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Infinite and human at once, breakable ivory bone rebirthed unyielding within the golden sparks of a long perished galaxy, orbiting a world of seven glittering seas bleeding pure starlight and cosmic dust into the horizon, Zoya Vitaan stands on the teetering edge of not a cold, everlasting abyss, but a choice, and she's poised, ready to jump, confidence radiating from every dip and curve of her body.
As she breathes in the cool night air, she pictures her first real time out on her own after the destruction on Nevarro—not counting the days she'd crept from the small house where Greef had insisted she'd rest, trying to regain her strength on her own before he said she was ready (re-opening her injury multiple times in the process). The first time she'd truly been on her own, able to think without input, feel everything that had building upon her shoulders for weeks without fear of being watched.
Instinctively, as if the thought of that awful day brings the ghost of agony back to haunt her, Zoya flexes the muscles in her left thigh, stretching her leg out and pointing her toe, worn leather boot bending easily around her foot. A phantom ache burrows through the newly revitalized muscle, reminiscent of when she'd gotten the wound, when her world had flipped onto its head.
She clears her mind of it in an instant, focusing on her assignment. It's too easy, pushing the old grief and pain aside. It's a practiced movement, and Zoya barely registers the suffocated twinge in her chest when she shoves it deep down, buries it inside the marrow of her bones.
A knife of a smile slashes across her curved lips, and in the next moment, she's stepping out from behind the crumbling wall, donning a copse of shadows as easily as she'd fling a well-worn cloak about her shoulders. She is something of a corporal shadow herself; dressed in formfitting black from the high collar of her harnessed shirt to the tips of her boots, mask covering the lower half of her face and weapons strapped at her hips and thighs, Zoya is vindictive in the darkness, a wraith harnessing death at her fingertips.
The moon is nothing but a scythe tonight; the light it sheds is barely enough to brush the tops of the buildings, let alone reveal her dark form slipping through small alleys. An unassuming building looms ahead, all harsh lines and ambiguous architecture, but yet something evil clings to the shuttered windows, the cruel arch of the doorway. Two men ease around the perimeter, meeting in the middle, wearing that same iniquity like a collar made of unbreakable steel. Zoya's mouth tightens in revulsion, and she begins to climb, fingers and boots swift and silent on the side of the building, finding notches and bumps to aid her ascent with ease.
She's upon the slanting stone of the low rooftop in mere moments; the protests of her left leg are monotonous yet damnably quiet in the restlessness of the night, enough so that she barely notices them, slinging the slim rifle from her back and lowering it onto the roof's edge. Exhaling, she sets the end against her shoulder, lining up her eye with the sights that turn the darkness into monochrome green, the figures below glowing with heat. The two guards stand oblivious in the overhang of the building, and it's clear from their stance that they're murmuring something to each other, taking a short relief from both their patrol and their duties.
