Naunet

((Wooo took long enough to get back to this bit of retro-rp. )) *** The elder's tent moved around the desert like a wandering dune, but relative to the rest of the camp it never moved. It was right in the center, large and closed, smelling of alchemy and old people. The combination did not please D'aijeen, but she did not complain as she let her father pull her along. At some point, as much for her own comfort as anything, she'd begun to walk beside him under her own power. "K'airos shouldn't have left," she said, as the passed the central bonfire which was burning down to cinders from the previous night, though already women were arriving to build it back up. "She's going to be in trouble, too." "Don't worry over K'airos," her father rumbled as he approached the tent's door. A fetish of bone and braided sinew hung from it, and he gave it a look and a hopeful thought before pushing the door-skin open. He called out as he did so, "Elders, I found our food thief. I think it would be best if you speak with her." After finishing crying over the sand, K'airos stood up and followed her family, her sobbing diminishing with each step until it reached a point of balance. She had left her spear behind, somewhere. She didn't remember, but still felt as if she was dragging a few dozen on each hand. Seeing her father entering the tent only added another dozen. She stopped behind K'aijeen, her arms crossed and facing down. "Thief! Why don't you just tie me to the racks yourself, dad!" D'aieen tried to yank herself away from her father, to present herself to the elders under her own power. Thalen released K'aijeen easily, though he made sure to place his body close to his daughters, should she try to bolt. "It'll all go better if you keep your cool, K'aijeen." K'airos had some angry words to add, but they chocked in her throat and only came out as another sob. At the sound of K'airos' sob, K'aijeen ((NOT D'aijeen, by the way)) snapped her gaze around to her sister, having not heard her return. The next words were uttered from the smoldering shadows of the tent, however. A low, elderly voice... "It is too early for this. Did you not give warning, K'jhanhi?" The shadows fell back into silence only for a moment before another voice, similar to the first but with a weary quality spoke, "We all did. I had hoped she had heard us, in this matter at the very least." K'airos kept quiet, raising her head to look at D'aijeen. K'takka's tattooed face lifted from the shadows after a moment, her silver eyes glowing with concern as she set her gaze on K'airos. "Oh, Airos, why do you cry granddaughter?" "I helped her." she barely managed to answer, the words blending together "I've not known you to cry over causing trouble, Airos," that tired voice spoke. "There is more. But..." In the shadows, a thin hand gestured. "Step inside, all of you." "What I did was the best possible use of resources," K'aijeen said boldly, stepping before, gesturing broad. "You won't believe me. I proved my trap works, but that won't matter, will it?" "What you made was a monster!" K'airos snapped sadly, still outside. "You shouldn't be proud!" Thalen turned so that the tent's door was kept open by his body, looked at K'airos, and let out a short breath through his nose. "It was something dangerous, that's for sure." From further in the tent a low voice grated out, "From stealing food to monsters? Child, explain yourself." "It wasn't supposed to be a monster!" K'aijeen shot back, "And it doesn't matter! It's gone! Why are you outside. What are you afraid of me now?" Reluctantly, K'airos stepped into the tent, holding her arms tightly against herself. She took one long breath. "Aijeen used parts of the beasts to make another beast with...with...magic from a book!" she said, feeling that each word escaped at once from her mouth, each one trampling into the next and causing her sentence to be an high-pitched and fast mess. There came the rattling of air through old lungs and then the low voice's owner stepped forward, K'jhanhi's yellow eyes narrowed. "That sounds dangerously like things no child of Azeyma should ever thing to touch." Behind him, the tired voice now sounded worried, "How did you come by such dark magic, granddaughter?" "It doesn't matter!" K'aijeen spun back, cutting the air with one hand, "It has nothing to do with the food! It has nothing to do with the tribe! Are you all senile?" "It matters when you're putting family at risk, K'aijeen - including yourself," K'thalen barked. "This goes well beyond stealing - or borrowing - some food." K'airos followed her father's bark with her own: "You keep saying how stupid we are and then never explain anything!" "Because you don't get it! You're superstitious and afraid!" K'aijeen's back was to the elder's, shouting angrily at her family. "It wasn't a monster; it was a thrall. It would have helped, but K'airos destroyed the book! For no reason!" K'jhanhi's thin lips set into a line, and arms that still bore much of the muscle that had kept him nunh for a generation folded across his chest. "K'aijeen Thalen, were you a few dozen moons older, the risks you've taken would be enough to send you into the sands." K'airos choked on some more words that never came out. She held both hands together, rubbing them right under her chin, her eyes wide open. She didn't know where to look, and so she looked at the ground. K'aijeen snapped around at K'jhanhi, leveling the massive man with a glare one would expect from a much older -- and much larger -- being. "Were I a dozen moons older I'd have already replaced you. All of you." "Do not speak such things! If your mother could hear you," K'deiki breathed a sigh, bowing her withered face briefly. "She doesn't care." K'airos mumbled between sobs. "She doesn't care about the tribe, her family or...or her sister!" "Betrayers and ruiners!" K'aijeen shouted at the floor, "I could summon an ocean of fresh water for you and you'd condemn me for it! You don't know what love is or you'd recognize it!" "Instead you summoned a monster," K'jhanhi intoned, old voice grating like coarse sand on dry stone. He turned to look to the painted face of K'takka. It was K'deiki who spoke next, however, "What if she is not fully in control of herself? Perhaps something has driven her to... this." K'takka did not meet K'jhanhi's gaze. She had pulled herself back into the shadows, only her sad eyes gleaming from the darkness. K'aijeen stomped, "Do not do that! Coward! I am in control of myself! If you're to demonize me then do it directly!" "I burned the book." K'airos said, as if it explained something. "I...I think this is her." Seeing no help in K'takka and little more than attempts at conciliation from K'deiki, the former nunh turned back to his granddaughter. He did not enjoy these things. "In control of yourself or not, these things cannot go unpunished. We might have been lenient had it been nothing more than some stolen meat, even after the warning, but there is only one punishment short of giving you over to the sands that can make up for the dangers you've danced with, child." He let out a rough breath. "For one sun, the tribe will see you for what you've done." As K'jhanhi spoke, K'thalen shut his eyes, one hand reaching out to rest comfortingly on K'airos's shoulder. K'airos was hardly comforted. She barely reacted to the action. She held her breath. "Too wise to exile a child, or too scared of the guild for doing what you really want to do?" K'aijeen gathered up her meager fram and said, "I exile myself. What do you say to that?" K'thalen's eyes snapped open and he felt as though his head might snap right off his neck when he turned to look at his daughter. "K'aijeen, you're overreacting." "I would say that you do not understand the weight of your words, child. We won't entertain such a thought." The old man looked passed K'aijeen to the tribe's nunh. "Where is our firedancer? This is his responsibility." At that, K'thalen grimaced. "Getting... tended to by K'piru." K'airos tapped her fingers against each other continuously as the elders spoke around her. Finally, she stopped and exclaimed: "I helped her! She couldn't have done anything without me! Let me take part of the punishment!" K'aijeen's lips slipped down into a frown and she turned to K'airos, saying with a no-nonsense tone, "Stop being an idiot, Airos. You don't need to be punished." K'airos answered that by choking once more and throwing herself to hug her father, muffling the cry by burying her face against him. K'thalen's arms wrapped about his daughter easily, tanned fingers rubbing circles against her back. K'deiki's pale eyes, deep-set in her wrinkled face, lifted to peer at K'airos through the shadows with a sad look. K'jhanhi's expression turned down even further, features deepening with reluctance but... "Your willingness to acknowledge your mistakes shows you well in the eyes of Azeyma, but it doesn't absolve you of them. You will spend your time under the eye of the goddess and the tribe considering why you did not try to stop your sister and how you might change that in the future." "I didn't give her the chance to stop me!" K'aijeen spun on the elders. "That's insane! You might as well punish half the tribe! You're mad." K'airos had no more words to choke on. She only accentuated her sister's by letting out a few loud sobs against her will. Resting his chin atop K'airos's head, K'thalen watched first his youngest daughter and then the elders. "If that's what they think is best, then that's how it is." He kept up the gentle petting of K'airos's back. "Don't make it more than it is, K'aijeen. You make adult mistakes, sometimes you have to take the adult punishment." "Adult punishment would be banishment, but then they wouldn't get to watch me suffer." She turned to glare into the shadows of the tent. "Love and wisdom. Pretenders." "You are the only pretender!" K'airos managed to shout without moving her head to look at her. The short burst of anger was quickly quenched by the constant sobbing. "Go to the firedancer," K'deiki murmured from the shadows. "Let this be done with." K'aijeen scoffed, "With his stupid messed up leg? I'll have to build my own rack. That's fine." "I'll help," K'thalen muttered, not looking all that eager as he urged K'airos towards the tent's door. "Come on, K'aijeen." "And if I’m not willing, who will force me?" "Please, stop." her sister mumbled, having moved by the door. "This...all this has been enough." "Don't make this harder than it already is," the nunh shook his head. "It's not a death sentence, which is what you claimed you wanted." He tried for a bit of a smile, though the expression felt off given the situation. "I've been on the rack more than a few times myself." K'thalen then reached out to gently take hold of K'aijeen's arm, intending to guide her out of the tent. K'aijeen did not resist letting herself get dragged out. The question had been an academic one, and the answer was: no one. They could watch her cook if it would satisfy them. She didn't care. There was nothing worth recovering in this situation that could be salvaged. K'airos left the tent and lingered outside. She found no one to hug, so she wrapped her arms around herself. With a last glance to the elders, K'thalen left as well, with K'aijeen in tow. He gave what he hoped was an encouraging look to K'airos and said, "Let's get back to K'ile and your mother, and then we can get this over with, hm?" "You think you can just move past this?" K'airos rubbed under her nose, and then over it. "Stop." she said. "We'll forget about this..." "I think I got past my mistakes. You can do the same for yours, K'aijeen." He chuckled lowly, without any real humor. "Both of you. I get that you mean well, but... there are better ways." "There are not better ways! The tribe's ways are archaic! And I cannot get past something that has been destroyed. You won't even acknowledge what you've ruined!" "You never explain." K'airos shook her head. She started walking, keeping her eyes away from both of them. "If you don't explain, then... I don't care what I ruined." K'thalen grimaced. "I'm not trying to ruin anything. I'm going to help you get through this." He kept up their pace, passing between a few scattered tents. His ears could pick up the chattering of the huntresses not far off as they prepared to leave on the morning hunt. The camp was quickly becoming its usual hub of activity, and it was with some relief that they arrived at the shaman's tent when they did. "Piru!" He called out. "Hope you're done fixing that wimp's flesh wound already. I need him for something." As they walked towards her mother's tent, K'aijeen said to her sister, "What am I supposed to explain? I've never learned faster than I learned from the book. It was like it was reminding me of things I already knew! Mother's teaching was slow and simple. And where am I supposed to get another one? And how am I supposed to work on anymore projects without it? I'll never learn anything ever again now!" K'airos pouted. "Good." she said, letting her anger vent out. "We'll have fun with less dangerous and...and horrible things.Like when you didnt't have that book!" "And when was that, Airos? When did I not have the book?" "I don't know! Why don't you tell me?" Inside the tent, the tangy scent of disinfecting herbs filled the area, though K'piru had finished cleaning K'ile's wound several minutes past. She'd worked diligently, only breaking down into tears once or twice since her daughter had left with her nunh to see the elders. She was tightening the wrapping about K'ile's leg, murmuring a few shaky prayers to the idol resting nearby, when K'thalen's voice sounded through the skins of the tent, followed by two equally familiar voices bickering. She gave the tia next to her a worried look. K'ile tried to give K'piru a look of encouragement, but could only manage to appear indifferent, or maybe nauseous. Standing reluctantly, K'piru clutched at the remaining scraps of bandage in her hands before moving towards the door. It felt weighted down with lead beneath her fingers as she pulled it aside. When she saw her daughters alongside K'thalen she tried to hope, pleadingly, "All's well...? Aijeen, you're... you're alright now?" "A few years ago," D'aijeen answered K'airos. "That book's the only reason I know anything. You don't know anything about the world because all you had was mom's useless lessons." K'piru flinched, overhearing her daughter's words. Her tail lashed once behind her, whacking the tent wall, and then tucked in against the cloth that hung about her legs. "Thalen..?" "K'ile's in there still, yea? If he can walk, I need him for a bit." The red-haired nunh leaned to one side as though he could peer around K'piru. K'airos voice increased in volume. "At least she was teaching me something. So thanks! Thanks for teaching me your...your wonderful book!" She managed to stop crying long enough to shout that. "You wouldn't have understood," K'aijeen muttered. "You would've just taken the book away right away, and I'd have never learned anything." In the tent, K'ile laboriously tried to stand on his injured leg. "Yeah, yeah. I can guess what this is probably about." "You don't know that! You never trusted me!" K'airos complained to her sister, still pretty loudly. "No," K'aijeen replied, quietly. "The book was for me. The things inside..." K'piru watched K'thalen for several seconds, unblinking. She shifted her weight to one bare foot, then the other, her ears fidgeting back against her skull. She drew in a long, thin breath through her nose and then let it out with a faint sound at her youngest daughter's words. "She... the elders..." The color drained from her skin and she spun around to K'ile. "No! You can't! I won't allow it!" Wincing as he put some of his weight onto his own leg, he said, "I've got no say in it, K'piru. Not a single word." "You do!" Her hands wrung at the scraps of cloth in them, nearly tearing them to bits. "She's a child!" A child by a few years. And what's more, K'piru could not see that punishment bringing any good. No, she feared it would only drive K'aijeen further. Perhaps even drive her away. "You can't do this to her!" "Piru, come on," K'thalen set a hand on her shoulder from behind. "It won't be that bad. Just let him do what he has to." "I don't care," K'aijeen directed the words towards her mother, into the ten. "Put me on the rack today. Tomorrow everything will be the same. Nothing will be different." "You won’t have that book!" K'airos retorted. "That will be different!" "I don't have the book now," K'aijeen muttered. Shrugging off Thalen's hand, K'piru squared herself off in front of K'ile, set begging eyes on him. "Things will be different, Aijeen," she breathed out. "I'll--you'll know how much I--you will put me out there in her stead!" Her tail shivered. "If you need a reason, this--Aijeen's mistakes are my fault! She would not have done any of this if I'd... cared more! Please--" "Ah, c'mon," K'ile groaned, pulling on his ear and looking at the wall. "The rack's not that bad. If you feel bad just go out and give her a drink every now and then. Nobody'll stop you." "What? No!" K'airos complained. "This isn't your fault! She'll grow up out of this...and I will too! She just..." She didn't finish, instead falling into passive sobbing. Not that bad - but enough, K'piru knew, enough to wither whatever might have been left for her to hold K'aijeen here with. She didn't know how to speak that to K'ile, though, so she just dropped her head. "It's just a day," K'thalen hummed lowly, squeezing K'piru's shoulder uncertainly before giving a shrug at his brother and nodding towards the girls outside. "It's fine," K'ile said, limping towards the exit, eyeing the girls. Then he muttered to Thalen, "Y'know, we might want to organize a hunt for that... thing. Monster. Thing." K'airos had forgotten that the monster Aijeen had created was unlikely to spontaneously become dust under the sun. "Will it last that long?" she asked, looking at Aijeen. "It's not complete, so maybe it will just...die?" The older man grimaced. "We'll take care of it after this." He gave an unhappy look at K'piru's back before turning to his daughters with a "Let's go" expression. "I don't know what it's going to do now," K'aijeen answered. "Someone destroyed my means of control." "We'll tell people to watch for it," K'ile said, walking along. He flinched at pain in his leg, "Damn it. I'm not going to be much help." "That's what I'm here for. Always was hard for you to keep up." Even in all this, K'thalen somehow found room for a bit of a jest, though his expression wasn't particularly happy. K'ile gave his brother a sneer. K'airos wasn't paying attention, to the detriment of them all. She stared at the ground, unsure of everything. "Racks go in the middle of camp, right," K'aijeen said this and began to head that way, not waiting for anyone, deliberately keeping in front of them. "You're all afraid and reluctant. Not me." "This isn't a competition." her sister mumbled in answer. K'ile at first moved to keep up, but stopped when his leg held him back, grumbling expletives. K'thalen chose not to respond to his daughter's needling, keeping up with her and trusting K'ile to come along at his own speed.

Personally, I just find it really weird to have a quest that teaches you how to use /say. Does SE really think their players are that dumb? [edit] On second thought, I think more than teaching us /say, that quest was actually SE lecturing us on manners. Overbearing mother-devs are kind of weird.

IC or OOC combat skills? Though either way, I imagine I would still have my IRL personality, including my IRL fears. Nope, not going anywhere near combat!

And before that, there was Otherland. And probably a bazillion other sci-fi novels. I think I'd probably spend my time trying not to die.

"Those two," D'hein said as hee helped Antimony towards the inn portion of the Quicksand. "That was completely uncalled for! Assumptions and accusations." His tone was a low, aggravated grumble. The man's hands -- one of them somewhat weak and terribly scarred -- held Antimony as though she were more fragile now than after she had been stabbed. He expected her to be weaker, and his anger had made him stronger. All the more to be ashamed of his earlier weakness. At least he had been able to defend Antimony from those two, if only in words and presence. It would be unbecoming of a gentleman to physically intimidate the homeless and elderly. Though her limbs moved with the weak sluggishness of blood loss, Antimony's heart and mind was set on fire by the confrontation with the nosey Hellsguard. She kept her head bowed as she muttered, "All the more reason to set Aijeen to rights now. I won't... won't let harm come to her." "Aijeen is a formidable girl. She won't let some refugee push her around. Though I suppose it falls to me to deal with D'ahl." Uttering the last sentence felt to him like drinking bile. It left him nauseous and frustrated, because 'dealing' with D'ahl was exactly what D'themia Nunh was trying to do by keeping her under house arrest. The thought of taming her, forcing a foreign will upon her, was blasphemy to every moral inclination D'hein Tia maintained. He did not want to become D'themia. He didn't want to resemble the Nunh for even the slightest moment. They entered the hallways of the inn, and D'hein spoke through his illness, "I would present up front that legal action is out of the question. D'ahl is owned by D'themia Nunh, and he has no need for pretense in sloughing the law." Formidable. Antimony's expression turned down. Yes, D'aijeen was certainly formidable. And terrifying. But she still struck Antimony as incredibly fragile. "She should not... I just need to talk to Aijeen again. Convince her to stop. I thought she'd stopped..." "I had no idea such events were even possible," D'hein managed to sound more surprised the angered by that particular statement, though frustration was not far from his voice. "She told me that she had been abandoned by her tribe. That was the only history I ever received." "Abandoned!" Antimony's voice choked and she stopped walking suddenly. "Abandoned! After I--after everything... she left us! I searched for her for weeks, I--" She shook and couldn't continue. "Hey, it's alright. She's not telling that lie anymore." He paused to pet her arms soothingly. She was quiet for a few moments and then just started walking again, twining her hands together up by her chest. She watched the wood planks pass beneath her feet as she spoke, "And yet I feel there are so many that remain. What else has she hidden?" D'hein made a face. He didn't know. He didn't even know what to make of D'ahl anymore, and he'd known, admired, and adored the woman for most of his life. There was growing suspicion inside of him that D'aijeen was to blame for her behavior, but he didn't dare speak such a thing. "Perhaps if I knew more of what had occurred," he ventured, helping Antimony down the hallway. "What had... of what?" She was distracted briefly when they arrived at her door, and she fumbled with it a time or two before unlocking and pushing it open. "What Aijeen has been hiding from me," D'hein said as they arrived at the door. He watched her hands with a frown. "What she did before. Whatever she did while I thought she was just finding and caring for K'airos." As the door opened, the woman who lingered in Antimony's room became animated. Skittishly, the broad Miqo'te jumped to the center of the room from wherever she'd been lingering in a dazed trance. Loughree's bear feet hit the floor hard as she set herself, sword in hand off to one side and shield in front of her facing the door. Her ears were up, eyes narrowed, fluffed-out tail wrapping her inner thigh. Antimony flinched away from the door, ears splaying out flat from her head. "Ah what--" Blinking rapidly at the woman, it took several seconds for Antimony to recall she had been hosting a guest. When she did, her shoulders slumped, along with her ears and tail. "Oh yes, Miss Loughree... ah, apologies." D'hein didn't even notice the woman until a few seconds after Antimony had adressed her, and when he did, one ear twitched, and he looked vexed. "What? Is this a--" "Who's the beau?" Loughree interrupted him, looking suspicious. Her guard dropped slightly, but her tail still shivered like a wheat in the wind. "What?" Antimony's tail twitched at the thought. "He's not--he..." She sought words for a moment and then sighed, having to settle for a simple, "This is D'hein. Ah, D'hein, I... well, I was letting Miss Loughree rest here for... well." "More friends," Loughree said, letting the sword and shield drop to her sides, closing her stance and opening her expression. "Yes," D'hein said, nodding slowly as his mind worked, and then he forced a smile. "I should not be surprised Antimony has such a disarmingly radiant guest, and so... prepared!" The burly Keeper tightened her shoulders and frowned. Grimacing, Antimony stepped into the room, now entirely unsure how to proceed. It didn't feel right discussing her daughter in front of Loughree, but she wasn't sure she was ready to just dismiss D'hein as it was a topic of such great importance. "I apologize, Miss Loughree," she spoke quietly. "I hadn't expected returning with... well." "Don't apologize," Loughree said, tossing her sword at the bed, which was messed from use. Apparently she'd been using it. The edge of the sword pierced the blanket before it fell over. Loughree used her free hand to reach behind her and pulled her tail from between her legs. "I'm just a beggar at this point. You can throw me out anytime you want." D'hein moved to step into the room, lifting his head high and spreading his arms, "Please, let's not behave so awkwardly. This meeting is a blessing to me, for had it never occurred I'd have missed out on one of Ul'dah's greatest gems, never knowing." "Stop that," Antimony muttered wearily and leaned against the small, round table nearby. She winced at the hole Loughree's sword left in the bedding and then, "I wouldn't toss you out. Megiddo is... I was just speaking with him." "Stop what?" One of D'hein's ears lay down. Holding her tail, petting the fur flat, Loughree stopped her motions and rolled her shoulders, turning her hard eyes on Antimony. "What was that?" She needed to sit down, she realized, and so went from the table to the bed, carefully avoiding the sword to sit at the edge. The thin mattress wasn't particularly comfortable, but it wasn't any less so than the chair she had sat in earlier. Dropping her head somewhat, Antimony rubbed at a spot between her eyes before giving Loughree a compassionate look, "I wouldn't push you out while he's still around, knowing what he... well, it just wouldn't be right." Loughree wrung her tail between her hands. It looked painful. "You were TALKING to him?" Completely irrelevant to the woman's tone, D'hein ambled further into the room, smirking at its quaintness. "Ah, was he that elderly fellow?" "Er.. well... yes?" Antimony's voice faded a bit uncertainly. "How the fu-" She released her tail and stumbled back a half-step, the motion unprompted, and then set herself in a broad stance with her shield up in front of her again. "How would you even know what he looks like? You said you didn't know anything!" Antimony flinched, ears shifting back uneasily, but she held up her hands in a soothing gesture. "I--Not anything that would... mean anything." “What the hell does that even mean? What do you KNOW!" Loughree was shouting loud enough that everyone in the inn had to be able to hear her, ears flat on her head and ears narrowed in hostility. She glances at the sword that sat near Antimony. D'hein stood in still confusion nearby, as if trying to decide whether he was missing out on some sort of elaborate inside joke. Cringing away, she caught herself on the bed with one arm and then grimaced as it sent a sharp pain through her shoulder. "I don't... I don't know..?" she all but squeaked, green eyes flicking towards D'hein and then back to Loughree. "About--about what? The... doll? I--I had no idea he was turning that into a... he said it was for his granddaughter! I had no way of knowing it was a--a--weapon!" "You.. he said..." Loughree's gaze shook, her jaw working over half formed words. What have you told him? Did you tell him about..." In the next moment, she pounced at her sword, or at Antimony. Either way, she was holding her sword and shouting very close to the older woman, "What did you tell him!?" Antimony fell back onto the bed, brought her arms in front of her face, and just froze, ears pressed back so far as to be nearly invisible in her hair, tail tucked away between her legs. "Please--please stop this, Miss Loughree! You're being--I didn't--unreasonable!" Loughree stayed where she was, hand on her sword, but not threatening Antimony with it. "Shut up! What did you tell him?" Before she could take another breath, a hot blast of unaspected aether struck her side, knocking her over the bed and against the wall. Her heavy body hit with a hard thud before falling where the base-board of the bed had once been, her upper body on the mattress and her slower body on the floor. D'hein said with a smile, "Ah, effective! I'll have to thank Ulanan for the previous demonstration. Now," He held his scepter in front of him, robes seeming to grow darker. "I may have failed to protect Antimony from my daughter or my sister, but only your beauty stays my hand from harming you, miss. And those expressions you were just making were very ugly." Continuing to hide behind her arms, Antimony tried to assuage Loughree by attempting to answer the woman's question, though she found her breath short and uneven, "I don't--I don't know what you mean! I haven't... I haven't said anything about you except to--I told him not to hurt you!" "Why don't you tell him to go fucking DIE!" Loughree rolled to her feet and in the same gesture threw her shield directly at D'hein's head with notable precision. It hit the Dodo hard enough to knock his head back, making him stumble, but drew little more than a rough grunt and then a long exhalation of surprise. Once on her feet, Lughree wasted no time darting out of the room, having reached the door in three quick strides, and she made even better time down the hall. As the Keeper's footsteps faded down the hall, Antimony uncurled herself from her cowed position, peeking out from behind her arms to spot first D'hein and then the open door. Her eyes widened and she started, "Oh no, but he's still--", sat up as thought to move and then, very suddenly, just gave up with a heavy sigh, dropping her head to her hands. Over several seconds, D'hein recovered from the metal plate that had slammed length-wise against his face, blood streaming from his nostrils onto the white bilaud he wore under his open black robe. He looked around in confusion with squinted eyes, one ear twitching, the other hanging limp. His scepter out in front of him, he turned one way and then the other, searching. "Wha.. I..." His voice was slurred and nasal, "Did I scare her away?" Antimony's head shot up, eyes fixing immediately on D'hein's face. "She didn't--what happened!" She was on her feet quickly, stepping over to the tia to furrow her brow worriedly at his features. Then she started and grabbed at him to try and drag him towards the small bathroom, where the tub still sat half filled with water. D'hein didn't struggle, letting himself be pulled along. He explained rather dumbly, "I think she hit me? Is it bad?" "Is it--" she looked around and then just dragged him over to the tub, pushing down on his shoulders. "Sit down before--before you collapse." Her eyes cast about for a towel, settled on one still crumpled nearby, and snagged it. The Dodo sat, not really sure what he was. He almost fell into the tub before he caught himself. "Doesn't hurt," he said. "I'll clean myself up if you give me a moment. I'm not very presentable right now I imagine." "Doesn't hurt!" Antimony exclaimed dubiously. "At the very least your nose is broken." Dipping one corner of the towel into the tub, she hesitated only a moment at the thought of ruining yet another property that wasn't hers, and then began to wipe at D'hein's face, apparently ignoring his assertion. "Really, it doesn't." He was actually smiling, the expression brought to his face by the mute tingling that wrapped his head, neck and shoulders. "It can't be bad if it doesn't hurt, right? And I'm sure my vision will clear up any moment." "Your vision--how can this not hurt?!" She gave him a baffled look. Pushing aside some of his hair, she found a nicely developing lump on his brow, more swelling around his eye socket. His nose, as she'd suspected, was definitely broken, but such a thing was easily remedied. "Hold this, please," she muttered in a still bewildered tone, dragging one of his hands up to the towel pressed to the side of his face. Her own hands she moved to his face, thumbs pressed against either side of his nose, and in a very practiced motion snapped the crooked cartilage back into place. As she moved up his hand, he chuckled, "Well, I can't refuse a lady's request, even in such a-" he paused when she snapped his nose back into place, a bit perplexed by the sound and the strangeness of the sensation. "Such an unbecoming situation. I do hope your friend is all right, though. That sounded like a terrible misunderstanding." Antimony returned her attention to the rest of D'hein's head and skirted around his question with a nervous and weak, "I really didn't know." It was an uncomfortable thing to consider, Loughree's reaction, and so instead she focused on something that was so familiar she could work through it practically on autopilot. The swelling around his temple was concerning, but less so than... "Look up and follow my fingers," she ordered, placing a hand on his forehead to clear his face of hair and holding two fingers in front of his eyes, moving them slowly first left and right, then up and down. With an entertained look, D'hein followed the tan blur of Antimony's fingers. "I'm not offended, if that's what you're worried about. This was a bit of a clumsy ice-breaker, but I can't hold it against her." It was hard to tell if his pupils were even in the dim light of the bathroom, but she doubted a blow from a metal shield had left him unscathed. Grimacing at the blood that came away when she dipped the towel into the tub, Antimony returned the cool cloth to his head and again repeated, "Hold this there," before dropping to her knees with a sigh. Her shoulders slumped, drained. "I'm not worried about that," she muttered. "I've come back from much worse blows to the head," he offered. "I don't want you to worry too much. The bleeding will slow, and my vision really is already clearing. Just a bit dazed!" "Don't be absurd. You are not invincible," she replied, ears shivering. Her gaze drifted towards the door outside the bathroom through which Loughree had fled. She could only hope Megiddo had gone, was distracted by following that strange roegadyn, was maybe even protecting Aijeen. Which reminded her. Antimony leaned forward until her head rested against the edge of the tub and then just kind of sat there. Worrying. Through the haze of his vision, D'hein watched Antimony, waiting for her to either verbally relent or dote on him some more. When she did neither for some time, the Dodo racked his brain trying to figure out what she was doing, and finally concluded, "Ah ha. You're pondering." She realized she wasn't in an exactly flattering position currently, but there was far too much going on in her thoughts, and far too little energy in her body, for her to care. Would Loughree find a safe place to sleep, or would the next time she see her be in an obituary? Would Megiddo even bother going after her at this point? Perhaps he'd taken Antimony's words to heart finally. And what did D'aijeen intend to do with D'ahl? Would Ulanan be able to catch up with them? Would she be discovered? If there were a confrontation, would D'aijeen get hurt? Was she really going to stay in Ul'dah, or did she intend to leave, flee with D'ahl perhaps, and take K'airos with her? Why couldn't her daughter accept that her mother loved her? Antimony's head hurt in place of D'hein's. After a time, she simply said without looking up, "If you feel any dizziness or nausea, please tell me." "A gentleman does not discuss such things with a lady." She did lift her head at that, frowning at D'hein. "You will tell me, because you clearly have no understanding of your own medical health." "If I have some medical problem I can go to my tribe's healers." He blinked, thinking. "Ah, I hope you don't think it a cruel oversight of mine that I didn't force them upon you. Aijeen does good work when healing, so I did not even consider that it might be necessary." "Had she not--" and Antimony was so glad that she had, that she had felt strongly enough about her mother to offer that kind of help, "--I could have taken care of myself," Antimony said stiffly, still frowning at D'hein. "Now tell me, dizziness or nausea?" "Nausea, but only at my actions surrounding the events of the day," D'hein admitted. "I apologize that I did not act against D'hal, but you must understand that the woman is family, and she has never acted like this before." Antimony let her head drop back down to the tub, letting her weight settle a bit more against it. "I understand." And she truly did. For her entire life, family had been everything. Family was what kept her people alive. She let out a sigh at the unexpected pain in her chest, thoughts unwillingly turning briefly towards that desert, towards people she'd had to let go. Antimony swallowed. "Do you think she will return? Aijeen? With or without D'ahl?" "I do not think she can leave. Even if she were willing and able to leave the tribe, K'airos has her obligations. And she would not leave without her sister." At that Antimony shook her head, one hand moving to loosely cradle her shoulder where it had begun to ache. "I'm unsure," she replied lowly. "The way Aijeen spoke to me here, she... there was no doubt that she would take Airos." A pause. "... Perhaps she's changed her mind." "Changed her mind about what?" D'hein said, still sounding nasally. He takes the towel from his hand, looking at it, squinting at it, realizing for the first time that he was bleeding. "Keep the pressure on your head," Antimony muttered with almost supernatural awareness. Then she added after a moment, ".. about leaving? About... me not loving her? About her expectations?" She closed her eyes. "I don't know what to else to do for her." "I'm afraid I can't advise. I think you've always been a vexation for her. Otherwise..." D'hein mulled over his thought for a moment, and then said, "Things between her and D'ahl should not have twisted as they did." "I am tired," Antimony said suddenly, not particularly feeling ready to dwell on her daughter's relationship with D'ahl and what it meant about D'aijeen's relationship with her own mother. "You should rest, then. Nothing we can do until we hear back from Ulanan or someone." One of his ears shivered, and he winked a frustrated eye. "I realize I forgot to have the food sent to your room. It's likely sitting in the tavern going to waste." Antimony winced, fingers distractedly scratching at some dried blood on her shoulder. He was right about Ulanan, but she didn't particularly enjoy waiting - not when it potentially meant her daughter was getting further and further away with every passing moment. As for the food... "I apologize. I don't think I have the stomach for eating right now." Perhaps when there was less worry gnawing on her gut. "You should at least take some of it with you, however." "Ah, I know a hint when I hear one." D'hein set the towel aside and stood, then wavered a bit in his light-headedness. "A hint..?" Antimony sat back and grimaced. "Ah, I didn't mean... that in a rude way. Just that... well. You can't exactly--" She gestured a bit uselessly. "I should be off to a healer. Although you understand my reluctance to leave you alone in this situation. I wish you friend hadn't run off." Antimony nodded after a moment, working herself to her feet. Her tail hung tiredly behind her. "I will be fine. Though," she gave D'hein a look, "I am a healer. I hope you are more cooperative with your own family than with me." His tail spinning in vexation, D'hein put his hands up in front of him and said, "Ah, I didn't mean that in any way as criticism! I simply meant that some magical intervention might be able to help with the bleeding some! That was all!" Antimony sighed, frowning at that with a muttered, "Magic. Yes," and then made to return to the larger main room. "Not to say that your healing was in any way unsatisfactory! Quite the contrary, I feel very fine! I don't think I'll go by a healer after all! Just fine!" D'hein moved his arms to either side and over his head as if to illustrate his point, causing himself to sway a bit more. "No, you're going to see a healer," Antimony said as she went to the foot of the bed, where a few changes of clothes sat folded in a neat pile. "Fine, but I doubt they'll do any better than what you've done. They'll likely turn me right around and send me away as I'm perfectly fine." D'hein walked into the main room, brushing his fingers over his number face. Turning back to D'hein with some non-bloodied clothes in her arms, Antimony watched him for a moment before just sighing. "Please just go get yourself taken care of so I can rest." "Don't worry about me. Or anyone else, for that matter, before you worry about yourself." He paused to look around the room like he was forgetting something, then shrugged and went to the door. "I won't be far. If anything develops, we're to let one another know." "If you hear anything of Aijeen..." She let the thought trail off, though she likely didn't need to finish it. She tried not to think about all the possible outcomes of this mess while she waited for D'hein to leave. "Good evening, Antimony. Do rest well." And he left.

Hemp IRL typically refers to the Cannabis variety that isn't used as a drug (because it has very low THC content). I wouldn't be so sure about using moko grass as a drug for the same reason, unless there's some kind of lore confirmation.

((Immediately after the events of Freeze first, then lightning...)) *** The eye of Azeyma was ever slow in its turning, and the supposed acolyte of Oschon wandered beneath it with short strides. He moved in impossible ways, though, his form flitting through crevice and crag, through the shadows cast by Gridanian tress and Limsan corals. He was in Thanalan and Ishgard, alone in the wilds or in the corners of the gazes of strangers who turned to see the flash of gray and saw nothing. He was in a refugee camp outside of Ul'dah. Here he felt the sand and dirt blown by the wind against his old face, and when he looked up, he stopped moving. He paused in his footsteps, there near the walls and tents, the refugees and the brass oppressors. Azeyma was lazy above. The supposed acolyte of Oschon was unmoving below, looking slowly around as his eyes adjusted to the harsh light of overland places. "What do you wish for me to see here?" he muttered, curling his fingers, feeling his age like a weight on his shoulders and knees, like lead in his bones. He used to Ul'dah now, and found it odd that he kept returning here. But then, he had things to do here, it seemed, and Oschon would have him finish them. The Duskwight sighed, and shuffled in the sand and grit, searching the refugee faces for one of interest or familiarity. A lone Hellsguard, of red skin and burning hair, was seated on the ground, seeming unconcerned with the passage of time of the daily bustle that conducted itself around her day-by-day. She moved when she needed, and not more, waiting for Althyk to deliver the Duskwight who claimed knowledge to her. She had waited a long time. Before him. For him. And likely after him. Time was the answer to all things. It was a waste to worry of its passage. She watched as two Miqo'te children scuttled before her, losing a ball so that it rolled in her direction, stopping only as it knocked against her booted foot. Unconcerned, she merely kicked it back to them, with enough force only to reach them. The dusky figure lumbered and swayed, bones rattling, as he moved across the camp as though a shadow upwards by something subterranean. He watched the children, the ball, the large woman who sat sedimentary as a stone. He paused and watched, trying to place her face. He smirked, then, exhaling a slow "Ah," and ambling towards her in his small steps. There was no supernatural movement here. Only an old man's hobbling. He addressed her, "Seeker. Oschon sends me to you, I believe." The woman lifted her head at the nearby voice, recalling distantly the inference of Oschon's name. "Did he? My patience and trust was the one rewarded." She turned her flickering yellow eyes to the ground around her as if it held the answers. More likely she was asking it to release her from its grip. A long moment later, she pushed herself up and off the ground, like a sleeping giant awakened from its slumber, readjusted to the world again. "Let us see what further rewards you have bought," he gestured for her to follow, dispensing with any nicety or formality. Had they even exchanged names yet? He couldn't recall. It didn't matter. "Follow me into the city." Not bothering to dust herself off, the woman stepped towards the man. "If that is where you would lead." The old man was slow and silent, but deliberate in his movements. There was no wandering now. He would walk the woman through the gates, to the north side of the city along the main road. He would pass the markets and the beggars without notice. She followed, long footstep covering far more ground than his, so her steps were slow and lumbering. But she followed faithfully, not rushing him as she was led. The Duskwight took them to the Quicksand, walking up the steps and into the tavern. He ignored whatever business there was. No one jostled or bothered him. He seemed ever alone. "We will not have to wait here long," the old man said. "You can order drink or food if you wish. This meeting may be more amicable if it is casual." The red woman merely nodded, "I will be fine. Do not worry about myself. Who do you wish us to meet?" "Someone who can tell you what you're looking for, perhaps. At least, she'll have an interesting story, if you can get it out of her." He said this with a smile as he drifted through the tavern, moving towards the door the opened onto Ruby Road. He only approached it, did not go through it, and he lingered like a shadow near it once he was there. "Are we to linger here then? What is behind that door?" She asked placidly, waiting beside him and the unfamiliar tavern doors. "Just a street," the old man said. "If I'm not wrong, she'll be along." "I am good at waiting." The woman settles in to do so, leaning against one of the walls by the doorway. D'hein ushered Antimony back from the Hustings Strip as well as he could. Unlike when he was taking her home from the jail, he felt utterly undeserving of the honor of comforting her. Whereas before he had been rescuing her from the obvious wrongdoings of others, he had trouble dividing himself from D'ahl. D'ahl was not merely part of his tribe, but part of his life. He would not have been able to choose Antimony over D'ahl, as evidenced by the fact that he could do nothing to stop D'ahl from attempting to kill Antimony, nor to protect Antimony's friend from her. He felt complicit in the harm that had befallen Antimony, in a way that even D'aijeen's misbehavior could not render him. All of this was magnified by his inability to accept D'ahl's behavior at face value. He was trying some way to make the choice to attack Antimony something reasonable. Anything other than base jealousy and selfishness, desperation to maintain something that never should have been in the first place. By the time he had her back along Ruby Road and moving towards the Quicksand, he felt he was having trouble holding her up for how heavy he himself felt with the frustration. Completely oblivious to D'hein's frustration and conflict, Antimony still found it difficult to take any comfort in his presence - though not for any blame she placed on him. As she leaned on his arms, feeling weak and shaky from blood loss, Antimony found all she could feel was worry, and fear. Worry over D'ahl's next intended move, if she might hurt D'aijeen in retaliation if her daughter did not show appreciation of what she'd done. And fear of what D'aijeen might do, both with D'ahl and after. Though she'd said she trusted her daughter not to leave, Antimony found her will to maintain that trust paper thin. That D'aijeen had seemed angered at Antimony's state and D'ahl's action was only a single thread of hope - one she clung to desperately but still feared it would fray before too long. When they crossed into the Quicksand, Antimony was too distracted to feel much relief. A part of her worried what the other patrons might think to see a woman of her age walking in with a dress soaked in blood down the front, and she brought her arm up as though to hide the evidence of it, evoking a twinge from the knitted together but still very much healing flesh in her shoulder. She ducked her head, intending to make her way to her inn room as uneventfully as possible. Antimony had not gone far before there was a looming presence and an elderly voice saying, "It seems I've missed some event. That's very unlike me. I apologize." D'hein did not initially pause at the voice, as his attention was famously unreliable. Watching from her place on the wall, the red woman heard her companion greet a pair of Miwo'te who came through the wooden doors. She stood silent though, letting the those that knew each other have their business first. Antimony's ears twitched up somewhat from their drooping state. "That's..." She trailed off, lifting her head to turn it towards the voice, and found herself suddenly caught between a look of almost chastised embarrassment and worry. She had hoped to manage a "pleased to see you" look, but it seemed that wasn't in her emotional spectrum at this moment. "Oh this--it wasn't much to miss, Megiddo." D'hein finally paused when Antimony spoke, noticing after a moment that it wasn't to him, and then looked up at the smiling scarecrow-like man. The well-coifed Dodo's vexation became evident, and he muttered, "I don't know about the friends you are keeping." "Nor do I," replied the Duskwight, Megiddo, with a smile as though he were joking. "You look as though you have received healing, Antimony, which is good. You should sit and eat. Your body will need food more than sleep." "He's as good a friend as any I've had," Antimony sighed, frowning at D'hein briefly. Then to Megiddo with a tired look, "I suppose you're right. Though... I'll admit I had been favoring the latter." "I think she should just go to sleep as well!" D'hein protested, sounding like he needed cuddles. It drew a chuckle from Megiddo, who said, "I have a friend with something very important to speak with you about. It regards your errant daughter, I think." Antimony froze, blinked once, and then paled more than she already had. "Aijee--what? But she was just with... has she already... what else has she done??" "More general," Megiddo said. "Sit down and order a meal. This should not be a stressful conversation." D'hein still protested. "This is not the right time for such a conversation! Antimony has been through an ordeal, and you can discuss D'aijeen with me as well as her. She's my daughter, after all." The Duskwight's response was an amused, "Oh?" "Adopted!" Antimony corrected anxiously, "And I never--" Her tail shivered behind her and then her shoulders slumped. The action drew a grimace from her face, her opposite arm moving to gingerly hold her left shoulder. "You wish to talk about Aijeen... if it's about what we discussed earlier, I... would rather not." She pushes away from the wall, vibrantly colored, despite how easily she sometimes blends into the background. Her voice is that of crackling gravel, "My friend here thinks you know important things. I do not intend to disturb, but Althyk has had me wait many moons for such." "Ah," Megiddo gestured Antimony's attention towards the large woman. "Here is the person I mentioned. She has been looking for your daughter for a long time, and I think you would be interested in knowing why." Antimony cringed at the new voice, flicking her eyes towards the towering roegadyn who approached. "Ah.. what... looking for...?" Her ears pressed back against her head, and her brow furrowed in a mix of worry and a defensive air. "What would you want with Aijeen? I won't let you hurt her." D'hein mirrored Antimony's expression, though only one of his ears responded, "This is some sort of scam, isn't it?" "There's no reason for anyone to be hostile or rude," Megiddo muttered. "I thought we could speak over a meal." "I do not even know of whom you speak. So you may rest at peace. I was told that you would know something of what I seek though." The woman looked down at the nervous and bloodstained woman. "It is not my intention to bring alarm. But I can not simply leave when I have searched for so long." "That... is not exactly comforting," Antimony mumbled. She shifted her weight somewhat, uneasily, and then seemed to sag. "I can't ignore something to do with Aijeen, though. Let's... eat." "I must protest against this action," D'hein released one hand from Antimony's arm to raise a finger and shake it, "If it is not urgent then it must wait! Rest and calm is called for." Turning to lumber towards a table, the Duskwight said, "You may take a nap if you wish, sir." The hellsguard simply remained silent as the others discussed their base needs. "Anything to do with Aijeen is usually urgent," Antimony murmured with a resigned look and made to turn towards the tables, with or without D'hein's help. The Dodo scoffed a strange, meager squawked, delaying only slightly. This was long enough for Antimony to ease away from him, so he moved forward to catch up to her. "Antimony. You're not at full strength." "I will be fine," Antimony insisted, continuing towards the table Megiddo had moved to. "Sitting is rest. And... this is important." "Then let us do that." The red woman gestures towards the tables gathered in the center of the tavern. Megiddo sat slowly. He didn’t wait for anyone else. The oldest person in a group generally decided where everyone else sat, after all, since all would defer to his comfort. That was what he'd gathered of the overlanders, anyway. D'hein maintained his wordless protest through scowl. Antimony followed Megiddo's actions, dropping into an empty chair and holding her shoulder gingerly. Her tail curled in a weak curve over her legs. D'hein lingered beside Antimony's chair, ears twitching, tail shivering at its end. He leaned over and said to her very openly, "Are you sure these are friends of yours? They seem unkempt." She winced at that, frowned at her hand and the dried blood that flaked off beneath it. She really should have at least insisted on changing clothes... "That's hardly something to judge character by." Moving slowly behind the others, the Hellsgaurd took a seat that wasn’t already occupied, though she didn’t seem to care which. "If you required food, you should go ahead and order it." "I'll order food for the table, then," D'hein said, grudgingly. Nodding quietly in thanks, Antimony went quiet in anxious anticipation. D'hein turned to walk off from the table, heading to the bar to place a brief but comprehensive order of food things with milk. Megiddo did not press the conversation. He appeared weary. His age pulled his skin into his bones, his body down towards the table on which he leaned. "I take it then, what I am interested is this... D'aijeen?" The woman asked, turning to the Duskwright. "Is it safe for me to make assumptions of what she is?" "She's a person." Megiddo mumbled, without awakening. When he roused, it was to gesture towards Antimony, "This is the girl's mother, Antimony, who has known her from birth. Lest you doubt it is a human we are speaking of." Antimony had bristled, but Megiddo's words seemed to calm her slightly. She worried her hands together, ears shivering almost imperceptibly. "Aijeen. Yes. She's... my daughter." "I am sorry if I seem callous then. I do not mean to be. I am not often around people, so my manners do not see much use." D'hein returned to the table, wordless, grabbing a chair and pulling it nearer to Antimony before sitting down in it. "You'll.." Antimony hesitated, searching for words, "You'll understand if I'm.." At D'hein's return she glanced his way, tail twitching against her legs. "... What do you want with Aijeen?" "Why do you not tell me of her first? I do not even know anything of her. So I may not yet tell you what I wish of her." Megiddo watched the table in front of him, joining his hands in front of his face to lean on them. Antimony's brows knit deeper. "I'm not going to just... you're asking for a very personal thing!" "Is it? Is there naught that would help assuage your worry?" the crackling voice asked. "If you told me what you want with my daughter!" She couldn't stop the rise in pitch in her voice, though she followed it quickly with a muttered, "Apologies." "And as I told you, I have... assumptions in my head. Based upon the trail the brought me here and why our friend wished for us to speak. But I would not burden you with them if it can be helped." "If I could," put Megiddo. His tone was kind, but direct as he said, "I remembered something, though. The Graveyard in Drybone was not the first time I saw your daughter. I saw her once, years ago, in the Shroud." D'hein seemed frustrated, tail whirling about behind him with enough energy that it was shifting him from side to side. "The Shroud...?" Antimony turned confused eyes to Megiddo and then drew in a breath, "Well, she did say she's... studied conjury.." "For two years prior to the Calamity," D'hein added in short, clipped words. "Then she came home." Megiddo stated quick, "After the Calamity. A week after." Glancing between them, the red woman inquired, "And what was she doing there, do you believe?" Looking unsure and decidedly more somber at Megiddo's words, Antimony eyed D'hein. "You were unaware..?" Frowning at the 'unkempt' people sharing the table with them, D'hein said to Antimony, "D'aijeen went to Cartenau just prior to the Calamity and returned several weeks later. That's how she found K'airos. I suppose it's possible she passed through the Shroud, but..." he looks back to the pair that are strangers to him. "What does it matter?" Antimony's eyes went wide. "You--you allowed her to go to that.. that battlefield??" "Who allows D'aijeen to do anything?" D'hein replied calmly. "I couldn't stop her." Her ears drooped at that, and she went silent. "The Shroud is where I have come from, and where I met my companion here. I met... an interesting individual there, whom my friend believes is connected to your daughter. That is the trail." "I believe that I witnessed your daughter employing dark magics in the Shroud, the result of which was the animation of a dead man," Megiddo said this clearly and quickly. "That man still lives, though he has asked not to be involved in this matter." "Yes... he was rather adamant about that, though I wished for him to join me, as I have much to learn study of him." the graveled voice uttered plainly. Antimony's expression went unreadable for a moment. "A dead man," she echoed a bit numbly and for a moment looked as though she might literally crumble into a pile of dust in her chair. Then she let out a heavy sigh, dropping her eyes to her lap. "I... suppose it was only a... matter of time." "You are not surprised by this, I take it?" D'hein gave Antimony a raised eyebrow. "We're not surprised by that?" For several, long moments, Antimony did nothing but worry on her lower lip in complete silence, a look of conflict deepening the faint wrinkles in her face. Eventually, however, she found herself driven to speak, though with extreme reluctance and in a tone low enough to be nearly inaudible, "The day Aijeen left the tribe, she... had tried something similar. Animated some kind of... demon made of bone and flesh from drakes and worms. It... nearly killed us before fleeing into the desert." She paused and then added, "I never thought she would try such a thing with another... person." "And why has nobody ever told me about this!" D'hein snapped. "Should you not ask that of Aijeen?" Antimony snapped suddenly. "It was not my choice that she left her home!" "That is your own family's business. I am concerned for what she does and what she creates. I would speak with her if at all possible, and in lieu of that hear these little details that seem so small to you as her family." "They are not small!" Antimony protested. "They are just..." She trailed off, failing for words. D'hein turned his head towards the woman, "I will not have some filthy interloper judge Antimony, especially if she desires a favor of such intensely personal nature on today of all days. You haven’t even told us who you are." "I only ask because I must. If I had a choice I would not have left my post. But that matters none to you, except that voidsent are why I left and are why I am here." The red woman said plainly. "Ask me what you will and I will answer as I can." "I don't..." Antimony sank back into her chair weakly. "You're certain it was her. In the Shroud... You saw her doing that to a.. real person?" Megiddo replied, "I saw her bury a body. And then the body unburied itself. The spirits f the Shroud have been attempted to reject the man's existence ever since his resurrection. Make of it what you will." The woman gave a worried look towards the roegadyn across from her. "What do you intend to do with any of this information? Only speak with her? If you intend any harm, I--I will stop you myself if I must!" "As I do not yet know what her part in the breaking of the gate is, I cannot say for certain anything. But the gate -must- be fixed, and the flood -must- be stopped. That is not a question. And your daughter is currently my only lead, for I have never seen such as the one she raised. He was... different than the others. It would have taken great power and finesse to accomplish.", the woman answered, her brow raised slightly, and her lips turned downward in sadness. "The... what?" At that, Antimony only looked thoroughly confused. "Finesse and power are things which D'aijeen has plenty of," D'hein says, "And I don't like the tone of this conversation. If you're blaming Aijeen for... for what? A flood?" He gave a confused look to the Duskwight, then back to the large woman. "I do not blame her for anything yet. I am merely telling you why I am searching and for what. As it is my duty, to tend one of the voidgates, as was passed to me. But it broke, so I seek to fix it." Antimony continued looking baffled. "I... don't know what you're talking about. But..." She shook her head, and then held her head when the action left her a bit woozy. "Speak to her, yes. But I will not let you hurt her. No matter what your... mission." The woman nodded her head, "Of course, I understand. You protect your own." The Duskwight muttered, "Why don't you tell them what you are thinking you might find?" The Hellsguard turned toward him, speaking as though the others were not present, "Because I do not believe that they will like it, and I would spare them that pain if I can." "I refuse to be kept in the dark regarding matters you seem to think involve my child," Antimony said firmly, sitting up a bit in her chair. The woman presses her lips together, returning her orange-eyed gaze flicking to the other woman. "Then yes. I do expect that she is drawing voidsent directly from the gates. Fresh. The man was so alive, that there could be no other way. I have learned a thing or two over the years, you see. I understand their nature quite well. But their place is not here, and your daughter is messing with things that she should not." She pauses. "It must come to an end." "An end," Antimony echoed and then stood very suddenly, swaying for a second before catching herself on the table. "You--no one goes near my daughter who means her harm! Do you hear? You do not touch her! Whatever she is doing--I doubt she... she can't possibly comprehend the full extent of it."" "And how do you know this? It is not as if you knew of her dealings with the dead." D'hein kept his seat. "D'aijeen has studied thaumaturgy. Conjury. She has studied respectful care for the dead. Who are you to say what should be stopped? And how do you intend to stop her?" "That is why I would speak to her first. It is not my job to pass judgment on someone. But she must stop. The alternative is not an option." "And what are you qualifications?" D'hein said. "Who are you? What is your study and authority?" Her head dropped to the side as her head swung to the man addressing her, "I have already said. I am a voidgate keeper, as my grandfather before me, and his sister before him, and so forth. It my family heritage. There are not many of us left who take up the mantle, so the world has forgotten us. You will not find that I have academic credentials sir." "That doesn't make any... a voidgate?? You work with demons??" Antimony's eyes widened and she leaned back away from the table somewhat. The woman's fiery hair sways with sharp motion, "No. That is exactly what I do not do, and what your daughter does do." "Accusations!" Antimony countered a bit shrilly. "You don't--you have no--" She sought aimlessly for words to protest by, wavered on her feet, and then leaned heavily against the table. A sigh and, finally, quieter, "I suppose it doesn't matter, though. I don't know where Aijeen is. I... don't know if I ever will again." "That's enough," D'hein stood, putting his hands on Antimony to help support her. "I'll have the food sent to our room. No more of this now." "Of course. Thank you for speaking with me. I wish you a good rest." Ignoring D'hein's touch for the moment, Antimony pursed her lips at the fiery roegadyn. "You're going to seek her out, aren't you? You're going to--to hurt her!" "I make no promises, lady. What will be, will be." The red woman said solemnly, her voice full of rough grit. "Unacceptable!" Antimony slammed one hand down on the table, dropped her head forward. "That--that is enough for... I can turn you in to the Brass Blades for threatening violence..!" "I do not threaten violence. I do not wish to hurt the girl. But she will hurt others if left unchecked." "These are hollow threats, Antimony," D'hein put himself in front of Antimony to get her attention, putting his hand on her own. "The woman is incapable of doing any harm to Aijeen, and will find no sane reason to attempt so." "You hear what she's saying!" Antimony's voice rose in pitch, garnering several uncomfortable looks from other Quicksand patrons. "You hear but you do nothing! You've done nothing to protect her! Or she wouldn't have--she would have learned--" she cut herself off suddenly, shaking, and shut her eyes. The red woman stayed quiet, watching the miqo'te in front of her waver. The miqo'te man took a breath to steady himself, "It's just a woman's words. These things cannot hurt anyone." "I will be keeping an eye on our friend," The Duskwight said, calmly, his silver eyes opening to look at Antimony. "It is not healthy for you to be this upset right now." "I am sorry that I brought you distress, that was not my intention." She stands from her seat. Antimony didn't respond, just bowed her head, hands shaking against the table. "Let us leave then, friend." She looked to the Duskwright as she said this, stepping away from the table. "Go ahead. I'll be along." The Duskwight closed his eyes again, staying where he was. D'hein gave the roegadyn a hard frown and said, "If anyone did attempt to force their will upon AIjeen, they would learn quickly why nobody has ever made a habit of doing so." "I would expect as such. But I thank you for the warning." She nodded her head, making to leave the Quicksand. The man huffed at that, one ear twitching. "Once again, Antimony, I am dubious about the friends you keep. Let's get you to your room." Their Hellsguard inquisitor headed out the doors that she came in from, not glancing back. With a faint grimace, Antimony backed away from the table, glanced wearily at Megiddo. "I... apologize for the outburst," she murmured and then made to shuffle towards the back rooms.

Your images aren't working. I'm not going to trust it until I see it in action. Been burned too many times by stupid things in MMOs. It could easily be just different versions. [edit] If it is the case... I really hope they opened up dyeing on the old gear (especially Allagan, the mythology tomestone sets, and Darklight) as well.

Dyeable gear. Dear god, please let this be true. It would be a much needed salve to the gaping, infected wound of the vanity system.

The fact that the color is different is why I was leaning towards crafted Gerolt item. I could be wrong and it is Allagan2... Well we've seen several Masterwork items already (they aren't crafted - purchased via Soldiery tomestones), and none of them resemble the aesthetic of Allagan armor. I'm going to try and not get my hopes up that SE realized the stupidity in not letting people dye gear.

The Roegadyn in the middle actually looks like he's wearing the new Allagan set, except purple. Which is... weird.

The wardrobe system should not be used as a level 50 reward. Period. End of story. This is not something I've encountered in any MMO to date, and for very good reason. It doesn't matter how quickly or how slowly one can level in this game; we all deserve access to the feature, regardless of level. Hell, glamouring in XIV is less inconvenient than re-skinning in TERA because in that game, re-skinning destroys the template item, but I and many others still made use of it while leveling. No one enjoys being stuck in a mis-matched hodge podge of armor, and for some of us, the current state of alts on our armor is actually a deterrent to wanting to level them further. As I said earlier, I can't actually bring myself to level my MRD alt to cap because of her current outfit. I hate it so much that I have zero interest in her. If I could glamour away the hideousness, then I might actually want to play her. The whole thing is terribly inconsistent. Dyes and the barber shop are both locked behind quests at level 15; it made sense to expect that glamours would be as well. Never in a million years could I have expected SE to be this stupid about something that should be available to everyone, at all times, regardless of level.

But vanity systems are not supposed to be level cap systems.

The Dodoes' tribal lands were apparently in the sky above Ul'dah, near the Hustings Strip. One grand tower rose with five towers equidistant around it, but the towers themselves weren't the commune. The commune began on the roof of the central tower, and was the fifth through eighth floors of the others. The only part of the towers below that which the Dodoes claimed as tribal land was the isolated stairwell in the central tower, which led from Husting's strip directly to the rood of the central tower. There were no other connections with the ground or with the lower floors. This division, this hard-lined separation between the Dodoes and the city they were a part of, was the very first thing that they wanted outsiders to perceive. They were like an exclusive club, or a secret organization, or a privileged fraternity, or a bunch of kids gathered in a treehouse or hiding in an attack or something like that. D'hein thought it was stupid, which is why he didn't even live in the commune. But he still went there frequently. He was a Dodo after all. The door to the stairwell that led to the commune opened into the red-carpeted roadways of the Hustings Strip, and D'hein idled there with his black robes around him, hood fallen back to show off his hair. His head was unadorned unless one counted his golden fleece hair and his inset emerald orb (as in, eyes). He didn't want to overdress too much and make Antimony look bad, after all. He was already so bad about that just as he was. *** It hadn't taken very long to return to the Quicksand and change into the dress D'hein had so... thoughtfully provided alongside the other various survival necessities he'd gifted her. There had been reluctance on Antimony's part, but it was quickly overcome by her need to speak with D'aijeen, to try and fix what her daughter insisted was broken. The dress was green, in a color she distantly recognized matched her eyes. The thought would have annoyed her more if she wasn't already so distracted by events soon to come. Putting it on was a fair bit more complicated than any clothing she'd ever thought to wear, and she quickly realized the necessity of pants once she noticed the way it opened up on one side. Still, at least it fit decently, if a little too snug in the waist (he must have been imagining her as someone much younger). She felt distinctly unlike herself as she made her way to the Dodo's commune with Ulanan. It left her off-kilter, and she approached D'hein and the entrance up to the commune with visible unease. The lalafell was still wearing the plain white cowl she had brought to the Ossuary. She looked like a giant snowflake. Underneath, though, she took the time to place something nicer: a typical leather lalafellin vest with a white shirt and skirt. And a long silver wand that looked like it had been ripped off some terrible monster. She was a dangerous snowflake, she thought while following Antimony. When Antimony walked into view, before he even noticed the tiny snowflake, D'hein was struck with a deep confusion, his brow and lips dropping. He said to her, "I thought you weren't permitted to leave your apartment currently." The miqo'te's steps paused, the hesitation and worry in her features shifting to confusion. "What are you talking about...? No one has done such a thing." The snowflake just watched. Over the next few seconds, one of D'hein's ears moved back on his head, slowly turning to listen to the wall behind him. His eyes got a bit wider, glanced down at the snowflake, then back up to Antimony. "Oh. I... mistook you for..." He cleared his throat. "You're wearing the dress incorrectly but it will do for now." He turned towards the stairwell that would lead to the commune. Antimony frowned and muttered, "I know how to wear a dress," before giving Ulanan a nervous look and following after D'hein. "How far up do we have to go?" Ulanan asked with the very obvious intention of changing the subject. "Five stories," D'hein answered, moving in to the well-lit but otherwise unadorned stairwell. There would be no doors on the way up. There would be no watchmen, attendants or receptionists. Wincing, Antimony recalled the trek she had taken to get up to the commune the first time and did not relish doing it a second. It was, however, a miniscule price for potentially saving her daughter. "I don't know what I will do if she doesn't listen..." The snowflake opened her mouth to say something but quickly shut it again. She thought better, and then said something else: "What can we expect from this D'hal person, if she's there?" "I'm honestly not sure what to expect from her anymore," D'hein said, climbing the stairs as easily as if he was walking across flat ground. Furrowing her brow, Antimony lost herself in an unhappy thought for a moment before speaking hesitantly, "I don't recall you ever explaining her... relation with Aijeen." The snowflake climbed the stairs and had many mean thoughts about the architecture of the city. "Close friend can mean many things." she ventured. "D'ahl is many things. It's complicated. I'm not sure I have the vocabulary to explain it. Just a few more floors!" "Do I not have a right to understand who the woman my daughter trusts more than me is...?" Antimony's expression turned down as she continued to climb the stairs, holding up the hem of the dress so as not to trip. Ulanan wondered what could be the worst possible scenario for that woman. "Is she a Somnus smuggler?" Antimony's eyes went wide. "No, never! Aijeen wouldn't.." "No, no, it's not that!" D'hein looked down the stairs at the two, "It's simply that I'm not sure how to answer the question, or that it's even my place to. I suppose it's no secret that the two are physically intimate, but a gentleman does not speak of such things! Now then, upwards!" He quickened his pace, an evidently easy feat. Antimony choked on nothing, her steps faltering. Immediately she recalled the way D'aijeen had first greeted her in that forsaken lichyard outside Drybone, calling her an unfamiliar name, with an unfamiliar attitude. Her stomach churned both with a sudden nausea and anger, and she glared at D'hein's back, "It was her? This D'ahl woman taught my Aijeen how to think that--twisted her thoughts so that she thinks she wants that from me?" The lalafell didn't speed up to match D'hein's speed, instead lingering slightly behind, cursing Ul'dahn stairs under her breath. In a low, slow tone from where he was gaining height and distance, D'hein responded, "No one has twisted Aijeen. I'm not sure what you're talking about, but I think you shouldn't assume anything." "I'm assuming nothing, D'hein," Antimony snapped as she hurried to catch up with the tia. "When my daughter comes to me demanding attention that should only be shared between mates, there is little to assume!" She felt herself flushing at actually discussing such a thing aloud, and a twinge of guilt for bringing into public what was most certainly an extremely private matter. She let out a distressed sigh, eyes searching past D'hein towards the door she could make out not far above them. There was a pause between Ulanan's steps. There was also a grimace. "Surely she didn't mean it. Only a trick to get you disgusted and make you run away." D'hein paused against the door, turning back to look down the stairwell, "She... what? You... certainly must have... misinterpreted!" "I have not," Antimony replied, her voice wavering with anxiety. "That woman has... has taken advantage of my baby girl. I'm certain of it!" "The woman initiated romantic overtures based on mutual, respectable attraction and there were no grounds for objection," the gold-coifed man's tail flipped about behind him in agitation, whacking the door. It sounded as though someone were knocking on it from the outside. "Furthermore, knowing Aijeen as I do, I doubt anyone could take advantage of her. If anyone has been twisted, it has been D'ahl, by D'aijeen!" He ended his tyrade by turning to answer the door, throwing it open and proclaiming "What!" to the white-armored huntress that stood in the courtyard on the other side. The woman flinched. Ulanan caught up to them, standing next to Antimony like a snowflake that was lost in summer. "Knowing Aijeen as you--" Antimony cut herself off sharply, for surely if she'd continued, she might have said some very unsavory things. That and the sudden appearance of the guard startled her. She spent a few seconds nervously squinting at the woman to see if she recognized her from before. The huntress turned to consider D'hein, crossing her arms over her chest. Her ears lay down in her puffball blonde hair, completely hidden within, lance sticking up behind her head like an errant limb from a tiny yellow bush. "D'hein Tia. You still remember where you live, huh?" The Tia nodded a nervous greeting to her, but the woman had already looked past him to Antimony, her head flopping to the side, "And what's with you and the glasses? And- Hey! Why aren't you in your room? I have to report that!" Pursing her lips, Antimony set her ears back against her head. "I'm not who you think I am." As soon as Antimony spook, the huntress's head snapped back and her eyes widened, "What-" D'hein took hold of Antimony's hand to pull her past the huntress saying quickly, "Well D'ahl got into the somnus and thinks she's someone else now so I'm just going to take her back to her apartment and you're not going to tell anyone about this!" The reaction was so unexpected that Antimony allowed herself to be dragged forward, a bewildered look on her face. Ulanan found the scene amusing, limiting herself to look like a part of the stairs for the moment. "That is not D'ahl! And where are you going with that Lalafel?" The huntress shouted after D'hein, who was already making his way around the fountain in the middle of the square and towards the bridge that would take him off towards D'ahl's apartment, gathering strange looks from well-groomed and over-decorated miqo'te as he went. The dandelion-headed huntress let her shoulder slump, pursed her lips for a moment, and then shouted, "Don't get caught!" "Let's just go quickly and not talk to anyone," D'hein warned his companions as he went. That was at least one thing Antimony could agree with D'hein on, and she ducked her head as he hurried them along, hoping to avoid the curious gazes of the other Dodos around them. "I did not imagine you intended to sneak us in," she muttered, but the protest was weak. "I reckon it worked. Somehow." Ulanan pointed out. "It would have to be my plan in order for it to work. I didn't not expect you to look so like D'ahl. She's under house arrest, remember? They're liable to try and mistakenly get hold of you and send you to the Nunh!" "Didn't not... what?" She shook her head, and then shook her tail behind her in frustration, and then just sighed. A small part of her thought she would very much like to have a long chat with said nunh, and not just about his apparent financial proclivities. But she was smart enough to understand that wouldn't exactly be wise this moment. And D'aijeen was more important anyway. "Let's just get to my daughter, please. Where...?" "In this tower over here," D'hein said, leading them onto one of the precarious bridges, thin and low-railed enough to make even the most meager of Limsan pathways look like a broad lane. The passed a pair of huntresses as they went, neither of whom tried to stop them. One of them muttered, "Is that...?" Ulanan just did what years of being educated to be an Ul'dahn lady taught her: looking like she was supposed to be there, slightly behind Antimony and D'hein. Antimony cast a look at the lalafell over her shoulder, grateful at least that no one had yet thought to toss Ulanan out in the same manner they had her a few days past. Reassured that her friend was following, she shifted her eyes first to the bridge beneath their feet and then, upon nearly staggering at the dizzying drop below them, snapped them sharply to the tower that was quickly overtaking their field of view. She tried to imagine her daughter living in this place but came up short. It was simply too far removed from anything she had ever experienced. Past the great doors the fronted the tower and a few meters into a hallway that seemed to pierce through to the center of the building, D'hein paused before a door. The door he chose had no ornamentation, a fact unique to it among all the other doors that bore tapestry and labeling and potted flora on either side. "Here, this will be it." He lifted his hand to know on the door hard. A bit too hard. His knuckles went a bit numb from the effort. Antimony couldn't decide between a firm, determined expression or one of worry and concern, but her body chose for her. Drawing in a slow breath, she clasped her hands in front of her as her ears drooped in anticipation. Ulanan tried to transmit confidence to Antimony by tapping her leg and smiling. When there was no answer, D'hein knocked again, a bit harder, and frowned at his hand afterward. No answer again, and D'hein called out, "It's D'hein! You should let me in and we should talk! I'm not upset over you trying to hurt me!" Again, a long period of no answer. Antimony's tail shivered wildly behind her, her thoughts immediately jumping to the worst: "She's gone," she breathed faintly. "Already gone. I'm too late. My girls.." "Don't alarm yourself. The guard outside thought you were D'hal, so at least she couldn't leave." the lalafell said, raising one hand. "Maybe she's sleeping." "Or just being stubborn," D'hein said, putting his hand to the door and turning the knob. It opened easily. "The door is only locked from the inside," he explained, pushing the door inward and stepping in with a shout, "D'ahl! I've brought company! Let-" he cringed after he realized the tingling sensation in his eyes was something he needed to care about. He ducked his head against the light that the mirrors were collecting from the far room and throwing into his face. It was far bright than the outdoors had been. Antimony brought up a hand to shield her eyes, pupils contracting until they nearly disappeared. She couldn't keep herself quiet any longer and called out pleadingly, "Aijeen? Are you in there?" Squinting, Ulanan commented jokingly: "I was wondering where all the funds for this door had gone to." From inside of the apartment, a gravely, bitter woman's voice said, "In what small wisdom Nald invested in you, D'hein, tell me you did not bring the crone to my home." "No, just some friends," D'hein answered, stepping in and gesturing for Antimony and Ulanan to follow him, "Come along. If she hasn't told us to leave yet then it's good as an invitation!" Wincing at the choice of words and having no doubt as to whom the woman referred, Antimony hesitated at the door a moment before anxiously stepping after D'hein. She found her voice failing her in that moment and so simply followed in silence. Ulanan did the same. "Silence is not synonymous with an invitation, D'hein!" "And yet you still did not tell us to leave," D'hein said happily, pointing playfully at a random mirror he imagined D'ahl was watching him through. His finger bounced off of it. "Watch the mirrors!" He walked down the main hallway, knowing it turned left at some point and hoping he would be able to judge it, even with the blinding light and the mirrors positioned to deliberately confuse. "I think you're curious about my friends and want to meet them!" The woman growled from deep in the apartment, "I request that you all leave immediately." Following D'hein proved more difficult than Antimony had initially expected; she had to keep almost on top of him so as not to lose him in the confusion of mirrors. Her ears gave an unhappy shake at the disembodied voice, but she forced herself to straighten in the chaos of light and reflection and call out, "I am not leaving until I have spoken with my daughter." "We apology for the offense, irrupting in your chamber is rather unsavory." Ulanan said, gazing across the mirrors. "But as you might imagine, our purpose is quite urgent." "Left here," muttered D'hein, turning and finding himself face-to-face with himself, remembering D'ahl's earlier advice to not walk into one's own face. "Actually," he turned and walked on a few more steps and tried again, "Left here." Success! He was looking down a hallway that was glowing like the surface of water on all sides, but there was a definite openness and mirrors that showed slightly less confusing images down a ways. In many of the mirrors he could see himself, and Ulanan. In twice as many mirrors he could see Antimony, though half the time she was wearing her dress properly and the other half she seemed old and unadorned. Trick of the mirrors. D'ahl's voice came from the ethereal openness at the end of the mirrored hall, "Do you suddenly want your daughter, crone? D'aijeen isn't here." "Not here?" She breathed out, "Not here??" And spun around, found herself staring at a dozen or more fragmented images, the path they'd taken in lost completely. "No... no, no, she can't--Aijeen! Please, listen to me!" Ulanan felt the sudden urge to explain things to the unsympathetic disembodied voice at the end of the hall. "D'aijeen thretened to run away with her sister if her mother didn't comply with a certain demand." She blinked at the well-dressed Antimony in one of the mirrors, and then at the one who was actually at her side. "She's come to speak with her daughter, and you can't deny her that." "I can't provide that, either. The girl isn't here." D'hein kept up the pace, "Then you know where she's gone!" Reaching the end of the hall, he looked around, but all he saw were Ulanans, D'heins, older Antimonys and young well-dressed Antimonys, some more realized than others. The most realized image of the well-dressed Antimony suddenly stepped forward and smacked D'hein across the face with very un-Antimony strength, "I'm tired of you butting in to my relationships! Aijeen's an adult!" "When--when did she leave?" Antimony spun back around, found it somewhat easier to distinguish reflection from reality in this new hall but still no less headache inducing. The slap she saw replicated a dozen times over and winced at it before snapping, "She is not an adult! She never even passed her trial!" Drawing up her courage, she marched forward, hoping her assessment of the hallway was correct, and glared at what she hoped was the real D'ahl. It was a little disconcerting looking at herself but not. "Tell me where my daughter is." Donning an unkind smile, D'ahl mimicked Antimony's voice with uncanny accuracy, "My baby girl passed the Dodo tribe's test with no problems. She's all grown up now and can whatever she wants! I'm so proud." D'hein snapped at her, "D'ahl, stop that!" Antimony's hands balled into fists at her sides, her ears lying flat against the sides of her head. "You are not her mother. You're an evil that has burrowed its way into her mind! Tell me where she is." There was a mocking noise coming from Ulanan. Her lalafellin hearing was better at distinguishing the voices of the two women apart, though the reminiscence had confused her at first. She tried to not look impressed. "That settles the matter of where D'aijeen got that kind of ideas." she added. "No it does not," said D'hein, stepping between D'ahl and Antimony. "If you both go into this assuming the other is evil we're not going to get along very well, are we?" "I'm not her mother," the fake Antimony said, continuing to imitate the other's voice and ignoring the Tia, "As much as I'd like the job, it seems there's no opening. She's using me for a game, and yet, I'm still a better mother." "Don't you dare," Antimony hissed, flinching at the words nonetheless. She did not want to believe them; they couldn't possibly be true. Even if D'aijeen hated her, this other woman was not... could not just... replace her. Right? Ulanan huffed. She was standing beside Antimony. "D'aijeen has threatened to leave with her sister and never let her see their real mother again, despite what that one wishes." she tried again. "Who is the best mother or not is hardly the issue." "Of course it's the issue," D'ahl turned her back on them and meandered into the room, where satin furniture, red by shining almost white, was visible. "If half of what I've heard about the witch of the Sagolii is true, I wouldn't want to be her daughter either." Ulanan hurried to object to that. "If that is so, then why is her other daughter happy with it?" The words still hurt, no matter how much she did or did not believe in them. Antimony looked away briefly, but found herself blinking at her own reflection and so forced herself to turn back to D'ahl. "You have no reason to think any of it true. You know nothing of what you speak," she managed in a low tone. "If you had any care at all for Aijeen, you would tell me where she's gone." Her voice giving way to its gravely, low default, D'ahl looked over her shoulder and said, "I've not met K'airos so I can't say about her motivation. But I know that if you're getting between them, you have no heart for D'aijeen at all. Me, I just want you to go away forever, so I can continue filling this role in D'aijeen's life." "D'ahl, you’re being immature. Nobody here is deliberately hurting anyone." D'hein turned to Antimony and said, "Tell D'ahl what happened. I'm sure she has no idea." "What happened... when?" Antimony's tail flicked behind her in confusion. Her expression twisted back into a glare at D'ahl, "This sick trick you've been playing on my daughter - it must stop! She came to me yesterday and--and almost... she said I did not love her if I wouldn't do inappropriate things with her! This is your fault, so you will tell me where my daughter has gone!" "That, yes! Exactly!" D'hein said, nodding, forgetting for a moment to be somber. When he remembered, he shrank back. "I have done nothing!" D'ahl countered, spinning around and cutting the air with a gesture that highlighted her intimidating strength. "This was never my intention! I would... what? She what?" "You heard me," her voice shook. "You cannot play games with my daughter and expect... nothing to come of... tell me where she is! Please." And then, in a smaller voice, "Before I lose them both." Ulanan looked between the three miqo'te, settling her eyes on D'hal. She said nothing, though. D'ahl looked at the mirrors around her, to either side, above, as if searching for some queue, quiet. D'hein chose this time to speak up, managing a heard by sympathetic tone. "D'ahl, I warned you that you couldn't go on like this. Aijeen is so emotionally turned around that she can't manage her relationships, and so are you." "Be silent, D'hein Tia!" D'ahl pulled the fake glasses from her face and through them at the floor, where the glass cracked audibly, "This is a deception! Aijeen would not... It's just a game between she and I! She said that! She wouldn't just... try to replace me!" Antimony's tail bristled and her voice took on a shrill pitch, "That doesn't matter right now! What matters is where my daughter has gone!" "And you will be silent in my home as well!" D'ahl snapped at Antimony, then turning away from her and walking to a nearby chair, where she sat down and leaned her hands on her forehead. "Do not lie. That is not something Aijeen would do. That's between she and I. She and I and no one else." For several moments, Antimony practically vibrated with pent up, distressed energy. Then in a sudden burst, she pushed past D'hein and stomped right up to where D'ahl sat, taking ahold of one of the woman's wrists to pull it down from her face. The grip was firm but not painful. "I would never lie about my own children! You've broken something in my Aijeen and I demand you help me fix it!" D'ahl replied swiftly, "It was D'aijeen's idea for me to pretend to be you. I found the idea disturbing until I noticed how sad she was. I'm already fixing what I can." "You are not." Ulanan interjected with her grumpy voice. "You are perpetuating it. I will not speculate why, but if you truly want to help you must let them both meet and settle this matter." "You don't know where she is, do you," Antimony whispered, dropping her hand from D'ahl's wrist to let it dangle limp at her side. Huffing at the insistence of those who beset her, D'ahl muttered, "You know, I asked if I could be her mother. She said no. She said D'hein could be her dad because her real dad was dead, but her mom was still alive, so, no little girl for D'ahl. Just some stupid sex game." The woman sat forward, "But when said that -- she said that she still had a mom -- all I heard was her telling me as best she could: if I ever want a daughter, I need to kill the Sagolii witch." In all the flickering light of the mirrors, the flick of the knife was like a drop of water in a rainstorm. D'ahl was rusty to have let even that much slip, the retired assassin of the Dodoes flipping the four-inch blade out of her pocket and throwing it at Antimony's chest with the same casual slight-of-hand someone might use to cheat at a card game. D'ahl's words didn't make much sense to Antimony at first, though they tolled ominously in her skull. She managed a step back in uncertainty before the hidden blade was let loose and the words' meaning chased the color from her skin. She made to stumble back further, as though that would do any good - and luckily for Antimony, it actually did. Rather than bury itself into her chest to tear through lung or, even worse, heart, Antimony felt a very sudden and sharp pressure in her shoulder, followed by a cold, lancing numbness down her arm. She blinked rapidly in shock at the sensation. Ulanan was already reaching for her wand as soon as the word "kill" had been uttered. Her reaction to the hostility was equally violent: she let loose a quick concussive clump of unaspected aether that, she hoped, would hit D'hal's head and not her shoulder. D'hein Tia had, once or twice in his life, encountered a situation of incredible violence. Never before, though, had he been unsure of how to feel or react. Intellectually, he knew that the situation was simple. Shamefully, his hand did not move to his scepter, though, even as he felt an eager fire spell flick to his fingertips with a dull warmth. Ulanan saved him from the indecision. No sooner had D'hein realized the need to act then the mirrors around him were suddenly alight with the Lalafel's spell. It seemed D'ahl had underestimated the Lalafel's abilities as well. The aether knocked her back, chair clattering to one side and slamming into the mirrored wall. D'ahl hit the ground and rolled to her feet, her shoulder blades landing against mirrors that in the next moment were shattered by the overflow of the Lalafel's attack. D'ahl clutched at her head and hung as though from string against the wall, fragments of glass falling about her. Antimony could see the hilt of the knife out of the corner of her vision, and that was more than enough to make her weak-kneed. Instinctively, she turned away from the ripple of heat from Ulanan's blast, but the action shifted the blade in her shoulder, so very quickly she went very still. Then she was on the floor, on her knees, unsure how she got there but D'ahl didn't look like she was about to throw anymore knives at people. At least she hoped not; she didn't want Ulanan to get hurt. The lalafel did not waste time to prepare another spell, the air chilling swiftly around her before she let it loose. This time the purpose was to hold the miqo'te against the wall. With a clatter of glass, D'ahl launched herself to one side. She hit the side wall with enough force to clack the mirrors there, and the ice of Ulanan's spell, rushing in to fill the spot on the wall that she'd vacated, broke the mirror's all the more. As the reflective network that D'ahl had assembled crumbled, the confusing veil of it did as well. In a transition so brief as to have been an instant, the ephemeral tunnels were just walls and rooms with cheap mirrors on the walls, no more confusing than simple decorations. D'ahl did throw more knives, two at Ulanan while she skirted the room with incredible speed, heading behind them. D'hein flicked his fingers and the warmth of the waiting spell was gone. He wanted to yell at D'ahl, to yell at everyone, but what could he say to convey his meaning? No, he dashed forward to Antimony and dropped over her, lending her support. His skills were not medicinal or healing, though, so he could take no useful action. She could feel a wetness seeping into and down the fabric around her shoulder, which Antimony knew would be blood, but the woman found herself far more captivated - or was that horrified? Yes, probably horrified - by the combat between Ulanan and D'ahl, who wasn't as subdued as she'd previously thought. She sagged a bit against D'hein's arms. D'ahl had tried to kill her. D'ahl was trying to kill Ulanan? "Help her!" Two pieces of paper flew off from the inside of Ulanan's white robe and intercepted the daggers. At the same time they were hit, they inflated to the size and shape of a round small head and promptly burned down, their purpose done. The daggers fell to a few ilms before the lalafell, who raised her wand and shaped the aether in front of her like a wall, facing D'hal. "I'm sorry," D'hein said in answer to Antimony. "I can't hurt D'ahl." The homicidal doppleganger did not linger, turning instead and shooting for the door with the same speed she'd boasted a moment before. Apparently being locked in wasn't much an impediment to her, as every mechanism on the door -- hinges, lock, and even the latch itself -- collapsed under her hands within moments. The door was thrown outward, falling into the hall, and D'ahl was gone. Ulanan released her magic wall, reforming the remaining aether into various but very weak shards of ice that propelled uselessly towards the exit and outside the room. "What kind of woman has MORE THAN A DAGGER In HER CLOTHES?" she shouted even more uselessly. Then she turned to Antimony, then to D'hein and grimaced. "Your tribe is horrible!" Antimony first tried to twist to watch D'ahl's exit, but went limp as the action transformed the icy numbness down her arm into a biting pain. She could feel more blood than she remembered a moment ago and muttered a low, "Needs pressure." Tears came inexplicable and unbidden to her eyes. "Aijeen's gone.." D'hein met Ulanan's grimace apologetically, groaning, "I'm trying to make it better," and then looking down at Antimony, he cringed, "Pressure? On what? I'm not putting pressure on the knife. It'll just go further in." "Mom!" The unexpected voice of D'aijeen was suddenly nearby. One of D'hein's ears perked up, and then his head snapped up. As he watched, a mirrored panel that had been set off near a corner, like a piece of art on display, swung to one side and a green-swathed form emerged from what seemed like a reflective doorway. Actually, it was a doorway. It was a door made of mirrors. D'ahl's apartment was just very confusing. The girl moved quickly and decisively towards the injured woman. "Get away from my mother, D'hein Tia!" Ulanan was confused by the green haired girl that was suddenly in the room. She did not let go her wand and suddenly she had to worry about daggers and spells. She chose not to say anything, instead getting closer to them, but not much. The familiar voice brought both wrenching pain and incomparable joy to Antimony - though at least some of that pain was due to her body jerking up in a desperate need to search for that voice's source. She didn't have to go far, or go anywhere at all, though, and the relieved, almost giddy smile she gave her daughter was drawn tight with pain. "Aijeen. Aijeen, you're... you're here. You're not gone. You're here...!" D'aijeen literally kicked D'hein. "I said move, Tia!" "But your mother is-" "I can help and you cannot! And you do not have my blessing to touch her!" "Let her." the lalafel said, eyes half-closed. "Keep an eye at the door in case your friend decides to turn around and come back." "Aijeen," Antimony repeated shakily and reached out with the arm that wasn't a disturbing combination of numb and on fire. "I thought you'd gone. I thought you'd left me forever." D'hein finally letting himself be essentially knocked out of the way, D'aijeen dropped down next to her mother and said, "I was just hiding. Now stop expelling energy and lay on your back so that I can close your wound. I will be using magic and you will not be objecting, understand?" "Magic. How...?" For half a second, she thought of the kinds of magic she'd caught her daughter practicing in the past, and that was a terrifying thought. But no. She could no more fathom the thought of her daughter trying to kill her (hadn't she already though, even if only for a minute?) than she could stop seeking her out. Green eyes wide, pupils dilated from more than just the diminished light in the room, Antimony complied and laid on her back. She couldn't hold back the grimace as the blade jostled in her shoulder, but she kept her gaze on D'aijeen as though transfixed. "I've studied conjury, thaumaturgy, and the shamanic arts of the Sagolii, if you might recall. Now, please understand that I'm only doing this out of kindness." She leaned over her mother, pressed down on her with one hand and with the other ripped the knife from her shoulder. Antimony had dealt with a number of huntresses returning as victims of hunting accidents over her lifetime, but injuries to other people hadn’t quite prepared her for the flash of excruciating pain as D'aijeen removed the knife. She gave a rather embarrassing shout, squeezing her eyes shut as her limbs flexed in a whole body response to the fire radiating from her shoulder. Without the blade serving as a minimal but still present block, blood began to seep freely, and the sensation was a strange overlay to the pain. "I never questioned your talent, Aijeen," she managed after a moment. "Always... always so smart." At Antimony's cry, D'hein cringed where he stood in the hallway While mother and daughter exchanged words, Ulanan had time to think and conclude that if D'aijeen wished to kill Antimony, she would have done so before announcing herself in the room. She was about to turn to face the door, but then a new suspicion grew in her mind. She looked at D'hein, to make sure he was watching the door, then at D'aijeen, this time to make sure she was really curing her mother. The cry didn't help her impression. D'aijeen paused with the bloodied knife in her hand, took a quick breath and exhaled indignation, "Well perhaps if you had said things such as that a bit more often and spent less time criticizing, you could have learned something from me." Reaching into her green robe, the quintessential white clothes worn beneath, D'aijeen produced a simple want between them and forefinger and a number of small tribal fetishes that dangled from her other fingers. "We'll take care of the pain and bleeding first and then put your body to work on the hard part." Antimony felt very faint then, as though she were floating, and when she spoke her lips tingled but she managed the words, "It was only ever about what you used your talent for, Aijeen." "I think there should be more healing and less remembering the past at this moment." Ulanan urged. "I am working on it, Lalafel," D'aijeen said. She worked quickly once she'd begun, holding the fetishes over the wound to draw out the pain as though she were drawing out poison. She cringed slightly as she did so, the small items bleeding pain into her fingers, and the pain quickly found its place in D'aijeen's shoulder to mirror what her mother was feeling. Carrying dolls and crafting idols was not something D'aijeen had ever had patience for; her own body would suffice for most practical uses that conjury could not supplement. Before she'd pulled out too much pain to compromise her own concentration and dexterity, D'aijeen whipped the fetishes away and called up a spell of healing through her wand. The energy of the spell supplemented that of her mother's body, stimulating the clotting that would close the wound and knitting it shut on its surface. It was quick work, but it would stop the bleeding. Finally, she gave Antimony's body a head-start on deep healing, closing the gaps in blood vessels damaged nerves and helping the tattered halves of frayed tissue find one another, giving them enough to just barely hold themselves together. "There. It is nothing special. Do not mistake me for a miracle-worker merely because I am wise." As D'aijeen's magic leeched back out of her body, leaving behind only a significantly dulled ache, Antimony breathed an unsteady sigh and sought her daughter with her opposite arm once more. She rested her hand on the closest part of D'aijeen she could reach and then just shut her eyes, breathing in the scent of her through the lingering copper of blood. Closer to what once had been a confusing mirror corridor, Ulanan poked D'hein. "Do you think D'hal will interrupt this meeting by coming back soon or sending other tribe members here?" "I really don't have any idea," D'hein answered the Lalafel. "I've never seen this behavior from D'ahl before. I don't know what she'll do." Taking enough time to pocket the fetishes and wand, and D'ahl's knife, D'aijeen stood away from Antimony and turned to walk towards the hall that led out, "Please take respectable care of my mother, D'hein Tia. I need to find D'ahl." When her daughter stepped away, Antimony's eyes shot open and she made to force herself up, ignoring the protest from her shoulder. "Aijeen, no--please... please don't go! Please don't leave, don't... take Airos away." Ulanan figured getting in the way of D'aijeen currently was a bad idea. She stepped back to give her enough space to go by her. D'hein stepped forward, "D'aijeen, we came here to talk to you. You can't run away from how you've been behaving." "Neither can D'ahl," the green-haired girl ran into D'hein shoulder-first, then rotated and slipped her tiny body around him to continue towards the exit. "She hurt my mother. I'm going to find her and make sure she knows where she stands. This will never happen again." "Just tell me you're not going to disappear," Antimony begged. "I don't think I could if I wanted to!" D'aijeen called as she slipped out the doorway, her shivering green tail the last thing to vanish. Antimony slumped at that, head bowed, and just went silent. "We should leave." Ulanan said once the green girl was out of the room. "Can you walk, Antimony?" There was a few seconds' pause and then the older woman nodded, speaking quietly, "With... some assistance. I feel a bit woozy." "I feel a bit like a failure as a man and a father," D'hein said, looking at himself in a mirror across the hall. "Maybe I should go find D'ahl as well. Or Aijeen. Or... K'airos?" Ulanan punched D'hein in the leg, in a weird playful yet-not-really way. "One step at a time, sir. Help Antimony get out of the commune and to the inn." "Ah! Alright. I suppose that would be the gentlemanly thing to do." He took a half-second to shake his hair out and straighten his ears, neither attempt at grooming doing any good. He then went to help Antimony, standing on her non-wounded side and putting his hand around her waist. Antimony stood with his help, looking rather pale but at least no longer bleeding and supposedly on the mend. She casts a strained but apologetic look to Ulanan. "Should I follow D'aijeen?" Ulanan asked. "I don't know how attentive your tribe is to lone lalafells roaming in their gardens." "I don't want you getting hurt," D'hein answered, urging Antimony towards the door. "Both D'ahl and D'aijeen are capable of being dangerous, and at least one of them is dangerous right now, for whatever mad reason got into her head!" "I will carefully circumvent confrontation. I will strictly stalk them to see if they steer me into K'airos." "Just be careful, Ulanan," Antimony sighed, glancing towards the door her daughter had fled through. "I... think I trust her not to leave, for now." The lalafell nodded. "Oschon will guide my steps away from loud things." She adjusted her cowl and quickly left the room in what had to be the sneakiest pursuit she would ever do. "People like Aijeen and K'airos can't just quit their lives, so I'm sure you're right." D'hein's tone turned quiet, and he muttered to himself, "Hopefully D'ahl cannot either."

I have a number of alts who I am in no rush to level but would love to be able to take advantage of the glamour system on. I can't bring myself to level my MRD any further because I cannot stand the massive thigh boot-pants that she's wearing currently. Being able to glamour those away would not only give me a reason to make use of the system, but it would encourage me to actually play the damn game. Apparently Yoshi doesn't want that, though...

I certainly know how I feel about it. Doesn't matter that my main is 50. Anyone should be able to make use of something as universal as a vanity system, regardless of level. ... Really wish I could just transplant XIV's lore and art design/graphics style onto Rift right about now.

I thought it couldn't get any worse... >_>

Slight correction: the covering is to shield their eyes from the glare of the sun, not sand.

I'll just leave this here for aetherytes, as I think we're getting a bit off-topic.

I am very careful about how I handle travel in roleplay. My main character doesn't know how to use aetherytes, so when she's traveling somewhere, it's going to take time, and I will actually take that time. Quests in game describe airships as limited to only high-priority individuals and shipments, so those are out of the question for me. It's not just the community that considers aethernet travel canon - it's lore within the game itself. However, only people with sufficient control over their aether (and probably sufficient base aether levels) can make use of aetherytes.

Did you not read the reasons people are annoyed at the glamour system? Because those would be why.

((A day after Ale Solves Everything...)) *** Antimony walked alongside Ulanan through the streets of Ul’dah with a morose expression and body language - hands clasped low in front of her, tail and ears drooping. There was still a bit of waneness to her skin from an earlier hangover. As she walked, she said to the lalafell, "Perhaps... perhaps she left to follow K'ile. And it's only coincidence." Ulanan, on the contrary, walked just like she always did: stomping her feet down the ground like she was squeezing money out of it with each one. She tilted her head to Antimony's direction but didn’t turn to face her. "Maybe, but she left through the Gate of Nald. If she wanted to follow him, she would have left throught Thal's." She rubbed the bridge of her nose briefly. "It's more likely she had a parcel for Black Brush." Antimony looked strained for a moment and fell quiet. Her gaze lifted to the stairs they approached, and the large doors beyond. “Is K'airos a good Brass Blade?” Antimony paused midway up the stairs, wringing her hands. "I'm... certain she is. She wa--is a very talented girl." Ulanan smiled. “Then you don't have to worry. She can't abandon service just like that, and she did not quit as far as I could gather.” Antimony drew in a slow breath, and though she didn’t look particularly convinced, she still nodded at the lalafell and murmured, "You're right." She hesitated as they near the door, wrinkling her nose uncomfortably. “Have you been in the Ossuary before?” Antimony glanced down at Ulanan. “Ah, no. It's... it's not a good place.” Ulanan raised both brows. "It's Nald'thal's temple, a place to honor and remember the dead. It's also where thaumaturgy is taught." One tiny finger was raised and pointed to the sky. "It's perfectly harmless." Antimony looked off to one side and then just continued forward. Ulanan coughed at something she had stuck in her throat. The lalafell then turned her head from one side to the other. "If he has any decency he'll be dressed properly. Look for a pompously dressed man and then for a blond tail." “Properly..?” Antimony glanced around, between the massive pillars and towering bookshelves. “Not bright colors.” Antimony frowned at the lalafell’s words, while Ulanan instead glanced around the massive bookshelves and towering pillars. D'hein Tia was likely identifiable by the fact that one ear stuck straight up, but the other sat awkwardly off to one side, his tail pinwheeling ludicrously behind him. Antimony blinked at the cowled miqo'te and let out a faint sigh before approaching, followed closely by Ulanan. Crossing between two impossibly large pillars, she stepped up behind him, looking over his shoulder at the books he seemed to be absorbed in, and then, ears drooping further, lightly touched his shoulder and cleared her throat. “… D’hein?” D'hein chuckled, his down ear sitting up and his up ear flicking around in a circle. Instead of getting a reaction from D'hein, it seemed as though Antimony pushed a button that turned his inner monologue external, as he began to mumble to himself, "So then once the body is frozen it's more conducive of electricity! Freeze first, then lightning. Is that really how it works though?" At his words Antimony paled and stepped back, glancing towards Ulanan. Ulanan returned the glance, not looking very surprised by this. She looked back at D'hein's cowl and tried interrupting his monologue. "It's part of the aether cycle. Like the movement of your ears." D'hein glanced down at the Lalafel, "Ah! Ulanan. Are you looking for work? I need someone to find me some frozen meat to throw lightning bolts at. Red meat would be best." “This is... thaumaturgy..?” Antimony’s words sounded uneasy. Ulanan shrugged. "Just the stupid part." Then, in a more cheerful but not particularly loud voice she added: "D'hein, I've come with Antimony. Have you seen K'airos lately?" D'hein turned full round to Ulanan, closing the book in his hands with a clap. "Not since the other day. Have you asked Antimony?" His gaze continued to the side to spy the other woman. "Oh, hello Anitmony! Have you seen K'airos lately?" The older miqo’te furrowed her brow, looking almost angry for a split second, and exclaimed with a slight hint of the tears she'd been drowning in and out of since yesterday, "No, I have not!" “D'aijeen visited Antimony last night and said she and K'airos would leave forever.” Antimony's tail shivered, grey fur standing on end, and curled until it was tucked against the inside of one leg. D'hein let his shoulders slump and muttered, "That does sound like something she would say." And then, taking a step towards Antimony and extending his hand, "Antimony, I hope she didn't upset you significantly. Children can be so cruel." Antimony watched D'hein in silence for several seconds, as still as a statue. Then, very suddenly, she burst, bringing her hands to her face, "What have you taught her, D'hein?!" “I imagine she simply wished to upset you and timed her appearance and threat with K'airos' mission,” Ulanan suggested in a comforting tone, pausing before adding, “Whatever that was.” D'hein looked confused, his hand wavering in front of him, and then he flinched back a half-step. One ear shook. His tail flipped to the side and went still. "I... have taught her... life skills?" Antimony's shoulders shook. "If not you, then--then someone! Someone's hurt my baby girl and twisted her--turned her all around! That she'd associate my love with--with other things..." “I... am not... I don't understand. Granted I had assumed there would be some awkwardness on account of certain factors, but...” Ulanan looked as confused as D'hein was. Antimony's expression twisted, clearly upset but extremely reluctant to go into further detail. After a time, her ears drooped and she murmured towards the floor, "I couldn't do what she wanted me to do, to show that I loved her. And so now she's taking Airos away." D'hein tapped his book against his leg, causing the scepter there to flicker in the ambient light. "I'm sure K'airos will have something to say to that." Antimony pressed her lips together, not looking convinced. “Could D'aijeen try to trick or trouble her to travel away?” Ulanan questioned. “D'aijeen can be very convincing,” D’hein conceded, “but she's always expressed a desire to give K'airos what she wants. What does K'airos want more than her mother? I'm sure once D'aijeen understands how much K'airos wishes to stay with you, she will relent.” Antimony kept her face down-turned as she replied, voice low, "You did not hear her words. I've no doubt she'll persist." Her smaller friend looked between the two, unsure of who was more likely to be right. D'hein sighed and said, "D'aijeen returned to the commune last night and was there when I left this morning. Perhaps we should go speak with her and resolve whatever she holds against you. She often needs a firm hand." Antimony's features tensed at that, looking almost frightened by the prospect. But, she considered hesitatingly, "If both of us... perhaps..." She wanted to sound hopeful, but it didn’t quite get through. “I think it would be more convenient to meet her in neutral grounds,” Ulanan interrupted. D'hein looked down at Ulanan. "If we chase her down in the commune we can corner her alongside D'ahl. If we attempt to meet her in a neutral location she may choose not to entertain us." At that, Antimony worried her fingers about one another, tail twisting around one thigh. “...who's D'hal?” “D'ahl is a close friend of D'aijeen's who I worry may be encouraging unhealthy behavior,” D’hein explained. “I doubt that even D'ahl would support D'aijeen's interference in K'airos' life.” Ulanan nodded once. "Alright, then." She looked at Antimony. "I imagine we should go as soon as possible. Are you comfortable with this idea?" Antimony's ears bounced anxiously, the twisting of her hands growing more vigorous. "We should go now. Who knows when she'll--she might already be gone! Off to find Airos and--I'll never see them again...!" “Oh, was Ulanan coming as well?” “If... if she wishes,” Antimony said after a moment. “Ah, you don't have to burden yourself with this, Ulanan...” Ulanan raised a brow. "Would it be too complex to get a lalafell into your commune?" “I doubt anyone will even notice a Lalafel. Antimony, on the other hand, should dress herself more richly. The tribe judges almost exclusively on appearance and clout, which is why they felt comfortable abusing you.” Antimony gave D'hein a look that managed to convey a full spectrum of frustration, worry, fear, and just general all-around anxiety in one go. "This is no time for shopping!" D'hein frowned, and his tone hardened, "I didn't gift you that dress out of idle pride. You are not in Limsa. The leaders and movers of Ul'dah are not pirates and hoods. You will never warrant their attention if you look like a refugee. You must portray yourself as one of their peers. It is not optional." Antimony twisted her hands into her tunic. "But I--we will be with you! Shouldn't that be enough...?" “You overestimate my clout.” “Maybe I should dress like a wealthy woman and pretend Antimony's my attendant. Or is your tribe racist on top of classist?” Ulanan made an honest question there. “A wealthy woman would have an affluent servant.” Antimony let out a short sigh, ears splaying out to either side of her head before shifting back. Her tunic twisted a bit more. "Alright, alright. But... quickly, please. I don't want to risk--" “Your tribe sounds like an awful place to be,” Ulanan decided. “I'll wait at the commune. I assume you remember how to get there.” To that Antimony turned away and nodded. Ulanan followed after her, "You didn't throw the clothes away, did you?" D'hein turned back to the bookshelf and lifted the book to put it away, but couldn’t find the slot it went in. He seemed conflicted for a moment before just shrugging and walking off with it. To her friend’s question, Antimony murmured a quiet, "No," as she made to leave the Ossuary.

The biggest thing I do not do is pay any attention to the in-game day/night cycle. I'ts impossible to do a reasonable scene in that short amount of time. Sometimes a scene's time is set by the general time of day it is IRL; other times, we have to "fluid time" it in order to maintain coherency in a story. I've taken weeks IRL to cover events that occurred over days just because it was humanly impossible to do everything in real time. It's also important to take into account the time expansion that occurs with roleplay. Conversations that would IRL take maybe 20 minutes to go through could potentially take hours to roleplay, for a variety of reasons (including speed of typing, time passed between posts, any breaks or OOC discussion, etc). Basically, how we treat time depends on the needs of any given scene and/or future scenes. I've known people who try to follow very strictly to the "every day that passes IRL, another day has passed IC", and while that can work when considering a timeline in a large temporal scale, I've found it almost impossible to keep up day-to-day with those people in RP when something OOC causes a delay in finishing/continuing scenes. It's led to some frustration in the past, when some people just kept moving on with rp, leaving plotholes in the rp of those left behind.

((We decided to do some semi-silly rp in-game. Follows Stabilizing the Element.)) *** Antimony stepped into the Quicksand with her head down, ears shivering, and tail hanging listlessly behind her. She looked like she was forced to dress in the dark while wearing mittens and a straightjacket - in other words, not looking very put-together. Her hair was damp and done up a bit, but messily so, and she didn’t really pay much attention to her surroundings as she made for an empty table tucked away in a far corner of the tavern. A short distance away, a burly, graying man with one pale, useless eye sat at a table towards the edge of the room, looking out on everyone else. He was still getting his bearings in this desert town, so different from anywhere else he'd been in his life. A nice steak had been set in front of him, with a large tankard next to it. Lurking in another corner was a miqo’te Keeper of pale hair and skin, light pouring over her shoulder. Her eyes and features were cast in deep shadows even as her hair and tail seemed to glow. Motes of dust lingered in the air around her. She twitched with a nervous energy, but her eyes stared exhausted at the lantern on the table. Tavern Waitress was just an employee, walking across the tables, delivering food to all the hungry adventurers and denizens of Ul'dah. When she had to choose who to serve between the shady looking Miqo'te, the muscular man or the woman with no sense of fashion, the decision came easily. “Hello! Has your order been taken, sir?” The man, a highlander by the name of Alcor Baen, cut into his steak, stabbing the freed piece and promptly shoving it into his mouth. As the waitress approached him, he made an effort to chew it faster. He gestured towards the plate in front of him, "Yeh," he mumbled around the food in his mouth. Tavern Waitress should have probably brought her glasses to work today. But that scared the men away, for strange reasons. "Oh! Well, I hope you find it enjoyable! Do you need anything else?" Antimony watched the waitress and the man wearily from the edges of her vision. He was vaguely familiar, but she didn't have the energy to place it. Alcor finally managed to swallow the food, "Na, I'll be alright fer now." He gestured vaguely towards the woman that just sat down near him, "She just sat down though, yeh might be askin' her." Tavern Waitress, not knowing how to answer that, just did exactly as suggested, “Hello, miss! May I take your order?” Alcor's eye followed the waitress as she walked away from him towards the other table. Antimony blinked at the waitress’s red clothing for a moment before shaking her head. Her hands twisted themselves over one another in her lap. "I'm fine for now, thank you. Just... water, please." “Uhm. Sure thing. Let me know if you feel hungry!” Tavern Waitress didn’t write the order down and turned around to walk to the other side of the room. Tavern Waitress got to Loughree's table and let out the usual cheerful greeting. "Hello, miss! Can I take your order?" The miqo’te flicked her gaze up to the waitress and snapped out, "No." Alcor let his gaze slide now from the waitress to the older woman, "Don't mean ta be pryin'... but you are at a bar... and yer just orderin' water?..." “Are you sure?” the waitress persisted on the other side of the room. “Our special today is pretty good and also pretty cheap!” Antimony lifted her head sharply to furrow her brow at the highlander in distracted confusion. "I'm... sorry?" Grey ears twitched. "... Oh. Ah... yes. I suppose." Alcor shrugged, "Just seems like an awful waste. Food seems decent, and the ale is like any other..." “I want an order of being left alone and I'll take it for free,” the pale miqo’te spat. “You don't want the tips I have to give, so walk on away.” Antimony shifted in her chair, tail moving to lay over one leg. "The food is certainly fine. I... wouldn't know about the ale." Tavern Waitress placed her hands on her hips and used her most intimidating waitress face. "Well, I can't let you occupy a whole table if you aren't going to order something, so I'll come back in a few minutes and you'll have an order or you'll leave." she said, with a not very intimidating tone. Alcor began to cut off another piece from his steak, "Now’s as good a time as any ta be startin'." The miqo’te in the corner bit her tongue and said, "Good luck with that. Bye now." Tavern Waitress left the mean Miqo'te behind, heading to the bar to get the other one's water. Antimony winced, tucking her ears against her head, and looked to the empty table in front of her. "I understand it's supposed to... dull things." Alcor chewed on some of his dinner, pondering that, "I suppose it can, certainly takes an edge off. Relaxin' end to the eve." The other miqo’te stood from her seat suddenly, tossing it back against the wall with a loud thud. She pushed past the plant, her shield catching on one of the leaves and tearing it, and headed for Alcors table. When she arrived, she dropped down into the chair across from him, leaning with her elbow on the table. She didn’t look at him, though. Antimony flinched at sound and then, a few moments later, blinked in confusion at the miqo'te she recognized almost immediately as Loughree. Alcor frowned slightly at the Miqo'te that just came over to his table, and reached for his ale, "And... yeh are?" Tavern Waitress arrived at Antimony's table, placing a mug of water in front of her. "Here's your water. It's free, but I can't let you take you a table if you aren't going to actually order something. I'll be back, so think about what you'd like! Our special is very good and cheap!" she recited. Loughree retorted dryly to the Highlander, "I'm sharing your table so the waitress leaves me alone. Not for conversation." Antimony startled again at the waitress's arrival, drew a breath and said quickly, "Wait!" She hesitated, looking uncertain, and then, "An... ale, please." Alcor took a drink, "That doesn't seem... effective." “Sure thing!” Tavern Waitress smiled briefly and then left for the bar. Antimony looked confused for several seconds afterward. It didn’t take the barwoman long before coming back with a large mug of ale that she left on the table. "Enjoy!" Antimony dropped her gaze to the rather intimidatingly sized glass and furrowed her brow before murmuring a quiet, "Thank you." Tavern Waitress left again, to the place waitresses go when they are not required anymore! Alcor turned back to the other woman he'd been talking to, "So... yeh decided to get somethin' then?" “She said she didn't want me taking up a whole table and I didn't feel like fighting about it,” Loughree continued harshly. “Do I have to fight YOU about it, or can I just sit here?” Alcor appeared to be caught in two different worlds all of a sudden, balancing multiple conversations, "Nah... Just asked yer name cause it seemed to be the thing to do when a stranger moves to yer table..." Antimony put her hands around the mug and pulled it to her. The smell of it was something that seemed to constantly permeate the Quicksand, but now so close, it was twice as pungent. She almost missed Alcor's comment and shrugged slightly. "I suppose it can't hurt to try." Loughree looked past Alcor. "Antimony! You ever drank before?" Alcor raised his brows, "Yeh two know each other?" Antimony's ears shot up and then pressed against her head very quickly. She flicked her eyes away and then over towards Loughree. "Ah... yes, we do." She let out a small sigh. Loughree narrowed her eyes and frowned, "Wow. Try not to be TOO happy to see me." Antimony cringed and corrected hastily, "I'm sorry. I didn't mean... ah. Hello." Alcor glanced between the two, then drank from his ale. “Don't drink alone.” Antimony blinked, her features going slack in confusion. "I... why?" “Not a good idea. Sit over here if you're going to drink.” Antimony hesitated a moment and then stood, taking the mug with her over to the next-door table. Loughree muttered, "Thank you," and turned to face the table, crossing her arms and front of her and laying her head on them tiredly. Alcor squinted his good eye, taking in the woman who had now walked fully into field of vision, and was no longer on his blindside, "Did yeh used to live in Limsa? Yeh look a little familiar. Didn't see too many older miqo'te women round there..." Antimony pursed her lips at her mug and murmured again, "It can't hurt to try," before bringing it to her lips and going for a rather large gulp. (Hey, go big or go home.) She choked a bit on the drink, grimacing at the bitter flavor, and then caught Alcor's words. "Ah, I'm sorry...?" She looked up at him distractedly, squinting. "You..." Then a quick breath. "Ah! The pudding..!" Loughree muttered, "He doesn't even recognize you and you're already calling him 'pudding'? Well, I guess once you get on in years you live for the moment." Alcor grinned widely, "Its a small world, ain't it?" He cast a glance towards the blonde, "Yeh jealous over there?" Loughree chuckled, looking rather comfortable with where she was laying. "Nah. Just making a bad joke." Antimony dropped her ears to either side of her head and said to her mug, "I invited him over for... pudding once. And others. That's all." “I was just playing. Drink your ale. I'll get funnier.” “She has a point there.” Alcor took a drink of his own ale at the mention of the stuff. Antimony sighed and muttered rather despondently, "I do not feel any different." Alcor chuckled, "It takes a mite bit more of the stuff. Just keep drinkin'." Loughree muttered, "Take your time." She pushed herself up off the table and looked over towards Alcor. "Okay, Mister Pudding. You're a friend of Antimony's huh?" Alcor shrugged, "It’s been a while, but sure. I suppose you could say that." Antimony did not look entirely convinced, but after another second or two of staring at her mug with a look like it had killed her dearest pet, she went for it again - another big gulp. At least she was prepared for the taste, though she still coughed a bit afterward. “I would... count him as a friend, yes.” Alcor let his one green eye run over Antimony, "You don't need to be choking yerself on it though, hun." Loughree chuckled, "You gonna start calling me hun if I buy you pudding too? Men." She dropped her head back down to her arms. Antimony's hands tightened around the glass, and as the fine lines along the seams of her face and in the corners of her eyes deepened, she looked as if she might cry. Then she took another drink and mumbled, "I will be fine." Alcor continued drinking his ale a bit at a time, "Sure? Ah well. There are worse places ta be passin the time buy, I suppose." A blonde, be-hatted lalafell entered the Quicksand then with a peculiar purpose. She headed straight to the bar and ordered a whole bowl of olives and cheese with very peculiar and odd seasoning, including olive oil and chocolate. Antimony let out a long breath and, after some silence, said quietly, "How are you doing, Loughree?" Loughree muttered, "Well I had gotten in the habit of paying people to watch me sleep but now I'm out of money so I'm not sleeping." Alcor frowned, "Thats... you got yerself trouble it sounds like?" Antimony pressed her lips together and then seemed to have an unhappy thought, which she chasesd with another large gulp from her mug. Her ears had begun to feel a little tingly. The lalafell was quickly attracted to the table everyone was at thanks to her auditive organs: she recognized one voice, identified a second one as similar to someone she had met and forgot all about the third. She held the bowl filled with her strange olive-and-cheese recipe. “What's the occasion?” Loughree replied quietly, "Yes, I"m having trouble. And here comes miss paper shields. Hello." Antimony startled and nearly knocked over her mug with the action. "U--Ulanan! You... ah, where have you been?" Her tail shivered and curls strangely at her side. Ulanan waved at the pale miqo’te with the enthusiasm of a dying chocobo that just saw a rock in the distance. “I just arrived.” “Excellent. You should sit then,” Alcor welcomed readily. “Not like we don't have an empty chair here...” Loughree didn’t even bother waving at Ulanan. She just muttered, "Someone should buy me a drink and take me home. What happened to all the guys who like strong women? Am I in the wrong bar?" Ulanan sat on the available chair, setting her bowl of delicious olives on the table and pushing it a bit so it was more readily in reach of everyone. Alcor shrugged, "It ain't no dive bar, thats fer sure. “"Strong" does not mean "rude",” Ulanan commented. Loughree sat up and flexed her body a bit. She'd been growing thin from lack of food and poor health, but she was still taller and broader than most Miqo'te have any right to be, and when she shifted her shoulders the muscles at the base of her neck stood out. "Strong means strong." Antimony had been watching her drink morosely, unknowingly settling right into the stereotypical sad drunk image so common in bars. "I'm glad you came back, Ulanan," she muttered. Alcor nodded, "This adventuers guild might be a little too pretty fer yeh then. Most those I been seeing come through here ain't have much too 'em." “Strong isn't what matters. You have to -look- strong. You look like a dockworker who found a shield and a sword.” Ulanan turned to look at Antimony, having the strange suspicion that she was not celebrating anything. She frowned. “And you look like an imp,” Loughree countered. “...you have never seen an imp, have you?” the lalafell shook her head. Lost in her own thoughts, Antimony took another large drink and only coughed a little that time. The action put her at having consumed about 3/4 of the mug, and there was a color to her cheeks in testament to it. Alcor turned his focus over to Antimony, "How yeh doin' over there?" Antimony was quiet for a moment, and then her head dropped. "I am fine." “Hey puddin!” Loughree called up without lifting her head or looking towards Alcor. “Buy me a drink.” Ulanan placed her hat on the table. She leaned towards Antimony, but since lalafells were pretty short, she didn’t get anywhere close to her. "Why are you drinking?" Alcor frowned, considering the young woman next to him, and then shrugged and glanced around for the waitress. He lifted his hand slightly to call the TAVERN WAITRESS over once he spotted her. Antimony bowed her head, disheveled hair falling into her features. A moment later her ears trembled and then she let out a rather loud sob, dropping her face to her arms, "She's gone, Ulanan! She left me!" Loughree lifted up her head and gave Antimony a confused look, "Eh?" Ulanan raised a brow. “Who? K'airos?” Antimony seemed to shake at that, her tail contorting, and then, "And Aijee--both of them!" Alcor ordered an ale for Lou, and another for him, and hearing the distress in Antimony's voice, another for her as well. “How do you know that?” Ulanan questioned calmly. The waitress returned rather swiftly with the drinks, setting them down around the table. Once they were set up, Alcor leaned forward, putting his elbows on the table, "Now... whats this, Antimony?" Loughree reached out to take the ale that Alcor ordered, lifting herself off the table and giving her attention to Antimony. Forgetting her ale for the moment, Antimony hugged herself and just shook her head, mumbling, "She left. She's going to take her away. Because I couldn't..." Alcor shook his head, "Sorry, I ain't followin'..." Ulanan briefly looked at Alcor. "They are her daughters." she explained before turning to Antimony again. “... Didn't know she had kids around,” Loughree said plainly. Alcor frowned, "I thought they were..." He just trailed off, not wanting to hurt any sensitive feelings. Antimony just sobbed, apparently having not run out of tears from earlier that day. "I should have allowed it," she mumbled between tears. "Aijeen would have--would have stayed.." “That's not important. When did this happen?” Ulanan. Always a voice of reason to her. Loughree took a sip of her ale, watching the exchange in front of her. She straightened her spine and tried to look awake. Alcor Baen simply frowns, finishing off the last of his old ale, and glances over towards the younger miqo'te. Antimony lifted her head somewhat, looking far beyond her years. "I'm not... earlier today. Hours...?" She choked on a sob, shivered, and buried her face in her hands. “Did you check if they really left? Didn't K'airos tell you where she lived?” Antimony shook her head. "I don't know... I don't know, I never--I never asked. How could I never--Aijeen is right!" Alcor grimaced slightly, "I ain't a clue whats... but sure you ain't mean bad. Have another drink, yeh?" Loughree looked over at Antimony and made a face. "Puddin's got the right of it. Toss another ale on whatever's burning you up and cool down a bit." Antimony grabbed at her almost empty mug with a shaking hand and rather inexpertly downed it. It made a rather funny image - a middle aged woman knocking back a pint of ale like it was going out of style. Ulanan was alarmed by Antimony's un-ladyness. “Mm. Yes, calm down. Where could they go? Do you have any idea?” Loughree smirked and took a drink of her own ale. “I don't.. I don't know... Far away. I'll never--I'll never see them again. She said..!” The grieving woman dropped her head to the table and took several deep, shuddering breaths. Long as she didn't try to kill you or anything, you'll be okay. Antimony Jhanhi hunches her shoulders at that and lets out a low, loud sob. Alcor Baen: Nothin' ta be done about it this late at night. You're just beatin' yerself up fer nothin' right now. “Long as she didn't try to kill you or anything, you'll be okay,” Loughree shrugged. The miqo’te’s words didn’t seem to help much at all, for as soon as she said them, Antimony hunched her shoulders and let out a low, loud sob. “Nothin' ta be done about it this late at night,” Alcor attempted to console, without much effect. “You're just beatin' yerself up fer nothin' right now.” Ulanan put her hat on. "You two are such a fountain of sympathy and good counsels!" she said mockingly to the table. "If it was just a few hours ago they can't be far. If they left as soon as D'aijeen was done being mean to you." Antimony shivered, her tail wrapping about one leg and fumbles for words a moment before managing, "Maybe... maybe she went back to the... Dodo compound. But--but I can't go there, Ulanan..!" “What's that matter?” Loughree scoffed. “Kids leave. What are you going to do about it? Drug her? Beat her up?” Ulanan stood on the chair, which almost put her at eye level with Alcor. The Highlander gestured towards the pale woman at his side, "Yeh, she's got the right of it. They grow up. Lives seperate sometimes. Ain't nice but..." Ulanan looked between Loughree and Alcor with a squint. “You are focusing on the 'leaving' thing and not the 'forever'. Not to mention neither of you have any understanding of the situation nor any sympathy for it. Otherwise you wouldn't be saying what you are saying.” Alcor turned towards the lalafell as he spoke, “I've lived most of my life ain't knowin' my son much. That's my own fault. And it'd hurt if he wanted nothin' ta do with me, but that'd be his decision.” “If we're wrong, fill us in. I don't exactly know what a healthy family life looks like around here.” Antimony didn’t look like she was going to be much help in the filling people in thing. Though she had quieted down, her shoulders still shook with tears. Ulanan dropped from the chair. "It's pretty simple. One daughter hates Antimony. The other loves her. The one that hates her somehow convinces the other one, who wants to stay with her mother, to leave because her mother is somehow an evil monster or something around those lines." She looked up at Antimony, placing one hand against her arm. "You can stay here. I'll see if I can find where they went." “To me it still sounds like free choice to me.” Loughree didn’t sound particularly impressed. “It sucks but, really, what are you going to do?” Antimony managed a weak nod after a time. When she spoke, it was with great difficulty, “Free choice... she... she's taken my Airos from me..!” Alcor just kind of glanced awkwardly around. Ulanan shook her head. "Being manipulated isn't part of free will." With that said, she headed to the door. “Letting yourself be manipulated is. You act like the one daughter's got dirt on the other,” the Keeper looked unconvinced. Ulanan stopped at the door, sighing. "Maybe she does. I don't know. Just do Antimony a favor and -shut up-." she said, wearing anger like a hat right before leaving the Quicksand. Antimony's ears drooped. "You don't understand." Her voice hitched. Alcor shrugged again, not really sure what else to do, "Maybe not." Loughree frowned, her ears dropping back on her head. She looked to Antimony and said, "I'm not trying to be mean. I just don't think you want to turn this drama into some kind of fight." Antimony’s expression fell to something utterly desolate, and for a lack of any better escape, she reached for the other mug of ale Alcor had ordered her, shakily taking a drink from it. Alcor frowned slightly into his mug, "Sorry things ain't been great fer yeh, since we last saw each other." “It... is not your fault.” “So what's the deal? I don't remember you even mentioning kids before.” Antimony looked a bit blearily towards Loughree, half slumped over the table. "I thought... they were dead," she finally replied, voice wavering. Alcor took a sip of his drink, setting it down slowly back on the table. "Yeah...I'd recalled yeh sayin' that." “And now you know better, right? So whatever happens is a net improvement over that, right?” Antimony shuddered and took another drink from her mug, but she could barely manage that act. "No!" She sobbed. "It is... no different! I love her. Why couldn't she... Why did she want me to... it's not--not right for a mother and child to...!" Looking suddenly ill, Antimony pushed to her feet and stumbled a step away from her chair. "I have to find her. I have to.." Loughree sat up straight again, ears perking up, "Hey! No spur of the moment decisions when there's ale involved." Alcor stood quickly, his chair clattering behind him at the act. "Antimony. Yeh can't be controlling yer children. How would that be makin' things better?" He walked around the table, grabbing hold of Antimony's shoulder. Antimony swayed under Alcor's hand and shook her head with the somewhat blurry excuse, "I must find her. I can't lose her again. I can't." “You really shouldn't be doing anyting right now,” Loughree commented dryly. “Doing nothing has gotten me to this point! I won't... I won't allow—“ The older woman, overcome either by alcohol, emotion, or both, suddenly just kind of crumpled to the ground with a sob of, "Aijeen--my baby girl..” Alcor knelt next to the woman, "Children get their own lives. An' it sounds like yeh -have- been doing everything yeh can. But..." “But if you REALLY want to get some kind of confrontation going over this, you need to not do it when you're dirt and ale-addled,” Loughree suggested. Antimony did not really looking like she was comforted by any of these words. She didn’t try to get up and leave again, at least. Alcor looked up at Lou, a look of vague confusion and desperation on his face, "Kids grow up hun, they rebel against their parents... it’s... not uncommon." Antimony mumbled, "She's just confused. Just confused." Loughree broke her gaze from the pair to take a chug of her ale, as though she were afraid it's going to go away. “Then she'll come back when she's not confused anymore then, yeah?” the Highlander encouraged. Antimony shook her head, went quiet for a moment, and then began to try and pick herself up off the floor. Alcor followed suit, pulling his tall frame up from the tavern floor. At the table, Loughree didn’t follow any suits. She observed. “She... s'not coming back. I need to.. I need to...” Antimony closed her eyes and wavered on her feet briefly before mumbling, "I need to go lay down." Alcor frowned, "A'right then. Best 'a luck." Loughree took another swig of her ale and stood, pushing her chair back some. "Antimony. Let me go home with you." Antimony shuddered and sobbed around the word, "Home," but she nodded at Loughree. Offering Alcor a quiet, "Good night," she turned to make her wobbly way across the tavern, towards the doors leading back into the inn rooms. Alcor watched the two disappear, frowning, before sitting back down in his chair. Loughree gave the man a look and a nod as she began to follow, "I'll take care of her. Thanks for the drink, puddin." She moved up alongside Antimony and said, "Need a shoulder?" Antimony clutched at Loughree without further prompt but said nothing else, head bowed as she walked. Loughree looked a bit distressed by the pathetic image Antimony portrayed, sympathetic. "Yeah, we'll wait for Ulanan at your room. Still at the Quicksand, right?" She headed out.

((The following occurs not long after the last post in Is it legal or are we just rich?)) *** A bath had not been high on Antimony's priority list until she found herself faced with one, its water still steaming warm and scented with a soap whose smell she couldn't place but was pleasant and relaxing. Inviting. She felt a faint twinge of guilt at the rush of frustration that had bounced D'hein out of the room so hastily, but there wasn't much to be done about that for now. If she still felt it warranted, she could apologize later... it /had/ been awfully nice of him to think of her comfort like this. Even if he had done so in a much more forward way than she would have liked. In the end, the bath proved too tempting to ignore, and so trusting that the covers over the food would keep her meal-to-be warm enough, Antimony allowed herself this little luxury. Her clothes she set aside on the bed, and she took a moment fiddling with her hair before giving up on locating the pins that had gotten lost who-knew-where on the floor. In her nudity, she stifled a brief tingle of embarrassment that drew her eyes to the door, as though expecting D'hein - or someone else, perhaps Ulanan? - might barge through at any moment. Then, with a long sigh, she stepped into the tub and carefully sat down in the water. Its heat was an instant balm to sore muscles she hadn't even really been aware of prior, and a small small played itself across her lips as she leaned her neck back against one end of the tub and let herself sink down until the water touched her chin and the ends of her hair floated out around her head. This was nice. *** The inn was a familiar place. It did not boast heavy shadows, but shadows were neither prerequisite nor necessarily comfortable, and the smell of drink, food, and spices overrode any of the stink that may have served as a harbinger. D'hein was an idiot, and reliably so, for he Antimony's door might as well have been ephemeral for as softly as he had closed it. The latch had never closed. He might as well have left a foot in the door. Time lingered like the scent in the air, like the humidity against the walls and against skin. There was no hurry. Antimony seemed to deserve a chance to relax, and it was easy enough to give. Everyone deserved a chance to relax. They all just needed to let the emotions, the frustrations, the preconceptions and prejudices, drain away. It was several minutes after Antimony had gone into the bathroom that D'aijeen stepped into the bathroom as well. She could be sneaky when she needed to, but stealth was not her basic way of doing things. She wasn't there to sneak. The small, thin, dark woman paused in the doorway of the bathroom, inhaled the humid air and the scent. She made a quick correction to the pink bow at the front of her shirt. Then she reached back for the bathroom door and closed it behind her so that it was against her back. The latch clicked. Her ear twitched, cactuar earring dancing with a slater clatter. Her blue eyes turned towards her mother, trying to keep her features controlled, but plainly nervous as she stood stoically straight. Relax Antimony certainly had. The steam that hung in the air softened a dry throat and eased aching eyes. The warm water comfortably buoyed limbs that seemed to feel every year of their age and then some and enveloped stiff joints with a gentle, healing presence. The luxury of a bath was not something Antimony was very familiar with; even after five years living in Limsa, she had never been able to break the habit of conserving as much water as possible, and so her "baths" had been more akin to rub-downs than anything. Thorough, but not quite in the same league as this in terms of pleasure. She wasn't sure she could bring herself to repeat this kind of experience on her own, but she wasn't about to let it go to waste now. Perhaps D'hein did deserve an apology. She'd almost let herself drift off when her ears caught the faint click behind her. One ear twitched, and she nearly dismissed it as the tick of a clock before remembering there was no clock in the room, and what's more, the sound was nothing like a clock, nor had it come from anywhere a clock might have been had one been here. Her tail squirmed in the water and her chest tightened nervously as her thoughts ran a malm a minute in a frantic attempt to remember if she'd locked the door. Her body was well ahead of her thoughts, however, for it sat up sharply and turned in the tub, splashing water in her haste. When her brain finally caught up, it locked on the dark skin, the green hair, the white clothes, that familiar face, and she thought her heart might stop. "Aijeen...?" Her voice shook with confusion and no small amount of fear. "What--what are you--how did you get in here??" "Do not overreact," D'aijeen said, timidly showing Antimony one of her palms. "I just walked in. I did not come to antagonize you." She brought one hand up to her chest and fought the hope that desperately wanted to spring forward with those words. Her daughter. Her baby girl. The one who had cursed her name, her existence, the one who had disowned her as a mother, as a person. Her memory flashed back to the agony outside Drybone, the words K'aijeen had spoken to her, and she felt a burning in the back of her eyes. "You..." Her other hand shook as it reached out of the tub to feel around for the towels D'hein had set out earlier. She couldn't hope. She could not allow it. She did anyway. "Are you... You're not angry..? Aijeen, what--why are you.." "I'm furious!" D'aijeen snapped, then bit down on her teeth. "Everyone's been conspiring against me! D'hein and you and K'airos, all behind my back! Deceptive and inconsiderate!" Her hands clenched into fists and she stepped away from the door, taking a few steps towards the tub. Antimony cringed, ears lying flat against her wet hair, and as her hand found the thin fuzz of a towel, she made to stand. Her body language exuded an uncertainty, however, tail low and dragging in the water, spine hunched. She pulled the towel in front of her. "I would never conspire against you, Aijeen," she murmured. "I love you. I just... want you to be happy." "Sit back down," D'aijeen said. She stopped in front of the tub, stance wide. She couldn't hide her unhappy expression. Her nervousness had given away to an annoyed melancholy, but also a certainty of action. Looking her mother over, she bit her cheek to exhaust the frustration in her voice. She lifted her hands in front of her and began to pull the white gloves from her hands, saying with a sigh, "Let me wash your hair." Testament to her desperate need to demonstrate to her youngest daughter the extent of the truth in her words, Antimony found herself dropping back down into the tub. The towel fell from her hands to hang mostly over the edge, though a corner of it dipped into the water. "I love you, Aijeen," she repeated in a voice that shook just over a whisper. "Nothing can change that." D'aijeen twisted her features in bitter neutrality. She felt let that was all her mother had to say to her most of the time, and that just made it harder to believe. The less capable one is able to demonstrate the fact of something, the more fervently they insisted it was true. "Just sit over here so I can get at your hair and try not to get water in your ears." It was similar to things she said to K'airos while bathing her, but without any of the joy. D'aijeen dropped to her knees at the end of the top where her mother had been reclined earlier, and reached up to undo the bow on her coat, loosen the sleeves and the binding in front. Antimony drew a nervous breath as she settled into the position D'aijeen requested. She was her daughter, yes, but she still terrified her in many ways. Her presence still reminded her of that horrific night in the dunes of the Sagolii, the demon that had briefly and terrifyingly threatened their lives, a beast her daughter had summoned. "I... there is food in the other room," she murmured, leaning her neck against the edge of the tub. She couldn't help the hope that leaked into her voice, "Perhaps after, you can... eat with me?" "I saw. It didn't smell appealing." She took her overcoat off, leaving her in a thinner but no less elaborate undershirt. She pulled the frilled sleeves up and pinched them in the crook of her bent elbows to hold them in place. Then she reached for the soap. "We need to talk. Things cannot continue like they have been." Antimony blinked, strained her eyes to catch a glimpse of her daughter behind her, saw white and a flash of dark skin. K'aijeen had her father's skin. Antimony swallowed. "What do you mean by that, Aijeen? You cannot ask me to leave you, or Airos. I--I cannot. I'm your..." "I know. You're our mom. I'm sure if it was possible for you to leave us you would've done so with the motivation I gave you." D'aijeen reached into the water next to her mother's head, touching ehr shoulder briefly as she scooped a handful of water into her mother's hair. She repeated this several times with both hands while she spoke, "I can't get either you or Airos to give up, and now D'hein is involved as well. So I feel like I should consider stabilizing the situation, if only for Airos' sake." Leaning her head back to keep the water from getting in her eyes, Antimony tried to focus on D'aijeen's presence, on the soothing nature of her actions. Non-threatening. Caring. Her heart ached keenly then, recalling the tenderness she'd given the girl as a baby, a young child. As a growing girl. After a while, she had gotten nothing but hatred in return, but Antimony had not stopped. She couldn't, as she had just said. She'd not known what to do to help D'aijeen, to bring her back from whatever evil she had gotten herself wrapped around, but at least she could hold onto one thing. "The two of you... take care of each other," she breathed, eyes towards the ceiling. "I'm... very proud of that." "Airos is my primary concern," D'aijeen answered. "She is the very core of my world, and her happiness is my primary concern. This is... mutual." She hesitated on the last word, wishing she was more sure of that. A month ago nothing would have challenged the assumption, but then K'airos had betrayed her. She took the soap between her hands and began to lather it into Antimony's hair, noting that its color was different than D'ahl's. D'aijeen's memory was not perfect, but hair color could be adjusted. Her mother had aged. It felt strange, to be on the receiving end of treatment she had usually given her daughters, but Antimony was not about to object, even if D'aijeen's presence had been unexpected, a little frightening. She closed her eyes and forced herself to relax into the gestures of her daughter's hands, yearned for the days she'd done similar, and then found herself fighting back the tears that longing brought along. "Then why... why did you tell her--" Her throat clenched and she had to cough once to clear it before she could continue speaking, "--that I was... not her mother? And she... believed it." "She believes me when I lie," D'aijeen said, working the soap into Antimony's hair carefully. She'd done this with her sister, with K'airos, so often that the action came easily. She'd washed D'ahl's hair before as well. She tried to compare this experience to similar experiences with D'ahl; it was a predictable disappointment that they were dissimilar. D'aijeen took a breath and then explained, "I kept K'airos with me after the Calamity by telling her that everyone else was dead. It worked. Nothing challenged that until she found you." "Why would you--" The tears threatened again, and they burned with a grief that was only an echo of what she'd felt those years ago but still came nearly overwhelming. "I thought she'd—everyone, your father... that they were all gone. And what--what pain she must have gone through..." Antimony could more than imagine, and the thought of K'airos believing her entire family, her entire tribe dead and gone, it nearly crumbled her beneath D'aijeen's hands. "That is very selfish, Aijeen," she sighed. "No it wasn't." D'aijeen asserted. Her soapy hands slipped from her mother’s hair and lay limp on her shoulders in the water. "I went to Cartenau to save her. I found her. Nobody else did. I could take care of her, so I did. For all I knew, what I said was true. She was my Airos and I was hers, so why would I let her go?" "You could have tried. You… should have tried. If I'd known..." Antimony's hands gripped the sides of the tub as she struggled to work through what her youngest had done. She loved K'aijeen, and yet... "If you had seen us after..." "And if you had seen us after?" D'aijeen pressed her fingers down against her mother's skin, feeling the tendons between the woman's chest and shoulder. "If I hadn't lied, she would've left, and I would've been alone. You would wish that on me." "You could have come back!" Antimony couldn't bring herself to turn around, to look her daughter in the eyes. "I wanted you... all of you to come back, Aijeen. I always have," she choked back tears at that. She would not fall apart in front of her daughter. "Please stop. This hurts to speak of." She began to cup water in her hands again, rinsing soap out of her mother's hair. Her brow tightened, and she lifted her head slightly. "No," her ears shook under the water, splaying out to protect their inner canals from the rinsing. "No, Aijeen. I'm not going to stop. You could have always come back. I... you never had to stay away. You never had to... leave." D'aijeen slammed her fists down on either side of the tub, her voice sounding weaker in its anger, "I did not come here to argue about the past!" Antimony flinched, water sloshing; she could feel the vibrations of D'aijeen's strike traveling down through the bottom of the tub and into the water. "You're still welcome home, Aijeen," she continued, quieter. "You and Airos, you can both... you don't have to hide away from me... from anyone." "That's nobody's home anymore. It's not mine and it's not your, is it, Antimony?" That hurt perhaps more than it should. Or just enough. Antimony's ears drooped. "There's still... the tribe is still there. K'ile and..." She turned her head to one sight slightly, though not enough to see her daughter, before adding, "Please don't call me that. I'm your mother." "Do you want Airos and I to go home and leave you here, or do you want to keep her for you own?" She couldn't help the possessive snap. K'airos had been hers for more than five years. They had been one anothers'. It ached, knowing that K'airos would choose Antimony over her, knowing that Antimony would reciprocate. "I want you both to be happy," was all Antimony could think of to reply, and it was true. She couldn't bring herself to say outright that K'airos and K'aijeen should leave her to return to the tribe; nor could she give in to her youngest's prodding about K'airos. The former was too painful, and the latter... well, she had not forgotten a certain Duskwight's words, but perhaps Antimony was not as strong as he seemed to think she was. "That's all, Aijeen." "And I just want K'airos to be happy." She reached under her mother's shoulders and urged her upward, "Sit up, back to me." Antimony conceded to her daughter's urgings without protest, perhaps still clinging to some vain hope that doing so might demonstrate to D'aijeen a glimmer of truth in her words. The water had cooled by now and would have been uncomfortable had Antimony not been so distracted by the young girl (more a woman now) behind her. Straightening, she scooted back a bit in the tub, closer to one end. "Alright," she sighed, and then more anxiously, "Then you're... not going to take her away?" "I don't want to hurt her." D'aijeen said as she placed soap to her mother's back, washing her neck and shoulders. As she ran her fingers of the woman's skin, she noted the difference between this body and D'ahl's. They barely even resembled one another on close inspection. Her mother seemed practically malnourished in comparison. A sparsely decorated skeleton. "I came here to see to you and I, not to take her away. D'hein, however, will be the victim of extreme recompense for his part in all this." The words sparked a new concern in Antimony, her ears shifting back towards D'aijeen worriedly. "He doesn't deserve any retaliation, Aijeen. He's done... he has done nothing wrong in this." "I did not come here to talk about him either." She set the soap aside and stood, pacing around the tub and pulling off her shirt. "No," Antimony shook her head, finally finding it in herself to turn enough to face her daughter - something helped by D'aijeen's own motions, of course. Her brow furrowed. "I won't have you... threatening that man! You promise me, Aijeen. You're not to hurt anyone." "I'm not threatening him! I'm just mad." She was angry enough to even have to say such a thing that her frustration illustrated her point. What kind of person did her mother think she was? D'aijeen folded her shirt and placed it with her jacket and gloves. She sat on the edge of the tub, not far from her mother, while she worked at taking off her shoes and socks. Her green tail dipped into the water and she shivered. "I hope you appreciate what it means for me to be here. I'm not without my pride." Antimony blinked in confusion as her daughter undressed, emphasizing the undercurrent of disconcerting strangeness this entire interaction had held. But, it was her daughter, and Antimony was not about to risk angering D'aijeen such that she ran off again, possibly taking K'airos with her. Did K'aijeen want her to...? "You have no idea how much it... fills my heart to see you, Aijeen," she replied lowly. "I appreciate every moment." D'aijeen gave her mother an instant's glance, and looked unconvinced. She turned away to toss her shoes aside and stood. "I'm here to give you another chance. Understand?" Her tail hung dripping behind her as she bent down to the white tights from her dark legs. She had rendered herself nude, a very thin and frail-looking woman, dark and tiny. She hadn't grown more than a few ilms since she'd left the tribe. Antimony noticed this immediately, of course, and it took all of her will not to get up from the water and wrap her arms about her daughter. She looked ill. Antimony worried. Was she eating right? Were she and K'airos earning enough money to live comfortably? D'hein had supposedly been taking care of her, but not for some time. What if she was sick? D'aijeen's words fueled all of those worries alongside a rush of joy she could barely contain. "I understand, Aijeen," she said, and told herself she would never leave her daughters. She would care for Aijeen here, clean her, dress her in something comfortable, feed her - she had more than enough, at least today. She would love her with every ounce of her being, and she would cast out the fear and the memory of that demon. Perfunctorily, D'aijeen turned to face the tub and looked down. She pointed, instructing, "Lay yourself out at length, head back down near the water like when I was washing your hair, feet on the opposite end." Keeping her eyes on her daughter's blue ones, Antimony's brow furrowed in confusion, but she complied. "Do you believe me, Aijeen? I love you. You never... I've always loved you." "I'm trying to believe you. Stay put." D'aijeen stepped into the tub at about Antimony's hips, one foot on either side of the woman, and then lowered herself into the water. So that she was straddling her mother at the hips. Her green tail lay back along Antimony's legs, the older woman's tail. Her one ear twitched, cactuar earing dancing with its slight jingle. Antimony fidgeted in the water, her hands sliding against the sides of the tub before one moved over her chest. There was a closeness in this position that felt very... inappropriate to Antimony, unsettling, but she forced herself to keep still. To watch D'aijeen's face. D'aijeen took her time settling into the position, noting the boniness of her mother's hips that was so different from D'ahl's. She felt Antimony's thin, weak legs against her ankles, her narrow waist between her calves. This body was completely different, but somehow familiar. It was similar to her own, she realized, a genetic disposition that D'ahl could never imitate. More than that, the child she had been remembered this body as a thing of comfort, and refuge. Even D'aijeen had once been a fool as a child, though. The refuge and comfort were gone now, another difference between Antimony and D'ahl. D'aijeen had no reservations about trusting D'ahl, about exposing herself to the woman completely, in full faith that she would be appreciated and adored. But here, there was no such trust. D'aijeen leaned back and watched her tail against that of her mother, moved her tail back and forth until the green and the gray were all tangled up together. She squeezed her mother with her legs, so that there was tight physical contact all along her inner legs and her mother's side, their hips pressed together. With one hand settling on her mother's side, just below her ribs, D'aijeen leaned forward and placed her other hand atop the hand her mother had on her chest. "You've always said that you've loved me," D'aijeen observed, feeling the age of her mother's hand, the tendons and veins that stood out ever more with the passing years, but never became ugly. They were simply distinguishing. "But you never made me believe it. You never demonstrated it in a way that had meaning to me, and back when I was a kid I dind't even know what I was waiting for." She couldn't help the way her spine curved back to try and avoid the contact D'aijeen was insisting upon. Antimony was no stranger to life, and she knew enough to recognize that her daughter had crossed a barrier there. But.. perhaps she didn't realize? "Aijeen," Antimony shifted in the water, using one hand to keep herself afloat, the other flexing uncomfortably beneath her daughter's fingers. "What are you talking about? I've always... I cared for you. I did everything I could to educate you, to... make sure you could thrive. I protected you in every way I knew how... what else? What else could you want?" "It took a few years for me to figure it out when I came to Ul'dah, and I needed help to do so. I learned how to demonstrate affection, beyond all doubt." Gripping her mother with her legs, D'aijeen leaned forward, somewhat, so that her bangs fell away from her face, so that her body was over Antimony's body. "I'm giving you this chance, your only chance, but it's brief. I need proof that you love me. I need to know it, and feel it. You need to convince me." Antimony sunk a bit lower into the water, that unsettled feeling growing, the crease between her brow deepening. "I don't understand, Aijeen." She feared that she did, but the mere thought of it left her feeling sick to the stomach - not because of what D'aijeen might do, but... because of what D'aijeen must have experienced to come to such a conclusion. "Who--You want me to.." The woman hung there over her mother, gripping the other body with her own. Her gaze was neutral, but her eyes were wide open, watching Antimony. She caught herself taking fast, shallow breaths, and forced herself to into more controlled rhythm. She said in a small voice, "I always wanted everything to work out. I loved you, do love you, but felt hated. Then in Drybone, threatened. Don't you want to take every negative feeling between us and turn it into something good, and real, and intimate?" Her heart dropped down into her gut at that, and she pushed her feet against one end of the tub to try and dislodge her hips from her daughters. Her breath shook as she sought words. "Aijeen, that--no, that... that's not what you want from me," her tone was sad, near despairing. "What horrible person made you think... Aijeen, this isn't right. I love you, but not... it's not like this. This is different." D'aijeen lifted her hands and put them on Antimony's shoulders, holding her still, almost pushing the woman under water. "Don't treat me like an idiot. Like I don't understand what I'm doing, or haven't thought about it. I love you, but I've never felt your love for me. Not even for a second. I want to believe it's there, but." She lowered her body so that her stomach pressed against Antimony's, the woman's arm between them keeping them apart. "If you don't love me, I'll just take Airos and go away. You won't have to pretend." "No," Antimony repeated urgently and felt a small shiver of fear as D'aijeen pressed her weight down further. Her tail twisted under the water, seeking to disentangle itself from D'aijeen's. "This isn't how... you're my daughter, Aijeen. This isn't how you're supposed to... do that! Who taught you this? Did they hurt you?" She reached up with the hand that had been largely supporting her to touch the girl's face worriedly, imploringly. "I love you, Aijeen. I'm not going to... do this to you." "You're not listening," D'aijeen muttered. She slipped her hands behind her mother’s head and pressed down on the woman's shoulders with her arms. Her weight bore down on her mother, and the cold water sloshed between their bodies. "Don'y you understand that I'm going to take myself and K'airos away? Don't you love me? Don't you even love her?" Antimony came dangerously close to going under with the added weight, and though she stretched her legs out to try and support herself, the angle was awkward and the tub made it even moreso. Green eyes widened, and her hand desperately petted at the side of D'aijeen's face, through her green hair, and then tried to pull her closer, into a one-armed maternal hug. "No, no, Aijeen. You're confused! You... you don't understand how... This kind of thing isn't for family like... you and I! Oh, my baby girl, what happened to you??" "Stop mocking me!" D'aijeen shouted, wrapping herself tightly around her mother and twisting to force the woman beneath the water. And held her there. "You're not listening!" The shock of it kept Antimony frozen for several seconds, wide eyes staring through a blurry, sloshy whirl of water and skin. It did not seem real, that D'aijeen - her daughter - could every try to harm her. Never. The girl's voice sounded muffled through the water, and then Antimony's lungs began to burn. Her body reacted for her, flinching and pushing up at D'aijeen to try and dislodge her, not wanting to hurt her but also suddenly, painfully aware of what the girl had just done. The option of killing Antimony did cross her mind. She could feel her body writhing beneath her, felt the older woman's tail writing against her own. The cactuar earring hung in her peripheral vision dappled with water. After a time she eased the weight up, keeping herself clasped against her mother's as best she could. In her frailty, she could only hold on so well in the first place. Even with her advantageous position, she was still weaker than even her mother. Managing to work her arms beneath her and finally finding purchase with her legs, Antimony gave a heave beneath the water and pushed herself - and D'aijeen - up. She sat there in the tub, water splashed all across the floor, and drew in deep gasps for air while clutching tight at her daughter, cradling the girl to her frantically. "You don't want to do this, Aijeen," she breathed, coughed, breathed again, "It's not right. I love you, but this is not right. Who hurt you... tell me who hurt you.." D'aijeen ducked her face down, pressing it agianst her mother's skin. "You hurt me," she said. Her fingers shook where they hung against Antimony's back. She felt like she might be crying, but couldn't tell from the water that covered them. "You're the only one. Everyone else has actually been very kind. But you hurt me." She had half-expected the answer, but it still shook Antimony to her core. Her body curled forward to envelope D'aijeen in a hug even as her lungs choked with a sob. It wasn't true. It couldn't be true. "No," she mumbled, "No, you don't mean that. You're just confused. You... I would never hurt you, Aijeen. Nothing--nothing I've done--" "All you have are words. I love you." D'aijeen's limp body animated again. She pulled herself against Antimony with her hands and legs, pressed her face firmly against the woman's neck. "I would show you if you would stop, even if you don't reciprocate." A part of her, so desperate for her daughter's acceptance, actually considered D'aijeen's words, considered allowing the girl to "show" her, if it meant D'aijeen would be happy. It was all she wanted, for her daughter to be happy. She would do anything. But... not this. "I am showing you, Aijeen," Antimony murmured, dropping her head to D'aijeen's, pressing her cheek against her daughter's hair. One hand wove fingers into the fine green strands, pulled through them in as soothing a gesture as she could manage. "I am." "It's not enough." She shifted, pressed her lips against her mother's neck, pulled on the woman with her fingers on her back and shoulderblades. Her sopping tail moved out of the water for just a moment as it wrapped around the woman's body. The chain on her earring clattered. "Aijeen," she repeated and clung to the girl tighter, thought back to the days when she had been small enough to fit wholly in her arms, the days when being close to her mother was often all she ever wanted. Her shoulders trembled, and she kissed the crown of D'aijeen's head over and over. "Not like that, Aijeen. I'm showing you. Just... not like that." "And I'm showing you like this," D'aijeen muttered, continuing to kiss Antimony's neck, moving her mouth up along it. Her gut roiled. The act felt like torture to Antimony, but when D'aijeen persisted, she leaned her body away, holding onto the girl's shoulders and trying to gently urge her back. It felt like ripping out her own heart. "Aijeen, no." "Stop it," the smaller woman demanded. She dug her nails into her mother's skin where she held her, trying to force aquiesance through sheer tenacity. D'aijeen was already growing tired, drained mostly by the day's emotional exertion: D'ahl, D'hein, K'airos, Antimony, everyone conspiring to make her weary. Her already weak limbs were growing weaker. "Stop it," she repeated. "Why won't you just stop? This is the only way." "Why would you think that," her voice strained a whisper. "Why would you ever... there are so many ways to show you love. It doesn't have to be like... this." She sighed around a thick lump in her throat, wanting nothing more than to break down in tears but needing desperately to stay together for D'aijeen. For her daughter. "Things like this are for you and... like your father and I. Not between us, Aijeen. It's different." She kept her hands on the girl, ignored as best she could the grasping of those small, frail fingers to her skin, tried to hold D'aijeen away without pushing her away. "You need to stop." "I know what I'm doing," D'aijeen leaned back, short of breath. The chill water around them was beginning to make her shiver, the moisture in the air making her breaths heavier. "Do you know what you're doing? You can't bare anything more than words of love for me, idle phrases, and you reject me." "That's not true," Antimony begged. "Eleven years. I showed you for eleven years. I fed and cared and educated and protected you! How is that not--not loving you?" She caught D'aijeen's shivers, wanted to echo them with her own, and instead made to pet her daughter's hair before adding in a faint, pleading voice, "Let's get out and dry off. Get you fed. You'll... you'll feel better." "I'm not going anywhere." The woman looked down again, her forehead against her mother's shoulder again. "Or I'm leaving. With Airos. You might have her deceived, but not me." Wrapping her arms about her daughter, one under her shoulders, one at her waist, Antimony moved to help her stand - or carry her out of the tub, if she had to. She found her chest bound by an impossible vice, throat too choked to speak save to scratch out a weary, "You must believe me." "I'm going to leave," D'aijeen said, leaning tiredly against her mother's body as they stood. "You're never going to see myself or Airos again." Antimony nearly crumbled under the weight of those words, terrible weapons that tore into her spirit, bludgeoned her heart until she thought she might simply cease being right there in that cold bath. Her hands shook against her daughter's skin as she stepped out of the tub and urged the girl to follow, their bodies leaving little pools of water beneath them. When she turned to retrieve the towel, she half expected D'aijeen to slip away in that brief moment, and so gripped the frail girl with one hand before wrapping her up in the worn, pale cloth. "Don't do this," she breathed and felt her hands rubbing at the towel as distant limbs entirely separate from the rest of her body. "Not to me. Not to Airos." Arms at her sides, D'aijeen watched her mother placidly. "I don't want to. That's why I came here. But you're making the decision." "No, this is you, Aijeen. You!" Her voice cracked up in pitch even as her hands grabbed at the second towel, pulled it around herself as though they had a mind of their own. Going through the motions. "I'm begging you to stay. Begging you. But you refuse!" "You're doing everything except the one thing you need to do, so nothing you do counts at all." Antimony felt simultaneously numb and overwhelmed by emotion, and it left her lurching precariously over an edge peering out into void. Her shaking stilled suddenly and then she was holding D'aijeen, grabbing her, wrapping her arms about her daughter and crushing the girl to her chest. "You can't leave. You can't take her away from me," she uttered, voice both paper thin and powerfully desperate, and yet strangely even. "I won't let you do this." D'aijeen chuckled unhappily, "You're not willing to convince me to stay, but you'll attempt to force me against my will. Is that what you think love is? You are the one who is confused." "You don't understand what you want," Antimony murmured, half to herself. "Someone's hurt you, taught you.. taught you something wrong. I'll--I'll take care of you, Aijeen. I will. I'll protect you. Just like I--" her voice broke but she pushed through, "Just like I always have." "You have never done any such thing. Let go of me." D'aijeen pushed against her mother, the gesture so weak as to be inconsequential. "You had your chance to hold me. Your desperation to contain me is not love." Antimony bowed into her daughter even as the girl struggled to push her away. "We'll get you dressed. You can eat. You'll think better on a full stomach," she breathed, her voice quiet and monotone like a prayer, a mantra. She had to ignore those words of D'aijeen's. She had to pretend they didn't exist. If she acknowledged them, they would end her. "Let go of me!" Antimony did, but only to bend down and pick up her daughter's shirt, holding it in front of her. "Let's get dressed, Aijeen. You'll make yourself sick." The dark woman stepped away from her mother, leaned her head forward and shook out her bangs. She pulled her fingers through her hair, partially damp, to straighten it out. "I cannot eat your food. My diet is very strict and cannot be deviated from." "I wouldn't feed you something unhealthy," Antimony protested softly, dropped her eyes to the clothing in her hands. Her daughter was so small. So weak. Was she already ill...? "Aijeen, let me take care of you, please." As she said this, she stepped forward, shirt in hand, intending to help her dress if she needed. "Unless you intend that lewdly, I refuse. You've never taken good care of me in the past." She extended her hand to take the shirt from the woman. "That's not..." Her strength fled her words and with it went the will to protest further. Instead, she wrapped the towel more securely about her and watched D'aijeen with low ears. D'aijeen plucked the towel from her body and began to dry herself off with it more thoroughly. As she did so, she eyed the dress that was hanging near the tub and said, "I do not recall you dressing so luxuriously, Antimony." She could feel her tail dripping water down the back of one leg, her hair dripping on her shoulders, running down her back to soak into the towel. At D'aijeen's observation, Antimony's ears lowered further. "I... don't. It was... D'hein." She winced, giving her daughter a sad look. "Please don't call me that." "Do you not like the name? Is that not why you chose it?" She put her towel over her mother’s wet hair, a quick, callous motion, and the put on her shirt. The white, thin silk frills sat loosely over her skin. "I chose it--" she cut herself off as the towel draped over her head, temporarily blocking her view, and there was a moment of terror that, again, D'aijeen would disappear once she was out of sight. Hastily, Antimony pulled the towel back from her face, and though it pushed her ears down uncomfortably, she kept it over her head, clutching at its ends with both hands. "I'm your mother! You shouldn't call me... please just call me that." "That is pathetic." D'aijeen meandered towards her mother. "You won’t even let me use your name. I can speak of you only if I satisfy your conditions of endearment, but you will not satisfy mine. You only want me as long as I show you love, and because I have K'airos. You are selfish. This is all about your desires, and not about either myself or K'airos. Why should I pity you?" Antimony shrunk from her daughter, cringing and feeling cut down further with each sentence. "That's not what I meant, Aijeen," she whispered, brought her hands to her face. "Why can't you just accept--" Once more, D'aijeen pressed herself up against her mother, leaned her face against the hands that Antimony had put against her face. "We could be close if you really wanted us to be. So close, so easily. So I have to assume that you don't want to be." "No." She felt as though her chest had cracked open, as though D'aijeen had pulled apart her ribs, dug through flesh and bone, and the crushed her heart in the girl's frail grip. "I can't do that. I'll do anything you ask of me, but... but that." She did not look up, though she could feel D'aijeen's closeness, smell on her the faint, familiar scents almost buried by time and a life far, far from home. Through those, there was also a darker smell, a rot almost covered up by soap and other things. Her daughter smelled like corpses. "That is very unpleasant news for everyone. It is hurtful because I," she kissed the back of her mother's hands over her face, "Cannot stop feeling for you. But I must protect myself and K'airos from your deception." This was not fair. It was not fair that her daughter - her child, who she had carried and nurtured first in her body and then for years after in the open world - could say these things, do these things to her. It was not fair that Antimony could find nothing that could satisfy D'aijeen except for her daughter's twisted perversion. She didn't blame the girl for that, might have felt fury towards whoever had taught her such things if she hadn't been so overwhelmed already, but it hurt. It hurt as much as the day K'ile had returned. There was nothing she could do or say. So she said, "I love you," but the words faded into a sob, and her legs folded beneath her. D'aijeen stood over her mother, looking down at her. Her thoughts were slow in her tiredness and her frustration, her depserate want for a mother who could love her the way D'ahl did, or even half of that. Just someone that wouldn't torment or lie to her, and wouldn't deceive K'airos. Or would at least commit to the lie enough to make it work. And what to do from here? Leave the woman and return to K'airos? But her sister would never happily remain with her, knowing now that her family was alive. Keeping her would be easy to do, but it would also destroy her. K'airos would never love her as D'aijeen wanted her to. Not now. They were ruined. Everything was ruined. D'aijeen walked behind her mother and fell behind her, throwing herself over the woman's back and wrapping her hands around her mother's waist again. "Just stop, please." Stop. Stop what? Stop loving her daughter? The idea was inconceivable, so antithetical to Antimony's existence that she had no choice but to deny it. She felt D'aijeen's thin arms wrap around her, wanted to take comfort from them, pretend that her Aijeen, her little girl had come around, had finally believed her, was willing to let go of all those terrifying little thoughts in her head. But she knew that wasn't true. Hunching her shoulders forward, Antimony cried silently. "Anything you want, Aijeen. Anything. Just not..." "Just stay still," D'aijeen said, her face against the back of her mother's neck, fixing her cheek between the older woman's vertebrae. She moved her hands up Antimony's side and put her fingers under the towel to pull at it. Antimony flinched from the hands, choked out a low, "No, Aijeen. Not this." Never like this. She wouldn't hurt her daughter in this way. This was love, but it was in the wrong form. Through her tears, Antimony felt the sickness in her gut return. "Be quiet. Don't move." D'aijeen persisted. She still persisted. She had to do the very best she could, even if it was humiliating, if only for K'airos' sake. "Aijeen, stop!" The words tore painfully from her throat, and she twisted, pushing her daughter's hands away, hugging the towel to her body, bending so low that her face nearly touched her knees. Her shoulders shook. D'aijeen pulled her hands away, retreating bodily as though her mother had burned her. The cactuar earring swung with a clatter, and her wet tail smacked down against the damp floor. "Wicked. Do not fake familiarity with me while you reject me. I am D'aijeen to you, and you are Antimony to me." She rolled away, finding her feet and walking to where her clothes were folded. The words fell like ice down Antimony's back. She shuddered, sobbed, reached out for her daughter, but could not bring herself to uncurl, to look up, to watch her leave. D'aijeen would leave. And she would take K'airos away. There was nothing Antimony could do to stop her that would not also hurt her. The dark woman took her time clothing herself. She felt a shameful weight in her limbs as though it were being inflicted on her by some spell. It was more than tiredness: she was upset. Her body seemed to want to mourn, even if she did not intellectually feel such an emotion. Nothing had changed between her and her mother, so there was nothing to grieve over. Yet everything was ruined. Trust once broken never fully healed. She would always love her mother and K'airos, but she would never again believe that K'airos would choose her over all alternatives. She would never be convinced... "Damn this!" The thin muscles in her body tightened inward as she shouted. One of the gloves she'd been putting on ripped, her green fingernails cutting through the cloth. "Damn this! I didn't want... her to be..." Why did no one she loved choose to love her back with equal fervor? Why would they always choose one another over her? Nobody was on her side. She could kill them all, take whatever she wanted from them, force them to comply, but if it wasn't by choice then there was no value in it. D'aijeen did not want to doubt K'airos the same way she doubted her mother. She wanted things to be like they were: easy, faithful. They never would be again. Her tail whipped around behind her, face cast down. She saw shadows. Her face was warm. Strange green circles meandered over her vision as she swayed, half-naked, damp, skinny. Tired. "Tahl can take all of you. I... I don't care..." "I care. Aijeen, I care. I care, Aijeen," Antimony mumbled through tears that shook her body. Her arm remained outstretched on the floor, reaching towards D'aijeen. Her face remained turned down. "Stop calling me that," D'aijeen said, breath shaking. She turned around to lean against the wall as she pulled on her tights, having trouble getting them to stretch around her legs with her clumsy, shaking hands. Either not hearing her daughter or not wanting to acknowledge the request, Antimony persisted, repeating, "I care, Aijeen," like a mantra, her body bent in supplication. When she got the tights on, they were wrinkled and crooked, her tail sitting over the hem instead of settling into the groove that was meant for it. She put her jacket on without tucking in her shirt, and it settled over her unevenly, with ruffles sticking out in strange directions. The pink ribbons that would've tied into a bow hanging down her front. "I need to leave," she said, crouching down and feeling around for her shoes with one hand, as though she couldn't see them. As though animated by a jolt of electricity, Antimony's head shot up, her neck craning painfully from her prostrate position. Wide, green eyes focused on her daughter's form, now wrapped back up in white, and she heard herself begging, "Don't go. Please. Don't take her away. Please, Aijeen. Don't take her away!" Finding her shoes and pulling them to her gut, D'aijeen stood again. She moved with a hunch, her face down, her cactuar earring dancing next to her face. "You wouldn't listen to me when I asked you for the same. She's mine. You can't take her away." She turned to walk bare-foot towards the door. "Don't take her away," Antimony sobbed from the floor. She should stand. She should follow D'aijeen. Chase her. Catch her before she was gone and never let her go. "Don't leave me!" But she couldn't. Her daughter had left years ago. She'd lost them both years ago. Opening the door to the bathroom felt like moving a wall out of her way, but she got out, into the room itself. She barely looked at anything other than the door to get away. It was not ephemeral this time. D'aijeen felt like her muscles had turned to strings inside her body. That and her sense of humiliation, that damaged pride, that inexplicable shame and grief, drove her out and away. In the wake of D'aijeen's exit, Antimony curled back into the floor and grieved on her own.