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

Naunet · **10-22-2013, 11:50 AM**

The blowing Sagoli sands left the skin on his shoulders and arms burnt red with heat, raw like eroded sandstone, but K'ile Tia's face was at least protected by the long red hair that hung about his features. It was three years prior to the Calamity, and nearing the hottest days of summer, when the Sagolii Hipparion Tribe would have their sun festival. Hunting had been picked up to hoard food and prepare offerings of bone and feather for the event, leaving the women exhausted. K'ile stalked the sands like the others, but did not do so in hunt of meat. So when this brother of the Nunh returned before the hunting parties, it wasn't out of the norm. That he carried a writhing vulture, bound, to the tent of one of the shamans, was far out of the ordinary. Before he could proclaim his own presence outside the tent of Kâ€™piru Jhanhi, the bird did so before him in a hideously loud squawk. Vultures are disgusting creatures, and this one stank of vomit, excrement, carrion and disease. K'ile cringed at the sounds it made, and threw it to one side without concern for its comfort. Turning back to the tent, "Hey, K'piru! Need a vulture?"

The air within the tent carried a pungent scent, emanating from a broad, shallow half-moon bowl propped over a fire. K'piru hovered near it, eyes squinting in the dim light to watch the thick, waxy substance inside bubble. Next to her, spread out along a skin on the floor, were several small bags with the stitching opened up to reveal little piles of different, earthy-colored powders. The miqo'te's ears flicked up at the voice outside the tent, and she gave an impatient frown to the bowl over the fire before calling out, "Don't you dare bring that sign of death past that door!"

K'airos had been sitting close to the tent's entrance, her back lazily arched forward, glancing around the tent at her mother's alchemical reagents and shamanistic artifacts. As soon as K'ile spoke, though, she straightened her posture swiftly and hurried to comb her hair.

K'ile frowned down at the bound vulture, and it made a hideous screech at him. "Sign of death, huh?" In a perfunctory fashion, as if Antimony had instructed him to do so, he plucked his lance from his back and stabbed the bird through the head. The noises of its groaning death weren't any worse than those it had been making before. He stuck the point of the lance in the sand and spun it to clean of the thing's blood. "Hey, K'piru! Where're your daughters?"

K'airos shivered as if the man was askind personally for her.

K'piru didn't respond immediately, for she had launched into a sudden flurry of activity around the shallow bowl, lifting it from the frame holding it over the fire with the aid of a few, thick skins so as not to burn her hands. The light fabric of her clothing fluttered as she carried it swiftly to one side of the tent where she had already cleared out a space for it. Nestling it into the sand, she snagged a pouch from nearby without looking - muscle memory telling her exactly what it was â€“ and sprinkled a few pinches of whatever it contained over the cooling paste. "K'airos, dear, come here and stir this. Until the color fully changes." She didnâ€™t wait for a response, straightening and moving towards the entrance past her daughter and peering outside. "You realize this is an extremely busy time for me, yes?"

K'ile Tia, brother of the Nunh, looked at his brother's mate with a very serious expression is his blue eyes. "It's a busy time for everyone. Where are your daughters? Do you know?"

K'airos stopped what she was doing to stir the bowl as instructed by her mother, trying and failing to not turn around and glance towards the outside of the tent.

K'piru blinked at the tia, taking in his somber expression, and then turned to look back towards her middle daughter, half checking to make sure she'd done as told and half to reassure herself. Back at K'ile then, "K'airos returned only recently from a hunting party, and K'airi left with the next one shortly after..." Her frown deepened. "K'aijeen..."

Frowning through the hair that lay over his face like wet feathers, K'ile patiently urged, "And K'aijeen...?"

"I sent her to gather some things for me," K'piru shook her head, ears shifting uncertainly. "Nothing very far from camp. But... she should be a part of this."

Delivered deadpan in a wholly serious tone, "Did you send her to get vultures?"

"What? Of course not! What are you... oh no." K'piru's brow furrowed and she cast a quick glance towards K'airos before directing a worried look back at K'ile. "What has she done?"

K'airos returned a confused look. "Is it forbidden to open vultures during this celebration?"

Biting his cheek, K'ile explained, "Someone has been baiting vultures. Whomever it was caught three. I found that one," he gestured to the one he'd just slain, "But the other two were a mess. Missing heads and insides. I don't actually give an Orobon's right eye about that. But whoever it was stole meat out of the stash for bait. And that's where I come in."

"Stole?" K'piru's tail flicked behind her. "No, it couldn't possibly be K'aijeen. She's... reckless in getting what she wants, but she hasn't outright stolen anything! Not from the tribe!"

The content of the bowl had changed color at least once, and so K'airos stopped stirring. She stood up and walked towards them, looking at some indefinite point in the tent's wall.

K'ile didn't appear swayed in the least. "Look, it's only a few quick steps from pulling bone and fat out of a worm to pulling the guts out of birds. I've caught your daughter gutting lizards and rodents before. But if you know anyone else that wants vulture heads heads, now's the time to let me know."

K'piru shook her head and looked to her daughter now nearby. "K'airos, have you seen K'aijeen recently?" She managed to keep calm in her voice when she asked this, as a mother to her children should.

"I haven't seen her since I left for the hunt." she answered with a shrug.

Closing her eyes briefly, K'piru drew in a breath before forcibly brightening. "Ah, perhaps she is with Thalen! He always seems to know what she's up to."

"Yeah, right." He put a hand through his bangs and rested it atop his head, momentarily showing the face behind the veil of hair. "I hope so. Anyway, it'd be best if we found her. In any case, and I mean really, in any case, when I find her she's going to have to go and explain herself to the elders. It'd be best if we found her sooner than later."

"How much meat did she stole?"

K'piru wrung her hands for a moment, glancing back into the tent at the items she had been in the midst of preparing, and then sighed. "Yes, of course." Then to K'airos she corrected, "Steal, not stole," before shaking her head, ears wobbling. "And we don't know she's done anything yet, so don't go making accusations! Search the east side of camp, K'airos, and I will look for her on the west."

K'airos made a face at the correction. When her brief disgust was gone, she nodded. "East. Alright."

"It's not about how much she stole and it's not about accusations." K'ile stepped back, looking at K'airos like he was only just realizing she was present. "We just need to get her to the Elders and let them handle it. If one of you runs into K'thalen, have him look too. I'll be checking outside of camp. For all I know she could have a dozen vultures or a godsdamned Sand Drake on a pike."

K'airos picked up her spear, that was lazily lying close to where she had been sitting before K'ile arrived. "That...." she started. "...would be quite impressive!"

K'piru grimaced, "As long as she isn't hurt," and stepped out of the tent fully, adjusting the cloth wrapped crossways across her shoulder. "And don't encourage her, K'airos! Even in thought..."

"And don't leave the camp alone," K'ile added, as he turned away.

K'piru nodded, bundled up her clothes a bit to free up her movements for a brisker pace across the sand, and then took off westward, a worried frown plastered to her face.

K'airos left the tent with what she was wearing. She didn't took any of her hunting gear except for the spear. She didn't expect K'aijeen to be in trouble.

K'thalen was not actually doing anything important while this was going on, though he was supposed to be. Instead, he was taking an opportunity to watch a trio of children, hardly past walking age, chase one another in an endless figure eight between tents. Through talents heâ€™d managed to hone over decades of fatherhood, heâ€™d managed to cajole them into turning it into a game of who could be the quietest, and so now he relaxed into a lounge that was closer to lying flat on his back than actually sitting up and overall was just enjoying the silence that came with the tribe being so consumed with preparations.

That quiet didn't last long. K'airos spotted her father from between the tents and yelled at him.

"Dad! Have you seen Aijeen?"

"Aah! I was keeping an eye on 'em, I swear!" Wiry arms flailed as K'thalen kind of squirmed his way up off the sand. He blinked around, noticing the lack of chastising mothers, and then noticed K'airos, at which point he flashed a warm smile. "Well now, there's my huntress! Well, one of them. But hey, who's counting?" His ears bounced as his brain caught up with his daughter's question, and he rolled his head a bit, stretching a protesting joint "Aijeen...? She run off again, huh? Always jumping at the sun... Isn't your mother supposed to be keeping an eye on her?"

K'airos pointed westwards with her spear. "She sent her to pick up...something or other. But Kâ€™ile found some dead vultures and thinks she stole some of the tribe's meat to lure them!"

"Eh, that wouldn't be very nice." He wagged a finger at K'airos and then straightened fully. "Nothing to it, then! We'll have to go on an adventure and find your sister! Maybe we'll get to rescue her from an evil villain."

"I hope not!" she said, shaking her and dissapearing behind the tents for a moment before reappearing on the other side. "Do you have your spear with you?"

"That old thing?" He flashed an irreverent grin her way. "Keep those things around them," he gestured towards the children who were more stumbling over one another than running, "and someone's liable to get their eye poked out, y'know."

"Let's get your spear, then, before searching for Aijeen. Hurry!"

It hadn't taken long for K'thalen to retrieve his weapon, and soon he had joined K'airos on the hunt for her younger sister. Occasionally he would crack a joke about their adventure, wonder when the giant sandworm would burst forth which they would have to chase after to its lair where K'aijeen would be waiting like some damsel, oh but she wouldn't be a damsel, no no! K'thalen knew that much about his daughter, and so predicted she had instead taken care of all the other sandworms and thus their rescue attempt would be rather belated. Throughout all this, they searched the eastern half of the grounds the tribe had scattered its tents across, but there was no sign of K'aijeen. Recognizing this, it was with very little reluctance that they set out to scout the outer perimeter. "And now's about the time we come across a terrible ambush, but we manage to fight it back by the fur of our ears!" He embellished.

"And the Mother of All Vultures will come flying with the sun behind it and we'll have to defeat it by luring her into the Father of All Sandworm's lair?" She chuckled. "I wonder if that's even a thing."

"Maybe we'll get to find out. Aijeen!" He called out, "Aijeen, you're missing a grand adventure!"

What the pair would eventually find, instead of K'aijeen or a giant vulture or an ambush by Amal'jaa, was a strange apparatus only vaguely concealed from the sands between shallow crags. Four vultures on pikes were stationed about a pile of fresh meat, with lines of still-wet blood trailing away in a number of directions. Several dozen sharp sticks were pointing out of the ground at about ankle-height, so that the area around the meat would be dangerous to walk upon.

"Look!" K'airos pointed at the strange setup. She blinked and kept quiet a moment afterward, trying to make sense of the sight. "Does...that look like a trap to you?"

K'thalen's silly grin didn't fade, but his heavy brow did pull down. He slowed his steps as he approached the bloody ring and spoke still with cheer, though somewhat dampened, "You just stay where you are, K'airos." He reached out with his spear then and prodded at the sticks jabbing up from the sand, testing the securedness of their placement and seeking to dislodge them if he could.

When poked, the entire trap exploded outward. The sharp sticks shot straight up in the air with little spouts of fire and the meat in the center was flash-cooked by a small explosion that sent it flying, sizzling, in all directions. All was blood and sand and the smell of sauteed worm meat!

K'thalen jerked away, stumbling briefly in the sand and wiping at a bit of flesh that had launched at his face with a grimace. "Okay! Definitely a trap."

K'airos bent her legs and screeched shortly at the unexpected explosion. A few bits of the now roasted creatures reached her, staining her hair and upper body somewhat, but she wasn't very concerned about them. "The whole tribe must have heard that!"

"Maybe, but we've got two things to think about now," K'thalen hummed and adjusted his grip on his spear, eyeing the bloody, now cooked mess of feather and flesh. "On the bright side, if it really is a trap, whoever set it will probably come a-runnin!"

K'aijeen didn't exactly come running. She popped up over a crag a few dozen meters on the other side of the trap, trotting along with an open book in her hands and heavy-looking bag over one shoulder. It wasn't until a few seconds after her appearance that she looked up from her book to see who had set off her trap, and her mouth drop open at the sight. Her expression immediately shifting to one of offense, she shouted "What did you do!?"

K'thalen's ears swiveled and the frown he'd been wearing disappeared, though it was not replaced by a smile. "Aijeen, there you are! We've been looking all over for you."

K'airos waved her spear. "We are all fine and unhurted!" she declared in a cheer. "What are you doing here?"

"What?" D'aijeen cast her eyes about, and began to look sad, "What do you mean? What did you do?" She let out a suddenly monumental whine, "I spent all day working on that and you ruuuined it! You ruined it!"

"Aw K'aijeen, it smells pretty good to me!" He chuckled without really smiling and moved to circle around the mess towards the girl. "But, y'know, that looks like some awfully dangerous stuff to be messing with on your own."

K'airos followed her father. "Were you trying to trap a sandworm?"

With a stomp of one foot, D'aijeen slammed her book shut loudly and proclaimed, "Ruiner!" She put the book in the bag at her side, which stank of vulture corpses. She pointed at K'thalen, "Ruiner!" And at K'airos, "You are a ruiner! You both owe me a Sand Drake's spine! And eyes! And heart!"

K'thalen frowned. "Don't go pointing accusations at people like that, Aijeen. I appreciate the thrill of nearly getting blown up, but--" he'd maneuvered around in front of her now and bent a bit to get at eye level, "--I can't imagine how I'd feel if that'd been you. Huh? It'd break my heart!"

"What do you mean?" She began to gesture broadly and stomp around in an angry little circle, "The trap was designed specifically not to hurt the heart! Why would it be me anyway? What are you talking about!"

"What if it was K'airos then?" He let his head tilt to one side, ears following suit. "I sure looks like this took a lot of work, but I bet there's a way to make this safer."

K'airos looked back at the now smoldering contraption, leaning heavily on her spear. Her mouth was open, but she decided to not speak.

"Ruiners! You could tell it was a trap and you set it off anyway, didn't you? I knew it!" She crosses her arms and says defiantly, "Anyway. It's based on the trap K'airos helped me with. She wouldn't have fallen for it."

"You think mighty highly of your sister! As you should, of course." He chuckled briefly. "Speaking of, what do ya say we head back to camp for a bit with K'airos? I bet she'd love to hear what all you did to modify her trap!" As he spoke, K'thalen reached out to put an arm around K'aijeen's shoulder affectionately.

"You should have told me." K'airos pouted. She then gaped and turned suddenly. "You didn't get meat from the tribe to lure the vultures, did you?"

Unmoved by either K'thalen's suggestion or his physical contact, K'aijeen continued to pout, "I'm not going anywhere until I get a Sand Drake spine. And I was going to replace the meat I took with Sand Drake meat!"

"Well..." K'thalen eyed the seared mess near them. "How about we gather up some of the best bits left over and take it back, huh? We don't have a hunting party to spare to get you a sand drake just yet."

"And we have no trap anymore. It's pointless to linger here."

K'aijeen spun on them with clenched fists, "I'd have a trap if you hadn't blown it up! You just wanna drag me back so mom can lecture me!"

K'airos frowned. "That's why you should have told me!"

"Hey now, what's with the accusations? I didn't say anything like that." He put some pressure on K'aijeen's shoulders to urge her forward. "C'mon, we were worried about you and there was the whole mystery of the missing meat and the vultures! Was a pretty exciting plot, but now we're gonna head back. We can come clean this up later."

"Why should we clean it up? The meat will attract a Sand Drake! We can build another trap!" The sharpened sticks finally clattered to the ground about ten meters away from them on every side. "K'airos, help me build another trap!"

"Exactly, Aijeen. That drake could come charging over here any minute now, and I don't really want to see you ending up in its belly." He continued to urge her forward.

"Uhm...maybe tomorrow? I've had a long day of hunting." She turned around to walk back to the tribe and pouted at nothing.

"What if it comes and we all stab it?" She points her glare at K'thalen, "I know you can stab a Sand Drake, dad! I know you can! You can get me a Sand Drake right now!"

"It's not that easy. It's not just one stab." K'airos hurried to answer. "Not even two." She waved her spear, as if trying to imply something.

"Hey you know the first rule about hunting. Or was it the second... third? Well, I never really paid attention to those anyway, but the point is!" He gestured at K'airos, "Exactly! Takes a whole team to take down a drake. Y'know I'd stare it down if I had to for ya, Aijeen, but I'd rather we all just come on back when we're good and ready."

"I was good and ready! I was great and prepared! I was excellent and... and... I worked on it all DAY! It was perfect!"

"And I was almost roast Thalen," he chuckled. "C'mon. I promise I won't let your mom lecture you."

"And you promise to get me a Sand Drake spine tomorrow."

"A perfectly roasted Thalen." K'airos corrected.

"We can work on that last one tomorrow. Y'know the tribe's all busy with the festival, though, so don't get your hopes up." He flashed a smile at K'aijeen and would make for the edge of the tents not too far off if she was willing.

Crossing her arms and leaning against K'thalen's hand on principle, K'aijeen allowed herself to be moved back towards the tent. She repeats grudgingly, "You owe me a Sand Drake spine."

K'thalen hummed in response, just happy that she was moving.

K'airos felt disappointed that she didn't take part in the making of K'aijeen's explosive trap. She pouted every now and then until they returned to the tribal grounds.

Torvhan · **10-24-2013, 05:41 AM**

((Ya know when I read D'aijeen's wiki and originally heard about her "past" I was under the impression she was just creeping everyone out, didn't realize she was blowing everything up as well, guess she'll need to pick up the Demolitionist class at some point.))

Naunet · **11-05-2013, 02:51 AM**

K'piru had eventually exhausted the western perimeter of the tribe's camp, and each passing moment of no K'aijeen wound her up inside like a spring. When her daughter was nowhere to be found near the camp, she even risked venturing a little ways out, but the western edge was surrounded by deep dunes, which were prime habitat for sandworms and K'piru could not go far without risking stirring up one of those deadly beasts. Worried half-to-death that K'aijeen had somehow gotten herself eaten, she hastened back through the camp, ignoring the occasional calls from tribe members about her preparations for the festival, in hopes that K'ile or K'airos had managed to find her wayward daughter. Preferably in one piece. No one was at her tent when she arrived back and so she paced anxiously outside of it, waiting.

K'airos had taken point and was some distance away from her father and sister. She stopped pouting continuously when they were about halfway back to the tribal camp, possibly out of her cheeks and lips getting tired of it. She arrived first at the camp, and was the first sight her mother would see emerging from between the other tents. When K'airos noticed her mother lingering outside of the tent, she raised her spear and waved it. "We found Aijeen! She's alright!" she exclaimed.

Refusing to take a single step of her own free will, K'aijeen required that her father push her all the war home. She did explain to K'thalen as she went, "I can't make the traps again. I used bomb fingers and some powders I took from mom. Gone now!"

K'thalen kept his daughter moving resolutely, without losing the pleasant smile, though there was some measure of seriousness in the doggedly forward stare of his eyes. "Let's not worry about making the traps just yet, mkay? First things first! You do owe some people an apology, after all."

K'piru spun in the sand, sending up a small dust cloud in her sudden flurry of activity at K'airos's voice. Her ears swooped back and then perked almost straight up as she exclaimed, "Aijeen?!" and rushed forward, passing K'airos up and all but barreling into her daughter.

Throwing her hands up in the air and almost whacking K'thalen in the face, K'aijeen bellowed, "Apologies? Apologies! I don't owe anyone any apologies! That's crazy!" And, when she saw K'piru, her ears pinned against her scalp and her tail stuck straight out, "Ah, no lecturing! I didn't do anything!"

K'piru ignored her daughterâ€™s protests for the moment, instead going to wrap her up in an almost smothering embrace. "Aijeen! I thought for sure you'd gotten yourself eaten by a sandworm!"

K'aijeen of course writhed as though her mother were a sandworm, "MOM STAHP!"

K'thalen leaned away from the mother and daughter, weaving his fingers together and locking his hands behind his head in a relaxed, waiting pose. Still with that crooked smile. "Not too far off," he chuckled a bit somberly. K'airos lowered her spear, holding it horizontally with both hands. The scene made her chuckle softly, her tail and ears raising somewhat.

K'piru shook her head, tail whipping behind her rapidly, and began what could only be described as a near full-body inspection of her daughter's well-being. "I had no idea what'd become of you! You worried me so much, when K'ile came by and I realized you were missing and I couldn't find you anywhere near camp...! Are you alright? Do you hurt anywhere? Tell me where it hurts."

"I said stop," K'aijeen tried to smack her mother's hands away, "I didn't do anything and nothing happened. Dad poked my trap and almost died. Fuss over him!"

At K'piru's wide-eyed look in his direction, K'thalen moved his hands from behind his head to spread them out to either side. "All limbs accounted for. Nothing to worry about!" She didn't look convinced and then frowned back at K'aijeen, still trying to keep ahold of her daughter despite the struggling.

"Your trap?" She questioned, lips pursing.

"It was an impressive trap!" K'airos interjected, probably doing nothing to help Aijeen on her current struggle.

Probably not, no, but K'aijeen did accept the praise. "It was a good trap! I needed a Sand Drake spine and other stuff so I set a trap with fresh Vulture meat and blood and rigged it to explode with some of the powder I learned about for shamaning!"

"The dad ruined it." She gave her father an accusatory glare.

K'thalen shrugged at that, but K'piru's eyes narrowed with the look of a hawk homing in on its prey. "Who taught you that?" A pause, "No, it doesn't matter. What possessed you to do such a thing?"

Perceiving the question as obviously ludicrous, K'aijeen answered, "Cause I needed a Sand Drake spine. And stuff. Like I said? I didn't do anything wrong!"

K'airos sighed at the thought of what would be the inevitable conclusion of this exchange.

His lips in a straight line and his eyes mostly concealed by his hair, K'ile Tia strode calmly and slowly back into the camp, spear held to his back by a leather tie that ran over his otherwise bare shoulders. He paused when he saw the gathering of Thalen's clan, and his expression darkened, and he strode on towards them.

"You could've gotten yourself killed!" K'piru exclaimed. "And you took reagents from my stores! And who knows what else..."

K'aijeen's reply was indignant, "I was gonna put 'em back! Dad ruined my trap so he owes you for the wasted stuff!"

K'thalen caught sight of his brother fairly quickly and waved casually at him in silence, flashing a grin.

K'ile did not return his brother's wave or grin. Instead, he approached K'airos directly. Walking up to the woman and crossing his arms, he stated, "You've helped Aijeen with stuff like this before. Did you know anything about this?"

"You can't just take things without asking and excuse it by saying you were going to put them back! You can't just "put back" reagents - if you use them, they're gone!" K'piru gave her daughter a half-exasperated, half-worried look. "You put yourself and others - your own father! - in danger, Aijeen. Why??"

K'airos looked at K'ile to the eyes, for just a moment. The briefest and most shameful of moments. She quickly turned away and shaked her head. "She did not tell me about this."

K'aijeen threw her head back and sighed in great exasperation, saying slowly, "I needed a Sand. Drake. Spine! I've said that fifty times!"

Closing her eyes to try and calm herself, K'piru asked stiffly, "What do you need a sand drake spine for?"

K'ile replied to K'airos, "Inform the elders of that if they ask, then," and then turned to walk over to the others.

Smiling at her mother's question, K'aijeen replied, "My education. And eyes and a heart. Also brain goo if there was any left." She laid her hand on the satchel that hung at her hip, "I got plenty of goo from the vultures so wasn't worried about it."

"What?" K'piru leaned back slightly to stare at her daughter fully. "Your education doesn't involve... sand drake... eyes! Or hearts. Or getting yourself killed! Or--or stealing!"

K'aijeen scoffed, "Not if you had anything to say about it. I'm educating myself. I'm gonna be the best shaman this tribe's ever had!"

Meanwhile, K'ile took up a stance next to K'piru, his arms crossed over his chest and his expression very serious. K'airos tried to say something, but couldn't find any defense for her sister. She chose to keep quiet for the moment.

K'thalen reached out then to lightly touch K'piru's arm. "No sense getting worked up over it, though. What happened, happened, and we're all okay, yeah?" He gave her a disarming grin, which she didn't return in any form. "From what I can tell, there's just one thing we gotta handle right away."

Her ears pressing back into her hair, K'piru gave her daughter a pained look.

K'aijeen frowned at each of her parents in turn, and then looked at her uncle, "What do you want?"

K'ile's reply was simple and sharp, "You're in trouble. You need to explain yourself to the elders this time."

Taking a moment to regain her composure, K'piru nodded at K'ile's words. "I've told you many times, Aijeen... You cannot just take things without asking."

Thinking for a moment, K'aijeen renewed her indignant air and looked proud, "I was contributing to the tribe. Learning more about shamanism makes our shamans better! I was making the tribe better! The elders will understand that better than you, mom!"

K'airos approached, somewhat shyly, dragging her spear as if it was the first time she was handed one. "How much meat did you steal, anyway?"

Answering on K'aijeen's behalf, K'ile said, "Enough to feed a family for a few days. It will be impossible to make up the deficit before it's time for the feast."

K'ile gave K'aijeen a hard look and pointed in the general direction of the elder's tent, "Now. Walk or I'll carry you by your ears."

K'piru finally let her hands fall away from her daughter, pulling her arms to herself and clasping her hands to her chest. K'thalen reached out to give his daughter a conciliatory pat on the back. "The best thing to do is to own up to mistakes and work to remedy them. So, we gonna take a walk?"

"Remember to mention how you had the tribe's interests in mind!" K'airos offered uselessly.

K'aijeen proclaimed proudly, "If the elders are wise they'll know I was right and give me what I need to try again!" She started off towards the elder's tent.

K'ile turned to K'airos, "You, too. You encourage her. The elders might have something to say to you about that."

Her tail lowered greatly and curved between her knees. The ears would have done the same if they could fall so much. "Al-alright." she nodded.

K'piru turned to start to follow her daughter. K'thalen just stood with his ears cocked, looking conflicted for the first time.

Before moving off with the others, K'ile smacked K'thalen's shoulder, "Don't worry. S'just girl talk. They'll work it out. Don't you have some huntress rolling out her good blankets for you or something?"

K'thalen snorted. "What, this time of year?" He cast a frown at K'piru's back, hurrying after the smaller form of her daughter, and then leveled a suddenly broad grin at his brother. "Don't you have a sun to take care of?" And turned on one heel in the sand, flinging his arms out dramatically.

Frowning at his brother's joke, he said, "A Tia needs hobbies."

"So does a nunh," the nunh chuckled and scratched the back of his head, just below one ear, which twitched in response. "Eh, think there are some kiddos who might not be causing as much trouble as they should without me around."

"You working on raising more kids like Aijeen?" K'ile delivered deadpan, "Azeyma help us all. Last thing we need is a swarm of kids after our brains."

He tossed back his head and his shoulders shook in soundless laughter. "Azeyma's helping them alright, if you can trust their mighty battle cries." On his last words, he brought both hands with fingers curled forward and made a clawing gesture at K'ile.

"We are not drake-brained." said K'airos over her shoulder, walking towards the elders' tent.

Ignoring K'thalen's growls, K'ile said to K'airos, "I know of one drake-brained fool in the tribe," and nodded to his brother. He was heading off towards the elders' tent at a full walk now.

Naunet · **11-05-2013, 03:56 AM**

K'aijeen was well on her way to the Elder's tent by then. She said she was going, and go she did! Head held high, strides long and confident, she didn't look at anyone else around her or pause for a moment as she pushed her way into the tent and announced, "K'aijeen's here! Where's grandma! Her daughter's being a pain again!"

K'airos entered right after her sister, leaving her spear outside. Her tail and ears were lowered. Contrary to her sister, she felt the need to look ashamed and disappointed at herself. She kept her gaze low.

Three sets of eyes looked up at K'aijeen's vocal entrance, but only one spoke, in a masculine tone with a clarity that cut through the shadows of the tent, "You should refer to your mother with greater respect."

K'aijeen frowned at the man, saying, "What? She is my grandmother's daughter, isn't she? I know where I come from! That's good!"

K'airos' ears perked up a little bit while she leant towards her sister. "I think he means the -she's being a pain- part." she whispered.

"But do you know where you're going?" came a second voice, and a bowed woman with white hair that may have once been sandy blonde pushed to her feet before shuffling a few steps towards K'aijeen.

K'aijeen waved her sister off and tossed a smile at the risen woman, "Yes! I know exactly where I'm going! I'm going to be the best shaman the tribe's ever had!"

K'airos limited herself to letting both hands hang in front of her, fingers wrapped against each other.

"An admirable goal," K'deiki stated. Behind her, a tattooed face frowned and spoke past the young girl to K'airos lurking just behind, "You bear a mark of guilt, young daughter. I suggest you speak to your reason for being here openly."

"Hey!" K'aijeen hoped over in front of the woman, "Don't pick on K'airos!"

"Aijeen!" K'airos exclaimed. She gave the elders an apologetic glance before turning to her sister. "She's not picking on me. You...ah...you should tell the elders what you did before K'ile does."

K'jhanhi, the first who had spoken, stood as well. He had been an unusually large man in his prime, and even at his now elderly age, he still bore that size, and so when he stood, the tent seemed to shrink. "That would be wise. The flame bearer was sent to look for a thief."

"I didn't steal anything!" K'aijeen said, "I took some meat but I was going to replace it! I had a plan and dad messed it up, so now we're missing meat and I don't have my Sand Drake spine! You should tell people not to mess with my plans!"

A beat after K'jhanhi's words, the entrance to the tent pushed back long enough for another to enter. Rather than the flaming red hair of K'ile, however, there was the dull brown and worried eyes of a harried mother. She moved immediately to K'aijeen's side and looked imploringly to the elders, "She did not mean harm, you must understand," and then to K'aijeen, "Please, just apologize!"

K'airos frowned at her sister. "You have to tell m- I mean - us...them about your plans first." she said, not paying any attention to her mother,

Arms crossed, K'aijeen looked to K'deiki and muttered in annoyance, "Control your daughter!"

K'piru gave her own daughter a half-horrified look as K'jhanhi moved closer, stepping past the other elders, "You have much to atone for, child." His tone was on the harsh side of firm and he cut off K'piru's protests with a hand in her direction, "And you should not tolerate this behavior."

"What are you talking about?" She watched the massive man move towards her mother. "I didn't do anything wrong! My plan was perfect! It was going to work, and we'd have more meat! It can still work! I can still replace the meat! K'airos will help!"

At the mention of her name, she raised a finger. "I will! No, wait...I don't think rebuilding your trap is socially viable right now."

Ears pressed back against her skull, K'piru looked away briefly at her father's chiding before returning her attention to her own daughter. "That doesn't matter, Aijeen. You could have hurt people and... and you stole! If you'd only ask for things instead of taking them..."

"This is not a new path for you, young one," K'deiki spoke up, her voice quieter but no less authoritative than the former nunh's. "My memory may not be what it used to, but I have not forgotten speaking to you in the past of such things. You should not have forgotten either."

"I did forget," K'aijeen responded as though answering a challenge. "I was doing the right thing. My plan was going to work. You're wise, right? You should know that I'm learning and getting better! I'm going to be better than any other shaman soon!"

"What are you learning, dear?" K'deiki asked patiently. "What do you see as the duties of a shaman? I've spoken with your mother and know you don't attend to her lessons."

K'airos opted to keep quiet, fiddling her fingers against her hair, combing the same lock over and over mercilessly.

"I baited the animals!" K'aijeen exclaimed. "First I baited vultures, and then a Sand Drake! And my trap would've killed it with no danger at all! I used some of mom's powder to make spears that throw themselves!"

"I can testify that the trap was well put!" said K'airos, still combing her hair.

K'deiki lifted a hand to quiet K'airos, focusing her attention on the younger Thalen girl. "What did you bait the vultures with, child?"

Smiling, K'aijeen answered, "Oh! They eat old meat! I take the fresh stuff and leave it out in the sun and they swoop right in thinking it's a carcass! I can show you how to do it! It's really easy!"

The elder nodded, "And where did you collect the fresh meat?"

"I took it from the tribe's supplies. I was going to put it back!" She pointed at K'deiki's face, "Grandma, you're missing the point! Can you imagine if we could add Sand Drake to our diet on a regular basis?"

"That's not the point, Aijeen," K'piru interrupted, expression practically begging. "You stole! You can't just put food back - not when it's been used! And you've no way of knowing your trap would work! You stole food from us, Aijeen."

Spinning on her mother, she bit, "I knew it would work! Dad messed it up! Be mad at him! The world's bigger than your stupid books! You can do more with your powders than pray and cure infections! I made it explode! I'm already a better shaman than you are, so stop trying to hold me back!"

"You aren't a better shaman yet." K'airos interjected, her voice calm but both her hands still combing her hair. "If you were, you would have had a plan for people stumbling into your trap. But you didn't, and that's what ruined it. Not dad."

K'aijeen sulked, "Dad's better at being stupid than I am at being smart."

"Don't speak of your father like that!" K'piru demanded, expression taught with anxiety. "Explosions aren't... they aren't part of what I do. A shaman doesn't kill things, Aijeen."

"You could have put a sign, or stayed close enough..." K'airos muttered, avoiding eye contact with anyone but the wall of the tent.

Pointing at her mother, "I'm not talking to you," K'aijeen let her glare sit on the woman for a few more seconds before spinning to her grandmother, "I'm making the tribe better. More sources of meat! Why should the shaman just pray and cure sick people when we can do better! I'm doing better!"

K'piru leaned back slightly, giving her daughter a mournful look. "Aijeen, that's not--"Â

Her words were cut off, however, by the large, wrinkled hand of K'jhanhi as he moved forward and gently but firmly urged her aside. "Arguing with your mother is not helping your point, child. K'piru speaks the truth as to the role of our shaman, but more importantly, you've committed theft against the tribe. And this is not the first time."

K'deiki looked between both of them before nodding to herself. "It is as I said. You are young still, but old enough to know better the rules of our tribe. You should know also that we cannot let this pass unpunished."

"Punished? Are you insane!?" K'aijeen turned her gaze to K'jhanhi at first, the man being the most imposing figure present, but then began to look at everyone else in turn. "I took what I needed to make things better! I was told to help and I helped! I can still help! Give me more meat, I'll bait more traps! I'll triple the meat I took!"

K'airos stepped forward, her hair now perfectly combed, judging by the fact she stopped combing it. "You must realize she only took the meat without permission because she -knew- you wouldn't let her try this if she told you about it."

"She cannot know if she doesn't ask," K'deiki corrected with a level stare in K'airos's direction.

K'airos crossed her arms and pretended to be firm. Her tail was still lowered and trying to sneak between her legs. "Well... would you have agreed?"

The elder shook her head and persisted, "That is not the question we are asking today. Young K'aijeen has admitted to her crime and is not remorseful. Her mother," she turned sad eyes to K'piru then, who looked as though she wished to melt, "has been incapable of teaching her responsibility in this matter. It is a shame."

K'piru bowed her head and, rather than say anything in protest this time, just clutched at her daughter's shoulders.

"I didn't take because-... Augh!" K'aijeen pulled on her ears. "It's not a crime if I put it back! If I double it! I was helping the tribe! If you're so wise you should see that!"

K'airos threw her hands up in annoyance. "Right. Why don't you punish my sister and blame my mother while you toss your blame to the back of the tent and pretend you are pristine as water?"

"We can't let even one act like this pass without words," came a voice from the back, the tattooed K'takka, "Not when our survival is as fragile as it is. That is a lesson you are taught the moment you see Azeyma's light. You should all know it well."

"Tribe law would sentence you to hours under the sun, on display at the center of camp, for all to see and understand your actions and how they hurt the tribe," K'jhanhi rumbled, his yellow eyes shrouded in heavy wrinkles but no less firm.

"You're insane! You're all-!" She snapped her gaze around to the Elders again. "Is that wisdom? Does that teach me wisdom? I won't let you do that to me!"

K'airos looked around between the elders, petrified. "She's but a child!"

K'piru, as well, paled and would pull K'aijeen to her defensively. K'jhanhi maintained his stare for several seconds before K'deiki reached up to settle a hand on his arm. "She is. And it is for that reason alone that we will ease the punishment for her."

Letting herself get pulled to her mother for a moment, K'aijeen shook herself and pulled away from K'piru after K'deiki had spoken.

Moving up alongside the former nunh, K'deiki looked to K'aijeen, K'airos, and K'piru in turn. "For two weeks, you will instruct your daughter in the teachings of our shamans. K'aijeen must attend each one, daily, without fail, and she will demonstrate to us then the true role of what she so aspires to be." A pause. "And should she steal again, we will not take into consideration her age."

At the declaration, K'piru slumped with relief, bowing her head and uttering repeatedly, "Thank you. She will learn. Thank you."

Her ears pressed flat against her head, K'aijeen stewed silently. She didnâ€™t speak. Her little fists clenched and released in quick rhythm.

"She should have already learned," K'takka's voice came again from the back, blue eyes striking within the white tattoos despite the age of her face. "You should have already taught her. This is her final chance."

"I will make sure she won't get into any more trouble." K'airos said, relieved, placing a hand on her sister's shoulder. K'aijeen didnâ€™t react to K'airos' touch.

"Ensure that you do," K'jhanhi nodded and let his stare linger on K'aijeen for a moment longer before stepping back.

Heedless of her daughter's stewing, K'piru moved to wrap her arms around K'aijeen, pressing her face against the top of her head. "Please, do this for me, Aijeen."

K'aijeen flinched away from her mother, but only somewhat. She wore her frustration on every inch of her body, and she cast a fierce glare at the ground in front of her. "Are we done?"

White hair bobbed slowly as K'deiki gestured towards the front of the tent, "Yes. You may go. Do remember our lesson this time."

K'airos clasped her hands together in front of her, smiling weakly to the elders. "Thank you." she said and then bowed her head.

K'aijeen attempted to jerk away from her mother and head for the exit. For once, K'piru allowed her daughter to pull away without protest, pulling her hands to herself and watching her small back with a sad, worried look. K'aijeen pushed through the exit of the tent, and was confronted immediately by K'ile standing outside. The Tia didn't say anything to her, but she spared him a glare before moving on.

K'airos followed K'aijeen. Upon stumbling with K'ile outside, she said cheerfully: "Punishment was given!" She only stopped to watch K'ile's reaction for about a second before running to catch up with her sister.

K'piru hung back for a moment, but when the elders did not seem as though they were going to say more, she bowed her head and followed her daughters out the door. She stopped upon seeing K'ile and gave him a helpless look.

Watching K'airos follow after K'aijeen, he waited until K'piru came out of the tent. the woman's distress was obvious, and he responded by unwrapping his crossed arms and setting one each on K'piru's shoulders. "The Elders are wise, right? I'm sure they know what they're talking about. Two weeks of lessons? She'll learn to respect what you know, no problem!" He wished he was as good at being cheerful as his brother was.

Her ears drooping to either side of her head, K'piru just looked worriedly in the direction her daughters had gone. "I don't know if she'll... She doesn't listen to me. I've tried so hard to teach her..." She turned her eyes back to K'ile, "I don't want her to get hurt. They won't sentence her as an adult next time... really?"

At K'piru's sad tone, K'ile had to work hard not cringe. He didn't know what to do with scared women. "Uhm," he thought frantically, what would Thalen say? Taking a deep breath to psych himself up, K'ile patted K'piru's shoulder and said with his best smile, "There won't be a next time! She's a smart kid. She won't mess up again. It's just a phase or something, right?"

Apparently K'ile's pep talk was not very convincing, as K'piru just dropped her head to her hands for several seconds before managing through her fingers, "I should go and speak with my daughters."

"Uhm," Kâ€™ile lifted his hand, "Alright. That's good. I'll go let Thalen know what happened, alright?"

K'piru just nodded, not looking up or moving immediately to follow K'airos and K'aijeen, instead taking time to try and collect herself.

K'ile walked off to find his brother and tell him one of his women was upset.

***

Once she'd gotten some distance from the tent, K'aijeen stopped suddenly and looked at K'airos, saying quickly and quietly so nobody could hear except her sister. "I need more meat for a trap. Tonight."

K'airos crossed her arms. "What? No!" she tried to keep her tone down, with mild efficacy. "After what just happened? You are smart enough to understand mom's lessons in two weeks. Just do that!"

K'aijeen scoffed. "I'm already smarter than mom. And wiser than the Elders, apparently! Listen, I'll do the lessons with mom. But you and me have to try the trap tonight. Prove I was right! Then two weeks of lessons. I promise."

K'airos turned her head towards where K'ile and K'piru where. She kept her eyes there while she spoke to her sister. "Why didn't you tell me about this trap?" she asked.

K'aijeen answered easily, "You were busy hunting. I was going to get more meat. It was going to be a surprise." Her tone was very matter-of-fact, as if she expected her explanation to be self-evident.

"You should have waited!" K'airos protested, throwing her fists downwards and her tail becoming a straight line behind her. "Then maybe I could have kept watch on the trap while you were busy not watching the trap!"

"I'm sorry!" K'aijeen bit out. "I was trying to do something nice. But you're right. I need your help. For example, I need you to get meat while I go set up the trap."

"I'll tell you what we'll do." she started, running one hand over her face. "You will study and -nothing else-. If they catch you, they will tie you up and let you boil under the sun."

"Even if we brought eight times the food you lost they'd still tie you up! So we won't do that until your punishment is lifted. Alright?"

"They'd only tie me up if I stole food! There's nothing wrong with baiting a trap if I just happen to have food! The tribe needs meat, and it's up to me to fix what I did, right? So do you want to help me or not?"

K'airos stomped one foot against the sand. "Fine! I'll get you some meat. How much do you need?"

Smiling, K'aijeen ran up to K'airos and wrapped her in a sudden hug. "Thank you! Ah, you saw how much I was using earlier. I need that much. And it needs to be fresh. Stuff the huntresses killed today."

K'airos arms hung to her sides for a moment before answering the sudden hug with their own embrace. "I...I can't get that much by myself..." She frowned and pulled slightly away. "Are you telling me to go -steal- what others hunted?"

"That's exactly what got you in this problem!"

Still holding onto K'airos, she said, "It's different if it's something you helped kill. You have a right to that meat. And you and I will replace it. Nobody will know. You've got faith in my traps, right?"

"Can't we do it after the festivities are done?"

Releasing K'airos, she stepped back and says, "No. It has to be tonight. I need my spine." She blinked. "And the tribe needs this meat before the festival. That's important! I can't be the best shaman ever if I go around ruining festivals!"

K'airos placed a hand on each of her sister's shoulder's. "Right. But I have one condition: once the trap is ready, you will come back. So if things go awry or dad stumbles into it -again. they won't blame you for the lost meat. Alright?"

Considering this for a moment, K'aijeen at length nods and renews her smile, "Okay! I can do that!"

K'airos closed her eyes and smiled. "Good! This will be fantastic! Or at least something to tell our grandchildren when we are old."

Blinking at some thought for a moment, K'aijeen perked up belatedly, "Right! I think. Anyway. We'll go back to where the first trap was. I'll rebuild it. You meet me there with the bait once everyone's asleep."

K'airos nodded and gestured with one hand towards the elders' tent. "I forgot my spear back there. I'll meet you at the -place- at the -time-!" she said, exaggerating some words for effect.

A bit perplexed by K'airos strange way of speaking, K'aijeen uttered a confused, "Okay?" while maintaining her static cheer.

K'airos left to retrieve her spear, which she really did forget at the elders' tent.

After hanging out for an inordinate amount of time outside the elders' tent, K'piru had finally felt as though she could face her children and so began to walk in the direction they had left, in hopes of either catching up to them or finding them back at their tent. K'piru looked up worriedly as K'airos approached in the opposite direction, without her other daughter. "Airos? Is everything alright? Aijeen will... has she told you anything? That she'll listen?"

"Sure!" K'airos answered, not stopping her movement. "She promised she will study. And then I remember I forgot my spear at the elders'." She walked past K'piru, turned around to keep facing her and walked sideways towards the tent. "You should... give her some alone time to think. So that she can have a cooler head when you talk to her!"

Blinking at her daughter, head turning to follow her movements, K'piru's ears drooped further, her tail hanging low behind her. "Don't... be long," she replied after a moment. "Come back to the tent after... Airi will be returning soon. I'd like us all to spend some time together."

K'airos smiled and waved. "It won't be long!" she exclaimed before turning completely away and leaving her mother behind. That spear was not going to pick itself up!

Turning away from the tent and K'airos, rather than follow after her other daughter, K'piru chose instead to wander in another direction, in search of one person she could rely on for support.

Once K'airos left, K'aijeen stood still. He smile faded into a frown and her ears and tail drooped. She loitered as the sun set, and thought about the knowledge and wisdom of the people around her. She didn't enjoy her thoughts. When nobody else came after her, K'aijeen turned and walked home. In her mother's tent were the various shamanic supplies from which K'aijeen had crafted that explosive mix of powder. She would need more.

Naunet · **12-08-2013, 02:17 AM**

"What did I do wrong?" The choked, mournful words were followed by a lower, soothing tone in the shadows of the tent, at the center of which there crouched two forms around a low fire. "I've tried to be patient. Iâ€™ve tried firm. Iâ€™ve triedâ€¦ tried everything, but nothing--â€

â€œNot a thing you can do when she gets herself into these moods, yâ€™know that, Piru,â€ the second voice, Kâ€™thalen, interrupted, large hands petting at the otherâ€™s tail. â€œSheâ€™ll calm down eventually. Think of how I was at that age.â€ This was followed by a chuckle.

The other didnâ€™t share his humor, though she did mutter morosely, â€œYou havenâ€™t changed much at all since that age.â€ She leaned against him and then sighed. â€œYou donâ€™t have to keep me company. Iâ€™ll justâ€¦ wait up for my girls and then weâ€™ll sleep.â€

â€œHeh, what if I wanna say hi to them, too? Maybe get some pointers on how to cause trouble.â€ This comment earned him a rough jab in the ribs, which he theatrically responded to by flailing his limbs before wrapping them up around Kâ€™piru in a near-tackle. She groaned in half-annoyance and pushed until he just relaxed next to her, still petting her tail soothingly. The two fell into a silence then, calmer, and the low glow of the fire cast deep shadows on their features.

In what he thought was fast becoming a family tradition, K'ile Tia approached the tent of K'piru Jhanhi, one of his brother's women. His mood was darker than it had been earlier that day, but also less somber. It was one of those I've-had-just-about-enough-of-this-shit moods. So when he squared off in front of the tent, arms crossed, his bellow wasn't especially polite. "K'piru! Bring your damned kids out here!"

K'piru flinched bodily at a voice she had begun to dread. Burying her face in her hands, she mumbled a weak, "Oh no, what now..."

Frowning over towards the entrance to the tent, K'thalen's tone remained cheerful, "Eh, he probably just wants to lecture 'em. I can send him on his way if you want. That kind of thing can wait til the morning anyway."

At this, K'piru just nodded, and so taking that as his cue, the nunh pushed to his feet and, with a smile flashed at K'piru that she didn't see, lumbered over to the entrance and tossed it open. "They're off coolin' their heels. No need to bother her any more tonight, yeah?" He said, with a cocked eyebrow in his brother's direction.

When it was K'thalen and not K'piru emerged, K'ile recoiled in dread. He relaxed when he observed that K'thalen was in fact wearing his pants, so he hadn't interrupted anything. This time. He frowned and re-centered himself. Managing to reclaim his dire composure, K'ile Tia said, "There's food missing again."

K'thalen's expression didn't change for several seconds, his head angled in one direction while one arm held open the flap of hide enough for his body. Eventually, however, he let out a long, even breath. "Azeyma really missed the mark on that one, huh," he sighed out, though under his breath so K'piru didn't hear. Tossing a glance back at her, he worked his jaw for another moment before saying to K'ile, "Hold on a sec," and jerking the flap closed roughly.

"Uh huh." K'ile ground his teeth.

K'piru looked up as K'thalen approached once more, her ears lifting slightly with some hope. Which, he dashed as gently as he could manage, "Don't get too upset now, alright, Piru? We're gonna work this out..."

Eyes widening, she was on her feet in an instant with a cry of, "No!" and rushed past K'thalen to the entrance, flinging it open once more. "This is a joke! Tell me it's a joke," she begged to K'ile's face. Behind her, K'thalen grimaced.

Poor K'ile leaned away and frowned. He didn't want to upset K'piru. He liked the woman well enough. But, "Sorry. We were recounting the food and there's a bunch of it missing again. So naturally I though... You know."

"It has to be someone--something else! A... maybe the buzzards got into the stores! Not Aijeen. Not Aijeen," she insisted desperately. She didn't react when K'thalen put a hand on her shoulder.

"Hey, breathe for a second, Piru," he muttered. "It's not the end of the world, even if it is her, huh? Azeyma will rise again, and your daughter will... well, she'll do whatever it is she does."

"Let's not think too hard." K'ile said, pulling on one of his ears. "If we don't know where your girls are, we should find them. We can check around the camp for traps again. Maybe she's just baiting the same one."

At this, K'thalen nodded, gesturing at his brother, "See? Level head. Wanna come with me and look for her? I remember where the first one was."

Burying her face in her hands once again, K'piru managed a small nod and then, frowning, "It's not her. It can't be her."

"Well let's not dawdle," K'ile said. "If we wait too long, they might actually succeed in attracting a Sand Drake, and that would be really dangerous."

"They??" K'piru practically wailed, but quieted at K'thalen's urging and allowed him to lead the way forward, off in the direction he'd first stumbled upon K'aijeen's trap.

"I'm just," K'ile said after. "I don't mean anything! I just haven't seen K'airos or K'airi either. If you see them have them help!"

Naunet · **12-08-2013, 02:24 AM**

***

K'airos was away from the camp, not too far away, but behind enough dunes to be considered hidden, in some way. She was lying on top of one, her head poking above it, watching over the new trap she and her sister had made. It was an almost exact replica except for a few differences. First, K'airos had waited until K'aijeen was gone to modify it. The last thing she wanted was the for drake to be blown up to pieces and have no meat left except for the spine she wanted. For that reason, she had taken away some of the bomb claws and a few sharp sticks. The most probable result, she hoped, was that the drake died without losing most of its body. Or at least be left alive but too wounded to fight or flee. Hopeful thinking. She sighed on her dune and waited.

K'thalen led the way across camp, past the southern edge and into the dunes. K'piru kept close, anxious, sparing little glances K'ile's way as they walked as though he might know something they didn't, which was silly but she was worried.

"Y'know, I think I might be impressed if she got that whole thing set up again already. It was a pretty fancy contraption," K'thalen commented as they made their way up a dune. At this, K'piru paled.

Walking along, trying to look relaxed, K'ile said, "Can't say your kids aren't smart. Anyway, don't get your hopes up, but I do smell food and Thalens."

"You make it sound like a fun party," the nunh chuckled, and then quieted as they crested another dune. He paused and squinted into the shadows before pointing down, "Well, there we go. Careful of the sand."

"Huh?" K'ile said, having not witnessed how the previous trap worked.

K'airos, on top of the dune on the other side, noticing her father, immediately yelled: "Don't! Stop right there!" She said this while also raising and waving a hand energetically.

Taking hold of K'piru's shoulder to keep her from going further, he nodded ahead of them, "Got sticks all buried in the sand and--" his words cut off at the shout across from them, and he looked up surprised.

K'ile stopped in his tracks and look... confused. Not upset, just confused. "Uhm. That wasn't the Thalen I was expecting."

"Airos??" K'piru made as though to cross to her daughter but was very sharply brought to a halt by K'thalen's grip. She shook her head, "No, she... was just looking for Aijeen. She had nothing to do with this. Nothing!"

"Go around it and come here!" K'airos yelled in a lower tone. She could have explained what was going on, but decided that it was best to get her family out of the possible angle of a approach of a hungry drake first.

Crossing his arms, K'ile called out, "Where's your sister, K'airos?" As he turned to walk sideways around the trap.

She shrugged. "I don't know. Isn't she at the camp?"

K'piru needed no further encouragement, batting her way out of K'thalen's grip and hurrying past K'ile towards her daughter. K'thalen followed at a calmer pace.

K'ile dodged out of K'piru's way, having no intention of getting between the mother and her child. After a moment, he called back to K'airos. "No. We don't know where K'aijeen is. You sure you haven't seen her? Maybe, say, stealing meat to bait a trap?"

K'airos avoided the question with one of her own: "What is mom doing here?" Then she looked at her father and added. "Dad...!" A pause. She though better. "K'ile! Get her back to camp! It's too dangerous to be here."

"Don't suggest things like that," K'piru snapped as she rushed over to her daughter, stumbling a bit in the deep sand before coming to a halt near her daughter. "And don't you tell me what is dangerous, Airos! What are you doing out here? With this...!"

Chuckling and looking sideways to K'thalen, K'ile said, "Yeah, there's no way I'm bossing K'piru around. Talk about dangerous." At that, K'thalen chuckled lowly, clasping his hands behind his head as he walked.

"Well...I thought that...if the elders...with Aijeen's trouble...the trap that wasn't...and..." K'airos mumbled before coming to the important part of what she wanted to say: "I'm correcting Aijeen's mistake!"

There was a moment where K'piru's ears drooped and she took a disbelieving step back. Then it was gone, her tail fluffed up in agitation, and she leveled a disapproving frown in K'airos's direction, "What in Azeyma's name were you thinking?! How could-- How could you possibly do this, after everything you heard earlier today! After--Stealing from the tribe, you!"

K'airos' ears flattened against her skull. Her gaze moved away from her mother and to the trap, where it stayed. "I'll let the results defend me."

Catching up to K'piru, the tiny Tia muttered, "At this rate the result is going to be no feast for the festival. We don't have much more meat to spare."

"This will work! And if the drake doesn't come soon, we can take the meat back. No harm done!"

K'piru blinked rapidly at that and looked around, her ears shifting. "Drake..." Then to her daughter, "Airos, this is dangerous!"

"That's what I just said!"

"Let's say you do lure in a Drake and the trap doesn't work," K'ile said. He put himself right beside K'airos, in her personal space, and said sternly, "What happens when all you do is waste the meat and piss it off and it comes after you?"

For the longest of instants, K'airos wondered how Aijeen could resist all those disapproving glares. K'ile's felt like a boulder had felt upon her back, yet it was only one stern look. Aijeen resisted the whole tribe. She shook her head. "It won't. Drake's aren't smart enough to recognize a trap that doesn't go off. I'll just use my spear. It will be too distracted with food to see or smell me."

"So, wait," K'ile held up a hand, "You entire plan hinges on being able to sneak up on a Sand Drake while it's feeding and kill it in a single stab?"

"You can't hunt a drake on your own, Airos!" K'piru exclaimed. K'thalen winced and rubbed at the back of his head, eyeing the trap.

K'airos' spear was lying nearby, half covered in sand. She picked it up and pointed with it to the contraption she called a trap. "That's all I need! You'll see!" she chuckled.

K'ile reached out and grabbed the spear. "No. It's dangerous and wasteful. We're taking the meat back now."

K'thalen stepped up alongside K'airos then as well, saying, "I know Aijeen got to ya with her grand ideas and all, but I don't think you've thought this through, huh? And that's coming from me!"

"You are wasteful!" she pouted to them all. Saying that one stab was all she needed had sounded glorious and self-explanatory. Apparently it hadn't been. /Obviously/ it hadn't. "Aijeen's not an idiot. I'm not an idiot. I can set the trap off with just one stab in the right place. I tried it on the bomb claws that were left over!"

"Hey no, no one's said you're an idiot," K'thalen soothed, "Just... not really thinking about the bigger picture. Too high a risk in this. What the huntresses do work - no need messing with that, right?" He gave K'airos a grin.

Still holding onto K'airos' spear with one hand, K'ile maintains his silence, just watching the woman.

K'airos stared at K'ile in defiance. It lasted about ten seconds before she jerked her spear off K'ile's hands. "Fine. Fine! I'll disable the trap and you can haul the meat back." Hanging back, K'piru worried her hands, looking between K'airos and the trap below.

K'ile let go of the spear and stepped back from it.

"How do you do that, eh Airos?" K'thalen questioned.

K'airos kneeled up, thought, and dropped down again. "Uhm. That's the part I didn't think through."

"What!" K'piru exclaimed and spun towards the trap, eyes scanning the area, ears straining. "If you can't disarm it, then..." She was interrupted by a K'thalen's voice, "Alright now, we can handle this. How's it work, and maybe we can figure it out?"

"Oh!" she exclaimed after a moment, raising suddenly. "I know! Just...wait here. And if a drake appears, and the trap doesn't go off, hit the third blood trail where it ends." she said, pointing there with one hand and picking her spear with the other.

Stepping over to look at what K'airos was pointing at, K'ile said, "Wait here? What are you doing?"

"Don't you dare go off on your own, K'airos!" She took a step towards her daughter as she spoke.

K'airos had received enough stern looks to make her feel bad for at least a few moons. "I need a tool. I won't be long!" she explained hurriedly. Or, rather, not-explained. She turned around and rushed down the dune to run off. "And stay down!"

"Hey! Don't you run away from us, girl! You're-" K'ile didn't give chase. "... Dammit, K'thalen. Your girls."

"A tool? K'airos--!" And then K'piru was off after her, "Get back here! Airos, it's dangerous!"

"Ugh. Thalen, don't let your mate run off!" K'ile looked down at his brother, then up at K'piru, as if he couldn't decide whether or not to run off after her or not. After a moment, he did.

"I'm a huntress. I'm in danger all the time. Trust me!" K'airos yelled back without stopping.

K'piru had no real hope of catching up to K'airos in the sands, a healer chasing after a huntress in her element. Still, she tried, scrambling across the dune as quickly as she could manage. Likely luckily for her, K'thalen caught up with her before she'd gone very far, grabbing at her arm with a sharp, "Putting yourself at risk isn't gonna help, Piru."Â

She pulled against his grip and demanded back, "Go after her! No one is supposed to be out here on their own - she'll... please, go after her!"

"I've got it!" K'ile said, and just kept running when he caught up to K'piru. Since he had no ambitions to become Nunh and he usually wasn't kept too busy enforcing the rules, hunting was also one of K'ile's main responsibilities.

K'airos continued running off at a brisk pace. She didn't head to the camp as one could have suspected. No, she was heading in a different direction. She did not look back nor said anything more, failing completely to notice K'ile.

K'thalen frowned, keeping hold of K'piru's arms and moving them both back closer to the trap. "Calm down a bit, won't ya, Piru? Freaking out like this isn't doing anyone any good." She didn't reply.

After following her for a bit of time, and noticing they weren't heading back into camp, K'ile put a bit of extra speed into his run and tried to close the distance between them. "K'airos! Stop running away from me, dammit!"

K'airos lowered her pace to turn around with an expression of mild surprise. She kept half-running away from K'ile, but by the time she was done turning around K'ile was only a few steps behind.

"Go back! I don't need you."

"I'm not going back!" K'ile kept up with K'airos, "The hell are you doing? Getting a tool my ass."

She frowned. "If a drake won't come to the trap, I'll bring a drake to the trap." she stated. "So go back! You are just going to distract it and get eaten."

"What!" K'ile tried to catch and stop K'airos. "That insane!"

She flailed her arms away of him and sped up her pace. "If I don't there will be no meat at /all/. I can't unmake it!"

"We can just hunt more! This is... Grr." He started running after K'airos again, "It's like you're trying to be K'aijeen but you don't understand how to do it!"

A sudden urge to throw something at her uncle invaded the girl. Luckily, K'airos didn't have anything harmless in hand. Instead, her grip around the spear tightened. She stopped. "If this works..." she started without facing him. "We won't need to put our huntresses at risk anymore. Just set the traps and watch over them. Get bigger prey with less effort... With less people. We'll have more meat, more skins, more bones. I just need one drake. One!"

"You think nobody's ever tried to hunt Sand Drakes before? Or to set traps instead of sending hunting parties?" K'ile stopped very near the girl, grabbing her arm with one hand. "We hunt the way we do because it's the best way there is! Tested for generations. Now would you stop trying to get yourself killed!"

"We didn't think of bomb claws before!" she said, wrenching her arm off. "Nobody in the tribe tried a trap like this. Aijeen's failed because we stumbled into it, not because the trap was badly made. It's not proof enough!" Her ears were flat against her head, and her eyes looked up to K'ile's. "If this one doesn't work, then you'll be right."

"Yeah, and you'll have a Sand Drake hanging off your tail," K'ile snapped. "And not just you, but you'll be putting me and your parents in danger too!"

"Don't blame that on me. I didn't bring them here!" she yelled back. Her tail moved from one side to the other in quick motions before it lowered significantly. "But you are right." and she dropped her head.

Back at the trap, K'thalen had managed to somewhat calm K'piru down - at least to the point where she wasn't trying to run off after her daughter. For now. That was, until the moment she exclaimed, "Aijeen! Where is she? Thalen, I must find Aijeen--"

At which point, the nunh winced, and looked around, "She's not here, so she's alright. Probably sulking between a couple tents, yea?" K'piru remained unconvinced, looking out towards where K'ile had run off after K'airos, and then around the dunes.

"What if--what if she's set up another? We must find her!" And then she was off, in a different direction, somewhat parallel to the camp. K'thalen cursed, usually jovial mood souring, and chased after.

K'piru would not be stopped this time, absolutely driven to locate her youngest daughter. Not wanting to hurt her, K'thalen gave up after the first couple times she violently tore away from his hands and just stuck close to her instead, offering a, "Don't you think you should've waited for K'ile and Airos first?" This didn't get a response. He sighed.

"Yes, I am," K'ile said, nodding. "Now we have to go all the way back to where your parents are and start trying to find K'aijeen. You've wasted a lot of time."

K'airos shaked her head. "Aijeen isn't doing anything. Let's get the meat back first. I think I know how to get it without exploding. We'll need some spears and... a lot of rope."

Looking annoyed, K'ile said, "You're not just saying that so you can try and get me to go back to the tribe for rope and you can go lure a Drake."

"That would be a fine idea if I was dealing with dad!" she chuckled. "But no. Let's go to the camp. Then the meat. Then Aijeen. Who did nothing!" she insisted.

K'ile added, "Then you're explaining yourself to the elders. And you're plenty old enough for the racks. Come on!" He easily picked out the direction back to camp by smell, and started that way.

K'airos followed in silence, feeling defeated.

Naunet · **12-08-2013, 02:25 AM**

K'ile and K'airos returned to the trap after gathering the goods to find that, not only were K'piru and K'thalen annoyingly absent, but so was the meat. And the sticks. And there was a great deal more blood that stank of Sand Drake. The new, massive trail of blood led away from the trap, over a dune that bore the obvious tracks of clawed feet and a scaled belly dragged in the sand. In response to the sight, K'ile muttered, "Twelve hells," and threw down his rope.

K'airos did the same, throwing the spears she was carrying except her own. She groaned in annoyance. "I should have stayed."

"K'thalen should have stayed! Damn your father! Come on." He broke into a run, skirting around the trap just in case and making to follow the blood trail.

"Can we stablish that if the drake is dead this proves my point...?" she said lowly, almost afraid of being heard. She followed him across the bloodied sand.

K'ile ignored K'airos, jumping over the top of the dune and expecting have to run after the injured Drake. The best is uncomfortably close, laying limp in the sand in front of him. There's a massive bloody gouge running down its back in addition to all of the small sticks protruding from its gut and limbs. The Tia stumbles to a stop at the sight and makes a face of disgust.

K'airos instead proclaimed happily: "It worked!" Her smile and cheer did not last long, letting pass to the gruesome scene. "How...how much meat do you think we can get from it?"

"What? I don't know? Did someone take its... back bone?" he poked the massive gouge of missing flesh on the Drake. When he did this, the Drake's jaws opened and it let out a sick, grating screech, but otherwise remained still. K'ile jumped back, fell over, and rolled away from the thing. "It's still alive!"

Thalen's daughter hunched over at the screech and raised her spear. When the lizard did not move as far as she could see, she approached and thrust her spear quickly into the beast's side.

Watching this from his retreated position, K'ile frowned when the Drake did not retaliate to the stabbing. "How... do you take something's spine without killing it?" He shook his head violently and threw his hands up in the air, "Here's what we're going to do! Is we're going to track down your parents and then find your sister and then I don't know."

"What about the meat?" she asked, moving around the drake, poking it and making sure this time it was as dead as it could be. "If all she took is the spine, the rest should be usable!"

"Oh, so now you think 'she' is involved, hm?" K'ile snapped at K'airos. "There anything else you only just now suddenly think?"

"Don't be like that!" she said while stomping one foot against the sand. "If she was close when the trap was set off she surely heard it..." She shook her head. "It's not important! Go look for dad and mom, I'll butcher this lizard."

"Don't wander off," K'ile said, pointing at her for emphasis. "Your parents went off towards camp. I'm going to have a huntress or two come out and help you." With that, he turned and ran off to track the scent of his brother and that woman.

K'airos stabbed the ground with her spear. "Tell them it worked...! Sort of." she yelled as he moved away from her.

Naunet · **12-08-2013, 04:05 AM**

K'piru persisted in her search, wandering the dunes around the tribe's camp, despite all of K'thalen's pleas for them to return to the trap. In her mind, K'aijeen was one second away from becoming drake food, and the thought of it sent her into a high panic. She continued for almost an entire bell before finally stumbling to a halt, exhausted. For once uncertain what to say to comfort her, K'thalen just kept a steadying hand on her back and his senses primed for any potential threats.

"She's dead!" K'piru sobbed. "Or left, or--Thalen, my baby girl is gone!"

The nunh grimaced, none too happy over K'aijeen's disappearance himself, and just said, "Maybe K'ile and K'airos found her and they're back at camp. Think you can head back there?" His attempt wasn't received very positively, if K'piru was even listening to him. Groaning, K'thalen shifted his weight in the sand and strained to catch any familiar scents on the air.

With very little effort, K'ile Tia was able to pick out that familial scent that belong to Thalen and his daughters, and even belonged to K'piru at this point. The unmistakable trail found him through the hundreds of desert smells on the breeze, and he followed it back in towards camp, but not to it. Like K'airos had done initial, it curved off at a tangent. The trail meandered senselessly through the dunes, and K'ile could almost see K'piru's small, frantic footsteps in the sand.

When he found them, he was unsurprised. They were nowhere near anything he could detect. This family just couldn't stay still, could they? "Thalen!" K'ile called, from a distance, and waved over his head. "Come back! K'aijeen's been at the trap!"

K'thalen felt a very distinct relief when the wind blew his brother's scent his way, and his voice followed not long after. Rubbing K'piru's back with one hand, he waved in the direction of the voice with the other and said to the distraught woman, "Hear that? Now can ya stop working yourself up over nothing? Aijeen's just fine. In mighty big trouble, but just fine." He chuckled lowly and tried to urge K'piru to her feet.

K'piru's ears pricked up, catching K'ile's voice on her own, and then pressed flat against her skull. "The trap! If I'd just stayed, I could've stopped--"

"Stop that, and come on," K'thalen said, much firmer this time, dragging her up and turning to move them both back across the sand. He could make out his brother and daughter's forms not far away.

***

On his way to hunt down K'piru and K'thalen, K'ile had gone by the camp and recruited a pair of huntresses to go out and help K'airos butcher the Sand Drake that had... apparently been killed. By the time he got back to the site of the trap, they had arrived and were making decent progress with the meat. K'ile approached the dead Drake and waited for K'thalen and K'piru to catch up, giving K'airos a look as he did so.

She raised her sight from the dead animal and looked at him. Her ears dropped down. "Did you find them?" she asked.

Arms crossed over his chest, K'ile didn't answer.

He had indeed. K'thalen and K'piru followed shortly after, the latter having had time to somewhat pull herself together while they returned to the trap - though only somewhat. K'thalen wasn't smiling, heavy brow pulled down, and the first thing out of his mouth was, "Where is she?"

"Aijeen's somewhere, with the spine." K'airos answered. "But look! It worked!"" she added, hopping once and pointing excitedly at the butchered drake.

"With the spine?!" K'piru's disbelieving voice cut off whatever K'thalen would have responded with. She eyed the drake corpse a moment and then turned her face away from it, looking ill.

"That's not what we're worried about now, Airos," K'thalen shook his head.

"Yeah," K'ile said, empathizing with K'piru. He pulled on one ear and said, "That aside, I can track her from here, I think. The girl smells like carrion right now, and that leaves a strong trail."

"I'm sure she's closer than we think." K'aiross said. Her spear was a short distance away, it's blade deeply buried in the sands. She picked it up. "Let's go find her!"

K'thalen nodded, swiveling his ears about and then said to K'piru, "You heard him. Alive and well. Just stinky. Ready to go after her?" The woman just nodded, looking everywhere but the drake.

"Yeah. Stinky." K'ile's face scrunched up and disgust as he smelt the air. And then he sighed. "Further south. Further out of camp. Your girl doesn't know what dangerous means." He took off in the indicated direction.

Features taught and tail shivering, K'piru broke away from Thalen at that and rushed after the tia. A bit stunned by the sudden burst of energy, K'thalen followed a moment later.

"Don't worry! She's fine! She's always fine." K'airos said out loud before following them.

Naunet · **12-08-2013, 05:29 AM**

Tracking the strange stink of dead bird and lizard mixed with the familial scent of Thalen's daughters, K'ile took them an unsettling distance south. Not so much unsettling in that it took a long time, but that the further they went, the less K'ile could guess where they were going. The desert grew larger, the dunes deeper, the wind stronger, and it was all cast in the strange blue-and-gray hue of night. Eventually, stones began to protrude from the sands, and they came upon a place where the dunes slouched against large stone formations. Seeing this and sensing they were getting closer, K'ile spat, "She better not have a secret fucking cave. This is ridiculous!"

K'piru's ears and tail drooped as she plodded on behind K'ile. A couple times, K'thalen had nearly suggested K'airos take her back to camp, noting her tiring, but he knew that wouldn't be met with a friendly reaction. Instead, he maintained an uncharacteristically grim expression and frowned into the night ahead of them, then frowned at the rocks as they approached. Next to him, K'piru whimpered at K'ile's words and protested a bit half-heartedly, "She might've just sought shelter."

K'airos, instead, looked impressed. "Makes sense!" she proclaimed. "She gets yelled back at camp, so of course she found a place of her own." K'piru cast a hurt look at her daughter and then peered worriedly back to the stones.

"That's not how that works," K'ile said. He paused, sniffed the air, and moved towards a break in a wall of rocks. "She want back here. I swear by the Twelve if she leads me into a cave, I'm going to-" As he took his first step past the break in the rock, there was a loud crack, a flash, and the clatter of sticks upon stone. K'ile was thrown backwards with what was more or less an arrow through his leg, which he clutched at. He was oddly quiet about the whole thing, muttering curses through clenched teeth. He probably wasn't as surprised as he would've been in any other situation.

K'piru yelped, first in shock and then in fear as K'thalen pushed her behind him and moved up alongside his brother, though not to the point the tia had crossed. He half-crouched and snapped, "K'airos, get him to Piru," while glaring at the space between the stones.

K'airos jumped in place at the unexpected trap, prey of a deep confusion, clenching her spear between her hands. At her father's order, she dropped the spear and hurried to do as she was told, grabbing K'ile by the shoulders. Letting himself be dragged back, K'ile's frustration boiled into loud curses, and he shook a fist at the crevice, "You stinky little witch! How about I find you and shove a stick through your leg!"

Grimacing at his brother's words, K'thalen moved to pick up his daughter's spear, holding out in front of him, and barked out, "K'aijeen! Come out so we can have a chat!" From the crevice, there was no answer to K'thalen's call.

Shaking legs dropped K'piru to her knees in the sand as K'ile was dragged over to her. She stared down at the stick poking out from his leg, the sharp end bloodied where it had pierced through the other side, and then up at the crevice, wide-eyed.

K'ile growled, "Stupid girl! I knew she was going to get someone hurt. Gods damned..." as he tried very hard not to vainly grab at the shaft in his leg.

Muttering a curse himself, K'thalen squinted at the crevice and then shifted in the sand to one side of the bordering stones. He recognized that reaction from the first trap he'd set off; with any luck it was a one-time thing, but he wasn't about to take that risk. For that reason, he reached out with K'airos's spear and jabbed first the air and then the ground between the rocks, keeping his body as far from the opening as he could manage.

K'airos placed a hand on her mother's shoulder. "Mom! The wound. Can you take care of the wound here?" she asked.

K'piru flinched when K'thalen prodded at the gap between the stones, then again when her daughter touched her shoulder. Her head dropped, shoulders shaking for a moment, and then wordlessly she forced her attention to K'ile's leg, hands moving to feel around the wound. "Will need pressure to stop the bleeding when it's removed," she muttered shakily and began to hastily unwind the white scarf that draped about her shoulders.

Huffing at the women, K'ile said, "It's just in the meat. Rip it out and I'll handle it!"

K'piru ignored K'ile's demands for the moment, again looking up nervously as K'thalen made to enter her daughter's apparent secret cave. Her hands slowed in unwinding the scarf as she watched his back before forcing her attention once more to the wounded tia, cloth in hand, and set her grip to the stick. "Keep his leg still, K'airos," she warned.

K'airos nodded and did as told, placing both hands firmly on K'iles leg, one at the ankle and the other above the wound.

When no dangerous sticks exploded at the jabbing of the spear, K'thalen moved cautiously into the gap between the rocks and again called out, "Aijeen! You in there? It's dad!"

It wasn't exactly a cave, per say. The rocks concealed a number of stony crevices that K'aijeen had "decorated" with with tribal fetishes and various bits of vulture corpses. She isn't visible, lost somewhere in the tiny labyrinth, but her voice echoes over to Thalen, "Don't come in here! I've trapped the entire place!"

"I'll set 'em all off if I have to, Aijeen," Thalen countered, forcing some levity into his voice and glancing around, trying to pinpoint her scent. K'aijeen did not further respond to Thalen.

Kâ€™piruâ€™s hands shook for a moment around the stick before she tightened her grip on it and K'ile's leg and, in a very careful but quick motion, pulled the makeshift weapon out. Blood gushed where the pressure of the wood no longer held it back, and she quickly moved to wrap her scarf about it as tight as she could without cutting off circulation entirely.

K'ile made predictably unpleasant sounds and said some very blasphemous things. Not kid-friendly at all. How uncouth! K'airos was glad there were no kids around. "What now?" she asked K'piru.

Shivering, K'piru stood and muttered, "I need to find Aijeen."Â

Meanwhile, between the rocks, K'thalen inched forward, keeping close to the stones and leading with the spear. The stink of corpses masked his daughter's scent completely, so he just went oninstinct.

K'airos stood up, releasing her grip from K'ile. "No, wait!" she said to her mother, placing herself in the way. "Me and dad can do that. Just...just wait, okay? We'll get her!" She was practically begging.

"I need to find Aijeen," K'piru repeated frantically, gripping her middle daughter's shoulders and straining her sight past her. K'thalen's form had disappeared into the craggy rocks. K'ile had nothing further to say on this matter. Except for, y'know, muttered explicatives.

Down some winding turns in that little maze of K'aijeen's was a long but thin room in which K'aijeen had constructed... something very odd. The basilisk spine was in the center of the room, decorated with all kinds of disgusting goo and organic stringy bits. Bones and organs from other animals lay around it, with a bundle of vulture gray matter placed at the head-end of the spine. It looked like she'd constructed an imitation skeleton of something unnatural, and strung it up with neural fiber. In the sand were wrought all kinds of runes and symbols fr outside the knowledge of the tribe. K'aijeen was adjusting bits and pieces of it with one foot while she walked around with an open tome in her hand and a small burning candle to light the pages.

Outside, K'airos dropped her shoulders but continued being in K'piru's way. "What if there are more traps? You aren't a huntress. You will get hurt by all of them!"

Closing her eyes, K'piru slumped, then stumbled backwards towards K'ile, and finally muttered faintly, "Please get her back, Airos. Make sure she's safe."

K'airos nodded once and ran into the crevice without saying a word, dissapearing just as her father did.

Not having much else to go by, K'thalen chose to follow the worsening stench of dead meat. He met no more traps along the way, but he didn't take that as a sign to ease his caution. When he finally rounded one rock and came upon the site of his daughter's attention, K'airos's spear nearly dropped from his grip, and his features twisted briefly before settling into a flat line. "What is all this, Aijeen?" He announced his presence simply, jabbing one end of the spear against the ground and tightening one fist about it.

K'aijeen spun to face her father, with a frown, and her eyes flicked around for a moment before she said, "Don't come in here! I'm almost done! There are... traps! Everywhere!"

"You said that earlier and I haven't found any yet," K'thalen shrugged and stepped forward into the thin cavern. "What are you doing?"

Flinching when her father stepped forward, K'aijeen shouted again, "Stop!" and thrust the book, pages-out, at K'thalen. The lines drawn into the sand turned dark and filled with shadow, a subtle wash of cold and an audible hiss the only noticeable effects

K'thalen leaned away from the strange shadow, ears angling back briefly before his features hardened. "No, K'aijeen. You need to stop. Did you know you just hurt your uncle? You're hurting people, K'aijeen." He took the spear then and jabbed it at the lines in the ground forcefully.

"Stop it!" K'aijeen shrieked at her father. "Nobody would be getting hurt if they'd just leave me alone! Stop meddling! Stop ruining everything!"

K'airos navigated the maze of stone in a reckless rush. It wasn't long before she turned around a corner and reached the room where her father and sister were. She came to a full stop at the entrance, scouting the room with her eyes and gaping at what she saw.

"Why would we wanna leave you alone?" When nothing violent or evil or otherwise scary happened when he poked at the lines, K'thalen dragged the tip of the spear across them breaking up the sand. "You're family, Aijeen, and we worry about you. Your mom's worried about you, too, y'know. She's waiting outside, so how about you come out with me and you can explain what you're doing and then we can go back home?"

Slamming shut the book in her hands, the action creating a palpable ripple of cold, K'aijeen ran forward. She picked her way past the bones and gore carefully and pounced at the line her father had just ruined, restoring it. Her voice cracked, sounding like she was about to cry as she protested, "Stop! Stop it! I'm almost done! Don't ruin it!"

His ears shifted back, hearing K'airos behind him, but kept his focus on his other daughter. As she fussed desperately over the lines he'd ruined, he took this opportunity to step forward, right alongside her, and placed a heavy hand on her shoulder. "K'aijeen."

"Why don't you ever tell me what you are doing...?" K'airos asked, her voice filled with sadness. "Did you think I was going to ruin it? That I wouldn't understand? That we wouldn't understand?"

Outside in the sand, the tia and worried mother remained. Even through his pain and the dizzying blood-loss, K'ile noticed K'piru fretting nearby. He forced himself to speak, "K'piru. Bit of pain over here. Got any tricks or magical whatnot you can spare?"

K'ile's voice cut through the haze of worry wrapping up K'piru's thoughts, and she spun around to him, staggering back to his side and dropping down in the sand. "I'm sorry," she muttered. "I tried everything. I don't know what else to do." She wasn't talking about his leg, luckily, as her hands took action to increase the pressure on the wound.

Letting K'piru take over the task of putting pressure on his wound, K'ile reached up and put a hand on K'piru's arm. He said, "I trust K'thalen. This whole thing is as good as behind us."

K'piru just let out a little, choked sob and focused on the blurry image of K'ile's leg. The scarf was already stained a deep red, and she had none of her medical supplies with her. The stick hadn't hit a major artery, but it had created a rather large hole in the muscle. Grimacing, K'piru uttered shakily, "Hold onto something," and very carefully worked the cloth into the wound to act as a plug.

K'ile's eyes went wide and he threw himself down in the dirt, groaning out, "Ah, damn it! I'm sorry! Whatever I did I'm sorry augh!"

"Get off of me!" K'aijeen kicked out at her father to try and escape. "You don't understand! Just let me finish! I'm almost done!"

Features unchanging despite the clenching in his chest K'aijeen's actions inspired, K'thalen tightened his grip on his daughter's shoulder and, dropping the spear, brought his other arm around to hold onto her. "Just stop for a minute, K'aijeen. Look at what you're doing."

When she didn't succeed in getting away from her father, K'aijeen looked up at K'airos and said, "See! Nobody gets it! Make him let go! I'm almost done, then I'll let you in on everything! I promise!"

K'thalen ignored his daughter's words, wrapping his arms around her and squeezing tight, attempting to pull her back away from the gruesome display.

K'airos frowned and answered gravely to her sister: "No. You have to choose." She pointed at herself and then at the bloody drake spine. "Me or your.. your....whatever this is!"

K'aijeen did not at first resist her father. Her attention was consumed by K'airos, and she gawked at her sister disbelievingly. "What? Choose? But... No! You don't understand either! You're just like everyone else!" She began to writhe in K'thalen's arms, though her words were still meant for K'airos, "You're supposed to help me, Airos! you're supposed to trust me! You're supposed to help me!"

"With what, K'aijeen?" K'thalen gritted out, doing his best to hold onto his squirming daughter. "What you're doing in here, it's not good. We're going back outside, now."

"You never trusted me more than a butcher trusts her knife or a huntress her spear! I'm not your sister. I'm a thing!" K'airos shouted angrily, and soon began to stomp her feet and kick agains the lines. "A thing! A thing! A thing!" she repeated.

"No! You're not! You're... I'm..." Her tears broke, K'aijeen began to fight her father in earnest. "You can't do this! You... I'm almost...!" She one hand free and the heavy, old book she held snapped open with a flicker of shadow and cold. The young girl instantly began to spit unutterable words at the tome, phrases of no known language at a feverish speed.

Cursing under his breath, K'thalen turned from the strung up meat and bone and neural fiber and strange inscriptions, dragging his incomprehensibly ranting daughter with him. Her behavior honestly frightened him, but this was not a time to be frightened.

"I'm a thing!" K'airos continued her tantrum with an exhausted voice. Her eyes soon set on the open book her sister was holding. She pressed her lips that dissapeared into a line. She quickly ran towards it and tried to get a hold of it with both hands, shouting: "Is that what poisoned you? Is it? Is it?!"

When the book was taken from her, the desperate muttering stopped. K'aijeen reached futilely after it, screaming, "No! K'airos, please! Please! Don't take it! Please!"

Frowning heavily, K'thalen tried to get K'aijeen's flailing arm under control, turning her so she was facing him instead, holding her to his chest. "Aijeen, you've gotta stop this," he demanded.

K'airos closed the book and looked at its cover briefly. Then, she turned her head, looking around for the candle Aijeen was using before.

The pile of bones and gore moved. Darkness and cold shot through the neural fiber that connected everything, and translucent, black flesh suddenly burst from the sand and animated it. Utterly without warning, a clawed and heavy body threw itself down the narrow room at all three Miqo'te at once.

Turned away from the scene, K'thalen didn't see the motion at first, but he certainly felt the shuddering cold through the room and heard the lumbering weight of a large body moving behind him. Eyes widening briefly, he spun and lurched to one side with K'aijeen in his arms. K'airos reaction was similar. She threw herself against the wall, screeching, with the book between her hands and in front of her like some kind of shield.

The strange beast slipped over the ceiling, oddly smooth, only knocking loos a few small bits of rock as it wormed between the three. As it moved past K'thalen, K'aijeen reached towards it, shouting, "No! No, you can't! You're mine! You're-" she went silent when the thing reach out with its claws and grabbed at her, ripping into her side and drawing blood. Without pausing, though, it moved on. It didn't spare K'thalen or K'airos any attention as it flew to exit the crevice. K'thalen pulled K'aijeen away from the thing's claws, though perhaps not fast enough, curling over her body as it slithered past them.

K'airos rushed to grab her spear, dropping the book on the way. Horrified, she exclaimed: "Mom and K'ile are outside! And he's wounded!" The weapon firmly clenched between her fingers, she followed the beast.

Bleeding heavily, K'aijeen very strangely gave her wound no attention. As soon as the beast was out of sight, K'aijeen collapsed into a writhing mess, covering her face with her hands and screaming, "IT'S GONE! YOU RUINED IT! I WAS ALMOST DONE! YOU RUINED IT! YOU RUINED IT!"

K'thalen was torn for several seconds between wanting to take care of his obviously wounded daughter and chasing after the monster that he was certain was about to do much worse to his mate and brother. Cursing - loudly this time - he looked down at his daughter with a sad expression. "Stay here, Aijeen. Do not move. I'll be right back." And then he was running after K'airos and the nightmare beast.

As her father left her, K'aijeen crumbled to the ground and just lay there screaming, over and over, "You ruined it! You ruined it!"

Outside, K'piru had finished constructing the makeshift bandage about K'ile's leg and was bowed over it, alternately crying and quietly muttering prayers to Azeyma. The beast burst through the rocky opening to the Sagolii with a deceptive silence, but its presence was heavy with the shadow that curled along the ground ahead of it. The thing was airborne for a moment before hitting the ground immediately in front of K'piru and K'ile. The Tia didn't comprehend what he was seeing, but instinctively he squirmed to get at his spear. K'piru felt the sick chill that traveled with the beast a second before it dropped down before them, and the shiver it stirred turned into a body wrenching recoil as she shrieked and fell back. K'airos wasn't far behind. She left the crevice a few moments after the creature and, instinct kicking before thought or caution, lunged forward with her spear to attack it.

The beast loomed over K'piru. In the translucent flesh of its head, a dozen vulture skulls could be seen in a limp bundle. The thing wasn't watching K'ile Tia, and it was those skulls that he instinctively aimed for when he swung his spear at the thing. It took a hit both in the face from K'ile and the back from K'airos, and twisted in silent pain as it hemorrhaged gore and animal bones. In the next moment, it fled, tearing off further south like a panicked lizard.

It was then that K'thalen came bursting from the crevice, just in time to spot the creature fleeing. He hung back for several moments, stunned by the knowledge of what K'aijeen had done. Across the way, K'piru remained cowered in the sand.

K'airos gave chase, sparing a somewhat long look to K'ile and her mother while passing by them. With the long day she had, she knew it wouldn't be long before she tired herself. She hoped to kill the creature before that happened, and before it could do more harm.

The beast, realizing it was pursued, did not slow. The thing seemed to barely make contact with the ground as it tore over the sand, gaining speed, tireless, heading for the deepest part of the Sagoli. It seemed unlikely K'airos would be able to catch it. It did not take long for her to notice the creature was getting farther and farther away. She insisted, pressing herself to run quicker. But the beast was faster and no matter how much effort she put, soon it was obvious she wouldn't reach it. She dropped on her knees and hands, and cursed the beast, the sands and everything while it fled.

Continuing to point his spear at the beast, one arm extended from where he lay on his back, K'ile blinked heavily. Some seconds passed for him like this before he dropped the spear and rolled over, "K'piru, are you alright?!"

The woman didn't answer immediately, curled with her arms hiding her face in the sand. After a moment, small, short sounds escaped her throat, followed quickly by a thin wail, "Aijeen!" K'piru's voice seemed to jumpstart K'thalen, who had been watching the retreating creature as though frozen. He cast a conflicted look over to her and his brother before setting his jaw and turning to run back into the rocks.

K'ile couldn't do much from where he sat, indecisive. He had no clue what in the twelve hells was going on.

Tearing back through the labyrinthine mess of rocks, K'thalen made his way back to where he'd left his daughter. He could hear her voice, growing hoarse now, and let it guide him. When he once again entered that nightmarish room, he didn't allow even a moment to look again at the runes and the remains of the ritual, instead moving swiftly to K'aijeen on the ground and gathering her up in his arms. "We're leaving now," he muttered.

When K'thalen picked her up, she kicked weakly and slammed her fists against his chest and shoulder. Her hoarse voice shouted, "No! You ruined everything! You ruined it!"

Grimacing, he did his best to ignore K'aijeen's struggles, though at her age, she could put some strength into the blows, and stood to make his way back through the rocks. "That's right," he replied lowly, ears drooping. "I ruined it. Let's go." The last phrase wasn't exactly necessary, as he was already moving, but he said it nonetheless.

K'airos returned to where K'ile and K'piru were, dragging her spear behind. Her ears were dropped to the sides of her head and her tail curved inwards between her legs. She looked at them, breathing heavily. "Are you alright? Did it hurt you?"

K'ile shook his head at K'airos. "I think we're okay. I don't understand... Was that a Voidsent?"

"I don't know." K'airos shook her head. Her lips twitched as an internal conflict sprung inside her. She looked away. K'piru just kind of sobbed in the sand wordlessly.

K'thalen worked his way back out through the rocks slower this time, conscious of the wound in K'aijeen's side and attempting to keep her still so she didn't make it any worse. He took the words K'aijeen flung at him and at whoever else as they came, not bothering to protest for now. When he crossed out into the open sand, his features were downturned and he walked towards the other three without pause.

K'aijeen's behavior hadn't changed. Her eyes were closed tight, her tail wrapping her body, her hands in fists and her eyes flat against her hair. Her voice broken with fury and sadness, she just repeated, "You ruined it. You ruined it!"

K'airos looked at her father and then at Aijeen with swollen eyes. "I need to destroy what caused this." she said, moving back towards the cave, still dragging her spear.

Frowning, K'thalen just moved over his brother and mate, still holding K'aijeen, and said, "Quickly. We need to get back to camp."

"What the hell happ-... Ah, screw it." K'ile sat up and said. "I'll limp back with K'airos. You two get your girl home."

At K'ile's words, K'piru looked up. When she caught sight of her daughter in K'thalen's arms, she sobbed again and lurched to her feet, stumbling to them both and wrapping her arms about them.

K'aijeen groaned when her mother entered the scenario, but didn't really stop her constant repetition.

K'ile Tia managed to stand, mostly balancing on one leg and only using the other for balance. "Yeah, see, fine. Get going. hug when you get home."

"C'mon, Piru," K'thalen nodded, eyeing his brother before adding, "Don't bleed to death out here, alright?" He then nudged at K'piru with one elbow gently to get her moving. The woman trembled before complying, shuffling through the sand.

"I'll be fine! K'airos is out here. She seems... Sane."

She entered the cave and slowly went back to the room where the beast was created. Or summoned. She couldn't tell the difference, and didn't particularly care. But she had something to blame: the book Aijeen was using. She searched the cave for it and found it swiftly. Her first action was to stab it furiously with her spear. She stabbed it once for every time she had heard her sister say that they 'had ruined it', unloading as much anger as she could on it. That calmed her down considerably, but not enough. She picked the mess of papers that had been a book not long ago and used the candle her sister had dropped to burn it. And she stayed to make sure there was nothing left but cinders.

The book burned quickly enough for K'airos to be out of the cave only a few minutes later. She emerged from the crevice feigning a neutral expression. "We are done." she said, offering one shoulder and arm to K'ile upon reaching him.

K'ile accepted these things from her, though he said as he did, "Now aren't you glad that trap worked?"

"I know, I know!" she replied, annoyed. "That will teach me."

"I won't say another word about it then," K'ile said. And then began the long hobble back to town. And he was all, "Ow.... ow... ow..." whenever he stepped on his wounded leg.

Naunet · **12-29-2013, 02:08 AM**

K'aijeen had not struggled against her father as he carried her, and the endless, rasping accusations had gone silent. The child's hands still strained against her father's chest and shoulder, but she leaned her forehead against him as well to hide her face behind her hair. K'ile Tia, on the other hand, had begun to mutter strings of curses as they walked, and the nearer to camp they came, the loud and more agitated he grew. By the time they arrived, he was subjecting K'airos to vicious blasphemies grunted through his teeth.

The first tents to roll into view were pale dots on a dark horizon that gradually became more grey as their steps carried them closer. Thalen did not ease his grip on his daughter, holding her close and focusing on the press of her face against his skin. One hand he kept on her side, against the wound the strange evil had given her in its escape. He could tell the bleeding had slowed, but it still concerned him. He didn't know what poisons it may have held on its claws.Â

He did not speak as they walked, features stony and withdrawn. He barely acknowledged K'piru, who had at first kept very close and then, as their journey back lengthened, fell back. He could smell her fear, but there was nothing he could do about it for now - not until they returned and dealt with K'aijeen. He lifted blue eyes to the outer line of tents marking their camp as they approached and then, minutes later, passed them. Everything was quiet still, this early in the morning, and the light skins shifted in a morning breeze like ghosts. Finally, Thalen spoke quietly, to the daughter in his arms, "Your mother will bandage you up, and then you're going to explain to us what happened."

K'airos huffed after he spoke. Maybe she was reacting to the curses the blasphemous tia was spitting to the air next to her. She dispelled any doubt by adding some words to the huffing: "I don't think she'll tell us anything."

"I told you!" K'aijeen shouted, her voice strained and body tensing, "You ruined it! It's never coming back!"

At her middle daughter's words, K'piru hunched her shoulders, hugging herself. She kept her eyes on Thalen's back, and the bits of hair and limbs she could see of K'aijeen poking out on either side. At her youngest's cries, she looked away. "That... is a good thing, Aijeen. It was evil."

Glaring at the sand in front of himself, K'ile growled out, "Shouldn't we go to the Elders?"

"We should take care of your wound properly first." K'airos said.

"I could only... the walking might have reopened it," K'piru added softy. She tried to return her gaze to Thalen and her daughter but found that impossible.Â

The former hummed to himself, carefully adjusted his grip as they passed a few more tents, and then said, "Don't want either of you passing out from blood loss in front of them."

K'ile grunted in ascent, silent as he continued to hobble on. The girl in Thalen's hands was quiet for a few moments, and then she shifted suddenly in Thalen's grip to throw her face in her sister's direction. "I was going to tell you everything, Airos! You were supposed to help me!"

"Too bad I couldn't read your thoughts." K'airos growled without looking at her. She kept the eyes fixed on the sand, moving steadily towards her family's tent.

Thalen bent slightly to enter K'piru and her children's tent, taking a moment to breathe in familiar scents of dried herbs and ointments that always seemed to cling to the woman. They were little comfort now, though, with his daughter squirming in his arms. He frowned and said, "I'm going to put you down now. Don't run." As he spoke, he knelt to ease K'aijeen to the floor.

K'piru hung back outside the tent a moment, her ears and tail trembling. Her daughter, her lovely K'aijeen, seemed almost as terrifying as that monstrous beast she had summoned, and K'piru was not sure she could face her.

When she touched the floor, K'aijeen tried to escape her father's grip. Not to leave the tent, though, just to get away from him. He let her go, looking a bit sad but giving her space.

"Do you have everything to treat them here?" K'airos voice sounded behind them while she helped K'ile get inside.

"I don't need much," K'ile said, hobbling in. "Just tie it off and I'll be good." Meanwhile, K'aijeen had retreated to a corner of the tent, facing the wall and curling up on herself. She doesn't even seem to notice that she's been hurt.

K'piru watched her daughter and K'ile enter the tent, made as though to follow, and hesitated again. The way she had screamed, hurling condemnation until she was breathless - it tore at her chest. She cast a pained glance behind her, to the softening sky, and then pushed forward into the tent. It felt like walking through an ocean of mud. Once inside, she moved wordlessly to one side of the tent and began to gather items. Her hands shook as she moved.

"Piru's got everything here. She'll take care of it," Thalen said as lightly as he could manage, which wasn't very. He watched his daughter in the corner, blue eyes frowning.

"That's a good idea. Let's tie K'ile up!" K'airos joked, giving her uncle a weak smile. She moved him to a side and tried to make him sit down. "Just lie there and don't move while we tie you- I mean your wound- up."

Trying to ignore the weight of the situation, K'ile dropped to the ground. "Do whatever you want, K'airos. I'm not in good shape to fight back."

In one arm, K'piru held a small bowl, inside which was a greenish, opaque paste, as well as a few other medical items. Swallowing, she approached K'aijeen, keeping her eyes averted, and reached out with her free hand for her daughter. "Aijeen, let me see.

Her entire body tensing until her small muscles looked ot be stones underneath her skin, K'aijeen hissed, "I don't want you touching me. I can do it myself."

Something bottomed out in her gut, but K'piru steadied herself and placed one hand on her daughter's shoulder, moving close. "It's better if you let me help, Aijeen. Remember, that's one of the first rules...?" She set the bowl down and moved her hands to try and get a look at her daughter's side.

K'airos walked towards them and crouched behind her sister. "Let mom help. You know that's something she's good at!" She offered another weak smile.

K'aijeen spun out of the corner suddenly and swung at her motherâ€™s hands, "Don't lecture me about more rules! Do you think I don't understand this..." she grabbed the bowl and looked at with disgust. "Simple poultice! This small medicine!"

"Smallâ€¦?" K'piru's ears drooped, but she didn't let her daughter's gestures stop her, One hand moved to hold her arm gently. "Aijeen, let me see. You're hurt and I want to help you." She tried to keep the pleading out of her voice, but still it shook and seemed terribly... small. Behind her, Thalen crossed his arms and frowned, his tail swishing forcefully behind him in the somewhat cramped space.

K'airos grabbed her sister's arms with the intent of holding them still. "We have had enough scenes for one day, Aijeen." she pouted.

"I said I can do it! Don't-!" She began to struggle with her mother, but when K'airos grabbed her, she went limp, her voice coming up short. Her hands clenched into small, pitiful fists, her eyes closed.

"Please, Aijeen," K'piru whispered, and crouched to feel her daughter's side, noting the blood soaking her clothes and pulling at the cloth to reveal a long gash. She let out a slow breath and took one of the strips of cloth she'd brought to wipe at the blood, cleaning the wound.

Seeming to suffer her motherâ€™s attention in silence, she muttered, "You betrayed me, Airos. I was almost done."

"No one betrayed you, Aijeen," K'piru said sadly. "We just want to help you..." The bleeding had mostly stopped, slowing to an occasional oozing, and once the wound was cleared, she began to smear some of the "simple poultice" on it.

K'airos frowned at Aijeen's words. "You are unfair. You didn't explain anything to me. And yet you demand I understand." She kept her stern frown for a while, staring at her sister's back.

Ignoring her mother with unsettling ease, K'aijeen snapped at K'airos, "You just needed to do what I said! Trust me! I promised!"

"You know" K'airos started "When I pick my spear, I expect it to work in a particular way. If I thrust it, I expect it to move forward and wound the beast. If I twist the pole, I expect its blade to twist inside the wound. I don't explain it why." Her lips became a thin line and she looked away. "I'm not a spear, you know. I'm your sister."

Her eyes opening to watch her sister's face, K'aijeen's gaze flicked about. Her eyes narrowed, and she thinks, and became visibly frustrated. Finally she tossed her head back and just groaned, "I trusted you."

K'piru kept quiet as she tended to her daughter's wound, ensuring even and full coverage of the poultice before beginning to apply bandages - tight so as to draw the skin together and close the wound.

K'airos released Aijeen to throw her arms to the air, mirroring her sister's frustration. "Well, I trusted you too! And what did I get for that? A monster, K'ile wounded, you wounded and who knows how much time tied up under the sun!"

"If you trust me we wouldn't be here," K'aijeen hissed, closing her eyes. "Mom! Why aren't you done yet? It's not difficult!"

"That makes no sense!" K'airos stood up swiftly and walked away towards the other side of the tent. "We wouldn't be here, either, if you had told me!"

K'piru's ears flattened against her head at her daughter's words. As she wound the bandage, she layered a few herbs in that would release beneficial essences as they broke down. "It will be done right," she whispered.

K'aijeen hissed, "You can't do anything right. All of you just ruin everything." Across the tent, sitting with his hands clasped over the wound on his leg and keeping pressure there, K'ile watched K'airos with a frown.

"Aijeen, don't say things like that," K'piru begged quietly. She kept her hands on her daughter when she finished wrapping the bandages and, in a desperate urge, made to pull her into a shaking hug. "Please, don't say those things. We love you."

K'airos crossed her arms. For an instant, K'iles frown caused her to hesitate. A sudden urge to crouch and disappear assaulted her. But she recovered by looking away and muttering some blasphemies of her own making.

K'aijeen bit at her mother, "You ruin that, too." And then, squirming to try and see what her mother is doing, "You should be done by now! I would be! You're inept! This entire tribe is inept!"

"K'aijeen," Thalen spoke somberly, a warning tone. The uncharacteristic frown on his face deepened, worried.Â

K'piru only shook her head and continued to try and hold her daughter close, repeating, "Don't say those things. I love you, Aijeen. Please, you must stop..."

"You don't love me. I don't believe you. You're a liar." She lay still again, her muscles tense. "Finish what you're doing!"

"We are tools. We can't love, mom." K'airos said and bit her tongue right after speaking, expression conflicted. It was hard to know if she was about to burst into a fire like a bag of bomb claws or just into a thousand mean words. Or a thousand tears.

K'piru's shoulders shook. She had finished a minute or two ago, but she still clung to her daughter. "That's not true, Aijeen! Why would you... why do you do this!"

"You wouldn't understand," K'aijeen ansered, staring at the ceiling. "Your mind is small. You only understand simple things, like your powders and rituals and lessons. You live in a tiny, stupid world."

K'airos snapped. "Stop being mean!" She then looked at her father and gestured to Aijeen wildly, unsure of what she was trying to convey with those movements. "Tell her to stop!"

"K'aijeen," Thalen spoke again, firmer this time, and stepped forward to put a hand on her shoulder. "Don't speak to your mom like that. No one here deserves words like that, alright? So stop it." K'piru seemed at a loss for words and just shook her head, holding tight to her daughter.

"Blind. Foolish." Kâ€™aijeen muttered, then growled, "Why is everyone touching me? Get off of me!" K'airos was briefly amused by that reaction and giggled.

"No!" K'piru refused vehemently. "I'm not going to just let you go. You're my beautiful girl - I love you and--and I want you to stop hurting yourself and others, Aijeen!"

K'ile gave K'airos a bemused look.

At her motherâ€™s words, K'aijeen frowned, her tail moving restlessly. She looked at the ceiling and muttered, "If you loved me you'd say it more often. You're lying. And nobody would've gotten hurt if nobody had meddled."

"What do you... why would you... Aijeen...!" K'piru moved her hands up to her daughter's face, turning her features towards her. "Look at me, Aijeen! I would never lie to you. Never."

Behind his daughter, Thalen frowned and murmured, "We wouldn't have gone out looking for you if we didn't care."

"Nobody would have been hurt if you hadn't keep things secret." K'airos muttered, as if she didn't want to be heard. She then shook her head, walking away until she was next to the tent's entrance.

K'aijeen chose this time to go silent, her features turning down into a stubborn frown. It was also this silence which K'ile took as his queue to humbly state, "Bleeding..."

K'piru flinched at K'ile's voice, her arms shaking around K'aijeen for several seconds before she whispered, "I need to help him. I love you," and released her daughter. It took an incomprehensible amount of effort for her to pull away and turn her attention to the tia in the tent.

K'airos sat on the floor right where she was standing, adding nothing to the exchange. She didn't think anything she said would matter.

Seeing K'piru turn towards him, K'ile frowned and said, "There are others who could fix me up."

K'aijeen tried to squirm away from her father's hand. Thalen didn't budge his grip and sighed at his daughter. "You're gonna have a lot of days of apologizing ahead of you, y'know," he muttered to her.

Shifting over to K'ile, K'piru kept her head bowed and shook it wordlessly. Her hands shook slightly as they moved to gently unwrap the makeshift bandage, her daughter's words echoing in her head.

K'airos smiled. "We'll get over this." she said. "In three suns we'll have forgotten all about this! Aijeen will have a new secret plan, I'll help her with it. Then dad will wander into it somehow and K'ile will frown and be stern with us...all that while mom is assaulted by worry! And three days after -that- we will forget about it, too!"

"I don't think that's going to happen," K'ile muttered.

With a glare in her blue eyes, K'aijeen met her father's gaze and says, "I won't apologize. Not even once. I can start over! I just..." She rolled her head to look past K'thalen to her sister, "K'airos, I forgive you. But I need my book. I'll let you know everything from now on, I promise! Everything!"

"Ah, come on, K'aijeen," Thalen shook his head, lips a thin line. "That thing - whatever it was you summoned? Damned near killed your mom and K'ile. You know I can't let that happen again."

K'airos pressed her lips together, her eyes set on the ground. "Where did you get that book?"

"I'll tell you, Airos," K'aijeen returned her gaze to the ceiling. "I'm not telling them.

"I hope it's destroyed," K'piru said suddenly, tone low and almost bitter, though it still shook with worry. She did not give K'ile warning before she began to work at cleaning the gaping wound in his leg, setting a bowl beneath it to catch blood and pushing her finger inside the wound to rub it with a cleansing ointment.

"I'm not going to keep any more secrets from the tribe or our family." K'airos said to K'aijeen. And nodding to her mother, she said "I burned the book after the creature ran away."

K'ile of course grunted when K'piru set to work in his wound, growling out, "Ah, Warden damn it, Piru! Why are you mad at me?"

At the very mention of destroying the book, K'aijeen strained against her father's hand and shouted at her mother, "No! You can't!" But at K'airos' words, the girl froze, her hands pressing against her father's arm. She shifted under him to direct her glare at K'airos. "You're lying. You didn't! You're lying!"

"It will begin to numb soon," K'piru murmured distractedly to K'ile after a moment. Green eyes shifted to K'airos, and relief briefly slackened her features. "Good. It's... that evil must have... taken ahold of her somehow. We..." Something flashed in her eyes - realization, resignation. "If she's cleansed of it--we could... there must be a way to remove it from her."

K'airos nodded to the ground. "I hope that's it. The book was to blame, wasn't it?" She raised her eyes to look at her father, desperately seeking some sort of confirmation. "Wasn't it?"

"No! Don't! DONâ€™T DO THAT!" K'aijeen snarled with sudden fury, fighting her father's hold. "I did this! It's not evil! You say you love me in one breath and then say I'm possessed! You liar! Ugly crone!" Her voice shifted, dropped, but her struggling continued. "K'airos. Please. The book, you didn't."

K'piru cringed over K'ile's leg and begged without looking at her daughter, "I'm trying to help you because I love you, Aijeen!"

K'airos answer was blunt: "I did. I burned it because I refuse to think you would be so selfish on your own!"

K'thalen bent slightly to put his other hand on K'aijeen's opposite shoulder, expression solemn as he listened.

The girl snapped at her mother, "Shut up! You liar! I'm never listening to anything you say, ever again!" She turns her gaze to the ceiling, "None of you understand! Small minds think I'm selfish! Clueless closed eyes! Too stupid to love anything!"

She had begun to apply a sealing ointment on K'ile's wound to keep it shut, but at K'aijeen's words, K'piru simply crumbled, bending over his leg with a sob. Thalen darted bright eyes towards her, then down at K'aijeen and frowned, gripping his daughter firmly enough that he could turn her to look in her eyes. "Listen to me, K'aijeen. You want to think those things? Fine. If you want to hate us - fine. They're horrible things to think on their own, but you don't say it to the people who love you." He urged her upward with his grip. "Get up. We're going to the elders now."

K'ile made a face and took K'piru in his hands to support her, mostly ignoring his own pain.

"She loves that book more than us. Why don't we send her to get hugs and care from its ashes?" K'airos growled, standing up furiously. Her tail was raised, reaching slightly beyond her shoulders. "Maybe that book will give her a new and smarter sister!"

Letting herself get pulled up, K'aijeen turns mournful eyes on her father. "Dad, I don't want this to be happening. I'm not possessed! I love everyone. I'm trying to help the tribe. I was doing something good!"

"I know you want to do something good," Thalen let his tone soften just slightly, moving one of his hands to rub at her back. He frowned over her head and then sighed. "Like I said, you nearly got your mom and K'ile killed by that monster. You can't tell me that was a good thing, K'aijeen. It's not possible."

K'airos pouted, turning around and opening the tent. She huffed, and then stepped outside without saying any more words.

K'piru only shook with tears, her hands still gripping K'ile's leg. K'ile did his best to comfort K'piru with shoulder-pats and arm-squeezes, but the Tia had no words. He looked to K'thalen helplessly, but he didn't know what to do about the child either.

K'aijeen's answer was firm, "It wouldn't have done anything if I'd finished. It was only dangerous because you meddled! The Elders wouldn't understand! They're foolish! Senile."

"What were you gonna do with it, then, K'aijeen? That thing did not want to be controlled, even I could tell that," Thalen frowned. "There's nothing good that coulda come of it." He put some pressure on her shoulders. "C'mon. We're going."

"They're going to rack Airos and exile me!" K'aijeen protested, very loudly, "You want that?"

K'piru looked up at that, eyes wide and wet, and turned her face to K'ile desperately. "They--they wouldn't... She's a child...! Would they really...?"

"They won't," K'ile said sternly to K'piru.

"Let's go, K'aijeen," Thalen muttered and continued to urge her forwards, intended to leave the tent.

K'aijeen leaves the tent, her glare falling on the ground. The morning light shines on a girl covered in her own blood and stinking of rot. "I'm not going to let them talk down to me."

K'airos lingered outside walking in a straight line. She reached the end of its arbitrary length and turned around to continue her stroll. The steps on the sand showed that she had been doing this at a fast pace. When she saw K'aijeen exiting the tent, she stopped and looked at her for a moment before walking towards her in silence.

Inside the tent, K'piru sagged as though all the strength had fled from her muscles, then with a distant expression, she went back to wordlessly managing K'ile's wound, sealing the hole and wrapping it tightly. It still bled, but the ointment and pressure would do more now than her makeshift bandage from earlier. K'ile watched K'piru working his leg again, then turned his gaze towards the outside as the others left. He was about to say something to K'piru, but then he didn't.

K'aijeen stopped and looked up at K'airos, seeming both sad and rather afraid of her older sister. "That book can't be replaced. Ever."

K'airos expression was a mix of anger and uncontrollable sadness. "Good." she said with a cough. "Then maybe I won't have to burn the next one."

Placing a hand on K'aijeen's back, Thalen kept her moving after a moment, offering a sympathetic look to K'airos..

As they neared K'airos, K'aijeen suddenly leapt at her sister and gripped at her clothes with her fingernails, eyes wide and ears flat. She shouts, "I trusted you! You ruined everything! You lied! You always hated me! Betrayer!"

There was no defensive attempt from K'airos. She just placed both hands softly against the sides of Aijeen's head and leaned her own head forward. "I don't hate you. I'm tired of getting in trouble, and I'm tired of you not telling me what you do. I'm sorry."

"What'd I say about those words, K'aijeen?" Thalen frowned and kept the pressure of his hands.

"... Airos," the girl let go of her sister, and drifted under her father's pressure for a time. Then she spun and tried to get away from him, "I don't need to talk to the Elders! I exile myself!"

"What?" K'airos' eyes widened and looked at her in confusion.

Thalen blinked once and then strengthened his grip. "You don't want to do that," he all but commanded.

"Yes I do." K'aijeen said, pulling against her father's grip. "This tiny pocket of small-minded people. It's disgusting. Nobody here knows anything. There's only hate and stupidity here. Closed eyes closed ears. I could have been the wisest shaman. I could've made the tribe better!"

K'airos curled her hands into fists. Her tail did something similar, rising up. "You keep sayng that! Then go away! Go find a better tribe! One made of books and butchered beast flesh!" Without noticing, she jumped in place, both feet stomping angrily on the sand. "Go away! We are not good for you! Go away!" she yelled.

He pulled her to him then, wrapping one arm around her firmly. Something like anger darkened his features. "Stop that. We're family, K'aijeen." To K'airos he growled, "Go help your mother," and then back to the younger daughter, "You don't get to say that stuff, you got that? You don't get to leave us, because we love you, and you love us, and we're family."

Thalen's growl was enough to snap K'airos out of her anger. Her tail dropped between her legs, and she herself dropped into a deep sadness. She swiftly turned around and ran away from them and the tent, sobbing.

"You can't control what I say," K'aijeen growled up at her father. "What I think. What's real. I can do whatever I want and you can't stop me."

"Twelve help me, I can and I will," Thalen breathed furiously, holding onto K'aijeen. "I'm not going to let you make more stupid decisions. If I have to protect you from yourself, then I will. Now come with me."

Seeing the futility in fighting her father, K'aijeen let herself be dragged off. "You're the stupid."

Letting the words hit him, K'thalen did not allow himself to react further, save for a tightening of his features and a deep ache in his chest. He moved with his daughter through the tents - now coming alive with more movement as the morning wore on â€“ and towards the elders at the center of the camp.

K'airos stopped running a few tents back. She thought she had a clear understanding of the situation. That her sister only loved her as long as she was useful, that even if she wasn't exiled she would leave on her own, and that there was nothing that could change any of it. For all those things, she dropped to the sand like a thrown rock and cried.

Naunet · **03-29-2014, 03:47 AM**

((Wooo took long enough to get back to this bit of retro-rp. xD))

***

The elder's tent moved around the desert like a wandering dune, but relative to the rest of the camp it never moved. It was right in the center, large and closed, smelling of alchemy and old people. The combination did not please D'aijeen, but she did not complain as she let her father pull her along. At some point, as much for her own comfort as anything, she'd begun to walk beside him under her own power. "K'airos shouldn't have left," she said, as the passed the central bonfire which was burning down to cinders from the previous night, though already women were arriving to build it back up. "She's going to be in trouble, too."

"Don't worry over K'airos," her father rumbled as he approached the tent's door. A fetish of bone and braided sinew hung from it, and he gave it a look and a hopeful thought before pushing the door-skin open. He called out as he did so, "Elders, I found our food thief. I think it would be best if you speak with her."

After finishing crying over the sand, K'airos stood up and followed her family, her sobbing diminishing with each step until it reached a point of balance. She had left her spear behind, somewhere. She didn't remember, but still felt as if she was dragging a few dozen on each hand. Seeing her father entering the tent only added another dozen. She stopped behind K'aijeen, her arms crossed and facing down.

"Thief! Why don't you just tie me to the racks yourself, dad!" D'aieen tried to yank herself away from her father, to present herself to the elders under her own power.

Thalen released K'aijeen easily, though he made sure to place his body close to his daughters, should she try to bolt. "It'll all go better if you keep your cool, K'aijeen."

K'airos had some angry words to add, but they chocked in her throat and only came out as another sob.

At the sound of K'airos' sob, K'aijeen ((NOT D'aijeen, by the way)) snapped her gaze around to her sister, having not heard her return. The next words were uttered from the smoldering shadows of the tent, however. A low, elderly voice...

"It is too early for this. Did you not give warning, K'jhanhi?"

The shadows fell back into silence only for a moment before another voice, similar to the first but with a weary quality spoke, "We all did. I had hoped she had heard us, in this matter at the very least."

K'airos kept quiet, raising her head to look at D'aijeen.

K'takka's tattooed face lifted from the shadows after a moment, her silver eyes glowing with concern as she set her gaze on K'airos. "Oh, Airos, why do you cry granddaughter?"

"I helped her." she barely managed to answer, the words blending together

"I've not known you to cry over causing trouble, Airos," that tired voice spoke. "There is more. But..." In the shadows, a thin hand gestured. "Step inside, all of you."

"What I did was the best possible use of resources," K'aijeen said boldly, stepping before, gesturing broad. "You won't believe me. I proved my trap works, but that won't matter, will it?"

"What you made was a monster!" K'airos snapped sadly, still outside. "You shouldn't be proud!"

Thalen turned so that the tent's door was kept open by his body, looked at K'airos, and let out a short breath through his nose. "It was something dangerous, that's for sure."

From further in the tent a low voice grated out, "From stealing food to monsters? Child, explain yourself."

"It wasn't supposed to be a monster!" K'aijeen shot back, "And it doesn't matter! It's gone! Why are you outside. What are you afraid of me now?"

Reluctantly, K'airos stepped into the tent, holding her arms tightly against herself. She took one long breath. "Aijeen used parts of the beasts to make another beast with...with...magic from a book!" she said, feeling that each word escaped at once from her mouth, each one trampling into the next and causing her sentence to be an high-pitched and fast mess.

There came the rattling of air through old lungs and then the low voice's owner stepped forward, K'jhanhi's yellow eyes narrowed. "That sounds dangerously like things no child of Azeyma should ever thing to touch."Â

Behind him, the tired voice now sounded worried, "How did you come by such dark magic, granddaughter?"

"It doesn't matter!" K'aijeen spun back, cutting the air with one hand, "It has nothing to do with the food! It has nothing to do with the tribe! Are you all senile?"

"It matters when you're putting family at risk, K'aijeen - including yourself," K'thalen barked. "This goes well beyond stealing - or borrowing - some food."

K'airos followed her father's bark with her own: "You keep saying how stupid we are and then never explain anything!"

"Because you don't get it! You're superstitious and afraid!" K'aijeen's back was to the elder's, shouting angrily at her family. "It wasn't a monster; it was a thrall. It would have helped, but K'airos destroyed the book! For no reason!"

K'jhanhi's thin lips set into a line, and arms that still bore much of the muscle that had kept him nunh for a generation folded across his chest. "K'aijeen Thalen, were you a few dozen moons older, the risks you've taken would be enough to send you into the sands."

K'airos choked on some more words that never came out. She held both hands together, rubbing them right under her chin, her eyes wide open. She didn't know where to look, and so she looked at the ground.

K'aijeen snapped around at K'jhanhi, leveling the massive man with a glare one would expect from a much older -- and much larger -- being. "Were I a dozen moons older I'd have already replaced you. All of you."

"Do not speak such things! If your mother could hear you," K'deiki breathed a sigh, bowing her withered face briefly.

"She doesn't care." K'airos mumbled between sobs. "She doesn't care about the tribe, her family or...or her sister!"

"Betrayers and ruiners!" K'aijeen shouted at the floor, "I could summon an ocean of fresh water for you and you'd condemn me for it! You don't know what love is or you'd recognize it!"

"Instead you summoned a monster," K'jhanhi intoned, old voice grating like coarse sand on dry stone. He turned to look to the painted face of K'takka.

It was K'deiki who spoke next, however, "What if she is not fully in control of herself? Perhaps something has driven her to... this."

K'takka did not meet K'jhanhi's gaze. She had pulled herself back into the shadows, only her sad eyes gleaming from the darkness.

K'aijeen stomped, "Do not do that! Coward! I am in control of myself! If you're to demonize me then do it directly!"

"I burned the book." K'airos said, as if it explained something. "I...I think this is her."

Seeing no help in K'takka and little more than attempts at conciliation from K'deiki, the former nunh turned back to his granddaughter. He did not enjoy these things. "In control of yourself or not, these things cannot go unpunished. We might have been lenient had it been nothing more than some stolen meat, even after the warning, but there is only one punishment short of giving you over to the sands that can make up for the dangers you've danced with, child." He let out a rough breath. "For one sun, the tribe will see you for what you've done."

As K'jhanhi spoke, K'thalen shut his eyes, one hand reaching out to rest comfortingly on K'airos's shoulder.

K'airos was hardly comforted. She barely reacted to the action. She held her breath.

"Too wise to exile a child, or too scared of the guild for doing what you really want to do?" K'aijeen gathered up her meager fram and said, "I exile myself. What do you say to that?"

K'thalen's eyes snapped open and he felt as though his head might snap right off his neck when he turned to look at his daughter. "K'aijeen, you're overreacting."

"I would say that you do not understand the weight of your words, child. We won't entertain such a thought." The old man looked passed K'aijeen to the tribe's nunh. "Where is our firedancer? This is his responsibility."

At that, K'thalen grimaced. "Getting... tended to by K'piru."

K'airos tapped her fingers against each other continuously as the elders spoke around her. Finally, she stopped and exclaimed: "I helped her! She couldn't have done anything without me! Let me take part of the punishment!"

K'aijeen's lips slipped down into a frown and she turned to K'airos, saying with a no-nonsense tone, "Stop being an idiot, Airos. You don't need to be punished."

K'airos answered that by choking once more and throwing herself to hug her father, muffling the cry by burying her face against him.

K'thalen's arms wrapped about his daughter easily, tanned fingers rubbing circles against her back.

K'deiki's pale eyes, deep-set in her wrinkled face, lifted to peer at K'airos through the shadows with a sad look. K'jhanhi's expression turned down even further, features deepening with reluctance but... "Your willingness to acknowledge your mistakes shows you well in the eyes of Azeyma, but it doesn't absolve you of them. You will spend your time under the eye of the goddess and the tribe considering why you did not try to stop your sister and how you might change that in the future."

"I didn't give her the chance to stop me!" K'aijeen spun on the elders. "That's insane! You might as well punish half the tribe! You're mad."

K'airos had no more words to choke on. She only accentuated her sister's by letting out a few loud sobs against her will.

Resting his chin atop K'airos's head, K'thalen watched first his youngest daughter and then the elders. "If that's what they think is best, then that's how it is." He kept up the gentle petting of K'airos's back. "Don't make it more than it is, K'aijeen. You make adult mistakes, sometimes you have to take the adult punishment."

"Adult punishment would be banishment, but then they wouldn't get to watch me suffer." She turned to glare into the shadows of the tent. "Love and wisdom. Pretenders."

"You are the only pretender!" K'airos managed to shout without moving her head to look at her. The short burst of anger was quickly quenched by the constant sobbing.

"Go to the firedancer," K'deiki murmured from the shadows. "Let this be done with."

K'aijeen scoffed, "With his stupid messed up leg? I'll have to build my own rack. That's fine."

"I'll help," K'thalen muttered, not looking all that eager as he urged K'airos towards the tent's door. "Come on, K'aijeen."

"And if Iâ€™m not willing, who will force me?"

"Please, stop." her sister mumbled, having moved by the door. "This...all this has been enough."

"Don't make this harder than it already is," the nunh shook his head. "It's not a death sentence, which is what you claimed you wanted." He tried for a bit of a smile, though the expression felt off given the situation. "I've been on the rack more than a few times myself." K'thalen then reached out to gently take hold of K'aijeen's arm, intending to guide her out of the tent.

K'aijeen did not resist letting herself get dragged out. The question had been an academic one, and the answer was: no one. They could watch her cook if it would satisfy them. She didn't care. There was nothing worth recovering in this situation that could be salvaged.

K'airos left the tent and lingered outside. She found no one to hug, so she wrapped her arms around herself.

With a last glance to the elders, K'thalen left as well, with K'aijeen in tow. He gave what he hoped was an encouraging look to K'airos and said, "Let's get back to K'ile and your mother, and then we can get this over with, hm?"

"You think you can just move past this?"

K'airos rubbed under her nose, and then over it. "Stop." she said. "We'll forget about this..."

"I think I got past my mistakes. You can do the same for yours, K'aijeen." He chuckled lowly, without any real humor. "Both of you. I get that you mean well, but... there are better ways."

"There are not better ways! The tribe's ways are archaic! And I cannot get past something that has been destroyed. You won't even acknowledge what you've ruined!"

"You never explain." K'airos shook her head. She started walking, keeping her eyes away from both of them. "If you don't explain, then... I don't care what I ruined."

K'thalen grimaced. "I'm not trying to ruin anything. I'm going to help you get through this." He kept up their pace, passing between a few scattered tents. His ears could pick up the chattering of the huntresses not far off as they prepared to leave on the morning hunt. The camp was quickly becoming its usual hub of activity, and it was with some relief that they arrived at the shaman's tent when they did. "Piru!" He called out. "Hope you're done fixing that wimp's flesh wound already. I need him for something."

As they walked towards her mother's tent, K'aijeen said to her sister, "What am I supposed to explain? I've never learned faster than I learned from the book. It was like it was reminding me of things I already knew! Mother's teaching was slow and simple. And where am I supposed to get another one? And how am I supposed to work on anymore projects without it? I'll never learn anything ever again now!"

K'airos pouted. "Good." she said, letting her anger vent out. "We'll have fun with less dangerous and...and horrible things.Like when you didnt't have that book!"

"And when was that, Airos? When did I not have the book?"

"I don't know! Why don't you tell me?"

Inside the tent, the tangy scent of disinfecting herbs filled the area, though K'piru had finished cleaning K'ile's wound several minutes past. She'd worked diligently, only breaking down into tears once or twice since her daughter had left with her nunh to see the elders. She was tightening the wrapping about K'ile's leg, murmuring a few shaky prayers to the idol resting nearby, when K'thalen's voice sounded through the skins of the tent, followed by two equally familiar voices bickering. She gave the tia next to her a worried look.

K'ile tried to give K'piru a look of encouragement, but could only manage to appear indifferent, or maybe nauseous.

Standing reluctantly, K'piru clutched at the remaining scraps of bandage in her hands before moving towards the door. It felt weighted down with lead beneath her fingers as she pulled it aside. When she saw her daughters alongside K'thalen she tried to hope, pleadingly, "All's well...? Aijeen, you're... you're alright now?"

"A few years ago," D'aijeen answered K'airos. "That book's the only reason I know anything. You don't know anything about the world because all you had was mom's useless lessons."

K'piru flinched, overhearing her daughter's words. Her tail lashed once behind her, whacking the tent wall, and then tucked in against the cloth that hung about her legs. "Thalen..?"

"K'ile's in there still, yea? If he can walk, I need him for a bit." The red-haired nunh leaned to one side as though he could peer around K'piru.

K'airos voice increased in volume. "At least she was teaching me something. So thanks! Thanks for teaching me your...your wonderful book!" She managed to stop crying long enough to shout that.

"You wouldn't have understood," K'aijeen muttered. "You would've just taken the book away right away, and I'd have never learned anything."

In the tent, K'ile laboriously tried to stand on his injured leg. "Yeah, yeah. I can guess what this is probably about."

"You don't know that! You never trusted me!" K'airos complained to her sister, still pretty loudly.

"No," K'aijeen replied, quietly. "The book was for me. The things inside..."

K'piru watched K'thalen for several seconds, unblinking. She shifted her weight to one bare foot, then the other, her ears fidgeting back against her skull. She drew in a long, thin breath through her nose and then let it out with a faint sound at her youngest daughter's words. "She... the elders..." The color drained from her skin and she spun around to K'ile. "No! You can't! I won't allow it!"

Wincing as he put some of his weight onto his own leg, he said, "I've got no say in it, K'piru. Not a single word."

"You do!" Her hands wrung at the scraps of cloth in them, nearly tearing them to bits. "She's a child!" A child by a few years. And what's more, K'piru could not see that punishment bringing any good. No, she feared it would only drive K'aijeen further. Perhaps even drive her away. "You can't do this to her!"

"Piru, come on," K'thalen set a hand on her shoulder from behind. "It won't be that bad. Just let him do what he has to."

"I don't care," K'aijeen directed the words towards her mother, into the ten. "Put me on the rack today. Tomorrow everything will be the same. Nothing will be different."

"You wonâ€™t have that book!" K'airos retorted. "That will be different!"

"I don't have the book now," K'aijeen muttered.

Shrugging off Thalen's hand, K'piru squared herself off in front of K'ile, set begging eyes on him. "Things will be different, Aijeen," she breathed out. "I'll--you'll know how much I--you will put me out there in her stead!" Her tail shivered. "If you need a reason, this--Aijeen's mistakes are my fault! She would not have done any of this if I'd... cared more! Please--"

"Ah, c'mon," K'ile groaned, pulling on his ear and looking at the wall. "The rack's not that bad. If you feel bad just go out and give her a drink every now and then. Nobody'll stop you."

"What? No!" K'airos complained. "This isn't your fault! She'll grow up out of this...and I will too! She just..." She didn't finish, instead falling into passive sobbing.

Not that bad - but enough, K'piru knew, enough to wither whatever might have been left for her to hold K'aijeen here with. She didn't know how to speak that to K'ile, though, so she just dropped her head.

"It's just a day," K'thalen hummed lowly, squeezing K'piru's shoulder uncertainly before giving a shrug at his brother and nodding towards the girls outside.

"It's fine," K'ile said, limping towards the exit, eyeing the girls. Then he muttered to Thalen, "Y'know, we might want to organize a hunt for that... thing. Monster. Thing."

K'airos had forgotten that the monster Aijeen had created was unlikely to spontaneously become dust under the sun. "Will it last that long?" she asked, looking at Aijeen. "It's not complete, so maybe it will just...die?"

The older man grimaced. "We'll take care of it after this." He gave an unhappy look at K'piru's back before turning to his daughters with a "Let's go" expression.

"I don't know what it's going to do now," K'aijeen answered. "Someone destroyed my means of control."

"We'll tell people to watch for it," K'ile said, walking along. He flinched at pain in his leg, "Damn it. I'm not going to be much help."

"That's what I'm here for. Always was hard for you to keep up." Even in all this, K'thalen somehow found room for a bit of a jest, though his expression wasn't particularly happy.

K'ile gave his brother a sneer.

K'airos wasn't paying attention, to the detriment of them all. She stared at the ground, unsure of everything.

"Racks go in the middle of camp, right," K'aijeen said this and began to head that way, not waiting for anyone, deliberately keeping in front of them. "You're all afraid and reluctant. Not me."

"This isn't a competition." her sister mumbled in answer.

K'ile at first moved to keep up, but stopped when his leg held him back, grumbling expletives.

K'thalen chose not to respond to his daughter's needling, keeping up with her and trusting K'ile to come along at his own speed.

Two Vultures Sick for Battle [ooc welcome]

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