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Alkaid and her charge would not find the general they were seeking and while she found the tree that he always seemed to gravitate towards, the scene would imply that nothing - human or monster - had been near in weeks; perhaps even months.

Skeletal limbs stretched upward towards the sky the Rift seemed to offer the place, bones twisted and warped in a manner that suggested that the tree was once a person who had been twisted, corrupted until they were rooted in place and only their skeleton remained. Etched into the bones were talon marks, where the sharp claws had dug in and some of the branches hung lower than the others like they had been weighted down by something too often.

The pair of woman - though it was debatable if Alkaid could be called a woman with her unaging, inhuman body - would find that they had to wait some time before a caw could be heard in the distance.

Alkaid would recognize the youma, the same one that seemed to watch her and the missing general when she had found him standing before the very same tree.

The bird was large, bone branch creaking beneath it's weight as all four of their wings settled against their large frame. Six red eyes blinked like a shutter, head twisting so it was half upside down. "What are you looking for Alice?" The bird asked.

"Clever."

The little girl that was too far down the rabbit's hole.

Alkaid was aware of the eyes on her in the silence that followed her own voice - the two that swung up at her, cool and easy in Adamantine's pale face and then the six red ones that watched her askew from a tilted head, glowing like burning coals against his jet black feathers. Alkaid knew this beast to be much more than simply clever. A rigidity had pulled her shoulders tight the moment his caw resonated through the air and it remained, now, as she tried her best to keep eye contact with six beady oculi. If she was Alice, who was he?

With nothing to warn Adamantine to stay close except her hovering hand near the girl's lower back, the shattered woman drew herself from her thoughts and moved closer to the tree so that she could look up at him. Unlike her attempts at addressing people, her words were not accompanied by a show of kindness or an attempt to make herself appear more life-like than she was to this creature.

"I think you know very much what I am looking for or you would not be here, would you?"

The bright, glowing embers of her own eyes fluttered while they glanced from eye to eye to eye as if she might catch the truth in them if only she could look quickly enough. Humans were easy creatures to read, but youma? They were much harder. They did not think like humans or work like humans, they did not have the same drives. They did not smile or laugh just to hear the sound. So, the question was - what was this bird's motivation? Why did he come back here to this place?

The Ascendant General could not offer Adamantine any reassurances here apart from the safety of her presence, this was their only hope at getting any information at all.

"Do you know where the Reaper is?"