"Chinensis..." the pup repeats quietly, testing the shape of the sounds. Even with it's oft-forgotten letter, the pronunciation is smoother than Gigantea or Foetida. Ashtaroth listens with mouth sewn shut, brown eyes alert, nodding whenever Nevada looks her way. She should seek out a priest, this absorbed in her pack's history, maybe accompany Feizin in her lessons, but... she fears they would hear the same words very differently.
There's a... hesitance, in the Baishun's words, a long stare out over the desert. The Valley is no place of peace, of this, they are certain. This alignment, that of the Red, binds the aggression of Yellow to the deception of White, forges them into the formidable empire none of the three could be alone. There is a balance between the colours, and any lack within them could be disastrous. Red is the order of the intelligent, the forward-thinkers; without this, Oukoku-Kai would be mindless.
Ashtar perks at the mention of Lazaret, a renewed focus from the philosophical to quite tangible. False Rosas? There is such a thing?
Nevada ends her speech quite abruptly, shortly after delving into the topic of her brother, a White Rose. She is god-born as well. But Enix, and Neriminda-- her grandparents-- they were both Rosas, were they not? Is everyone in the Valley so close to divinity?
"Did that help?"
"Yes, miss."
"Do you have any other questions?"
"Yes, miss."
Oh, so many. The speech, on the hillside, it has left her with far more questions than it answered: it introduced her to the possibility of more than she had come to know. Other alignments, the options besides Hanna's legacy. There is far more to this world than Anamelech had taught her-- far more than that which is beautiful and that which is not-- there is good and evil, but so many mixtures thereof. Nothing is simple: that is one lesson in which White did not lie.
"You mentioned a false Red?" Ashtar starts, curiously, in the same dance into the topic as the past Pathos had demonstrated. There are many secrets in Oukoku-Kai, and none of the answers are obvious. "How did you identify the false Rose?" With a short pause, lengthened to leave space for any response, but her mind is so full. "How do I know if I am Red?" Can I know? I want to know.
I want to be.