? (Inside Luna)
"So, what exactly do you want, Aurora?" Luna's words filled the air, her Will pressing against the one that called her for a conversation.
"What, can't someone speak with their jailer?" The Dragon answered back, her red eyes narrowing slightly.
Luna's own red eyes fully reflected the azure-haired one, scanning her position and the way she moved, immediately finding some traces of the way she herself moved and fought. "Oh, do feel free. I don't mind your desire to speak with me nor do I particularly mind that you obviously have been spying on us."
"Spying, what an aggressive term. Especially considering how if one does not watch your life, one would only be able to see only this emptiness." Aurora pointed towards the empty expense around the two of them.
Luna started to circle back around the taller one, movement that was instinctively copied by her. "Despite your isolation, however, not only did you fully regain your rationality but you also grew stronger, didn't you."
"Oh? What do you mean?" Aurora mused back, her eyes glinting sharply.
"Very simple really, you are not strickly copying my movements, instead you used them as inspiration to better your own. Quite ingenious as is the way that you started to merge Vital Energy and Mana together. Tell me, how does the absence of both body and Skills interact with your trying to wield Vital Mana?" Luna asked back, the provocation clear in her tone of voice.
Yet the Dragon didn't fall for it, her time alone giving her more than enough time and esperience to suppress her emotions when needed. "Instead of asking questions you don't need the answer to, why don't you instead tell me your real purpose in keeping my soul in storage? You could have quite easily made a Familiar out of the remains and free yourself from me. Why didn't you?" She asked back, her eyes without any hesitation despite the fact she was talking about functionally eliminate any chance of her return.
"I don't mind rendering the reason explicit. Quite simply, Amber is the one that killed you and so she should decide on what would happen to you and for some reason, aware of it or not, you are an important constant in Amber's life. And even if right now she wouldn't, she will eventually miss your existence. The same reason that in your last fight you didn't aim on killing but on taking her." Luna's last phrase was more than enough cause for Aurora to look away, retreating slightly.
"Oh? Is that shame I see? What a change from your previous self." Luna smiled sharply, her eyes immediately piercing into the Dragon. "Tell me, what does your newfound rationality believe of your previous actions and intentions?" She advanced, her fangs gleaming.
"I don't see how this in any way involves you!" Aurora stood tall, her own eyes narrowed threateningly.
"It is quite the important information for me to have. After all, you no longer have anyone else, don't you." Luna confirmed aloud, her eyes narrowed dangerously.
Aurora stepped back, a small 'What are you talking about?!' escaping her lips causing Luna's smile to widen even further.
"Your Unique Skill and Evolution. Differently from Amber, whose Evolution was based on the full awakening of her heritage, your own was a distortion derived by using your Unique Skill on yourself. Giving a name to an object has no repercussions but doing the same to a Being with a Soul forms a Bond.
"Changing someone's Name, naturally, can heavily damage those Bonds or even destroy them entirely depending on the intentions involved. In the case of the People you Named before, for example,not only theywere all Reborn into Dragonoids buttheir memories and connectionswith other individuals frayedheavily, as demonstrated by the fact that they followed you with no hesitation.
"Similarly you underwent a similar change yourself and while you maintained all of your memories and Skills, your act of overwriting your own, even if with an identical, name, cut your Bond with your Clan entirely."
Luna advanced, forcing Aurora to retreat. "Tell me then, what is the reason you called me?" She asked, her voice alone trapping her listener in place.
The blue-haired one forced herself to calm down and step forward. "I want to make a deal with you." Her resolute crimson eyes met the white-haired one's own.
"Oh?" Luna.
"I want my own body, my freedom and the ability to move in the real World back." Aurora.
"You know what you are asking, don't you? Not only did you sift through my memories, you also saw a number of secrets and intimate moments between me and my Mates. Leaving you free reign, is quite the ask." Luna commented casually, awaiting for the rest of the Dragon's proposal.
"An Oath is the obvious first condition, one prohibiting me from sharing the memories I saw with others." Aurora.
"A decent first step." Luna nodded, signaling her to continue.
"Telling you that I would not seek you out would be-"
"Useless. You won't be able to maintain this promise. Especially considering your long life, your emotions towards Amber and the Tether that would be created between the two of us the moment you return to life." Luna corrected mercilessly.
"And what do you propose then?" Aurora sounded back, the air around her cooling rapidly.
"A bet. You against me." Luna smiled, her eyes glinting sharply. "Withing six days' time, I will let you out and then in a month or two we will fight. More than enough time for your Soul and body to adapt. This is what you originally wanted, isn't it?" She amusedly asked, cutting to the core of the matter at once.
The frigid area the two were in cooled down even more, reaching well past the freezing point before Luna's Will automatically started to respond, heating up to perfectly match the cold.
The tension slowly grew between the two before the blue-haired one sighed, calming down. "You are right. My initial intention was for us to fight, winner takes all. Let's set the time to a month after I am fully resurrected." She nodded, the cold receding to just around her, not peace but a calm preceding the storm returning to this isolated portion of Luna's Soul as she turned her back to her.
"How distant. Is it because you saw me do all kind of things to Amber?" Luna asked amusedly, causing the other to flinch in place. "Jealously is not a good look on a prideful being like you." She teased, causing her future opponent to tense up all over again.
"Do not mock me!" Aurora's words immediately sounded out sharply, turning back towards Luna, her frigid Aura flaring around her.
"I am not mocking you, you are mocking yourself!" Luna snapped back, her own eyes focused on the Dragon, for the first time growing genuinely heated because of anger, state that was mirrored by her Will all around the two rapidly growing chaotic. "You are the one that grew a fascination for MY Phoenix over your innumerable losses! You are the one that didn't recognize what that fascination was in the first place! You are the one that, despite being close to her type physically, was unable to have a closer relationship with her than a casual opponent she would fight every now and then!
"You are the one that because of her own arrogance and weakness was unable to have any actual rapport with her!" And here Luna's voice grew smaller but even more dangerous, her steps leading her ever closer to Aurora. "If you accepted your own weakness then, you could have been a friend for her, someone she could confide in. But you didn't. If you were stronger, you could have been a legitimate rival, someone that she could look forward to fight and test herself against. But you weren't." Her poisonous words left no chance for the Dragon to protest, leaving her looking away and holding herself.
"You weren't even able to become a good memory for her, forcefully Awakening a Unique Skill like you did and then twisting yourself apart. The only positive changes you left behind in her life, despite your centuries of knowing each other, are the facts that thanks to you I met her and that by killing you, she was able to reach C-Rank. Quite frankly I have no idea why Amber possess even a sliver of fondness for you!"
Silence stretched out between the two, Luna deciding to close this matter here and now before she did something that she would not regret. "Your choice of time for our fight tells me much about you. We could have fought immediately after your resurrection, but without stabilizing, it's evident that you would lose. Similarly, we could have fought two months later but you don't believe you would grow faster than me. Your cowardice is especially clear in the way you did not propose the fight but instead tried to negotiate for your freedom despite everything you did and planned on doing.
"Let's get one thing straight here. You are worth only pity and scorn, nothing more. Maybe you'll use this as a chance to grow and become something more than that but I doubt it. We will see each other in five days." Luna cut this off, turning her back on the other and leaving this isolated part of her Soul, ignoring the Dragon crumbling to her knees behind her.
-
664 10/11 7:34 (Autumn, Day, Midrar)
Luna opened her eyes from her bed, holding her Mates more firmly to herself, her agitated state soon returning to her natural stillness. "I see, so that was anger." She noted, curious, her emotional state kept completely separated from her Mates. "What an unpleasant heat."
"Never felt something like it? Even towards your parents?" Mafel asked from above the Lunarian.
"Not only was what Scarlet felt towards her parents significantly colder than this, it was also tinged with annoyance more than anything else. Her killing of them was an entirely rational choice instead of an emotional one." Luna casually answered, leading Amber to rise an eyebrow from the Lunarian's shoulder.
"What exactly angered you so?" The Phoenix asked, cuddling closer to her Mate.
"Aurora wanted to speak to me." Luna told her, causing a strange expression to form on Amber's lips, her emotions growing more agitated and mixed.
The Lunarian prepared to explain most of their conversation, glossing over only the Ice Dragon's feelings for the Phoenix and her own verbal attack, unwilling to do any favor to the Soul she was holding.
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