Contrary to the demands of her body, Antimony did not immediately go to the single inn - more of a way-stop on the path to death for most in Drybone. Instead she returned to the Immortal Flames' building and tried to ignore the thick stench of corpses and the little, nightmare thoughts that fretted over her daughters' exposure to this shadowed realm. If one spent enough time in the company of shadows, one might eventually become them.
Keenly aware she had no money to speak of, the last of her on hand coins spent on the chocobos that had taken her here, Antimony sought the assistance of the Blade officer who had provided her "escort". She could no longer stomach the thought of traveling to Coerthas, not when K'airos refused to come with her. A small guilt towards Mitari and his kind invitation dragged on her thoughts.
"Sorry miss. No refunds, no exchanges." The reply was delivered in a largely cool tone, but with a hint of amusement that rankled Antimony's already frayed nerves to the point where she saw herself alternately bursting into tears or hurling the apple still clutched in one hand at the officer's helmeted head.
Perhaps luckily for Antimony, she did neither, instead returning to the open courtyard of Camp Drybone that was really little more than a particularly large hole dug into the ground. A grave, for all those yet waiting to die, or waiting for their own, smaller holes by the church, she thought with a shiver. This place was a nest for bad omens. That her daughters had...
As if on cue, the sky opened up again, and in the shadow of night, the rain that fell was icy. Her feet slapped through rapidly growing puddles as she hurried across the open chasm of the camp, clutching the coat and both the pear and apple as close to her chest as she could manage to keep them dry. The downpour soaked into her clothing quickly this second time, the fibers still damp from the previous rain, and when she finally made it through the door of what she hoped was the inn, she resembled more a drowned mole than any decent miqo'te.
The receptionist at the front desk gave her a wary, disapproving look.
Antimony took a long minute to catch her breath, feeling the chill of the rain weighing on her lungs as much as it did her fur and clothing. She stood shivering just inside the doorway, a small puddle collecting beneath her, until the woman at the front desk cleared her throat, startling her out of the semi-daze her exhausted mind had drifted to.
"May I help you, miss?" She sounded dubious; Antimony could not pinpoint why.
Approaching the desk, Antimony's feet left small patches of mud; she missed the annoyed frown of a nearby maid. "Yes, please," the woman sighed, wiping at her glasses only to find the gesture clouded them further. "If you have a room open..."
"We only rent to those who can pay, miss. Or the dying."
"Ah!" Antimony's ears lifted slightly and then fell again, following the exclamation with a slightly lower, "Oh. I..." She spent a moment searching the pockets of her dress, though she knew well the results before she'd even begun the action.
The receptionist seemed to predict them as well. She cast a sidelong glance towards the loitering maid and then gave Antimony a look that somehow managed to be both gentle and condescending, "As I said, miss. Only to those who can pay or are dying. If you cannot do either, I must ask you to leave. Some of our guests are in delicate positions."
Matted grey ears pressed back into equally soaked hair. "Oh. Yes. I... understand." She couldn't suppress the shiver down her tail; unfortunately the receptionist did not seem particularly sympathetic.
There was a long moment when the door to Drybone's inn shut behind Antimony where she wrestled with the numbing, powerful urge to simply walk back out into the desert once more, to turn her back on even her daughters and flee north, to run away. Then white light flickered and filled the deep ditch Drybone's citizens had carved out for themselves in harsh shadows, and a sharp, persistent pain in her stomach brought itself to her foremost attention. The coat and fruit felt suddenly impossibly heavy in her arms, and the flashing of lightning spurred a frantic dizziness that nearly sent her to the ground. Food, she thought wearily, for the first time in... two days? Three? She found she couldn't remember.
Eating in the rain did not appeal to her, even with the oppressive hunger, and so she left the steps of the inn to cross the brief gap between it and what appeared to be, judging by the signage, some sort of general goods store. The pounding of the rain was quickly replaced once more by the low sound of voices, the shadows and flashing lightning by warm yellow lanterns. To the right of the door she entered in, a pair of miqo'te hunched over a table, muttering between themselves over some bulging sack. Antimony blinked slowly at them for a moment before stepping off to one side and then sagging against one wall. There was a warmth to the place that offered some comfort, a respite from her darker thoughts.
She'd taken a bit of the apple and even had a moment to actually savor the coolly flavored juices bound within its flesh, before a firm sound interrupted her sluggish distraction. Her ears swiveled slowly, eyes squinting through foggy lenses before settling on a large, round shape directly to her left.
"We're not a charity," the blue-brown shape grumbled. "Not a picnic spot either. If you're not gonna buy nothin', get out."
The form loomed impossibly large suddenly and Antimony shrunk back in a sudden panic and confusion, the apple nearly dropping from her grip. She managed a weak apology before the shape all but pushed her out the door with its presence, and her stumbling retreat carried her down the stairs in a flurry of limbs. She thought she'd understood the value of money before, Antimony thought dizzily as the rain once again battered the top of her head in sharp staccato, but never had she seen such responses as these.
A painful chill settled into her bones as she hunched outside of the store. A man in the grey, red, and yellow uniform of the Brass Blades patrolled past her, and the disapproving frown he turned on her sent Antimony skittering away. Her limbs felt both too loose and as stiff as a corpse as she moved, and muddy water splashed up the hem of her dress as uncoordinated steps carried her to a small alcove on one side of the store. There she huddled and shivered, felt her ears and eyes burning with unbidden emotion, and began to let herself succumb to the heavy cloud that had settled over mind and body.
"Get yer own damn shelter," hissed a rattly voice, its tone threadbare and rough, like bone scraping against bone. "Lest ya wantin' ta really keep me company. Got somethin' ta keep us all nice an' toasty..."
A thin, high pitched noise escaped Antimony's throat, and she fled that alcove without even looking to identify the voice. Her panicked flight across Drybone did not go unnoticed by those poor few who remained out in the rain, but neither did it draw much pity. Preoccupied by their own plights, Antimony's was nothing new to the unwanted of Drybone.
The camp was not very large, and despite her hazy state of mind, she knew the dangers of wandering out once more into the desert, so she did not run for long. Exhaustion dropped her to her knees against the wall of a building she did not know of what. The tall stone somewhat buffered against the pouring rain, though there remained deep, muddy puddles that gave beneath her weight and stained limb and cloth alike.
Dimly, she realized she should eat even now, and so as she drew herself up against the wall, a sad and pathetic thing in the night, the apple once again came to her hands. She could not relish its flavor now, though, hardly even took note of the texture of it between her teeth; she ate numbly, mechanically, her body shaking and wrapping about itself to conserve heat. A part of her wondered if this was how Megiddo was treated, an unwanted intrusion on a society structured around keeping him out, keeping him separate. It churned her stomach.
This was all for K'airos, she thought and felt her bones tremble deep in her flesh. She would remain in Drybone for K'airos. She would go to Ul'dah for K'airos. She would even risk the judgment of the family she had left behind for her daughter, if only it meant she could have her back, and the guilt that now gripped her towards her abandonment of her brother almost brought her meager meal up onto the mud.Â
A new thought joined this one not long after: if one spent enough time in the company of the homeless - the lost, the abandoned, the wanderers - one might eventually become them.
Keenly aware she had no money to speak of, the last of her on hand coins spent on the chocobos that had taken her here, Antimony sought the assistance of the Blade officer who had provided her "escort". She could no longer stomach the thought of traveling to Coerthas, not when K'airos refused to come with her. A small guilt towards Mitari and his kind invitation dragged on her thoughts.
"Sorry miss. No refunds, no exchanges." The reply was delivered in a largely cool tone, but with a hint of amusement that rankled Antimony's already frayed nerves to the point where she saw herself alternately bursting into tears or hurling the apple still clutched in one hand at the officer's helmeted head.
Perhaps luckily for Antimony, she did neither, instead returning to the open courtyard of Camp Drybone that was really little more than a particularly large hole dug into the ground. A grave, for all those yet waiting to die, or waiting for their own, smaller holes by the church, she thought with a shiver. This place was a nest for bad omens. That her daughters had...
As if on cue, the sky opened up again, and in the shadow of night, the rain that fell was icy. Her feet slapped through rapidly growing puddles as she hurried across the open chasm of the camp, clutching the coat and both the pear and apple as close to her chest as she could manage to keep them dry. The downpour soaked into her clothing quickly this second time, the fibers still damp from the previous rain, and when she finally made it through the door of what she hoped was the inn, she resembled more a drowned mole than any decent miqo'te.
The receptionist at the front desk gave her a wary, disapproving look.
Antimony took a long minute to catch her breath, feeling the chill of the rain weighing on her lungs as much as it did her fur and clothing. She stood shivering just inside the doorway, a small puddle collecting beneath her, until the woman at the front desk cleared her throat, startling her out of the semi-daze her exhausted mind had drifted to.
"May I help you, miss?" She sounded dubious; Antimony could not pinpoint why.
Approaching the desk, Antimony's feet left small patches of mud; she missed the annoyed frown of a nearby maid. "Yes, please," the woman sighed, wiping at her glasses only to find the gesture clouded them further. "If you have a room open..."
"We only rent to those who can pay, miss. Or the dying."
"Ah!" Antimony's ears lifted slightly and then fell again, following the exclamation with a slightly lower, "Oh. I..." She spent a moment searching the pockets of her dress, though she knew well the results before she'd even begun the action.
The receptionist seemed to predict them as well. She cast a sidelong glance towards the loitering maid and then gave Antimony a look that somehow managed to be both gentle and condescending, "As I said, miss. Only to those who can pay or are dying. If you cannot do either, I must ask you to leave. Some of our guests are in delicate positions."
Matted grey ears pressed back into equally soaked hair. "Oh. Yes. I... understand." She couldn't suppress the shiver down her tail; unfortunately the receptionist did not seem particularly sympathetic.
There was a long moment when the door to Drybone's inn shut behind Antimony where she wrestled with the numbing, powerful urge to simply walk back out into the desert once more, to turn her back on even her daughters and flee north, to run away. Then white light flickered and filled the deep ditch Drybone's citizens had carved out for themselves in harsh shadows, and a sharp, persistent pain in her stomach brought itself to her foremost attention. The coat and fruit felt suddenly impossibly heavy in her arms, and the flashing of lightning spurred a frantic dizziness that nearly sent her to the ground. Food, she thought wearily, for the first time in... two days? Three? She found she couldn't remember.
Eating in the rain did not appeal to her, even with the oppressive hunger, and so she left the steps of the inn to cross the brief gap between it and what appeared to be, judging by the signage, some sort of general goods store. The pounding of the rain was quickly replaced once more by the low sound of voices, the shadows and flashing lightning by warm yellow lanterns. To the right of the door she entered in, a pair of miqo'te hunched over a table, muttering between themselves over some bulging sack. Antimony blinked slowly at them for a moment before stepping off to one side and then sagging against one wall. There was a warmth to the place that offered some comfort, a respite from her darker thoughts.
She'd taken a bit of the apple and even had a moment to actually savor the coolly flavored juices bound within its flesh, before a firm sound interrupted her sluggish distraction. Her ears swiveled slowly, eyes squinting through foggy lenses before settling on a large, round shape directly to her left.
"We're not a charity," the blue-brown shape grumbled. "Not a picnic spot either. If you're not gonna buy nothin', get out."
The form loomed impossibly large suddenly and Antimony shrunk back in a sudden panic and confusion, the apple nearly dropping from her grip. She managed a weak apology before the shape all but pushed her out the door with its presence, and her stumbling retreat carried her down the stairs in a flurry of limbs. She thought she'd understood the value of money before, Antimony thought dizzily as the rain once again battered the top of her head in sharp staccato, but never had she seen such responses as these.
A painful chill settled into her bones as she hunched outside of the store. A man in the grey, red, and yellow uniform of the Brass Blades patrolled past her, and the disapproving frown he turned on her sent Antimony skittering away. Her limbs felt both too loose and as stiff as a corpse as she moved, and muddy water splashed up the hem of her dress as uncoordinated steps carried her to a small alcove on one side of the store. There she huddled and shivered, felt her ears and eyes burning with unbidden emotion, and began to let herself succumb to the heavy cloud that had settled over mind and body.
"Get yer own damn shelter," hissed a rattly voice, its tone threadbare and rough, like bone scraping against bone. "Lest ya wantin' ta really keep me company. Got somethin' ta keep us all nice an' toasty..."
A thin, high pitched noise escaped Antimony's throat, and she fled that alcove without even looking to identify the voice. Her panicked flight across Drybone did not go unnoticed by those poor few who remained out in the rain, but neither did it draw much pity. Preoccupied by their own plights, Antimony's was nothing new to the unwanted of Drybone.
The camp was not very large, and despite her hazy state of mind, she knew the dangers of wandering out once more into the desert, so she did not run for long. Exhaustion dropped her to her knees against the wall of a building she did not know of what. The tall stone somewhat buffered against the pouring rain, though there remained deep, muddy puddles that gave beneath her weight and stained limb and cloth alike.
Dimly, she realized she should eat even now, and so as she drew herself up against the wall, a sad and pathetic thing in the night, the apple once again came to her hands. She could not relish its flavor now, though, hardly even took note of the texture of it between her teeth; she ate numbly, mechanically, her body shaking and wrapping about itself to conserve heat. A part of her wondered if this was how Megiddo was treated, an unwanted intrusion on a society structured around keeping him out, keeping him separate. It churned her stomach.
This was all for K'airos, she thought and felt her bones tremble deep in her flesh. She would remain in Drybone for K'airos. She would go to Ul'dah for K'airos. She would even risk the judgment of the family she had left behind for her daughter, if only it meant she could have her back, and the guilt that now gripped her towards her abandonment of her brother almost brought her meager meal up onto the mud.Â
A new thought joined this one not long after: if one spent enough time in the company of the homeless - the lost, the abandoned, the wanderers - one might eventually become them.
![[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
