Shades of the New World

Sighing she scanned the cave, idly glancing at her offspring, which danced around her playfully and dumbly, providing Kyune a small bit of entertainment. A form of entertainment that she thought would get sick of in a few dozen years, but surprisingly, even after a thousand years, she would find herself smiling warmly as she idly watched her children.

'Well, I suppose cute and small things have that kind of effect. It was definitely not as entertaining when the little buggers started becoming too smart for their own good,' she thought, once again reminded of the dream she had a few moments ago, of the time when she directed the utmost of her capabilities to making the World Sprites smarter and more sapient. 

Long story short, the ensuing events didn't exactly go in such a happy-go-lucky way that Kyune expected it to go. She expected to create a utopia for herself and her children, but in the end, she only got a century-long depression and a bunch of unsavory memories. She tried her best to forget about those memories, but such a thing was impossible, and she had long accepted the fact. Though it didn't mean that she didn't feel sad about the fact.

Sometimes, it was best to stay dumb and ignorant.

'Hmm,' Kyune cleared the thoughts away from her mind, as a few of her tails skillfully picked up a few of her children and started playing around with them.

'I should go back to sleep in a few days or so, right?' Kyune was thinking, before she felt ripple of Space energy pass through the cavern walls, a relatively powerful one at that.

'Is it someone who got tired of walking up the Cataract's stairs and decided to take the easy way out? Must be a bunch of bigshots if they decided to use a portal to skip some stairs,' she thought with amusement as she stretched her senses a bit wider to see what exactly happened.

After a few seconds, she was able to see the culprit behind the incident. A young black-haired boy of about 8, accompanied by a female Cosmic and a beige-horned female Ivari, who definitely did not try to hide her love for jewelry. 

'Ah, it's him! But he seems much taller than when I last saw him, though? Or did I manage to sleep through a couple years without knowing?' Kyune thought confusedly. As far as she was aware, only a few months should have passed since she'd last parted with her long-awaited candidate.

The meeting with Evin was one of the most monumental days in her life, but she was careful not to get too excited about the prospect. After all, the lives of others were not under her control. One day, the boy could be considered almost matching, but another day he could become completely incompatible with her.

If she got herself all hopeful and excited and then disappointed, she would have to live with the disappointment for who knows how long. Things like hope weren't something she was allowed to cling onto. If she wanted to keep herself sane, at least.

'But something tells me that it's okay for me to become hopeful…' she thought as she peeked into the boy's shadow. 

But what she saw inside it was not something she expected to see. Inside a masterfully decorated town, built next to an abundant forest and a tranquil lake with beautiful clear water, resided a group of World Sprites that looked exactly like human children, only with pitch-black eyeballs. One of the taller boys seemed to notice her gaze as a smile appeared on his face and he waved back at her direction with a smile.

A heartwarming sight… but not so much for Kyune. The visions of her nightmares took over her mind once again and she could feel herself falling into rage.

Almost subconsciously, her tails merged into the darkness of the cave and shot out to Evin's direction in impossible speeds. They swiftly grasped the boy in its grasp, and pulled his sorry figure back in front of Kyune. A threatening growl came out of her mouth, as she violently assaulted Evin with her raw thoughts.

[WHAT DID YOU DO TO MY CHILDREN?!]

The boy's shadow shuddered violently, every World Sprite inside feeling Kyune's emotions. 

[Mother! No!] 

[Mother did nothing wrong!]

[Don't fight with each other!]

The World Sprites' innocent thoughts flooded into Kyune's mind, forcing it to see the visions of her once excited children once more… every one of them excited for the future, one of eternal happiness with their parent.

The memory caused a mind-boggling amount of energy to leak from Kyune's tails, turning the darkness of the cave into something akin to a sea of pitch-black oil. The cave's walls started rumbling loudly, unable to contain the destructive power of the Dark energy.

At this rate, even the Cataract might've collapsed, but thankfully, the black sea then found its way into Evin's shadow and started to wreak havoc there, turning it into a domain of pure, raw darkness. 

Evin, who still looked shocked by the sudden events, stared back at Kyune with an expression of fear and confusion. Then, a look of resolve seemed to appear in his eyes, as suddenly, Kyune felt herself choking on nothing.

No matter how powerful a being was, sometimes, they could still be taken by an unpleasant surprise.

The saying was especially fitting for Kyune's situation, as the last time she fought with something was over five hundred years ago. The thought that someone who didn't even possess a World Domain would actually dare fight back against her was simply inconceivable. But, due to this little surprise, Kyune loosened her grip on Evin's body, allowing the boy to fall to the darkness below.

Then Evin started to try and fumble a portal into existence, one supposedly meant to deliver him to safety. 

'A laughable attempt.'

Finding small wins here and there through some dumb luck was fine and all, but such things had limits. No one at Kyune's level was lax enough to let themselves be bested by their lessers more than once. Kyune let a smidgeon of her Domain envelop the cave, swiftly shattering Evin's hopes of escape.

A couple seconds passed in silence as Evin looked back at the pitch-black Vulpine with a defeated expression, one that turned into acceptance soon after. 

[Look at my mind,] a thought appeared in her mind. The thought exuded such calmness, Kyune found it quite shocking. After all, this was the same boy who was trying to choke her a few seconds ago and failing to create a portal to his safety. 

Weirdly, this random inconsistency cleared up Kyune's mind as she calmly started to think of the situation. Like the voice said, a little look inside Evin's mind would clear up all misunderstandings and confusions.

Curiously, and a bit fearfully, she accessed Evin's memories, causing the boy to assume a weird pose as if he was stuck in time.