Rarely, she left the Palace.

If you were to actually ask her why, she'd tell you that it's quite simple: this Nest is in some state. It is dirty, and rotten, and going outside of the Palace only reminded her further of how she was trapped here unable to leave-- how Dhracia seemed all too happy to leave her to rot with it, and it smelled on top of it all.

And while that was true, it paled in comparision to the real reason she never left: rebels.

They could be anywhere, hiding away, biding their time before breaking out again. She had nightmares of them breaking into the Palace, scaling the walls like little black ants, and burning away what little loved ones she had left. It had been five thousand years since and still it shook her so badly that she had to ask Isra to patrol with her whenever she awoke.

Tamulus and Jupiter had done so much damage. The Nest still hadn't recovered. She had to get the Masters working again, before the Creators returned-- so there she was, click, click, clicking through Tunnel J wracking her mind for where Artio could possibly be, when something shattered.

She stopped.

She looked.

An Earth animal, she thought-- and something softened.

Small-- just a baby, perhaps --and fuzzy and grey with little pink paws. What was it called? Not a rodent but certainly something similar. She knew these creatures more for living on the backs of their mothers when they were this young: not squealing about plants and flinging rocks.

Click, click, click, swathes of glittering cloth pooling like inky water, she stepped near to join it in its investigation of what had broken. Remains of the Rebellion, probably-- or perhaps what remains Raheerah had spat out after cannibalizing everything in his path.

Her gaze drifted, from the cataclysm of junk, to the opossum. "Do it again," she hissed-- a simple order, Chaos itself pricking the corners of her lips into a thin smile.

Business could wait, for now.

"It doesn't matter why you are doing it," Aethril said, matter-of-factly. "What matters is that you did it after I told you to. I have won." She bit this final word; a cat catching a mouse in its jaws, smug underneath all that thrumming power coursing through her veins.

Happy? Perhaps. Though asserting this knowledge over the opossum had certainly been her priority, the note that its stomach was growling did not escape her. What did they eat? ... they were like swine, weren't they: anything and everything?

Click, click, click, she stepped away with three careful steps and looked around with flicking ears. Somewhere above her, in a ledge, a nest. In that nest--

A flash, and then thunder. Purple-black, light-but-not, fingers reaching from Aethril's proximity and arcing high above her head. The cry of the Hallowed Caller above was drowned out by the roar the void-lightning brought with it, booming throughout the tunnel for several long, long seconds.

The air was thick with corruption, staticky and humid like a bog. The raucous spell was followed with the softest crunch of the black bird falling from the ledge in front of her, unmoving and smoking.

To Opie, it may have looked as if she had simply summoned a fried raven-adjadcent in front of her, if he had not been paying attention.

Aethril's leg spilled from her skirt in a delicate sweep, shoe planting against the Caller's back, and pushing it towards the marsupial. Here came another order, short and simple: "Eat."

Eyes drifted to the smoking bird.

Funny, she had decided to assess the situation as. But stupid.

She kicked it aside. "There is very little better than food given to you by someone else," Aethril said, and she should know. "But, have it your way." With this, the Hallowed Caller was alight with vile, violet flame-- smoking and charring away. Inedible, to most.

A click, and a scraaapeee of her shoe and the Valkhand was following the parading possum down the tunnel at a vague distance, arms folded across her embroidered chest. Yes, she did have other things to be doing other than tormenting some random Gembound-- and yes, those other things would continue to wait.

"Opossums are not hunters," she said. "You're scavengers-- pests, where I come from. You eat scraps found from other people's junk and skitter about in the dark, lest something else try to eat you." They also didn't speak, where she came from, but that was another matter.

Aethril licked her teeth, pale eyes following the fluffy shape. "A whole bird to yourself. You could not do better than that. But you are welcome to try to prove me wrong."

Entertainment at its finest, she supposed.

She stopped, clicking coming to a pause.

When Kethri had antagonized her, there had been a moment of consideration about what to do with her: Cain had tried appealing for her life, and still the owl died. Over what? Antagonizing her allies and a Valkhand at a meeting? Kethri had, at least, not conjured a very targetted insult. She was just stupid.

But this one. Oh, this one was clever. Had he gathered, somehow, that she wanted to go home? That she was trapped in a stinking, sinking pit? Had the Natural Order simply made this one just to taunt her? Granted, she had asked for it, but something still had to be done. Punishment had to be dealt out.

When Astraea spoke, Aethril was deciding which way to tear Opie asunder. The Chaos was like rising bile in her throat, threatening to spill out onto the cave floor-- if it weren't for magic she would have simply bashed him against the wall with her bare hands until he stopped moving. Perhaps it was some form of luck that the Master had been nearby.

She hadn't heard him coming. The Valkhand spun and felt something catch her throat; fury that melded into grief in a matter of half a second as she saw him. Grief, at least, was something she could stifle away and unbottle at a later time: preferably, in a hot bath. With Akane rubbing her shoulders.

"Of course," Aethril said with a thin smile, because everything was fine don't worry about it. "I had been meaning to speak with yourself and Tenzin, too..."

She had much bigger concerns than an oppossum, after all-- but there was another little pause just before she stepped towards Astraea.

Crack. The ground split open in front of Opie; closer towards the rats, unveilling a pit that ran all the way down to violet crystals below. It caught nothing in it, but that was not the point: the point was the terrified squeal of a cave mouse that came afterwards, and the scuffling of little paws as Opie's lunch promptly evacuated the scene.

I win, Aethril sneered as she click, click, clicked after the Master.