+- Hydaelyn Role-Players (https://ffxiv-roleplayers.com/mybb18)
+-- Forum: Role-Play (https://ffxiv-roleplayers.com/mybb18/forumdisplay.php?fid=27)
+--- Forum: Town Square (IC) (https://ffxiv-roleplayers.com/mybb18/forumdisplay.php?fid=21)
+--- Thread: Stabilizing the Element [mature, ooc welcome] (/showthread.php?tid=6659)
Stabilizing the Element [mature, ooc welcome] - Naunet - 03-15-2014
((The following occurs not long after the last post in Is it legal or are we just rich?))
***
A bath had not been high on Antimony's priority list until she found herself faced with one, its water still steaming warm and scented with a soap whose smell she couldn't place but was pleasant and relaxing. Inviting. She felt a faint twinge of guilt at the rush of frustration that had bounced D'hein out of the room so hastily, but there wasn't much to be done about that for now. If she still felt it warranted, she could apologize later... it /had/ been awfully nice of him to think of her comfort like this.
Even if he had done so in a much more forward way than she would have liked.
In the end, the bath proved too tempting to ignore, and so trusting that the covers over the food would keep her meal-to-be warm enough, Antimony allowed herself this little luxury. Her clothes she set aside on the bed, and she took a moment fiddling with her hair before giving up on locating the pins that had gotten lost who-knew-where on the floor. In her nudity, she stifled a brief tingle of embarrassment that drew her eyes to the door, as though expecting D'hein - or someone else, perhaps Ulanan? - might barge through at any moment. Then, with a long sigh, she stepped into the tub and carefully sat down in the water. Its heat was an instant balm to sore muscles she hadn't even really been aware of prior, and a small small played itself across her lips as she leaned her neck back against one end of the tub and let herself sink down until the water touched her chin and the ends of her hair floated out around her head. This was nice.
***
The inn was a familiar place. It did not boast heavy shadows, but shadows were neither prerequisite nor necessarily comfortable, and the smell of drink, food, and spices overrode any of the stink that may have served as a harbinger. D'hein was an idiot, and reliably so, for he Antimony's door might as well have been ephemeral for as softly as he had closed it. The latch had never closed. He might as well have left a foot in the door.
Time lingered like the scent in the air, like the humidity against the walls and against skin. There was no hurry. Antimony seemed to deserve a chance to relax, and it was easy enough to give. Everyone deserved a chance to relax. They all just needed to let the emotions, the frustrations, the preconceptions and prejudices, drain away.
It was several minutes after Antimony had gone into the bathroom that D'aijeen stepped into the bathroom as well. She could be sneaky when she needed to, but stealth was not her basic way of doing things. She wasn't there to sneak. The small, thin, dark woman paused in the doorway of the bathroom, inhaled the humid air and the scent. She made a quick correction to the pink bow at the front of her shirt. Then she reached back for the bathroom door and closed it behind her so that it was against her back. The latch clicked. Her ear twitched, cactuar earring dancing with a slater clatter.
Her blue eyes turned towards her mother, trying to keep her features controlled, but plainly nervous as she stood stoically straight.
Relax Antimony certainly had. The steam that hung in the air softened a dry throat and eased aching eyes. The warm water comfortably buoyed limbs that seemed to feel every year of their age and then some and enveloped stiff joints with a gentle, healing presence. The luxury of a bath was not something Antimony was very familiar with; even after five years living in Limsa, she had never been able to break the habit of conserving as much water as possible, and so her "baths" had been more akin to rub-downs than anything. Thorough, but not quite in the same league as this in terms of pleasure. She wasn't sure she could bring herself to repeat this kind of experience on her own, but she wasn't about to let it go to waste now.
Perhaps D'hein did deserve an apology.
She'd almost let herself drift off when her ears caught the faint click behind her. One ear twitched, and she nearly dismissed it as the tick of a clock before remembering there was no clock in the room, and what's more, the sound was nothing like a clock, nor had it come from anywhere a clock might have been had one been here. Her tail squirmed in the water and her chest tightened nervously as her thoughts ran a malm a minute in a frantic attempt to remember if she'd locked the door.
Her body was well ahead of her thoughts, however, for it sat up sharply and turned in the tub, splashing water in her haste. When her brain finally caught up, it locked on the dark skin, the green hair, the white clothes, that familiar face, and she thought her heart might stop.
"Aijeen...?" Her voice shook with confusion and no small amount of fear. "What--what are you--how did you get in here??"
"Do not overreact," D'aijeen said, timidly showing Antimony one of her palms. "I just walked in. I did not come to antagonize you."
She brought one hand up to her chest and fought the hope that desperately wanted to spring forward with those words. Her daughter. Her baby girl. The one who had cursed her name, her existence, the one who had disowned her as a mother, as a person. Her memory flashed back to the agony outside Drybone, the words K'aijeen had spoken to her, and she felt a burning in the back of her eyes.
"You..." Her other hand shook as it reached out of the tub to feel around for the towels D'hein had set out earlier. She couldn't hope. She could not allow it.
She did anyway.
"Are you... You're not angry..? Aijeen, what--why are you.."
"I'm furious!" D'aijeen snapped, then bit down on her teeth. "Everyone's been conspiring against me! D'hein and you and K'airos, all behind my back! Deceptive and inconsiderate!" Her hands clenched into fists and she stepped away from the door, taking a few steps towards the tub.
Antimony cringed, ears lying flat against her wet hair, and as her hand found the thin fuzz of a towel, she made to stand. Her body language exuded an uncertainty, however, tail low and dragging in the water, spine hunched. She pulled the towel in front of her.
"I would never conspire against you, Aijeen," she murmured. "I love you. I just... want you to be happy."
 "Sit back down," D'aijeen said. She stopped in front of the tub, stance wide. She couldn't hide her unhappy expression. Her nervousness had given away to an annoyed melancholy, but also a certainty of action. Looking her mother over, she bit her cheek to exhaust the frustration in her voice. She lifted her hands in front of her and began to pull the white gloves from her hands, saying with a sigh, "Let me wash your hair."
Testament to her desperate need to demonstrate to her youngest daughter the extent of the truth in her words, Antimony found herself dropping back down into the tub. The towel fell from her hands to hang mostly over the edge, though a corner of it dipped into the water.
"I love you, Aijeen," she repeated in a voice that shook just over a whisper. "Nothing can change that."
D'aijeen twisted her features in bitter neutrality. She felt let that was all her mother had to say to her most of the time, and that just made it harder to believe. The less capable one is able to demonstrate the fact of something, the more fervently they insisted it was true.
"Just sit over here so I can get at your hair and try not to get water in your ears." It was similar to things she said to K'airos while bathing her, but without any of the joy. D'aijeen dropped to her knees at the end of the top where her mother had been reclined earlier, and reached up to undo the bow on her coat, loosen the sleeves and the binding in front.
Antimony drew a nervous breath as she settled into the position D'aijeen requested. She was her daughter, yes, but she still terrified her in many ways. Her presence still reminded her of that horrific night in the dunes of the Sagolii, the demon that had briefly and terrifyingly threatened their lives, a beast her daughter had summoned.
"I... there is food in the other room," she murmured, leaning her neck against the edge of the tub. She couldn't help the hope that leaked into her voice, "Perhaps after, you can... eat with me?"
"I saw. It didn't smell appealing." She took her overcoat off, leaving her in a thinner but no less elaborate undershirt. She pulled the frilled sleeves up and pinched them in the crook of her bent elbows to hold them in place. Then she reached for the soap. "We need to talk. Things cannot continue like they have been."
Antimony blinked, strained her eyes to catch a glimpse of her daughter behind her, saw white and a flash of dark skin. K'aijeen had her father's skin. Antimony swallowed. "What do you mean by that, Aijeen? You cannot ask me to leave you, or Airos. I--I cannot. I'm your..."
"I know. You're our mom. I'm sure if it was possible for you to leave us you would've done so with the motivation I gave you." D'aijeen reached into the water next to her mother's head, touching ehr shoulder briefly as she scooped a handful of water into her mother's hair. She repeated this several times with both hands while she spoke, "I can't get either you or Airos to give up, and now D'hein is involved as well. So I feel like I should consider stabilizing the situation, if only for Airos' sake."
Leaning her head back to keep the water from getting in her eyes, Antimony tried to focus on D'aijeen's presence, on the soothing nature of her actions. Non-threatening. Caring. Her heart ached keenly then, recalling the tenderness she'd given the girl as a baby, a young child. As a growing girl. After a while, she had gotten nothing but hatred in return, but Antimony had not stopped. She couldn't, as she had just said. She'd not known what to do to help D'aijeen, to bring her back from whatever evil she had gotten herself wrapped around, but at least she could hold onto one thing.
"The two of you... take care of each other," she breathed, eyes towards the ceiling. "I'm... very proud of that."
"Airos is my primary concern," D'aijeen answered. "She is the very core of my world, and her happiness is my primary concern. This is... mutual." She hesitated on the last word, wishing she was more sure of that. A month ago nothing would have challenged the assumption, but then K'airos had betrayed her.
She took the soap between her hands and began to lather it into Antimony's hair, noting that its color was different than D'ahl's. D'aijeen's memory was not perfect, but hair color could be adjusted. Her mother had aged.
It felt strange, to be on the receiving end of treatment she had usually given her daughters, but Antimony was not about to object, even if D'aijeen's presence had been unexpected, a little frightening. She closed her eyes and forced herself to relax into the gestures of her daughter's hands, yearned for the days she'd done similar, and then found herself fighting back the tears that longing brought along.
"Then why... why did you tell her--" Her throat clenched and she had to cough once to clear it before she could continue speaking, "--that I was... not her mother? And she... believed it."
"She believes me when I lie," D'aijeen said, working the soap into Antimony's hair carefully. She'd done this with her sister, with K'airos, so often that the action came easily. She'd washed D'ahl's hair before as well. She tried to compare this experience to similar experiences with D'ahl; it was a predictable disappointment that they were dissimilar.
D'aijeen took a breath and then explained, "I kept K'airos with me after the Calamity by telling her that everyone else was dead. It worked. Nothing challenged that until she found you."
"Why would you--" The tears threatened again, and they burned with a grief that was only an echo of what she'd felt those years ago but still came nearly overwhelming. "I thought she'd—everyone, your father... that they were all gone. And what--what pain she must have gone through..." Antimony could more than imagine, and the thought of K'airos believing her entire family, her entire tribe dead and gone, it nearly crumbled her beneath D'aijeen's hands. "That is very selfish, Aijeen," she sighed.
"No it wasn't." D'aijeen asserted. Her soapy hands slipped from her mother’s hair and lay limp on her shoulders in the water. "I went to Cartenau to save her. I found her. Nobody else did. I could take care of her, so I did. For all I knew, what I said was true. She was my Airos and I was hers, so why would I let her go?"
"You could have tried. You… should have tried. If I'd known..." Antimony's hands gripped the sides of the tub as she struggled to work through what her youngest had done. She loved K'aijeen, and yet... "If you had seen us after..."
"And if you had seen us after?" D'aijeen pressed her fingers down against her mother's skin, feeling the tendons between the woman's chest and shoulder. "If I hadn't lied, she would've left, and I would've been alone. You would wish that on me."
"You could have come back!" Antimony couldn't bring herself to turn around, to look her daughter in the eyes. "I wanted you... all of you to come back, Aijeen. I always have," she choked back tears at that. She would not fall apart in front of her daughter.
"Please stop. This hurts to speak of." She began to cup water in her hands again, rinsing soap out of her mother's hair.
Her brow tightened, and she lifted her head slightly. "No," her ears shook under the water, splaying out to protect their inner canals from the rinsing. "No, Aijeen. I'm not going to stop. You could have always come back. I... you never had to stay away. You never had to... leave."
 D'aijeen slammed her fists down on either side of the tub, her voice sounding weaker in its anger, "I did not come here to argue about the past!"
Antimony flinched, water sloshing; she could feel the vibrations of D'aijeen's strike traveling down through the bottom of the tub and into the water. "You're still welcome home, Aijeen," she continued, quieter. "You and Airos, you can both... you don't have to hide away from me... from anyone."
"That's nobody's home anymore. It's not mine and it's not your, is it, Antimony?"
That hurt perhaps more than it should. Or just enough. Antimony's ears drooped. "There's still... the tribe is still there. K'ile and..." She turned her head to one sight slightly, though not enough to see her daughter, before adding, "Please don't call me that. I'm your mother."
"Do you want Airos and I to go home and leave you here, or do you want to keep her for you own?" She couldn't help the possessive snap. K'airos had been hers for more than five years. They had been one anothers'. It ached, knowing that K'airos would choose Antimony over her, knowing that Antimony would reciprocate.
"I want you both to be happy," was all Antimony could think of to reply, and it was true. She couldn't bring herself to say outright that K'airos and K'aijeen should leave her to return to the tribe; nor could she give in to her youngest's prodding about K'airos. The former was too painful, and the latter... well, she had not forgotten a certain Duskwight's words, but perhaps Antimony was not as strong as he seemed to think she was. "That's all, Aijeen."
"And I just want K'airos to be happy." She reached under her mother's shoulders and urged her upward, "Sit up, back to me."
Antimony conceded to her daughter's urgings without protest, perhaps still clinging to some vain hope that doing so might demonstrate to D'aijeen a glimmer of truth in her words. The water had cooled by now and would have been uncomfortable had Antimony not been so distracted by the young girl (more a woman now) behind her. Straightening, she scooted back a bit in the tub, closer to one end.
"Alright," she sighed, and then more anxiously, "Then you're... not going to take her away?"
"I don't want to hurt her." D'aijeen said as she placed soap to her mother's back, washing her neck and shoulders. As she ran her fingers of the woman's skin, she noted the difference between this body and D'ahl's. They barely even resembled one another on close inspection. Her mother seemed practically malnourished in comparison. A sparsely decorated skeleton.
"I came here to see to you and I, not to take her away. D'hein, however, will be the victim of extreme recompense for his part in all this."
The words sparked a new concern in Antimony, her ears shifting back towards D'aijeen worriedly. "He doesn't deserve any retaliation, Aijeen. He's done... he has done nothing wrong in this."
"I did not come here to talk about him either." She set the soap aside and stood, pacing around the tub and pulling off her shirt.
"No," Antimony shook her head, finally finding it in herself to turn enough to face her daughter - something helped by D'aijeen's own motions, of course. Her brow furrowed. "I won't have you... threatening that man! You promise me, Aijeen. You're not to hurt anyone."
"I'm not threatening him! I'm just mad." She was angry enough to even have to say such a thing that her frustration illustrated her point. What kind of person did her mother think she was?
D'aijeen folded her shirt and placed it with her jacket and gloves. She sat on the edge of the tub, not far from her mother, while she worked at taking off her shoes and socks. Her green tail dipped into the water and she shivered. "I hope you appreciate what it means for me to be here. I'm not without my pride."
Antimony blinked in confusion as her daughter undressed, emphasizing the undercurrent of disconcerting strangeness this entire interaction had held. But, it was her daughter, and Antimony was not about to risk angering D'aijeen such that she ran off again, possibly taking K'airos with her. Did K'aijeen want her to...? "You have no idea how much it... fills my heart to see you, Aijeen," she replied lowly. "I appreciate every moment."
D'aijeen gave her mother an instant's glance, and looked unconvinced. She turned away to toss her shoes aside and stood. "I'm here to give you another chance. Understand?" Her tail hung dripping behind her as she bent down to the white tights from her dark legs. She had rendered herself nude, a very thin and frail-looking woman, dark and tiny. She hadn't grown more than a few ilms since she'd left the tribe.
Antimony noticed this immediately, of course, and it took all of her will not to get up from the water and wrap her arms about her daughter. She looked ill. Antimony worried. Was she eating right? Were she and K'airos earning enough money to live comfortably? D'hein had supposedly been taking care of her, but not for some time. What if she was sick?
D'aijeen's words fueled all of those worries alongside a rush of joy she could barely contain. "I understand, Aijeen," she said, and told herself she would never leave her daughters. She would care for Aijeen here, clean her, dress her in something comfortable, feed her - she had more than enough, at least today. She would love her with every ounce of her being, and she would cast out the fear and the memory of that demon.
Perfunctorily, D'aijeen turned to face the tub and looked down. She pointed, instructing, "Lay yourself out at length, head back down near the water like when I was washing your hair, feet on the opposite end."
Keeping her eyes on her daughter's blue ones, Antimony's brow furrowed in confusion, but she complied. "Do you believe me, Aijeen? I love you. You never... I've always loved you."
"I'm trying to believe you. Stay put." D'aijeen stepped into the tub at about Antimony's hips, one foot on either side of the woman, and then lowered herself into the water. So that she was straddling her mother at the hips. Her green tail lay back along Antimony's legs, the older woman's tail.
Her one ear twitched, cactuar earing dancing with its slight jingle.
Antimony fidgeted in the water, her hands sliding against the sides of the tub before one moved over her chest. There was a closeness in this position that felt very... inappropriate to Antimony, unsettling, but she forced herself to keep still. To watch D'aijeen's face.
D'aijeen took her time settling into the position, noting the boniness of her mother's hips that was so different from D'ahl's. She felt Antimony's thin, weak legs against her ankles, her narrow waist between her calves. This body was completely different, but somehow familiar. It was similar to her own, she realized, a genetic disposition that D'ahl could never imitate. More than that, the child she had been remembered this body as a thing of comfort, and refuge.
Even D'aijeen had once been a fool as a child, though. The refuge and comfort were gone now, another difference between Antimony and D'ahl. D'aijeen had no reservations about trusting D'ahl, about exposing herself to the woman completely, in full faith that she would be appreciated and adored. But here, there was no such trust.
D'aijeen leaned back and watched her tail against that of her mother, moved her tail back and forth until the green and the gray were all tangled up together. She squeezed her mother with her legs, so that there was tight physical contact all along her inner legs and her mother's side, their hips pressed together. With one hand settling on her mother's side, just below her ribs, D'aijeen leaned forward and placed her other hand atop the hand her mother had on her chest.
"You've always said that you've loved me," D'aijeen observed, feeling the age of her mother's hand, the tendons and veins that stood out ever more with the passing years, but never became ugly. They were simply distinguishing. "But you never made me believe it. You never demonstrated it in a way that had meaning to me, and back when I was a kid I dind't even know what I was waiting for."
She couldn't help the way her spine curved back to try and avoid the contact D'aijeen was insisting upon. Antimony was no stranger to life, and she knew enough to recognize that her daughter had crossed a barrier there. But.. perhaps she didn't realize?
"Aijeen," Antimony shifted in the water, using one hand to keep herself afloat, the other flexing uncomfortably beneath her daughter's fingers. "What are you talking about? I've always... I cared for you. I did everything I could to educate you, to... make sure you could thrive. I protected you in every way I knew how... what else? What else could you want?"
"It took a few years for me to figure it out when I came to Ul'dah, and I needed help to do so. I learned how to demonstrate affection, beyond all doubt." Gripping her mother with her legs, D'aijeen leaned forward, somewhat, so that her bangs fell away from her face, so that her body was over Antimony's body. "I'm giving you this chance, your only chance, but it's brief. I need proof that you love me. I need to know it, and feel it. You need to convince me."
Antimony sunk a bit lower into the water, that unsettled feeling growing, the crease between her brow deepening. "I don't understand, Aijeen." She feared that she did, but the mere thought of it left her feeling sick to the stomach - not because of what D'aijeen might do, but... because of what D'aijeen must have experienced to come to such a conclusion. "Who--You want me to.."
The woman hung there over her mother, gripping the other body with her own. Her gaze was neutral, but her eyes were wide open, watching Antimony. She caught herself taking fast, shallow breaths, and forced herself to into more controlled rhythm. She said in a small voice, "I always wanted everything to work out. I loved you, do love you, but felt hated. Then in Drybone, threatened. Don't you want to take every negative feeling between us and turn it into something good, and real, and intimate?"
Her heart dropped down into her gut at that, and  she pushed her feet against one end of the tub to try and dislodge her hips from her daughters. Her breath shook as she sought words. "Aijeen, that--no, that... that's not what you want from me," her tone was sad, near despairing. "What horrible person made you think... Aijeen, this isn't right. I love you, but not... it's not like this. This is different."
D'aijeen lifted her hands and put them on Antimony's shoulders, holding her still, almost pushing the woman under water. "Don't treat me like an idiot. Like I don't understand what I'm doing, or haven't thought about it. I love you, but I've never felt your love for me. Not even for a second. I want to believe it's there, but."
She lowered her body so that her stomach pressed against Antimony's, the woman's arm between them keeping them apart. "If you don't love me, I'll just take Airos and go away. You won't have to pretend."
"No," Antimony repeated urgently and felt a small shiver of fear as D'aijeen pressed her weight down further. Her tail twisted under the water, seeking to disentangle itself from D'aijeen's. "This isn't how... you're my daughter, Aijeen. This isn't how you're supposed to... do that! Who taught you this? Did they hurt you?" She reached up with the hand that had been largely supporting her to touch the girl's face worriedly, imploringly. "I love you, Aijeen. I'm not going to... do this to you."
"You're not listening," D'aijeen muttered. She slipped her hands behind her mother’s head and pressed down on the woman's shoulders with her arms. Her weight bore down on her mother, and the cold water sloshed between their bodies. "Don'y you understand that I'm going to take myself and K'airos away? Don't you love me? Don't you even love her?"
Antimony came dangerously close to going under with the added weight, and though she stretched her legs out to try and support herself, the angle was awkward and the tub made it even moreso. Green eyes widened, and her hand desperately petted at the side of D'aijeen's face, through her green hair, and then tried to pull her closer, into a one-armed maternal hug. "No, no, Aijeen. You're confused! You... you don't understand how... This kind of thing isn't for family like... you and I! Oh, my baby girl, what happened to you??"
"Stop mocking me!" D'aijeen shouted, wrapping herself tightly around her mother and twisting to force the woman beneath the water. And held her there. "You're not listening!"
The shock of it kept Antimony frozen for several seconds, wide eyes staring through a blurry, sloshy whirl of water and skin. It did not seem real, that D'aijeen - her daughter - could every try to harm her. Never. The girl's voice sounded muffled through the water, and then Antimony's lungs began to burn.
Her body reacted for her, flinching and pushing up at D'aijeen to try and dislodge her, not wanting to hurt her but also suddenly, painfully aware of what the girl had just done.
The option of killing Antimony did cross her mind. She could feel her body writhing beneath her, felt the older woman's tail writing against her own. The cactuar earring hung in her peripheral vision dappled with water.
After a time she eased the weight up, keeping herself clasped against her mother's as best she could. In her frailty, she could only hold on so well in the first place. Even with her advantageous position, she was still weaker than even her mother.
Managing to work her arms beneath her and finally finding purchase with her legs, Antimony gave a heave beneath the water and pushed herself - and D'aijeen - up. She sat there in the tub, water splashed all across the floor, and drew in deep gasps for air while clutching tight at her daughter, cradling the girl to her frantically. "You don't want to do this, Aijeen," she breathed, coughed, breathed again, "It's not right. I love you, but this is not right. Who hurt you... tell me who hurt you.."
D'aijeen ducked her face down, pressing it agianst her mother's skin. "You hurt me," she said. Her fingers shook where they hung against Antimony's back. She felt like she might be crying, but couldn't tell from the water that covered them. "You're the only one. Everyone else has actually been very kind. But you hurt me."
She had half-expected the answer, but it still shook Antimony to her core. Her body curled forward to envelope D'aijeen in a hug even as her lungs choked with a sob. It wasn't true. It couldn't be true. "No," she mumbled, "No, you don't mean that. You're just confused. You... I would never hurt you, Aijeen. Nothing--nothing I've done--"
"All you have are words. I love you." D'aijeen's limp body animated again. She pulled herself against Antimony with her hands and legs, pressed her face firmly against the woman's neck. "I would show you if you would stop, even if you don't reciprocate."
A part of her, so desperate for her daughter's acceptance, actually considered D'aijeen's words, considered allowing the girl to "show" her, if it meant D'aijeen would be happy. It was all she wanted, for her daughter to be happy. She would do anything. But... not this.
"I am showing you, Aijeen," Antimony murmured, dropping her head to D'aijeen's, pressing her cheek against her daughter's hair. One hand wove fingers into the fine green strands, pulled through them in as soothing a gesture as she could manage. "I am."
"It's not enough." She shifted, pressed her lips against her mother's neck, pulled on the woman with her fingers on her back and shoulderblades. Her sopping tail moved out of the water for just a moment as it wrapped around the woman's body. The chain on her earring clattered.
"Aijeen," she repeated and clung to the girl tighter, thought back to the days when she had been small enough to fit wholly in her arms, the days when being close to her mother was often all she ever wanted. Her shoulders trembled, and she kissed the crown of D'aijeen's head over and over. "Not like that, Aijeen. I'm showing you. Just... not like that."
"And I'm showing you like this," D'aijeen muttered, continuing to kiss Antimony's neck, moving her mouth up along it.
Her gut roiled. The act felt like torture to Antimony, but when D'aijeen persisted, she leaned her body away, holding onto the girl's shoulders and trying to gently urge her back. It felt like ripping out her own heart. "Aijeen, no."
"Stop it," the smaller woman demanded. She dug her nails into her mother's skin where she held her, trying to force aquiesance through sheer tenacity. D'aijeen was already growing tired, drained mostly by the day's emotional exertion: D'ahl, D'hein, K'airos, Antimony, everyone conspiring to make her weary. Her already weak limbs were growing weaker.
"Stop it," she repeated. "Why won't you just stop? This is the only way."
"Why would you think that," her voice strained a whisper. "Why would you ever... there are so many ways to show you love. It doesn't have to be like... this." She sighed around a thick lump in her throat, wanting nothing more than to break down in tears but needing desperately to stay together for D'aijeen. For her daughter. "Things like this are for you and... like your father and I. Not between us, Aijeen. It's different." She kept her hands on the girl, ignored as best she could the grasping of those small, frail fingers to her skin, tried to hold D'aijeen away without pushing her away.
"You need to stop."
"I know what I'm doing," D'aijeen leaned back, short of breath. The chill water around them was beginning to make her shiver, the moisture in the air making her breaths heavier. "Do you know what you're doing? You can't bare anything more than words of love for me, idle phrases, and you reject me."
"That's not true," Antimony begged. "Eleven years. I showed you for eleven years. I fed and cared and educated and protected you! How is that not--not loving you?" She caught D'aijeen's shivers, wanted to echo them with her own, and instead made to pet her daughter's hair before adding in a faint, pleading voice, "Let's get out and dry off. Get you fed. You'll... you'll feel better."
"I'm not going anywhere." The woman looked down again, her forehead against her mother's shoulder again. "Or I'm leaving. With Airos. You might have her deceived, but not me."
Wrapping her arms about her daughter, one under her shoulders, one at her waist, Antimony moved to help her stand - or carry her out of the tub, if she had to. She found her chest bound by an impossible vice, throat too choked to speak save to scratch out a weary, "You must believe me."
"I'm going to leave," D'aijeen said, leaning tiredly against her mother's body as they stood. "You're never going to see myself or Airos again."
Antimony nearly crumbled under the weight of those words, terrible weapons that tore into her spirit, bludgeoned her heart until she thought she might simply cease being right there in that cold bath. Her hands shook against her daughter's skin as she stepped out of the tub and urged the girl to follow, their bodies leaving little pools of water beneath them. When she turned to retrieve the towel, she half expected D'aijeen to slip away in that brief moment, and so gripped the frail girl with one hand before wrapping her up in the worn, pale cloth. "Don't do this," she breathed and felt her hands rubbing at the towel as distant limbs entirely separate from the rest of her body. "Not to me. Not to Airos."
Arms at her sides, D'aijeen watched her mother placidly. "I don't want to. That's why I came here. But you're making the decision."
"No, this is you, Aijeen. You!" Her voice cracked up in pitch even as her hands grabbed at the second towel, pulled it around herself as though they had a mind of their own. Going through the motions. "I'm begging you to stay. Begging you. But you refuse!"
"You're doing everything except the one thing you need to do, so nothing you do counts at all."
Antimony felt simultaneously numb and overwhelmed by emotion, and it left her lurching precariously over an edge peering out into void. Her shaking stilled suddenly and then she was holding D'aijeen, grabbing her, wrapping her arms about her daughter and crushing the girl to her chest. "You can't leave. You can't take her away from me," she uttered, voice both paper thin and powerfully desperate, and yet strangely even. "I won't let you do this."
D'aijeen chuckled unhappily, "You're not willing to convince me to stay, but you'll attempt to force me against my will. Is that what you think love is? You are the one who is confused."
"You don't understand what you want," Antimony murmured, half to herself. "Someone's hurt you, taught you.. taught you something wrong. I'll--I'll take care of you, Aijeen. I will. I'll protect you. Just like I--" her voice broke but she pushed through, "Just like I always have."
"You have never done any such thing. Let go of me." D'aijeen pushed against her mother, the gesture so weak as to be inconsequential. "You had your chance to hold me. Your desperation to contain me is not love."
Antimony bowed into her daughter even as the girl struggled to push her away. "We'll get you dressed. You can eat. You'll think better on a full stomach," she breathed, her voice quiet and monotone like a prayer, a mantra. She had to ignore those words of D'aijeen's. She had to pretend they didn't exist. If she acknowledged them, they would end her.
"Let go of me!"
Antimony did, but only to bend down and pick up her daughter's shirt, holding it in front of her. "Let's get dressed, Aijeen. You'll make yourself sick."
The dark woman stepped away from her mother, leaned her head forward and shook out her bangs. She pulled her fingers through her hair, partially damp, to straighten it out. "I cannot eat your food. My diet is very strict and cannot be deviated from."
"I wouldn't feed you something unhealthy," Antimony protested softly, dropped her eyes to the clothing in her hands. Her daughter was so small. So weak. Was she already ill...? "Aijeen, let me take care of you, please." As she said this, she stepped forward, shirt in hand, intending to help her dress if she needed.
"Unless you intend that lewdly, I refuse. You've never taken good care of me in the past." She extended her hand to take the shirt from the woman.
"That's not..." Her strength fled her words and with it went the will to protest further. Instead, she wrapped the towel more securely about her and watched D'aijeen with low ears.
D'aijeen plucked the towel from her body and began to dry herself off with it more thoroughly. As she did so, she eyed the dress that was hanging near the tub and said, "I do not recall you dressing so luxuriously, Antimony."
She could feel her tail dripping water down the back of one leg, her hair dripping on her shoulders, running down her back to soak into the towel. At D'aijeen's observation, Antimony's ears lowered further. "I... don't. It was... D'hein." She winced, giving her daughter a sad look. "Please don't call me that."
"Do you not like the name? Is that not why you chose it?" She put her towel over her mother’s wet hair, a quick, callous motion, and the put on her shirt. The white, thin silk frills sat loosely over her skin.
"I chose it--" she cut herself off as the towel draped over her head, temporarily blocking her view, and there was a moment of terror that, again, D'aijeen would disappear once she was out of sight. Hastily, Antimony pulled the towel back from her face, and though it pushed her ears down uncomfortably, she kept it over her head, clutching at its ends with both hands. "I'm your mother! You shouldn't call me... please just call me that."
"That is pathetic." D'aijeen meandered towards her mother. "You won’t even let me use your name. I can speak of you only if I satisfy your conditions of endearment, but you will not satisfy mine. You only want me as long as I show you love, and because I have K'airos. You are selfish. This is all about your desires, and not about either myself or K'airos. Why should I pity you?"
Antimony shrunk from her daughter, cringing and feeling cut down further with each sentence. "That's not what I meant, Aijeen," she whispered, brought her hands to her face. "Why can't you just accept--"
Once more, D'aijeen pressed herself up against her mother, leaned her face against the hands that Antimony had put against her face. "We could be close if you really wanted us to be. So close, so easily. So I have to assume that you don't want to be."
"No." She felt as though her chest had cracked open, as though D'aijeen had pulled apart her ribs, dug through flesh and bone, and the crushed her heart in the girl's frail grip. "I can't do that. I'll do anything you ask of me, but... but that." She did not look up, though she could feel D'aijeen's closeness, smell on her the faint, familiar scents almost buried by time and a life far, far from home. Through those, there was also a darker smell, a rot almost covered up by soap and other things. Her daughter smelled like corpses.
"That is very unpleasant news for everyone. It is hurtful because I," she kissed the back of her mother's hands over her face, "Cannot stop feeling for you. But I must protect myself and K'airos from your deception."
This was not fair. It was not fair that her daughter - her child, who she had carried and nurtured first in her body and then for years after in the open world - could say these things, do these things to her. It was not fair that Antimony could find nothing that could satisfy D'aijeen except for her daughter's twisted perversion. She didn't blame the girl for that, might have felt fury towards whoever had taught her such things if she hadn't been so overwhelmed already, but it hurt. It hurt as much as the day K'ile had returned.
There was nothing she could do or say. So she said, "I love you," but the words faded into a sob, and her legs folded beneath her.
D'aijeen stood over her mother, looking down at her. Her thoughts were slow in her tiredness and her frustration, her depserate want for a mother who could love her the way D'ahl did, or even half of that. Just someone that wouldn't torment or lie to her, and wouldn't deceive K'airos. Or would at least commit to the lie enough to make it work.
And what to do from here? Leave the woman and return to K'airos? But her sister would never happily remain with her, knowing now that her family was alive. Keeping her would be easy to do, but it would also destroy her. K'airos would never love her as D'aijeen wanted her to. Not now. They were ruined. Everything was ruined.
D'aijeen walked behind her mother and fell behind her, throwing herself over the woman's back and wrapping her hands around her mother's waist again. "Just stop, please."
Stop. Stop what? Stop loving her daughter? The idea was inconceivable, so antithetical to Antimony's existence that she had no choice but to deny it. She felt D'aijeen's thin arms wrap around her, wanted to take comfort from them, pretend that her Aijeen, her little girl had come around, had finally believed her, was willing to let go of all those terrifying little thoughts in her head. But she knew that wasn't true.
Hunching her shoulders forward, Antimony cried silently. "Anything you want, Aijeen. Anything. Just not..."
"Just stay still," D'aijeen said, her face against the back of her mother's neck, fixing her cheek between the older woman's vertebrae. She moved her hands up Antimony's side and put her fingers under the towel to pull at it.
Antimony flinched from the hands, choked out a low, "No, Aijeen. Not this." Never like this. She wouldn't hurt her daughter in this way. This was love, but it was in the wrong form. Through her tears, Antimony felt the sickness in her gut return.
"Be quiet. Don't move." D'aijeen persisted. She still persisted. She had to do the very best she could, even if it was humiliating, if only for K'airos' sake.
"Aijeen, stop!" The words tore painfully from her throat, and she twisted, pushing her daughter's hands away, hugging the towel to her body, bending so low that her face nearly touched her knees. Her shoulders shook.
D'aijeen pulled her hands away, retreating bodily as though her mother had burned her. The cactuar earring swung with a clatter, and her wet tail smacked down against the damp floor. "Wicked. Do not fake familiarity with me while you reject me. I am D'aijeen to you, and you are Antimony to me." She rolled away, finding her feet and walking to where her clothes were folded.
The words fell like ice down Antimony's back. She shuddered, sobbed, reached out for her daughter, but could not bring herself to uncurl, to look up, to watch her leave. D'aijeen would leave. And she would take K'airos away. There was nothing Antimony could do to stop her that would not also hurt her.
The dark woman took her time clothing herself. She felt a shameful weight in her limbs as though it were being inflicted on her by some spell. It was more than tiredness: she was upset. Her body seemed to want to mourn, even if she did not intellectually feel such an emotion. Nothing had changed between her and her mother, so there was nothing to grieve over.
Yet everything was ruined. Trust once broken never fully healed. She would always love her mother and K'airos, but she would never again believe that K'airos would choose her over all alternatives. She would never be convinced...
"Damn this!" The thin muscles in her body tightened inward as she shouted. One of the gloves she'd been putting on ripped, her green fingernails cutting through the cloth. "Damn this! I didn't want... her to be..."
Why did no one she loved choose to love her back with equal fervor? Why would they always choose one another over her? Nobody was on her side. She could kill them all, take whatever she wanted from them, force them to comply, but if it wasn't by choice then there was no value in it. D'aijeen did not want to doubt K'airos the same way she doubted her mother. She wanted things to be like they were: easy, faithful. They never would be again.
Her tail whipped around behind her, face cast down. She saw shadows. Her face was warm. Strange green circles meandered over her vision as she swayed, half-naked, damp, skinny. Tired. "Tahl can take all of you. I... I don't care..."
"I care. Aijeen, I care. I care, Aijeen," Antimony mumbled through tears that shook her body. Her arm remained outstretched on the floor, reaching towards D'aijeen. Her face remained turned down.
"Stop calling me that," D'aijeen said, breath shaking. She turned around to lean against the wall as she pulled on her tights, having trouble getting them to stretch around her legs with her clumsy, shaking hands.
Either not hearing her daughter or not wanting to acknowledge the request, Antimony persisted, repeating, "I care, Aijeen," like a mantra, her body bent in supplication.
When she got the tights on, they were wrinkled and crooked, her tail sitting over the hem instead of settling into the groove that was meant for it. She put her jacket on without tucking in her shirt, and it settled over her unevenly, with ruffles sticking out in strange directions. The pink ribbons that would've tied into a bow hanging down her front. "I need to leave," she said, crouching down and feeling around for her shoes with one hand, as though she couldn't see them.
As though animated by a jolt of electricity, Antimony's head shot up, her neck craning painfully from her prostrate position. Wide, green eyes focused on her daughter's form, now wrapped back up in white, and she heard herself begging, "Don't go. Please. Don't take her away. Please, Aijeen. Don't take her away!"
Finding her shoes and pulling them to her gut, D'aijeen stood again. She moved with a hunch, her face down, her cactuar earring dancing next to her face. "You wouldn't listen to me when I asked you for the same. She's mine. You can't take her away." She turned to walk bare-foot towards the door.
"Don't take her away," Antimony sobbed from the floor. She should stand. She should follow D'aijeen. Chase her. Catch her before she was gone and never let her go. "Don't leave me!" But she couldn't. Her daughter had left years ago. She'd lost them both years ago.
Opening the door to the bathroom felt like moving a wall out of her way, but she got out, into the room itself. She barely looked at anything other than the door to get away. It was not ephemeral this time. D'aijeen felt like her muscles had turned to strings inside her body. That and her sense of humiliation, that damaged pride, that inexplicable shame and grief, drove her out and away.
In the wake of D'aijeen's exit, Antimony curled back into the floor and grieved on her own.