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He did not speak as they walked, features stony and withdrawn.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 mother’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!"
"Small…?" 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 mother’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." K’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 mother’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! DON’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 – 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.
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 mother’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!"
"Small…?" 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 mother’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." K’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 mother’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! DON’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 – 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.
![[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
