Revenant Bound - Chapter 1: Rendezvous

Chapter 1: Rendezvous

Val'sharah... an hour after twilight

Vasedra
Sedra sits in the lee of a rock, watching the quiet surf of the lazy night ocean slide in and out over the sand, washing away the cloven hoofprints left behind by her earlier pacing. The grooves fill with water on each surge and soften with each recession. Fill and blur. Fill and blur. Fill and blur...

It reminds her of something vague, something thrumming from her heart, and as the sound of the ocean against the rock fills her ears, her gaze grows unfocused and her head lolls back against the curve of the boulder, the false-lit blue of her eyes beneath her cowl slipping up to the star-filled sky, unseeing.

A slow, steady ebb and flow, pain and elation, filling and eroding. The eredar's heart pounds in her ears, not fast, but lethargic, resounding, contracting and releasing with the surf as if its power is what sends the water rushing around the base of the rock. In each beat there is a promise of something, a lurking that is hunger and damnation as well as salvation. The sound, the sensation wrap around her and leave her feeling dizzy and distant from... everything.

That's why she doesn't hear the voice that speaks from the pouch at her hip the first pair of times it calls her name.

"... dra? Sed? Don't tell me you're sleeping. I know this is too early for you."

The void knight blinks slowly, moving only her right hand as she reaches into the soft leather and pulls free the blackstone communicator.

"Ary." Her voice is inflectionless, coming from a million stars away as she raises the wrong device to her lips.

Her friend's voice answers from the white and red guildstone in her pouch. "Sedra?"

Araatris
Ary sighs. "Did I wake you? You're still muffled." There's a shuffling of cloth from the other side of the guildstone.

On the other side of the stone, Ary packs her bag while sitting on the soft furs of Eraelan's bed. Hating to repeat herself, yet also not in the mood to wait, she continues, "Eraelan just left, so I'm free. Where should I meet you?"

She shoves rations on top of the wrapped vials and cloth and looks around the small natural hovel. Ary makes a tiny sound of agreement to herself as she flips the top closed and locks its metal clasp with a snap.

"Sedra. Wake up. I'd rather not have to poke your half awake brain for the information." Ary comments dryly.

Vasedra
Blinking, the void knight drags herself through the odd fugue as her friend speaks, focusing on her familiar voice over the throbbing pulse. It takes a few seconds, but she manages to lift her head from the rock and pull her gaze down from the stars. A start.

"Uh... Meet? Yes. I was... waiting." She looks at the black stone in her hand, her brow furrowing. Wait, no. That isn't right. "You're... late? R-Raeis-?"

Sedra stops herself, glancing down at her pouch. She finally catches up enough to shove the blackstone communicator away and grab the Netherbane guild stone.

Her voice is suddenly much clearer when she tells her friend, "Ary. I'm in Val'sharah at the moment. Do you recall the place I told you about on the coast?"

Araatris
"Who's Raeis--Nevermind. I'll ask later. I know where you're talking about." Ary snorts. "I'll call in a favor with the Kirin Tor. They owe me after my apartment was trashed." There's a pause. "Give me a couple of hours and I'll be there."

Vasedra
"As you wish. I'll wait for you. Be safe."

As the stone goes dark, Sedra frowns and looks around at the moonlit shore and the dark cove. She idly wonders what she was doing before Ary called and hops down from the rock, hooves splashing in the high tide lapping around her perch. An image fills her thoughts, and she toys with it curiously as she resumes an easy pace up and down the beach.

A winding road lined with slender trees whose branches reached toward the violet sky above like the gaunt hands of a starving mother pleading for mercy...

Raeisley
"Mumbling to yourself, darling?" The Paramour purrs from behind the knight, standing in the same she has a flask in her hand which she nurses from between sasses. She is in her 'work' dress as it were, blue clot bordered in silver and black cloth with the exposed stomach. She isn't quite touching the stand but rather drifting just above it and pretending to walk.

"Aren't you looking cavalier. I wager you were looking for a fight but I see you left your true weapons at home ♫" She takes one last sip from the flask and drops it to be claimed by the waves, sauntering forward arms crossed under her breast.

"Shall we depart? I had a harsh trip getting here and am ravenous to say the least for nourishment and details."

Vasedra
Sedra turns back to watch the Siren, resting a hand on her hip. "I see you are skirting a new definition of 'on time', Raeisley." The blades at her hip hiss, a sound only briefly displayed and easily lost in the hiss of the surf.

"There has been a slight change of plans. We are waiting for one more before we go. She needs a while longer." The void knight shifts her stance, the luminous blue eyes beneath her cowl following the progress of Raeisley's flask into the inky ocean. "While we wait, you can entertain me with the tale of your 'harsh trip'."

Raeisley
Prancing forward with mirth and perhaps the detectable hint of malice. "I was actually curious if you were to be able to tell me, love ♪" She ends her pace with a hoof pointed into the sand, eyes entranced on the knight. They are frosted contemptuous ice that obscure the crystal waters beneath. Much a similar stare to back when they had first entered the shrine's practice chambers.

"I was attacked you see, a mage hunter or so we guess. My knight was burned to retreat and myself was stung the most vicious of magic. Saved only by the intervention and wit  my dear Centurion ♫"

She touches her brow with three fingers, the right arm still crossed under her teets to support the crook of her elbow. "It left me quite the headache. -- Our third, if it's Rhavos I'll be departing now. Were not on speaking terms till he realizes how he insulted me."

Vasedra
Vasedra wrinkles her nose. "I did say she will be meeting us. Rhavos, last I heard, didn’t qualify for the pronoun. Though I haven’t... looked into the matter." The void knight meets Raeisley's hostility and suspicion as neutrally as she did on Highmountain.

"I have to wonder what motivations and associations you attribute to me, Raeisley. You seem enamored of the idea that I've something to do with Rhavos. You sound almost... jealous?"

Sedra scoffs and turns her head to stare at the Paramour, intensity in her false, blue gaze. "If I wanted you dead, I would come for you myself. That is a promise. I had nothing to do with your current... headache."

Raeisley
Her simpers perks to a smirk, one last leap closes the distance between them. Chortles covering her lips with her tendrils in the haughty coyness. "I told my dear Centurion the same thing, it wasn't your style but - I had to ask regardless, principle and all~" Her fingers leave her face, offering the knight her pinky.

"A promise then was it?"  Raeis tail coils from behind her whipping to each side of her thighs.

Vasedra
Sedra just stares, unamused, at the offered digit before pointedly ignoring it.

"You can't have been too seriously concerned that I was after your life. You're here; your centurion is not. So who do you really believe sent the mage hunter? I'm sure there is a long list of people you've annoyed."

Raeisley
Another chortle, another finger pressed to her lip she cants her head down but keeps her eyes fixed with Vasedra's "I'd of came especially if I thought you were the one who plotted it, love ♪ I am the mad siren after all ♫"

She twirls in place with a hum. "Kirin Tor, a bitter noble, someone I've wronged but never recalled their name - someone who doesn't exist yet or perhaps someone who never did? I'd suspect Rhavos but even him I suspect he wants me alive when he tries to chain me to his bed~ What was shot at me was meant to kill not wound.  Most pointed of all was the tools used, they were tailored to slay a mage."

Vasedra
Snorting, Vasedra wanders in a broad circle around the Paramour, sand crunching sharply underhoof. She folds her arms across her breastplate, the dull blue gem at its center catching the moonlight. She smirks.

"Including people who don't exist might make the list of suspects impossibly long, Raeisley. Perhaps start with the real ones. Would your affinity for magic be common knowledge among the circles of your acquaintance?"

Raeisley
"I think you'll find that the people who don't exist are far more dangerous than the ones that do~♥" Her arms sweep back, her tail embracing her wrists in a self made hand cuff.

"Have I ever been given the notion to hid it, love?" Her tail curls in a S the tip wiggling at the stalking knight as she circles her whilst still in its hold. "Who is not much of a issue for me. Assassination attempt are the norm to the daughter of the Eredar. Eventually I will find them and eventually I will turn them to me ♪"

Vasedra
"More's the pity for them," Sedra says, the teasing light of her eyes all that's visible under her cowl. "To be the devoted focus of your... charm..."

With her expression hidden, the trailing comment is difficult to read. The void knight gives very little time for the attempt, as she turns away and wanders back the way she'd come, unwilling to stray too far from the cove.

Raeisley
"Fortunately they have neither ♪ How long must we wait, I haven't eaten yet."

Vasedra
"A while, yet," Sedra mutters as she wanders slowly along the beach. "She needs time to get here. Be patient. Take a seat, if you like. Perhaps nap that headache away."

Raeisley
The Paramour frowns leering into the water she huffs. "Entertain me with the nature of our adventure then. Will this third be joining us, should I be worried, you seem to be after all. Once a immovable glacier now a tumbleweed across Westfall's plains."

Vasedra
The eredar shakes her head. "I'm not worried."

But her body language tells the lie for what it is as she continues down the shore, her arms alternating between crossing across her chest and slipping free to rest on the pommels of the uncomfortable new swords sheathed at her waist. Her gaze is restless across the waves and the sand and the brownish-grey stone of the cliffs beside the shore.

"And I really dislike that mental imagery."

Nearer to the cove, the waterline rises, and her hooves splash into the edge of the surf. "Our adventure is a tour of the Revenant, as promised. Maybe I will grace you with a glance at the Soul Cleaver if you're lucky. And our third is... Well, she will join us, I hope. I have a promise to her that must be kept as well."

Raeisley
"Breaking, cracking under the weight of your own tangled masses while aimlessly roving through fields of dried grass ♪" Raeisley coos turning she walks away in the opposite direction of the knight. "The Soul Cleaver is another vessel?"

Vasedra
Vasedra winces, glancing off to the side at nothing. "Shut up," she mutters quietly, "I know it sounds accurate." With more normal volume, she continues, "I dislike it even more."

The eredar pauses and leans her back against the rock that was her perch, earlier, watching Siren's back as she walks away.

"The Soul Cleaver was a dreadnought vessel. But now it is... not. It was taken down during the war." She waves an idle, cold hand. "I won't explain more. If you're worthy, I'll show you."

There's a certain smug amusement in her voice at the turned table of judgement.

Raeisley
"Under your master's command I take it?" Raeisley keeps walking her voice is soft but loud above the waves even as she grows further away. It sounds as  if she were speaking next to Vasedra.

"Taken down tells me it was destroyed. If it is your master then I can see his fetish for toting around -broken- things."

Vasedra
"No," the void knight bites the word curtly. "The Cleaver is a relic of a different life." She says nothing else, her expression hidden by the dark as well as her cowl.

Raeisley
"Your life, darling?"  The voice whispers into the knight's cheek. Its soft innocent and much too close. The Paramour herself is nearly forty yards away at this point with seemingly no intent to stop.

"I should mark myself touched then if you were willing to share such a intimate location, your present and past are always a tender subject ♪"

Vasedra
"Mm." Discomfited, Sedra shies away from the sound of Raeisley's voice and pushes off of the rock, wandering after her. "You have yet to earn the glimpse, Siren. Don't get ahead of yourself."

She sighs and looks up at the moon, calculating the time left before Ary's likely to make it. And the result has her sighing a second time.

Raeisley
Passing a crag she slips behind the rock, her voice gaining a distant echo. " ♫ Are you attempting to bribe me, Sedra? ♪" A chortle follows blurring with the sound of a rushing water, the sea begins to stir perhaps it's the tides.

Vasedra
"I believe it's common to promise a reward for good behavior." The eredar chuckles. "Are you capable of behaving yourself for an entire evening? Perhaps we should lay out  what that might entail?"

Raeisley
They share the laugh though the Paramour is both out of sight and from the sound seems to be getting further and further away. "I rarely behave and am beloved for it ♥ but not what I meant, love~ It wouldn't hurt to attempt to bribe me though ♫"

Vasedra
Sedra shakes her head, smirking beneath her hood. "I'll keep that in mind, Siren." She picks up her pace after the other woman, raising her voice. "I don't want to go too far from the cove. The restless dead from Blackrook sometimes patrol down this far."

Raeisley
"And you know what else patrols down here~♪" There is a chuckle her words rise and fall like the growing restlessness of the sea.

Vasedra
With a suspicious frown, the void knight continues toward the crag. "No...?"

Raeisley
"Hydras ♪" She mews the word savoring it in her throat before breathing it out. "And where there are hydras there are hydra eggs~" she continues in the same inflection.

Vasedra
Sedra snorts. "Ah. You're thinking with your stomach, aren't you? Well, don't drag me into your trouble. I'll be waiting by the cove."

Raeisley
Reappearing the Paramour is atop the crag rock surveying the beachscape. The sun is all but gone, the moon's light replacing with her own the silver hue accenting the Eredar's outfit. Raeisley crouches like a cat and then leaps into the unknown.

Vasedra
"Rae-!" The void knight bites off her own protest, just pressing her cold, plate-clad palm over her face for a few long seconds.

Araatris
An hour or so later, a large runesaber glides down over the beach. Ary's gaze searches the darkened landscape for a familiar figure. She smirks as she catches a pacing shadow and guides her mount over to the draenei. "Sedra!"

Her slender purple dress hugs her form with bindings wound and buckled around her arms. She shows no concern of the deep v-neck of her dress or the thin cloth straps holding it up around her shoulders. Behind her head is a metal halo wrapped in cloth, perhaps the tattered end of her dress, with blood runes scribed on the fabric. At the back, hanging in the center behind the cloth, a single dark purple crystal chimes discordantly as she lands.

Her bare feet hit the ground and she strides to Sedra, who has paused her pacing. "Vasedra, I really should ask what you're doing all the way out here." Ary sighs and tucks a red hair behind her ear. "What are you doing out here?"

Vasedra
"Most immediately?...waiting for you." The void knight's tone belies the smirk hidden in the dark beneath her cowl, but the luminous glow of her eyes stands out clearly by contrast as her gaze peruses her friend from head to bare, fleshy little toes.

"Hello, Ary. How are you?" Her gaze examines the new halo. "It looks like you're becoming a jewelry girl, yourself."

Araatris
There's a deepening to the color of her cheeks as Ary finds the surf very interesting. "I'm much better. Eraelan made a new halo for me to keep out the whispers and echoes. When I lost my other one... it made things difficult."

Vasedra
Sedra nods slightly, her chuckle easily lost in the sound of the surf. "I'm glad he's helped you. You look... ragged and regal at once."

Araatris
"And yet, I try for neither." Ary snorts. "But... thank you, I think." The small human pats her mount and motions away and the runesaber surges to the sky. "So, what is the less immediate answer?"

Vasedra
The void knight makes a vague gesture out over the water. "I was already planning to meet someone when you called. I'll introduce you when she returns from... well, from cavorting with the hydra, I suppose. She went egg hunting." Sedra pauses and glances back at the cove. "I owe you both some portion of the same thing... in the form of an introduction to my ship and crew."

Araatris
Ary frowns and stares at Sedra. "A ship. And a crew. And someone out egg hunting." She shakes her head. "Perhaps you should add in a few more relevant details. How do you have a ship and a crew? What type of people are the crew? And who in the void is out hunting eggs and why?" She pinches the bridge of her nose.

Vasedra
Sedra's blades mutter something incomprehensible, a sound that devolves to mad giggles until she rests her palms on the pommels. They fall immediately silent.

"One of the gifts the Bloodbinder gave me is a vessel, a small warship called the Revenant. It came complete with a crew to... assist me when he needs something done. His work is not limited to Azeroth, Ary. Quite the opposite, in fact. His work, I hope, will seldom have anything to do with Azeroth."

She glances out over the ocean, away from her friend's annoyed gaze. "I don't know much about the crew, yet. They're... questionable, I suppose."

Araatris
"Questionable. That's... a unique description for a crew." Ary takes a deep breath. "I still have some concerns about that, but I won't go into it." She glances about and rests one hand on a gem-pommeled dagger. "I guess we'll wait on the other for now." Looking at Sedra from the corner of her eye, she asks, "Were you resting earlier when I called on you? You seemed half-asleep like you were talking to someone else."

Vasedra
"Mm? Did I?" The void knight frowns under her cowl, turning her head to the side. "I was waiting for Raeisley, at the time. Just sitting on a rock and watching the surf. I think I... got confused. I have two communication stones, and I grabbed the wrong one."

Her finger taps slowly against the hilt of her right sword. "It's... a little fuzzy. Maybe I dozed a bit without realizing."

Araatris
Ary nods. "Shall we just relax until this... Raeisley returns then?"

Vasedra
Though the eredar makes a face under her cowl, it's difficult to see in the low light. "As you wish. I'll wander a bit, if you want to sit." She gestures toward the boulder that is now working its way free of the receding tide.

Sedra starts to turn away before pausing and glancing back with a teasing, "Do you need a boost up?"

Araatris
The woman snorts. "I'm still quite capable of climbing a bolder. At least it won't drop me on the floor like the duct you had me crawling through." Ary smirks and hops up on the boulder, tucking her feet to her side as she settles down.

Raeisley
In the distance, perhaps too far to matter but loud enough to hear the thunderous stomp and chilling hiss of the local amphibians rises over the rocks and waves. Sickly foam begins to form on the crests of each waves, the tide is coming in.

Vasedra
"I take no blame for that..." the other woman says with an airy wave of her hand before turning to wander away.

Vasedra paces around restlessly for a while before pausing to poke at the surf with a hoof.

"Ugh," she mutters, shying back and kicking bitty and odd-tinted bubbles from her person. It's hard to tell more than that in the dark. She backs away from the advancing water, the sand underhoof freezing just momentarily with each crunching step. "Ary? Can your shadows see this...? Whatever it is?"

Araatris
Ary leans forward, shadows swirling around her and creeping across the ground. "It feels... polluted. Perhaps something died in the water or something was dumped. I wouldn't want to actually touch it. It could be acidic or poisonous." There's an edge of curiosity to her tone as her shadows explore the area, acting as her eyes in the darkness.

Vasedra
Sedra leans down and swipes her plate-covered finger through the foam, rubbing the resultant captured goo between her thumb and forefinger. When she pulls them apart, the slimy substance strings between her digits with a mucousy quality.

She pulls it close enough to her nose to sniff it, and then immediately regrets the choice. With a cough, she flicks her fingers outward, sending goo flying back into the corrupted surf.

"Why do I suspect," she says with another cough, "that Raeisley is behind this?"

Araatris
The woman pulls her shadows back and remarks dryly, "I'm suddenly grateful that I didn't decide to step into the surf. Who is this Raeisley that they could cause... this?" She gestures at the water broadly. "Is she a demon?" The question is not asked judgingly, but more as if Ary is preparing herself for whoever might show.

Vasedra
Sedra flicks her fingers toward the water once more for good measure before she wanders across the sand, back toward her friend. Despite its predictability, she finds herself unprepared for the question.

"Raeisley is... not a demon? Probably? But she is..." The void knight hesitates yet again, reaching under her cowl to scratch her cheek. "... she's... an eredar, like me. But not like me at all."

Watching her friend's expression, she winces. "I think you need to meet her and draw your own conclusions, Ary. Sa'khari introduced us, if that adds any context.

... And also? You probably shouldn't trust... much about her. I don't think she... ah... I'm not sure I believe she has a healthy relationship with honesty."

Raeisley
The Paramour is heard before she is seen, the jovial tune of a meal well earned hummed from behind the rocky outcrop she has disappeared behind an hour before.

"Vaaaa-seeeeeeee-draaaa ♪" She sings popping out in a flash of silver and blue bled together in the dark of moonlight. She is of average height for her kind and lacks any jewelry on her tendrils and energetic tail, both of them move with a childish energy. Until at least she spots the small human, her smile heating to a simper, Eyes clear and blue as a summer sky change seasons before the duo, where there was water there is now ice. She has a bundle in her left hand to which she sweeps behind her back along her with other arm. Advancing on the duo in a proud gate she takes stock of the woman, a tendril running across her lower lip.

"I must admit I am disappointed at your  ♪~eventual~♫ arrival or the invitation. It does cheapen the whole affair knowing it wasn't the personal tour I've long awaited but I suppose it can't be helped."

Raeisley lips briefly part to a smile, the gentle suggestion of Draenic canines appears and her left had pops forward, bundle pinched in two delicate fingers bound in a reflective satin cobalt.

"Snack?"

Araatris
"And you much be this Raeisley that I've heard so little about. Let me not be rude though." She smiles vaguely and does a slight bow. "I am Ary. While my blade, Vasedra, might have promised you a tour, she has other duties to dispense as well."

The red-headed woman's gaze assesses The Paramour as she moves to slide down off the rock to her bare feet. "I'm sure the tour will be just as... personal... even with my presence." She eyes the item and bows her head politely. "Thank you, but no. I'm not particularly hungry yet."

Vasedra
The void knight glances between the two of them, her expression hidden beneath her cowl, but her luminous eyes are slightly narrowed. It's not hard to imagine her furrowed brow.

Before Raeis can chime in, she speaks up. "What is this snack, Siren, and does it have anything to do with the foul-smelling substance in the water?"

Raeisley
"What foulness are talking about, love. I am busy seducing yet another of your keepers~" she twirls to the knight.

Leaning forward she cups half her mouth squinting with a haughty snicker she 'whispers' " Your soul is being spread thin with your oaths isn't it?"

Reaching the woman's side she looks at the water inspecting the ooze accumulating on the shore.

Araatris
Ary follows, frowning and murmuring, "Seducing?" She tightens her ponytail and stays fair enough back to keep her feet out of the bare water.

She rests one hand on her hip. "The water is corrupted. We thought you may know of it or why."

Vasedra
Vasedra says nothing to Raeisley's comment. After all, what can she really say? It's too true, but it's certainly not something she's excited to discuss.

She just presses her lips together unhappily and glances over at Ary before she crouches down to the edge of the surf, keeping herself away from the water. Showing far greater control than she ever has before, the eredar reaches a hand down to the sand, and frost creeps into the surf, freezing a small piece of both saltwater and goo.

Stepping forward, she reaches out to pluck up the half-frozen ooze and holds it up to the moonlight to peer at it.

Raeisley
Raeisley leans up following the ice with her eyes, a twink strikes her eye and her simper rises to a coy grin.

" If you close your eyes and open your mouth. I'll tell you what I believe it is~"

Araatris
Ary raises an eyebrow. "What is this snack you're so keen on someone trying?" She steps closer to get a better look at what's in both their hands, the snack and the goo.

Vasedra
The void-tainted eredar's hood turns toward Raeis, and her voice is droll when she says, "Ary asks a very good question, Siren."

Raeisley
She coos her tail rising it coils on a C. "Consider it another of my delightful trusts exercises."  A twirl of the wrist and a pair of jade chopsticks appear in her fingers. They have little dangling yak charms.

click
click

Vasedra
They can't see the way Sedra's nose wrinkles under her cowl, but her voice contains no small amount of irritation. "And what did I say last time about the trust between us? That hasn't ch-"

She cuts herself off with a sigh, reaching up to pinch the bridge of her nose under her cowl, and remind herself of her purpose, tonight.

"Fine. I will give you this little bit. Consider it a part of your bribe, Raeisley."

Araatris
"Then close your eyes and let her give it to you already. Aren't we supposed to be going somewhere?" Ary shifts in agitation. "If it makes you ill, we'll deal with it afterwards."

Vasedra
The void knight only slants her friend an unreadable look before she does as they've both, now, requested. The luminous blue of her eyes winks out as she closes them.

Raeisley
Another click and she reaches inside her pouch pinching a sliver of red flesh between the twin jade pincers. It oozes with red and the suggestion of recent butchery though it was clean with a muscle pattern of some aquatic animal.

"A bribe for naught I'm afraid if my intuition is correct~"

Her own tongue sticking out she navigates the treat onto Vasedra. It's still warm from the kill.

"And I am perilously ever wrong."

Araatris
Ary raises an eyebrow. "Why would you think it's for naught?" She watches for Sedra's reaction, rocking back on her heels lightly.

Vasedra
The void knight silently chews once she's realized that the snack is raw meat. Not her favorite, by the way her shoulders hunch a bit, but she's far from a picky eater. She watches the pair of them while her mouth is full.

Raeisley
Raies shrugs plucking her own sliver of pink. "A question for her nor I"  she cranes her head back lowering the flesh in swallowing with a bite.

Araatris
The redhead rubs her temple. "But you menti--Nevermind." She shakes her head. "Sedra, any idea what's wrong with the water?"  She crouches down, letting her shadows form about the feet and over the water. "All I can tell you if what it feels like, but not what it is."

Vasedra
Once she's swallowed, the eredar glances from Raeisley to Ary and back. "Well, the meat is, I assume, a hydra? Is this some offal from whatever you did to it, Raeisley? Or them?" She considers the surf and the amount of goo.

Raeisley
A tendril to her throat she chortle. "You found something odd and assumed it was me? I'm flattered and insulted." She smirks picking another sliver to her lips.

"It appears to be bile. Something large is sick or dead or many less large things~ But yes." She purrs nibbling on the tip of the meat.

"The eggs were too large for me to move but their immature cargo was. I opened one and harvested some of the tender flesh."

Araatris
Ary stands and the shadows retreat back to her. "Much too messy for me." Her gaze rakes over the water. "Are we ready to go now that the mystery is solved?" She smiles politely at Raeisley and then looks at Vasedra.

Vasedra
"Siren, I tend to attribute all odd things to you when you're around. For better or worse... Ary is right. I believe we're ready to go." The void knight looks back down the beach toward the cove.

"Let's move downshore. I'll call the ship." She turns away from them both, pulling something out of a pouch at her hip and slipping it under her hood. As Sedra starts striding back down the beach, the sand crunches underhoof, loud enough to be heard over the surf.

Raeisley
"A shadowmancer afraid of a little mess and for a moment I believed you were here for Sedra to lord over me with. What purpose do you serve then?"

Raeisley swept her arms behind her back walking across the beach as any other royal hall. She was proud to the point of arrogance nose lifted to the air tail trailing her in soft undulations. A drake inquiring why something lesser was in their hoard.  Contempt tempered in the sweltering heat of a tone suggesting of a shared passion or whimsical experience.

Araatris
Ary smirks and strikes next to Raeisley, but behind Vasedra. "Afraid? No, you misunderstand. I prefer neatness, but it isn't a necessity. Now, what's this about lording over anyone? Vasedra is my blade and has agreed to certain obligations, but she is not a servant."

She chuckles, unable to help the amusing image of Sedra as a servant rising to her mind as she watches the eredar in front of her. "Oh no, that would be a terrible idea..."

Vasedra
The eredar in question pauses and turns back, catching only the end of their conversation in her distraction. "What's a terrible idea? Should I warn the Revenant away?"

Raeisley
"Nothing, love ♪ Just another person coyly claiming you as a thrall." she drifts up to the woman's side teeth flashing as she leans over to observe. Her hooves don't seem to be touching the sand, she leaves no mark behind her.

"Do you feel distant? Fading, drifting away on a sinking raft..? Made of tumbleweeds ♪"

Araatris
Ary waves dismissively. "Just a silly thought. You're fine, Sedra." She watches Raeisley curiously as her toes curl against the softer ground. Somehow, the lack of her footprints made her that much more aware of her own feet sinking into the ground.

Vasedra
The eredar peers at her friend for a moment before shrugging and nodding. To Raeisley she says, "I have no idea what you're talking about. Just... have a distraction..."

She lifts her hand out towards the water by the cove, and a sleek, dark warship rises, dripping, from the night-black ocean. The details of its form are difficult to make out in the dark, but the thin moonlight shows the pair of pointed front spires on either side of the inset nose cockpit and the low, sleek body that extends behind them like a crouched hunter, its lines full of coiled power and hungry focus. The vessel's soul engine is silent, but the thrust ports pulse with sickly, pain-filled power as it hovers in place.

"Ary. Raeisley. I present... the Revenant." As she glances back at them both, the moonlight catches the slight smile on her lips and the glint of something metallic along her cheek under her cowl.

Raeisley
She stands, she admires and then... she's over it. With a soft huff she lets her eyes drift from the ship to the knight. "And was it worth it, love? Or should I say is she worth it." She hums her simper briefly rising to a grin. "No, was is better. It sounds more fleeting,"

Araatris
Ary blinks and studies the ship. "It's impressive. It's fully working?" She steps around them, moving to get a better look. "Does it use crystals to power it as well?" She doesn't wait for an answer as she steps forward.

Vasedra
Sedra glances at Raeisley. "It will be worth it. Besides, what's done is done. The vessel and his crew are mine."

Her gaze shifts. "And yes, Ary, he is fully fit and functional. The... current drive system is a soul engine. So a crystal soul storage matrix is the fuel source. I'll show you when we're there. I think you'll find it interesting."

As she speaks, the ship advances over the beach, and there is a bit of preening in the way it twists around to give them a brief glimpse of all sides.

Raeisley
"It is just a sloop isn't it?" She sighs her tendrils coiling over one another mirroring the cross of her arms under her breast.

Araatris
"A sloop? What did you expect? A full war barge?" Ary raises an eyebrow. "It looks like I'll be more interested than you then." She smirks.

Vasedra
The void knight nods at Ary, the moonlight catching a hint of her little grin beneath her cowl before she turns to Raeisley. "You continue to confuse your aspirations with my own, Siren. A bigger vessel would not be so easy to conceal on Azeroth, and - for the time being - I have no use for a warship command along the lines of the Covenant or the Soul Cleaver. That will come... later."

As she speaks, the Revenant settles quietly over their heads, dripping lightly on them. A careful eye might find that one of the vessel's  smaller gimballed weapons barrels seems to be taking a particular interest in Raeisley.

Raeisley
Raeis eyes don't leave the vessel, staring at the gun port with a noble's indifference. "Will it?" she states in a tone to match her expression.

Vasedra
"It will," Vasedra says with a certainty born of determination.

A circular ring mounted on the belly of the Revenant flares to life directly over them, crackling and humming with fel-green power that pulses around its circumference in a purposeful pattern. After just a moment, barely long enough to notice it and react, the ten-foot-diameter ring breaks free and drops, landing heavily in the sand around them. A field of fel energy rings them, and their forms dissolve.