Unwound

Referencing this thread

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At long last, the princess was free from her duties as "Empress" though as soon as her mother was well enough to return to the throne a messenger had come from the south. An invitation from a Vanderfell Woods for some event with the request that her mother would be there...so...back to leading it was. The pale girl knew it was important and they had no one else to send in her place so it was only natural Reiko accepted. It was important, or at least that's what her mother had said.

Though her mother would be further away, at least this time she knew when she would be back. One of the nights during Reiko's absence, the pale girl found herself unable to fall asleep, so with restless legs she bounded out in search of some relief. The stars had always been a favorite and something she could rely on even in strange lands. She would settle in the cherry blossom grove, perched along a smooth rock she had found under one of the trees as she looked up to watch the lights....

Except...

the lights moved in a way she had never seen before. At first Hotaru thought she had imagined it, or maybe the restlessness was settling in, though even after looking away, squinting, and rubbing her eyes it was there. The stars bent and twirled with the colors almost as if they were dancing until the great canine emerged. She had heard of gods before, but honestly, Hotaru had lost any faith in them long ago...A story for children to do good and believe that good would come in return. Now she wasn't sure what she believed.

She raised from her laying position, her front paws standing along the edge of the stone she had found as she stared wide-eyed and mouth agape. Surely she wasn't crazy...right? Desperately she wanted to look around to see if someone else happened to be awake at the hour and see the same thing she had, but she couldn't bear to look away. So there she sat...amazed and bewildered as the canine danced and twirled before ultimately interrupting the flow of colors in the northern lights and dashed away.

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 No tricks to the eye and no foolery to be found; Izumi definitely saw something roaming across the sky that night. Large, wolven in shape, and absolutely mystifying to her entrapped amythest gaze -- she couldn't keep her eyes off of it. What if it dissappeared when she looked the other way? Izumi couldn't take that chance, not when she already doubted anyone would believe her when she mentioned what she was looking at right now.

 Then came the farmiliar small figure of Hotaru materializing out of the corner of her eyes, and perhaps she was not going all too crazy afterall. No words were shared with the princess as the siamese approached her side slowly, for she was far too distracted by the astrological beast to find the need in vocalization. Even so, it felt quite magical to share such an experience with another....

 'Are you the one who brought me here, great one? To these mysterious lands?'

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With colors dancing and vibrant above, she almost missed the approach of the crane. A subtle shift sounded at her side though she didn't look until white caught the edges of her vision. At first, she thought it would be her mother and there was almost a pang of disappointment when she saw it wasn't, but Izumi's skyward gaze pushed out and low feelings that had only started to stir.

She saw it too.

Surely that meant it was real then? She wasn't going crazy seeing a giant wolf in the sky? Hotaru tried to find her voice, but...what was she to say? Her jaw hung open as her voice died before it could even leave her body. Instead, she turned her own gaze back to the sky only to see the wolf spin and dash away, “Wait—!” She was quick to launch herself from her seat in an attempt to follow, but no more than a few feet would she get before it faded away and the young princess came to a stop.

Why she had chased it, she wasn't certain. She had so many questions, but the thing they had witnessed had no plans to wait around for her to ask. Could it even hear them or was it part of some other world, in a realm far beyond their own?

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 Hotaru attempted to chase after the astrological beast -- much to the cranebird's rounded-eye surprise. Regardless, her dark feet trotted after both her and the ghost in the sky. This was the first time Izumi had seen the young girl in such an animated state...the last time they'd met, mother nature had seemed to limit both her movements and mood with one bite from a serpent -- now it was like a different side that contrasted from the angsty teen she'd met by the mountains that day had come to light. A watcher of the stars...had space and beyond been what caught her curiosities?

 "What do you think that was, Hotaru?" the girl asked after a few moments of silence, turning her dark muzzle attentively towards the lavender-eyed dovelette. Izu clearly wasn't the only one seeing things here -- what anomalies could've brought the appearance of a being skyward? She wanted to hear another's inquiries about it. "Do you think...it was alive, too?"

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Izumi too would follow in the chase, though it would be unknown to her if it was for the beast above or herself fleeing that caused her to follow. Even as the star wolf disappeared from sight, she still found herself searching, as if it would appear under a critical gaze, though it was gone. The voice of the crane spoke softly behind her, but she had no answers. How could she?

“I— I don't know...but it was real, yes?” She turned, brows pinched with hope that she hadn't simply been crazy. Though part of her knew that if she had been, so was Izumi. Why else would she ask about what she had not even spoken of? “Have you ever seen the stars move?” Staring at the night sky for as long as she could remember, she knew them well, even if she knew little about them. Sometimes they would shift, appearing elsewhere than they had on previous nights, sometimes they hid from view.

Living in the north, it was not unusual to see colors dance the sky on occasion as well, but this had been so much more than that. There was no simple ribbon that twirled the sky, there were legs, a head, a tail. The figure had been too clear to miss and too detailed to mistake a colorful blob as something so...pronounced. That led to other questions though...was it some greater being? Had they always been there? Long had she dropped her belief in gods after the suffering and misfortune she had seen first hand, but if they were real then why had they let so much go unchecked? Or was it a false god merely here to trick and reap the influence?

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 At this point, it couldn't possibly be only her seeing weird shit in the sky -- because she had a witness to say otherwise. One who didn't seem to know the answers to her questions, either; or more accurately, one of the many that raced through her mind as the star chaser in lupine form disappeared from her vision. From auroras to shooting stars, she had seen many spaceward anomalies take place that were far too common to be considered strange. "Of course I have. Stars are always in movement....this though..." how could she have an explanation for something like this? She let out soft, nervous laughter "I believe I'm at a loss for words. I've seen nothing like it...."

 The eclipsed woman kept silent for a moment as lilac depths searched the night sky for any other strange, large people -- but nothing came. Instead, Izumi attention turned back to the dovelette beside her. Words forming slower than the lips that parted in uncertainty. "What if it was alive, like us? A living being in the sky sounds horrendous but...."

 Can she really afford to be suspicious after what she'd just seen?

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Maybe she had misspoken, she of course had seen stars move, but never like this. This was different it was fast and jarring, almost like a shooting star but many that moved in unison. Of course, was that really the part they had been fixating on? No, it was the giant fucking wolf in the sky that danced around through the northern lights. Izumi spoke of a living creature in the night sky, breathing, eating, just like them, but that too felt wrong. That thing was more than just a wolf, it was stars like the cosmos gave birth or took on a form of its own.

“I— don’t know if I would say alive…” She had heard of gods before of course, though she couldn’t say she believed in them. They had failed her too many times for her to believe there was any sort of Devine intervention to save them all, but now…“Do…do you think it was some kind of…god?” It felt silly even just saying that. Gods were something that works in mysterious ways or whatever and rarely showed themselves if not in a hidden form. Why would this one just prance around before them?

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  A god.
  Funny how the mention of a simple, three-letter word seemed to carry so much weight to it. Izumi did not place herself with a belief that involved a specific god, but that did not mean she didn't have her suspicions that such celestial beings roamed the sky. Watching over their every move, controlling the heavens and the fates themselves -- whatever move they'd make next to set out the chess pieces of the lives and minds eye was always an unpredictable one. Perhaps the sighting of this galactic beast was one of them, or one of many signs to come.....
  "I'm afraid my knowledge of God's is limited. I can't answer that for you..." Izumi admitted honestly. Her curiosity for the existence of such beings grew vast, yet she did not actively seek to acknowledge in comparison to some. It wasn't her place to grant the dovelette misinformation based on a moment of awe. As much as the dame secretly wanted to say it was so....
  They stood in silence like this for a while now, watching the sky until her eyelids began to feel heavy -- she figured it was about time to call it a night then. With a soft nudge, the cranebird encouraged Taru to do the same, if she would follow. Maybe another day they'd get to see something similar appear in the sky....

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