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Whatever it was that lurked in the shadows, it had blue eyes. Not the kind of beautiful blue like ice crystals or precious gems, but like it had cataracts over their eyes, clouding the color and blurring the definition. They stared at Noctua through the penetrating darkness of her bedroom and froze her in place. she listened to it's nails click on the hard wood of her floor, tracking it's movements from there. Whatever it was gagged her with shadows, bound her with her sheets, and covered her eyes with a gnarled, bony, jaundiced hand. She felt the dirty nails digging into her temples as it pressed her head back into the pillow. She;d learned a long time ago that fighting made it worse, but when her head began to pound witht he pressure, threatening to crack under the weight of the hand that kept her down, she pressed back. The shadows and sheets tightened in response and putrid breath assaulted her nostrils.

The rest of Gisela's body woke up to the midnight alarm that she set for instances like this. She jolted upright with a cry of terror, searching her room for whatever had attacked her. Of course she saw nothing, but she wasn't exactly excited to stay in her room. So she grabbed her yoga mat and the pen that saved her on night like this and headed for the park.

Gisela was an easy target at night, but Noctua was less so.

Powered up and calmer now, Noctua spread her yoga mat and moved through her poses. Sequences of Marjaryasana and Bitilasana over and over to loosen her knotted back. Back into Adho Mukha Svanasana for a base as she moved into Virabhadrasana sequence. Things that she knew like the back of her hand. Things that happened to her body without her mind needing to think about anything. She let her thoughts be like clouds, allowing them to float by with no consequence. The thing with blue eyes lingered in the back of her mind, but did not cause her harm. Which was as good as anything, it would seem.

As Noctua bent and twisted, she could feel someone approaching. There was a tingling up and down her spine which alerted her to one of her kind... her kind... She didn't move. Instead she counted her breaths, counted the spasms in her muscles as she held her poses, relished int he relief when she released them. It was only when Cinnabar spoke that she gave any notice that she had felt any signals at all. She untangled and turned to face the agent who found her.

"You look different," she said simply, crossing her legs to sit comfortably. She did look different. A coat for one. Horns as well. Be beyond that, she felt different. Stronger. More fierce. Like something animal had taken over her body. The tingle that had been running up and down Noctua's spine since she first noticed another agent of chaos exploded into a spider web of electricity. She felt the shocks down to her cuticles and further. Noctua felt herself falling in love with the force that her acquaintance had become.

A few seconds passed before Noctua noticed that she had been asked a question. Normally, she would ignore the inquiry, figuring on her interrogator giving up after a few repetitions, but this seemed different. The animal thing inside of Cinnabar called to her, pulling the answer from her throat.

"I don't sleep much."

How did Noctua begin to explain the things that seethed within her room? The yoga didn't so much quiet her mind as it did distract her from whatever it was that haunted her. But, perhaps, it wsa easier to let Cinnabar think that insomnia was all that plagued Noctua for the moment. Sleep paralysis was a tricky thing, and explaining it was trickier still. No matter how Noctua tried to explain it, she ended up sounding powerless. So she shrugged and moved into child's pose to wake her body back up for the next sequence.

"I have yet to see anyone from the other side," she said as she pressed her forehead to the mat. "And if I do... we'll I'll cross that bridge when I get to it."

As Cinnabar circled, Noctua kept her senses on her. It was a simple enough task, the one thing that Noctua knew how to do. She knew how to feel for her own kind and others, though other took no interest in her. Even her own kind largely ignored her.

"But I want to talk less about my habits and more about what happened to you." Up into down dog and then over into plank. "Youma and promotions. All I've done so far is power up and and do this." Back into down dog and then up into forward fold. "It sounds like there is a story there that needs to be told."

Noctua sat in full pigeon, listening to Cinnabar's story. She worked hard to keep the wonder off of her face as she pictured the struggle between woman and beast. So that was a primal and visceral call that Noctua felt to Cinnabar. She was highly ranked yes, powerful in her own right, but also in possession and control of an even more powerful monster within her flesh. Noctua felt her breaths come in short bursts and she tried to convince herself that it was the pranayama pulling at her muscles and not the adrenaline rushing through her veins at the thought of something so... animal.

She released her foot and leaned forward, hiding her blushing face in a blanket of braids. The grass did a little to cool the heat of her cheeks, but even with her dark skin and the cover of night, she didn't trust that the color wasn't apparent. Instead, muffled by earth, she laughed.

"Generals... Youma... when the creature in the alley gave me a purpose they never said that it would be so complicated. A pen and a name. They said that would be all that I needed. All that was necessary to complete the task set down for my by the stars themselves. Looks like there's more to it than that..." She lifted her torso and unfolded, readying to collapse into a mirror of her previous pose, this time on the other side.

"What did they tell you when you were taken?"

So Cinnabar had been given a choice? Well, Noctua supposed it hadn't really been a choice, had it? Join or die didn't give much room for decision. Perhaps, in that way, they were not so different. She would have to talk to others of her kind and find out if anyone was given a choice. But that was for another time. Now was the time for Yoga in the park with her fascinating new companion. She moved back down into corpse pose, her arms bent like the branches of a cactus to relax her muscles after the stretching.

"I don't know what leads you to think that I'm strong. I run away from shadows." It was the closest to a confession that Noctua had ever came, and she braced herself for the wash of shame to come crashing down over her like it did every morning she spent wide and terrifyingly awake. But it didn't come. She laid on her back and waited and waited but instead she took a breath and looked over to Cinnabar.

"But thank you."

A teacher... something that had never been offered to her before... something she didn't know how to accept. As she lay before Cinnabar, she considered her options. She could trust this woman... monster... hybrid and go with her where ever she led. Noctua had to admit that was tempting. But she also had to be aware that this creature before her, however aluring, was the things her nightmares were made from. With the power that she sensed rolling off of her... Noctua ventured to guess that she could turn Noctua to a pile of nothing if she wished. Noctua had to know that she could trust this strangers.

She rolled to her knees and stared up, trying to find the next words to say. She stared up wordlessly, hands demurley on her knees as she knelt helplessly before Cinnabar. How did she phrase her eleation and hesitation? What words could possibly convery her mixture of emotion. She had to try. She could not let this moment slip by her. Nor could she risk offending Cinnabar to end up alone or worse.

"How do I know," she venturely slowly, "that I can trust you?"

Suddenly, Noctua was touching Cinnabar. She wasn't totally certain how that happened, but here she was. As Cinnabar spoke, she felt her voice reverberating against her fingertips. The instructions were clear but... at the same time... they weren't. Starseeds? Another place? It all seemed so impossible. Then again... Noctua's life had been growing increasingly impossible. She had been awakened into a brave, new, terrifying world by a stranger who had touched something deep within her and filled it with what they had called chaos. She could summon magic and wield it with relative ease. Why couldn't this also be true?

Noctua furrowed her brow and focused on the single point beneath her fingertips. A dark void... like a shell. She just had to convince herself that Cinnabar's flesh was an illusion. For a few seconds, her fingers lingered there, against Cinnabar's flesh, and she considered giving up. Maybe this was only for those of great power and Cinnabar was setting her up to fail. Maybe this was a cruel joke, and she was going to be hurt again.

No.

Noctua had to trust. She didn't have a choice. Not if she wanted to survive.

Cinnabar's flesh gave, just a bit. Not even an inch. She glanced up at Cinnabar and pressed her fingers further, not certain what to expect once her hand was through.

It felt... odd. Like when Noctua stuck hr hand out and the air was full of fog. She wasn't touching anything, but her hand felt surrounded by something. Further and further she pushed her fingers until her whole hand was lost within Cinnabar's chest.

And then she found it.

Something cool, and sharp, and solid connected with her fingers, sending electric shocks all the way up her arm, causing her to jolt back and draw her hand back to her own chest.

After a moment to gather herself, Noctua nodded.

"Alright. Teach me."

As though in a trance, Noctua placed her hand in that of the woman before her. Her heart soared at the praise, and her mind went into overdrive trying to find out how and when she could earn it again. This woman had allowed Noctua inside of her, invited her to touch the deepest, darkest shard of her being. Her starseed. She didn't know exactly what that was, but from the jolt of power that lad left her arm numb, Noctua knew that, whatever it was, it was it was the most important thing Cinnabar had to her name.

And the most important thing Noctua had to her.

It dawned on her that if it was that simple for Noctua to touch Cinnabar's starseed, it would take nothing for Cinnabar to touch hers. Could she remove her starseed? What would happen? Cinnabar seemed in pain when Noctua felt inside of her, and while that did spark something regretful within her, above all Noctua was curious. What would happen if you did remove a starseed? What did that do? Where did they come from?

So many questions filtered into Noctua's mind, but above the din of confusion and it's harmony of alarm, there was one shining truth.

She would follow Cinnabar to the destruction of the earth.