Twinflame

D'ahl pointed and called out, "We're going to crash into those adventurers and that angry magic monster they're fighting!" Below them, a number of Eorzean 'heroes' -- no doubt just exceptional enemies of the Garlean Empire -- were in a life-and-death struggle with some large, dark, magitech vanguard. Watching through the hole at the front of the ship as the last few seconds ticked by before their collision with the ground and their likely deaths, D'hein thought primarily of his disappointment in Garlean machinery and the unthinkably poor aesthetics of what was probably meant to be Gaius Van Baelsar's ultimate weapon. He decided it was so ugly and ponderous it didn't deserve to be called an ultimate weapon even if that's what it was. No, it needed to lose a few letters. He decided to call it the ultima weapon instead of the ultimate weapon, because that sounded as unimpressive as the beastly thing looked. It should have at least had a cape, as long as it had shoulders to wear one, for instance. Wait, was that a giant woman with feathers just now? "Do something!" D'ahl shouted, "You didn't come all this way without an escape plan, did you? You're daughter's going to lose both her adoptive father and her mother!" "Mother?" D'hein threw a glare at D'ahl. "I mean girlfriend or whatever," She took him by the collar and shook him, "I can't have this conversation right now! The Syndicate is going to be throwing extravagant victory parties all month and I'm going to be too dead to attend because of you!" "D'ahl, before we die, I need to tell you..." D'hein turned and took her by the shoulder's looking into her eyes. "Actually this is far too cliche and I'd rather die without last words than do this if that's alright with you." "It's actually preferable, thank you." "I'm going to utilize the Aetherytes and return us to Ul'dah now." She gasped, staring at him wide-eyed. "D'hein Tia! You common swindler. You cannot simply use the Aetherytes to escape a death such as this! It's cheating to those like me who cannot!" "I'm taking you with me, D'ahl. Of course, I've saved up plenty of Aethyr and paid all requisite fees before we even left for Ala Mhigo." "Fine! But I'll have you know-!" "Be silent, D'ahl," he boldly placed a finger on her lips. As the aura of fiery death washed over them and they careened towards the very battlefield where good and evil dueled as equals, D'hein purred, "Be at peace, for in this moment D'hein Tia, hero of the Garlean Empire, snatches you from the jaws of death and delivers you- ow!" D'ahl bit his finger. "We're going to die! Go!" And as the two dodos vanished into the Aethyr, an adorable Lalafel who was very bad at not standing where she was not supposed to was mercilessly crushed under the full weight of the airship.

D'ahl stated gravely, "You have failed." "I don't know how to pilot an airship!" D'hein threw his hands in the air. "Why would you think I could pilot an airship!" "Because I asked specifically if you could and you said that, yes, you could." At this point she was actually pointing at him with her knife, though just far enough away that she wasn't stabbing him yet. "Also because of the part where you proceeded to turn the airship on, steer it out of the Garlean base and fly it across half a continent." "Well, yes, I did," he said proudly. "And now you can't fly it all of a sudden!" "I think it's just mad that I took one of its things," he held up a sparkling, blue rod. He thought it would make a splendid cane, and perhaps even a focus for thaumaturgy. "So it's not letting me steer anymore." D'ahl growled, "And where did you get it?" "From the thing," D'hein point at a wall of such things, which had once glowed blue and thrummed peacefully, but was now entirely dark except frustrating flames and sparking. "It's pretty but I think angry. These Garlean magics are so finicky. I can't believe they actually conquered anything with such dubiously precarious concoctions." D'ahl hit him on the forehead, hard, with the butt of the knife. "You are not a Garlean spy! You're an idiot! I'm not going with you on these trips anymore!" "Aw," D'hein frowned, tears growing in his eyes. "But... D'ahl..." "How do I open the windows?" She pushed him out of the way. The bridge of the Garlean airship was a frustratingly dark room made of metal and other artificial materials, lit up by strange magic pods in the ceiling and all kinds of lights and levers on what they had assumed (rightly) to be the piloting tool-table. They hadn't yet figured out how to get the dark metal window shutters to open, though, so D'hein had spent the flight opening the door to check outside. Now, though, D'ahl was getting impatient. She hoped on the pilot's tool-table and banged on the window shutters. "Open up!" She instructed, and tried pushing on them, "Maybe they're just old!" "I'll use thaumaturgy to open it!" D'hein proclaimed, holding up the blue rod he'd aquired, smiling broadly at the thought of testing its use as a spell-crafting focus. Surely Garleans should at least make much better magical foci. "Just don't crash the airship," D'ahl said, hopping down to the floor and getting out of the way. "I didn't even want to go to this Praetorium place. If I don't make it home in one piece you're really going to get it." "Don't worry," the Tia responded. He grinned down at the rod, turning it this way and that to admire its sturdiness and just plain shininess. He wasn't sure about making a focus out of something so very not wood, but it had seemed to be resonating with energy before, so hopefully it would be just fine. if not, what was the worst that could happen? Oh, but if it did, what was the best that could happen? Maybe it magnified spells! Or turned them into megitech spells somehow! Or maybe instead of casting one fireball he'd cast two fireballs!" "D'hein!" D'ahl shoutted impatiently, her muscled arms crossed in her green eyes smoldering. "Windows! Open!" "Sorry, sorry. Swiftcast!" He held the rod overheard, and then swing it in front of him, "Fire three!" And the front of the bridge was filled with explosive fire in an instant. Then the middle of the bridge and then the rest of the bridge, and D'hein felt the ticklish not-pain of being slammed against the wall and burned. As the fire subsided, D'ahl was shouting in fury, "You moron! What kind of uneducated amateur thaumaturge would use a spell like that in a metal room!" "Calm, D'ahl. If you can speak you're fine." D'hein rolled to his feet and shook out his hair, nothing that he was only singed, mostly. Then he looked down at his hand, where he held the rod, and noted that the rod had been melted into a hideous mess of metal around his hand. His digits were numb and unresponsive, his flesh red. "Oh dear," he muttered. "My rod didn't survive the spell. Garlean craftsmanship is rather disappointing." "Look!" D'ahl rushed forward, hopping back up on the pilot table thing. Where once there had been many closed windows there was now a vast open hole, through which they could see the Praetorium and the lands around it. What they saw was a battlefield. "It's the battle the Garlean in Ala Mhigo mentioned! I think I see... I think that's all of the Grand Companies!" "What!" D'hein joined D'ahl at the makeshift window. "And still my superiors in the Empire hide from me! What are they thinking with such reticence? Do they not support the efforts of Gaius Van Balseur, the Black Wolf?" As he finished the question, there was a sudden eruption from the heart of the Praetorium. It was unthinkable in power, such that D'hein was honsetly sure at first he was perceiving incorrectly. The main structure of the place seemed to bloom outward like a flower, stamen of flames launching from the cracks into the sky. Then the petals broke into dust, great chunks of debris smashing to the ground as a fireball rose into the sky. "What was that?" D'ahl asked, standing transfixed. "I think," D'hein muttered, forcing himself to speak calmly. "I mean, perhaps I am wrong, or perceive incorrectly, but if you agree then we can infer that the Praetorium has just exploded." "The entire Praetorium just exploded!" D'ahl said, and cheered, jumped happily. "We're winning! Eorzea wins!" "D'ahl, stop that! Obviously the Praetorium did not just explode! That is ludicrous!" He grabbed the woman's tail to stop her celebration. "It's obviously just Garlean illusion magic or something. Lull people into a false sense of victory." The shockwave from the explosion hit the airship moments later, carrying with it the smell of acrid fire and ignited steel, the heat of the detonation, and enough force to push the airship up and to the side. D'ahl and D'hein were knocked away from the window as the airship pitched far back, and then corrected itself far forward. Its nose fucked down, and this time it did not correct. If anything, it accelerated. Actually it did accelerate. As the ship began to make magical sounds which were very repetitive, loud and annoying, D'hein shouted, "I believe the ship is now falling!" "Falling!" D'ahl shouted, clawing back to her knees and staring wide-eyed at the black pit where the Praetorium once was. "We can't crash! I refuse to crash!" She looked at D'hein and shouted, "Are you killing me, D'hein Tia? Are you killing me!?" "At this point I honestly don't know anymore!"

"What have you done!?" The Garlean soldier fell to his knees, whaling in despair. The defeat on the Hyur's face was undercut by the ridiculousness of those gods-damned hats they wear. "All is lost!" "I don't know what you're talking about," D'hein muttered, watching D'ahl bandage his arm. She pulled on the bandage as hard as she could. "Does this hurt?" "I don't know." "What about this?" "Still nothing," D'hein's ears swiveled in alternate directions, his tail whipping around in amusement. "But I don't think it needs to be that tight." "All is lost!" The Garlean announced again, falling onto his back like a child throwing a fit. "Doom! Doom! This is how my life ends!" One of D'hein's ears pointed towards the man. "I still don't know what you're talking about." He sat on a large box made of some bizarre unnatural element while D'ahl stood in front of him. They stood in what the Garleans called a 'hangar' which was to D'hein more like an armory for weapons that looked like humans, and also some airships. The Garlean soldier rolled to his feet, "You liar! I can't believe I trusted you! You don't work for Garlemald at all!" "Hey," D'hein's ears lay flat on his head, glaring at the man. "I know that you're upset about something but I am a hero of the Empire!" "Hero of Ala Mhigo's more like it!" He pointed at an item D'hein held in his lap, "Don't pretend you don't know what that is!" "It's a souvenir," D'hein rolled the complicated, blinking metal item in his hand. "Your machines are complicated, so I'm sure there were plenty where this came from." D'ahl muttered, "You don't actually work for the Garlean's, do you?" "Rude!" D'hein snapped, then softened, "But you're still beautiful." "Power's off throughout most of the base!" The Garlean rose to his feet. "And because the doors are mechanical, we can't even get soldiers to the vanguards! Much less get the vanguards out of the hangars! The Ala Mhigans are raiding the warehouses for supplies and the unit stationed there is cut off from all reinforcements! And forget about getting reinforcements to the Praetorium before it falls to the united Eorzean armies!" The man's voice quivered, chest heaving in panic. "With a failure of this magnitude I'm like to be executed!" "Well," D'hein smirked at the man, "Maybe you should have been more proficient with your duties." "Beastly Eorzean! This is all your fault!" "Rude, again!" D'hein glared, gesturing with the random but most likely unimportant shiny magiteck thing, "You're just trying to defer blame!" The Garlean pulled his weapon, "I'll take my vengeance now! Perahps I can still maintain my good name if I-!" He promptly fell over with D'ahl's knife sticking out of his eye. "D'ahl! We've talked about that!" "Be silent, D'hein Tia." She hissed, tying off the bandage and turning her back on him. Walking over to the twitching Garlean corpse. "I still don't buy that you're a Garlean spy but whatever. It sounds like there's a battle going on at that Praetorium place and the Ala Mhigans are using the distraction to make a grab for supplies." "What's your point?" D'ahl ripped the knife from the man's eye; it was wider than his eye socket so came came out with a gooey snap of bone. "One moment," she said, holding it in front of herself and staring off into space. "I'm fantasizing about the rugged chin of the Ala Mhigan's rebel leader." Blinking and biting his cheek, D'hein leaned back and kicked his legs. "Alright, take your time." He waited a few seconds and then said, "Was he a clean man or a dirty man? How rugged are we fantasizing?" "Mm," D'ahl looked over at him, squinting and bit a corner of her lip, "I'm sorry. In my imagination I'm telling him to do scandalous things with your daughter while I watch. Do you want me to describe him." "You terrify me in every way possible, D'ahl." D'ahl shrugged, grinning scandalously, and in the next instant she became very serious. She pointed with her knife, "I'm taking the lead, D'hein Tia. It's time to evacuate and head home. If you are lying about being a Garlean spy you'd best tell me now, for I intend to test your skill with machinery!" "I will pass any test you place before me!" D'hein proclaimed, hopping off the box and crossing his arms.

After pressing K'ailia's forehead into the ground, K'takka pulled her knuckles from the girl's neck and rolled back away from her, easing back onto her sharp heels letting her head roll, gaze taking in the many fetishes on the ceiling. On a whim, she reached up and took one that was above the threshhold of the tent, pulling it free with a snap of leather. Orobon bones clattered, buzzard feathers spinning as K'takka's furtive movements brought her around in front of K'ailia. She threw the fetish on the ground in front of K'ailia, the sound a violent tumult of clicking bone, and then spun away. She took a wide bowl and put a very small amount of rust-colored powder in it. She dumped the powder over the fetish on the ground, and lay the bowl upside-down so that it covered both the fetish and K'ailia's head, effectively trapping the girl with the fetish and the powder. K'takka leaned her meager weight on the bowl to hold it and the girl in place. She explained, "The orobon bones are an artifact which inspires wisdom and calm. The powder is from the smoldering glands in a sand-drake's neck: if you inhale very much of it, your lungs will be burned. I implore you to breathe very slowly, very very carefully, and to think. I once gave your father such a lesson." As though summoned, K'yohko Nunh entered the tent. K'takka's silver eyes rose to him immediately, and for a moment they flashed with a softer expression. But K'ailia's weight beneath her kept her in the moment, and she gestured down with her eyes. "I am told the fire-dancer instructed her to return. This somehow does sound like likely, doesn't it?"

"Idiot question!" K'takka snapped at K'nahli. "I thought you knew better. Don't spit in the dirt, girl. Find you father." Then the wiry-thin form of the elder snapped away, back into the tent, her frayed tail twitching about. She took a small number of quick steps, until she was immediately behind K'ailia. The old woman's movements were stiff and quick, as she leaned forward and pressed the sharp knuckles of one hand against back of K'ailia's neck. "Bow your head! Humble. Your return means you do not understand. You have no right to be present, to speak. None."

The shadowed tent was thick with incense and herbs as usual, the fragrant stink of alchemy and shamanism. The entry of the young White Mage caused the myriad fetishes that adorned the ceiling to shift with a subtle clattering, like teeth being stirred in a bowl. Shafts of dusty light turned, laying over pillows and blankets, shelves and bowls of half-prepared concoctions spread over the floor. A wiry form snapped out of the shadows immediately next to K'ailia almost before the girl was finished speaking, knocking against her with all the force of a sinewy skeleton and pushing her further into the tent. A bowl of strange powers fell of K'ailia's head, filling her hair in the air around her head with a thick dust that would sting the eyes and nose. With the flicker of reflective, silver eyes, an ancient voice hissed, "Do not speak unless you are instructed to!" Pushing off of K'ailia, the elder K'taka -- progenitor of both K'ailia and K'nahli -- snapped open the flap of tent that had only just closed. Her thin limb flew like a biting snake, and her thin fingers latched around K'nahli's arm. As though a creature peering out of the earth, K'takka glared at K'nahli, and the elder's hands shook with age and anger upon great-grandaughter's skin. "K'nahli Yohko," she hissed. Her one disfigured finger and its black nail shivered grotesquely in the sunlight. "Go, find you father! Bring him at once! The elders would speak to you both. Now."

K'airos Thalen stood outside the door of her room for a while. She fumbled with her gauntlets, trying to get a good hold of her key. She couldn't, so she quickly took them off and held them under her left arm while her free hand takes the key and opens the door. She stepped in. D'aijeen Thalen was crying in the corner, facing the wall. She held her hat in front of her face, and when the door opened, she flinched and went silent, burying her face in the hat. K'airos did not speak at first. She sniffed the air briefly, and then sighed. She closed the door quietly behind her and faced her sister and her corner. "Aijeen? Are you alright?" In silence, D'aijeen waited as if she thought she might not have been seen. When K'airos spoke, a few short sobs escaped before she collected herself, and then she said, "No! No, I am not. The light and warmth has been stolen from my world. I am cold and frozen. I am ice!" Ears lowering, K'airos said, "Because of that woman? You shouldn't worry about her! I mean..." She took some steps closer. "You sent her away, right?" D'aijeen flinched towards the wall, pulling herself up into a ball. "You have hurt me, Airos! I don't care about that other, except that you chose her over me. So simply. Like a beast she sweapt in and stole you, despite every promise you had made to me. I had not thought your promises so frail." K'airos took the gauntlets that she had clumsily forgotten under her arm. She waved them around as if they could explain things. "Don't be like that! I was just confused by the shock! In fact..." She placed them down over one of the side tables. "I have a surprise for you!" D'aijeen Thalen held her hat to her chest, wiping tears from her face. "Confusion. One does not say such very precise and hurtful things out of confusion. What is your surprise?" K'airos Thalen placed down her blade against the wall. She wondered why scimitars didn't come with sheaths, but then she remembered the matter at hand. "I asked the captain and I got a few days off! I was hoping we'd go back to Ul'dah and spent some days together." Chuckling, D'aijeen hid her face in her hat. She choked out another sob at the end. "That is your consolation for saying that you do not trust me? For saying that I would lie to you? A few days?" "I'm sorry! I can't get more and pay for our living without using the savings for the house! And...and I trust you! I shouldn't have...I'm sorry!" K'airos looked down to the floor while she continued taking off her armor, making awkward clunkly sounds. "Such simple apologies for such a cruel words. You demonstrated no sadness when I said I would leave. No hesitation! I had never felt less valued. My collapse was complete, and public, and humiliating. You mean to rebuild me with such simple mortar." After she managed to get off her pauldrons and most of the belts, K'airos replied, "You said you'd go to visit D'ehl! I mean...D'ahl! You would have been off only for a few days...not indefinitely." Taking a deep breath, she added, "What do you want me to do?" "I do not know, Airos. Yesterday I believed my happiness was of great importance to you, but today I feel like it is something you find cheap." K'airos' voice broke a little bit. "That's not true! Your happiness is my only priority!" She took her chainmail off by pulling it up and above her head, bending forward considerably. When she was done with the motion, she dropped the haubergeon right on top of her gauntlets. Though D'aijeen tried to stay still, her shoulders shook. "Then why do I feel that it is not? We are supposed to take care of eachother! I am to trust you and you are to reciprocate, both of us completely without hesitation. But you did not! And now I suspect you will betray me and return to that woman. You have made me doubt you! I feel ugly." Sitting on a stool, K'airos started to work on taking off her boots. "I'm saving money so we can have a house together. I'm not changing that plan. If I was going to run off with some weird, lunatic woman, I would stop saving it and spent it! Probably on that woman. But that's not what I want! I want us, both of us, to live together! In the same house. We'll pick the furniture together and pick the prettiest stools! And two large beds with the biggest pillows we can find...!" she rambled. D'aijeen Thalen turned suddenly and threw her hat at K'airos, then turned back to her corner and curled up again. The side of K'airos' body received the hat. "Ow!" she exclaimed, more out of surprise than any real pain. "Are you never going to forgive me? Is that...what you want to tell me?" Ears shivering, D'aijeen shook her head, and her hair flipped about. "I will forgive you, because you are the only radiant and warm thing which I possess, and so captivating, so precious, that I will alway forgive you. I am eager and desperate to do so. But tonight I think that I am going to be angry at you, and this anger makes me very sad." K'airos left her boots right next to the scimitar and stood up. "Well" she started, sniffing once and looking slightly above Aijeen. "Would a hug help?" After a significant pause, D'aijeen whisper, "Only if it lasted for a very long time." K'airos Thalen smiled and quickly fell behind her sister, dropping her arms around her and tightly hugging her. "I will not let you go until you tell me to." She said quietly. D'aijeen Thalen sat quitely stoic for a time, letting herself be hugged while she stared at the wall. But in a sudden moment, she broke backwards against her sister and wailed, "Why can't we just be left alone? I already have everything I want!" And began to cry again, sobbing heavily. K'airos Thalen combed her sister's hair with one hand. "Don't think about that! It will pass. Think about what a great time we'll have in the city! What would you like us to do in the first day?" D'aijeen turned sideways and lay her head against K'airos, shoulder, gripping the girl's shirt-sleeve while she cried, "I don't care. We can do whatever you want. I don't care." "We could go visit D'ahl. Wouldn't you like that? And there was that girl you liked a few weeks ago in the tavern...I think she had blue hair. She looked cute, and you were so interested it was even cuter!" D'aijeen Thalen tried to still her sobbing, forcing herself to speak shakily, "No. I don't want to pay attention to anyone but you. I want to do things you want to do." K'airos, placing one hand on the side of Aijeen's head, pulled her closer. "But I want to do things you want to do!" She said with a faint giggle. "This is going to be troublesome if we continue...oh! What if we go see the sea?" D'aijeen smiled through her tears, and wiped her face on K'airos' sleeve. "Yes, let's do that. You and I can go to the sea. We can go right up to the water and then I will not push you into the surf. Although you'd be very cute all wet." "And I will not pull you with me! And then will surely not fight in the water by splashing it all over each other....and then we can find some shells and try to see if it's true that you can hear the sea with them...! Though I guess we will if we try that right next to it." Squeezing K'airos' sleeve happily, D'aijen laughed, "That sounds like fun. Your ideas are very silly, Airos." She sighed, lifted her head, and turned her face to look at K'airos. "I am less mad now." "Good! Though I know something that will make you even less mad." "Hm? What is it?" K'airos Thalen pulled herself only a bit away and leaned just enough to look at her sister in the eyes. With a broad smile, she asked, "Have you heard of the ancient art of tickles?" And she did what anyone would have expected her to do: playfully testing her sister's tickling resistance. D'aijeen prolly should have seen that coming, but for whatever reason didn't. She hadn't rolled very high for tickling resistance, so she curled her body away from K'airos and tried feebly to push her sister's hands away. Of course, the meek girl failed. She pleaded for her sister to stop while making embarassing laughter-like sounds. K'airos Thalen did stop, sporting the most satisfied grin. "Did it work? Say 'yes'!" Taking a moment to catch her breath, D'aijeen panted out, "Yes, Airos, it did." She reached out to poke her sister's soft side with a finger. K'airos giggled, her natural reaction to the poking being to bend to a side. "Don't make me start again!" she threatened, one hand raising with the fingers curled. But she was quickly distracted. "You have a cactuar in your hair!" D'aijeen Thalen blinks and bounced her ear, looking into the bangs on the right side of her hair, "Yes I do. I can make him dance." She bounced her ear some more, making the cactuar earring swing around. K'airos laughed. "It looks good on you. I should get something for me...maybe a bomb! No, no...maybe it would set my hair aflame and then people would think I am a real bomb or something." "I don't think you would have to worry about that for an earring, dear." K'airos nodded. "Maybe you are right." Then, leaning forward, she added. "Do I keep hugging you here in the corner, or do you want to go to bed?" D'aijeen smiled playfully at her sister. "You may carry me to be if you wish. I believe my exhaustion is catching up to me, and you know how tired I can get." K'airos changed to a kneeling position. "Then let's go to sleep!" she said and reacheed to get her sister to literally carry her. However, before actually lifting her up, she frowned. "Do you want to sleep in those clothes?" In a mischievous tone, D'aijeen teased, "Did you wish to take me out of my clothes?" But pushed on before K'airos answered, "A bath and a change of clothes would be exemplary. I'm sure I smell of corpses. But I really am too weary to care." K'airos threw her head back at the first part of that, and then returned to normal. "That's true! And I must smell like sand and mole spines!" She stood up without carrying Aijeen, instead opting to scratch the back of her neck. "I should get us a tub and hot water." "If you choose to. I will be here, waiting for you. I think we should do a displacement test for you while we're at it, so retrieve my clipboard from the dresser and place it near the tub, please." K'airos Thalen taped her fingers together, smiling with her eyes closed. "I will!" she exclaimed. She spun around and went to the door, opening it and heading outside.

The Garlean Hyur pressed his forehead against the bars, and his silly leather helmet shifted stupidly on his broad scalp. His smile was vacant, his eyes emptier still. His happiness was an artifact of his stupidity. "What did you say to me?" He chuckled, his voice failing to realize his false offense. "I wouldn't normally repeat myself," said D'hein Tia, poking at the the hole through his shoulder and grinning at the feeling of it. His grin was full of intellect, he was sure. His voice, at least, dripped with sincere challenge. "I am a hero of the Garlean Empire and an operative of the Frumentarii. I will be shortly free of this cell." "Oh, you think so?" The man placed his leather-clad fingers upon the bar, clutched them tight like a puppy's neck. The metal hallways was disappointingly dull. D'hein had hoped for flickering lights and marvels of machination, but it was a jail cell, after all. "Would you like to hear what they're doing to your woman-friend right now?" "Probably nothing." D'hein volunteered. "Such activities as your tone seeks to imply are not the habit of a well-managed military." "We're real good at breaking the woman," the bore said slowly. Like the walls, the Garleans D'hein Tia had met were disappointing. Engineers and masters of mechanical magic they were not. He assumed it was an artifact of Ala Mhigo's resistance. "They start by-" "You are an Ala Mhigan, aren't you?" D'hein said. "Eh?" The Tia took his attention away from his shoulder, wiping the blood on his finger off on the blanket next to where he sat on his bunk. The room was otherwise unfurnished, just blue and gray metal. "A collaborator. You an Ala Mhigan collaborating with the Garlean occupiers." The man smiled, shifted his feet back and forth. He appeared as an indecisive, overweight opo-opo. "Yeah, okay. I'm a traitor. Born of Ala Mhigo. What's it you?" "It is the source of my great disappointment," answered D'hein, standing and sighing. "You see, one truly acculturated to Garlemald would call themselves first Garlean, and Ala Mhigo only after that. Even among Eorzeans Ala Mhigo is a disreputable and filthy race. That your people do not cast off your ethnicity and allow yourself to be fully claimed by your conquerors is causing you to be a heathen-sort of mongrel. Uninteresting and ugly. Why, I can see how... it... Damn it, Dahl!" "You're welcome," she said, as the Ala-Mhigan-Garlean's corpse his the metal floor, making a hideous sound with his last breath. "I wasn't done telling him that he was stupid! You shouldn't stab people who are in the middle of conversations!" "I didn't stab him," D'ahl said, her lips smiling and her tail swinging around behind her. She held up her bloodied knife, "Just dropped my dagger and the good fellow caught it between his ribs. It's not polite to blame the lady just because the man injured himself in his chivalry." She paced over to the door and began to prod at the lock. "There's a sort of stiff floppy card thing in one of his pockets." D'hein explained. "It's a magic key. You're looking rather well for a prisoner. What have you been doing?" As she crouched over the corpse to search it, the sleeves of the very new shirt she wore pulled back to reveal her muscled and very clean arms. "They never got me to the cell. I escaped once we were inside the city and joined the Ala Mhigan resistance. Made use of their facilities and resources, helped them assassinate a few people and free a few hundred slaves." She stood, having found the card, and went to open the cell. "I also managed to supply the resistance with a lot of stolen weaponry and food, and the honored my contributions with a brief feast before we were beset by Garlean hordes. Our victory in that battle set up the Ala Mhigan people with enough force of weight that a number of women and children were able to flee the city to safety." The door swung open and D'hein stepped out, saying bitterly, "You attended a party without me, D'ahl?" She nodded, "That is the most important part of what I was saying, yes." Then she pointed her knife in his face, "And I am very angry at you. I'm beginning to think you're not actually a Garlean spy." "Of course I am. Obviously, though, my contacts have never actually been to Ala Mhigo." He crossed his arms over his chest, and the action caused several drops of blood to shoot from his wounded shoulder and stain the wall. "And how do you know that?" "If they had I would be recognized," D'hein stated boldly, "The reports my supervisors in the Agency send to our superiors in the Garlean Empire no doubt glow with many descriptions of my person and accounts of my good work. When we finally do arrive at the location of my overseers, I expect it to be staffed by intelligent person of culture who are well-versed in my exploits and eager to meet me." "... Okay?" "Let's go! We'll have to search the other Garlean bases!" D'hein began down the hallway boldly. D'ahl shook her head, "Sure, let's just tour all of the- hey! Don't go that way! It's guarded!" She chased after him.

"What's your plan?" "Have faith in me, D'ahl," the Tia smiled up at the city of Ala Mhigo, adorned with all the technology and metal magic of the Garlean Emprie. "I'm a hero of Garlemald, so it won't be a problem." D'ahl's brown ears swept back and she ducked her head forward, hair sweeping in front of her features. "My faith in you is completely in violation of my sanity, D'hein Tia." "Love is separate from sanity," Dhein spun towards her, brushing her hair out of her face to look into her eyes. "Why cling, then, to sanity? The only comfort there is that of philosophers who spend their lives lamenting the state of the world. And we do not lament, for have love and beauty, abundant, as far away as one another's arm spans." The woman glared up at D'hein, her tail shivering in warning, "Sometimes I wonder what you would do if your flirtations were well-received by your daughter's lover." "Flirtations? These are simply my feelings. If you perceive them as flirtations, then I am all the more glad." In truth he knew they were flirtations and would panic if they were well-received, not the least of all because he had once harbored designs on D'ahl which had been dashed by none other than his own daughter. The whole thing where D'ahl oft disguised herself as one of D'hein's employees so that his D'aijeen could act out incestuous fantasies was not to be though of in any kind of vicinity to these things, especially since D'hein harbored designs on his coworker who was D'aijeen's birth-mother. D'hein straightened suddenly, "Actually! If Antimony and myself did work out reomantically, it would be as though Nymeia guided our coupling." "Wait. Who is Antimony?" "That would be D'aijeen's mother," D'hein mentioned off-handedly. "As fate, the woman who birthed the child and the man who adopted and raised her, all coming together to reconcile one another's bitterness and form a family together." Shaking her head, tail shivering again, voice dropping, "Wait! You know D'aijeen's mom?" "I have resolved myself!" D'hein punched his palm with one fist, "Antimony and I might not have the best relationship, but farbeit from me to question fate! I will give Antimony another chance, and we'll see just how readily love repairs all!" "Wait!" D'ahl grabbed D'hein roughly and forced him to face her, "So because you can't get me in bed you're going to go hook up with someone who apparently looks just like me even though she's someone your daughter hates?" "What!" The Tia cringed away from D'ahl. He could tell by the tightness of her grip that he should be feeling pain, even though he did not. "That's not it at all! I just thought... you know... fate... love... repairing..." "And what happens to me when D'aijeen gets her mommy back while I'm still riding on the whole incest thing?" D'ahl growled, "What if I make a better mother?" D'hein went wide-eyed, "By Thal! That is the most unsettling question anyone has ever asked me!" When D'hein's shoulder exploded, he sensed it primarily as strange tingling and a visual splatter of red fluid across D'ahl's angry face. She flinched away from him heavily, letting him go, making a high-pitched, cute squeak of surprise as she through her hands over her head and fell to the ground. D'hein's only thought was to mutter a quick, "Oh! I'm sorry!" as though he had sneezed on her. "You've been shot, you idiot!" D'ahl jumped to her feet and took D'hein his collar, throwing him behind a nearby rock. He landed with a cough, and then observed, "Oh. Right," as machine-propelled metal began to slam in to the ground and rock around them with an unnaturally quick rhythm. Loud and violent, the storm of the Garlean attack lasted for several seconds before subsiding. At which point D'ahl said, "D'hein, we need to go before they kill us. We're too close to the city." "Right," D'hein popped up and raised his hands over his head, waving to the walls and shouting, "My name is D'hein Tia of the Eorzean Federation's Commerce Regulation Agency! I believe you've heard of me!" Because he'd been hiding behind a rock, he hadn't noticed the approaching Garleans. They heard his introduction from about to yalms away and were upon him right before he bothered to see them, throwing him back in the dirt. "We've got you now, Eorzean!" "Wait!" He protested, struckling pitifully as his limbs were moved in unlikely directions and bound that way. He could hear D'ahl sturggling and cursing nearby, sounding to be in a bit of pain. "I need to speak with the Frumenari!" One blue-clad Hyur with a ridiculous leather helmet leaned down to look in D'hein's face, heckling, "That's a pretty typical like for you people." "It is?" D'hein said in honest confusion as he was lifted from the ground. "But that's a really stupid lie. You'd never believe it!" "Exactly." "But I really do need to see the frumentarii, so if you'll just point me on my way we can get this all cleared up." "Thal damn you, D'hein Tia!" D'ahl shouted as she was carried away by the Garleans. "I'll destroy you for this! I'm going to kill you!" "I apologize, D'ahl," D'hein responded. He watched his golden necklaces swing in front of his face as he was hauled towards the city of Ala Mhigo. "I did not anticipate such rudeness from our enlightened conquerors."

((This thread takes place immediately following the Visit of the Incorrigible Dodo and significantly prior to the current RP timeline. It'll catch up to it over several posts, though.)) D'hein Tia was an exemplary member of the Dodo tribe in Ul'dah, a man of lustrous golden man and perfectly trimmed tail whose red robes shimmered with golden finery and immaculately cut gems. He often walked into things in the street, but did so proudly, even though he failed to notice his nosebleed after that wall sort of reached out and grabbed him. It was dark, and yellow lamplight is somewhat less effective than white, so onlookers should not hold it against him. D'hein Tia presented himself at the D-tribes humble compound, a set of lofty towers adorned in exquisite tapestry and rare foreign plants preserved in the hot Ul'dahn air by magic. It demonstrated its humiliated by having only one fountain, crafted decades hence by the finest artisans the Syndicate had ever possessed, instead of a handful of smaller fountains. More prideful communes would have at least five or so fountains, he was sure. As it was night, D'hein was granted the luxury of solitude. Except for the dim lights and trickling fountains, all was dark slumber, except for the high tower somnus den where the Nunhs held their horrid soirees on a near nightly basis. D'hein tia paused in the courtyard, turning his green eyes up to the lit balconies and listening for the groans of unsatisfied women. he didn't hear any, of course, but he heard how the women talked. The Nunhs were secretly homosexuals, they said, and D'hein had confirmed this for at least one while he was seducing their women. Which is why he only came home at night. A certain D'themia Nunh was still waiting for an excuse to kill D'hein Tia. Halfway up one of the towers and across a bridge so thin it would make a Lominsan's knees shake, D'hein Tia pushed open a door and walked into a dark apartment. "D'ahl? D'ahl, are you decent?" It occured to him belatedly one should ask such questions before entering an apartment, and he was about to turn around when his thoughts were interrupted by a table that rudely struck his knee and toppled with a clatter of metal, glass and wood. There was no pain. D'hein looked down and noticed a tear in his robe from the tables sharp edge, and stuck his finger in the hole with a frustrated expression. "Twelve-damned..." "What! Who is-?" A woman ran around the corner in a thin nightrobe, a white and nearly translucent thing that billowed out from her form like woven spiderweb. She was perfectly proportioned, from her thin shoulders to the extra weight in her hips, and she was... familiar. D'hein looked from her hips to her face and frowned in confusion. "Antimony?" "What?" The woman took the glasses from her nose, gray-brown hair bundled up and hanging in braids below her ears. She sounded strangely excited, though her volume was a cautious whisper, "What's an Antimony? Is it a new kind of legal fee?" D'hein's own voice did not respect the time of evening. "Ah, no. You're not... I mistook you for someone else." "Ah, that's fancy," the woman pulled her robe tighter about her body, a show of modesty that had the accidental effect of making her shape more easily distinguished. "Being mistaken for someone else in my own home. Only you would make such a mistake, D'hein Tia." He averted his eyes from the image. "Apologies, D'ahl. I can only assume you've been taking advice on your appearance from D'aijeen." "Instruction, more like, at the pain of discipline if I don't comply!" She said this with humor and pride, her smile flickering in the moonlight that careened from one mirror to the next on walls that appeared drenched with sideways puddles. "The glasses are for reading, but the hair the hairstyle and hint of gray is all according to D'aijeen's very specific designs." No matter where D'hein looked, he could see D'ahl in the mirrors. Even when he looked down at the floor, the mirrored shards of the glass-top table he'd broken reflected hints of of soft skin in sheer silk. D'ahl had never distressed him so, and in fact he had often hoped to catch such undefended glimpses of skin on her pristine body. Except D'ahl had suddenly become a doppleganger of D'aijeen's mother. It was strange that he'd never caught the resemblance before, but it was so exaggerated and accurate now that in the shadows of D'ahl's shimmering apartment D'hein could tell no difference between D'ahl and the woman D'hein had earned so much ire from. D'hein took a steadying breath and inquired, "How long has she been-?" "Years! It's a secret," at least there was the comfort that D'ahl's voice and manner of speaking was far removed from the woman she so resembled. "Which is the crux of my carelessness, D'hein Tia. This is a secret intimacy between D'aijeen and I, which you must not let her know that I revealed." "Intimate," D'hein repeated, eyeing the mirrors, which were filled with D'ahl's body. "D'aijeen is here now?" "Uhm. Yes, but..." The woman shifted in an uncharacteristic fashion, hands knotting in the folds of her robe and green eyes skirting towards the mirrors. Like D'hein, she would now discover that this apartment precluded all comfort from aversion. Her subtle attempt to look away was made obvious when she found D'hein's gaze waiting for her in the mirrors, and he saw the concern. "But what?" "She's begun a new habit of sleep-walking. I've never seen its like, except for the handful of times I've seen it in recent times." "Recent times?" "The past moon, perhaps," she pondered, nodding, "The first of the episodes was on the twenty-fifth day of the last moon. There have been five such episodes, and the seem to have triggers. I'm keeping track of circumstances to try and diagnose them." "If she's been ill you should have told me!" D'hein bit, his ears laying back and his eyes squinting into the shadows. "You of all people should know that she-" He bit off his frustration when he realized that it was misplaced. D'ahl still looked like Antimony, a woman who had shown no openness to the possibility of her childrens' lives. That Antimony thought her children were dead was no excuse. D'hein, every bit D'aijeen's adoptive father, still found himself angry with Antimony. It was unreasonable, and further unreasonable to let that anger slip against D'ahl. Particularly because there was no way D'ahl could know. "Apologies," D'hein implored. "D'aijeen has long suffered from sleep-related abnormalities." D'ahl nodded in patience, a gesture D'hein wished he had seen more often from the woman D'ahl resembled. "Perhaps you will recognize what she is experiencing, then. Come with me, I'll show you." With that, D'ahl spun away to walked into her shadowed apartment, brown-blond tail swing behind her and throwing the robe away from her legs seductively. D'hein would not have looked were he not forced to. He may be perhaps a lecherous man to the women of his own tribe, but he did not wish to disrespect Antimony by objectifying her double. The thought was bizarre, and yet not as bizarre as the thought of D'aijeen doing so, and everything that implied. These ponderings disoriented D'hein and left him feeling as though he were trudging through water, reinforced by the shimmering of a hundred decorative mirrors on the walls of D'ahl's apartment. He knew the woman well enough to know that it was designed to specifically confuse, the mirrors interspersed with windows that were designed identically, causing one to question the difference between reflection and transparency. By the time he arrived at the sitting room, his eyes no longer believed there was such a thing as windows. He looked out the massive windows that ran the towers outer wall and perceived them as mirrors, confusing his balance enough that he had to pause and breath. Inexplicable night wind blew in from opened windows concealed among the mirrors to his sides, soft moonlight reflected a thousand times. Glass wind chimes clicked like settling ice and through darting fragments of light over him, over the world. The view of Thanalan was reflected behind, above, below him. He felt like the floor around him were tumbling, but that he was stuck to it. D'ahl watched him with a smile, patient with his discomfort. She enjoyed it. It continued for a long moment before D'ahl took a black tapestry -- a tribal pattern leftover from his tribes origins in the stony steppes west of Ul'dah -- and through it over what looked like a pane of glass in the room. But it had not been glass; it had been a mirror. And this simple movement stabilized the room in a moment. The mirrors and windows seemed to switch places in a sudden tumble, and only the floor beneath D'hein remained still. What he had thought were windows were in fact large mirrors, suddenly obvious, and there was now an open view of Ul'dah to his right through a small pair of windows -- in fact the only two in the room -- which he had not noticed before. He heard humming in the suddenly static room. A large number of sofas and tables adorned it, shelves stacked high with glass figures that had been invisible moments before. He had also somehow failed to notice D'aijeen, who stood directly in front of one of the windows, staring tansfixed. His adoptive daughter, her skin the color of mud, her hair and tail a mossy green, was being attended to by D'ahl. The double-image of her mother, perhaps a few years younger, draped a silk night-robe over D'aijeen's otherwise naked body, the image bizarre. D'hein could almost picture D'aijeen being cared for by her mother, Antimony, out in the tribal wastes of the Sagolii. The image took on a twisted air when D'ahl leaned forward to kiss D'aijeen's lips, and the man turned his gaze aside. The now-tamed mirrors in the room permitted the gesture, and he let himself feel the shivering ache of distress in his ribs. The humming continued. Melodic, high in pitch, quieter than the wind. D'hein lifted his gaze back to where D'aijeen stood unmoved, eyes looking at the window as if she could see through D'ahl's body and watch the moon. For a moment, D'ahl met D'hein's gaze, and then she announced to him, "D'aijeen is asleep. It's distressingly adorable, isn't it? She does not wake from this spells until she is rested." D'hein blinked at this, bundled up his resolve, and moved over towards the the women. He settled himself next to D'aijeen looking down at her face. The girl's blue eyes did not seem asleep. They wore a sad sort of wonder, and her lips moved. The humming was something exhaled from her throat, a slow and sad music. In her fingers, one of the glass figures -- a kind of drake, perhaps -- was being turned over and over between bother of her palms. Her digits moved over it strangely. She was feeling it, as though it were something unusual. "What is she humming?" "I don't recognize it," D'ahl answered, placing her face very close to D'aijeen's once more. "I've been listening. It's pretty. But I don't know the tune." He turned to look out the window, "Is she looking at anything specific." "Just clouds." D'ahl waited a moment before expounding, "She doesn't always look at the sky. She just stares at things in these episodes. There's no similarity between one thing and the next." D'hein exhaled a sigh and brushed a lock of D'aijeen's hair behind her ear. "She's just sleep-walking, D'ahl." he turned his gaze on the woman, peering through his brown-blonde her to take her green eyes with his own green eyes. "I think we need to have a talk about your relationship with my daughter." The woman looked D'aijeen over, was silent for a moment, and then smiled repulsively while she swooped forward, laying her cheek against D'aijeen's forehead and wrapping her arms around the the girl's shoulders. She eyed D'hein with an amused but unmistakable glare. "Your 'daughter' would disagree, as do I, D'hein Tia. And it is not why you came here tonight, is it?" The ache in his chest resonated as he watched, and he tried to give it a precise identity. D'ahl was not a bad person. She was, in fact, one of D'hein's most trusted allies inside the tribe. And a good match for his daughter, normally. When D'hein had first found out about the intimacy in their relationship, he'd been glad, in fact. Why should such a simple thing as her hair change all of that? Because D'aijeen had requested it? It was not an unattractive hair style. "You've become distracted, D'hein." "Apologies." He shook his head slowly. "You're right, in fact, that I did not come here for this. Not that I would normally prescribe any reason to come to your home at night except I could not sleep but to see you." Even in his disturbance, the instinctive flirtation found his voice. Whether D'ahl was D'ahl or Antimony, she was still beautiful. "It's simply that we leave tomorrow for Ala Mhigo, you and I, so I wished to confer prior." "Everything's in order," D'ahl said. "Poor D'aijeen will miss me, though, so I was letting her stay over." "She'll have to go and stay with her sister and Drybone while we're gone. We don't want D'themia causing another incident if he decides he can force her to mate while we aren't around." "D'aijeen and I have discussed this," D'ahl said, squeezing D'aijeen about the shoulders. The girl continued to hum and stare out the window. "She was frustrated but accepting. She is so enthralled by her sister I'm almost jealous." "As am I," D'hein admitted, and shrugged. "There are some details I'd like to go over, but..." D'ahl nodded to him, "But tonight I am dedicating time to D'aijeen. These spells only last an hour or two and then she goes back to bed. When she does, I intend to rouse her to discuss this." She fixed the Tia with a frown, "I do not believe this is mere sleepwalking." "What does D'aijeen think?" "That is personal," D'ahl's green eyes slipped closed, her voice turning boastful, "D'aijeen and I keep many confidences. Now, D'hein Tia, please leave. It is improper for a Tia to be in a lady's room after dark, and we would all be inconvenienced if you were to find yourself queued for punishment again." He huffed, "Fair enough," and turned from the woman. As he did so, Dahl ceased giving him her attention, turning it instead to D'aijeen. As D'hein Tia walked away, he watched in the mirrors as D'ahl stared into the eyes of the supposed-orphan whom he had adopted. Years after taking her in, he had met her mother. Perhaps if he had not, he would not have realized the strangeness of D'aijeen's relationship with D'ahl. He made it all the way to the door of the apartment, catching steadily smaller glimpses of the girl and her confidant, glimpses of scandalous skin and strange closeness. He tried not linger too long on these things, choosing instead to assume that they were artifacts of assumptions on his part. Antimony was a lovely woman, so why shouldn't D'ahl resemble her? He had heard women were often attracted to men who looked like their fathers, so perhaps this was a similar thing. "Oh, Aijee, why are you crying?" D'hein stopped with his hand on the doorknob, glancing to an adjacent mirror. Through a series of a dozen fake windows, D'hein could see the sitting room, D'ahl staring into his daughter's eyes. "Why are you sad?" D'ahl dabbed at D'aijeen's face with the sleeve of her robe. Her voice suddenly sounded very much like Antimony's voice. "My little Aijee. Don't be sad. I'm right here. Mom's here." [align=center]* * *[/align] It was not until they had been out of Ul'dah for a week that D'hein finally found it in himself to say, "You do know how strange it is, right?" D'ahl gave him a sideways look, her sweat-dappled face no longer resembling Antimony in any way. Her hair down, her demeanor different, and after a week of riding a chocobo all day through hot sun and cold night, the differences stood out. Her clothes were thick leather, her hair not only unbraided but messy and several shards lighter, younger. Antimony was a soft, studious woman, and D'ahl was decorated in muscles and scars. Her facial markings were similar, but different. And her voice was smooth and deceptive like a politicians, bearing no hesitance whatsoever when she feigned ignorance. "What is strange, D'hein Tia? The way you wound yourself to the point of bleeding but cannot be bother to notice?" "Yes. That is a strange and fascinating thing which I do." He stared forward at the blue horizon, smiling to himself of his very masculine and impressive tolerance for pain, that was not in any way the result of a damaged nervous system as some people said. They would be arriving in Ala Mhigo the next day, and he found all of these days of riding pleasant. He shook himself, "Dammit, D'ahl! No! You're trying to confuse me!" "It is very easy." "D'aijeen has you playing the part of her mother! And you're in it." He point. "She coached you on how to talk like her, right?" "Yes," D'ahl answered, as though it were something to be proud of. "D'aijeen designed all of it. My hair, my voice, told me to use less complicated phrasing, and such as that." "And that doesn't strike you as unusual?" "Oh, at first I was completely..." D'ahl pondered for a moment, swaying back and forth with the movement of her chocobo. The wind caught her long, straight hair and blew it against her face, where it stuck in her sweat. Her pale skin had begun to turn red with sunburn days back. In fact, she hardly seemed feminine at all, much less to resemble Antimony in any way, except perhaps vaguely in the structure of her face, the color of her eyes? "At first it seemed nothing more than an unsettling and honestly revolting perversion." D'hein was torn between the want to agree with D'ahl vehemently and the want to defend his daughter from some sort of insult. "After a time," D'ahl said, "I perceived it as cute, and then as very sad. But it makes sense. I appear and speak as though I am her mother, and tell her that I love her, and am proud of her, and that I admire and cherish her every whim. And she cries sometimes, and I tell her that it is alright because I will always be there for her." The Tia's jaw moved strangely, trying to imagine what such interactions must look like, but he could not imagine D'aijeen requesting such things be spoken to her, nor such words being honestly delivered in D'ahl's voice. But it would not be D'ahl's voice, would it? It would be D'ahl imitating Antimony's voice. "D'hein!" "What?" He snapped his gaze up, and then his chocobo suddenly bellowed a shrill, dramatic cry of warning and jerked to the side. The bird failed to avoid the mole under foot and toppled, sending D'hein rolling to earth. The mole shot off in one direction and his chocobo ran in panicked circles as the Tia kicked his way out of a stand of succulents, grunting in protest. "Dammit D'ahl!" "Azeyma have mercy!" he heard the woman call. "Stop writhing! You'll only make it worse!" "I'm fine!" He said, and pitched himself to his feet, finding himself unsteadied by the lingering presence of fleshy, green vessels on his body. He flexed his arm, feeling his robe and skin shift oddly, and paused with a subtle, "Oh," when he realized that several cactuses were joined to his flesh by a few hundred cactus needles. Many in his face. It didn't hurt. "What is wrong with you!?" D'ahl shouted, jumping from her chocobo to run to his aid. He actually chuckled, "I think it might be about time for me to admit that I might have nerve damage," he said. Then he turned his gaze to D'ahl and demanded, "Listen! Are you or are you not knowingly contributing to my daughter's incestuous perversions?" "It's not sexual," D'ahl said, pulling on thick gloves and reaching out to take hold of the succulents. "Well, it is, because she and I are, and it's... but it's not just..." "Don't cloud the issue, D'ahl!" He grunted when she ripped one of the succulents from his arm. It still didn't hurt. "Be quiet, Tia! Oh, I wish I could hurt you." She shook a cactus in his face, "Your daughter is very sad and I'm doing what I can to comfort her. I have absolutely no desire to hear your thoughts on the matter. Now cease speaking of it or I'll shove this in your mouth and you'll never taste anything but cactus soup again!" "But she hates her mother!" D'hein protested. "It doesn't make sense. And what if her mother turned up? Imagine how strange it would be!" "I will not warn you again, D'hein Tia!" She pulled another cactus off his body. "Actually, while I have power over you, I demand you tell me why we're going to Ala Mhigo! Are we to aid the resistance?" "No," D'hein answered. "I'm going to try to contact my superiors in the Garlean Empire." D'ahl froze. "What."

D'aijeen Thalen collapsed to her knees immediately in front of K'airos, suddenly crying uncontrollably, and wailed, "I don't know why someone would do this!" K'airos Thalen seemed to have gotten hold of a bottle of something indefinite, probably some kind of wine. She stared blankly at the floor, her eyes wet. D'aijeen Thalen lifted her head, turning to Airos, and reached out to pull on the woman's hands. "She was a liar! She was a liar! She admitted it all after you left! She was so cruel!" K'airos Thalen grimaced. "What happened?" D'aijeen Thalen cried while shaking K'airos' hands in her own. "She admitted it! She said she was trying to deceive you! That she wanted to use you to rob the Blades! She said she'd come back and talk to you again when I was gone and that you'd believe her and betray me!" K'airos Thalen shook her head. "No. I mean to me. What happened to me? I didn't want to leave. But I left anyway...it doesn't feel right." Panting from her tears, D'aijeen shook her head, "What? Airos, you won't betray me, will you? You won't believe her and leave me! I love you. Don't leave me." " I don't want to leave you! I wasn't going to. She's...I thought she w-...she's...she was..." K'airos Thalen shook her head again and took a sip from her confiscated bottle. "If it was mom, then why can't we..." "It's not! She's a liar! Believe me, K'airos! She's going to try to deceive you again! She heckled me! She said you would choose her over me. I'm scared, Airos!" "How did you know she wasn't her?" "Because mom is dead. I'm sorry, Airos, but she is! I wish she wasn't. I wish so much, for your sake. But she is. K'airos Thalen looked away. "Couldn't you be mistaken? She was so like her!" D'aijeen Thalen shook her head, "No, Airos. She admitted it. She told what she wanted! Don't you believe me? Don't you trust me?" K'airos Thalen frowned at D'aijeen and stated with a severe tone. "You hated our mother when you were in the tribe. And you showed me you still hate her when D'hein showed up with that...paper...thing...the something's Lantern." "I desire it for your sake, then!" "That doesn't make sense!" D'aijeen Thalen steped forward and pulled on K'airos hands, her face streaked with tears, "It does! I love you immensely and desire anything at all to make you happy, but this liar and her false hope will not! You must believe me. You must!" K'airos Thalen let her hands be pulled, and after a brief moment of conflicted emotions she turned around, giving her back to D'aijeen. "I need to think! I'm sorry." "Airos!" D'aijeen Thalen pulled her hands back to her chest, devastated, "No! Listen! You... Trust me, Airos!" "I trust you, but...not in this. I'll see you back home." K'airos Thalen picked up her scimitar and shield. "You... can't! I'm not going to go home!" D'aijeen Thalen stood stubbornly, "If you don't trust me then I'll just go to Ul'dah and visit D'ahl!" K'airos Thalen turned around and smiled weakly. "Tell her hi from me, then." She then turned around and keapt walking towards the exit. D'aijeen Thalen shivered a little bit, "... but... But you..."

Some time after K'piru vanished from her own hotel room, K'ile finally stirred from where he sat against the bed. He left K'luha on the bed and leaned forward, eyes on the thing K'piru had grabbed at as she had left, as though it had been precious. She'd taken papers -- signs of the Ul'dahn's obsessions of gil and paper setting into her mind -- and something from this box. There was another peice of paper on it, and he recognized it as a letter even if he couldn't make out the penmanship with his meager skills at words. Paper wrapping about some obscured item. "Luha," he said, "Can you read this note?" He held it out to the woman on the bed. K'luha was half asleep, tormented by the dreams of people's backs growing further away until they were swallowed whole. But K'ile's voice stirred her from her sleep and she blinked a few times before looking over. A note...? She carefully took it and moved to sit up a little bit so she might read it. K'ile dug into the package, turning aside the paper wrapping, then frowned and closed the wrapping again. "What's it say?" He walked over to the bed and sat down next to K'luha. Luha struggled to read the letter very well, and stumbled over a few words, but eventually got the whole letter read out in tact. <<< 'Dear Miss Antimony, I hope you are still in Ul'dah as I am sending this message post haste and I fear the delivery moogles might kill me if you're not. The journey to Coerthas has gone well and I am back in the snow. It's really lovely this time of year, I hope that you will come up someday to visit. In honor of the Starlight Celebration, I've sent this coat for you. You know, if it gets cold or if you want to come up to Coerthas and wear it. Or sell it. You could do that too. But I hope it will be of more use to you in wearing and not selling. My sincerest reguards to you this day. In meeting you I have found the strength to go back and face something that I have most feared. I was running away from my fears, but for some reason you've inspired me to go and fix the things I have broken. A little bit like you fixed my head. I wish you a wonderful day, and I hope that this message gets to you safely. Your Friend, Mitari Xerxes. Aka that one miq'ote dude you healed and got you thrown in jail in case you already forgot. P.S. I dont' know why this Elezen noble sent me these... but they look like they'd fit you better. Or you could just burn them or something. Maybe a nice regift? I just thought maybe you could find more use for them than me.' >>> K'ile frowned deeper and looked down into the box, moving the paper again to look at the gift which he now concluded had been sent with the letter, from this Mitari person. He took a deep breath, and held it, closing his eyes. He muttered gravely, "I see." [align=center]*[/align] Illira had been sitting down in the tavern portion of the Quicksand for sometime now. After having collected herself for a little while in her own innroom, she had returned downstairs to await for Antimony to come meet her, so that they might get about clearing up the mess that this investigation had turned into. She had a strong tea sitting down in front of her, though it appeared to not have had much drunk from it. Instead, she glanced around impatientally. Surely it shouldn't take this long to have moved her things to a new room. She sighed. But this was Antimony. Delays were to be expected. [align=center]*[/align] K'luah wasn't sure what to make of the letter, but apparently K'ile didn't make anything positive of it. She instead folded it carefully and moved to hand it back to K'ile. "May I have it back?" K'ile reached to take the letter from K'luha. K'luha handed it back without another word. K'ile stood suddenly, throwing the box in front of him and singing his hand against the note. The small scrap of paper burst into flames and dispersed in the air. He shouted angrily, "She's left us to go to Coerthas and be with some foreign lover! Look!" He held forth the suggestively tight holiday pantalettes that had been contained in the box, "His choice of gifts and words of fake just-friendship tell me his intentions are unworthy! I won't stand for it!" [align=center]*[/align] Illira sipped a bit from tea, tapping her leather clad foot on the floor. Upon realizing that she was doing so, she immediately put a stop to such and set her down her barely touched drink. She looked around again, taking in the fact that many people had come and come already in the time that she had been left to sit and wait. [align=center]*[/align] K'luha flinched and looked to K'ile's sudden violent outburst. A lover in Coerthas? It hadn't really sounded like that to her. Although, part of K'luah was about ready to tell him just to hand over his damn braclet and chase after her for the rest of eternity. But that wasn't fair to him. He had been very patient with her. She owed him the same. "K'ile..." K'luah called softly. "The letter said he didn't know what to do with them and that she might have some other use for them. Those were originally sent to a man from someone else it sounds like. He didn't really sounds like a lover to me." She sighed heavily and looked at him wearily. "I don't think she's running off to Coerthas to meet a lover." "And what would you do," K'ile said, tossing the pantalettes towards K'luha, "If I gave these to you and said," his voice depended and turned into something smooth, with a smirk. "Hey, let's find some 'other uses' for those. Hm?" K'luha picked the pantlettes off her face and examined them. Clean... and a nice color. "I would do this." K'luah remined somewhat smugly and reached down to remove her own pantlettes. They were flifthy anyway and she tossed the dirty pair at K'ile before putting on the clean pair. "Much better." K'ile spasmed and recoiled. "Well excuse me. You didn't lie dying on the desert floor for hours. I was sick of having sand everywhere." K'luha frowned and looked away from K'ile, faintly upset that he was spasm and recoil. She opened her mouth and closed it again, fighting the urge to tell him to just go chase K'piru. "We can get you a bath, then!" K'ile protested. "There's still sand... everywhere." K'luha grumbled, pulling at her top as if to illustrate her point. "The sand out near Ul'dah is not the sand in the Sagolii. I dislike it. But yes. At some point, a bath would be good." She took a long sigh and glanced back at K'ile. [align=center]*[/align] Between the many that had moved across the Quicksand at that moment, was a lalafell carrying a basket. She was not wearing rags, but almost: a bulky hooded coat, yellowed more by use than by age. She carried a basket, big for her size, and wore a smile in her face. She walked among the adventurers and drunks, her head barely visible above the tables. She walked next to Illira and did not recognize her, but the Elezen might have noticed that it was Ulanan. Also known as "Antimony's pet lalafell". Or so some evil tongues said. She passed by and went towards the room. Illira watched as a tiny figure walked by her, her eyes narrowed in faint recognition, before sitting back in her chair, having decided to give Antimony a few more moments before returning to her room to see what the hold up was, not wanting to deal with the headache that dwelled within its walls. Ulanan reached the room's door with surpising swiftness. She aligned herself properly with the frame, placed the basket down at her side and raised her other hand high into the air, stretching her arm and yawning. With that formality out of the way, she knocked the door three times. K'ile stilled when he heard the knocking on the door, giving K'luha a look. Of course a thousand thoughts went through his head as to who it could be. One of them was K'piru's "boss" and the rest were all K'piru. With a deep breath to steady himself, K'ile walked to the door. It's important to describe K'ile now: he is a shirtless, tribal Miqo'te, covered in dirt and sweat. His extremely red hair is topped by a bandana that does not fully conceal it. His tail swings about behind him like a thing on fire. He thew open the door, looking and finding... nothing. What? He leaned forward and looked to either side, very confused. Ulanan's confusion was unparalleled. She did not waste any time staring at the shirtless man, instead using those precious seconds to step back, cough, and think brief unlady things. "Excuse me, sir, but I'm...looking for Antimony. Did I get the wrong room?" she said, leaning away from him and looking to the other doors in the hallway, checking their numbers. The door? Oh god, not that woman again. K'luha pulled the blankets over her head again and frowned. She couldn't do that again. Not again but... When she didn't hear rude comments, Luha paused and pulled the blankets from her face. Antimony...? It sounded really familiar for some reason. "What?" K'ile looked down. A short... Hyur? Lalafel! He stepped back quickly. "Oh! That's... hi. Uhm. This is K'piru's room." [align=center]*[/align] Illira once again took a deep breath, this time, getting up out of the chair. She glanced down at her tea, as though considering what its fate should be. Apparently it was to be left cold and unappreciated, since the Elezen walked away from the table and towards the Inn stairs that led to the Inn rooms. [align=center]*[/align] A shadow crossed the lalafell's face. One hand moved to pick up the basket from its resting place, but did not lift it. "K'piru." she echoed. "Are you members of her tribe? Did K'ailia send you?" she asked with a deep frown. "Uhm," K'ile stepped back again. A dark premenition washed over him, like a cool wind blowing out of the Lalafel's tiny shadow. Something terrible was about to happen. he could feel it in his bones. Every fold on the Lalafel was suddenly dark as night, and that basket it... what terrible secrets did it conceal? The Tia's feet caught on K'luha's discarded pantalette as he backed up, and he began to stumble to try and rid it from his foot. "Nobody sent us!" he said as he struggled, "We're friends! She invited us!" Well that was the most blatant lie K'luha had ever heard. She cast her glance over towards K'ile, but her face didn't betray anything. Friends... bah. K'piru had looked like she would rather die than ever meet with them again. Walking up the stairs for the third time this day, Illira saw instantly Antimony's old room at the back of the hallway, though curiously, it had a Lalafell standing in front of it this time. She paused, frowning, before letting her long legs carry her the rest of the way to the room, stopping just short of the viewing range from withinside the room, the tiny miscreant just a few feet in front of her. Ulanan paid no attention to the lingering Elezen. She was too busy squinting suspiciously at K'ile. "Where is she?" she asked. Her eyes moved from the man to the rest of the room until they met the woman on the bed. She did not squint at her, though she did raise a brow. "I think," K'ile freed the pantalettes from his food and held them awkwardly. "I think she's run off to Coerthas to be with some guy? Wait! Who are you?" "She didn't run off to Coerthas to be with some guy K'ile." K'luha retorted, frowning at him. "We had no idea where she is. She just left. Saying she left to go be with a man in Coerthas is like you telling me to meet you in Drybone." K'luha huffed, still bitter over the incident. Twinflame: "But she took a coat!" K'ile protested. "A coat does not mean a lover in Coerthas! It means he invited her to come and sent her a coat out of goodwill." K'luha snapped back. Illira steps behind the Lalafell in full view of the doorway, having heard enough, "So Antimony has runaway then? I should not be surprised to hear such news. She is much to fragile for her own good." Ulanan turned around and stared, first at Illira's knees, and then to her face, like social customs dictate one should stare at people. "Hello, miss Greetings-are-not-my-thing. It's good to see you!" she said faking a smile so well faked it could have been actually sincere. The lalafell moved to a side of the door, losing eye contact with K'luha but gaining the advantage of not having a tall elezen creepily standing at her back. K'ile frowned at Illira's appearance and pointed at her face, "I don't need to remind you to watch what you say." K'luha flinched visibly at the appearance of... that woman again. Why was the room suddenly assualted with so many people? "No one knows where K'piru is right now!" Luha huffed irritably at the door. "Do not threaten me, Miqo'te. You are not in the right. But you say that she left? She has not come to met me to begin to remedy her mistake." Ulanan growled. "We get it: Antimony's not like you and that makes you angry. Get over it." She leant forward to take a better look at K'ile and smiled in approval of his reaction. "Why do you say she ran off to Coerthas?" "There was a letter from some guy," K'ile said. "And it- wait! Who are you?" Luha took a deep breath and tried to stop herself from getting angry at all the people that for some fucking reason, had decided to show up. Illira frowns before saying, "This is Antimony's pet Lalafell. I don't remember her name. But she follows Antimony most everywhere. For her to have left the woman behind is strange." "I'm her friend, Ulanan." She stopped only to cast a murderous glare to Illira. Then she added in more friendly terms to K'ile: "Can I see that letter? I doubt she will go to running to Coerthas like a headless dodo. No matter how much your tribe scares her off!" Nope. Anger reached. K'luha sat up ricikedly in the bed, her tail bristling outwards in anger. "I'm sick of all of you people! What do you know about what happened? What do you know about why she left? You know nothing! I never did anything to my aunt other than love her and try to help her! I don't understand why she feels like she does! Get out! All of you, get out!" K'luha voice was quite booming and could be considered intimatdating if a half-naked miq'ote with a broken hip was intimidating. Which was to say, it probably wasn't. K'ile was intimidated, because K'luha had prolly beat him up before. He swallowed this and walked over to her. "Hey, the Lalafel didn't mean anything. I think." He also put his hands firmly on her shoulders and pushed, saying gently, "Lay back down or I'm going to strangle you until you pass out." "GOOD." Luha spat back furioulsy, pushing back up to sit up again. "GET OUT! SHE'S NOT HERE SO GO FIND HER ALREADY!" She screech insanely towards the door. Illira takes the opportunity to enter the room, as K'ile has left the doorway. "I cannot leave the information that she did gather. I am sorry for your loss, woman, but I have reason to believe that the both of you have played a significant role in Antimony's breakdown. Do not turn your ire to me, you'll only injure yourself more." Twinflame: Pushing K'luha down hard and pinning her there, he says, "I am serious, Luha. You don't get to move. I dont care what's going on around us. Keep your back on the bed." Ulanan stood where she was, at the side of the door. She leant to look inside, though, managing to get half of her hooded self popping from the door frame's side like some kind of tiny yellowed ghost. K'luha was about ready to launch herself onto Illira and scratch her eyes and throat out. If K'ile hadn't been holding down, she probably would have tried it. K'ile was much stronger than her however and she flopped down against the bed as he pushed her down with more force. She was going to listen to K'ile and try and calm herself. But then the lalafell spoke up. "I know exactly why she left your tribe," Ulanan said. And then added a non sequitur: "Did she take anything with herself...besides the coat?" K'luha hissed and tried to push back up against K'ile. If she could just be free she would tear the lot of their eyes out and use them as decoration on a fucking necklace! "GET OUTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT! I DON'T CARE WHAT YOU FUCKING KNOW YOU LITTLE SHIT! GET THE FUCK OUT BEFORE I GET FREE AND RIP YOUR NECK OUT!" K'luha howled again like a women utterly possessed. Stepping over to the desk, Illira was beginning to rifle through and collect the documents and findings as relates to Antimony's investigation into the Pearl Lane Brass Blades, when K'luha began yelling. She looks over her shoulder at the woman, saying with some fervor in her voice, "You are not the only one she left in the lerch. Do not wallow in selfish interest. I intend to collect the documents and leave." K'luha could practically picture her claws digging into the Elezen's neck and ripping it to pieces. She reached a claw hand out, her eyes straining to see that neck that she might shred... For a woman that couldn't possibly get up, K'luha did manage to make herself difficult to hold down. K'ile Tia made a face at her and Luha and said, "If you weren't struggling I'd have thrown them out by now." Her ears twitched as K'lile spoke to her and she slowly turned her gaze towards his blue eyes. He would get rid of them then? K'luha inhaled deeply, cooling her temper and dropping her arm back against the bed. Ulanan pouted. All of the women in the K tribe she had met, who were not Antimony, were giving her terrible impressions. She stepped fully into the door, grasping the basket with both hand. "May I speak with the sensible male outside after the room is empty of strangers, then?" "..... sorry...lost my temper..." K'luha muttered half apologetically towards K'ile. She took another deep breath and clenched her fists together. "I cannot stand that Elezen woman one second longer. I am sick of outsiders. So sick of their ways and corruption and big mouths that can't possible know the hurt that they vomit from their sick mouths. I hate this place." K'luha ranted quietly, mostly to herself. She pressed her hands to her face and tried to inhale deeply, trying to keep calm. If that damn Elezen woman spoke one more time though, she was going to flip her shit again. K'ile rose from K'luha as she calmed, taking a breath himself, turning away from her. Her jaw tightening and her lips pressed tight together, Illira turned back away from the bed to the desk, to shuffle through the mess once again, in an attempt to find the what work Antimony had done on the case, so that the next person may not have to start from scratch. Not that it would be her, even if she knew anything about finance analysis, it would be impossible for her to make any headway by sheer virtue that it was Lamandu Tyremandu that was under investigation. It would come as no surprise to her if the man would attempt to have her thrown in the same jail that held Amaury, if she attempted to investigate in what was now his domain. Ulanan made two incredible discoveries. First, that the woman in the bed had a short temper. She was almost like a bomb, grinning while it waited to jump out of the blankets and explode on someone's poor face. Second, that this woman could be set off prematurely if any 'outsider' spoke. Armed with this knowledge, Ulanan stated: "So she took only a coat." The Tia looked towards Ulanan and said, "She took a coat and a bunch of papers. Like an Ul'dahn, taking papers and gil everywhere." He approached the Elezen, stepping well into her personal space with his arms crossed. "You need to leave, 'boss'. Or I'm throwing you out on that long neck of yours." Illira paused at the mention of papers having been taken, she continued to stare down at the desk, braids framing her long face. She slowly removed her hands from the desk, not having succeded in making it much more of a mess than it already was, "You know, for people who purport to tell me that I am a bitch for my own mannerisms. You miqo'te have shown me nothing but venom, harsh words, and violence." She turns around at that, "I can see why Antimony left you. I won't tell her that she should return once I find her." "No more than you deserve!" K'luha hissed sharply at the Elezen. "You're not welcome here. Get out." Feeling her temper starting to return, she tried to inhale deeply again to ward it off. She had never been very good with the whole... anger management deal. Ulanan took turns staring blankly at them while they spoke. After Illira spoke, she said: "If Antimony -or K'piru, as you know her- comes back, please tell her to wait for me? I had a present for her." Somehow Ulanan's request soften K'luha's anger. A present for... K'piru? Then... K'luha's ears flattened a bit. Was this lalafell K'piru's friend? That K'piru could abandon even her friends... What exsisted that her aunt wouldn't abandon? Perhaps nothing... "She could still be in the city. She only just left. She may just be clearing her head you know. There's no evidance that she actually left for Coerthas. I don't even know how she would get there..." K'luha suggested softly. "She couldn't have gotten that far... Really, I think you could find her in Ul'dah still..." This was directed at Ulanah, because as far as K'luha was concerned that Elezen bitch needed to be put down. K'ile looks over at K'luha and says, "I could find her for sure, but I think I comitted to not chasing her." He pauses after saying that, looks at the floor, gets lost inside himself for a moment. Then he shakes his head and looks back to K'luha, "Hey, what was the name on the letter again? The guy who sent it?" Illira's thin lips pressed together further, almost disappearing entirely as she continued to listen, not having left the desk area yet. "You could..." K'luha suggested softly, but stopped herself. "If it's me you're worried about I'll live. If you want to chase her than you can, but if you're committed not to, I won't push you to either." She clarified calmly before thinking back. The name? Name,... something weird. "Mitari... Xerxes? Yeah, that was it. Mitari Xerxes." K'ile grabbed Illira by one arm very roughly and began to pull her out of the room, "I was patient!" Illira looks down at the man's hand, that threatened to pull her arm out of her socket. The man may have been much shorter than her, but he was obviously to hard work. "Let go, savage hypocrite." "Hells with that, Ul'dahn hypocrite." "Excuse me!" Ulanan said out loud, taking care that her tone came as friendly and explicative. "I suggest you do not start a fight here because we are on the Adventurer's Guild." She gestured with the free hand vaguely. It probably had some meaning to someone. "A place filled with armed adventurers that will not take kindly a fight in their own guild." The man would continut to haul the woman towards the hall, "I'm not going to let some haughty lady come into K'piru's room and boss me around. She's got no hold on me." Illira sets the hand that isn't being tugged along, and tries to pry the mans fingers from her wrist. It is doubtful that her having dug her heels in is doing much, as K'ile's lower height would help him in his current quest. "This room is not Antimony's. It is the CRA's. You have no right to oust me at this time, not that one as simple as you would understand." At this, K'luha sharply reached over and grabbed a small coin purse from her bag. She carefully took aim at Illira's head and chucked it at her. "There's your damn gil!" Ulanan opened her mouth to speak, but by the time she did that the purse was already flying. She thought that talking at that point would just fall in deaf ears, and maybe a hurt head. She watched it fly towards Illira. The gil glanced off of Illira's head. Illira took a breath, this time letting herself get taken out of the room. The sheer moment bringing heat to the back of her neck and cheeks out of embarrastment. But the man's grip was strong, and it didn't right his wrong to return the favor, as her life was not in danger. Ulanan did not laugh when the purse hit Illira. She wanted to. She also wanted to cheer as if it was some kind of military victory. However, in the name of diplomacy, she sighed. "You know, she is right. Antimony isn't paying for this room. She is. If you kick her out of here, she will call the authorities and kick you -and- K'piru away for causing trouble." She rubbed her forehead with one finger. "So let her do what she came to do, please. She'll leave soon enough anyway, specially if Antimony took the papers she wants." "You Ul'dahns and your laws!" K'ile snapped at the Lalafel. He genuinely didn't understand how the Elezen could walk in, abuse them, and then hide behind ephemeral words that may not actually exist. It was, to him, the greatest corruption, the very darkness of the world itself. To him, it was the same thing that had caused Cartenau; laws, gil, papers, and those who fought over them. He deposited Illira in the hallway and said, "Fine, you want papers? I'll give you ever scrap of paper in the entire room! I hate them!" He turned and stomped back into the room. K'luha did a small fist pump when she hit the woman's head. So she could still throw and had good aim! Excellent. As for the Lalafell's warning... Luha groaned. She was right. Unfortunately. But that's what the gil thrown at the woman's head was for. "K'ile... come here." K'luha sighed, motioning for him to come to her. She wasn't sure if he would listen but, maybe. Ulanan shrugged. "Your tribe must have laws, too." Illira let her steely, angered gaze fall back over the grimy man that had just thrown her out into the hall. She rubbed at wrist, just as she had rubbed at the jaw he'd meant to shatter earlier in the morning. "Laws are inescapable. They are all that seperate us from the beasts and allow us to function on a higher level. Not that you currs care about more than your next meal." She turns on her heel, walking back down the hall. "What?" K'ile said to K'luha, not approaching her. He went instead to the desk and began to pile up papers, saying as he did, "Oh, we have laws. Plenty. I enforce them. They don't include being able to abuse people and hide from the consequences. They don't give fake power." Well. That went swimmingly. K'luha gave up on K'ile for the time being and instead rubbed at her aching hip. She probably shouldn't have tried to eat their eyes out when she got angry. Ah... well. Too late now. Ulanan took a step into the room. "Forget about the laws, and those papers, for the time being. You should help me find K'piru." she said to K'ile. K'ile stopped his paper-rustling, looking over at Ulanan, and said, "I shouldn't. I can't keep chasing her down if she doesn't want to be found. I'm not that kind of Tia." His eyes went to the empty doorway, and the empty hallway, "Hey, the Elezen ran off." "While I'm quite confident that she will return here eventually, I don't want to take the risk of sitting here, waiting, while she runs off northwards and gets mauled by qiqirn or ants." Ulanan stated her worry to the room. She clenched the handle of the basket with both hands and raised it. "You can come back here as soon as we find her. If she's in town it won't be long." "I said 'no'." K'ile turned from the papers to look down at the Lalafel. "I don't know you, and she can run off if she wants. If you really want to find her, you need to do it the old-fashioned way." Luha glanced towards K'ile again. She wondered if he would go to find her. Or had he enough of chasing women down for a lifetime? Kluha had to admit, she was surprised when he said no. But perhaps some things were more important than chasing down a woman who wanted nothing to do with them anymore. Luha grunted faintly at the agitating pain, but made no comments. Ulanan shrugged and turned around, picking up her basket. "Please tell her I stopped by. Goodbye!" She smiled and waved one hand in farewell before leaving the room and walking down the hallway. Frowning at the Lalafel as she walked off, K'ile was too confused by the nature of the exchange and unprepared for the sudden departure, so didn't even think to say goodbye to the tiny woman. K'luha was indeed surprised as well, but nonetheless extremely happy to have all of the damn intruders out of the room. "Next time someone knocks, we don't answer. " Kluha grumbled bitterly. [align=center]*[/align] Illira made her way down the stairs, stopping short when she saw the hotel clerk. Her jaw is still clenched, and she breathed hard; angry from her embarrasment at being hauled out. She leaned against the wall, forcing herself to take some deep calming breaths. The man had no right to do what he did. But they were all angry and riled and hurt, emotion obviously ruling the hearts of the savages. She knew that she could have them ousted, arrested. And she wanted to. Oh, she wanted to. But was that merely her wounded pride and own personal desire run wicked? It was certainly something that many of her former compratriots in the blades would not hesitate to do. But so many of them were too far gone in their own self-interest to do what is right by the law, but their law is not hers and the man did not seem even to grasp the concepts of society outside of his bubble. The woman was obviously in a great deal of pain and not in her own right mind. Illira swallowed deeply, her eyes closed. When she opened them, she took another breath and walked over towards the clerk's desk. Motioning the clerk over, Illira asked for a paper and something to write with. When he returned with the requested items, Illira began to write, though her hand shook slightly as she did so, still full of excess righteous anger that she was. But it wasn't so blinding now. She sealed the letter, writing the word, "Tia" on the front of it. She left it and a some gil with the clerk, asking for the letter to be taken up to the room that she had just left. She still needed to find Antimony before she left town. And time was of the essence. [align=center]*[/align] After he overcame his momentary confusion, K'ile walked over to the door and closed it, frowning as though the action were a complicated task and the ability to complete it caught him off guard. After a few seconds he looked up to K'luha, "Alright, yeah. ... I don't know what to make of all this." "Only that K'piru has run again, possibly but not for sure to Coerthas, and that two people are looking for her, and she knows and is friends with a man named Mitari." Kluha replied without a moments hesitation. "Also that I really want to go home." She added as an afterthought. Moving towards K'luha, K'ile said, "I think we need to wait until your hip heals. And how are we going to find the food without K'piru? I don't even know where to look." The innkeep sent a young woman up to the room that K'luha and K'ile are currently occupying. She knocked softly on the door. Hearing the knock, K'ile makes a face, and states, "Not answering." Kluha glared at the knocking door like she might murder whomever had the audacity to do this bullshit again. She looked to K'ile before grabbing for his hand very suddenly. When he said he wasn't going to answer she relaxed a bit. "Well, then we can figure things out more in the morning." The girl knocked again, "'ello? I have a letter 'ere?" She waits a few moments more for an answer before sliding it underneath the door. K'ile frowned at the envelope slid under the door. He observed, "The Ul'dahns are sticking paper under the doors now. Outsiders are insane." Kluha eyed the paper like it would explode on him. She was tired. So tired. Maybe K'piru would come back. Maybe she wouldn't. Kluha was too tired to care. "Open it later." She huffed. "Come here. You should sleep." [align=center]*[/align] <<< Tia. You hate me, just as I hate you. My laws are not your own, and you sought to protect your territory as beasts do. I could send to have you arrested, but the only best interest that it would serve is the pride that you damaged. I would be playing into the very hands of the Ul'dah that we both hate. I would not have my emotion best me, the way that does your kind. Your woman needs medical attention, even I can see that. I have paid for your room for the next couple of nights, and for a healer to her. It would be the best thing for her. The clerk can send for someone. After she has been seen to, and her healing is on its way. Leave. If we cross paths, and you lay hands unjustly on a person once more. I will see you behind bars, ignorance of the law will no longer be an acceptable excuse. - Illira Carceri >>> [align=center]*[/align]

It makes more sense to say that things are normal as opposed to unusual until we have any evidence at all that things are unusual. I don't see any good reason to think that Miqo'te do not live to be older, therefore they live to be older. Until we are told otherwise. It is less simple to say that Miqo'te age unusually, so applying Occam's Razor says they do not. To be honest while I was doing the quests I got the sense that F'lhaminn was just a very attractive older woman (sorry to disturb the young people on the site, but people over 50 can also be sexy), but now I'm thinking the white hair is just SE being SE and giving as many important characters white hair as possible. This isn't to say that she isn't older, but a lot of people don't start showing obvious signs of age until well into middle-age, which she may not be yet. We simply have no idea if she's supposed to be old or not. The above paragraph will not make sense to people who think that 40 is old.

No, that's backwards. It's not feelings to say that your evidence is not actually evidence: it's an assertion. She provided a claim, warrant, grounds. Asserting that portrayals aren't invalid because of game mechanics is, imho, supposition as best. Sort of like back in TERA when certain people assumed that the world had no day or night because day/night cycles weren't programmed into game. We should assume races do get old except where informed otherwise, as is the case with Padjal and Lalafel. The fact that character creation is intensely restrictive is perfectly valid support for this. I like the idea of Roegadyn as long-lived and do recall the Pugilist quest-line. I think that was a good bit of evidence there, as the age disparity between Hamon and his rival was a plot-point. It was not stated that Roes were longer lived, but Hamon had aged, and his enemy was still at full strength. It's possible that Hamon was just a gret deal older than his rival when they last fought, though, so in the end it's just a theory I like. not one I can really support. Unless she's a crone, bad guy, or there for comedy exclusively.

((Takes place after the first two posts of this thread, but before the posts after that one.)) Loughree Desfosse sits near the wall, pressed tightly against it and wedged under the windowsill. She leans forward with her elbows on the table, one hand pressed over one eye with her fingernails digging into her forehead. Her breathing is rushed and unsteady, and she's shivering. Her is dotted with a small amount of blood. Lamandu Tyremandu walks brusquely into his office, his face scrunches in noticeable displeasure at the sight of the young, blonde Miqo'te sitting quietly in a seat in front of his desk, uncharacteristically so. Lamandu stands there just inside his doorway for a few moments, watching her,"So. It appears that you have acted rashly again. Would you agree, Lou?" When Llamandu speaks, Loughree flinches away from him as though he'd shouted at her loudly, pressing herself against the wall and looking up at him in surprise. She freezes then, and is quiet. After several seconds, she relaxes some. Her tail shivers, the thing puffed up so it's wider than one of her legs. Standing there for a moment and continuing to watch Lou, Llamandu walks the rest of the way to his desk and hopping up in his chair. He sets down the papers that he was holding in one hand. "You just locked yourself up in a cell then for fun?" Wary of the Lalafel, Loughree watches him as though trying to decide if he's going to attack or not. She leans forward and backward, looks at the ceiling and glares into the sahdows with her one uncovered eye. She looks at the door. "Are there Blades outside? In the office? In the street?" Lamandu Tyremandu narrows his eyes slightly. "You're a Brass Blade. You're in a Brass Blade office. What do you think?" Still visibly shaking, she nods at this and leans more heavily on the table. She glares at the grains in the wood, and then says, "I'm sorry. I made a mistake." "And what do you believe your mistake was?" The Lalafel asks, "I have my own reports from what the rest of the officers believe and are aware of... but these appear to be strange and confusing circumstances to say the least." Loughree confesses grudgingly, "I was trying to squeeze Antimony for a bribe and it didn't work." The Lalafel's face pinches together in consternation. He brings his hand up to closed eyes, rubbing them slightly and pinching the bridge of his nose. "Of course you did. And against direct orders to leave the woman be." He brings his hand back down, trying to pull a more neutral look back over his visage. "It didn't work. What an apt way to put it. Should I be expecting the Immortal Flames to be sweeping through here at any minute then?" "No," Loughree growls, "I let her go." "Obviously! Or she would have been in those cages instead of you! You're dodging the question Lou. Should I be expecting her to report this? We're already under investigation! You're bribery attempt and subsequent time spent in the cages does not sound like tales of rainbows and sunshine to me!" Lamandu Tyremandu slams his hands down on the table for emphasis. Loughree flexes her fingers tighter against her face, her hand on the table drawing into a fist. Her eyes smolder with anger. But only for a moment. It drains away from her quickly, and she mutters, "I don't know. I tried not to give her anything to work off of." She flinches at something inaudible, unseen, and looks at the door again. "Is the door locked?" Raising his smooth brow, the Lalafel says "Did that old lady turn into the Boogey Man or something? You should be more worried about the conversation at hand Lou. This has not been a good day for you." The Miqo'te looks over to Lamandu, and exhales shakily. "The... Uhm. The needles in the cells. One of them got in my eye. I think someone was trying to off me." Lamandu takes a pen, and scribbles something down. "And this... assassination, just so happens to conicide with your request for bribes? Are you sure that you didn't threaten Antimony, and she, thusly on the defensive, stabbed at you with a sewing needle she had in her pouch? That seems rather far more likely than an... assassination, Lou." "No," Loughree chuckles, though she doesn't sound humored. "Antimony's friend took the needle out of my eye and then I told them to leave. I know who was after me. It's a... Family thing." The Lalafel scribbles more down in writing. "And why would that be? You're a nasty person, surely. But not so much as to invite death from your own kin, even here in Ul'dah." "That's... That's my own... I'm sorry, Lamandu. Just tell everyone it was an isolated incident and discipline me." She lurches to a full sit, her shoulders heaving as she tries to catch her breath. "I need to go home." Looking up from his notes at the young woman, Lamandu says, "Two weeks suspension from duty then. We will re-evaluate matters at that time." He holds out a small hand, "Hand over your Blade's seal, and your free to go. I really don't have time to be dealing with the nonsense, quite honestly." After a swallow and a nod, Loughree takes her seal in a shaking hand and puts it on the table. "Two weeks and then I'm back on, right? My job's not going anywhere." Lamandu reaches out, closing his hand on the seal. He drags it back across the table, towards himself. "I said that we would re-evaluate the situation Lou. You are obviously not in a state to be discussing such matters." Lingering there for a moment, staring at Lamandu as though she had more to say, Loughree stands and turns to the door. "Alright." Lamandu nods his head. "I highly suggest that you take this time to deal with your family matters and think on your actions concerning your work here." He pulls out a drawer and sets Lou's seal within it "We may be another sort of family, but you do not play as part of the unit. Its bad for all." Loughree mutters, "I hate families," as she walks towards the door, her steps careful but hurrying. Lamandu shuts the drawer, and turns to his newly generated set of paperwork, having dismissed Lou in his head. But Lou pauses at the door, waiting a moment. She leans forward and presses her head against it. Her tail is wrapped around one thigh, and she pulls the thing free and curls her hand around the bushy fur, twisting it in her fingers. After another quick breath, she finally exits.

"There's a disturbing trend with you, K'luha Haaz," K'takka hissed words as sharp as her claws. "People you lose do not come back. I'll be considering if K'makanee's daughter would be best placed with another woman, lest you lose her as well." The threat was hollow, she know, and she could foresee the voices of the other elders rising in protest. So she pushed on before they could, "However I reject your responsibility over the firedancer's disappearance. He is fool enough on his own; he does not need your help to err. It sounds like he chose to leave." K'takka flicked her gaze to the other elders. "If he does not return soon we should send K'yohko after him. Who better to keep the Tia in line than the Nunh? My grandson will retrieve the trinkets that boy has absconded."

I sure hope this isn't going to be more FATE grinding. Also, disappoint that we can't get the chocobo hat.

"Yes, you should have looked better." K'takka's voice was a grinding, earthy sound from where she huddled in the rear of the tent. The leathery skin on her face shifted in displeasure, her shining eyes squinting darkly at K'luha. "But you're here now, and he is not. Wherever he is, he has gone alone." She ran her long fingernails through the fur that surrounded her, acquisitions from Ul'dah given to her by her children and grandchildren. She was sparsely decorated with gold from the city, including a band that flickered as it shook on her shivering, misshapen index finger. "Whatever his state, I am as concerned for the gemstones that he hoards upon his wrist. They could never be replaced. He needs to be found." Her eyes still boring into K'luha, she said, "Why did he leave? Why? What clues did he give?"

K'luha Haaz: The sun was still hot, but it was better beneath the overhang of a thick rock. Hidden away in the shade, she was almost unnoticable. had she not spent her life in the Sagolii, the long time with her bare back to the sun might have burnt her. Her hip was an entirely different matter however, and the more the numbness of her body faded the more painful it grew until it felt like it was going to engulf her completely. After the first two laying where she had fallen, her mind had suddenly raced back to Tahj. Who would care for her if K'luha died? Somehow it spurred her to crawl across the desert's floor, each little movement causing more pain than the last, until she had finally made it under the rock for shelter. It had probably been five or six hours since he fight with K'ailia and Ul'dah still loomed ominously in the distance. While she could see the city's massive shape, she couldn't make out any details so she knew she had run a decent ways away. Perhaps too far. She was in too much pain to concentrate properly on using Aether or an Aetheryte, and too far off the road to solicite help from anyway. Grasping roughly for handfuls of sand, K'luha didn't notice her own body shivering while she tried to think of a plan. * Twinflame: Dragging K'piru across the sand had been a strangely nostalgic experience for K'ile, even though he couldn't remember ever having done so before. It had always been K'thalen who would pull K'piru after him, K'ile only rarely trotting alongside. The movement had at first made the silence natural, but as time stretched on and they still hadn't caught up to Luha, his mind wandered and the pressure of K'piru's hand in his own grew warm. It wasn't that he didn't have anything to say to K'piru, or that it would be difficult to begin, since he had her out here all alone anyway. But he was just so afraid to say the wrong thing and send her fleeing back into anonymity again. He was also burdened by his concern for K'luha, but that had become a static simmering in the back of his head, easily compartmentalized. Occasionally a pang of fear would break through, when he thought they were close, and K'ile would worry that the woman had fallen into a ditch or run into a predator. He would remember the way she'd screamed when the wolves had gotten her back in Thanalan. But as her scent aged, the fear would recede. For a woman with a broken hip, she'd made a hell of a run. K'ile was beginning to wonder if she figured out how to fly when finally the scent of the woman grew strong and did not fade. "She's close," he said to K'piru, his hand tightening around hers. He'd grown sweaty in the sun, his palm turning clammy, but he hadn't let go of the woman's hand. Doing so strangely unthinkable. K'ile slowed their pace to a quick walk, searching the earth for clues of movement, and called out, "Luha!" * Antimony (K'piru): The pace K'ile had set was difficult for K'piru. Though she had traveled with some regularity for past work, it was generally on the back of a chocobo or a cart, only occasionally on foot, and even throughout her life with the tribe, she had never reached the physical endurance of the hunters. Still, she clung to the tia's hand and managed to keep alongside him. The physical exertion kept her thoughts from dwelling on the painful reminders that seemed ever constant with the scent and presence of family, shadows that might have sent her fleeing once more in the opposite direction if she allowed them too much space. That K'piru didn't respond when K'ile began calling for K'luha was both an artifact of her internal distraction, as well as her lack of available breath. * K'luha Haaz: There was a distant call. K'luha's ears flickered upwards to listen more closely. Something was calling her name. Something... or someone. Was it K'ailia? Come to say more cruel words and hurt her mother further? It seemed to be her favored activity these days. K'luha remained silent and close to the ground, her form shadowed and hidden fairly well beneath that rock. A rock that K'ile and K'piru weren't far off from. It took K'luha some time before she actually recognized the voice, but even then she didn't believe it. K'ailia had said K'ile was in Ul'dah, but then why would be he out here looking for her? He had left her on her face on the floor before, K'luha thought spitefully. Her temper boiled the more she heard his voice and she wanted to hurl the rock she was hiding under at him. No, she did not want K'ile to find her. If he was going to abandon and lie to her, she wasn't going to be fooled a second time. * Twinflame: K'ile tracked K'luha's scent to strange marks in the dirt, Unlike the Sagolii sands, Thalan dirt was thick and heavy, with dark soil just beneath a thin layer of red dirt. He could see where K'luha had lingered, knocking a great deal of dirt aside. There were lines from fingers out to one side, the snake-like lines of a tail moving against the ground. Had she fallen? It looked like she'd dragged herself over... There. K'ile's ears stood up and don't that way as his gaze searched the shadowed rocks, and then his ears went flat against his hed hair. He muttered in frustration, "Luha, you..." nad pulled on the leather harness about his chest before he stood and pulled K'piru towards the rocks. "K'luha!" She had herself hidden well, as though she were playing a game. * Antimony (K'piru): K'piru's fingers flexed around K'ile's hand, the warmth that had built there suddenly going cold as ice as he moved them both towards the rocks. Her gaze locked forward on the shadows there, but she could only look through them blankly, suddenly terrified of even laying eyes on K'luha's form. She wanted to tear her hand from K'ile's and bolt, but her legs continued to follow him of their own volition. Her breath came in short bursts through her nose as they neared and then stilled entirely when her eyes caught sight of the limp curve of a blonde tail and one foot poking out from behind a rough wall of stone. Her legs, too, stopped. * K'luha Haaz: K'luha still said nothing. She could smell them now they were so close... but they? There was definetely someone with K'ile. And it wasn't K'ailia. Someone else... someone that smelled of the city. Of Ul'dah. She did not want to meet K'ile or whomever he had brought with him. Whomever was so important that he would lie and abandon her on her face in the desert was not someone K'luha wanted to ever see. Maybe she deserted that. Maybe she deserted to be dropped in the desert and abandoned, but Tahj? He had abandoned Tahj too. He wasn't there for her arrival. He wasn't there for Tahj. And Tahj had never done him any wrong. She did not deserve it. * Twinflame: The Tia pulled the ex-shaman around the stone, clambering carefully and making sure not to outpace K'piru. When he could finally see K'luha's form laying on the stone, could see the woman's face, he said, "Don't hide from me, Luha." * Antimony (K'piru): At some point after spotting the first glimpse of K'luha, K'piru had stopped consciously gripping K'ile's hand, her fingers going limp in his own, and her legs wobbled like jelly as he pulled her across the rocks. When he spoke, calling down to the injured woman, his voice sounded as though very far away, muffled by a heavy, echoing pulsing in her ears. She fell back, would let her hand fall from K'ile's if his grip allowed it, and found herself entirely incapable of looking towards the other woman, though she could practically smell her pain. In her head, someone screamed. * K'luha Haaz: K'luha felt her stomach tense as she was spotted. It wasn't like she could run anyway. Although she wanted to. Less like run and more like beat the shit out of K'ile. Don't hide he said... and why wouldn't she? She couldn't look towards K'ile and whoever it was. "You lied to me." She hissed with a malice and anger in her voice that was rarely used. * Twinflame: When K'piru pulled against him, K'ile's hand instinctively tightened. He barely noticed her restraint, though, reachting as though she'd simply lost her balance and he was helping her maintain it. His attention was turned all towards Luha, and he continued towards her, closing the distance until her could crouch in front of her, "What about? I'm sorry. What are you doing out here?" * Antimony (K'piru): Only K'ile's strength kept K'piru moving forward - literally, as he all but dragged her across the rocks, her legs stumbling to keep her upright as her body refused to actively partake in moving her towards K'luha. Her scent was different from K'ile's but still innately familiar and, above all, a recaller of fire and ash and death. K'piru made a choking sound in the back of her throat and tried desperately to wrest her thoughts back from that brink of panic. K'luha was hurt. Her own fears did not matter until K'luha was safe. * K'luha Haaz: About what? He was so goddamn oblivious. His stupidity burned angrily in Luha's throat until she finally turned her head to look at him. He was fine. Not a damn scratch on him. Perfectly, and utterly, in perfect health. "You LIED to me." K'luha's voice raised in fury, her tone really empahsising the severity of the transgression. "You said you would come back in the morning. Then you said you would meet us at Drybone. You LIED to me. You LIED to Tahj! Maybe I desered the sleepless nights, the sickening worry. You didn't even take your fucking lance. Tahj didn't deserve that. She deserved to have you home and showing her around. She deserved to have you there with her while I had to come back to this shithole to deal with my cruel daughter. But you fucking LIED to me! To her! What was so important you had to lie? What was so terrible you couldn't have just told me? Did you think I was going to say no? Did you think I was going to make fun of you!? Why didn't you trust me!? Why did you LIE TO ME!?" K'luha fumed furiously, torn between shaking anger and pain. * Twinflame: So from the get go K'ile was absolutely convinced that there was no way in hell to answer that question honestly and live. At least not without letting K'piru in on thoughts and feelings that would send her into a whole so deep she'd probably have a phobia of red hair and blue eyes for the rest of her life. It wasn't that he de didn't think K'luha deserved the truth. It was just... K'piru... "Because I'm a liar," he said. "So just hate me. I won't argue. You can stab me in the neck when we're done. But first you need to let K'piru help you." K'ile looked up at the woman behind him. His senses were so full of the scent of K'luha's anger that he hadn't noticed K'piru's fear until he looked back at her. Usually K'piru was at the top of his priority list, the head of his attention. K'luha was encroaching on that territory. Maybe K'ile shouldn't have brought K'piru. Maybe the shaman was already renewing her decision that she didn't want anything to do with him, with them. But then, "K'piru. Don't let her scare you. She's hurting more than she shows." * K'luha Haaz: K'luha was ready to strangle him. Because he was a liar? That wasn't a goddamn answer. That was him trying to get out of the damn question. She had no words for a moment, only a loud and furious hiss towards K'ile... until he distracted her with the mention of K'piru. She blinked for a moment. K'piru? She was... alive? And well? And here!? K'luha brightened for a moment. They were just... reuniting with all sorts of lost family and it was... Luha was happy about it. She wanted them to come home sometimes. To feel welcome at home. She wanted to be able to see him when she went out of the tribe. Maybe if it was like that she and K'ailia could get along... but K'ailia was cruel to her. Judgemental. Her son wouldn't have been like that. If only... But she was getting distracted from the real issue here. "K'piru!?" K'luha questioned, pulling herself forward and poking her head out from her hiding place to look for the shaman. She didn't sound angry, but rather somehow excited at the prospect of seeing her aunt. * Twinflame: K'ile looked back to K'luha solemnly, pulling K'piru forward and taking the shaman's hand in two of his own. * Antimony (K'piru): She couldn't handle this. She didn't know why she had thought she could. K'luha's face peeked out from around the rock, and the sight of it nearly ruined K'piru. The other woman's mouth moved, but she could not hear her voice, could hear only the screams of the dying, the burning. A weight on her hand dragged her forward, closer, and her gaze dropped from K'luha's face to some vague point in the sand next to her. With an internally violent effort, she brought down iron walls between her thoughts and the memories and grief stirred by the presence of family, and stepped forward. She did not listen to the screams of her daughters, nor did she watch the flesh of her nunh where K'luha's would have been. Expression blank, she held out a hand towards K'luha's hip, as though gesturing towards it, and spoke flatly, "I need to see it. You're ill." * K'luha Haaz: K'piru looked... well it was her surely. She looked a little older and decidedly sick. K'luha slinked back a bit, wondering why it was that K'piru looked so sick. Was it her? Was this what K'ile abandoned her and Tahj for? It wouldn't be the first time, she thought bitterly. She loved her aunt dearly, but both her aunt and K'ile had shut her out painfully and frigidly after the Calamity. "K'piru..." K'luha called softly, worriedly. "It's... good to see you after all these years..." Maybe that would put her more at ease? K'luha wasn't sure what would help, but K'piru could not hide the fact from K'luha that she seemed to be shattering into a million pieces. * Antimony (K'piru): "The wound will leak into your blood if you do not allow me to do something," K'piru elaborated, voice quiet and detached. * K'luha Haaz: Why was she...? K'luha slunk back beneath the rock. It was so nice to see her but... there was such a frigid feeling there. Like K'piru couldn't stand to look at her. Why had K'ile forced her out here in the first place? Had he just run into her? Or had he gone looking for her? K'luha couldn't help but feel that frigid air return, just as she had felt it when K'ile returned after the Calamity. "It fine... I can see you're not well K'piru. I'm sorry K'ile dragged you out here when you didn't want to see me." K'luha closed her eyes and turned her head away. This wasn't at all how she imagined... not that she had ever really imagined it. "Go ahead and go back to spend your time together." This is what K'luha assumed they were doing before whatever brought them out here. "K'ile left me with a broken hip on my one once. I assume he has no problem doing it again." This was said a bit spitefully towards K'ile but she managed to stay with a rather passive tone of voice. * Twinflame: "You were supposed to go back to the tribe and get it taken care of!" K'ile snapped, letting go of K'piru and reaching out to take K'luha by the arm, refusing to let the woman retreat. "You know, I'm sorry if it's inconvenient for you and you don't want to bother anyone, but you don't get to hide in a fucking hole and die! I'm tired of people doing this shit. Especially you." K'ile was not kind about grabbing pulling K'luha out of the hole. She already hated him and she was already in pain. She didn't get to hate him to death just because she was sad. * K'luha Haaz: "And you were supposed to meet me in the morning!" K'luha snapped back, her fury regained almost instantly. She wanted not to give him the satisfaction of know how much pain she was in, but the rough way he yanked her from beneath the rock sent her entire body racking with intense pain. K'luha screamed and tried to pull her arm back, her whole body shaking violently from the intense pain. Luha was a strong woman. One that did not cry often to pain, but this was not something she could hold back. Blubbering for a few moments with tears and shaking, she was unable to throw any sort of anger back at K'ile while she drowned in pain. * Antimony (K'piru): For a long moment after K'ile dropped her hand that felt more akin to a breathless eternity to K'piru, she wavered amidst the stones. The pungent, salty scent of Luha's pain served as a focal point in the chaos of her own panic, and she moved forward, dropping to the ground alongside the other woman. Her hands reached out, one resting firmly on K'luha's side, the other feeling gently at her hip. There was no time or sense for ceremony here. Shaking fingers made to pull the other woman's waistband aside so that she could see the injured area below, all the while her features remained taught and blank. She did not reply to K'luha's words. * K'luha Haaz: K'luha had almost recovered enough to think again by the time she realized K'piru was kneeling next to her. This felt a little familiar, as it was K'piru who helped deliver both her children. Although, this pain was probably far more intense. When K'piru touched it even gently, K'luha screeched again and tried to squirm away from the woman. Her brain couldn't even make sense of anything but the excruiating pain that seemed to rack her every muscle and force them to contract pinfully. It was probably lucky for K'luha that she had pretty much run out of her room in a pair of pantlettes and a camise. Mostly now that K'piru was moving it, there wasn't a lot of fabric to move or irritate the sight further. Although it was surely a completely mess to look at. What had started to heal had been completely broken through now, and what had been a fracture was now a clean break with bone pressing at the skin and tearing it parcially open. Luha cried loudly, still trying to crawl away from K'piru's touch. She wasn't sure what she was screaming, but she thought it might be something like 'No, please dont touch it. Leave me alone.' * Twinflame: K'ile pulled K'luha to him, in what was a familiar gesture. But this was very different. On his knees, he pulled K'luha's shoulders onto lap. This time he took her arms and held them, tried to cross them over her chest so she couldn't get away or struggle. "I'm sorry, K'luha, but K'piru said you might die. You can't do that. What would Tahj and I do?" * Antimony (K'piru): The body beneath her hands twisted and writhed, a sand-colored worm of desperation. K'piru blinked at the exposed skin, its surface distended at an unnatural point, the flesh painted dark, sickly colors and surrounded by an angry red heat. The body made noises, in protest, but K'piru's hands remained certain on its form. Broken, K'piru could tell, but as she extended her senses - first tenatively, weakly, as though afraid of some unknown backlash - towards the thin lines of the body's aether, K'piru found there was more to the story. About the bone the energy had pooled in an ugly mess, a solid, unyielding knot as though it had tried to protect itself. Scar tissue, barely formed. The wound was old, had begun to heal, but something had made it much worse since. Outside this clinical awareness, K'piru felt faint, the screams pressed in and swayed briefly over K'luha's form before regaining herself. "I cannot treat it here," she murmured, hands hovering over the shuddering, agonized body. "In my room there is... I may be able to draw out some of the poison." * K'luha Haaz: K'luha struggled again K'ile, finding some comfort in his touch and at the same time not wanting to. She wanted to push him off and kick his stupid head in. How dare he try to toch her after he had lied to her. How dare he try and act like she mattered when he lied and walked away from her for over two weeks. As if he really gave a fuck if she died. She could have died where he left her from that fall. But K'ile didn't care, of this K'luha was obessively convinced. No one would have cared if she died. In fact, they all would have been happier. "Liar." K'luha hissed hysterically at K'ile. "You LIED to me and dissappeared for over two weeks. You don't care. Everyone would be better off if I had just been exiled and Maka had stayed. Maka didn't raise a spoilt brat who doesn't care about her people. She didn't raise that girl to become a cruel outsider. Tahj is a good girl. And K'ailia would have been if Maka raised her. K'ailia is so cruel to me... and she doesn't even care how she hurts. She chose to walk away. I could have handled if she died, but she walked away on her own choice. It's so much worse than any death. You don't choose death. But to just walk away after all the suffering and sacrafices we made... I made... and just... not care about it... about me? I can't...." K'luha was still shaking, although for the time being she had stopped squirming. It all hurt to much. "Just leave me in the damn desert again. Just drop me on the floor again and walk away for another two fucking weeks K'ile. I w-want to be with my son. I never got to hold him long enough... I want to hold him again... my son..." Burning hot tears of shame leaked now, and though they weren't actually any different from normal tears, they felt like they burned her eyes when she cried them. * Twinflame: Keepling Luha pinned in place, K'ile gave K'piru an empathetic look. "I think Luha's beyond reason at this point, and I don't think she's going to be doing any walking, either." He looked down at Luha and said, "I can carry you, but you need to let me. Don't struggle or you'll hurt yourself." * K'luha Haaz: Luha remained pitifully crying for a few long moments before she gathered enough of herself to look up at the messy head or oranges and reds that was K'ile. The idea of hurting herself seemed somehow funny in her hysteria and delirium. For a moment she thought she had freed herself and slit open her wrists, and was rather surprised when she looked at her wrists and found them fine. "You lied to me." Luha repeated, still fiercely directed at K'ile. "Just shut me out and leave me behind like you always do. No one cares anymore. I don't even care anymore. I want to be with my son." K'luha seemed to go limp with her last breathy declaration but her eyes were still open, staring at the sand like she was looking at her son. * Antimony (K'piru): K'luha's words reached K'piru's ears distantly, and though she tried desperately to keep her focus and energy on examining the woman's wound and /not/ on the person inside the body beneath her hands, the voice still slipped past her walls to ghost through her thoughts. She recoiled from the woman in the sand then, her own tail curling against her leg through her clothes. K'luha's words sounded with a chilling familiarity that shook an icey dread down to the base of her spine. Closing her eyes, she saw dunes shadowed by an unnatural night, felt rough fingers wrapped about her arm, her body, restraining her, holding her back. She recalled how she had wanted to throw herself to the sands, let the pitiless gaze of Azeyma decide her fate, if the goddess even cared to look. "Take her," K'piru muttered weakly, staggering to her feet with one hand curling against her head. "Take her to my room." * Twinflame: The Tia nodded somberly, the red hair atop his head shivering like fire in the wind. "I'll try not to hurt you, Luha," he said, and lifted her shoulders up by his own, lay her head against his head. He put one arm under her legs, another behind her back and under her shoulder, wrapping her and holding her to him and hoping he could keep the weight on the 'good' side of her hips. He lifted her up and said to K'piru, "Let's go." * K'luha Haaz: "You already hurt me more than you can ever know." K'luha replied icly, grasping at the sands like it might hold her in place when K'ile tried to pick her up. Not that it did. She just ended up with hands full of nothing as he picked her up. K'luha screeched at the movement, her body shaking again in pain. Any movement at all felt like her spine was being ripped out. Luha was torn between throwing herself to hug K'ile and ripping his eyes out, and flailed painfully between hugging him to snarling and scratching at his face. All the while screeching unintellible things that occasionally came to phrases like, 'You lied' and 'You're just like K'yohko' and 'Give me my son back'. * Antimony (K'piru): Turning away from both K'luha and K'ile came blessedly easy for Antimony, her eyes moving up to take in the silhouette of Ul'dah rather than the twisted, broken form in K'ile's arms. She said nothing further, only began to walk slowly back towards the city. * Twinflame: K'ile didn't resist K'luha's thrashing any more than he had to in order to hold her still, and didn't protest more than to say, "Stop it, Luha. Everything's all right," in a rather tired voice. He turned his face away from K'luha when she reached for his face, often ducking his head behind hers. He just held her and followed behind K'piru. * K'luha Haaz: K'luha couldn't understand it. Especially with how little K'ile seemed to care about her pain. She wasn't talking about the physical pain either. That was something she could deal with. But why was it everyone simply didn't care about her mental anguish? Or perhaps, she just cared too much. Eventually K'luha quieted down to simply covering her face with her hands and choking on her own sobs whenever K'ile moved too much and her hip felt like it was breaking in two and then being jamed in opposite directions. * Antimony (K'piru): As they passed from open desert to refugee outskirts to the busy, dirty streets of Ul'dah itself, K'luha's scent - the pain and sweat and home of it - stayed present in Antimony's senses even as rot and disease stink pressed in with the other myriad smells of civilization. She did not pause to see if K'ile followed; she didn't need to with their scents so close by, though she wasn't certain she would have waited if they hadn't. She hastened her steps, though not by much, and immediately felt guilty about the unconscious desire to lose them in the chaos of the streets. The Quicksand, with its broad archways and curving walls, rose into view far quicker than it had seemed to take to get to K'luha, and Antimony hardly noticed as she passed through a side door into the main tavern. A few patrons turned with curious looks, but she did not notice those either. Again she tried to keep her mind focused on the pressing, physical issue: K'luha's hip and the infection brooding within it. Not long later, she slipped into the back halls, past the turn with its ruined door, and arrived at her own room. The simple furnishings and empty walls, which had grown familiar over the weeks she'd spent in Ul'dah, seemed suddenly almost threatening as she stepped inside, leaving the door open behind her. There were not many signs of occupancy here, save for on the circular table at the foot of the bed, where papers piled in a wild mess, untended for days. Her tail shivered along with her hands as she stepped to the bed and stooped to collect a small box. She had spoke not a word during this brief journey, and continued to move in silence even after entering her room. Speaking even once more threatened to shatter the fragile composure she'd gathered. * Twinflame: K'ile walked in silence and permitted himself no deep or comlicated thoughts about the woman in his arms or the many things that she seemed to hold against him. The rightness and the wrongness of her various accusations were as evident as her weight upon his arms and the rigidness her pain evoked in her body. He concentrated on the sense and warmth of K'luha, the way the muscle's of her back and arm felt on his skin. The way her tail haung against his hip. This while he watched K'piru walk stiffly ahead of them, her gray-brown tail swinging back and forth with an occasional shiver to to it. He watched the lilt of her ears. He watched the small number of unkempt hairs that lay over the back of her neck, stuck there by sweat. It was a long time after K'piru had initially invited him back to her room. Now he finally arrived, but K'luha had robbed all of the comfort from what would have been a preciously rare moment. K'piru, who had once left him so far in the dark, had invited him in. But he hadn't been able to come without K'luha. Despite his attempts to leave K'luha, he couldn't. Placing K'luha on K'piru's bed was natural and yet strangely repulsive. The latter was not a feeling he wanted to own, and so he spat it out with the words, "Here we go, Luha. We're going to take care of you." * K'luha Haaz: There were many raging voices in K'luha's head. In one way, she felt the same coldness K'ile and K'piru had displayed towards her before. She had never forgotten that they completely disregarded her in the wake of the Calamity, but for some reason she had thought K'ile had moved past it. In a way, she had to admit he had because she was here in the first place. Maybe he would have ignored her before. But then again, he had lied to her and abandoned her which had helped cause this problem in the first place. And K'luha was glad to see K'piru, truly she was but... her once favored aunt was so cold and disgusted by K'luha that it was hard not to feel hated. She didn't know what she had done to earn such hatred or disgust, and the only thin she could think was that K'piru was mad that K'ile had dragged her to help in the first place. She felt disgusting. Her stomach coiled and flipped in her chest until she could not speak. K'luha had to close her mouth tightly, else she was afraid to vomit her own stomach out. * Antimony (K'piru): There was not much she could do here, Antimony thought dimly, ignoring the shuddering panic of K'piru roiling at the back of her mind. The box sat open in her lap to reveal a small collection of herbs and ointments, and a thin, carved, humanoid figure. The latter she took in one hand distractedly. She was ill-prepared to deal with an injury as drastic as this one. Even pulling on what minor magics she knew, her best hope was to focus on drawing out the infection. Her ears flicked back, listening to the pained shifting of K'luha on the bed, and closed her eyes tightly for several seconds. It is not K'luha, she told herself, ignoring the scent of the woman that mingled with K'ile's and persisted in sending her memories spiralling. It is an injured woman, whom you can help. Feeling faint, Antimony stood and moved to the other woman's side. She kept her eyes on the weakly writhing body as one hand plucked a few strands of hair from its head, which she tied firmly about the figure in her hand before pressing the figure into the other woman's own hand, forcibly wrapping fingers about it. "Hold," she intoned lowly, and her voice shook but she didn't allow herself to spare that a thought. Instead she took her attention to the hip and began to move the body on the bed in such a way that the spine and pelvis would straighten. She had not done anything of this sort in years, but the unyielding yet gentle touch came back with little effort. /Just a stranger who needs help./ One of the ointments she took from the box and, after pulling down the thin cloth of the woman's clothes, she began to slowly rub it into the skin. The air quickly filled with a sharp, pungent aroma, almost bitter. She needed ice, she thought, but there was no way she would get such a thing here. Instead, put her hands to cracked bone and battered flesh and called on things she had violently disavowed five years past. * Twinflame: Having taken up a stance a meter or two from the bed, K'ile's primary senses were still blunted by the strength of the odor exuded by K'piru's medicine. It was like someone shining a light in his eyes, and he put his hand over his nose in a futile gesture. He didn't need his sense of smell to know how K'luha felt, but for K'piru, things were a bit less certain. The once-shaman was enigma, and she could be feeling or thinking anything. It was strange to see her at work as a healer again. * Antimony (K'piru): The words that pushed through Antimony's throat came slow at first, reluctant and half-remembered. She faltered, as did her hands on the vibrantly bruised hip, at the thought that she had become a hypocrite, that even as she spoke Azeyma's name and murmured words of succor over and over again, she did not expect the so-called Warden to grant it. The utilitarian in her silenced those thoughts as viciously as she had thrust aside her faith in the face of fire and death. Now was not the time for doubt. Bending low over the form, strands of hair hanging into her vision, Antimony's awareness shrunk to only her hands, the flesh beneath them, and the bright, tortured lines of aether contorting their broken paths through the body she sought to heal. After the first ten minutes, she did not even think of the words she spoke; they tumbled from her lips with a trance-like steadiness. One hand moved without looking to grip K'luha's, which held the carved figure. She spoke its name in her thoughts and words, and with that name it gained a lure. The angry, broken aether in K'luha's body stirred and, like a river, began to bend and pull away down a path of least resistance. Very deliberately, Antimony guided it, called on it, cajoled and dragged it out of where it should not be. When the rhythmic, whispered chanting finally faded, so too had the ointment's bitter odor, along with the heat that had built dangerously between bone and blood and flesh. Antimony's body sagged, a low, shuddering exhale sapping strength from her posture as her hands fell away. Her vision blurred and she felt herself slip down until she was leaning against the edge of the bed, on her knees. She could not recall these rituals draining her in such a way, but then, she had never performed them with so little reagent, nor with so little faith. Breathing unsteadily, Antimony rested. * K'luha Haaz: K'luha had no real say over what was happening anymore. She couldn't fight back. She couldn't protest. She could do nothing but be a burden and stand between K'ile and K'piru's reunion. Her mind wandered back to older times, when this sort of thing had happened before. All of the times K'piru had held her hand and helped her heal, and there had been many. And she could remember Piru's face when she woke up from her coma. And again her face when she bore her first child, then lost it, then a second. All she had ever tried to be there for K'piru and failed. All the times she had tired to be there for K'ile too, and failed. And K'ailia too. More than anything, K'luha wished she could just stop thinking. She was tired of feeling like a burden to everyone and everything. And yet being a burden was all she had ever known how to be in a relationship. Was Piru so disgusted with her now that her aunt could hardly stand to look at her? Maybe K'luha had thought poorly of Piru when she first left, but it was out of sadness more than any real anger. She was terribly sad that she lost her aunt. Everytime she had ever been angry it was because she was hiding a sadness. There was a discomfort and a comfort the ritual held. It was something that had been done similarly before, which was far more comfortable than any sort of Gridanian healing. Yet all those thoughts of being a burden and Piru's apparent distate for Luha made her unplausibly sad. Why wouldn't K'ile trust her? Why wouldn't Piru? And for that matter, why did K'ailia not understand her mother's sadness? K'luha made no noise, but staired emptily at the ceiling and let tears fall down her face; a newfound sadness plaguing her. A sadness that came with the loss of what she had thought to be her close knit family. * Twinflame: There wasn't a great deal of comfort in these caves that the Ul'dahn's called rooms. K'ile crouched against the wall opposite the bed where K'luha and K'piru were, watching the healing. He mostly watched K'piru's hands, her lips move with words K'ile found distant and strange. He noticed the movement of the shaman's gray ears and tail, the lean of her head, the set of her shoulders and hips. He did not fail to notice K'luh's tears, but he did not watch them either. He did fail to notice anything about himself, for there was nothing about himself. K'ile Tia was empty of any feelings, and had no thoughts as to his own actions. What he would do with himself depended on those women, as it always had. Those women who he... Well, that was a thought. And the way he took a breath deep enough to strain the limits of his lungs was a feeling. He ignored it, though, like Luha's tears. For now. * Antimony (K'piru): After a few minutes, Antimony shifted, straightening somewhat to lean back from the bed, though she remained on her knees. Unbidden, her eyes shifted to the right, to the profile of a face agonizingly familiar, but this lasted only a moment before her chest clenched, locking her breath in her lungs, and she had to turn away. "She needs more than I... can give her," she spoke after another long pause, during which she smelled a memory of blood and burnt flesh. But no, she was in Ul'dah, and the only smells in the room were the fading bitterness of medicine and those of K'luha and K'ile. "I've taken the poison from her blood, but if it's not... allowed to heal, it will return." Her voice remained quiet, exhausted, directed down towards her lap as though her neck hadn't the strength to keep her head up. "She needs rest." * K'luha Haaz: For once in her life, K'luha didn't feel the immediate urge to get up and move about. She didn't want to fight against the healing process, nor did she want it to speed up. All she could do was lie still and feel numb and saddened. * Twinflame: The Tia stood and walked over to the bed. He put a hand on K'piru's shoulder, squeezed slightly, he hoped reassuringly. "Thank you. I'll make her rest." He looked over at K'luha and said, "Can you rest for me, Luha?" * K'luha Haaz: Finally a word which described her feelings came to mind. Betrayl. Yes, that was the sickening feeling that turned her stomach. Betrayed by K'ailia, and K'ile, and long ago by K'piru. Less K'piru, more K'ailia and K'ile. Luha turned he head limply towards K'ile, eyes still accuistory but now hollowed with with a deeply hurt look in them. She did not answer, but she did not move either. * Antimony (K'piru): With a long breath, Antimony dragged herself to her feet, then wondered dimly when K'ile had gotten so near. She mumbled something, an excuse of some kind, and stepped around him towards the sink on the opposite wall. Her legs felt weak, and she leaned much of her weight on the metal dish before running the water and splashing it on her face. * Twinflame: K'ile met K'luha's gaze with an unaffected look. It was not one without feeling. There was concern there. But it was so strictly controlled that it did not vary. It was the same expression he'd been wearing since he'd put her down. He turned his gaze towards K'piru, but watched her half-heartedly. This wasn't right. The feelings between all three of them were wrong. But he couldn't change what they were. He realized that he blamed K'luha for this, and that was prudent. She was being selfish, as usual. But blaming her didn't change anything, and it didn't change how K'ile felt about her or K'piru or anything else. He said to K'piru, "If we got a room for she and I, would it be safe to move her there?" * Antimony (K'piru): Her ears drooped as she straightened. She could feel a few damp strands of hair sticking to her cheek and forehead, but through the numb exhaustion, she could not bring herself to fix them. Her thoughts answered K'ile's question with a 'yes', echoing that still dominant part of her that wanted to hide. "She shouldn't be moved more than necessary," she said instead. * Twinflame: "Maybe she should stay here for..." K'ile said, thinking over the prposition. K'luha would take more than one night to heal. Did K'piru want her around that long? Did she want her around at all? She'd only just barely agreed to spend more than five minutes with K'ile, and he was sure this hadn't been what she thought she was getting herself in to. So instead he said, "We can figure it out. Maybe use the blanket as a cot." He was still afraid of chasing K'piru off, but maybe it was a bit late for that. If he left now, she might disappear. There was no right answer to this problem! There was no way to make this work! He shook his head in a small display of frustration. "I don't know." * Antimony (K'piru): Turning back to face the rest of the room, Antimony looked to the wall behind the bed and removed her glasses to dry them distractedly with one sleeve of her dress. This was no different than the night she had readily sacrificed to help Mitari, she told herself, stifling the tremor in her hands by gripping the frame of her glasses harder. The vague blur of the room without the lenses made it easier to ignore the ache of loss in her chest. "I can request an additional pillow and blanket from the front desk, if you wish to stay," she spoke dully. She did not bother wondering where she would sleep; she knew dreams would not be her friend after this. * Twinflame: K'ile shook his head, "I won't stay unless you ask me too. If you want to get a different room for yourself, I'll stay and take care of Luha." * Antimony (K'piru): "It is not in my budget." Which, was actually mostly true, but Antimony still wondered why she seemed to be trying to hard to... what? To keep them here? Even though she very much did not want any of the memories or feelings they stirred? There was no sense in that, especially not when even just thinking of the words K'luha had wailed brought old wounds festering to the surface. She closed her eyes, hugged herself. * K'luha Haaz: It was blatantly obvious she was in the way. And that K'piru wanted her anywhere but here now. And so K'luha finally spoke up. "I can't move." She sighed loudly, hoping to draw both their attentions. "If you just put me somewhere it's not like I need taking care of. I'll just lay there. I'm sure you could throw me in a different room. Or with some help I could just Aetheryte to somewhere else if arrangements were made." * Twinflame: K'ile ignored K'luha, hearing her words and choosing not to respond to them. He repeated to K'piru, "I won't stay unless you ask me to." The statement felt so heavy in his mouth that they might have knocked him over, but he did not so much as sway on his feet. * K'luha Haaz: Really? What was even the point of going out of their way to save her when they were just going to ignore her? How was this suddenly all her fault? Wasn't K'ile the one in the wrong here? He was the one who abandoned her with no word! Why was this... suddenly all her fault? K'luha gripped her hands into tight fists. She wanted to rip her stupid leg off and beat K'ile and K'piru to death with it out of sheer spite. [12:40:40 AM] Antimony (K'piru): "You aren't going anywhere for the time being, so lie still," Antimony spoke suddenly, and with an only half-realized, unbidden vehemence at K'luha. No sooner had she let loose the words did she shrink back, looking away from the woman only to find her eyes on K'ile. She blinked at him for a second as though seeing him for the first time, and then looked hurriedly away. Her head ached with a conflict of interest and need, and in the moments following her words the inn room felt very, very small. "I will--" her words cut off and she forced shaking hands to replace her glasses, the world once again slipping into focus. The physical world, at least. Her mouth opened again, and in the span of a second, she tried to say a million different things. When that failed, she tried to do another million, but even with the door so close as to be only a few short steps away from freedom, Antimony froze. She recalled loneliness. She recalled nightmare. "... Stay. It's not a bother," she finally managed in a weak voice. * Twinflame: "Alright," K'ile Tia exhaled, and felt as though some strange, steely thing slipped out of his body as he did so. He felt... better. Even after all this, K'piru had not told him to leave, and she seemed to intend to stay as well. It was baffling to the point of unbelievable, and he almost expected to be mocked by some vision only to realize that he was dreaming. But he wasnt' asleep. Nobody was trying to recruited him into a magical flying all-male tribe, so he probably wasn't asleep. K'ile sat down on the bed next to K'luha, leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees, knit his fingers together. "Alright." * K'luha Haaz: 'Please. Something just kill me now before they start making out.' Was all the half-sarcasm K'luha had to think as she stared at the ceiling. * Antimony (K'piru): Air, Antimony thought and instead said, "I will see about the additional blanket," before turning to head towards the door. * K'luha Haaz: 'Oh good. Azeyma has some mercy left for me. Now please just let me die before I have to bear this bullshit any further.' Only half sarcastic thoughts. * Twinflame: K'ile exhaled and nodded, strangely relieved by K'piru's declaration of a (hopefully temporary) exit. "Alright. I'll be here." He looked at K'luha, trying quickly to form words. * Antimony (K'piru): Perhaps a little too quickly, Antimony disappeared through the door, shutting it quietly behind her. Once in the hall, she leaned back against the wooden door for several moments, as though it were the only thing holding her upright, and blinked at a wet blur across her vision. * K'luha Haaz: Well. Finally. Silence. "Well. As thankful as I am for you picking me off the desert floor, which you left me on by the way. I'd like to remind you that you left me on my face. On the desert floor. With a child that you helped adopt. And a broken hip. And you left. With no weapon. With a flimsy lie. For over two weeks. And yet, everything is my fault." And K'luha left it angrily silent as she glowered up at the ceiling and hope it would toppled in and just kill everything. * Twinflame: K'ile didn't delay after K'piru left, igoring K'luha's rant and turning his gaze on the woman to forcefully declare, "I love you." Which was stupid to just blurt out on its own, but damn it. * K'luha Haaz: K'luha opened her mouth to speak. Then closed it. The opened it again. Then closed it. There was a long pause before she frowned at him and shoved a punch at his stomach. "Then don't fucking ditch me in the middle of the fucking desert with a broken hip and vanish for two goddamn weeks! And DON'T let the way I fucking find you be K'ailia telling me we're going home together and that she saw you!" K'luha was blushing fervently and crossed her arms beneath her chest. Stupid idiot K'ile. "And you're not like K'yohko..." She added in a very hushed afterthought. * Twinflame: Cringing at the punch and spinning to his feet, K'ile said, "I know! I'm sorry! It's not like I planned on it. Listen." He gestured with hands, tail and ears as he spoke, walking in a circle so tight he might as well ahve been spinning, "Everyone I love dies. I promised K'thalen I'd become Nunh and take care of K'piru and her kids, but they didn't even make it back from Cartenau. I bet everything I had on K'piru," he pointed at the door, "And she left! Walked right off into the desert and left me alone in the middle of the night!" He stopped and held up his hands to K'luha, "And I know I did the same thng to you and that's not fair, but I've been TRYING to make everyone HATE me ever since Piru left and I wasn't ready for you to screw with that so, yes, I ran away and went looking for Piru. And I don't even know why I did it!" * K'luha Haaz: K'luha was somewhat taken aback by his sudden confession. Simultaneous happy he was confessing to her, and furious that he was such a fucking idiot. Also somewhat angry at herself for liking his stupid ass. It was a fine ass... wait what? Off topic. "You could have just fucking told me you needed time to yourself! Or that you were looking for K'piru! I would have stayed out of your way and wouldn't have gone fucking nuts worrying about you!" K'luha shot back, grabbing a pillow and chuking it at his face. "And you're really good and bad at making people hate you! You know that? Because I want to punch your face and kiss you at the same idiot you retard!" Luha flushed, her tail and ears frazzled that she even bothered to admit such a thing. * Twinflame: K'ile took the pillow to his face and caught it in his teeth. Biting down on it helped his nerves, and he gave it a feral shake before letting it drop to the floor and walking over to the bed. "Well I've just about given up on making you hate me. If you don't hate me yet I can get away with just about anything. Look." He put a hand on each of her shoulders and pushed her back down against the bed. "No moving around!" * K'luha Haaz: Luha snorted, half-heartedly laughing at watching him shake the pillow around in his mouth. He looked like a jackal doing that sort of thing. She remained still as he pushed her shoulders down into the bed and hovered nearby. "My hip is broken, not my arms." K'luha retorted, her tail wiggling out from beneath her and lightly tickling K'ile's side. * Twinflame: Uttering a neutral huff of disreggard, K'ile dropped his body down over K'luha's and kissed her lips, hands still on her shoulders. * K'luha Haaz: Soooo much shit. She was going to get so much shit from everyone back home. She was already in a lot of shit with the elders for being stupid and taking the fall for things that weren't even her fault, and yet. Most of her didn't really care right now. Momentarily, at least, she just let her entire frustration with everything drop to return K'ile's kiss. * Twinflame: Ignoring his earlier insistence that she not move, K'ile put one hand behind her neck and let the other run down her side and behind her back, pulling her slightly up and against him as he kissed her longer. Her familiar smell mixed with the taste of her kiss, the feel of her body, each sensation magnifying the others. His senses were full of K'luha. * K'luha Haaz: K'ile was really good at being a hyporite. Like, really good. She would make him a medal or something for it someday and promptly beat him with it at some point. Still, K'luha was compliant and happily shifted her arms to hug his lower torso lightly. She somehow felt like she was calming down, and wondered if they had just done this stupidity earlier if it would have helped. * Twinflame: Letting his lips move off of hers, he lid his mouth over her cheek and tasted the dramtic flavor of her sweat and the dirt she'd in. He liked it, and lay a wet kiss on her jaw. "Hate me yet?" * K'luha Haaz: K'luha made a soft noise as he finally relinquished her lips, only to slobber on her cheeck and jaw. Again, she let out a soft noise, though this one was lower before sighing. "No. But we're in so much shit right now." Luha whined softly, whishing the elders would lighten up a little bit on it. She probably wouldn't be too badly punished because she had a broken hip but... she was a little worried for K'ile. Maybe if they just never had sex the elders would let them do whatever it was they did. K'luha could live with that if it was allowed. * Twinflame: Holding her tight against, K'ile nuzzled his face down by her neck, laying a small kiss there. "Right now? No. Right now we're just here." * K'luha Haaz: Luha bit her bottom lip lightly and carefully hugged him in return, mindful of her hip. Which by the way, hurt to sit up but she sure as fuck wasn't about to ruin the moment. Not this moment. It was too important. "I'm... thank you. I feel... better. Much." Luha whispered softly, rubbing his back tenderly with her hands. * Twinflame: "Good," K'ile lifted his face and kissed K'luha's lips again, then leaned back and began to slips his arms off of her, "I'm not going to let K'piru catch us making out, though." * K'luha Haaz: Luha savored the last precious kiss before allowing K'ile to shuffled away. A small smile turned the corners of her lips before she glanced away. "Mmm... that would really scare her away. Although... I never got to really see her after you all returned from Cartenu save for when I fell through that tent. I know she left. You told us that but... Does she hate us?" K'luha looked to K'ile with concern in her eyes. She was yes, still concerned for her aunt K'piru. Or whatever it was that she called herself these days. * Twinflame: "No," K'ile said, adjusting the harness on his chest. "She's afraid, actually, or at least that's how she smelled. But she's..." he froze, suddenly, as he remembered the warmth of K'piru's hug, the shivering voice with which she'd apologized. He recalled her scent, and her touch, and the taste of the air she'd breathed. He swallowed, and said, "She might run away again. I don't know what to... I keep trying to..." * K'luha Haaz: K'luha paused and glanced about the room. All of K'piru's things were here. And K'ile had her scent pretty much down didn't he? It wasn't as if he couldn't find her again but... if she was just going to keep running away. Luha shifted her hands and moved to grab K'ile's in reassurance. "You can go after her. It's not like I'm going anywhere. Maybe two of us is just too many for her. You can go after her and sent someone from the front desk to move to to another room if you want. I love K'piru too. She's my aunt. She helped me deliver two children and recover from the first loss. I've always wanted to help her, but I don't think I can. So go after her." * Twinflame: He shook his head, "No. I won't." He sat on the bed next to K'luha, looking at her hand, "If she wants to run away I'll let her, because... She wouldn't be doing it if she didn't need to. She loves us, and the tribe. If there were any way for her to stay she would. So I won't chase her. I won't hurt her." He looked away from K'luha to hide the tears in his eyes. He felt sick, and a wave of cold rushed over him. "Anyway. She just went to get a blanket. She'll be back any second now." * K'luha Haaz: K'luha found it very... strong of K'ile to think that. He was stronger than she had thought. Stronger than he probably gave himself credit for. Part of her wanted to think something bitterly about him not ever wanting to hurt Piru but not giving a shit if he hurt herself... but the thought died before it ever happened. Piru was delicate. K'luha decided K'ile was right. If she needed to run, then she needed to run. Ignoring the pain in her hip, she shifted to wrap her arms around Kile's waist and press her head lightly against his back. "She'll come back then... It might take a little longer but... I think she'll come back." Luha assured him softly, leaving a soft kiss on the small of his back. She wished she could be more reassuring but, this was all she had. * Twinflame: K'ile accepting the reassurance coldly despite its warmth. He wasn't so sure, and he was terrified and nauseous, and he just closed his eyes and ducked his head to try and calm himself down before he started crying like an idiot. After a moment, he took a deep breath and pried K'luha off of him, turning to push her back down. "No moving this time. For real. I'll tie your ass to the bed." * K'luha Haaz: K'luha felt a bit disheartened that she wasn't helping him at all. Maybe he just needed to freak out. Although... Luha faintly thought if K'ile broke down and K'piru went missing she was probably going to die on the bed this time since she couldn't very well move to take care of herself. "Alright..." K'luha gave in, dropping her arms in surrender. "I won't move. But you have to breathe, okay?" * Twinflame: He smiled, "I'm breathing. I'll be just fine." * K'luha Haaz: K'luha raised a brow at him, but decided trusting him and listening was the best way to decrease his stress. There was nothing else she could do now but lay still. "Alright but... don't be stupid like me and run off to have a breakdown? Can you just... have it right here if you're going to have one? So I can at least try to help?" Luha pleaded, ears flattening against her head. * Twinflame: "I'm not going to have a breakdown," K'ile said, reaching out and putting a hand on K'luha's face. "This isn't like last time I tried to help Piru. I'm going to become Nunh for you, not her. And I need to take care of Tahj and the tribe. So I'm not going to have a breakdown." * K'luha Haaz: Luha smiled faintly as he pushed his hand on her face and reassured her he wouldn't. She reached a hand up to place hers own top of his hand before pulling it lightly off her face. "Right well. I had things to take care of but that didn't really stop me from breaking down. And of course now I'm on bad terms with K'ailia again too. She just makes me so upset when I see her." Luha pouted for a moment before glancing back to K'ile wonder if distracting him was helping at all. "But... I'm glad you and K'piru found me. I think I'll actually be able to lay down and heal finally with K'piru's help... I'm very grateful to her..." * Twinflame: "You just needed that Sagolii touch," K'ile said, adding a lighter tone to his voice. "And try nto to worry so much about K'ailia. If you do that, I'll try not to worry too much about Piru, alright?" * K'luha Haaz: "Deal." K'luha nodded. That was something she could really get behind. If Piru was alive after five years then, she was okay. She could manage on her own right? That's what K'luha was trying to convince herself of at least.

. [align=center]. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . [/align] [align=center]3rd Umbral Moon, Year 5 of the 7th Umbral Era[/align] [align=center]Four and one half years after Calamity[/align] Mitari paused in his steps. Even in the freezing cold that numbed his sense and body, he could smell the thick aroma of blood. Of fighting. Of dragons. He had come back to the keep, yet again. Whenever he was lost, he always seemed to come back to that place. Even when they had treated him poorly for the most part. Even when they refused to listen to his new name or teach him anything or even recognize he was a damn boy half the time (Some of the people thought it was funny and gave him women's clothing a lot), he came back here. It was hell... but it was also home. And to see through the blizzard scales and lances, Mitari felt something ache painfully in his chest. Grasping at his lance he charged through the snow, hoping to join the fray before it was too late. 'Lyri...!' he thought somewhat desperately. She was an asshole, but she was probably in danger. And for all her bullshit she had helped him out more than she knew. (He especially liked the lances he had stolen from her trashbin and some of her clothing and such as well, spoilt brat that she was.) Great cries and men in half-worn armor fought, staining the snowy ground black and red with their blood. Mitari came upon the keep in a frightful state, his eyes falling immediately upon the dragon half-embeded into the keep's stone walls. He cursed beneath his breath and ran faster. He could jump, but not as the others could. He had no soul stone of his own to draw power from, and thus could only rely on his own strenght to muscle through the line of heretics that stood in his way. With a great cry, the thin but muscular male swathed in black and purple armor tore a line through the back of the heretics, burning lance ripping through scale and armor alike. His head was covered by a turban, and his eyes shielded by a mask. It was far too cold and white for him to see well without it, and even he knew that looking directly into the eye of a 'heretic' or a dragon would be good cause to get himself even further ostracized. [align=center][/align] At the center of the Keep was a tower, and every window in the tower had been broken out the first time the dragon had crashed its great body into it. The Midichante patriarch stood in the ruins of one of the windows, lance in hand, but armor unworn. The attack had come so suddenly that he had been able to give no orders to the soldiers before the gates had broken and the walls themselves had been surmounted. Heretics charging out of the blizzard, madmen wearing the frostbite like they wore their cursed necklaces, had brought bloodshed to his home. His old eyes narrowed as the dragon arched towards his perch, and his thin hands gripped his lance tightly. There was no mistaking his intention. Lyrique Midichante pulled her father out of the window roughly, depositing him on the floor. She chided him, "You're too old to fight and too young to die. Brother's not ready to take over the family just yet." His fury was unmistakable, but even from such a slight topple, he'd lost his grip on his lance. Concern overrode his anger as he rolled to his knees. "Lyrique. Don't look in their eyes! Their scales-!" "I know, father," she said, put one plated boot on the windowsill and launched herself out. Lyrique flew like a harpoon at the passing dragon. Her armor was decorated with gold-capped spikes and number of superfluous glass gems of her own addition, which caught the ambient light but failed to warn the dragon in time. She dug her lance into its hide behind one arm, drawing a groan from its maw and causing it to flail in the air. She was dislodged when it threw itself up against the tower, her lance coming free and trailing dark, unholy blood behind it. Lyrique arched her back to control her fall, but even so, the roof of an outlying building struck her shoulder and the side of her head. Or, really, she just landed that way, and she plowed through a number of cross-beams before she was able to get her lance in front of her. Lyrique's momentum threw her clear of the roof and into the keep's main wall. She landed with her feet and one hand against the wall, crouching parallel to the ground. She hung there for a moment before dropping into the courtyard. A great deal of her red hair had shuffled forward in her helmet during her fall and now fell over her eyes, so she removed her helmet and shook her hair to see. This was just in time to notice the heretic that was coming straight at her like an oversized crossbow bolt. Mitari's eyes searched through snow and bodies and dragons for a haughty woman, much taller than him with flaming hair. Mitari's eyes caught her hair, and his nose caught her scent beneath the thick smell of battle. In a strange way, she was a friend to him. Sort of. Maybe. In any case, he knew that he did not want her to die. He saw her form, and the raving heretic running towards her. "Lyrique!" Mitari bellowed before jumping as high as he could into the air and tossing his lance with all his might. The lance soared true and impaled the heretic into the ground at her feet, blood pooling. Landing somewhat clumsily, Mitari shoulder tackled his way towards her again, mostly to retreive his weapon. Stepping back as blood splattered onto her feet, Lyrique pulled her hair back and put her helmet back on her head. Seemed her hair was out to get her killed. The helm masking her face was painted over with the many-pronged sigil of Midichant, so that the symbol seemed to replace her features. Tufts of red hair still poked out of its fringes. Moving forward, she took the strange, burning lance from the body and considered it. A magical weapon. Where had-? A roar too bestial to come from any throat but a heretic's, more unholy than even that of the dragons, drew her eyes upward. Dark elezen forms flew briefly through the air overhead, vaulting the keep's walls as though they were jumping over a fallen branch. Not once did the feet of the heretics touch the ground, colliding instead with the walls of the keep's inner tower and clinging there as though by talon and claw. She bit down on her teeth painfully. Corrupt Dragoons. Betrayers. Between they and the dragon, the walls might as well not even be there. She counted four and hoped there weren't any more. Mitari skidded to a halt in front of Lyri and grapsed for his lance from her hands. He too, had seen the dark elezen forms flying over head and crashing into the keep's inner tower. There was no time to explain his return if she even cared or recognized him. The keep was in trouble. There were so many too... Even with all of the well trained dragoons, Mitari knew an invasion this size was going to mean being wiped out. If nothing else, he wanted to save Lyri and her family. As much of them and their history and records as possible. That was something he knew was important. Even if Lyri's family never accepted him, he found their history and family a very important thing. "Lyrique!" Mitari called again as he looked to her, face obscured by the visor attached to his turban. "Go! I'll cover your back!" The sigil of Midichant turned towards Mitari, and was silent for a brief moment. Then she reached out in a quick motion an knocked the visor up off of his eyes, her clawed gauntlets flicking close to his face. She leaned her head back and looked down at him from behind the mask on her helmet . "U'daenia" Mitari stood akwardly for a second, his brows knitting together while she stared at him. What was it? He looked the same he always did. Still pathetically girly. And if she was going to call him a girl again, she was going to get a lance up her damn ass until she figured it out. "Don't stare, move!" He snapped, pushing his visor back down and gripping his lance harder. "More important things than me to worry about! Go!" Mitari hissed, turning around to punch a heretic in the face with a gloved hand and send him sprawling on the ground. Lyrique Midichant pushed against Mitari, hard, throwing his lance against him and throwing him away from her, heedless of the heretics. "Watch you tone with me!" She barked, suddenly furious. Mitari let out a forced breath as Lyrique shoved him away with his lance, pushing the metal weapon hard into his chest. It took a moment to get his barrings and stagger upright again before he ran into someone's blade or something. When he had collected himself and looked back to Lyrique, he scowled and barred his teeth. What the fuck was that for? She was a collassal bitch, but even that was uncalled for. "And don't think you are worthy to 'watch my back'!" Oh yes. Of course. He had to roll his eyes beneath his visor. The Pretty Pretty Princess of Dragoons couldn't have a lowly miq'ote orphan watching her perfectly scupted ass. Right. She pointed at the tower, where the dragon circled and the heretical Dragoons were disappearing through the open windows. "Those corrupt Dragoons need to die or what's happening here will occur elsewhere. Still want to be a Dragoon, U'taneh? If you can kill even one of them I just might make you a knight!" And kill just one? He was going to smother that bitch in the bodies of all the heretics he killed today Her red lips flashed a smile at the boy, though it was crooked with some concealed emotion. She crouched on the ground and then launched herself into the air, trailing a flurry of snow and dirt behind her. She left Mitari in the courtyard and landed on a distant parapert adjacent the main tower. Mitari muttered angry curses as she jumped away, just to show off no doubt. "Lyrique!" He yelled back angrily at her. He had a comeback for her, but the wit died in his mouth as he looked across the courtyard for another way to get across and up the tower. Ah yes. Through a sea of raging fights and heretics. Well. There was only one way through. Mitari pulled his lance tight to his body and took up a running stance. He was going to charge straight through the damn line and swekwer the heretics in his way. And hopefully miss the innocents fighting. Although telling the difference was difficult sometimes. On the tower, Lyrique took the briefest of moments to linger on one knee, bent with her face to the ground. She wasn't gong to let anyone see her terror. Imagined images of her father's corpse flickered in her mind, her siblings and friends executed in the cold. The keep had fallen so quickly, she never would have imagined it. Corrupt Dragoons. She frantically wiped the heretic blood from her boot, a meaningless gesture. She could die today. Her father and her siblings could die. The line of Midichante could fall into the pit of history. Fear or no fear, though, she tightened her grip on her lance until her fingers hurt and stood. Then she flew, the windows of her home greeting her coldly. Inside there were heretics, Dragoons whose skills may exceed her own, and she would either slay each of them, or she would die. [align=center][/align] "Get outta my way!" Mitari roared, lunging forward with a burst of speed. It was more difficult than he thought, and by the first skewered heretic he had to stop and bash the man's face in with his elbow to actually kill him. Then came the task of getting the body off his lance, while simultaneous trying not to get stepped on and murdered by everyone around him. It wasn't going well, but he managed to finally get the body off and beat off the rest of those who were attacking him. This time he tried a slightly more stealthy approach, crawling through the tangled bodies and legs until he got to the door and used his lance like a baseball bat to smash the head of the men at the door and knock them out of the way. Inside the tower wasn't much better off. In fact, maybe it was worse because the whole thing seemed to be crumbling with bodies and heretics and minor dragons littering the stairs. "Fuckkkk." He groaned loudly, grunting as a small dragon charged at him. Mitari braced himself and skidded backwards against the wall as he was hit. He was already scuffed and cut and bruised in a lot of places from the act of getting to the tower, but now climbing the billion stairs against all of these? He was probably going to die. But with that in mind he steeled himself and shoved his hand forward, grasping at the dragon's eye and pulling it. It caused enough pain to make the dragon wail and stagger back, and enough time for Mitari to skewer it through its soft underbelly. He glanced up the staircase and kicked the dragon off his lance. Only a billion more to go until the top. [align=center][/align] The cartographer was nowhere to be seen. Lyrique crouched to the floor and scooped up fallen maps, stained with black and red blood, ripped and creased. Her hands felt numb and distant, the action thoughtless. She wasn't completely conscious of the act. The maps were beautiful, intricate both mathematically and artistically, organized by topography, geography, ecology. The feverish work of the cartographer, to catalog once more every inch of Coerthas' new face in the wake of Calamity, lay abandoned like worthless scribbling. It made her ill. More than the fear and the death, this struck her with bizarre ferocity. She was dizzy and pale, and she could see the maps quivering in her unstable hands. Lyrique stacked them neatly open the angled drawing table, then lay the scattered quills and pens straight. On a nearby desk, a statuette of a scholar whom the cartographer revered lay broken atop a splash of black blood. It looked like a broken body at the bottom of a crevice carved through the Highlands. Was the cartographer alive, or had she made it out alive? What of her father and siblings? How many of her attendants could she imagine surviving? Why was she listing the names of the servants in her head like a casualty report? Since when did she even know the names of the servants? Lyrique Midichant threw herself to her right so forcefully that the bricks in the wall cracked upon her impact. Her armor still bore scratches from the lance she'd barely evaded, a dark weapon that ripped through the room and shattered the cartographers' workplace. Splinters of wood clattered against the ceilings and walls, and torn pieces of maps -- each particle of ink invaluable -- fell over her like confetti at a parade ground. There was laughter, too: a dark chuckle. "Oh no. I've made a mess." The humored voice of a madman slithered into the room. One of the four heretic Dragoons she'd seen earlier swaggered into the light, snow dappling his pale features. His skin was too cold to melt the snow. It was as though he were dead. Lyrique pulled her spiked body free from the wall and point her lance at him, strands of hair sitting over her red lips beneath the sigil of Midichant upon her mask. The woman absolutely glittered with gold filigrees and gemstones. "You will never have another day past this one. Repent and your soul may find peace on the morrow." "Hm," pale lips smirked at her from behind a mask laden with scars. "You think you are worthy to challenge me? Minor noble of a minor house. We all take the dragons in for a fragment of power. How much more powerful am I than you, then, for my life is the dragons'? Would you like to see how much I have taken in?" She answered directly, "Yes I would." The room shattered around them. Amidst the rubble of broken walls and snow swirling in the air, Lyrique Midichant stood with the man's helm in her hands, his mutilated body at her feet. The gold filigrees had become covered in blood, dark, unholy. She couldn't wash it off. "One," she counted, "leaving only three." And she went through the door through which the Heretic Dragoon had come. [align=center][/align] Mitari snarled as he slammed his way into the room, several dragons pierced through his lance before pinning them to the wall. He spent the next several minutes beating them to death with his fists before sinking to the floor in a pant. He looked bad already. Bleeding and open wounds throughout his body. His armor wasn't doing as much as he'd like, and it had ripped over in several places to expose wounds to the cold and dragon blood and what not. The tower shook heavily as there seemed to be fighting still above him. Mitari looked up and got to his feet, glancing around the blood soaked room he was in. He was never going to beat Lyri to the top. Not that it mattered. Shoving his foot into the pile of dragons, he pulled out his lance with a mighty effort and took a moment to catch his breath. "Right... just... another... million stairs to the top..." Mitari groaned again and started up the stairway in a run. [align=center][/align] The foyer of her father's seat of power was a broad, open room with windows on all sides, two stairways entering from below and two leaving above, a number of pillars, and a monument to Halone. The room took up an entire floor of the tower. Gold-lined bronze was erected in the center of the room, a shield on a stand with three ornate spears standing on end behind it. Chains of gold and cut glass draped over and between them, blowing in the wind, flickering with light. Glass decorated the floor, bright with reflected snow and fire. Every window was broken, and drifts of snow lay against the bronze monument. "Halone does not hear the prayer of heretics," Lyrique Midichante's words sounded like they'd been forged in a kiln concealed behind her ribs, echoing empty through the steel mask she wore. Cracked glass beads hung from her shoulders by gold chains. Dented ornaments over her body made her look like a monument to Halone herself, the skin of her face carved from white marble, her red lips artfully paints. The heretic dropped his hands from their posture of prayer, put them on the ground before him, bent so his forehead touched the bronze shield. The skin of a heretic upon the monument a sick image that did not linger. He stood suddenly, but did not turn when he said, "My family tells a tale of an ancestor of mine, a Dragoon so devoted to Halone that the dragons could not corrupt him. He had three arms, and used three lances. But I think..." Lyrique walked forward with a measured pace, slow and silent, her lance held to one side. Its point was sharper than the bite of cold. The heretic spun on her, "I think Halone was holding him back!" and drove his lance towards her. Her only response was to press that sharp point of lance away, nudging it gently to the side and sliding her blade down the shaft of his weapon. There was a great screech of metal on metal, a few sparks in the snow. She was hoping to take his fingers, but the heretic aborted his attack when it stabbed only the air beside her head, and when she pressed her blade forward he leapt away from her. Hanging from the ceiling like a taloned beast, the heretic Dragoon said, "How much greater could my ancestor have been? If he had disregarded Halone and fully embraced the dragons?" Lyrique jumped backwards, not wanting to linger beneath her enemy. There was a flurry of snow when she landed near an open window, flakes dancing about her as gold and glass swayed and sparkled. "I've heard that story," she said calmly, with heat, "Told by the head of the Tidarei family. I will drag your corpse before you father that he should know your blasphemy and make reparations on your behalf." The heretic tore one of the bronze-and-gold lances from the monument with a clatter of decorative chains and glass. He held it in his off hand, a strange contrast to his bleak armor and dead appearance. The curl to his lips was not sane. "I will exceed my ancestor. The future descendants of Tidarei will tell my legend to their children." A great shadow passed over Lyrique as the dragon circled outside. She glanced at it, but it was hunting something else. "House Midichante has a tale as well," she said, turning her green eyes back to the heretic. "My ancestor had six arms." "And you!" The heretic Dragoon bellowed as he charged her, "Will have none!" Glass was torn up from the floor and broken anew. Shards of glass and gold decorated the ceiling like quartz in a cave when they were done. The shield on the monument in the center of the room was shattered, but all three of the gold-adorned lances stood point-down in the chest and gut of the heretic, their shafts swaying in the air. The heretic dragoon's corpse did not move, turned black with its own blood. Its shoulders ended in limbless stubs. "I can only count to two on your weak arms," said Lyrique Midichante as she kicked the man's dismembered limbs out a broken window, into the courtyard. "But that's high enough. Because there's only two of you left." [align=center][/align] "This is... total... fucking... chocobo shit..." Mitari panted, the sounds of raging battle above him. No doubt Lyri outdoing him. Not that it was really important for him to be the hero of this battle. He'd done enough already, rescuing a few small children and helping the elderly and injured out of the castle and down to the cellars for safety. But that also meant running up and down the stairs hauling people and occasionally kicking the shit out of the lesser heretics and dragons on the way. Mitari was, rather proud of his accomplishments so far but... The staircase to the upper portion of the tower on the fifth floor was shattered. And that left Mitari was one option. Which was scaling the wall using his lance and another fallen lance he picked from the ground and a dead body. A lance he was planning on keeping, of course. It was a really nice lance actually... Swinging himself up and around, he managed to perch on his own lance before stabbing the second one into the wall again. He jumped forward and hung off the second lance, grabbing his own and hauling it out of the wall before repeating the process. "Chocobo shit!" He cursed loudly again. "And I know what that fucking smells like damn it! Would you people just give me a damn gem already!?" [align=center][/align] Her father lay on the stairs, his armor broken. It was a sad mirror of the way she had left him -- why had she left him? -- when she'd gone to attack the dragon. He'd moved, it seemed, but he'd never made it off the stairs. Something inside of Lyrique broke, and she could feel herself bend as though she'd lost all support. Her lance was suddenly too have for her hands, and she heard it hit the steps, and then stumbled stupidly over it and hit her knees. She clambered forward like a cripple, watching drops of water fall on the inside of her helm, teardrops dangling from the facemask where her family's crest was emblazoned. "Father," she heard herself say. "Dad!" She was at the old man's side. He wasn't dead, but he wasn't moving either, and his eyes looked like they weren't seeing anything. There was blood underneath him. Was it his? "I'm trying to keep count!" A strange voice said. Lyrique looked up in time to see the point of a lance coming at her, and she put up a hand in instinctive, ineffectual defense. The offending blade caught in the crease of her gauntlet, though, and while she felt something inside her hand break and watched the filigrees on her arm snap outward as her gauntlet warped, she stiffened her arm to hold the blade away from her. "Seven! Six! Five! How many of you am I killing?!" Her thin body was slammed against the steps, and she felt them break beneath her. Snow and gray debris filled her vision, clouding her sight of the maddened face that was screaming at her. "Seventy-five! Fifty-seven!" Her head collided with her own dropped lance, and her hand reached out to catch it just as it was about to be knocked out the nearby window. Wordless and thoughtless, she brought it in front of her and swung outward. The heretic dragoon's chainmail gave way, but Lyrique's gauntlet gave way at the same time. Bent metal crushed her wrist as lukewarm innards poured out of the heretics body and onto her own. The dark blade crashed into the stones next to her face, a millimeter from cutting her ear off, and Lyrique could feel the subtle shift of hair freed from her head. "No more than seven!" Shouted the dying, maddened dragoon, blood frothing on his teeth. "Midichante. Every last one of you! I can't keep count." "I can," Lyrique said, her voice shaking with adrenaline and pain. She held her arm against her chest like a diseased limb. "There were four of you. Now there is only one." "Midichante!" Lyrique left the corpse on the stairs alongside a few drops of her own blood, a line of it running down her chin from a cut on her face. Her lance on her back, she knelt by her father and turned the man over. "Dad?" He did not respond, but he continued to breathe. She put one shoulder under his arm and her good hand around his chest, and began to drag him up the stairs. His legs were stained red with blood. Her legs were stained black with other, dark, unholy blood. [align=center][/align] [align=justify]Finally. Mitari huffed as he clambered up the last bits of broken stairs. Finally to the damn. fucking. top. of the fucking tower. Who BUILT these like this? Elezen were so dumb sometimes... all the time. Ugh. The not dragoon wiped the sweat from his brow as he rounded the dark corridor, two lances in his hands. He paused in the doorway, a dark black armored male somehow blocking his path. It seemed to be watching something... Mitari stealthily glanced past towards whatever the thing was watching. He caught the sight of a not so well looking Lyri and held his breath. There was a sickening laugh from the figure in front of him and Mita scowled. With a swift movement, he pushed both the lances through at the weakest point in the jointed armor and felt the satisfying movement of lance embedding into flesh. "Oh shut up." Mia grumbled, kicking the dying body forward and stepping over it. He moved towards Lyri to catch her attention, but the body wasn't done. A clawed hand grasped his leg and he helped as what was once an elezen heretic morphed sickeningly into a thick scaley dragon. Which Mitari was now being held by. "Fucking really!?" Mitari hissed loudly, scrambling to reaching a lance and trying to yank it out of the body. It was very well embedded, but that also made it hard to pull out. As the dragon grew in size and toppled over the tower in its wake, Mitari did his best not to get knocked out by falling rocks and get his lance out of the damn thing's back. Lyrique Midichant asked herself why she was carrying her father up the tower. She didn't know. There was nowhere to take him. She was too weak from her injuries to jump from the tower with him in hand, and she doubted her chances at getting to the bottom of the tower with him either. Nor would she simply leave him to die. So she carried him. A large chunk of rubble fell where she'd been standing a moment before, and Lyrique sagged from the effort of dodging it. She let her father slip from her shoulder, laying him on the floor, and turned wearily to face the dragon that writhed behind her. She felt herself slaw, jaw ajar. Exhaustion pulled at her in the wake of adrenaline, but as she took her lance from her back and gripped it in her good hand,s he felt the adrenaline beginning to renew itself. The pain in her fractured wrist began to subside. Another piece of weaponized debris flew at her immobile father, and Lyrique spun to intersect it with her lance, smashing it to harmless bits that pelted her and the Midichante patriarch. She launched herself through the cloud of snow and stone at the dragon, and the force of her body alone broke bones inside the beast's chest. Her lance was embedded meters into the hideous body, so deep that the hand gripping it was inside of the gore. She twisted her lance and pushed off the dragon with the same force, spinning as she did. Her lance ripped out at a crooked angle and threw blood blood, scales, gore and chips of dragon bone. Whatever she ripped out must have been important, because the beast fell still afterwards, and it began to slide out of the tower, pulled by its own weight. Lyrique stood panting in the center of a hideous circle of dark blood that looked like it had been painted on the floor and walls by a great brush. She hadn't even noticed Mitari was there. Mitari wasn't even sure what was happening other than trying to get his lance out of the damn dragon's body before it crushed him. But by the time he finally got his lance out, the dragon seemed to have fallen dead and was half-crushing him anyway. He let out a loud snarl as his ribs felt like they broke. "Fucking... god fucking damn these fucking dragons..." He hissed, pushing off the dragon's corpse and pulling himself out from beneath it with his lance. When the dragon's corpse shifted, Lyrique jumped away from it, landing in a splash of gore near her father with her lance pointed at the dragon. "What the fuck..." he grumbled again, staring at the ceiling for a moment to try and breathe again. Just a moment of respite, and hopefully he wasn't about to get stabbed by something else. The cursing clued Lyrique in, though, and she let her lance lilt to the floor as she watched Mitari lay himself out on the floor. "U'ta... U'tanei," she said after a moment, breathless and weak. "U'tania. But it's Mitari now." He corrected, still in a deadpan voice, before looking over to the source of the sound. So he FINALLY caught up with Lyri. She looked to be in shitty shape as well, so he was glad he wasn't the only person in terrible condition. With a grunt he pulled himself up and had to struggle with breathing for a short while. With a huff, Lyrique forced herself to stand full. She stood her lance tall on its end at her side and let her other hand hang useless just slightly behind her. Gold and glass still shone on much of her chest and shoulders, but she was mostly broken and stained black. Battered and exhausted and still short of breath, snow landing in pits torn in her armor and on bits of hair that stuck out of her helmet, Lyrique at least managed to hold a proper posture. "U'denia," she said, this time in a firmer tone, "You need to take my father." She gestured with her broken hand to the old man, laying motionless nearby. "U'tania. Call me Mitari." More deadpan corrections. Still, as he struggled to stand and breath he glanced over to Lyri. So proud even when she was half beaten down. But, that's just the way she had always been. As for her father. "Alright. I'm on it. Where should I take him? I took the others to the cellars." He questioned, limping over towards her and her father. "That's fine," she said, and walked a short distance away so that Mitari could approach her father while keeping a prerequisite distance from her. "There's one more heretic Dragoon and that dragon of theirs. If I can kill them then maybe we can retake the keep." Her mind was alight with questions, even through the pain adn adrenaline and fear. All the more because of them, in fact. This keep was of minor strategical importance, so what was the point in taking it? They would never hold it for long if the Holy See reacted as it should and staged a counter-offensive. Where had the heretic Dragoons come from, and why were they acting the way they were? Moreover, where the man Dragoons that should have been in the keep to defend them, pleadged to the Midichante family? Why was Lyrique the only one present? "Once I'm done with them I'll go get help." She uttered mournfully, the idea of leaving the keep for so much as an instant filling her very bones with fire. "A unit of Dragoons passed through the keep yesterday and I should be able to find them." "You already found us," said the bleak man as his feet struck the stone floor so hard the entire tower seemed to buckle beneath him. The man's armor was unmistable, but his flesh looked frozen and dead. He uncurled like a beast taking perch instead of a man that just feel from the sky. "There's no helpfor you outside of this keep, Midichante." "U'tani! Get my father!" Lyrique shouted, ducking her head and launching herself at the last of the heretic Dragoons without hesitation or delay. [align=center][/align] [/align]

"Oh, now I know this is a mistake." "Hm?" "This name," the Elezen woman pointed at a list that sat on the desk before her, between piles of small glass-and-metal leveplates and boxes of varying sizes. The large window behind her was fogged over with frost, and her cheeks were red from the chill, giving her a festive look as she laughed. "U'tania! Isn't that the Miqo'te stable-girl from a few years ago?" "Yes," the dark haired Elezen man answered, looking up from a desk that mirrored the woman's. He gestured with his quill, "And no. He changed his name to Mitari and he's a knight now." She blinked at him, and shook her head. "What." "Don't bother. It's not a mistake. Just do what the list says." "No, listen," she held up the list. "It says U'tania is supposed to be sent one of the sexy leveplates and a pair of suggestively tight holiday pantelletes. Every other name on this list is a noble, a knight, or a lady of court, and all good Ishgardian folk." "Oh, is that the 'sexy' list? I have the 'platonic' and 'family' leveplates over here. Very different pictures on them." He smirked and leaned forward, "Am I on that list?" "No. Are you on those lists over there?" He looked suddenly depressed. "No," but only took a moment to sigh, and then shrugged, "If the Lady Midichante wants to send a Miqo'te one of the sexy leveplates, it's not really our place to question. You now how she likes to skirt the edge of reason and taboo." "Might as well be sending love letters to a chocobo," the lady observed, but nodded. "There's a few dozen names on this list. I just hope she didn't put the name on here on accident, or it'll be my neck when she blames me for the Miqo'te getting too excited." She took one of the 'sexy' leveplates and placed it in the box with red silk pantalettes. "At least pantalettes go on the outside of his bum. Some of the things in these boxes would get the Lady in trouble were they to come up in an inquisition." "Are you sure I'm not on that list over there?" "Yes, I am. I'm sorry. If there's an extra leveplate you might be able to take it, but I wouldn't count on it." "What list are you on?" She blushed. "That is none of your business!" And she slammed her hands on the box to seal it with sudden roughness. "Sexy leveplate and pantalettes from the Lady Midichante to some miqo'te named U'tania! Alright, done! Now can we just forget I said anything and get back to work please?" A week later the poor woman would find out that it was a mistake and that she should have caught it, but she would successfully defer blame to man whose counsel she followed. The gentleman would never see any of the sexy leveplates. Mitari, however, would by then have already received a leveplate of his very own from a moogle parcel-carrier.

Tagging threads is in no way an extreme response; it's just common courtesy. Expecting others to tag threads with potentially offensive content is no different than expecting the host of a party to let you know that beverages are caffeinated or alcoholic before sticking them in your hands. It's extremely simple. As far as the rape and whatnot go, some people are extremely uncomfortable with RPing in a canon where this sort of thing happens, or is even mentioned, and that's not really something they need to explain or give a reason for. I have a hard time imagining a scenario where it would be acceptable to expose someone to a story including rape when that person isn't comfortable with it. It's extremely rude. The same goes for other commonly disturbing themes like slavery, torture, mental illness, incest, or even realistic depictions of abusive relationships that some might find a bit too close to home. I've written some pretty violent RP on this site, but I've assumed it's acceptable because of the environment both here and in-game. If it turned out I had offended someone, I would apologize, because I would have done something rude.

K'takka was looking at her fingernails. Her index finger on one hand was misshapen, rigid and dark. It looked as though it had been carved from wood and melded to her hand. The long, sharp nail of that finger was individually black, contrasting the pail nails of her other fingers. Her eyes rose to consider K'deiki as though she were trying to decide whether or not the woman had gone mad. Then she flicked her gaze to K'tahjha and said to the tent as a whole, "There is nothing to consider. She is the daughter of the Nunh. The 'right path' is in her blood."

I think if you started doing this then the leadership of the RPC would need to pass judgement on whether they wanted threads tagged [ERP] on here in the first place. Besides that point, I tend to put trigger and content warnings on my threads in the first place. Violence is assumed because of the genre of the game, but for any kind of sexual content or icky gore (and especially for sexual violence, even if it's only implied), it's just common courtesy and good sense to tag that. Shouldn't really need a policy.

((You mean you couldn't read all that in two minutes? It only took us two minutes to write! ... Or not. Also wtf Nau stahp ))