SONDER : ALPHA, Leader of the Fallen

Part ONE : Burning Rage § 1 [ The Sun and the Star ]

The Realm of Niflheimr.

Many years prior...

          It was in that moment between one storm and the next, that the Fury chose to scream.

The scream was one of rage. It reverberated, echoing about the ghosting wisps of mist that wove through the frozen wastes and infiltrated Her domain. The sound was pure enough to shake the scanty leaves of hemlock that littered the bone-strewn ashes, rattle her plate, Hunger, and roll her knife, Famine, to the floor.

Its dissonant timbre drew The Lady from her repose. She rose, intrigue igniting her dormant heart with a fervid beat to match the rhythm of the fury's ring. The Lady took a crepitant breath, one she hadn't bothered to take for quite some time.

Perhaps, her slumber in this sanctuary-prison would finally cease, if this could be the one.

The Lady flicked her wrist, coiling her fingers and casting an image upon the mist, little crystals of ice hovering in the air and collecting to form a screen. Her bones creaked with each movement, tendons snapping, and she rolled her shoulders.

Finally, a form took shape on her illusory projection: a female. A girl.

A grin split The Lady's face and she purred. Oh, yes, this could very well be the one, her Key.

The illusion widened with another flick of The Lady's wrist. The girl continued to take shape. She was shrieking again in that beautiful harmonic of frenzy as she ran.

The Lady shivered.

The girl was weaving between men, soldiers. She ducked, dove and writhed as they struggled to catch her. Her feet squelched through mud, and The Lady expanded the scene once more.

It was a farm. No, a village. Or, it was— there weren't many villagers still living, their bodies like rejected autumn leaves shucked and discarded to the earth— now, it was just a vacant cluster of round and oblong mortal dwellings. Some roofs were shingled, others donned thick clusters of hay topping wooden beams that encircled stone or timber walls. It seemed these people were The Lady's own, or, who her people had been, or would become— time was a slippery thing.

The Lady tsked. "Oops."

The girl had fallen, sliding in a viscous pool of red. A soldier leapt across to pin her, holding the shrieking thing down. She slashed her dirty fingernails over his face and he yelled, clasping her wrist. She bit him.

The Lady chuckled.

The girl bucked and the soldier rolled as she scrambled to her feet, sprinting off again, her red hair trailing behind her.

How pretty.

The little, angry thing fell to her knees in front of a body without its head. It appeared female, and was quite small. She clutched up the body close, screaming and sobbing at once. Beside her, a woman drew up, gurgling, her hand reaching for the girl. The redheaded fury grasped the woman's fingers before they could fall again and clasped them tight, shaking.

The woman exhaled her final words, "The Gods are always listening. Be careful what you wish for, my love..."

The girl threw back her head and screamed again, raw, primal, angry, seething. She set the smaller body down with care and crawled to the woman's corpse, kissing its scarred and disfigured cheek, folding its hands over its breasts and closing its eyes. She stroked its face with trembling fingers, her tears streaming.

The Lady perked her brow, growing bored. Was that all?

The girl drew a dagger from the corpse's belt, rising to her feet.