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The return to the Tribe [Hipparion Tribe RP]


Kailia

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The journey back to the Tribe had been slow and weakening in the extreme heat of the day. Still, herself and her daughter had made it back without too terribly much trouble. Of course, K'ailia had gone to see the elders and prove herself and her place within the tribe which left K'luha standing nervously off on the edge of camp, awaiting her daughter's return with news. She stood with her own chocobo, K'yori; cleaning the beast's feathers from the uncomfortable sand.

 

K'luha paused in her cleaning and looked up to the shimmering sky, its blue cloudless color wavering with the heat of the day. The desert was hotter and dryer than it used to be. There was less and less prey every day. When she had looked in their stores, she was disturbed to see such few things there. Her home was frightening her, but what frightened her more was the idea of leaving the Sagolii. The place that had been her lifelong home. 

 

She closed her eyes and tilted her head down towards the ground, thinking. Everything was changing now. K'ailia was no longer her cute little daughter, but a strong woman. Even if the elders refused to admit it, K'ailia had changed so much. She had matured so much, so much that it frightened K'luha. She was afraid her daughter wasn't going to need her any longer, and the truth was that she probably didn't need her already. 

 

K'luha finally shook her head free of her lamentable musings and lead K'yori over to camp, were she ducked under a tent for shelter from the heat.

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As soon as K'ailia had left, the three Elders had fallen back into a lengthy, heavy silence. At some point, K'deiki stood, leaning against her staff for support, and walked the length of the tent, pausing at a shallow, broad bowl carved from bone. In its surface had been etched a half-globe and rays depicting the sun, and in the center of the bowl there sat a small pile of burnt incense. A shrine to Azeyma, the Warden, the guardian who had kept their tribe on a true bearing for generations.

With K'takka and K'jhanhi in silence behind her, K'deiki knelt before the shrine and bowed her head.

 

***

 

Hours passed and not once did the Elders in the tent stir - not until a commotion from outside pushed past the insulating walls of their isolation. It began as one voice, high and challenging, and then there came others as everything merged into a din of excitement.

 

K'jhanhi was the first to speak, his once powerfully muscled form lifting to his feet as he lumbered towards the entrance, "That cannot be another hunting party, not so soon." There was expectation in his voice, tempered with a certain caution. His ears, all but hidden in the thick mane of grey sloping down his head, flicked back and then forward, listening.

 

K'takka looked across the room towards where K'deiki still knelt, silent. In the diffuse yellow light of the tent, her tattoos and blue eyes cast her weathered features in an eerie tableau. The woman at the shrine did not look up from her thoughts; instead K'deiki said only, "Go and meet her return. I will be along shortly."

 

The former nunh said no more to them, pushing through the flap of hide that served as a door and into the orange and red tones of a desert evening. It took longer for his eyes to adjust to the new light than it would have in earlier years, but he did not let this slow him, instead making straight for the source of the commotion, where a small but not insignificant crowd had begun to gather. His steps in the sand were uneven, harried by an old limp, and tired, but certain. On the air there was the scent of blood and dying flesh, and the tang of sweat from a hunt well made.

 

"What is this we have before us," his low voice rumbled, and many of the miqo'te immediately near him fell silent, turning eager faces in his direction. They fell away and K'jhanhi took in the broken body of a massive sundrake, its scales shattered where rocks had pelted its form, flesh scraped raw and ragged where wind had made its inexorable mark; white bone splashed in the red of gore and dirtied from its trip back to the camp peeked out from ruined leg joints. The creature was undoubtedly dead, and standing before it, with a stance befitting the confidence of a seasoned hunter, was K'ailia.

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K'ailia stepped before K'jhanhi and knelt down, "I present to you proof of my hunt. This beast will trouble our hunters no more."

 

The Unicorn clopped its hoof in the ground while Lily, the chocobo did the whole chocobo teats and wing flaps in celebration.

 

K'ailia looked back up at K'jhanhi, "Will you have me prove myself more? I will meet any challenge you wish to bestow upon me."

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K'jhanhi looked down at the girl for some time, silent, and then closed his eyes. A lukewarm breeze kicked up sand from a nearby dune, and he could feel the tiny grains brushing past his wrinkled skin. Letting out a long breath and standing like a frail pillar in the wind, K'jhanhi thought back to a time when he could have run along with that breeze, when the air itself had urged on life even as the heat of the desert sucked it away.

 

That time was passed, he thought, and opened his eyes to squint past K'ailia, at the odd, white beast behind her. A few members of the tribe stood near it, watching the unicorn with curiosity.

 

"I have seen enough, hunter," the former nunh, physically a shadow of what he had once been but with a mind still as sharp as the blade he had once used to battle the sire before him. He drew a breath and sought to make his voice carry, though it took more effort now than it once had, "The others will agree. You're no child any longer."

 

"We would welcome you home," came a second voice, crackling with age but pleased, and from behind him K'deiki stepped forward, her hunched form moving to stand at his side. "As a full member of our family."

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K'luha had fallen asleep for a short time beneath cool tent. It was more comfortable to lay in the dusty sand beneath that tent that it had been for all those times on those fluffy city beds. Of course, her comfort was short lived as a buzz of noise from the camp slowly grew until it awoke her. 

She grumbled softly and rolled over up onto her feet. Rubbing her eyes she slipped out of her tent and towards the noise without much of a thought, until the noise seemed to stop and she picked out the voices of her daughter and her grandfather. 

 

K'luha had to blink a few times to take in the scene. Her child on a... white unicorn? With an excitable chocobo and a dead Sundrake between them all. Not to mention her grandfather, and elder, K'jhanhi standing to examine her. 

 

Out of instinct, K'luha shoved her way towards the front of the crowd, pausing only when she realized her worse fears were indeed becoming realized. She halted sharply and slunk back a bit, watching with wide eyes and baited breath.

 

It wasn't long before K'jhnahi spoke, followed by K'deiki. K'luha looked between the two of them and back at K'ailia before carefully stepping back and slinking back towards her tent. Her daughter had really grown up...

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The unicorn bolted forward and blocked K'luha, as if saying 'nope you should be here'.

 

K'ailia looked to her mother and smiled, "Ma, why you leaving? I would love to have ya here." she said with excitement.

 

K'ailia then looked back to the elders. "I thank you for setting me on this path. Though I still feel strongly about the future of this tribe."

 

With that she turned and ran to her mother giving her a big hug.

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K'luha practically ran into the unicorn and came to another startling halt as it out of nowhere blocked her path. She blinked at it, eyeing it suspiciously only to hear heard daughter call out of her. She tried very hard not to jump and instead turn around with a somewhat guilty smile on her face. 

 

"Ah... yes... just... tired..." she mumbled in excuse, mostly to herself as K'ailia had already addressed the elders again. K'luha glanced to the Elders. They were her grandparents and yet... how could they send her on such a dangerous task? A Sundrake? That wasn't easy prey... 

 

K'luha had to blink again as she was forcefully knocked out of her musing this time by her daughter giving her a huge hug. K'luha's face eased into a weak smile and she hugged her daughter back tightly, pressing her face lightly into K'ailia shoulder. She tried very hard not to cry, although she wasn't sure if the urge was from sadness or joy.

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As the tribe cheers in celebration for K'ailia and inspecting the prey there is just one hunter splitting of. Looking to talk quietly to elder K'deiki.

 

"I observed the battle. Do you think she will we able to use this power? She needs guidance otherwise she will charge far past of what she aims or maybe even do harm." K'gori spoke quietly with concern in her voice.

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Turning from K'jhanhi and the newly-made huntress, K'deiki's worn brow crinkled at the one who had spoke. "You observed," she echoed, welcoming voice suddenly drawn down in thought. "From what I have seen, it is not unlike the healing some of our own have learned, though perhaps more... refined." Gnarled hands twisted on the staff she had pushed deep into the sand, and she cast her gaze back to K'ailia, the girl now locked in embrace with her mother.

 

"We can't afford to ignore the skills any of our brothers and sisters bring to us. But... perhaps you are right." She looked to K'jhanhi briefly, who only nodded. "Hunter she may be, but she is still young. And guidance is never uncalled for." Her thin shoulders, wrapped in cloth to guard her frail frame from the sun and sand, rose and fell in a deep, rattling sigh. When she spoke again, it was with great reluctance, as though the mere mention of it brought her distress.

 

"Were my daughter here, she could continue her lessons..."

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K'ailia smiled to her mother, "Nothin' needs to change ma. I am still me."

 

The Unicorn bowed its head to the two and trotted away. But the chocobo remained because the carcass was still attached to the harness.

 

"But I wont stop learnin'. I know there be stuff I still need ta learn.", Kailia smiled before heading with her mother back to their tent.

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