IVORY | Carl Grimes

thirty - inure ;

it was so incredibly loud. saskia's fingers twitched at her side. the temptation to run away was evident in the way she scanned the room for exits. things were crashing and spilling inside the anderson's home that saskia knew would soon be no more. michonne and rick helped an injured deanna upstairs, only for word to come that she had been bitten.

saskia smiled a bitter, sickeningly sweet smile. it was ironic, after all. alexandria was bound to fall. she grabbed her knife from her belt and sharpened it against another from the kitchen with a force rivaling the invisible push of fate. the action was aggressive and dominant, causing carl to state for a moment before clearing his throat.

"what're you doing," carl spoke up, quietly approaching her with a concerned facial expression governing his body language.

"getting ready," saskia returned, looking up into his searching eyes.

carl nodded slowly, accepting the fight that lay ahead of him as he tightly closed his eyes, contending with the sudden fear that struck at his heart. he removed his gun from his belt, quickly popping it open to check the amount of ammo that remained. with a dissatisfied sigh at his dwindling supply, he cursed under his breath.

"promise me something, yeah?" carl interrupted their search with the distracted claim and upon receiving an unsure nod from saskia, he continued, "you make it out of this alive."

"carl," saskia began lowly and knowingly, dropping her shoulders and tracing over the countertops with her fingertips, "we're all already dead."

saskia expected carl to ask for a promise. from pinkie promises she held with her best friends as a child to spit swears her and sawyer established later into their youth, saskia had always been wary of promises. never did she link the pinkie too tightly lest the promise solidified inside the slides at the playground become too real or secretly wiping her hand before slapping sawyer's in their shared treehouse. she also expected however, to be unable to offer anything in return to him.

the brunette wanted nothing more than to pour her heart and soul into carl's promises, growing them to bear the fruit of her words. still, she knew she would forget to water them and weeds would overrun her knotted sentences. he deserved better, she decided. saskia brown was never known to make a promise she could not keep and because of that, her heart held little close to it.

the sudden feeling of being submerged underwater overtook saskia. she swayed on feet she feared no longer belonged to solid ground. the noise upstairs was drowned out, only pierced by a cry from baby judith's trembling mouth. saskia was quick on her feet to leave her own petulance behind in search of the child in need.

"saskia," carl tried, only to trail off when the girl he was calling after did not look back.

scooping judith up, saskia adjusted her shirt and let the child cling to her chest. the trepidation she had once assumed in judith's presence was now replaced with a unique sense of tranquility, a reminder of the innocence she herself had lost. judith had taken to saskia in a way that surprised the young brunette.