Lavender paced agitatedly in the small space of Leonora's cabin, the lady herself was absent... luckily or unluckily, depending on how En looked at it. Leonora would have definitely given her a clip around the ear for entering without knocking, but her absence also meant that there was no one around to give En council when she desperately needed it.

A sharp nip to her ear brought En out of her panic; it was the spirit bird that she had rescued from Blakestaff's cabin. "Sorry little one, I'm forgetting you, and you must be desperately hungry after flying all the way here." En remembered that she had kept the apple core from earlier, so she put the bird down on Leonora's dresser, and got the core out of her waist pouch, placing it in front of the spirit bird.

The hungry bird pounced on the core like it was starving, which maybe it was, it had flown quite a distance without rest over open sea, "Eat it all up now, especially the pips... as the seeds of future life they hold the majority of the apple's spiritual energy."

Soon there was nothing left of the apple but the stalk, and Lavender went over to the cabin window which was currently shut, after all Leonora had no need for an open window to create a breeze. "Time for you to return to your Master little one, we are much closer to shore now, so you'll be reunited soon."

The spirit bird glanced at the window, then bent down and picked up the apple stalk in its beak. It was looking much better now, and was emitting a soft soothing glow which made En raise her eyebrows in surprise. "Your Master follows the Path of the Healing Breeze, huh... that's pretty rare. Guess my instincts were spot on, your Master has a rosy future ahead of them."

The bird flew over to the window, but instead of passing through, it stopped to perch on the window ledge, and looked at Lavender expectantly. En guessed what the bird wanted, and held out her hand. The bird placed the apple stalk onto her palm, but now it was tied into an intricate knot.

"Thank you, I will keep this talisman safe on my person, until the day I meet your Master." The bird dipped its head in what could only be referred to as a bow, and En made a shallow bow in return with her head and shoulders, "Until we meet again."

Lavender watched the bird until it became a speck in the distance, and the magic in the talisman seemed to pulse with each flap of its wings. Once it was out of sight En sighed, and opened her hand to look at the talisman, "Someone out there owes me a pretty big favour, and whoever they are, they are gonna grow up to have power and influence. I think I'll take this as an omen, don't sweat the little stuff, trust my instincts, and wing it!"

Lavender carefully loosened the ties of her girdle. It held many secrets, the most obvious being the multitude of razor sharp throwing blades on the outside; not much bigger than the silver coins En had used to practice. The glamour array stitched into the leather made them invisible to normal sight; but what even the original artificer who created the girdle didn't know, were the internal pockets in the girdle, those En had created herself.

En carefully teased open one of these small pockets, and placed the talisman inside, smoothing the opening once more with her nail, until it appeared to be only a scratch on the surface of the leather, then she retied her laces.

The girdle was something that was mass produced, and worn by many female battle mages, the hidden outer pockets originally meant for concealing spell reagents for quick casting. It amused En to recall, that when she had revisited the original artificer, he had tried to sell her another, not even recognising his own work after Lavender had got her hands on it.

However, she also had to take her hat off to him, since most people weren't sensitive enough to even realise that En was a mage at all. Assuming that En was the pure fighter that she appeared to be, without staff or wand to show otherwise, since they were items that En didn't need, to do what she could do.

Not surprising really, En was a true shadow, and the shadow element was something rare and ephemeral, dealing mostly with clairvoyance and illusion, and most of those who dabble in the shadow element walk the darker paths of Thieves or Assassins in the city states. However, Lavender had chosen the Way of the Ranger, a path more common in the Elves of the Great Forests, or the ‘Wild’ Elves of the Savannah Grasslands.

When Lavender looked up, she realised that she could see a wispy distant shadow on the far horizon, and sure enough a call went out. "Land ahoy... Where away? Dead ahead, Captain." Lavender closed the window, and made her way out of the cabin, and onto the main deck. Not seeing Leonora, Lavender nodded to Javis and George as she went past, and climbed the ladder to the quarterdeck, there she found Tomo manning the wheel, with the Captain next to him, but still no Leonora.

En stopped briefly to speak to the Captain about their time of arrival, and found out they were ahead of schedule. That could only mean one thing... the discussion she had had earlier about taking on an apprentice, had left her dearest aunt feeling disturbed. Meaning that the vortex of her magic was spinning faster, and the wind it produced gusted stronger... Leonora would have to be close by to dampen the field, and stop the magic released in the ritual from going out of control and running amok.

Not wanting to alarm the Captain and Tomo, Lavender climbed the ladder to the poop deck, no faster than she had climbed the ladder to the quarterdeck, but she was relieved when she saw her aunt stood at the stern rail looking fairly relaxed. Leonora did not turn to look at Lavender, since she was concentrating on the magical wind vortex created by the ritual and her own magic, she just said, "Don't worry, I put a lid on it."

Lavender stared critically at the vortex off the stern, it was spinning a bit faster than usual, but the pattern was steady with no dangerous fluctuations, so she just carefully skirted the magic circle chalked on the deck. Leonora's hands were resting on the stern rail, but it was no white knuckled death grip, and the rest of Leonora's body language said that she had things under control.

Lavender reached up, grabbing one of the lines that arched overhead, rested her foot on Leonora's storage chest, and just enjoyed the wind fluttering through her long hair for a moment. "Sorry... I shouldn't have surprised you like that."

Leonora was quiet for a long moment, and then she let out a long sigh. "It's okay, you're probably right the change will do me good... but next time don't throw something like that at me out of nowhere. The more I thought about it, the more my thoughts were scattered all over the place, like leaves in an autumn wind. Before I knew it, my mental state had whipped the vortex into a frenzy, and I had to come and calm it."

"Next time I'll remember not to drop something like that on you when you are using active magic." Leonora turned and glared at Lavender, "So that means that you are quite willing to drop surprises on me at any other time when I'm not using active magic... and will you please take your foot off my storage chest, you're making the ward throw off sparks, doesn't that hurt!"

En took her foot off the chest, but instead she bent down, stroking her hand across the lid of the chest, making sparks flicker across her hand. "It does hurt a bit, but I have a fairly high tolerance to pain, and it feels like Mom."