[Quest] In Time We Trust (Aello)

[Paragon]

Kaledon fled the Grotto, heading away from the docks to vanish into the crowds in the city. He held his cloak tightly, keeping his hood up to conceal his face. He didn't know that Aello pursued him, though the idea was not foreign to him. She seemed the sort that curiosity would override reason. He hurriedly turned. They were nowhere to be seen -- but that did not mean they were not near. Always. They were always after him, wherever he went. Discretely, he sidled into a side passage. Residents washing hung across the upper echelons of the alleyway from dusty windows. He scurried like a mouse, hiding in the corners of the city, unknowing he left a trail for aurists to follow. And all of a sudden time caught up with him. Something lashed the nape of his neck -- it was hot. Fire. He cursed aloud, stumbling forward. Momentarily, Kaledon blacked out. Little did Aello know, they watched her too from the shadows.

[Aello]

Shoulders brushed, fingertips rustled discontetedly against wood. Agitation mounted swiftly as the tan sailors and simple townsfolk crossed her path, and barred her way. Forcing her to break jailor's arms, skirt around the flowing folds of armfuls of fabric, or weave her way in and out of the throngs in order to keep Kaledon's flickering flame within her sight. The colors constantly swayed, the steps glowing as Aello fought to push her way through, and keep up. It was difficult not to fall out of step. Difficult to maintain her pace. Difficult not to lose precious time. Inwardly, the aurist growled as she eased herself onto her toes. Heightening her awareness, her senses, as she pushed herself along. Elbowing past an elderly fellow who refused to relent the hawking of his wares. The flame smoked. Tendrils of wispy grey circling the air. A beacon, a signal; a beckoning call. Something was wrong. Startled, Aello began to run, swiftly closing the gap between herself and the acolyte. As she did so, her vision scouted the area for possible threats- from the mundane to the unlikely. But search as she may, she simply could not see, for she had yet to find out about just what she should be looking for. Within the last few strides it took to reach him, Aello extracted her cursed blade, ripping it from its sheath, from concealment. Her eyes hastily darted around as she came to stand over the acolyte. Her body rigid and tense, crouched. Her thumb idly strumming the blade as her fist tightened around the hilt. "Who did this to you?" she whispered, as her heart hammered in her chest, and she lightly nudged the cloaked figure with her foot to rouse him, before pulling it back.

[Paragon]

Aello came upon the scene. Kaledon lay unconscious on the floor, the smell of burning wafted through the air. At first, she prodded him with her foot, asking what had happened. But she pulled back when she realised he would not rouse so easily. All of a sudden she felt something cold around her ankles, and below, trickling, hardening. Ice. Solid blocks of ice. She was sealed to the ground, and unable to move. Footsteps came from behind, but whoever watched her stayed out of sight. Only auristic sight could sense this figure. "Are you going to fight?" a voice sniggered, "I would advise against it -- you do not know what you are getting involved in. If I were you, I'd leave Kaledon, and run far away -- when the ice melts, of course." It was clear there was a master Reimancer at work here. But the more pressing issue was Kaledon, and just what the acolyte of Tanroa was involved in. He was being pursued, but for what purpose? And now Aello, too, had become a mouse in the trap.

[Aello]

Aello looked down at her feet, petch, her mind grumbled as she studied the reimancer's flickering aura. The way it billowed about his form like a flame, which seemed to cascade down the length of his body, as though it were too, fluid, and then solidify by his feet, and in his heart. Sighing inwardly, the girl looked up, keeping her eyes on the place past Kaledon's unconscious splay, his robes circling him like a hungry wind. But it was not there that she looked, it was at the aura, and only the aura. The mystery, intrigue and darkness it held. She was studying it, reading it as she would a book, gathering what information she could as she forced her own aura to shrink. To shrivel into herself; lining it with a sense of calm, and of honesty, just in case he too, could truly see. Slowly, the girl's lips curled into a smile. Her eyes sparkled with amusement. "No, I don't suppose it would be wise when you choose only to stick to the shadows," Aello replied, her voice even. Like a coward. "Unwilling to so much as show me your face," the girl chuckled as her thumb danced over the hilt of her dagger. "But there will be no running when this melts. Or when it shatters. A simple walk through the town, towards the place where this all began. At the beginning of time." For a moment the girl fell silent, allowing her words to hang in the air between them. It felt thick, sticky and heavy. "Come, gather the body, if he is truly what you want," Aello called. "Do not fear a dagger in your back," she added as she spun her weapon between her fingers a few times, and then swiftly, shoved it into its sheath. "Just make it quick, my feet are getting cold," she added, her voice laced with a low growl. This was not yet the end of this battle...

[Paragon]

"Bolshy... so very bolshy for a little girl," the voice came. Still frozen to the spot, a gust of wind billowed down the alley. It was most unnatural, and foreboding to the touch. Aello remained resilient, watching keenly, waiting to see what was going to happen. Suddenly, Kaledon stirred, but he barely moved for fear of being struck at. He muttered something illegible, before repeating it louder. It was for Aello's benefit, that much was clear. "Find me," the weak voice of the acolyte announced. And then two shadows darted into the alley. They plucked Kaledon from the floor, and vanished just as quickly. A few moments passed, fluid time dragging as Aello watched. And then the ice binding her feet shattered, leaving her with only Kaledon's words to comfort her.

[Aello]

Aello watched the dark outlines of their auras as they trailed away, with the man she had so diligently hunted down. "I had planned to," she whispered, in response to Kaledon's final words as the ice shattered. Shards splitting from her feet, and crossing the road. She could see the melted edges seeping into the spaces between rocks, boards, dirt. You didn't think you'd be getting away that easily, did you Kaledon? she wondered to herself, as she shook her head lightly, and stifled a smile. For within a heartbeat, her cursed dagger was back within her grasp. Her hand tightly coiled around the hilt, choking it, as she wished to do to each man who had claimed him. Within another breath of air, the girl was darting forward, after them, hoping not to lose the trail their auras had left behind whilst she was busy catching herself up. After several paces, Aello slowed, deciding her descent into the darkness shouldn't be as swift as the one she had taken before. Not that she felt it necessary, now that she had seen all the auras. All the players. For she would never forget. She could never forget. Any aura she had already seen, was burned into her mind. So ingrained, that she could recognize it instantly, anywhere, even if its owner was trying to hide it from her. The thought filled her with a great sense of joy, of power. It pulsed through her like adrenaline, causing her to surge forward, her arms swinging with her step. It was only a matter of time before she caught up, and they were hers. Time was hers. After all, she couldn't leave it behind.

[Paragon]

Aello watched and remembered. The auras, the traces of their very being. Such was the burden of an aurist. The body was not enough in spite of the mortality around her. It was not a magickal trace she had to follow though: in the heat of the moment she had not noticed, but Kaledon had left a tiny square of parchment on the ground. It smelled of fire and smoke. It had been fire reimancy he had been struck with after all. If Aello turned and noticed it, she would pick it up and read the short and barely legible scrawl of the acolyte. They were the words of a panicked man. Though time languished fluidly around him, there was an urgency that still mattered. Where the birds of white call their own, concealed within the seventh zone. There was nothing on the other side of the paper, only the cryptic sentence that Aello would stare at and try to unravel. The hunt was on.

[Aello]

Aello held the charred parchment between the tips of her fingers. The paper was still warm, but it wouldn't be for long. It was as though it were communicating that the clue Kaledon had scrawled was still viable, but it wouldn't remain as such forever. She was running out of time. Frustrated, eyes scanning over the words over and over again, the girl felt as though she could glean nothing, even though it seemed her magic was trying to read between the lines from time to time. The best she could do was come to the conclusion that the "birds," weren't literal in the sense that they weren't of the flesh, as two of her companions were. It was a sort of nickname given to a certain group of people, perhaps flighty in nature, and oft garbed in white. Robes perhaps, with elongated sleeves, which gave the impression that all clothed figures had wings. As for the seventh zone, Aello had few ideas. The terminology in and of itself was both cryptic and puzzling, and the best she could do was wonder if the city was divided into separate sectors. Seven or more, and these strange and elusive birds simply called that portion of the world, their own. Sighing in frustration, Aello tore her eyes away from the paper now losing a fraction of its warmth as time continued to go by, and swiftly, jammed it in her pocket. Creating a crumpled, crinkling mass. Her fist tightened around her dagger as she looked up, into the fading light of her auristic trail. Suppose there is only one way to find out what all of this means, she thought. Who those men are. What in all the world could be happening to Kaledon. Why he wanted someone to come after him... a simple maiden of the forest, of all people. Taking a final, deep breath in through the nose, and out through the mouth, before waring on, the girl could only help but wonder just how much time she had to follow this trail. How much time Kaledon had left, before the unthinkable took place.

[Paragon]

Aello puzzled over the note for a moment. It was certainly cryptic, but then she didn't fully know what Kaledon was involved in -- and how important it was to protect his secrets. Gripping her dagger with that steely determination she had held all her life, Aello pocketed the note and walked out of the alley and back into the open street. Zeltiva was still pockmarked with ruin. Buildings lay crumbled, while others still stood. The atmosphere was still one of mourning and loss, though the green shoots of rebuilding had begun. Zeltiva was made of sterner stuff. Maria Satterthwite had inspired the city somewhat, and it was pleasant for people to have a figurehead to look up to once again. Aello needed no such figurehead. She walked the streets as a lone wolf, as she always had been since her family had died in that fateful fire. Kaledon was vital to her. He was her connection to the Lady of Time, and thus the answers she sought. As she turned a corner, a dove flew over her. It caught her eyes, with its pearlescent beauty. She watched it for a moment, and noticed it flying towards the tall white tower. Priskil's Spire. Perhaps the clue had been more obvious than she had first thought.

[Aello]

Aello watched the bird as it flew overhead. Studied the lines cast in light; the sunbeams which filtered through the fluidity of dirtied snow. Shadows which crawled across the dusty, rubble encrusted terrain. Roadways; which seemed increasingly less traveled. So that's how you'll all be playing it, she thought to herself, as the dove's shrill coos filled her heart with a strange sense of warmth. Fleeting, considering how its wings flapped, leading it along ethereal currents that guided it towards its lofty nesting place. Nestled between splits; crenellations in shimmering white stone. The girl sighed as she watched it go. Her feet, as though tugged by invisible strings, following close behind. Her eyes narrowed, piercing each edge of the street as she wove herself along, through the city. Her fist tightening around the hilt of her dagger all the more, as the first wave of sweat spilled from her swelling pores. Sweat which she bore into the inner workings of her weapon; binding it to her. Her thumb idly grazing the surface as her feet pounded stone into the earth. Aello's brow furrowed. It was only a bit more, before she could clearly see the dark outlines of windows; gateways into the highest rooms of the stony pillar. They were no longer wispy pits of darkness; smoke. They were real, tangible. And as she moved closer, she thought she could just begin to make out various movements inside. But then again, she supposed that could simply be her imagination playing tricks on her. Her magic growing strained, weak. Aello halfheartedly flung it upwards, into the spire. To find birds, so many birds. Hurriedly, the colors sifted through feather beds, only to find that it dimmed too soon. Growling, Aello kept herself moving. She supposed, if she was close enough, and they were in the windows, she could shoot them all out. Force the flock to scatter, to flee. They were hers now. Time was hers. It was only a matter of chimes before she was at their gates. Wondering if she should bang on the doors, or stealthily let herself in. For, although she looked, she couldn't see into the dark pits cast by the windows. The inky obscurity, although she could still make out the occasional flutter of wings; even past the furious thundering of her heart. With bated breath, Aello made her decision: she would sneak in, likely killing anyone who got in the way of her exploration. Her ascent. The girl's free hand came forward. Reaching for the far side of the door; the place opposite from where everything came unhinged.