But his elusive path is not even visible any more...as if it never existed. He wrote once more in his journal, reflecting upon his brother and his hidden whereabouts. Something was not right about this. He must have either kept himself hidden well enough to cover his tracks or he was taken far from where he started. Aros was beginning to feel that it was the latter, cursing Zaigen for ever doing this to them. Even as he looked on at the sea he felt that his brother was likely to be committing more acts of tyranny and chaos in lands far from his own. With an agitated huff he slammed the book shut and continued on his way, the lingering night seeming to hold a little more of it tonight than the previous one.
-Why in the world does nothing ever seem as straight-forward as it should be?-Aros cursed as he walked along the beach, hating that luck would play such a nasty, cheap trick on him. With another sigh passing his lips he looks around him, the sounds of the sea hardly comforting to him at this moment as he thought of it as either a passage home or as a passage for his brother to cause more of a mess than he did back home. Neither looked much appealing to him right now because to leave him here to wreak havoc would be something Aros would remember and regret while him causing havoc elsewhere isn't a pleasing prospect to him, either.
He emptily sighed, a circle of thoughts running through his head and growing all the time. With a passive but agitated shout he fell to the floor with a headache, such was the mass of thoughts running through his mind. There was so much of it he couldn't write down on paper...so much that he couldn't tell anyone. It was starting to get on his nerves, no doubt, but there wasn't a lot else he could do. All he could do was to keep on searching for him, no matter how long it would take. Aros knew that he was probably heading to the death of either his brother or himself, but if that's how the cards of fate decided then so be it.
After meeting the head of the Syndicate of Whispers on the bad side of town, Aelmyr felt like she needed to prove herself more to the man and his follower Skorne. That was her external excuse, anyway; she was much more prone to brood on the subject of her fantasized Lichhood than on her thievery. Either way, she ended up strolling through town, and wandered aimlessly on one of the more disgusting places of the town: the beach. It was actually quite beautiful to the average townsfolk, humans and light elves, but Ael was a dark elf, a drow, and she hated the sunlight that washed the shores and sea. The glare off the waves blinded her eyes momentarily, flashing in its glee and angering the half-drow.
She kicked a footful of sand up in the air at the emotion, and the grains stung her foot in burning heat and rough texture. She was used to the cold mud and swamps of her homeland, now to the cool tunnels of Underdark; this blasted sand was horrible to walk on. Of course, she could no more sit or lie down in it--that thought she loathed. She found a tree by the duneside and climbed into it, cherishing the cooler bark from the hellish sands. Ael sat on the first branch above the ground, not caring whether anyone saw her, for she hid in the shadows and behind branches. Her cloak resolved any hint of a creature behind the leaves, and she pondered in her Lich fantasies the whole day through.
It wasn't until night when she felt company approach. Ael's preferred atmosphere--night--covered her from sight along with her cloak, but she still felt the need to quietly slide from the branch into the cooling sands. The white grains were colored a pale blue by the otherwise midnight blue sky. She silently cursed a twig when it dared to quiver from her descent, but kept her voice within her throat when the man passed by. He too was pondering on something deep, furiously noting every once in a while into the book he held in his hands. Ael rolled her eyes: some bard on a midnight walk, she thought. Ael got up to leave, knowing that even if the bard spotted her, she could take him on.
It was then that the man shouted and fell to the sands; it was a shout of anxiety, of too feral thoughts kept caged inside a mind. Ael smiled, wondering what pain she could inflict upon the man and what thoughts she could slip from his mind with her ebon caresses. The rogue glimmer in her eyes appeared, settling into her bodily curves. She feigned innocence, ran up to the man, whispering in a seemingly worried voice: "Are you alright?" She turned him over and smiled; externally she was a belle, internally, she was the belle of evil.
[...sucky post...but Ael's not all that developed yet...]
-Why can't I find him! Damn that...- His thoughts closed as he launched his fists at the sands at that moment, such anger energising his aggression at that moment. He later nestled his fist into his other palm, his seething madness simmering through the action. Which was a pretty good thing as he heard a feminine voice reach out to him silently, asking if he was well.
So what was the problem now? He didn't want to attach himself to anyone. And this was the sort of person who he could probably find attraction in. She seemed to have dark skin like himself on first glance but she seemed very much different to himself, the skin somewhat a blend of the darkness around him and a purple mesh in his eyes. His was more brown. He found himself grumbling for a few moments before standing up and walking a few steps away.
"I'm alive, aren't I?" He passively commented, his gaze staring along the beach in a continual silence, his hand glancing off the pommel of his sword as it lay strung in its sheath, the book being enclosed into the folds of his clothing once more while he was left to wonder what he should do now. It seemed like the woman would only worry more, would probably seek to delve deeper into his emotions - and the thought of someone offering sympathy to him was almost sickening: He needed no sympathy. He needed his brother.
But the thought that his prescence was nowhere near here had tormented his mind all the more, both being a blessing and a cursing to him. But now he didn't want to do anything aggressive because he knew that the woman would see, so he surpressed his ever-building anger as silently as he could, controlling his body the best that he could so that he would not end up lashing out.