Scene #6460: Forest of Memory // Upright Manor

Owner	Pose
Yuuki Kuran	Leaving through the 'cleaned' city-scape of the sleepy eurojapanese town now cleaned of the mental plaque of the untold multitudes of psychohazards that occupied the mind of Average Teenaged Normal Girl, Yuuki Kuran, the actual journey was short, the group's steps montaged over a dozen paces through streetcorners, intersections, open-air malls, and a mainstreet thouroughfare. With each step away from 'Cross Academy', the world darkened, School Yuuki following closely with Biteblade as they trekked back to the edge of the forest - where they could, in the far distance, see the fire of the Woodsman's hut where they had started, the time spent away from the forest productive for the fantastical mental construct of Zero. Brought to the edge as dusk falls, the bustle of the city continuing unabated with a picturesque display of window-lights framing the journey to the forest in the purples of the dimming sky and the warm oranges of lights in every window. At the edge of the forest, with the path lit by the raising full moon on the cloudless night in a nocturnally bright white of fresh dream-snow, the rich pine scent and dull crunch of the journey meets its first complication. Eager, if not entirely energetic, School Yuuki balks at the path into the forest, tying a red scarf up around her neck for warmth and Other Features as she shivers slightly - unnerved. "I don't like this forest." She murmurs, pointing down the path. Around the quarter-mark of the path is that same long grey coated, hair-slicked back widows peak vampire man, greasy and certainly not a bloody smear. It's certainly the same guy. The pine of the forest gains a sour, oily note, as little pairs of red light spring to life in the inky darkness of the forest defined only by the dim shapes of bare pine and the ephemeral grey-white ground. There must be hundreds of them, panting hungrily, pressing into the lighted path as if held back by cellophane. "I hate this forest." Yuuki quasi-repeats, before huddling behind the trio. The scrabbling claws of the Same Greasy Vampire pressed against the dreamy cellophane barrier begin to tear through, unleashing a tide of asshole mook vampires. The scent is revolting, like questionable meat with a chocolate glaze, the odorous aura of desperation and exertion, and the sour breath of hunger tinged with the fructose-like air of self-consumptive ketosing.
Starbound Flotilla	Biteblade keeps close with Yuuki, and speaks as she does. "Floran learn good lessson about bad woodsss, long time ago." She says. "The gulf doesn't alwaysss go away, not clean. Like hemispheresss of the brain. Floran ssstill have the two waysss to think, and the bad thingsss between, too! Ssscience people call: Cognitive disssonance. Hurtsss, a little." She has one hand firmly on a knife at her side. "But, here isss key. Woodsss like this are bad. Hate them. But, alwaysss remember, no matter what, those woodsss belong to you. They're yoursss. Hate them 'caussse they're not doing what you want, not 'caussse they exist. Then, maybe you and woodsss figure out a way to hate a little lesss. Sssee?" Sometime around then is when the swarm breaches. Biteblade goes from pensive chattery fae-let wood-person to screaming, salivating cannibal like she had a timeshare in her skull. "RRRRRAAAAAAAAAAH!! COME HERE! YOU HUNGRY?! NO!! FLORAN ISSS HERE FOR BUFFET!!" She wasn't kidding about her race being cannibalistic; even her armor had a bite-enhancing jawpiece that folds around her head as she leaps into the breach of the barrier. A whirlwind of twin power-daggers and teeth, Biteblade alternates between trying to tear huge gashes in the bodies of the mental stalkers, and trying to bite even bigger chunks out of them. She's leaping onto them, chomping hard, and ripping back, then going for deft knife-fighter slashes and stabs to rise up onto her feet. Throat, arms, wherever she can get a chunk of /meat/ or a big wound. Cut a path, and a bloody one at that! She's tough to get ahold of; attacks from these guys are going to be grazing off bone and durawood armor, or denting it, but for the most part, Biteblade manages to get through the sudden swarm with only a few scuffling impacts and scrapes to show for it.
Zero Kiryu	"No." Zero agrees with Yuuki. It isn't the forest itself. He has walked this same forest many times before, often alone. The idea of the forest that exists in Yuuki's head, though, is substantially worse. Some of it surely isn't from her time at Cross Academy, but he can be reasonably certain that some of the things that came from this have to do with incidents that involve /him/, too. The vampires that came for him after that /woman/ was killed. The incident with Hanabusa. Arguably, even the incident with Rido. This forest really was... full of butchers. This one, he doesn't recognize. Zero could see the things near to Yuuki when he fed on her, back then, but he couldn't /dig/. And this man wasn't what was on her mind when that was going on. What /was/, has evidently been purged from this place. The smell, although exaggerated from being a mental construct, catches his attention before the actual presence of the vampire does. Zero wonders how close it is to how it actually was-- if it's close to that at all. But then, it probably doesn't matter that much. This is what it is to her, in retrospect. "Ah." His reaction to being abruptly dogpiled by an essentially arbitrary number of vampires is surprisingly lukewarm. No matter how many of them pile on, though-- Zero isn't pushed back. He is cut, and bitten, and bleeding, but they don't have the strength or leverage to move him. His right hand jerks loose of several grips, and finds its way to the inside of his coat. Immediately, vines spill out into the surroundings almost explosively, snaking this way and that to ravenously spear through whatever happens to be unfortunate enough to be close enough at hand and not haul ass out of the way immediately.
Priscilla	Little bothered by the dramatic timing of the onset of dusk, Priscilla walks along in seemingly contented quiet. Her eyes frequently linger on the little orange window lights in the dimming snowy town of nightfall, her pace slowing just a little on the threshold of the village, before setting off into the woods again, breathing deep the air of fresh snow and frosted pine, and then speeding up again to continue apace. "No one is given to like every experience that hast left its mark upon them, nor every part of themselves, save the most delusional of narcissists. Appreciate that thou art able to approach it, at the least, rather than possessing only the power to wish that it wouldst not exist. That much is more uncommon than thou wouldst believeth, viewing others from the outside." She makes a quiet, contemplative sort of hmm-huff at Biteblade's idea of it. "Indeed, a dislike born of contempt for its contrarian shape is likely one that is more accurate, or at least more productive, than one born of disappointment or fear. It is thine own possession, after all. Do with it what thou shalt; it hath no real means of its own to bar thee." The analysis passes the time. Then, soon enough, the smell is back, as are those identical charicatures of gross, shady, back alley child-molesty, sweaty, thirsty middle-aged vampires, reeking of both rank bestial hunger and fervid human depravity. Priscilla would like it if they'd stay behind their arbitrarily defined roadside barrier, but she knows full well it is not to be. Her eyes don't leave them for a moment on the first quarter of the way through, waiting for Chad Zero to be proven right, in that moment where their claws poke through. The same as the other psycho-excursion she went on, her mental manifestation of the Scythe here is a little weird, not accurate to its clearly observable physical form, but more of a scythe-shaped blot of semi-liquid blackness with a trembling teeth-white edge, like she remembers it differently from how it actually looks. It's still solid enough to clang when she uses it to ward off the first couple of vampire claws with the haft, stopping their momentum and then hurling them to the side, smashing in a head or breaking an arm with the bottom and back, while she intentionally slides back through the snow to a respectable reach. She raises it high, a set of clawtips rake across her unguarded midsection, and then she sweeps it down and around her body into the whole front rank around her, kicking up a shrieking gale of frozen wind that rips through the second and third and fourth, carrying with it a perfectly invisible hunting essence that pierces into the warm bodies in its path.
Yuuki Kuran	Biteblade's onslaught of blade and maw is both terribly effective and 'tremendously' rewarding, if the Floran's aim was to eat a buch of awful trash vampires. Because past the 'skin layer' chocolate-glazed sweaty greasy ass was an undifferentiated stew-beef mass of meat in natural juices - a viscera banquet with the overall fillingness of popcorn and thin potato chips even in the quantity that Biteblade rips and tears through. The massacre continues along the path as more and more press through, breaking like a tide over Zero but incapable of actually pressuring him. Certainly, incapable of pressuring anyone - their actual 'powerlessness' in the face of People That Matter except in sheer, abusive, one-will-get-a-hit-in raw numbers. Their stench is quickly added to with flashes of sweet blood with calls the group to linger, to revel, to wipe every last little shambling vampire out for the hubris of attacking the group. Spears of vines lash and flail about, sweeping clear massive blocks of the onrushing clones, drinking in the dreamy and unfulfilling blood of the horde. The same memory plays over and over and over and over and over - Yuuki in the snow, hazy, from another pair of eyes. Hunger. Desperation. The familiar scent of her blood, the sound of her pounding heart. A lingering trace of a delicasy on her already familiarly-desireable flavor - a scent like perfume around her clothes, or like a pleasant detergent. And then a violent death. Much like the one they're all suffering right now, as the group pushes on, School Yuuki practically ignored as she jogs down the path flailing her arms and with eyes closed - it's more about the anxiety, the fear, than any danger. The danger, in fact is to her protectors, in this dark memory. Ahead of the group, the darkness of the forest spills over into the path as a tide of The Same Asshole spills out from both sides of the dark forest. The way forward seems completely lost, as the tide seems to include the backing of inky forest and red-eyed pinpoints of infinite more assholes. Priscilla steps back, raises Lifehunt's Memory, and swings in a tremendous arc, carving an inky path through the air that trails smoky darkness and sweeps through not one, not two, but hundreds of individuals that don't bloodily die but evaporate. The twisting feeling in the inner ear trembles in a migrane-inducing way, like getting a knife jabbed in your ear or brain or behind your eye. And then the pressure leaves all at once. The path is clear. A single greasy vampire man stands, with a massive Lifehunt strike across his chest. "It wasn't... my fault. Master Rido..." He slumps on the ground, not bleeding a drop, and fades away slowly into dust. As he does, the forest's darkness begins to lift incrementally, until, finally, at the end... It's just a snowy forest in dusk. You are all at the clearing, where School Yuuki jogs the rest of the way to Chad Zero near the fire. "I was so scared! I... I..." "Can't remember why." The Woodsman nods. "You're here. The other mansion lays on the other side of the forest." His tone is easy and relaxed, and his axe is stuck in the nearby stump he was chopping firewood on, since the forest has never been dangerous. Ever.
Starbound Flotilla	Biteblade is wiping away meat from her mouth. "'Why' easssy." She says. "Becaussse the gulf alwaysss feel terrible. Alwaysss hurt in your gut and your heart. Cognitive disssonance. Never too bad when you touch it! When you dive in and do what you need to. But it alwaysss feelsss terrible right at the edge. That'sss why it's a gulf, a divide -- but not a wall." She flicks her knives, licking away at the vampire gumbo strewn on the edge as if she were licking her fingers. "Isss painful to touch. Painful to look at. It hurtsss. Isss why you hate it, and why Floran hatesss it. But," She puts a finger up. "We can deal with! We learn the real pain and the fake pain. Cognitive disssonance hasss sssignature. You can read it, and turn it back. Have to, if you want to live and think in two worldsss. Hate it, but it belongsss to Director friend. Director friend ownsss the gulf." She heads for the Woodsman, cheerful and happy. "Hiiiii, chopping friend! Floran isss back. We're gonna help fix problemsss! And will be helping with cottage sssoon more too!" Always eager to hang out and poke at this sort of thing. But quite intent on getting to the other mansion. "Can help with going to other mansssion, pleasssethank?"
Priscilla	Though Priscilla worries about School Yuuki (Yuuki the Bleeding (The Older Yuuki)) charging through in a blind panic, ducking her head and squeezing her eyes shut like a green soldier on a trench run through artillery barrage, the fact that the vampires seem to have no interest in her is at first jarring, then retroactively obvious, and with a look of chagrin, Priscilla turns away from being about to chase Yuuki, and back to the fight. Of course they aren't going to mess her up. It's her mind. The same can't be said for the rest of them. Horde fighting is obnoxious, claustrophic, and bloody, but Priscilla has a main weapon and attack set generally suited to dealing with it. Though stuck fending off rapacious man-shaped predators from all sides, she gets the opening to snuff them out to the last, seemingly only partly through overwhelming force, but also the still-relatively unknown metacognitive effects of using this thing in the psyche. When it comes to the last man, with words to say, she actually hesitates on the last swing. "Not an abstraction, then; a generic, same-face with which to represent the degenerate vampires at large, in unpleasant memory. Thou art someone specific. A face the Lady Kuran hath seen once." Crunch. He disappears. Priscilla lowers her weapon slowly, and then it unravels into a whirl of dark ink and vanishes. Once again, she has to lean on Zero. "Master Rido?" she prompts, in that way that is ostensibly polite, but basically expecting to be answered without a 'please'. "This time, I knoweth that feeling well." she says to Yuuki, surprisingly offhandedly, without looking down or to the side to address it to her face. "Those things which thou fear most of all, but once the act is begun, thou art no longer able see why it was so fearful, art those most oft in dire need of doing." Then Chad Zero. "Shalt we require thine directions one time more, or wouldst thou sayeth the way is clear?"
Yuuki Kuran	The Woodsman ushers School Yuuki, red scarf and all, into the little half-finished and unfurnished cottage, to sit on the stoop while he warms his arms by the fire. "Hello, plant friend." He returns with a chaddy chuckle (a little deeper than Zero is, the depth of tone that would drive a young woman wild), rubbing his peachfuzzy arms (because as a Eurojapanese person, he has low body hair, go figure) to spread the heat with his fingers. "It took years to get this far. To find the center, and start clearing a space. Going it alone..." The Woodsman turns his head to look at Zero meaningfully. "Can be almost unbearable. But with people you can trust, people who are willing to help you, even when you're not willing to help yourself..." He trails off, smiling as his gaze falls back to the flame, which he gets out a poker to mind in the way an outdoorsy type would manage a burn to improve the product, turning over the split pine logs and breaking up the partially consumed wood for more active fuel with an iron poker. School Yuuki leans her elbows on her knees and sits, legs together, fingers curling around her cheeks as her chin rests lightly on her palms. "Rido... Rido was someone who came to Cross Academy, and hurt a lot of my friends. Everyone came together to beat him, but he made things difficult for a while. It was when he came to Cross Academy that I..." One of Yuuki's stabilizing hands moves to her neck, but she doesn't finish the sentence. Instead, she smiles at Biteblade. "You're really smart, you know? Then again, the edge feels awful because it could always be the edge of a cliff you'll never come back from. A forest that'll swallow you up." The Woodsman snorts. "Or walking out of your door." He chuckles again. The real Zero would add a 'useless' here, but instead that addition hangs, before he stands, stepping over to his axe stuck in the tree stump in the clearing. "But nobody here is that weak. The forest is easy to get lost in, but it's harmless. If you get lost, find the river. You can't miss it. Just follow your nose." The Woodsman rears back and takes one mighty chop at a seemingly random tree, revealing a second tree-lined path through the dusk directly into deep night - and a tremendous mansion that rises above the trees, somehow having been hidden by the tops of the pines but clear down the path. It's not one story, or two, but towers like a character in and of itself, white and black marble with orange-lit windows twinkling like stars in the distance. The forest on this side of the mind isn't just cold and piney, but more alive, bats and butterflies and hints of wolves among the trees watching the path. It is also much more stable - if the Reversed Manor path was like walking into a hall of mirrors or a kaleidoscope upside-down, the path to the Upright Manor (and what a startlingly firm edifice it is) is solid, stable, secure. From far off in the distance, the tempting scent of blood gushes from one side of the forest, mingled with pine and the crispness of snow.
Starbound Flotilla	Biteblade does a happy little motion. "Yeah! Chopping friend hasss friend now, friend for helping director friend." She turns back to School Yuuki, and looks quite prideful when Yuuki calls her smart. She's practically brimming with the happiness of the validation. "Floran ssspend a long time on thisss! Floran learn, and ssstudy, and write. But that never make it lessss scary. What make edge lesss ssscary is what Floran found, which isss friends. You beat fear of cognitive disssonance by putting faith in friend to underssstand what you contradict yourssself about. I think Director friend knowsss how to do that, and not even be ssscared of it. Jussst need to make the habit of it." She gives firm and intense nods. "Yeahyeah." Biteblade isn't insisting on affectionate gestures the way she often does here. Less because she doesn't feel positively towards Yuuki, and more because she's doing her best to keep what passes for a Floran's ability to hold a serious conversation that isn't a declaration of murder. Though her tone may be full of whimsy and a little bit rambling, it's firmly supportive. Not just positive to Yuuki, but putting a sort of belief -- or perhaps more accurately, trust -- in her. Then she's looking in awe at the tree-chopping again, and ready to head back down that one! The Upright Manor's path is lacking the haunting threats, but seems more like it has a wider variety of animal life. Biteblade's brain is already running through ideas about what that might mean for the Upright side's mind, what she thinks of the world around her, how she regards it less as a threat and more as beautiful predatory competition...? Biteblade can't be entirely sure, but while she wanders the path and chatters with the others, she's still thinking hard.
Zero Kiryu	Zero remains silent for an awfully long time after the dreams of level Es are dispatched. Bloody Rose coils around his arm, becoming more compact but not disappearing. Its vines work their way up his arm, winding beneath his skin and emerging from beneath his collar. The tendrils resemble veins, in a way-- thorned, prickly veins of silvery-white metal. But he turns his head in sudden recognition when the Woodsman says something related to him. A phantom fever washes over him. He raises his weaponless hand to run his fingers through his hair uncomfortably, wiping away imaginary sweat. "It wasn't like that." He interjects. "I spent the time that I thought I had remaining to me the way I wanted to." "But," he says, "it was difficult. Not hurting people was difficult. When opportunities came to buy a little more time, I took them. Even if I hated every second of them. I spent so much time at war with myself, that I didn't have the energy for anything else. And then..." Violet eyes trail down towards School Yuuki, and the bite marks on her neck. He lapses into silence. It doesn't bother him to admit the rest of this out in the open, but their little confrontation in the dorms isn't something that Zero wants to put out in the open more than he has to. He shrugs. His attention at last turns on the second path created by his other self. "I'm going, now." Zero says, and so he does. He seems at ease with this new path, gliding through like he belongs. Truly, he imagines that he probably does. It would not surprise him to see flashes of white wolves among the creatures here. Bloody Rose pulses, like a heartbeat. A little ways down his head turns slightly, his focus turning on Biteblade. "You have a lot of good things to say." He remarks, perhaps a little out of nowhere. His thoughts on the Floran are growing increasingly more complex, and can't really be encapsulated in that statement-- it's hard not to marvel at how much he underestimated her.
Yuuki Kuran	The Forest of Memory goes, in fact, relatively smoothly. Unnaturally smoothly. Before, there was the terrible feeling of upside-down vertigo, of nothing being stable and in fact a tangible, tactile full-body feeling stemming from the inner ear and the heart alike that the world was temporary. That the world was unstable. That the world could change, twist, or even shatter at a moment, and that struggling through it all was a monumental task. Bringing School Yuuki out of it and to the little wooden cottage in the Forest, on the other hand, had been a tactile triumph, a steady improvement in state and certainty. Then, the path to the Upright Mansion one may expect a similar effect! But no. There's no twisting, no turning. The path is welcoming to walk on, an affirmingly pleasant brisk temperature, and crunchy underfoot with pliant snow-drifts. The very air has a rich piney scent that fills lungs cleanly, and moving towards the mansion is internally affirming, certain, steady, and true. It feels true. Like running a hand along smooth marble, or resting on bedrock. The various forest creatures - black wolves, roosting bats, butterflies, and the like, grow more apparent, until, at the end of the path, Zero spots a single silver wolf that sits before the gate of the manor, with two purple eyes. Well, he had spotted it - felt it - beforehand, through the trees. Before the gate, as the manor's three stories feel like three hundred when standing under its eaves, the silver wolf gets up from its sitting position and turns, coughing out a key (???) to unlock the door, turning it with its doggymouth and leaning on the gate until it creaks open with a grinding of wrought iron on stone. The interior grounds of the manor are completely infested with all manner of shadow creatures, shambling and milling about. Dozens of different beheaded people of meaningless nature to everyone but Zero (it's the various Vampire Councils that got beheaded over and over, it's about as cliche as Heartless Tornadoes) float around in the air like flocks of geese or pidgeons, weaving strange patterns through the air. At the steps to the manor's door is a blonde man with beautiful features, silver-white eyes, and a model's complexion. He dozes quietly, with something that probably shouldn't be in his possession leaning against his shoulder - the form of Artemis, extended into a long bat-winged scythe. All sorts of scents fill the air, but one among all fills the nostrils with an intoxicating vapor - that of rich blood. Not of candy soda blood, pringles blood, cheap and unfulfilling, but a perfectly-cooked A5 wagyu steak with trimmings, mushrooms, and wine deglazed pan gravy over fresh cream-mashed garlic potatoes blood. Blood that is rich, and potent, and gushing just out of sight. The whole place sings with it, and the aroma is both sickening and empowering.
Zero Kiryu	The stability of this half of Yuuki... isn't all that surprising, to Zero. It isn't that he thinks it should be that way, but rather, that the nature of her very own actions of late have had that quality to them. The events in Ghirapur were colored heavily by the Pureblood Princess, not by the schoolgirl. But there was still an element of that person there, too-- the desire for everyone to come out ahead, not merely her own 'side'. He ignores the black wolves and bats aggressively, a sharp contrast to everything else here which at least gets passing, visible attention. Zero passingly considers vaulting over the gate before the white wolf coughs up the key and unlocks the way for them. A slightly guilty expression flickers across his features. His eyes pass over the blonde man as he proceeds up towards the door, pausing at the bottom of the steps and turning about to look at the headless 'birds' looping about in the air. Of course he recognizes the people who tried to have him killed. Zero stares at them intently, trying to pick out whether or not they're psychohazards or just memories. He may or may not be deliberately glossing over the doorman for the moment.
Starbound Flotilla	Biteblade wanders along the path, muttering softly, almost whispering. "You feel it, right? Isss more, thisss way. More sssolid, more true. Floran think, isss how all civilization work. Thingsss like humanity are kind of like liesss that you believe in a lot until they ssstart becoming true. But thingsss like mindssset of hunter, you have to lie to not think them. Not because hunter mind isss the only /real/ thing, but because hunter mind isss only /true/ thing for the whole brain." She's not talking to anyone in particular. Just kind of constantly rambling. She does stop, for a while, to watch the dog, with both the happiness of someone encountering a dog (dog dog dog doggy!!) but also someone who would like to eat it. She doesn't, though. That would be /rude/. Instead, she heads inside the gate, and then up to the steps. She takes a moment to peer at him. And if he remains asleep, she gets up on the steps and just scrutinizes him critically, getting inches from him with her judgmental stare. After a long time, she hops back off the stairs and declares: "Floran think, isss not Director Friend!" She says, with relevatory tones. "Hiiiii!" She calls out, helping wake the man up. "Floran isss here to talk to young lady in manor! Floran isss here for tasssk and job! And Floran hasss Upside Down Manor friend here too. Can come in, ssscythe friend? Floran doesss not wanna get reaped, yeahyeah. Met enough guy like that back in woodsss. Bleh!"
Priscilla	Not walking along a twisty house of mirrors path that makes Priscilla feel like that way you do when you look up between your legs at the sky and like you're going to fall off the Earth (it is a very specific feeling that she probably doesn't remember even from being a kid, but you know the feeling) sure is nice. After the horrible greasy back alley-type stranger danger vampire man is completely dealt with, the stroll is practically pleasant from there. She's familiar with wolves. Bats. Pines. Snow. Lonesome roads. She's also familiar with shadow creatures, zombies, headless people, and weirder demons. So much that she's far too comfortable around them. She goes about the grounds not even in the sense that she fails to notice them or doesn't look put off, but in a slightly homey way, like that miniscule body language of relaxation when entering a friend's familiar home. Wolves doing improbable things with human things in their mouths is only something she saw the one time though. Once again, she gives Zero the 'explain this bullshit' stare at the gate, especially when she catches his guiltyface. "And here I wouldst hath thought it due to these memories not being associated with confluences of mental alteration and willful, blissful ignorance, fearful of being overturned at any time, yet determined to enjoy it whilst it lasts." she replies to Biteblade, taking the sadder, more cynical spin on it. Because she's always kind of wanted to do it though, while the ostensible gate guard is taking a siesta, she picks up Artemis, turning it around and comparing Scythe Ergonomics, Scythe Stats, and general Scythefeel. She's curious.
Zero Kiryu	In reply to Priscilla's look, Zero reaches into his jacket again and draws Bloody Rose. He points it off to one side, vines slithering off of it and shaping themselves into a metallic-looking vine wolf. He explains, "As vampires go... I am the lowest there is. I do not have the ability to express familiars. Even so, I have the echoes of these things inside me." "That white wolf is another 'Zero'." The vines retract into the gun, and Zero replaces Bloody Rose in his underarm holster.
Yuuki Kuran	Zero knows the script, here, but even so, it's perhaps shocking to see it play out. The White Wolf is pretty transparently the 'local hound', like a Daschund or German Shepard that 'owns' the grounds. The floating heads and shadowy monsters are, one and all, not psychohazards. In fact, they largely shy away from interaction, giving wide berth to the 'expected' guests, and unless directly aggressed on, they exist in this space within the high stone walls of the manor grounds, half-trapped, half-resident. Even if the doggy dog dog dog doggo would be unlikely to actually have a key to the grounds in its mouth, the key (if inspected) is very much an old style iron key, with large ring and simple lock that could, conceiveably, be used with someone's teeth were they so inclined. The doggy dog dog doggo gives biteblade a Look. It is a Doggy Look. It knows it is a delicious dog, but it is also a Zero Figment, so... Mostly it looks really dimly annoyed at the fact that it's delicious. Truly, this dog is just Zero with all the flaws removed. Biteblade's experience with the place is like a hunter - no, more than that. An 'Apex Predator's' trophy room. Keenly aware of the shying-away phantoms as the hazy recollections of past conquests, either passive or active. People, beings, shapes resembling creatures that put themselves at issue, placed themselves in a predator's path, and were destroyed. A nostalgia, like a trophy wall, or the memory of a battle - and an absolute victory. The heads, among all of them, have an air of smug satisfaction, a toothy smirking of 'and this is what they got', as their dusty floating stump-necks wordlessly reminisce over the time they Stepped Up To The Plate And Got Fucked For It. Biteblade addresses the dozing boy on the steps, who cracks an eye and the yawns broadly, two long eye fangs pointedly protruding from past his perfect face. "I'd say you're late, or grumble about you being early, but neither are true, are they? Here you are. Unfortunately, the master isn't seeing people, tonight. She doesn't see a point in it. So you can go home, and let things play out." He stifles another yawn with a hand as Priscilla takes Artemis from off his shoulder. "That's what she said, so that's what I'm saying. You understand, don't you?" He addresses Zero. Priscilla's grip on Artemis, as sure as practically anyone else's in the Multiverse could possibly be, takes a moment of electric and itchy tingling against the palm before she hefts it as easily as anything else. A sense of 'oh, if it's you, for now' rings like a single chime of a bell, as she takes a few experimental swings. Artemis is, like every other Hunter weapon, a weapon with a mind of its own - a shard of some extremely morose, resolved apex predator who knew that forever was, in fact, a truly long time, and that something had to be done about the immortal tyrants of the age. Weilding it is as much feeling that resolution as channeling it, an old friend or mentor riding sidesaddle with the swings, urging or correcting, the weight shifting subtly and intelligently to compensate for overswinging or underswinging. A 'readiness', and also a deeply regretful remorse that it had to 'be this way' in the first place. Beyond that, Artemis is the hammered-out form of predation, built especially to be tucked away, or spring out into glory. Above that, along the ridges of organic segmentation, is a layer of brooding viciousness, of necessity that was eagerly seized upon, of being 'chosen'. Also it's a pretty good scythe, if Incredibly Anime.
Zero Kiryu	Zero hums thoughtfully at the lack of hazards here. He supposes that nothing over on this side is really a problem. It certainly explains how 'level' everything is. His attention slides slowly back towards the blonde man at the stairs. He mulls over the problem in his head. There is no version of Yuuki Kuran who would truly expect him to obey such a greeting. In fact, there's a part of him that is quite certain that /this/ one would be at least a little bit disappointed if he did. Oh, yes. It's the part of Yuuki that commands and expects to be obeyed. But it's still Yuuki. And he hasn't met a Pureblood yet who didn't find /some/ allure or worthiness of pause when he met their earnest commands and told them off for it. It was, he thought, like refusing to give an animal the impression that you were good prey. Then there's the smell of the place. Is this how she imagines herself smelling to the countless individuals who tried to come after her, or is it just a dream of how she knows she smells? "Hanabusa." Zero greets the blonde man, without actually addressing anything at all that he says. Deciding that it's best to let their meeting here to be as near to her idea as he can get it, Zero climbs partway up the steps and sits down next to Hanabusa. A vague, affirmative vocalization leaves him. Then he slices the palm of his hand open with a taloned finger, holds it out over the steps, and clenches hard enough to produce a steady flow of blood that trickles down onto and down the steps in front of him. "This is Hanabusa Aido. Medical researcher. Yuuki's tutor and minder." He introduces the blonde man for the others, as an afterthought.
Priscilla	Aside that moment of moderately uncomfortable 'attunement', Priscilla is surprised enough at not only her curiosity playing out, but also at how exactly Yuuki feels about the anime scythe she rarely ever sees, and how she intimately feels some of its similarities, and immediately recognizes its sharp, contrasting differences, from what she knows. She'd never quite paid too much attention to the weird mercurial batwing baton weapon, but now her interest is very visibly piqued. Each test swing and spin gets a little bit more refined as she gets a feel for it, but the real gears are turning in her head, as her eyes aren't quite focused on what she's doing, and she faintly chews the corner of her lip deep in thought. She doesn't say it out loud, but she wants to know where it came from now. 'Organic' is certainly right. She is familiar with the deeply conceptual feeling of 'the predator', but the sensation of it being a living thing --a conscious and relatable 'other', rather than simply Otherness-- is weird and novel, even if only a fragment of whatever powerful entity had deemed it necessary to shatter itself into so many weapons of Needful Death. She'd also personally like to know why. "Mmh?" Priscilla glances away from fiddling with Artemis when Zero introduces Hanabusa. "Ah, well met then, if thou art a friend of Lady Kuran." she says. "I understandeth perfectly well, but I am of the disposition to not be told such things secondhand. The meanings oft change, as does the willingness of the one said to sayeth so, whence put through others. Regardless of whether she wouldst see a point to it, we shalt."
Starbound Flotilla	"Huuuuuh? But Floran isss here to help and everything! Why have big manor if never sssee friendsss? Pointlesss waste! Pah." Biteblade questions the idea of assets and capitalism in the boy's direction. She taps one foot, tapping to the rhythm of whatever weird thought process it is that the little Floran has. "Floran think tutor friend got commanded like that becaussse hunter mind likesss to get every chance it can have to show great power and control and ssstrength. And would be disappointed if not get /all/ the chancesss!" She smiles positively and brightly to Hanabusa. "Which meansss, Floran should go inssside! And go make sssure upright mind can learn why there isss a good point to visit, and all good thingsss that can happen from visit!" She seems quite terribly confident that she'll be able to win over the vampire side of Yuuki's mind, so she's already on her way to head in. It doesn't occur to her that Zero is probably doing... /something/ to draw her out. Or that Priscilla may have the same intentions, but more tactful, which seems to be Priscilla's near-constant state. She's gonna go get on in there and see what there is to see, and meet who there is to meet! Unless, you know, stopped, of course. There's a degree to which crash-through bullheadedness can be terribly sabotaging, and where door paralysis ought to be the rational response.
Yuuki Kuran	The scent of blood, rich and sense-consuming around the mansion grounds isn't what Zero would describe as 'like Yuuki's', or even her imagination of such. And, none of the other shadows or random (medusa) heads or other creatures are denied or gorge themselves on. Meanwhile, Hanabusa is the Shittiest Death imagineable, though the feeling is - this is the person who would have weilded Artemis 'In Yuuki's Place' to dispatch with interlopers. A second 'loyal hound', one that Yuuki (or, at least, the Pureblood Princess part of her) would feel no remorse in Ordering to handle matters with interlopers. It's a show of force. He's an especially Perfect Japonordic Castlevania boss, but seems disinclined to fight this Particular Group. Biteblade calls Hanabusa out on it, too. The sleepy idol smiles, a helpless 'you got me'. "But I can't just let you through, unfortunately. I was told." That holds a meaning, all of its own, but before he can reach up and grab Artemis from Priscilla, or really get about doing things, Zero carves into himself and squeezes, alerting every 'being' in the area who all stop simultaneously and turn with a hungry narrowing of senses towards that point of light. But there's no frenzy. Instead, it's Hanabusa who jumps onto a knee, like a drug dog that was alerted to kilos of illegal drugs. As Zero bleeds there, Hanabusa stares at the dark crimson that fills the stoop, and, slowly, like a wild animal being drawn in with a bowl of milk or a piece of meat, dips lower towards it, watching Zero. Then he literally starts lapping it up like a dog, tongue lightly lapping at the pool while the rest of the grounds watched with intensity. As the large double-doors click unlocked, the silver wolf pads over, placing a paw on Hanabusa's back and looking at Zero. It's almost cartoonishly ironic that it's the 'loyal hound' of a tutor lapping at the pool of blood like a waterbowl, while the literal loyal hound of a wolf watches patiently while the restrained and refined yet entirely bestial act takes place. Swung wide by Biteblade going 'yeah nah, that sounds fake, going to see friend now', plus Zero's own insistences - and Priscilla basically disarming and playing with the immortal-slaying weapon Hanabusa had seemingly been tasked with using to deflect the group's intention - the path inside stretches into a long corridor lined with a literal indoor moat of sanguine liquid, and a long red rug that continues up a set of stairs, onto a balcony, and another set of double-doors, slightly adjar at the top and flickering with candlelight. The moat is blood, with pours in on both sides of the wall with some sort of internal irrigation, and from the inside the scent of the blood is a 'slam you in the face' sort of aroma - a hot wall of gore with an compelling bouquet. Lining the hall and staircase are a collection of 'people' with a selection of refined rich clothes in various styles usually grey and black and red and whites... and all missing their head right at the center of their neck. The arrange themselves like a disney musical of butlers and maids, bowing as the trio saunter in, gesturing up the stairs like Yuuki turned out the entire house of waitstaff to usher her guests in. Combined with the smell, the 'blood-moat' is irrigated in a dull thudding completely canny to a beating heart deep within the mansion.
Zero Kiryu	Zero shouldn't be surprised. This Hanabusa is a part of Yuuki, and that speaks for itself. In his mind he weighs the merits of telling the real Aido about this, but decides that it's too much of a violation of Yuuki's privacy to be bothered. Besides... he can share it with her, depending on how aware she is of it, and she might do something with it all on her own. He rises slowly to prevent Hanabusa from acting like a spooked cat, glancing towards the silver wolf as he does. Zero gives a light shake of his head, as if in sympathy with the sheer nonsense of what's going on just now. Then he ascends the staircase, trailing after Biteblade. "Your understanding is close. It is... a compulsion, of this part of Yuuki's nature. It is routine for vampires to hold soirees to socialize and posture at one another across the night. It gets tense when one as powerful as Director Kuran turns up. You see..." Zero gestures towards the headless servants, "If a vampire of her caste gives a command, even if it is to 'take your own life', most vampires cannot help but obey. In fact, that is what happened to the Vampire Council five years ago." "It used to be a staff," Zero asides to Priscilla, visibly squeezing his bleeding hand to leave a trail of blood in his wake. He's courteous enough to do it where nobody else has to walk through it, "back when she was more like a hunter than a vampire."
Priscilla	Finished with her fiddling for now, Priscilla looks from the weapon to Zero slowly, deliberately, slitting open his own hand, and then at last goes from vague, sideways glancing interest at Hanabusa, to visible, eye-narrowing, contemptuous disgust. No matter how vampires work, no matter how 'dignified' it is, seeing the man lower himself to the position of a starving dog and begin licking an offering off the floor is too much for her to excuse. Whatever Yuuki's mental reasons for thinking of it this way, she can only look down past her nose at him as the group passes. Revolting. "Cannot help for reasons of caste and face, or reasons of magic?" she asks when they're well on the way through the hallway. Her cheek twitches at the overpowering stench of blood, idealized, romanticized, even fetishized, from the real thing that she'd all but tuned out long ago. It's possibly preferable to the sweaty and desperate, thin-blooded counterpart to the scent in the forest, but it's still such a dominating impression of the whole house that it becomes offputting. "And for what reason didst they displease her so? Five years is scarcely any time at all." Priscilla says. Of course she'd think that. The she goes back to intense scrutiny of Artemis. "And if I may ask, what didst change a simple staff so? There is Another to this weapon, most certainly. One whom wishes a number of vampires dead, most certainly, in as much as it wishes anything. I had assumed its totality to be a very old thing." Priscilla steps carefully past the moat, so as not to get any on her, and pushes the doors.
Zero Kiryu	"You could call it magic," Zero explains to Priscilla, "there are four -- technically, five -- 'levels' of vampire, based on the purity of their bloodline. Level A represents the Purebloods and their ancestors, who have never interbred with humans or vampires of lesser lineage. They possess the ability to command the obedience of all vampires beneath themselves. Yuuki is descended from an exceptionally powerful line that once governed Vampires as a whole." "Level B is the nobility. Those descended from a Pureblood, and another of lesser lineage. They do not possess mental domination powers, nor are they immortal, but they usually have some unique ability and exceptional physical traits regardless. Hanabusa is a member of the nobility." "Level C is the 'common vampire', born of formerly human vampires. I am what you would call a Level D, a human who has been bitten by a pureblooded vampire." His head twitches slightly towards Priscilla when she questions how the Council had displeased Yuuki. Zero issues a negative vocalization, "Her ancestor did that on her behalf, but not at her request. She wouldn't have done such a thing." His eyes flick to Artemis, "It is the nature of Hunter weapons to evolve with their wielder. Yuuki is a pureblood vampire whose lineage was suppressed by some means I am not familiar with, effectively making her closer to a hunter than a vampire. Her ancestor eventually bit her to restore her to the fullness of her power in reaction to a number of sequential threats. Artemis changed when Yuuki changed." "Bloody Rose and Artemis," he continues, "are among the oldest Hunter weapons in existence. All of them have a life of their own, because they are made from the life of a Pureblood Ancestor who made a pact with the first Hunters."
Yuuki Kuran	The whole realm is, in fact, subtly revolting, and Hanabusa is, unironically, pathetic in this representation of him. And, inside the mansion, the thumping monstrosity of a blood-moat and an entire entourage of beheaded servitors. Well, it was a representation of her inner mentality as much as it was a dream. Perhaps this was just the basest, least flattering, fetishized, pig-in-slop rolling around in being a powerful and dominant monster without a shred of remorse. And equally likely: it was this way because, as an intelligent and immortal being, subtly being disgusted at hedonistic revelry without a shred of shame and keeping such things at least private and intimate. Past the second set of doors, it's not 'The Yuuki Kuran, Director of the Concord' that had spent nearly a decade out in the multiverse and having grown up, or even a young teenaged Yuuki. It's a child. Long haired and bright red-brown eyed in a ridculous gothic-lolita type dress of frills and soft ruffles and a little hair ribbon hanging off a teacup hat, the sort of 'absurdly shoujo manga' setting, framed in a large throne in golds and reds and a draped banner in black, the recieving room just set up to make whomever sitting on the chair be framed by column and drapery and a slanted diasing. An absurd pedestal and yet entirely 'appropriate' throne. The 'Certainty' in the setup is the convincing sort of 'far beyond opulent absurdity into it just being an Owned Look', and the air is entirely clear in just this sole room, save for the lightest note of savored blood-memory in... ...yeah, of course it's in a wine glass. This is that sort of projection. That there's a wine glass being sworled in a tiny lolita child's hand in entire seriousness is just that last cherry on top. "That useless Hanabusa didn't even slow you down." Child Yuuki smirks, hnnf-ing a bemused sigh. "I had told him to make it at least a little difficult, but it's you three. I can't really be mad, can I?" She gestures lightly with the wineglass and it's cardinal slosh. "All of you know how things work around here. More or less. But it's why I'm surprised you're here. Don't you want us to be strong? Confident? It's not like losing that chaff across the forest will mean the person you know will be gone. I'll still be behind you entirely--" The child smiles coldly at Biteblade, "--willing to move heaven and earth and anyone in your way--" The child favors Priscilla with an expectant glance and series of slow blinks, "--and there for you, forever." Her pan finishes on Zeor, with a fond exhalation of breath. "So really. Just go back. Let our nature take its course, and everything will be better for it."
Starbound Flotilla	Biteblade steps through an uncanny world. Each pulse rings in her mind. Blood flows through sight and thought. The scent is starting to get overwhelming. She hungers more for meat than blood, but the two intertwine in the core of the mind's mental image of a terribly rare steak. Biteblade salivates just a little, and tries to restrain it. When she gets there, it's enough that it's hard for her to speak. "Floran isss... Yeah. Floran wantsss Director Friend to be ssstrong." She feels unsettled, unsteady, but her brain seems to lock into focus now that the air is cleared. Her tone reverts, though, losing the trappings of language that she's picked up from others, or from the many books she's hoarded. Her tones are tribal grunts. The hunter mind. "Not here to hunt you." She says. "Here to make a cassse." She steps forward, her posture somewhat hunched, but the clearer air lets her keep out of the less civilized approach. "Want to know why you're doing this." She blurts. The words sort of fall through her teeth, like spitting out a mouthful of razors. "Keeping away. Know why the other one doesss. Fright." She gestures back towards the School Yuuki. "Hard to accept a hunter. Why you? Nothing to be afraid of. Why separate?" She's not disoriented by the scent anymore, so why is she still speaking so intensely? The tone is a mix of tribal and professional, of cutting extraneous clauses not because the syntax is undeveloped, but because she's focused on minimizing speech and not wasting time. She tilts her head. There's a moment of worry. "What happensss after nature takesss its course?" That implied a process. Something long-term. A worrying thing that wasn't hinted at by the broader stability of Yuuki's mind. Is the ecosystem here truly as stable as it looked, even a hundred years on into the future?
Zero Kiryu	It's been a long while. Zero steps through the double doors, and remembers. It is over a decade ago. He hasn't been in the Cross household for very long, or at the very least he doesn't think he has. Time seemed more than a little meaningless. He wasn't quite so aware of how little of it he was probably going to have, then. His fingers raked at the spot on his neck where he'd been bitten, trying -- steadily, desperately -- to reduce the revolting itching. Words blur together, a hum of a voice that doesn't take coherent shape. He doesn't remember exactly what she said, but he knows the gist of it. She takes his hand and stops him from hurting himself. It isn't the first time he's been cast back into these memories, and he doubts it'll be the last. It isn't this memory that informs what he'll say, though. He comes to a halt at the edge of the pedestal, refusing to rise up on it for now. Zero looks up at the child Yuuki. "'I'm glad that you understand. I'm not the Yuuki that Zero knows anymore. Because the vampire side of me ate the other part.'." He recites to her, raising one hand to press a finger to the edge of her pedestal. "If you want to say a hurtful lie to me because I said hurtful lies to you, then... you have every right to hurt me in return. But when did you start believing your own impulsive lies?" Zero demands. It might've been angry, if she'd worn a different face. As it is, he simply seems... disappointed. It might've been easier to hear the other way.
Priscilla	Focusing on Zero giving genuinely helpful answers and explaining things Priscilla had never really had the time nor occasion to ask from her Director is certainly the preferable alternative to paying any iota of attention to the surroundings of the absurdly overdone and blood-saturated memory of the Kuran house. Contemplating the latter for too long just seems like it'd lead nowhere good. "Ah, and thus what thou referreth to whence speaking of 'Level E's as feral beasts. I had wondered." says Priscilla idly. "Though such raises the question of what vampires were originally, if not human." She glances back down at Artemis. "What is it that differentiates a Hunter's weapon from merely a weapon? I hath heard thee use that word before, all emphasis intended each time. What is the significance of it . . . and why art thou one? I had never bothered to pry." she says. Ridiculous tiny indulging shoujo manga Yuuki on the throne is received with a moment of slow blinking vertigo, as Priscilla tries to reconcile the image of the girl she knows with this tiny little monster swaddled in frills and ruffles in a photo shoot of a darkly overdecorated throne room, like a doll put up for display, trying to look both rich and menacing, and succeeding at one and a half. While Biteblade starts, she doesn't quite seem to have the words, listening to tyrant child Yuuki with a faintly head-tilted squint to it. "I wouldst rather thou be the one that I had placed mine trust in, as did those who first offered to support the idea the Concord doth stand for." she arrives at saying, without that slow hesitancy of words forming as they go. "If I didst think that 'the other girl' were somehow a detriment to Lady Kuran's duties or a flaw in her character, neither of thee wouldst be where thou art right now regardless. This sounds as if thou art suggesting I cleave off someone's left hand for the fact their right is the stronger of the two; ridiculous to insist upon a subordinate, and abysmal to insist upon a friend."
Yuuki Kuran	"We've been seperate since her birth. She was given the sun out of another selfish desire, and hidden from all harms out of another selfish desire. They kept stacking up. This, and that. And I was locked up, all alone, deep deep down. I was decided for, and decided for, until I wasn't allowed to make any decisions. And all the foolish, sun-lit decisions she got to make were meaningless in the bubble of her protection. "And then, selfishness on selfishness stacked up, and a little bit of my strength kept on being needed. Really, if she has learned how to live in the dark in the first place, none of this would have happened." "It's her fault. And I want to be selfish for once. It's my right. I'm strong - stronger than her. I'm the real me, too." It's a child's logic. "Time douses all lights, but I'm even stronger in the dark. I'm the reason we don't get cold. I'm the reason... We're still us at all! So it'll my turn to do what I want." It's a tantrum, of a sort. "What's the point of strength of you never use it? It's so stupid. I don't want to grow up. That means you'll never be free. The parties...' Her face scrunches up as if tasting a rotten, sour thing. Disgust. "So awful." She slumps in her chair after that, much of the meanacing energy leaving her. Her wineglass lulls in her hand, the liquid balanced in the bulb of the glass precariously. "But you know more than anyone else what it's like to try to make sense of being apart." She grumbles, dejectedly, to Biteblade. As if the hunter's words - and even their mere presence - was a present mathematical proof of self-affirmation. Priscilla, still holding Artemis, feels the scythe tingle warmly in her palm like a cat with electric fur, rubbing her affectionately. Child Yuuki, however, huffs at her, like an older sibling who is delivering some annoying truth of the world. "It's just because you're used to her. It's unfair that she's the one that gets the better part of the deal. Never having to be responsible for any of her choices, and then needing me to be the one to grow up." Zero... get's one of those very deeply typical child's -- 'gnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh'. "You always stop me from doing awful things, but don't remind me of the stupid awful things that came out of my mouth. It's not fair. I'll never, ever win if you do that. I'm going to have to go to that stupid tiny shack, aren't I?" "It's so far away from the river, she'll bore me to death with her idiocy while I waste away parched." Possibly the most absurd 'i dun wannaaaaa' delivered by a magic draculina.
Zero Kiryu	Zero nods a confirmation about Level Es to Priscilla. In answer to the rest, he replies, "The few accounts we have on the subject suggests that Purebloods were simply born of humans. Hunters are a lineage who struck a pact with one of the Pureblood Ancestors, who fed them her blood and cast her heart into a furnace from which weapons like Artemis and Bloody Rose would be made. Hunter weapons are Hunter weapons because they are intended for those who made a pact with her, and their descendants." "Hunters are born, and Hunter weapons are living things that allow their wielders to use them at their own discretion. We don't naturally have bodies that can express the sort of power a vampire has, so our weapons take in the strength that we can't evolve in our place. They play favorites, sometimes. The Kuran bloodline is related to the Ancestor in the forge, so descendants of their lineage are often able to use Hunter weapons." He doesn't come right out and say that he was just born a Hunter, but that seems to be what he's getting at. Then, of course, there is Yuuki. For all his disappointment, Zero Kiryu listens patiently. The form and demeanor of this Yuuki seems, contrary to what might have seemed to be something that /should/ have brought out the crankiest in him, to have brought out every ounce of gentleness and understanding that he has. A distant pang of agitation echoes in the back of his mind, racing out from the depths of Ichiru's experiences. "The both of us... have had many decisions made for us that we would not have made for ourselves. Some of them were well meaning, and others..." Zero trails away on that thought, being quite certain that this Yuuki understands how much they've both been exploited, "These decisions that were made for us were not our responsibility. Neither yours or mine." "Because of that, we didn't know how to be. And because we didn't know how to be... I bared my fangs at you, and you bared your fangs at me. That is the consequence of our own decisions. Being sheltered is not the same as being protected. There was no 'arrogant pure blood who trifles with humans' behind that door. On one side, as the other, there was someone hurt and confused."
Starbound Flotilla	Biteblade's approach here doesn't treat the child Yuuki as a child, possibly because Florans may have weird non-children. In a way, what comes next is insensitive and evokative both at once. Her eyes flare a little, and her jaw works around as if polishing the words before they come out. "Unfair. Yeah." She says. "Right? Puh. Eat the wrong meat, everyone criesss. Here isss the truth." She crosses her arms. "You desserve better. You need the growing-up that she wantsss. You're hunter? Strong? Want respect? Good. Will teach you sssomething Greenfinger taught." She sits down in front of the throne, crossing her legs like she's telling a story around a campfire. She speaks with the authority of a tribe leader. "Before each great hunt, fast. Fast until your hunger speaks to your mind in the tone of an old friend. The hunger will become strong, and the mind will become sharp. To fill your belly will stunt you and make you settle for halves. To starve will madden you and create mistakes. When you have hunger and thought together, then you hunt." She points to Child Yuuki. "Will be away from river. /Good/. Fill thisss all with hunger. Fill thisss all with ambition. Other Yuuki is good too. Made connection with usss, created idealsss, formed link. Now, wallow ssssometimes. Needsss you." She leans forward, propping herself up, palms braced on her knees with all the weight of dramatically completing a circuit. "Gonna tell other Yuuki too. Need to accept you. Need to accept hunger, drive, pride, passsion. Because you dessserve better than you have, and she'll die off without you." "Be hungry, demand, be ambitiousss. Make her work for you to not be parched. Teach her how to think with sharpnesss Drive her, push her, move her forward. Won't be bored. Won't be parched. Will make sssure she acceptsss you, if you accept her. Then? Better. Perfect hunter, jussst like Floran." She taps her own chest several times with her knuckles proudly, and then stops doing her tribe-leader seating, standing while keeping her eyes locked on Yuuki.
Priscilla	"I hear thee complaining of being locked away, disregarded, ignored, spoken for, to the point thou were forgotten, and it is by far a valid grievance. I hear thee complaining of being needed constantly, left to perform more and more work thineself, thine power required in ever greater and more desperate quantities to maintain a way of life, and such is also a valid grievance." Priscilla starts, almost dispassionately. "Taken together, however, neither art." "One cannot be powerless and ignored if they art also vital and depended upon. One cannot lend their strength to a cause and claim that they hath no voice in the matter. One can, however, mismanage their affairs, and then becometh sour and bitter for it. Certainly, there is a reason that thou were called upon, and yet no matter how many times, failed to maketh any impression that thou couldst be trusted to reconcile and maketh such decisions, and so were not allowed." "I suspect that this is why. 'Taking turns' is not how the infliction of oppression and neglect is given to work. Even if given over to thee for an entirely equal length of time, what wouldst cometh out of it after both halves were fairly weighted, wouldst be nothing else than thine exact preference to the detriment of the other. Declaring 'fair is fair, now it is settled' once thou hath arranged things exactly to thine pleasure is absurd. It begets thine imprisonment once again, and clearly demonstrates why thou were in the first place." Priscilla just sounds . . . tired. "Time moveth such that the present is the only thing thou art left with when the past hath run its course. No matter how thou seeketh to correct it, or to maketh up for it, thine present shalt not becometh how it shouldst, had thine past been fair, but only a reflection of the excesses thou hast most recently given thineself to. The world, in how it deals with thee, cares not to average the whole of thine history. It cares only for who thou art doing. Perpetuating such childish 'lost time' means only that by the end of it, thou shalt be every bit a childish monster again. Destroying what the other half of thee worked for, to substitute thine own out of spite, is simply asking for what thou hast work for to be destroyed and substituted in turn." "If thou wish for any sort of fairness, work fairly. Place one hand on thine destiny and not two. Reconcile what thou wish for with the reality before thee; no amount of wishful thinking shalt help thee. Thou shalt never grow up if thou only wish to go back, and to maketh things the way they should hath been."
Yuuki Kuran	Crumpled and 'basically defeated', the 'Child' Yuuki is first brought back up by Zero's patience, though it's words he's said before. Not in that order, though. Not with that weight. Not to a Yuuki who woke up to an awful world and wanted to keep the people from her daydream safe and just mucked it all up. "Even if other people made them, we still had to live with them." Biteblade settles down and, much the same way a parent would, gives her the Solid Branch (from a Floran Man). "Starving myself... Well, I'm no stranger to it. But you're right." Child Yuuki glances into the liquid in her wineglass, tilting the neck towards the corner of her eye. "I wanted to roll around in it longer. But that useless and weak daydream is better at mak-... Keeping friends." Priscilla's comments draw an equally tired sigh out of the Child Yuuki, as she finally grips her glass in her small hand and slugs back the contents and swallowing loudly, before leaning over the side of the throne and resting the glass on the ground. As she slide-hops off her throne, her clothes melt in the way of an outfit in a dream - shifting ephemera that are appropriate. From the frills and skirts and ruffles and 'put upon' Manga Cover look to a more simple ankle-length black dress and black hairband with a rose bun at a jaunty angle. "I can be mad I was locked away and relied upon all the same. But you're right, of course. Taking turns is pointless. It won't make either of us happy." Walking past the group with the soft pap of her bare feet on the carpet and stone, the Child Yuuki places a hand on Artemis. "I'll need this back, but, you can't take it with you anyway." With that the dream starts to flicker and fade, the barriers between the Resolution and Yuuki's disparate psyche elements finally breaking down. As the dream fades, like zooming out to the map screen, the group gets one last look at the two 'mansions' wrapped in the Forest, two points of light from the sprawling twinkles of the Village and Cross Academy, and the Kuran Mansion's warm orange halo of house lights and hearthflame. And, in the center, through the forest paths, a little campfire flickering away next to a cabin in the woods, where a Silver Wolf and a Woodsman sat together and minded things in the twilight.