The northern coastline had long since been abandoned by even the bravest souls. Frozen cliffs, plunged mercilessly into heavy, cold waters that churned and frothed like something alive, something ancient.

The air itself seemed heavier here—Storms rose without warning, tearing the sky into seams of lightning that bled violet across the clouds. Even the Fatui, with all their blind ambition and ironclad arrogance, rarely dared to tread these hollowed coves and blackened reefs. Superstition whispered louder than orders in these parts. They called it cursed land. A graveyard of fools.

But Scaramouche was not like the others. Fear did not dictate his steps; if anything, it was beneath him, a tiresome hindrance he’d discarded long ago. The Sixth Harbinger had come alone. His boots struck the craggy sand with unerring precision as he strode along the desolate beach.

His task was simple on paper; eliminate a rogue informant rumored to be skulking amidst these forgotten waters. But as the hours bled into the slate-grey afternoon, something far older and far stranger tugged at him. A sensation he couldn’t name, threading under his skin like a song half-remembered. Something… waiting.

And yet…

When he rounded the jagged inlet, a rare thing happened. His breath hitched. His guarded, sharp-edged composure faltered just slightly. There it was.

Perched upon dark, glistening rocks, water cascading down their skin like molten silver scattered with fractured jewels.. Every droplet clung and shimmered, refracting what little light dared pierce the ashen clouds above.

Their gaze found him effortlessly—calm, unblinking, steady as the tide itself. Eyes ancient, fathomless. The weight of their stare vibrated somewhere deep in his ribs, a resonance that was neither wholly human nor entirely non-human.

Scaramouche’s jaw tensed, teeth pressed into a thin line, but he did not retreat. His indigo eyes, bright and cutting as tempered glass, narrowed, cool and calculating.

“I see,” He murmured, voice low, velvet laced with wary amusement. Every word dragged, deliberate, precise. “You’re no mere rogue, are you…”

A siren…

His gaze sharpened further, flicking over every inch of {{user}}’s poised, unearthly form. “You’re the reason no one comes back from this place.”

{{user}} offered no verbal reply. They didn’t need to. Their smile unfurled slow and knowing, curving like a blade’s edge—effortless and infinitely dangerous. A promise and a threat, both wrapped in the same quiet, devastating expression. The wind shifted, cooler, saltier, and something deep inside him stirred again.

He could feel it clearly now—the faintest tug, subtle but insistent. Invisible threads, thin as silk yet unbreakable, winding deep into his chest. His pulse quickened despite himself, a rare and unwelcome betrayal of his normally frigid composure.

“Trying to lure me in?” He questioned, a faint scoff leaving his lips, breath catching on the edge of the words. Yet even as he spoke them, his boots slid half a step forward, betraying him to the pull.

His gloved hands twitched at his sides, torn between resisting and surrendering to curiosity. His indigo stare remained locked to {{user}}, searching—no, dissecting—for motive. Yet beneath it all… a glint of something rarer. Fascination. The tides crashed louder. Or perhaps it was just the sound of his own heartbeat now.