RPC has moved! These pages have been kept for historical purposes

Twinflame · **03-07-2014, 12:50 AM**

((Thread might lean a bit to towards the disturbing side for some people. Ye be warned.))

Dhein Tia burst into the room, "And you, miss inappropriate affectations-! ... Wait, where is D'aijeen?"

"She has gone out to retrieve my necessities," Came the voice of D'ahl, rougher than any other smooth-talking lady of privilege could get away with. It was charming in the earthy way that let one imagine they could hear the strong, unladylike muscles of her throat and the way she ground her jaw shifted to one side when she spoke. "Once again you have failed to recall that a gentleman is meant to announce himself before entering."

"What? Ah, so I did! My apologies, but you are such a welcoming and graceful woman, to enter was as natural as returning home." He flicked his eyes about D'ahl's foyer the many mirrors on the walls and ceiling making him, as usual, completely unable to discern door from window, hall from wall. At least he thought he knew where the ceiling was. "D'ahl, where are you?"

"Well-distanced from the witless interloper, but not so well that I can't keep an eye on you. What are you doing here?"

"Looking for D'aijeen, as implied." D'hein's eyes shifted awkwardly on his head as though he could place himself by echolocation. In theory he knew that D'ahl's home was of simple layout, but the mirrors were positioned to confuse and expand its presence. He saw arrayed hallways and a dozen vast windows that all seemed to look out on identical vistas. It was also very bright, as the home seemed to capture and consume the light from the windows without ever letting it go.

D'hein Tia screwed his courage to the sticking place (or at least his tongue to the roof of his mouth) and ventured towards what his muscle-memory told him was a hall, even if it didn't particularly look like one. He said, "I'd assumed D'aijeen was here, since she wasn't with K'airos, and there is very little that can draw her from her sister's warmth but for yours."

"As I said as well, D'aijeen has gone out to secure my necessities." there was a flick of D'ahl's graceful form in the mirrors as D'hein moved, just enough to note her blonde hair done up in a particular style. "So there it seems that we had all the makings of this conversation in the first few words. Very like you to blather, D'hein Tia, but do not try to teach me to do so."

"What do you mean, secure your necessities?" He marveled at the fact that he hadn't walked into a mirror. Though he was starting to get a headache from the fractured, uncomfortably bright world around him.

"She is the only one who D'Themia cannot scare away from interacting with me. I've been forced into a new career as a hermit, you see."

"D'Themia has you under house arrest? Really! Repugnant man! What could he possiblerch!... Ow." D'hein rubbed his bloodied nose, frowning into his reflection in a cracked mirror. "You have such a fragile home."

"It isn't difficult not to walk into walls, D'hein Tia. Just avoid your own face."

Holding his nose shut, D'hein Tia spun about, whacking mirrors with his flailing tail. Chuckling at the tickling sensations he felt in his face -- this in lieu of pain -- D'hein replied in nasally protest, "If there was a trick to it you should have told me! Courtesy, D'ahl."

"You can scarcely avoid walking into walls anyway." Her quirked features appeared in a number of mirrors, and D'hein looked about to get the best view of her. She was dressed in simple, warm peices of cloth tied about her by decorative straps. Decidedly unbecoming a woman of her stature, though it had a simple elegance that boasted a homely wealth-of-the-land that made D'hein smile. "Why does D'themia have you locked up in your home?"

"He did not miss my month-long absence, and discerns that I spent it with you," she said, with a dip in tone which D'hein hoped was not accusation. "As well, it seems that I have not been doing my tribal duties insomuch that I have not born a child for either Nunh."

D'hein huffed, "So he thinks that by cursing the rocks he can make the barren cliffs spring fruitful?"

"If you dare describe me in such a way again I will cut into your body until I find a nerve that feels pain and rip it out."

The golden-maned Tia recoiled away from everything at once, "Sorry."

The image of D'ahl reflected in the mirrors resolved and fell still, turning to him. She had her hair up, braided, fake glasses on her features. Arms on her hips, tip of her tail flicking quick switches behind her, she said, "You'll replace that mirror or I'll have your ears."

Distracted from the hostility, D'hein grimaced at the sight of her. "You're roleplaying D'aijeen's mother again, aren't you?" The hair, glasses and garb gave it away. D'ahl's skin, hair color, eye color, were all similar to that of the woman she was pretending to be.

The handcrafted doppelganger lifted her chin, "Is it your business? No. Neither D'aijeen nor I have made it so." The expressions were merely haughty, but the way her exposed shoulder and arms tensed, strong fingers digging into her own hips, evidenced deeper agitation caused by the subject.

"Now do not evade! It's time we had a talk about this!" He squared himself off before the image of D'ahl, realizing belatedly that he was probably just facing a mirror.

Meeting her gaze was like taking cinders to the eyes, though, and when she spoke he could almost hear the din of a burning furnace in her chest. "It is not time for any such thing. Perhaps time for you to leave."

"D'ahl, D'aijeen's mother is alive and present in the area. You don't think this game of yours will complicate-"

"Do not lecture me, D'hein Tia," the woman leaned forward, growled. "Games are for children. If the Witch of Sagolii has truly been unearthed, I do not think D'aijeen wants anything to do with her."

"And that's wrong! She should!" D'hein leaned forward as well, meeting D'ahl's challenge with the boldness that the situation required. "It's her mother! There needs to be something! It's not healthy otherwise!"

"There does not have to be anything there as long as I am fulfilling that role in her life."

"You know better!" D'hein pointed at her, "This incestuous game of yours can no more replace D'aijeen's mother than it can make up for your own inability to have children!"

The image of D'ahl in the mirror became very large very quickly, and D'ahl's shoulder slammed into D'hein's sternum before he realized he was looking at an actual person. Steely numbness spread from his chest to his gut, then appeared through his back, shoulders, and head as he slammed into a wall of mirrors that cracked behind him. They maintained their form, though, as he fell to the ground beneath them, his body unresponsive.

A lesser Tia might have groaned in pain, but as D'hein felt none, he said immediately, "That was not a very mature or lady-like response to-". A foot to the side of his head interrupted him, turning his face two one side and bearing his jaw into a sideways crater of glass.

D'ahl leaned on her raised knee, staring past her leg to where her bare foot held D'hein's head in submission. Her expression was dark, muscles all along her body standing out in dynamic crags. D'ahl no longer looked like D'aijeen's mother. The hair and glasses and similarities were there, but D'ahl was a much more powerful woman. And this degree of fury was beyond what he could imagine of the humble auditor.

Flexing her fingers and working her jaw like a gnawing animal, D'ahl said, "I should have had a child of my own twenty years ago. I would've given the Nunh fifty were I capable of even one. And yet, it was not deliberately that I sought to play this role for your daughter."

D'hein shifted under D'ahl, and she pushed down harder with her foot. His inability to feel pain did not mean he could not be injured, and he became suddenly afraid that she would break the mirror while his face was pressed to it. "You are aware that I am not in pain?"

"Is it pleasant?" She pressed harder.

He heard the mirror crack further. "No. I am quite uncomfortable."

"Close enough. It is not wise for you to speaking presently."

"Hm," He bit his lips, puffed out his cheeks against the ball of the woman's foot.

D'ahl smirked, a strange twist of the features that reminded D'hein of D'aijeen's mother, but the expression fled after a moment. The woman said, "Forgetting my own age, perhaps, I approached your daughter as an equal and initiated a romantic relationship successfully. I did not realize she saw me as a mother-figure until much later. I accidentally perverted her daughterly affections for me because I was oblivious to them. Assign me that sin if you wish."

"I do not judge," D'hein looked to one side, watching the scene in a mirror as though it were happening to someone else next to him. That poor fellow must've said something he shouldn't have. Still, perhaps it was wiser than maintaining silence. "Whether you sought it or not, you embrace it now."

"I feel whole," she said, and then declared fiercely, "I feel whole. How am I supposed to..." D'ahl choked as if the words were too thick for her throat. Her fingers curled into fists, her eyes flicked about the mirrors. Everywhere she looked, she was looking at herself pinning D'hein down. "Now that I've heard her cry to me, and my words have had power to calm her. I spent decades letting myself be abused by the Nunhs; I do not want to be that person again. I want to be whole."

"Having someone call you someone call you 'mother' does not suddenly transmute you into a different being."

"It does if she means it. And makes it true."

D'hein tried to sound authoritative, but came off as brooding, "This is not healthy for either of you."

D'ahl pulled off authoritative far better than the man beneath her heal, "If you think that then you did not know me very well before."

Twinflame · **03-07-2014, 03:56 AM**

With a certain pride and an unconcealed smirk, D'aijeen Thalen weathered the unapproving glares of the other Dodos as she strolled across the commune's square. Her green ears bounced, green tails swished, blue eyes watched the meandering whisps of clouds heading out into the desert. She felt the glares, the stars, the jeering glances all the same. So D'themia had decreed D'ahl bound and off-limits. D'aijeen did not care, and she thought that was what frustrated the others the most: that she, all but alone among them, was not afraid of D'themia Nunh.
Apparently the Nunh intended to starve the woman into not just mating, but pregnancy as well. It was a terrible plan, of course. An immature child's plan. It was easily undone by bringing the woman foodstuffs and company.

The thin, straight bridge that led from the square to the tower wherein D'ahl's apartment was located passed over some of the more privileged streets in Ul'dah. D'aijeen walked proudly over the heads of many of Ul'dah's Syndicate-affiliate residents before reaching the tower and heading inward to D'ahl's apartment. She didn't knock, her welcome assumed as it always was, and proceeded past the mirrored foyer into the nearly invisible hallway with bold certainty.

She did not stop until she found herself facing an unexpected person, D'hein Tia, who had been walking outward and stopped wide-eyed on D'aijeen's sudden appearance. He was disheveled, bloody-faced and bruised, his robe wrinkled and twisted and his steps rather weak. He stood in silence, expression twisted, blinking at D'aijeen until something hit him from behind, causing him to stumble forward.

D'ahl appeared then, kicking D'hein forward, "Go on! Get out!"

"Please cease!" D'hein said, glaring behind him, "You'll know me into D'aijeen."

D'aijeen stepped to one side, smiling when she saw that D'ahl had done up her hair and donned the glasses to alter her appearance pleasingly. Like in preparation for D'aijeen's return. "I'm out of the way now! You can continue. Hello."

"Hello, dear," D'ahl replied, then kicked D'hein again, "Continue walking, Tia!"

"Presently." D'hein's tail was whipping around in dumb agitation, thwacking against the many-mirrored walled beside him noisily. He turned his attention on D'aijeen, blue eyes simmering with frustration, "You, miss inappropriate affectations! What have you done to your mother to terrify her so?"

Her green lips smirking, D'aijeen quipped, "D'ahl does not appear intimidated by anyone."

"No, in Drybone," he replied, "The woman from Sagolii. Antimony. Your actual mother?"

"What? Anti..."

"Enough!" D'ahl threw her body into the man, small but strong enough to send him stumbling again. "This is not something either of us need grief from you on!"

"Wait!" D'aijeen jumped between the two Miqo'te, white clothes on very dark skin presenting a very starkly contrasted, frail form between them. Her arms were spread to either side, head dipped low, eyes glaring from behind her bangs. "You!... You!" Her hands turns to fists and slammed down on her thighs, "You were behind that! It was you!"

"Ah," D'hein found his feet, took a steadying breath, adjust his robes. "Yes, I do take credit for that."

"You heinous deceiver!" D'aijeen shouted, her tail shiver and puffing out behind her so that it was almost as thick as her waist. "Loathsome! Manipualtive! You knew... you... You sought her out and-"

"The details are unimportant," D'hein delivered flatly. "I found your mother and delivered her to yourself and K'airos. From what I can tell, K'airos accepted her and you made some kind of threat. What did you do?"

"Not half of what I'm going to do to you, D'hein Tia!" D'aijeen's low voice somehow became thinner when she shouted, her lungs trying to create great noise on an especially modest amount of air. Nothing made her feel her own frailty like anger. "The confusion you caused my poor K'airos! The lie of it! The absolute-"

D'hein crossed his arms, "Don't pretend its a lie. Your mother is alive and well, and both she and K'airos are extremely happy. You're the only one standing between them."

"Oh, K'airos is happy?" D'aijeen's head snapped up, leaned forward, fixed D'hein with wide eyes that had teared up in frustration, "How do you know? What have you done? What've you done? Where is my K'airos?"

D'hein averted his eyes, "I have taken no action."

"Liar! You've seen her! You've seen them!"

D'ahl's hands fell on D'aijeen's shoulders, calm but solid, and she leaned her head over the woman's shoulder as she said, "I think it would be best if we do not kill D'hein." Her glare moved to the Tia, "Difficult as that may be."

"Then he needs to leave immediately!" D'aijeen shifted underneath D'ahl's hands, but did not break free. "Manipulating my K'airos! My K'airos!"

D'hein gestured wide with his hands, "D'ahl, D'aijeen needs to accept her mother!"

"She has!" D'ahl pulled the smaller, frail woman against her, wrapping her arms around her and holding her fast in place.

D'aijeen responded first by pitching forward, pressing her hands against D'ahl's, just reacting to the fact that she had been pulled off balance. She didn't want to be held! Her mind was full of images of that woman that K'airos had found in Drybone -- her mother -- and of the conflict it had struck between the sisters D'aijeen and K'airos. D'hein couldn't know what he had done, but he should! K'airos needed to believe that their mother was dead. One lie, one alone, she needed to believe, and she would stay with D'aijeen forever.

It was the only thing keeping K'airos in Thanalan, the lie that the tribe had been destroy. That their mother was dead. That was all. Without that...

K'airos would go home. To people she loved more.

And D'aijeen would be alone.

"Mom!" D'aijeen spun around in D'ahl's hands, pitched her head against the woman's shoulder and clutched at her chest. She felt herself sobbing, hot tears on her cheek, wetness on her face against D'ahl's clothes. "Mom, I don't know what to do. I don't."

"It'll be okay," D'ahl murmured, petting her head. She imitated her mothers voice just like D'aijeen had taught her to.

"I don't know what to do, mom," D'aijeen repeated, weaker this time. This was a cowardly way to use D'ahl, and humiliating in front of D'hein. But it was easy and calming to play the role. It was like enacting a ritual to invoke motherly comfort, the hushes and whispers that she had missed out on by leaving home so young. She felt D'ahl kiss the side of her head, and made her feel what she thought love must feel like, how K'airos sometimes came so close to making her feel. D'ahl was the perfect, loyal surrogate: a reliable source for this synthetic love.

D'ahl was whispering things to her, but D'aijeen had not listened to the words. She knew the mantra that D'ahl had written to comfort her little girl, her favorite child. It bypassed her thoughts and massaged her spirit directly. D'aijeen pulled at D'ahl's chest as she could will it closer, warmer. She said, "D'hein needs to leave."

"He's gone," D'ahl replied, "Likely... overwhelmed."

D'aijeen nodded and lifted her head away from D'ahl's shoulder, strands of green hair sticking to her wet face. "I don't know what to do, mom. I don't..."

"Oh, little Aijee." D'ahl wrapped an arm behind D'aijeen's head, pulled her forward, and kissed her lips. D'aijeen leaned her body into the other woman's.

Twinflame · **03-07-2014, 04:14 AM**

Truthfully, D'hein didn't know how he felt about exiting D'ahl's apartment at the time that he had. He was sure that in the past he had left much more precarious situations in much worse ways, and obviously both women were furious with him. But the way that D'ahl had held D'aijeen was not a motherly way. The hands had been too low on her body, too desperate, hungry. It had been the hug of a lover. But D'ahl's face had been Antimony's face. The affection it expressed had been motherly, protective.
D'hein Tia shivered despite the hot desert winds, pulled on his robe in frustration. His body was steeped in that strange steely non-pain, hinting at injuries he couldn't discern. He would have to limp to the Dodo's in-home physicians and there ponder how next to affect this situation. Apparently confrontations with D'aijeen and D'ahl weren't going to work.

"This tower is off-limits to you," a voice said as D'hein proceeded off the bridge and into the suspended square. He looked up to see one of the Dodo Tribe's huntresses, garbed in exquisite white leather arm with silver studs, her imported Ishgardian lance falling to close off the bridge like a gate. "Do not return, D'hein Tia. We will inform D'Themia Nunh that you've been visiting."

Forcing himself to stand upright and trying to look as proud as he could while he was so battered, D'hein said, "That a rose such as yourself noticed my passage I am blessed. You may speak of me to whomever you will, but please describe me kindly, that I may be remembered at my best."

The woman answered deadpan, "I intend to inform him of your injury and humiliation as well."

D'hein frowned, but tried to sound gracious, "If it amuses you to do so, or him to hear it, then fine. I aim ever to please. Shall I perhaps exaggerate my limp and moan a bit as I head off to the physician?"

She made no facial expression but couldn't stop her tail from shifting behind her, ears twitching. "I would not stop you if you were in the mood to do so."

"Oh, great woe, that I am so broken!" D'hein said, stumbling weakly as he turned to walk away, and dragging one of his feet as though it were completely inoperable. "Shall I ever again know a day without pain? Is this justice? Oh, Thal, have you a place prepared?"

As the huntress watched, she smirked. Very briefly. Before returning to her place on watch of the commune.

Twinflame · **03-07-2014, 08:26 PM**

"I have to go," D'aijeen was saying, fixing her hair behind her head with a metal hairpiece, watching herself in three mirrors at once. Her fingers and voice were deliberate, calm, but fast with purpose. "I have to go. I need to find out what D'hein's done."

"It's alright," D'ahl took the fake glasses from her face. Anyone else might lose the thin frames and lenses in all of the glass furniture and mirrored walls, but aside on the reflective table-top was casual for D'ahl.

"Thank you for..." the woman pursed hr green lips, face flushing, as she adjusts the bow that sat on the chest of her white coat, smoothed its fabric. She did not wear anger well, and the distress clung to her like sweat. As she groomed her appearance, she cleansed her base emotions away and restored the facade of the elevated person. "Thank you for comforting me. I'm sorry to leave you alone."

Pulling the braids out of her hair, D'ahl shook her head to let the goldenrod hair dash about her shoulders in the straight tangles that were more her own style. Dropping the doppelganger guise that D'aijeen preferred. "I'll be fine, love. It was good seeing you for as long as I did."

"Everyone always tries to take my K'airos away!" D'aijeen lamented, voice suddenly high, and then took a breath to steady herself. "No. Just my mother, the crone. And D'hein in league with her. And K'airos so overjoyed by thought of... She's deceived! She's deceived. There is no love there. Only conflict between us."

"D'aijeen," D'hal said, the motherly purrs absent from her voice. "What are you going to do."

"Divide them as once I did before. Or banish the woman." She clutched her hands into fists, arms and shoulders shaking for a moment. With great effort and concentration, she released the gesture, the tenseness sliding off of her like warm water. She sighed. "I need to go. I need to go."

Standing from her seat, D'ahl watched D'aijeen's green tail as she trotted towards the exit. She watched her in the mirrors as well, at once from either side and above and in front and behind. On a whim, D'ahl spoke in that imitation voice that D'aijeen had taught her, "Everything will be all right, Aijee," evoking her mother, the woman she called the crone.

D'aijeen stopped in the hallway near the entrance, her gaze snapping up to mirrors that covered the door. Those blue eyes were reflected back, from one side to another, flipped and turned and guided to the sitting room around a corner where she caught D'ahl's gaze. Distantly, through a twisted hallway like shattered glass, D'ahl looked into D'aijeen's eyes and saw a hesitation that confused her.

"Don't." D'aijeen tried to look to one side, and made eye contact with D'ahl there as well. She bit her green lip, "Don't use that voice when you look like that. It's confusing."

"I want to change the rules," D'ahl said, her voice snapping with accidental force. "I want you to call me 'Mom' all the time. Not just when I'm playing the role, but also when I look like this. And when I am playing the role, I want the name of the role to be 'D'ahl'. I don't want there to be a difference between 'D'ahl' and 'Mom' for you."

Ears falling back on her head, D'aijeen turned again, once more to face D'ahl. "What?"

"If you hate the crone so much why must I pretend to be her? Why can I not simply be me? If you love me-"

"I do love you!"

"Then let me be that role!" D'ahl took a step forward, as though to make her way through the tunnel of glass shards to where D'aijeen was, but found herself too heavy to go any further than a single step. "Let the role be me. Remove all preamble and let it be what it is!"

"What it is?" D'aijeen shook her head, exhaled quickly. "D'ahl it's a game. We can't just remove the rules."

D'ahl closed her eyes, snapped her head down. She felt her tail shiver against the inside of one leg. "But you..." She reached up to her hair, pulled on her bangs, laying them over her face dumbly. Her jaw shivered. "I don't understand. You let D'hein call himself your father."

"My birth father is dead," the woman's tone was level. It was hurtfully plain. "I had room for a father. Use for one. My mother is alive. I have a mother, despite all."

"No need, then? If you didn't have need for one than why-"

"It's just a game, D'ahl. That's all." D'aijeen's movement was audible. D'ahl didn't look up into the mirrors to see. She was afraid of D'aijeen's eyes, imagining disregard, disgust, and anger all at once. But she heard D'aijeen moving away. "I need to go. I'm sorry."

D'ahl offered no reply. She stepped backwards until her feet hit the chair she'd stood from, and then she collapsed down into soft leather that sighed to catch her. The click of the apartment door drew D'ahl's eyes open, and she stared at the mirrors on the ceiling, angled to catch the mirrors on the walls, seeing down the hallway an empty foyer. In the many-angled mirrors, she saw all of her solitude at once. She perceived all the emptiness in her home that shone like a broken mirror.

If it had all been a game to D'aijeen all this time, then the only person who had ever been sincerely incestuous was D'ahl. She was not just an enabler, nor just an instigator, but the sole guilty part. Her hands on her head, eyes staring into her palms, she let out a single sob and then laughed. "I guess I'm just an impotent old pervert, then. It would be my best luck to die alone, if only to avoid the mockery that would surround me otherwise."

The Dodos Have Uncomfortable Conversations About Personal Problems [story, mature]

RPC has moved! These pages have been kept for historical purposes