The beast spread its claws forward, opening its beak to screech, lunging towards him. The man had unbound  himself fro the ice and stones. His arms were pointing forward, aether gathering around them in a growing golden sphere. It collapsed silently just a moment after, making the floor and the walls a meter in front of him burst inwards, smashing the voidsent between the moving debris. He did not wait to see the result of his spell. Instead, he turned around and ran.
D'aijeen leaned forward and stumbled, pushing herself off the ground with her fingertips. As she moved, her shadow extended, spelling far ahead of her like a flood that poured from the building onto the road outside. She couldn't keep up, and she ceased trying, letting hersef fall to her knees and scraping them on the rubble strewn through the building. Chasing the man wasn't necessary. The Baalzephons would act on her behalf. This knowledge came to her as something remembered, as though she'd read it from a book some time ago and only just now thought of it. She was sure, though. They would get him. But would they bring him back?
"K'airos!" Dropping back on her haunches, watching the shadows stretching outside, D'aijeen shouted behind her. "Get him! Chase him down, I command it! Drag him back here!"
tattered forms lifted from the dark splotches in the ground, sliding forward faster than any being could think to run, pushing the wind aside as though it were a lazy thing. White masks set in dark matter like pillars of stained rags, they surpasses the fleeing man and arched around him in an attempt to contain him. They neared in an attempt to enclose them. Wire-thin limbs with needle fingers reached for him.
The red robed man had nowhere to run. He cringed at the situation, stopping and raising his tiny branch one last time. His aether released through it to his skin, hardening it, cracks forming upon it like stone.The creatures surrounding him took hold of him strongly, breaking the focus as they reached for arms. He struggled against them, but he was trapped.
K'airos emerged from the room in a hurry, still crying and with the eyes wide open. She stumbled her way towards the man as if drunk. When she reached him, she grabbed him from the shoulders and literally dragged him towards D'aijeen, not waiting for the Baalzephons to release it or follow.
The Baalzephons responded to K'airos' movements by permitting her to move the man. They did not shy away from touching her as they moved, instead holding fast to the man to ensure that he would not begin to move and escape from the woman.
D'aijeen managed to stand as K'airos brought the stranger back into the inn. She was breathing heavily, and her stance was frail. She lifted her head just enough to watch K'airos bring the man in. "Thank you. I'm sorry you had to do that. But I needed your help." She pointed to their room. "Please take him into the room, Airos."
The older sister obeyed, cringing at the touch of the voidsent. "Don't hurt him. He did nothing." she implored lowly, dragging the man to the room. He didn't struggle anymore. She didn't know where to let him go, so she stopped in the middle of the room. She took a moment to wipe her eyes clean with her sleeve.Â
The man remained there, frowning at the darkness in silence.
"Did nothing? He came here. He lied. You dond't understand the gravity of the lies he was telling." D'aijeen walked tiredly back into the room, leaning against the tattered doorway. The shadows that had stained the room remained a deep, stubborn black, and the Baalzephons throbbed. The masks among the dark rags twitched. "And I hope you do not, Airos. I hope you never do. Terrible lies that he should never have known to tell. Horrible threats. A wicked man who underestimated me. Leave him there. He will tell me the truth after he sleeps for a time." She stepped forward with the rodent skulls clattering beneath her wand, her pointed scepter not quite shining in the morning light.
K'airos rubbed one of her eyes furiously while she moved towards her sister. She stopped one foot away and glanced up to her briefly before dropping her eyes to her feet. "You lie, too. You lied about mom and the tribe! But I don't care! Let's just leave him here. Please!" he begged again.
"He said he would find us. Didn't you here? He dared us to hide. The fool." She pushed around her sister, walking slowly towards the man and the Baalzephons that now held him in place. Her blue eyes glared down at him, her face otherwise completely black with incredibly dark shadows. "Oh, foolish. Can you hear me, sir? I implore you to go to sleep, sir. It is a kindness, that I would let you sleep, so these next moments hurt less."
Her eyes snapped to the Baalzephons. "Smother him." They responded, laying hideous weight over the man's face, wrapping around his head to suffocate him.
Qion'a's stone skin protected him from the pressure, but he could feel the immediate lack of air. He tried to say something, but only managed a deaf sound. He tried fighting, but it was for naught. After a minute, he simply stopped.
"Stop!" K'airos pulled her sister's hand, hoping in place. Her voice became increasingly broken by cries "Stop! Stop, stop, stop, stop!"
Watching for a moment, D'aijeen's eyes moved to her hand, and the to her sister's panicked features. Beneath her green her, Da'ijeen's skin was painted black, the whites of her eyes a deep gray, her lips and chin barely perceptible. The darkness had stained her clothes, left most of her exposed skin blackened. Still, she lifted one inky hand up to her sisters face, and her eyes curved to indicate that she was smiling. "Oh, Airos, beautiful and innocent. If you want me to stop..." Green light flickered in front of her face, forming like a shield there, a shell that imitate the shape of her face imperfectly and floated just beyond it. "Then you should kiss me. That might improve my mood. It might. You could cheer me up."
K'airos closed her eyes, still hoping. "That's not fair!" she cried out. Then, she pushed herself forward abruptly, not thinking about what she was doing. Her mouth touched her sister's, or perhaps the lips on the aetherial mockery in front of her. She supressed the feeling crawling on her lips, hoping she would feel nothing.
K'airos faced impacted on that of the green shell. D'aijeen did not appear to noticed that there was any difference. She kissed the air between their faces, smiled, and hummed. She turned back to the Baalzephons and said, "Very well. We can be done now. However, it is too late for the health of our deceitful visitor." The Baalzephons that had lain over the man slipped away and vanished into the floor, but they had already finished smothering him. "However, I can fix him right up, if you'll just take him and put him in the bathtub. And then recover a few other items for me."
K'airos nodded and dutifully moved the man as told.Â
"What items?" she asked.
"The nice thing about suffocation and drowning is that all of his innards are still in place. However, neural tissues will have been damaged." D'aijeen walked towards the bathroom, watching K'airos, smiling at her. The green shell over her face remained, the blew of her eyes invisible behind it. "Do they have birds around here? They have such tiny brains. But they have useful spines. Maybe two or three good-sized birds."
"Birds. Alright...I'll...get you some birds." she nodded and made her way to the door, arms crossed tightly over her chest. "Two or three."
The shadows lingered. D'aijeen did not acknowledge them. The green shell that had lain over her face faded away, leaving only the blackness of her own features, but she hadn't noticed that either. Instead, as the darkness leaked into the bathroom, D'aijeen put a modest amount of water in the tub -- just enough to make the stranger's limp tail float beside his dead body, and then a pierced her hand with her scepter. K'airos would have asked about these preparations were she present to witness them, so D'aijeen was grateful that there had been a task to assign K'airos to. D'aijeen sat on the edge of the tub with her legs arching over it, her feet resting on the other side, and squeezed blood from the hole in her palm, letting it drop into the tub and discolor the water.
The residents and merchants of Vesper Bay had noticed what had occurred in the inn. The presence of Brass Blades in this particular town was not exactly meager. But D'aijeen did not want them to investigate the inn, and though this desire remained unspoken, the Baalzephons acknowledged it and drifted abroad. In the far darkness of other places, they whispered and clawed. And no Brass Blade or Immortal Flame or curious commoner came to investigate the inn.
They were busy.
***
K'airos came back to the inn with two small birds. They were trapped inside a bird cage along with the parrot that was originally inside. She had made her way quickly and without being noticed too much, though a few people had shouted warnings at her. Warnings she would have liked to take.
She entered the room with an imploring yell. "D'aijeen! You are hurting people outside! Stop!" She didn't stop until she was inside the bathroom, extending her arm and the cage forward. "I brought the birds."
"I'm not hurting anyone. If people are getting hurt, it isn't me doing it. Why would you blame me, Airos? That's hurtful." D'aijeen hopped off the tub. Moving was easier now that she was rested. She reached out and took the cage from her sister, smiling at the birds within. "Oh, they're very healthy. Thank you for not bringing me anything mauled or sick. These will be very helpful." She spun away and held the cage to her chest, taking her scepter in hand. She conjured a small ice spell inside of the cage, frigid air blowing through it and out over her body. She shivered, but in a few seconds, the birds froze and fell on the bottom of the cage, dead.
K'airos crossed her arms again as if the cold had reached her, too. "Your...those things are hurting them! They are yours. Tell them to stop!" she demanded.
"They're just Voidsent, Airos. They're harmless. Like bees. Scary but harmless." She looked over her shoulder and smiled at her sister. "People will get used to them. Can you please go get your sword so that I can borrow it?"
K'airos turned around and walked away. "They are not harmless. You know this! They killed that man." she spat out, equal measures of fear and fury. She came back a moment later with her scimitar. She ducked her head and offered it to D'aijeen.Â
"Tell them to stop and I'll...I'll compensate you later! When we are alone. But they have to stop. Please!"
"Airos, I can't just boss Voidsent around. What do you think I am, some king of witch?" Looking hurt, she took the scimitar, but as she turned to look at her sister, she sighed and softened. "No, Airos. I'm not going to make deals like that. I adore you. Don't worry. Tonight, you're going to be all mine, and it's going to be like breathing the first breath of a new life. Like stepping into a new sun. Like bathing in the sun itself. I have faith in you and I, Airos. It's a faith of always had."
She turned away and set the cage in front of the tub. "But, if you feel so strongly, I will see what I can do to help all of those scared people outside as soon as I am done here. It won't take long."
D'aijeen opened the cage and withdrew one of the birds, laying it against the tub and hacking it in half lenghtwise. She reached into its frozen corpse and took hold of its spine, using the sword to peel the chest and wings and legs away. All she needed was the spine and the head, and associated fluids and nervous tissue.
"Fine." K'airos replied, turning and walking away again. "I don't want to see this. I'm going outside."
"That's fine, Airos. That's fine. I'll only be a few minutes." D'aijeen answered without looking up as she fired a strange, black energy into the hideous offering of avian spine and skull, making the dead eyes glow, making the desecrated backbone writhe. She placed it in the water near the man's head, humming as she turned to start work on the next one.
Minutes later, she sat on the edge of the tub once more, this time on the end above the stranger's feet, with her own feet spread to rest further up on the edge of the tub and balance herself. She leaned forward over a hand-written tome resting across both forearms, having just read aloud from it. The shadows that had been writhing in response to her voice eased back into place like tired things going back to sleep. The black streaks on her body remained, though, making it appear as though swaths of her had been cut away. Her blue eyes seemed to shine out of a pit beneath her hair.
She smiled invisibly. "All right, sir. Do not pretend to sleep any longer. Stop sleeping. Awaken now and take careful breaths. Do be calm, though, for I think you will understand what I have done."
The man opened his eyes, rolling them in place as his sight focused. The first thing that came to mind was the memory of being suffocated to death. Then, strangely, the feeling of being almost or completely wet. He took a breath and looked around. After a moment, he settled his eyes on the woman sitting on the other end of the tub. His hands violently grasped to the sides and pulled half his body up, until he himself was sitting.
"Is...a bath your idea of torture?" he asked, extremely confused.
"You wanted to know more about how I do what I do. Consider this a lesson. As for you, I command you to answer every question I ask thoroughly and honestly." The book in her hands slammed shut. As she leaned forward, she held the book between her legs, pressing down the front of her skirt for the sake of modesty. Her tone was not nearly so frail nor as cute, though her eyes smiled with happiness. She spoke with words of stone. "How did you find me? How did you know to look for me?"
The man smiled. He chose to answer them in the opposite order. "We knew to look for you because a duskwight told us what happened at the Ossuary. I spoke with your mother and got your name from her. Then my brother used it to find you with the Oracle."
He stopped smiling at the last word, looking confusingly at his own hands. But then he smiled again, looking up. "Sorry, I guess, brother!"
Confused by the strangeness of the last thing the man said, D'aijeen nonetheless took in the implications. What occurred between herself and D'ahl outside the Ossuary was known. And that his man had colleagues. D'aijeen's smile did not fade. "I order you to explain this Orcale to me. What is it? How does it work?"
"It's a device used to look almost anywhere in Eorzea, by using the souls of the dead as a conduit for one's consciousness. All we need is a person's name." the red robed man complied. "And... that's how I followed you from Ul'dah, in fact. Can I get out of the tub? I don't like being so damp."
"No." D'aijeen's tail swung behind her, back and forth with more energy than her thin arms and legs could likely permit. "Explain to me entirely, in as much detail as you can, why you came looking for me and what you want from me."
The man took a breath. He really did not like being wet.
 "I found an amnesiac man in the Shroud. Thal." he started. "He survives by absorbing the aether out of...anything, I imagine. Plants and crystals, even. I gave him one and he took all out of it without even blinking! Or...maybe he did blink." He shifted in place, making waves, distracted by the detail. Then he continued. "We tried to study him but his Duskwight friend didn't like that. He was the one who helped him when he woke inside the grave, and the one who pointed us to the Ossuary. We were hoping you could tell us how you did that."
He looked down to himself and gestured vaguely. "Which I guess you just did!"
"In some nonspecific fashion, yes. I've given you a very good hint at least." D'aijeen dropped her feet to either side of the tub and lifted herself off of it, stepping back away and holding the book in front of her, over her chest. Her wand at its small skull fetishes were in one hand, her scepter in the other. "You may get out of the tub now. This is very important: I command that you must never harm nor consider harming me. I command that you must always protect me, and that the same goes for my sister, K'airos." She turned to walk towards the bedroom. "How many brothers have you? Should I worry about them?"
Qion'a nodded, at first. But then he contorted forward violently, screaming with mouth wide open and grabbing his own ears strongly. He tilted his head to one side and hastily pushed the linkpearl out of his left ear. It fell into the tub, blooded. An high pitched sound slipped out of it for the brief moment it was out of the water. The man stopped shouting, but kept his hand over his head and his body bent, complaining in mumbles.
D'aijeen leaned forward and stumbled, pushing herself off the ground with her fingertips. As she moved, her shadow extended, spelling far ahead of her like a flood that poured from the building onto the road outside. She couldn't keep up, and she ceased trying, letting hersef fall to her knees and scraping them on the rubble strewn through the building. Chasing the man wasn't necessary. The Baalzephons would act on her behalf. This knowledge came to her as something remembered, as though she'd read it from a book some time ago and only just now thought of it. She was sure, though. They would get him. But would they bring him back?
"K'airos!" Dropping back on her haunches, watching the shadows stretching outside, D'aijeen shouted behind her. "Get him! Chase him down, I command it! Drag him back here!"
tattered forms lifted from the dark splotches in the ground, sliding forward faster than any being could think to run, pushing the wind aside as though it were a lazy thing. White masks set in dark matter like pillars of stained rags, they surpasses the fleeing man and arched around him in an attempt to contain him. They neared in an attempt to enclose them. Wire-thin limbs with needle fingers reached for him.
The red robed man had nowhere to run. He cringed at the situation, stopping and raising his tiny branch one last time. His aether released through it to his skin, hardening it, cracks forming upon it like stone.The creatures surrounding him took hold of him strongly, breaking the focus as they reached for arms. He struggled against them, but he was trapped.
K'airos emerged from the room in a hurry, still crying and with the eyes wide open. She stumbled her way towards the man as if drunk. When she reached him, she grabbed him from the shoulders and literally dragged him towards D'aijeen, not waiting for the Baalzephons to release it or follow.
The Baalzephons responded to K'airos' movements by permitting her to move the man. They did not shy away from touching her as they moved, instead holding fast to the man to ensure that he would not begin to move and escape from the woman.
D'aijeen managed to stand as K'airos brought the stranger back into the inn. She was breathing heavily, and her stance was frail. She lifted her head just enough to watch K'airos bring the man in. "Thank you. I'm sorry you had to do that. But I needed your help." She pointed to their room. "Please take him into the room, Airos."
The older sister obeyed, cringing at the touch of the voidsent. "Don't hurt him. He did nothing." she implored lowly, dragging the man to the room. He didn't struggle anymore. She didn't know where to let him go, so she stopped in the middle of the room. She took a moment to wipe her eyes clean with her sleeve.Â
The man remained there, frowning at the darkness in silence.
"Did nothing? He came here. He lied. You dond't understand the gravity of the lies he was telling." D'aijeen walked tiredly back into the room, leaning against the tattered doorway. The shadows that had stained the room remained a deep, stubborn black, and the Baalzephons throbbed. The masks among the dark rags twitched. "And I hope you do not, Airos. I hope you never do. Terrible lies that he should never have known to tell. Horrible threats. A wicked man who underestimated me. Leave him there. He will tell me the truth after he sleeps for a time." She stepped forward with the rodent skulls clattering beneath her wand, her pointed scepter not quite shining in the morning light.
K'airos rubbed one of her eyes furiously while she moved towards her sister. She stopped one foot away and glanced up to her briefly before dropping her eyes to her feet. "You lie, too. You lied about mom and the tribe! But I don't care! Let's just leave him here. Please!" he begged again.
"He said he would find us. Didn't you here? He dared us to hide. The fool." She pushed around her sister, walking slowly towards the man and the Baalzephons that now held him in place. Her blue eyes glared down at him, her face otherwise completely black with incredibly dark shadows. "Oh, foolish. Can you hear me, sir? I implore you to go to sleep, sir. It is a kindness, that I would let you sleep, so these next moments hurt less."
Her eyes snapped to the Baalzephons. "Smother him." They responded, laying hideous weight over the man's face, wrapping around his head to suffocate him.
Qion'a's stone skin protected him from the pressure, but he could feel the immediate lack of air. He tried to say something, but only managed a deaf sound. He tried fighting, but it was for naught. After a minute, he simply stopped.
"Stop!" K'airos pulled her sister's hand, hoping in place. Her voice became increasingly broken by cries "Stop! Stop, stop, stop, stop!"
Watching for a moment, D'aijeen's eyes moved to her hand, and the to her sister's panicked features. Beneath her green her, Da'ijeen's skin was painted black, the whites of her eyes a deep gray, her lips and chin barely perceptible. The darkness had stained her clothes, left most of her exposed skin blackened. Still, she lifted one inky hand up to her sisters face, and her eyes curved to indicate that she was smiling. "Oh, Airos, beautiful and innocent. If you want me to stop..." Green light flickered in front of her face, forming like a shield there, a shell that imitate the shape of her face imperfectly and floated just beyond it. "Then you should kiss me. That might improve my mood. It might. You could cheer me up."
K'airos closed her eyes, still hoping. "That's not fair!" she cried out. Then, she pushed herself forward abruptly, not thinking about what she was doing. Her mouth touched her sister's, or perhaps the lips on the aetherial mockery in front of her. She supressed the feeling crawling on her lips, hoping she would feel nothing.
K'airos faced impacted on that of the green shell. D'aijeen did not appear to noticed that there was any difference. She kissed the air between their faces, smiled, and hummed. She turned back to the Baalzephons and said, "Very well. We can be done now. However, it is too late for the health of our deceitful visitor." The Baalzephons that had lain over the man slipped away and vanished into the floor, but they had already finished smothering him. "However, I can fix him right up, if you'll just take him and put him in the bathtub. And then recover a few other items for me."
K'airos nodded and dutifully moved the man as told.Â
"What items?" she asked.
"The nice thing about suffocation and drowning is that all of his innards are still in place. However, neural tissues will have been damaged." D'aijeen walked towards the bathroom, watching K'airos, smiling at her. The green shell over her face remained, the blew of her eyes invisible behind it. "Do they have birds around here? They have such tiny brains. But they have useful spines. Maybe two or three good-sized birds."
"Birds. Alright...I'll...get you some birds." she nodded and made her way to the door, arms crossed tightly over her chest. "Two or three."
The shadows lingered. D'aijeen did not acknowledge them. The green shell that had lain over her face faded away, leaving only the blackness of her own features, but she hadn't noticed that either. Instead, as the darkness leaked into the bathroom, D'aijeen put a modest amount of water in the tub -- just enough to make the stranger's limp tail float beside his dead body, and then a pierced her hand with her scepter. K'airos would have asked about these preparations were she present to witness them, so D'aijeen was grateful that there had been a task to assign K'airos to. D'aijeen sat on the edge of the tub with her legs arching over it, her feet resting on the other side, and squeezed blood from the hole in her palm, letting it drop into the tub and discolor the water.
The residents and merchants of Vesper Bay had noticed what had occurred in the inn. The presence of Brass Blades in this particular town was not exactly meager. But D'aijeen did not want them to investigate the inn, and though this desire remained unspoken, the Baalzephons acknowledged it and drifted abroad. In the far darkness of other places, they whispered and clawed. And no Brass Blade or Immortal Flame or curious commoner came to investigate the inn.
They were busy.
***
K'airos came back to the inn with two small birds. They were trapped inside a bird cage along with the parrot that was originally inside. She had made her way quickly and without being noticed too much, though a few people had shouted warnings at her. Warnings she would have liked to take.
She entered the room with an imploring yell. "D'aijeen! You are hurting people outside! Stop!" She didn't stop until she was inside the bathroom, extending her arm and the cage forward. "I brought the birds."
"I'm not hurting anyone. If people are getting hurt, it isn't me doing it. Why would you blame me, Airos? That's hurtful." D'aijeen hopped off the tub. Moving was easier now that she was rested. She reached out and took the cage from her sister, smiling at the birds within. "Oh, they're very healthy. Thank you for not bringing me anything mauled or sick. These will be very helpful." She spun away and held the cage to her chest, taking her scepter in hand. She conjured a small ice spell inside of the cage, frigid air blowing through it and out over her body. She shivered, but in a few seconds, the birds froze and fell on the bottom of the cage, dead.
K'airos crossed her arms again as if the cold had reached her, too. "Your...those things are hurting them! They are yours. Tell them to stop!" she demanded.
"They're just Voidsent, Airos. They're harmless. Like bees. Scary but harmless." She looked over her shoulder and smiled at her sister. "People will get used to them. Can you please go get your sword so that I can borrow it?"
K'airos turned around and walked away. "They are not harmless. You know this! They killed that man." she spat out, equal measures of fear and fury. She came back a moment later with her scimitar. She ducked her head and offered it to D'aijeen.Â
"Tell them to stop and I'll...I'll compensate you later! When we are alone. But they have to stop. Please!"
"Airos, I can't just boss Voidsent around. What do you think I am, some king of witch?" Looking hurt, she took the scimitar, but as she turned to look at her sister, she sighed and softened. "No, Airos. I'm not going to make deals like that. I adore you. Don't worry. Tonight, you're going to be all mine, and it's going to be like breathing the first breath of a new life. Like stepping into a new sun. Like bathing in the sun itself. I have faith in you and I, Airos. It's a faith of always had."
She turned away and set the cage in front of the tub. "But, if you feel so strongly, I will see what I can do to help all of those scared people outside as soon as I am done here. It won't take long."
D'aijeen opened the cage and withdrew one of the birds, laying it against the tub and hacking it in half lenghtwise. She reached into its frozen corpse and took hold of its spine, using the sword to peel the chest and wings and legs away. All she needed was the spine and the head, and associated fluids and nervous tissue.
"Fine." K'airos replied, turning and walking away again. "I don't want to see this. I'm going outside."
"That's fine, Airos. That's fine. I'll only be a few minutes." D'aijeen answered without looking up as she fired a strange, black energy into the hideous offering of avian spine and skull, making the dead eyes glow, making the desecrated backbone writhe. She placed it in the water near the man's head, humming as she turned to start work on the next one.
Minutes later, she sat on the edge of the tub once more, this time on the end above the stranger's feet, with her own feet spread to rest further up on the edge of the tub and balance herself. She leaned forward over a hand-written tome resting across both forearms, having just read aloud from it. The shadows that had been writhing in response to her voice eased back into place like tired things going back to sleep. The black streaks on her body remained, though, making it appear as though swaths of her had been cut away. Her blue eyes seemed to shine out of a pit beneath her hair.
She smiled invisibly. "All right, sir. Do not pretend to sleep any longer. Stop sleeping. Awaken now and take careful breaths. Do be calm, though, for I think you will understand what I have done."
The man opened his eyes, rolling them in place as his sight focused. The first thing that came to mind was the memory of being suffocated to death. Then, strangely, the feeling of being almost or completely wet. He took a breath and looked around. After a moment, he settled his eyes on the woman sitting on the other end of the tub. His hands violently grasped to the sides and pulled half his body up, until he himself was sitting.
"Is...a bath your idea of torture?" he asked, extremely confused.
"You wanted to know more about how I do what I do. Consider this a lesson. As for you, I command you to answer every question I ask thoroughly and honestly." The book in her hands slammed shut. As she leaned forward, she held the book between her legs, pressing down the front of her skirt for the sake of modesty. Her tone was not nearly so frail nor as cute, though her eyes smiled with happiness. She spoke with words of stone. "How did you find me? How did you know to look for me?"
The man smiled. He chose to answer them in the opposite order. "We knew to look for you because a duskwight told us what happened at the Ossuary. I spoke with your mother and got your name from her. Then my brother used it to find you with the Oracle."
He stopped smiling at the last word, looking confusingly at his own hands. But then he smiled again, looking up. "Sorry, I guess, brother!"
Confused by the strangeness of the last thing the man said, D'aijeen nonetheless took in the implications. What occurred between herself and D'ahl outside the Ossuary was known. And that his man had colleagues. D'aijeen's smile did not fade. "I order you to explain this Orcale to me. What is it? How does it work?"
"It's a device used to look almost anywhere in Eorzea, by using the souls of the dead as a conduit for one's consciousness. All we need is a person's name." the red robed man complied. "And... that's how I followed you from Ul'dah, in fact. Can I get out of the tub? I don't like being so damp."
"No." D'aijeen's tail swung behind her, back and forth with more energy than her thin arms and legs could likely permit. "Explain to me entirely, in as much detail as you can, why you came looking for me and what you want from me."
The man took a breath. He really did not like being wet.
 "I found an amnesiac man in the Shroud. Thal." he started. "He survives by absorbing the aether out of...anything, I imagine. Plants and crystals, even. I gave him one and he took all out of it without even blinking! Or...maybe he did blink." He shifted in place, making waves, distracted by the detail. Then he continued. "We tried to study him but his Duskwight friend didn't like that. He was the one who helped him when he woke inside the grave, and the one who pointed us to the Ossuary. We were hoping you could tell us how you did that."
He looked down to himself and gestured vaguely. "Which I guess you just did!"
"In some nonspecific fashion, yes. I've given you a very good hint at least." D'aijeen dropped her feet to either side of the tub and lifted herself off of it, stepping back away and holding the book in front of her, over her chest. Her wand at its small skull fetishes were in one hand, her scepter in the other. "You may get out of the tub now. This is very important: I command that you must never harm nor consider harming me. I command that you must always protect me, and that the same goes for my sister, K'airos." She turned to walk towards the bedroom. "How many brothers have you? Should I worry about them?"
Qion'a nodded, at first. But then he contorted forward violently, screaming with mouth wide open and grabbing his own ears strongly. He tilted his head to one side and hastily pushed the linkpearl out of his left ear. It fell into the tub, blooded. An high pitched sound slipped out of it for the brief moment it was out of the water. The man stopped shouting, but kept his hand over his head and his body bent, complaining in mumbles.
![[Image: AntiThalSig.png]](https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/179079766/AntiThalSig.png)
"Song dogs barking at the break of dawn, lightning pushes the edges of a thunderstorm; and these streets, quiet as a sleeping army, send their battered dreams to heaven."
Hipparion Tribe (Sagolii)Â - Â Antimony Jhanhi's Wiki
