~ Elandar runs smoothly up the path from town that leads into the Southern Glen, he veers towards Icer's lair, heading into the forest. He grabs at a low hanging branch and snaps his muscles taut, swinging up into a twisting somersault that sets his feet on a higher branch. Dancing from branch to branch, he makes his way amongst the trees and then finally dives out of the trees and into the open valley.

Tucking his body into a tight tumbling roll to absorb the impact of the drop, he springs gracefully back to his feet and commences running towards Icer's lair again. As he nears Icer's lair and the path becomes steeper and more broken he begins leaping from rocky outcrop to rocky outcrop in a series of flips and twists. Enhanced by his drow levitation, he appears to scorn the rules of gravity as he disdains the easier path. Finally he is able to spring into a great leap that carries him through the waterfall that conceals the entrance to the series of caverns where the frost drake Icer makes her lair.

Landing on the other side with his head bowed, he sinks down to one knee, his right hand slapping to the ground to halt the downward surge caused by his brief passage through the colossal fury of the thundering white water.

As his bowed head begins to rise, he searches his senses for Ricquire, seeking the woman he loves through the soul-bond that they both share. He locates her presence in his mind, finding her off in one of the caverns that Ricquire often used for sword practise. ~

Bwael"..~He whispers softly in the drow tongue in between breaths. There was still time to lead her to the surprise that he had been sneaking away from her for the best part of a week to complete. A darkly soft smile plays over his ebony lips as he gazes with mischievous fey eyes through the silver veil of his hair in Ricquire's direction, as if his gaze could pierce the stone and actually behold her flowing through slashes and cuts against imaginary opponents. He concentrates slightly and pulses whispered words from his mind to hers "Doer ulu uns'aa ussta ssinssrigg.....Usstan inbal natha brorn whol dos..........Lac uns'aa......flohlu uns'aa ka dos shlu'ta?. ~

He flicks his head from side to side in a feral, cat-like movement as he rises fully to his feet again, shaking out the spray that glistens in his long silver hair like a thousand tiny moonstones. He allows Ricquire a few moments only to sense his current whereabouts through the soul-bond and then concentrates again, dimming his own presence, becoming an elusive shadow that dances in her mind ~

~ He tilts his head to one side as he feels the sense of her presence diminish and vanish in his mind. A dark smile of amusement plays over his ebony lips and for a moment only a half mask composed of pure shadow forms over his nose and mouth, then it is suddenly gone, as if it had only ever been a brief trick of the light. She was on her way, and he likely had but a few moments to choose his next course of action ~

Ji...dos daewl ulu jivvin doeb nindol nibele 'zil natha ilythiiri orn'la...ji tlu ol ~ He whispers softly to himself, approval for Ricquire's deviousness evident in his tone. He glances towards the waterfall for a second and then back towards the tunnel that leads deeper into Icer's lair, briefly considering his tactics in the game to come. ~

Dos shlu'ta tiu ussta ssinssrigg, lu'Usstan kuuv telanth dos shlu'ta tah lu'zuel xuil l'equidai d'natha elg'hasek ichl...~ He muses to himself in another soft whisper, nodding slightly in tribute to the prowess of his beloved ~ ...jhal shlu'ta dos tah ilythiiri?...Udos zhal kyorl...~His darkly amused smile turns suddenly electric as a cunning idea comes to mind.

He whispers a prayer to the goddess Eilistraee and enacts a spell of water breathing before dropping into a crouch once more. Springing up and back, he twists in the air and plants his booted feet on the ceiling of the cavern. He kicks away and down, entering the curtain of white water in a steep dive, letting the thunderous fury of the waterfall accelerate him as he knifes deep into the plunge pool beneath the entrance to the lair.

Swimming away from the lair for a short distance, a dozen or so feet beneath the surface, he reverses the effect of his levitation and uses it to counteract his body's natural buoyancy. He holds position beneath the water's surface for now, stood on the bottom of the pool, legs braced against the flow of water. His shoulder length hair and shadow-silk long coat drifts away behind him in the current like a pair of silver and obsidian coloured wings.

Lifting his gaze upwards, he scans the area around the lair entrance, seeking a glimpse of his beloved. Within his fey eyes, like portals to the night sky, two tiny stars turn nova and gleam with light for a second only, an outward sign of his excitement at playing the game of hunt and evade with an opponent as skilled and intelligent as his beloved Ricquire. A wild smile of purely feral dark mischief ghosts across his handsome elven features as he wonders what tricks Ricquire herself has yet to play out and how he shall counter them ~

~ A darkly loving smile plays over his face as he sees Ricquire at the mouth of the cave leading into Icer's lair, her image distorted and shimmering from the waterfall tumbling past. He sighs softly under the water, a series of small bubbles escaping his lips as his mind's eye banishes the distortion of the waterfall and he imagines her beauty in its full glory.

He prepares to move from his place of concealment in the plunge pool, considering letting Ricquire catch a glimpse of him so that she may take up the hunt again. He is forced to pause and reconsider his actions as he sees shadows envelop Ricquire and then fade away, leaving the place where she had been stood empty.

His gaze darts around beneath the water, flickering from shadow to shadow, half expecting to see Ricquire gliding through the water towards him at that moment. When his narrowed and suspicious gaze finds no sign of Ricquire it lifts back up and he stares at the place she vanished, his smile becoming darkly amused. ~

Tricky, tricky ~ He whispers to himself underwater, the words distorted into incomprehension by the liquid, merely being a verbal echo of his approving thoughts. Another small stream of bubbles drifts away from his lips as he whispers and he ponders his next move in the game of the hunt. He continues to stare for a moment longer at the spot where the shadows had swallowed her, wondering if she had folded dimensions to reappear in another place or had merely cloaked herself from view, perhaps hoping to flush him into the open by making it appear that she was no longer watching.

He nods to himself as he decides on his next move and dives down deep into the plunge pool, letting the white water and spray hide him, just in case she was watching from the cave mouth. He then folds darkness around himself and teleports into the shadowed lee of a nearby tall rocky outcrop. Once there he gazes around again, seeking signs of Ricquire, crouching so that the sound of dripping water will not give his position away, letting it run unbroken from his long coat straight to the ground. As he gazes up the hillside and thinks he spots a shift of brief movement, he lifts the up the hood of the shadow-silk long coat that serves as his Piwafwi, shading his eyes against the bright light. He finds that doesn't help enough and he still cannot make out any fine details on the sunlight silhouetted hillside.

He casts another gaze around, hoping to spot a definite sign of Ricquire but finds nothing. He begins ghosting from rocky outcrop to rocky outcrop, sticking to the shadows. He wills his enchanted long coat to draw the darkness around him as he moves among the rocks with all the stealth a seasoned drow warrior can muster. When he reaches the edges of the slope, where the rocky outcrop shadows can no longer hide him he flashes a wild smile as he prepares his next gambit.

He coils his legs beneath him and springs out into the open, concentrating as he leaps, combining his innate powers of Faerie Fire and Dancing Lights in an unusual way to produce an effect akin to a Mirror Image spell. Four exact illusory duplicates of him burst out from his body as he sprints towards the forest at a full run, his long coat and silver hair streaming out behind him. The illusory duplicates each take a different course towards the forest, veering and spreading out. Each image acts with perfectly believable false movement and each also acts differently to both Elandar's true form and the other magical images. Elandar himself takes one of the slightly longer routes to the forest, not wishing his ploy to be foiled by taking the obvious shorter path. ~

~ One of the identical figures heading for the trees stumbles in surprise at hearing the whispered words in his mind. The four illusory doubles also make passable imitations of stumbling in surprise but none convey such true depths of astonishment in their actions as the real Elandar.

The drow curses under his breath briefly as he realises that he has just gifted Ricquire with the perfect way to tell him from the illusions. He glances up for a moment as Ric speeds through the air towards him, her pinions flashing in the sunlight. He glances around hurriedly, his mind whirling.

"Surely Ricquire couldn't mean what he thought she did"Could she"...

His moment of distraction costs him almost the entire lead that he has built up in their private game of hunt and evasion. This is perhaps what the cunning Ricquire had intended all along, though he has to wonder if she could bear to wrench his heart in such a way or if only a simple misunderstanding had occurred.

When he again looks back to his beloved he finds that she is already weaving towards him through the outer copses that dot the periphery of the woods. He hurriedly steps back among the shadows of the nearest trees, letting the darkness swallow him utterly before teleporting deeper into the forest in a series of flickers in and out of reality, vanishing and reappearing each time in a silent burst of inky ebony nothingness. He pauses for a moment in a clearing to centre his thoughts and learn more from Ricquire~

"Three?? ~His mind pulses back questioningly to the angelic love of his life~