RP:Facing the Carrion

From HollowWiki

Part of the Birds of A Feather Arc


Summary:Arien encounters the Carrion Crow,a former lover with whom she has painful history, only to discover that it has been his corsair vessel that has been harassing the fleet and trade vessels in Rynvale waters. The hunt begins.

Characters: Arien, Eliah

Location: Kelay; The Druids Eternal Tree

Eliah couldn't recall for the life of him why he'd chosen, after the hours spent scouting, to come to this damnable place. The Carrion sighs softly, brushing a hand through the straight locks of his dark-blond hair, moving it from his face. The regal appearance is still there, clean shaven. It is only the two clawing scars just to the right of his left eye that might take away from it. His eyes are that frigid blue of winter's touch, as frozen as the heart within his breast. He muses silently for moments while staring at the tree. Aiya was not here, not yet, it made this whole aspect more crippling than it should be. His hand slides easily into the semi-hard grip of the Sea-Raven Rapier, speaking in a low dulcet tone to himself, rather than the new arrival he's yet to notice in his reverie. " I never thought I would be convinced to return to this place, to return here. To you especially friend, we are so very opposing, you and I. Many would agree you should have taken my life when I last returned. I still do not completely understand why you didn't. But it is no doubt a reason, for that.. I can be thankful."

Arien’s arrival was so quiet as to have gone unnoticed, even if the corsair had not been busy talking to himself. Not so the arrival of her current escort, the constant soft chatter of the squire in training at her heels enough to draw attention. “You sure you should be walkin’ M’lady?.. I reckon you must be near on ready to pop. Shouldn’t you be laid out on a bed in your quarters somewhere? I kin c’llect the waters if that’s all you’ll be wantin..” she chirped cheerfully, loping along on the governor’s heels. Arien darted the girl a baleful emerald stare, her amusement lurking in gemlike depths, though exasperation was also present. “For the love of the gods Pippa, I am with child, not ailing..and were I not fit to for a comfortable forest walk, that would be sad testament to my strength indeed..” she murmured dryly. The mutter from the blonde across the velvet lushness of the banks of the sacred spring, were enough to draw a casual look- the angle for now making recognition difficult, though there was something about the set of square shoulders that was familiar. Her eyes returned to her companion. “You may however, bend to collect the waters for me..I fear I am long past being able to do so without falling flat on my face.” Her pale nose wrinkled in mild disgruntlement at the thought. “They cannot come soon enough.. I swear..”

Eliah doesn't miss the yammering of the squire in question, nor the familiar voice that rises an ache forgotten inside him. The captain turns, managing to keep his features a little more hidden from the arrived and very pregnant Arien. He'd heard the rumors, and he remembered that night better than any other. It was foolish, but her sudden outburst reminded him of a rather peeved Aiya, the memory vividly flooding to him, of the night when Arien's sister had blown up at him and amusingly enough, brought him back to his senses. The captain chuckles a little and turns to face the duo, a hand fitting neatly into the basket-hilt of his blade more out of comfort than threat. There is nothing to leave doubt as to whom the elf is, or was, the brand of the Aisec royal house easily noted in the seal-ring upon his free hand. " All good things come in time Arien, of course. I think Aiya would be surprised to see you like this, amused even." To say he didn't feel something would be a lie, but the look in his eyes is rather resolute, shielding himself and even the elven noblewoman from the pain that twists in unrest at being cordial, kind even, to her. No doubts about it, he'd be hitting a bottle tonight, Aiya wouldn't be there to wrench it from his hands and hide it all this time.

It would be the unexpected paling of the High Born’s flesh that would betray, more than any physical reaction on her part-word or movement- that she had heard and likewise recognized that voice. Eyes remained fixed on the squire who was bent low over the sacred springs while she gathered herself before she could turn to face him. “They said you were dead..” she said in a tone almost as colorless as the death of which she spoke. “Aiya left..looking for you..she would be surprised to see me at all, since..she should not be here.” She had lost them both, just as she had found them, though one had been for choice, and the other beyond her power to avoid. Eyes drifted closed, and she could see again, feel again the cry of anguish that had been torn from her body, with the lifeless form of her son. He had been there..she had no proof of it, but she had felt him then. It had been because of him..for his sake that all she had had left of the dragon had been torn from her. His crow, his death dealer. It had been too much. She had walked away, and lost a third time. Fingers fell to her swollen womb instinctively. How ironic, that he was returned just as life would spring from her womb again. The fingers trembled. Rho. How she needed him now, to look in the mirror of what might have been, and assure her that in the end she had done the right thing. Their worlds, could not have meshed. One, would have destroy the other. She turned then, to face him. “Eliah..”

Eliah managed something reminiscent of a frown. " I suppose, in some fashion, they were correct in telling you that. " There was a semblance, no, an almost absolute truth to that story. For Arien, Eliah had died. There is a managed, almost weak smirk to follow that, and it takes the tightening of his hand on the hilt of his blade to keep the tremble of aching from it. He'd destroyed her, he didn't do it, but one of his kind did. He'd butchered the one responsible. There was no proof save that event now, that he made the one responsible for the unborn’s lost life a shadow- telling her would mean nothing. Instead, he gives her something, some shreds of truth, hoping to perhaps give her strength; the pale features warning that she had trouble too. " I don't like people who research my life, your professor is dead. I stole the twin long cannons from your transport ship- they have sunk many naval vessels and sacked many towns." He was trying to help her hate him, blatantly admitting to offenses in hopes she would strengthen herself, and not ask anything. This, this makes him turn his eyes to the stream briefly, remembering that night. He knew whom she had chosen; he knew now that he was throwing things to her, reasons to believe that he was never a choice to be made. He nods, subconsciously in agreement with himself before meeting his blue eyes to her stare " Arien."

He knew her as well as any other. Odd, for one known in maturity for so short a term. Silence reigned between them for long, tight minutes as she considered the gauntlet thrown down. She had heard the reports of the uptick in activity in her waters, of traders limping into to port and had assumed it the work of one of the many new pirates rumored to have arisen-pirates that she had all but hired Leoxander to reign in. The incremental shift in her stance, in the expression on her face would be so subtle as to go almost unnoticed. She could not hate him- any more than she could hate any of those she had ever loved- but she would hunt him. It was the Governor who stood before him then, not the female who had once held his soul in her palm. “And I don’t like people who make a habit of killing those in my employ..or of stealing that which took months to restore,” she replied emotionlessly. Her fiery head canted slightly, emerald gaze shimmering briefly with the momentary glow of challenge. “It is for the love I once bore you that you shall have a head start, Carrion.” Her murmured promise was as cool as it was convicted. “You have made your first mistake in showing your hand..” For whatever motivation, he had supplied a piece of the puzzle. Knowledge, was power. She knew her enemy. “It is not too late..Eliah..” to retrieve the hand dealt upon the table. She bore him no personal animosity, but she was, and had always been her people’s champion. In targeting them, he had made himself fair game. “Don’t make me have to destroy you..find some other port for your games..”

Eliah shakes his head, and in this, she'd made her error. " Arien, Don't mistake this information as a tool to be used. Don't mistake me for a simpleton whom will come to heel at a notion of danger." She knew him better than this, at least, he thought she had. If he was giving her information, he was steps ahead of it. It wasn't something that would be useful against him. Still, he releases his stance, smoothly shifting into that calm demeanor. " Go home Arien, go home and play house with your husband, and the children you bear." It's not cold, but easy from his lips, easier than it should have been; he knew the moment he tossed her those words she would turn from the worry about her choices. He'd been ready for her onslaught, if ready in a different fashion. There is a commotion just within the entrance, an elder looking man pausing and with a wave sending the small gathering with him away. "Captain, I didn' think y' were here fer' this--." He seems rather shocked, almost saddened and it manages to break Eliah's appearance enough to show the emotions beneath the mask in a torrid display before he hisses, carefully cutting off his Master gunner. " Mr. Fiske, you will learn very shortly that I am not here for anything of the sort, as you should well know. " The gunner blanches immediately, "Course cap'n, well, er. I came to get you.. Eh.." He manages to give a unsteady, almost worried glance to Arien, as if wondering at his next words. " Y'got a raven in your quarters." With this the man simply turns and leaves mumbling to himself about matters of men and women in a dejected tone. Eliah's visage, changes, and he clears his throat. " Right... On my way." His actions are almost twitchy, the man's message had meant someone close to both of them.

Arien’s lips curved in a gentle smile that did not quite reach her eyes, and though it might have been expected, it was not cold anger or bitterness that lurked in her gaze, but regret. Regret that it had come to this, by fair means or foul. “And do not mistake me, Eliah, for one who can’t capitalize on the smallest advantage. I do not expect you to heel Carrion-it is why I have said you are granted a head start. Do not think it beyond my power to have this place surrounded immediately, and you taken in chains for that which you have confessed,” she murmured coolly. Only when he dared to insult her family, did the stare narrow to chips of emerald ice. “It is a fool who thinks to underestimate me, for the sake of the life in my womb Eliah. If I ‘play at house’ it is for keeps..because it is for the future of my children that I fight.” The smile faded. “Don’t be a fool.” The arrival of the corsair’s gunner draws the elf’s eyes, a mental catalogue of description and name being made- the beginning of what would surely be a growing file on the Carrion Crow. Concentration was broken however, by the words uttered by the new arrival. A puzzled frown knit the pale brow of the elf. The females of the Gathering were all known as ravens, but there was something about the way the man had described the carrion’s guest. Eyes flew to Eliah’s, brightening, and then dulling with the realization of what it must mean. “She is here? You would turn my own sister against me and mine?..” Her expression turned thoughtful. “You must really hate me..” That Aiya could be returned, and not come to see her..could be playing a willing role in Eliah’s campaign of terror, hurt more than she would let him know. It could be entirely possible that her sister did not know that she was the governor of the city they plagued however, and to that hope she clung.

Eliah is almost out of the area as she finishes her statement, it brings him a sudden pause. His head actually drops and there is inside it the heaviness of a sigh. " I returned. I destroyed everything I made and came back. And there was nothing here." This is said in a cold way, as if he could become indifferent to the agony he felt displaying anything of this sort to her. " I didn't come to this place for you, I didn't come here now to hurt you or yours. If I wanted your city, I would have taken your port on the day I arrived. I cannot ever walk -those- streets again. I have no interest in walking them." It was all fact, he wouldn't go ashore in Rynvale, no matter the pleas of his hopeful crew. " I have never endeavored to turn Aiya against you, if you think that... then you never knew who I was." There is a rattle of his blade in its sheathe. Stress induced by a sudden flare of anger at Arien, he twists on a boot-clad heel and grimaces, " I killed him... by the way... for what he did to you, he was the last one I took out before I came here." He turns again and the footsteps begin to fade again as he departs.

Arien felt her shoulders relax slightly at his confirmation that he had not actively sought to turn the Raven against her, though internal conflict remained as to why he would harass her people if he claimed no desire to hurt her. Her brow furrowed as she watched his departure in silence, and thoughtfulness entered her gaze. Another piece of the puzzle. If he was interacting with something with which he wanted no dealings, there could be one thing only at the bottom of it. Gold. Someone had hired the corsair-and she had every intention of finding out whom. He would not hear the soft murmur that followed him on his exit, or see the pain that flared in her eyes in turn. “He should have been the first..” the elf muttered in response to his confession. A sharp inhalation of breath taken, Arien would turn on her heels to call softly to Pippa who had sat quietly at a distance and watched it all unfold. Rho would need to be informed of this most recent turn of events.