[~The Ruins~]

*Angel had arrived early and so she waited patiently inside the old house. Today she wore a chain mail tunic, and it was hardly flattering to her figure, but certainly practical. Her blonde hair had been brushed back into a tight ponytail.

It was not as if she did not trust Kharne, but she certainly didn't know him very well anymore either. It was overcast and dark, which didn't help, and the swinging back and forth of a window shutter was rather distracting. Drumming her fingers together, all she could do was wait.*

On reflection, Kharne thought, Shifting through a portal to the thunderlands hadn't been the best of moves. As he always did when using a portal to somewhere he was unfamiliar Kharne had emerged high in mid-air. Immediately his black feathered wings were pulled in as he was forced to perform an awkward roll to avoid the sudden flash of lightning that ran so close that even he felt its heat. He plummeted from the clouds like a rock, thunder rolling around him drowning out curses. Finally snapping out his wings to ease his descent enough that he could pull up from terminal velocity. His landing left him running for a few feet, seizing control of his momentum, bringing himself to a stop.
"Well," he said to the world at large. "That could have gone better."
He turned towards the ruined house, eyes narrowing as he brushed dust from his bedraggled wings before knocking loudly on the beaten up looking door.

*Angel heard the thump as kharne tumbled outside. She rushed to the window, her hand carefully placed upon her sword as she glanced outside in caution and suspicion. Recognizing that it must be him, she opened the door and rushed out into the dangerous weather.

The wind picked up, swaying her tunic about as she reached out her hand to help the gentleman up from the ground following him inside. She yelled over the noise of the weather.*

"You must be Kharne?!! Please, inside here...if you will!!"

*Her hair flew everywhere as the dust of the ground kicked up and scattered, with small effort she would shut the door. Kharne would then realize with his own strength of hearing, that Angel held a heartbeat.*

"Thank you for coming. I can't tell you enough how I appreciate it. Please, let us take seats."

*She reached out to shake his hand, not knowing with how holy a creature she was (being half angel) that it might harm him.*

Kharne ran a hand through his slightly scruffy hair as he shook hands with the other. His sudden, friendly grin covering the surprise at the sudden flash of heat that ran up his arm. While it wasn't painful it was a shock.
"So what did you wish to see me about?" he asked as he took a seat.

*Angel pulled out a seat for herself and gestured with her hand for him to do the same.*

"Well, to get to the point, I'm concerned that Chaaran still exists. He needs to be destroyed."

*Resting her elbows on the table, Angel leaned forward.*

"I'm hoping to set up a campaign and I'd like you to be one of the few who go along and scout the Dracolich out. Especially since you're his brother. We both have an invested interest in it all, do we not?"

As Kharne sat his wings vanished into his back. He listened silently to angels words, his grin fading until his expression was left unusually serious. His golden eyes flashed crimson for the barest of moments as the pupils narrowed to slits.
"He clings on worse than a cockroach it's true." said Kharne quietly. "To my knowledge he is the second dragon to gain immortality in all of recorded history, thanks largely to one or two necromancers." He sighed before sipping from a hip flask.
"He tried to kill my daughter before she was even born. In return I drove him into the ground from four thousand feet, only to have him parading around now with who knows how much power. So my question is how do you intend to kill him finally? Do you know how to?"
He leaned forward looking Angel straight in the eye, disregarding for now the fact that he was speaking to a queen. Hell, he'd faced down Bathory enough times and he judged angel to be far less temperamental.

*Angel listened with utmost interest as he gave clues to the Dracolich and nodded, folding her arms before her in deep thought. As Kharne ended on a final question, Angel's blue hues glanced upwards to face him.*

"I have some thoughts on it."

*She wouldn't reveal all that she knew so early into the mission, first she needed to make sure that Kharne was trustworthy enough to confide in.*

"I assumed you might be glad of the chance to be rid of him and might join our efforts. No official plan has been put in place and I am merely toying with the idea. I do not take it lightly, naturally. I am sorry for your loss, Chaaran has taken so much from all of us...I had a Tavern in Salarain once..until the Dracolich burnt it to the ground."

*Memories of how Darius thought she was inside and how he had run to save her, came to mind.*

Kharne watched the woman before him intently, reading her body language as well as other signals.
"It's not a matter of being glad to be rid of him Angel. With him in this world I don't know if my daughter is safe. He was a bully in youth, yes, but his willingness to kill an innocent brings the potential for worse."
He sat back with a faint sigh, pinching the bridge of his nose.
"If he ends up going fanatical he could try to fulfill the final mandate and with what he is now who knows what he could be capable of."
Kharne spoke softly, almost as though he were speaking to himself. He blinked suddenly and shook his head to clear whatever horrors his mind was casting at him.
"If you want my help in bringing him down then I'll give it. To my knowledge I'm the first undead dragon to walk these lands. So figure that into your plans if it helps. I admire your caution by the way."
He grinned, tapping his temple with a finger. He'd weighed up the options about his gifts but felt that here being honest from the first would benefit them both more than hiding them.

*Angel studied Kharne with equal interest, and as he spoke of Chaaran's need to shed the blood of innocents, she wasn't surprised. Angel had not only heard such rumors but she had seen it with her very own eyes.

Such talk of dark creatures caused her to shudder and glance down even if her ears were listening intently.*

"I did not mean to sound uncaring to your own cause, but I have reason to believe that Chaaran is no longer just a servant of the undead but a leader of it instead."

*It was her round about way of saying that she highly suspected that SoulReaver WAS now Chaaran, but she had been deliberately careful with her words. Angel paused once again as Kharne spoke of aiding and she nodded, pleased.*

"I shall send you to Grorr to work with Duke Ralean, he too recognizes the danger of the creature. When I am ready, word will come to you and a group of you will leave to hunt down the vile beast."

*She had overlooked his mention of being the first undead dragon, as if Angel had never heard him say it. A coy smile appeared however, when he talked of admiring her caution.*

"Good things come to those who wait.."

*With this, she shifted some blonde stands behind her ears, those blue eyes gleaming with delight. Angel did not relish this fight against evil, yet she relished the fact that afterwards there would be a peace like no other.*

Kharne's eyes widened very slightly as angel spoke, though not so much at her words. His pupils narrowed to cat-like slits as he watched the woman closely, but he didn't speak of what he'd "heard".
"I'll head over to have a little chat with Ralean, but I have duties in Salarain that I'll need to check in on." he said calmly, his expression showing what he thought of the day to day administration in that city. He often missed the more simple days when he'd been but a soldier.
"Have you heard any other information about Chaaran? Sightings and the like?"

*She nodded in understanding as Kharne mentioned other duties at Salarain. A thought crossed Angel's mind as she went through some of what Kharne was saying.*

"Wait..I'm sorry, but did you just say that Rensain and Mychael raised the beast? So they can call it back just as easily?"

*Angel raised a hand to her forehead and rubbed it. When Kharne asked if she had heard anything else from the beast, she shook her head in dismay. Her tone was quiet.*

"My neice Claudia and nephew Xavier were taken away in a carriage, the Dracolich took it straight off its tracks when it was on its way to Icehold. No one knows where he went, and I fear for their safety. This is why my mission is of utmost importance."

Kharne sat in thought about the missing children of Vladimir. The last time he'd met them he'd wound up with some damnable poison coursing through his body.
"Well they're likely still alive. He could have incinerated them on the road so there must be a reason for the abduction."
He watched the woman across from him carefully, wondering at the situation. He could feel the holy influence that was a part of her very soul. Then there was Kharne himself, once a purebreed dragon but turned vampiric and carrying in his blood something demonic. Here they both sat speaking peacefully and Kharne found it somewhat intriguing.
"How long ago were they taken?"

"2 weeks"

*She answered automatically, her head shaking in dismay yet Angel's gaze kept on Kharnes. For a gent whom had been so closely associated with Queen Bathory he didn't strike her as been half as bad in nature. He came across as rather nice, yet she reasoned in her mind that looks were very well deceiving.*

"I'm confident they are alive also, as you say, he wouldn't have just flown off with them otherwise. Perhaps the children will be used as some sort of barganing chip..I do not know. "

((Deeply sorry on the delay.))

"Well I have to admit I'm at a loss to say what he's up to now." Said Kharne quietly.
"When we were young he was hardly the intellectual strategist. He was born from an earlier hatching so he was bigger and stronger than most, and there weren't many. Being long-lived means few viable young."
Kharne seemed to study the table top before him as he spoke, the tone of his voice almost hesitant as he decided to explain all that he knew of his last surviving sibling.
"He could go for days without tormenting anything smaller than him, but those quiet times always ended. He was proud to the edge of arrogance, cruel yet with a streak of occasional nobility..... and when I was fifteen he was the reason I was exiled. One of his little hunts went wrong because of my own little gifts."
Kharne fell silent for a moment, seeming to shake distant memories from his vision before looking back to Angel.
"The next I saw Chaaran I was in my mid nineties and I had fought and slain my father. By rights I now led my clan but I left them and returned to my home... Aegis. He followed with a number of my kin and attacked the palace with the sole intention of killing me and my unborn daughter. He considers the fact that I am vampiric an abomination. The fact that I have a child was worse. That is when, as I said before, I killed him. You now know roughly as much of him as I do." he finished, sitting back.
Kharne offered a rueful smile. Almost apologetic for his long winded account.

"Well I have to admit I'm at a loss to say what he's up to now." Said Kharne quietly.

*Angel sighed, but her eyes remained intent upon Kharnes. She wasn't trying to measure his character anymore, she simply needed his help and was listening to everything that he had to say. Propping her elbows up onto the old wooden table and resting her head into her upturned palms. Half way through his talk, she moved her arms and placed them into her lap and shook her head slowly and sympathetically. When he was done, Angel mildly cleared her throat, her voice soft and barely audible.*

"I'm sorry that you have suffered through the actions of the beast. Its hard for me to imagine 'it' as part of a family, Chaarans acts of atrocities so great...I just see it as a minion. It has no choice to obey others, but there's no saving him now."

*After a small silence and further thought, she added.*

"A pitty, it sounds as if he has always been bad...and we've all suffered as a consequence. Why hasn't Queen Bathory done something about this before now?"

*Leaning back into her chair Angel folded her arms and tilted her head. *

"You have a child...and Chaaran has already tried to kill them also? Dear gods, is there no mercy to this thing? Do you think Chaaran will be back to end the feud between you both?"

*Angel tried not to be nosy and she was aware that her questions were blunt, but she was curious and mortified at the same time.*

Kharne flashed a broad grin for but a fraction of a second.
"That is one thing I think he'll find hard to resist. Me gone and he's a happier dragon." he said calmly, as though discussing the weather. His face soon turned more serious.
"The question for me would be will he continue to hunt Arianna if I'm not around?" He shrugged off his own question as he stood and moved over towards the shuttered windows, listening to the storms outside.
"If you wish to use me as bait I'm not completely adverse to the idea, but after Draco I'm not too keen on taking him on in a city. Catching him out in the open is the trick." he said, turning back to face Angel.

*She took in his words, every one of them before she nodded slowly. Her eyes narrowed in deep thought, wondering how to make this work*

"I shall take care of Arianna, you have my word."

*The storm outside caused her to glance quickly towards the window.*

"You've been through a lot, I am hesitant about this too - but we cannot live in fear, for what good will that be?"

*Shaking her head once again with a small sigh, she rose from the seat *

"Bait, if you wish to call it that, but I trust you can handle yourself rather well. I'll be in touch.."

Kharne was taken aback when Angel offered to take care of his daughter, the surprise evident in his youthful features for a moment.
"She'll still have her mother, but Ava is often busy." he began, but his voice trailed off.
He knew that Ava Bathory loved her children and would tear realms apart with her bare hands if but one of them came to harm. But he secretly felt that she would do it as much for the insult, that someone would dare reach out for that which was hers, as for righteous parental fury. Then again he was hardly better.
All too often far too busy with the affairs of state to spend time with his only child. Yet he himself would tear the gods themselves out of their lofty thrones and piss on their graves to protect her. Well, he'd try.
He needed to make sure she could defend herself. Hell, Arianna was half Dragon. She carried in her the most mixed heritage Kharne had ever heard of, with human and dragon only the start. Demon blood was within her also, and if worst came to worst Vampiric.
His expression became firm and confident once more, belying the appearance he carried of being only in his mid twenties. He then bowed to Angel in an oddly formal way, with his right hand held open over his heart. A gesture most definitively not Aegian.
"Thank you, my lady. It would be good to know that Arianna will have a guardian.... well, you know what I mean." he finished lamely.
The lop sided grin returned as Angel bid him farewell and he offered his hand before heading towards the door.

*Angel's strong eyes watched him, her mind noting how tormented he seemed. *

"My sister in law is anything BUT a mother."

*It was a sharp reply against the Queen of Aegis, yet in Angel's mind it was more than true. Ava's actions towards her own children seemed more than enough proof."

*She nodded with utmost respect as Kharne saluted*

"Thank you, Kharne. For trusting me with Arianna...but I hope it shall never have to come to that. Lets just focus on surviving this, shall we?"

*Angel granted him a small smile, as she saw it was her turn to leave also.*