cosmic chaos ➣ a zodiac story

xv - the grand council

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hi! this chapter is really late, i'm really sorry. anyways, don't mind all the character introductions, they're all side characters. this chapter isn't really that exciting, but i poured my heart into it for you readers <3

OVER THE MEADOW and into the woods, lay a stone which brought a certain brunette peace. There, someone found serenity and reassurance in her youth. "They" claim she was naive and obviously knew nothing, yet here Takara found more than that. There, she found something more than the stone palace walls of her boring strategist siblings. It was something that could ease her constant questioning.

The trees were dancing as the birds were singing. It was beautifully calm. The skies were clear and blue. The fresh and crisp air of spring wafted into her face as she ran through the meadow and into the woods. She sought her stone, the special place where she ignored the wraths of Via and Kaede.

A sigh escaped her chapped lips as she came to a halt. The breeze that ran through her hair was tamed somehow on this mellow day. Takara's brown, fuzzy flats hit the heavy soil littered with leaves and twigs.

Flora was the best thing in the world to her, which made this forest her haven. It was a gift from the Gods, she believed. It was the only thing left behind from the golden touch of their Gods, and she knew that the people of Yosono were already mistreating the gift.

Thank the Gods I finally remembered what I wanted to do! I was having an internal crisis during that card game.

During the game of gambling with her siblings and Senzo, Takara's thoughts were continuously drifting back and forth trying to remind her of something. This morning, she woke with a clear conscience and remembered what she intended to do the whole time.

Takara clutched onto the book she had brought along with her. Well, more like she stole the book and made a run for it. Via had guards stationed out of the forbidden mana techniques section in the library, and Takara's nosiness got the best of her, so she stole a book from there. The book hadn't aged very well. Its spine was bent and the cover was crooked, but it was still somewhat intact. Cursive words on the front were surrounded by swirled vines and roses covering the tips of the letters. Takara found them quite cute. She smiled and re-read the cover of it.

"Flora: The Forgotten Branch of Terra"

The words repeated themselves in her mind like a broken telegraph. "Forgotten", "Flora", and "Branch".

The ongoing crisis of Eikonoha's ice tundras invading their grasslands and spreading into agricultural territory had gotten far too serious for Takara to sit back. With determination, she firmly decided that she was going to try a technique today. After discovering she could create plants during a picnic, which terrified her siblings for some reason, Takara took the initiative to hone her skills.

So what if our plants are dying? Aren't we like -- the people of the earth? Isn't that Choseki is? Can't we like -- use our mana to regrow them? Takara thought to herself. She wondered why her siblings never thought of it, but shrugged it off.

But for some reason, her parents always forbade her to find a teacher or read anything about the topic.

As she stood beside the stone, Takara held the book in front of her and smiled. She then looked at the stone and felt a sense of calmness and sturdiness, something the stone somehow expressed (even if it wasn't alive).