The Breath of Thal [closed]

[Twinflame]

D'aijeen turned her face away, cactuar earring swinging against her temple as he ears dropped to either side. She watched the ocean, and that ridiculous smallshell that K'aiors had somehow obtained. "It's better to keep mom a long way away. I can't stand to look at her." Her whole face folded into her frown suddenly, an ugly expression. Her tail shivered. "Se doesn't love me. I went to her and tried everything, and things only became worse. If you go to her, if you go to them, then they'll only try to keep you. They'll try to take you away from me." And they would succeed, if permitted, for K'airos was more likely to believe their mother than even D'aijeen herself.

 

"I want you to stay with me," she glared at the sand, nodded her head. "I don't want you to see her or the tribe or anyone else."

[Ildur]

"I see." K'airos sighed, closed her eyes and kept very still and quiet to think what she was going to say. She didn't believe that their mother didn't love D'aijeen, but then her sister had a strange sense of love.

 

"I won't see the tribe." she finally said. Another sigh left her mouth afterwards. "But I still want to see mom. She never tried to keep me with her, or to make me leave you. If she tries to...uhm...separate us then I'll..." Her voice was calm until that moment. It shivered. Her tail moved from one side to the other in one quick swoop. She tapped her fingers again. "I'll stop seeing her. But we'll give her a chance. I want to give her a chance."

[Twinflame]

"I've already given her a chance!" D'aijeen surged up to her feet and spun on her sister. Some ambient aether remaining in her fingers sprang unfocused from her hands and crackled in the air between them, swirling as though on invisible lines between them. "Too many! Too many! Every time she touches us -- every time she comes near me -- things get worse! Things get worse!" She dropped down to her knees again, shivering, her voice getting quieter as her voice strained again. "I couldn't stand things getting worse again. No, no, no. I don't want it!"

[Ildur]

"It won't get worse! I miss her and I want to see her!" K'airos protested, dropping her hands down to her knees to help herself stand up. Her tail swope to the other side again as she did this. "It won't get worse. I'll only see her every once in a long while! And I can speak with her! She'll listen to me. What does she have to do for you to be okay with this?" She barely managed to stop herself from kicking the sand under her feet with frustration. Instead, the aborted action came out as an emphatic stomp.

[Twinflame]

Tail flicking back and forth behind her at a maddened rate, D'aijeen gripped her shoulders and pulled them inward, making her appear even more impossibly thin. She hissed with almost inaudible disdain, "She can't do anything. She doesn't want to. She doesn't want to! I'm not... discussing this." She didn't trust K'airos. If she were permitted to return to her mother, then she would leave. It was the only thing left that could be taken from her, and every time her mother got involved she lost something.

 

She recoiled away from the fire, on her feet and backpedaling away. "I said no. I said no, I said no. I said..." D'aijeen shook her head, and spun, the world around her blurring into an incoherent plain and identical horizons. Her eyes shook. Her arms felt numb. She stepped in something cold and heavy, something that clung to her and writhed in her shadow, but she didn't look at it. "I'm going to go swimming. I'm going to go for a swim."

 

D'aijeen spun and ran, but not towards the sea. She ran inland. She didn't even notice.

[Ildur]

With her ears dropping and her tail curving down between her legs, K'airos watched her sister run away. It took her a brief moment before she herself noticed that the direction was wrong. Her memories stirred, and something in her head reminded her of one time when D'aijeen had left to think, to be alone, and then was never seen again, back when they were both part of a tribe.

 

She panicked.

 

"Wait!" she shouted, jumping forward to chase D'aijeen, leaving behind their dinner. "Come back! I won't...I won't see mom anymore, alright? I'm sorry! I won't see her! I promise! We'll even go far away from her! And the sea is this way, too! Come back!"

[Twinflame]

D'aijeen hadn't bathed yet, so she could still feel blood on her skin. She thought she must smell like D'ahl and the voidsent that had killed her. She imagined the Skulls of the Scavengers stalking her in the shadows, waiting for her to get angry again, waiting for her to get upset and lose control and stomp and growl. And at the slightest show of aggression on her part, it would rip out of the shadows and destroy whatever she was angry at before she could take it back. And then no amount of begging would make it stop. Just like what it had done with D'ahl.

 

Her thin legs weakening, D'aijeen stumbled. Something seemed to catch on her feet, like she was stumbling over stones, but she had no clear sense of it. Green dots appeared in front of her eyes as nausea turned her stomach, as iron shot into her veins. Her tail bristled out behind her, her eyes widened, and she spun to face her sister without stopped. She fell backwards, landing prone, feeling like she'd slammed down on something hard but the pain was distant. Something beneath her, cold and oil, pushed her upright. She felt it on her skin, not her clothes, and it almost seemed to push outward from inside her body.

 

The shadows clung to her like ichor, staining her flesh and leaving her clothes immaculate. Darkness poured from her back as she faced the sun, pulled beneath her, writhing. There were faces and pale, muted lights meters beneath the ground she stood upon, somehow visible as if the ground was transparent. D'aijeen had no concept of these things, more for the purple flecks in the whites of her eyes, the subtle glow deep in her pupils.

 

Faster than she'd ran away, the thin, tiny woman who smelled like death ran back to her sister and threw herself upon Airos, clinging to her. "I'm scared." She admitted to this like a crime. "I don't want you to die. I love you. I don't want you to. I love you."

[Ildur]

K'airos had paused in her run. At first she had just frowned in confusion as to how her sister had fallen and raised so strangely, but then she jumped in place, bringing both hands to cover her mouth as the increasingly terrifying sight before her unfolded. She did not have time to think of any of this before she found herself hugging D'aijeen with all her strenght. Her eyes stared into the abyss below them, and then they were closed shut by her own fear. She pulled her sister as close as she could.

 

More memories were shaken. Her sister had created a monster once, many years ago. A creature made of shadows and bones, covered in dark. A beast that D'aijeen couldn't control back then, that had tried to hurt those on the way of its scape into the desert.

The fear of what her sister had awoken back then kindled again, pulling her away from those times towards the present. To just what seemed like a moment ago, when she had seen her sister on the docks, broken and crying. To her words about D'hal's death. To how she had calmed herself. And then she was pushed closer until they were no memories any longer.

 

K'airos opened her eyes, moving them from the abyss to her sister, one hand moved to her chin and pushing up so that they were facing each other. "We'll solve this." K'airos said almost whispering, a collection of tears preparing to burst out of her eyes. She took a breath. Her eyes closed. "I love you too." Her tears came out, and then her lips laid against D'aijeen's.

[Twinflame]

Her ears and tail falling still, D'aijeen melted into her sister. Her thin muscles loosened, her body going weak. She leaned into K'airos and clung to ehr with her hands, closed her eyes and barely even remembered to kiss the woman back. The weight of her body seemed to flee from her, all cold replaced with warmth, all of the shadows beneath them flattening and going still. D'aijeen's senses were full of K'airos, touch and smell and taste. She could feel her sisters teardrops on her face, but they might as well have been her own, for as much as she wanted to cry as well. The fast recoil from terror to this, whatever this feeling was, this strange shock of elation and realization, left her dazed like a blow to the head.

 

Something twisted elsewhere, some emotion and sensation far removed from her. It was as if she had some foreign stomach miles away that was suddenly struck with incredible illness, something that poured out into another person's body. Not her own, but sensed, known.

 

And dismissed. It was so far away, and she didn't want it. This was perfect. This was what she wanted. K'airos had pledged herself to her and then, unbidden, shown exactly the affection she had wanted. What she needed. D'aijeen was being pulled by her sister across the threshold of a home she'd never been to before, but she wanted to live there forever. It was fragrant and peaceful, comfortable beyond reason. She would live in this home, this sensation and moment, for as long as she could cling to it.

[Ildur]

There was a knot in K'airos' stomach. And in her chest, and throat. Their kiss lasted too long. She would have cut it short just one moment after it was given, but her head was unwilling to move, fearful. She mantained the kiss as she waited to stop being scared. The fear dwindled, but didn't leave. She tried to think, to distract herself, but couldn't. Then she concentrated on what she was doing. The knots inside her tightened and pulled as she felt her sister's warmth and smell closer than it had ever been. She kept crying, her ears dropping as low as they could.

 

At least it was not fear.

 

She opened her eyes, and she saw that the frightening sight that had manifested around Aijeen had vanished. She pulled herself away, but kept close, one arm still wrapped around her sister, and the other hand still placed on her chin. She had trouble breathing, but knew she should say something. "I love you." she repeated with a thin smile. The words came out of her mouth weakly, the knot on her stomach pulling her senses again. They weren't words she wouldn't have said, but they came with a different taste in this occassion. K'airos didn't like them, but she had to say them, she thought. Endure them, like one endures bitter medicine.

Her head pulled back, closing her eyes, facing the sky. "We'll be happy again, okay? Let's go have dinner and then we can...remake our plans the way you want them to be. Okay?"

[Twinflame]

"Yes, it's okay." She said this with all the zealousness of a drowning woman reaching for a lifeline. Holding herself desperately against her sister, she nodded emphatically, feeling herself continuing to cry, but smiling wide. They could go anywhere, together, just like she wanted. D'aijeen could finally leave everything behind and take K'airos with her, and it was completely by choice. Her sister knew everything, saw all of it just as it was, and completely of her own will choose D'aijeen. "It's okay. It's okay. I'll be happy for you." She turned her face up to her sister and smiled, showing K'airos the expression. "I'm happy. Airos, brilliant Airos, center of my sky. I can be happy for you as long as you shine for me."