Yuuki sat there, her tears flowing down her cheeks. She let out no sounds, she did not move. She looked completely disoriented, not even taking notice when Igraine hugged her. Alice however soon appeared next to them and pulled Igraine off.
“What are you-” Before she could finish, the two of them had disappeared.
What followed was a psychic scream that shook the foundations of the world itself.
--
“You are more unstable every time we talk.” Mystra said, while the grey figure stared at her. Her smile was gentle and filled with regret.
“I need some time and I’ll be fine.” The discordant chorus said.
“We both know that’s a lie.”
Yuuki ignored the goddess and instead focused on attempting to resolve the chaos that was the inside of her soul.
“Don’t. You’ll only make things worse.”
“What should I do then?“
“Talk about it. Stop suppressing your emotions.” Mystra said.
“Yes, I’m sure showing my emotion did wonders to the population of that world.” She was not in a better state than she was in her body, making her quite irritable .
“If you constantly worry about hurting others by showing opening up, you’ll never change. I’m not saying do it all at once. You have all the time in the world. Literally. Take your time, enjoy your life with the people around you and try to avoid conflict that might make you regress.”
“So what was I supposed to do!?” Yuuki yelled, space rippling around her.
“Let someone else do it. Alice, Igraine, Cassandra, all very capable. You’re their boss. You don’t have to act yourself, you can delegate tasks to them. That way, you won't be in conflict on how to do something.”
“… I’m becoming sloppy.”
“Yes, that is a side effect of not being the ‘perfect’ soldier I’m afraid. You might start to overlook things, you might make wrong decisions. It’s part of being human.” Mystra said coyly, while the grey figure would’ve given a bitter smile if it had facial features. “By the way, as a non corporeal being, you can choose your appearance by recognizing it as yourself. If you choose something more… approachable, that will change how you act slightly, so it could also help.”
“Why didn’t you mention that sooner?”
“I… forgot.” Mystra scratched the back of her head with an embarrassed smile.
Yuuki let out a sigh, even though, even in her physical body, she had no need to breathe. “I’ll do it later. A second’s about to have passed since I went limp, I don’t want to worry Alice too much. I’ll come back later. Will you help?”
Mystra floated to her and hugged her form. “Gladly. By the way, before I forget: I put a barrier around the planet, no one on it felt anything.” She had a dumb smile on her face that Yuuki was starting to appreciate.
--
Alice took Yuuki as far from civilization as she could. That meant, the surface of the moon. She also hastily put on around a dozen more bracelets on both of her arms and put a barrier as powerful as she could get around the kitsune that was about to erupt with magic.
Yuuki’s aura suddenly flared up and shattered the barrier, shaking existence itself and conveying all her pain. Alice’s bracelets shattered one by one, being so close to the center of the blast was very dangerous. As the last one broke, Yuuki’s body, that Alice was clutching, suddenly went limp for only a second before returning the hug.
Alice felt Yuuki’s aura disappear, but it appeared once more. Only this time, it was much more tame. Instead of a hurricane that tore down everything in its way, it could only be felt as much as the still air.
“Sorry about that.” Without Alice even noticing, the two of them were back on the planet, at the peak of a mountain.
“Are you alright?” The wolf-kin asked, worriedly.
“I… no. I’m more calm at least. It will take me a long time to be ‘alright’, I recon.”
Alice pouted when hearing that. “You lied to me.”
“I did.” Yuuki looked genuinely saddened, and her aura shifted to represent this.
“You’re not lying anymore?”
“No. That’s why I’m not restricting my aura completely. I can’t lie anymore.” Yuuki smiled at Alice before being tackled to the ground in a hug. The snow began to melt away as greenery took over the mountain peak. Flowers of all colors began blooming around the two.
“It’s beautiful.”
Yuuki smiled, she smiled truly. “I’m afraid I’ll have to tone it down a bit more when we get into a city. Don’t want to cause a thunderstorm because of a bad smell.”
Alice giggled a bit as she picked two flowers that were near them. One was light blue and the other was pink. She put both flowers in Yuuki’s hair. “Ready to go back?”
Yuuki suppressed her aura further, to the point where it was around the same as a normal person’s “Let’s go.”
In Rose’s shop, Igraine was walking in circles while Cassandra was holding her head in worry. As Yuuki and Alice reappeared, the both of them stood up and approached them.
“I acted on impulse. I’m sorry.” Yuuki bowed slightly to them, who looked at each other, confused for a moment. Igraine put a hand to her forehead, shaking it, while Cassandra ran full speed at Yuuki, jumped on her and hugged her.
“Don’t scare us like that.” The golden haired girl said while tearing up.
“We don’t want an apology, we just want you to be alright.” Igraine said as she also went over and joined the hug.
Cassandra, while regretting the loss of life, cared more about the well being of the living, especially of those close to her. Igraine couldn’t really care less about the deaths of a crime gang, she just didn’t want Yuuki to be struck by grief.
“Where’s Rose?” Yuuki asked, turning to Alice.
“Oh, she’s eavesdropping… I kinda told her to, because I expected you to regret your actions, and I wanted her to know that, so… yeah.”
“I see.”
“You seem… more normal? I’m not sure?” Igraine broke away from the hug and looked Yuuki up and down.
“Aura.” Seeing the confused looks from both Igraine and Cassandra, she continued. “Right, no one outside the Federation is really taught about it… I’ll give you classes and teach you properly when we go back to Estervale.”
Footsteps could be heard through a door, before there was a semi-muffled crash to the floor, followed by whispers of cursing.
“I should probably talk to her.”
Rose nice