RP:Budding Liaison Seeks Court with Frostmaw's Queen
Shrine of Aramoth
Reginae moves through the snow with relative ease on legs instead of a customary tail. The weather here made it nearly impossible to travel without transforming. In truth, she doesn't appear very threatening or intimidating. Standing about 4', as a human, the naga almost looks like a child. It was easier, she reasoned, to maintain body heat if you were something smaller. Occasionally, she will stop as ask for directions towards where the Queen might be. A few hesitant looks remind her that there is still a war in this region, and the people are very much aware of the dangerous this possess. One particular stranger spat in her face when she inquired. He must has sensed she was no mere human child. Where would she find the Lady ruler of the lands? The cold began to take it's toll on Regi, and she found herself ducking into the next building; A shrine of Aramoth. With a weighted sigh, the woman sheds some of her furs and moves around the familiar arkon. A beacon of hope, perhaps, in this frosty realm. A linking idea that might bring this alliance to fruition.
As luck would have it, Satoshi is happening past the entrance to the shrine when she catches sight of the strange girl. Or perhaps it isn't luck, as the magus shows no expression of surprise, only slowing to a halt at the doorway, silently observing. This is Frostmaw, after all, and she is it's ice-souled queen, even the winds carry whispers of information to her vulpine ears, making it a tricky matter indeed to catch Satoshi unawares in her territory. The ghost of a smirk twitches the corner of her lips as Satoshi leans against the doorjam. For the time being, she makes no sound or greeting. Content to watch the stranger. For you can learn much about a person, if you observe them when they believe they're alone~.
The naga took a moment for herself, hands clasped together before firmly shut lids. When the moment passed small hairs on the base of her spine stood at attention. Though it might have looked strange, she bent down and began removing her clothing, layer by ever-lasting frozen layer until she appeared as a small human child, shapeless and un-budding, in the frosty air. Here, she shifts. Threads of skin shredding away from her hips, legs melding together as if touched by invisible fire, crisp snowflake-like scales sprouting along a newly rebuilt nagan tail. The shift took a few moments, slowed by the cold and the lack of concentration Reginae was suffering from. When it completed, she drew in a sharp but relaxed breath and shifted her gaze towards the shadow in the doorway. Her silent words to Aramoth were spoken, heartstrings plucked for the sake of civilization as she knew. Now, there stood a stranger, and if she were a more frightened beast, Regi might have attempted to spring into action. Instead, the heir shifted her narrowed pupils back to the shrine and spoke aloud to the woman just out of sight. “Who do I have the pleasure of entertaining?” She asked, half-heartedly expected a response. The naga was aware that the creature cloaked in shadow had no reason to answer beyond desire to. “It is a sacred thing, to shift. A ritual reserved for lovers or perhaps enemies before their swift but eventually conclusion.” A slight shift of her head brings shards of ivory locks into vision, her eyes groping the distance, listening intently for any sound. “Which are we bound to be?”
Like Aramoth's stone-carved eyes overhead, Satoshi's are unmoving. Yet life is clearly apparent within them, azure depths flecked with an infernal, blazing amber, as animated as the rest of her is not. Silence shrouds the magus in the same manner as the frosted fog hanging off her shoulders, and for a long moment it seems she won't be answering the naga until, with a sighing laugh, Satoshi straightens and steps forward. With ease she falls into a fluid bow, eyes never lowered from the naga while nine vulpine tails unfurl behind her. "Sacred acts should be kept behind firm doors then, should they not?" Her voice travels with ease through the room despite its soft, half-whispered nature, and tickles at the ears with the promise of a melody woven beneath. "It hardly seems fair if one es coming to pay worship to Aramoth et happens upon a private ritual being held in public space. As for your question.." Satoshi's hands are spread wide, as if to declare herself unarmed. And yet, the glowing outline of runes on each palm suggests a magical nature to her. Coupled with the deepening chill of the room and the thickening of the snowcloak about her shoulders, Satoshi paints the image of one perfectly at ease in her surroundings, the tip of an iceberg with much more looming beneath the surface than what is seen. "I am married et will take no other as my lover. Thus, you're welcome to attempt to follow through with the other." A vulpine grin draws back Satoshi's lips, revealing fangs and an expression that clearly says 'many have tried'.
With all the grace and poise of a flamenco dancer, Reginae finds her way closer to the female, even on her notably muscular tail. Her face dons the expression of amusement, laced with trails of colorful respect for the woman's blunt speech. A small laugh pierces her own fanged grin. “I did not come seeking any creature for blood or with any otherwise lustful intentions. I am seeking the Lady Queen of Frostmaw. From what little information I have been able to gather from the natives...you seem to fit her fiery spirit and bare her mark of frost-brand beauty and temperance.” A smirk, a pause in speech, and the Naga looks over the stranger for any reaction to her accusations. Reginae had hoped to be better prepared for this meeting, more so than she had been when she had stumbled upon one of Vailkrin's twin leaders without knowing his face. It was worth the embarrassment to meet that small creature perched on his head. In fact, the woman's ears resembled those same shapes as the kit with Kasyr. “I don't suppose you are a shape shifter by trade?” The question came as an after thought, a suspicion that would neither bond or break what little lay between them now. Reginae took this moment to quiet, look the magus over, smile and above all, listen.
Answer comes in the form of another bow, this one of a more polite nature than the last and including a flourish of the arm. "And you are Reginae. 'The Other'." A shot in the dark, perhaps, but then Satoshi is nocturnal, such shots are not nearly as risky as they appear on the surface. After all, "You spoke to my husband already, I was wondering when you'd make your way here." It was only a matter of time. As if feeling the naga's scrutiny, Satoshi's ears give a wiggle then. While she speaks, the kit's body language shifts, the prior predatory tension melting into playful ease--yet, beneath the chipper surface still looms that fanged shadow, always ready to spring. One does not become the queen of Frostmaw by being unawares. The naga will find Satoshi's own amber-flecked eyes examining her, in the same way Reginae is eying the kit. The similarity is enough to draw the hint of a smirk to Satoshi's lips as she replies to the odd question, "By trade, I am a magus. By skill, I can adopt a shape or two, although I would not title myself 'shapeshifter'. They specialize in far more diversity. Mine is inherent and restricted." A naga could likely understand that.
As if on cue, the naga dipped at the name Satoshi offered her. “I am indeed.” While her own bows were graceful, they were also wide, including the length of tail coiled beneath her human-like torso. “Your husband has a rather caring heart, and good taste in companions from what I've gathered thus far.” She spoke both of Casper, and of course, the Lady before her. The feline similarities softened the naga's otherwise wrought iron heart. Something about them caused a calmness in her, a calmness that did not remove her awareness, but laxed her muscles and eased her smile. Reginae hoped such a friendship would be born here, though she had yet to prove her regal blood line. A liaison title would just have to do in the meantime. “It might be interesting to shift together, should the time ever arise. It has been a long time since a close companion bond of such nature has been formed. I mean no disrespect of course. Shifting is a marvelous talent, and I've seen none beyond my own race's practices. You hold a powerful air around you. I hope to reach out to you as I did with your husband, though I knew him not as such at the time.” Slender, snow-colored tresses round her shoulders as she shifts her weight between sections of her ice-like tail. “Please, Lady, I request a union of our forces. I offer whatever aid I can to this city, as I've heard a great war has been dwelling here as of late. I request, in turn, assistance that you can spare after your recovery to the revitalization project in Alithrya.” A strangely honest gaze crosses over the kit, not a begging plea by any means, but with as much self respect and notable honor, the “other” continues. “The naga are in need of assistance, and such ties would not be forgotten. Our numbers are too few to ascertain our goals, alone.”
Satoshi is intrigued for one simple reason: this naga is the first diplomat to come to her offering aid first, before asking for anything in return. Every other has come seeking favor, arms, warriors, and gold, with nothing to offer Frostmaw or herself. It's this that catches in the magus' ears and causes her to look at Reginae from a different angle. When the naga finishes speaking, Satoshi takes a long moment to merely stare steadily at her before she replies. When she does, the words are a peculiar mixture, both soft and firm, the tickle of snowflakes that promise a glacier's force behind them. "And what are you goals? I will not question whether you have the rights or means to offer Alithryan forces, time determines such things. But your goals are of importance. I do not commit myself or Frostmaw without knowing the driving force behind it. Especially when it comes to a city and people that have played lackey--and punching bag--to the Time Lord." The air around Satoshi bristles with half-frozen moisture, gathering like a shroud of razors about her form. It is a common known fact that Frostmaw, like Vailkrin, is a fierce enemy of Vuryal, having destroyed more than its fair share of his followers when they dared set foot upon Satoshi's snows. Territorial, vain, and vengeful, the magus will never ally in any way with the Leech after he'd betrayed her.
Reginae's face falls into the shadow of understanding. “I spoke with your husband about what' took place before my involvement. He told me of Jaize's alliance with the Time Lord and his utter destruction of what little remained to begin with...gutting the city for his own purposes. I've not heard a single good word from any creature's mouth about the tyrant and I have no intentions of aligning forces with him as my sister did.” Pausing, the personal note not all together inaccurate, but still. The naga did not wish to draw further suspicion to her proclamation by binding her blood line to the ruler before her, who had done little but damn the city further in her greed to possess the title she was bred to don. “To rejoin the time flow is a hard enough experience. There are barely any shops, any citizens left to call Alithrya a city. It is like being reborn into a ghost town, a shell of a wonderful culture that was broken down and exploited because there was no one to stand up and protest. Because our voices were frozen, and we were trapped outside of it's grasp. Coming home and having -this- as your home...” Closing her eyes, The Other fights a sizzling urge to thrust her fists to the ground. To release a bubbling rage that she could not quell without first quenching the fire in her heart. She had so many reasons to just walk away and build a new life in another city, shape shift into a guise that no mortal could break and just exist in this plane for as long as she saw fit to do so...but...Savrix had been right, and so had Kasyr. There were more often less selfish reasons to fight for what was most difficult, and it seemed that it was in her hands to propel forward for the time being. “I vow to never raise my voice in unison with the Time Lord's, with this vision of destruction he's left in his wake. My voice, and my goal, remain with Alithrya.” There is a silent moment between them now, both women likely thinking over their own perspective thoughts. There are demons in us that tend to bark when we are the most unaware, the most quiet inside our own minds. “Have you seen the city?” Reginae asks, allowing the kit a moment, before turning her back to her to conjure an illusioned vision upon the wall of Aramoth's shrine of the wreckage she could remember. Naga homes, half submerged, vile beasts within the city walls, even the taverns and small buildings such as the run down bank, were missing chunks of their walls. If she had more a heart to, the woman might have cried.
Silent throughout, Satoshi simply lets Reginae speak while watching the naga closely. There is much one can learn about a stranger by observing, especially when they're discussing matters that are dear and close. It is clear this naga cares for her homeland--or is an exceptional enough actress to dupe even Satoshi--that the magus finds herself nodding along, understanding. Upon witnessing the illusion display, Satoshi dips her head, expression solemn. While she is not a devout follower of Aramoth, she carries a deep respect for him after her years in Frostmaw, so it is a wound to see his shrine in shambles. "In a way, your people are kin to mine. Children of Aramoth. You understand that from birth to death, we are on a battlefield every day, every moment, every breath. As such, I am willing to assist your endeavours, so long as said endeavours remain as you've described. You work to better your people and your home, you will not bend to the Time Leech's false promises, however tempting, and you will give your all for the sake of Alithrya. A city, a queen, is nothing without its people, it is an empty crown for an arrogant soul. Work for the people. Do this, and you will find no enemy among Frostmaw. Do otherwise, and learn why Winter is both feared and loved by us." It's then that Satoshi bows to the naga, this time letting her gaze drop in the motion, both as a symbol of respect and an unspoken 'I do not fear taking my eyes off a predator'. It is another thing kit and naga have in common, perhaps, an understanding of the subtleties of body language, the dynamics of predator and prey, and just how much louder actions speak than words. Satoshi can only hope Reginae's actions prove to be even more potent than her passionate speech.
Reginae watches the illusioned images as if it is the first time she’s seem them. Though she is the conjurer behind their manifestation, it still broken her heart to see things so condemned, so rotten and shaken. So completely torn. As the wisps fall away like tattered fabric, she turns back to hear the Magus’ words. It was done, then. Children of Aramoth, Regi admitted to herself silently that she liked the sound of that. When they had built an army worth naming, she would grant them this title in the hopes that they remembered who they fought for. Every breath was a battle won, as Satoshi said, and there was nothing Reginae could agree with more. As Satoshi bows, so does the Naga, their postures and thoughts in sync for a moment. There was something akin to comradery between them. They thought along similar lines, and for Regi, this meant it would be a powerful alliance and perhaps evens a friendship in years to come. Who knows how these things are destined to play out? It was clear the kit was a strong, kind hearted but ruthless leader who would not stand to be betrayed. The Other considered herself in a similar light. Satoshi would not hesitate to strike if the Naga gave her a reason, and thus she would not do so. Instead, Reginae will smile once the kit rights herself and their eyes are able to lock in mutual understanding once more. “I thank you, for your words, time and understanding. Now that the formal things seem to be out of the way…” The Naga approaches carefully, lowering her stance to match Satoshi’s height level for the comfort of both involved and held her hand out to shake it warmly. “Please tell me what I might do to be of service here in Frostmaw.”
"In all honesty?" Satoshi asks, as she extends her own hand to shake the naga's. Handshakes with the magus are never a pleasant thing, for despite the layer of glove her flesh is arctic to the touch and tends to inflict an unpleasant degree of cold upon others. It's no small wonder most avoid any form of physical contact with Satoshi. But the naga has offered, and Satoshi will not refuse such a gesture based on prior experiences. She'll just be sure to release as soon as Reginae does, to keep the cold-blooded naga from overexposure. "With the war concluded, my people are focused on rebuilding and recovering. We do not require much aid in those affairs, as they're labors we're long used to. However, you seem to be in a prime position for obtaining information. As mentioned, the Time Leech favors using your homeland as his base of operation, sucking the lands dry of their resources. Et as you likely know too, Frostmaw and Vailkrin are dedicated enemies of him. If you wish to offer aid, keep your ear to the ground. We could use any information you find about his movements or motives. It es difficult for those not of the naga race to move through Alithrya unnoticed, thus it makes scouting... tedious."
It took barely hovering near the kit for small ice crystals to begin forming on the naga’s palm. So cold it felt like the belly of a great fire, but the naga got one firm shake in before recovering her fingers and rubbing them in a fashion that seemed like an afterthought. A smile fell on her lips at the task, and her fingers as they slowly regain their feeling. “If there is one thing I can do, it is scout and blend. That should be of no trouble to me or my kin. Those left in the city would almost immediately raise alarm if he were sighted. But I sure if he decides to re-emerge it won’t be as simple as someone spotting him travelling any underwater roads.” The Other pauses, thinking something over quite seriously by the expression she dons for a moment, before smiling and speaking again. “I do hope that he is long gone. But you and Kasyr will be the first to know if he should rear his head in Alithrya again, and such knowledge comes to my attention. Of that much, I can assure you.” The moonlight entering the shrine was cut into several fragments by the ice and snow abound. It truly was beautiful here, but the naga could not help but miss warmer climates. “My Lady, I do hope this proves fruitful for both our causes. And please, visit or send a missive should you ever need anything. If you would kindly excuse me, I believe I should begin tending to the task of my ears on the ground.” The phrasing was a little strange, but Regi understood what Satoshi asked of her.
Satoshi's answer is a bow to the naga and a step to one side, allowing Reginae to pass without obstacle. "I shall do that. Until then, may your mind stay as sharp as your fangs, for your people deserve the chance to live and thrive once more without the Leech pressing them underfoot."