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╭┈───────── ೄྀ࿐ ˊˎ-
╰┈➤ ❝ [𝙎𝙢𝙖𝙡𝙡 𝙎𝙘𝙞𝙚𝙣𝙘𝙚] ❞
For a moment, lungs have stopped supplying air for the body, eyes have been dizzyingly shaking from nervousness, and hearts have stopped pumping blood, all because the mind had deemed the situation to be too dangerous - it commanded the bodies aboard the skiff to stop living. Just for a moment.
Through the blinding light from the raging storm inside the shadow fold, Senia was able to see the flock of ominous creatures of the Unsea closing in on their skiff.
Acting quickly, as someone trained by the first-in-command of the Darkling's trusted Grishas, she had raised her hands above her head so sudden. Like having air enter her damaged lungs whenever her mentor feels like crushing it - a muscle memory, the subconscious motions of her pale hands with its noticeable veins from her monotonous training with Ivan.
Senia had moved beside the Darkling - not gracefully and elegantly, no, she moved violently with her hands moving at a swift pace, acting out without orders given to save them from the sudden attack. Before their trip, it was to be expected that every attack shall be dangerous and unexpected but most of them had their feet rooted on the dirt-filled wooden floorboards from terror.
The flock of volcra was smart, Senia feels dejected to know that it is smarter than the ones she had encountered before. They did not attack all at once, it is as if they have sensed the overflowing reservoir of dark power and shadow from the man beside Senia, the Darkling.
One volcra was brave enough to fly directly at Senia when it witnessed one of its own drop dead on the ground, devoid of any movements.
Mouth filled with sharp canine and black pool of eyes wide open glaring at Senia. Shouts and yells of surprise were heard when the lone volcra landed in front of Senia who had her hands now raised in front of her chest.
Senia's ears were constantly filled with the penetration of unwanted sounds of countless pulses fast pacing, and so is hers that had been lost in the sea of heartbeats. She felt a liquidy substance drip down her left ear but she paid no mind to it, not when the volcra decided to take a step in her direction. She can smell the pungent scent of blood when it breathed in and out straight at her ashen face.
Senia feels like she is staring at something that she had seen a hundred times already, the volcra is the creation of the black heretic but now it is the creation of her own nightmare.
It is the embodiment of darkness, menace, and death.
It stared at her, for what feels like an hour but only a second. It acted as a human when it shook its leathery head and suddenly dive straight to the man near the end of the skiff, biting straight at the yelling man's head and flying up again into the air with its claws dividing the man's body into two - the volcra had chosen the upper part to be its dinner and the lower part of its mangled body dropped on the wooden ground of the sandskiff.
Senia breathed shakily, her fingers shaking nervously and tears gathering in her eyes when she realized that it could have been her. She blinked when silence had prevailed her ears and time seemed to have slowed down. She was experiencing a panic attack in the middle of a dire situation.
But unlike any other panic attack she had experienced a myriad of times now, this one she wasn't expecting to get a visit from a mythical creature that she had wished she didn't steal the life of. Morozova's stag was in front of her, it replaced the place her nightmare had once stood in.
Now, this feels like a dream. Was I even living a reality? She questioned herself.
It looked at her solemnly, it did not speak but Senia can feel words lingering in her mind and seeking her heart to have these unspoken words heard. The stag was there to be a reminder of something. Her very own reminder.
Power has been swimming in her blood for as long as she had been alive, untapped and raw power that has been called to the surface by some unknown force who kept whispering soothingly but eerily in her ears. She had the time to call upon it, although not enough, by the help of Ivan. Then, new guidance to it was added because of the acceptance and forgiveness from Morozova's stag.
She's a Heartrender with an amplifier living inside her head and like a Grisha on jurda parem, a drug that makes her powerful unlike any other, every single moment.
She is still Senia - a woman who was thrust into a world that was not ready for her and vice-versa.
But for now, she is only a Grisha with too much power inside of her that not even herself can control.
Senia was brought out of her reverie by the hands of the man that had clung onto her a while back. The Darkling glared at her lost eyes while his own were burning with rage.
"That could have been you, divided into two." He bellowed in anger.
She pulled her arm away from him and looked around her, the volcras were now circling around them. Waiting for the perfect time to take someone and plunge them into the air, like headless fools, everyone who wasn't Grisha just stared at them.
The second army was once again reminded that they have a higher chance at surviving this occurrence than the ordinary folks and pride had swarmed their heads, however, like the trained army that they are still stood prepared and stoic in the face of death. If they're dying, why not die knowing that you have been useful for the man who had given you everything you possibly have? Of course, the Darkling is their saviour, their ruler.
Even so, they cannot help their eyes from turning to the one girl who had the courage to step up first and kill the very thing that is a threat to them all.
They don't know it yet, but she will be more than they have ever wished for. More than the Grisha they look up to. More like the saints from fairytale read to them when they were mere children, but saints are supposed to be up above and clearly she isn't.
Maybe because she'll live long enough to write her own tale.
