Homecoming [ semi-closed, Hipparon Tribe RP ]

[Twinflame]

"There's a disturbing trend with you, K'luha Haaz," K'takka hissed words as sharp as her claws. "People you lose do not come back. I'll be considering if K'makanee's daughter would be best placed with another woman, lest you lose her as well." The threat was hollow, she know, and she could foresee the voices of the other elders rising in protest. So she pushed on before they could, "However I reject your responsibility over the firedancer's disappearance. He is fool enough on his own; he does not need your help to err. It sounds like he chose to leave."

 

K'takka flicked her gaze to the other elders. "If he does not return soon we should send K'yohko after him. Who better to keep the Tia in line than the Nunh? My grandson will retrieve the trinkets that boy has absconded."

[Lyraciilee]

K'takka's words sent ice down her spice. People she lost... K'luha visibly cringed, twisting her tail until it burned lightly to ease the anxiety and pain off. She couldn't... putting Tahj with someone else? Luha looked helplessly to her Grandmother. Who would take in Tahj? She could... understand the elders wanted to put Tahj with someone else when K'luha had failed to raise K'ailia properly but... at the same time. It was her sister's daughter. She had... Maka would have wanted K'luha to raise her, wouldn't she of?

 

K'yohko going after K'ile? No, that wasn't... K'ile wouldn't survive. As much as K'luha had a certain grudged against the nunh, she respected his strength and unmoving nature. She somehow felt that K'ile wouldn't just... give back those trinkets... and she also felt K'yohko was not above ripping K'ile's arm off to retrieve them.

 

"No,no,no,no!" K'luha insisted fervently, shaking her head. "It IS my fault he left. I can find him. Just... K-k'ailia wanted her things back. Let me just go to Ul'dah. I-i'll give her her things and then I'll find K'ile. Please. Please? Grandmother, please. K'ile won't just hand them over, especially not to K'yohko. They have bad blood, you know that. Grandmother please... just let me... I can find him. I can fix this." K'luha pleaded desperately towards K'deiki. K'takka wouldn't listen to her, she seemed to have already made her decision, but maybe... maybe her Grandmother would listen. "Let me go... and you can decide who... who would raise Tahj the best. I won't object that but just... l-let me fix this."

 

 

K'yohko paused, his ears twitching lightly with the subtle shift of the wind. He watched Tahj enter the tent, and when she did not come out he peered inside. Alseep, so soon? She was rather young... not yet used to the heavy heat and stale air.

 

He made a silent promise to himself. He would be the one to teach her to hunt this time. She was his daughter, and he would pass on his knowledge to her. Perhaps that meant that he favored her, but it was not so in his mind. Only that she seemed the proper person in need to teaching.

 

And with that, he closed the tent's flap and walked back to the elder's tent. His ears picked up the sound of pleading and panic, but he crossed his arms in front of his chest and stood watch regardless. His eyes picked out the tracks of his family, K'zhumi and K'iara heading off to the desert. Perhaps to collect some much needed supplies. His eyes fell to the hunting females still in the process of skinning and smoking what meager meat they had for dinner. They would eat tonight. Perhaps not well, but food was food and K'yohko had seen worse.

[Naunet]

K'deiki did not respond immediately. Her weathered face was turned to the bone beads in the bowl, the elongated shadows they cast across the smooth, shallow surface, like soldiers set to march to war under the Warden. She sighed. None of their soldiers had returned the same, least of all their firedancer. Clouded eyes closed as her head bowed.

Surprisingly, it was not K'deiki who spoke first but K'jhanhi, the former nunh swaying away from the post he leaned against to lumber heavily over to K'luha, bare feet making subtle shiffing sounds in the sand. Both hands came to settle on her shoulders and faded yellow eyes squinted down at her from his still considerable height. "There are some things you must let go," he spoke slowly. There was a pause, where he let that statement settle and his age-thinned chest rose and fell with quiet breaths. "If they have both left willingly, then we will not suffer their foolishness. However... The matter with our firedancer must be resolved. As you wish to take responsibility for his problems, you will take responsibility for its solution. Go and find him, and if you cannot return his person, then strip from him the privileges he carries." He spoke none of this unkindly, but his tone did not leave room for argument.

[Lyraciilee]

K'luha watched her grandmother desperately, searching for a sign. A head nod, anything at all. If her hip was in better shape she would have gotten up and grabbed her grandmothers hand to beg further, but another figure caught her eye. K'jhanhi stood and lumbered towards her. K'luha held her breath, the anxiety making her dizzy.

 

"Grandfather...?" She half whispered as he pressed his hands to her shoulders heavily. K'luha could barely meet his gaze, embarrassed and frantic and so many emotions pulling her in all directions. She wanted to run and scream and beat them all up and she wanted to hug her Grandmother and sob and she wanted to grab Tahj and K'ailia and tell them what they met to her and...

 

Her mind quieted to listen to her Grandfather's words. Must... let go?

 

'No... no please... I let go of so many... must I let go of more?' K'luha thought, her mouth opening but the words refusing to come forth. Her brothers, her son, her daughter, her aunt, so many of her own family and now she was supposed to let go of K'ile as well? She couldn't... she didn't want to. K'luha wouldn't. She wouldn't let go of K'ailia or K'ile. They were too precious little of what family she held close. If she just kept letting of, soon there would be no one but herself standing in the middle of the desert with nothing but sorrow, and then she would be swallowed whole by it.

 

But K'jhanhi spoke further and K'luha could have almost hugged him. But his stern words still sent chills down her spine. A nod of her head was all she could do at first, but after a moment she pressed her hands to her face and inhaled shakily.

 

"Y-yes I... I will take responsibility for this... I'll... I-i'll find him. K'ile will c-come home. I'll... I bring back... I'll bring back both. K'ile and the trinket. He'll come with me. I can... he will." K'luha stumbled over her words, still feeling dizzy. The weight of her new responsibility was weighing heavily onto her shoulders. She had to... to lie down for a time. Before she could collect K'ailia's things and... and go back to Ul'dah. Maybe there would be some way to find him in Ul'dah. Maybe... She had to hope. She had to pray Azyema would bring K'ile to her. "I will bring both back with me." K'luha asserted a final more certain time, her head raising to look back at her Grandfather with defiant eyes.

[Naunet]

After Dalamud fell from the sky and fire had overtaken them, K'deiki had prayed that their family would need not suffer loss again. She had spent many hours with her weary bones bent in supplication, and for five years, they had lived in something resembling peace. A hard won peace.

 

She did not want to be the one who declared more lost, not this time.

 

When the ancient woman, mother and grandmother to so many lost already, lifted her head to meet K'luha's gaze, there was a heavy sorrow in her wrinkled face. "Do whatever you can to bring them back," the words breathed out from her frail lungs and hung in the air as delicate and ephemeral as footsteps in sand. Once she spoke, she returned her attention to the beads and her prayers. They would need their Warden's guardianship much in the coming days.