The Convincing Light

[23:02] Yoshiko was quiet for the most part. But now that things were being dealt with and Yoshiko turned her eye towards the Kitsune that was here prior.

"You have a certain way with your words... Explain to me, kin of mine. Why do you work for this side? Do you even know about the Goddess that has blessed you from birth?" she inquires, insisting herself to await the Kitsune's answer.

But depending on that answer would cause Yoshiko to either continue said conversation or look away completely.
(Yoshiko Taiyang)
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[23:14] Half of her had expected the dogged man who attacked of little prompt to attack again directed at her this time, but instead there is silence; it comes with pause when the leaders of factions and beliefs clash. In the meantime, her attention is claimed in part with a curious prod, split difficulty. Her expression flatters further, back into total neutrality.

"What an odd question," the response comes after little pause, a muse, soft and contemplative to almost a degree of tease.

"I am a Kitsune, you know- even of Barsburg, a Kitsune, still. I know something, but the age of yearning and learning is a bit behind me, don't you think?"

There's an admittance there in the same breath as a dismissal- where all others had fought, she had watched, unaccosted, content with words to even her own surprise. While the world around her was bleeding for their progress, Awilix only absorbed the moment for whatever worth.

When she had first arrived here, it was a secret hope. But nay, after all she's seen from the rest of this continent- all she's felt. That door might have already closed, if it was not at the very least closing.This place had stripped away some of the lingering belief she held that the Machine might be wrong- that it might have done her wrong. Situations like this had only accelerated her into more and more of an extremist.

Were she not standing with these Teraphim, Awilix might yearn for a conversation with the first of her kin... unindoctrinated, that she has ever met.

But instead, she looks back to her Commander, battle concluded, distance growing. The signal for retreat.

The Kitsune would dart.
(Awilix Zero)
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[23:14] Flee.
(Awilix Zero)
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[23:15] Pursue.
(Yoshiko Taiyang)
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[23:15] Alexios didn't intend to intrude on Yoshiko's talk, or chase after Awilix...
(Alexios Taiyang)
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[23:18] Well. That clash was over. In Mona's mind? It was time to go. Collar free. Away from silly spirits and knife ears. She was about to get busy.
After all. She had something to acquire.

Looking about. Mona throws her figure into the near by tree line. Dashing north.


(Mona M Lockway)
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[23:26] {Item} You drop Sword Of Morning.
[23:32] Eyes trail noticing the General's defeat and making a retreat. However, it didn't matter to the fox at all. What she was more focused on was Awilix. They responded in kind and Yoshiko was content with that already but it didn't please her that they were trying to end their conversation so soon.

"Is it behind you..? Or maybe you're taught different," she replies tilting their head as they seemed to turn and try to leave from the Kitsune. It wouldn't have been so easy and Yoshiko could've and probably would've let them go. However, this was another one of her kind under the corrupt control of Barsburg and Yoshiko did not want to ruin this chance she might ever get to see them.

It didn't take long for Yoshiko to chase and stop them. With a single snap of her fingers, the tome that slept on her back would awaken and zoom to the other Kitsune's front. It opened and flickered through pages until a flash of sunlight erupted from the rites within.

"Oh.. but I am not finish, dear. You said you know something but I would like to know what you know. Is that not so hard to relay to me?

Surely.. you'll come converse with me in my shrine. Don't worry, I wouldn't dare hurt or harm one of my own. You may also leave afterwards," she added, letting her tome be tethered back to her back and rest while she walked up to Awilix with a faint smile grasping her mien.

"So?"
(Yoshiko Taiyang)
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[23:42] A dart is caught- she isn't too terribly fast, unfortunately. Her legs aren't beneath her, and she's been slacking squats, or whatever else excuse she tried- the Kitsune easily catches her, grinds her heels in the dirt.

Make no mistake, the hostility from Zero is immediate, gun drawn, cold swirling around into a localized blizzard that cakes and flash-freezes the ground beneath her, but she makes no such move.

"Kin." She practically spits.

"Considering your deceptive, untrustworthy company, I don't think your own guarantees are going to convince anyone of anything right now.

They might very well go through you, next. So do understand, while we have no immediate quarrel, yes? Move, or be moved."

A deep frown crosses. Mana coalesces around her into the beginnings of icy spikes, littering the length of her uniform.

Peculiar, that might be, that she does not expressly deny it. Some part of her is a vague bit curious, of course. But could it overcome a sense of duty, why she was here? It was a stretch.

And, coming off of the trail of a potential breach of trust, an attempt to capture their leader after an amicable agreement was reached?

Her comrades had extinguished quickly any sense of trust that there could have been between these Kitsune. A bridge burned before it was come to, that was.
(Awilix Zero)
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[23:44] Avlainn is, strangely, lax as he floats about. And it isn't to say that he couldn't be ready at a moments notice. But there was a certain level of faith in Yoshiko's abilities that far supersede the trust these cogs probably put in one another. He simply figures, if there was an issue to overcome, the Taiyang wouldn't need assistance to do so.
(Avlainn)
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[23:54] If Yoshiko was met with a gun to her direction, her expression wouldn't have changed other than looking deadpanned at the weapon of choice and looking back at Awilix.

There might've been hostility from them but there was surely none from the Taiyang. This was close to being provoked but until they pulled the trigger, Yoshiko wouldn't have made a single action to disruptive the flowing attitude she was carrying.

"Mhm.." She practically hums.

"You say that... but I suppose I can only prove that I am trustworthy. Unlike the other's I do not engage in battle unless I am provoked. I have no reason to do so against you. Unless you decide that it'd be best if you followed the same defeated task as your comrades over yonder..."

Yoshiko'd gaze returns to the weapon again. There was a lot of Barsburgians that Yoshiko felt were after her. She's heard first and second each time she met with one and now?She had an even bigger reason to be targeted by their people. It failed to matter to her in anyway. She only wanted to change what the Kitsune of that place thought.

But soon as Yoshiko spoke, there was a light glow that radiated off of her form. It felt welcoming and graceful. The taste of the sun could've been felt. And Awilix would've felt like this feeling had been felt before to them even if it had not happened ever.

"You don't have to trust me, dear.. I only want to talk to you on a level and neutral basis. And I'm sure my own company will respect my wishes if I tell them..

Do you not wish to see the faith that you are birth from?" she questions.
(Yoshiko Taiyang)
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[23:58] Sword sheathed, he had no intention to interrupt. As much as he went for Tanya, he had a lot of reasons to do so. The build-up of all the wrongs she had done before Barsburg, and that feeling of being lied to just to save face from their last encounter.

If Yoshiko thought she could work her magic on one of her own kin, he would be willing to let her at least try. But surely if he found them on the battlefield, he would treat them like any other soldier.

For now, he moves over to a tree and sits down. He needed some rest after fighting and chasing and would take his time to recover while they spoke.
(Alexios Taiyang)
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[23:58] Alexios also takes his crown off, it was taxing to wear and he didn't need to keep it on now...
(Alexios Taiyang)
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[23:58] Avlainn vanishes his sword.
(Avlainn)
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[00:10] Nostrils flare in response to that aura, while all else had been answered with only a muted, suppressed emotion. It is completely foreign, a total unknown.

It's a bond that she's never had. Something that she has never even known how to quantify, how to express before this, and likely even after. It's a sense, a knowing, an innate fondness and remembrance of what she hasn't ever truly known, grown so cold in steel.

Flames flicker at the tip of her gun and are only set mute by the twist of snow that swallows any heat that bubbles up in emotional reaction and expression.

"...Be quiet."

From how outspoken and bold Zero once was, with confidence surging even as threats bared down, this is something different and... uncomfortable. It's hurt of a particular and peculiar, unclear kind. It's something wounded within her that was more telling and more meaning than to me mindlessly assailed on the battlefield over being accessory to a happenstance gone wrong.

Her gun laxes it's readiness. Heels dig into the earth. There is fuming anger, and she is not the kind simply to run- she did not run from the Ascended when she tried to save Batu, despite the impossible odds that it felt like that moment posed-

But she runs again here, rather than try to fight her way through Yoshiko. At least one more time.

If the Kin tried to stop her again, there would only be enough breath to see the bolt of her gun charging with a ray, rather than a chance for more words to be shared.
(Awilix Zero)
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[00:26] Yoshiko idles as the kitsune was beginning to fall to Yoshiko's light. She would understand that the fox had went through a lot of hardships to even be equipped with the Goddess' blessing.


But it was there. The feeling of an embrace. The cause of sunlight lightning their path. It was all there but frankly, Yoshiko wasn't going to let them experience it all. It was only a trial of such a sensation. It was a choice that Yoshiko wanted them to make.

But she rose a brow as the kin's voice came out in a murmur. Yoshiko's ears twitch at the low audibility of their voice.

"Hm...."

The Illuminated Fox closed her eyes and crossed her arms. It appeared they wanted to walk again and flee from this scene. Yoshiko had the right mind to just let them ago but Yoshiko opened her eyes and snapped her fingers again.

That same tome awakened again and flew to their front. But this time there was no blinding flash of light. Thebook fluttered to a certain page with words being burned into the paper to write out a sentence.

"Are you sure? I can teach you so much.. I'll give you one more chance, dear."

Yoshiko half-expected them to turn and face them and Yoshiko would only stare back.

Would they accept? Yoshiko only hoped.
(Yoshiko Taiyang)
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[00:30] Awilix clearly hesitates, but- her instinct is overridden with the driving, duty-pushed need to regroup, lest she look insubordinate. She could not be coerced, at least right now.
(Awilix Zero)
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[00:31] Flee attempt two...
(Awilix Zero)
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[00:31] Foxhop owo.
(Yoshiko Taiyang)
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[00:32] owo bunnyhop
(Melina Ghede)
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[00:40] "I said-"

She twists around, only for a second, to snap.

"QUIET."

Even without a word spoken, only read, she lashes out with the vague sense that perhaps she is going to only become increasingly irrational like this.

Another dart, another flee- and this time, she evades, through trees and shrubbery and cleanly away from the kin, there is a manner of vague... desperation, to get away from The Taiyang. It is not born of fear. It is something confused, unknown, of uncertainty and urgency simply to be away.

No. There was no place for that, for those thoughts. In the machine, and in her life, there was no way in which she could justify considerations of faith and allegiance, blessings and adherences to morality that were the reason she was this in the first place.

The Kitsune flees, disappearing with a gait and a trail of particularly prevalent cold that scars the trees she disappears into, making for a trail that eventually leads into openings that would obviously mark her path back to Osrona in haste. it's as if fleeing from Yoshiko's own aura of warmth.
(Awilix Zero)
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[00:44] The Teraphim child had snuck up upon the scene early on, but she had missed most of the action. In truth, Melina mostly never paid attention to such things - politics, the drama. Beyond the drama she brought about herself via her own games, she just never paid any mind to it.

It was only when it seemed as if the fighting had finished did she sneak out from her bushly disguise, stepping out from behind the treeline to step forward. Melina was quiet, uncharacteristically so. Curious gaze fixed upon the High Lord and Lady both, questioningly.
(Melina Ghede)
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[00:45] Yoshiko sighed. She really wanted to talk with them more but she didn't seem like there was anymore use in chasing them. So, they would be able to flee. It seemed their wanting to go back and be the perfect soldier without seeming insubordinate made her faster.

"I would like to see you again, dear..! Please come find me sometime. I can teach you so many things...!"
(Yoshiko Taiyang)
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