Twinflame

((Set after this thread)) D'aijeen Thalen entered the Gold Court with a purposeful step, eyes wide awake and watching the world around her. She was not calm, but her emotions were contained in her shivering tail and her fingers closing and unfurling. A small voidspawn followed her at a distance, massive eye, small wings, long dark tail. K'airos stood in front of the fountain. Specifically, in front of a bench where a plate of sweets had been abandoned. She stared at it, perhaps considering cleaning it...or eating it. D'aijeen feared the latter. She stilled when she caught sight of her sister, setting herself in place as though she'd stepped in half-dried concrete. Her ears flicked about, earring chain clattering like a tiny windchime. The cactuar at the end of the chain danced along the brim of her hat like it was happy to see K'airos. The voidspawn following D'aijeen was momentarily distracted by the cactuar. Watching the plate just a moment longer, K'airos shruged, declaring to the air: "Not my problem!" When she turned around, her eyes immediately recognized and settled on her sister's white shape. "Oh, hi!" D'aijeen shivered again, imagining a cold breeze through the warm stone hallways, feeling her diaphragm pressing against her lungs. The tightness rose to her chin, and she bit against it. Her eyes closed heavily, and she breathed deeply, saying with difficulty. "Hello, K'airos, love." The Brass Blade tilted her head, beads shifitng over the mask and the banada that hid her yes, and closer to D'aijeen. "Are you feeling okay? Are you sick? You can't be sick, I have great news!" D'aijeen looked at the ground, thought, rolled her head and muttered sadly, "I am...". She bit her teeth again. "What news, Airos? Give me cause for cheer." K'airos nodded, then rudely pointed at the voidsent. "That thing is following you again! Are you sick because of it? I bet I can scare it away!" "What?" she breathed, looking around, spying the voidspawn. It seemed to be trying to sneak up the cactuar her earring. "No, Airos, leave it alone." Ears dropping a bit, K'airos began mumbling. "Okay. Uhm...anyroad... I heard properties in Crescent Cove are pretty cheap, so I thought we could go visit the village one of these days? It's close to the sea! And it has smallshells!" Her tone became increasingly cheerful with each word, finishing with one small hop. D'aijeen smiuled, her tail hanging limp behind her. She looked up at K'airos, still sounding sad when she said, "Smallshells? Do you like those, Airos?" "Of course I do! They are like oversized helmets that grew up legs and fled the armory!" "... I hear they taste good as well. If you could bare to eat such an adorable thing. We could keep the shells if we did, though." K'airos clapped her hands together. "Yes! And th- wait, no! I don't want to eat them!" Both her hands fell to her sides. "You don't eat cute things!" she protested. With a chuckle, D'aijeen spoke in a small voice, "Sometimes you do. I could eat you, for instance." There was a thud well off to one side, near the fountain, where an Elezen woman was depositing an unconcious Hyur near the fountain. A typical pair of drinkers from the Quicksand that had wandered just a bit farther than usual. Distracted by the man being thrown at the bench, K'airos looked at that scene, but continued talking to D'aijeen. "...let's not eat each other." D'aijeen clenched her hands into fists. "Airos, pay attention to me." K'airos did not pay attention to D'aijeen for a few seconds, rather listening to the strangers. Then she turned around, facing D'aijeen with an apologetic smile. "Sorry! Um...we should get you home so you can rest, right?" D'aijeen squinted at K'airos, muttering, "Do I look like I need rest. Tell me more about Crescent's Cove. When do you want to go?" The older sister's red ears couldn't have been any lower even if she wanted. She tried to hide it by rubbing behind them, victim of a made up ache. "I...don't know? Whenever you prefer! I still have duties around here, but we could take one day to check it out soon!" "How soon? I wish to go immediately. Are you not excited by the idea?" "...Immediately as in right now? D'aijeen nodded once, hard, "Yes. I want to take you there now. I want to get a home and begin living in it immediately." Cheer was hidden behind a thick layer of confusion, K'airos said, "But you haven't seen it yet! How do you know you'll like it?" With a deep sigh, D'aijeen pulled in her chin and bit her green lips. She looked at her sister's booted feet with a her brows knitted, her tail laying itself against her thigh. "I just... I want to..." K'airos placed one hand on D'aijeen's shoulder. "Okay, tell me whats wrong." she says in a very serious tone. D'aijeen pitched her head down so that all K'airos was looking at was the top of her hat and her ears laying back against it, cactuar earring dancing on its brim. She fixed both hands upon K'airos' own, and said in a breathy voice, "Why would something be wrong? What's keeping you here?" "I am your sister. Knowing something's wrong is part of my nature! Did the dodos do something?" "... Yes. D'hein did something. Have you seen him today? Or, yesterday, maybe?" K'airos hesistated, rubbing one of her ears. "I did," she said. "We spoke about that...associate-person-friend of his? That he wanted me to help back in Drybone. But what did he do?" D'aijeen dropped her hands in front of herself, knitting them together and squeezing tightly. "Friend? Oh, really. Tell me about her." "...I'd rather know what D'hein did that upset you." Lifting her head just high enough to glare at K'airos along the line of her hat, she said, "Why? What's wrong with the question. K'airos, did his friend have a name? I'm curious. I am." K'airos retired her hand from D'aijeen and stepped back. "It...was...a funny name." Dhe mumbled, tapping both hands together nervously. "Antimony, I think?" D'aijeen hummed. "Oh. Oh, hm. Antimony is an element. A volatile and toxic one. Who names themself such a thing? What kind of toxic creature?" Her tail shivering, D'aijeen lifted her head to show growing hostility. "Have I ever met this woman, Airos?" K'airos let out a nervous chuckle. "I...yes...?" D'aijeen took one step towards K'airos, so that she was practically right against the woman, and said, "I want to go to Crescent Cove. I don't want you to ask me anymore questions." K'airos' left foot moved so that she could get another step away, but didn't complete the motion. Instead, it lingered behind her, balanced on the tip. "Sure! You should go home and prepare while I...visit the barracks and tell them I won't be around for a while." Turning her face down again, D'aijeen took hold of the creases of K'airos' armor so that she couldn't pull away. "I want to... we have a plan, remember? To... work and... find a home. I want to live with you. Anywhere." "Yes, but we have to make sure we like the place! I don't want to drop all of our savings somewhere we won't enjoy. We have to be careful! Though being excited aboout it is something I approve!" D'aijeen tightened her grip, and he shoulders shook, "Airos. That's... I want to... So... why?" She let go of K'airos and turned to one side, raising her hand with the movement and laying the backside of it in K'airos' cheek. The gesture was weak, but it was the most furious D'aijeen could manage. "Why! Why are you RUINING everything? Why!" "What! I don't...what did I do?" Suddenly shiverring, ears high, tail tight against her thigh, D'aijeen shouted at K'airos, though the shouting just highlighted her frailty. "It's her! It's that woman, isn't it! I told you to stay away from her, I told you. But you can't. You can't just do as you're told!" K'airos stepped back, both hands on top of each other over her chest. "It's nothing! It's just...I know she's not mom! It's fine!" Her voice was on the edge of breaking. "IT'S NOT FINE!" D'aijeen shrieked, then took a breathless moment to recover, holding onto her chest. When she spoke again, she was quiet, "You're deceiving me. After everything. After... you promised! Why? I'm going..." she groaned, "Everything's going to be ruined. But I wanted... I just..." "I'm not leaving you alone! Why don't you trust me?" K'airos unddid her previous action by giving a step forward. D'aijeen looked up at K'airos, her eyes wet with tears, mouth open and panting. Her arms were crossed over her chest, fingers digging into her shoulders to hold herself together. "Trust... I did... and you lied. What other secrets are you keeping? What lies are you telling me? Why!" K'airos pouted. "I didn't lie! I just...!" she exclaimed, and then took off her mask, something she should have done before. "You have your own fake-mom, so I thought it was fine!" D'aijeen put her hands over her face, dropping to her knees on the ground. She chuckled weakly, but she was crying. "That's not fair. All I wanted was you. You to love me. That's all, but you can't. You lie. You lie. You liar." Walking to her sister's side, K'airos knelt and placed one weak hand on her shoulder. "I do love you! I'm sorry if you thought...that. I'm sorry! You don't have to be upset! It's just...and I...I..." rambled on, even more weakly than her hand. D'aijeen sounded like she was having trouble breathing, and she spoke with a weak breath. "I can't trust you. I command you to go to Crescent Cove and wait there for me. I command you to stay there and not tell anyone you are there or contact anyone. Keep it a secret. Hide yourself away there, and be found by only me." K'airos protested loudly, stomping her feet against the floor. "That's not fair! You also lied to me!" Despite of all of that, she moved away from D'aijeen, facing north, roughly to where the chocobo keeper would be seen if there weren't so many walls and buildings in the way. With a groan, D'aijeen pulled her hat down over her face, sobbing. "I don't lie. I don't want to do this. I just wanted.... I'm sorry, but I... have to..." K'airos started walking away, still protesting: "You told me the tribe died off, bu they aren't. I spoke with K'luha and K'haz and..." She stopped, reconsidering. "...and they were fine." D'aijeen took a sharp breath, and exhaled a huff. She said to the stones around her, "I'll have to do something about them, then." K'airos turned around to face D'aijeen and kept walking backwards to her intended destination. "I helped them recover their stuff, and then I escorted them to the Sagolii Gate...and then I came back!" she shouted, stressing the last words with all the might of her lungs. She came out as pretty hysterical. "I came back! To stay with you! This isn't fair!" Pulling herself up to her feet, D'aijeen said, "I will talk to you about these things soon. I am very hurt, AIros. Go now as you've been commanded." The cactuar earring swayed, but the tiny voidsent seemed to have wandered off. "This isn't fair!" K'airos turned around again and ran off with a sob.

The fact that K'ile didn't know how to steer the chocobo very well and would never trust them did not mean that he also had the patience to watch them all day. The two chocobo pulling his carriage were left to themselves for minutes at a time as K'ile turned his attention to K'luha or even just dosed. Since the experience in the valley not long ago, K'ile had been worried about K'luha, worrying more about keeping his eyes on the woman and getting her home as soon as he could. He'd stopped taking breaks or letting the chocobo rest at all. So it was that neither K'ile nor the chocobo were particularly paying attention during those minutes around sunset when K'ile might've smelled another person or an extra pair of chocobo otherwise. He didn't hear or smell much of anything, his gaze turned down and his ears hanging to either side, as the chocbo pulled the carriage along towards the desert traveler's back

"I have to go," D'aijeen was saying, fixing her hair behind her head with a metal hairpiece, watching herself in three mirrors at once. Her fingers and voice were deliberate, calm, but fast with purpose. "I have to go. I need to find out what D'hein's done." "It's alright," D'ahl took the fake glasses from her face. Anyone else might lose the thin frames and lenses in all of the glass furniture and mirrored walls, but aside on the reflective table-top was casual for D'ahl. "Thank you for..." the woman pursed hr green lips, face flushing, as she adjusts the bow that sat on the chest of her white coat, smoothed its fabric. She did not wear anger well, and the distress clung to her like sweat. As she groomed her appearance, she cleansed her base emotions away and restored the facade of the elevated person. "Thank you for comforting me. I'm sorry to leave you alone." Pulling the braids out of her hair, D'ahl shook her head to let the goldenrod hair dash about her shoulders in the straight tangles that were more her own style. Dropping the doppelganger guise that D'aijeen preferred. "I'll be fine, love. It was good seeing you for as long as I did." "Everyone always tries to take my K'airos away!" D'aijeen lamented, voice suddenly high, and then took a breath to steady herself. "No. Just my mother, the crone. And D'hein in league with her. And K'airos so overjoyed by thought of... She's deceived! She's deceived. There is no love there. Only conflict between us." "D'aijeen," D'hal said, the motherly purrs absent from her voice. "What are you going to do." "Divide them as once I did before. Or banish the woman." She clutched her hands into fists, arms and shoulders shaking for a moment. With great effort and concentration, she released the gesture, the tenseness sliding off of her like warm water. She sighed. "I need to go. I need to go." Standing from her seat, D'ahl watched D'aijeen's green tail as she trotted towards the exit. She watched her in the mirrors as well, at once from either side and above and in front and behind. On a whim, D'ahl spoke in that imitation voice that D'aijeen had taught her, "Everything will be all right, Aijee," evoking her mother, the woman she called the crone. D'aijeen stopped in the hallway near the entrance, her gaze snapping up to mirrors that covered the door. Those blue eyes were reflected back, from one side to another, flipped and turned and guided to the sitting room around a corner where she caught D'ahl's gaze. Distantly, through a twisted hallway like shattered glass, D'ahl looked into D'aijeen's eyes and saw a hesitation that confused her. "Don't." D'aijeen tried to look to one side, and made eye contact with D'ahl there as well. She bit her green lip, "Don't use that voice when you look like that. It's confusing." "I want to change the rules," D'ahl said, her voice snapping with accidental force. "I want you to call me 'Mom' all the time. Not just when I'm playing the role, but also when I look like this. And when I am playing the role, I want the name of the role to be 'D'ahl'. I don't want there to be a difference between 'D'ahl' and 'Mom' for you." Ears falling back on her head, D'aijeen turned again, once more to face D'ahl. "What?" "If you hate the crone so much why must I pretend to be her? Why can I not simply be me? If you love me-" "I do love you!" "Then let me be that role!" D'ahl took a step forward, as though to make her way through the tunnel of glass shards to where D'aijeen was, but found herself too heavy to go any further than a single step. "Let the role be me. Remove all preamble and let it be what it is!" "What it is?" D'aijeen shook her head, exhaled quickly. "D'ahl it's a game. We can't just remove the rules." D'ahl closed her eyes, snapped her head down. She felt her tail shiver against the inside of one leg. "But you..." She reached up to her hair, pulled on her bangs, laying them over her face dumbly. Her jaw shivered. "I don't understand. You let D'hein call himself your father." "My birth father is dead," the woman's tone was level. It was hurtfully plain. "I had room for a father. Use for one. My mother is alive. I have a mother, despite all." "No need, then? If you didn't have need for one than why-" "It's just a game, D'ahl. That's all." D'aijeen's movement was audible. D'ahl didn't look up into the mirrors to see. She was afraid of D'aijeen's eyes, imagining disregard, disgust, and anger all at once. But she heard D'aijeen moving away. "I need to go. I'm sorry." D'ahl offered no reply. She stepped backwards until her feet hit the chair she'd stood from, and then she collapsed down into soft leather that sighed to catch her. The click of the apartment door drew D'ahl's eyes open, and she stared at the mirrors on the ceiling, angled to catch the mirrors on the walls, seeing down the hallway an empty foyer. In the many-angled mirrors, she saw all of her solitude at once. She perceived all the emptiness in her home that shone like a broken mirror. If it had all been a game to D'aijeen all this time, then the only person who had ever been sincerely incestuous was D'ahl. She was not just an enabler, nor just an instigator, but the sole guilty part. Her hands on her head, eyes staring into her palms, she let out a single sob and then laughed. "I guess I'm just an impotent old pervert, then. It would be my best luck to die alone, if only to avoid the mockery that would surround me otherwise."

Truthfully, D'hein didn't know how he felt about exiting D'ahl's apartment at the time that he had. He was sure that in the past he had left much more precarious situations in much worse ways, and obviously both women were furious with him. But the way that D'ahl had held D'aijeen was not a motherly way. The hands had been too low on her body, too desperate, hungry. It had been the hug of a lover. But D'ahl's face had been Antimony's face. The affection it expressed had been motherly, protective. D'hein Tia shivered despite the hot desert winds, pulled on his robe in frustration. His body was steeped in that strange steely non-pain, hinting at injuries he couldn't discern. He would have to limp to the Dodo's in-home physicians and there ponder how next to affect this situation. Apparently confrontations with D'aijeen and D'ahl weren't going to work. "This tower is off-limits to you," a voice said as D'hein proceeded off the bridge and into the suspended square. He looked up to see one of the Dodo Tribe's huntresses, garbed in exquisite white leather arm with silver studs, her imported Ishgardian lance falling to close off the bridge like a gate. "Do not return, D'hein Tia. We will inform D'Themia Nunh that you've been visiting." Forcing himself to stand upright and trying to look as proud as he could while he was so battered, D'hein said, "That a rose such as yourself noticed my passage I am blessed. You may speak of me to whomever you will, but please describe me kindly, that I may be remembered at my best." The woman answered deadpan, "I intend to inform him of your injury and humiliation as well." D'hein frowned, but tried to sound gracious, "If it amuses you to do so, or him to hear it, then fine. I aim ever to please. Shall I perhaps exaggerate my limp and moan a bit as I head off to the physician?" She made no facial expression but couldn't stop her tail from shifting behind her, ears twitching. "I would not stop you if you were in the mood to do so." "Oh, great woe, that I am so broken!" D'hein said, stumbling weakly as he turned to walk away, and dragging one of his feet as though it were completely inoperable. "Shall I ever again know a day without pain? Is this justice? Oh, Thal, have you a place prepared?" As the huntress watched, she smirked. Very briefly. Before returning to her place on watch of the commune.

With a certain pride and an unconcealed smirk, D'aijeen Thalen weathered the unapproving glares of the other Dodos as she strolled across the commune's square. Her green ears bounced, green tails swished, blue eyes watched the meandering whisps of clouds heading out into the desert. She felt the glares, the stars, the jeering glances all the same. So D'themia had decreed D'ahl bound and off-limits. D'aijeen did not care, and she thought that was what frustrated the others the most: that she, all but alone among them, was not afraid of D'themia Nunh. Apparently the Nunh intended to starve the woman into not just mating, but pregnancy as well. It was a terrible plan, of course. An immature child's plan. It was easily undone by bringing the woman foodstuffs and company. The thin, straight bridge that led from the square to the tower wherein D'ahl's apartment was located passed over some of the more privileged streets in Ul'dah. D'aijeen walked proudly over the heads of many of Ul'dah's Syndicate-affiliate residents before reaching the tower and heading inward to D'ahl's apartment. She didn't knock, her welcome assumed as it always was, and proceeded past the mirrored foyer into the nearly invisible hallway with bold certainty. She did not stop until she found herself facing an unexpected person, D'hein Tia, who had been walking outward and stopped wide-eyed on D'aijeen's sudden appearance. He was disheveled, bloody-faced and bruised, his robe wrinkled and twisted and his steps rather weak. He stood in silence, expression twisted, blinking at D'aijeen until something hit him from behind, causing him to stumble forward. D'ahl appeared then, kicking D'hein forward, "Go on! Get out!" "Please cease!" D'hein said, glaring behind him, "You'll know me into D'aijeen." D'aijeen stepped to one side, smiling when she saw that D'ahl had done up her hair and donned the glasses to alter her appearance pleasingly. Like in preparation for D'aijeen's return. "I'm out of the way now! You can continue. Hello." "Hello, dear," D'ahl replied, then kicked D'hein again, "Continue walking, Tia!" "Presently." D'hein's tail was whipping around in dumb agitation, thwacking against the many-mirrored walled beside him noisily. He turned his attention on D'aijeen, blue eyes simmering with frustration, "You, miss inappropriate affectations! What have you done to your mother to terrify her so?" Her green lips smirking, D'aijeen quipped, "D'ahl does not appear intimidated by anyone." "No, in Drybone," he replied, "The woman from Sagolii. Antimony. Your actual mother?" "What? Anti..." "Enough!" D'ahl threw her body into the man, small but strong enough to send him stumbling again. "This is not something either of us need grief from you on!" "Wait!" D'aijeen jumped between the two Miqo'te, white clothes on very dark skin presenting a very starkly contrasted, frail form between them. Her arms were spread to either side, head dipped low, eyes glaring from behind her bangs. "You!... You!" Her hands turns to fists and slammed down on her thighs, "You were behind that! It was you!" "Ah," D'hein found his feet, took a steadying breath, adjust his robes. "Yes, I do take credit for that." "You heinous deceiver!" D'aijeen shouted, her tail shiver and puffing out behind her so that it was almost as thick as her waist. "Loathsome! Manipualtive! You knew... you... You sought her out and-" "The details are unimportant," D'hein delivered flatly. "I found your mother and delivered her to yourself and K'airos. From what I can tell, K'airos accepted her and you made some kind of threat. What did you do?" "Not half of what I'm going to do to you, D'hein Tia!" D'aijeen's low voice somehow became thinner when she shouted, her lungs trying to create great noise on an especially modest amount of air. Nothing made her feel her own frailty like anger. "The confusion you caused my poor K'airos! The lie of it! The absolute-" D'hein crossed his arms, "Don't pretend its a lie. Your mother is alive and well, and both she and K'airos are extremely happy. You're the only one standing between them." "Oh, K'airos is happy?" D'aijeen's head snapped up, leaned forward, fixed D'hein with wide eyes that had teared up in frustration, "How do you know? What have you done? What've you done? Where is my K'airos?" D'hein averted his eyes, "I have taken no action." "Liar! You've seen her! You've seen them!" D'ahl's hands fell on D'aijeen's shoulders, calm but solid, and she leaned her head over the woman's shoulder as she said, "I think it would be best if we do not kill D'hein." Her glare moved to the Tia, "Difficult as that may be." "Then he needs to leave immediately!" D'aijeen shifted underneath D'ahl's hands, but did not break free. "Manipulating my K'airos! My K'airos!" D'hein gestured wide with his hands, "D'ahl, D'aijeen needs to accept her mother!" "She has!" D'ahl pulled the smaller, frail woman against her, wrapping her arms around her and holding her fast in place. D'aijeen responded first by pitching forward, pressing her hands against D'ahl's, just reacting to the fact that she had been pulled off balance. She didn't want to be held! Her mind was full of images of that woman that K'airos had found in Drybone -- her mother -- and of the conflict it had struck between the sisters D'aijeen and K'airos. D'hein couldn't know what he had done, but he should! K'airos needed to believe that their mother was dead. One lie, one alone, she needed to believe, and she would stay with D'aijeen forever. It was the only thing keeping K'airos in Thanalan, the lie that the tribe had been destroy. That their mother was dead. That was all. Without that... K'airos would go home. To people she loved more. And D'aijeen would be alone. "Mom!" D'aijeen spun around in D'ahl's hands, pitched her head against the woman's shoulder and clutched at her chest. She felt herself sobbing, hot tears on her cheek, wetness on her face against D'ahl's clothes. "Mom, I don't know what to do. I don't." "It'll be okay," D'ahl murmured, petting her head. She imitated her mothers voice just like D'aijeen had taught her to. "I don't know what to do, mom," D'aijeen repeated, weaker this time. This was a cowardly way to use D'ahl, and humiliating in front of D'hein. But it was easy and calming to play the role. It was like enacting a ritual to invoke motherly comfort, the hushes and whispers that she had missed out on by leaving home so young. She felt D'ahl kiss the side of her head, and made her feel what she thought love must feel like, how K'airos sometimes came so close to making her feel. D'ahl was the perfect, loyal surrogate: a reliable source for this synthetic love. D'ahl was whispering things to her, but D'aijeen had not listened to the words. She knew the mantra that D'ahl had written to comfort her little girl, her favorite child. It bypassed her thoughts and massaged her spirit directly. D'aijeen pulled at D'ahl's chest as she could will it closer, warmer. She said, "D'hein needs to leave." "He's gone," D'ahl replied, "Likely... overwhelmed." D'aijeen nodded and lifted her head away from D'ahl's shoulder, strands of green hair sticking to her wet face. "I don't know what to do, mom. I don't..." "Oh, little Aijee." D'ahl wrapped an arm behind D'aijeen's head, pulled her forward, and kissed her lips. D'aijeen leaned her body into the other woman's.

((Thread might lean a bit to towards the disturbing side for some people. Ye be warned.)) Dhein Tia burst into the room, "And you, miss inappropriate affectations-! ... Wait, where is D'aijeen?" "She has gone out to retrieve my necessities," Came the voice of D'ahl, rougher than any other smooth-talking lady of privilege could get away with. It was charming in the earthy way that let one imagine they could hear the strong, unladylike muscles of her throat and the way she ground her jaw shifted to one side when she spoke. "Once again you have failed to recall that a gentleman is meant to announce himself before entering." "What? Ah, so I did! My apologies, but you are such a welcoming and graceful woman, to enter was as natural as returning home." He flicked his eyes about D'ahl's foyer the many mirrors on the walls and ceiling making him, as usual, completely unable to discern door from window, hall from wall. At least he thought he knew where the ceiling was. "D'ahl, where are you?" "Well-distanced from the witless interloper, but not so well that I can't keep an eye on you. What are you doing here?" "Looking for D'aijeen, as implied." D'hein's eyes shifted awkwardly on his head as though he could place himself by echolocation. In theory he knew that D'ahl's home was of simple layout, but the mirrors were positioned to confuse and expand its presence. He saw arrayed hallways and a dozen vast windows that all seemed to look out on identical vistas. It was also very bright, as the home seemed to capture and consume the light from the windows without ever letting it go. D'hein Tia screwed his courage to the sticking place (or at least his tongue to the roof of his mouth) and ventured towards what his muscle-memory told him was a hall, even if it didn't particularly look like one. He said, "I'd assumed D'aijeen was here, since she wasn't with K'airos, and there is very little that can draw her from her sister's warmth but for yours." "As I said as well, D'aijeen has gone out to secure my necessities." there was a flick of D'ahl's graceful form in the mirrors as D'hein moved, just enough to note her blonde hair done up in a particular style. "So there it seems that we had all the makings of this conversation in the first few words. Very like you to blather, D'hein Tia, but do not try to teach me to do so." "What do you mean, secure your necessities?" He marveled at the fact that he hadn't walked into a mirror. Though he was starting to get a headache from the fractured, uncomfortably bright world around him. "She is the only one who D'Themia cannot scare away from interacting with me. I've been forced into a new career as a hermit, you see." "D'Themia has you under house arrest? Really! Repugnant man! What could he possiblerch!... Ow." D'hein rubbed his bloodied nose, frowning into his reflection in a cracked mirror. "You have such a fragile home." "It isn't difficult not to walk into walls, D'hein Tia. Just avoid your own face." Holding his nose shut, D'hein Tia spun about, whacking mirrors with his flailing tail. Chuckling at the tickling sensations he felt in his face -- this in lieu of pain -- D'hein replied in nasally protest, "If there was a trick to it you should have told me! Courtesy, D'ahl." "You can scarcely avoid walking into walls anyway." Her quirked features appeared in a number of mirrors, and D'hein looked about to get the best view of her. She was dressed in simple, warm peices of cloth tied about her by decorative straps. Decidedly unbecoming a woman of her stature, though it had a simple elegance that boasted a homely wealth-of-the-land that made D'hein smile. "Why does D'themia have you locked up in your home?" "He did not miss my month-long absence, and discerns that I spent it with you," she said, with a dip in tone which D'hein hoped was not accusation. "As well, it seems that I have not been doing my tribal duties insomuch that I have not born a child for either Nunh." D'hein huffed, "So he thinks that by cursing the rocks he can make the barren cliffs spring fruitful?" "If you dare describe me in such a way again I will cut into your body until I find a nerve that feels pain and rip it out." The golden-maned Tia recoiled away from everything at once, "Sorry." The image of D'ahl reflected in the mirrors resolved and fell still, turning to him. She had her hair up, braided, fake glasses on her features. Arms on her hips, tip of her tail flicking quick switches behind her, she said, "You'll replace that mirror or I'll have your ears." Distracted from the hostility, D'hein grimaced at the sight of her. "You're roleplaying D'aijeen's mother again, aren't you?" The hair, glasses and garb gave it away. D'ahl's skin, hair color, eye color, were all similar to that of the woman she was pretending to be. The handcrafted doppelganger lifted her chin, "Is it your business? No. Neither D'aijeen nor I have made it so." The expressions were merely haughty, but the way her exposed shoulder and arms tensed, strong fingers digging into her own hips, evidenced deeper agitation caused by the subject. "Now do not evade! It's time we had a talk about this!" He squared himself off before the image of D'ahl, realizing belatedly that he was probably just facing a mirror. Meeting her gaze was like taking cinders to the eyes, though, and when she spoke he could almost hear the din of a burning furnace in her chest. "It is not time for any such thing. Perhaps time for you to leave." "D'ahl, D'aijeen's mother is alive and present in the area. You don't think this game of yours will complicate-" "Do not lecture me, D'hein Tia," the woman leaned forward, growled. "Games are for children. If the Witch of Sagolii has truly been unearthed, I do not think D'aijeen wants anything to do with her." "And that's wrong! She should!" D'hein leaned forward as well, meeting D'ahl's challenge with the boldness that the situation required. "It's her mother! There needs to be something! It's not healthy otherwise!" "There does not have to be anything there as long as I am fulfilling that role in her life." "You know better!" D'hein pointed at her, "This incestuous game of yours can no more replace D'aijeen's mother than it can make up for your own inability to have children!" The image of D'ahl in the mirror became very large very quickly, and D'ahl's shoulder slammed into D'hein's sternum before he realized he was looking at an actual person. Steely numbness spread from his chest to his gut, then appeared through his back, shoulders, and head as he slammed into a wall of mirrors that cracked behind him. They maintained their form, though, as he fell to the ground beneath them, his body unresponsive. A lesser Tia might have groaned in pain, but as D'hein felt none, he said immediately, "That was not a very mature or lady-like response to-". A foot to the side of his head interrupted him, turning his face two one side and bearing his jaw into a sideways crater of glass. D'ahl leaned on her raised knee, staring past her leg to where her bare foot held D'hein's head in submission. Her expression was dark, muscles all along her body standing out in dynamic crags. D'ahl no longer looked like D'aijeen's mother. The hair and glasses and similarities were there, but D'ahl was a much more powerful woman. And this degree of fury was beyond what he could imagine of the humble auditor. Flexing her fingers and working her jaw like a gnawing animal, D'ahl said, "I should have had a child of my own twenty years ago. I would've given the Nunh fifty were I capable of even one. And yet, it was not deliberately that I sought to play this role for your daughter." D'hein shifted under D'ahl, and she pushed down harder with her foot. His inability to feel pain did not mean he could not be injured, and he became suddenly afraid that she would break the mirror while his face was pressed to it. "You are aware that I am not in pain?" "Is it pleasant?" She pressed harder. He heard the mirror crack further. "No. I am quite uncomfortable." "Close enough. It is not wise for you to speaking presently." "Hm," He bit his lips, puffed out his cheeks against the ball of the woman's foot. D'ahl smirked, a strange twist of the features that reminded D'hein of D'aijeen's mother, but the expression fled after a moment. The woman said, "Forgetting my own age, perhaps, I approached your daughter as an equal and initiated a romantic relationship successfully. I did not realize she saw me as a mother-figure until much later. I accidentally perverted her daughterly affections for me because I was oblivious to them. Assign me that sin if you wish." "I do not judge," D'hein looked to one side, watching the scene in a mirror as though it were happening to someone else next to him. That poor fellow must've said something he shouldn't have. Still, perhaps it was wiser than maintaining silence. "Whether you sought it or not, you embrace it now." "I feel whole," she said, and then declared fiercely, "I feel whole. How am I supposed to..." D'ahl choked as if the words were too thick for her throat. Her fingers curled into fists, her eyes flicked about the mirrors. Everywhere she looked, she was looking at herself pinning D'hein down. "Now that I've heard her cry to me, and my words have had power to calm her. I spent decades letting myself be abused by the Nunhs; I do not want to be that person again. I want to be whole." "Having someone call you someone call you 'mother' does not suddenly transmute you into a different being." "It does if she means it. And makes it true." D'hein tried to sound authoritative, but came off as brooding, "This is not healthy for either of you." D'ahl pulled off authoritative far better than the man beneath her heal, "If you think that then you did not know me very well before."

((Continuing from events in this thread and this thread)) If one were to approach Ul'dah from the East, one would be excused to think the city walls were made entirely from a myriad of tents and starved refugees. They obscured the lower section of the wall, spreading across it's lenght as if it was the best shelter they had ever seen. Inside the city, just next to the gate and were the chocobo keepers had their business, K'airos had left a particular cart loaded with enchanted crates and two chocobos tied to it. K'airos was somewhat surprised the beasts weren't stolen and eaten by the time she and K'ile arrived, carrying K'luha. The surprise didn't last, though, because she remembered the gate was actually pretty well guarded. What surprised her then was that the Brass Blades hadn't stolen the cart and eaten the chocobos. "Here it is! Intact just as I left it." she said, voicing her surprise. Not yet weary from carrying K'luha, actually kind of glad that he could assure himself that he was really, honestly, seriously doing every single thing he could do to keep her hip as still and pain-free as possible, K'ile was a bit surprised at K'airos' surprise. He did not, however, voice it. "Good. and they're not going to try and take it away again on the way out?" Kluha tried not to whimper or cry with all of the motion. Try as they might to keep her still while moving, she still moved. And it hurt. "Not with me here! I'm all the validation you need to get this out of Ul'dah. How are you holding up, K'luha?" K'airos asked the wounded woman while they got closer to the cart. Luha grumped but didn't actually make any intelligible noise. "I'm sure we'll all be doing a lot better,” K'ile said, “Once Luha's in the cart and on the way home. I had two things I wanted to bring home with me: Luha and a feast. And I've got both of them now." K'airos nodded. Very carefully, she moved so they both could get the fake stretcher K'luha was tied on into the back of the cart. "I hope you didn't have to spend much for all of it." K'ile said, "It was just gil, so nothing of any value." The younger Miqo'te giggled at that. "That's all that has value in Ul'dah!" Luha grumped again. Frowning at K'airos as they deposited K'luha firmly in the back of the cart, K'ile said, "Sounds like something an Ul'dahn would say. If gil is all that's of value here, then there's nothing of value here, and you wouldn't have reason to stay. I think there's lots of things besides gil that have value here." "Well, it's just a simplification..." she tried to explain, even though her grasp of economics could be compared to what a grub knows about photosynthesis. "Gil is more of a representation of your wealth. So instead of carrying forty spears you can carry forty coins. It's more practical, but you can get lost in the 'gil is everything' mentallity." she added. And just as a grub, K'airos got immediately distracted by other concerns. "Do you need me to drive the cart?" "I've no idea how to do it,” K'ile answered. "I'll handle it. You'll get to play escort!" and with those words K'airos reached into the cargo and pulled K'ile's spear from between the crates, being careful to not poke K'luha with it. Handing it to the man, she took the chance to ask: "Do you know how to ride? Should I get another chocobo?" Grabbing the spear from, K'airos, K'ile spun it once deftly befort moving it to put it on his back. The straps that normally held the weapon had been used to tie Luha down, though, which he realized when the shaft of the spear whack his back. He just spun it again once it bounced off and held it, "I can ride in the cart with the food. I don't like chocobo." K'airos was unable to understand that last sentence. She didn't try to question it, having learnt from the Blades that somethings must never be doubted. Things like why your captain can afford things way beyond his salary or why he left those very obvious criminals leave as soon as you captured them. To all those mysteries, and now this much more baffling one, K'airos simply dropped her shoulders in defeat and said: "That's sad." She looked at K'luha. "Right, K'luha? K'ile should like chocobos!" K'luha frowned and squinted at the burning sky. She gripped lightly at the fabric covering her hips. K'ile shoud like chocobos? More like he should stop ditching her for K'piru. If he wanted to stay he should just stay already and not lie like she kept feeling he was. Understanding there would be no support from the wounded woman, K'airos walked around the cart and jumped into the front to take the reins. "Is there anything else we need to get before leaving?" Tossing his spear up on the cart, he said, "I'm guessing there's water? Somebody thought about water, right? Because this trips going to be days out in the desert for Luha and me." "Who wouldn't have thought of that?" she answered, clearly not having thought of that, the silly woman. She reversed her actions: she dropped the reins and jumped off the cart. She also added a nervous laugh. "Where in the Sagolii is the tribe now? So I can...make sure I didn't get the wrong ammount of water!" "Two days out of the Forgotten Springs," K'ile answered. He pulled himself up to sit on the edge of the cart, back to both K'luha and K'airos, but he turned to K'airos to say, "Assuming the haven't moved since then, at which point we'll be following markers." K'airos mumbled and counted her fingers, an action that had not much visual sense since her hands were hidden inside three-pieces gauntlets. "...and three days to get there...alright!" she snapped, clapping and running off towards the city gate. "I'll be back!" K'luha sighed heavily up at the sky as Kairos ran off, but didn't say anything else. After K'airos was gone, K'ile muttered, "Nobody thought about water, of course." Then, with a brief pause, he looked towards K'luha and said, "Of course part of me wants to stay in Ul'dah, the same way part of me wants to just run off and explore Losimna and Coerthas and wherever else. But I'm not a teenager, so I'm not going to do anything that I'll start regretting in a week and not be able to fix." "Would you really regret staying with K'piru and K'airos...?" Luha mumbled after a long moment of silence. She pulled nervously at her clothing, trying not to look nervous for his answer. She wasn't sure she wanted it, but Luha felt she had to ask anyway. "They're you're family... maybe moreso than I or the others..." "They're my blood, and they're my blood whether I'm here or not. They're here. They didn't leave, so they'll be here again. I won't lose them. That's good. And anyway," he turned to face K'luha, lifting one leg to rest on the side of the cart while his other leg and tail hung off. "I said I was going back to the tribe with you, and that I was going to teach K'tahjha to dance. That's what I'm going to do." K'luha looked to K'ile as he turned to face her. She wasn't sure what she could see in his face anymore. She turned her head away, feeling insurmountable despair again. Could this all really be fixed just by going home? K'airos came back, carrying a wooden drum between her arms, of about five or six litters of capacity. She left it on the ground next to the cart. "See if there's space in the cart for three more of these." she said without stopping her movement and leaving again to get the rest. Watching K'airos leave, K'ile muttered, "And what if there isn't?" Still, he turned to face the food and began to ponder the moving of items. He said to K'luha, "If we put you up on top of the crates, you'll have a better view and we'll have more room." "If it's easier for you all I can be moved..." Luha sighed out half-heartedly. "It would be easiest if we put you on wheels and tied you to the back of the cart with a rope," K'ile smirked, his voice joking. "I'm asking you if it would be comfortable. I can just as easily pile the crates up, but I thought you might like a better vantage point." Luha tried to find some solace in K'ile's light-heartedness but... she felt really quite dark still. Still, she tried to smile and and give a small shrug to indicate her lack of decisiveness. Another drum was left next to the other by K'airos. "Is there space? Let's tie them to the sides, maybe?" she ventured, but turned around and left without waiting for an answer. "We have space!" K'ile called after K'airos, hopping off the cart to grab one of the drums and lift it. He huffed, "Sheesh. Water is heavy. ALmost glad we don't have this much back home." K'airos took a shortcut: besides carrying one drum, she rolled the last one, gently pushing it along. Luckily, this part of Ul'dah had even streets. She stopped next to K'ile, one foot stopping the rolling drum from fleeing. "I brought some waterskins too." she smiled. "Good! I wouldn't want to carry one of these with me if I decided to go for a walk!" K'ile was busy putting the drums up on top of the crates so they didn't crowd Luha. Luha frowned at the mention of K'ile taking walks. He was lible to walk away and just not come back. Or so she worried. "K'ile..." Luha called nervously again, her ears standing up and trying to 'see' where he was exactly. "Hm?" K'ile popped his head over a barrel to look at Luha. "Give me your bracelet. Please? Just for awhile." Luha asked quietly, only to feel rather embarrassed about asking and blushing over it. K'airos stoically helped with the barrels. However, her stoicism was strange and she kept this extremely joyful smile on her face. Or at least the half the Brass Blade mask wasn't covering. K'ile frowned at K'luha, then at his bracelet, "You know what this is, right?" Luha nodded quietly, still blushing. K'airos did not blush or nod. More importantly, she did not know what that was. "What is it?" she said, giving voice to her curiosity. Shaking his wrist, causing the five stones on it to flicker red with concealed magic, K'ile explained, "They're the keepsakes that the Elders give to the fire-dancers. Each of the five gets a bracelet with one stone on it, and it helps them to control the flame." "The elders were angry with you for running off with them you know..." K'airos squinted. Not that it could be seen under the mask, but she did so anyway. "Did you steal them?" K'ile tossed K'airos a rather hurt frown, "I didn't steal them! I'm a fire dancer! I just. Recovered the extra ones. From Cartenau." "I know I just... I would feel better if I could hold onto it....?" Luha squeaked quietly. "Are they dangerous?" the younger woman asked. "They're not dangerous," K'ile replied to K'airos. "Every fire dance you ever saw growing up was thanks to someone wearing the stones." He once again lifted his arm and shook the flickering rocks. He then cast his gaze towards K'luha and said, "What does my bracelet have to do with making you feel better?" Luha cringed a little and simply shook her head. "I-i... nevermind. I-it's nothing. Forget I said anything." An idea appeared in K'airos head and burrowed inside her mind right in that moment. It's tail stuck out in the form of words: "I've been doing the yearly celebration. You should remind me how it was done properly, one day! Maybe when you come back to Ul'dah." With the barrels now secured, she sat on the front of the cart and took the reins again. "So, we are not forgetting anything else now, right?" "I'll teach you," K'ile said, promptly forgetting, it seemed, about Luha's request. "And no, we have water and food and each other. Everything else is optional." Luha shrunk back onto her board and tried to close her eyes and feign sleep, feeling rather embarrassed and somewhat ostracized. "Alright. Then let's depart!" K'airos exclaimed, accompanying the words with the snapping of the reins. The chocobos complained about it loudly, but after a moment they moved the cart along towards the gate and out of the city. "Don't be too rough," K'ile said, scolding mildly, "You've got an injured woman in tow, remember." K'airos's ears dropped slightly. She apologized with a muttered 'sorry' and continued to be very, very careful about how she drove the cart. ********** K'ile road along in relative reticence, sitting on the side of the cart and facing away, spinning his spear in front of him. His ears were lain back in trepidation, his expression dubious, tail limp behind him. K'luha was equally silent as K'ile, feeling a strange and oppressive atmosphere among the three. K'airos had troubles with all that silence. Big troubles. Along the jouney, she had kept quiet only for a a few minutes before cheerfully exploding into a sea of stories and explanations about everything or, better said, anything. She had spoken briefly about cactuars, wasps, squirrels, moles, pumpkins, Ceruleum, railroads, giant toads, pretty houses that she liked but couldn't buy and then something called a "Valentione". Whatever that was, it made her blush and keep quiet until the Sagolii Gate was in sight. She pointed at it, and couldn't help herself but explain what it was: "That's the Sagolii Gate!" "Yeah, I recognize it," K'ile said, words heavy and slow. He didn't look up at the Gate. "We'll be there shortly. How are you, K'luha?" K'airos asked, turning her torso around to peek over the crates, losing sight of the road for at least three seconds. Luha was awkwardly quiet. She kneaded her fingers together in her lap, ears flattened against her head. "Yeah... fine..." K'ile flicked his eyes to K'airos, and he frowned. Reaching up to pull on his very red bangs indicatively, he said, "Why're you always wearing that thing?" Her ears dropped to the side. "What thing? The mask?" she said, reaching for it and poking as if she had just noticed it. "Yeah. Hiding your face like that." "It's protective." she explained with an insecure nod. "And...it helps during sandstorms..." Her last words were even more insecure than the nod. Her mouth became a thin line as she pondered about its real uses. "Does it bother you? I can take it off!" she offered at last. Looking out over the sand for a few seconds, K'ile returned his gaze to K'airos and said, "When you hide your face it's kind of like you're trying to hide that you survived. I know it's you, and you're there, but... My mind keeps trying to tell me it's not." "Sorry!" K'airos said, taking off the mask and placing it inside her pouch. Her next action was to change the subject. "So K'ailia's in trouble! What did she do, exactly? Or not do. Not that I'm implying she's guilty! Just that...I guess she...did or did not something that the tribe might or might not approve of." K'airos needed more training into the whole 'change the subject' thing. Specially the part where one changes to a happier one instead of an unhappy one. "She's exiled... She will...and I will simply have to come to terms with that. That to my family, she is dead and she no longer cares for us." Luha injerected, her voice heavy and somber. But she didn't break into tears or anything at least. It was more of a heavy voice of resignation. K'ile didn't have anything to add to that. He offered K'airos a helpless shrug. She dealt with that by staring into one of the chocobo's neck. It was only a few moments before they reached the Gate. "She put an article in a newspaper a few months back. The Tonberry Lantern." she said. "She was looking for some missing tribe members. Mother, Aijeen, me. Airi." The last name carried a sigh that sounded as if a boulder had just struck her. "She wasn't exiled for that, right?" "No... she exiled herself..." Luha answered quietly, her voice still heavy. She didn't say anything else, or act out. She was simply quiet. "Haven't heard about any papers, old or new," K'ile said, spinning his spear in front of him again. "Oh, I'll show it to you next time! It's an old newspaper by now..." K'airos stopped, realizing that wasn't a particularly clear sentence for K'ile. "...but it had pictures!" The chocobos stopped, having found their road blocked by a great porticullis and an even greater wall built around it. Or perhaps it was more of a tower, K'airos though, considering it was short and included a small barrack and an office on the sides. She jumped down the cart, waving at the guards stationed at the Gate. "This should take only a moment." "Take your time," K'ile muttered. K'airos pouted. She kept pouting until she met the guards, with whom she exchanged some salutes, words and nodding. In that order. By the time she got back to the cart, the porticullis was opening. "You should cheer up." she said, still pouting. She climbed back into the front of the cart and then added: "You have the food and the shaman will heal K'luha once you get back! And I'm sure K'ailia will be alright. Aijeen is, and she left the tribe when she was much younger!" K'ile said, "Hm." K'luha said nothing. K'airos was most definitely hating this part of the journey. Carefully, she got the chocobos to move and shortly after the gate was behind them. "Is anyone else in the city I should lend a hand to?" she asked. "Just your mother, I think,” K'ile answered. "Wait." she said, realizing something. "You don't know how to drive a cart." "I'll figure it out," K'ile jumped off the side of the cart, gestured over his shoulder, "Luha will talk me through it." Luha didn't say anything. Again. "But she's too hurt to speak!" K'airos retorted, partially noting the nothingness, too. She was visibly drowned in worry. "Do you know how to ride a chocobo? It's close enough! And I can explain the gaps." "It's not going to be a problem, K'airos." K'ile walked over towards K'airos, moving towards the Chocobo. "I don't like them, but I can manage them." His confidence didnt spread to her much. She took a long breath and smile weakly after letting it out. "Alright. Alright." she said with an increasing cheerful tone. "Ah, tell K'ailia to stop by and visit me if you see her around, alright? I'll make sure she's safe." While she said this, she took off her gauntlet and then the Brass Blade identification ring. She handed it to him. "If any Blade looks funny at you, you show them this and tell them it's none of their business." "I'll call it a memento," K'ile said, reaching out to take the ring and, gripping K'airos by her hand, pulling her into a hug. "I didn't get one from you last time. " There was an high pitched giggle coming out of K'airos mouth. "Ask the elders if it's okay for you to visit me." she said, blushing enough to make tomatoes look pale. "Or at the very least ask them to let me know when K'luha's healed up!" "We'll visit you," K'ile gave K'airos a firm squeeze, took a deep breath and said, "We'll visit soon. And a lot." K'airos hopped like a bunny with palpable excitement, shutting her eyes and smiling broadly. She was still trapped in a hug, but that didn't stop her from uncomfortably shaking K'ile with the movement."I'll hold yo to it!" she exclaimed. "Now get going. K'luha needs the shaman." "Yeah," K'ile said. And after several long seconds, he forced himself to release K'airos, raising a hand up to brush at his face and turning half-away from her, though he look at her sideways through the fail of his red hair. "Yeah." K'airos moved around him and the cart, placing her gauntlet back on while she did this. Then, once she reached the back of the cart, she grabbed K'luha's shoulder and shook it lightly, smiling. "Don't worry! Just make sure to get better, alright?" K'luha nodded awkwardly at K'airos, feeling like an invader to a private family matter. K'ile hopped up onto the front of the cart between the chocobo, causing the birds to sqwak in surprise. He breathed deeply enough to make his shoulders heave, "You live in Drybone, right?" "Sometimes! I don't have a house, so you can just look for me in the inns. But if I'm not there, I'll be in Ul'dah! Aijeen has a...ah...friends there, so we stop by a lot." Nodding, K'ile brushed at his face again, keeping his hair in front of his eyes. His voice is heavy when he says, "Okay. We'll find you." The young woman waved her hand, and her tail raised up by instinct. "Be safe, and come back soon!" K'ile waved high over his head, then dropped his arm and stood atop the cart, watching K'airos walk away. K'luha had already told K'ile he was free to return to Airos and Piru if he wanted to. He didn't need to feel bound by her and there was no reason to further tell him. So she stayed silent and stared up at the burning blue sky. For a long time K'ile stood still and watched K'airos. She disappeared past the gate and unward, and still he stood, breathing, his shoulders shaking on occasion. He pitched his head forward, shook his hair, brushed at it. The Chocobo noticed the stillness and shifted in an eagerness to move, squawked at him. K'luha said nothing and did nothing but stare upwards at the sky. There were so many holes in her family now. Had they always been there? Perhaps slowly tearing until mere threads held them all together? Or had the Calamity punctured them abruptly? K'luha could not help but to think they had already been there. She had always felt isolated and ostracized by K'ile. She wasn't part of his blood, and although she wanted to be part of his family it had always seemed she wasn't welcomed there. But she had always tried. And maybe even succeeded a little bit. For a little while. And then all of the old wounds showed up again. Meeting K'piru in the city and finding Airos... Even now, she could only be reminded that she was not a part of K'ile's world. Not a part of his family no matter how he spoke otherwise. And if she was not a part of his family, nor of her own daughter's family, for what purpose did she even return? For Tahj, Luha tried to remind herself. To fix the things that she had left broken. But the thoughts were very consoling. And all she could feel was a heavy pull on her chest and a vast and unbreakable wall between herself and K'ile. So she said nothing, and did nothing still, and only continued to stare up at the vast blue burning sky. "You could have said goodbye to her, you know," K'ile said, breaking the silence. He paused to cough, sniffling and brushing at his face again. "She's good at goodbyes. Better than anyone else." He dropped himself down behind the chocobo. K'luha didn't reply to him again. What was there to say even? She had never known K'airos very well to begin with. Aijeen had scared her to the point where talking to any of the sisters frightened K'luha, at least when Aijeen was old enough to start scaring people. And when she had offered help, she had been naught but brushed off. Perhaps they were old feelings of lonliness and isolation, and maybe they were K'luha's own fault but they were still there. She tried to think of words she could say that might break the unsurmountably growing chasm between the two of them, but all of the words fell far short and left her resigned to what seemed to be her fate. A fate where she drove off all her own family because there was something wrong with her apparently. Something so wrong even her own daughter couldn't bare to be around her. K'luha let out a silent heavy breath. What was wrong with her anyway? K'ile kicked at the chocobo to make them go forward, and was surprised when they did not, instead squawking at him in agitation and clicking their beaks. "Hey, go," K'ile stompped. They did not comply. "Come on! I'm instructing you to move so go!" Oh right, and K'ile was horrific with Chocobos. K'luha she was probably going to die in the desert. Right. Forgot that part. Luha just looked up unamused at the sky, as if accusing Azyema of having a terrible sense of humor. "Fine! We'll do it the hard way!" Kile hopped down, grabbed the chocobo by their bindings and pulled, "Come on! I'll drag you all the way back to the Sagolii." If there was one thing K'luha was not going to tolerate, it was any sort of even remote animal abuse. "K'ile." Luha called out sharply with a sort of icy tone in her voice. She shortly and somewhat coldly explained how he should go about getting chocboos to move a carriage. "Gently." She added at the end of her small and short speech. "Why would does it have to be- gah. Fine," K'ile said, harrumphing as he moved back between the birds to try what K'luha had described.

((K'airos' character is going to walk out of this thread and into this scene)) (K'hai Tia) Luha, you there? (K'luha Haaz) K'luha laid shakily on the inn room bed. She'd gone and locked the door and wasn't planning on opening it. Her mind had been racing so much it had turned to an absolute blank. She remained still and unresponsive to K'ahi laying with her back to the door. (K'hai Tia) *stronger knock* (K'luha Haaz) Luha remained the same despitethe louder knocking. (K'airos Thalen) K'airos walks in a straight line across the hallway, stopping at each door, staring at its number for a moment before continuing and walking into K'hai's personal space. (K'airos Thalen) "Oh! I'm sorry!" (K'hai Tia) *turns to K'airos* Well well. Hello there *gives a big grin* (K'airos Thalen) The sight of that grin made her shrink, figuratively, dropping her ears and tail. It's like she was about to run away. "I'm sorry! I didn't see you there and I'm looking for someone...!" She paused, ears twitching. "Wait, don't I know you?" (K'hai Tia) Of course you do. And I see you are still as short as ever K'airos. It's me. K'hai. (K'airos Thalen) "K'hai?" The name came out of her mouth like a thin line. "You mean...K'hai! K'HAI!" she shouts and immediately forgets all about social protocols and lunges to hug him. (K'hai Tia) *picks her up and swings her around* good to see you kiddo. (K'airos Thalen) K'airos realizes what's going on and becomes visibly ashamed. She mumbles: "I...well...in the...it's good to see you, too! What are you doing here? How's the tribe? OH! Are you with K'luha?" Her words speed up as she speaks. (K'hai Tia) I don't know the state of the tribe. I've only just returned... as for Luha, she is in here. I failed in honoring her request. *he staggers a bit from obvious dizzyness* (K'airos Thalen) "She is? I was told she's around and that she needed help with some food. Is this her room?" (K'hai Tia) I assume so. I tracked her scent here. As for the food. K'ile broke into the outsiders storage place, with a little help from me. Up to him to retrieve his food. (K'airos Thalen) "What? That's illegal! He can't do that!" (K'hai Tia) Hmph he wouldn't go back to the tribe camp as told. Seems my niece did something foolish and he said he doesn't care about her. (K'airos Thalen) "I'm...not sure what that's about, but let's find K'luha. Are you sure she's in the room?" (K'hai Tia) Her scent is definitely in there. (K'hai Tia) But she wont open. (K'airos Thalen) K'airos tries knocking on the door herself. She's much less loud than K'hai was previously. "K'luha! If you are there and alive, say something!" (K'hai Tia) *looks down at K'airos* I could always break the door down if she doesn't answer. (K'luha Haaz) K'luha was still sitting quietly on the bed, her back to the door. She didn't want to move. It was difficult to even think about answering but eventually she lifts her head lightly and blinks wearily at the door. (K'airos Thalen) "I'm sure you could!" she answers, staring up at K'hai with a strange look. Probably imagining him kicking the door down and being all the more handsome for it. She quickly snaps out of it by shaking her head. "But we could get the key from the innkeep. Less violent and less legally grey!" (K'hai Tia) Hmm alright. Lets knock one more time. (K'airos Thalen) She knocks on the door three times. "It's me! K'airos! And K'hai's here too!" (K'luha Haaz) K'luha lifted her head further and rubbs her forehead. Someone at the door? She slowly and shakily stood before limping over to the door and opening it faintly. "Who...?" She squints outside with hazy eyes, looking hopefully for K'ile but somehow knowing it wouldn't be him. (K'airos Thalen) K'airos hops in place as soon as she sees K'luha taking a peek. "K'luha!" she exclaims, clapping her hands together. K'luha Haaz) K'luha blinks at K'airos, confused at what she saw. (K'hai Tia) *kneels* I am sorry sister. I failed in your request to send him back. He declared he does not care about your daughter. (K'airos Thalen) K'airos doesn't stop her nervous hoping. "K'ailia's here too?" (K'luha Haaz) K'luha looks to K'ahi, her ears flatenning against her head. Ghosts, she was looking at dead people. It couldn't but, and yet K'airos was there. And her dead brother too. K'luha turned a further pale shade and began shivering. "N-no... y-you're wrong..." (K'hai Tia) I await your pummeling. He would not return to the camp. Instead he wanted his food back. So I helped him get into that building. *braced himself to be pummeled* (K'airos Thalen) "Luha, are you feeling well? You look...pale!" She stops hoping, at last. "Don't worry about K'ile! I'm sure he's fine and didn't mean what he said!" (K'luha Haaz) K'luha still shivered while she stood, paling further. He went to get his food back? Hadn't she told him not to? Her eyes looked over to K'airos, dialating and fearful. "He's..." (K'airos Thalen) "Fine!" the young woman completed Luha's sentence. "I'm sure he's fine! Does he still have that smelling sense? I'm sure he could pinpoint every guard's location within a malm with his eyes closed and a big wespe buzzing next to him!" (K'hai Tia) And he had my help getting in. It's quite amuzing seeing a guard dancing around trying to get away from a swarm of captured gnats. (K'luha Haaz) "H-he's... I-i told him not to..." K'luha whimpers and stumbles backwards a bit. "Why...? I-i can't..." (K'hai Tia) Sister, your hip. Be careful. (K'airos Thalen) K'airos walks into the room. "Are you...?" Her ears drop at K'hai's words. "You are wounded!" (K'hai Tia) *also walks in, worry on his face for K'luha* (K'luha Haaz) Stumbled backwards again trying to get away from the two ghosts. Why did K'ile always run off and get hurt? Why couldn't he just stay with her for once? Luha stumbles further backwards and tripped over her satchel, landing hard on her back. (K'hai Tia) *rushes over to make sure she did not injure herself any further* (K'hai Tia) Do you need a healer? (K'airos Thalen) K'airos holds her hands together a few ilms in front of her chest, only the tip of her fingers meeting with each other. She looks down, worried at K'luha. (K'luha Haaz) "S-stop it!" Luha yelped, cringing away from K'hai and grabbing her painful hip. "I c-can't! T-this... g-go away! Y-you're both dead and you have been for five years! D-don't just show up like this on me!" (K'hai Tia) *Sad look* What has happened...? *looks over at K'airos* Should I find a healer for sister? (K'airos Thalen) "I don't know!" she says, and then looks at K'luha without a clue on what to do. "Did you see a healer?" (K'luha Haaz) "Stop just... stop it... if he didn't go home, where is K'ile?" Luha mutters shakily, forcing her panicked stare to the ground. (K'hai Tia) *looks back at K'luha* He was obsessed with some stolen food. So I assisted him in getting into that storage place. He also forbade me from taking you home without his permission, as though you were his property. (K'hai Tia) Where he is now, I cannot say. (K'airos Thalen) "Ah! Where was this place? I can see if he got away or not!" (K'hai Tia) It is in that market place. K'luha Haaz) Luha snapped her head back at K'hai, fury in her eye along with panic. "And you just LET him go? What's WRONG with you!? Did you forget your sense with your sickness!?" She snaps ferally. Luha turns her head back to the ground. She pauses and looks up to K'airos. "Airos... aren't you dead too...?" (K'airos Thalen) K'airos simles at that, closing her eyes in amusement. "It seems everyone thinks that!" She shakes her head. "I'm alive, though! The Flames gave me for dead but Aijeen found me and nursed me back to health! So I'm not surprised everyone thinks I'm dead..." (K'hai Tia) *looks back to K'luha* Fool, do you not think I tried to get him to return home? He refused. He said he does not care about your daughter. Family, no matter their judgement, is still family and should never be spoken of so poorly. (K'luha Haaz) "Aijeen...?" Luha shivers again and looks to the floor. "This is... I c-cannot even begin to process any of this..." (K'hai Tia) *Stands slowly, muscles flexing* So be it. I will go home and see to your daughter. Unless you request my aid further. (K'luha Haaz) Luha looks furiously to K'hai and snarls. "You will do no such a thing! You ABANDONED K'ile to Ul'dah when you should know better than to leave family behind!" Luha actually snarls at K'hai before looking back to K'airos. (K'airos Thalen) K'airos jumps in place. "You can't go anywhere! You have to show me where K'ile was, and then the three of us can go help him!" (K'hai Tia) *low deep growl* First off, I did not abandon him. He is obsessed with food. Food we could easily get plenty of on the way home. *Looks to K'airos* But since you would like to save him, I will gladly show you. (K'luha Haaz) "Because the tribe is starving to death you idiot! You've been dead for five years! Don't talk about shit you know nothing of!" Luha hisses at her brother. (K'hai Tia) I still care for family. And never would I say I don't care for your daughter, even if she did make a mistake. But since you too wish to find the fool, I will let you ride on my back. You should not be walking. (K'luha Haaz) "You obviously DON'T care for family K'hai, because K'ile is also our family! Or did you forget that?" (K'airos Thalen) K'airos places her hands forward, showing her palms to both of them. "Let's...let's calm down! We find K'ile first and then I can help you all with the food issue!" (K'hai Tia) *looks to K'airos* The girl is right. We will find the fool, then take care of whatever business is needing done, then get home. Sooner we are away from outsiders. The better. (K'luha Haaz) Luha looks furiously at K'hai and uses the wall behind her to get to her feet. She hobbles painfully across the room, using the wall to balance herself. (K'airos Thalen) She is saddened of hearing that. "But we have so much to catch up to..." she mumbles, following with her gaze at the angry K'luha. "Ah! If...K'hai can't help you move, maybe I can?" (K'luha Haaz) "I'm not going to be helped by dead people or imposters or people who forget what family means." Luha snaps, limping out of the room and down the hallway. (K'airos Thalen) "But...Luha! I didn't know!" she shouts before running behind her. (K'hai Tia) Has the world gone crazy since I left? (K'airos Thalen) "Wait!" K'airos shouts. "I thought the tribe had died and scattered after the Calamity! But then I found an article, and then I found...ah...I found..." she strumbles with her own words, as if she was physically uncapable to say what she wants. "...and then K'hai! I just found out!" she finishes after a pause.

One bite and these Ul'dahns flew into a panic. Yeah, the bugs were dangerous, but it was pretty obvious to K'ile that these Ul'dahns just didn't know how to deal with insects. The Brass Blade that had been standing watch in front of the store house failed and screamed and slammed himself against the wall, kicking the shards of K'hai's bug bottle all over the stone street. The man was trying to get the door open, likely to seek shelter, but couldn't get enough control over himself to work the lock. All the other bystanders keeping their distance, K'ile jumped into action and dashed towards the man, "Give me the key! I'll get it!" "Aaaaah!" The Brass Blade said as he threw a metal key at K'ile, spinning around three times and flailing his arms at the swarm of thumb-sized bugs, "Thal spare me! Thal spare me!" As K'ile unlocked the door, he was stung by the bugs twice, each one burning with a lingering venom that did not quite distract him from his part in K'hai's stupid plan. He opened the door, pulled out the key, and stepped in. "I've got it!" He proclaimed. "Thank Nald!" The Brass Blade said, but when the door closed and the lock clicked shut, leaving him outside, he cried out, "What! Why? Why do I deserve to die!?" And thew himself against the door, whimpering sadly as the bugs continued to sting him. The store room was a shadowed building, a single room, light leaking in through thin windows near the ceilings. It was was piled with miscellaneous nothings, most of which K'ile could not identify. There was everything from piles of empty bottles to open crates of rotted foodstuffs -- hopefully not the fate of his tribe's feast -- to glass and metal ornaments, weapons and sack upon sack of some unlabeled powder. None of these things were what K'ile was looking for. If K'hai was right -- which meant, lucky beyond all reason -- what K'ile was looking for was a fully-loaded cart ready to be taken. K'ile could smell Brass Blades in the building with him, hear them moving around. They seemed to be idling off behind the numerous piles of crates somewhere, and K'ile kept himself well aware of their position as he crept about the storage area, staying low and close to larger items. If the other Blades had heard him enter, they seemed to have assumed he was one of their own. The Tia found what he was looking for towards the back of the building, and he was surprised that he did. The cart was near what appeared to be a large door, so he guessed it had been wheeled in from some adjacent alleyway. Checking his surroundings first, K'ile crept towards the cart and hopped up upon it, the thing creaking with his weight, and poked at the crates that it still contained. He could smell the steely magic of the preserving enchantments still upon them. The spells were in place to keep the food fresh during transport, but all the Blades would likely be able to discern was that the load was enchanted. Maybe that was why all the food hadn't been eaten yet. Sitting on one of the boxes, ears sticking straight up from his head to listen to the room around him in case someone came towards him, K'ile looked at the yoke on the front of the cart, where the chocobo would be bound to pull it. Of course there were no chocobo present. And the cart itself was large and heavy, barring enough food for dozens of people to gorge themselves upon. K'hai hadn't thought out that part, had he? Or was the man waiting in the street outside with a chocobo, expecting K'ile to just bring the cart out and hitch it up? K'hai was big enough that he could probably just pull the damned cart all the way back to the Sagolii himself. Well, the situation was what it was. K'ile stood and turned to the large door behind the cart, looking it up one side and down the other, seeing a complex system of chains, wheels, tracks that he figured would open it. Couldn't be too hard to work. The small Tia hopped down and kicked the blocks out from under the cart's wheels and found that he could move it some on his own, albeit with great effort. The cart groaned and rattled as it swayed back and forth in response to K'iles pushing. Once he got some momentum outside it would probably do better. Having confirmed that much, K'ile walked over to the large door. Once more pausing, K'ile kicked at a few hinges, watched them click open, then pulled on a chain. It did not give. He turned a lever and kicked another hinge, then pulled on the chain. This time the door rattled and made a loud screeching sound, raised a bit off the floor but stopped before it was any higher than his boot. Tail shiver, K'ile listened to the Blades move in the storehouse behind him, curious at the sound, but maybe still lazy. He could smell the scent of filth, rust and sweat outside the door, but all that told him was that Ul'dahns were in Ul'dah. He watched the light that was coming from under the door, but didn't see any shadows. Damn K'hai's stupid plan. It got him in, but how would it get him out? K'ile searched for a moment, found another lever near the top of the door and pulled on it. The thing snapped into a new position with a great metallic clack, and this time when K'ile pulled on the chain, the door rose up along its tracks and bent to lay itself across the ceiling, opening the wall more than wide enough to allow the cart to exit. It also placed K'ile in front of four Brass Blades, all of whom turned to look at him at the same time, their gazes focusing first on his red hair as though he'd signaled them with fire, and then dropping to the dark face and muscular body beneath. The Tia let go of the chain and self-consciously shifted the lance on his back. Instinctively, he narrowed his eyes and bent into a defensive posture; the intellectual prompt to try and appear unintimidating did not reach him until too late. Avoiding conflict with outsiders just wasn't in his blood, unfortunately. In response to his body language, two of the Brass Blades frowned. One looked confused. But the fourth smiled, stepped forward, and closed the great door. It fell back in place with a loud, unpleasant hiss of steel-on-steel, the grind of rust and dirt. K'ile didn't try to stop it, or to get outside. He allowed himself to be shut inside with one Brass Blade instead of left outside with three. The smiling Brass Blade leaned forward, "You aren't supposed to be here." K'ile growled, "I'm just-" "You're under arrest!" The man smiled a bit broader. Quick to the point, this one. K'ile was less than surprised; it made sense. Ul'dahns stole gil, stole food, so why not put him in a cage as well? It was the logical progression of things. The Tia reached for his spear, taking it from his back and holding it forward, the metal head dark in the shadowed room. "Oho," the Brass Blade took out his sword and shield. "Going to fight are you?" "Yes," K'ile said, and put his spear aside, laying it across the food that belonged to his tribe. Hands free, K'ile dropped into a low stance and spread his arms, fingers flexing. "Like this." A pleased hum shivered from under the Blade's hauberk, and he nodded. "Alright." Putting his sword and shield aside. "Hey boys! Come look at the tiny Miqo'te with the big balls!" In response to this latter shout, there was movement and voices elsewhere in the store room, surprised in response to the words. "Come on!" K'ile jumped at the Blade. The man didn't wait for K'ile to arrive. He stepped forward, his metal-clad hands balled into fists, to deliver the first punch. By the time the punch had arrived, K'ile had stopped short of colliding with the man, and the Tia had put his hands behind him, knitting his fingers together to keep them there. The Brass Blade lay a punch into K'ile's face, then another into his neck, a third into his gut. The much larger man, hands in metal, did not pause in his attacks or show any guilt in pummeling the Tia. And K'ile did absolutely nothing to stop him, just left his hands behind him. "Hey, hit back!" The Brass Blade said, but he didn't stop punching. By this time the rusty knuckles of his gauntlets had torn gashes into the side of K'iles face, down his chest, and he was laying into K'iles gut unimpeded. "Dammit! The hells?" The Blade threw the Tia away from him. K'ile collapsed to the ground, his back and head hitting the stone hard, purple welts already growing on much of his body. He panted, looking weak, defeated. He was laughing, "You win!" "You little shit!" The Brass Blade fumed, gesturing angrily, "I should beat you to death?" The other Blades that had populated the storage room arrived. Four of them. They gave the scene a shocked look, and then turned their gawking gazes on the man that had fought the Tia. One of them said, "What in Nald's name is going on?" "It doesn't matter," the assailant spat, his scowl so much deeper than his smile had been. He still gestured angrily, "This miqo'te broke in! Get him a cell! he's under arrest."

D'hein Tia is focusing wholly on Illira now, "If ity were approved it would not have been necessary! As for usefulness, well, we'll see! You all ahven't exactly changed the world in my absence." llira Carceri smirks, "Maybe not, but things aren't falling apart, which considering everything is a good thing, D'hein." D'hein Tia: Considering that Eorzea is in a state of peace and celebration, things very well may fall apart at any moment. You just won't see it coming because you've no vision for these things. Illira Carceri: Oh no, you obviously listened to nothing in the meeting that we just had not so long ago. We're quite aware of the situation. Hence why its a miracle things haven't completely collapsed. D'hein Tia: Yes, yes, and we need to hire adventurers to get some work done and fix everything. Now, then, as to that investigation. Illira Carceri runs a hand over her face, "What more can I tell you about it? We need another investigator before it can move forward. Though Antimony had said she was close to nailing down the connections." D'hein Tia: It would be a conflict of interest for me to do the legwork. Why don't you just do it so we know that it's done right? llira Carceri tilts her head to the side, brows deeply furrowed. "Are you really not listening to me? I've already told you that neither of us can. Even if we did have the skill sets neccessary. I'm merely telling you why it stalled for the moment." D'hein Tia: I'm afraid a delay in this investigation is unacceptable. It's already taken far longer than it should have. You'll just have to take Antimony back on as a contractor and work with her more closely this time. Illira Carceri glares steely eyed at D'hein. "Absolutely not. She is far too volatile for such, even in normal circumstances. And under the present one, she is of a singular mind, to be with her new-found child." D'hein Tia: No one is of singular mind. An employee is only as good as their supervisor. Whatever approach you took with her obviously failed. Illira Carceri: That is simply absurd D'hein. It is not my fault that women is so crippled by her anxieties as to not do her work in a professional manner. I've seen this time and again with her. Illira Carceri: You merely wish to manipulate her back into closer contact with you again. D'hein Tia frowns and speaks straight, "You've a hideous paradigm for asset management. Employees are assets which collapse if mismanged. I've mind to investiagte your mismanagement of Antimony as an asset, but I'll not insult you with such formality. I'll simply assume that your disability to experience empathy rendered you unable to deal with Antimony's human needs." llira Carceri clenches her jaw, "You have no room to speak D'hein. I have offered her chances and support. I stopped today when I saw her to give her the later. Simply because the world does not turn exactly as you wish it does not mean that you have the right to lay blame on others. To speak plainly, Antimony has a right to live her life and her choice lead her out of our employment." Illira Carceri: There is no "blame" to lay. It is merely time to move onward. D'hein Tia: By your own admission the investigation is stalled through lack of a viable investigator, isn't it? Illira Carceri says, defensively, if not a little angerly, "Because I have not had the time to find one, since I've been cleaning up the mess you left! I'm about done with you. You have taken absolutely no repsonsibility for anything you've done, all the while ordering others about. Apparently you've forgotten that you cannot order me about. I am not -your- employee." D'hein Tia: No, but you are very helpful, and without even being asked! Thank you for that. Now, as the workload thins, I've no doubt your stress will retreat. IN the meantime I cannot emphasize enough the importance that this investigation move forward immediately. Illira Carceri the anger still in her voice, she responds, "I've merely been doing work. And as it became obvious that you were not returning from you vanishment anytime soon I had to take over your post, while still continuing on with my own. You think I'm here in Ul'dah by choice, D'hein? I'm here because of you negilgence. Ildur may be forgiving. But I am not." D'hein Tia: What you call negligence is actually me artfully dealing with unforeseen circumstances. Let's get back on that bit about there being no blame to plce, and see about getting done what must needs be done, hm? Illira Carceri narrows her eyes, "It'll get done when its able to. I think you forget I have a stake in that particular investigation as well, D'hein." D'hein Tia: I'm not concerned with your personal stake, Illira. This is professional, and I'd thank you to keep that in mind. Illira Carceri: You say that, and yet its the Dodos that you're hoping to catch in this. My stake is that I know full well that the Brass Blades are full of corruption. And that the Pearl Lane Post is worse than most." D'hein Tia: Don't assume my associations when you don't know. My tribe's relationship with the SYndicate does give me a decent view of the Syndicates dealings with my tribe, obviously, but that's why I'm insisting you head the investigation. Illira Carceri: And my own involvement with the Blades is why I cannot do the investigation myself. So you see why we need a replacement found. D'hein Tia: Yet you don't have one and the asset that was perfect for the job and practically finished the job has been terminated. Illira Carceri: You need to clean your ears better D'hein. I've already explained the circumstances to you. Antimony quit. She left Ul'dah to run away from personal problems with the intention not stopping until she reached Mor Dhona. Her finding her daughters and returning to Ul'dah now is unrelated. I stopped this evening to talk to her not as an employer but as someone concerned for her health." D'hein Tia crossed his arms and smiled, "Not unrelated. My doing. My skills at asset management returned the asset to Ul'dah despite your failure to keep ehr here. She's the best asset I have in Ul'dah, so I'll just have to put her back together. I assume you won't go out of your way to interfere." Illira Carceri grimaces, displeasure cast on her face, "It is unrelated in that it is no longer the business of the CRA. Your own cheap machinations aside. Her return does not change anything. If she wishes to involve herself in a personal way again, I can do nothing about that. But she is not a fit for the CRA. Not in any reasonable span of the future at least." D'hein Tia: Your opinion is noted. Unless you have a way to make the investigation move forward RIGHT NOW, it is not a helpful opinion. Illira Carceri: Bringing back an unstable probationary former employee is not an option. Illira Carceri: And that is a fact. Not merely my opinion. D'hein Tia: Of course it is. It's not like she isn't elligible for rehire. Even so, it would be best to take her on as a contractor until this single investigation is done. What is not an option is further delaying this investigation in any way. Illira Carceri shakes her head. "I disagree with -your- opinion D'hein. The woman is in no state to work. You are merely blinded by your own desire for her and her daughter. Which given your.... proclaimed parental status over her other daughter is... strange and dubious in intention at best. You're personal interest in her is to close to have any definitive say in her employment status." D'hein Tia shrugs, "You'll have to take it up with Ildur." Illira Carceri: No. You'll have to take it up with him. Her rejoining the CRA is not a given as you seem to think it is. In fact its the opposite. She hired on a three month probationary period. She had issues on both of her initial assignments, the first could be looked over, this one though... absolutely not." D'hein Tia turns to the side and looks up at the sky, "I'm not sure this conversation is going anywhere. You've nothing to offer me to solve the problem, do you?" Illira Carceri grits her teeth. "Now that you can start pulling your own..." she presses her lips together hard, as if holding herself back," ...weight again, I can begin putting forth energy back into it, since I don't have to carry all of your work for you anymore." D'hein Tia turns one ear towards Illira, the other laying down on his skull. He stares at the sky as though it's said something odd to him. "Energy back into what?" Illira Carceri takes in a deep breath. "The bloody investigation! I'm done here. You can look me up again once you've cleaned those furballs out of your ears." The Elezen turns on her heels and stalks away, not bothering, or wanting to wait for any sort of response. D'hein Tia looks distressed and paws at his ears, "Furballs? That's unsettling."

Ul'dah was a hard place to figure out. The scents were mostly mud and filth, and after awhile the stink of Hyur sweat got stuck in the nose and left everything else obscured. Brass Blades took their food. How could swords take their food? Of course the could not, so Brass Blades had to be something else. K'ile Tia crouched in the market, near a wall, watching throngs of people move around each other like mingling currents of water, pooling in tight eddies around market stalls. He'd figured out that "Brass Blades" were people, armed and armored in red and brass. It made sense. Ul'dahns had no sense for names, so it made sense. Rusty shivs. He'd made headway. Shipping crates that were confiscated by these so-called Brass Blades were stored. Near the markets. For investigation. The Tia had asked on Blade about it, and been laughed at. Another had gotten angry and warned him off. K'ile wasn't fooled by any of this: it was thievery. It should be illegal, and it was, yet it was not. Ul'dahn gamesplaying to confuse and heckle. K'piru had said she'd take care of it, before she's left them with the job undone. How had she intended it? She was a money-juggler. Perhaps it was an act that Ul'dahns valued, like fire-dancing. He couldn't be sure. All he could do was crouch and glare and ponder how and where to apply force. His tribe had laws against attacking tribe-mates, but not against attacking Ul'dahns. And the laws of the Ul'dahns? Obviously worth less than the gil K'piru juggled. * K'hai ran through the streets at a full on gait, leaping over lalafells, bounding around lumbering Roegadyns. Till finally the scent trail led him to the markets. He raised his nose once more, taking in the scents and finding K'ile's once more he moved through the markets, more careful this time, before he found his prey. "K'ile Tia!" he bellowed, as he approached. Hearing was not one of K'ile's primary senses. He could hear just fine, and he did hear his name, but he didn't notice that he'd heard it. A strange scent reached him around the same time, a harbinger of someone's approach; it was both familiar and strange. It carried the salts of distant seas, plants he'd never encountered, mineral waters. But also something of home, too, even if it was vague and old. The Tia lifted his head and let his ears fall back over his hair, shifting his gaze around the tidal motions of human bodies. He caught sight of what looked like on of the taller, broader breeds of Hyur, decorated with a Miqo'te's ears and strangely colored marks on his face. The uniqueness of the look drew on unsettling memories, and the hair on his neck and arms stood with a warning chill. He straightened his back and watched the oncoming figure with inklings of dubious recognition, but said nothing. K'hai approached K'ile. Yes his former muscle mass was gone, but even now he was toned enough to look formidable. "You are to return home immediately. Or do I need to drag you there myself?" he growled. He took his mission with a deathly seriousness, as his lions tail wagged with hostility. K'ile blinked up at the phantasm. A strangely thin form of a man, pale perhaps, similar but just slightly removed from memory. "Uhm." He frowned. "Depends where I'm going?" K'hai narrowed his eyes, "To the tribe camp. My sister told me my niece left the tribe and you had invited her to go back there. She has left for the tribe camp!" Through the veil of red hair over his face, K'ile's blue eyes narrowed in suspicion of the man. "You're dead." K'hai snarled, "Believe what you want. I don't care if you think I returned to life to rip your spine out. You need to get back to camp before something bad happens to K'ailia!" "It'll take me a week to get there," K'ile said, "I can wait five minutes to figure out why a ghost is telling me that K'ailia's done something dumb." His voice grew suddenly challenging, "Is there a reason you would want to rip my spine out?" K'hai crossed his arms, "Sister indicated you were responsible for her foolish decision. And believe me. I've got questions of my own. Why is sisters hip broken? Why is my niece now an exile? Why was I told to find and send you straight back to the tribe camp?" K'hai's tail continued wagging, "But I am Tia. I do not ask. I do." "Things are complicated on my end," K'ile replied, trying to sound casual despite the obviously defensive posture. Though he's crouched on the ground, he looks like he's prepared to be attacked at any moment. "Are you dead or not?" K'hai's tail stopped wagging and he looked at K'ile, "Sorry to disappoint, but I am very much alive. Not to mention I am feeling as though my stomache is in a fight with a sandworm because of this damn sickness." In a slow motion motion, K'ile rose and turned towards K'hai. Being a particularly small Miqo'te, he was roughly half the size of the massive man, and yet he looked like he was ready to defend himself. "And what do you remember from Cartenau?" K'hai looked at K'ile, his expression a lot softer than it was, "I remember them damn garleans everywhere, then the red moon decided it wanted to explode." K'hai looked up, as though he was reliving that day, "So many shards of crystal and stone assaulted me.... and then something washed over me. I thought I was dead. But then I woke up to a changed world." The much smaller of the two Tias inhaled enough air to fill both of their lungs, but said quietly, "Did you see Thalen die?" K'hai looked at K'ile, "No... During the fight, I got separated with my unit." His frown on his face twitching between varying degrees of suspicion frustration, K'ile was silent for a long moment before turning his eyes away from K'hai and back to the Brass Blade he'd been glaring at before. The strange tension in the conversation robbed all value from K'hai's survival. If the man was alive, that was one less thing the world had taken from them that day. But there was no joy or relief in it. Not for K'hai. "K'ailia is a fool. If she had a single reasonable thought in her head she would've waited until I'd gone back to the tribe to move. She's going to ruin everything and that's nothing new." K'hai scowled, "She is family. And what, in Azeyma's name, could of made her leave the tribe? Regardless, I want to get back to the tribe quickly. Is there a way? I will take my sister with me if you want." "You can go if you want. From Ul'dah it's a week by Chocobo and that includes the trip through the Sagolii." He paused to marvel at how easily he'd summoned that information, when not long ago he had not so much as seen the city. "I'm not sure about moving Luha that distance yet. And I've got better things to do than help K'ailia fix her mistakes." K'hai frowned at this, "What could be more important than family?" "More family," K'ile replied, easily. "The Sagolii has been in drought ever since the Calamity. More than five years. The tribe is starving. I had intended to bring food back with me, but," he nodded in the direction of the Brass Blade he'd been stalking, "Ul'dahns have taken the food. Outsiders using their imaginary authority to steal from us. I'm not going back to the tribe empty-handed, and I'm not leaving Luha either." K'hai looked at the Brass Blade, "Since when have we let outsiders dictate when we can eat then? Are they storing our food stuffs inside that room?" He looked back to K'ile, "You've grown soft. These Ul'dahn's are city people. They know not how to treat the land. Let the land show them a lesson I say." "I haven't grown soft," K'ile said, "I've grown cautious. I don't know where the food is. I'm trying to decide whose ass to beat." K'hai slapped K'ile on the back, "Follow me, I've an idea, that wont require us expending our muscles." And without looking back, proceeded to the exit of the market. The much smaller Tia was knocked from his crouched position to his knees by K'hai's much larger hand, and he glared up at the man's receding back in annoyance. Still, a few seconds later, he was on his feet and trotting to catch up to the man. Taking up pace beside him, he said, "It's been a few years since I just straight beat the shit out of someone. If your idea works I think I'll be disappointed." K'hai laughed, "This idea is sure proof." A few minutes later, they were in central thanalan, looking at a rather large swarm of biting insects. K'hai smiled, "Should prove a distraction enough to get past them morons to find your wayward food." pointing at the gnats. Crossing his hands over his chest and looking doubtful, K'ile replied, "They have bugs in Ul'dah, too. You know even if we do get past them it is /a lot/ of food. I wa splanning on providing the tribe with a feast." K'hai laughed, "they may have bugs, but not THOSE bugs" He looked at K'ile, "Just how much food are we talking about?" "It was being transported by carriage before," K'ile answered, watching the insects. They looked big enough to be honestly dangerous, especially in those numbers. "Too much for Luha and myself and one other to carry on our own, with two Chocobos to help. If it was just a few bags, throwing bugs at the problem and running off with what's ours would be fine. But with this it gets complicated." K'hai rubbed his chin, thinking over the problem. "So what happened to the carriage that was hauling it?" he asked. "Stopped in Ul'dah and stripped clean. And then," he paused, blinked, and his brow furrowed. "What, you mean the actual carriage and driver? I don't know. Might've been sent back to Gridania? Or he's still around." K'hai smiled, "If it's as much food as you claim, it would take some time for them to empty such a carriage would it not? City dwellers are lazy. Why work to unload, when it would be simpler to just take the whole kit n kaboodles." He looked back to the insects, "We gather the insects, and you were always a better climber than me. You drop them on their heads and I go find your carriage of food." "You're betting a lot on this mischeif, K'hai. If the food's not in there, or if they did unload it, or if the carriage is unmovable, or if there's more of them than you're assuming..." K'hai looked back at K'ile, "What do you suggest we do then? Go through their system? Food would rot." He stood up, "Or we can forget about the food, and just go home and try to assist with the hunts." Looking up at the sky, he growled, "We are Hipparion Tribe. We don't cower at thievery, we face it head on." He looked back at K'ile, "You are too cautious now. If the family is suffering, then caution be damned. Our people are more important than a city full of fat thieves." Watching K'hai with a straight face while he moved through his many points, K'ile replied, "If we don't think this through then we're just being stupid, and I'm no idiot. Still, it's better than just beating up Brass Blades until they give us what we want." K'hai smiled, "Well if you've got a better idea, I am all ears. Though I'd still love to see them tough acting guards dancing around trying to avoid those stingers." He let forth a bellowing laugh, imagining the guards screaming like little children trying to avoid the insects. "I'd still like to see how you plan on moving the bugs without getting yourself in trouble." K'hai grinned, "That one is easy." He pulled out the bottle he used on his trip that carried water and dumped it onto the ground then looked around. "What is the one favorite food of biting insects?" "Blood," K'ile answered. K'hai nodded and spotted his prey and lept forth. In a couple steps he had hold of a marmot that let forth a mighty squeel. He carried it back. "No need to kill it, but if you would be so kind as to extract a little blood into the bottle." Watching K'hai's movement with curiosity, K'ile managed to appear reserved still. His gaze was evaluating, judging, as if watching for K'hai to make some subtle movement that would give something away. K'ile's hand found his hunting knife with practiced ease, and when he complied with K'hai's request, there was no mercy shown to the creature that K'hai had captured. Once the bottle had sufficient blood, he set the creature down and then turned his focus back to the bottle. "Some times, the simplest solutions, get the best results." and picked the bottle up and raced it towards the swarm, sat it down, then high tailed it back to where he was. "Watch and learn." he said smiling, as the scent of the blood attracted the insects who began swarming into, and onto the bottle. Once he was satisfied there were enough inside the bottle, he charged back out again and corked the bottle, squashing what few were still outside and held his prize up triumphantly. "Bottle of bugs," K'ile labeled it dumbly. "And this is your secret weapon to break into the warehouse of Ul'dah's armed thugs." K'hai nodded as he walked back over to K'ile, "Drop these lil critters on them guards, they will be too busy trying to fend them off, and we can simply sneak in." He smiled, "From there, we wing it and adapt as the situation warrants." "I don't like winging it," K'ile said. "Not in this situation. If the Ul'dahns throw us in cages not only doesn't the tribe get the food, but Luha is left alone and I can't go help K'ailia." K'hai frowned, "Well you're idea was to find one, beat them up, and hope they give you back the food. My idea, we sneak past dancing guards. We could always go ask sis what to do." "Eh," K'ile spread his arms, "She'll just tell us to let her take care of it, and then do something stupid without asking our input. That kind of thinking is how she messed up her hips. No, you're idea is better than mine, so... whatever." K'hai frowned at that, "You have a lot to tell me once we get the food back and on our way there. If this plan is to work though, we must leave immediately." He handed the bottle over to K'ile, "You can find a way to release these on the guards, then go get K'luha and meet outside. It will be simpler if I go in alone." Accepting the bottle, K'ile couldn't help one last protest, "Luha shouldn't move. She almost died because she was too stubborn to let her hip heal, and might have if K'piru hadn't come along to take care of her." K'hai frowned at that, "Then why was she not in a bed?" [2:26:37 AM] Twinflame: "Because every time I threaten to tie her down she gets all sad and pouty." [2:28:07 AM] K'ailia Yohko: K'hai seems to think for a moment, "Come to think of it, moving her could be difficult for you. However, your small stature might better get past them, than my own." K'hai smiled, "Change of plans. I will do the chucking, you do the sneaking. I will get sis and meet you outside this gate." Frowning more deeply, "I don't like this change. Have you ever seen me try to sneak? I don't. And nobody's moving Luha until I say so." K'hai frowned, "Since when do you claim my sister? Look, it's not that hard. And I suspect she will listen to her brother, better than you." "You've been gone for five years. You've missed the worst parts of everyone's lives. Don't pretend you know where anyone stands or who will listen to who." K'ile delivered this in a tone of false amiability. "I don't claim anyone, but you don't know what you're stepping into. I'm grateful for your help, but what I said stands: nobody moves Luha until I say so." K'hai sighed, "Regardless, I realized, you are still in much better shape than I am. I am feeling a bit better being out here. But being in the city still makes me ill." He looked at K'ile, "You are small, agile, ane I am large and cumbersome. I am not at my best like I used to be. And she's apparently moved herself anyways. I found her drinking that Ul'dahn poison" "There's a difference between walking to the tavern from her inn room and going out on the streets." K'hai frowned, "Then lets go with a different plan. Forget the food and just take her home. Unless you know someone on the inside that can get the food back quickly." Gaining an edge of suspicion once more, "Why is she necessary to this plan?" K'hai looked at K'ile, "Way I see it, taking back food that is ours, them thieves would do everything they can to round all of us, and anyone associated with us up." He turned towards the Sagolii gate, "But fine, if you want to worry about food and not move her, or go back to the tribe camp as she bid, then I will." aggitation clear in his voice. He was quickly starting to lose patience with K'ile. "You've changed K'ile. And I'm not so sure why you are so hessitant to return to the tribe. But I also couldn't help but notice the bracelette" K'ile pulled his wrist away as if to defend the bracelet, and both his teeth and hostility showed, "Everyone notices it! You're five years too late to give a shit, so don't start now." The small Tias hands curled into fists for a moment, then he forced them to release. He threw the bottle of bugs at K'hai, "We'll go through with your plan, but I won't move Luha until we have the food and the carriage is outside the city. Then we'll all go back to the tribe and and help Luha's idiot daughter." K'hai caught the bottle easily enough, "Fine. I wont move her. But don't act as though I don't care. I thought of nothing but the family since I awoke." Without another word, he marched back towards the city. K'hai was not happy, but at least he'd make sure to take that aggression out once he chucks the bottle where it needs to be chucked. Following after K'hai, K'ile stewed for a long moment before saying, "Sorry. I'm not being fair. I'll feel better once we're out of this damned city."

"No," K'takka said, the statement straight and final, as though it contained an entire dialogue and closed out every thought. She turned away from K'nahli, her head and shoulders swaying tiredly. He sharp fingernails dug into the colored pillow at her chest. "You need to leave now. There is nothing else to say to you."

"Idiot!" K'takka snapped her sharpened fingernail away from K'nahli's chin fast and harsh, so that it would hurt, her tone hardening suddenly, "You are not broken and you do not need to be salvaged! If you think I am wrong it is because you think are a better judge than I am, and that is pride." The elder rose to her feet and stepped back from the girl, "You are speaking both from cowardice and selfishness. You are afraid, and you are focused on your own feelings, giving in to the fear and letting it guide you. Do not concern yourself with redemption; you have yet to collapse. You need to collapse."

Staring at K'nahli's head, ignoring K'yohko and K'ailia as they left, K'takka waited a time while she watched the strands of blue hair move against her wizened hand. Once the Nunh and his errant daughter were gone, K'takka withdrew her hand. "There is no shame in humility," K'takka said, "Dignity is important, but pride is an illness. No person who is reluctant to lay their face in the sand has anything at all to take pride in. They have no beauty, strength, or respect. And yet..." She reached around K'nahli's head and pressed the sharp point of a fingernail beneath the girl's chin, applying a very slight, careful pressure to urge the girl to lift her face. ""Raise your head, K'nahli Yohko. But do not raise it past your shoulders. If the posture is uncomfortable, it is because that is not how you are meant to sit." The expression on K'takka's face softened, much like it had for K'yohko earlier, and her voice grew smooth. "K'nahli, you are meant to stand tall, dignified and idolized by the tribe, and you desire that for yourself, don't you? But do not flee the consequences of your decisions. Learn from your father. He bent the lowest of all, face fast to the sand, the most humble man in the Sagolii. And because of that he is able to stand so much straighter than anyone else. When you have born deep humiliation into your heart, without hesitation or resentment, but with gratitude instead, then you can have pride which no one may question." The Elder breathed deeply, and her old body shivered. "Do you understand this lesson, K'nahli?"

Taking a deep breath and shivering inexplicably among her furs, K'takka waited. She turned her silver eyes on K'deiki, the woman who had always been a better hunt, more well-loved by the Nunh, more popular. But K'takka had thought she had at least managed to out-do the woman in progeny. K'takka's sons were a Nunh and fire-dancer, her grandson another Nunh, whereas the bloodline of K'deiki was tainted with troublemakers and exiles. She stared at the other Elder for several minutes, trying to imagine her thoughts, trying to pity her, because at least K'takka's children were present. However. K'takka lurched out of her furs once more, like a skeleton from a soft cairn. She still held the pillow to her chest like it was the only thing keeping her heart in. Weak steps took her past K'ailia as if the girl were unimportant, as if she were a stranger, as if she had left the tribe and the family of her own will and was adult enough to accept everything which that meant. She paused in front of K'yohko and said, "Your blood is not strong enough, Nunh. Thicken it before you lay with any more huntresses. Would that there were more Tias with the courage to keep you sharp." She flicked her ears in agitation. "Take the outsider and have your moment. Do not be long." Then K'takka moved on a few steps and stopped in front of K'nahli. She bent forward, then let her knees bend until she knelt in front of the young woman. K'takka lay the back of one hand upon the girl's head, between her ears, watching the blue hair shift under her touch. The old woman exhaled, watching the way that K'nahli's young muscles wrapped her bones, holding her in place, controlled and trained. So much like her father, but so different. Turning her gaze away from K'yohko and K'ailia, K'takka moved her hand in a very slight motion. Almost imperceptibly, she pet K'nahli's head.

Her head bowed tiredly where she hung in the brown shadows of the tent, K'takka's ears twitched when she heard her grandson speak. "There are laws against speaking with those who have left the family," she said, out of hand, "These apply to the Nunh as well. You are equal to K'nahli who kneels before us, and to violate the law would put you next to her in the sand. However." The thin neck lifted the elder's head, and her eyes cast through the silver veil of her bangs to K'yohko. "Unlike your children, you do not tremble at the thought of sand under your fingernails, do you? The sand is the desert; it is home. One cannot walk and never fall. You may have your moment in exchange for a moment spent at level with the sand, if it is worth it to you."

Quoted for truth. "As much as I believe in tolerance, I admit that I'm an intolerant bigot who is completely unwilling to interact -- even in passing -- with with millions of people from many different backgrounds." Ansemaru, paraphrased How did that even end up in this conversation?

Great fantasy readers write magic that reads as solid as science. This is why I like to establish detailed headcanons. Back in TERA I literally charted the mana-flows in a healthy body so that I know exactly what my priest was doing when he healed someone and could explain how and why it worked. Anyway, even saying "magic could have happened" does not preclude the Common Ancestor Hypothesis. Padjal are created by magic, but we all know that they are descended from Gridanians. I'm not saying that the evolutionary paths of all the races is completely legit and natural. It actually seems unlikely to me that they are. I would guess that at some point Miqo'te were magically altered, either by design or by accident, to have animal features. There's no lore on that, though, so it falls into a massive gray area that is better debated in-character than in a forum like this (assuming any of you, like me, enjoy IC anthropology debates lol).

See, I also remember SE confirming that the playable races are capable of interbreeding. To me, this is tantamount to SE confirming my suspicions that they are all the same species, with a single common origin. I'll prolly hold that in my own headcanon unless something comes along and states otherwise.

My own point of view on this -- not my opinion, but what I've chosen to think based on the story presented to me, in which I am either correct or incorrect and willing to discuss it -- is that all the player races are in fact the same species. They are different races of the same species, that species being human. There are references to the "races of man" and "mankind" in-game, and the physiological differences of the player characters (even Roe versus Lalafel) are minor compared to those between the "races of man" and the beast tribes. Put simply: player characters are all humans and the beast tribes are not, thus the distinction. Player characters share an single ancestor. The beast tribes have alternative origins. That's why they're beast tribes. This is why I'm confident in saying that Miqo'te are primarily human and secondarily beastly. The beast is there, but it's subservient to the human-ness.

The racial identity to me is less about being a kitty and more about the tribal background and cultural heritage. There's a lot more to Miqo'te lore than fuzzy tails and purring, so it's a little short-sighted to tell people that the one acceptable reason to play a Miqo'te is to be a cat.

The softness of the furs were a hiding place to K'takka. The bright pillow she brought into her lap was at once warming and cooling, its weight upon her limbs like a focus to hold her steady. She did not react to Yohko's dashing kick, muttering instead down towards the floor, "I may be done with the girl. She knows neither peace nor silence nor consideration for aught but herself. She is addicted to words, reaction, her own perception of her right to act. Disobedience is disrespect. An infant knows as much. Outsiders, it seems, do not." Her eyes lifted to K'yohko for a moment and then wandered, perhaps finding the other Elders. She spoke as muttering, "If one wishes to walk, one must first stand still. If one wishes to speak, one must first remain silent," her words slowed, "for a long," and grew quiet, "long time." Her thin body dappled with scars and ancient wounds, pale gaze falling back to the floor in front of her, K'takka closed her eyes and breath. Her bony fingers knit into the pillow she held.

When K'yohko inserted himself, K'takka gladly eased her weight off of K'ailia, letting the bowl be pushed off the girl's head so that she could be lifted into the hands of her just and disciplined father. K'takka's thin lips smirked, eyes gleaming at her son. He may make a better Elder than a Nunh, as great of a Nunh as he was. When he released K'ailia again, K'takka watch the girl collapse, and then slammed the bowl down on her head. She growled, "And now you are angry? Sad, flimsy child. Selfish. The spirit of the lesson has no interest to you, nor does the suffering of others." K'takka's tone turned heckling as she crouched over K'ailia, "You have not been mutilated. You have seen none of your children die. Nothing have you lost or suffered worth lamenting, and yet all you think off is that poor little K'ailia wants to come home. Your return insults all of us! Insults yourself most of all!" To be honest, she was having fun. She was not cruel, and there had been some inkling of a want to teach the girl, of a thought that she might warrant mercy. But she was too stubborn, too sure of herself. She was unteachable. K'ailia would never change her ways because she thought herself better than the world around her. Always had the girl been abusive of her elders, never respectful. K'ailia was like an echo of K'aijeen that had sought to conceal itself, but had been revealed in time. She could only pray that K'luha was not going to act as K'piru had, turning bleak inside. Standing, K'takka spun on the other Elders, "You have been wiser than I this day. I should not have spoken to the girl." Her silver eyes fell on K'deiki, "Perhaps she was born an outsider, but more likely it was a mistake to pretend she had passed her trial of adulthood. She was a selfish child, taking much, and brought nothing back to us." K'takka imagined the darkness that had taken K'piru after her daughter had left, a despair that had left her ghostly, pale, ill. After the Calamity, the woman had all but died to it. Perhaps this was the source of the disease that K'yohko perceived, and perhaps not. But they would have to keep a careful eye on K'luha. As for K'ile Tia, who had not even returned from the scouting mission, who had been outpaced by a selfish, rotten child... The thin woman hissed, her voice towards the exit carrying sharp and long as an arrow from a bow, "Yohko. Return to us." This said, the thin, ancient woman retreated. She felt older than she had in a long time, the scarred flesh on her tail and back turning strangely cold as she moved into the shadowed tent, seeking the comfort of the furs and pillows her adoring scions had gifted to her. Such presents were fewer now. Her children were thinning with time and age.

Miqo'te to me are primarily humans, and not entirely cat-like. Mine do not purr or meow, but they do hiss on occasion (because even humans have an unpleasant shrill exhale they do sometimes). They do not have claws, but they do have thick fingernails, some of which are sharpened. Tails and ears are extremely expressive for my Miqos. I play up their sense of smell in most of my RP as well, and for one of my characters it is his primary sense (he will forget a face, but he'll never forget a scent). To me, Miqo'te purring is strange. It's such a bizarre expression, and there's a lot of debate as to what cats mean when they purr. I also imagine it would sound really strange in the human diaphragm. I don't judge people whose Miqos purr, though; I just ignore it, as in my headcanon, they do not.

K'takka put more weight on the bowl, straining it against K'ailia's neck to force the girl's head down, bending low to growl into the shadowed crack between the bowl and the floor. "The people you mention have enough respect to stay silent and humble! Especially your mother! She knows respect you've never demonstrated, and does not cheat on her lessons. The point of the fetish and the powder is to teach you the wisdom of silence, which it appears you have no concept of." With a hum, K'takka blew beneath the bowl to sir up the dust and force k'ailia to breathe a small amount of it. "This is a lesson, not a punishment. Cheat again and I will show you what punishments we are capable of. Nothing you have to say is welcome or permitted at this time. Screw shut your teeth, bite off your tongue if you must, but do not talk." Riasing her face away, she muttered, "And I, as your father, won't have you blubbering like an infant. Conserve water in the desert, girl." Her eyes lifted to K'yohko, the bitter glare sliding away to favor him with a more merciful gaze, though her words were still hard. "Where is your other daughter? I instructed her to return. Does K'ailia's cowardice already infect her as well?"