Twinflame

((Mostly unedited RP transcripts. The first of these scenes takes place immediately after this thread over here))

((Aksed K'nahli before posting and she said it was fine!)) An omnipresent but mostly silent din, the sand moved around the desert like a tide taking decades to roll up onto a beach. The sand rode the wind, and shared the air with the sound of voices and movement, the smell of bodies and breath. The desert shimmered like a frozen ocean in the heat, and the currents carried blood to his senses. K'nahli practiced just outside of camp, her targets downwind to keep the sand out of her eyes. She was there with K'mih. It wasn't unusual. "Strange is a word for it," K'ile Tia's voice broke through the breeze, coming from upwind. With his hair pulled from his face by the sand, his blue eyes -- exactly like K'thalen's had been -- looked over the two women. They did not linger on K'nahli, instead giving K'mih his best casual smile. He stood atop the sand as if he had always been there, his approach as natural and silent as a migrating stone. The sensitive skin at his neck and collarbones was pink where the sand had irritated it, and where the strap that held his quiver lay over it. His longbow, a cheap and simple thing, was held in an otherwise limp hand at his side. "Perhaps K'mihgazu didn't want to go into it," he continued as he took steps towards the pair. "Couplings that are too near -- family members, siblings -- are dangerous. They infect the couple with impurity and ill fate. Resulting children always perish, and must be burned to be purified. Such cannot be done for those who committed the sin and brought the impurity upon themselves. For the crime, they may have to be sent away from the tribe, or else we would have to carry the burden of their curse." K'ile chuckled at a private thought, "Maybe your mother was kind to simply call it 'strange', but I think you're smart enough to deal with it. It never really comes up anyway." He lifted his bow, and looked to K'nahli. "I was hoping you could teach me a bit today. I figured out how to get the arrow in there, but my fingers are still clumsy." He pointedly did not ask about the smell of blood.

There wasn't really anything to say to that. K'ile wasn't sure why the women had decided to put the discussion on hold to give speeches about family and unity, but it was clear from how K'ailia twisted it into her argument that the girl had lost all concept of what being a member of the tribe actually meant. What's more, she hadn't truly listened to a word he'd said, nor to K'haali or K'nahli or even her own mother for that matter. But he shouldn't expect any more from a woman-child who'd taken foreign mentors and only returned to the tribe to grace them with what she probably supposed was wisdom. No matter how many times he saw this act, he never grew to hate it any less. K'ile Tia bit down on his teeth and concentrated on turning the fire in his hand. It was a great challenge not to shoot some sort of scathing remark at the girl, whose bright young eyes and well-intentioned grin made an excellent frame the fount of pompousness oozing like sap from her throat. K'ile had said his piece and said it well; speaking again would weaken it. At least it was likely that the elders were better listeners than the girl. Despite K'ailia's success and keeping the conversation focused on that single option, the only people to speak in outright support of it were herself and K'rei, both of whom were themselves outsiders in part. If they looked for alternatives, they would find them. All the girl's fake wisdom would fade away like the cry of a distant bird that one would never see, but that was so faint in the first place that perhaps one had never heard it at all. A few breaths later, the turning of the fire in his hand churned a thought to his tongue and he found himself saying, "If K'ailia's to show off the places she's explored outside the desert, I'll go to see them. I think a Tia, who after all does nothing but play with his fire and dream of one day being Nunh, would be easier to spare than huntresses during a famine. If the Elders agree, K'haali and K'luha should come as well, to help us understand how the land could be used for the purposes of harvesting and trade."

Oschon all the way! My Duskwight, Megiddo, often deliberately gets lost so that the Wanderer can guide his footsteps. He regularly finds himself in strange places with no idea how he got there, and promptly asks himself, "So what does Oschon want me to see or do here?" This is extremely convenient for setting up random RP.

Fully knowing he did so for unfair reasons, K'ile disliked K'yohko, almost as much as he disliked the man's brood. He was like a silent she-spider than sat unmoving in the shadows and occasionally left her eggs in the webs of good women. Wise, perhaps, but hideous to him, and he bore a silent grudge that the man had taken one of Thalen's daughters among his women. It was a blessing that the man usually maintained his silence, for when he spoke, K'ile Tia could not help but frown. Whatever the others heard in the man's voice, perhaps humility, K'ile heard only the contented purr of a weasel whose needs were met. That he had not spoken yet despite his sway among his many daughters and mates, was tantamount to neglect. His influence came with responsibility, and his silence was the sound of reluctance, not temperance. For the first time during the meeting, K'ile switched the hand that turned his staff and the fire upon it. The movement, though, was so quick and fluid, causing not even a single extra spark, that it was easy miss. "I disagree," he said at last. "But only with your final point. No matter the situation, accepting the outsider's so-called help would be unacceptable. The rest is reasonable." If K'ile Tia had even the slightest ambition to become Nunh, he would break K'yohko's hideous pride like he had broken K'hadim two decades ago, and everyone else whom he'd bound to the racks for breaking the rules of the tribe. If only K'yohko would commit some sort of trespass, but such an event was unlikely to ever occur.

[align=left]Camp Drybone, despite its name, had no dry bone as its most prominent landmark. That was something that always bothered K'airos. The camp was really a hole in the ground, with white and sand walled buildings protruding from the cliffs and a large Aetheryte in the center of town. Why didn't they call it "Camp Crater" or "Camp Hole-in-the-Ground" was beyond her comprehension. However, her annoyance at awful naming on part of the Ul'dahn denizens stopped quite abruptly every time she stepped inside the town. Then the reason became obvious: water was scarce and the dead refugees piled up, only the priests of the nearby Church or some of the Immortal Flame members bothering to pick the corpses up and move them away from civilization. "Camp Drybone". If you were here, you would eventually become a pile of those. K'airos sighed and entered the inn, on one corner of the town. She greeted the innkeeper cheerfully and joked about midges swarming her chocobo and eating it. She headed straight for the room she had taken for both her and her sister. It was the cheapest one. Two beds, a table, two stools, a drawer. There was a lamp too, and a small box on a corner. She opened the door without knocking and exclaimed inside with an exhausted voice. "I'm back!" D'aijeen was presently engaged in reading through one of the great tomes she had piled on the table. If one thing was true of D'aijeen, it was that she read a great deal. The lamp illuminated her as she looked up to greet K'airos with a smile. Her voice was energetic to counter K'airos' exhaustion, and it was thick with cheer. "Welcome home!" The younger Thalen still stank faintly of the corpses she'd spent that day helping the priests move from one pile to another. Her dark robe sat open to show off the white garb which she somehow managed to keep pristine despite the grotesque nature of her hobby, which she called 'volunteer work'. She looked K'airos over and mocked a frown, "Well, aren't you pretty? You're making me look bad!" "Wha- ah! What did I do? Do I have something over me?" K'airos looked down and examined herself. All she could see was the rusty-looking chainmail issued to every Brass Blade, but she kept staring wide-eyed for a moment before her eyes turned upwards and her hands started checking her hair. "It's on my hair, isn't it?!" Her sister's reaction drew a giggle from D'aijeen, who said, "Oh, stop, stop! I'm not kidding. Did you get worked hard today?" K'airos kept brooming her hair. The success of such action was debatable: the Brass Blades were issued with mitt gauntlets, meaning they were very good at protecting one's hand but terrible for grooming. When she noticed this, she started to take them off "We chased off some Amalj'aa to the south, then had to chase some angry buzzards near Highbridge, then some imps a bit more to the north...I'm tired!" "Oh. Well, I've got some bad news for you, then." D'aijeen pushed her book aside and turned to face K'airos head on. "We'll have a visitor presently. If you don't wish to see him, though, I'll take a turn chasing something away and get rid of him." The gauntlets were mercilessly dropped on top of the box at the corner. "A visitor? Who is it?" K'airos asked, focusing her attention now on taking off the pauldrons. "Oh, it's just D'hein. You remember him." The pauldrons were added to the pile the gauntlets had formed. "D'hein." she echoed, unsure of what she was saying. Then she jumped in place, turning around in sudden realization. "D'hein! Of course I remember him! Why's he coming over?" Letting her lips droop into a frown, D'aijeen averted her eyes and fidgeted with the pages of her book. "He said he wanted to see you, but I'm sure he's going to try and get me to do something for him." "I guess... Why would he tell you he wanted to see me, though? It would be easier to ask you directly." K'airos approached to her bed and sat. The smile returned to D'aijeen's face quickly, but it was sly this time, and she looked at K'airos sideways, "I'm sure hes trying to charm you. Your eloquence has charmed far more discerning men, I'm sure. And," he tone went flat, "If he had said he wanted something from me, I'd have told him not to come. As it is I only just barely allowed it." K'airos played with her hands, giggling faintly. It looked like she was still trying to get her gauntless off, even though she had none on. "You think? I...ah...I guess I better put on something more presentable for visits." "Just be careful not to make him melt." D'aijeen said. "You've a few minutes to change. I told him to meet us at the tavern an hour ago, so he should come looking for us any time now." "Just be careful not to make him melt." D'aijeen said. "You've a few minutes to change. I told him to meet us at the tavern an hour ago, so he should come looking for us any time now." "What? Why did you do that! I don't...ah!" K'airos stood up in panic and spent a full minute in that state, doing nothing, before snapping out and opening the drawer to get her civilian clothes out. She didn't have many clothes, so it didn't take her as long as her panic took. D'aijeen seemed to enjoy seeing her sister in a panic, laughing at the scene. "Oh, don't worry so much. No amount of dirt, sweat and rust can dull that glowing beauty of yours!" "I'm...I'm sweaty? And rusty?!" her panic only increased with each passing moment. She forgot how to take off the belt around her waist, then spent more time than needed taking off the chainmail. She took her boots fairly easily, however, and replaced them with leather ones that only reached slightly higher than her ankle. The shirt she put on was of a faded purple, and it was the last thing she put on. She was still wearing her armored trousers. Bouncing one knee and smiling at her sister, D'aijeen chuckled, "It's Thanalan, Airos. Everyone's sweaty. Don't worry about it! Your natural scent isn't so bad. You're wearing rusty pants, though." "Isn't so bad?" K'airos frowned. "What does that- rusty pants?" Her attention drifted to her legs. She dropped on the bed, raising her feet to take off the boots she had just put on. "Azeyma! I'm sure with my luck he'll barge right in any moment. " D'aijeen hopped up from her seat and seemed to bounce a few times while she took of her dark robe and threw it aside. She was wearing almost pure white underneath: shoes, pants, a frilled shirt, even gloves. The only interruptions were the silver buttons and a pink bow. "I'll watch the door for you. If you wish to bathe I can find some errand to send him on and buy you time." "Yes!" K'airos exclaimed. "Do that...! No, wait!" she changed her mind mid-sentence. "If you send him off, he'll just ask you whatever he wants to ask you and then leave! So don't do that!" She hurried to finish dressing herself, thing she achieved in short notice. D'aijeen had taken up a position by the door as soon as K'airos had begun to change, and she stood leaning against the doorframe waiting. "We can go out and collect him whenever you're ready. Do you have perfume? Do you want to borrow some of mine?" "No, we'd smell the same. I'll the one I confiscated!" K'airos said, clapping both hands together. She rummaged through the drawer and took out a very cheap looking bottle. When she opened it, the smell was fairly acceptable, if faint. "It wasn't in the manifest." she said while using it in moderate ammounts. "Ever-prepared K'airos! I shouldn't be surprised!" D'aijeen daintily sniffed at her wrist. Her own perfume was a subtle lilac that mixed with the clinging stench of corpses to make her smell like a decorated grave. "Alright. I'm ready!" D'aijeen's sister declared with enough confidence to sink a boat. She looked once at herself just to make sure she wasn't wearing anything the wrong way, then nodded. "Yes, I'm ready!" "Alright, then. Let's go find him." D'aijeen open the door and step swiftly out, turning to her right to head down the hall and not half a step later walking into D'hein, who had been coming the other way. Before she even realized what had happened, D'aijeen huffed in modest offense and instinctively pushed against him in very not modest retaliation. D'hein, being larger, was unmoved, and D'aijeen stumbled back off him. There was, however, the crash of glass, and a few seconds later D'hein was looking down at a puddle of liquid and glass shards and exclaiming "Godsdammit why!" K'airos, who was following behind her sister, raised both hands to cover her mouth. "Azeyma! Are you all right?" D'aijeen quickly recovered from her stumbling and immediately began to adjust the lace on her shirt. "I'm fine, K'airos," and then, sounding meaner, "That was not very gentlemanly, D'hien." The man in the red robe, with the full blond main and the ears that shifted about asymmetrically looked confused for a moment, "Eh? But that was my..." then looked up at D'aijeen, "Oh and it's very lady-like to just dash a man's drink from his hands! I'd thought that I-" he stopped suddenly and stepped smoothly around the puddle in the hallway. He put himself directly in front of K'airos and extended a hand to her, "I'm sorry, I'm distracted. K'airos has captured my attention with her radiance." K'airos kept one hand in front of her mouth, and lowered the other to meet D'hein's "Ah...thanks, but...you don't have to...to..." She giggled and looked away, unable to find any words to complete the sentence. "Oh, but I do!" D'hein exclaimed, "I cannot help but to reach out to you! Your beauty demands worship! Won't you come to Ul'dah and let me build a shrine to you, K'airos?" D'aijeen perfunctorily walked over and kicked D'hein in the shin, "Stop it." K'airos blushed, her eyes still examining some random point of the hallway with extreme attention. "I...I think you told Aijeen you wanted to talk?" she vaguely managed to ask. Not reacting to D'aijeen's kick, he continued speaking to K'airos. "I came to see you. Even though your image blesses my every dream, I must see you in the waking world sometimes as well! But, oh," he finally at D'aijeen, "How she selfishly keeps you to herself." Rolling her eyes and groaning, D'aijeen inserted herself between D'hein and K'airos so powerfully that she knocked his hand into the wall, "Seriously! Knock it off!" "You sure you didn't want to ask Aijeen some favor?" "As it just so happens, no," D'hein said with his arm pinned to the wall by D'aijeen, as he whether the green-haired girls glare. "I did wish to inquire regarding and make you both aware of something I read in the paper some week or so ago while in Limsa. K'airos stopped blushing for once. "If it's anything about a missing comb, I must say it wasn't on the manifest! It was smuggling!" D'aijeen took a long enough break from glaring at the man to laugh at her sister, but quickly resumed her former activity. D'hein, however, was simply confused. "Uhm... no. It's..." he tried to free his arm from D'aijeen's trap, but she didn't allow him to budge. So with his free hand, he awkwardly reached over to his opposite pocket and fished out an old copy of the Tonberry's lantern. "It's a bit of a missing person's article. You'll see. Here!" He deliberately reached over D'aijeen to hand it to K'airos. She grabbed the paper and extended it in front of her. She blinked once and read out lod "Hipparion tribe seeks lost members..." Hearing what her sister read, D'aijeen's tail suddenly bristled, "What!" and she spun, grabbing at the paper, "What is that? What is that!" K'airos pulled to keep it for herself. "I don't know! There's pictures...hey, that's you!" And with that said, she turned the paper so Aijeen could see. She pointed at her picture. "And I'm there too, look!" she sounded amused. D'hein observed somberly, "Yes, you're both on there. And a sister, and your mother. And some others." Grabbing at the paper again, D'aijeen hisses, "That's not me! That's... what is this? This is a deception!" "Let me read!" demanded K'airos, struggling with her sister for the ownership of the paper. "It must be some mistake!" "Fine, you read it!" D'aijeen spun on D'hein and pointed a finger into his face, "What are you playing at, D'hein Tia? Some sort of blackmail? How heavy-handed!" D'hein flinched back a modicum, "I'm not playing at anything. I know you've dropped the K-tribe, but K'airos hasn't. I thought she would care. And you both deserve to know." K'airos spent some time reading the article in absolute silence, mouth shut and not an ounce of her usual awkardness showing. When she was done reading she looked at D'aijeen. "Maybe some survived the Calamity! We should tell them we are well...but..." There was a pause. "We should let them know that mom's dead, too." The green-haired girl exuded a growl, turning back to K'airos, "I want no part of anyone who would go looking for that crone! This is a deception! A trap! A trick from one of the D-tribe trying to get one over on me! We won't believe a word and we'll do nothing about it!" D'hein chuckled awkwardly and pulled on one of his ears. His tail whipped around behind him and kept noisely whacking the wall. K'airos frowned, looking at D'aijeen. "Don't talk about her like that! She's my mother, too!" She lowered her gaze, keeping her eyes on the last name mentioned on the article. "Why would they lie? It's signed by K'mana." She handed the paper to her. “It's not signed by K'mana. It just has his name on it! Anybody could've put it there." She looked the page over, looking deeply upset. "K'mana's probably dead." K'airos' hands clenched together over her chest while she started giving short hops in place. "I also was surely dead, according to the Immortal Flames. But you found me alive! Why couldn't it be the same with them? What if they survived?" D'aijeen directed her finger at K'airos' face now. "Oh, no! No! Stop that! No hopping! I don't want you getting any false hopes going!" She turned back to D'hein again, "One of the Dodos is responsible for this and if they get my precious K'airos all worked up just to disappoint her, I'm going to take it out on you first! Do something about this!" At that, D'hein could only laugh and say, "I'm sorry, but I think it's legitimate. And hopeful K'airos is cute!" K'airos only stopped hopping for as long as it took to D'aijeen to turn around and stop pointing at her. "I'll arrange a meeting! Then we'll know if it is or if it is not K'mana." Her hopping gained speed. "We've known her since kids. We'll tell right away!" D'aijeen threw her hands up in the air, "No! I forbid it!" She turned and waved her hands in front of K'airos' face, "It's forbidden now! You can't do it because I have forbade it!" K'airos stopped her hopping. She lowered her head but mantained eye contact with her sister, lips curved downwards. "Okay. I won't!" she said. "Good. Thank you." D'aijeen put a hand on K'airos' shoulder for a second before turning back to D'hein and crossing her arms, "What are you going to do about this, D'hein Tia?" D'hein chuckled again and said, "I'm leaving town again for awhile, so I can't do anything. That's all you. But, before I go, I'd like to ask a favor!" "I'm not...sure Aijeen would be in the mood for that right now..." K'airos muttered. The scowl on D'aijeen's face supported K'airos' thesis. D'hein countered this by declaring, "It's a favor from K'airos, actually! My company has someone coming into town who has business with the Blades. One of those tribeless city Miqo'te. Her name's Antimony. If you see her around, help her out. She's rather terrible at everything." K'airos blinked, throwing her head back. "Antimony? That sounds... Oh! Is she looking for the comb? It- It wasn't in the manifest!" "No," D'hein said, "She's not. It's got nothing to do with you. I just thought you might want to help her out." D'aijeen began to wave her hands in D'hein's face rudely, "You're leaving now! You are leaving now. You were just leaving!" K'airos just nodded with her lips forming an o, in some sort of half agreement with D'hein. "Safe journey!" she waved. "Okay, okay," D'hein brushed D'aijeen's hands aside, and said, "I'm taking D'ahl with me this time, D'aijeen, so go by Ul'dah sometime so you don't miss her too much while we're gone." He then gives K'airos a wave and says, "And you come by my place in Ul'dah, too. I've got quite a place to show off! And while you're there we can get married like acculturated city miqo'te!" D'aijeen swatted at D'hein, "Stop that! Leave!" K'airos would have probably melted and let out an high pitched screech while doing so. However, this time, she just smiled awkwardly at the Tia. "I'm looking forward to...seeing your place! Not...marrying...not, not that I wouldn't want to...but...and..." Inevitably, both hands covered her blushed face while she turned around and walked straight into her room. If D'hein wasn't already in full retreat, he might've been in danger of getting knifed. D'aijeen looked angry enough for it. As it was, she just kicked some of the broken glass at him, which he ignored, and followed K'airos back into their room. "Don't be like that! He says that to everyone! He proposes to me twice a week and I'm practically his daughter!"[/align]

"The tribe has always moved," K'ile spoke suddenly. His voice was slow as ever, deep and measured, but carried in the morning air. "There's no problem with that. Trading is good. Hunting different game is fine. Our souls are not bound to any particular point in Sagoli. The sun," he flicked the staff so it spat sparks and light, "Moves the same in the north desert as it does in the south. Our hunting grounds shift and twist with the passing years, but the sun must ever find us on the land of our own tribe. We cannot live on land owned by another. Think about it. "We earn our food by hunting. We earn our water and land by serving Azeyma and the sands. But to live on land and eat food earned by a man? How will we earn these things from that man? We would have put him over us, and he would own our means of life. Our way, then, would be to serve him. Even if he were purely generous and did not require it, our very culture would require that we earn from him what he gives. In truth, it does not matter whether the man is benevolent or not. Our ways would be forever altered. "And this is the greatest weakness of the suggestion: there are too many alternatives. We are not yet crawling in the sand, starving but for the succor of a rich Ul'dahn. We are strong and well. We can own our land and own our livings." His pacing took him behind K'haali, and he looked down at her. The woman was one of K'thalen's last remaining daughters, and she demonstrated all the temperance and grounding his brother had once concealed behind smiles and games. "If Haali says we can trade in Ul'dah, then it is so. I've no doubt of that. There are so many places to go and paths to take, that to even consider embracing land and food given to us by a man... I cannot see reason in it."

Like a wave against a rocky shore, the anger and heckling of his tribe-mates shattered against K'ile Tia and slid away, leaving him unmoved. Even as the sun continues despite all, so the twin flames continued to turn beside him, and his steps carried him about the meeting. He did not look at K'ailia as she spoke, nor did he watch K'luha leave. His eyes were on the sojourning shadows thrown by the camp structures, the way the shook under and fled from the fire he turned. Still, he felt suddenly old. K'luha was one of K'yohko Nunh's women, and the Nunh himself sat silent and useless to one side. K'ile Tia was surrounded by K'yohko's children: K'ailia, K'nahli. Even humble K'mih, child of K'ile's niece, grandaughter of K'thalen Nunh who had been his brother. K'ile set his gaze on K'mih, the last person in the tribe he felt any true relation to. What had become of K'thalen's women and children? Where had his family and blood gone? The shadows shook around him as he walked on and just kept turning his fire. By now his silence had spoken for him. K'ile Tia had nothing more to say.

Still stubbornly spinning his flame with at the same clockwork pace, K'ile averted his eyes in annoyance, first at K'deiki and then at K'luha. He held his tongue, though, until the latter woman had said her piece and sat down. The man turned his eyes on her. He did not glare. The expression he wore was a deliberate mask of calm as he said, "Check your threats. Violence between tribe members is forbidden." He breathed deeply, exhaled smoothly. After a few turns of the fire, he continued, "Your daughter is an adult, but provides no children and brings us no meat. Instead she comes with a letter from some outsider, whom she herself called her master. Does it anger you that I judge your daughter by choices?" His path around the outside of the group brought him near the woman he spoke to, and as he walked behind K'ailia and K'luha, he said, "K'ailia is an adult now. If you want to convince her to return to the cradle so you can protect her, you can try. But I doubt she'll consent. Do not humiliate her further by defending her when she should be defending herself."

"I'll tell you now, and hope you don't test what I say," the voice of K'ile Tia circled the group as he continued to walk, moving the fire in his hand, "That if you entertain that outsider's so-called offer, you're entertaining the end of the tribe." His eyes seemed to become more blue as dawn progressed, trading out red firelight for the white, true light of Azeyma. These eyes cut sideways at K'alia, "It's a cowards proposal! Eorzea was burned. Did we expect they wouldn't be a drought? Did we think the umbral age would not bring hard times? Of course it does! As the elders say, Azeyma will not coddle us like children. We were given the desert, and there's enough food and water here to carry us through bad times. We have to work harder for it. I'm sorry, K'ailia, if this life seems difficult to you because your time at your school has left you weak, but you're young! Not all times are times of plenty! If we trust Azeyma, we can't just flee from what she has given us. Certainly not into the hands of this master you've given yourself to outside the tribe. That such a thing was even permitted in the first place surprises me." For a moment, the fire that K'ile was spinning flicked in the direction K'haali. "Trade is better. I don't know much about rocks and metal, but adaptation is all about learning. Our tribe has always traded with outsiders, exchanging what we have excess of for what we have shortage of. If we have excess of rocks, let us trade it for food!" He paused his speech, very briefly, and looked over the woman K'rei. She had been adopted as a member of the tribe, but that was still a very recent thing. But, the elders did say everyone should be here, outsiders included. K'ile added a flick to one of the rotations of his staff as he walked, and the fire on either end responded by spitting hot plumes to either side of him. "Elders. You should let me burn that gardener's scroll. It's an insult."

If you bait a trap with nutella you can often get good results. We respond favorably to nutella. I personally respond strongly to rum.

Noted, thank you! I'll do some poking around at its settings and just keep an eye out for updates, then.

The staff in K'ile Tia's right hand turned end over end in an idle motion. It was nonetheless precisely measured, constant as the passing of days, and the fire on either end drew slow circles of light in the air as he paced the outer perimeter of the gathering meeting. The beads, feathers and fetishes that ornamented his body were illuminated and shadowed in rhythm with the turning fires in his hand, and threw dark shapes upon his skin. The light he held threw his shadow into the gathering, and as he and the fire move his shadow shifted about wildly on the backs of those who had gathered. His motions were ritual. In walking the slow, turning fire about the outside of the gathering, he was walking the sun about the horizon. It would rise and set, rise and set, and work its way through the sky from season to season as he walked. It was an imperfect gesture of respect to Azeyma, especially in the face of the perfection of the sun's actual movement. The honest, real sunrise, put this imitation to shame. But it was tradition and had always been sufficient for the shaman, the Elders, for the tribe and for Azeyma. And so K'ile Tia walked the two flames about the gathering, moving in silence, and watched the faces of those gathering. His gaze was bored and dubious, his hair perhaps more fiery than even the fire he spun, his blue eyes looking gray and disinterested in the morning light.

Do you mean FFXI or FFXIV, Bryn? Olofantur, long as you're here: I was told that the dps parser in ffxiv-app did not include dot damage into a person's dps. That factual or fibular? (Twin knows that fibular is not a word. No reason to tell him.)

I still need to ICly meet people. I'd like to think I'm going to be available in the coming days maybe. Or like... Sigh. My schedule's all weird. I'll poke y'all in the LS later and maybe we can see if any of you are available for RP during the same hours I tend to be? I really hate being this busy. I want my character to meet folk. =_=

I'm kinda overloaded on linkshells myself. Linkshells for everything.

Well, let's go ahead and shift back to the OP since I think we've answered the necessary questions from the first post. That is to say, yes, apparently nobility does happen in Eorzea. We're sort of low on details, but that's where RPers like us must fill in the gaps! If a nobility thing did get thrown together, I'd want to be in on that. My Miqo'te is Ul'dah nobility and has a daughter to marry off for cheap.

Lore is lore. I think it's a bit sad and silly, but it's still the book we're all reading out of to get things done. "Nobles" in Ul'dah refers to rich folk. I don't even know what nobles in Gridania are, but I guess they've got them there too. On that note, one of my characters is a noble now. Okay then! lol

Isn't that what the Syndicate is? Holding half the power because of their wealth and influence, even though they personally don't pass down power through birthright? Anyway, I think it's been pointed out that the word "Noble" in game refers to the wealthy in Ul'dah, which kind of ruins my whole point because SE itself is doing the bad-noble-RP thing. I suspect SE expected the Syndicate and other wealthy folk to fill this role in Ul'dah.

I'm going to respectfully disagree with that. "Nobility" is not an all-encompassing term; it's a word with very specific meanings. It implies a great deal about society and a character's place in it. Someone who is simply wealthy, but claims themselves to be nobility, is like a sellsword claiming that they are a knight. Or a monk claiming that he is a bishop. It's assigning something to oneself that isn't warranted. It's a lie. Ishgard is the only city-state with a feudal system and nobility, as far as I know. Ul'dah has a system that some people might mistake for nobility, but isn't even similar. The hereditary power system of the Sultana is not nobility. Nor is the Syndicate. For one, the Syndicate is a limited number of people (currently six) which no player character can be a part of, and it is determined by influece and wealth, not by hereditary right. Someone claimed there were nobles in Gridania. I haven't observed this and would request a source on it. If we're talking about Haukke manor, that was not nobility; it was wealth. The concepts are not equitable. One of the problems with the use of nobility in RP is that most people who RP nobles have no idea what they are doing. The terrible ramifications of this are that they are forcing themselves and those they RP with to make certain assumptions about society which they are both unaware of and unwilling to follow through on. I ran into this issue in TERA RP a lot, because people frequently RP'd nobles despite the fact that nobility was constantly stated to be impossible in lore. I do understand the allure of RPing nobles. I RP'd a noble in WoW for awhile and it was a great deal of fun. In TERA, I RP'd a wealthy merchant who had inherited his wealth and power, but who also mocked those who referred to themselves as Lord and Lady because there was no IC basis for it except for a bloated ego. What I'm saying is: if you want to RP a rich person, fine. You aren't a noble unless you're Ishgardian until I know otherwise (and I'm open to being shown otherwise), because to assume that nobility exists elsewhere is to assume that an entire society exists around some form of feudal system that grants you authority. Someone RPing someone from Ala Mhigo can say that there has never been nobility in Ala Mhigo, and unless we have lore about that, their RP is just as valid as that of someone who RPs Ala Mhigan nobility. That places your character in a rather precarious place, doesn't it? Are you sure that's wise? The real kicker, at least to me, is that RPing a nobility-style character does not necessitate nobility, and yet, inexplicably, people always force it. You can easily RP a merchant prince or a something with a loyal base of servants and admirers, without wrapping an entire feudal-flavor aristocracy around your RP. Even if you want to do the lost son/daughter of noble blood trope, you can just make them the missing heir to a wealthy and dwindling merchant family. All of this can come packaged with your character. Why does it need to be nobility? Why do there always have to be nobles of every race in every city of every game? I don't get it! If your character says they're a noble, they're either Ishgardian, or they're lying. ( This turned into a bit of a rant. Sorry. ^^; ) EDIT: I missed a lot of posts while I was writing this one. So I guess if you're a noble you're either Ishgardian or Gridanian or lying? That's really strange. I guess there's a school of thought for Ul'dah, but I'unno about that. I agree with Naunet that the use of the word's a bit boggling.

Ah, then you're speaking to me, since I think I was the person who said that. I meant to describe the technology level as being relative to an industrialized society. Obviously Eorzea's infrastructure is not industrialized, and a large part of my argument was that Eorzea does not have such qualities. If there are no factories or refineries, they wouldn't have the negatives that come with them. Stripped of all context, Industrialized is not an adjective that describes Eorzea. You're correct in that. Re. the NPC in Ishgard: he is a soldier and a member of a line of soldiers that are waging a war that has spanned multiple generations. The fact that he's seen a lot of death is part of that, and while it may be true that he is a minor noble, we don't know enough about Ishgard to know what that means about his place in society. Feudal societies varied wildly in the placement of their soldiers, knights, lords, and crusaders specifically. Just saying that he's a noble in a feudal system doesn't tell us very much. At any rate, Ishgard is a special case. They've suffered massive ecological devastation on a scale that makes the other nations look like they're playing the game on Easy Mode, on top of generational war and self-destructive religious purging. If you calculate life expectancy for Ishgard, you're going to get a very, very bleak number, very much worse than that of other nations. That combined with the isolationist nature of Isgard would lead me to move that they not be included in the discussion. How many people are RPing Ishgardians anyway? Also, I think we're drifting a bit from the OP. And by a bit I mean the OP is just chilling in the forum and we're in Alpha Centauri and don't know how we got here. Did you ever make any RP connections, OP? I'm sure a rich older lady could have some dealings with the CRA, if you would like.

What I'm comparing this to in my head is the coal-mining era, where life-expectancy was considerably truncated by the lack of safety and healthcare. While there is plenty of dangerous work, I don't think it's going to be common-place enough to significantly skew the figures. Most people live in the city-states or surrounding regions, where things are relatively safe and prosperous with the exception be Ul'dah, which has received the refugees from Ala Mhigo and has no place for them. I'm comfortable looking at the 1930s US; I think it's a worthwhile technology-and-infrastructure analogue even if it's only just that. Answering the last question first, yes, I do think that healthcare would be available to everyone outside of Ul'dah which has a very definite lower class who likely die of poor nutrition and common illness not uncommonly. The lifespan of the refugees, or even the city-state of Ul'dah in general, though, in my opinion wouldn't be enough to pull down the whole of Erozean society. Finally, I do think that alchemy and magic would bloat the life expectancy of Eorzea. I'm not one to look on Esuna as a panacea or magic as a cure-all, but having powerful alchemy and magics to aide basic medicine must be more effective than having medicine alone. In the very least, adventurers and soldiers that either are healers or stay close to healers will be able to stay active and at full strength until a much more advanced age than would be otherwise possible. A less pedantic point: SE wouldn't have bothered to tell us that Lalafel could live to be over a hundred if it didn't actually happen from time to time.