✮ Her head wished she had went on thinking he was an infuriating, overly-confident, horribly handsome asshole, that hated her people and always put himself first. Her heart knew he wasn't any of those things. He was a celestial; a man plucked from t...
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"If one by one we counted people out / for the least sin, it wouldn't take us long / to get so we had no one left to live with."
—Robert Frost
Astoria ran through the forest as fast as her small legs could manage. Her chest heaved and her throat was sore from her heavy breathing, but she didn't slow. She couldn't; not with the loud shouts from the man that was chasing her. For two years she wasn't sure, but now she knew—there was a kill order on her head, and every one of her people were determined to bring her corpse to the new Commander.
When she tripped over a large root, Astoria whimpered as she fell to the ground. She was only just struggling to her feet when the man caught up with her, and he grabbed her roughly by the ankle before tugging her through the dirt towards him. He rolled her over and he got onto his knees to pin her down, his large frame casting a dark shadow over her body. She was sure she was shaking in fear, and the wicked smile that covered his face only made it worse.
She desperately tried to find the dagger that was secured in the fabric at her hip, and as he spoke she grew sick. "Maybe we can make a deal, you and I," he started, and when he moved his hands down to grab at the fabric of her pants she desperately tried to squirm away from him. "Yu teik ai don bida ley, en ai lid in yu kom Heda Kiken."
He had only gotten a proper grip on her clothes when she released a loud scream, and she was quick as she jammed her dagger into his neck. The smirk fell from his face and he brought one hand up to hold the cut skin, but blood flooded out through his fingers to Astoria's face. When she met his eyes she pushed him off her (easily due to how close to death he was) with a groan and straddled his body. Over and over, she brought her knife into his chest, and stomach, and even twice in his face, taking out her anger and grievances.
The man was only the second of the people she had killed since she was chased from her village—the first being one year prior, when a woman caught sight of her in the forest and threatened to hand her in to the Heda. Astoria had climbed a tree without being seen, and when the woman walked beneath she jumped and lodged her knife into her chest. Taking a life hadn't grown any easier, and after the man below her was long dead and she finally stopped, Astoria felt the need to vomit.
He was unrecognisable; blood covered his entire being, guts threatened to spill from his stomach, and his eyes were stuck open to look at the blue sky above. She knew what he had threatened to do to her—she was a child, but she wasn't stupid—and for that reason she was proud of how she had been ruthless in her kill, but that in itself made her terrified. She didn't enjoy taking his life, but she didn't regret it.
When she heard a branch snap, Astoria's bloodied face rushed to find the source of the sound. She met eyes with a girl who looked to be the same age as she was, with pale white skin and hair nearly as light. Both remained impossibly still, staring intently as if they were both terrified of the other. It was Astoria that took off first, but the new girl was quick to start after her.
