Just Desserts

Scarlett awoke to the sounds of violence in the room and crashing on the deck above. Her skin itched and burned as she heard the sounds of the storm raging outside the confines of the cabin, heard Sagacious' startled yelp and heard his warning. "Run! Get to the temple of Phaedra!" He'd been bleeding everywhere when he'd issued that warning, was aiming and blasting at… Isobel? Scarlett saw the horrid wound in his side, eyes flicking to Isobel who held a bloody, almost delicate looking needle dagger in her right hand while she hid behind an overturned table.

Okay. The door was maybe fifteen feet away from her, across the room, Sagacious was curled up behind an overturned chair about five feet away from her, Isobel was on the other side of the room, leaving a clear path for Scarlett. "What are you waiting for? Go, Scarlett! Go!!!" Sagacious' hissed commands reached her ears as she was putting together what must have happened here: Isobel obviously had stabbed him, revealing her true intentions, but why? Scarlett also heard the howling wind outside, it was familiar to her by now, and realized that whatever had chased them to Memnon had also followed them across the sea.

She looked over at Sagacious and reached a hand towards him instinctively. Green light began to fill the room as she began to channel her gifts, a scent of fresh, clean water began to fill the room. The wind beyond the walls intensified and Scarlett fancied she could hear a roar of rage carried by it.

Isobel sat crouched and watched as Scarlett's crimson body began to pulse with emerald energy, the vine tattoos on her body seeming to writhe to life and wind around the room. She watched in horror as several of them began to creep across the floor towards her menacingly. Scarlett stood and laid a single hand on Sagacious cheek, speaking softly in an otherworldly timbre, "You still have much to do in this life, angelkin. Rest and heal, I will protect you." Scarlett stood and walked a step towards Isobel, her normally blank white eyes filled with a vibrant green energy. "And you," she pointed at Isobel, several of the vines lashing out and binding her in place, "Servant of my Mother, O Merciful Isobel, what shall I do with you?"

Isobel struggled and slashed at the vines with her weapon, but it was an instrument designed to puncture, not cut, her attacks were ineffective at best, soon she was bound at the ankles and wrists, unable to do anything but thrash miserably. Scarlett stood before her, an amused smile playing on her beautiful face, and reached down to grab the three-edged needle away from her, looking at it intently. "So nasty, this thing. Designed to puncture armor and rend internally." She twisted the knife in the air in front of Isobel's face, wincing as she did so. Isobel, to her credit, stared icily at Scarlett, speaking in a low tone.

"Scarlett, we have to go. Come with me, The Merciful can help you, we can remove the artifact." She was pleading now, the sounds of the storm raging around the ship was now being punctuated by screams and the sound of steel on steel on the above decks. Scarlett just stared into Isobel's face and smiled mysteriously.

"Remove… me?" Her hand came up dramatically to her chest, "Poor, misguided servant of blind Fate, do you not know who and what I am?"

Scarlett seemed to be an entirely different person, but she had provided a moment of relative calm amidst what had become a maelstrom of violence and betrayal.

"Little Isobel, in service to the Tapestry," Scarlett laughed richly, "You have NO idea what I have become. For your betrayal of our little group, I will give you a gift!" Isobel screamed as a vine began to writhe and burrow into her skin, exactly where she had stabbed Sagacious.

Scarlett watched grimly as she thrashed and wailed. "You will never forget the pain you've caused him. Know that his Fate is more important than yours could *ever* be." The vine snapped, leaving a sliver embedded in Isobel's skin. Scarlett's eyes blazed emerald once again and she smiled at her adversary's defeat. "And know that he will find, and BE loved. So it is written."

Isobel began to weep then, the weight of her betrayal dawning on her. She *did* love him, and wanted him to be happy, but she had only done as her Goddess willed. Scarlett walked away from the pitiful wretch who had once been Isobel, bent down and picked up Sagacious' sleeping form. He was surprisingly light. Scarlett turned back to look at the weeping Isobel and offered coldly, "I would get off this ship, were I you. My brother has arrived, and he is hungry." With that, Scarlett strode from the room and walked off the deck of the Queen Thia'anthalas, the water of the sea reaching up to catch her feet with pillars of emerald water. Around her, the crew was in full hand-to-hand combat with the undead sailors who were manning Ciara's vessel, and they seemed to be losing.

Isobel watched her go and stood to follow, the vines withering and crackling away as she struggled to her feet. Still clutching the dagger and standing in the door way, she cried out after Scarlett and Sagacious, "I'm sorry! Please! Please don't leave me here! PLEASE!!!"

Isobel watched the pillars of seemingly living water buoy Scarlett away, towards the safety of the docks, vibrant green energy pulsing around her as she walked.

"And what have we here, Darruk?"

She heard the feminine voice, also distorted and raspy with power only seconds before a massive, rotting hand grabbed her and pinned her to the railing of the ship. A huge zombie that had once been the gigantic half-ogre who had attacked them in the villa stood over her helpless form, one gigantic eye gleaming with an onyx stone. Amazingly, the beast began to speak in a rumbling tone, "Same woman from Memnon, Shee-ara." Isobel thrashed and kicked ineffectively at her captor. A woman with blackened and burnt skin that had sloughed off in places, revealing burnt muscle fibers and tendons in places stood before her. Hair that had once been long and luxurious was now matted with blood and decay, burnt to the scalp in some places, her lips twisted in a sneer. A single, gaping wound ran through her midsection and she walked as if she were a marionette with no strings. "It was your resonance that brought me here, you know." Isobel cursed silently at herself, she *had* left a weapon back at the villa, after she'd stabbed that helf-elf, who seemed to be the very same abomination that stood before her.

Isobel mustered all her courage and spat in Ciara's decaying face. "I won't help you."

Ciara wiped the spittle away, a piece of skin coming away with it. Fresh gore oozed out of the missing place. "We know." Ciara reached out and pulled the still beating heart from Isobel's chest cavity. In her grasp, the red and beating pulp began to blacken and wither, as she absorbed Isobel's very soul. "We will find our Love without you."

Darruk dropped the limp and very dead body of Isobel on the deck of the ship as the rest of her undead minions began the process of devouring the elven crew they had just slain. Ciara stood up and looked around her at the harbor and the fabled city of Caer Ashwynn, smiling broadly as the storm seemingly died down around her, eyes pulsing with black necrotic power. She issued the command to land the ship mentally, simply pointing and allowing her crew to do the work. A low, raspy growl escaped her lips as she looked hungrily at the city. "Home…"