Sometime later Ayanna sat in her office alone. She had positioned her chair so that she could watch out her window, both the sky and the street below. The Nivue Merchant Guild headquarters were located on the main boulevard of the capitol city. The street in question lead from the main gates to the castle, a perfect position from which to run a trade business. She would know when the guards that had been sent to investigate the source of the disturbance returned. They'd have to walk right past. Then perhaps she'd be able to get some answers . . . if her messenger didn't return before that.
She had sent the man to gather intelligence. One of her, dare she say it, spies, he was an expert in getting in and out of places undetected and he was fast as well. It was only a matter of time before she had the information she wanted. No sooner had she had thought about it then there was a knock on her office door. "Enter," Ayanna commanded, and the man was there. There was a look on his face, a strained tension about his eyes, fear. Ayanna grew cold at the sight of it and her body seemed to slowly freeze over as he explained everything he had seen.
He told her about how he had gone to the center point of the storm as she had ordered, how there had been a group of strangers who claimed to be from another world, how some locals had gotten involved, how the city guard had surrounded them, and how even now they were being marched into the city toward the palace.
Strangers from another word? She thought forcing herself to her feet and turning towards the window. It had to be true, her messenger knew better then to lie. What sort of beings had arrived here? What power did they have to be able to form a chaos eye? had they been responsible for that? It was supposed to be impossible, a thing of legend only. But then, a tiny voice whispered in the back of her mind, wasn't all legend originally rooted in fact? Her ears twitched picking up the voices. City inhabitants their comments were full of worry, awe, curiosity, and occasionally fear. Pulling her fur lined mantled closer around her shoulders Ayanna moved closer to the window, just barely keeping herself from leaning out to see. Just within her line of sight, still several blocks away, was a large group of soldiers surrounding what had to be the outlanders she had just been told about. Several were human, of that she was sure, but among them was also some strange form of what she could only call a Golem. She had never seen its like before. It seemed to be made purely of metal and it walked with a sort of metallic clang she could hear even from her position at her office window. Of course her ears were exceptionally good when compared to a human's. She was a werefox after all.
As they drew closer Ayanna could see that the apparent leader of these strangers was walking closely behind the Captain of the Guard who had placed herself near the center of her men with several ranks on each side of the outlanders. The captain was a formidable woman. Ayanna knew her well, by reputation if not personally. Perhaps this situation was not so hopeless as the actions of the Elders made it seem. She waited as the column passed by the window, and then when the timing was right she blew and icy breath gently across the palm of her left hand.
Immediately the back-plate of the guard directly in front of the captain began to frost over. Before the man could get too far away she raised a hand and scrawled in the air, her message appearing in the frost, like a finger drawing on an icy window. There could be no doubt who sent it.
"I want a word with them – A"
There was no way to tell from her window vantage if the captain reacted or not, but the message would remain for several hours before the magic faded and the frost melted away. It used to be such messages would last for days, but things were different now. Regardless, someone would see it and send her an answer. Whether it be a note, or a summons Ayanna didn't care, just as long as she got her information. Of course they could always ignore it, but if that happened she would be forced to resort to measures that were a little more . . . blunt.
They kept moving, out of her line of sight and towards the castle which they would no doubt be allowed to enter to face hours of endless questions by people who probably had no idea what questions to actually ask. She watched them go, leaning against the window frame and musing on who they were, what they could want, and how they had gotten there. The more she thought and watched, the sicker she felt. If these outlanders had indeed created a doorway from somewhere else as her messenger had said (which she believed to be true because they looked like no one from any land she had ever traveled to, even the clothing of the humans had been odd) and if opening that doorway was responsible for causing the disruptions and creating the storm which she believed to be a chaos eye, then asking them to simply go home was not an option. For all Ayanna knew opening a second doorway would destroy her world, or perhaps destroy theirs, or worse, merge the two into one. That last would be a greater catastrophe then simple destruction. While destruction would mean a ceasing of being, a merging could bring all out war. There was no profit in war. Unless of course one was in the arms trade.
