Alright, so she had been slacking.
It was very difficult, however, to find the will to travel to the other side of the caves when you aren't certain if the Creator himself will kill you in the coming days, however. Aethril had damn near been inclined to give up. It was not worth the effort if she were going to die halfway during the journey.
A month and a half passed and Aethril was, to her surprise, still breathing. Everything continued as normal. Obieth and Pollen were back-- damaged, but back --and her creation would be due to turn up any day now. So, fine. It was time to get back to work.
Armour on, travel boots strapped (these were also good for the mud in Cetus), and Aethril was off with little more than a spare skin of water attached to her belt. It was a gruelling journey mostly lined with boredom, and by the time she had passed the Skystone Spire in Polaris she was kicking herself for not bringing someone over for company.
But, hours later, she was here, approaching the lip over the Heart and looking into the blackened waters. Cetus was... well, it wasn't looking good. She had experienced swamps before in her life (her previous life, that is) but she hadn't known any to stink so badly. The stench of the dead damn near brought tears to her eyes.
Wait.
... oh. Oh that was funny. She would have laughed if she weren't sweaty and hot and tired from the journey. The thought that Aquarian had somehow banded a cult to feed him regularly was something she'd have to gossip with Isra over when she got home. With some kind of cool drink. Perhaps after a bath...
Aethril turned her head from the carrion and took a breath.
He could not help but to feel the power as it entered, lurking in her small body just as he lurked within the Heart: unseen, deadly, and ravenous.
What slipped from the surface a moment later--far out over the dark water, half-lost to the mist--was an eruption of serpentine scales in hues of blue and citrine. The sea-serpent head arched high, and as the massive spray of water subsided (waves churning onto shore), Aquarian found Aethril with his eyes. He remained somewhat distant, as if unwilling to draw closer, yet.
Those yellow spots gleamed in the dark, and a low, slow hiss escaped him. A sound of... anger? Stress..? Admiration, perhaps.
"I AM HERE," he bellowed, his voice a screech that sent the Callers bursting from the trees into panicked flight. And the rest was left unsaid: what do you want?
@Aethril
Her eyes narrowed as a spray of putrid water went crashing in all directions, and Aethril found herself resisting the urge to dry the droplets off her face. Aquarian hadn't got any less small or quieter over the hibernation, it seemed-- which... might have been a good thing?
A breath, and the Valkhand got right to the point.
The key points here were 'get back to work' and 'quickly--' and they were what Aethril intended to stick with. The less time spent here, the better.
Aquarian seemed to forget that he'd kept his distance. His entire focus grew dramatic, wailing, as if he could now layer all his suffering on this Hand.
"WHERE WERE YOUUUUU?" he howled, neck flailing backward, tipping toward the sky. Never mind the fact he could have swallowed Aethril in a heartbeat--she would not be digested so easily, no doubt. Yet he seemed to hold some deep and tragic betrayal in his heart for her absence.
"YOU DO NOT KNOW? YOU DID NOT KNOOOOW? NEMEAN! THE BETRAAAAYER!" His voice echoed over the surface of the swamp, choked with abject misery, with fury, with blame. "She ABANDONED our duties! She BETRAYED the others! She TRAPPED them, and ENDED OUR WORK!"
The rest was, as yet, not addressed: because Aquarian fell still, his body still angled upward. If he could have had a spotlight cast down upon his tragic monologue, he'd undoubtedly have welcomed it; Nemean might have, in the end, rubbed off on him just a little.
@Aethril
Some might have been... sympathetic.
In fact, Aethril did not doubt in the slightest that Aquarian was genuinely upset. She did not doubt that Nemean's betrayal had left deep wounds that very clearly had not begun to heal in the slightest, but his wailing, the theatrics, the woe-is-me of it all-- something about it rubbed the Valkhand the wrong way. Something about it stirred the Chaos in her belly that rose like bile to her throat.
It did not relieve any anger, either-- the taste of Chaos lingered on her lips, and she brought her hands to her head to sweep her hair behind her in a calming movement. Screaming at Aquarian wouldn't resolve anything: she would be lucky if it net anything other than the Master screaming back, twice as loud. She knew this, and she bit back the immediate frustration at her own words.
Aethril's expression had turned forcibly calm, but stiff hand movements accenting her words as she spoke betrayed what lay beneath.
More questions, on top of the ones she had asked prior.
'Drama queen' did not even begin to cover his roars of dismay.
And it was a fair answer, when one thought about it: Aquarian was rather confined to the swamp. It was not like he could follow Nemean around to watch what she was doing.
"SHE LEFT, AND ABANDONED OUR WORK!" This was followed by a deep and serpentine hiss--surprisingly, actually menacing--at the mist above the swamp, a sort of generalized snarl of displeasure.
A deep and thudding splash, and the Master plunged half into the water, finally leaving the center of the Heart and drawing closer to the shore. Now, his spray of water might actually hit Aethril, not that he seemed to notice. He paused a dozen yards away, staring down, neck arching high. "SHE TOOK FARINA," he informed her; but beyond that, he didn't seem to know. "PERHAPS THE LITTLE THINGS KNOW. They have pursued her... the children, the stone-born." He turned, citrine eyes narrowing as he peered fruitlessly through the fog for the cave exit. "They come, they go. They watch."
Sometimes, they fed him; but he didn't think that was worth mentioning.
@Aethril