Future of Calamity [Under Rewrite]

Chapter 25 - Menagerie

Gulls cried far above, their playful and shrill caws cleaving through the gentle lapping of endless azure. However, while the aureate rays reflected off from the serene ocean, the thinning waves below only grew more patient; as the distant spire of land arose to pierce the few clouds and split the sky. It's monotonous silhouette was a stain upon the peaceful surroundings, and the gradual scent of the coast soon slipped into her senses. She couldn't help but frown mildly at this undaunting figure splayed as the final target.

Velvet's fierce thuds that clicked across bruised boards called to the ears of all who awaited on deck. Form splitting from the shadows of the berthing - as if retracting darkness itself - she was no Captain, but emerging from the belowdeck with those rough, striking orbs of gold: all eyes were on her, and that fit the daemon just fine. While the embers of passion hollowed out among the innocent sunshine, the ever hard-working pirates dove back into their mechanical routine, tireless in their experience. They didn't matter, her focus was on the colourful cast awaiting upon the blinding horizon, atop the contrasting bow from the stern that still lay crooked and cracked.

Each individual felt the change in the once undisturbed air, and turned as her familiar presence was felt. Rokurou's face had barely changed from his confident - and frankly irritable - grin as his battle-hungry irises settled upon her. Velvet could catch the extra hint of anticipation evident with that orange hue. Magilou spun with a careless laugh, swishing arms as if flapping along the busy deck with her dramatic prancing. Laphicet, as innocent as ever, waved over with an exclamation of excitement upon catching the advance.

And Eizen, the Reaper, did not seem particularly impressed at all. Uncharacteristically, he stomped over first, a striking sterness with an irritated crook in his brow. "Velvet, what did you do to my ship?" the blonde pirate gruffly demanded, coldly pronouncing her as the perpetrator.

Matching the sapphire glint with a dry, bandaged wave to the air, Velvet scanned the ship with a casual hand resting upon her sported hip. "Seems that was a rough storm." The daemon stepped past without another look, stalking up to broad island encroaching upon their bowsprit. Eizen felt his eyes drop in agitation, and blew off the daemoness' antics with a grunt, before keeping on her heel to stand aside with the group once again.

The unshakeable and unmistakable Van Eltia rocked solemnly along the rolling blue with each beat of Velvet's calloused heart; flesh honed by its emotional pulse akin to erosion of searock. Voices soon cut the air, no less interested in the circumstance due to a certain half-malak's return, stated only by her words in the dead of night: 'He's back,' was all the daemoness had stated to their sudden shock, the motionless and injured body of the man himself unspecified.

"So, it's true that Sarid is back then?" the samurai asked with a grating smirk, crossing his arms with the delicate swirl of his kimono billowing in the coastal breeze. Velvet's response was a wordless nod.

Next, a patter of feet upon drying wood, and a small voice gently murmured from behind, "Oh, well, can I go see him?" Laphicet had requested meekly, hands settling on one another nervously.

Still refusing to turn away from what had arrested her thoughts, Velvet remained blank with her responses, yet the boy's voice did so easily pull at that emotional vase within. "Do what you want, not my problem," she dismissed with a glancing wave off.

And eventually, she felt that haughty cackle and irritable voice splice her eardrums, as Magilou finally hopped forward; a teasing smile plastered over a circus witch. "'Not your problem,' you say? Should have told us when you carried him to your room! How scandalous~" she playfully yapped, pulling at her eyelid with a goofy tongue show. Unsurprisingly, this scored an agitated groan from the daemon that flexed her arm with impatience.