stood and turned, watching Antimony ride off. He said again, quietly, "My chocobo has fled. I think I must..." He looked at the ground, noted tracks, and nodded. "I will follow it." The chocobo stood ten meters away. He would have found italmost immediately, indeed he did see it and began towards it, but fire burst along its feet and it squawked, running further off. D'hein trotted after it. Illira helpfully remarked to Antimony as she approached,"We should run along without him." Antimony did not slow for D'hein's confusion, or theroegadyn's words. She would pass Illira without comment, a desperate look on her face. If the elezen followed, then she would, but Antimony was focused on pushing her chocobo as fast as physically possible, on reaching D'aijeen as fast as physically possible. Cypress picked back up her walk and the trail that she hadnever really left. Slowly, the cracks present in her skin receded as she let the fire melt off of her hand and into the sandy, dry ground below her. Despite the speed and desperation that the woman had fled with, she was not hurried. Finally catching up to his terrified chocobo, its feetburned, D'hein clambered up on top of it. The first thing he did was pluck a bottle of milk from the satchel on the side, open it and drink some. Then he turned it to follow after Antimony, still appearing deeply confused. Illira narrowed her eyes at the approaching roegadyn, beforeturning after Antimony, nudging her stubborn, grounchy beast into a trot. At the very least, she should investigate the situation of Antimony's daughter. Anywhich way this panned out, somebody innocent would be in danger. And it was not in her to simply walk away from that. When D'hein finally noticed pace set by Antimony, he was aways behind, and he found himself urging his chocobo into an unpleasantly speedy pace, chasing after her.

((Follows immediately after Experts on Voidsent and Comfort.)) *** Roughly an hour after leaving Illira alone in her room, D'hein now stood outside of it again, no better rested than when he left. Truthfully, though he'd managed to work his way into Antimony's bed, he hadn't had a second of sleep. Instead of being at his side and keeping him warm (which he had no business hoping she would do but had hoped anyway), Antimony had been awake and active and arguing with another woman right next to the bed the entire time. How could he sleep through that? At least he had milk now. He took a drink from the bottle and smiled happily at the flavor, forgetting all of his complaints for a blissful trio of seconds. Then he lifted his hand to knock on the door. Just then, someone walked by behind him so quickly that he barely sensed their passage, except for the rude brush that knocked him up against Illira's door with a heavy thud. Illira hadn't done anything like lying in bed. Instead she'd spent the time stalking about her room, like a restless coeurl, indecisive about whether or not she should stay put for D'hein to come and hunt her back down or if she should run. She had done enough of the later though, even if under the guise of other actions. That knowledge was enough to keep her contained within her self-inflicted cage for the time being though. When her door knocked in on her thoughts, she could almost see the vibrations pulsing through it with the weighted impact that it felt. It stopped her in the tracks that she had very nearly tred into the floor. Staring at it for a time, she eventually dragged herself to it, staying as far from the entrance as she could while her hand gipped the knob and pulled it open. D'hein glared at the passer that had knocked him aside. Was that the woman from Antimony's room? Just as well. The woman had been very rude. He put the bottle of milk to his lips and turned forward to find that the door had opened and he was now staring into Illira's face. He choked. The elezen's thin lips pressed together as she stared harshly down at the bumbling man. The itch hadn't vanished from her fingers. It probably never would. "You sleep well then? You shouldn't have." Cleaing his throat, one of D'hein's ears bounced, and he managed after a moment. "Not for an instant." "Good," she said in a brusque yet sincere manner. "Will Antimony have me on this ill-fated journey of yours then?" "I... do not think that she won't have you." He blinked. "As I am fully aware of the risk in answering that question incorrectly or with an error of connotation, I think you should ask her yourself." He extended a hand towards the room down the hall. Her eyes narrow at that. "It’s not for me to do. I don't even want to join you." Sharply nailed fingers curled inward into her palm. "What? It was your idea." He looked at Illira, then back down the hallway, then to his left where there was no one. He brushed the back of one hand over his face. "Oof. Why does this sound like it's going to get complicated?" "It was only my suggestion because I do not believe that either of us would like the other path that you left open." She paused to reflect, "As satisfying as its endpoint might have been." He winced. "Right! Well. The satisfaction you foresaw is up for debate. Listen, let's go and... Are you ready to...?" Illira turns and grabs hold of a small pack that sat slumped by the bed, "Yes." "Ah, good! Appreciated!" D'hein nodded and backed up, a bit too far. He thudded against the wall in the hallway. Then he turned left, but left was incorrect. He turned right. "I'm sure Antimony will be overjoyed to begin!" He walked down the hallway. Illira merely let out a displeased sigh, staring at the back of D'hein's neck as she followed him. *** Antimony stood still in the middle of her room, where Loughree had left her. Her ears and tail shivered with weary thoughts. She hadn't yet bothered to shut the door after the Keeper, but then she expected D'hein to return with that awful Carceri woman any moment now regardless. She wondered if she could simply abandon him and strike out to deal with everything on her own. D'hein cheerfully appeared in Antimony's doorway once more, both hands clasped about his bottle of milk. With a smile of dubious width and one shivering ear, he proclaimed, "Hello again! I have good news. Illira has chosen to join us and is already prepared for the journey!" Looking up sharply, Antimony's tail curled tight behind her. Her features followed suit. "I don't wish her presence in family matters." Standing behind the short man, Illira laughed sharply, "Now. If only D'hein understand what that meant. It’s too late for that though. I am not left much choice in this matter, Antimony." The older miqo'te flinched, not having noticed the elezen until she'd spoken. "Ah," green eyes averted. "I did not mean..." She trailed off, and then huffed. D'hein lifted his hands between them. "Now, I think a certain definition of intentions is in order. Illira really has no care to intervene in your relationship with your daughters. She's simply coming because she may be helpful in locating them and dealing with whatever threat has been directed at them." Folding her arms across her body, Antimony let out a faint sigh. "I don't think she--" she hesitated, closed her eyes, brought two fingers up to pinch the bridge of her nose. "... Let us just be on our way," she finally murmured in defeat. "You don't think that I... what? Care about family? I don't think that you actually know me well enough to judge me, Antimony." D'hein could only make a nervous half-laugh of desperate helplessness. "I said nothing of the sort," Antimony snapped, seeming to bunch up in on herself for a moment before hurrying towards the door, intent on brushing past both D'hein and Illira. "No. You never finished your thought," Illira seemed content to throw barbs from where she stood, as far from D'hein as the narrow hall would let her. D'hein did not impede Antimony, watching the woman for a moment, and then looking towards Illira. He managed to groan out, "I think an indispensable paradigm for this expedition would encourage us to go out-of-our way and say deliberately uplifting things to one another." He found some energy and gestured with fake excitement. "For example, I'm very impressed with how quickly you were prepared to depart, Illira. And Antimony's endless, graceful acceptance inspires me to be a better person! Now, isn't that starting off on the right foot?" "I would like to find my daughters now," Antimony muttered stiffly, standing out in the hall. "Which means we need to make our way to Vesper Bay immediately." "Then we should requisition chocobos. I think you're familiar with the local stable, so you should lead the way," says Illira. "Yes, Antimony! You're in charge!" D'hein followed as though everyone were having a great time. "We're here to help and support you. Let's go and bring your daughters home."

Cringing away from the wall as it shook from whatever had damaged the door, Antimony pressed her mouth together tightly in an effort not to just explode on the younger woman. A moment passed, and then she noticed again that D'hein was awake, looked to him, and looked away anxiously. D'hein's tired eyes roved across the road towards Antimony, and he muttered in a weary voice, "Why are people always yelling around you?" She shut her eyes at that, ears shivering low by her skull, and then she moved to bend down by the tray she'd brought in earlier. Her hands shook slightly as she poured the third cup of tea, but she ignored it as she crossed the room to hold the mug, slightly cooler than it would have been had she poured it immediately but still quite warm, out towards D'hein. "I apologize for waking you." Though D'hein's expression was still sleepy, one ear inside out and the other swinging as though limp next to his head, his hand lifted with a swiftness as though awake. Instinctively, he ignored the cup and placed his hand on the outside of Antimony's. "You're not the one who woke me. Is everything all right?" "Ah, I wouldn't want--don't worry yourself over it. Everything will be fine." Her eyes drifted towards the bathroom door with a slight frown. "She's just... upset." And not in a state to listen to reason in any form, apparently. Antimony sighed. D'hein's eyes looked down at their hands with curiosity, as if he hadn't noticed himself reaching out to touch her. "You know you don't have to take anyone else's troubles upon yourself now." Lips pursing, Antimony's fingers fidgeted against the mug, beneath D'hein's hand, and then turned it so that the ceramic was pressed against his. "Drink," she said simply, then paused. "I already took on her troubles weeks ago." "You have too large a heart for you own good, maybe." He took the tea, sipped it, smiled, and drank of it deeply. Her tail curled, ears splaying in embarrassment. "Ah, well... I wouldn't say..." Stepping back, she coughed, glanced again towards the door, and then reluctantly stepped towards it, knocking first and then pushing on it experimentally. "Miss Loughree... are you alright?" Watching Antimony, D'hein drank what was left in the cup of tea and then leaned over to set it down on the floor. He almost fell out of the bed in the process, and his tail whipped in the air, but he righted himself and rolled over to lay back down. The door Antimony pushed about did not give, thanks to a significant weight pressing against the other side. There came the sound of shifting, and Loughrees voice replied immediately from the other side. "Yes." "Ah." A sigh. "Well. That's good. I'd worried..." She brought her hands together, fingers twisting; the gesture made their joints ache. "How... long do you intend to stay in there?" "I don't want to be in here at all!" Her fist pounded against the opposite side of the door. "Hiding in bathrooms from harmless people. This is pathetic." Antimony leaned back slightly at the pounding, winced. "It's... alright, dear. You can... well." She fidgeted, tail shifting to press against one leg, curling around her knee. "I understand you're frightened and worried. You... can stay there as long as you need." After a sudden shifting, the door snapped open, revealing Loughree's dirty, glaring features. "I didn't come here looking for mothering. You can't make this better with tea and hugs." Green eyes widened at that, ears shifting back in sudden discomfort, and some hurt. "I am only trying to help you calm down," she protested after a moment, brow furrowing. "It isn't working!" She punched the doorframe, drawing a painful-sounding crack. She shook. "That's... not your fault. This whole thing is my fault." Antimony reached out suddenly to Loughree's hand. "Stop that. Hurting yourself won't help either." She hesitated and then added, "Neither will blaming yourself. Perhaps... perhaps it is my fault, for continuing to associate with Megiddo." The hand that Antimony reached for suddenly opened and took her wrist in a firm grip. "Did you tell him?" Her nostrils curled and she leaned down to Antimony's eye level, clay-red eyes shining through her dirty hair. "Did you tell him about her? Is that how he knew?" "What?" Her brow wrinkled deeply, and she cast an anxious look over her shoulder, then back to Loughree. "I... no! No, why would I do such a thing..?" "I know you wouldn't." Loughree let go of the odler woman's hand, and her broad shoulders buckled. "I just don't know how he found out. I was so careful." "I don't... Are you sure it was him? Perhaps... a coincidence... maybe she traveled or had to leave for some, ah, other reason..?" The woman reached up to the collar of her shirt and pulled it down to reveal her neck, displaying fresh, heinous burns. Distinguishable in the burns, just barely between the hideously disfigured, oozing flesh, were letters inscribed as though with a brand. "It was him." Antimony sucked in a sharp breath, leaned back, and then almost immediately moved forward, reached to touch the edges of the collar. "Miss Loughree, that--that needs seeing to..." One ear shook. "... But I don't understand?" Loughree dropped her hands away and lifted her chin so that Antimony could have a better look. "I hunted him. I confronted him on the night I heard the screaming. I thought I could fight him, but... In the Shroud, when the Clan was falling apart, I used to find bodies with the names seared into them. Our ancestors' names. Children's bodies, burned." The skin was in a horrible condition, blisters peeling back down to muscle in some small patches, and inching rapidly towards infection. One of Antimony's hands went instinctively to her own neck, but then dropped when she remembered she would have none of her old tools. "You need to... see someone for this, Miss Loughree," her ears drooped. "Even something this localized could become deadly." She licked her lips, processed the Keeper's words. "He... told you he'd taken her?" Rolling her chin down and looking aside, Loughree muttered. "It's hard to worry about myself when she's..." Her gaze twitched towards Antimony for only an instant. "Yes." Antimony drew a slow breath. "Oh." She blinked, pressed her lips together, and then finally turned towards D'hein. "She... needs medical help," she wrung her hands as she spoke. "I don't have any aloe, or anything else useful with me, but..." D'hein burst into a sitting position, the bed keening underneath him. His head tilted oddly and only one of his eyes was open. "I can procure whatever you need! Or a healer." The broad Miqo'te glared down at D'hein, letting her burned neck remain exposed as she crossed her arms. For a few seconds, Antimony just blinked in mild surprise at the Tia and his sudden, if lopsided, reaction. "A..." She hesitated at asking outright for another healer. How could she be sure they would treat Loughree properly? And they could ask questions that would upset the younger woman... Antimony bit her lower lip briefly and then changed course, "Warm water, salt... ah, aloe, as freshly cut as possible. And dressing." The Tia-or-Nunh rubbed his eyes with one hand. "Dressing? They make a really good seasoned vinegar at that place in Hustings Strip I took you one time..." "I don't know how I feel about charity." Loughree turned her attention back to Antimony, no longer glaring, just musing. "The refugees can't afford medicine. Why should I have that luxury?" "Anyone should," that answer came easily enough. "Don't be ridiculous." Then to D'hein with an anxious huff, "Not food - cloth, to wrap the wound in!" "It sounded like you were describing a salad. A salted aloe salad. Oh, well." D'hein brought his feet around and hopped off the bed, landing directly on the tray of bread and tea, shattering most of the dishes with one foot and toppling directly forward without any motion to catch himself. He stood so quickly, though, that he almost appeared to bounce, rolling to one foot and positioning himself facing the door, shards of broken pottery stuck in his boot. "I'll be right back." Antimony let out a very unbecoming squeak as D'hein outright squashed and shattered the tray's contents, hands moving to her mouth. She just watched him with wide, uncertain eyes as he made to leave. Slipping out of the room smoothly, D'hein pulled the door shut on his tail with a heavy, boney thwack that caused the door to bounce back open. He continued on, though, not noticing that he'd failed to close the door. Loughree watched him go with a an unchanged expression, but after a few minutes, she smirked. "At least he isn't hitting on me this time." Antimony had taken a step forward, in part out of concern for D'hein's tail and in part to close the door, when Loughree spoke. She paused, blinked. "Ah... what?" "I remember him. Sweet-talker. Always trying to get somewhere." At that, Antimony sighed and closed the distance between herself and the door so as to close it. "Perhaps." She was struck with a pang of guilt then, for letting herself get distracted by Loughree's troubles, delaying attention towards those that dogged herself and D'hein, and almost immediately she felt guilty for feeling guilty. And then she just wanted to sink into the floor. She chose instead to look towards the crushed bread and shattered plateware, ears low. After watching Antimony's silence some, Loughree followed Antimony's gaze to the mess on the floor. A moment later, wordlessly, Loughree stepped forward and dropped into a crouch over the shattered plates, piling the larger shards onto the tray, along with the ruined food, and her own spilled cup of tea. "Your room kind of gets abused by people, doesn't it?" "I... imagine the innkeeper will not want me to return after this." Watching Loughree pull the mess into a more localized space brought a small, appreciative smile to her face though. Loughree hummed at that. "I'm sorry. I don't know why I keep coming here and breaking things. You know you're the only person who even knows that I had someone I was taking care of." "It is... better than going elsewhere and hurting yourself, I should think." She wasn't sure what to think about the last part. Honored? Saddened? Ambivalent? "Maybe I could use a little abuse." She paused after she said that, staring at the shards of broken pottery in her hand, and then continued without another word. Her tail shivered. "I'll have none of that," Antimony spoke sharply, but almost immediately regretted her tone. Her posture slumped with a sigh. "Let's... just focus on fixing that burn for now." All the while, Aijeen moved potentially further and further away... she couldn't think about that. Loughree hefted the tray into her lap, its contents clattering. She rose to her feet and then shifted, just holding it, not looking sure what to do with it. Most of the furniture in the room was broken. Finally, she carried the tray over to the furniture she had previously broken and piled and set it in with the rest of the mess. Shifting her head about, stretching the burned flesh on her neck but not feeling it, Loughree turned around to Antimony and said at last. "You can focus on whatever you want." And yet Loughree had made it impossible to do just that. Immediately Antimony cringed with guilt at her own thoughts, and then forced a small smile towards the Keeper, who stood now by the remnants of her destructive tendencies. "Would you like another cup of tea?" "No." Loughree looked away, an expression of disgust on her features. "Stop offering me things. Charity makes me feel like I'm being made fun of." Antimony's tail stiffened at that, ears laying back, and she stammered a moment before, "Oh... oh, I didn't mean--that is, I only meant to offer... help." "I know that. Just. Stop trying so hard. I don't need anything." The blonde, broad woman paced back towards the middle of the room. "I don't understand charity. I don't understand why you're helping. I know you are, but you don't need me, so I don't understand." "Does it matter? As long as it's genuine?" Grey ears tilted, relaxing slightly. She hesitated for a moment longer. "After we address your burn, I... I can't stay here for very long." A pause, and her expression flashed briefly with discomfort before softening towards Loughree. "But you're welcome to, ah, remain, should you need a place to stay. Er--not to assume that you're homeless or anything! Only--you came here for a reason... I think! And I... will return here, hopefully in a few days. So." She wrung her hands. "Perhaps it's charity, but you're welcome." "I have a home." Loughree's expression didn't seem able to soften, nor did her voice. "And no reason not to go back to it. I don't have a reason to have come here in the first place, either. I don't know." "Well." She furrowed her brow. "That's alright, too, I suppose. I only want to make sure you're... ah, comfortable." Rolling her broad shoulders, Loughree tilted her neck, the burns cracking illustratively. "Don't think that's likely." Antimony didn't miss the hint. Tapping her fingers together anxiously, the older woman twisted towards the door. "Aah, what is taking that Tia so long? They weren't difficult supplies!" "It hasn't been that long." Loughree righted her head, the burnt flesh sinking back into itself like folded paper. She winced slightly, but smirked. "Maybe he's getting you flowers." Her head canted back towards Loughree, with what was at first a baffled and then a flustered expression. "Nonsense! I told him to get aloe, warm water, and dressing." "So you think that doesn't mean he's not going to flatter you with anything. It's like you've never actually met a man." Antimony frowned, huffed, and then gestured towards the bed, "Sit and rest while we wait." "I don't need to rest," Loughree huffed, but paced towards the bed anyway. There was a sudden thud against the room's door, then silence for a moment, and then another thud. Finally the door swung inward to reveal D'hein, his forehead reddened and his arms full of goods. He indeed had fresh cuts of aloe, a roll of long, thin cloth, and a jug of warmed water. He also held across his chest several bottles of milk. Walking directly to Antimony as though in a sleepy daze, he deposited all of the medicinal items in the womans arms and muttered, "They had most of this in the bar already because sometimes people get burned I guess. I made them heat the water." He then placed one of the bottles of milk on top of the items in her arms. "Drink this bones. Gives you strong milk." He turned and forced a bottle into Loughree's hands as well. "Cheer up. Strong bones." Finally, he collapsed face-down on the bed, successfully taking it for himself before Loughree could sit down. He cradled the final bottle of milk next to him like he'd forgotten what it was. "Make sure you drink it..." Loughree stared at the bottle in her hands like she'd never seen a bottle before. "Well it's not exactly flowers." It took no small amount of effort not to drop the items that found themselves very suddenly deposited into unsuspecting arms. Antimony leaned back sharply as the bottle threatened to roll right off and managed to stagger towards the bed in time for it to drop harmlessly onto the mattress, by D'hein's feet. She blinked at it in a strange bemusement before Loughree's words brought her back to the present and she shook herself. The other items went to the bed as well, in a corner not occupied by D'hein, save for the jug of water. She held that between her hands and let its warmth ease aching joints a moment before turning towards the Keeper and giving a slight nod. "Well, then. Ah... let's--come here and sit so we can take care of you." Allowing herself to smirk in good humor, Loughree moved the bottle from one hand to the other as she paced over. "He gave me a bottle, too. Does this mean he's courting me, too? Giving me food is a lot more effective than whatever he was doing last time." She sat on the bed where indicated, carefully pulling her tail away from D'hein and up over her lap. The deteriorating bed frame creaked beneath her. One of Antimony's ears twitched. "It's not any of my business if he were, but I highly doubt it." She eyed the bed warily when it groaned and bent slightly under Loughree's added weight. "Wait," she said to the Keeper, turning from her and crossing the short distance into the bathroom. She was gone only a few seconds, only to return with a small towel hung over one arm. "We'll need to remove your shirt so I can clean and dress the burn. Can you lift your arm?" Loughree made a small show of stretching her arms to either side and then over her head, flapping them about a bit before pulling the filthy shirt over her head, cringing at the feeling but not uttering a sound. She was careful to keep the baggy shirt hanging over the front of her body, and snapped her arms down in front of her as soon as the shirt was loose. Only her shoulders and her naked back were exposed, both pale and carved with incredibly dense muscle. The fact that she was otherwise thin made the stressed muscles stand out all the more. If Antimony noted anything else about Loughree's body aside from the wound it was that the younger woman was perhaps too thin to be healthy. She filed this away automatically as her body set to work on the burn along Loughree's shoulder. The skin was crinkled, peeling, dry in some places, wet with body fluid in others. Opening the jug of water, she damped the towel and then very carefully dabbed around the wound. She knew it would hurt but it was not something she could let stop her. Dirt washed away, along with dead skin. "You are lucky, it is not very deep," she murmured as she set the towel across her lap and then took up a number of the aloe leaves. The thick, waxy leaves had been cut in a way that told Antimony someone had known what they were doing. But then, burns were likely a common problem in a kitchen. She broke one of the leaves in half and squeezed out the gel-like substance all over the burn. "It may sting at first, but it should start to soothe very quickly." This imparted to Loughree, she then bowed her head and murmured a few low prayers as she worked - to cleanse and seal the burn from infection, to ward off spiritual ills that may invade the damaged opening, to hasten healing. A few other aloe leaves had been cut lengthwise, and these she lay across Loughree's shoulder so that the gel-covered halves pressed against the wound. She then took up the cloth dressing and began to wrap them down. The young Miqo'te did not complain about any of the pain, though her expression showed that she did feel it. She kept herself quiet and still, at first keeping her eyes turned away. When Antimony began to pray, Loughree's ears lifted and turned towards her, one twitching. Her blue eyes watch the woman, then. As Antimony began to wrap the burns, Loughree's tail shivered. "Thank you. I wouldn't have known to do this on my own." Pulling the dressing across Loughree's chest and up over the woman's shoulder repeatedly, Antimony pressed her ears back in a display of humility. "I would not have let you go without seeing to it. If the creeping death had set in... well, let's not think on that." Her own tail shifted anxiously. A moment later, she was tying off the remaining dressing and stepping back from the Keeper."You'll want to change the aloe at least twice a day." Loughree blinked at the woman and smirked. "Then I guess I'll be scrounging around the desert for wild aloe." She looked down at her hands crossed over her breast, holding ehr shirt to her. "Or I can make some money somehow. I don't need to be a Brass Blade in order to..." She left off the last of the thought and cast her gaze at the wall. "You are a smart, strong woman," Antimony spoke after a moment before bending to gather up the remains of the aloe, bundling them in the towel. "I am certain you can make a life in any way you choose." "I was only ever taught to live one way. And I'm starting to think that hurting other people isn't the best way to get what I need. Can I put my shirt back on now?" At some point while Loughree was speaking, D'hein roused once more. Pushing himself up on his elbows, one eyes pinked and one eyes squinted around the wound. "What? What's going on?" His gaze found Loughree's exposed side and back and lingered there. "Of course, just be careful not to shift the--" Antimony blinked, straightening with the bundle of aloe in her hands, and cast a bemused look towards D'hein. Looking back at D'hein, Loughree frowned and elbowed the man in the leg. He didn't appear to notice, so the woman just huffed and pulled the filthy shirt back over her head, standing from the bed with her tail swinging around behind her. "Thank you, Antimony." D'hein just sat up and appeared surly. "Has it been an hour yet?" "What?" Antimony furrowed her brow, not immediately following D'hein's train of thought. She cast a brief, small smile that deepened the spidery lines to either side of her mouth towards Loughree and then returned her confusion to the Tia. "I... I'm unsure. It's impossible to keep track of in this walled off city." "Lots of people keep timepieces." Loughree stretched her arms and her neck, wincing at the sensations. It was like she was testing how much pain she would feel, or how much she would endure. "I think it's been about an hour since you two came back in." D'heing curled forward and stared at the ground. "I'm never going to get a nap." "You've taken two already, haven't you?" She felt her tail curling unhappily and forced it to relax with a sigh. The effort didn't last long and soon the limb was twitching anxiously behind her once more. "There is some time for additional rest, I suppose.." "No. No, there's not." D'heing brushed at his face and forced himself to stand, though he looked very unhappy about it. His ears were flat on top of his head, his tail limp behind him. "I told Illira one hour, and one hour I will stick to. If I leave her any longer she's liable to stab someone. Possibly myself." "Wh-what?" Antimony paled, then shook herself, her own ears dropping back. "Now look--I still don't think I want that woman accompanying us on such a personal matter...!" D'hein's entire argument was to look at Antimony with a frown on his face, arms at his sides. "She--it--" Antimony sputtered, green eyes shifting around the room before returning to the Tia. "She has no care for finding Aijeen or Airos! And she certainly wouldn't care about protecting them from whatever has committed those murders." "She has a strong sense of right. Too strong, to be honest. If she discovers some corruption of malevolence oppression Aijeen and K'airos, her first instinct will be to destroy it. You can trust that even if you don't like her." Antimony winced. "It's not that I... she just... well." Her tail performed a number of contortions against her leg. "She's clearly... she has been nothing but belittling to me this entire time and I don't understand what--" Forcing herself to stop, Antimony shut her eyes, drew a deep breath, and let it out lengthily through her nose. "If she's mean to you just call her ugly and mean like you did last time. Her feelings can be hurt if you decide you want to." D'hein turned to take a step towards the door, only to find himself face-to-face with Loughree again. The woman, almost taller than he was and just as broad, was watching him with arms crossed and a frown on her face. D'hein looked over her filthy appearance, the tattered old clothes, the bandages, the tangled hair. Then he turned to Antimony and said, "I'm confused why there's a refugee in your room." "A ref... what?" She blinked at Loughree, and then frowned sharply towards the Tia. "No. Miss Loughree is no refugee, and she certainly deserves more respect than what you've given her." Perhaps an unexpected reaction, even to Antimony, given her earlier own feelings towards the Keeper's presence. Loughree looked past D'hein to Antimony. "I don't think I need-" "You're right!" D'hein snapped straight, his tail lifting and falling decisively behind him. He then inclines his head to Loughree. "Refugee, soldier, Dodo or stranger, all women deserve the utmost respect, and I apologise." He then reached out to poke the bottle that Loughree still held in one hand. "Drink your milk." He shuffled into the middle of the room and went for the door. "I need to go collect Illira." He lifted the milk in his hand, only just realizing he still possessed it, and cracked it open. Antimony went from looking satisfied at the Tia's apology to extremely unhappy at his announcement of retrieving the elezen woman. She just frowned though. As D'hein left through the door, chuckling happily as though all were suddenly right in the world as soon as he pressed the bottle of milk to his lips, Loughree turned a deadpan gaze on Antimony. "You keep strange friends, Antimony." The older woman let out a faint sigh. "I suppose so." She hesitated, and then held the aloe wrapped in the towel towards Loughree. "Will... you be alright on your own? You're still welcome to remain here while I travel." Loughree accepted the towel and tucked it under one arm. "How long are you going to be gone? And... wait." She flicked her eyes towards the door, and then back to Antimony. "You're looking for someone. You're looking for someone who is... That's why you were asking me about the other night!" Grey ears splayed out flat on either side of her head. "Ah, that..." Her fingers flexed uselessly around where they'd held the towel, and her brow knit with an anxious crease behind her glasses. "It... yes." Loughree pivoted on one foot to turn herself directly towards Antimony and said in a very serious tone, "Tell me what's happening." Antimony flinched back from the younger Keeper, brought her hands down to twist into the fabric of her robe. "It's... it's very complicated. I'm not sure I... can." The broad woman's tone hardened. "I am sure you can." Antimony quailed. "It's nothing but--just... old family troubles." Her tail twisted. "I apologize for suspecting your involvement." "I'm involved. I didn't kill those men, but he did, and I went to jail for it." Green eyes shifted to one side. "Well. Yes. But... and I am sorry for it..! Only, this is--it's more than... that." Loughree's features scrunched up. "Why won't you tell me what's going on?" Grey ears drooped further. "Oh, it's not that--I'm not trying to... it's only... it's a very personal matter and..." Antimony shut her eyes, wrinkling her brow, and tried to breathe in deep. "My... my daughter's gotten involved with something I thought had long been... it killed D'ahl. I'm simply trying to make sure she is safe." "I don't know who D'ahl is. I don't know who your daughter is." Loughree's ears shifted back, her shoulders lifted, her stance loosening and her tone dropping. "Sorry. I just don't know where this connects with... him." Antimony sighed, a weary look drawing deep lines along her features. "I am sorry. I wish I knew what... else to help you. I don't know what Megiddo has to do with... anything, aside from... well." Weaving her fingers together down by her waist, she gave Loughree a helpless furrow of her brow. The broad woman turned aside, looking away. "Fine. I won't ask anymore. But whatever happened that night, he wanted it to. He wasn't going to let anyone get in the way." Antimony looked down and away as well. "I can't fathom..." She couldn't finish that thought, perhaps afraid for how Loughree might push it. Instead she just sighed, dropped her head. Gradually, Loughree's arms dropped from her chest to cross more casually over her stomach. She kept her gaze averted, though, her tail swinging behind her. "You're going to go looking for her, then? Is it going to be a long trip? Dangerous at all?" One ear shifted forward, then backward. "She's my daughter. It... it shouldn't be." Her lips pressed together, but she hesitated on voicing her worry regarding the bone monster. "And long... I don't know." "Sorry. Stupid questions. Look, just, make sure you..." The woman looked back at Antimony, ears lifting on her head, turning forward, and then the fell down again. Loughree lifted her palms. "Who am I kidding? It's not my business and you're from some Sagolii tribe, right? You know what you're doing and I'm barely holding together. You'll be fine." Antimony couldn't quite say with confidence that she knew at all what she was doing. She hadn't managed to figure out how to handle K'aijeen in all her years with the tribe, so what hope did she have now...? "I am more worried about your well-being than my own," she replied with an empathetic look. "Things can't get any worse." Loughree muttered in response. "If he killed me it would improve my situation, so he isn't going to. I guess he could burn down my apartment? There's nothing of value in there." "You can stay here," she offered for not the first time. "And then he could burn down your hotel room." Loughree snickered. "have you ever just fallen so far that you just stop caring if you ever hit bottom?" Antimony's tail stilled for a moment. "... Perhaps." Her features softened into something sad and distant, and then she glanced up at Loughree. "I won't let him burn this room down, or do anything else to it or you. He... is supposed to be helping me find my daughter anyway." The broad woman's muscles tensed, from her lower back through her shoulders to the very tips of her fingers. Her tail fluffed out and shivered, and she scowled. "Oh, he is, is he?" "Yes, so you should not worry. Sleep here. Ah.." Her mouth twisted. "Should you want for food or water, put it on my tab." "Shouldn't worry? He's supposed to be helping you find your daughter and I shouldn't worry?" Her arms snapped open, and she pointed in the general direction of the Ossuary. "He found your daughter! He found her the other night, and killed four people! While another died, if you're telling me the truth. Am I wrong?" "And then she ran!" Antimony gestured somewhat desperately at Loughree. "She was frightened and... she is no longer here, so I must find her and go to her! And Megiddo has helped me in the past. I just... need to find her." "He's not helping you." Loughree said sternly. "He found her, and let something... He let something happen to her, and then he just watched her run. He's manipulating you." "You're letting your hatred for him color your perception," Antimony replied firmly. "I know what she summoned with her. He--he could not have fought it." Loughree snapped back, one arm swinging around and a closed fist slamming into the wall with enough force to make the adjacent walls creak. "You'd hate him too if you'd buried as much family as I have, burned and poked and bleed out! If he'd taken as much from you, for no other reason than that he can!" Antimony flinched bodily, lifting one hand anxiously towards the wall as though afraid it might crumble just like the rest of her borrowed room. "I didn't--that's not what--I only meant that... there was nothing he could have done..! Please, stop hitting objects.." "Nothing he could have done." Loughree snarled, turning an angry glare on Antimony. "But he did do something. Or weren't you listening?" "I don't know why he killed those men!" Her brow furrowed deeper, eyes widening. "I--I don't know what else I can say to you, Miss Loughree. I only know of my daughter." "Fine. Take the killer's help." Loughree spun suddenly, her large body whirling and he tail arching behind her fast enough to stir the air in the room. She ripped the door open. "I just hope he doesn't take your daughter from you." Antimony flinched again, ducking her head and ears for a moment before peering towards the Keeper. "I would not allow it." She hesitated. "And... it is nothing I can change now, regardless. He's gone ahead, with another friend." "You will regret his involvement, Antimony. Good luck." Loughree left the door open as she walked down the hall, storming off. The older woman lifted her arm towards Loughree, but then the Keeper was gone and she was left staring at the empty doorway. Her hand hovered in the air for several seconds, a helpless look on her face, and then she pulled the limb in, wrapped it around to hug herself. Her eyes shifted towards the bathroom, with its broken door. She let out a shuddering sigh.

Stepping backwards out of Illira's room, D'hein shut the door and forgot to stop walking backwards until his head hit the wall. He ducked forward, feeling a strange tingling rush from the back of his skull to his face. It was either pain or exhaustion, and the way his eyes fluttered told him it was likely the latter. He wanted nothing more than to walk down the hall, step into Antimony's room and collapse in bed for the next hour, and he was too tired to really understand why some part of him thought that was a bad idea. It must have been a silly part of him. Lifting his numb arms over his head and then dropping them, flicking his numb tail back and forth and then letting it fall against the floor, D'hein urged himself away from the wall with some difficulty and turned to lumber in the direction of Antimony's room which was, after all, only a few modest doors away. As one miqo'te began making his way down the hall, the door that was "only a few modest doors away" opened to allow for the exit of one Antimony. Looking weary herself, posture drooping, shadows under her eyes, and an expression dragging on her face that could only be described as despondent, the woman turned to head the opposite direction, intending to visit the bar long enough to order tea and bread. She never got that far, nearly running right into D'hein on his way. She did manage to pull up short, however, sidestepping just in time to avoid a collision. "D'hein?" She muttered in surprise, having half expected him to have run off on his own after his "chat" with Miss Carceri. D'hein continued walking several paces after nearly running into Antimony, having not noticed. Belatedly, one of his ears ticks up, and he pauses to turn very slowly. "Yes? Oh, hello." He smiled. "Well, you're a refreshing face to see. A reminder that beauty and sanity can coincide and magnify." Antimony's lips pressed flat. "Yes." Well, not yes, not at all. "Well... Where are you going?" With a sigh, D'hein shifted and shrugged. "I had a talk with Illira. It seems she's been harboring fantasies about murdering me. Therefore, I invited her to come along on the search for D'aijeen. We will have a merrily awkward time, and I'd like to take a nap before it occurs." "Oh, that all seems completely reason--whaaat?" Antimony did a visible doubletake, green eyes widening significantly behind her glasses. Her eyes flicked down the hall to her room, then back to D'hein, then towards the way he'd come. "... No. Absolutely not. I will not have her involving herself with my daughter." "She's a smart woman with decent connections and, besides, I just invited her on a walkabout so that she could have a few days' break from all this corruption and... well, death. Didn't you recently take one yourself?" His ears had both fallen over like men passed out, though in different directions. Rubbing one temple, D'hein tried to turn away. "I told Illira I'd be back to get her in an hour, so, if I'm going to nap, I'd best get to it." For a second, Antimony just struggled with the fact that D'hein had invited a woman who had, in all past instances, expressed an extreme lack of caring for their personal problems on an outing meant to deal with said personal problems. It made her want to smack the Tia. But then she caught him attempting to head to her room, and her thoughts landed on another problem: "A-aah wait, one moment! Perhaps... perhaps it is not the best time to... rest there." "Augh, by the twelve!" D'hein paused midstep and buried his face in his hands. "Why can't I at least try to sleep? Nald, have I not been honest in my paperwork?" He dropped his hands and slumped against the wall. "Oh, that's it, isn't it? As the Nunh, I must take on the punishment for D'themia's sins. The twelve know D'edy is too weak." Antimony's ears shifted with a moment of guilt. She hesitated, thoughts careening between options. "It's only that..." Her tail curled, twisted, pushed against one leg. "There... is someone else in there, and..." Oh damn it all to the seven hells. She heaved a resigned sigh. "... and I'm not entirely sure what to do with her yet." "What?" D'hein twisted, still against the wall but his arms dropping away so that his weight was leaning entirely upon his forehead. "Antimony, have you additional suitors? I'm not afraid of competition, but..." He paused, blinked. "No, you said 'she', and... Well, nowhere, I'm a modern Miqo'te. It could still be." "What?" Antimony echoed and paled, briefly. "Ah, ah, no, not--nothing like that! She--" The older woman forced herself to stop, take a deep, slow breath with her eyes closed. Her ears shivered. "... No. An acquaintance who... I've helped in the past." "That does not discount the possibility." D'hein lifted himself from the wall and took a steadying breath. "But, very well. I will... sleep on the floor. In the hallway. Over here." He lumbered on. Antimony kept her eyes shut, tail fuzzing. She could not necessarily blame Loughree for piling on the trouble - though another part of her thought she very well could - but Antimony was getting rather sick of dealing with it. And D'hein, as much as he annoyed and infuriated her to no end, was far too much of a pathetic sight at the moment. She let out her breath in a sudden huff. "No, rest in the room," she spoke sharply and reversed her path back towards the door. "Miss Loughree will simply have to accept company." "Ah, good." D'hein spun on his toes, losing his balance and thudding heavily against an adjacent door. He pulled himself off of it to walk back towards Antimony, though that may or may nt be the present direction of her room -- probably not. "I always do enjoy the company of a Miss." A few steps later, the door that he'd fallen against opened and a curious Lalafel poked his head out just in time to get whacked in the face by D'hein's tail as the would-be-Nunh flailed it to try and keep his balance. The Lalafel spie, scowled, glared and disappeared back into his room. "Although," D'hein muttered in ignorance, "That name sounds rather familiar." Antimony only winced, grabbed D'hein by the shoulder, and turned him back around so that he would walk in the proper direction. "Perhaps," she muttered, recalling the first, and as far as she was aware, only time the Tia had met Loughree. It had not been pleasant. She opened the door when they approached, cringed anxiously, and then called out, "Miss Loughree, I don't have the warm drink and food yet, but... I must ask you to not make a scene. A... ah, friend is resting here briefly." The largish woman on the floor hadn't moved since Antimony had left. She lay curled up on the floor, her knees close to her chest, her fuzzy tail bundled against her face. She didn't even react to Antimony's entrance, more than to sigh and mutter, "I won't do anything." D'hein gave the woman a strange look, pursing and twisting his lips. He eyed Antimony as he walked in. "You need to sleep, too. You mentioned food? Hopefully nothing that will take more than a few minutes." "No," she wasn't certain which statement she was saying no to. Regardless, Antimony gave Loughree a wary, surprised look that was quickly followed by relief. "Thank you." Then to D'hein, a sharp, "Rest." Then she turned and was out the door once more. She would only be gone for a few minutes. As soon as Antimony left D'hein and Loughree broke everything, did drugs, got pregnant and raised their children to be Republicans. As soon as Antimony left, D'hein spun to the center of the room and made his way towards the bed. As he walked around Loughree, he ventured a, "Good to see you again," but when he didn't get a response, he just muttered, "Well, good night then," and collapsed on the bed. He indulged in a small inappropriate smirk that the bed smelled like Antimony, his Miqo'te senses forcing him to notice and acknowledge that, then he just shrugged at it and closed his eyes. ((Not mentioned is the fact that the bed is missing its baseboard, having been ripped off to serve as K'luha's stretcher, and that the table and chair in the room are both still broken by earlier fits by Loughree.)) As promised, obtaining food and drink did not take long, though Antimony did suffer through several dubious looks from the bartender. She left with her head ducked in embarrassment, carrying a small tray with three mugs, a pot of tea, and a plate with crusty, likely stale bread and dried strips of meat. She hesitated outside her room, ears twitching, straining to pick out any sound of trouble, but after a minute all seemed quiet. A surprise, but a welcome one. Letting out a faint sigh, she shuffled the tray oddly into one arm and pushed through the door. She'd opened her mouth to speak but kept quiet when she noticed D'hein across the room, sprawled across the bed that had definitely seen better days. Like the Tia. Mouth twisting, she swiveled her gaze towards where she'd left Loughree; the young woman did not appear to have moved and had not acknowledged her presence. Rather than greet her, Antimony just stepped over and carefully set the tray down next to her. The click of the tray next to her seemed to startle Loughree, making her legs twitch and her tail shift in her hands. She lifted her head subtly and stared at the tray that Antimony had set down. She muttered, quietly, tonelessly. "I wish I could feel hungry." "Regardless, you must eat," Antimony's tone was quiet but firm. She took the pot and poured out some of the tea before holding it towards Loughree. "And drink this. You will feel better." Loughree stared at the floor. She released her tail from her hands and the furry limb arched over her to fall on the ground behind her with a soft slap. She pushed herself up to sit crookedly against the bed, and then took the cup from Antimony. "I know that I'm intruding by being here." Green eyes flicked away with a wince. "Ah, that... not at all. No." Her ears shook, tail curling around her feet where she crouched. Then she just gestured towards the plate of bread and meat. "Eat, too." "Did you catch Lamandu? The business with the Blades, the paperwork? You were investigating him, right?" She flicked her brown eyes, almost red, bloodshot, to look at Antimony through the haze of steam. Antimony looked away again, fingers moving to touch the side of her face still discolored with bruise, though it had begun to shift more towards greens and yellows, giving the skin a sickly color. She took a breath. "The investigation is resolved, yes. You shouldn't worry over that." Setting aside the cup, Loughree reached for the bread like it was something she didn't know how to eat. "You get beat up?" Antimony coughed, returned her eyes to Loughree and watched the woman hold the bread. "Eat," she said encouragingly. "Feed your body and you feed your soul." "I don't know much about souls." Loughree ripped a piece off the bread and forced it into her mouth with a look of distaste. She rolled it in her mouth for a moment and swallowed without chewing. "I don't know what he told you about me. I treat him like a monster, but he's clever. He lies. I've never killed anyone." Grey ears dropped slightly at that. "There's no need for you to worry about him now." She pulled in a breath and then made to settle more comfortably on the floor, her tail curling into her lap. Her joints ached with the action, but it was something she felt she needed to ignore. "And whatever he told me... You've done more than enough on your own to tell me about you." Putting down the bread, Loughree muttered sullenly, "Right. That's not much better." Antimony pursed her lips. "Perhaps not. You do have opportunities to change that, though." "I don't do well with opportunities." She took another sip of her tea, again expressing disgust at the taste. She turned her gaze away, to the rubble of the furniture she'd destroyed on a previous visit. "I don't know why you keep tolerating me." "Ah, well, it's hardly..." Antimony wove her hands together, watched Loughree and then looked in the direction the Moon Keeper had. She couldn't hold back the wince at the state of the bed, and then immediately regretted it, ears flattening. "It would not be... very kind of me, to turn you away under the circumstances." "You don't need to be kind to me." The near-red eyes turned back to Antimony, watching her carefully. "Nonsense," Antimony huffed at that and, after a pause, poured herself her own mug of tea. She held it between her hands and let the heat ease the aching joints of her fingers. It soothed some of the strain in her mind, as well. "It isn't. We're not family and I've done nothing to make us friends. Up here, trusting people is a good way to get hurt." She leaned against the bed tiredly, but her eyes had opened wider. Her neutral tone was growing bitter, but not agitated. Lips pressing together, Antimony watched the dark liquid in her mug and the faint trail of steam leading up from it. "I am not going to argue this," she sighed after a moment. A smirk found Loughree's face for an instant before disappearing. She pulled her knees up and let the tea sit limply in her fingers over her lap. "Where do you come from?" Brows knit behind Antimony's glasses. "That is an odd question." She hesitated then, considering a nervous flutter in her gut. Or was that guilt? She wrestled with the answer for a moment - claim Limsa to keep secure many, private memories, or claim the desert? The woman sighed. Perhaps a month ago she would have answered differently. "A very long ways into the Sagolii desert," she murmured. Loughree's head leaned forward to watch Antimony's hesitation, and then she ventured. "The man from whom I descended came from a tribe out that way. Did you have a tribe?" A soft smile pushed at Antimony's lips when she looked up at Loughree, but it drifted away almost immediately. "I did, yes." Then she blinked, processing the younger woman's words. A strange sensation settled around her brain, like a thin silk curtain. "... The Drake tribe, perhaps?" "It doesn't matter where that man came from. The Desfosse Clan -- my family -- butchered him when I was young." She leaned her head forward against her knees, the steam roiling over her pale features and clay-red eyes. "If you're from a tribe, you understand. I was taught never to trust anyone outside the Clan. Outsiders hated us." That word - outsider - stung far more than it should have, especially since Loughree had not been using it to refer to her. Still, Antimony couldn't help how her heart clenched. "I do understand," she replied quietly, watching the blonde Keeper with a subdued expression. She tried for a smile, though it was small and somewhat forced. "But when you have so few, it becomes easier to accept others." "I have no one." Loughree leaned her head forward, her tired ears finally lifting from their sad repose to turn towards Antimony. "The Desfosse clan was too ruthless; more so than even I could stomach. They have all died, now, but for the one responsible, and I will never again call him family. I need a clan to live, though, which is why I needed..." She turned her face away, pressing her forward back against her knees. "I found her in the refugee camps. She needed me and I need her. But she is gone now, and I am alone again." With a slow and careful hand, she lifted the tea to her lips again. Antimony's expression softened as the Keeper spoke, shifting to one of sympathy and a hint of understanding. To lose family in such a way, only to reclaim it way and lose it again... it was an awfully familiar story. Her heart clenched as she thought of K'airos, of D'aijeen, and even of K'ile. The need to reunite with them was almost overwhelming, but watching Loughree struggle with such a similar problem was nearly as painful. "I am sorry," she murmured, struggling with a want to help and a want to continue her own personal mission. "Perhaps--ah, if... there is anything I can do..." "I kind of doubt it." She spoke with her lips against the cup of tea, staring down at the surface, seeming to concentrate on keeping it sitll. "I'm tired. Maybe you told him about her and maybe you didn't. I don't care. I can't run away and I can't be close to anyone. I don't care." Antimony's expression dropped, but only briefly. Her fingers shifted around the warm mug. "Then why did you come to me?" "I don't know." She dropped the cup and set it aside, almost too quickly. A few drops spilled out onto the floor. "To everyone who knows me, I'm crooked. To everyone who doesn't, I'm just another refugee who's lost something. I-" She stopped when a tail smacked her upside the head, D'hein murmuring and shifting where he lay. Taking this in stride, Loughree remained stationary for several seconds, scowling in a general upward direction, and then the tail moved. She dropped her gaze to Antimony and said, "you've never thrown me out before." Silence passed for several seconds as Antimony watched D'hein's form. Then her eyes shifted back to Loughree with a sigh. It wasn't as though the Keeper hadn't given her reason to do so - destroying the furniture in the inn during a fit of rage, outright tackling her, being a potential murderer... But despite all that, it had never occurred to Antimony to toss the younger woman out. "I... do not like giving up on others, I suppose." "Giving up implies there's something to work towards." Loughree's furry tail lifted up and dropped beside. "Happiness? Family?" Antimony drew a deep breath and then let it out in a heavy sigh. She recalled then the pure bliss that had been seeing K'airos for the first time in five years that single evening in Drybone. She desperately wanted that back. "Oh, I get it." The large woman lay her head against the bed and watched the ceiling. Her ears lay flat, though her expression didn't otherwise change. "Well, I think I give up on me. I was probably just looking for... I don't know." Ears flattening, Antimony was quiet for a moment before setting her mug down with a sharp clack against the floor. She stood then, and took the couple steps needed to move in front of Loughree before dropping down to one knee, ignoring the way her joints protested the action. Her hands moved to grip Loughree's shoulders as she spoke in a sharp, firm tone, "Stop this." She felt older than she had in a while, kneeling before the Keeper, but she pushed on, frown deepening, "You will not give up on that girl, not if she means so much to you, as you likely mean just as much to her. To give up on yourself is to give up on her." Dropping her gaze to Antimony's features, one of her eyes twitched: the one that had been stabbed with a needle previously. There were small scars around that eye from where she'd hurt herself, clawing at the needle with her gauntlets. Now, though, she turned her gaze away and bunched up her calloused, pale hands in front of her. "I sent her away to protect her and it didn't work. Even if she isn't dead, finding her would just make things worse." "Don't be ridiculous," Antimony snapped. "You've no way to protect her if you don't know where she is." Loughree actually flinched, however suddenly, when Antimony snapped at her. Her expression remained stoic, her eyes facing away, though her tail fluffed up a bit and shivered. "And I've got no way to find her, so what am I supposed to do?" "You find a way." The older woman squeezed Loughree's shoulders. "Don't give up on her." "Find a way? Are those magic words?" She curled tighter on herself, dipping her head forward to hide her face behind her knees. "I'm going to choke." "Drink." Antimony pulled back, her ears shifting restlessly. "Not like that." As Antimony retreated, Loughree pushed herself up to her feet, the movement jerky and coming with a slight stumble. She pressed a hand to her forehead. "I don't want to think about this. I don't want to talk about it." Green eyes slid shut tight for a moment, tail shivering. She wanted to tell Loughree to not run away, to not make the same mistake she did. It infuriated her that Loughree had set herself in such wallowing misery. "That is not what someone who cares about that girl would say," she warned the younger woman, lips pursed. "You don't get it." Loughree sidestepped out from between Antimony and the bed, knocking over her cup of tea. At the clatter, her tail fluffed out all the more, but she just shuffled away from it helplessly. "You don't get it! She's not just lost. The only reason this happened is because she was with me. If I go after her it gets worse. So whether she's dead or hurt or..." D'hein finally stirred in bed, sitting up crookedly with a sour, half-aware look on his face, one ear down, the other folded inside-out on his head where he'd been laying on it. He stared at the air between the two women. "I need to give up!" Loughree backed further into the room, gesturing with her hands. "If I give up, and I don't care anymore, then there won't be any more reason to hurt her!" Antimony flinched away from Loughree as the cup went clattering, spilling still-warm liquid across the floor. Her hands lifted slightly towards the mess, a wince on her features as she opened her mouth to protest, but then the Keeper continued speaking and Antimony fell silent. When Loughree finished, Antimony found she could only continue to be silent, at a complete loss for words. To abandon someone she cared for... that girl would surely be better off if she were directly under the care of someone who loved her. Ears pressing back, she shifted her eyes uncertainly towards the bed, only to flick away when they came across D'hein's waking form. Her mouth worked, tail twitching. "You are wrong," she finally said quietly. "You don't know that to be true. And you risk her life testing it." "I don't know what else to do. I tried! You just need to tell me 'don't give up' so you can sleep at night, but there's nothing else I can do. Where is she? Is he alive? I've got no way to know!" Loughree spun as she talked, her tail large and flashing around vibrantly, stirring up an angry breeze in her vicinity. Antimony's own tail twisted up behind her, writhing in conflicted emotions, while her eyes watched Loughree's. Then suddenly she sighed, and stumbled back until she was leaning against the wall. One hand lifted to press at her forehead where she could feel the beginnings of a splitting headache. "I don't know how else to help you," she spoke quietly. "I didn't ask for help. I don't know why I came here!" The large woman spun, her shoulders, neck and back tight as rocks as she stomped into the bathroom at the rear of the room and slammed the door behind her. In the next instant, there was a heavy thud and scrape against the other side of the door, and the whole structure sagged from its hinges. Several seconds later, one of D'hein's ears flipped and he flinched belatedly.

This is correct. Lore also states the markings darken as the miqo'te age.