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Amethyst	It's been a while since the meeting with Fudou. Ametis has since put her clothing back on, slipping into her alchemist tunic which usually doubles as her armor. The younger dragon seems a little more sure of herself now and a little less desparate for others' approval, but thoughts of what exactly to do with herself have yet to materialize.
Black Pearl	The somewhat older dragon looks pensive, and finally comes to the shore of a pond--a good place for them both to be. "It...shook you earlier," she says. "It looked like something you thought was solid turned out to be quicksand. Or you thought you were steering by a star, but instead just the prevailing winds and currents...and now you have no compass. Am I close?"
Amethyst	Ametis takes a seat, and looks at the trees that surround them, "...Something like that. Imagine a traveler who has gotten lost in the vastness of the woodland of the east, and who in his foolishness, rather than stopping to get his bearings, heads further and further into the forest. I'm that traveler right now, and I don't know which way to go, but man have I ever been going."
Black Pearl	Salara sits, pensive. "The best I can do is ask questions...questions you may not know the answers to, but searching for the answers ought to help. They may not get you to a distination, but you might figure out where you are and where you want to go. The first is: Who are you? What defines you?" She has slipped back to a more formal mode, like teacher and student.
Amethyst	Ametis contemplates, again Salara's student. Though this time the goal is to be open about herself, almost the exact inverse of previous lessons. But she lets such thoughts flow away as she considers herself, considers the thoughts others have imparted onto her, and what conclusions she's drawn. "In truth," She begins, "I do not know what I am now, but I do know who I once was. An alchemist who put her skills in sorcery to use in building a foothold in the city of Decadence, for reasons known only to my mother. I once was a devotee of the Immaculate Faith. I once was a detective searching for leads for my lost father." "Now I am someone chasing power for no reason other than its own sake, a orphan in all but name, and someone who belongs precisely nowhere. Not with the Lunars, not with the gods and spirits of Great Forks, nor with dragons of either Lookshy or the Realm."
Black Pearl	Salara listens and nods. "Chasing power is not necessarily a bad thing, but a lack of purpose is. So...you came here out of obedience to your mother, but do not know the why behind her request. Well and good--obedience, especially to the matriarch is an ideal trained into us. But now, you are a tool that others can pick up and wield. So close your eyes. Think of perfection. Contentment. What does that look like in your life? How does it spill over to affect others? And if you do not know, that is fine...it is something to explore, perhaps over years."
Amethyst	"I suppose I am fortunate in choosing those closest to me." Ametis says, and then she does as instructed, closing her eyes and trying to imagine. It takes some time for her to calm herself enough to imagine, but Salara has seen Ametis do this many a time. Her tattoos' rapid shimmering slows to a much easier pace as her own essence is calmed. "Before me I see many dreams I've had, each perhaps as farfetched as the last. Watching the Exalted host come together instead of murdering one another. Being close to whoever the new Empress shall be. Learning secrets lost to the first age about the dragons, including where I could find them, for maybe if I could talk to one of them I could find some sort of understanding to fill the void left in me from the unraveling tapestries of the Immaculate Faith I once trusted." "But those are insane ambitions more than perfection and contement. I think, I think I don't really know what I would be doing to be fully at ease."
Black Pearl	"I understand," Salara says. "For myself...I want my House restored. I want us to be honored for our service to the Empress. I want one of our own on the throne. I want it to be /me/." She chuckles softly. "Insane dreams, perhaps, but they give me direction. They make me wonder, 'What price will I pay for my dreams? What am I willing to pay?'" She moves closer and reaches out a hand to hold gently. "But now, I start to see you in my dreams as well. And I see the silver leashes reaching from your heart beyond Creation to the Wyld and the Moon. It frightens me...and I wonder if vengeance is more important than family. If it is better to bring the Realm to an end if we cannot rule, or to try to build something else. If a single person is worth more than dreams of justice and stability for all." She pauses a long moment, "Perhaps the dragons are at the elemental poles--where Creation starts to bleed to the Wyld? Save for the dragon of Earth who slumbers under Mt. Meru? I never looked much into the occult, and would be quite the amature to try."
Amethyst	"The Moon cannot have me. And I swear I will find a way to reclaim what the Wyld has taken from me." Ametis says with unhesitating certainty. "Going to the shadowland has opened my eyes to a terrible picture of someone who was once so enamoured by the wyld that she left part of her own soul there. Perhaps it's for the best that my lunar lovers were the one to do the majority of my tattoos, serving now as an anchor against the tearing power of chaos. If my mother was less capricious, I would have been entirely tattoo'd by her." "And I can't tell if losing part of my soul or losing only /part/ of my soul is the reason that she did not complete these tattoos of mine. Perhaps had the ritual worked as intended I would no longer even be Creation-Born and instead twisted into some lesser fae." The young dragon shivers a little bit. "Regardless, I've never heard a story of one finding their way to the elemental poles and surviving. But that /is/ where the dragons are rumored to be slumbering."
Black Pearl	"We, at least, have an advantage, if we were to go to the Water Pole," Salara says with a bit of a smile. "And I am glad you still have your soul--at least most of it. I have heard that demons also take the soul, or parts of it. But I don't know sorcery to know if that is true." "So...you say you are an orphan, but we have become family, and I will not break my oath. You have people who care for you, as yourself, but do not simply look to us to mold who you think you should be. Do it if you must, but because--in your core--you have chosen us to listen to. For your own reasons. For your own purpose. And find that purpose, so that you may know the answer to all three questions of time." "What came before. You have given a succint narration." "What is now. You say you are lost, without foundation or direction. Well and good. All that means is, once you determine your will for the future, you can start to change the now by bringing the yet-to-come." "And the future: What happens next? What do you want from your life? ANd you have given answers there, even. And if I become empress and achieve my dream, well, you will certainly be close to me, yes?" The Dynast gives a rippling laugh, and water flows a bit upstream from the pond to lap at their feet. "I tell you true...you might be changing my purpose from dread and grim vengeance to something else. I am going through my own contemplation of this."
Amethyst	"And I do know of techniques that we could use to insulate ourselves against the elements. Even the water pole will not be so simple to allow us entry, we will need to be stronger than the strongest tide in all of Creation to reach it." Ametis says. "And alas, demonology was not my strong point in my sorcerous studies." "And I am an orphan in that I have no matriarch, I have father or mother right now, nor even the greater ties to a House of to the Dynasty itself. Even if I do go and make nice with my cousins, they will never control me. I have no one to answer to for my own decisions, and perhaps that is the one blessing I've been given as an 'Egg that fell outside the nest'." "As for what happens next? Whatever we want to do we will need our strength. It is not that we need to be more than Dragon-Blooded, but if we wish to change the world, we must be less like the weakest of our kind, and be closer to the incredible strength the Empress possessed. And as much as I am loathe to admit it," "For me and my sorcerous powers, that means I have to find a bastion in the wyld I can call my own."
Black Pearl	Salara nods. "So. You wish to change the world. And to change the world, you need power, and this is how you need to go about to gain power. Does this give you a compass, or a star?" A slight laugh, "And I hope I am by your side in the world after the changes you would bring to it."
Amethyst	Ametis gives her oathsister a hug, "Why not it be both a compass and a star? In the time between now and when I am strong enough to say, swim to the western pole, I'm sure I'll have more a map than I have right now. But perhaps I have a start. With that and the idea to enhance my own latent elemental powers rather than trying to mimic the other Exalted, I think I might just have a direction."
Black Pearl	Salara returns the hug close. "As long as you know the direction your goal lies, you can work out the steps to bring you towards it. Just make sure to watch out for fate bringing things to you that are better than you can imagine." She gives a bit of a smile. "Now we should probably return to the city, and if you want, I can show you my own bastion some time."