his flower queen (nikolai lantsov)

Ahoy Bucko

Kaida Erstad greeted Death like an old friend. She saw Death several times and it never scared her like it did to others who were constantly worried about meeting her. Death actually brought her comfort when they met. It meant that she was close to the end of her journey in the world full of darkness that she was eager to leave. Nonetheless, no matter how many times Death caressed her pale cheeks and promised that she would be taken in, she kept waking up, disappointment washing over her every time since she wasn't worthy enough to even be taken in by Death, her best friend.

~

"Now you listen to me Kaida, I can only give you so much time. You run away as fast as you can and keep on living for me, yeah?" Freyja told Kaida calmly with a sad smile. Her normally icy stare melted into a loving gaze for the first time, the grey specks sparkling with mischief. "Remember, until you see death himself, never show your true self," she recited cupping Kaida's pale cheeks. Tears welled up in the younger girl's eyes, identical to the older woman's. 

"Death is a she, ma," Kaida replied after trying to find something sentimental to say to the woman. She ran away hoping that the word 'ma' gave Freyja enough strength to survive. 

Sprinting through the snowy woods, she heard grunts and shouts. Metal clanging against each other. There were too many of them for her to fight on her own, but she guessed her mother was tired of living just like she was. 

After running for what felt like an eternity, she walked steadily catching her breath and keeping her ears open for the soldiers that caught her mother. 

She got her handy bow and arrow out pointing towards the bushes that rattled. She stayed quiet, staying put in her position. Out of nowhere, there was a loud BANG behind her. She spotted three soldiers in olive coats pointing rifles at her. She moved about making it difficult for them to aim at her. She charged towards them pulling out her knives from their sheaths on her hips and sliced at a man. Hand-to-hand combat seemed like it wasn't their talent. She stabbed a man right in the stomach twisted it right and pulled out whilst kicking the woman going towards to her in the neck. She threw her other knife into the third person's left eye. More soldiers came towards her and shot at her with their rifles. She got two more soldiers down, but there were too many people that were properly trained to fight. How in the world was an 11 year old supposed to take down all these professional soldiers on her own?

~

Tolya stepped forward swinging the cutlass professionally. He was much bigger than Kaida muscular and height wise. Kaida wasn't small with about 165 cm to her height at the age of 15 and her body being only muscles. As she concentrated on his hips, his hands and his feet, she shrugged off her oversized brown coat, exposing her stained tunic and olive suspenders. The loud roars of the crowd disappeared and she waited until Tolya made a move. It took awhile since he was studying her as well, but eventually, he jabbed forward with surprising speed. Kaida dodged to the left immediately, the cutlass missing her completely. She let him do all the work tiring him out first as she studied him. She noticed that all he did was go forward with speed and power, he didn't move his feet enough and decided to finally attack. Once he went forward to attack her, she dodged right, ducked down and before he could slice down she spun to the right again and grabbed his thick forearm. With his incredible strength he tried to push down at Kaida's neck but she managed to hold on for a bit making sure Tolya was solely focused on trying to put the cutlass through her, she hooked her left foot behind his knees and flipped him onto his back. It used a great deal of her strength and dexterity but before he completely landed, she wrenched the cutlass out of his hand. She threw it away onto the opposite side of him. Tolya wrapped his arms around her leg and pulled her down but she pulled her arm out and elbowed him right in the gut. She quickly went on her knees holding down his arms and gave a single punch to Tolya's face. She found a pressure point on his neck with her other hand, pinched it and twisted in a certain way so that he would fall unconscious.