Xiaolumi S4: Edge of Dawn

Balladeer's Sin of Pride

A/N: Kuni/Shouki tries to talk with Xiao only for something to happen as an unexpected someone interferes through Xiao's Soul Bond....For fate is a fickle mistress with a temper to match.

"One often meets his destiny on the road he takes to avoid it."
~Master Oogway, Kung Fu Panda

Song Lumine Singing & Playing: "Reset" from Okami.

.................................................

That had been a sensation like no other.

Kunikuzushi was not sure what to make of it as he watched stained glass windows shatter to reveal scenery like no other. He was standing in a sea of snow white lilies with single blue petals that swayed with the gentlest of breezes. A rain of glowing rainbow petals falling like the sakura of the sacred tree of Narukami Shrine. It felt...oddly nostalgic and it disgusted him for this feeling.He couldn't see the yaksha adeptus nearby at all as he looked around the flower meadow.

Strange and massive ivory stone columns decorated with fine gold. One pillar had a massive ticking clock. Another had a symbol he did not know as every pillar was carved with ancient runes of a lost language almost completely forgotten. But overhead was the most baffling as his eyes lay on a tree far, far more ancient then irminsul with its tall and massive trunk and branches were in bloom with unknown blossoms. All around he could hear an ethereal melody like a siren song. The sky over his head is a cosmic painting nebula of a sea of stars with no moon and no sun dare to swallow. Not even a cloud covered the heavens as he walked through the sea of white.

The sound of Inazuman instruments, particularly a bamboo flute flowed with the gentle wind that encouraged him to come closer. Until finally he found the source. SItting there at the base of the tree singing was Lumine but she didn't look how he remembered her. Brilliant golden sunkissed hair gave off an ethereal glow, a circlet crown floating over her head with a gem floating of each color but only four out of seven were glowing. At her back were six beautiful wings and eyes of gold that made him freeze. "No fucking way, s-she's got the same eyes as the Jester!?"Kunikuzushi thought in disbelief as he got closer. This was definitely not the Traveler he had met in Inazuma nor the one that had touched his mind.

Snuggled up to her purring like some content cat yokai was that bird yaksha. But it was the souls of those who slept on her other side that baffled him. Two tiny children with fuzzy baby bird wings, safe and content as static of hydro and pyro rippled across their bodies. Those were new souls directly connected here to the Traveler's consciousness. The first child was female with ebony black hair with vermillion red undertones. The other was the one that really drew his eyes towards.

The second child was male, with very fair features with blonde hair with pale blue undertones. An energy tail of a wolf puppy curled around him as Lumine's hand stroked through his hair. Tiny yips escaping the tiny god at the comfort of their mother's safety. Xiao tensing where he stood at spotting Kunikuzushi. "Lumen, care to explain what you did just now?"Xiao asked, confusing the puppet further.

"Our soul bonds, that's how my brave. You should know how fickle I am by now my dear bird. I won't take kindly to anybody trying to do what he was trying. Lumine looked over at the fledgling deity with a frightening calm as she continued to stroke her sleeping children's minds and souls. She needed to to make sure they didn't awaken, not at this stage when they were linking to Yggdrasil. If they did not, then it would be Irminsul they linked to and they would suffer for it. Not right away but the danger of erosion was too great with the Tree of Knowledge. They needed the link to the Tree of Life, the One Truth. She had already explained to Xiao this was what she looked like in her mind and chose to show. This plane was her mindscape woven by her mother's tales.