The Name on The Winds

 "Hm? Why don't you go to Reimara Academy, in Levengard? That's where most o' the magi your age are, honestly."

Yeah, he was always recruiting, honestly. That was just what he did and how he rolled. For now, he pays no mind to what is blatantly Adonis Lowe running around the vicinity disguised and trying to hide from him. A cheery grin slides onto his face.

"Ore though...yeah, sounds like you're making your money," he admits. "I think I just lost my job, so maybe I should go do somethin' like tha' too. I'm Siegfried by the way, but everyone calls me Sieg', or Siggy."

He rubs his chin.

"Do you know the kid who keeps runnin' around in circles?"
(Siegfried)
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[05:34] "Caira - I live right here in Cruxati, though I'm part of Atl." She was floating one second, and a light burp comes from her before she immediately dropped to the floor the next second after. She had been floating off of some kind of magical brew!

Caira lands right on her backside with a loud thunk to the bag of ore - And a yelp as it were. "Ow! Dang, they don't last long enough!"

She'd start to pull herself up slowly, dusting her shoulders off as the girl started to answer his first question. "Reimara doesn't teach anymore, and the few people I find recommend me to other people. Uh.. I'm trying to save up and pay for college."

… College?

A blink follows and she starts to pull herself up from the floor after her plummet. "I make a good living. Need potions, need weapons. That sort of thing. Need college lessons, too."
(Caira)
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[05:42] Surprisingly, Siegfried knows a little bit about the Atl as well as the other tribes...even though in reality, he's never lived in Gehenna in his life, and only passes through this place, as it seemed about the least lively location in Agartha.

He smiles faintly as Caira falls, but not maliciously. "They don't," he admits, before doing a backflip in the air. "So jus' learn to ride the winds."

The lad descends to the ground, so he isn't hovering over her like a creepy ass ghost or something, and crossed his arms. "You sound real serious about your education...got a goal to reach or somethin', then." He sounds like he's telling, and not asking. Like he just knows.

"So what is that goal? You an' your magic - what're you aspirin' to?"

The boy sounds fascinated, as he always is in the stories of others. That was why he was a writer. That being said?

"...college?"
(Siegfried)
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[05:49] "I don't actually know what college is. I was just told by someone on the road I should get money and get my education from college. But it's expensive, so I'm trying to save up fifty-thousand so I can pay my way into a college."

. . . . .

She's staring at the stars for a moment while she spoke, now shaking the trance away and coughing into her fist. "I'd love to master my element- Holy- So I'm learning from an ancient exorcist spirit from Levengard named Elayna. She referred me to take lessons from Tahldrig, so I'll be doing that tomorrow. Hopefully those prepare me for college."

She'd stretch now, taking eyes from the sky above and putting them back onto Siegfried. "You swing a sword too, don't you? It's my goal to take my family's blade and create a masterpiece out of it. I want to make sure my name is known across Agartha, but honestly?" She'd lean in a little bit and look between the square, making no one was around to hear her.

"I don't really like the way some Gehennans treat others - And I'd really love to improve Agartha just a little bit more than how it is right now. I want to help people, and fight to fix demons and Occultists if I can!"

Caira hefts the bag of ore back onto her shoulder, struggling to lift all of the potential money back onto her back.
(Caira)
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[05:58] "I-i...don't think there are any magic colleges. Do they mean like...normal college? They want you to like..." Siegfried sounds horrified, downright ghastly. What the Hell? Genuinely, what the Hell? He's so alarmed and confused by the notion of a mage saving up fifty thousand coins to go to college and learn...what? History? Arithmetic?

"Ya' know, I don't often tell folk what to do with their money, but that don't sound like a good usage o' fifty thousand coins for ya'," he says simply, shaking his damn head. "'Sides - it sounds like your goals, your ambitions, are so much larger than tha'. So much more than jus' math or any o' that."

The lad is scratching his chin now, and he meets her eyes, head being cast to the side as she tells him the second part of her dream - and whispers in for the closing bit.

"It's people like you, people that care about things more than just the trivial, who walk aroun' Agartha and want to change more than just a person, but people - that's how we're gonna fix everythin'. You don' really care about that college someone told you about, d'ya? Life's too short to not be pursuin' your real dream...but then again, what do I know?"

He smiles.

"I'm just a newspaper boy who writes articles."
(Siegfried)
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[05:59] Siegfried whispers: An' by the way - there're people in Levengard who can fix occultists, an' other things like tha'. You just gotta know who to pester to figure it ou'.
[06:05] "I have no idea. I hope this Tahldrig person can show me a lot with my holy magic. I've never even met them, just got a simple referral from the top of the chain." She shakes her head and gets mad at the ore weighing her down, so Caira leans over and drops it down to the side and sighs a little bit. She'd carry it later. "I think they mean normal college? Math, magitech science probably.. Ancient world history. I heard it from a smart source, and everyone else seems to support it."

Truth of the matter was - She really was pretty clueless on the whole ordeal. She basically lived in caves and crawled out to go turn in ore by the daily. With a mastery of just about every cave layout and various sites to gather the goods, she's like a Gehennan molerat. Except - Well.

Human shaped.

"You'd be the first person to tell me fifty thousand for college is a bad idea. Why's that?" Her head tilts ever so slightly to the side, a palm coming up to catch her cheek in the inquiring gesture. "Is it because my goals don't exactly line up with.. Getting all book smart?"

She turns away when he whispers and she just shrugs a little bit. Her honest opinion comes out. "A lot of people in Levengard make me angry. They're so snobby and shitty to others, and I've seen them act high and mighty and wise to everyone that wasn't born in their settlement or attended their academy. Don't know how fond I am of going there more often than simply restocking my shop."

She takes in a deep breath and gives a mild sigh, shrugging her shoulders. "What's a girl to do, anyway? People can't play nice."
(Caira)
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[06:25] "I don' like school in general," he admits, trying to be honest. "I don't even go to Reimara. Mentorship is important, but I just get my teachin' in magic from someone directly, kinda like you're lookin' into. I never went to any classes in Leven, or signed up to be in the school. I learned from the world."

He probably sounds like one of those hippies or something, but he can't help it. This was just how he was. Being in one place too long made him restless. And on that note - he actually had somewhere to go soon.

"A lot of people in Levengard can be snobby, yeah," he permits, pretty effortlessly, seeming unfazed, as if he'd come to the exact same conclusion as she had. "But there're people like that everywhere ya' go, you know? That doesn't change. What leads me to always point people to Levengard is that at the very least, the magic that they teach there doesn't fuck 'yer life or the planet's the way Dawn's does. Because they offer ya' the chance to really discover who you are. The people in Levengard taught me so much about the world and myself without attendin' a single class - and Noel an' Calael and Taiga, I practically owe my life."

The boy looks out onto the seemingly endless roads, that stretches far, far beyond this place, an expanse that bleeds into the horizon, in the direction of Dawn.

"I jus' think if you give some more people a shot, you'd find a lot of 'em have hearts jus' as gold as yours. Maybe some of 'em a bit more jaded than others. But changing people starts with puttin' up with the people you're not too sure about." He takes a few steps in that direction, Dawn, his heart having told him that that should be his next destination. Why? No real reason in particular. He just always went with the flow. "Nothing, nobody's perfect. The world isn't perfect. But it's there for us, trying, everyday."

"That's what makes it so damn beautiful."

As he walks off in the moonlight, away from her, he waves to Caira.

"An' on that note - I need to go find a nice tree on the way to sit under. It was lovely to meet you Caira - I mean it. Stay safe in your travels."
(Siegfried)
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[06:25] Caira says, "You too, Siegfried."
[06:25] Caira says, "Maybe I'll see you on the road."
[06:25] Caira exclaims, "Take care!"

(Siegfried left after this, wandering slightly to the east of Gehenna.)

[11:08] Siegfried says, "..."
[11:10] Whither rovest thou?
The life thou pursuest thou shalt not find.
When the gods created mankind,
Death for him they set aside,
Life in their own hands retaining.

Siegfried had been writing down a poem in his book when she approached him. The woman who he'd seen so long ago, years now, at the age of fifteen. The wicked entity who'd had her eye seared out by Thalia and Magdalen in a duel where they'd only barely managed to overcome as two one mage.

He remembered the primordial power that she had possessed, something that had just been...wrong. Siegfried is foolish, but he is no moron. This was a dangerous person.

But there was always a chance that she had naught to say to him.

"Not trespassing anywhere, am I?" The wanderer asks, offering her a reserved smile as the book snaps shut.
(Siegfried)
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[11:15]
"At this particular moment, you could consider yourself free to travel where you please. This land...She doesn't belong to me yet. But she will soon enough." Her gaze would drift away, her body slowly beginning to turn towards that of Cruxati, "I decided to take a small trip down memory lane. You'd be...Surprised at all of the things that you could find in your past. Even when it comes to buried secrets...It's all so nostalgic."

A rather gentle smile would soon turn into what seemed to be a hardened stare. There is a growing animosity when she glances within the direction of what used to be her home...Only inciting her next few words as she turns back within his direction.

"Who are you loyal to?" A hand travels carefully towards the pommel of her scythe, her head tilting in a curious manner. Hm, hmm, hmmm.
(Ashalle)
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[11:21] Yet?

That certainly unnerved him. The notion that this woman would be in command of something so vast. An entire nation at her beck and call. But furthermore? Beyond that? There was also the confidence, the ease with which she expressed the idea. The way that a person talked about grabbing the bacon from the fridge was the ease Ashalle had just spoke of a nation someday belonging to her.

It was downright intimidating, to someone still so young and inexperienced, with naught to show for their pale conquests and slight victories on the playground.

"You're Gehennan," he realizes, noticing her features. He hadn't exactly been appraising what Ashalle looked like, last time, given that she had been threatening to murder the people who'd taken him in. "I...was just there. You know, you look like them - but you're...nothin' like 'em, really."

He remembers the plain brown little commonfolk and their sparring and their trivial conversation, and compares it to what is before him. The difference is night and day.

"My loyalty?" He asks, and despite his best efforts, she'd be able to tell he is very, very unnerved by the question. "...most of the people I know would be terrified I'm talking to you right now."

A deflection. A joke, to diffuse the situation, and to lead her astray from the real answer:

My loyalties are to your enemies.
(Siegfried)
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[11:28]
"What makes you think that I don't act Gehennan?" The hardened stare would narrow into fine, fuchsia daggers - the woman only offering him respite from the incredulous look with the fluttering of her eyelashes. A part of her almost seemed somewhat offended - however, she doesn't mind correcting people. "I am, by nature, what every Gehennan should look up to. However, if you're referring to members of Cruxati, well...You wouldn't be so wrong." What steadily replaces a growing irritation is slight amusement. A steady, slow smile appearing upon her features.

"Cowards, liars, traitors, pathetic weak foundering swine." Her words are slow- andyet, the mood seems to be rather happy. "The difference between members of Cruxati and I is that I make it very apparent when we are enemies, when we are at odds, when there is war to be had...And then challenges come my way. I am. I am what all in this world should aspire to be. I am. Human." And she is the most feared one amongst a land filled with daemons, demons, demi-angels, and beasts.

She is the one thing that will make a difference. However..
She hasn't forgotten.

"An appropriate response for them. However, you should answer the question. Who are you loyal to?"
(Ashalle)
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[11:40] Oh fuck, had he offended her?

Siegfried doesn't grovel before her feet in apology, but his heart does skip a beat as the two lock eyes. Naïve, swirling masses of bright green are mesmerized by the hostile fuchsia gaze.

"I didn't mean to offend, I just meant - yeah...what you said. They're different than you. More like me. Most, anyway." His hands raise up behind his head, and a wind blows by, whimsical and carefree as Siegfried painted himself to be - "They don't seem to want to conquer anything. They just wanna live. That's how I see things, too. Nothin' wrong with that, yeah?"

Somehow, the smile that slowly spreads on her face bothers him more than the previous, if slight and brief, malice. Especially when she goes on a rant about how pitiful the Cruxati are, and how proud she was that she declared enemies...

And then accepting challenges that come my way. I am. I am what all in this world should aspire to be. I am. Human.

Momentarily, he's taken aback - but then, when has he not been, in this conversation? His world comes to a halt if but for an idle second, and he'd attribute this later to have been no different than the moment of clarity right before a car crash.

"...Don't you ever get tired?" He asks, as if struggling to breathe in the place that this woman lives, like the air there was too thin. "Of running into challenges...and making enemies...isn't all of that...exhausting?"

And then, there it is again. That question. The one he doesn't want to answer. Because he is no liar. But he'd not have her answer it again - something told him this was not a patient person.

"I'm loyal to the people who want to make the world a better place. I'm loyal to the dreamers, and the believers, and all the people everyone calls dumb. I'm loyal to the people everyone tells to shut up because what they want isn't possible - a world free of the things that pervert life. Even I'm not crazy enough to think you can get rid of death and disease and famine...but for everyone to have a chance at a happy ending. I'm loyal to the people who kill slavedrivers and crush anyone whose only in Agartha to benefit themselves, and the ones directly beside them..."

He'd thought a lot about this, lately.

"I don't believe in any nation. I believe in people. I believe...that someone has to do the right thing."

Technically, he wasn't a student at Reimara academy, nor a resident of Huangzhou, Levengard, or Dawn...

He was just Siegfried.

The newspaper boy.
(Siegfried)
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[11:56]
"...I'm not sure what part of traitorous swine would coincide with people who just want to live. Cruxati has betrayed my trust, has lied to my face, has still not given me my reparations for all of the pain and suffering that I went through as a child." Her hand raises to her lips, stifling a heavy laugh as she continues. "They don't want to conquer anything that's stronger than them...But the moment you appear to be weak, when you are incapable of defending yourself, that is when their true nature comes out." She would not forget. How they attempted to rid her of tongue and hands. How they wanted to see her publicly beaten for wanting to get stronger to defend them.

The day they exposed her secrets through truth potion was the day she swore that she would get revenge. But who knew that revenge would be this sweet? Who knew that she would get this much fun out of something she shouldn't have?


"I normally don't answer questions with questions, but what do you believe life on Agartha is?" She murmurs, tilting her head. "Your entire life is dedicated to fighting - after all, there are scarce resources and even then, there are people willing to murder you not for what you've done. But for what you are." A pause is given.

"I don't get tired of fighting because I believe the moment that I stop fighting...Is the moment that everyone around me will die. I don't have that luxury." No. She fought her entire life from living in a single tower with ten children...To making a place she could call her own.

And much to her chagrin, even there, she is trapped. But still, she fights within her own way...Against the fallen angels, against those that try to control her, that try to force her to do what they desire.

"People are disappointing. However, since you're still young...I suppose that I can't really blame you for believing in others. Either way - I still want the same thing that I've always fought for. Freedom. However, there are times when we've no choice but to fight...Whether it be by an invisible hand or simply to protect those that you love, the truth is...My loyalty will always remain with humans...And I will not allow any light or dark entity to sway my decision. This war between holy and dark, good and evil...It's all so boring. All so cliché. I care not for the divine wars when I'd prefer to just end it all."

Why not just...
Return Agartha to what it was?
(Ashalle)
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[12:21] And for the millionth time today, and for the hundredth time in this conversation, he is shocked.

My loyalty will always remain with humans...and I will not allow any light or dark entity to sway my decision.

In another world, in which he hadn't encountered Taiga Rowan, Taiga Voss, or whatever it was he chose to call himself these days, where he'd been on a completely different part of the continent...would he have perhaps fell in with a different crowd? Idolized other people, who spoke of the same freedoms and liberties that he so cherished?

"I...I'm sorry."

It was so odd, and yet, he felt bad. A bad childhood? A rough set of teenage years? These things diminished what the experience surely had been, into something more dismissively relatable, but it was relatable. Siegfried had fled from home, much like Ashalle had, due to a disagreement with his parents, and never looked back. He could only imagine what it is that brought her such venom regarding the Cruxati, what she'd only hinted at, but it still hits him in his chest.

"Do ya' think hurting them will bring you peace?"

The question wasn't a bad one, the one she'd answered his own question with. And yet it seems so wholly cynical, he is forced to reject it, unable to bare that possibility.

"I don't think you're wrong, but I don't want you to be right, either. And...I think you, and one of my other friends would agree on a lot of things, if it wasn't for the fact you'd probably try an' kill each other on the spot," he said, eyes momentarily glazing over, as if his attention were drifting to somewhere far from here, somewhere she couldn't go... "But I think you, and him, and a lot of other people don't realize..."

His fist clenches. It could be perceived as a threatening notion, perhaps, but it would be like a child getting tense infront of an elder. Static electricity emits from his form, and wispy blue pyres of smoke, loosely wrapping around in the faint silhouette of an aura. It's there a second, and then it dwindles into nothingness, gone as quickly as it'd came.

"If everyone just worked together, the way you had to grow up could never happen to anyone else, ever again."

He was tired of being told he was young. That this was something he'd grow out of. Hated seeing Noel drinking himself into a stupor, or hearing Calael talk about how he'd tried and failed to change things when he was younger, saw Taiga with his head bowed, running from everything, as Siegfried himself was prone to do, heard Ethan talk about how using an innocent woman as bait was a necessity...

"I'm not fond of holy or dark figures, or good and evil either. But I believe in right and wrong. I believe that...people deserve to be saved. But that won't be by some angel with false promises, or some voice in your head, or a demon. I know in life, people will die. Places will change. I'll get old. Bad things will happen. But good things do, too. I love living. I love Agartha. But I'll make it better."

Change me?

They can try.

"I am and always will be the optimist, the hoper of far-flung hopes and the dreamer of improbable dreams."

His smile is boyish. White teeth shine pearly-white, his long, messy mop of hair framing his face, head tilted to the side as if he were perpetually challenging the world. Divinely inspired, or absolutely stark-raving mad - whatever Siegfried was, he was fueled by impulse, and rode the waves of spontaneity across the lands.

"Sorry to preach - but it sounds like in your version of freedom...the only one who's really free are you and everyone who accepts your way of thinking, who follow you. And you seem lovely - but I couldn't live in a world like that."
(Siegfried)
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[12:34]
"I don't need your pity." She doesn't need people to apologize for the things that others have done to her. She doesn't need people to feel bad about something that had made her far stronger than her oppressors. Either way - if anything, she should be thanking them for those sleepless nights...When she claimed that she was going to be somebody. When she claimed that she would make this entire world burn for never giving her a chance to prove herself. For never giving her or her family a chance to make things right again...

"Yes." Is it strange to answer that question so bluntly? "Do you think I attack people just to attack them? If that were the case, surely...I'd be holding your head in my hand at this particular moment. Nevertheless, all cities in this world tend to throw the rock and hide their hand...They try to act as if everything is fine when it is not...And when you make the problems apparent and bring truths to the world, they outright deny it. They 'claim' that you're evil when in reality...They're all just the same. Boring." She was tired of people wanting to be heroes. She was tired of people wanting to be 'the Villain', and honestly?

She was sick and fucking tired of these damned angels.

"You'll learn that I'm right. For as long as the light and dark in this world exist...There will always be a battle. There will be, in no capacity, unity in Agartha until you rid yourself of both sides." A pause is given, her hand reaching up - as if she could possibly embrace the very sun within her palm..

"Your dreams aren't so bad...But they won't come true as long as Levengard, Huangzhou, and Dawn still stand. That much is certain." She shrugs her shoulders...Waving a gentle hand. "But I suppose that I should commend you for sticking to your dreams. However.." She says while turning upon her heel while beginning to step away.

"I don't think that I've ever thought of it that way. Nor have I said anything about my own power...Other than being what people should aspire to be. Hmm...You almost sound like the rest of them. Disappointing. Ignorant." But does she attack him? No.

Instead, she would simply make her way off...Perhaps, perplexed. She was once called a tyrant but most others don't seem to understand the infrastructure of Briar Locke. While she may be a well-respected individual within her city...She is no leader. Merely a spokesperson that echoes the wants of her people.

"Either way, should you want to survive, I suggest you not involve yourself in this...'mess'. I wish I could stay and talk, but...I've to go. Spirits protect, boy."

(Ashalle)
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[12:52] …

I don't think that I've ever thought of it that way. Nor have I said anything about my own power...Other than being what people should aspire to be. Hmm...You almost sound like the rest of them. Disappointing. Ignorant.I>

He couldn't process why, but for some reason, the way she called him disappointing pissed him off.

"Everyone's got a game they're playing. I thought I had yours figured out," he admits, as she walks away. "But I guess not."

The lad sheepishly smiles, to mask how insulted he felt underneath the surface, and rubbed at the back of his head, as someone who would very likely be flinging himself at her and attacking if not for the lessons he'd learned over the years, ingrained in bones that still ached and other lasting afflictions. Still, in his eyes are raging tempests of emotion, ready to come unraveled at any moment.

"The rules of the game, and what the objective is, that's all that changes. But it all goes back to cards, you know," he says, speaking up if she was still walking, so she could hear him even as she made her exit. "The Queen is a highly desirable card. But because it's so desirable, and draws so much attention, that's it's undoing. To draw the eye of everyone in the world - it's dangerous."

He was projecting his own fears. That which made him shrink away from the attention, to nudge off praise and flee from the spotlight. He couldn't understand how she did it, refused to accept that there was someone out there who, deep down, wasn't afraid of public failure in the way he was.

"...if you tell me that to survive, I should stay out of this mess, and then, there you are, diving into the center..."

His voice is nary above a whisper.

"That must mean you want to die. You're suicidal."

He does not expect her to answer. He expects to remain here, pondering what Ashalle is as she walks away, and his eyes lock onto her figure as it vanishes into the rising sun, for as they talked...

Dusk was bleeding into dawn.
(Siegfried)
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[12:53] …

I don't think that I've ever thought of it that way. Nor have I said anything about my own power...Other than being what people should aspire to be. Hmm...You almost sound like the rest of them. Disappointing. Ignorant.

He couldn't process why, but for some reason, the way she called him disappointing pissed him off.

"Everyone's got a game they're playing. I thought I had yours figured out," he admits, as she walks away. "But I guess not."

The lad sheepishly smiles, to mask how insulted he felt underneath the surface, and rubbed at the back of his head, as someone who would very likely be flinging himself at her and attacking if not for the lessons he'd learned over the years, ingrained in bones that still ached and other lasting afflictions. Still, in his eyes are raging tempests of emotion, ready to come unraveled at any moment.

"The rules of the game, and what theobjective is, that's all that changes. But it all goes back to cards, you know," he says, speaking up if she was still walking, so she could hear him even as she made her exit. "The Queen is a highly desirable card. But because it's so desirable, and draws so much attention, that's it's undoing. To draw the eye of everyone in the world - it's dangerous."

He was projecting his own fears. That which made him shrink away from the attention, to nudge off praise and flee from the spotlight. He couldn't understand how she did it, refused to accept that there was someone out there who, deep down, wasn't afraid of public failure in the way he was.

"...if you tell me that to survive, I should stay out of this mess, and then, there you are, diving into the center..."

His voice is nary above a whisper.

"That must mean you want to die. That you're suicidal."

He does not expect her to answer. He expects to remain here, pondering what Ashalle is as she walks away, and his eyes lock onto her figure as it vanishes into the rising sun, for as they talked...

Dusk was bleeding into dawn.
(Siegfried)
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[13:01] …

I don't think that I've ever thought of it that way. Nor have I said anything about my own power...Other than being what people should aspire to be. Hmm...You almost sound like the rest of them. Disappointing. Ignorant.

He couldn't process why, but for some reason, the way she called him disappointing pissed him off.

"Everyone's got a game they're playing. I thought I had yours figured out," he admits, as she walks away. "But I guess not."

The lad sheepishly smiles, to mask how insulted he felt underneath the surface, and rubbed at the back of his head, as someone who would very likely be flinging himself at her and attacking if not for the lessons he'd learned over the years, ingrained in bones that still ached and other lasting afflictions. Still, in his eyes are raging tempests of emotion, ready to come unraveled at any moment.

"The rules of the game, and what the objective is, that's all that changes. But it all goes back to cards, you know," he says, speaking up if she was still walking, so she could hear him even as she made her exit. "The Queen is a highly desirable card. But because it's so desirable, and draws so much attention, that's it's undoing. To draw the eye of everyone in the world - it's dangerous."

He was projecting his own fears. That which made him shrink away from the attention, to nudge off praise and flee from the spotlight. He couldn't understand how she did it, refused to accept that there was someone out there who, deep down, wasn't afraid of public failure in the way he was.

"...if you tell me that to survive, I should stay out of this mess, and then, there you are, diving into the center..."

His voice is nary above a whisper.

"That must mean you want to die. You're suicidal."

He does not expect her to answer. He expects to remain here, pondering what Ashalle is as she walks away, and his eyes lock onto her figure as it vanishes into the rising sun, for as they talked...

Dusk was bleeding into dawn.

(Siegfried)
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[13:04]
"Game..." She wasn't sure if she liked the sound of it. But considering the fact that everyone is a part of this so-called game...She had no choice to accept it. When the majority of the realm calls you evil, you are immediately placed into the antagonist role...Even when you are, for the most part, cozy within your own solitude. Such life can be rather grating, however, she had gotten used to it...If only because it's annoying to hear others repeat the same thing over and over again.

You're a tyrant.
Selfish Queen.
You're just like Sors.

But in reality, she's neither of the sort. Nor has she ever given herself such a grand title. People call her these things because it is what is expected of her to be. The one that dominates the world - the one that brings people to their knees despite doing everything right. Her entire life, she has went on a merciless killing spree - ending the lives of their enemies...

But when all is said and done - when she has never ended the life of an innocent, what is there to show for her own actions other than ridicule and more? Members of Levengarde and Huangzhou were fine when she was massacring their enemies. But the moment conflict comes their way...They scream like all the others..

"..I never asked to be what they make me. I never said that I was a Queen, that I wanted to rule this world. But what I do want is what everyone wants...Just in different shades, I suppose. If fighting for freedom makes me suicidal then.." A pause is given, a stare towards the rising sun..

"Maybe I want to die..."
(Ashalle)
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[13:19] …

Was that it?

Were they all merely playing a role, in an endless game? The very same game that he had just invoked, told Ashalle about, that had often in the past made him feel liberated, now claws at him and brings him restlessness. But it's because he's growing up. No longer does it comfort him to think that nothing matters and he could just shirk his responsibilities. He disgusts himself. He hates himself. So much so that his very magic has began to work against him...

Ashalle was 'forced', guided into a role by fate that she, herself, didn't actually want to play? Was that her gist? Or was that merely what he was wrongfully interpreting?

A game of protagonists, and antagonists, deuteragonists, secondary and tertiary characters, background characters. To categorize life into things like his games or his novels - it was all a way to detach himself from the cold hard truth of how much he absolutely fucking despised his reality. That was all it'd ever been.

He realizes this as Ashalle looks into the rising sun, and as she does, he looks with her. It is a new day. The sun is up. Twenty four new hours.

"I...believe the dead should sleep, and that Sors Ultovex needs to die, because the things he's done are unforgivable," he admits to her, far too vocal, given that there are still things he must attend to in Dawn, and things he must say and do before he dies, and it is is wholly idiotic to go telling one of that nation's allies that it's leader should be slain. "And if I must die to shift things in the direction I want to go, who am I in the face of the thousands of lives I can make better?"

"Where I grew up, with my parents, nobles, when the sun rose into the sky, I hated the wind. When I'd do or says they didn't like, they'd have me sleep like the slaves, in the shed. When the moon climbed into the dark of night, a frigid gale pierced that shed. No matter when it came, the wind carried the same thing... cold, and pain. But the winds that blew across the green fields brought something other than suffering and ruin. I coveted that wind. So I ran from home, and I've followed the wind I hated as a child, to bigger, and better things."

It is time for them to part.

"I know you in fire and ash and soot and dread as Ashalle - so know the name Siegfried, and know that right now, it's the name on the tongue of the winds. But know that I see more than people think," he breathes into the world. "I see someone...who wants so much more than people have to give...I see.."

His lips quirk, but had it been a smile, when he left the clearing? Who knew. It was like a flash of lightning - him, something so natural, aided by magic that came to him subconsciously, never having been pushed to it's limit,as the swordsman only took what he needed to be a blademaster and let the magic do as it would otherwise..

"Some of me."

And maybe he was wrong. Maybe she'd laugh at the notion. But to both have roles to play in this world, from expectations from birth, thrust into unfamiliar situations and looked to...

Well, I'm sure not just Siegfried and Ashalle, but even many who would read this can relate.
(Siegfried)
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[13:26] Kött would sprint to the location Arlei mentioned. Yup, sure enough, she was here.
(Kött Mori)
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[13:27]
Briar Locke's survival rests upon the notion of her siding with the angels. When they first came into her city - the proposal was hidden behind false smiles and promises. Something, in which, she wasn't too foolish to accept. However, when the threatens came upon the heels of her doubt, she realized that they didn't want others. They didn't care for the Mori Clan, nor did they care for Ahmir, or Laemor. What they had wanted was her...To be the leading factor within their armies. To push the envelope and force change within this realm. And with just a sheer amount of power...Killing everything within the city by simply opening their wings...She had no choice.

She was given this world.
And if you're forced into an unfavorable situation, your best bet is to make the most out of it, is it not? Nevertheless, she was caged within her own right. A bird wishing to extend it's wings, fighting, professing for the freedom of humanity while being shackled by the very thing she said that she fights against...

It must be funny, right?

Nevertheless, as he continues, she seemingly smiles. Of course, she has a way of wording things that inherently pisses people off - but that's never really the true goal. What she had meant when she wanted people to 'admire' her and 'live up to her'....Is that she had wanted humanity to see itself within her. How they can easily be trapped, but still, hold some type of 'dignity'...

Either way..

"In any case, it was a pleasure meeting you. Goodbye for now."
(Ashalle)