After the moment of shock has faded, and after realizing how there are still more secrets to uncover, they both then glance at the golden beauty wrapped protectively around the silver and azure scaled guardian of their team. Joey wraps her hand tightly on Angela's claw, and they both sit back.

"Have they always been…like that?" Joey asks barely over a whisper, and realizes maybe they should change the subject. Angela gives a gentle acknowledgment, barely moving her chin.

"Drenar and Julia practically came into the world together, less than a day apart. They've been so close for so long. I know it's sad, but…I get this feeling they’ll leave the world together, too. Hopefully, after a long, fulfilling life, filled with joy and triumphs. When that day does come it won't be the end…it’ll just be a step to the next great adventure together.” She takes a moment to wipe her eyes. Joey realizes she's not the only one past her emotional limit break of late.

“So that phrase, twin soul? It’s not a jest, is it?” Angela gives it a second before she shakes her head, feathers tousling from the motion.

“Julia used to get nightmares when she was a kid. A lot. They'd find her wrapped up around Drenar the next morning when they were living right next door to each other. They never figured out how she got in, though. I think she climbed through the second-floor window. Talk about a mix of tomboy daring, and total vulnerability," Angela says with a soft chuckle. “Though, as you might have guessed…they're more like siblings than friends, in a way.”

“Drenar and I–” she pauses and lets out a huff. “We have some stuff to work out, to put it mildly.” She has no idea how this kid is going to react to her telling him he might have feelings for a magical fox girl. She snerks at this silly phrase.

“I saw that look. You like him, don't you?” Well, the dragon beauty is calling her out now, Angela never seems to miss a tell!

“Look, beyond his bravado, boyish and awkward charm, and surprising maturity…he just needs to take a comb to that hair of his, and maybe I'd view him as more than a blood donor for Regen potions. Does he plan that wild beast look?” she asks with a sly smile.

Angela has to put a claw to her snout from laughing. “Oh, you've noticed, have you?”

“A little bit, yeah.” The hard part, though, is still there. “But I still need to talk to him about…me.”

“You mean…”

“Me. Being a Kitsune. That's gonna be a shock. I just don't know if now is the right time, given everything coming down on his head.” Angela tilts her head and smirks.

“Honestly? I think he'll be alright. He does take after his mom. Speaking of which, how did you keep incognito for so long? What do you look like when you transform?”

“Oh no, not here, not now,” Joey pushes back with tension in her voice. Angela puts an open claw up.

“Alright, I get it, not here in the open. Stigma and irrational hate, I guess?” She's amazingly astute. Joey takes more than a hesitant second to answer, and not because of the all-too-fresh memory of that corpse stabbing deep into her psyche.

“Do you know how all the kin came into being?” She decides to play it from an academic approach–something she knows Angela and her friends appreciate. She dips her chin, and her eyes are focused on her. “Dragons experimenting on humans. Sometimes with volunteers. Other times…not so much.”

“I know little pieces, Nick has been filling me in. Plus, what I’ve been able to read out of Amaranth’s book. It sounds like their empire fracturing down the bedrock was a direct fallout of those experiments. People got fed up being nothing more than Magical experiments for dragons playing their hand at being gods.” She’s very sharp, Joey notes. They’d all have to be, to have made it through these past few weeks alive.

“Yeah. All kin that aren't human or dragon are relatively new. Within the last ten thousand years or so? The kitsune were the last, largest round of…trials.” She could call it unethical experiments on slaves with often lethal outcomes, but there’s no need to scare her. “Kitsune were created last of the major Kin at the direction of the dragon empire just before the Schism war. We look like the legends from Japanese folklore–and you could say we were the inspiration for it–but we were the result of an experiment between a magical creature with limited telepathic potential, and humans. It…didn’t go so well.

"They got what they wanted, potent psionics, but many couldn’t couldn’t control it. They suffered some severe side effects, manias, uncontrollable powers, birth defects. The dragon empire–the rotten parts–decided annihilation was the preferred containment option compared to a bunch of manic, overpowered psionics getting loose, who were suffering from torturous effects of said experimentation.”

“I would offer a hug Joey, but I might crush you by mistake,” Angela’s eyes gleam with empathy.

“I’ll risk it.” Angela is surprisingly gentle when she does, and those warm scales wrap around her torso gently, and she sinks into the gesture, while she traces the accent feathers on her forearm. Iridescent white and seafoam, with sleek silver scales that exude comforting warmth. “Anyway…hmm…where was I?”

“Dragons being archetypal evil dragons?” Angela suggests while peering down at her.

“Yeah. So, the kitsune that survived the purges, and the war, finally got cut a break. The side effects of the experiments were diluted or disappeared within a few generations. But not before accumulating generational stigma that we could kill with our minds, steal secrets, or make others our slave. So many people still call us slurs, that we’re filthy rats. That one still has me on edge every time I hear it.” She says it far more forcefully than she should, given the company not that far away, but she doesn’t care. Angela responds by pulling one hand away and running it through her wavy hair.

“That is awful. And the Conclave does nothing about it?”

“No. Of course, they don’t. They do lip service to try to maintain the appearance of an impartial body, but they proposed psionic limiters last year for those deemed 'security risks'. To me, that's code for 'anyone we deem a threat to our reign'. It failed, but it won’t again. There’s a lot more to it, Angie. There are a few kitsune out there that can cause harm. They have powers that can really hurt people.” Including me, she thinks silently before hanging her head low. “But that doesn’t define us,” Angela grunts audibly and gazes at her with draconic gray-blue eyes.

“No. It doesn’t. People are defined by who they are and what they do, and never what they are. I’ll fight anyone who believes otherwise. No one can take away who you are, Joey, and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.”

Hearing that from her, sparks a reaction, and she turns around and gives Angela a hug–it’s a little awkward given the size difference, but she still manages. “Angie, I’m not a needy girl…but…it’s been a really rough week, and hearing that from you, makes it a lot more manageable.”

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“Ah, jeez…another young adult with unshakeable passion. I thought I tapped out with Drenar and Julia, I’m so glad I was wrong on that count.” She is immensely delicate with the way she runs her claws gently through her hair, while the two share a quiet moment. All that tension, all those awful moments–the death, the corpse haunting her dreams–they fade from her mind for a few minutes while she lets out an emotional anguish.

Twice in two days, in fact. She couldn't believe she'd broken down like that in front of Drenar, and she honestly doubted he noticed, given the overwhelming news she'd given him. We pulled off an impossible victory, and then we find out that his mother is alive. I should have known based on the similar appearance, I knew I should have trusted my instincts.

Microphone stuck on? Angela whispers back through the link. She lets out a soft exhale while nodding her head, and cozied up to Angela while fighting misty eyed tears. Angela lets out a soft hum, and then…she starts up a set of words that get her attention. It's something she hasn't heard in a long time…

“Hush little fledgling, do not fear,

The storm shall pass, the skies shall clear.

On divine wings, you shall be free,

To Gaia’s garden, we shall see.

Over the mountains, through the valley,

We find our home, where kindred rally.

First of the chosen, last of Kin,

She calls to her children, to see dawn again.

Oh divine wings, we’ll show the way

To find the fallen and those astray.

On divine wings, we shall fly

To the hearth of Kin, in the sky.”

She doesn’t know how long she’s been holding her breath before she lets out one long, heartfelt exhale. “Thank you. I…I think I needed that. I haven’t heard that in so long.”

“You know it?” Angela sounds genuinely surprised. “It’s a song that my mom would sing to me in those dark hours of the night, when I was younger, dying of a failing heart. I don’t know how I remember it, but I do…it just…catches in the heart, you know? Ironic, I know,” she adds with a whisper-quiet laugh. “I hate my mom for becoming cold and distant…but that song…I can’t hate her for that.”

Joey wipes the tears from her eyes, and tries to sit up a little straighter. “It’s…a song in old draconic. It’s ancient. ‘On Divine Wings, I Return to Thee’ is the generally accepted translation of the song, and…it’s something most Kin will hear in their lifetime. It’s hard to pronounce with human physiology for the original version in draconic…but dragons can make those tonal notes with much less effort.”

“She always passed it off as some old family song. But it's still beautiful,” Angela responds gently.

“I think translations don’t do it justice. There isn’t always a one-for-one translation for every word. It’s hard to translate an emotional chord. It’s a song about a hatching, far from home, trying to find their way back. And in the end…Gaia guides them back with a warm embrace, and a promise that she will be there to greet them, when they return to the Aether, at the end of the days and parting farewells from loved ones. Some of the translation doesn't quite cut it, but…it does catch the ears.” She hasn't felt this at ease in a long time, and eventually shifts around so Angela can lay down. The wings are always the tricky part. “You do have a good singing voice, you know that?”

“It's…a little different in the dragon form,” Angela admits, and shrugs with her wings. “I could get used to it.”

A few moments go by, and Joey finally feels like fatigue is catching up to her again. “So…I guess it goes without saying, Joey, but, you're in this, too?” Angela asks a little while later, while they're both drifting off to rest. She really doesn't want to go back to night terror-soaked sheets, and glances her way. “Joey I’m sorry if I’m prying too hard, but…I know you must be having bad dreams.”

“I've...got you guys to talk to. That's all I think I need. Bad dreams fade eventually." But will that itch for power ever fade? She hopes it does. Because she never wants to harm someone in that way again--even if it was an accident.

She will never use them in that way to get what she wants. But this connection...if the mind domination is the extreme of their powers, what does this link between her and the others represent? She has has own answers to seek now, too, if only to avoid repeating the failures of the past. "I'm not going anywhere until we put Val's corpse on a bonfire."

"Grotesque, but admirable. I take it that means you're in on this crazy idea, too."

“Val killed friends. She wrecked our home. And she'll do so much worse if she is allowed to roam unchecked. I'm in this for you, Julia, Drenar–everyone–because we need to fight for a better world.” She'd never been surer about signing up for a task that might be suicidal at best, or impossible at worst…but they'd already done the impossible. And she knows her skills will give them every edge they need. “Kyle might be a little terrified of the crazy-eyed Kitsune alchemist signing up for a death wish, but I know he’ll get on board, too. I have bitchy divas to burn, a Conclave to go beat upside the head with a dose of decency, and some new subjects–I mean friends, to hang out with.” She can't help but smirk at that last one.

“Sassy. Now where's my frosty cone?” She narrows her eyes at Angela who is trying to hide a toothy smirk, and failing.

“Oh come on, it's not that red!” She protests while tossing back a few stray strands.

“It's so red. It's like royal red.”

“Is not!”

“It so is, Joey. But does it hold true for uh…the other side of the mirror?” Joey sighs and relents.

“Tell ya what, assuming Julia's mother doesn't kill us tomorrow, I'll show you.” Angela beams at this, and after a moment, both of them start to nod off. Angela almost reflexively wraps a wing gently over Joey, and it's…quite cozy.

This is the weirdest thing that has happened to me. Me, making friends with a dragon. Hmm…I wonder what it would be like to cozy up to Drenar…

This time, she doesn't bat away the idea out of instinct.