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 Posted: Sat Jul 23, 2016 9:56 pm
It had been ... years since Uquin had willingly come to Jauhar. On the way down to the Oban festival, it had been a necessity to trail through the territory, forcing his steps and refusing to settle for more than a night on the commute. Unfortunately on the way back up through the territory it was impossible to rush as they had before. Not as many caravans were rushing through to meet a deadline, if anything the crowds of foreigners trailing up the roads made travel slower, more congested. And along the way plenty of people were emerging with injuries from the tournaments... drunken brawls from campfires, not to mention Shifers who remembered the old leaf healer from back in the days he actually came through regularly.
Now, their trip home had slowed to a crawl, and their collection of herbs they'd taken with them had grown painfully low... they'd had no choice but to tie their aldabuck for the night among the sea of tents and settled caravans outside of a shifter village. Already he had his blankets spread out and was seeing to the people who, recognizing a healer who bartered easily for his services, came in droves to be seen, while Padma was forced to rush off with a sackful of Oban gold, trying to find some apothecary who could restock their supplies.
He hated Jauhar, now. And as he tended to various peoples, he couldn't help but flinch and stare every time an Alkidike passed, walking tall and with pride as if her people weren't a bane to all around... Spirits, had he always thought so negatively? Once, he'd healed sisters on the battlefield against the Obans, and now...
Shaking his head, Uquin sneered at a badly wrapped leg, inspecting the darkened, infected flesh. "What kind of idiot goes swimming in a rainforest with such a wound? You're lucky you didn't get crystal rot." He growled, glaring at the grumbling young Wind earthling. They must have gone to Oba seeking glory in a tournament, only to be sent home limping... without a care in the world for the risks such a trip could pose!
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Posted: Sat Jul 23, 2016 10:18 pm
For the first time since settling at Medina's Ujana found herself traveling through Jauhar. There was never really any doubt that she wouldn't come back here one day, but the trip brought on just as many unwanted memories as she had feared. Vegetations shot up well past the heavens, consuming her in vibrant shades of bark with colorful mosses reaching out to touch her should she wander too close. Ujana had missed the colors of Jauhar; it was so much more...alive than Oba. What she didn't miss was the humidity. It was bad enough when it caused hair to stick to the back of her neck, but it did nothing for the moods of the travelers around her.
For days Ujana had pushed her xaraan hard. She'd paid good coin for the beast in the hopes that the breeds speed could help her catch up to her father. So far she hadn't seen him, but then again, Ujana wasn't traveling as hard now. After a few sleepless nights and heat filled days she'd given up on catching the man. At this point she would settle with finding him in general.
With her xaraan resting comfortably in the shade of a great indigo tree, Ujana had traveled closer to the Shifter's village. It had been strange to feel so out of place in a land she had once called home. That feeling hadn't lasted long though; with so many foreigners it was inevitable that Ujana would find some to commune with.
She'd found a few iceling boys who were all too eager to invite her for a drink. Naturally Ujana couldn't refuse. The fermented milk had gone down with a smooth burn, filling her body with an easy sort of comfort she hadn't had in days. At first things had gone well; laughter, bawdy jokes, a few stories,...and then the fight broke out.
One of the boys had gotten a little too close for her comfort. He pressed himself up against her side, fingers trailing up her thigh to settle against the crystals just under her breasts. The teenager had leaned in for what he thought was a romantic kiss a second before Ujana sucker punched his gut. While the casanova went down fairly easily, his friend did not. He was a larger, stouter sort who gave as much as he took. By the time the brawl was over, after being broken up by several passersbys, Ujana was covered in bruises. Still, she smirked. Better to have bruised flesh than a broken arm.
Still, she'd come out of it with a split lip and a cut just above her brow that hadn't yet stopped bleeding. An older woman told her of a traveling healer that might help her, and between the drink and fight Ujana didn't think of this being her healer. Instead, she just smiled, thanked the woman for her advice and made her way to the slowly building group surrounding what she assumed to be the healer.
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Posted: Sat Jul 23, 2016 10:36 pm
It was very tempting to tell the foolish windling to pack up and get out of his sight, but as a healer he couldn't allow himself to turn his back on a wound like this. It was red, flushed and angry, and would be simple to heal... and yet if left to fester it could get bad enough to lose the leg. Nose wrinkled against the smell, Uquin summoned forth water, siphoning it from the air with a tug of his magic, and smoothed the water against the cut, flushing out the pus until the water flowed clean. The windling held himself remarkably still, but a sweat broke on his brow, and Uquin was sure the cool water was far from pleasant.
Once clean and patted dry, Uquin applied the last of a ground up paste to it, ushered a small tendril of magic into the skin to speed up the bloodflow to the area, and finally wrapped it with finesse that only experience could give. "Keep it clean this time. Clean the bandage in boiled water, dry it, then reapply - it should heal within a few weeks. Try and find a cart or familiar to ride. Damned fool." Uquin murmured the last bit under his breath, rubbing the heel of his hand against his aching eye.
Many of those coming to seek him out weren't aching from anything too pressing, at least not compared to an infected leg, and the sight of him cleaning such a thing had droven off plenty of casual watchers... so when he finally sat up and swept his eye across the crowd, it had thinned drastically. At first, across the crowd, he thought he saw Padma and he had raised his hand to beckon her close... when he noticed it. Blood marred her lips, and a smear of it trailed from her eyebrow down the side of her cheek.
It wasn't until he looked, closer, that he saw the differences. The darker skin, hair... the fuller lips. And, of course, the streak of green. Once a joke between himself and Pahana when they had been very little, too similar as children to tell apart until they began to speak, a color that Padma still kept in her hair.
For a second, a long hopeful second, Uquin's heart leapt and he shot to his feet, staring at her, a hand outstretched... until reason kicked in. No. Ujana was dead, gone. If she'd survived, she would have sought them out long ago... and, more than that, why would he be seeing a figment of her covered in blood?
With a startled laugh, Uquin realized he must have finally gone nuts. He should have expected it sooner, really... just like his mother before him, was he really not built to handle any sort of grief? Was his mind, which he'd prided on being sharp, really so fragile? Then again, Ujana's death had haunted him for nearly a decade, and he was no closer to getting over than the day it had happened. The hand that had reached out recoiled sharply, and he turned away stiffly, dismissing the sharp demand of an impatient woman who had been waiting with a flick of his wrist, instead ducking into the hastily prepared tent that he and Padma had erected when they arrived.
Once inside, he drew the opening closed and stepped to grip the supporting pole with his hand, leaning his forehead against it and closing his eyes, tightly, trying to wrestle his mind back into some semblance of order.
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Posted: Sun Jul 24, 2016 2:48 pm
One by one the throng seemed to disperse around her, allowing Ujana to slowly make her way forward. She brushed droplets of blood away from her brow with a haphazard swarp that did little more than to smear it. There was no pain from the cut, so why was it bleeding this much? She'd never get anywhere at this rate, not so long as a foul mixture of blood and sweat kept her blinded in one eye. Maybe the healer would have something to flush it out-
Gods above.
All at once Ujana's blood seemed to clot within her veins. Her heart sputtered, seizing like a fire that just couldn't seem to burn. There he was; Uquin was so close that she could see the details of his face and she wanted to cry in relief. And he was almost waving to her, beckoning her closer until...until he wasn't anymore.
He was on his feet, watching her just as intently as she watched him before he turned away. "No, no wait..!" Ujana couldn't make her voice loud enough. It was a hush squeak, something far more vulnerable than anything she had ever produced in her life. She reached her hand out to him, almost as if to grab the one he had retracted, but he was already moving. It was her worst fears coming to light.
Her father was rejecting her.
Too bad Ujana wasn't content to just sit by and let him get away with it.
She shoved her way past a pair of chatting Shifters in an effort to close the distance between them. Her feet pounded against the dense forest floor with barely any regard as to what she may have stepped on or anything she could have tripped over. Her eyes never left his retreating figure; how could they, when he was so damn close? "WAIT!" This time her voice was a loud, impassioned bellow that ended on a frustrated growl once he disappeared inside of a tent.
Uncaring for his privacy or any sort of public protocol, Ujana threw the opening aside. "You can't just walk away from-" For once in her life the leafling was speechless. It had been so long since she'd seen her father that having him so close stole her breath, but it was the sight of his vulnerability that broke her heart. Uquin looked so weary that it seemed as if the presence of the support post was the only thing keeping him upright. Ujana bit her lower lip, slowly moving forward as the opening fell to a close behind her.
How long had she waited for this moment? In all that time she had expected harsh worse, a glower maybe, and questions a plenty but this...Had he always looked so fragile? In her youth she remembered looking up to him as a pillar of strength, so when was it that he'd become so small?
"Daddy?"
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Posted: Sun Jul 24, 2016 6:05 pm
Breathe in, breathe out. He had to focus on calming himself. He still was thinking so clearly, and if he was aware that it was an apparition, was he really crazy? Even if he could hear a voice shouting out for him (and wouldn't it be the voice he remembered? The voice of a little girl, barely into her adolescence, rather than the grown voice of a woman?), Uquin was fully aware of how impossible it was. The opening of the tent was yanked open, allowing a flood of light to assault him, even through his closed eyelid, but the voice that came with it was much more puzzling. Slowly, he opened his eyes and turned to look, squinting against the silhouette until the tarp covering the doorway once again fell closed.
There she was again. A figment of his imagination, and yet so detailed and sharp that he was puzzled that he would have put so much unconscious thought into making it. A vision of a grown Ujana, tall, broad, and beautiful. Hard in ways her mother hadn't been, so angular that he at once realized she had grown to resemble him, even as her sister had kept the soft roundness of Pahana. Unlike him, though, she was muscled, impressively so, and even bruised and bloodied as she was beautiful. Could he really have invented such an image? Because, in his own imagination, would she have ever resembled someone that he had come to hate so much?
Was it his own weak mind that wanted this to be true, or the logic of a man who was sure he would know a ghost from a real person? While he still leaned, and quite heavily, against the supporting pole of wood, Uquin drew himself up somewhat, summoning what wavering strength he could. And then it was shattered all over again. Like a punch to the gut, Uquin collapsed under that one uttered word, and like his spine had been yanked away he crumpled, falling to his knees and catching his head in his hands, fingers tugging vainly at the fringe of hair that was normally tied up so tightly. "Are you... are you some kind of mischievous spirit here to taunt me? Is that it?
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Posted: Sun Jul 24, 2016 7:32 pm
The silence that hung between them tore at her nerves. Ujana had never been overly patient, but then again, she had always seemed to know what to do. Even if it was instinctual there had always been some force pulling her forward. An urge, a nudge; even if they were bad impulses, at least they had been there. In that moment, however, she was alone. There was nothing to move her forward, just as there was nothing pushing her back. All she could do was look at the face of her Father and piece it together with the one from her memories.
Fear kept her from moving forward, and she hated it. What if he didn't want her to come back? She wished Uquin would just tell her, just say something, anything to let her know he knew she was there. For a moment she held out some hope as he stood straighter, taller, prouder, before it shattered all around her.
Ujana inhaled sharply, and rushed to his side. She dropped to her knees next to him, arms raised to embrace him and yet too unsure to actually touch him. "Spirit?" What in the-? The way he said it, with so much heart ache in his voice and his posture...Ujana furrowed her brow. "No, I'm not a spirit, I'm alive, same as you." Slowly, carefully, she reached up to disentangle one of his hands from his hand before bringing it to rest above her heart. "I'm right here, Daddy."
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Posted: Sun Jul 24, 2016 7:55 pm
He wanted so badly to just ignore the presence there, to keep his gaze away from it. Seeing it was painful, but hearing it was somehow worse. And yet, it felt like a person truly was beside him... and when a hand finally gripped hold of his own, pulling it from his hair (with a sharp tug at his scalp, as his grip hadn't been gentle), Uquin finally forced himself to look up again, lips pressed into a stricken frown. The touch was warm, the fingers rough as if from work, slightly clammy... either from stress or the blasted humidity of the rain forest.
Then his hand was moved, and rested against a strongly beating heart. He inhaled, sharply, then dropped his hand to catch her wrist, fingers pressing at just the right point to feel it. To feel the beating pulse, strong and very much alive. Then, remembering the bloodied features, Uquin gingerly rose his hand and pushed back the fringe of her hair, looking at the bleeding cut. Bruised flesh, but very much alive - not cold and flaxen or ethereal, like a spirit. Distantly, Uquin worried he had truly lost his mind - but every sense he had was telling him this was real.
And if it wasn't real, did he even want to know it? "...Ujana? It can't be... but you..." Pulling his hand back from her forehead, and letting her bangs drop once more, Uquin sat back slightly, growing more and more confused. "After the war, no one knew where you were. Or your mother... it was thought that you were..." Well, since they had gone to live with their half alkidike brethren, it had always been suspected that the whole family had been hunted down by the extremists. They had all disappeared in the aftermath of the march, so it came to be known as fact. And, after nearly ten years it came to be known nearly as fact by many who had known them.
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Posted: Sun Jul 24, 2016 8:21 pm
She couldn't breath while he checked her pulse. Did he truly not believe what his eye told him? What kind of life had her father lived up until this moment that made him unsure of his reality? Ujana blinked back tears and took a steadying, albeit shaky breath, in an attempt to contain them.
There was little for her to do, but to sit as he performed his examination. If he had lost his sense of reasoning then surely she was following in his footsteps. Waiting, forcing herself not to say something, was killing her. Ujana opened her mouth, almost breaking her vow of silence, before closing her lips with a grimace.
"I went to fight in the war, or to do as best I could, anyway. When it was over and I came back ...everyone was...gone. I tried finding mother, but it was like she vanished." He thought I was dead. It had never once occurred to her that her disappearance might have been related to something so drastic. How stupid could she have been? Taking off like that, refusing to write anymore letters...no wonder he thought she was a spirit!
"I didn't know what else to do, so I left. I wanted to come home to you and Padma, I really did, but-" Ujana reached up to rub at her eyes, wiping away what tears had dared escape. "Gods, I'm such a damn mess. Can't even talk without blubbering like some stupid kid."
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Posted: Sun Jul 24, 2016 8:38 pm
She was alive. Really, truly alive. For so long he'd thought he'd lost her, and to have here now... alive and well, and suddenly appearing as if nothing had happened... he didn't know whether to cry in relief and hold her close, or stand up and yell at her for being so damned foolish. Instead, his voice broke as he released a choked laugh, bitter but also grudging. "Of course you'd have gone to fight, foolish girl." He laughed, then smoothed a hand through his hair, straightening it back from the harried disarray of before. But then she began to speak of returning to Tale, to him and Padma, and at this he looked at her, his eyebrows furrowed in genuine confusion. His hand, unwilling to sit still, reached out for her, one hand settling on the crown of her head, smoothing back her tied back hair... and in this moment he realized that even now, sitting like this, his little one was taller than him by far.
He was silent for a moment, watching as her hands brushed away her own tears. "Then why didn't you?" He finally asked. If it had been any other time, such words would have come out sharp, a reprimand for her putting him and her sister through so much. And yet here, with tears leaking from her eyes, this grown woman who was his daughter looked so small and fragile. He'd missed so much time with her, and despite his pain and frustration with her not returning sooner, in this moment he couldn't scold her. He was too scared of driving her off. Could still scarcely believe this was really happening... it was surreal, strange and overly serene, and he was sure any moment it would shatter under their emotions.
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Posted: Sun Jul 24, 2016 9:02 pm
It was strangely comforting to have that hand on her head. His touch alone was enough to bring Ujana back to her youth, which did nothing save strengthening her tears. She tried to chuckle, which came out with a strangled sort of quality, and ultimately gave up on it. Of course she had gone to fight. Even with so many telling her not to do it she had gone anyway; how could she sit back when so many were going to get hurt?
If she had remained with her mother she might be missing as well, or worse. The latter begged no more consideration, as there was already enough emotion in this one tent to fill her yearly quota.
"I-I don't know." Ujana didn't mean for her voice to spike as it had, but her emotions had never been easy to hide. "I'm different than I was back then, and I thought that maybe...that maybe you wouldn't want me around." And there was the crux of it, wasn't it? No matter how much she had yearned for her family the brave, brash young warrior had been too weak to seek them out. "I'm not a lady - not a real one - and I've spent the past few years working as hired muscle for a tavern in Oba."
She wasn't a dancer, she wasn't a seamstress, nor was she a healer. Ujana had grown into a bar brawler who thrived on that seedy sort of atmosphere. Her jokes were just as atrocious as her dancing and still - "I thought that if I stayed away I couldn't shame you."
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Posted: Sun Jul 24, 2016 9:35 pm
It was a painful reminder that Pahana truly must have been gone. With Ujana alive, there had been that glimmer of hope... because even if they hadn't known eachother as well as they could have, Uquin couldn't not mourn for the mother of his daughters.
As Ujana answered, Uquin had to fight back the urge to interject, to instantly deny her words... but instead he kept quiet, letting her explain. Letting her truly say what she wanted to say. And in that moment, sitting face to face with Ujana, he realized that in his grief he had never afforded Padma that same courtesy... of just sitting and talking with him, without fear of being scolded or corrected.
Was he horrified to learn she'd been living in a tavern, of all places, in Oba? Definitely - the very idea of her in some place like that, his little one, chafed him. The thought of her on that battlefield in Sauti... while he himself had been behind the lines, healing... then her on the road with complete strangers, without anyone to watch over her. And yet here she was. The same guiltlessly battered girl who had gotten up to no good as a youngling...
Most of all though, it broke his heart that she'd gone through her adult life sincerely thinking that her father would turn her aside for something like this! As a father he'd always been on her back, scolding and punishing her for her adventures... and yes, Padma had always been the 'behaved' one. The one who sewed, who stayed indoors and danced like her mother, and was a little lady in everyone's eyes... was it really a surprise that the impressions Ujana took from her childhood were that he would think such things? But could he really blame her? After all, hadn't he done the exact same thing... only to his mother and sister? They lived only weeks away in Tale itself, and yet he hadn't seen them in nearly twenty years now. Hadn't even thought about seeking them out, more than a few passing fancies in the dead of night. Was that how Ujana had felt, this whole time?
"Ujana..." He finally said, struck by the realization of her feelings. But as the silence between them grew longer, he realized that he had to fill them... had to respond to her fears, to soothe them as best he could even with his own stilted, rough words. Smoothing back her hair, ducking his head so he could meet her lowered eyes. "I hated that you always fought, that you... came home covered in scratches and blood so often." Grimacing, Uquin briefly glanced back at the cut at her brow, then met her eyes again. "But only because I worried for you. I would always worry, even if you stayed inside all your days without a care in the world, I would worry because you're my daughter."
Touching, and true, but did that truly help with any of her conflicted feelings?? Uquin trailed off, then pulled his hands back, reaching for a pack of supplies, pulling out what he would need to wash the blood from her face. Wetting down a cloth, he moved closer, brushing it over her temple and cheek to clean what blood had smeared there. "... I ran away from home, when I was your age. I wanted to be a healer - to help people. But my sister hated it; she wanted me to learn to wield a sword, or a spear. She was strong and bold and powerful... definitely not a 'lady'. I think you take after her, in a lot of ways." He paused, considering as he gently dabbed at the cut. "I never went back. So I... will count it as a blessing that you did."
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Posted: Mon Jul 25, 2016 11:52 am
She unconsciously tilted her head into his touch, soaking in as much of the contact as she could before it disappeared. When Ujana lifted her gaze to meet her father's, crystalline eyes peeping around auburn bangs, she was surprised to have him so close. This wasn't what she had expected to happen, but it had been what she hoped for. He was meeting her on her level without snapping or condemning her.
Ujana had never loved her father more.
"That hasn't changed, daddy. I fought in the tournament; even made it to the third round before I lost." In all honesty Ujana never wanted to stop fighting. The adrenaline high she experienced in the midst of a good battle was unlike any other. It was in those moments that she felt most at peace; as if in that chaos she could find herself. But, how could she ever explain that to him? He wouldn't understand the need for dominance; that certainty that she could change her entire day with just her fists.
"...I would worry because you're my daughter."
Ujana felt her heart lurch within her chest. Medina had often referred to her as a daughter, and while it had eased the ache in her heart, it was only a temporary balm. When he pulled away she tried sitting up a little straighter, and brushed as much hair away from her face as she could. She held several locks back with a her hand while he cleaned the cut, hissing only during the initial contact.
"You ran away from home?" The admission stunned her. "I...huh. You don't seem like the kind of person to do something so...ballsy." Then again, Uquin had always been a determined, stubborn git so she supposed it wasn't too much of a stretch. It was mildly amusing to ponder his reasons in comparison to her own; while he had walked away from a life in battle, she had made it her home.
"Anyone with two hands can wield a spear. Just because you're a healer doesn't mean you aren't bold or powerful. At any one moment you could hold someone's life in your hands and be the one responsible for saving it, instead of just cutting it down. If your sister couldn't see that then she's a dumbass."
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Posted: Mon Jul 25, 2016 5:20 pm
Of course, he didn't want to hear that she was competing in tournaments - even if it was the same one he had entered (and lost, miserably) in. He frowned, feeling more than a little pained, because honestly this was a daughter who had, quite literally, returned from the dead! And it was hard to force back years of habit. Even so, he kept his remarks to himself, and instead focused on cleaning the wound, healing the cut with a swipe of his fingers. Of course, his magic had never been the strongest, and it wouldn't heal it completely, but at least the bleeding had stopped.
However, it was her surprise at his admission that made him shoot back a hesitant smirk, chuckling almost to himself as he turned his attention to the numerous bruises that he could see, resting his hand on each spot briefly. With a sharp sting of magic, he could accelerate the blood flow - help the body flush out the bruising. Yet, having her compliment him actually surprised him. He raised his eyebrows and looked at her, lips pressing together to hide the urge to smile. It was more touching than he would admit to have her taking his side. "A touching compliment. But then, wouldn't I be equally foolish if I refused to let you follow your own path? Healing was my calling, Ujana. But who am I to decide what yours should be?"
With her bruises tended to, Uquin finally leaned back, just taking her in. Taking in the fact that he and his daughter were sitting together, speaking of futures - when only minutes ago he had thought she wouldn't have one? It was ... still strangely surreal, and as calm as he seemed in this moment, he was sure it would be a long, long time before he truly believed she was here, real and alive.
And would he be so level headed and assured when the shock died down?
Shrugging, Uquin rested his hands in his lap, snorting almost to himself. "Whatever you do, I couldn't care less what people think. There's nothing you could do that would 'shame me'." It was a silly thought, but then again what sort of image must he have portrayed when she was young to make her think this way?
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Posted: Mon Jul 25, 2016 5:49 pm
Having her bruises healed was both a blessing and a curse. She grumbled every time a sharp p***k of magic aggravated her tender flesh, only to relax all the more once she actually could. As a rule she tended not to see a healer unless absolutely necessary, mostly because they always ended up wagging a finger in her face and telling her not to do something she would obviously do the next day. Uquin had yet to say anything of the sort, but Ujana knew it was only a matter of time.
Unlike her father, she had no reservations about smiling. "Thank the Gods, because at this point nothing you say could stop me." She chortled and sat back, crossing her legs in a pretzel shape before resting her elbows on her knees. It wasn't the most feminine position to take, but then, when had she ever cared about that sort of thing?
So, nothing could shame him, hmm? A wicked thought crept into her brain and being her naturally impulsive self, Ujana gave in. "That's sweet of you to say, and it takes a load off my heart. I was so afraid you wouldn't like your grand-daughters, given that they're half alkidike, but now I feel much better about introducing you." Faking a relieved sigh, Ujana placed a hand over her heart.
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Posted: Mon Jul 25, 2016 7:02 pm
Twitch. Spirits above it hadn't taken long for her to tread over that nerve had it? He stared at her, blankly, trying to discern if this was her classic sense of humor - uncertain how to comprehend his grown up daughter's jokes. But, thankfully, her theatrics were just enough for him to take the cue that it was a joke. Even so, his lips did more more than a grudging twitch of a smile, willing to let her joke at his expense.
"Hmm. I'd enjoy your grace period while you still can, darling daughter." He drawled, leaning back somewhat, his shoulders leaning against the tent support once again. His own posture was straight and almost regal. It was only the slope of his shoulders that betrayed how relaxed he was. Seemingly he cared very little about her own, brutish posture. He felt emotionally drained and exhausted, and now that she'd been tended to he could only watch her, his sharp look from before softening once again. He could only stay tense so long without giving in to the temptation to drink the sight of her in. Alive.
Truly, truly, alive. "Tell me. About... Oba. About your life." He finally asked, his voice dropped low, almost as if afraid she would ignore it."
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