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.
K’piru’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.
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.
K’piru’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.
![[Image: AntiThalSig.png]](https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/179079766/AntiThalSig.png)
"Song dogs barking at the break of dawn, lightning pushes the edges of a thunderstorm; and these streets, quiet as a sleeping army, send their battered dreams to heaven."
Hipparion Tribe (Sagolii)Â - Â Antimony Jhanhi's Wiki
