3710/...There's Fire

...There's Fire
Date of Scene:	21 January 2016
Location:	Hylian Realm of the Sky <HRS>
Synopsis:	After being whisked off to Eldin Volcano by the Sheikah, Aedan and Yalai are dispatched to investigate strange events there.
Cast of Characters:	879, 891

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Yalai the Stave (879) has posed:
The volcano of Eldin rises up above the craggy province, lording over it like some predatory figure crouching over its domain. Although it tends to fuss and grumble on a regular basis, actual eruptions are fairly rare. At least, in its observed history, which is a fairly short thing for most Hylians.

Nayru's favoured, however, have been here for many, many years. They know the mountain's patterns and its bad temper.

For the team sent to investigate the death and disappearance of a Hylian and Sheikah scouting party, they're also aware of its fussing and grumbling. It's been a difficult and uncomfortable two weeks, with everything so thoroughly entrenched in ash and soot that even food's begun to taste that way. Up until now, there have been no signs of the missing Sheikah. The wounded Hylian was found, but he was in no condition to report his findings; instead, Kherem had immediately lugged the insensate Skyloft Knight back to the realm of the sky, where he'd be safe; and where Loremaster Ikram, the foremost healer among the Sheikah, is.

There hadn't been much to talk about in camp that night. Liat had only mentioned that he'd been wounded, and when Yalai had later reported to Aedan that he had also been burnt, though that isn't surprising with such a harsh environment as Eldin's.

Now, a day later, after two weeks of scouring the mountain and being scoured by the mountain, it seems like something might break through.

After finding the unconscious knight, there had been signs of a scuffle near him, and signs of someone leaving. Liat had immediately detached from the others to follow the trail. She hadn't been seen since the previous night, when they'd brought the Skyloft Knight back from the mountainside.

This afternoon on Eldin, after another fruitless search by air, Yalai had gone to ground, dismissing her poor soot-choked Loftwing into cleaner skies. Tearing a strip from her tunic, soaking it in her canteen, and tying it around her face, she'd scrabbled her way up the mountainside.

Now, waiting near the summit for Aedan, the Sheikah finds herself leaning against a withered tree near the entrance to the Fire Sanctuary. Molten rock churns slowly in the channels not far from the landing. Yalai squints at the channels, frowning thoughtfully, pausing every so often to untie the cloth, dribble water over it, and tie it back in place.

Eldin's harsh air hasn't been kind to her. Her skin is soot-stained, and her eyes are bloodshot; combined with her naturally blood-red pupils, it gives her something of an imposing look. Really, though, she's just tired. And probably sick of the mountain... but those tired eyes pause, settling on something near the broken ends of her tree's branches. A scrap of fabric, black, fluttering and looking much like her own cloak. Frowning, Yalai reaches up, yanks it free, and screws up her face to stare at it.

"Aedan!" She croaks more than calls, throat sore and weary from breathing in the harsh, burning air. "I think I am finding something..."

Aedan MacCarvill (891) has posed:
    "It would be a wonder if he had anything coherent to say, wounded out here." Aedan had opined when the subject of the missing Skyloft Knight had arose. Privately he wished they'd brought something to help them test the air as they went, but it hadn't been a priority. Leaving ASAP was what they needed to do, and they'd done it. Now they're here, and there's no canaries around to... would you even use a canary for seeing what was going on in the air around a volcano? As far as the Knight knew, there wasn't anybody mad enough to be bothered with figuring it out.

    As for the present, Aedan can be found in the skies astride his loftwing. He's quite a ways up, and less soot-stained than his partner who is much more agile when it comes to climbing rock faces. A part of it has to do with his willingness to drink revolting potions to ward off the environment, though, or at least make it more comfortable to him. Of course, he'd made the same for the Sheikah, but...

    Everybody seems reluctant to drink sulfur-laced things, even if it's magic and not at all dangerous.

    At Yalai's call, the Knight downs another potion and bails off of his loftwing. He's chugging another potion as he goes, the taste of salt water filling his mouth. It's always salt water with the loftwings, even though they haven't been near an actual ocean for ages. The taste is, naturally, revolting and would trigger him to spit it up if he didn't know what it actually was.

    This isn't the place to dehydrate one's self.

    Just like that, Aedan goes from plummeting like a boulder dropped from the heavens to leisurely drifting down. He touches down next to Yalai with a lightness that is simply not possible for somebody of his size. It's not even really possible for someone of /her/ size. The land is already so bleak and dark that he doesn't notice that what Yalai is holding is a scrap of cloth.

    "What is it?" He asks her, looking quizzically around. Eyes like a hawk, but it doesn't matter if you don't identify what's out of place. "... And are you /sure/ you don't want a potion or two? It really is more comfortable after you get over the gagging. Wouldn't have to wear a mask over your face like that."

Yalai the Stave (879) has posed:
Movement from above is what catches Yalai's eye first. She immediately looks up, thining her lips as Aedan goes from plummeting lethally to drifting leisurely down like a feather on the wind. Nothing that heavy and solid should ever move that lightly; and she, unlike most of her brethren, has been close enough to him for long enough to know just how solid he is. More solid than most of his kind, even.

She frowns as he comes drifting down, squinting against Eldin's perennial ash-fall. Light as he comes down, though, there's still a slight puff of ash underfoot when he touches the parched earth.

Once he's joined her properly and looks around, she holds up the scrap of cloth, which is probably unidentifiable even to his trained eyes. Everything here looks charred; what's one more strip of cloth?

"It is being a piece of cloak," she explains, squinting against the ash and glare. "Sheikah cloak. Someone was being here, and being here recently, too. I think we should be going further up."

Although they can't see it from where they are, there's another scrap just like that, not too far away, lodged in the bark of another of those withered trees. Aedan's sharp eyes might spot it with the way it flutters against the bark, though. The Sheikah are sharp-eyed as a general rule, but even they bow to his acute vision.

Someone has been here very recently indeed... but it seems the trail of cloth scraps are the only real clue in the area. Perhaps they'll lead to something important.

Aedan MacCarvill (891) has posed:
    "Oh. Yeah, I guess it is." Aedan observes, squinting at the piece of cloth. He hadn't noticed the difference between it and all the other stuff that's around here. He crosses his arms over his chest and looks about, frowning a little at the idea. A piece of Sheikah cloak caught like that, in these circumstances? He reaches over towards Yalai and tugs firmly at her cloak a couple of times experimentally. Not too hard, and careful not to jostle her around. In his mind, he's just kind of going through what it would take to tear the damn thing deliberately.

    In general, he's given to the impression that they don't tear easily.

    Once he's gotten to looking properly, the Knight observes more scraps of cloth. But the fact that they're trapped in the bark of trees is what is weirding him out. There's a trail, but ... he shakes his head a little bit. "Call me paranoid, but I don't think these cloaks tear that easily. You think somebody's leaving us a deliberate trail, or trying to distract us from something less obvious?"

    There's a faint clinking as Aedan reaches to his back and draws his bow, flicking open the quiver at his hip and advancing slowly to follow the trail. He doesn't /touch/ the cloth, however, and he's careful not to tunnel vision in on them. Follow, but don't obsess. If it's a trail then that's one thing, but if it's a distraction somebody is probably watching them right now. The worst thing is...

    If this was /planned/, it's a fairly clever one. The ash and gas in the air around here would make it hard for Aedan's animal form to sniff his way through to somebody lying in wait, and the same is true of Yalai, as far as he's aware. His knee-jerk instinct is to bail. But a friendly could've left that trail deliberately, so they can't /ignore/ it either.

    "On a scale of one to ice that falls out of the sky, how suspicious do you find this?" He asks Yalai, warily.

Yalai the Stave (879) has posed:
Yalai looks first over one shoulder and then the other, twisting to look over her shoulder in annoyance as Aedan grabs hold of her cloak and gives it a sharp tug. The look she's wearing pretty plainly demands what he's doing, and so she doesn't bother actually saying that part... but it's clear she almost wants to.

He doesn't explain to her what he's actually thinking, so she's left with her unspoken 'what the hell?' sentiments.

She still looks a little puzzled, until he starts to connect the dots.

"No, they are being made so they will not be tearing that easily." Yalai frowns, flicking bloodshot eyes between the scrap Aedan now holds, and the distant withered tree. How a species survives in this kind of climate, she has no idea. Maybe it's Din's favourite kind of tree or something. Who knows?

Back on point.

Yalai frowns further behind her mask, reaching up to hitch it further into place. With a slender and slightly stomach-turning contortion of her right arm, she reaches behind herself and withdraws her quarterstaff from its holster, padding forward in complete silence. It's almost unnerving how she can move without sound -- not a rustle from her clothing, not a breath; not even the shifting sound of displaced earth or ash from those soft-soled boots.

"I would prefer ice to be falling out of the sky to this," the Sheikah murmurs, making a face. "But we cannot be ignoring it." Apparently her mind was running down similar trails. If a friendly made this trail, they can't well ignore it in good conscience. "Maybe it was being the Needler or the Rake, yes? We can hardly be affording to be abandoning any of our Sheikah."

She crouches, staring with narrowed eyes to the ash-covered slope. "I am thinking," she breathes, "if it was being made by a friendly, it will be leading into a cave... if I were being either of those two, I would be wanting to get myself out of this place, sooner rather than later, yes?" She points, gesturing to the mountainside. "We are not being any better at breathing this fire-air than you are being, yes?"

So it would seem, too -- smaller bits, more frayed at their edges, lead in towards the mountain; down into a crevasse -- where a narrow but serviceable cave opens up.

It certainly looks like a trap, but you never know...

Aedan MacCarvill (891) has posed:
    Aedan smiles apologetically towards Yalai and explains, "I was checking to see how easy it rips. Not at all, and you answered the question." Maybe he should explain first next time, but he figured she'd start connecting the dots too. Which she did, more-or-less, though he feels a need to clarify anyway based on the looks she was giving him. She gives him her assessment of the situation, which is grim indeed. He supposes that ice falling out of the sky is far preferable to ash and fire, but decides not to comment on it for the moment. Morale is tenuous enough as-is.

    A trail of cloak bits that lead to a mountain crevasse. Once they reach the approximate "end" of it, but before they've entered the crevasse, the Knight decides that there's a decision to be made. He nocks an arrow and jerks a head towards Yalai, "So, we've got two choices here. We go in silently and see if this is a trap, and maybe get blocked in some way. If it's nothing, or a friendly, then nobody will be the wiser that we're here. We're good. If it is a trap, then we're heading into a trail of breadcrumbs where somebody /might/ eventually find us from the trail itself..."

    "... But it'll at least take as long as it took us to pick up the trail, and probably longer. Assuming nobody cleans up the trail, which /I/ would if I managed to spring a perfect trap like that."

    "OR... I can send up an explosive arrow to give the others a marker on where we are before we check. If it's a friendly but there are hostiles around, then we'll be loud and anybody who wants to hurt us will know where to look along with Liat and her husband, but we'll also have friends on the way." He makes a sour face then, glancing into the cave. "Loaded question, but which do you think we should go with?"

    Internally, the Knight can't imagine Yalai picking the /loud/ option. But he might be surprised.

Yalai the Stave (879) has posed:
No matter how weird it might have been at the time, ice falling from the sky would still be better than dealing with drifts of ash and cinder. It'd be downright refreshing, especially a good drenching, if it turned to rain, and...

Yalai squeezes her eyes shut and opens them again, cat-like, and flicks her bloodshot gaze back to Aedan. Rather than look to him at the sound of arrow nocked to bowstring, she looks to the crevasse, narrowing her eyes.

"No," she finally says, shaking her head. "No explosions." No surprise, either. Sheikah are not fond of the loud and showy option, even it it's the more practical option to take. It's almost an insult to them. That, and they have sensitive eyes. Bright flashy things are anathema to them on a physical level as much as a philosophical one. "We will be going silently. I will be going silently," she clarifies, giving Aedan a distasteful look. "You are being as silent as a Loftwing being separated from its partner, and that is being when you are /trying/ for stealth, yes?" That is to say, squawky and flapping and possibly angry.

"Let me be going a short ways, and I will be calling you." He's not going to like that, but she smiles an angular little smile, laying a hand on his forearm. It's gloved, probably to protect her from the harshness of Eldin's air. Despite how tough Sheikah can be, her pale skin is surprisingly sensitive. "If it is being a friendly... I want to be knowing that the area is being safe; I do not want to be risking them, too, simply because we are not being thorough, yes?"

Aedan MacCarvill (891) has posed:
    "Comes with the territory of being big. Not so good for exploring caves either, actually." Aedan easily takes up the same space as two people... or at least one and a half. He's not compact and made for caves though, and he can't fold himself up like Yalai can. He glances towards the crevasse, and then into the surroundings. He nods after a moment's consideration but jerks his head to the skies again, "Alright. You go in ahead and check it out first. If whatever we're looking for isn't at or very close to the entrance, then come back here right away and we'll re-assess. No spelunking alone."

    "Two to five minutes. If you haven't called back or checked in with me then I'm sending up a signal and then coming in under the assumption this was an ambush." The choice of wording is deliberate, and not uncommon convention for Aedan. What he means is the full five minutes, but he wants to give the impression to any potential listeners that they may in fact have less time than they believe they do. In that case, it forces them to act fairly quickly and recklessly. Assuming, of course, they're there.

    It usually doesn't work out that way because nobody was actually listening in.

    Aedan holds the bow with the arrow in it one-handed and passes Yalai a potion. It's one of the earthy potions from their start here. "You won't drink it normally, but if there's an emergency it'll save your hide. Maybe somebody else's, too." He doesn't really give her a choice not to take it with her, and moves back into a "ready" position with his bow.

Yalai the Stave (879) has posed:
Sidestepping, Yalai eases around until she's beside Aedan, and able to breathe into his ear. Ostensibly, it's so she won't be overheard, but she won't argue making him nervous for the fun of it.

"Then I will be returning in that," she breathes, right into his pointed ear. Her eyes are on the cave, though, and her attempt to unsettle him is distracted. "If something is being in there, I will be returning to be telling you about it. But I think someone is being in there. I am not knowing who, but..."

The Sheikah takes her potion almost gingerly, eyeing the stoppered bottle as though it might leap out of her hand and bite her. A sleight-of-hand gesture ties it neatly into the belt at her waist, letting it hang with just enough slack to be in easy reach if she needs it. With a curt nod, she replaces her quarterstaff and slides two knives from the bandolier around her chest, reversing their grips and carrying them, blades resting against her wrists, as she slips into the cave.

She's out of sight almost as soon as the shadows fold over her. It's uncanny how the Shadow Folk can seem to just /disappear/ like that.

At least three and a half minutes pass by before there's any sign of anything from inside. It's just a rustling sound, at first, but after a moment his Sheikah partner emerges from the cave again, sneezing at the ash in the air. She's not alone -- she's dragging an unconscious-looking Sheikah, arms under the other's, and hauling backward with all her might.

Yalai is not particularly strong, even by the measure of her own people; she's made for agility and speed, not lugging dead weight across a craggy mountain path.

"Be helping me," she calls, voice muffled by the strip of cloth still tied around her mouth and nose. "I have been finding the Needler." Yalai grunts, shifting her grip and trying again. "But she is not--being--in any shape--to be talking." Each word is punctuated by a grunt as the Sheikah strains. "We must be returning her to Loremaster Ikram, and Skyloft. Your Loftwing is being large; can you be taking her, are you thinking...?"

She finally manages to pull Avri the Needler free, ripping the cloth off her mouth and nose, dumping her canteen over it, and tying it back in place with a resigned half-sigh, half-choke. "I am beginning to be hating this place, and I will be happy when we are leaving it for good," she snarls.

Aedan MacCarvill (891) has posed:
    The knight shivers slightly when Yalai slides in next to him and delivers her response that way. Aedan shuffles uncomfortably in place, unable or unwilling to come up with an appropriate retort, if indeed a retort is appropriate at all. He winds up staring after Yalai with an expression that can only be called /heated/, nodding his agreement with their arrangements. Nobody else was meant to hear any of /that/, he's sure. Of all the times and places...

    His expression goes even more sour as Yalai disappears into the shadows. It's a strange thing they do, when they do that, and he can't quite wrap his head around it. On occasion she's tried to explain and it simply never really clicked. Of course, he's followed her "in" a few time in emergencies, but what's on the other side is very... strange. If he can, he always shuts his eyes and just follows Yalai's guidance.

    Aedan counts the seconds in his head, and wishes he had an hourglass. He decides it's taking too long, long before the three and a half minute mark. He forces himself to count slower, because he knows he's going too fast. There's no way it isn't a trap. It's simply too straightforward, too obvious. Especially for a Sheikah.

    But then the noise, and then a voice comes, and his worries evaporate. Aedan secures his bow and arrow and starts forward, giving a sharp whistle to call down his loftwing before Yalai has quite gotten the idea out of her mouth. The sound of distant wings can be heard. That loftwing isn't fast in arriving.

    As for Aedan himself, he moves to take Avri from Yalai, but he doesn't take her very /far/ even if he's allowed to. Only far enough to get out into the open and a stretch of ground that isn't too hazardous, where he settles her down to get a look at her. "Should be able to, yeah. Might have to take it in hops once we pierce the old cloud barrier... might end up ditching some supplies to lighten the load. Where's she hurt? Or... where's she /not/ hurt? How should we secure her, is what I'm getting at?"

    With regards to the surroundings, Aedan smirks faintly and says, "First thing once we're out of here and everyone's safe, /we're/ taking a bath. Breathe a few minutes. Then, we're going to talk about snaking around me and breathing into my ear while prepping for a possible ambush."

Yalai the Stave (879) has posed:
Although she hadn't particularly been trying for any particular reaction out of her tall Hylian friend, he might spot a glimpse of brightness -- a half-grin; a brief gleam of soot-dimmed light against her white teeth as she disappears into the shadows.

It's about the only thing left of her that's white in this volcanic purgatory. Even her hair looks more ashy than usual, but that would be because it has actual ash in it. No amount of dry scrubbing or combing over the past two weeks has helped her to get it out. Her hair's started to look rather dry and crackly, too, but two weeks in volcanic air would probably do that to a person. Goddesses know what the inside of her lungs must look like at this point.

Lugging the insensate Sheikah is about all Yalai can handle, and she's panting by the time she dumps Avri down, a little less gently than she might have intended; ripping off her improvised mask and breathing in great choking gulps of searing-hot air.

It's not much of an improvement to being out of breath, really. She squints bloodshot eyes toward Aedan, and it's hard to say whether her expression is amused or just plain annoyed. This mountain air is very much not agreeing with her in the least.

Coughing, she wets the mask again and ties it back around her nose and mouth.

"The better question to be asking," Yalai croaks, "is where she is not hurting. I am certain she will be having an interesting story to be telling when your Loftwing is taking her home, yes?"

Kneeling, she lays a hand over Avri's forehead. The foreign Sheikah is a little more blonde than Yalai, but like most of their kind, it's only a hint rather than blatant colouration. Her skin is just a little darker than Yalai's. Avri's facial tattoo is a sharp, thin line just under the cheekbone, much like Yalai's, but tapered, as though to suggest the throwing knives they carry. She's also bloody, bruised, and burnt; it's a wonder she's even alive, although barely. It's also a mercy she's unconscious. If she were awake, she'd be in insufferable pain.

Yalai looks over the Sheikah, muttering distractedly to herself in the shadow-tongue. After a few seconds she glances up, cocking her head and eyeing Aedan; the gesture seems almost bird-like. "I can be taking the supplies on my Loftwing. I would rather not be leaving anything here, yes? Someone or something was doing this, and I do not want to be giving them any advantages at all, yes?" Her expression sours. "Yes. A bath. And breathing. I am missing breathing. My throat is being in pain all of the time, here."

There's a pause. A long pause.

And then she grins the sort of toothsome grin a fox might show to the mouse it knows it just caught.

"Is that so...?" she hisses, red eyes settling on the Hylian, speculatively. "I think there will be a great deal of talking, yes? But the question is, will there be any listening?" She flashes that fox-grin again. "I do not think so." The grin fades, though, into an expression more sober and almost pained. "But for now, we must be concentrating on what is being at hand. And that is being saving Avri the Needler's life. If she is knowing what happened here, her or your Hylian friend, they can be telling us an interesting story, I am thinking." Yalai shakes her head, reaching up to hitch the mask more firmly over her face. "And there are being too few of us to be losing like this, yes?"

Aedan MacCarvill (891) has posed:
    The great Loftwing lands heavily a short distance outside the crevace, where it can actually fit itself. Aedan makes a spinning motion at the bird, which makes an aggravated noise and turns to the side as the Knight hoists Avri up again. He's not experiencing the difficulties Yalai is, which is one of the pluses of his enormous body. And of archery, for that matter. His upper body strength is remarkable! He asides to Yalai, "Loftwings really aren't ideal for hauling wounded. I'm sure we could come up with a system to make it less dangerous, but we haven't had the time."

    He looks Avri over with a squint, and adds, "They're dangerous in the long run, but the burns might have actually helped if they closed any wounds that were already there. Probably going to be fighting infections by the time we get her back, though." He situates Avri in the saddle and holds her in place from one side. Then he waves Yalai over with a jerk of his head, "Get up behind her and hold her in place. We're going to have to improvise a harness to keep her saddled, because there's not enough room to lie her down."

    "And go ahead and call your Loftwing down, we want to take off as quick as we can. I'll see if the weight will be a problem, she's not very heavy." Says the giant man.

    As for the breathing issue he asides, "You could breathe if you'd drink the damn potions. What's worse, nasty-tasting liquid when you've got nothing to wash it out that isn't rationed, or breathing difficulties for the entire trip?"

    This is not intended as an actual question. Aedan suspects it will be treated as one all the same.

    Once Yalai has moved over to help, Aedan unspools a rope from one of the saddle bags and begins to tie a makeshift harness around Avri. It's a trick that most Rescue Knights know, in the event that they have wounded themselves, although it's very uncomfortable and begins to chafe rapidly.

    Bare rope is rough, after all.

    The knight makes a mental note to get a proper backup harness made at some point. A glance is cast towards Yalai. Maybe she could...

    "Surprised we found them /both/ at all. Do you suppose she left a deliberate trail, or... what?" He asks.

Yalai the Stave (879) has posed:
Squinting, Yalai looks on as Aedan's Loftwing makes a grumpy sound and reluctantly half-turns, giving the knight the space he needs to boost Avri into the saddle. Actual Loftwing saddles are rare among Skyloft civilians and the Sheikah, but many of the Skyloft Knights elect to use them to carry additional gear -- survival supplies and, in the case of those tasked to combat demonic forces, additional weaponry.

For once, Yalai finds herself relieved that Aedan is one such person. The ability to carry her, however uncomfortable it may be, is probably the thing that will save Avri's life... if she survives the trip home, anyway.

When he advises her to call her own Loftwing down, Yalai whisks a glove off, leans aside, sticks two fingers into her mouth, and blasts a shrill whistle that seems unreasonably loud for such a small person. Her call is answered, distantly, by the oddly 'two-tone' call of her Loftwing. It won't be long before the much smaller bird arrives.

Yalai folds her arms as she watches Aedan try to arrange Avri into place; then leaping aboard the bird to help position the wounded Sheikah as necessary. She even gives the Loftwing a pat, as though to thank him for his patience. Loftwings are smart, for a bird; they may not speak, but it's still possible to communicate with them. The Sheikah Loftwings, though -- they're a breed apart from whatever the Hylian Loftwings are. Nobody knows exactly how smart they are, but the intelligence they do demonstrate is downright uncanny.

There's not much more she can do at this point but wait for her bird to arrive, at least while they're trying to get Avri situated. Her bloodshot eyes flick upward every few seconds, scanning the ash-choked sky for her bird.

"You were putting /rocks/ in it," Yalai snaps, almost angrily. "What are you thinking I am going to be doing? Drinking it down as though it were being water? I am not thinking so. Besides, it would not be doing anything for my eyes, or my skin, or... anything else, really, yes? It is being fine," she adds, sparing one hand long enough for an irritable waving gesture.

The Sheikah makes her own aggravated noise as she holds Avri in place, watching as Aedan ties the rope into place. The knots and the locations of them are noted carefully -- no doubt her mind's running in the same lines, thinking fo a harness she could craft that wouldn't be as caustic as rope. "We should be making harnesses," she points out. "Be tying it around the Loftwing's body and he can be carrying anything under him, yes?" she comments, thoughtfully. "Out of the way of his wings, and safe, if it is being fastened properly. Leather and buckles, instead of rope to the saddle, yes?"

As to finding them both, she only shrugs, even as her Loftwing lands with that two-tone screech, kicking up a cloud of ash and setting Yalai to sneezing. "She was probably knowing that someone would be looking for her, and leaving it. See, here," she adds, plucking at the end of Avri's cloak. It looks deliberately torn. "She was doing it here. Using one of her knives, I am thinking; her last one, maybe. She is not having any others on her, it is looking like..." Her expression darkens. "I am hoping we can be bringing her back in time."

Aedan MacCarvill (891) has posed:
    Once Yalai is there to keep Avri firmly in the saddle while Aedan ropes her in, it doesn't take long to get her secure. Aedan waves Yalai off towards her own bird, giving her enough time to dismount his loftwing before he climbs up behind Avri. Ordinarily he'd put her in the back, but he's still suspicious about this, and needs to be able to keep an eye on her while they're flying. Having a potentially shifty rider roped in behind him isn't his idea of /safety/, although even if something funny is going on with Avri herself, she's certainly wounded enough that she's unlikely to be a threat.

    Either way, it's better to have her up front. Can't keep an eye on her from anywhere else.

    "Beats Goron toenails." The knight jokes, in response to Yalai's protests. It /is/ a joke, but he can't help but imagine it'll make her even more wary of drinking his potions. Aedan grins over towards her as he takes control of his Loftwing, prompting it to begin lifting off -- slowly. This is a lot of weight on its back. "We'll find something a little more flavorful for you in the future. Medicine doesn't /have/ to taste terrible."

    "I suppose I could flavor it all with wine, if I had to. Might get you a bit tipsy." He ponders aloud.

    "Yeah," He answers regarding harnesses, "I was thinking the same thing, but there's nothing for it right now. A makeshift one will have to do. But not below the loftwing. The problem with that... especially in a situation like this with wounded, is that the loftwing is still a living thing and has certain patterns of movement."

    "Anything hanging off the bottom is going to be in for a rough time whenever we land. We just need to figure out a seat rig for wounded. Bet you could whip something like that up. Though... if you don't already, learn how to do it with rope." He gives a tug on one of the now-secured ropes. They ascend a little more, and begin moving forward.

    "'Course, there's no chance you're not a knot expert. Seems like the sort of thing you'd learn as kids!" By 'you' he of course means Sheikah in general. After gaining a little bit of altitude, the great Loftwing begins to make towards home. It's going to be a long, slow trip though. It's easy to tell just by the speed of them.

Yalai the Stave (879) has posed:
Whether she is or isn't responsible for the situation, Avri the Needler seems to be in no position to cause any trouble, or deliver a report. Her condition isn't very good; even as a battle-trained Sheikah. Whatever got hold of her left her in a bad way. She won't be trying anything but an honest effort to stay alive, and she doesn't look very conscious or coherent.

Yalai, meanwhile, simply kicks off sideways from Aedan's Loftwing, ignoring any protest the bird might have at such a dismount. Swinging herself up onto her own harness, she gives the great bird a fond pat on the neck, leaning low as she eyes Avri's improvised harness. It looks secure enough, as long as they aren't forced to fly too quickly.

"No," she says, flatly, eyeing Aedan as though he might have spontaneously turned into a Parella on land. Maybe that'd be an improvement. "No, it is not beating Goron toenails." Yalai's expression sours. "I do not even want to be thinking about that. Why did you have to be bringing that up?"

Ew. Just... ew.

Settling into place over her Loftwing's harness, she then proceeds to reach up and readjust her mask, squinting at him. Flavouring all the potions with wine? "Not if I am needing to be sober to do something," she points out. "If you are just wanting to be getting me tipsy," she adds, "we /can/ be doing that, you know. Yes?" Grin, grin.

The grin fades, and she shakes her head. "We are knowing how to be tying rope that way, yes? We have been recovering our own wounded before. You are simply having a better Loftwing for it." Yalai gestures somewhat vaguely at his enormous bird. While not necessarily twice the size of her own, it's probably a close contest. Like bird, like rider -- ridiculously huge. "More space, yes?"

"I would not be calling myself an expert, but I am being competent in tying knots." She settles more firmly onto the harness, before the smaller, charcoal-coloured Loftwing leaps aloft with a great stirring of ash and dust. Yalai gains altitude more quickly than her companion, owing to having a much smaller bird, and also much less weight to carry. "Liat and Kherem will be catching us up," she adds.

She wheels in place while waiting for Aedan to reach altitude, and then turns her own Loftwing in a lazy banking turn to fly above and slightly to one side; where she can keep an eye on Avri, and where she can also hear Aedan without too much trouble.

"I was learning that as a child!" she calls, with that fox-grin of hers. Naturally, the Sheikah would learn something that useful early in life. They don't really seem to be children in the way other races do -- they are born for a singular purpose, and they train for that purpose all throughout their lives, starting alarmingly early. They exist to protect the Goddess, and to defend their Hylian brethren; no more, and no less.

Aedan MacCarvill (891) has posed:
    "I don't know. I thought it was funny." Aedan retorts, plainly. But it's not the weirdest thing to consider, really. One of the best ingredients to use for certain water-related potions is zora scales. Unfortunately, the best place to get them is the very hostile river zora, and that requires going out in the water to begin with. Regular fish scales work, but they're less... /magic/, to put it simply.

    He tilts his head towards Yalai a little, regarding the wine-flavored potions. "No, no... I mean, not in the field. I'm just trying to think of good ways to make that work. Some kind of juice? I could grind berries up and... hm. Anyway, you're right, we can get tipsy just fine the normal way, and not in dangerous situations. How about honey?"

    "Or... peppers. Peppers would make them too spicy to taste." He wonders aloud. What else is there to do while flying like this?

    Actually, there is one matter that needs addressing.

    "How should we let them know we took off? I guess they might just spot us before we're too far out, but..." He glances worriedly back. "Whatever did this is still out there, probably. If we've extracted who we're going to extract it doesn't make any sense to have them stay on the ground behind us." Privately, he ponders whether or not this was the entire idea. Separate them, and...

    But no, that must be paranoia.

    As for their prior topic, the Knight meanders back towards it as they... well, meander through the sky, really. Or -he- meanders through the sky. Right now, Yalai could fly circles around him. Might have to, really. "What kind of flavors would you like? I mentioned honey, but I'm sure there's something you'd choose if you had the option. Fish-flavored drink isn't really any good in concept, uh... maybe lemon? It's pretty strong, but at least it would drown out the actual /unpleasant/ flavors underneath..."

Yalai the Stave (879) has posed:
"You would be thinking that," Yalai grumbles. The words are lost to the wind and the feathers of her own Loftwing's neck, though.

Her eyes remain forward and up, paying attention to the route they're taking. So far, it seems pretty routine. There's nothing to arouse her suspicions -- and the Sheikah are infamous for their generally suspicious natures. Thus far, it seems they haven't been followed, although she doesn't expect anything to. Demise's remnents have not yet figured out how to conquer the sky itself, for which the Sheikah are grateful. Still, that doesn't stop her from looking.

She glances over, making a face at him when he elabourates on his potions, the wind whipping long white hair into her face. "No, wine is being a bad idea. Berries might be working, depending on which they are being. Or, honey. Honey is probably being best. It could also be used to be thickening anything that is needing thickening, yes?"

"No peppers," she adds. "Something that strong might be changing the intended effect, yes? Or tasting even worse." Not only would it taste awful, it would taste like awful burning! No, thanks.

She looks forward again, fingers tightening around her Loftwing's harness. "I will be returning to them through the Silent Realm," Yalai adds, glancing briefly back to Aedan. "I can be travelling with swiftness in that way, yes? I am knowing that the Guardians and the Watchers will not be hindering me; we of the Shadow Folk are serving the Goddess, too, after all," she adds, solemnly.

""Honey would be working, and fish-flavoured drink is sounding... disgusting," Yalai clarifies, a touch here or there guiding her Loftwing into an ascent. While Skyloft isn't far distant, they still have a ways to go, yet. "Lemon is working well, too. It is being strong enough to do with exactness the thing you are wanting it to be doing, yes?"

Aedan MacCarvill (891) has posed:
    "It's a little funny. Just a little." Aedan demonstrates with pinched fingers. It can be hard to hear up here, sometimes, though they're flying close and not particularly quickly at the moment. He looks down towards the Needler for a moment, and then straight ahead again. Visual contact, but... he wonders. Wouldn't it have just been easier to take Avri through the Shadows to start with? But no...

    Yalai would have had to do the carrying, and she can't. And he's not technically /allowed/ in there to begin with. They'd have needed the others with them, and they didn't have the time.

    "I'll try honey, and lemons, and maybe a mix of both, and we'll taste test it with some health potions. Those never have side effects so there's no trouble taking them." He usually doesn't talk about side effects, but they've never come up with the ones that he's given her. Presumably potions-in-testing can have some odd results, but the recipes he has down are fairly reliable.

    One must wonder what kind of side effects might occur, though...

    "What about cinnamon, or mint, or something like that? Crush the leaves in... those taste awfully strong on their own, though." Which is sort of the idea, but it's not hard to imagine those things seeping into whatever they're flavoring and just making the whole effect worse.

    "Hold on," He says abruptly, breaking the conversation about potion flavoring and looking over towards Yalai, "What about their Loftwings? We weren't looking for them in the first place, but surely the ones we found could have called to them. I don't remember any remains out there, and these birds don't take commands from unknown riders so easily. I guess a sorcerer could probably hijack them if they tried really hard..."

    "You see any feathers around on our way out? Or anyplace in the vicinity they'd go to try to eat -- you know, rivers and such?" He asks, leveling out his ascent after climbing a bit higher than necessary.

Yalai the Stave (879) has posed:
The Sheikah grumbles something largely negative, but it's hard to tell just what she says; the wind snatches her words away. Whatever it is, it's probably not repeating, anyway.

She concentrates on looking forward, red eyes on the sky ahead of them. The sun is beginning to set, and the dome of the clear sky is beginning to darken at its furthest edges. Most Loftwings have difficulty flying in the dark, so their return is well-timed. For all that they look slightly different, the Loftwings used by the Sheikah don't seem able to see any better in the dim light.

Yalai shrugs, leaning back to eye Aedan somewhat obliquely. "Cinnamon is being a strong seasoning, too, and so is mint. Either of those will also be working, I am thinking."

Loftwings? The Sheikah blinks, somewhat owlishly, at the sudden change in the topic of conversation. Evidently she considers the possibility for a moment, narrowing her eyes as she sifts over the details. Feathers... it's true; wherever the Sheikah had gone, so too would their Loftwings, or so it stands to reason.

"No," she adds, shaking her head, even as she guides her own Loftwing into a banking turn. "It is being difficult for others to be using our Loftwings. Only those we are trusting," she adds. "Not impossible, I am thinking, but it is being very difficult, yes? Maybe the Loftwings were being trapped somewhere, or still are. A bird can be made to be unable to be responding to its rider's call, yes?" Like Link's, when the hero had been called to the Wing Ceremony. A curious ritual, that.

"I was seeing no feathers." Yalai makes a face, then, scowling. "Are you certain they would not simply be /burning/ in that air? Right into flame. /Pffff/," she adds, gesturing expressively, somehow managing to stay aloft on her bird despite briefly letting go of the harness. "I am not certain there are /being/ any rivers on Eldin; rivers that are not being blood-of-the-mountain, anyway, yes?" That would be molten rock. The Sheikah have more poetic names for things, sometimes. "Unless you were seeing something I was missing. Your eyes are being sharper than mine are, yes?"

Aedan MacCarvill (891) has posed:
    "Yeah, but isn't it weird that there's no sign of them having ever been in the vicinity? Not to put too much emphasis on it, but Loftwings are /messy/. One that got attacked wouldn't have left behind nothing, and I don't think they would just burn up unless they were pretty near to an active flow." Aedan sifts through the possibilities in conversation, and just keeps going, "If one got incapacitated you could just dump it in a magma flow and nobody would know it had been there, but these two haven't been attacked carefully and weren't subdued quickly enough."

    "And /our/ loftwings could hear us and respond, so it's not just something about the area."

    "Might've been too risky to mount up, but I don't know. This whole thing has been fishier than a dead river Zora." How's that for a grim joke? He makes an irritable face and continues, "I guess it's just grating on me that we don't know anything. We just found the aftermath of things. My imagination can go in a lot more places than reality is likely to. I guess we'll get the picture soon enough, but...

    "I don't know. Hey, how would /you/ stop a loftwing from responding to its rider if you had to?" He asks, looking over to Yalai. She's the subtle one between the two of them. If it was him, well... the ugly fact is that he probably couldn't do it with an subtlety. Even if he could concot an appropriate poison, she would have to be the one to deliver it.

    His most surefire method of silencing a loftwing would be...

    A bomb arrow.

    "Wasn't really looking to be seeing whatever else might have been there. We can scout again later, I suppose." Aedan says, concerning possible locations loftwings might go to eat near Eldin. "I guess I'm not entirely certain that they wouldn't just burn, but things don't burn that easily just because it's hot or we'd have caught fire. They'd have to be really close to the magma flow."

    "For instance," He points at her head, "your hair didn't catch fire. And hair's plenty flammable."

Yalai the Stave (879) has posed:
Although dusk isn't far off, what residents of Skyloft chose to remain are active. Many are headed to and from Skyloft's central market, while the aspirants at the Knight Academy are going about their business. Rescue Knights patrol around the sky islands themselves in various formations, their Loftwings already wearing the lamps and specialised hoods designed for night-flying.

At this hour, it's easier to head to a less crowded location within the series of sky islands. Yalai guides her Loftwing into a banking turn, veering aside from the open market and the residental areas. "To the Statue of the Goddess," she calls over the wind, pointing to the curved statue of Hylia on its own bridged island. "It will be less crowded, yes? We will be leaving the Needler for the healers, and we will be returning to her when she is being more able to be telling us her story, yes?"

Backwinging neatly to touch down on the edge of the courtyard, Yalai vaults down without even waiting for the Loftwing to fully settle, waving the great bird back off to wherever it is unneeded Loftwings go. In this case, a few paces to fluff out charcoal-coloured feathers and huddle under one of the temple-island's trees.

Yalai immediately waves out to the darkness, where she can probably see something Aedan can't -- in this case, the dim figures of Sheikah, who seem to materialise from the shadows.

Loremaster Ikram, grave-faced and one-eyed, is already there to receive Avri once Aedan gets done with dismounting; she's accompanied by a younger Sheikah, identifiable as Ahroun the Runner by the marks on her face and her small stature. No doubt the Runner is here to help Ikram in Kherem's absence.

"Anyway," Yalai continues, as though there hadn't been a pause at all, "we will not be having all of the pieces until we are speaking to the Needler. Better to not be thinking on them too hard, yes?"

She folds her arms, frowning. "But it is being odd that their Loftwings were not being present. I was not seeing any, though one could have been hiding there, with so much smoke and soot and ash... maybe the Needler will be shedding light on this, I am hoping, if she is surviving." One hand rises to untie the mask she'd been wearing the whole time, grimacing at the sooty fabric. "It is good to be breathing clean air again, yes?"

Leaning closer, Yalai doesn't /quite/ breathe into Aedan's ear, but comes close. "I am wanting to be discussing this matter with you," she murmurs, sidling closer to the giant knight, "but not where there are being other ears to be hearing it."

In other words, something about this whole thing is bothering her, too. Not only that, but she's taking it seriously enough that she doesn't want to risk any eavesdroppers at all.

Aedan MacCarvill (891) has posed:
    Come to think of it, Aedan ponders as he notices the distant Rescue Knights, he probably should've put that gear on before heading out, but they were in a hurry. At this point, it doesn't matter much. He begins his descent, having approached higher than normal so he could come in for a fast landing once they were finally in range for such considerations. He takes the time to make certain the landing is as perfect as it's going to get, though, because his passenger can't take too much jarring. Once they reach the ground, he's rapidly beginning to untie the knots holding Avri in place.

    He doesn't actually bother getting her completely out of the makeshift harness. Instead, he just looses the harness from where it's tied onto the sattle and hauls the Needler off the loftwing -- carefully -- lowering her to the ground. Once that's done he gives his Loftwing a sharp whistle to indicate it can take off, and it does, clearing the way with another vaguely irritated noise like the one it made before they left. That was a long journey with a heavy load.

    It'll be a bit before they can fly again without risking serious overexertion.

    Aedan, for his part, simply gets the hell out of the way and leaves the rest of the transport to Ikram and Ahroun, or at the very least awaits instructions. They might be more inclined to check her out on the spot before moving her, or... well, he doesn't know. He's just not going to do anything else unless he's given clear instructions. He says, "She made it this far, I think her odds of surviving are good enough. If she was going to die, I think... it probably would've been during the trip back. Even strapped down, that wasn't... you know what I mean. And yeah, clean air is good. Doesn't smell like rotten eggs."

    The knight frowns a little when Yalai whispers to him, but he just nods his assent. Aedan will wait to see if they're needed with the Needler, or for Yalai to lead him off. He's a bit nervous around Ikram. Not the sort of woman you do the wrong thing around too many times, and in this situation he's not really sure where he's expected to be.

Yalai the Stave (879) has posed:
For her part, Yalai remains by Aedan's side, looking for all the world like the suspicious little fox cowering behind the dramatically larger hound. She watches the proceedings somewhat obliquely, but she doesn't seem inclined to draw too much attention to herself -- no more so than Aedan himself, strangely.

Yalai has mentioned before that she herself is an apprentice of Ikram, one of the only ones left alive, but that doesn't mean she's any less intimidated by the brusque, one-eyed Sheikah. She contents herself with watching, angular face tilted at something of an oblique angle. Her bloodshot, blood-red eyes flick toward any movement, though in this case, she might be seeing more movement than even Aedan's sharp eyes -- the Sheikah have a knack for frighteningly sharp vision in low light conditions.

There's not much to see. Ikram, with Ahroun's help, manage to transfer Avri onto some sort of makeshift stretcher, and carry her off. They carry no torches. The Sheikah need no such light to see, so it isn't long before the little party is out of sight.

Sheikah are never very numerous at any given time. One can suppose there are only a few here in Skyloft, and furthermore, it seems even they might be avoiding attention from their Hylian brethren. The alliance between the two peoples is still a fragile and uncertain thing. The casualties were split, but the Sheikah seem content to continue forward as though this were an internal matter.

Perhaps it is. Even Yalai seems highly suspicious about the whole affair, and her instincts are well-placed... usually.

Once it's clear nobody else is going to come popping out of the shadows, Yalai's hand more or less appears around Aedan's wrist, tugging him toward the residental quarter.

"Come." Her voice sounds a little subdued; as she turns, the slim chain in her ear chimes quietly. "There is not being anything more we can be doing here. I will need to be returning to Eldin through the Silent Realms, to be warning the Dirge and the Scourge. It will be taking me only a few moments, but I... would rather be doing that from home."

She tends to come back exhausted when she makes use of those roads. The Sheikah are wholly safe so long as they remain in Hylia's lands, but that doesn't mean the ordeal isn't exhausting to them. The Silent Realms aren't places that are meant to support ordinary sorts of life, and the Guardians and Watchers that populate those places are essentially divine creatures, whether created by Hylia or by the three Goddesses.

Whether or not he follows right away, she'll start trudging across the bridge leading back to Skyloft's central sky island, sweeping back her slightly crisped, ash-smudged hair from her face. There's bits of soot in it here and there, too, smudged on her skin as well. Even in the darkness, it's easy to see it against the pallor of her skin. Likely it doesn't show up on her clothing only because her clothing can be summed up as 'various shades of black.'

"I cannot wait to be bathing," she mutters, looking dull-eyed after such a grueling dispatch. "I feel like I am having ash and soot in every bit of skin and hair. I can almost be tasting it in my mouth. I cannot wait to be rinsing that out wtih wine, either." The Sheikah scowls. "I hate not bathing."

Aedan MacCarvill (891) has posed:
    The quality of Aedan's vision in the dark is better than a normal person's, but doesn't much compare to that of the Sheikah. It would be appropriate to say that he takes "reduced penalties" for looking around in the dark, whereas the Sheikah have "active bonuses" to the same. In short, if there's anything stirring nearby, he's probably going to miss it right now. Besides, he doesn't really know anything of how Ikram and Ahroun are handling this situation. Seems fairly standard, really. A stretcher to take her off someplace clean and tucked away.

    Probably boiled wine for a lot of those injuries...

    The usual, along with whatever strange things the Sheikah see fit to do. Aedan hasn't actually needed to observe their healers at active work, but he wouldn't be surprised to learn that they use something strange. Like acupuncture. More likely it'll just be a whole lot of stitchwork and salving, maybe a potion to replace lost blood.

    When Yalai takes him by the wrist and starts tugging he protests with a half-hearted, "I'm coming, I'm coming..." And trudges after her wearily. A bath. A bath and not getting in the saddle again for a while. That sounds really good. The trip back to his quarters, where they came from to begin with, isn't really very long. It's a bit of a haul up a bunch of flights of stairs, so it's more tiring than it normally would be. Especially since, as far as Aedan's concerned, he's plenty tired as it is.

    Once they reach the landing, the Knight produces an old skeleton key and unlocks the door. He doesn't go inside. Instead he just straight up starts sloughing off clothes because they're /filthy/. Dust and ash comes up as he discards his tunic and extricates his chainmail from it, setting it in a separate pile on the opposite side of the door.

    "We'll get a bath just as soon as you get back. I'd tell you to change clothes but it wouldn't do you any good just yet since you're going straight back through the shadows to poke the other two." He separates his belt of potions and hatchets and quiver from the rest of the gear. Every single bit of it needs cleaning.

    "... But, you should take a fresh mask with you at least. How long is it going to take that way, anyway?" He eyes Yalai, leaning up against the wall and tugging at a boot while standing on one foot. "You sure it's safe to go /alone/?"

    This, Aedan is uncertain about. He regrets starting to dress himself down now, but what's done is done. The things in the shadows, from what he knows, are hostile to non-Sheikah. Even if he went with her, he'd make it /more/ dangerous, wouldn't he?

Yalai the Stave (879) has posed:
Chances are that most of the Sheikah employ exceedingly normal methods to sew up their wounded. By and large, the people of Skyloft have a tendency to overblow a lot of things about the Shadow Folk simply because they're so little known. Ahroun and Ikram took off with Avri simply because time was of the essence -- infection would present more of a problem than Avri's actual wounds.

It's a wonder she survived Eldin's harsh environment for so long, if she'd earned them when the Sheikah had first lost contact with her. No doubt she'll have interesting stories to tell.

Yalai glances back as Aedan starts shedding pieces of armour, but she doesn't comment, instead leaning against the wall while he rids himself of ash-caked clothing and armour. "Five minutes. Ten, maybe. I am running swiftly through the Silent Realms," she adds, "for I am knowing with exactness where I am to be going, yes? And there is being nothing there to be harming me."

She lets her head loll to one side, eyeing him somewhat languidly. "Mmn. I could be guaranteeing safe passage for you, but there would be no point to be asking you to be going. It will only be slowing me down, I think."

"It is being perfectly safe," she adds, with a sharp-toothed grin. "For one of we of the Shadow Folk, that is."

In other words, she doesn't want this to take any longer than it really has to. She unties the strip of cloth she'd been wearing as a mask, tossing it onto the porch with the rest of his armour, rubbing a hand over her face. With a last glance at him, she ducks down and pushes away from the wall. "I will be returning with quickness."

A flash of eerie white light limns the Sheikah, and with that, she's gone, fading into the darkness in the blink of an eye.

As promised, she's gone for about ten minutes; maybe fifteen, if he stops counting, before reappearing in the living room of his quarters. The smell of sulphur accompanies her, and her eyes look a little more bloodshot than they'd been. A corner of her cloak is smoldering gently, and she only seems to notice it when she smells something burning, grimacing and smothering it with a pinch.

"I am starting to be hating that mountain," she proclaims crisply, already ripping off her cloak, the singed linen wraps around her hand, and jerking one side of her tunic up to poke and prod at a few minor bruises and scratches, baring ribs in sharp relief. None of it is really worth any particular attention; just a litany of small annoyances. "No one is being there, but the Dirge and the Scourge are already returning. Their Loftwings are flying, but they will be coming by the Silent Realms."

The Sheikah pauses, frowning as she lets her tunic fall back into place. "I suppose there is nothing else to be doing but to be waiting." Those bloodshot, blood-red eyes flick to Aedan again, and she manages a grin. "And bathing, yes? What was that being about a bath...?"

Aedan MacCarvill (891) has posed:
    "If you say so." Is all Aedan has to say concerning the matter of the Silent Realm, and Yalai's ETA. He's not keen to go in there, and if she /really/ thinks it isn't a problem, then he'll take her word for it. She's competent, and she was taking care of herself just fine long before they met. No reason to believe she can't do the same now. He offers her a joking salute as she takes off into the shadows, and begins collecting the things he's discarded. Most of it is sorted into laundry to be done, while the equipment is laid across one of the two chairs inside.

    The interior of the Knight's living space is relatively cramped. This isn't because it is actually a small space, although it isn't large either, but because he takes up so much space himself. The main room has a great bed set up against the wall, with a wardrobe crammed into the corner at the head of it. Nothing is particularly well-matched, although it is /comfortable/. Curtains circle the bed, a red-and-gold patterned rug that matches nothing at all covers the floor, there's a fireplace... the overall layout is divided into three rooms. One is this main room with the bed and the wardrobe and such.

    To the left there are two separate rooms. One is the washroom, which is dominated by a great big barrel with a wooden divider set across the top of the middle. A crude bathtub, but effective enough. Linens have been laid along the sitting areas within the tub, which regularly have to be replaced to avoid getting mildewy and nasty... but going without them means splinters.

    The second door on the left leads to a small laboratory with many small windows that are left open when anybody is actually home. The door is usually shut so the fumes only have one place to go.

    By the time Yalai returns, the door to the laboratory is opened and Aedan is actually already working on getting a bath going. As a matter of fact, he's emptying a potion bottle into the great barrel-tub. It doesn't make much of a dent in the tub's capacity, though...

    "Yeah. A bath. Put those clothes with mine, and uh... maybe dump a bucket of water over your head while leaning out a window." He eyes Yalai's hair, critically. "It's a good thing we weren't animals, out there. We'd never get it out of our fur."

    There is an odd BLOOPING noise as the liquid in the bathtub expands. It looks like the water had been mixed with a shrinking solution, and the time on the solution ran out. The tub's mostly filled, now.

    "The Dirge and the Scourge didn't run afoul of anything? Looked alright, did they?" He asks.

Yalai the Stave (879) has posed:
The Sheikah takes a moment to gather her long hair up in a messy twist, and shake out the ash and soot from it. It doesn't get all of it out, but it's enough to satisfy her for the most part. That done, she lurches inside, frowning because apparently he wasn't out here to hear her coming back.

Oh. Working on potions. That's not really all that surprising; it's about akin to finding her sharpening knives when she hasn't got anything more constructive to do.

Sidling into the doorway, she eyes the laboratory somewhat warily. What he does in there might as well be magic, most of the time, albeit a dangerous sort ill-understood by most Sheikah. Even she doesn't understand it well, and she's taken to living with him.

"Mmn." Squinting slightly at his advice to wash out her hair, she shakes her head, slithering out of her clothing. Every time it so much as moves, it seems to let out puffs of ash or soot; when she lets her tunic drop, it definitely leaves behind a puff of ash where it lands. The stuff's going to be everywhere, she reflects sourly, and she might as well get a head start on cleaning the mess up first thing tomorrow morning.

Animals? Oh, right. Transformation potion. She quickly pats at her belt, reassuring herself a second later that her vials are still where she usually keeps them. Covered in ash a bit, but the cork stoppers are still firmly in place. Good.

Mumbling under her breath, she lurches toward the tub, dragging herself in once all's ready, and only registers his question after she's sunk into the hot water down to her chin.

In answer, she fixes those red eyes on Aedan, traces a forefinger in a line from one side of under her throat to the other, and grins. "I think they can be handling whatever it is." Both Sheikah had had their throats nearly slit and somehow survived; she's confident enough in their ability to not die. "And they are knowing something is amiss. They will be careful, but there is being no need to be worrying. Once they are stepping into the Silent Realm, they are being safe; as safe as I."

Leaning out over the edge of the basin, she seizes his forearm and tugs. "Get in. You are smelling like the volcano."

Aedan MacCarvill (891) has posed:
    Internally, Aedan isn't certain the best way to get all the ash out of his clothes. Normal washing seems like a great way to just wash it in. Hang it up outside and beat it with a broom? It's what they do with particularly dirty rugs. Maybe he can come up with a potion-related solution, but it seems unlikely. They have a limited timeframe of effect, so unless it's something that... hm, he supposes, repels ash... actually, that would make a good potion for next time. He eyes the pile of discarded clothing, deciding to take some samples from it.

    If they ever have to return to that godforsaken place, ash-repellant solution to spray on might be good.

    The knight is dithering about by the time Yalai has already lowered herself in the water. Before joining her he does a few things, including locking the door. He grabs one of his hatchets out of the pile of equipment, and a specific potion, and sets them down one next to the other by the bath before lowering himself in. The potion, he places on the divider that spans the middle of the bath. It's not a true divider, but rather, simply a platform on which to place objects.

    Typically, somebody who uses one uses it so they can /eat/ in the bath. Some of the upperclass would in fact hold whole 'bathing' parties like these, serving food on the dividers. It's because owning an individual bath is a sign of somebody of either rank or wealth, and somebody who owns a /lot/, well...

    The rich must show off.

    "Well, it may be they can take care of themselves, but you and I would both have said that everyone who was already there could take care of themselves. I suppose they /can/, since they're not -all- dead, but you know what I mean. Something out there took them by surprise, and nastily at that. You don't suppose there are magma Zora, do you? I think they'd dry out in a climate like that."

    Aedan sinks beneath the surface of the water, vigorously rubbing the ash from his hair while he's submerged, emerging a moment later to push his hair back away from his eyes and breathe. "Which window do you suppose they'll use when they come to update us?"

Yalai the Stave (879) has posed:
There's not much thought given to how to remove ash and soot from clothing. After a return trip through the Silent Realm at speed, Yalai isn't inclined to think about very much at all about anything, except maybe how nice it is to feel hot water instead of ash.

Her eyes had started drifting closed by the time Aedan finally sees fit to stop puttering and follow her advice; straightening so she's in no danger of sinking under the surface, she opens her eyes to half-mast, quirking a white brow at him.

Even wet, her hair is still bereft of colour. There are even some Hylians so pale blonde as to seem white-haired, but Yalai is really and truly white-haired. It lacks any colour at all, but not in the sense of the elderly, for there's no mistaking her for someone still in their prime. Her skin is likewise pale; pale enough to mark her as non-human, if the pointed ears and the blood-red eyes weren't enough to suggest that.

"They are also working together better than most are," Yalai points out. "The Dirge and the Scourge are husband and wife, and they are knowing one another's minds better than any other are knowing them, yes? They will be cautious; and all they are needing to be doing now is returning. That will be presenting no danger to them, I am thinking. It is being easy for any of us to be making use of the Silent Realms this way."

She considers, letting herself sink again, finally shrugging and immersing herself as Aedan does. She's down for a long time, and only vaguely is she aware that the weird noises she's hearing are Aedan saying something above the surface. With a great gasp of air, which turns into a coughing, Yalai comes back up and sweeps her hair away from her face, squinting as she computes, somewhat slowly, what he had said to her.

Twisting, she glances between the windows, as though considering which one.

"I am thinking a blue rupee says this one will be the window they are using," she observes simply. "But they are not being without tact. I think they will be waiting for us."

Hopefully. Mostly, though, she doesn't care. The hot water feels too good to care... but slowly, she remembers something she'd really prefer not to remember. Work sounds like too much effort at a time like this, but her half-finished thought from earlier was an important one. One eye cracks open, a slit of blood-red against the pallor of her skin and hair.

"You were saying something about the Loftwings. Earlier. When we were landing." Her eye closes again. "I was not finding anything to be supporting that, or to be rejecting it, either. But it was being a good idea. I am thinking sabotage, somehow. The Rake was not being found, and I am wondering if he is having a hand in this, but... I am not knowing much about him. I am not thinking the Needler is being involved, but perhaps she was suspecting or knowing something she was not supposed to be knowing, yes?"

Yalai sinks a little deeper, just high enough to speak without inhaling water. "The Needler's knives... I think that was being too obvious."

Aedan MacCarvill (891) has posed:
    "If you say so." It's not the only time tonight that Aedan has expressed similar sentiments, and he doubts it'll be the last. He knows many of the Sheikah in passing but he doesn't really have a good hold on their overall competence, other than knowing that it's at least as high as that of a proper Knight of Skyloft like himself. Probably higher in plenty of cases, although he's only been able to verify a few of them. Still, if Yalai says that they can survive together even if another ambush should occur, he has no doubt that she is telling the truth. At least insofar as she herself knows it.

    He frowns a little all the same, worried for their comrades. It may be uncharacteristic of him, because he's usually confident in these situations, but the fact is that this whole thing reeks to high heaven. The fact that it happened at all is an abnormality of the highest order. It's why the pair of them were sent. It's why... It's why...

    "Is that why we were sent in pairs of two? Cells already established to work together seamlessly enough that a surprise attack wouldn't work that well, even against really bad odds?" He asks, curiously.

    Yalai dips under the water a while while he's talking. He decides to wait and make certain she's listening before he goes on. A glance is cast towards the window that she chooses, to which he says, "Eh, /I'm/ not embarrassed in these circumstances. This stuff is important, and I've kind of gotten used to not having any privacy. Actually, getting promoted gave me a lot of privacy I hadn't had for /years/. If we were lucky we would end up in bunk rooms with other people of the same class, or just sharing a room with a single room mate."

    "A lot of the time though, efficiency demanded communal sleeping. Hell, especially up on Skyloft. Sometimes we didn't actually have enough bunks to go around and you'd be climbing into a bed as some other fool came out." He grins widely at Yalai. "Kind of glad to be past those days, actually. Makes it easy to not give a damn if somebody wanders in while you're bathing, though."

    Regarding the loftwings, Aedan gives a great big shrug. "I'm just throwing ideas out and seeing what sticks. Everything's fishy, so apart from those of us who weren't in the field when it happened, I kind of think everyone's a suspect until otherwise proven. I'd have said the Needler was pretty likely to turn around on me and knife me in the throat, but it looks like none of that was faked."

    "But one way you can use to gain the trust of the enemy is if you set up to do it. For example, having an infiltrator flee to the enemy while his buddies try to take him out. That way it looks real, especially if you do a little damage on the way out. So..." He sighs exasperatedly, raising his arms out of the water in an exaggerated shrug. Then he sinks down again, so that only his head isn't submerged.

    "Sometimes the obvious thing really /is/ the right thing to look at. Her situation was fishy, too, even if there are fishier people to look at." He glances up, towards the window. "You think they'll get back to us tonight, or will we have time to do as we please and get some sleep too?"

Yalai the Stave (879) has posed:
"I am thinking it was being the option with the least amount of risk," Yalai says, with a faint shrug. "And my superiors were knowing this, too. That is being the reason why so few of us are being sent to do things by ourselves. Demise's remnants are being stupid, but clever, yes? Like hunting-animals. They are knowing how to be taking down their prey."

She flashes one of those fox-grins, all teeth and malice. "But we are being very good at becoming hunters from hunted. And that is what we will be doing, if that is being the case here."

The grin fades, and she looks thoughtful as she wrings out some of her long hair. "Mmn. Even with bad odds, I am being confident the Dirge and the Scourge would be prevailing. They are knowing how one another is working, and they are making an efficient team. I have been seeing them work, in the past, and I would not be wanting to be picking any fights with them, yes? Even against one of them, I am not being confident of my own chances."

To the issue of privacy, she only shrugs. "I am accustomed to having none, and was having none before I was coming here with you. It is being no different to me if they are waiting; I am thinking they will be waiting for another reason. They have been on that mountainside as long as we have been; longer, yes? So they will be resting. I am not thinking there is going to be anything so urgent as to be sending them back out tonight." Again that grin. "We will be having time for to be doing as we please, and also to be sleeping, too."

"But the Loftwings... I am not knowing. No one has been seeing the Needler's Loftwing, yes? While they are given to be doing as they are pleasing when they are not being needed, it is still being strange to not be seeing her flying above Skyloft, yes?" Yalai shakes her head, the gesture suddenly weary. "I am not knowing, and I am thinking there will be no solving of our problems until we have been having a chance to be speaking with the Needler. If something untoward was happening down there, she will be able to be casting some light on it, yes?" Those blood-red eyes flick to Aedan, wary. "But she will not be trusted implicitly, so do not be worrying about that."

"We are being suspicious, too," she says simply. If there's anything the Sheikah are good at, it's being suspicious. "But her wounds were not being fake. I am being more worried about the Rake. I was seeing no sign of him. Nothing left behind, no feathers from his Loftwing, no weapons... nothing." She spreads her hands in a helpless gesture. "I am not knowing what to be making of it, and I think it will be doing no good to be trying to make anything of it. For all we are knowing, our theories are being dead wrong, yes? It is being too soon to be knowing."

Her hands come together, pressing one fist against an open palm in a curious little gesture. "Nayru will be providing us wisdom in time, to be acting as we are seeing fit." With a slight splash, she lets her hands drop, sighing and sagging back against the basin wall. "In the meantime... it is good to be not feeling ash and be breathing fire-air, yes? And to be /clean/. I am /hating/ not being able to be scrubbing myself off every day, yes?" Fastidious as a cat, she is, and having no water to bathe with in Eldin was misery incarnate for her.

Aedan MacCarvill (891) has posed:
    "Or at least surviving to escape." Aedan agrees, regarding the Scourge and Dirge. There's not much else to be said about it. People who can survive somebody attempting to cut their throats and halfway succeeding do deserve quite a lot of credit on the difficult-to-kill-o-meter. He makes a mental note to ask them about that particular story, because although the evidence is right there in front of them, it seems like a sort of remarkable thing to have done. If, at least, they're inclined to tell about it. Many of the Sheikah are not straightforward, even if they're not offended by a question like that.

    Regarding the matter of privacy, the knight lifts his eyebrows a bit. He says, "You know, that strikes me as a little bit strange. I know you're all taught to deal with a lot of uncomfortable field work, but I'd think privacy would be valued. That is... it kind of goes hand in hand with secrecy? I suppose for the field work you wouldn't often get the opportunity, but insofar as your personal lives are concerned, I'd think..."

    He shrugs. There are a lot of practical reasons not to have a lot of privacy as a part of a military organization. One of them is that it's a hell of a lot harder for a bunch of people to get knifed in their beds if the first person to get knifed wakes up everyone else in the process. You'd at least need a couple of knives per sleeping individual to guarantee that you got them before they could alert somebody able to do anything.

    "Wasn't worried. I know the Loremaster's probably thought ahead of us on this one."

    "What kind of a weapon is a rake, anyway? Surely it's not the sort of rake you use as a gardening tool. Can't imagine that would look dignified on his face, either." The knight traces a vague rake pattern into the divider with his finger. "S'pose it'd be alright if you were pretending to be a gardener to start with, and didn't make much of a straight fight of it."

    "Shovel, spade, and of course you can re-mount a scythe to make a passable spear out of it..."

    Regarding the lack of baths out in Eldin, the knight remarks, "Even I'd gotten to the point where I would've taken a bloody dirt bath, like the birds do. And I was the one drinking the potions to mitigate all that muck. Got some extras, still... guess I'll try flavoring those, first."

    "/I/ look forward to sleeping someplace that isn't a smelly cave." He adds, on the subject of Things To Do Not In Eldin.

Yalai the Stave (879) has posed:
"We are being individuals like any other," Yalai says, shrugging one tattooed shoulder. She scoops a hand, tossing a handful of water over her hair again, absently working through the rough spots with her fingers. "Some of us are caring more than others."

"Some of us are caring very much, and some of us are not caring. I am simply being one of those who are not caring, most times. Perhaps there are being others of my kind who are being more concerned, but I am not being one of them. And of late, with our numbers being whittled down by Demise's remnants, there are simply being too few of us to be caring too much."

She shrugs again, stretching out an arm and idly examining it, prodding at the bruises and scrubbing at a smudge of soot. "We are being more like... soldiers, than civilians. And we are living that way, too. At least, compared to you of Skyloft."

To Ikram, she only grins that vaguely fox-like grin. "Loremaster Ikram is often thinking ahead. That is being why she is the Loremaster, yes?"

"Oh... no. No, it is not being that kind of rake." Yalai laughs, tone bright, and gestures with both hands, as though to indicate claws. "He is wearing metal claws. Tiger's-claws, yes? That is how he is fighting. We are having a Claw, and so he is naming himself after the wounds they are leaving behind." Her expression turns somewhat pensive. "But he would have been knowing how to use the knives, too... and he was not being found. I am not being certain of his innocence, either."

She shrugs, leaning back and sighing. "Dust bath? I was being nearly there, too, but it would have only been making things worse. There is not dust there so much as there is being... ash, and more ash."

She cocks an eye at him, raising a white brow. "A bed. An honest-to-the-Goddesses bed. I can hardly be imagining it." Yalai grins that fox-grin, even as she scrubs at scattered ash and soot, ducking momentarily under the water. "No more than I could be imagining a bath earlier while we were being on the mountain."

Aedan MacCarvill (891) has posed:
    "Well, yes. But... I mean..." Aedan gesticulates strangely, a little bit uncomprehending, "You value secrecy a lot, it's built into your language and the way you talk. Hell, /you've/ got those tattoos all over. I still don't know if you were joking or not when you told me it was basically a book. But see, that's what I mean. I'd think the whole secrecy thing would mean you'd generally keep things pretty private. Which isn't to say you might not have individual preferences, but... I don't know, how do I put it without coming off like an ass..."

    He ponders for a few moments and then continues, "Think of the Knights. We have habits, things we do or don't do. For instance, most people just don't fly at night because it's dangerous and not everyone is skilled enough to do it. Or... maybe that's not a great example. It's like the things we eat, what's appropriate to do in public and what isn't, and... you know. Cultural stuff."

    "And yeah, no. Most people don't make a career out of soldiery up here. Some of us do! My family, you know. But most people aren't fit for it. They break themselves in other ways. For instance, with rakes and gardening." He looks towards the window. "Claws, huh... hm.

    He fishes some soap off of the divider and continues, "Say, speaking of that place being a Goddesses-forsaken latrine, why were they out there in the first place? There's nothing /there/, unless we're looking for something that happens to live or grow or be near volcanoes. Not that that's much at all..."

    "And that doesn't strike me as a job for Sheikah to start with. Surveyors with an escort, maybe." He waves the soap at Yalai, as if to make a point. "And yes, a bed. I'd settle for a bedroll under a clear sky after that, but I'll take the /luxury/ while we've got it."

Yalai the Stave (879) has posed:
Pausing in what she's doing, the Sheikah merely eyes her companion somewhat blankly while he struggles to explain himself. Evidently he's not doing a very good job of it, because her blank look only seems to get more blank as he goes on. She seems to think on it for a moment before arching a brow. "Taboos, then?"

What were they looking for, down in the volcano? "That I was not being told. Only to be finding the missing. Perhaps the Royal Shadow was thinking something of importance was being in Eldin, somewhere. Yes?" Yalai can only shrug. "Perhaps they were knowing of some group or another of demons; their movements. We are not liking letting them escape to be living and be fighting another day. Better to be snuffing them out where we are finding them, yes?"

"Maybe." To the issue of soldiers, she shrugs a shoulder again, still idly working the soot and ash out of her hair with both hands. The water is starting to look a little bit greyish. Actually, probably a lot greyish. "We of the Shadow Folk are living more like soldiers than you Hylians and your civilians, yes? We are having a purpose, and it is being... very... /difficult/ for us to be turning aside from that purpose."

Once she's gotten herself more or less scrubbed off and clean, or at least feeling clean enough that she doesn't look or feel covered by ash any more, she reaches for a towel and climbs out of the basin, drying off, and--

--ah. There. She grabs the clothing she had set aside, or maybe left there and forgotten about weeks before, and quickly throws on a loose tunic and equally loose leggings. They look like training garments, meant for comfort and freedom of movement, and more of a grey than her usual Sheikah black. They're also quite generic, with no markings on them whatsoever; nowhere does their sigil appear on it. No boots; there's no point, since they won't be going out tonight. Hopefully.

Stretching, she reaches her fingertips to the ceiling, before bending forward, arching to touch the floor, watching him from the corner of one red eye. "We are being tasked to anything we are feeling is needing quick attention, yes? There is really no 'appropriate' or 'inappropriate' job for we of the Shadow Folk. You, I think, were being specifically requested because your eyes are being so good. And I was being requested, because where you are going, I am going." She shrugs, before planting her feet and neatly bending over backward, touching the floor with her fingertips again, white hair hanging down.

"I will be settling for the bed, being given a choice in the matter." She flashes that swift, feral grin again. "Especially one that is not smoking, or smoldering, or rumbling, yes? So," she adds, fixing him with a sly little smile, more subdued than the last. "You were speaking earlier of 'doing as we are pleasing,' yes?"

Aedan MacCarvill (891) has posed:
    "No, taboos isn't really the right way to describe it. That's too strong. Just... you know, things people tend to do naturally as a collective and have agreed is the way things should be done." Aedan tries to explain, perhaps a little less fruitlessly than before. He raises the bar of soap, "Like bathing in private. Most people prefer to bathe in private, but it kind of depends on how wealthy you are and where you are and such. Being /able/ to bathe privately is kind of a status symbol. Speaking of, didn't always have that, pretty grateful for it now."

    "S'pecially the linens." He adds, patting the cloth lining the oversized barrel.

    So they weren't told /why/ anybody was in Eldin in the first place. That's... well, okay, that's perfectly normal need-to-know stuff. But it would have helped contextualize things. Aedan ponders who had been sent for a moment. A rescue knight, a mid-ranged specialist, and a close quarters specialist. Had there been more that he's simply forgotten? Possibly, though he doesn't think so offhand.

    "I know you're all soldiers. Though... I've been wondering a bit about that." He flicks the soap in Yalai's direction again, sending droplets of increasingly murky water flying, "Is there anybody who has a dedicated job of feeding everyone, or are tasks like that up to the individual? Or do you rely on our people for that? I've seen very old Sheikah still in service, but what about those who have lost mobility due to injuries?"

    "A lot of things go into keeping a society running, and logistics are important for soldiers. Surely you have a... a..." He rises partway out of the water, sitting on the edge for a small while, "... I don't know, a /smuggler/. Something something the Siegemaker."

    Aedan finishes up, toweling off but wandering as he does so. He picks up a pitcher of clear liquid that might have been water, and tips a small portion of it into the basin. The clarity of the pitcher's contents seems to be spreading, clearing up the ash and muck from the bathwater gradually. He replaces the pitcher, and snags up his hatchet from the floor. By this point he's not really drying off so much as just /wearing/ the towel, and that seems how it's going to be for the moment.

    "Yeah, I was. Wine's under the bed in a box, and you can see the bed better than I can."

    "And /tomorrow/ we're going to have a talk about trying to get a rise out of me in survival situations." He remarks, pausing a moment and adding, "Knowing what's been going on lately, probably in a survival situation."

Yalai the Stave (879) has posed:
At times it can be hard to determine just how much of Yalai's grasp of the Hylian language is obfuscating ineptitude, and how much of it is honest difficulty. This seems to be one of those instances where it's honest difficulty. She stares somewhat blankly as he tries to grapple with what word to use, but apparently the finer points of Hylian vocabulary are beyond her.

After he has a chance to explain himself, she just shrugs. "Maybe so. You Hylians are doing things differently than we of the Shadow Folk. There are a great many differences in our people, yes? We are doing things our way, and you are doing things your way; and sometimes, I am thinking, the two will never be meeting."

"I am being grateful for a bath, though," she agrees, whole-heartedly. After tramping around Eldin Volcano for a week and a half straight, she's not about to argue that. "I was needing that."

Settling on the edge of whatever's handy that will support her weight, she sets to work on her hair, reaching for a comb carved of either bone or a pale stone. It proves an efficient tool as she works at the tangles, though her intent regard might seem a little silly for how far she has her head tilted to one side -- it's hard to look serious when you're looking at something cockeyed.

"Farmers? No. Not so much, I am thinking. We are being hunters, more, and foragers, and many of us are being good at these skills. Those of us who find more will be providing for the others as we can. I do not think the Venomer would be hunting, at his age, yes?" Yalai smiles thinly, though it turns to a grimace as she works at a knot. "Where possible we are all providing for one another, in our own ways. We are not having designated 'this' or designated 'that' in our society, not like you Hylians are having. We are expected to be versatile. It is being wiser that way. What if we were having only a handful of those providing food, and they were wounded, or killed? The rest of us would be starving, then, yes?"

She gestures vaguely, though her hand is quick to return to the work of untangling her white hair. "If you are talking more about a quartermaster, though, no. We are not having one. Equipment is being the responsibility of the one using it, yes? No one else is being responsible for my knives or my quarterstaff."

She watches as he explains where to find the wine; quick and graceful as she neatly snags the box with one hand and yanks it out into the light, leaving it where he can deal with it. /He/ doesn't have long hair to sort out.

"Oh?" Yalai is all innocence when she glances back at him, raising both brows, but she can't help a feral little grin. "Oh. It seems I have been striking a nerve. Well," she adds, grin widening, "it /was/ working, was it not? Yes...?"

Aedan MacCarvill (891) has posed:
    "Wait, no. I know the exact example to use." Aedan snaps his fingers suddenly, drifting back to another point of their conversation. He continues, "For instance, the kind of clothes that people prefer to wear. It kind of changes depending on wealth, location, and society. So for instance people in colder areas tend to wear thicker clothes. And the Sheikah tend to wear things that blend into the dark. That sort of thing, that everyone just sort of agrees to do, even though it's not really an actual rule or anything." Maybe /that/ will make sense, for once.

    "But, I didn't really mean that there was a problem. Just, it seemed to me like-- ah, forget it." It's not that important. It is /odd/, though, to value secrecy but not privacy exactly. But then, that's the way things sometimes shake out.

    "I think /any/one would be. Even a filthy Moblin." He remarks, concerning the bath. He observes Yalai working on her hair. Come to think of it, he ponders, having long hair like that doesn't seem like the best of ideas for them. It's hardly unheard of, of course, but wouldn't it get in the way a lot of the time? But, in Yalai's case, he can't help but imagine it's a point of pride.

    He grins a little, at her tilted expression.

    "Well, I'm not really suggesting that you /should/ have dedicated roles as such. I was just wondering if there was a role for people who can't fight that well anymore, if at all." He looks towards the window. "Though, honestly, sometimes even we find ways to let people like that fight. One of my cousins lost a hand. So he just strapped a crossbow with a crank on his forearm and used the remaining hand to crank the damn thing."

    Aedan takes the box, but he doesn't really deal with it immediately. Instead he sets it down, and goes about the business of getting a fire started in the crude oven positioned where there might be a fireplace in a fancier home. He glances over his shoulder towards Yalai as he does this, "Yeah, I suppose it /did/. That's some weird timing you had, though. I s'pose it does make a little sense in one way, but it's still..."

    "Distracting, I guess? But I guess it's better to contextualize what you're feeling in those situations as... not anxiousness or fear." He adds, thoughtfully.

Yalai the Stave (879) has posed:
The Sheikah glances back, eyeing her companion somewhat skeptically when he snaps his fingers and finds the example he'd been wanting. Whether or not she actually understands it isn't very clear; she's watching him somewhat blankly, and blinking somewhat owlishly.

Apparently, though, she doesn't mind forgetting the issue, because now she's twice as confused as when he'd tried to bring it up the first time. Sometimes it's hard enough to get members of one's own race to understand; then, when a whole different race is involved, things can get confusing pretty fast... in the beginning, it was like that a /lot/ for them, no doubt -- a lot of confusion, misunderstandings, and blank staring to go around. Good times!

Fortunately, as it stands, both Aedan and Yalai are among the more open-minded of their people, and willing to slog through some culture shock and confusion for the greater good, and maybe learn a little something about one another in the process.

Shaking her hair out, she flicks an eye at him, somewhat lopsided, to show she's still listening. The comb never stops moving, though, and sometimes she passes it through so quickly it's hard to track the precise movements of her wrist. Clearly she's done this more than a few times -- a gesture that's more second nature than anything else; something done entirely without conscious effort.

"Akht the Venomer is being one of our eldest, and he is still fighting." Yalai pauses her combing to gesture delicately with one hand. "He is using poisons, as you might be thinking from his name. He is not needing main force, yes? Only a puff of air." She holds up her hands and huffs a breath, as though in mimicry of a blowdart. "I have been seeing him drop demons the size of houses, yes? He is still moving well, and his mind and eyes are being clear. So long as he is having an escort to be watching his back, there is not being much he cannot be doing still."

That's kind of a scary thought.

To the rest, she only grins that slightly feral-looking grin. "Maybe I am keeping you on your toes, yes? Were you thinking of it that way? Besides, I was not wanting anyone to be overhearing." Her expression turns serious again, almost frowning. "Something suspicious is being at play, here, but I do not think we will be knowing any more of it until the Needler is being in a state to be talking to anyone, let alone us."

Aedan MacCarvill (891) has posed:
    Whoosh. There goes the cultural discussion, but Aedan supposes it isn't worth poking at anymore at the moment anyway. He observes Yalai's comb whipping through her hair. Dealing with hair itself is actually a form of potionmaking that the knight doesn't mess with very much. Although there are some who would pay nicely for a tonic to /restore/ lost hair, the fact is that the effects of potions -on- hair tends to be a bit delicate. It's easier to make it fall out than it is to grow it back in, and in the case of hair like Yalai's... well. Let's just say that the Knight has thought up things like instant drying potions and they didn't do nice things to hair.

    Dry, brittle hair is very flammable.

    "Well, yes... but that's just it, isn't it? His fighting style doesn't really rely on strength, though... his lung capacity must be something." Once he's got the oven going he takes a moment to throw on something other than a towel. Not much, just a loose tunic that's been left lying around for nightclothes insofar as he uses them at all. Mostly, he doesn't. They just get used when everything else really needs washing.

    "Seems kind of dangerous, though. It isn't far from blowing a powder at something to breathing it in. He use any magic to shape it?" He inquires, finally sitting down in front of the oven and getting around to cracking open the box and the bottle of wine within. Actually drinking it is reserved for when Yalai is ready, or perhaps he's saving the first sip for her to begin with. The cork is chucked through the open door of the potion lab, to be picked up wherever it fell later.

    This bottle isn't going to last the night, he's sure. No use keeping it in here, and every use keeping it in there.

    "Little bit. Mostly thinking of it the other way, which I /think/ must have been deliberate. The practical reasons outweigh the personal ones in that kind of situation, though... and truthfully, batting down fear and anxiety is never a bad thing. Feel free to do it in the future. I just intend to tease you about it afterwards anyway." He considers that for a moment, and adds, "And I suppose get teased back much more viciously."

    "We'll get more details tomorrow, I'm sure." Aedan dismisses the topic. They've speculated a-plenty, and there's no denying it's all very suspicious. "Though, I've just pitched /my/ ideas at you. What's the scenario going through your head?"

Yalai the Stave (879) has posed:
Technically speaking, one could extrapolate just about anything into potionmaking. There probably isn't as much demand for hair care as there is for other, more practical applications of alchemy. Right now, with demonic hordes still in place on the surface world, there is a much greater demand for effects useful in combat, such as potions meant to heal, or enhance physical abilities.

No," Yalai agrees, eyeing Aedan from something of an angle while she works at a tangle. "His style is not relying on strength, but I am having no doubt that he is having strength when he is having need of it. As to the things he is using, I have been seeing him use potions, powders, even poultices. Sometimes the things he is making are having better uses as things to be healing, in small enough doses, yes? His potions to stop the heart can also be used to be putting someone to sleep, if they are being used in smaller doses."

As to whether Akht uses magic or not, she only shrugs. "I am not knowing that. He has never been telling anyone, and I have never been asking."

Once she finishes with her hair, she sets her comb aside, neatly weaving it into a simple, loose braid without tying it off -- probably just to keep it out of her face, for the moment; it's still damp enough that it'll stay, mostly. Padding over, she settles on the corner of the bed, mostly owing to a lack of chairs elsewhere, folding one leg under herself and somehow making it look quite comfortable. Things that would seem uncomfortable for anybody else always seem to be fine for the Sheikah.

She casts a look at the wine, somewhat pointedly.

"Oh, my poor guard hound. You are beaten, and you have not even been picking up your proverbial weapon, yet..." She tilts her head, shrugging faintly at the other matter; of details. "Most likely. It will be only a matter of who is delivering the information to us. I would be thinking the Scourge. Loremaster Ikram will be wanting the Dirge's help in seeing to the Needler, I am thinking." She rubs at her jaw, considering. "He is being an apprentice healer, and therefore being valuable for it, yes?"

Settling back, she swings her other leg up, perching cross-legged on the corner of the bed, tilting her head the other way as she eyes the Skyloft Knight speculatively.

"I?" She rolls one shoulder in a shrug, sinuous and oddly-articulated. "I am not knowing what to be making of it. Perhaps something was capturing the Rake. That we were not hearing from him at all in the time we were being on Eldin's slopes is worrying, yes? But for the greater whole..." Yalai shakes her head. "I am not knowing what to be making of it. I will have to be thinking on this, yes?"

Aedan MacCarvill (891) has posed:
    "... Well. Potion requires magic. I don't know if you've ever seen me feeding rupees into my potions, but I do that because rupees have magic built into them. It's a quick and dirty outside source of magic that you can boil down into a liquid." Aedan explains, gesturing vaguely with the wine bottle as he does, "so if he's using potions then he is using a form of magic. It's probably pretty out of my league, but I'd be interested in seeing what kind of stuff he works with eventually. Potions have a lot of potential to do really bad things to you, you know. Not /mine/, I don't use anything that isn't adequately tested, but..."

    "Let's just say that partial transformations can get messy and leave it at that. It's actually more complex than the full transformations."

    He passes the wine to Yalai, since she's looking at it so pointedly. Might be it was nothing, but he /was/ waiting for her to take the first drink to start with. Aedan lays back on the rug on the floor, folding his arms behind his head and gazing up towards the ceiling. Or, sometimes, in Yalai's direction.

    "Come now, I get around to picking /up/ the weapon. I just drop it before I get anywhere with it. It's fun enough to get that far, and I make up for it later anyway." He shuts one eye, issuing a hefty sigh. "Honestly, I hope this really is just as simple as can be. I don't really want to deal with having to fight against other actual people who think and act close enough to us that they can..."

    "Blend in. Cause trouble. Take off without really being noted. You know what I mean?" He asks.

    "It's much darker days when knights and sheikah are the actual suspects on the table." He pokes at Yalai's leg, lightly. It's the only thing he can really reach from down there. After a moment's contemplation he adds, "You don't suppose we might have just run headlong into hostile natives that /aren't/ demons, do you? Weren't there Sheikah living down there before the cloud barrier came down?"

Yalai the Stave (879) has posed:
"I am thinking that I do not want to be watching you feeding anything into your potions." Yalai makes a face, not quite scowling. "It is being better, I think, if I am not knowing what is going into them. Especially if they are potions I will be using. Whatever his methods are being, you will have to be taking it up with him. For all I am knowing, it is being our own magic, and not something you Hylians can be using, yes?"

Taking a drink of wine, she cradles the bottle in her hand for a few minutes and considers. One eye slowly narrows without quite closing, which probably looks endearingly intent, as though she were trying to think very hard about something. In reality she's just letting her eyes unfocus a little as she mulls over the details.

To his commentary on the verbal weapons, she just shows her teeth at him; that familiar Fox Catches Mouse grin.

It fades, and her expression returns to the same unreadable neutrality that all Sheikah seem to love wearing like a mask. Some do actually wear physical masks, but others don't really need them.

"Hmmmmm." She shrugs, drumming her fingers against the bottle, before offering it down to Aedan. "My theory is being this. As much as I am disliking saying it, it is looking too suspicious even to me. I do not think your Skyloft Knights were being treacherous. And I am not thinking it was being the result of a demon, not this time. It was being one of we of the Shadow Folk, as difficult as it is to be thinking of it." Her expression is serious, by now; almost angry. "It is sickening me to even be saying the words, but what other explanation is there being? We have been hearing nothing from the Rake..."

"Someone was setting up the Needler's attack, and carefully. I think they were meaning to be killing her, but she must have been able to be dragging herself away, somehow. We will be knowing more about that later, I think." Drawing her knees up to her chest, she wraps her arms around them, resting her chin over the tops of her knees, looking down when she's poked at. "It could be surface people, and there were being Sheikah who were living there, yes? All of us," she adds, showing her teeth again. "We were not living on your sky-islands. And Loftwings are being new to us. But we are adapting quickly, so quickly that we are seeming as comfortable with them as you Hylians are being, because that is being our way."

Her toothsome leer fades, and she looks pensive. "Still... I am curious to be knowing what that is being. But now," she adds, solemnly, "I am wishing to drink until there is being no more thinking." Yalai arches a brow, eyeing him. "Yes?"

Aedan MacCarvill (891) has posed:
    "That would be very strange," Aedan remarks ponderously, on the subject of the different types of magic they may or may not employ for potionmaking, "which isn't to say it's not possible but it would be somewhat... pointless?" He frowns a little bit, before he continues, "The magic involved in potionmaking is all about sympathies, and it's kind of a principle of magic that applies to other things too. Actually, I wouldn't be surprised if it was a specific specialty of one of your sorcerers. If you take a bit of something, you can use it to produce a sympathetic result."

    "So, I can pluck a hair from you," He mimes doing so, but doesn't actually grab a hair from her haid, "And produce a potion that has properties related to you. It can go the other way around, too. A piece of you might be used to target you with a spell from a long way away. Your shadow magic does access a dimension that's not available to me, but I don't know that it's a requisite component of any potioneering you would do, since potioneering requires a lot of external common ingredients anyway."

    At that he adds, "By the way, potionmaking has advanced a /lot/ since the sky barrier came down. It turns out that there were a lot of ingredients that we just didn't have. Do you know how much less common fish are on the sky islands? Or volcanic rock? Of course, those things were also a lot less useful as ingredients..."

    It occurs to him then, that as much jumping around as he needs to do, he should try crickets as an ingredient. But... Yalai just asked him not to tell her about things like that, so he keeps his trap thoroughly shut.

    A flash of that predatory grin from Yalai, and then they're back to serious subjects. Aedan takes the bottle of wine and drinks down a swallow, listening to what she has to say and taking another swallow, passing the bottle back. "Well," He says, "I don't think the knights are intellectually less likely suspects but the reason that I don't think they would be effective is because they're not as good at hiding things as the shadow folk are."

    "Throwing weapons aren't our bag, either. Least of all Sheikah throwing weapons. And those of us who /do/ using throwing weapons would use throwing spears." He mimes the motion of a spear being thrown, then. "But on the whole we prefer bows, or crossbows. Depends on the situation, skill, and strength of the wielder. You give the crossbow to the less well-trained and muscular. And you give the bow to me."

    "But it's not /inconceivable/, either. You know if the Rake or the Needler had a hylian buddy up with them?" The implication of his question is clear enough. Could there be an evil version of me out there?

    Regarding the intent to kill the Needler, Aedan says, "I agree, but I think they must have assumed they succeeded for her to get away the way she did. Either that, or she injured them enough to force a retreat and allow her own. I'd be inclined to believe she managed to wound them. Otherwise, why would she be able to get away in her condition?"

    "... But yes. I quite agree. Drink." He nudges the end of the wine bottle with a knuckle, producing a fine ringing of glass.

Yalai the Stave (879) has posed:
Yalai cants her head slightly to one side, eyeing Aedan in that odd way she does when she's listening. While it's plain that she's paying attention, sometimes it can be difficult to tell whether she understands or not. Sheikah features are angular, exotic; extremely hard to read at times. For a Sheikah, Yalai is open and shows her reactions more than most. Most of them are considerably less forthright.

She settles more comfortably, one leg tucked under herself, and considers his explanations and theories, most of which don't earn much more than a shrug. While he can work wonders with an alchemy table and the right ingredients, alchemy isn't her focus; while parts of it are interesting to her, as a whole it just doesn't hold her interest like other things do.

All that to say, she leaves that to Aedan. He's much better at it.

When the wine bottle is passed back to her, she shrugs and takes a pull, cradling it for a moment and considering, reaching up and running fingers absently through her still-damp hair. "no. It would be taking much more setting up to be using one of you Hylians, though, as you have been pointing out. You are being unique, as far as I am knowing, among most of your kind. Most have not been so forthcoming about wanting to be working with we of the Shadow Folk, yes?" she adds, raising a brow. "To my knowledge, no. The Rake is not even speaking Hylian. The Needler, little; and only just enough to be understood, I am thinking." Yalai gestures loosely. "It is being far worse than mine; worse even than the Scourge, or the Dirge, but the Dirge is speaking Hylian well."

After a few moments she shrugs. "We will be finding out when the Needler can be speaking. She was escaping, somehow, and knowing what I am knowing of her, I am being willing to bet it was being a case of her forcing a retreat, and enabling her own, yes?" Yalai shrugs, taking another pull of wine before offering the bottle back. "In the meantime, speculating this way is being a waste of our energy and our time, yes?"

Those long, slender fingers flick to indicate the bottle and offering one of those fox-like grins. "In the meantime, we are having much more constructive ways to be spending our energy, I am thinking."