Welcome to Gaia! ::

Vermillion sighed walking back into the room finishing the last of his bread he walked out and searched the garden. He didn't see Anabel right off due to some tall vegetation, and he stepped down and moved over to the wall to lean on it and look up and down the street.

Vermillion was no longer leaning on the fence. Instead a small note sat folded under a stone right beside the gate Vaine came in. Carved into the rock was the makers stamp of Vermillion.

Vermillion waited in the predetermined spot as mentioned in the note.


The note reads. "The pointed edge of the fold is the direction, travel for three minutes, stop, but stay atop your horse. I need to speak with you."

'That is because i don't know any landmarks around here, but I'll come right to the point. The people who sealed Anabel away, to whom do they work for, and can you show me their crest?" Vermillion moved into clear field of view his hands visible.

Vermillion held a calm tone to his voice as he spoke. "The reason I ask, is I am a builder of extremely well crafted and enchanted weapons, and I wish to not support those who have brought that sort of reckless punishment upon an innocent person. My interest in her is purely to help her find a way out of darkness, but if i am interfering in a relationship between you two. Please tell me now and I will return to the mountain in the morning without intent to return."

Vermillion walked towards Vaine, pulling from his pocket a piece of flesh with a brand on it, and held it up for Vaine to see. Dagon's brand was upside down, but Vermillion didn't know that, but he continued in the same calm voice. "This is the crest i cut off that liar this evening, and if you don't know it right off the top of your head. Then I'll pay your weight and that of your horse in gold to have you find out."

Vermillion raised his voice just enough to be heard and with some sincerity. "Thanks for taking the time to talk with me."

Vermillion walked back to Anabel's. He closed the gate behind him, and heading inside he climbed up the stairs still heavily in thought. He turned left and left the door cracked behind him. He sat down on the bed as the list got shorter on clients who knew either, or that he at least knew someone else that they talked about. His only potential was a half breed who had a large family of dragons, and she was not the infromation giving type either. He knew the way there, but it was a non face to face drop off and the location was neutral. Vermillion thought that perhaps if he found the dragons first it would lead him to her, but he was wary of others like him. Some took serious offense if a total stranger started asking rather personal questions of their family.

He laid back on the bed and thought about what Vaine said about Anabel not wanting sympathy, and that him not wanting feelings for her. It couldn't be further from the truth, but he also had to honor her wishes as well. That in itself was another problem he was going to figure out. He rubbed his eyes sighing speaking aloud tot he room; "What in the world are you doing Vermillion, are you that alone to seek comfort in a dying woman?"

There was three soft taps on her door, Vermilion's muffled voice coming through; "Anabel, are you still awake?"

Vermillion's eyes glanced at her quickly through the crack between the door and the hinged side frame. He stepped into the room three paces and spun around to face her. "I heard the glass fall, and I'm sorry for how hurtful that sounded. I should know better then to think out loud, but I'm falling in love with you, and finding it hard to catch myself. In all the years I have lived alone on the mountain, and delivered to towns. I have always been able to turn down a woman's advance or the urge in me to seek their comfort. Yet in this trip I'm questioning not only what about you has made me come this far, but also questioning myself as to why I have spent the last 10 decades on a mountain hiding for no apparent reason that I can think of that anyone with intelligence would laugh at."

My only intelligent answer to any of this is, that most of the things I tried i failed at, the things that I could be proud of at least, being a philosopher, a soldier, crafting harmless objects, but the only one good thing i really excelled in was providing tools of death to people knowing that at some point along the line they would take a life. Maybe its the pieces of those failures that drawn me to you, Faires are good omens in our philosophy, as a solider i was sworn to protect or aide, as a crafter i made things to comfort people or bring happiness. Yet in this growing fear of uncertainty within me draws me back to the loneliness of the mountain, to escape the sadness I inflict not only by my craft specialty, but my own words. In the same light I can't run back to the mountain and leave you here alone to die having given my word to help. To leave now would be no different then if I stabbed you with my own blade, except the harshness and the emotional torment you would feel is worse then any enchanted blade i can make except two. I'm just at a lost at what to do, and there is only so much you can do in protection of me. In effect I just as handicapped as you are, my prison of the mountain and my own choice have chained me to that place, I can see, but to do what other then inflict pain. I can fly, but to where, when no one knows who or what I am? In a way I'm far more isolated and alone then you can ever be, but in the course of an evening I never felt more loved and accepted by someone to realize and question my entire life in the course of hours."