"I'll never join a guild." ☽ Yuzuki's Intro

The wind sliced roughly from the side in a sudden burst of cold, causing the semi-fey to stumble abruptly in her flight path. With an angered yell tinged with exhaustion, Yuzuki Faerydae found herself thrown through the air, light body floating above the horribly cold flurries of wind. How had she gotten here again? Snapping out from the daze that occupied her mind whenever the woman traveled, she tried to figure out where she was. Unfortunately, not a moment was spared for the semi-fey to get a grip on her bearings before another gust, this time accompanied by the ruthless icy snow sent her tumbling away again. Back and forth, over and under…The wind picked up under her wings, hurling the thin figure back and forth through the icier and icier mountain air as Yuzuki gradually lost consciousness…

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Waking up was a painful process accompanied with a strange, dull numbness in her very bones. The semi-fey hurt all over, body feeling like a box of lead instead of its usual lightly muscled, lean and sturdy self. Her teeth chattered and pain wracked her eyeballs as she forced them open to a sky of bright, blinding white. “hhhAaaAAAARGHHH fuck fuck fuck OW.” The series of words slipped her mouth quickly as Yuzuki attempted to move, every bit of her body frozen, the only thing keeling her alive being the burning silver tattoos down her arm that were working overtime to keep her body functioning in the cold. The woman’s magic was just like herself – completely fixated on survival, it had changed its normal function of battle to save her life in this freezing cold.

Slowly recovering and trying to regain her strength, the woman noted with a start that the ground she laid on seemed to be moving, the frozen chains on her spear bouncing up and down stiffly with each movement. What the hell was happening? Yelling in frustration at her leaden muscles, the girl stiffly reached a cold and barely-functional hand down to feel the ground….the ground that didn’t seem to be there. Blinking in shock, Yuzuki’s fingers dropped down only to scrape against frost-tipped fur, wet and stiff beneath her equally leaden fingers. An animal? A soft panting sound came from her other side, and with an uncomfortable squint the semi-fey could make out the figure of a rather majestic gray wolf if she did say so herself.

It licked gently at her frozen fingers, blinking owlishly up at the ragged creature, laying all tied up on the back of two similar creatures. “W-wait, what’s happening?” Switching her tongue to that of a wolf’s, she asked the question in a hoarse, shaking voice.

Looking up at Yuzuki with amusement in his eyes, the wolf ran forward to the front of the small entourage, barking loudly into the frigid air. An alerting of someone coming? As the semi-fey watched with exhaustion and sudden terror, a building would appear out of the snowy expanse, the storm that had surrounded them only a moment ago suddenly disappearing. The air grew strangely warmer, and signs of life could be seen in plants and animals, flourishing strangely in contrast with the few light snowflakes that drifted in from the snowstorm outside. Where was she?

Yuzuki pondered the question as the wolves slowly approached the guild hall of Silver Wolf.

Her questions only increased as an orange-clad woman strode out from the building, an authoritative step in her movements. Was she perhaps the owner of these wolves? The woman seemed to pick up her pace as she noticed the by now excruciatingly numb Yuzuki, jogging her way. Being unable to extend her supernatural senses in this rather frozen state she currently resided in, she actually had to wait for once to see who was approaching. The blonde woman quickly removed her pack and that terribly ugly orange jacket, wrapping the weakly protesting semi-fey within its fashion unconscious depths. Shouldering her pack again, the woman silently ushered the wolves to that building.

Yuzuki would hear the woman speak for the first time in gratitude to the lupine creatures before she was carefully eased off their furry and actually somewhat comforting backs. Feeling the human skin touching her through the thin layer of her rather threadbare clothing, the semi-fey flinched. Ugh, humans. Filthy creatures. Even despite her hatred of that foreign touch, Yuzuki would be unable to resist as she was ushered into the guild.

“I’m Leona Jarnefeldt of Silver Wolf.” The comment was meaningless to the street rat, who wrinkled her face, body heating up quickly now that she had entered the warm building. “Whazzat? A cult or sumn’?” The words were mumbled out in irritation as the semi-fey blew a puff of warm air out through her thawing lips, strength slowly returning and allowing the woman to push herself upright. Being a good several inches shorter than Leona, Yuzuki would find herself in an awkward position.

“Where the hell am I, anyways?” Energy returned to her limbs, and the semi-fey spread her senses outwards, taking in the scents and sounds of the place. “And how did I even get here in the first place?” Rude, yes. But living years in slums and streets didn’t exactly improve your etiquette.

Not noticing the befuddled expression that briefly crossed Leona’s features, or perhaps simply too numbed to notice from the cold, Yuzuki blinked slowly as the mage spoke again. Turning her head around to look at the blonde woman, the semi-fey frowned at her quick explanation of the street rat’s current situation. “Huh. I guess that happened, then.” The comment would be quickly mumbled under Yuzuki’s breath, and she got a quick idea of what had occurred. Another night of furiously depressed, aimless flying that led into some crazy place. Phoenix Mountains…

That was pretty far. Searching her memories, the semi-fey remembered being tipsy, flopped over the corner table at one of those cheap Talonia bars. Ah…how pathetic. Forcing her brain to pay attention now to whatever Leona was saying, Yuzuki nodded along absentmindedly to the rhythm of her words. A guild…blegh. Guilds were something the semi-fey had never even considered, for friendly human interaction was utterly disgusting and went against everything she stood for. Researching magics, magical artifacts, independent, yadda yadda yadda. Politics were gross – it wasn’t like the Magic Council could technically control her in any way, after all. Who cared about some street rat killing a bum every now and then?

“My name? You can call me Zhuu.” It was a name she occasionally used on the street, and easily thrown away if necessary. “Ya say y’all do research on magical artifacts and stuff?” While she was here, might as well take advantage of the situation. “What have y’all found so far?” Maybe she could gain something out of this. Her body temperature having naturally brought her conditions closer to normal, the semi-fey had already begun scheming.

“Hmmm, is that so now…” Seemingly oblivious to Leona’s suspicions, Yuzuki leaned her head back onto hands cupped to pillow her skull, the chains of her beloved weapon clinking softly as she shifted her feet every now and then. “Weapons are cool, man. Would be nice if I could upgrade this girl ‘ere.” The semi-fey patted the strange combination of spear and nun-chucks that lay sheathed by her side, strange silver material glinting against the light. “Research?” Here a wrinkle of the nose marked the woman’s dislike of the task, mouth quirking downwards in thought. She was not one to linger and study something – not at all. The art of thievery required little study and much doing, unlike whatever this “research” was. And she knew best of all the consequences of a thirst for science and experiments.

Ignoring the sick taste that filled her mouth at memories arriving unbidden, Yuzuki perked back up at the mention of travelling. Finding artifacts was something easy enough for someone with practically no moral code. She was quite aware of some good black markets for “artifacts”.

Oh. Wait. Waitwaitwait wait up a whole moment here. Was she really considering joining these weirdos? The thought filled her chest with a hollow, cold feeling, the semi-fey realizing with shock what had just unconsciously transpired in her mind. This was absolutely preposterous. The hypothermia had finally gotten to her! Shaking a badly trimmed head of hair around in a crazed movement all of a sudden, Yuzuki attempted to clear her mind. What were the advantages? A steady job that potentially involved lots of fun smuggling, a shelter, decent clothes, potentially cool weapons…dear goddess Luna. This was actually starting to sound good to her.

“Uh, wait. So, working here would be like, a job?” The woman blinked slowly at the blonde. “Dunno much about guilds, ‘pologies.”

As the blonde had expected, her description of guild jobs would serve only to irritate the semi-fey, evoking a slight snort from the impish girl. “Organizing library shelves? Please.” The comment was rudely muttered under her breath, before Yuzuki listened to what else Leona had to say. The listed options would vary from sounding right up her alley to downright boring, and the semi-fey crossed her arms afterwards, puffing out an impatient sigh. It was evident that there were interesting jobs for her to take here, but the most important piece of information she needed had yet to be obtained.

“So, how opposed would y’all wolf people be to potential, oh, I dunno, casualties inflicted while on the job? Any objections to artifacts and materials gained from more questionable sources?” The woman lifted slanted silver eyes to look the other mage in the eye, quirking an eyebrow. She was a thief, after all. Working along with the law was simply not something acceptable to the moonfire mage and nothing Leona had suggested swerved any distance away from the moral norm. “See miss, I’m a bit of someone who likes to live on the more dangerous side of society. The thrill of survival is essential to my work. While this place looks interesting, nothing has yet to pique my interest for the more illegal side of things, too put it bluntly.”

She was a trickster, a daredevil, someone who rebelled both for her own good and for the mere reason that she could. Danger, killing…ever since Azurius had disappeared, leaving the woman to plunge back into the deepest dredges of society, Yuzuki had found herself once more drawn to rebellion, a moth to the fire. It was practically an addiction at this point, an inner urge to go against everything the fallen angel she once knew had ever stood for.

The woman seemed more reluctant to talk about the topic, a small frown coloring her previously more cheerful expression. Admitting to having killed out of defense (boring), she then continued to almost lecture the semi-fey. A frown covered her face, raising an eyebrow at Leona. Really? How strict and boring, wasn’t it. Well, what Leona didn’t know certainly wouldn’t hurt her, right? She sucked in a huge breath, exhaling and letting her shoulders slump down in some sort of defeated looking move.

“I guess that’s a reasonable demand, ugh.” Yuzuki tossed back a mane of messy black hair before listening to the ace’s following information on questionable artifact sources. It appeared that such situations hadn’t exactly happened before, leading her to believe that it should be definitely something up on the table. Unless there were any future protests against dealing in the black market, the woman could definitely have some fun. Generally though, it had become clear to the semi-fey that Silver Wolf was nowhere as strict and irritable as those ass-kissing legal guilds. While Leona certainly was not about to slip into that “anything goes” mindset, Yuzuki’s intentions were exactly to slip into that notch, whether it led to trouble or not. After all, the thief had always managed to get out of tough spots in the past, right?

A quick lift of her head revealed a bright, cheeky smile, directed at Leona. “Alrighty then, sounds good! I’m in!” Reaching out a hand for a shake or whatever, the semi-fey revealed the tangle of tattoos that already spiraled down her arms, few spots left behind for any guild tattoo. But room could be made…oh yeah. If this whole Silver Wolf thing could turn out as fun as she hoped, room could definitely be made.

The semi-fey frowned, sliding a hand down her left arm, sliding it over the silver tattoos that already occupied much of the skin. There were few spaces large enough for a guild stamp…perhaps some adjustments would have to be made. On her forearm, Yuzuki would use her fingers, gently pushing aside the magical marks to create an approximately guild tattoo-sized space. “Will this work for you?” She gestured at the blank space on her skin, doing her best to dust aside any dirt that was stuck to her arm.

For a moment, a sudden lurch of uncertainty filled her stomach as she gazed at the bare skin. What was about to happen suddenly felt like some sort of chain, an anchor to drag her back somewhere. A free spirit, lack of freedom was something that she feared greatly – the shark brand that remained on her palm was still hated by her to this day, and another one suddenly created a feeling of doubt.

But even with these feelings, there was no turning back now. She had to get it over with.