"I would recommend the ritual be done outside the city's walls," Antimony spoke somberly, looking down at the small pouch of fragrant sage and simple bone necklace she intended to repurpose that sat in the palm of her hand. She had kept largely silent as they retrieved the items, the words spoken between them and towards the Dodo tribe weighing heavy in the air. Shifting her tail in small curves, Antimony glanced sideways at the Tia.
"The Dodos have a burial ground in Thanalan. Where she should have been sent in the first place." D'hein muttered, his voice nearly silent. One of his ears hung tiredly down the side of his head, matching the sagging of his eyes and lips. His other ear, restless, twitched about like it was listening for something. As though that one ear of D'hein's thought it would be able to hear the moment the return missive from Drybone reached Ul'dah. The Brass Blades in the city did not know what had become of K'airos, so odds were those in Drybone would send word of her return.
"If that's what you wish." Closing her hand around the items, Antimony looked north along the Sapphire Avenue Exchange, past the anonymous crowds that filled the broad street. Her ears shifted back and forth as she began to walk, in small, uncertain gestures. When she spoke again, it was with some reluctance, "Do you... expect to return to the commune?"
"Yes, that's what I wish. It's where her son's ashes are. Despite the fact that the previous Nunh attempted to conceal his body as well." D'hein ignored Antimony's question, taking off in long strides that threatened to surpass the woman or lose her in the crowd. "Their souls should rest together. One day my soul will rest there, too."
"All spirits may rest together, so long as they are guided through the fire properly," the words slid across her tongue without thought, as familiar as breathing, and yet they left Antimony with an uncomfortable weight in her gut. She did not think her own forsaking the Twelve should alter her ability to conduct the souls of the dead, but she couldn't shake an uncertainty, and a touch of bitterness.
She hurried a bit to keep up with D'hein, frowning briefly at his back as they approached the Gate of Nald.
As he walked, his tail swung behind him, occasionally whacking people that he walked past. A lalafell took it to the face and objected loudly, but D'hein was well on his way before he had a chance to notice. "Not everyone believes as you do."
"Yet you're accepting my help." Her hand tightened around the pouch and the necklace. Even contained, the scent of sage reached her nose, and it brought with it a wealth of memories long ingrained.
She thought then of the last time she'd gotten into a spiritual argument, and how it had not ended well, and sighed. "Regardless, what's important is her spirit is shown the respect her body was not." Even if her body in life had been a rather distasteful woman. None of that mattered in death.
"Which is why I'm accepting your help." The gate of Nald loomed above them. D'hein did not slow down as he broke from the Sapphire Lane crowds. "Our Elders are bureaucrats. They swear by Nald'Thal. The Dodos forget their spirituality until someone dies."
A towering roegadyn merchant, carrying a crate that was likely larger than her, blocked Antimony's path for a few seconds, long enough that after she'd extricated herself from the crowd, she had to trot to catch up with D'hein. The constant, intently quick pace was beginning to wear on her, but she stifled the urge to pant as she came up alongside the Tia once more. She was quiet for a time as she considered D'hein's words, and how starkly different the Dodos were from the family she'd long left behind. Every moment of a Hipparion's life was steeped in the blessings of Azeyma and the wisdom of their Elders. It had been almost impossible for Antimony to imagine a life led otherwise - until she'd forced herself to do just that.
The woman let out a short sigh as they passed under the massive Gate of Nald. "I will need fire. Please keep an eye out for tinder and wood."
"I have fire. Unless your rites forbid magical flame."
D'hein's words brought an unexpected twist in her chest, and her steps slowed a moment unconsciously. There would be no firedancer for this rite, she thought bitterly, and tried to ignore a returned ache of loss. The one responsible for such things had left, returned to the tribe, and she had no right to want to stop him.
"... That will be fine," she spoke after a moment and picked her pace back up once more.
"Then we don't need to worry about wood and tinder." In his purposeful haste, D'hein did not notice Antimony's hesitation. He gave no glances towards the height of the gate, nor the people around him. He didn't appear to look at anything, as though his eyes had shut to all light. The Tia stomped out of the city like a blind giant that had memorized the way, curving west once out of the city.
At this point, Antimony let him lead the way, as the Tia would know the location of the burial ground - a strange concept to her, burying the dead all in one place; it didn't seem healthy - better than she. When nothing but silence passed between them for a time, Antimony thought to try her earlier question again, "Do you intend to return to the commune after this?"
Following a narrow path up a hill, the only easily-walked route between the rocks, D'hein paused a half an instant to glance at Antimony, and then continued onward. "Eventually. I don't think I want to be there right now."
"Ah." She wasn't certain if she should feel relieved or disappointed - relieved that he hadn't made the same terrible decision she had years ago, disappointed that... he hadn't made the same decision? She chewed on her lower lip as she worked her way up the hill, joints beginning to protest in uncomfortable ways. At the top, she set one hand against a tall rock and paused a moment to rest her weight there.
D'hein as well paused at the top, finally waiting for Antimony. He stood with his arms over his chest, scowling at a flat rise not far off where a number of carved pillars were set in a broad circle. The ground there was paved with stone, though sand had blown in and covered it, and there were ornate blocks that might be sarcophagi or the doors to underground crypts, if such a thing was the practice of the Dodoes. They could also just be for decoration.
"I say that because I still think of it as home." He looked back towards Antimony. "I think of it like that, but I don't feel it. The place feels empty to me. The people feel empty. D'edy won't produce children, but do I even care if they do not have a Nunh?"
She'd caught her breath quickly at least, though her limbs still expressed their displeasure at the unexpected hike and climb, and Antimony had to wonder when she'd gotten to feeling so old. Lifting her head to meet D'hein's gaze, she pressed her lips together, shifted her ears back and low to the sides of her head, then looked away, towards the stones a short distance off. "The tribe lost its meaning to me when Tha--they did not return from the Calamity." Her words came slowly, almost unwilling, things she'd never wholly spoken. "The family I knew was gone. It didn't matter that I would be leaving them without a shaman, without a spiritual guide. Even... even with so many of them still..." She pushed away from the rock, unable to fully voice that particular shame. The point was that, "I understand. Perhaps you will care later. Perhaps not."
It was a shame that Antimony had waited until now to say anything meaningful about her past. Had D'ahl still been alive, D'aijeen and K'airos close at hand, D'hein might have taken the thread gently, drawing on it and smoothing it out as he went. He might've cared to smooth her. But it was like his capacity for empathy had been thrown out along with D'ahl's mutilated corpse. He didn't care anymore for the game of flattering anyone. He didn't care where Antimony had come from, nor that she would still exist tomorrow. He didn't care.
He knew he should, though. Maybe if he was just able to mourn D'ahl like a civilized person, he could get past this. And past it to what? What does civilized grief even look like? He'd never seen it. He'd learned how to mourn by watching D'ahl mourn for her son, a thing she had never done. She'd chosen instead to replace him.
The Tia watched Antimony move, like an older, weaker version of D'ahl in costume as D'aijeen's mother. If he had any faith in Azeyma at all, believed that Althyk had so much as a shred of power, he might think that Antimony's similarities to D'ahl were a sign. But they were not. D'aijeen and Antimony had killed D'ahl. If Azeyma had guided them here, they had made a mistake.
D'hein Tia did not want to replace D'ahl.
Still. "It's selfish, though. Just because everyone I care about is dead, does not me that there are not still others who care about me. Even if I don't care about what happens to the Dodos tomorrow, what if they care about me?" He wasn't convinced he had that kind of clout with anyone, but the Dodos did need a Nunh, didn't they? "At the very least I suppose they've invested value into me that I owe a return on." The words tasted strange, accurate, and he smirked at them as he walked towards the flat circle of stones.
Her tail curled along with a stiff regret for thinking to share those words with the Tia. Selfish. Yes, perhaps he was being selfish. Perhaps they all were. But then so was everyone else. Drawing a deep breath, she followed D'hein once more. "Think what you wish, then," a bit of a bite snuck through her tone, and her ears fidgeted at it. She shifted D'ahl's journal from under her arm to her free hand.
Stepping past the stones that rounded the circle, D'hein said, "I'm starting to think I won't actually go back to the commune."
Antimony did not respond to that. Instead she moved to a spot amongst the stones where sand had gathered thickest and with some effort dropped to her knees there. The journal she set in her lap, the pouch of sage and necklace atop it. Bending forward wordlessly, she set her fingers to the sand and let the rhythm of decades of practice settle into her arm as she drew out an array of symbols.
D'hein paced over towards one of the great, ornate slabs of stone can crouched down next to it, touching his fingertips to it. "When a Dodo dies, their body is burned and their ashes interred beneath these stones. There used to be more ritual to it, when we had shaman to perform such."
More ritual. Perhaps this would be enough to satisfy, Antimony thought. A stylized representation of the sun, made from a fluid spiral and a number of radial "rays" took shape in the sand, followed by a few, more obtuse symbols to either side of it - relics of an ancient time and an ancient language. The last time she had done this, she'd been forced to rush through out of necessity, as other, desperate patients needed her care that still lived. Antimony's throat tightened, kept her voice from her while she worked, so she mouthed the prayers that were supposed to go along with it.
Pulling her hand away from the sand, she took up the necklace and, with a sharp motion, snapped the thread that linked the bone beads together.
D'hein Tia lingered where he was, watching Antimony with a neutral expression. One of his ears twitched.
Letting the bones slide off the string into the palm of her hand, Antimony then began to scatter them in a loose circle pattern about the sun. A representation of the body they did not have. Clearing her throat, her voice was still a bit thick and strained when she spoke, "I will need that fire soon." As though on cue her fingers worked open the tie of the pouch.
His scepter was concealed in his robe, so he stood to reach for it. The thing was near his belt, and he pulled it loose with slight difficulty, as its bindings had tightened from all of his movement. "Fire's easy to do. Just tell me when and how much you'll need."
In a small, cup-shaped ditch she'd carved out of the sand, Antimony deposited several pinches of the sage. Another pinch she rubbed slowly between her fingers, closing her eyes, breathing in its savory, bright aroma. She wasn't wearing the proper clothes, or carrying the right fetishes (or any of them), but it would have to do. Holding her hand out, the rubbed sprig of sage poised between her fingers, Antimony said, "A very small amount." She hesitated, her mind drifting back to the steady rhythm if fire swung in careful patterns at the end of a staff, and then added, "Try to put emotion to it."
Emotion? What emotion? The emotion burning through his arms was enough to blast away her little sand drawing and leave a sheet of glass in its place. Lifting the scepter in his gloved, numb right hand, D'hein muttered a spell in a neutral tone and gave the scepter the slightest flick, his gaze and mind target the spell at the sage in Antimony's hand. A small fleck of fire shoot out of the scepters tip, little more than a lightning bug, and cut a straight line through the dry air to the sage she held. It crackled to life dully.
Bowing her head, Antimony kept her eyes fixed on the small flame held between her fingers. She forced her posture to relax, forced herself to tune out the gravestones around her, the Tia at her side, narrowed her focus until all she saw was the dull red-orange glow, all she felt was the heat growing closer to her skin. When the flame had consumed enough of the sprig that it was practically burning her, she set it to the rest of the herb in the sand, curved her hands around it to ward off any dangerous breeze.
The dry herb caught easily, and she reached into the pouch for more, though she held it poised in her fingers for now. "As the Warden consumes, so does she shelter," she intoned in a low voice. She heard herself repeat the phrase several times, a slow mantra that came in time with the flickering of the flame. She cast another pinch of sage onto the pile, and then she heard nothing but the hum of the innate aether in her own body, felt it pulling up from her gut and running down her arms to the tips of her fingers. One hand set atop the journal in her lap, fingers splayed, while the other began to retrace the lines she had already drawn in the sand. To one sensitive to aether, they might notice a stirring in the energies of the earth there, a ripple echoing the pattern.
D'hein slid the scepter back into his robe and crouched once more. Fire seemed prerequisite for death. The Thaumaturges used it to cleanse the dead. Others used it to guide them. Where was the lightning and the ice? If he'd been able to find D'ahl's body -- if he'd known what vengeance D'themia would take on her for the crime of dying without permission -- then he would have been able to prepare her as he had been taught to. Could Antimony really equal that with just a book, some bones and weeds?
Antimony's ears drooped as her body relaxed into a pseudo-meditative state. To outsiders, nothing else visibly changed. The bones lay still in the arrangement the woman had set them, in an arc about the sun in the sand that her hand slowly moved over. To her mind's eye, even as she closed her own eyes, however, she saw a white fire following the pattern of the drawings, following her fingers in a thin trail as they moved through the sand. She saw the light on the journal, too, at the five points where her fingers touched its surface - like stars, the Warden's innumerable glimpses in the night. A surge of doubt nearly pulled her from the vision, a bitterness that those eyes had cared so little for those who had shown Her such love and respect, a doubt that the eyes were even capable of caring at all.
Then another sprig of sage was pulled from the pouch, held to the burning pile until it lit. She bent low, nearly doubled over her lap so that she could feel the heat of the flame on her face; her braids hung down close enough that much more than a twitch to either side could catch her hair on fire. "From birth, to Hunt, to love, and to death," she murmured, and her words made the smoldering herb flicker. "From first breath to last. From destruction to renewal. Her Flame welcomes and protects," a moment's hesitation and her hand shifted across the surface of the journal, "... punishes and brings an end. Into the Warden's warmth I send you, to be reborn, to rejoin with those waiting, and to wait for those yet to come."
She straightened then, eyes still closed, and took a small handful of sand from the center of the sun. This she cast across the journal, and then she went still and silent, waiting for when the time felt right.
D'hein waited. He listened to Antimony's words, watched her hands and movements. he tried to think of her as a shaman, a guide of spirits. He tried to imagine that she cared one way or another whether or not D'ahl was reunited with her son. But her movements were strange and unexpected; if it was a ritual, he'd never seen it. He waited for the lightning and ice, but it did not come. Breath and sand and fire were all well and good, but it wasn't what he was looking for. It wasn't what D'ahl needed. How could the spirit follow that which it did not recognize? No Flame had guided D'ahl's life, or D'hein's own.
The Tia reclined from the balls of his feet, tail shivering, dropping back on his haunches beside the ornate stone slab as though it meant nothing. He watched Antimony's tail, just her tail, unsure what to make of the rest of her.
Her tail lay across the stones behind her, at rest save for the occasional, slow shift across the ground, almost a metronome to the beat of her words. When she went finally quiet, so did it, falling still in the middle of the vague arc it had spread in the sand.
Minutes passed. The sage burned out until it was nothing but shriveled, blackened plant matter and a few, smoldering sparks.
When Antimony lifted her head, she found she could not say for certain whether the ritual had succeeded, and that awareness left a hollow ache in her chest, of something long lost, never to be regained. Her tail twitched but remained otherwise limp in the sand, and she opened her eyes to smooth stone monuments, rocky cliffs, blue sky. Her hand on the journal brushed across it, in almost a caress, pushing the sand off until it was clean. Perhaps she wasn't meant to do such things anymore, she thought with something that could have been grief, could have been the familiar bitterness.
She said nothing of this to D'hein, however, instead dropping her gaze to the journal. Silence stretched for a while longer before she murmured, "I've done what I can to bring her rest and comfort." There was a pause, and then she added out of old, almost forgotten habit, "May she know it long and well, until the last light fades from the sky."
"Longer, perhaps. Light slips away so easily." D'hein's ears twitched, one of them more fervently than the other. The lazier of his two ears turned towards Antimony, listening to her breath and movement. "D'ahl's son is dead. Do you think he grows wiser, more mature, as he rests? Or will he remain a child's soul forever?"
Antimony hesitated. She was not sure what she believed now, she thought, but she at least knew what she had believed back then. A sigh pulled on her shoulders. "It's another life, in the arms of the Warden, but a different one. I can't say, though... there were days I wondered."
D'heins head drifted to one side, one of his ears seeking to maintain equilibrium while his other swayed like a leaf ready to fall from his head. His tail lifted from the ground, curled and fell. His face offered no expression. "Azeyma did not return all of your daughters to you, did she?"
Her ears shifted back, head turning towards D'hein, though she didn't lift her eyes to him. "... No, she did not," she breathed, unsure why he would ask such a thing.
"I'm sorry. Both for the event and for asking." Both of D'hein's ears laid down toghether, momentarily symmetrical. "I might have challenged D'themia directly were I not too much a fool. I was not eligible for Nunh except by a process of elimination. D'ahl's son was also my own, you see."
She did see. Antimony had witnessed Tia ambition stretched too far on more than one occasion herself, including from her own brother. The memory dropped her ears lower. To more violent ends.
"I... am sorry, as well," she muttered and briefly wondered if the son's death had been more than an accident. No Hipparion would have condoned such a thing, even if the father would have seen punishment. She swallowed, dropped her eyes to the journal again. "Losing a child was... not uncommon to us." The desert was ever cruel in that way. "But that fact never eased the pain."
"As suffering goes, losing a child is only rare among the Dodos, for the children of the Nunh -- since several generations past -- have known more books than hunts." His tail shifted in the sand behind him once more. "It is not something I mourn. My own son, however, would have known hunts."
Setting one hand to the ground, she pushed herself up, knees creaking in protest from their prolonged position. She turned then towards D'hein and extended the journal towards him. "Keep this, if it brings you comfort, but not if you'll lose yourself in it." She licked her lips, ears shifting wearily. "My daughter... would have rose to lead the huntresses soon, my Nunh an elder, if..." A sigh, her eyes moving away. "... We must hold on to those who are left."
D'hein did not take the journal. He'd never seen it before. "You did not know D'ahl, but she was similar to you. I think you would have better luck understanding her thoughts than I would."
Her tail swung slow and sluggish down by her legs, and she shifted her weight, caught off guard by his refusal. She almost thought to say that she didn't care to understand D'ahl's thoughts, but that seemed blasphemous in its own way, unforgivable, so she just tucked the journal back against her side, ears twitching unevenly.
Watching the journal as though it were D'ahl's own receding face, D'hein at length looked up to Antimony. "So, here's a hypothetical for you. If the Brass Blades in Drybone said they've not seen K'airos, where would you go from there?"
Antimony's ears started upward briefly before setting back down against her head, and she turned to blink at D'hein. Only a stiff silence answered him for a time, until, "... There... is only so far she could have gone." It was a weak hope, but she had to offer it.
"There are ways to track a person down. It isn't my specialty, minf you, but at least one of your daughters is rather memorable. And, here's the hint: it is the one that is also mine."
"I will send word or travel to every town necessary, if I must."
D'hein shook his head, one ear swaying out beside his mane, the other standing tall. "That won't be necessary. We'll be able to discern a general direction at least." D'aijeen tended to strike people as either pretentious or ill, either of which was enough to secure her in their memories.
"I will hope so." Sighing, she glanced back towards the monument stones, then down to her own offering in the sand. The herbs and bones and the crude drawing seemed so simple and humble, and she was keenly aware that these were things people could judge her for, as archaic, nonsense. It was why she'd done her best to hide such habits in Limsa - to blend in, thinking perhaps if she appeared less alien, she would... feel less alien. Antimony wondered if D'hein thought that of her, if the rest of the Dodos thought that.
She didn't speak any of this, though, instead shifting her feet in the thin film of sand and looking over towards D'hein, past him towards Ul'dah. "I suppose we wait for now."
Silent, D'hein dropped his gaze to Antimony's feet, watching their movement as if it were somehow abnormal. When he stood, his shoulders sagged away from his chest and his arms swung at his sides as though they hung from ropes. "Unless you can think of something productive to do, I'd rather not so my waiting in on the burial ground." The place felt emptier to him than the commune had.
Antimony bent then, took up the leather pouch with its small amount of remaining sage. She wanted to continue looking for D'aijeen, even if such a search would end up a waste should the missive return from Drybone with good news. If it didn't, then...
"Ulanan has always been good at finding people," she spoke suddenly, moving her eyes back to D'hein, watching his ears within hair that bore a striking resemblance to dandelion head. "I would seek her help."
"She did find K'airos and D'aijeen once for you. Although, I had told her where to look. Do you know where to find the..." D'hein paused here, trying to remember if he liked or disliked Ulanan. Overriding most of his memories of the lalafell was the sight of her chasing D'ahl from the woman's own apartment, the last time D'hein had seen her alive.
His eyes shivered in their sockets, and he looked at the ground. "Do you know where to find her, then?"
Her brow furrowed, tail twitching in some half-realized discomfort. "She... always seemed to find me. Perhaps the inn, but..."
"But there's no guarantee of it." One of his ears twitched, his tail shivering. "Didn't Ulanan say she was going to follow Aijeen? Maybe she saw something."
Antimony sighed. "Perhaps, but that doesn't tell us where Ulanan's gone off to now."
"I'm surprised you never bothered to discern her place of residence or some method of contact. Am I the only friend whose home you haunt?"
Tail arching in some distress, Antimony fidgeted with the journal. "What? No... That... You're... were.. are? My employer! And," she huffed, "Much of my time at the commune was for business reasons, you know this."
"I'm your employer? Yes. I..." D'hein shifted his weight to one foot. "I suppose it was in error that I used the word 'friend'. You'll have to forgive me."
Green eyes widened as minor alarm bells rang in the back of her head, chiming of some unintentional misstep. Her arms tensed, pulling the journal a bit closer as she stammered, "Ah, that is--I didn't mean... Er, I was only saying that... that was why I knew where to look for you! That--that is all." Her ears twisted, one up and one down, then the opposite. "It was only that.. oh dear. I didn't mean to... say anything hurtful. Ah! Also, Ulanan doesn't live in Ul'dah. At least I... don't think."
One of D'hein's ears fell back, noting how upset she'd become. "It isn't that I don't want to be friends anymore. I certainly hope you don't think that I hold anything that's happened against you." Although he did, but he at least intellectually realized that she hadn't caused these events deliberately.
"Oh. Well... good?" Her mouth twisted in confusion. It wasn't as though she'd thought of D'hein as a friend before - at worst an invasive and extremely annoying employer, at best the adoptive father-figure of her youngest, wayward daughter. There were times when she even resented him for the latter, and she couldn't say she wouldn't resent him for it in the future. But it was also the latter that leaned into some sort of... camaraderie, a common affection and concern. Aijeen.
D'hein's tired features twisted into a frustrated expression. "Good, yes. I hope." He sighed, let his head droop forward. "If Ulanan does know anything, she is likely to seek you out. She would look for you at the inn?"
One ear twitched, and she pursed her lips. "I suppose... yes. That seems most reasonable." Her tail shifted uncertainly, and she made a slight gesture towards the remains of her ritual. "Would you... like to say any last words?"
"Last words. It's too depressing a concept." He closed his eyes and shook his head. "No, I wouldn't."
She dropped her eyes, took a step away from the stones, then hesitated. "I... am sorry. I would never wish this on anyone."
Dhien took a quick step sideways and pivoted on his heel, walking down the way they had come, back through the burial ground. "I appreciate your empathy. For the latter portion, I assumed you would not wish this on anyone. That would not be like you, I don't think."
Antimony lingered a moment longer, glancing back towards her small offering to the dead, then towards D'hein's retreating back. Then she dropped her ears and made to follow. "We can eat while we wait to see if Ulanan turns up," she offered quietly when she'd caught back up to the Tia. "A bit of food does the mind good."
"... It does. More than the mind, there is not a single part of a person, or a pair of persons, that is not improved and more focused by food." He spoke as he walked, pausing only slightly to look over his shoulder. "You must not complain when I order you extravagant food, though. Not today." And then he moved on.
"The Dodos have a burial ground in Thanalan. Where she should have been sent in the first place." D'hein muttered, his voice nearly silent. One of his ears hung tiredly down the side of his head, matching the sagging of his eyes and lips. His other ear, restless, twitched about like it was listening for something. As though that one ear of D'hein's thought it would be able to hear the moment the return missive from Drybone reached Ul'dah. The Brass Blades in the city did not know what had become of K'airos, so odds were those in Drybone would send word of her return.
"If that's what you wish." Closing her hand around the items, Antimony looked north along the Sapphire Avenue Exchange, past the anonymous crowds that filled the broad street. Her ears shifted back and forth as she began to walk, in small, uncertain gestures. When she spoke again, it was with some reluctance, "Do you... expect to return to the commune?"
"Yes, that's what I wish. It's where her son's ashes are. Despite the fact that the previous Nunh attempted to conceal his body as well." D'hein ignored Antimony's question, taking off in long strides that threatened to surpass the woman or lose her in the crowd. "Their souls should rest together. One day my soul will rest there, too."
"All spirits may rest together, so long as they are guided through the fire properly," the words slid across her tongue without thought, as familiar as breathing, and yet they left Antimony with an uncomfortable weight in her gut. She did not think her own forsaking the Twelve should alter her ability to conduct the souls of the dead, but she couldn't shake an uncertainty, and a touch of bitterness.
She hurried a bit to keep up with D'hein, frowning briefly at his back as they approached the Gate of Nald.
As he walked, his tail swung behind him, occasionally whacking people that he walked past. A lalafell took it to the face and objected loudly, but D'hein was well on his way before he had a chance to notice. "Not everyone believes as you do."
"Yet you're accepting my help." Her hand tightened around the pouch and the necklace. Even contained, the scent of sage reached her nose, and it brought with it a wealth of memories long ingrained.
She thought then of the last time she'd gotten into a spiritual argument, and how it had not ended well, and sighed. "Regardless, what's important is her spirit is shown the respect her body was not." Even if her body in life had been a rather distasteful woman. None of that mattered in death.
"Which is why I'm accepting your help." The gate of Nald loomed above them. D'hein did not slow down as he broke from the Sapphire Lane crowds. "Our Elders are bureaucrats. They swear by Nald'Thal. The Dodos forget their spirituality until someone dies."
A towering roegadyn merchant, carrying a crate that was likely larger than her, blocked Antimony's path for a few seconds, long enough that after she'd extricated herself from the crowd, she had to trot to catch up with D'hein. The constant, intently quick pace was beginning to wear on her, but she stifled the urge to pant as she came up alongside the Tia once more. She was quiet for a time as she considered D'hein's words, and how starkly different the Dodos were from the family she'd long left behind. Every moment of a Hipparion's life was steeped in the blessings of Azeyma and the wisdom of their Elders. It had been almost impossible for Antimony to imagine a life led otherwise - until she'd forced herself to do just that.
The woman let out a short sigh as they passed under the massive Gate of Nald. "I will need fire. Please keep an eye out for tinder and wood."
"I have fire. Unless your rites forbid magical flame."
D'hein's words brought an unexpected twist in her chest, and her steps slowed a moment unconsciously. There would be no firedancer for this rite, she thought bitterly, and tried to ignore a returned ache of loss. The one responsible for such things had left, returned to the tribe, and she had no right to want to stop him.
"... That will be fine," she spoke after a moment and picked her pace back up once more.
"Then we don't need to worry about wood and tinder." In his purposeful haste, D'hein did not notice Antimony's hesitation. He gave no glances towards the height of the gate, nor the people around him. He didn't appear to look at anything, as though his eyes had shut to all light. The Tia stomped out of the city like a blind giant that had memorized the way, curving west once out of the city.
At this point, Antimony let him lead the way, as the Tia would know the location of the burial ground - a strange concept to her, burying the dead all in one place; it didn't seem healthy - better than she. When nothing but silence passed between them for a time, Antimony thought to try her earlier question again, "Do you intend to return to the commune after this?"
Following a narrow path up a hill, the only easily-walked route between the rocks, D'hein paused a half an instant to glance at Antimony, and then continued onward. "Eventually. I don't think I want to be there right now."
"Ah." She wasn't certain if she should feel relieved or disappointed - relieved that he hadn't made the same terrible decision she had years ago, disappointed that... he hadn't made the same decision? She chewed on her lower lip as she worked her way up the hill, joints beginning to protest in uncomfortable ways. At the top, she set one hand against a tall rock and paused a moment to rest her weight there.
D'hein as well paused at the top, finally waiting for Antimony. He stood with his arms over his chest, scowling at a flat rise not far off where a number of carved pillars were set in a broad circle. The ground there was paved with stone, though sand had blown in and covered it, and there were ornate blocks that might be sarcophagi or the doors to underground crypts, if such a thing was the practice of the Dodoes. They could also just be for decoration.
"I say that because I still think of it as home." He looked back towards Antimony. "I think of it like that, but I don't feel it. The place feels empty to me. The people feel empty. D'edy won't produce children, but do I even care if they do not have a Nunh?"
She'd caught her breath quickly at least, though her limbs still expressed their displeasure at the unexpected hike and climb, and Antimony had to wonder when she'd gotten to feeling so old. Lifting her head to meet D'hein's gaze, she pressed her lips together, shifted her ears back and low to the sides of her head, then looked away, towards the stones a short distance off. "The tribe lost its meaning to me when Tha--they did not return from the Calamity." Her words came slowly, almost unwilling, things she'd never wholly spoken. "The family I knew was gone. It didn't matter that I would be leaving them without a shaman, without a spiritual guide. Even... even with so many of them still..." She pushed away from the rock, unable to fully voice that particular shame. The point was that, "I understand. Perhaps you will care later. Perhaps not."
It was a shame that Antimony had waited until now to say anything meaningful about her past. Had D'ahl still been alive, D'aijeen and K'airos close at hand, D'hein might have taken the thread gently, drawing on it and smoothing it out as he went. He might've cared to smooth her. But it was like his capacity for empathy had been thrown out along with D'ahl's mutilated corpse. He didn't care anymore for the game of flattering anyone. He didn't care where Antimony had come from, nor that she would still exist tomorrow. He didn't care.
He knew he should, though. Maybe if he was just able to mourn D'ahl like a civilized person, he could get past this. And past it to what? What does civilized grief even look like? He'd never seen it. He'd learned how to mourn by watching D'ahl mourn for her son, a thing she had never done. She'd chosen instead to replace him.
The Tia watched Antimony move, like an older, weaker version of D'ahl in costume as D'aijeen's mother. If he had any faith in Azeyma at all, believed that Althyk had so much as a shred of power, he might think that Antimony's similarities to D'ahl were a sign. But they were not. D'aijeen and Antimony had killed D'ahl. If Azeyma had guided them here, they had made a mistake.
D'hein Tia did not want to replace D'ahl.
Still. "It's selfish, though. Just because everyone I care about is dead, does not me that there are not still others who care about me. Even if I don't care about what happens to the Dodos tomorrow, what if they care about me?" He wasn't convinced he had that kind of clout with anyone, but the Dodos did need a Nunh, didn't they? "At the very least I suppose they've invested value into me that I owe a return on." The words tasted strange, accurate, and he smirked at them as he walked towards the flat circle of stones.
Her tail curled along with a stiff regret for thinking to share those words with the Tia. Selfish. Yes, perhaps he was being selfish. Perhaps they all were. But then so was everyone else. Drawing a deep breath, she followed D'hein once more. "Think what you wish, then," a bit of a bite snuck through her tone, and her ears fidgeted at it. She shifted D'ahl's journal from under her arm to her free hand.
Stepping past the stones that rounded the circle, D'hein said, "I'm starting to think I won't actually go back to the commune."
Antimony did not respond to that. Instead she moved to a spot amongst the stones where sand had gathered thickest and with some effort dropped to her knees there. The journal she set in her lap, the pouch of sage and necklace atop it. Bending forward wordlessly, she set her fingers to the sand and let the rhythm of decades of practice settle into her arm as she drew out an array of symbols.
D'hein paced over towards one of the great, ornate slabs of stone can crouched down next to it, touching his fingertips to it. "When a Dodo dies, their body is burned and their ashes interred beneath these stones. There used to be more ritual to it, when we had shaman to perform such."
More ritual. Perhaps this would be enough to satisfy, Antimony thought. A stylized representation of the sun, made from a fluid spiral and a number of radial "rays" took shape in the sand, followed by a few, more obtuse symbols to either side of it - relics of an ancient time and an ancient language. The last time she had done this, she'd been forced to rush through out of necessity, as other, desperate patients needed her care that still lived. Antimony's throat tightened, kept her voice from her while she worked, so she mouthed the prayers that were supposed to go along with it.
Pulling her hand away from the sand, she took up the necklace and, with a sharp motion, snapped the thread that linked the bone beads together.
D'hein Tia lingered where he was, watching Antimony with a neutral expression. One of his ears twitched.
Letting the bones slide off the string into the palm of her hand, Antimony then began to scatter them in a loose circle pattern about the sun. A representation of the body they did not have. Clearing her throat, her voice was still a bit thick and strained when she spoke, "I will need that fire soon." As though on cue her fingers worked open the tie of the pouch.
His scepter was concealed in his robe, so he stood to reach for it. The thing was near his belt, and he pulled it loose with slight difficulty, as its bindings had tightened from all of his movement. "Fire's easy to do. Just tell me when and how much you'll need."
In a small, cup-shaped ditch she'd carved out of the sand, Antimony deposited several pinches of the sage. Another pinch she rubbed slowly between her fingers, closing her eyes, breathing in its savory, bright aroma. She wasn't wearing the proper clothes, or carrying the right fetishes (or any of them), but it would have to do. Holding her hand out, the rubbed sprig of sage poised between her fingers, Antimony said, "A very small amount." She hesitated, her mind drifting back to the steady rhythm if fire swung in careful patterns at the end of a staff, and then added, "Try to put emotion to it."
Emotion? What emotion? The emotion burning through his arms was enough to blast away her little sand drawing and leave a sheet of glass in its place. Lifting the scepter in his gloved, numb right hand, D'hein muttered a spell in a neutral tone and gave the scepter the slightest flick, his gaze and mind target the spell at the sage in Antimony's hand. A small fleck of fire shoot out of the scepters tip, little more than a lightning bug, and cut a straight line through the dry air to the sage she held. It crackled to life dully.
Bowing her head, Antimony kept her eyes fixed on the small flame held between her fingers. She forced her posture to relax, forced herself to tune out the gravestones around her, the Tia at her side, narrowed her focus until all she saw was the dull red-orange glow, all she felt was the heat growing closer to her skin. When the flame had consumed enough of the sprig that it was practically burning her, she set it to the rest of the herb in the sand, curved her hands around it to ward off any dangerous breeze.
The dry herb caught easily, and she reached into the pouch for more, though she held it poised in her fingers for now. "As the Warden consumes, so does she shelter," she intoned in a low voice. She heard herself repeat the phrase several times, a slow mantra that came in time with the flickering of the flame. She cast another pinch of sage onto the pile, and then she heard nothing but the hum of the innate aether in her own body, felt it pulling up from her gut and running down her arms to the tips of her fingers. One hand set atop the journal in her lap, fingers splayed, while the other began to retrace the lines she had already drawn in the sand. To one sensitive to aether, they might notice a stirring in the energies of the earth there, a ripple echoing the pattern.
D'hein slid the scepter back into his robe and crouched once more. Fire seemed prerequisite for death. The Thaumaturges used it to cleanse the dead. Others used it to guide them. Where was the lightning and the ice? If he'd been able to find D'ahl's body -- if he'd known what vengeance D'themia would take on her for the crime of dying without permission -- then he would have been able to prepare her as he had been taught to. Could Antimony really equal that with just a book, some bones and weeds?
Antimony's ears drooped as her body relaxed into a pseudo-meditative state. To outsiders, nothing else visibly changed. The bones lay still in the arrangement the woman had set them, in an arc about the sun in the sand that her hand slowly moved over. To her mind's eye, even as she closed her own eyes, however, she saw a white fire following the pattern of the drawings, following her fingers in a thin trail as they moved through the sand. She saw the light on the journal, too, at the five points where her fingers touched its surface - like stars, the Warden's innumerable glimpses in the night. A surge of doubt nearly pulled her from the vision, a bitterness that those eyes had cared so little for those who had shown Her such love and respect, a doubt that the eyes were even capable of caring at all.
Then another sprig of sage was pulled from the pouch, held to the burning pile until it lit. She bent low, nearly doubled over her lap so that she could feel the heat of the flame on her face; her braids hung down close enough that much more than a twitch to either side could catch her hair on fire. "From birth, to Hunt, to love, and to death," she murmured, and her words made the smoldering herb flicker. "From first breath to last. From destruction to renewal. Her Flame welcomes and protects," a moment's hesitation and her hand shifted across the surface of the journal, "... punishes and brings an end. Into the Warden's warmth I send you, to be reborn, to rejoin with those waiting, and to wait for those yet to come."
She straightened then, eyes still closed, and took a small handful of sand from the center of the sun. This she cast across the journal, and then she went still and silent, waiting for when the time felt right.
D'hein waited. He listened to Antimony's words, watched her hands and movements. he tried to think of her as a shaman, a guide of spirits. He tried to imagine that she cared one way or another whether or not D'ahl was reunited with her son. But her movements were strange and unexpected; if it was a ritual, he'd never seen it. He waited for the lightning and ice, but it did not come. Breath and sand and fire were all well and good, but it wasn't what he was looking for. It wasn't what D'ahl needed. How could the spirit follow that which it did not recognize? No Flame had guided D'ahl's life, or D'hein's own.
The Tia reclined from the balls of his feet, tail shivering, dropping back on his haunches beside the ornate stone slab as though it meant nothing. He watched Antimony's tail, just her tail, unsure what to make of the rest of her.
Her tail lay across the stones behind her, at rest save for the occasional, slow shift across the ground, almost a metronome to the beat of her words. When she went finally quiet, so did it, falling still in the middle of the vague arc it had spread in the sand.
Minutes passed. The sage burned out until it was nothing but shriveled, blackened plant matter and a few, smoldering sparks.
When Antimony lifted her head, she found she could not say for certain whether the ritual had succeeded, and that awareness left a hollow ache in her chest, of something long lost, never to be regained. Her tail twitched but remained otherwise limp in the sand, and she opened her eyes to smooth stone monuments, rocky cliffs, blue sky. Her hand on the journal brushed across it, in almost a caress, pushing the sand off until it was clean. Perhaps she wasn't meant to do such things anymore, she thought with something that could have been grief, could have been the familiar bitterness.
She said nothing of this to D'hein, however, instead dropping her gaze to the journal. Silence stretched for a while longer before she murmured, "I've done what I can to bring her rest and comfort." There was a pause, and then she added out of old, almost forgotten habit, "May she know it long and well, until the last light fades from the sky."
"Longer, perhaps. Light slips away so easily." D'hein's ears twitched, one of them more fervently than the other. The lazier of his two ears turned towards Antimony, listening to her breath and movement. "D'ahl's son is dead. Do you think he grows wiser, more mature, as he rests? Or will he remain a child's soul forever?"
Antimony hesitated. She was not sure what she believed now, she thought, but she at least knew what she had believed back then. A sigh pulled on her shoulders. "It's another life, in the arms of the Warden, but a different one. I can't say, though... there were days I wondered."
D'heins head drifted to one side, one of his ears seeking to maintain equilibrium while his other swayed like a leaf ready to fall from his head. His tail lifted from the ground, curled and fell. His face offered no expression. "Azeyma did not return all of your daughters to you, did she?"
Her ears shifted back, head turning towards D'hein, though she didn't lift her eyes to him. "... No, she did not," she breathed, unsure why he would ask such a thing.
"I'm sorry. Both for the event and for asking." Both of D'hein's ears laid down toghether, momentarily symmetrical. "I might have challenged D'themia directly were I not too much a fool. I was not eligible for Nunh except by a process of elimination. D'ahl's son was also my own, you see."
She did see. Antimony had witnessed Tia ambition stretched too far on more than one occasion herself, including from her own brother. The memory dropped her ears lower. To more violent ends.
"I... am sorry, as well," she muttered and briefly wondered if the son's death had been more than an accident. No Hipparion would have condoned such a thing, even if the father would have seen punishment. She swallowed, dropped her eyes to the journal again. "Losing a child was... not uncommon to us." The desert was ever cruel in that way. "But that fact never eased the pain."
"As suffering goes, losing a child is only rare among the Dodos, for the children of the Nunh -- since several generations past -- have known more books than hunts." His tail shifted in the sand behind him once more. "It is not something I mourn. My own son, however, would have known hunts."
Setting one hand to the ground, she pushed herself up, knees creaking in protest from their prolonged position. She turned then towards D'hein and extended the journal towards him. "Keep this, if it brings you comfort, but not if you'll lose yourself in it." She licked her lips, ears shifting wearily. "My daughter... would have rose to lead the huntresses soon, my Nunh an elder, if..." A sigh, her eyes moving away. "... We must hold on to those who are left."
D'hein did not take the journal. He'd never seen it before. "You did not know D'ahl, but she was similar to you. I think you would have better luck understanding her thoughts than I would."
Her tail swung slow and sluggish down by her legs, and she shifted her weight, caught off guard by his refusal. She almost thought to say that she didn't care to understand D'ahl's thoughts, but that seemed blasphemous in its own way, unforgivable, so she just tucked the journal back against her side, ears twitching unevenly.
Watching the journal as though it were D'ahl's own receding face, D'hein at length looked up to Antimony. "So, here's a hypothetical for you. If the Brass Blades in Drybone said they've not seen K'airos, where would you go from there?"
Antimony's ears started upward briefly before setting back down against her head, and she turned to blink at D'hein. Only a stiff silence answered him for a time, until, "... There... is only so far she could have gone." It was a weak hope, but she had to offer it.
"There are ways to track a person down. It isn't my specialty, minf you, but at least one of your daughters is rather memorable. And, here's the hint: it is the one that is also mine."
"I will send word or travel to every town necessary, if I must."
D'hein shook his head, one ear swaying out beside his mane, the other standing tall. "That won't be necessary. We'll be able to discern a general direction at least." D'aijeen tended to strike people as either pretentious or ill, either of which was enough to secure her in their memories.
"I will hope so." Sighing, she glanced back towards the monument stones, then down to her own offering in the sand. The herbs and bones and the crude drawing seemed so simple and humble, and she was keenly aware that these were things people could judge her for, as archaic, nonsense. It was why she'd done her best to hide such habits in Limsa - to blend in, thinking perhaps if she appeared less alien, she would... feel less alien. Antimony wondered if D'hein thought that of her, if the rest of the Dodos thought that.
She didn't speak any of this, though, instead shifting her feet in the thin film of sand and looking over towards D'hein, past him towards Ul'dah. "I suppose we wait for now."
Silent, D'hein dropped his gaze to Antimony's feet, watching their movement as if it were somehow abnormal. When he stood, his shoulders sagged away from his chest and his arms swung at his sides as though they hung from ropes. "Unless you can think of something productive to do, I'd rather not so my waiting in on the burial ground." The place felt emptier to him than the commune had.
Antimony bent then, took up the leather pouch with its small amount of remaining sage. She wanted to continue looking for D'aijeen, even if such a search would end up a waste should the missive return from Drybone with good news. If it didn't, then...
"Ulanan has always been good at finding people," she spoke suddenly, moving her eyes back to D'hein, watching his ears within hair that bore a striking resemblance to dandelion head. "I would seek her help."
"She did find K'airos and D'aijeen once for you. Although, I had told her where to look. Do you know where to find the..." D'hein paused here, trying to remember if he liked or disliked Ulanan. Overriding most of his memories of the lalafell was the sight of her chasing D'ahl from the woman's own apartment, the last time D'hein had seen her alive.
His eyes shivered in their sockets, and he looked at the ground. "Do you know where to find her, then?"
Her brow furrowed, tail twitching in some half-realized discomfort. "She... always seemed to find me. Perhaps the inn, but..."
"But there's no guarantee of it." One of his ears twitched, his tail shivering. "Didn't Ulanan say she was going to follow Aijeen? Maybe she saw something."
Antimony sighed. "Perhaps, but that doesn't tell us where Ulanan's gone off to now."
"I'm surprised you never bothered to discern her place of residence or some method of contact. Am I the only friend whose home you haunt?"
Tail arching in some distress, Antimony fidgeted with the journal. "What? No... That... You're... were.. are? My employer! And," she huffed, "Much of my time at the commune was for business reasons, you know this."
"I'm your employer? Yes. I..." D'hein shifted his weight to one foot. "I suppose it was in error that I used the word 'friend'. You'll have to forgive me."
Green eyes widened as minor alarm bells rang in the back of her head, chiming of some unintentional misstep. Her arms tensed, pulling the journal a bit closer as she stammered, "Ah, that is--I didn't mean... Er, I was only saying that... that was why I knew where to look for you! That--that is all." Her ears twisted, one up and one down, then the opposite. "It was only that.. oh dear. I didn't mean to... say anything hurtful. Ah! Also, Ulanan doesn't live in Ul'dah. At least I... don't think."
One of D'hein's ears fell back, noting how upset she'd become. "It isn't that I don't want to be friends anymore. I certainly hope you don't think that I hold anything that's happened against you." Although he did, but he at least intellectually realized that she hadn't caused these events deliberately.
"Oh. Well... good?" Her mouth twisted in confusion. It wasn't as though she'd thought of D'hein as a friend before - at worst an invasive and extremely annoying employer, at best the adoptive father-figure of her youngest, wayward daughter. There were times when she even resented him for the latter, and she couldn't say she wouldn't resent him for it in the future. But it was also the latter that leaned into some sort of... camaraderie, a common affection and concern. Aijeen.
D'hein's tired features twisted into a frustrated expression. "Good, yes. I hope." He sighed, let his head droop forward. "If Ulanan does know anything, she is likely to seek you out. She would look for you at the inn?"
One ear twitched, and she pursed her lips. "I suppose... yes. That seems most reasonable." Her tail shifted uncertainly, and she made a slight gesture towards the remains of her ritual. "Would you... like to say any last words?"
"Last words. It's too depressing a concept." He closed his eyes and shook his head. "No, I wouldn't."
She dropped her eyes, took a step away from the stones, then hesitated. "I... am sorry. I would never wish this on anyone."
Dhien took a quick step sideways and pivoted on his heel, walking down the way they had come, back through the burial ground. "I appreciate your empathy. For the latter portion, I assumed you would not wish this on anyone. That would not be like you, I don't think."
Antimony lingered a moment longer, glancing back towards her small offering to the dead, then towards D'hein's retreating back. Then she dropped her ears and made to follow. "We can eat while we wait to see if Ulanan turns up," she offered quietly when she'd caught back up to the Tia. "A bit of food does the mind good."
"... It does. More than the mind, there is not a single part of a person, or a pair of persons, that is not improved and more focused by food." He spoke as he walked, pausing only slightly to look over his shoulder. "You must not complain when I order you extravagant food, though. Not today." And then he moved on.
![[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
