Two pairs of eyes moved, shifting like a sudden gust of wind among the roar of a storm when one of the two newcomers made a move to respond to the twins' abnormal line of questioning, one pair not dissimilar to the deepest snow of winter, the other radiating an intensity almost aflame. The man was tall, taller than Yurielle and Yuliana both. Despite the fact that their gaze had to wander upward ever-so-slightly, it seemed they would, paradoxically enough, still find a way to look down on him, in a sense, the eyes, which so often betrayed a person's true feelings, were a true gateway to the soul, making that much obvious. Yuliana twisted, turned in her relentless stride, her attitude resembling a predator ready to pounce on a particularly delicious prey animal in a spectacle of starved expectation, facing the young man of mysterious, yes, she would even go as far as calling it undiscernable, nature with a still-widening grin. Yurielle, in stark contrast to her younger twin, remained frozen, the fact that she still had yet to make a single unnecessary movement becoming more and more apparent as time slowly passed, unsettlingly so, as not once she seemed to have blinked while staring at the male newcomer.
"Oh? Is that so?", the Flareblaze Witch asked upon the man's statement with a tone of voice that gave away an obvious and certain kind of light playfulness, though hid within a covert sense of arrogance. Yuliana observed, at first, noticed the shift of tension in the atmosphere around them, something that could be described as the at first subtle, then obvious feeling of raw power that accompanied magical energy, though this, the thing that he possessed, it was... somehow different from the regular arcane. The dry air of the Crossroads around them crackled with power. Unrefined, in a way, but corrupted in nature. Raw, unrestrained, and somehow accompanied by a feeling of pure and unfiltered malice that sought to consume, and consume, and continue to consume until nothing was left. If one had thought that the grin on Yuliana's face could not get any wider, well, they would be proven wrong in this instance, a toothy and obviously exhilarated smile pulling her lips upwards. This one, she could tell, yes, he had potential. The potential for power, which was, naturally, the only thing of real importance among the Serpents.
"Seems like you got some determination in you, after all. Good for you. As for the, well, explosive thing you're looking for...", she paused briefly, twisting her body in that same weightless stride, those decidedly dance-like motions and turns anew as she stepped closer to the man, one step, two steps, until she had gotten considerably closer to his right side, an arms-length being all that separated the two. If Lance would turn towards her, look her in the eyes, he would see a trembling gaze upon him, pupils twitching and vibrating with an intense aura of barely concealed insanity locked inside an expression of pure and overwhelming bloodlust that twisted her mouth open unnaturally. Her voice, barely more than a whisper, was laced with venom, the girl finding herself brought back to the memory of that not long past day. The implication did not escape her, no, and the fact that this individual seemed to possess knowledge regarding the momentary humiliation that had befallen her back then, oh, it made her furious, that much being reflected in her tone. "...what do you happen to know about Felidae?".
While Yuliana dealt with the man, Yurielle focussed her attention on the other one, the woman, the arctic oculi, still unblinking, turning with her head towards the newcomer. She appeared much chattier than the other one, the words pouring from her in an unrestrained stream that presented a more or less coherent answer to the Icestorm Witch's earlier question. She would, of course, listen quietly, her unmoving eyes seeming to pierce directly through the woman, though she repeated the same gesture of curiosity she had shown earlier, the tilting of the head by just a few degrees making evident a subdued level of interest, though her explanation also contained information that gave rise to more questions. "Freedom?", she asked, her monotonous, albeit calm voice ringing out anew. This woman was not from Fiore, as she had explained, though appeared to be entirely capable of the spoken language used here without a detectable accent. She stated that she was new to this nation, though seemed to fit right in here. A curious, if not suspicious fact. Was she hiding from something, had she fled from somewhere? It would explain her motive.
"If it is freedom you seek, then Plumed Serpent is not the place for you". Her tone was harsh, final, and yet still delivered in that same utterly bland and unchanging monotone. "This is a group of people that offers only power. If you let yourself be distracted by things like freedom, discouraged by institutions like law, then perhaps you may lack power...", she paused briefly, Yurielle's eyes wandering over the woman's form once more before she continued, "... but if you seek the power to back up your ideals, if you pursue it with a fervor unbound by the conventions of this society, then perhaps you shall yet rise to it and take it for yourself. Tell me, stranger-", the Icestorm Witch found herself pausing again, tilting her head just slightly once more. The expression on Yurielle's face seemed to change, those eyes, those deep marbles of ice-blue hues carrying a wise glint of frigid calculation, of speculative, curious wonder within them. "-do you have what it takes to aspire to freedom? To greatness? Or will you fall behind in its pursuit and remain a slave to that which shackles you forever?".
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