[OOC: Sorry, Violet. We can't wait any longer.]
Despite the warm personalities of Violet and Lianna, Natsumi was far from comfortable in the current situation. Surrounded on either side, she found herself at a crossroads she had seen many times already. It was all too tempting to call these women friends, to break her self-imposed isolation on her heart. Yet, like the innumerable instances of the past, she hesitated in the chill. They were too kind to associate with a creature such as her, she thought, and so she kept her emotional distance even as the conversation continued.
"All of them, thanks to this adventurous scamp," the Ice Queen responded when confronted with Lianna's first question. She was looking down at Saya while recalling the many biomes of the island, thankful that the little one had remained unharmed throughout her exploration. The Aurai's comments on income would inevitably retrieve her from this reminiscence, but the silent reverence that accompanied it obstinately refused departure even after return. Why? Well, because the question Lianna had mixed in with her commentary touched on a sensitive issue.
Almost without exception, inquiries on Natsumi's origins led her to withdraw. She was protective of her past, fearful of its implications for both her and Saya's livelihoods; and so, while she agreed to assist in her companion's predicament, she professed silence rather when the question on where she was from came up. In the grim stillness, a red, hourglass symbol appeared on the palm of her left glove. It was an adaptation of Kino's after absorbing an hourglass of deadtime, an anomaly that allowed Natsumi to share memories with anyone who willingly shook her hand - even a panda. With that in mind, she lowered her palm to the furry creature's level, and motioned for it to come closer.
"Give me your paw, little one." No hesitation existed in the naive child, for she happily did as commanded. A thousand stars that only the druid and the panda could see burst from the glove on contact, taking the two back into a memory of time's past. The present froze to welcome this chronological disturbance, making way for the appearance of ghosts.
Menomori forest: a place that the runaway knew all too well. It was the last location she had seen of Nisshoki on the night she left home, and the first she saw while exploring the panda's memories. A phantom image of the subject lurked inside a nearby cave, watched over by two, fully grown adults. It was family of pandas: the one this little cub had lost.
"You stay here, Aspen. Mommy and daddy need to check on something. We'll be right back."
Fading, time progressed. The smell of blood filled the air, and a strange man found the cub still waiting inside her home for mother and father to return.
"Hey there, little guy." It was her previous owner, a shifty wisp of a man with hands that smelled of blood. It was obvious to the druid that he was nothing more than a common murderer, even if Aspen still regarded him as her savior from the abyss of loneliness.
"Ugh, you were cute before, but you're such a pain to feed now," that hunter said as the landscape shifted to the glacial frost of Horae Island's Glaciem biome. It was only a couple weeks later, and yet the pet owner had already grown fatigued. "Look, just stay here in the snow. I can't take care of you anymore. You're nothing but dead weight."
He parted from the cub at that point, losing her in the sparse forest. She shivered, but stayed put, fully believing that her owner would return. He never came back, though. They never came back.
Burning eyes and a heavy heart greeted Natsumi as that last vision faded. She retracted her palm from Aspen's paw, removing the spell in the process, and then unwound her tail from her body. Saya stirred as she felt her mother's mood change, waking up just in time to see the dulled expression in her eyes.
"Okaasan," she asked groggily? Forcing a smile, the druid removed the small child from the pocket and laid her down on the warm stone bench between her and Lianna. She needed time to process what she had just seen, and didn't want to burden her empathic child by keeping her too close.
Unfortunately, time for healing was never to be Natsumi's. A new group of scents approached and a familiar voice was quick to shatter all notions of peace.
"Hey there, buddy! Remember me?" A scraggly man at the head of the interlopers spoke from several meters behind the grouping of five. He wore a cheesy smile and ill-kept facial hair, things meant to complement his pasty white skin. He also had seven guards dressed in all gray flanking him, each with signet rings bearing a crest of bear fangs. They were armed, and, obviously, did not come in peace. "Thank you for looking after my little panda for me, ladies. He got away from me here in the Glaciem region, and my friends and I have been looking all over for him. We'll be taking him back now."
Getting up from her seat, Natsumi was the first to approach this man. She strode with an icy stare on her face, and stopped right in front of the human who had the gall to reappear after what he had done.
"Uhm, is there some sort of-" he tried to say as he grew nervous toward this woman's intentions, but his statement was swiftly cut off when the Ice Queen's hand grabbed and squeezed his testicles hard enough to make his voice jump an octave or two.
"How about you try again with your explanation? Slowly, this time, so you can think well enough to tell the truth." The man's guards were surprised at the Ice Queen's audacity, and it was clear from his expectant gaze that he was trying to get them to intervene. A swift warning from Natsumi made his eyes refocus, though, as threat of harm to a man's family jewels was always a good way to get his attention. "I wouldn't be signaling them, if I were you, unless you want to be castrated by an explosion spell."
"You're bluffing," he squealed, hoping that Natsumi wasn't actually being serious.
"Do you really have the luxury of trying to call any bluff in your position" she retorted without the slightest bit of humor? He refused to answer, though, choosing silence over truth and forcing Natsumi to explain for him. "Fine. I'll tell them." Clearing her throat and raising her voice, she addressed all that were present so that she could enunciate her past and the crimes of those present. "You asked where I was from Lianna. Not too long ago, I would have made up some bullshit answer; but the situation has changed now that my birth family has filed paperwork to declare me deceased not more than a fortnight ago. I'm a former member of the main Yamauchi family in Nisshoki, previously disowned and targeted for death due to the dishonor I have brought them by refusing an arranged marriage. Turns out the daughter of a prominent noble in a traditional family isn't allowed freedom of choice in matters of the heart. Even though that position is no longer mine to claim, however, it did allow me firsthand knowledge of the poaching problems my homeland has. You see these men and their signet rings? The crest on those rings denote them as belonging to an organization of poachers that the council of Nisshoki has been trying to rid itself of for several years now. Their primary quarry is pandas, and they hunt them for sport as well as fashion. This man I have here belongs to that organization and is the same one that killed Aspen's parents, adopted her, and then left her to die when she became a financial drain. Now he's back just because he decided it was more profitable to sell her off than to abandon her!"
Obviously not too happy with being exposed, the leader of the poachers in question vainly tried to turn the situation around.
"Kill them!" he shouted, finally making the decision to assume the woman restraining him was bluffing. Unfortunately for him and his rape revenge fantasies, however, she was not. As soon as his command went out, a loud boom and flash of light flooded into the glacial atmosphere. Blood gushed out onto the snow and Natsumi's body as the explosion spell went off, bringing the man to the edge of death before his accomplices could even react.
"I suggest you run," the Ice Queen said with cold malice as her first victim of the night lay dying. "Unless you want to end up like your leader."