No More Searching [retro RP, mostly closed]

[Twinflame]

((Retro RP based on retro RP. There's this thread over here for context.))

 

It was hard not to feel responsible. But it was so strange to admit guilt without the sensation of mourning to go along with it. He admitted his fault to himself as though he'd stepped off the wrong path, or misplaced an item which had very little actual value. He was sorry, but he was offhandedly sorry, and he didn't know if he was capable of feeling any other way.

 

K'aijeen Thalen was gone, probably dead, and K'ile Tia was the last person who had seen her alive. He'd released her from the rack at the center of town just before dawn, and her dehydrated, exhausted body had slipped from the ropes with a stubborn silence that belied the obvious pain which was pulling her body down. The way her limbs and tail had dropped under their own meager weight, seemingly thinner than they had been the day before, had made the child appear on the verge of collapsing. Her voice and eyes had been dark, small, when she'd muttered, "I need to be left alone. I will return to mother after I've had time to think."

 

"That's fine," K'ile had said to her, his tone empty of pity. It was the voice of the man chosen to enforce the rules, to punish the wrongdoers of the tribe, and not the voice of an uncle to his chided niece. She stood humiliated, and he was the one who had perpetrated it, if only by impersonal necessity.

 

His voice had been so much softer when he'd released K'airos from her rack moments later. There was familial care there, which K'aijeen had apparently not warranted. K'ile Tia's only explanation was that he was wicked in a place deep in his heart, so perfectly concealed that even he could only discern it after the passage of unkind actions and words.

 

It had been three days now since there had been any sign of K'aijeen Thalen. The tribe had begun to search when she did not turn up for any meals the day she had been released from the rack. It felt like they had searched ceaselessly since then, in the tribe, outside the tribe, at the girl's known haunt in the stony mountains where she had engaged in dark magic with childish ignorance. And yet they had not found so much as a single hair from her red tail, a single footprint from her thin feet.

 

K'ile had led several of the search parties himself. When word had come from the elders that they would be moving the tribe in search of water soon, and that the search parties would need to cease, K'ile had stopped sleeping and begun seeking in all his time. But now he walked home, as sunset reddened the sands on the third and final day. Azeyma's light burnt his skin, turned it red and dry and ugly as a beast's, and he accepted that. He envied his brother, the Nunh, for his children and the love of his women, but K'ile Tia had lost one of those children and did not mourn. He felt only wickedness and trepidation.

 

Coming home empty-handed, his spear feeling like a heated iron rod upon his back, K'ile watched the sand disturbed by his footsteps. His hair hung over his features like blades of dried, red grass. His eyes recessed like stagnant pools. His arms and fingers hung as though distended. K'ile Tia had led the very last of the search parties. There would be no more searching, or hope, or deluding oneself into thinking she might be found. His feet would not take him back to his own tent yet.

 

He would go first to the tent of the shaman, K'piru Jhanhi, to tell her that her daughter had not been found and there would be no more searching. K'ile did not feel sadness for having lost K'aijeen, nor would he miss her, but he did not want to tell K'piru that her daughter was dead.

[Naunet]

Bowls and sticks and other odds and ends required by the tribe's shaman clattered within the tent as K'piru scrambled within it, her tail twitching uncontrollably behind her and occasionally knocking items to the ground. A string of bone beads and dried wood quivered between her fingers, the thin digits shaking in her field of vision as they sifted through this salve, that powder, this water skin, that warding fetish. Items gathered on a skin spread out in the middle of the room, rough rope woven into its edges that would serve to draw it shut around its intended contents.

 

No one who had gone looking for her daughter had returned with anything more than apology and empty air and the weariness of hours spent under Azeyma's glare. And though news had reached her only reluctantly, she was wholly aware of her tribe's present need to move on. K'thalen had spoke as much to her, the night before when they both lay awake together in the shadows of the tent, hidden from the tribe, though not hidden from worry.

 

K'piru, however, was not prepared to move on. Not yet. Not ever.

 

A small sound caught in her throat as a few fetishes slipped from her hands, their angular, knotted forms scattering in the sand at her feet, and she knelt immediately to retrieve them. K'aijeen was playing a cruel game, she thought. A heartless and painful one, but like all games it would come to an end. And K'piru would be there for her return.

[Twinflame]

The disordered scene that greeted K'ile Tia was... unexpected. There was still enough callousness in him to be surprised by the chaos that had fallen upon the Shaman's tent. He should have expected it. That the death of a daughter would so disturb the shaman, that K'piru's normally orderly tent had been thrown into a tumult; one's home is a reflection of one's mind, after all.

 

He brushed open the tent and leaned in. The scent of those who spent time within, of K'piru and of his brother, K'thalen Nunh, of K'piru's children and even the linger scent of K'aijeen, had a twisted and sweet smell to it that turned his stomach. It was like rot. It was like the fluid squeezed out of succulents after it had been left in the sun for days on end. It was an old smell. These emotions, this turn of events, had been waiting to show itself like a voidsent might await the new moon to arise and haunt.

 

"K'thalen isn't here," K'ile Tia's first observation slipped from his lips predictably. It had been a selfish wish. His nose could almost smell out the silhouette of where his brother had lain prior, comforting the shaman as was his talent. It was not a talent that K'ile Tia shared. Handing the news off to K'thalen would have been so much simpler.

 

"I'd thought -- hoped -- I'd find him here." The Tia stepped into the tent, saw the actions of the Shaman trying to function through the disorder. Her movements reminded her of travelers, heads ducked against the wind, lurching stubbornly through a sandstorm that others had sought shelter from. "What are you preparing?"

[Naunet]

"He's gone to help the children pack our meat stores," K'piru murmured, barely reacting to K'ile's entrance save for a backwards swivel of her ears. Their ruddy brown fur had begun to grey at the tips, and the grey spots pointed towards K'ile like eyes. Which was all well and good - that the tia was here likely meant... she did not want him to see her face right now.

 

She did not want to look at the man who would tell her her child was gone.

 

Her tail drew thin lines in the sand as she bowed over her hurried collection and began to pull the skin up around it. Her vision blurred but she blinked it away. She didn't answer his question immediately, if she intended to answer it at all.

[Twinflame]

Stepping into the tent and letting the flap shut behind him, he glanced at the last sliver of light as the skin pushed it away. I would have been better if it were a tone falling into place. The walls felt thin to the point of being nonexistent. He felt exposed in the sun and wind, with Azeyma watching him. The sun glared through the tent, waiting for him to show some sign of remorse.

 

He turned his gaze to the shaman's back. She seemed almost thinner than the cloth walls. "You know if I had good news someone would've told you by now. There isn't so much as a footprint. We aren't going out again tonight. We are resting so that we're all ready to leave in the morning."

[Naunet]

"I understand," her voice came out as nearly a whisper, and after she pulled in a shaky breath as she drew on the rope about the skin to cinch it shut, hiding the various objects inside from view.

 

K'aijeen had always been good at hiding, at only being found when she wanted to be found. Except for that one time, four nights ago that seemed like a year already. Her throat tightened around her next words, "K'zhumi and K'ailia are... learning well. They can help K'eyrah if there... if anything happens on the road."

[Twinflame]

The Tia's head felt hot, as though the sun were bearing down on him. He looked up at the roof of the tent, and his face burned. There was no light. The fire seemed to be inside of him. He flicked his wrist and the stone tied there flickered, full of sparks eager for release. If he were wise he'd wait until the morning, when he, K'ada, and the other firedancers would bless the migration, and there release the fire pent up inside him.

 

The ambivalence of his guilt and callousness was like a kiln behind his eyes, shaken when he shifted on his injured leg, spilling fire down his neck. He rubbed his face with on hand, dirty from a day spent in the desert. "And what about you, K'piru? You're not our only shaman, but you're the shaman to many of us. I won't be looking for K'eyrah when my leg starts acting up. I'll be looking for you."

[Naunet]

The rough texture of twine and tanned hide brushed her nose as K'piru ducked her head, spine hunching forward in a lonely display of supplication. But to who? Azeyma's light seemed so dim; it could not reach the shadows in this tent.

 

"I'll be along with Aijeen soon enough," she breathed, voice paper thin, dry as the dust beneath her feet, and felt her fingers securing knots in the twine to hold the pack closed. "She only needs some time. I can wait for her."

[Twinflame]

"K'piru." The Tia dropped his hand from his face, letting it smack against his thigh. The action was simple, harmless, but it felt violent. It twisted something inside his chest. He could feel emotion, something other than callousness or guilt, slithering up his throat. It tasted like burnt meat covered in too much Ul'dahn spice. His mouth felt like he'd been licking stones.

 

"There's no food or water missing," K'ile felt his ears lay down on his head like bodies falling, exhausted, among the dunes. "If she's in the tribe she hasn't eaten or had anything to drink in days. There are no signs of traps in the desert, and there's nothing filling to scavenge this time of year. She's not in the camp, and she's not near the camp. Unless Azeyma has given her shelter out where we know there is no shelter to be had..."

[Naunet]

"You cannot tell me to give up on my daughter," the words grated out suddenly, choked, spat. Fingers that displayed their growing age in the prominence of knuckles and faint veins closed tight about the pack. 

 

Her tail lashed, its brown and grey peppered fur flicking in and out of a thin line of light from the front of the tent. The cloth about her shoulders, white accented with bright bursts of color that were dim in the tent, drew taught, shivering. Her vision blurred again, but she did not try to clear it. "You can't do that. I told you not to put her up there. I told you--"

[Twinflame]

"I know you did." His fingers felt like iron weights fused to his hand, holding him stoically in place. K'ile's tone and features were unwavering. "Nobody's going to allow you to linger alone in the sand, and for how long? She would not reveal herself. Perhaps if it were Thalen, and if she was present. But she isn't. She's gone."

[Naunet]

She felt as though a great boulder was crushing her chest, as though sand had choked its way down her throat to churn in a gravely mess in her stomach, as though Azeyma's pitiless gaze had seared her eyes from their sockets. It mixed with the fear of what her daughter had done, the anger at the girl's defiance, the grief at her hateful words and rejection and left her nauseous. K'piru spun, releasing her grip on the makeshift pack to lash out at the tia behind her. "You can't tell me that!" She shrieked, voice cracking.

 

"You found nothing - nothing! You don't know what's happened--what she's--where she's gone, because you found nothing! You know nothing!" The words tore from her throat breathlessly, shaking her limbs. "If she were gone, you'd find--you'd..." A sob cut off her voice then, an angry, violent noise.

[Twinflame]

"If she were gone we would find nothing." The pitiless drone of his words, like a yawn, would have infuriated him coming from any other voice but his own. He swallowed, as though his attitude were as simply contained as an illness might be. His wrist flicked again; he barely noticed it. Fire churned in his ribs and arms. What was he burning for?

 

"Leaving the tribe on one's own is suicide. It is true for you the same as it is for her." He eyed the bag she had dropped, doubting it contained sufficient supplies to give her a chance at so much as one day in the desert, even in the remains of an abandoned camp. "You wouldn't leave your daughters, would you?"

[Naunet]

"I'm no untried child! I know how to survive for a few days--a few days! I just need to wait for..." Her voice broke again, and her green eyes shook with emotion as they looked upon K'ile's silhouette, his blue eyes strangely bright in the shadows. K'aijeen was a smart girl. Clever in her wickedness. She must have gone to the cliffs, hidden her trail, and she would leave no trail when climbing over rock. K'piru could take shelter there, and wait. Following after the tribe would be only a matter of seeking out the signs they habitually left in the wake of their passage.

 

She felt her hands close on the straps of the leather harness K'ile wore, pulled her weight on them in desperation. "You can't take this from me! You can't tell me--I will stay here for her and you can't tell me no!"

[Twinflame]

The weight of K'ile's fingers went light, pulling upward as though by strings in Azeyma's hands. He lifted and wrapped his fingers over K'piru's hands, saying, "You daughters mourn as well, don't they? The tribe needs its shaman. It isn't your duty to search." He could feel weakness inside her hands -- thin, delicate hands meant for careful work. They were meant to give care to a tribe, and to children. They were not made for the strength it takes to brave the desert alone. Or to confront the demon that her daughter had called, if it were to find her while she was alone. "If you're so desperate that someone remains, let Thalen or myself do it for you."

[Naunet]

"She's my daughter, not yours!" In a conflict of action, her fingers locked in a white-knuckled grip about the leather straps as she pushed roughly at K'ile's chest. His shadowed form blurred until it merged with the rest of the tent, became nothing more than sun-tanned leather and sun-burned skin beneath her hands. Her heart clenched until she thought it might stop completely, the vice about her ribs threatening to shatter the thin bones. She'd known this would happen. She'd known, she'd known. She'd done nothing to stop it; K'ile Tia had not let her do anything to stop it. "She will come home to me!"

[Twinflame]

"But she won't." K'ile bent forward as he was pulled on, and this seemed to dislodge the frustration in his voice. "She would come home to Airos or Thalen, but she disregarded you, didn't she? Or did I hear that wrong?" He tightened his hands over hers, as though he though she would pull away and was prepared to hold her in place. "I'm not trying to be cruel, but even if she were around -- which she isn't -- she'd be more likely to show herself to anyone else."

[Naunet]

"You don't say that!" K'piru slammed her fists, still gripping the leather, against his chest, and her thoughts cursed K'ile Tia with the action. "She's my daughter! You--you don't get to say--" She squeezed her eyes shut, felt liquid fire trace burning tracks down her face. As she bowed forward, until her head rested against her forearms, K'piru felt the blow of the firedancer's words deep in her gut.

 

"She's my daughter," she hissed through teeth clenched against a roiling nausea. The words were thin, useless things, flung at the tia in a last ditch effort. She could see her daughter's small, red-furred form painted across the backs of her eyelids, felt the knife cuts of her words. "She'll come back to... she has to come back to me."

[Twinflame]

"And if I don't say it, who will?" K'thalen Nunh would be too kind. That's why he was a Nunh, and the callous, secretly wicked K'ile Tia was the one who delivered the hard news, put the children in the racks, enforced exile. His heart was brittle from it, perhaps, but the loss of K'aijeen was not enough to break it. Nor, it seemed, was K'piru's pleading.

 

Because she needed this. The Tia tightened his features. "You've every right to mourn, but you can't leave the tribe over it. You have duties. You have your other daughters. There's nothing left to give up on. There is no daughter left to return to you."

[Naunet]

Just a few days, she thought, begged silently, begged Azeyma. The goddess remained silent and shrouded from view, however, and K'ile Tia as relentless as ever. They'd not given K'aijeen enough time. She would return, and what would she do, what would she think if she found the tribe had moved on without her? It would be worse than what the racks did to her. Worse than...

 

K'piru's thoughts pushed about in her skull in a fragile state, shards of glass that cracked against one another and dug furrows in her brain. No daughter left. "Nothing," she breathed out, the word a question, an echo, and a denial all in one. K'aijeen's image reflected in her thoughts and she clung to it - not nothing, but her daughter. Her baby girl.

 

Her limbs lost their strength, grip slackening beneath K'ile's hands. A small, desperate part of her thought she could say no now, and sneak away, hide from the tribe without their knowing, and when she returned with K'aijeen, they would all know just how wrong they had been. But it would never end that way.

 

The firedancer was right.

 

No more words came to her then, only the silent heat down her face, the sand in her belly, the weight on her chest. She managed a nod of her head, and she felt the action like stab through the gut, a betrayal of her blood, her family. K'piru felt like a traitor to her daughter, but there was nothing else she could do. There was nothing else they could do.

[Twinflame]

The woman seemed to wither in front of him. His hardened thoughts told him it looked like heat exhaustion, but he felt that it looked like bloodless. It looked like she was bleeding out and would soon die. There was an ironic streak of protectiveness in him that told him to defend K'piru from whatever was assailing her, even though it was he himself. How would he protect her from that?

 

Loosening his grip on her hands, K'ile said, "You should be with someone." But not with him, who didn't care for her loss, who only cared that she remain with the tribe. Truthfully, he was perhaps glad to have separated K'aijeen from K'piru and K'thalen, from their children. He had always envied his brother, and now he could do so without reservation. In his wicked heart, so obscured that he had not realized it until now, there was no part of his brother's life which he did not wish that he possessed.

 

Among them was the Nunh's ability to offer comfort, and he did not think it was a sin to envy at least that much. "I'll go find Thalen and tell him to attend to you. He'll be able to comfort you."

[Naunet]

K'piru had no answer. She felt drained. She wanted to hate him for saying these things, for driving K'aijeen away. She wanted to hate K'aijeen for rejecting her every attempt to reach her, help her, teach her, for treating her family's love and generosity and understanding with reckless abandon. And most of all, she wanted to hate herself for giving in to those words, for hiding from her daughter when she must have needed her most, and now for giving up. For leaving her to be swallowed by the sands.

 

She wanted all these things, but for now, K'piru could only feel the suffocating shroud of grief. K'ile could send Thalen to her, but it wouldn't bring back her baby girl.

[Twinflame]

K'ile Tia stepped back from the shaman. He still had instincts to comfort her, but he lacked the ability. He had come here to tell her that her daughter was dead, and he had convinced her of that. It was neither his place nor his talent to do anything more, even if he wished it otherwise.

 

There was still fire in his body as he moved back towards the tent's exist. It sparked in his heal as he rolled his food away from K'piru. It burned his fingertips as he let go of her hands. The fire roiled in his face and neck, chest and gut, as he turned away from her. He didn't want to leave. He hadn't wanted to hurt her, even though he knew that he would. The fire, therefore, was inevitable as a brush fire in summer, when the lightning storms come.

 

The fire wanted out of him. He couldn't comfort the shaman, but he could flee the tent. He could find the firedancers and pull them to their feet. K'ada would understand. She would light him ablaze herself if she got a hold of his tail while the stone on his wrist burned hot and bright as it did. If the firedancer didn't give the flame inside of him to a staff, to a dance, he felt that it would burst from his very bones.

 

K'ile pushed his way out of the tent without another word. He could at least take a moment to find K'thalen before he went in search of the firedancers.