Velentham heard the light steps before seeing anything. The boy had run off completely through the Druid's Grove, his dog none the wiser that eyes were upon him, but something was still amiss. He moved between the trees, uttering a word that lifted him from the ground and kept his invisibility absolute. He hovered there beside a low bush and looked down on a woman half naked and pierced full of silver and laden with so much ink it may have well been three pots worth.
Velentham smirked. The people of this place drove him mad - all of them. They smelled of bitterness, sadness, frustration, madness, and confusion. They made him smell of it deep in his pores. He knew from looking in a mirror he was gaunt - he looked nothing like he had before. But once he had Sanria, once he figured out how to get out of this place, he would return to his former glory.
He followed the half-naked woman's gaze in silence and grinned. She stared at the cottage as well. What she wanted from it, he did not know. He did not care. But perhaps he might make himself known and they might work for a similar goal. Perhaps she might work for him and do his bidding - perhaps she might take his cousin out of the way, and he take Sanria. He might have to work his magic a bit, force the savage before him as he'd forced so many before.
First, he would watch her. He would see her demeanor and keep even his breath silent until he was ready. He drifted upward into the branches of the trees and seated himself on the bough in perfect silence. He stared down at the woman as she stared at the cottage and left his smirk on his face. He'd never felt closer to his goal than right now.
