Despite some reservations still held by Meyna, Ambience was released from the custody of the Worzen family, with a promise that he wouldn't hesitate to return sooner rather than later. It was a reminder that the household was his home when he had no other, and while he was appreciative of that, the answers he sought weren't going to be found while hiding in someone else's house. As Ambience adjusted and ensured the two swords were fitted comfortably on his back and in no danger of falling loose, he bid his farewells and departed back toward the Faron Woods. His self-assurance was considerably-less than it was before and he didn't know how much he trusted what little magical ability he still retained, so he'd opted to just use his own two legs on his way back to Viorar. He at least offered to himself a silver lining despite his misfortune, in that he would be up a much-shittier creek than he already was if he couldn't at least detect Mana Signatures, so there was at least something to be thankful for. A crisp wind blew through the trees at the forest's edge, and Ambience paused there, momentarily, determining what he actually planned to do once he -did- reach Viorar.

There is a little bit of shuffling heard somewhere in the branches above, just before the shape of one Sunflash pops down mostly gracefully into the ground a couple feet ahead of Ambience.
Dusting himself off with all the practice of someone who has fallen out of several trees before, Sunny grins at Ambience. "Good morning! Are we headed back south, or did you have some detours in mind for this grand party of ours?"

Almost not waiting for an answer, the wizard casts his gaze back up where was a moment ago with a minor frown before crooking a finger at something unseen. With a little bit more scuffling sounds, his travelling pack would suddenly float down from an unseen branch to his waiting hand before being applied to his person.

Ambience looks up suddenly at the re-emergence of Sunflash, being shaken from his thoughts in what most surprised him. He was aware of Sunflash's lack of actual departure during the time he'd spent held up in the house for the last few days, and it only made him more stressed out that people were that worried about him. He hated feeling like the lame leg. "I don't know yet," was all he said, only pausing briefly before continuing southward. "I don't want to upset Molly if I don't show up when she's expecting it, but other than that, I don't have any plans. For anything." It was a grumpy response and he knew it, but he wasn't feeling explicitly social at the moment.

With a few extra tugs on various pack-straps, Sunny nods at Ambience. "My favorite plans tend to be short-term anyway, so no complaints from me!" Seemingly completely unperturbed by the grumpiness of the young man, the wizard grasped his hands behind his back and grinned. "Since you're still here where I could find you, I presume we'll be walking?" There was an oddly hopeful tone in the question, as if he would almost prefer an affirmative answer for one reason or another.

Ambience glances behind him as he walks on, almost as if expecting something (or someone) to be tailing them, but since a certain beastgirl's Mana Signature was still somewhere inside the house he'd left behind, he didn't think anything further of it. "Yeah," Ambience said, turning back to Sunflash. "Until we figure out more about whatever is going on, I don't trust anything I might or might not be able to do. The last thing I want to happen is us somehow ending up in deep space because I lost focus." That was obviously an exaggeration, but there were any number of other things that were within the realm of possibility that he didn't feel like chancing. He subconsciously reached behind to brush one of his hands against the pommels of the swords crossed and strapped to his back, paranoia still quite heavy over the burden one of them had, simply by being carried, yet MUCH worse knowing it couldn't be wielded. "We'll go to Viorar, I'll meet up with Molly and see what she's doing, then we'll go from there. I don't know why I'm avoiding the idea, but I should probably go to Truce at some point, too. I'm just a bit uncomfortable about it, but I don't know why."

Sliding into place to Ambience's right and just behind him, Sunny seemed content to let the youth dictate the path. "I completely agree about not teleporting until one's sure it'll work right. Last time I tried that I ended up in some strange realm full of koopas and hylians and reploids and other wild things. Not sure I'd recommend the experience." A faint grin clips across his face as he says this before contenting himself with a nod. "Also, I know why I'm reluctant to get anywhere near Truce after all these years; but I'm kinda in the dark why you would have any unease about it. Did you know many people from that area?"

Sunflash's foremost comment seems to go over Ambience's head, and his silence implies that he's either thinking too hard about it and didn't get it, or he ignored it entirely. Ambience casts a small glance in his direction, though, not having known that Sunflash, as well, had reservations about Truce. "Several," he said, facing forward again. "I don't know how many of them are even still there, and I'm kind of afraid of what their reaction might be when I suddenly show up out of the blue after this long. My..." He actually stops walking for a moment, as the memories begin to surface. "My history in Truce is... checkered. I helped a lot of people, but I also hurt a lot of people, supposedly. I don't remember a lot of details about the latter of those two, but I know the ones I hurt certainly do." Ambience suddenly gets a look on his face as he realizes something else, something much more positive than all of his erstwhile gloom and doom. "Oh! The Monastery!" He looks up at Sunflash. "Agrias and miss Ovelia should still be there, I think. I think I'm going to stop there, after Viorar. I think they'll be happy to see me again." He actually looks pretty happy by the notion, actually, and continues walking with a bit more purpose.

As Ambience's story ran its course, Sunny was content to simply let his companion's thoughts do its thing. His face was a sterling example of thoughtful attention as they continued, betraying none of his inner thoughts.

Once some steps had been had for thinking and mulling of words, the wizard responds. "I don't think I've ever been there. That's the one south of Sulftaska, right?" Light curiosity is written on his face as this was spoken, as if making idle chatter.

"Yeah, it's in Oreyndur Forest," Ambience explained, apparently pleased to be able to do so. The place was apparently a big deal to him. "I met Agrias and miss Ovelia by accident when I was little, because my Da's cabin was built nearby, in a small glade, where he raised me." He frowned a little bit, some other memory shoehorning its way into his good vibes. "It's not there anymore, though. But anyway, I was out playing in the woods and I met Agrias while she was coming back from Crysta on a business trip or something similar." He actually grins a little bit. "She was always so huffy and uptight. She saw that I had a sword and asked if I knew how to use it." His grin grows. "One of the things I'll never forget was the look on her face when, according to her, I became the first 7-year-old ever to disarm her. She insisted on taking me back to the Monastery, and I met miss Ovelia there, too. Agrias actually trained me in my swordplay for several years, and that's how I got to be as good as I was."

"I'm pretty sure that she went really easy on me, that first time, otherwise she would've won. She definitely stopped pulling punches after that, though." Ambience nods a bit to himself, reminiscing fondly.

A chuckle escapes Sunny as the story unfolds. "Perhaps she did, but it sounds like you earned her respect even when she didn't pull her punches. That's good."

He pauses again in his words, clearly weighing phrasing before finally vocalizing his thoughts. "Feel free to tell me no, but I find myself curious. It sounds like you haven't had a stable childhood, am I right? Don't go into any details you don't wanna, I'm just piecing a few things together here and making sure I'm not misunderstanding things."

Ambience slowly comes to a halt, Sunflash's comment sinking in pretty deep. It's not like he wasn't aware of it, but to hear someone else call it out was a different sort of injection into his realization process. When he's taken a few moments to let it process, he laughs. And he laughs for several moments, in fact, as if Sunflash's remark was just the gods-damned funniest thing he'd heard in a long time. And then, when he's done laughing, he gets quiet again, his expression in all this kind of difficult to discern with that blindfold over his eyes. When he does finally speak, there's a distinctively-sardonic edge to his voice that may or may not have been intentional. "From the earliest I can understand it, my mom had a special dream where she was pregnant with me, and then I was born a few months afterward, here in the real world. My Da struggled with raising me because my mom gave me away a week after I was born, because she didn't think she could take care of me." He pauses for a moment, letting his own thoughts and feelings reorganize before continuing. "You know, he'd never admit it, but I don't think my Da wanted a kid. I think he probably thought that he wasn't good enough to be a parent, or maybe I was too much of a burden for whatever lifestyle he was planning, or any number of other things. But he was never really very happy while I was growing up. Most times I saw him, he was really sad or distant, but he wouldn't tell me why. I was a kid, though, so I just... played in the woods, like any kind probably would've."

Suddenly, there's a REALLY loud thumping noise that sounds very much like a thudding heartbeat. It echoes around the immediate area twice, then subsides.

Ambience continues, either ignoring the loud thumping or not having heard it. His tone feels bitter. "I think the time I spent with Agrias and miss Ovelia was an escape for me AND my Da. That way I didn't have to feel like my Da was being put out by having me around."
Again, another loud and echoing heartbeat resounds through the area, but only a single time before it goes away.

Sunny stops as Ambience does, and it's possible even through the blindfold and nearsightedness that the raised eyebrows of Sunflash are visible during the story telling. He'd always known the Mana Tribe to be ones that don't operate the way other people did, but this was a new twist he wasn't expecting.

As the story continued and the thumping noise made itself heard, Sunny straightens up and glances about with a furrowed brow before turning back to Ambience. Noting the lack of reaction from him, Sunny decides to push his luck. As ever.

"...That's quite the early life there, my friend. I take it your Mom showed up eventually? I only ever heard you talk about her and the Tribe at the same time, not separate." Sunny's regained control of his facial expressions enough to look decently collected, although he is glancing about a bit more as well.

Ambience's expression actually changes into a frown, and he looks up at Sunflash specifically. "Yeah, she showed up just in time to stop me from destroying Truce and murdering all of the friends I'd made up to that point. That was nice of her, wasn't it?" The tone of Ambience's voice is definitely.. not friendly, at this point.

Another loud, echoing heartbeat, followed by another, and Ambience keeps talking.

"You let a kid run around on his own for a few years and just about anything could happen. Erim shows up and she pretends to be my friend too, but then THAT turns out to just be a ruse so she can get a hold of the other shards to revive the Sinistrals with."

The heartbeats continue now, unabated. They echo loudly throughout the forest surrounding them, which doesn't really make sense since there's no acoustic method that should allow that to be possible.

Ambience's hands ball up into fists at his sides, a clear depiction of his growing emotional overflow. "And then, as if THAT wasn't enough, Haut WANTS them to come back so he can make the world believe he's some kind of hero that caused the whole thing in the FIRST PLACE!"

The heartbeats grow louder and insistent, and a few of the trees nearest the two of them begin to actively tremble and shake.

As Sunflash absorbs the story and the local ramifications, his face goes from a mask of calm curiosity to one best described as focused. Jaw set, eyebrows not-quite furrowed; the wizard takes a knee in front of Ambience to prevent any further need to look up.

"Ambience." Simply said, no trace of audible concern or...anything really.

Ambience doesn't say anything further, but his fists are super-clenched at his sides and he is shaking visibly. The resounding heartbeat continues to beat rapidly around them, and the aforementioned shaking trees begin to actually lose a few leaves as the shaking intensifies. Small rocks on the ground amidst the foliage start bouncing around on the ground as some unseen force causes them to dance about around their feet. This goes on for a few moments before he says something. "I don't.. want this anymore. I'm tired.. of this. Of all of this. I gave my life for all of you, but that wasn't enough, was it? What more do you want from me? What more can I possibly give this world? I just.. want to be left alone.. I don't want this anymore..!"

Sunflash doesn't break his stare, ignoring a twig bouncing off his shoulder. As Ambience continues and reaches a break point, Sunny reaches out with a finger to just... poke him. On the end of his nose. "Ambience."

There is what sounds like, absolutely no joke, a very loud cat's meow, all of a sudden, that cuts through the rampant, echoing heartbeat-thudding, and Ambience jolts upright from Sunflash's gesture. Said thudding just-as-suddenly and just-as-abruptly stops, right then and there, and the loud meow also fades away, leaving only the still silence of the woods. The trees stop shaking, the ground settles down, and Ambience exhales very loudly through his nose. Several times, in fact. His fists relax slightly, but they don't un-ball. Eventually, he does finally say something, but his tone is no longer angry, just... very broken and disheartened. "I don't.. want this anymore.." He raises one of his hands, reaching behind himself; as he does this, a pixelation of warped space immediately behind Ambience brings into being what look like two shadowy silhouettes, lacking in features, but not without obvious shape. They appear to be two horses, or unicorns, perhaps. One of them even appears to have wings. They manifest directly behind Ambience but don't speak or move, simply... Standing there.

Ambience's hand motion draws Sunflash's eyes up and behind him. As his eyes settle on the silhouettes, he raises a hand of his own to point a single angry finger at one of them. There are no words, just a point and a surge of invisible power with the intent of banishing the presence of what he can only presume are things causing a problem for Ambience.

The silhouette of the horse that is the target of Sunflash's irritation seems to take the expulsory blast head on, but all it does is cause the shadow to flicker and waver shapelessly for a moment, before it reconforms to form a horse head once more. Ambience, in the meantime, has reached the pommel of the one sword he CAN wield, and slowly but steadily pulls the other, exquisite-looking longsword out from its scabbard with a drawn-out slink of metal-on-leather, his expression still extremely downcast. "I don't.. want to be here anymore.." he says openly, looking directly at Sunflash as he draws the weapon free.

Behind him, a soft hiss issues from either OR both of the horse-shadows, it's hard to tell. "Give him back to us..." it says, in a dark sort of whisper.

As soon as Sunny realizes the weapon was drawn, he moves to grasp the blade with his armored hand and hold it in place.

"Ambience. Can you hear me? You seem to be under attack." His voice isn't quite a shout, but it IS clearly elevated. Didn't like his shortening list of options, and he really didn't want to throw more power into anything nearby since he wasn't sure what was connected to what yet.

Ambience... lets go of the weapon, entirely, when Sunflash takes hold of it, allowing it to be relinquished if that ends up being the intent. "You do it, then," he says, lifting his chin up and blatantly exposing his throat. "If you won't let me do it myself, then do it for me. I'm tired of all of this. I can't play this game anymore, Sunflash. I did my part, and I just want to be done with it."

Both horse-shadows seems to spare each other a glance at this exchange, then proceed to look at Sunflash, almost expectantly. One of them speaks, this time not in a dark whisper, but in a fairly feminine, obnoxiously-gracious tone. "Oh darling, that would be just wonderful! Think of all the suffering you'd save!" It's very.. disconcerting, considering its source, honestly.

A rumble not unlike a growl comes from the Hylian as he pulls the weapon away, not bothering to change his grip. His mouth opens to respond and is swiftly interrupted, derailed even by the peanut gallery's opinions. From his position still knelt on the ground in front of Ambience, Sunflash clearly struggles with something; for only a moment. His head angles back to direct his fury above Ambience's face.

-="I'll not suffer interruptions from those that would assault a CHILD."=-

The voice that nearly blasted forth was unmistakably Sunny's, but clearly actually angry for the first time this interaction. It was also accompanied by the Spell-Twister suddenly radiating a barrage of his previous Dispel-twisted banishment. The energy seems to crash out like a tsunami as he slowly rose back to his feet, almost flooding the area in a sense.

This roar actually causes Ambience to panic slightly and stumble from the suddenness of it, simultaneously breaking his suicidal reverie in the process. He unceremoniously falls back on his butt, and this act seems to disorient the two shadowy horse-things directly behind him, as if some sort of connection were destabilized in the process. Seeing the magical energy that comes torrenting out of Sunflash, Ambience actually raises his arms against his face in a silly effort to shield himself, as if he were too confused to know whether Sunflash was angry at, and directing his spell-twists, at him or something else. At the same time, the two horse-silhouettes appear to break their immobility, attempting to charge forward past Ambience and at Sunflash, against the tidal wave of magical banishment. In whatever means of success they thought they had, however, they seem to have grossly underestimated WHERE Sunflash's power was actually coming from, and each dispulsion blast that strikes them seems to etch away a small fragment of their shadowed state, not unlike an eraser removing a small bit of a penciled drawing from a sheet of paper. In so doing, they make zero headway against the heavy deluge of magic, and it takes very little time at all until they appear to be erased completely, the last little bit of their shadows seeming to float briefly in the air before they, too, dissolve into nothingness.

Ambience continues to shield himself from the assault not intended for him, not really sure what's going on but, as sensitive to mana as he is, not willing to take any chances while all of this is going on around him at the moment.

The tidal wave continues for an extra moment more as Sunflash turns slowly back towards where Ambience had fallen backwards. His eyes flicker behind the lad for a moment, narrowing at something otherwise unseen before they close in time with a deep breath.

As he releases the breath, so too does the flooding magic recede and dissipate back into nothingness. Opening his eyes, Sunny looks down at Ambience with a somewhat pleased grin before leaning down and offering his free hand. "Sorry about that. Are you feeling better?" His voice was far more calmer, obviously having acquired some amount of catharsis from his actions.

Ambience lowers his arms, taking in, for a moment, the fact that it's just Sunflash there and not spontaneous and torrential magic output. Whatever that was really messed with his senses, like seeing the entire world in a huge canvas of nothing but ony solid color that changed every fraction of a second. It takes him a good few seconds to get his head on straight, but it does, at the very least, seem like his head -is- on straight, at least for the moment. But he frowns, looking up at Sunflash. "...I'm sorry," is all he says, but it sounds fairly genuine and, while remorseful, not self-deprecative any longer.

"For what? Being emotionally vulnerable when I asked a question, and trying to answer honestly?" Sunny lets his arm drop and, deciding that Ambience probably isn't going to move for a bit anyway, starts to sprawl beside the lad before realizing he was still holding Ambi's sword awkwardly. He corrects his grip, snagging it by the actual handgrip, before sitting down upon his own rear-end and drawing his knees up. Both arms and the sword are crossed across his knees. "I'll not belittle your apology or anything, but from this end it is unnecessary. That wasn't your fault."

Ambience frowns still, giving a ragged sigh as some semblance of practical sense seems to at least -try- to come back to him amidst everything that just happened. He actually has no idea, actually, what DID just happen, since he was not seemingly aware, at the time, of the two horse-shadows behind him. Or, at least, he doesn't seem like he was. "There's so many questions, and absolutely nobody who can answer them," he says, rubbing his face with one hand. "I feel like this is just one big nightmare that I'm struggling to wake up from, but everyone and everything keeps pulling me back into it." He stops, lowering his hand from his face as he looks at Sunflash through his blindfold. "Almost as if they're afraid of me waking up."

"Mmmhmm. Reminds me of when I was growing up as well." Sunny seemed to be inspecting the blade in his hand while the conversation was happening.

"Born with something that shouldn't be possible, and most people suddenly treat you like either the biggest time bomb ever. Or worse, just some tool to use." There's an audible touch of disgust in his voice before he lets a sigh escape. He adjusts his grip to regrasp the swordblade and offers the hilt to Ambience.

"For what its worth, I'm as in the dark as much as you are. Small comfort, I know."

The longsword in Sunny's lap is super nice, for real. It looks almost regal in its shape and design, like it was specifically made for either an extremely high-ranking knight, or perhaps a lord.

Ambience's eye twitches under his blindfold at the mention of being a 'tool to use,' feeling like that concept has been something he's struggled with a lot during his incapacitation at the Worzen household. "Maybe we're both just accidents that happened on purpose," he says in an off-the-cuff manner, the oxymoron feeling appropriate for the current situation. Ambience looks down at the sword being offered to him, and tentatively retrieves it, holding it a bit awkwardly in his hand as if he had little experience in actually using it.
Ambience lifts his attention slightly skyward, taking in a breath. "We need to get to Viorar," he says.

"I'd rather we not have a purpose, and just get to exist without any onuses or some such nonsense. Alas, seems we'll have to punch a few more people before they decide to leave you alone, huh?" With this, Sunny hauls himself to his feet before offering a hand again to Ambience.

"Viorar sounds fine. After this attempted possession or, whatever you want to call it, I really want to check in on some things before we start walking to Orbonne."

Ambience seems to think on that first part for a moment, and shakes his head as he reaches for Sunflash's hand to pull himself up with, but somehow manages to drop the longsword in the grass upon doing so. He gives an annoyed grumble as he bends over to pick it up. "'Not having a purpose' is a little much... it would just be nice to not -always- have a purpose, is what I mean," he says, and stops for a second as he recovers the blade from the ground, noticing something else nearby. In the grass where the shadowed horses used to be appears to be a round jewel of some kind, gleaming brightly enough that it's an outright surprise neither of them noticed it until just now. Ambience picks up the sword and stands up straight, raising an eyebrow from under his blindfold. "What is that?" he asks.

Sunny seems about to continue the discussion before his thoughts are derailed by the question. He turns around fairly quickly to identify the object in question before moving near it.
"I don't know. Let me look."

With a look that could probably melt an iceberg, he approaches the jewel but stays at arms reach for a moment. A nearly imperceptible gesture is made before he crouches down over the object, studying it.

After another moment, he straightens up. "Seems to be like some sort of mana storage. Or something." His glare transitions into a frown, less harsh but still distrusting. "Here, let me just..."

Rummaging around in his pack for a moment, Sunny withdraws a small hand towel that he shakes out before covering the jewel and picking it up with the cloth. "I don't see any indications that it's an active object, but you never know." He ties the towel closed before snapping his fingers to conjure a small globe of rock around the towel itself. No leaking!
Placing the object in his pack before re-shouldering it, Sunny shrugs at Ambience. "I'll do some more poking at it when we get to Viorar, but at a hunch it'll probably be a way for whatever summoned creatures that were you attacking you to stay summoned while away from their conjurer." He pauses. "At least, that's my first guess."

Ambience tilts his head in curiosity, but seems to accept that explanation because it's just as good, if not better, than anything he could've come up with on his own. To that end, he takes a moment to stow the longsword he's holding across his back, and grimaces for a moment before composing himself. "Okay," he says. "One thing at a time, I guess." He looks southward before heading off that direction once more. "It'll be dark before too much longer, which.. isn't saying much, considering where we're going. But I'd like to get there sooner rather than later." He actually picks up the pace a little bit, as if his remark was enough to spur himself on, let alone anyone else.

Sunny chuckles as he falls back into position just back and right of Ambience. "Ya know, I think you were right. I wouldn't know what to do with myself if I didn't have at least a part-time purpose." He seems to be content to just idly follow and think. Never a dull moment in the Cleft, and that's probably for the best.

If only the Cleft had a better scale between "dull" and "catastrophe"!