"Unbelievab--" 

Griff nearly choked on surprise. As the urge to cough seized his throat, his voice muffled against his sleeve. He sunk even further behind a thicket of dune-grass and cattails. There was a flick of a crab scuttling on the white sands of the moonlit beach.

[i]'Unbelievable,'[/i] He thought again. 

Someone was approaching the Mote. A man. Not old, but [i]older[/i]. Griff could only see the man's profile as he seemed to saunter towards the monolith. Weapons? Unclear. From the angle, and the ephemeral spotlight cast dramatically from the moon above, the stranger seemed to be finely-dressed. If there was one thing that Griff knew about rich garb, it meant you either trusted yourself to be armed, or hired good hand. Well-dressed, traveling at night alone? Well, Griff wasn't a betting man...

He just kept low. Breathing was the key. It was like checking the traps and snares early in the morning. Weasels that were flitting about after the rising sun. Near the morsel of bread or bloodied meat that had been concealed in the jaws of the trap. Breathe too hard, move your boot in the wrong direction, you'd crush a twig underfoot, and bank on one fewer strip of leather or boot-fur. Fewer coins in the grocer's fund. 

Patience was key. To wait, and to watch. Ensure the quarry was hungry enough, curious enough to venture closer to the trap. 

A shadow dove from the sky and melded with the man's silhouette in a flurry of wingbeats. Griff's eyes strained as he resisted the choke of surprise once again. However, it wasn't some shadowbound wing-beast of a woods-whisperer's pact--it was a bird of prey. A hawk, maybe? Too far to tell. Griff was briefly reminded of a falconer that visited Crossroads nearly every spring; the man used some sort of unseen prestidigitation to hypnotically soothe his familiar.

Griff dared edge closer, now almost flat on his stomach. His legs remained taught, ready to fly into action, as his arms naturally guided him forward, pushed and pulled at the grassroot and sand in such a way to slide him even closer to the Mote. Its sigils seemed to pulsate with blue light, almost as if they were breathing. Bleeding. Griff could almost imagine the ice blue energy pour out of the etchings and dissolve into the tide below.

Griff shook his head, knocking himself out of the Mote's own brand of hypnosis. Trash swirled like a dreamcatcher above the rock.

He needed a distraction--a rock, a thrown stone into the water just shy of the man. Maybe that could deter the stranger, spook the man and his bird away from the Mote. Griff could fall back and try his approach again in an hour. He could try a sharp whistle--something so loud and sudden on a dark beach would surely discourage further inspection of the Mote. 

[i]'No,'[/i] Griff realized dully. [i]'If he's approaching such a strange thing on this witching hour, there can't be much in the way of splashing rocks he fears.'[/i] 

Fine. It would be the final approach. The plan that Griff had put on a back-burner in his mind. Something that he had considered, but failed to give any meaningful weight. Useless to devote time and energy to rare happenstance, but now here he was. Sand down his collar, dagger and tools pressed against his waist, and the moonlight threatening to reveal his location if there was too strong a sea breeze. What were the odds that he'd encounter someone up here?

"W-wait!" Griff pounced. His legs drove him up and to a quick pace. He approached the stranger from the opposite end of the stark beach. "Don't touch it! Be careful! The Mote. It's, er...it's dangerous!" 

As Griff approached Evelio, he raised two open palms as a sign of nonviolence.

So stupid. So useless. The worst plan: [i]Diplomacy[/i].