Illness in the Flavor of Grief [story, ooc welcome]

[Twinflame]

Luha spent the rest of the day saying nothing and trying to sleep, with mixed amounts of success. Although she hadn't actually heard any news from the tribe, she had already resigned herself to the inevitable outcome. Why had K'ile invited K'ailia back to the tribe? To face what it meant to leave? It didn't matter what he was thinking when he did that anymore. It didn't matter what was said when K'aila went back. She would be refused as family and she would go back to Ul'dah. To the family she had chosen for herself. 

 

It was late when K'luha looked up to the starry night sky above her. The darkness above was a good mirror for how she felt. A sort of dark chasm had swallowed her, and despite the bright stars of light that lingered there, it was still abyssmally dark. She was trying not to be that person. She was trying not to fall apart again, to be a stronger person and get over it all. K'ile seemed to think she should just get over it. So why was it that she couldn't? Maybe if she had been K'piru, K'ile might have been sensitive enough to help her, but she wasn't and he wasn't. 

 

All thinking of 'ifs' did was depress her more about the state of affairs. Luha vaguely wished in the back of her mind that her hip would just break the rest of her and end all of this nonsense. But it was a stupid thought and not something Luha could or would act on again.

 

Unsure how to go about instructing the chocobo to stop (if Luha had told him, he had forgotten), K'ile simply allowed the Chocobo to walk until the felt like stopping, which was a good while after dark, but whatever. They'd gotten a late start and it wasn't him walking. Stupid chocobo could walk as late as they wanted.

 

Likewise, K'ile did not think about his feelings. Things were precisely as he had communicated to K'luha. They were no more complicated or simple than that, and that wouldn't change until something happened to change it. He didn't have anything to say to Luha about it, or about anything else. That was a bit bothersome, because he felt like he usually did, but then he also felt like Luha was usually the one to initiate the talking, so he wasn't sure.

 

Shortly after the chocobo stopped, their heads sagging in tiredness, K'ile stood and cast his gaze around their surroundings. There was no clear shelter, jsut rocks and rocks and some bigger rocks next to stones. Typical Thanalan. He stood at the front of the cart, looked back to Luha, and gestured to the land around them, "We've can have any campsite we want. No competition tonight."

 

K'luha was quiet for a time even after K'ile spoke. Any campiste she wanted? There were none that she wanted anymore. Even home sounded hollow and uninviting. It was better than Ul'dah, but not good. Her children were dead, or as good as dead. And it was her fault both times. She'd hurt everyone around her without meaning to, and broken the strongest connection she'd felt before. Namely that of the one with K'ile. Maybe K'ile didn't think the same, but what he said to her in Ul'dah had been something like a final goodbye. But he was right at least.

 

She wasn't K'piru. And she could expect no support from K'ile. At least, not the support she wanted or needed.

 

"You're setting it up. Pick what you want." Luha answered finally in a quiet but bland voice.

 

 "Setting it up?" K'ile parroted. "Just parking the cart and pulling out the blankets. Maybe making dinner. Maybe. Anyway. That's a nice rock!" He pointed, then urged the chocobo in that direction, looking for a place to tie the birds off. He supposed he should feed them or something. If he didn't, they would be too think to eat well before getting home.

 

K'luha shrugged vaugely at the retort and said no more. A nice rock? They were all the same. Luha mentally berated herself or being so stuck. She should be better than this. She shouldn't be so depressed, so resigned, so... hopeless. Even trying not to be, she was. Luha sighed heavily. If she was just with K'ile and as long as she didn't say anything, maybe it was fine to wallow in her misery for awhile.

 

Tying the tired birds side-by-side to a hefty stone, K'ile walked around to the back of the cart, standing by K'luha and smiling at her to say, "Actually, the only blankets we have the ones strapped down with you. So in order to unpack them I have to unpack you first."

 

K'luha opened her eyes when she felt K'ile hovering in front of her. It did not lighten her spirits to know they were poorly provisioned for this trip either. The only thing between her and extreme pain of jostling where the blankets, and thus they were going to be removed from her to keep them both from freezing in the night. Fabulous. 

 

"Got it." K'luha replied, trying very very hard not to sound as disheartened as she felt.

 

"It's kinda silly to pretend like you can spend all your time on this board. It's good for traveling, but..." K'ile pulled some folds of blankets out of the way to begin taking off the straps that held K'luha and the blankets in place.

 

 "Well, I didn't strap myself to it...." K'luha replied somewhat bitterly before she could stop herself. Of course she bit her lip shut quite suddenly after she'd opened her mouth, and inwardly swore for talking again.

 

Working the straps was quick and easy for K'ile, because they were his after all, usually slung around his shoulders. As he pulled them off, he said, "How're you feeling."

 

K'luha just looked away. She felt compelled to answer, and at the same time she felt as if she shouldn't answer. After a few moments she stopped biting down on her bottom lip and muttered a quiet, "Awful."

 

Setting the straps aside, leaning against the cart, almost putting a hand on one of K'luha's legs then awkwardly changing his mind and crossing his arms and then letting them drop and finally pulling on one ear K'ile said, "Anything I can do to make you feel better?"

 

Wouldn't a normal person just get over these sorts of things? Couldn't a normal person just get over some hurtful words and two dead or as good as dead children? Probably. Luha finally looked up towards K'ile when he asked if there was anything he could do and found herself ina dilemma. Would she hurt his feelings if she said no? Last time she'd been upset and tried to talk to him about it he'd gone and run off. She didn't trust herself with words now. Everything she said just seemed to be wrong. Luha parted her lips to speak but no words came and she ended up looking helplessly at K'ile.

 

Waiting patiently for awhile, K'ile just shrugged, "I'll start with a fire and dinner and go from there. You want to stay in the cart or move down to sit by where I'm going to put the fire?"

 

"Ah... whatever's easier for you..." K'luha ended up saying, feeling disheartened again. Did K'ile even recognize her struggle? Or did he just not care? Was she so beyond help that even the person who claimed to love her like that not bother? The thought didn't do anything to aid her spirits.

 

K'ile shook his head, "Doesn't matter to me either way. It's not about me."

 

"Sure it is." Luha replied back without much thought, giving another shrug. "You're stuck taking me back after all. I can't do anything... nothing..." Luha trailed off after a moment, seeimingly stuck on the depressing idea of nothingness. But she cleared her throat after a second and tried not to act so pathetically. "So just whatever is easier." She finished.

 

Crossing his arms, this time for more than half a second, K'ile said, "I thought you were the one sent to bring me back, not the other way around."

 

"I... I was. But I wasn't so much send as I did beg for them to send me and not K'yohko..." Luha glanced away, rubbing her shoulder uncomfortably. "But I also ran into the desert and nearly killed myself. Multiple times. And my daughter would literally chose anyone over me and is the equivalent of dead to my family so... I don't think I've really 'brought' you back so much as I have caused trouble for everyone and acted like a complete child.... So please just... whatever's easier for you." K'luha sighed and kept her eyes on the sand, away from K'ile's.

 

K'ile made a face and said a bit too easily, "I don't think you've done anything wrong." He blinked, shook his head, said, "Well, no, not taking care of your hip like you should've was pretty dumb. But that's not really, like, a big moral crime or anything."

 

"I've done something wrong when everyone would chose another person over you..." Luha muttered and immediately regretted saying it. She had been thinking that for a long time. How could K'aila choose Ul'dahns over her? How could K'ile pick K'piru over her consistantly? Why was it that pretty much everyone had someone they preferred over her? Maybe it wasn't fair to say K'ile had chosen K'piru over her. After all, he hadn't stayed in Ul'dah with her. But reguardless of how fair it was to feel that way, she still felt that way. 

 

Luha crossed her arms over her chest as her ears flattened against her head. She pulled her shoulders up close to her had as well and turned her head away from K'ile again, ashamed. "I shouldn't have said that... forget about it."

 

"Lots of people make bad decisions. Especially about other people." He lifted his arm up, brought his bracelet into view, touched the band with his fingers. The small red stones glowed very briefly in response. "All of these stones belonged to people I loved. Some of them I wasn't as nice to as I should've been. Maybe one I was a bit too close to. Now I miss them all the same."

 

"K'ailia would rather be with anyone else. You would rather be with K'piru. Tahj would rather have her mother. Everyone I know would prefer me to be somebody else. I only wish I could give you all what you want. Because it's not me." Luha mumbled so quietly K'ile might not have even heard, but she pulled herself closer against the board she had been strapped to all the same.

 

K'ile rolled his eyes, reached out and took K'luha's hand, the glowing light from his bracelet illuminating both of their fingers for a moment. Then, deftly, his opposite hand slid the bracelt from his wrist and onto hers. "I wouldn't let K'piru wear this. Not even for a second."

 

K'luha hesitantly glanced back to K'ile when she felt his hand taken her own. She was confused for a few moments. Her fingers felt warm, warmer than they should have if K'ile was just holding her hand. She glanced to their hands and noticed the braclet as he spoke. 

 

It felt strange to have the beads around her wrist. They somehow felt warm, but not unpleasantly so. K'luha sniffled a bit, her eyes watering up but she tried hard to keep it back. She tugged lightly on his hand like she wanted him closer and sniffled again.

 

Once more, K'ile shifted uncomfrotably. Offering the bracelet was the most extreme gesture he could think of, short of cutting off his tail and giving it to her. If that wasn't going to help, he wasn't sure what he would try next.

 

When she pulled on his hand, he leaned closer to her, but felt a bit off-center doing so.

 

K'luha tried not to knock K'ile over, but she wasn't really sure how good his foothold was. But he was close enough now that she could loosely wrap her aroms around him and hug him. She wanted to bury her head into his shoulder, but he simply wasn't close enough, so she settled for the somewhat awkward hug.

 

K'ile turned the hug as best he could manage to while also trying not to hurt her hips. "I'd build the fire in the cart if I didn't know better. So you can stay up here and be cold all night or you can sleep with me down by the fire."

 

"No... I'll sleep with you." Luha mumbled in return before biting her bottom lip.

 

"Okay. Just need to figure out how to move you without hurting you. I can't really carry you on this board all on my own."

 

"Just take me off the board then. It'll be okay. It honestly can't get any worse so. It'll be okay."

 

"I'll just cradle you really careful," Kile said, moving his arms so that he could grip her around her back and under her knees.

 

K'luha nodded and closed her eyes tightly, preparing for what was sure to be painful. She took the moment to hold her breath as well, hoping for some reason that would help stifle the pain.

 

Hesitating in thought for a moment, K'ile swifty kissed K'luha's cheek and then moved her in the very next moment, keeping most of her weight against his body, so that it wasn't bearing down too much on her hips.

 

Luha surprised by the kiss. So surprised she momentarily forgot about being moved. Or at least, didn't notice it until he had already moved her. Of course, it was still painful and she inhaled sharply as the pain hit her. But it wasn't so bad. K'ile was getting good at moving her around without a lot of pain now.

 

He didn't move her far. Just to the side of the cart, to a flat space between it and a number of man-sized rocks, and there he set her down on the ground.

 

Luha hissed faintly and gripped K'ile tightly, only letting go to be cooperative as he set her down. At least it wasn't far, although the ground wasn't particularly comfortable. "Thanks..." Luha managed a weak murmur as she tried to recover from the move.

 

Releasing her, K'ile walked to the cart and took hold of the blankets and pillows that had been used to keep K'luha (somewhat) comfortable all day, and tossed them to her. "I'm going to go scrounge up some wood for a fire."

 

K'luha let the blankets land on her and carefully drew them up around after a moment's hesitation. "Alright." She called in response. It wasn't like she could help, even though she wanted to. So instead she settled for examining the beads around her wrist and wondering how one got them to set things on fire.

 

Thanalan was not yet a full desert, but it was very dry, and so finding a decent amount of dry wood was no problem. K'ile uprooted an entire dead shrub which smelled of sweet spices and collected a number of gnarled limbs for kindling, and bringing them back and setting them in front of K'luha. This only took a few minutes for him to do, and hten he was building a small pyre of kindling a few feet away from K'luha. "A warm fire will make anything feel better. Literally anything."

 

 K'luha had managed to not set herself, or anything else really, on fire while playing with the beads. She glanced over as best she could went K'ile returned and gave a short nod.

 

Once he had the wood stacked so that plenty of air could get between the collected branches and the fire would burn upward and toward the center, K'ile took a dead limb he had set aside and, smiling, gave it a flick. When nothing happened, he looked vexed and flicked it again.

 

Then his ears bounced, "Oh!" And he turned to K'luha.

 

K'luha glanced back at K'ile, who was now looking at her with a dead branch. ".... Could I try?" She asked sheepishly.

 

K'ile quirked his expression and said, "I don't know if I'm allowed to teach you. The stones are for... I'm kind of misusing them half the time in the first place..."

 

"Please?" K'luha pleaded, giving him her best sad kitten face. It was a pretty good sad kitten face too. The kind that screamed 'love me and let me bend you to my will.'

 

Waiting for several long seconds, K'ile eventually muttered, "I guess it couldn't hurt too much," he stepped over and extended the stick towards K'luha, "It only works with rigid, dead wood."

 

Luha smiled and reached up to grab the stick. Rigid dead wood huh? So no wonder she wasn't setting on fire earlier. "And you just flick...?" She mumbled. She had watched K'ile do it plenty and tried emulating the motion.

 

"It's a rhythm thing. It's part of the dance," K'ile spun and took up another stick he'd set aside. "It's in the wrist. It's in the whole arm actually. All the way to your shoulder. You chest a bit too. Maybe like the whole dance, sort of..."

 

He made a face, sighed.

 

"It's like this," K'ile said, rolling his shoulder, then rolling that gesture down his arm, into his wrist, and the stick laggered in his fingers a bit before twitching to one side. "Fwoosh."

 

"Kind of hard to use my shoulder and chest like this but, I can try..." Luha huffed a bit and tried it again, with little success. She tried it a lot more times and grew frustrated. Still, she didn't want to just give up and kept attempting it.

 

"It's a dance step," K'ile said. "It's the first dance step. Imagine there's a drum in your chest, and then tis struck and it chakes all the way down your arm. And you want to move the stick so that it kicks back as if to hit on the next beat."

 

Luha grumped and made a face, trying it yet again. Multiple agains. And the stick did nothing. Eventually she huffed irritably and flicked it hard enough that perhaps out of sheer anger it faintly began burning. Less of a fire and more of the very beginnings of one, but it was something!

 

K'ile chuckled at her, and said, "It's not about how hard you hit it. It's about rhythm. Music!"

 

Luha pursed her lips, ears flattening. "Ah well. It's kind of hard to do like this but... maybe one of these days I'll get it right." She reached up a bit and moved to hand the smoldering branch to K'ile. "I would keep trying, but it's starting to hurt my hip."

 

"Yeah, don't do that," K'ile stepped forward, crouched down, took the stick and cupped his hand around one of the smoldering ends of the stick. Blowing on it to keep it hot and cause it to smolder more, K'ile took it and went to the fire.

 

Luha smiled faintly and reached down to rub at her hip. "Yeah, I know."

 

Lighting the fire in a more traditional, less magical way, even if only slightly, felt strang to K'ile. His wrist felt bare, and he felt sort of vulnerable, as if he had been disrmed. Still, he was able to get a small fire to catch and put it into the kindling, where it began to grow.

 

The warmth of the growing fire was nice against the encroaching freeze of the wasteland. Luha shivered a bit and pulled the covers more tightly around her. Maybe someday she could keep one of the beads from the bracelet, but for now... mayhems not.

[Twinflame]

The further they got from Ul'dah, the less K'ile mourned the family that he'd departed from. He glanced in the general direction he though the city was, inhaled, sighed. He could still smell his niece's scent lingering about the cart where she'd ridden or placed her hands. It was like the echo of a scent, something he could make out this far from the city. It was weak, though.

 

He mourned less, but as he looked back north, he frowned more deeply. The cessation of his mourning was not acceptance, but instead forgetting. In his mind, K'airos and K'piru were already becoming less real. As if Ul'dah existed in a dream, and he were awakening back into a world where they were still dead.

 

K'ile found himself breathing heavy, ears dipping lower, tail lazier in its motions. As he learned better how to guide the Chocobo, he noticed her could leave them walk on their own for periods of time. During such times he would move back in the cart, closer to K'luha. He could breathe easier when he ws closer to her, even as sad as she was. And he was beginning to notice that she was very sad.

 

"We're going to do alright, Luha," he said to her at once such point, as they moved slowly through the migrating dunes. He meant it more as self-assurance, hoping that maybe, if she concurred, he might actually be able to convince himself.

 

Things were taking a great toll of K'luha. She was paying for her foolish behavior in a way more terrible than being strapped to a board. Most of the journey, she spent asleep. And when she was awake she still felt as if she were asleep. And it began to seem as if it was all just feverish dreaming. 

 

And when she began dreaming in her sickened sleep, she lost track of when things were a dream and when it was real. K'luha had lost her perception of time and space and people in the deafening pain and silence of her prison. 

 

Occasionally she felt as if something solid was nearby to grasp, but mostly she felt sick. And it was at some time or place during this strange void that Luha thought she heard someone say something to her. But her voide was stuck somewhere she didn't know anymore, and didn't seem to reply at all, but to let her head kind of fall forward with the movement of the carriage.

 

Lingering on the top of the items they were shipping home, K'ile watched the Chocobo who were lazily walking along. The dunes were simple, and even though these particular birds hadn't yet figured out how to keep their footing on the sand, it was practically impossible for them to crash or overturn the carriage for at least a few miles.

 

So he diverted his attention away from them, to K'luha, moving to where she was at the back of the carriage. He hated the way the job of driving separated him from her; he was not a person who was meant to be alone, either in illusion or in fact, and for some reason that extra yalm of distance had been weighing on him. He hadn't been able to get a clear look at her from where he'd been sitting, and she hadn't responded to him in some time.

 

As K'ile made his way to her, he moved one of the crates so that it was between the sun and the woman, putting her face in merciful shadow. He took a water skin from where it sat atop one of the casks that K'airos had given them.

 

"Luha, hey," he said. "Are you doing alright back here? You've been kind of quiet."

 

To K'ile, there were in the open dunes, but from K'luha's point of view they were travelling through the valley she had seen once as a child. A valley she had knocked her brothers and sisters into with huge thick rib bones spearing through the endless sand. The dunes rose high above them on either side that suddenly cast a shadow on her face, easing the burning sun off of her face. 

 

And as they travelled K'luha could make out the moaning and suffering forms of her family left behind. Her brothers and her exiled sister, her aunts and uncles, and extended family. Their forms burned and screamed and moaned around as they carriage ever moved forward in an uneasing motion. As if it were a boat crossing an ocean of sand unto oblivion. And far off in the distance, she saw the form of her daughter. And it was all she could do to watch the mangled form of what she thought would be her son rise from the depths of the sand and drag her daughter down as well. 

 

But in reality, none of these were true. K'luha just remained glassy eyed and silent to K'ile's question.

 

Figuring maybe she was overheated, K'ile opened the water skin and poured some water over her forehead and the bidge of her nose.

 

K'luha didn't seem to react for a few moments. Until she lifted her head with a small start, jolted out of whatever she had been enduring. She blinked a few times as water dripped down her forehead and nose onto her chest. Luha didn't immediately recognize K'ile and half stared at him strangely for a moment.

 

"Hey, I know your arms aren't broken." K'ile reached down and pulled one of K'luha's hands up, putting it to the water skin, "Drink some. You look dehydrated or something."

 

Luha looked slowly towards the water skin. Her arms offered no resistance to K'ile's direction. But also didn't stay up, instead sort of limply dropping back down to her side and hanging there.

 

Looking a bit annoyed, K'ile took up the water skin and put it to K'luha's lips to pour some into her mouth, pressing her head back as he did so. "Come on, don't get all dramatic on me."

 

Luha didn't fight K'ile on this matter either. Out of sheer instinct, she swallowed the water. But she still didn't reply to K'ile.

 

"There you go." He closed up the skin and and set it at Luha's side, against her leg. "Drink a bit more or you'll start feeling worse. Hear?"

 

Luha did not hear. Or reply. Her head simply dropped down going limp, as if she had gone back to sleep.

 

K'ile watched Luha in silence for a long moment, putting a hand against her cheek to support her head. He sighed, leaned forward and put his face beside hers, muttering into her ear, "Are you alright, Luha?"

 

K'luha murmured faintly at the question, but her murmuring was unintelligible and muffled at best. Her ears flicked slowly in opposite directions, as if even her most natural of insticts were confused and drowsy.

 

"I'll get you home soon," K'ile said, petting one side of K'luha's head and kissing the other, before pulling away from her. "We'll be fine."

 

This earned another small unintelligible murmur before Luha's ears confused moved again.

 

Unhappily, K'ile stood away from K'luha, saying, "Make sure you drink some water," before crawling back up to the front of the carriage just in time to keep the Chocobo from catching the yolk on one of the large rib-bones sticking up out of the sand.

 

Luha weakly lifted her heavy head. Her eyes tried to focus on the land passing by them. The sand was slowly rising to high dunes besides them. And from the high dunes, surrounding them on either side were bones. Thick and enormous, stabbing through the sands. Taken aback, Luha's ears flattened against her head, and she looked clusmily to either side.

 

"You guys be more careful," K'ile was saying to the chocobo, figuring he might as well make a habit of talking to things that didn't respond, since he was doing it so much lately. "I really shouldn't have to check in on you guys every two minutes. Your worse at this than I am."

 

As they ventured further, the dunes rose so high it blocked the the sun until it was mottled and shining faintly on them through the thick bones poking through sand up ahead. The area was eerie, covered in bones and strangely enough quills. Luha felt a cold chill through her body as they moved forward. This wasn't a place they should be. It wasn't a place they should go. 

 

She opened her mouth to try and talk. To protest, but her lips refused to utter sound. But the fear creeping up her spine and into her head forced her to try again, sputtering and hissing until she could managed the word, 

 

"Back."

 

Trying to figure out what to do with the reins on the Chocobo, one of K'ile's ears twitched and he looked around in mild confusion, as though he'd heard something strange on the wind. He looked up at the rising dunes, around at the bones, glanced back behind them but not at Luha specifically.

 

Mumbled and stuttering through her voice, Luha pursed her lips and said it again, most insitantly. 

 

"Back."

 

K'ile finally looked at Luhua, knitting his brow. "What?"

 

"Back." She repeated hoarsely.

 

"Back what?"

 

K'luha's ears flattened again and her head sort of limply rolled over onto her shoulder. "Back..." She repeated more faintly, as if talking was incredibly taxing.

 

Turning a bit more around, K'ile held his hands up in gesture for emphasis, "What are you talking about? Really?"

 

As if to answer for Luha, there was a loud and dark snarl that echoed through the shadow tomb of the unknown. K'luha seemed to faintly cringe at the noise, but didn't speak further.

 

K'ile turned back to the front of the carriage, gazing into the duned shadows. The desert was so bright around them that the bone-decorated value seemed especially dark, the Seeker's eyes not adapting very well to the dark. What he had heard he usually would've smelled first, but now that he had, he couldn't miss it.

 

He pulled on the reins of the chocobo, "Stop for a second," the creatures protesting the gesture because apparently he hadn't done it right. He didn't really have time for that though. He hauled on the rains hard enough to pull the necks on the Chocobo back, making them stumble. "I said stop!"

 

Putting botht he reins in one hand and taking his spear from the cart in the other, K'ile jumped down to pull the chocobo sideways and force them to turn around.

 

There was another grumbling noise, almost like snoring, and a faint breeze through the valley. Luha shivered again.

 

Getting the chocobo to urn the carriage around, he pulled the birds forward and had them start walking back out the way they came in. The valley wasn't a place that K'ile was familiar with, but not matter how tempting a walk in the shade was, it wasn't worth getting turned around and dealing with unknowns. They'd go around.

 

The further they got out of the valley the less whatever it was in there growled. And finally Luha faintly perked her ears when she could feel a bit of sunlight on her again.

 

Once K'ile felt the warmth of the sun agitating the sunbruns across his shoulders , neck and cheeks, he clambered back up onto his carraige and lay his spear across it. He stood, staring back into the valley as the chocobo walked away from it, and muttered, "Guess that place must have a den or two."