RP:The Song Remains the Same

From HollowWiki

Open Snowfield

The open field is calm and quiet, as you glance around you hear no wind, and see no blowing snow. The still is unnatural, without wildlife or weather causing the slightest disturbance. Strangely this place feels entirely different from the hunting grounds and other snow covered places; the feeling is eerie, as if ancient spirits silently watch your progress through their lands. No hostility can be felt in the air, only that stern watchfulness, as if the land's unseen guardians are willing to allow you passage so long as you bring no discord with you. If you glance to the west, you can see the restored buildings among the ruins easier, while to the east, you can see an icy bridge leading back towards the hunting grounds.




Kirien looks as though he has not moved in a very long time. It’s as if he is simply part of the scenery and has been here for centuries, is -meant- to be here, as much as the cold, grey mountains and the trees clinging to their slopes. Utterly devoid of motion, the genasi stands in the middle of the snowfield; a blot on the landscape that simultaneously stands out and blends in with the bleaker background, much like the windblown ruins with their whispering ghosts. Snow fallen earlier has gathered around his legs and reaches mid-way up his thighs, and his shoulders are covered in a thick layer of white, and ice crystals cling to his eye lashes. Kirien notices none of this. It’s the gate he watches with unseeing eyes, staring quietly, lost in his own little world. And he is serene - this is the emotion that stands out the clearest with him, as well as a lingering touch of wonderment, the lilt of curiosities and flashes of familiar memories.


Satoshi is as fluid as Kirien is immobile, moving along cliffs one moment, flitting among trees the next, then drifting across the field as lightly as the descending snowflakes. Despite a lack of wind, her hair flows ceaselessly about her in separate rhythm to her perpetually dancing tails and the mistweave cloak about her shoulders. She is everything but stationary. A snowy breeze to the earth genasi's stoic boulder. And as is ever destined for such beings, the unstoppable encounters the immovable in time. Satoshi brushes past Kirien, a ghost wisping by, overlooking her Kindred Spirit until she's a number of paces away. A sound escapes the magus then, a musical note of question and surprise. Even Satoshi's means of halting carries an undertone of movement, momentum shifted as if she were liquid, so that she's then suddenly turned around and facing the red fox, then approaching, then darting back and forth as quick and curious as a small bird. With each change of direction, the kit sends out a questing finger to lightly peck at Kirien: a jab to a cheek, a nudge to a shoulder, a tug to a sleeve, a flick to an ear, a rapid series of short, inquisitive contact to the unmoving rock.


Kirien does not move, not at first. Each of Satoshi’s numerous prods and pokes, endeavours to shake his dreamlike focus on the gate, are met with the same impervious unresponsiveness that comes with trying to coax a dance out of a boulder. Eventually, however, each of these jabs and tugs begins to provoke a reaction in the stoic man. It seems these motions, too, strike a similar note of familiarity in him for Kirien blinks once, owlishly, and then very slowly turns his head to the side. His attempts to follow Satoshi’s movements are at first unsuccessful, and in the end he settles for looking back at the gate, but with a distinctly distracted air about him now as he’s clearly paying more attention to the figment dancing circles around him in the snow. He twitches an ear and rolls his shoulders, brows furrowing. “You...no...” He shakes his head to dislodge whatever train of thought he’d carried and at that moment reaches out, managing to brush his fingertips against his Kindred Spirit’s when she makes her next pass at him. And he smiles. “...Chickadee. The winter’s song to fill my quiet valleys.”


Satoshi's fingers move to deliver a swift squeeze to Kirien's own when they reach out, and just as quickly she releases him, on the move again. "There'll be no quiet valleys soon~. Winter's singing of one last storm to shake the lands, before it goes back to sleep. It's why I'm out here, to greet it. But why're -you- out here, Bright Eye?" Like her feet, Satoshi's words rise and fall, their sound a dance in and of itself. She makes no remark on the time Kirien's been away. She doesn't feel time in that way, only the taste of the air that has or hasn't been touched by his presence. She prefers the metallic, warm scents that the wind carries when the terramancer is near, it's far better than the scent of his absence, as empty and dusty as a room long ago and rapidly vacated. Each of the Coterie Satoshi senses in this way, and it's the closest she's gotten to understanding what it means to 'miss' someone, that distinct lack of them in the air.


Kirien is not sure he’s in possession of the answer to that question, not one that makes any sense at least. A squeeze to his fingertips and the world flashes by, that single instant of contact bringing with it a dizzying whirl of visions; of songs and light-hearted games and, more recently, a time where they fought together, tooth and claw against ruinous evil, and changed together. He lifts his gaze to the sky, thinking of the snowflakes and gathering storm clouds he might see. “I suppose I’m here to greet it too,” he answers with a faint shrug. “In the manner that one welcomes back an old friend...understand, I think. I haven’t felt a storm in a while. You don’t get those, down in the dark. It’s just quiet and still down there.” And he longs for it, to feel the frigid blast of wintry air against his face, snow pelting his body, the northern wind ripping the borrowed air out of his lungs and embracing him, simultaneously - it’s a sensation Kirien remembers but he wants to -feel- it, because this time will be like the first time all over again. Perhaps, distracted by his rambling, Satoshi might not notice the fact that his fingers felt strangely rigid under the gloves covering them, or that the distinct presence of gemstone beneath his skin, the same as the heart she knows turned to crystal, has spread its creeping fingers further across his body and infected more of him.


Satoshi settles into place beside Kirien to stare off toward the gate, and the looming black clouds visible around and beyond them. Even standing, however, the kit is still in motion, rocking back and forth on her heels to draw a melodic series of crunches out of the snow beneath her feet. The air is too alive, the snow singing and skies growling, for her to be still. She can feel it all calling to her to come and join them in their song and dance, to celebrate the Winter's final storm and eventually welcome the weak branch of Spring that dares venture this far north. "I'm glad I can greet it with you, then, Bright Eye. And glad I found you out here. I've something you might like, I think. A curious sort of stone. Rather rare and difficult to get one's paws on. I'm wondering if you've the ability to give it shape, as the stories I found on it claim no tool has the ability to alter it, stronger than Adamant it is." As she speaks, Satoshi fishes the item out of her coat and holds it out for Kirien to take. The stone is of fair size, fitting comfortably in the palm of a hand, and perfectly round. Its color is a strange purplish black, almost smoky in nature as if in truth it's a globe filled with a visible gas inside. But it's quite, quite solid, and would truly give a diamond a run for its money on durability. Nothing Satoshi has taken to it has caused so much as the hint of a scratch. "It's called Draconite." A stone of legend, with properties only whispered of among scholars. For Kirien, he may be able to sense the stone's abilities, as it gives off a searching aura, a desire to find all poisons--physical, magical, spiritual, and figurative--and draw them out to be absorb into the prison of its sphere. Like dragon blood serving as a cure-all to disease, draconite is an antidote to any breed of toxin.


Kirien wonders absently is he should be concerned about his lack of response to the cold. Even before, as a vampire, he still sometimes felt the biting chill and the sensation of blue, frostbitten cheeks was not a wholly welcome one. Now...well, now he is so much more akin to a rock, content to sit where he is and endure the storm, and shake off Winter’s coat as it melts in the brief Spring to follow. “Something I might like?” He’s glad too, but he doesn’t quite say it through words. Instead a subtle emotion drifts from him, floating, drifting and dancing around Satoshi as if mimicking her own excitable behaviour; that is the extent of Kirien’s motion at this moment. Without taking his eyes off the gate, he catches the spherical stone in his palm, gauging its weight and its seeking fingertips. It seems to try to latch on to some hidden negativity, some secret tucked deep and dark within him, and he shakes his head. “No, no,” whispers the genasi in an almost chiding tone, lifting the stone to eye level so as to blindly scrutinise it, “Those are mine and part of me. Hildegarde and I had to fight a...bear-thing to get them back and I won’t have you eating them up. They’re mine now, not the throne’s, and they give some sort of a validation of my existence.” He frowns a touch then squints sidelong at Satoshi. “Why, dare I ask, do you want to change its shape? And what would you want to turn it into, even? Also...where did you get it? I might have only come across draconite once or twice before, but I can’t really remember. It’s incredibly rare, though. Rarer than my firestones.”


Satoshi is one person that wouldn't look twice at Kirien talking to a stone. After all, this is a magus that holds conversation with snowfall, it's not exactly a stretch of the imagination for the terramancer to speak to rocks himself. While Kirien talks, Satoshi stares ahead with an ear turned his way. At his questions, she dips her head in a thoughtful nod before answering, "I need a key unlike any other, that stone is the perfect material for it. It doesn't need to be a big key, either, so's you can have some of it too, if you like. That stone's as dragon-ish as its origins after all, thus it'd be the perfect key to guard and lock a very valuable object. As for where I got it... I'll show you later on, eh? It'd be no fun to tell~."


Svilfon shouted, "*A huge ball of fire appears in the air above Frostmaw, briefly illuminating it in an eerie glow, before vanishing... a patch of rare blue sky is seen where the clouds were devoured, though it doesn't take long for the wintery skies to once again reclaim the spot*"


“A key? Then you’ll need to provide me with the lock I’ll be moulding it to fit, right?” A small smile works its way onto the man’s lips - he turns the stone in his hands, transferring it from one palm to the other, humming thoughtfully to himself as he considers the possibilities. His admiration for the material is clear, from the way he handles it with respectful care, to the fact that he has yet to attempt reshaping it in any way. For a long minute after that, Kirien remains silent but his lips are moving, speaking soft, silent words to the stone. It’s one thing he still feels totally comfortable with, his tether to the ground; the truest part of the aspect of him that was born in House Stavret, that shares that strong tie to terramancy. “As for shaping it, yes, I can do that. I suppose there’s an advantage to all...this.” He shrugs, vaguely.


Satoshi rocks back on her heels, teetering on the edge as she ponders Kirien's question. How can she describe the lock? It does not yet have a concrete form, after all. However, it does have an ethereal one. In the blink of an eye, the kit vanishes from where she's balanced, to suddenly appear in a flurry of snow directly in front of Kirien. "The lock is this." Without warning or permission, Satoshi rises up on her tip-toes and presses her lips to the terramancer's. The kiss is one born purely from familial affection, no different in Satoshi's mind than any other contact she's shared with the foxkin, and yet carried with it is a spark. Not electric in nature, but instead cold, a cold that runs deep and fierce like the arctic winds of Frostmaw in the grips of Winter. It is a spark of the azure flames, the physical manifestation of the eidolon's soul, a tiny piece entrusted to the terramancer now. And with the spark, a vague understanding, that the key is intended to be tied with that ghostly fire made solid, an earthly key to an arctic lock, both constructed to guard an item too dangerous and valuable to be left open to the world. As swiftly as the kiss is delivered, it is ended, and Satoshi is once more standing beside Kirien and rocking on her heels, a soft, amused hum coming from her.


Satoshi spots the fiery display in the sky and simply shakes her head, muttering, "Wizards."


Daisy shouted, "I'm a wizard!"


He feels it mere seconds before it arrives; the phantom burn of ice and snowflakes against his mouth, like the growing winter storm writhing darkly on the horizon. The emotions shift, rising up along with Satoshi to wash over his face in a languid wave, a breath of mixed air and sheer sensation that’s chilly and playful, and it reveals the secrets of this supposed lock in its ebbing, invisible current. This touch, this soft kiss to his mouth, is not unwelcome and also taken fairly lightly, after a brief spark of surprise - he knows what it is and understands at heart, perhaps better than anyone, that the bonds binding them are familial and influential and complementary, but they will not progress further than that. Still, it’s somewhat mind-blowing for all it is. Kirien finds it difficult to concentrate on the reason she kissed him in the first place, actually. Instead he is distracted by the clash of elements that occurs in the briefest exchange of lips on lips-- where, just for a second, they appear to create their own storm, by themselves and for the two of them only, within the whirlwinds of which they stand connected, the same as Winter touches upon the surrounding landscape. Frost spreads over his lips and the extent of his unseen problem is made evident to Satoshi in turn, shared through the conduit. She receives this information as he acquires knowledge of the lock’s purpose, shadowed and unclear, but where one thing is distinct: he is dying, in some sense of the word. It consumes him like a disease and it cannot be stopped, and Kirien, surprisingly, is entirely accepting of it. He seems aware of what she learned because a faint sadness has entered his expression by the time she draws back, but the man smiles all the same. “...It’s a means to an End, and maybe a new Beginning,” he ventures at last, softly. “So the elementals told me, at least. That the draconite doesn’t consider it a poison means it’s true, I suppose.” A pause. “...I’m also quite certain that you’ve never done that before. And I think I know what you mean, now.”


Satoshi has her own chance to be surprised. It's enough to finally bring the energized eidolon to a standstill as her mind absorbs what she's gleaned from Kirien. His words reach her as if from a distance, responded to with a numb nod before, blinking owlishly, the kit straightens abruptly. "New beginnings, yes, precisely. You've faced an end before, and became what you are now. Death's embraces aren't permanent, for the ones wily enough to slip out of His arms~." The words are confident, defiant, and far from a futile attempt to convince herself or Kirien. She -knows- this won't stop her Kindred Spirit. It didn't stop her. It won't stop him. However, to avoid dwelling on the subject longer, Satoshi flashes the terramancer a lopsided grin followed by a flip of her hair. "Don't get used to it. That was a one time only deal, and necessary. I'm a one-vampire kind of fox, y'know."


Kirien carefully balances the draconite under his chin, tucking it close in the hollow of his collarbone, while he tugs off both his gloves. His exposed fingers reflect the light and at first appear to be pure white, until he holds them against his chest and it’s made clear that they are infact transparent, shards of diamond born of the affliction that is gradually swallowing Kirien whole. “This is a slightly bigger one, I think. It seems I can’t do or reach this new beginning in the state I am now...which is to say, in this body. So I’ve theorised.” Rolling back his sleeve, he shows her the point where diamond fades back to flesh and he watches the gemstone advance another millimetre, feeling more than seeing. Altogether the man is quite nonchalant about his situation; he has already made his peace in that respect. He grins, though, at her change of subject and the flip of her hair. “No worries, chickadee, I’m quite the same. Well. One...something. Someone.” Brows furrow and after a second of pursed lips, Kirien scrunches his face up. “Do you...know who it is?”


Satoshi shrugs. That's all the answer she gives. If she knows, she's not telling, simply to tease Kirien. If she doesn't, she's not admitting it, to make herself appear all the more clever and in-the-know. That's Satoshi for you. And Kirien is highly unlikely to unearth the answer by scoping out the kit's aura of emotions, for whatever the answer is, it's thoroughly buried beneath a mixture of intrigue and envy, aimed at his diamond-esque limbs and their mobility. -Her- arm hadn't behaved so nicely until only recently. Lucky terramancer and his compliant, not-so-fickle element. Ice can be such a moody prankster.


Kirien can’t help but pull another face, though this one is less awkward and now edged with trace irritation. “Oh, come on, surely you know. You’re his -- my -- sister! And it’s a bit disconcerting, feeling all of...-this- and not being able to remember who it’s supposed to be directed at, or who made me feel this way to begin with.” For good reason, it bothers him greatly that he has no recollection of this very important person - there is something missing, something precious and treasured, and the worst part is that he’s aware of that hollow place in his heart but has yet to find a way to restore it.“What if you forgot Kasyr? What if someone tore all those memories away and left you with just this...this strange, displaced love?” He squints at her, noticing her scrutiny of his fingers, which he wiggles at her for good measure. He’s not about to mention how his right knee has also turned to diamond but is far more aggravatingly rigid.


Satoshi seems to shrink at the very idea, ears pinned flat, tails pressed close, and shoulders hunched. She's not the chipper, excitable kit she'd been moments before. "I didn't know it was like that," she replies, voice small and unhappy. "I thought you were only teasing in your asking. Not that you honestly don't remember." A glance is sent Kirien's way then, a look that's wary, the kit calculating Kirien's wish to know against whatever reason it was that took the name away. Is it better to be without that knowledge and forever wonder? Or know and be tormented? She hasn't forgotten what those letters had done to Kirien in the snow. She wouldn't wish that on her sibling again.


Kirien has spent countless hours alone with himself, sifting through the wreckage of what recollected memories he does have - those that have floated back to the surface, disjointed and half-drowned and confused. In those shifting, watery thoughts, he has searched for a message, a sign; a face and a name to which he can pin this disconnected feeling. Because it’s -his- love as much as it was the previous Kirien’s, because they are one and the same, he is desperate to know who affected him so strongly that it wove its way into his very soul. Subconscious movements, relics of that not-quite-there man, guide his fingers to glide briefly over the faceted ruby round his neck, but the genasi does not notice. “I wouldn’t joke about something like this. I’m sure you’ve noticed by this point that there’s something...different. I’m mostly the Kirien you know, and a little of something else. An aspect of him, you could say. The bear seemed to enjoy telling me I was incomplete.” His eyes narrow as he watches her, his gaze a piercing one, and suddenly he is as far from the regular Kirien as he can be, his stance both intimidating and defensive. That hard look instead bears unnerving resemblance to the dangerous, vicious nature of far darker individuals. He does not ask, now - the words are a demand. “I want to know. It’s not up to you to decide this for me.”


Satoshi regards Kirien silently for a long moment. She takes it all in, the serious tone of his demand, his defensive stance, his narrowed gaze, all of it. This is not her Kirien. Yet at the same time, it is her Kirien. She can sense him there, lurking beneath the rocky surface, just out of reach. ..Or perhaps not. The thought is what causes Satoshi to throw caution to the wind, to disregard the solemn shift the conversation's taken, and to thus reach up with a fist and firmly rap the terramancer's forehead. "Hush," she scolds, a light scowl turning her whiskers askew, "it's not up to you what I chose to do or not do, and you're in no position to make demands of moi either, Bright Eye. If Kasyr had caused me as much pain and turmoil as yours had, and I were in your position, you'd debate telling me too. If I didn't consider it, what would that say of me? We're family, you earth-singing fool, and 'm trying to figure out what all comes with that deal! Don't rush me!"


Kirien envies her liveliness. Each expression shift, each reaction-- it all seems so invigorated and when comparing himself to her, he feels all the more hollow. Her knowledge, that attentive and intact mind...he’s jealous of that, too. She’s a ghost, she really is, but at least she is aware of her own reality. He is still drifting, unsure, uncertain of what existed and exists and what should not exist, of what to trust and what might be lying unseen just beyond his reach, waiting to be stumbled across again. Flinching at her touch this time, he takes a step back, huffing and spiteful. “It must be so -nice- to have all the memories of your time with me. All these things you can pull together and look at from afar while thinking, ‘this is why he’s family’.” Lip curling, the genasi begins to pace furiously back and forth, his body truly in motion for the first time in hours. Each movement is stiffer than normal, and there’s the slightest groan that sounds like glass under strain. Kirien continues harshly, “I don’t even know why I want it. It’s not right to-- to me. -Me-, Chickadee, -this- me, right here.” This one, the unfamiliar and frightening one, a monstrosity comprised of all these bits and pieces of abandoned emotion, fueled and stitched together by malicious fury. “I’m everything he never was or discarded along the way when he decided he was too good for them. You should probably be deciding first if I even -am- your family, like this, while I...” His shoulders, which had been stiff with anger, begin to deflate slowly and he casts his gaze to the ground, feeling sick with all this frustration. “...While I try to work out why I still want you to recognise me.” Because he could become someone entirely new here. This existence, it could be a Beginning all on its own, a slate wiped clean, yet he can’t bring himself to take the offer - he’s still bound by those unseen threads, even now, that this part of him has yet to understand.


Satoshi lets Kirien rant, huff, and altogether vent whatever it is that has him in this state. She's no Empath, she can't read the inner turmoil that's playing havoc on his frame of mind, yet there are cues enough externally for her to read. And to sit back and observe. If she knows anything, it's the potency of rage, and how best to manage it. Which is to say, let it work itself out on its own. Rage is a fickle, volatile beast with no grasp on reason or desire to be placated. It wants to rampage until it's too tired to move. And thus, whatever anxieties or worries she may have beneath the surface, Satoshi puts on the mask of the indifferent. Shrugging carelessly, she responds to Kirien's words with bored tones, "I've made my decision. You're family through and through. Stop focusing on what you think -I- should do, and make your own decisions, on whether you're Kirien or not. Or you can have a tantrum, that works too. This must be what comes of spending time with moody Drow." If you need someone to rage until they're burnt out, riling them up is Satoshi's preferred option. It's messy but it gets the job done quickly. And maybe, just maybe, if she can work Kirien's negative emotions up enough, the Draconite will siphon some of it off and draw out the true Coterie-mate beneath.


Satoshi engages trololol mode.


Kirien snaps. “It does not. It comes from your idiot brother’s selfish curiosity.” It seems he’s going to have that tantrum. With his poisonous remark comes a malevolent wave of emotion, the kind that would normally make Kirien nauseous, but it appears he has become more tolerant of such substances now the dominant part of him is partially woven of the same cloth. In most cases, only another empath might be able to pick up on it, but he is purposely wielding his power against Satoshi and forcing the feelings upon her like quick, sharp stabs of a phantom knife. “If he hadn’t been such a careless, thoughtless fool then neither of us-- I-- him-- would be in this horrible situation. For fuck’s sake, where’s Marlise when I need him.” What she’s told him to do, to work it out, is exactly what he has been trying not to think about for weeks - it drives him insane and furious, and it’s exhausting to attempt to come to an understanding when you only have a portion of the information in the first place. But he needs to do it, and there’s no moving on until he’s faced it head-on. Kirien swings to glare at Satoshi again, his stare heated with rage...but it’s beginning to waver again, and beneath that anger is a searching individual trying to reach out to that which he draws reassurance from. The draconite is still clenched tight in one hand but he seems to have totally forgotten about it. “What makes you think I can make that decision? I barely know what he was like, but I know I’m not like him. How can I say I’m Kirien when I’m everything but?” He tenses a little, his posture changing, suddenly awkward and almost vulnerable. Vulpine ears flatten as his shoulders hunch and he drops his focus to the ground again, the very air around him altered to something much less fiery and vastly, deeply conflicted. “I don’t know if I can be the man I’m only a shadow of.”


Satoshi makes no move to show whether or not she feels the daggers of emotion being thrust at her. When moments before she'd been the leaf on the wind, drifting about the unseeing rock, she now stands fast as an unrelenting glacier, stoic to the onslaught of a tumultuous ocean's crashing waves. In truth, Satoshi feels the attacks, and she feels them keenly, but she welcomes them as part of Kirien's process. He's in there, she can see him, catching glimpses made the clearer with each stab. The wizard had said as much and more when he'd been drowned in his own darkness. Darkness each of them have courted, and darkness each of them have nearly been smothered by. This time, it's Kirien's turn. And as seems to be fated, Satoshi has to again face the wrath and results of what Kasyr's theories had started. As with Svilfon, the magus will endure, in hopes a single pinpoint of light is enough to draw one's mind from the shadows swallowing them. "Remind me again how throwing blame, dwelling on the past, or having fits is meant to be of use. I've been reborn and remade, unwitting and willingly alike. And what I've learned is... Whatever you are, is what you are, and no amount of wishing for what was will change that. Either shut up, man up, accept, and move forward as best you can, or shut up and find yourself a bottomless pit to throw yourself into. Either way, shut up." No one ever said Sato-therapy was gentle or pleasant. She's not one for dwelling on negative emotions for long, being a creature of the present and ever determined to charge forward.


Kirien can feel it again, moving. The back of his neck is itching as another centimetre of skin is swallowed up to diamond and disease, another slow step taken toward the inevitable. And he’ll be damned if he is forced to suffer an End and a rebirth when he has no idea of who he is right now. He might have sobbed, a pathetic mixture of frustration and anguish, but he won’t admit to it, not now and not ever. Crying in front of people is not for drow-- no, crying in front of people is not for -him-, whatever he may be or become. Maybe it was, once, but it won’t be for him. But he won’t be stupid enough to toss it aside like the last Kirien threw him away. He won’t risk a repeat of this incident. In the end, he finds himself turning again and stares blindly across the snowfields to where the gate arch rises, elegant and imposing, standing firm in the midst of the wilderness. Beyond it, the storm is growing darker. It’s the gate that calls to Kirien, however, through some lost and misplaced part of him that resonates with the structure as it reacts in turn to Satoshi’s presence, to the solid dependability and whisper of ‘home’ given off by both. And he remembers something. It makes itself known as little more than a whisper, gentle and affectionate. “...I danced here, once,” the genasi murmurs, tentative, as though too afraid to let himself see this memory or accept that it is his own, “And I saw the stars.” When he looks back to Satoshi again, there is a searching feeling about him again as he carefully feels along that invisible thread. “And we killed a King here, too. You and...me. Before. I...don’t know if I can be the same Kirien, the one you knew, Chickadee, and I can’t promise everything will be okay, but-- it’s what I am, I...j’suppose.” He tastes the word, samples its sound and texture before scrunching his nose and shaking his head. “No, I don’t like that. It sounds stupid. ‘Common, Kirien, or I’ll cut out your tongue’.” A pause and then he laughs. The sound is genuine. “Ha. Who said that to me? I remember that. It wasn’t meant, not truly.”


Satoshi turns her eyes skyward, initially in an exasperated--and feigned--manner only to end in her staring at the looming clouds, seeking a pattern in the chaos. "You don't know if can 'be the same Kirien', as if I'm supposed to turn away from you. You are family, family is life, and life is chaos. Do you know what chaos is? Change, Kirien. Things change, people change. Life is a damned river. If you flow with it, you might hit a rock or two now and again, but for the most part it'll all go naturally. Fight it, and it will rip you apart and -force- the change on you." Pulling her gaze away from the clouds, Satoshi fixes them then on the terramancer, searching is face closely. His laugh is enough to draw her into lifting a hand and resting it atop his head, ruffling those vulpine ears. "Little fool. I've changed, and you didn't turn on me. Do you know what I've -been- in just the time I've known Kasyr? A feline, an elementally-touched, a vampire, something both cat and fox, vulpine, a figment, and more. He's seen each change, he's been a part of some and had a hand in others, and he's never balked at it. Why would I do so to you now?"


Kirien winds up wrinkling his nose again despite it all, making it clear he is not entirely approving of Satoshi’s choice of words. The message behind them, on the other hand, he does take to heart, quietly tucking it to his chest along with all the other precious things he knows of and has yet to remember. “If there’s one thing that hasn’t changed about me, it’s the fact that I am a terramancer. An earthsinger. In my veins runs liquid mercury, my heart is crystallised, my skin hard as stone, my bones steel, gemstones for my eyes. I -like- hitting the rocks, Chickadee. I run into walls from time to time, the kind I can’t get past at first, but I’ll damn well stand my ground and I won’t give up and give in. I break through, in time.” In time. Unknowingly, the man has repeated words he spoke previously and the same conviction is there, strong as steel. They seem to serve as some comfort to Kirien, who looks a little more sure of himself now, a little less lost. He tilts his head at Satoshi, a recognisably affectionate smile catching at the corners of his mouth. “The next change is going to be the biggest. I might become a lot of things, but I won’t become an echo.”


Satoshi's hand drifts down to press a fingertip against Kirien's forehead. "Then sing, earthsinger." That's it, that's all she has to say in response, although its meaning is as faceted as the gems Kirien loves. His core is Earthsong, something he can latch onto and know security even in the worst of storms, if he'd only reach into it. There is simple, pure comfort in the presence of one's elemental affinity. Satoshi's own snowsong has proven an anchor through it all, her very soul an essence of chaos that would have rended itself into oblivion had that seed of frost not been born into it. And no matter what changes she's undergone, it's always remained. Maybe not exactly the same, growing and shifting with her, but true enough for her to never lose her way again. All she has to do is dig down to it and listen to it sing.


Kirien, for a moment, leans his forehead into Satoshi’s touch and smiles a strangely knowing smile. Focusing on nothing but that song serves to relax his muddled mind in ways he forgot, and he slips into it without thought. From his very core comes a pulse and it extends swiftly outward, rippling in visible waves over the genasi’s skin, diamond and flesh alike, out and down and through Satoshi, into the ground below. There is a spark of golden light glimmering in the centre of his forehead when he pulls back, and it spreads within the thin, angular scars etched across his body, until he is burning from the inside out with terramantic magic - and it’s this that he allows to wash away his ghosts. Each powerful throb of energy further drives them back and clears his vision, the beat underfoot leading him along, showing him how to be whole again. And then the land shifts in turn and the mountains are suddenly singing high and shrill, the snowfield crying out in rough, grating tones, and the gate arch adds its voice to Kirien’s with a long moan of wind against stone. This is Kirien at his core, the being who moves mountains with his voice and spins around, laughing, oblivious to everything but himself and the world, caught in his own song and catharsis. And oh, is it blissful, and much needed. And the earthen bell in his pocket, it whispers of what these changes point to, and what he will become.


Satoshi lowers herself to sit cross-legged in the snow, eyes closed and chin tilted up as she lets elemental magics dance around her. Like rain she lets it fall upon her. So this is the voice of the Earth? Satoshi can pick out tones within it that are akin to the deep bass of the glaciers, yet alien to the higher alto of snowfall. Her Ice's voice is an elaborate blend of Water and Earth, she realizes then, with a faint smile. She and Kirien are more Kindred than she'd been aware of, with their elements interwoven long before either mancer had even come into existence. Especially here, in Frostmaw, where ancient ice and timeless earth are nearly indistinguishable in the form of permafrost. Here, the land sings to both foxkin, and here, it answers the songs called out by the mountains, fields, and gate: an undulating croon from the dark skies above. The dark clouds are aglow with seaglass greens, blazing blues, sunset oranges, and blushing reds, the colors of the Northern Lights transforming the stormfront into a painter's canvas, and with each swirl and twist of the curtained lights comes that trilling melody. It drifts through the air like so many ethereal ribbons to wind itself into the Earthsong in a duet of elements. And all the while, Satoshi sits still and quiet, absorbing it and watching Kirien not with her eyes, but with the rest of her senses, from whiskers to vulpine ears, and even through the snows themselves as their flakes dance around him in inquisitive flurries. Has he found himself once more?


Kirien is still fractured, almost irreparably, all his pieces tied together with fragile strings, but in this moment he is comforted by the powerful voice of earthsong. In its rumbling undertones lies the assurance that he will be able to fix himself, over time, and be strong enough to endure the final Breaking. And what will come from that Breaking, that point of chaotic change, will bind him wholly with metal joints instead of string, and allow him to understand himself better than he ever did. With that thought held pleasantly in his mind, Kirien relaxes for the first time in what feels like an age and falls headlong into the endless rhythm of the mountains. Mixing in with the familiar tones of his element are sounds that he does not truly know but has heard whispers of, on wintry mornings when the frost clings all the more fiercely and during the midst of darkest night, when the northern ghosts are howling in the blizzards and the aurora is chiming overhead, its strings just out of reach to be plucked by his hand. "Oh..." It's all so wonderful that he can't help but laugh again, alive and overjoyed, before abruptly he stumbles. The splintering, shrilly snapping sound of breaking glass precedes the genasi collapsing to his knees in the snow, surrounded by whirling snowflakes, whereupon he sits stock still and stiffly upright, blinking wide-eyed at Satoshi. The earth has ceased its shuddering beneath them; in the distance Kirien can hear the dull roar of an avalanche. "...I feel a bit better now," he says, ignorant of the sharp spines of diamond that have torn through his breeches at the knees, sticking out at unnatural angles like broken bone pushing up through flesh.


"...Do you really now?" Satoshi says this while staring pointedly at the diamond shards jutting from Kirien's knees. That's not a sight one sees everyday... A few more seconds are spent staring before the magus clears her throat and mutters, "I don't think I'm capable of healing that sort of thing." Despite diamonds being often called 'ice', the two are not of the same element, nor is the former pliable enough for Satoshi's brand of patchwork healing to suffice in this matter. This looks more like a job for a terramancer. "I... does it hurt? I mean. It looks like it should be painful. Really painful. But you're taking it in... stride? Erm. Is that a bad pun, to use 'stride' when you're unable to walk? Ahahaha..." Now the kit's just rambling, not so much because she's unnerved by the protruding diamonds but because her mind is still whirling from the duet of earth and ice, the influx of magic in the air, and Kirien's overall nature throughout. This is one thing too many for her mind to wrap around presently.


"What? ...Oh." He blinks a second time when he looks down at his legs, as if noticing for the first time the diamond tearing holes in his clothing, and then he makes a vague, disgruntled noise in the back of his throat. "What bothers me more is that I'm going to need these breeches repaired now." Irritated he might be, but that lively spark is still dancing in his eyes. Glancing back at Satoshi, Kirien purses his lips before he simply shrugs his shoulders with the degree of nonchalance that only Kirien is capable of. "If it hurt, don't you think I'd look like I was in pain? No, I don't feel anything really, not in those parts. It's funny, actually-- Marlise kept hitting me there whenever we'd spar and I'd laugh at him. Nearly broke his damn fingers the first time he jabbed at my kneecap, though." Hands push into the snow and he tries to push himself back to his feet, but only succeeds in almost falling face first into Satoshi - he tumbles to the side instead and seems to decide not to bother with a second attempt. "I'll just lie here for a bit, I think. My knees don't like to cooperate so I'll fix them in a minute, maybe."


Satoshi leans back, propped against her arms, to gaze skyward where the display of Aurora against storm clouds can still be glimpsed despite its fading. Her eyes follow threads of light unconsciously, letting them be drawn where they will in tracing the celestial dance, and all the while aware of the terramancer keeled over beside her. A satin-gloved finger taps the snow lightly beside Kirien's head, something of a hello to his having missed landing on her and ending up where he is now. "Take your time, I'm in no rush." A statement with a double meaning: to not worry about hurrying to repair his legs, and to not rush or force what he's going through mentally. She'll still be here, when both have been worked through. Although, that doesn't stop her from smirking crookedly and adding, "So how about that key? Not that you can run off with the draconite currently, eh~?"


Kirien can still hear the far-off orchestra of the aurora playing its final, plaintive notes, and after a small furrowing of his brows, reaches to touch a fingertip to Satoshi's hand. That tiny point of contact is all he needs to establish a brief connection and 'borrow' her eyesight, seeing through them as she does for just an instant before he drops his arm into the snow. It is nothing more than a gentle mental nudge, insubstantial and intangible, and it's gone before it can intrude too much. Each momentary snapshot of the aurora, of regular sight in general, is a treasured one and Kirien quietly tucks that one away in the back of his mind. "I'm not sure I've ever done that to you before," he murmurs after a pause, closing his eyes. "And yes, your key... I'm honestly not sure of how to go about it, actually. What sort of shape...and so on. Have anything in mind?"


A small, nearly imperceptible tremor runs through Satoshi with that brief contact, the mental nudge so akin to the polite method of the couatls that for half a second she thinks it's Emiur calling to her. But no, it's no such thing. Emiur is gone, Emielle too young to yet to do what Satoshi just felt. She can only conclude it was Kirien, and it takes no difficult guesswork to figure out what for. Satoshi's ears flattened marginally at the thought before, with a cough, she offers her hand to the terramancer. "Want a proper look?" As she says this, Satoshi glances toward the draconite and frowns at Kirien's question. "I've an idea... Not quite what I originally planned, but it might just be better. I'm going to call down some of those lights, and see if I can't form the lock we need while you shape the key--any ol' shape will do. They're already singing together, might as well match them proper~."


Kirien , at last, decides that he's going to stop lazing around in the snow and slowly pushes himself back upright. He leaves the problem of his legs to one side at the moment, and tucks them gingerly to his left while spreading his hands idly through the snow, flattening out footprints and lumps that were displaced while the world was shaking. A careful look is levelled upon Satoshi, all senses converging on her in response to her faint shiver, but Kirien does not make mention of it and instead cocks his head slightly. There is snow in his hair, clinging to the side of his face. "...I still won't be able to see it without your eyes, you know. But I suppose we can try that. I've played the aurora before, like a conductor, but I never tried to shape it into anything. How exactly are you going to bring it down?"


Satoshi waggles the fingers of her offered hand at Kirien. "That's why I was offering you my sight to see it by~. As for how I'm going to call down the Aurora... It's tied to the Snowsong, I can hear it. It is an essence of the North. Leave that to me, it's something I can shape, just as the draconite is something you can shape." Whether Kirien takes her hand her not, Satoshi closes her eyes then and once more turns her face toward the sky. The dwindling lights play off frosted fur and silvery whiskers alike, bleeding color into the foxkin's normally pallid features to give her the illusion of life, cheeks blushing rose, skin lightly pink, hair dusted pale gold. While she wears the mask of human liveliness, the magus begins to sing in words arcane and distant, a melody that follows the same rippling, roiling ribbon dance that the Northern Lights had. From the shimmering clouds above descend threads rich with the Aurora's colors, reaching down even as strings of azure, white, and silver rise up from Satoshi, her own arcane aura flickering into life in response to her song. Greens, reds, pinks, oranges, blues, whites, and yellows come together in an explosion of colors and sounds, resounding with the musical ring of bells and glass, each clamoring to be heard over each other yet still managing a melody. An order amidst chaos, nature incarnate. And onwards the eidolon adds her voice to the performance of light and music, conducting every thread with precision, catching strays and untangling knots, weaving them together bit by bit as she draws the orchestra down from the skies. As the threads are called down, Satoshi raises her hand palm up in readiness, providing a place for her creation to land a moment later. The magus stops singing then in the same instant that the Aurora's music ends, and in her hand rests now a long, slender ribbon. Its color can only be described as the Aurora made physical and married to the Azure Flames, a fabric of a thousand different colored threads woven together in flawless harmony, each color completing its neighbor while standing alone as its own unique essence. Blues of Ice and Winter, reds of Fire and Summer, oranges of Earth and Autumn, yellows of Flowers and Spring, all captured in a single entity. With each movement, the ribbon's color shifts and writhes, endlessly changing like the Seasons and elements. Were one to stare long at it, they might catch the Aurora's song at the very edge of their hearing, a teasing melody that can't be captured, only glimpsed. Glittering on either end of the ribbon are constructs of a glass-clear ice, two halves of a locking clasp that will allow the ribbon to encircle an object and slide the ice together, snugly securing everything into place. Satoshi's managed the lock, the key is up to Kirien as she sags, suddenly weary with the effort. With the Aurora's fading, so too have the colors from Satoshi's face, leaving her paler than ever and outlining the lines of exhaustion around eyes and mouth. She'd never extended her Azure Flames so far from herself before, nor attempted to wind them with another essence and make them solid. She feels drained to her core, having essentially pulled a piece of her very soul out and bound it into a physical form.


Kirien gives the offered hand a cursory glance with his eyes, a more in-depth study with his less useless senses, and judges her to be serious. Translucent fingers extend and then link with hers, a physical manifestation of the binding of elements still ringing around them in a reverberating echo. Even in the places where his skin has given way to unyielding diamond, those gold-veined scars continue on their path unhindered, uncaring as to what they inhabit so long as it is a part of Kirien. They begin to glow again, vibrant and strong, showcasing the terramantic energy within. And he sees it in colour for the first time, catching a glimpse of his own hand through Satoshi's eyes before she turns her focus skyward, and the sights are enough to take Kirien's breath away. Had he any need for it, he might have found it painful, the way his chest constricts in awe, his throat dry, his lungs deflated and airless, but it is difficult to even notice that when the instinctual euphoria overtakes the genasi in a great, tingling wave of sensation. He has goosebumps and tiny needles of mineral pricking up where he has no skin, and there are so many -colours- that he almost can't believe the image is real. It has been so, so long since he viewed the world in colour. The landscape reacts in turn to Kirien's breathlessness, shuddering underfoot as a chorus of the deep, grating sounds of earthsong begins to rise, once more, to mingle with the aurora's orchestra in the frigid air. Mountains bellow in rumbling bass tones while the northern wind whistles over the snowfields, carrying with it the musical cacophony generated by Satoshi's voice, and the strumming lights in the sky, and whipping it up into a feverish storm. Eventually Kirien lifts his own voice to join the others, his song deceptively mellow for the power contained in every carefully-spoken word, often lost amidst everything else. It is a song that is more -felt- than anything, for it vibrates through the cracking ground and fills the air with sounds that are beyond the mortal range of hearing, and it is subtly guiding the draconite into motion. Each note provokes a different response from the stone and it reshapes itself with agonising slowness, so much so that Kirien is still at work even after Satoshi collapses against him - he holds tight to her hand, a physical pillar of support. As the draconite changes, the world does too, trembling and shaking in a sudden earthquake that might have knocked them both off their feet, were either of them standing. When it finally tapers off, Kirien is shaking too, breathless for entirely different reasons now as his exhausted energy fades from gold to pale yellow lines, and finally blinks out once again, and it's all he can do to remain upright. Where Satoshi is holding a ribbon that traps both the essence of her azure flames and all the colours that can be carried on the wind, the object in Kirien's hand is comparatively dull. Yet it draws the eye all the same, somehow. It is a key, small, exquisite, but remarkably normal by all accounts, except that it is made to fit a most incredible lock. A lock and a key that contain echoes of both Satoshi's and Kirien's voices, and by extension their elements, bound together by Kindred Spirits to serve a special purpose. "Well," Kirien says, and he still hasn't quite regained his breath, "I don't think I've ever done that before, either."


Satoshi, despite a bone-deep weariness, can still muster her lopsided smirk in reaction to Kirien's words. "You really shouldn't say that all breathless and propped up against a lady, y'know. Folks might get the wrong sort of idea." She manages a short, whispery laugh before shoving herself upright with sheer force of will. Slumping forward then, the magus regards the lock and ribbon in her hands, held beside the shadowy black key. Aurora and Draconite, given new form and instilled with a piece of the foxkins. "This... this is no lock that can be broken, unless one has the strength to rend both our souls, and the heavens and earth too. And that is no key that will answer to any but our kin. We did it, Lark." A ghostly thin smile accompanies a groan as Satoshi flops back into the snow to stare up at the sky. The clouds have grown dark once more, a gray-black made sullen by the departure of the Aurora. A few fat snowflakes drift down from the shadowy canopy, not quite the start of the storm, but a promise that it will be as impressive as a display as genasi and eidolon put on tonight. A pleased laugh escapes Satoshi when one of the flakes lands on the end of her nose to balance there, pristine and glittering. "Hullo there, lovely~."


Kirien makes a slightly strangled sound of embarrassment, but he manages to laugh it off. "At least they'll know I'm willing to try new things. And I also could not give a damn what anyone else thinks." The shuddering of his shoulders brought on by his laughter is enough to displace his already wavering sense of balance and he tumbles backwards all over again, ending up lying half on his side in the snow. Blinking white flakes off his eyelashes, he looks up at Satoshi and the lock, although in his sight it is little more than an indistinct whisper of an existence - not quite all there but present and able to be sensed, due to the familiar tonic of energies it contains. He touches a finger to it, feeling countless colours and the underlying glimmer of azure flame that lights them up from the inside. "This should serve your needs well then, mm? I hope so, because I'm afraid I'm all tired out for...the rest of the week, maybe." A sigh leaves him as he sinks fully into the snow, the chill unable to reach him so that all he experiences instead is the soft, pillowy layer cushioning him against the frozen ground.


Satoshi looks over at the terramancer lying in the snow then back to the lock and key, an unreadable expression on her face. "Yes," she murmurs, tucking the items into the front of her coat to rest beside her heart. "Yes, thank you. I've everything I need here." Leaning over then, she presses a kiss to Kirien's brow. It's a light, fleeting, and frigid thing, one easily mistaken for the falling snowflakes. After this, Satoshi climbs to her feet with a groan, arms stretched over her head like one reluctantly waking from a short, interrupted slumber. "Rest then, Lark. For a week or as long as you need. As for me... I have a bit more work left to do until I rest." She offers the terramancer another flash of a grin before she begins a determined trudge in the direction of the city.


"'Everything you need here'," Kirien repeats in a murmur. It takes more of an effort than he will admit to move his arm and store the portion of unused draconite in a coat pocket, and he can't quite find the strength to return Satoshi's kiss. Instead he nudges his empathic abilities toward her as she begins to walk away, enveloping the magus without warning in a cloud of warmth and affection and security - all in all it's the feeling of a hug, the kind Kirien would give her were he capable of movement beyond agonisingly slow gestures. "I'll try not to get buried." He snorts. It wouldn't be much of a hindrance even if he was.