3rd Burn [Visual] (Backdated to mid-morning)

[nailed_it]

[Somebody looks incredibly pleased with herself. ...Okay, Yang usually looks pleased with herself, but somehow she looks even more so today.]

Hey Happy New Year, everybody!!

You all know what that means, right?

[...Only 358 more shopping days left until Hearth's Warming?]

That's right! You're looking at the soon-to-be newest, full-fledged Night Market guard.

[Princess Luna did say she'd be instated as a full guard at the turn of the new year. Apparently, Yang is hoping that was meant in the most literal sense. Either that or she just really wanted to remind everybody of the fact.]

I think that calls for a little celebration, eh? Who wants to join me for dinner and a few drinks at the Decanter tonight, hmm?

[She definitely means the non-alcoholic apple cider drinks there. ...Ruby, she'll bring a juice box of milk for you or something.]

Speaking of celebrations! I'll be attending that film festival in Canterlot next week. Anybody else coming with me?

[There's an actual pause as she squints at her feed, as if looking for her friends.]

Ruby? You'll go with me, right? Blake, I know you're coming.

[That's followed with a wink.]

Oh! Jaune! How 'bout you? Wanna bring your team along? I do owe you a fun time.

[She grins cheerfully.]

Come on! Who wants to start this year off with a Yang!?

[She's been sitting on that pun since yesterday.

...Good luck trying to talk her out of any of this, guys.]

Comments

[nailed_it]

So, what's your profession?

[scattered_rose]

Monster killer. [One ear idly flicks, as if there'd been a fly on it.] I was trained in an entire village of warriors, mercenaries, people like that.

[nailed_it]

[That visibly perks her interest if the blink and small laugh that she gives is any indication.]

No kidding? That's a really funny coincidence. What kinds of monsters?

[scattered_rose]

[Coincidence? Either way he pauses a moment before speaking. Not often someone asks for more.]

They're called Chaotics, and they're what happens whenever the magic within every person, demon, or creature gets too strong and destroys their hearts and souls. It burns out and transforms them into terrible chimeric beasts interested only in self-preservation and destruction.

My village was part of a long-standing tradition of people training to keep Chaotics at bay. It's gotten worse in recent years too, with their numbers increasing for reasons nobody's quite sure of. There's... not much of my village left- [His ears and head go down some, but he picks back up after a moment.] -but I'm going to keep doing exactly what I was trained to do. As well as work on a mission of my own.

[nailed_it]

Woah...that sounds pretty serious.

[Hunting monsters that used to be people. That actually kinda sounds like it would suck after awhile, but she could be tactful when she wanted to be.

In this case, it meant changing the subject a little.]

So what kind of mission? You on some sort of super important monster hunt or something?

[Missions were a way better subject. She had been on a mission with her team before being pulled here after all.]

[scattered_rose]

Not exactly. Chaotics attacked my village, and I lost my parents in it. [He paused just briefly, some flinch going through him. Might be more there than he's letting on, but he continues on as if there was no shudder at all.] It was afterwards that I learned they were my adoptive parents, so ever since then I've been moving around looking for my birth parents.

[He sighed lightly, gesturing with a hoof.] Two years and I finally made it to the birthplace listed on my adoption papers, but it was a dead end. So I have to keep looking. Not long after that is when I showed up here.

[nailed_it]

[Her expression goes from intrigued and interested to something like a grimace in the span of a few short seconds. Whatever story she was hoping to hear, apparently that wasn't it.]

Wow, that's...rough.

[Hard to tell if she's referring to his village getting destroyed, the whole parent thing, or the fact that he's now stuck here. Might be all three.]