Sic Itur Ad Astra | The Darkling

In The Beginning...

With immortality comes a great burden. Zarya knew that well enough and while her forename had been burned into her mind, the ever-changing family name washed away with time. Even the faces of her once most important people, her bearers, lost their vibrancy through constant struggle and stress. Still, even though she might not remember the colour of their hair or the slope of their noses, she remembers their love. And right now, that was the only thing that kept her running. White hair is a stark difference to her surroundings, she does not remember if that is something she acquired or always had. Power takes a lot from one person; she would not be surprised if it also took her inherited hair. But without use power also hinders one's ability to live. It is this tricky balance that always irked her. Use a bit but not too much.

She knew of power. She was a witch after all. Well now she would be called Grisha but that is not the name that Zarya has grown up with. And even as such, she was not like any Grisha she had met. Most controlled nature, few - other people, but none, to her limited knowledge, could do what she did. Maybe that is why she was afforded such a long life, as she was already well past a century and still as young as a girl just in the bloom of her adulthood. And maybe as a punishment for this immense power, she was afforded no soulmate of her own.

In her world soulmates were a gift. Most thought it was a miracle sent by the Saints; others believed that it was normal human biology. A little personalized picture on the dominant wrist, first bleak and brown almost mole-like, but after first contact turned bright colour. The contact could be anything, from eye contact to verbal communication, though most commonly it was a basic touch of bare skin. The colour of the mark was always the most fascinating bit. It usually dictated the nature of the bond, the rarer the color the stronger the connection. After so many years and so many soulmate pairs, there seemed to be a trend to the color meanings, red for a passionate love, yellow for a love based on friendship and so on. There was only one non-rainbow colour that Zarya knew of. It was a young couple in her bearer's tribe. They were not much older than sixteen when they met, which was for the most part the common age to meet one's soul bound. What set them apart was the rivalry between their fathers, both shepherds, both ambitious, angry men, and the blazing silver emblem on their wrists. Most speculated it was this colour because the teens were almost mirrors of each other, both with a similar background they understood each other on a deeper level than anyone could.

Save to say Zarya was jealous. How can you not be when every person she has ever known has found their soulmate, the latest of which she knew was at the age of twenty-two? And she, a maiden of a vast age, was not much closer to finding them as she was her first day in this world. She had the soul mark, which meant not all hope was lost. The little eclipse-like mole on her right wrist taunted her every day, how could she forget it?

Even now while running for her life from the most sadistic sight she has ever seen Zarya cannot help but look at it as if it was some guiding star. She thinks that maybe she might meet the one for her in another lifetime. After what she has witnessed, she cannot help but be pessimistic that this sort of pure magick, that bounds souls can even exist.

She was a vagabond, you had to be with her type of immortality. But as such she has seen and lived through all sorts of things. Burnings on the Pyre, wolves eating their owners in the permafrost, even forbidden lovers taking solace in the comfort of the darkened forest. But today she has seen something dark, something macabre, something so inhumane her light could not brighten it. She saw the use of forbidden magick by someone whom she shared a power with. Merzost in its truest form.

Zarya was picking berries for her supper when all of this happened. She heard shouting and being curious Zarya went to it. In the clearing stood a man dressed in dark clothing, he was attractive and young with shoulder-length hair. Surrounding him were men, professionally dressed, the King's men she concluded. They all held an intense gaze on one another and the air around them trickled with unclaimed shadows, not hers as she knew them as well as she knew herself. The whispers of shadow were coming from the young man. And then while she was still not done observing, the standstill was broken. With the yell of the young man a power unlike one she knew burst through. The Kingsman withered in seconds as she watched on turning grey then black and finally falling as if dead, though she knew they were not. They were something else now, she could feel that the shadows permeated their souls, and they would never truly lay to rest now. And then the biggest eye sore appeared. Just behind the shadow summoner stood a wall of black. A wall of the darkest sin Grisha could commit. She dropped her basket in shock and he, the man with the bloodthirsty eyes, heard her.

Then she ran, not like she ran before. Before she glided from one place to another, from one identity to the next. But now she ran like she had one chance at survival. Now she ran as if she were prey and in some sick sense she was.

Day turned to night quickly. Her legs though trained were aching and the adrenaline wore off. Zarya was tired and scared, dragging her feet along, like a corpse. As if some Saint took pity on her she saw a little cottage, more like a hut in the middle of the woods and there was light in the window. She now just had to pray they would take pity on her weak form and terrified stature.