"Your room is only signed out to one occupant, Miss Jhanhi," the innkeep replied quizzically to the weary looking miqo'te's request for an additional blanket and pillow. "We do appreciate your patronage, of course, but our rooms are not homes. If you'd like to add an additional occupant, I'll adjust your bill accordingly."
Antimony's ears swept back and she blinked reddened eyes at the innkeep, silent for several seconds before shaking her head. "No, there was just an, ah, unfortunate accident. They won't be staying. Please, I'll pay an additional fee for the items."
The lalafell squinted at her for a time, then seemed satisfied, for he flashed an understanding smile. "Very well. You have been quite the financial b--er, customer for us, Miss Jhanhi! Happy to assist."
"Thank you," she replied, bowing her head. A weight pressed down on her shoulders at a thought. "And, ah, please, if you don't mind... let them know that I won't be back for a.. a time." Coward, her mind whispered, but in a different voice, one she hadn't heard in a while. Selfish.
After settling the minor request with the innkeep, Antimony turned and made her way for the Quicksand's doors. Each step away from the inn halls felt as though she were dragging her feet through molasses, but the awareness of who waited for her back in the room simultaneously pushed her away. Her throat tightened, but she told herself she would not cry again. She passed through the doors into greater Ul'dah with the bulk of her attention drawn inward.
***
K'ailia prayed a bit longer at the Sultana Tree silently, before finally getting up. She had calmed considerably, but she still had no inkling where to find her mother or K'ile.
The only option she thought to herself, would be to go back to Ul'dah and wait. But before then she pulled her bandana off and looked at it. She'd been wearing the bandana for five years. Perhaps it was now time to put her past behind her.
"That life is behind me now..." she said to herself, and stuffed it into her pouch on her hip. Turning, she headed back to the Gates of Thal. It was a relatively lengthy walk to get there, but she finally arrived at the market. Thankfully the goblin with their cheese were gone.
But she wasn't concerned with the market. Instead, she made her way towards the Quicksand. Perhaps her mother or K'ile will be there? But she had a feeling her relationship with her mother at this point was over. Every time she tried to maintain a relationship with her mother, she'd be pushed away, yelled at and in one instance, even struck. These memories flooded her mind as she walked, not paying attention to where she was going now.
Perhaps it was how full of memory her senses had been that day, or perhaps it was only chance, but a familiar scent pushed at her dwelling enough to bring her eyes up. She thought at first K'ile had followed her out of the inn and was prepared to beg or flee or apologize, whichever it took, but those urges fled when she caught sight of the small, young form of another.
Someone she had avoided for weeks.
Antimony paused at the top of the steps leading to the Quicksand, watching the young girl approach. Her jaw worked silently and her throat closed around words. She could feel that common panic building again; she thought she would run.
As K'ailia passed her, Antimony shocked herself and reached out with one hand, touching the girl's shoulder lightly and uttered a quiet, "K'ailia, wait."
K'ailia snapped out of her thoughts feeling the hand touch her shoulder. She turned and her mouth drops open, "K'piru?"
She turned fully to face her former teacher, sadness evident on her face.
She couldn't look at the girl, just like she hadn't been able to look at K'luha, or K'ile. There was a certain degree of guilt over that, but something in her chest twisted painfully enough that she felt... justified. Almost.
Still, the way K'ailia had said her name... Her tail swung once in a slow, sad arc. "Your... mother will be alright. You should know."
K'ailia's ears flattened against her head, "I don't think she will... She no longer behaves like the mother I grew up with. She used to be brave and strong... now all she does is run away." She let out a sigh, "I think she needs time away from me. If seeing me creates such anger and fear, that she is willing to hurt herself... then it is time I find a new home..."
Now it was K'ailia's turn to not look at K'piru, instead she looked down at her own feet, unsure of herself anymore.
Run away. She couldn't fault K'luha that. Or, it seemed, K'ailia, and yet... she hated the thought of them both falling prey to the same desperation that had driven her from family into self-imposed isolation.
She kept her hand on K'ailia's shoulder, a light touch, not holding, just letting the girl know she was there, and spoke facing down towards the street, "Perhaps time will be enough." What had she intended by stopping K'ailia here? Her stomach churned itself into a dozen knots. A memory of the girl, far younger than she was now, flashed with painful clarity across her mind. It was a quiet memory, happy. Young K'ailia had always been willing and wanting to help, to care.
It left Antimony's eyes burning and she added in a stiff voice, "I want to apologize. For what you've gone through. If you need..." She hesitated, struggled with words through a sudden rush of fear and that all-persistent grief she'd thought she'd outpaced years ago. "If you need anything, let me know. I... will try."
K'ailia Yohko: K'ailia looked to Antimony, "I'd like to go somewhere... that isn't Thanalan or Ul'dah... to get time to think. I don't know..."
She trembled a bit, remembering what brought her to this Inn to begin with, "K'ile had wanted me to go back to the tribe camp as an outsider... to represent the outsiders... but if it is going to make my mother go crazier... how can I?"
Now tears were starting to well up in K'ailia's eyes. She had left the tribe to be free to do what was necessary to ensure the safety of the tribe from the outside. But the one she loved the most seemed to hate her.
"Would you... be my teacher again? I been learning to read, with a little arcanum on the side... but the teacher I was learning from... I don't like his methods..." she looked at K'piru hopeful.
It had been hard enough to call out to K'ailia, to reach out and touch her. When the girl put forth her request, Antimony thought for a long moment that she might crumble, simply break down into sand and blow away like the dunes of the Sagolii. Her eyes roamed the street in front of her but saw none of it.
"I don't..." She should have expected such a request, should have heard that lost tone in K'ailia's voice, known what it meant. It was familiar, after all. Her fingers curled slightly against K'ailia's shoulder before her hand slipped down to hand limp at her side. "Anything but..." It was too soon. Too much. With K'luha and her agony, K'ile and his needy desperation, K'ailia and her lonely want for a mentor... Antimony had not prepared for any of that.
She had never intended to.
The older woman sighed, closing her eyes briefly before turning her head to look at K'ailia. She saw a smaller girl in her place, skin dirtied and burned, crying for her mother, crying for help. She hadn't helped then. "I still need time." A breath. "But if you... come to me in Limsa, maybe... I might be able to help you there."
K'ailia nodded at that, "I had not considered Limsa... And I understand. I'm sorry if I ever made you uncomfortable K'piru."
She gave her a reassuring smile, "Maybe I should consider moving there for a while. At least until mother is ready to see me again. But... I think she may of either lost the pearl I gave her, or threw it away at this point... maybe I should give one to K'ile?"
"That you are considering means that you should," Antimony murmured and at once felt like a hypocrite. How many things had she considered and yet turned away from regardless? But K'ailia deserved to make better decisions.
Her strength reminded her of...
Choking down a sob that threatened at the back of her throat, Antimony coughed once and added, "Do not think worse of your mother. Or yourself."
K'ailia's ears dropped again thinking, "I don't think either of us are bad. Ever since five years ago, everything changed. I've changed... but I do not know if it was for the better or worse."
She looked up at the sky, "All I know is... what I've learned terrifies my mother. Why I do not know. But I've also felt deep within myself, ever since my trip to Gridania with her, that something in me was different..."
She looked back at K'piru, "And when I went home to the tribe, I felt like I did not belong. I tried to continue on as though nothing changed before I left... but I couldn't."
Using her sleeve she wiped away the tears in her eyes, "I felt like a caged bird. Loyal to the tribe, but yearned to escape, and fly in the sky. And it felt as though even Azeyma was pushing the circumstances to the point I did leave the tribe."
K'ailia's words left Antimony feeling cold, even in Ul'dah's oppressive, wretched heat. The fine lines of wrinkles in her features deepened with a strained expression. "You left... K'ailia..." Had no one recovered from that night of fire and death?
Her arms moved of their own accord, reaching out to grasp the girl by the shoulders and pull her to her chest. She held K'ailia for only a brief moment before a shaking in her limbs and a scream in her skull forced her to pull away, but the significance of the gesture remained. "I need to go." She turned her face towards the street once more. "Look for me in Limsa in... a few weeks' time. I..." She breathed out slowly.
K'ailia took the embrace and felt for once, after five years, that for that brief moment, everything was like they were. Upon the release she nodded, "I understand. I still have things I need to do before I goto Limsa Lominsa. I will come in one month’s time... alright?"
Antimony could only nod. The shrill panic she felt broiling in her gut earlier had built suddenly, without warning, and she felt terribly cornered. Not by K'ailia, but... "Until then." The walls of the Quicksand seemed to launch her away, down the stairs, and the crowds in the street below swallowed her readily.
***
When Antimony became aware of a thinning of the crowds and a narrowing of the streets, she slowed her pace. The buildings here crowded in ungainly piles against one another, tattered rags hung out over some doorways like awnings - a weak attempt at class in a neighborhood far below class. Her steps slowed further still, and then stopped very suddenly when something large and white slammed into her chest.
Letting out a small, "Oof!" she cast a shocked look down only to see a tightly wrapped parcel shoved up towards her face.
"Urgent delivery, kupo!" cried a small, cheery voice, and then whatever had spoken was gone, the package left in her hands. She stood in a net of confusion for over a minute, clutching the package to her chest, before she managed to shake free enough to consider what had happened.
The brown paper was tied snugly about something soft and heavy, but not overly so. A letter was tucked under the twine, which she removed with one shaking hand.
Inside, messy but mostly legible handwriting read:
Blinking still somewhat grief-swollen eyes, Antimony looked between the letter in one hand and the package in her opposite arm. "A coat?" She sighed. "Mitari..." In her mind, a vision of a mountainscape she'd only heard of played out and offered sanctuary in its cold, icey embrace.
Someone brushed past her roughly then, knocking her out of her reverie and causing her to nearly drop the package. Steadying herself, Antimony hugged the item and letter, bowed her head, and then let her feet continue to carry her down the street.
Antimony's ears swept back and she blinked reddened eyes at the innkeep, silent for several seconds before shaking her head. "No, there was just an, ah, unfortunate accident. They won't be staying. Please, I'll pay an additional fee for the items."
The lalafell squinted at her for a time, then seemed satisfied, for he flashed an understanding smile. "Very well. You have been quite the financial b--er, customer for us, Miss Jhanhi! Happy to assist."
"Thank you," she replied, bowing her head. A weight pressed down on her shoulders at a thought. "And, ah, please, if you don't mind... let them know that I won't be back for a.. a time." Coward, her mind whispered, but in a different voice, one she hadn't heard in a while. Selfish.
After settling the minor request with the innkeep, Antimony turned and made her way for the Quicksand's doors. Each step away from the inn halls felt as though she were dragging her feet through molasses, but the awareness of who waited for her back in the room simultaneously pushed her away. Her throat tightened, but she told herself she would not cry again. She passed through the doors into greater Ul'dah with the bulk of her attention drawn inward.
***
K'ailia prayed a bit longer at the Sultana Tree silently, before finally getting up. She had calmed considerably, but she still had no inkling where to find her mother or K'ile.
The only option she thought to herself, would be to go back to Ul'dah and wait. But before then she pulled her bandana off and looked at it. She'd been wearing the bandana for five years. Perhaps it was now time to put her past behind her.
"That life is behind me now..." she said to herself, and stuffed it into her pouch on her hip. Turning, she headed back to the Gates of Thal. It was a relatively lengthy walk to get there, but she finally arrived at the market. Thankfully the goblin with their cheese were gone.
But she wasn't concerned with the market. Instead, she made her way towards the Quicksand. Perhaps her mother or K'ile will be there? But she had a feeling her relationship with her mother at this point was over. Every time she tried to maintain a relationship with her mother, she'd be pushed away, yelled at and in one instance, even struck. These memories flooded her mind as she walked, not paying attention to where she was going now.
Perhaps it was how full of memory her senses had been that day, or perhaps it was only chance, but a familiar scent pushed at her dwelling enough to bring her eyes up. She thought at first K'ile had followed her out of the inn and was prepared to beg or flee or apologize, whichever it took, but those urges fled when she caught sight of the small, young form of another.
Someone she had avoided for weeks.
Antimony paused at the top of the steps leading to the Quicksand, watching the young girl approach. Her jaw worked silently and her throat closed around words. She could feel that common panic building again; she thought she would run.
As K'ailia passed her, Antimony shocked herself and reached out with one hand, touching the girl's shoulder lightly and uttered a quiet, "K'ailia, wait."
K'ailia snapped out of her thoughts feeling the hand touch her shoulder. She turned and her mouth drops open, "K'piru?"
She turned fully to face her former teacher, sadness evident on her face.
She couldn't look at the girl, just like she hadn't been able to look at K'luha, or K'ile. There was a certain degree of guilt over that, but something in her chest twisted painfully enough that she felt... justified. Almost.
Still, the way K'ailia had said her name... Her tail swung once in a slow, sad arc. "Your... mother will be alright. You should know."
K'ailia's ears flattened against her head, "I don't think she will... She no longer behaves like the mother I grew up with. She used to be brave and strong... now all she does is run away." She let out a sigh, "I think she needs time away from me. If seeing me creates such anger and fear, that she is willing to hurt herself... then it is time I find a new home..."
Now it was K'ailia's turn to not look at K'piru, instead she looked down at her own feet, unsure of herself anymore.
Run away. She couldn't fault K'luha that. Or, it seemed, K'ailia, and yet... she hated the thought of them both falling prey to the same desperation that had driven her from family into self-imposed isolation.
She kept her hand on K'ailia's shoulder, a light touch, not holding, just letting the girl know she was there, and spoke facing down towards the street, "Perhaps time will be enough." What had she intended by stopping K'ailia here? Her stomach churned itself into a dozen knots. A memory of the girl, far younger than she was now, flashed with painful clarity across her mind. It was a quiet memory, happy. Young K'ailia had always been willing and wanting to help, to care.
It left Antimony's eyes burning and she added in a stiff voice, "I want to apologize. For what you've gone through. If you need..." She hesitated, struggled with words through a sudden rush of fear and that all-persistent grief she'd thought she'd outpaced years ago. "If you need anything, let me know. I... will try."
K'ailia Yohko: K'ailia looked to Antimony, "I'd like to go somewhere... that isn't Thanalan or Ul'dah... to get time to think. I don't know..."
She trembled a bit, remembering what brought her to this Inn to begin with, "K'ile had wanted me to go back to the tribe camp as an outsider... to represent the outsiders... but if it is going to make my mother go crazier... how can I?"
Now tears were starting to well up in K'ailia's eyes. She had left the tribe to be free to do what was necessary to ensure the safety of the tribe from the outside. But the one she loved the most seemed to hate her.
"Would you... be my teacher again? I been learning to read, with a little arcanum on the side... but the teacher I was learning from... I don't like his methods..." she looked at K'piru hopeful.
It had been hard enough to call out to K'ailia, to reach out and touch her. When the girl put forth her request, Antimony thought for a long moment that she might crumble, simply break down into sand and blow away like the dunes of the Sagolii. Her eyes roamed the street in front of her but saw none of it.
"I don't..." She should have expected such a request, should have heard that lost tone in K'ailia's voice, known what it meant. It was familiar, after all. Her fingers curled slightly against K'ailia's shoulder before her hand slipped down to hand limp at her side. "Anything but..." It was too soon. Too much. With K'luha and her agony, K'ile and his needy desperation, K'ailia and her lonely want for a mentor... Antimony had not prepared for any of that.
She had never intended to.
The older woman sighed, closing her eyes briefly before turning her head to look at K'ailia. She saw a smaller girl in her place, skin dirtied and burned, crying for her mother, crying for help. She hadn't helped then. "I still need time." A breath. "But if you... come to me in Limsa, maybe... I might be able to help you there."
K'ailia nodded at that, "I had not considered Limsa... And I understand. I'm sorry if I ever made you uncomfortable K'piru."
She gave her a reassuring smile, "Maybe I should consider moving there for a while. At least until mother is ready to see me again. But... I think she may of either lost the pearl I gave her, or threw it away at this point... maybe I should give one to K'ile?"
"That you are considering means that you should," Antimony murmured and at once felt like a hypocrite. How many things had she considered and yet turned away from regardless? But K'ailia deserved to make better decisions.
Her strength reminded her of...
Choking down a sob that threatened at the back of her throat, Antimony coughed once and added, "Do not think worse of your mother. Or yourself."
K'ailia's ears dropped again thinking, "I don't think either of us are bad. Ever since five years ago, everything changed. I've changed... but I do not know if it was for the better or worse."
She looked up at the sky, "All I know is... what I've learned terrifies my mother. Why I do not know. But I've also felt deep within myself, ever since my trip to Gridania with her, that something in me was different..."
She looked back at K'piru, "And when I went home to the tribe, I felt like I did not belong. I tried to continue on as though nothing changed before I left... but I couldn't."
Using her sleeve she wiped away the tears in her eyes, "I felt like a caged bird. Loyal to the tribe, but yearned to escape, and fly in the sky. And it felt as though even Azeyma was pushing the circumstances to the point I did leave the tribe."
K'ailia's words left Antimony feeling cold, even in Ul'dah's oppressive, wretched heat. The fine lines of wrinkles in her features deepened with a strained expression. "You left... K'ailia..." Had no one recovered from that night of fire and death?
Her arms moved of their own accord, reaching out to grasp the girl by the shoulders and pull her to her chest. She held K'ailia for only a brief moment before a shaking in her limbs and a scream in her skull forced her to pull away, but the significance of the gesture remained. "I need to go." She turned her face towards the street once more. "Look for me in Limsa in... a few weeks' time. I..." She breathed out slowly.
K'ailia took the embrace and felt for once, after five years, that for that brief moment, everything was like they were. Upon the release she nodded, "I understand. I still have things I need to do before I goto Limsa Lominsa. I will come in one month’s time... alright?"
Antimony could only nod. The shrill panic she felt broiling in her gut earlier had built suddenly, without warning, and she felt terribly cornered. Not by K'ailia, but... "Until then." The walls of the Quicksand seemed to launch her away, down the stairs, and the crowds in the street below swallowed her readily.
***
When Antimony became aware of a thinning of the crowds and a narrowing of the streets, she slowed her pace. The buildings here crowded in ungainly piles against one another, tattered rags hung out over some doorways like awnings - a weak attempt at class in a neighborhood far below class. Her steps slowed further still, and then stopped very suddenly when something large and white slammed into her chest.
Letting out a small, "Oof!" she cast a shocked look down only to see a tightly wrapped parcel shoved up towards her face.
"Urgent delivery, kupo!" cried a small, cheery voice, and then whatever had spoken was gone, the package left in her hands. She stood in a net of confusion for over a minute, clutching the package to her chest, before she managed to shake free enough to consider what had happened.
The brown paper was tied snugly about something soft and heavy, but not overly so. A letter was tucked under the twine, which she removed with one shaking hand.
Inside, messy but mostly legible handwriting read:
Quote:Dear Miss Antimony,
I hope you are still in Ul'dah as I am sending this message post hast and I fear the delivery moogles might kill me if you're not. The journey to Coerthas has gone well and I am back in the snow. It's really lovely this time of year, I hope that you will come up someday to visit. In honor of the Starlight Celebration, I've sent this coat for you. You know, if it gets cold or if you want to come up to Coerthas and wear it. Or sell it. You could do that too. But I hope it will be of more use to you in wearing and not selling.Â
My sincerest reguards to you this day. In meeting you I have found the strength to go back and face something that I have most feared. I was running away from my fears, but for some reason you've inspired me to go and fix the things I have broken. A little bit like you fixed my head.Â
I wish you a wonderful day, and I hope that this message gets to you safely.
Your Friend,Â
Mitari Xerxes.Â
Aka that one miq'ote dude you healed and got you thrown in jail in case you already forgot.Â
P.S. I dont' know why this Elezen noble sent me these... but they look like they'd fit you better. Or you could just burn them or something. Maybe a nice regift? I just thought maybe you could find more use for them than me.
Blinking still somewhat grief-swollen eyes, Antimony looked between the letter in one hand and the package in her opposite arm. "A coat?" She sighed. "Mitari..." In her mind, a vision of a mountainscape she'd only heard of played out and offered sanctuary in its cold, icey embrace.
Someone brushed past her roughly then, knocking her out of her reverie and causing her to nearly drop the package. Steadying herself, Antimony hugged the item and letter, bowed her head, and then let her feet continue to carry her down the street.
![[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
