The meeting of... [Private/Kanix]

CALL OF THEWILD

After the little stunt between Fairy Tail and Basilisk Fang mages, Kanix had tried to avoid her former guild at all costs. Famine wanted her dead, and with her loyal subjects willing to do whatever she wanted, she was certain one wouldn't be too far away. They were on the look out for her, she knew it, whether Famine was back in the Rune Knights' dungeons or not. No place was safe for Kanix, and trying to keep herself under the radar was likely one of the hardest things to do. Fairy Tail was a well-known guild, there was simply no way for her to just keep herself from being seen by Basilisk Fang. They'd find her and they'd kill her if that's what Famine wanted, no doubt about it, that's why she feared leaving the guild when it didn't call for her. Jobs were one thing, social outings were different, and maybe, even Magnolia Town was not the safest place to be.

Ancalagon circled above her, never exactly leaving her side, unless she told him that she wanted him to stay back at the guild. That was hardly ever, as she felt she needed his protection more than anything else in the world right now, and he'd do just that. He wasn't afraid to attack people if they posed a threat to her, and he could sense when his owner was in distress. Kanix knew better though... knew better than to make the Thunderbird worry sick over whether she was all right or not. She still loved him greatly, the shadow he created on her keeping her cooled from the sun that beat down overhead. The two would make their way to somewhere, anywhere that wasn't the rowdy guild of Fairy Tail for the time being. She'd feel it, however, that strong presence of someone being around that she was certain was not someone she wanted to meet.

Stopping in her tracks, Ancalagon doing the same, she'd listen to the soft footsteps of Ai walking closer to where she was. Her magical presence was strong, definitely one that she would feel quite the distance away, and it made her fearful. Were they here to kill her? Did they want to bring her back to Famine as a peace treaty between guilds? Or maybe it was a member of Basilisk Fang... Kanix took a step back from where she was standing, heart racing, expecting for someone to pop out and snag her. Behind her, her Thunderbird landed down on the ground, shaking it slightly from his immense weight, and tucking his wings in.

"Who's there?" Kanix called out, opalescent, blue eyes staring into the space ahead of her while her other senses worked overtime to compensate for her lack of sight. "Please, don't hurt me... I really didn't mean to... I just... I don't know what I was thinking... please, don't... do anything..."

CALL OF THEWILD

"It's hard to trust people from Basilisk Fang, you know... I betrayed your guild, you have every right to slaughter me," Kanix returned the acknowledgement. "I suspect Rita sent you out here to get me anyway, but to my knowledge, she was sent off to the dungeons of the Rune Knights." Was it truth about Famine's position? She honestly didn't know. The guildmaster of Basilisk Fang could be anywhere for all she knew. "I mean... for God's sake... look at Sol! He gave me a home, and what did I do in return for his generosity? Betrayed the guild... Now, he hates me." Falling silent, the woman dropped her sightless gaze to the ground, thinking over the previous few days and what had happened. Her betrayal of the guild was wrong, but all they stood for, she stood up for something different, not what they had wanted. Death hadn't been in her book—no, that was a lie—death had been in her book of life ever since she had been younger.

"I disagreed with what Famine wanted, that's all I'm going to say," she reciprocated, boldly holding her ground now. "I wanted out of there, but I didn't know she would come after me for wanting to leave a place I felt I didn't fit in any longer. All I was, was a burden to the guild because I couldn't just kill things like you people can so easily do on jobs. You people will never understand what it feels like to actually feel someone dying... you can only see and hear it." She wasn't trying to say Ai didn't understand death at all; she just felt like she wouldn't get it into their heads that she saw it differently. Dark guilds always involved themselves in death-related things, there was no escape from it unless she had left, which she had. "I apologize for my words; they've been misplaced in their meaning... please, do not get angry at me for them."

She couldn't explain herself anymore; she had said what she wanted to say and there was nothing else to it. If Ai saw a different way than what she had wanted to give out, then that was perfectly fine to the Fairy Tail mage. "I suspect you're different then? If you had been, why hadn't you stopped Famine from what she started? Stopped Heero and Leonard?" Kanix stopped herself right there, as she didn't want to antagonize Ai anymore. The answer was clear to her already: Heero had been rash and attacked all three of them that had been there. Ai wouldn't have had the time to stop any of them and place rational ideas into their heads about the situation. Kanix's gaze fell away from Ai, down to the deer-skinned boots of her moccasins that she occasionally wore.

CALL OF THEWILD

How was it that she managed to previously join a guild where two of her former guild mates had been members of her now new guild? It baffled her that both Famine and Ai were former members of Fairy Tail, as neither sounded like ones that had been associated with the guild. The next thing she would learn would be that every member of Basilisk Fang had once been a member of Fairy Tail. That was probably not true, but that was a guess that she took after hearing the words from Ai's mouth. Why would Fairy Tail want to slaughter her though? They didn't seem like a guild that would kill dark mages. Lock them up, maybe, but never kill. A frown appeared on her face as she listened to the dark mage, knuckles turning white with her grip on her staff. She could feel her getting angry, angry at her for enlisting the fact that she could slaughter her if she wanted.

The cold grasp of Ai's fingers around her neck sent Kanix into a panic attack, breaths coming out in rasps. Her body stiffened, muscles going rigid, though the grip around her neck was not as tight as the times before. Still, the sensation brought back horrid memories of her childhood that had once been locked deep within her mind. As pure reaction, her hands would grip around the wrist of Ai, dropping the staff she had held onto moments ago. With every ounce of her magic gone, in the staff on the ground, she was reverted back to the helpless girl she had once been. "Please... please don't hurt me," the words slipped from her mouth, though she was not seeing Ai in front of her. Before her sightless eyes, crowding her mind, was the vague image of a burly man, who happened to be holding her down.

She could feel tears spilling down her eyes, but she didn't know if it was a phantom feeling from the memory or real. They were real though, cleaning the dirt off her face, making streaks down her cheeks as her eyes stared at Ai and the man in her head. "Please, please, please let me go..." And just like like that, the feeling of Ai's hand was gone from her throat. Kanix blinked and the image in her head was gone as well, though she had been left shaking from its effects. Behind her, her Thunderbird had moved closer to her, its beady, red eyes staring down at the Basilisk Fang mage. Ancalagon could sense that Kanix was not feeling the greatest, and it had felt that Ai was the one causing this its owner. She, on the other hand, would take a deep breath and step back, away from the woman standing in front of her.

Most of what Ai had said didn't register and Kanix's mind, and she stood there staring off into the space between them. "I'm not standing before a monster; your past isn't what defines you," she said after realizing she had been spoken to. Some of what the woman had said to her came flooding back into her head, which helped with what she was saying. "It's the actions that you choose now that define who you are. If you kill now because you feel you need to, you're going to be seen as a killer. You make yourself out to be a monster, but what exactly do you think has made you the monster you think you are? Is it because you killed in the past..." She stopped speaking for a moment and searched Ai over a for a moment. "Is it because you feel that you killed innocents when you know, for a fact, that incident had not been your fault?"

"Your past only makes who you are more defined, it does not change you into something you don't want yourself to be. If it does, then you have clearly chosen the wrong path to take and even then, it wouldn't have been your fault. You're given paths to choose from, and there are only so many wrong paths that you can take before one wrong path turns into a right path. You can change who are from what you had been. Because something happened in the past for you, doesn't mean it needs to define who you are. So, I'm going to ask again... what makes you think that you are a monster in the eyes of those who believe in you?" Kanix spoke harshly to Ai. She fell silent, but she didn't expect to get a response from the woman who had just tried to choke her to death. Instead, she would turn away from her, and looked up at her pet bird, patting him lightly on the side of the face.

Ancalagon would take a step back and retain his guard elsewhere, realizing that Ai was not posing a threat to his owner. Kanix would pick her staff back up and shrug her shoulders at the comment Ai made about Heero and Leonard. "Heero was rash, I can agree with that, but he had felt that the guild was posing a threat to me, and he didn't like that. He had hope in me when I displayed actions that screamed out I wanted to be saved from the darkness that consumed me. He believed in me when Basilisk Fang did not. Do you think I would've left the guild if it had treated me anything like Fairy Tail has been? I have felt more happiness in Fairy Tail than I had ever felt back when I resided in the ranks of Basilisk Fang. Would you deny me that happiness? I haven't felt happiness in the years since I've been alive, and just recently I can say I have."

She turned and faced Ai again, a smile on her face, curving the acid scars that covered the area of her eyes. "Tell me, when was the last time that you felt happiness?" she would ask, curious to know more about Ai.

CALL OF THEWILD

Kanix was hardhearted toward Ai's words, not understanding that the little sister that she had murdered was even her own. She couldn't understand the hurt that the other woman was feeling, considering it had never happened to her. Family didn't exist for Kanix; so, to say that she sympathized with the woman would be the wrong thing to say. Unfortunately, she wouldn't ever understand the hurt that Ai was currently feeling over the death of a loved one. Love was not in her book, and thus, those feelings that she should have felt along with Ai... did not exist. However, she did remain silent while the Basilisk Fang mage screamed at her about why she called herself a monster. While this happened, Kanix could only listen and wonder what that feeling felt like and how it affected Ai.

"I'm sure she understands that it wasn't entirely your fault; you hadn't been yourself at the time of the murder... had you been?" Kanix inquired. That wasn't something she needed to know, and in fact, Ai didn't have to answer it if she truly didn't want to. "Your sister loved you, and she surely understood your reasoning for killing her, even if it was entirely a mistake." Her words would likely mean nothing to Ai, that she would surely wave them off as nothing more than just sympathetic words. So, Kanix kept her mouth shut now and let Ai scream at her as much as she wanted to about being a monster. There was no getting her to see any different than what she saw herself as, so she was not going to push it. If Ai saw herself as a monster, then maybe she was truly the monster that she was making herself out to be.

When Ai spoke again about the happiness she had once felt, Kanix reached up and tapped her own ear. "Your voice is different... why is that so?" the shamaness asked, curious to know the answer to it, since she could not see it. She was no longer focused on what Ai's past was like, but rather the thought of why Ai suddenly sounded... not her. After a few seconds though, Kani no longer cared to know the answer, as she would likely find out later about it. "Aye, and what is it that is holding you back from feeling that happiness again? Are you scared it will be taken from you? You say that you hold them dearly to you, does that mean you would die for them if something called for it?" Kanix pursed her lips and thought her words over, then shook her head and adjusted her stand in the process.

"But tell me... is there a reason why you're out here? Had you come looking for me?" the petite woman questioned. In all honesty, she didn't know what was truth and was lies because standing here now, she trusted no one from Basilisk Fang. Ai might have only been trying to get her attention off guard, to gain her trust, so that she could slaughter her. Even with the words from Ai, Kanix still didn't fully trust her, still didn't trust that she was more good than bad.

CALL OF THEWILD

"Your younger sister went missing? Or the one you accidentally killed?" Kanix inquired, confused on exactly how many siblings she had. If it was another younger sister that had gone missing, maybe she would know a little bit about what might have happened? She wasn't thinking in anyway that they were related to each other, but rather if she possibly knew of the slave trade. With only a bit of her memory to go off of, she thought that maybe she might have seen the younger sister when she, herself, had been kidnapped. However, it was very little that she remembered and most of it was her being raped by men trying to buy her at auctions. None of those memories were very pleasant for her to remember, and even gave her headaches when she did. "Perhaps you know something about traders or the business there of? I just need to know... please..."

Kanix didn't give an explanation on why she wanted to know; it was just a gut feeling telling her she needed to. A concerned look crossed over her face as she thought over the words that she had spoken to Ai so carelessly. "I mean, believing that she may have been kidnapped by traders... I figure maybe you knew something about them. It hurts to remember what exactly, but I think... I think I was kidnapped by traders as well, and if I can just remember... Maybe I had seen her somewhere or I don't know... If I had... maybe I could help you look for her or something... I don't know what." She was silent for a few moments after, her eyebrows knitted together tightly as she thought over again. "I remember being kidnapped when I was younger, by who or from where, I don't remember, it was so long ago..."

What she didn't realize was that there was no other younger sibling that had been kidnapped, and Ai wouldn't have the answers to her questions. She was a lost cause and that's all that mattered.

She reached a hand up to her eyes and gently touched the acid scars, that marred her pretty face, with slender fingers. "I escaped my assailants a few years ago; I think that if I was able to escape my kidnappers, she may have as well. Do you think there's a possible chance that she's still alive? That you'd go looking for her if you believed that?" Her hand dropped back to her side as the realization finally dawned on the young woman, and she felt utterly stupid. "Right... the younger sister that you killed... there is no other sibling, just that one... you know nothing about them, do you? Don't... don't answer that then; I'll figure it out myself one day..."

CALL OF THEWILD

What was it and people giving her her sight back? Couldn't they just make it permanent for her then? That would be much easier... Kanix stood there as the spell was cast over her, restoring the sight that had been stolen from her when she was younger. She blinked her eyes a few times, allowing for the light to adjust and for everything to come into focus for her. As she did so, the woman glanced down at the picture that Ai had pulled out and presented to her, asking if she knew the woman. Her eyes glided over the image, taking in the visage of their mother, up until the headaches began to return. That's right... her memory was beginning to return to her, of that night she had been kidnapped and her mother. Placing a hand on her temples, the woman squinted her eyes shut for a moment, waiting for the pain to pass over.

"Th-that's my mother... How do you have an image of my mother?" Kanix inquired, after the pain had gone away. She hadn't seen the woman since the night she had been kidnapped, and now she was beginning to wonder if Ai was apart of it. Her eyes darted up to the changed woman, nearly taken aback by how she currently looked, but refrained any emotion or movement. Another moment later and her eyes were staring back down at the picture, curious about the nature of it and how it got into Ai's hands.

CALL OF THEWILD

It was silent as Ai registered in her head what the woman had said about the picture... about how that was her own mother. In a way, Kanix was taken aback by this information, having believed that she had no family... no mother... no father... no siblings. Here she was now, standing before a supposedly older sister that she didn't know she had, and suddenly, guild status no longer mattered to her. This was family... this was someone who had likely been there the night she had been kidnapped... the night... rage boiled in her veins. She gritted her teeth, trying to reassure herself that Ai didn't know either; there would have been no way for her to have been there. Oh, but the anger continued to grow, and what the woman said to her next blew right over her head, no hope of getting an answer. The expression on her face changed from disbelief to hatred of the woman before her, fingernails digging into the palms of her hands.

Forgotten about, that's what had happened to her; not even remembered by siblings who had likely been there when her mother birthed her. She truly didn't have a family if none of them remembered her, and... maybe that was not her mother, just a woman who looked like her. "Why do I call her my mother?" Kanix repeated Ai's words, looking to the ground in fear that she was unable to give her the knowledge she wanted. "I cannot say for sure if that is my mother because I have very fleeting memories of my past, and few of them have her in them." Tears pricked at her eyes as she tried to grasp hold of the situation at hand, wondering if she had made the mistake of saying anything. "What I remember of her was that smile... that smile kept me going through the days, hopeful of being able to see it once again." That wouldn't come true, however, for now she learned from Ai that her—their—mother had gone missing and may not even be alive.

No words came to mind when the silence ensued, after she had tried to answer Ai's question, but had a feeling it wasn't good enough. Kanix merely stood there, staring at the other mage as speckles of black danced over her sight, barring her from seeing anything more. "I wish there was more for me to say, but I believe that at this point, there isn't much more that I can say to make you believe me. Hell, I don't even know what to believe, myself... this entire time, I had thought that I had no family... nothing to live for." A chuckle left her lips, as if she was trying to lighten the mood or was in so much disbelief over the situation, that laughing was all she could do. Another moment of silence, then Kanix backed away, nearly bumping into her pet again, who nuzzled her back in return to give comfort to his owner. What was considerably worse for her: having no family at all or being more connected to Basilisk Fang than she had wanted to be?