the siren had been trawling a lengthy arm of kelp when a flurry of chai-cream rose to her vision. setting aside the band of stark-green vegetation, caiaphas took in the news: rosalyn, alive -- somehow.
alongside her eurycrates bristles, settling his words with a conviction that she believed the captive woman would have been proud of -- and while she too is stoked by a burning fire, she is much less impulsive.
storming the thorny keep of drageda is appealing - when they were armed with ready fangs and claws. yet they are a bedraggled band of rogues, assembled together by chance: some young, some old. marching in for rosalyn would end with banner bloodshed - mostly their own.
"if they have her captive, it means they think she is useful." the sylph considered. "if we go now -- so soon after you heard her -- they will likely be ready. it would be walking into the jaws of a snake. could you tell at all from what direction she called?"
caiaphas listened to both with a studied kind of patience, her own thoughts filtering through her mind. there were merits to both approaches - storm the fort, or slip in through the night -- both ended with bloodshed and loss.
it seemed stupid to the sylph to trade the sound for a single life - but as she looked to erzulie she saw that the thread that bound this rag-tag band together was the same thread that kept it from unraveling -- and if she simply let drageda's assault on them go unavenged, it would cause dissolution in their ranks. it would also set the precedent that their upstairs neighbors could stomp, kick and roll right over them -- an unwelcome precedent the siren had no interest in proliferating.
therefore, the decision to rescue rosalyn was largely a tactical decision -- though one could not argue there was little sentimentality involved (mostly on erzulie's behalf). she looked to the cliffs as eurycrates stalked angrily away and then returned, keeping silent until he spoke no longer.
"i have a plan," she answered nebulously, though expanded no further. "give me a day's time to prepare, and i will show you." she had her own designs at hand -- but little did she know in a few day's time eurycrates would take matters into his own hands, forcing her to expose her hand in the process.