Ever since the Inquisition took their mother, Kirsha and her younger sister Damitri have been on the run. However, after months of being careful and watching their steps, Kirsha wakes up to find that the one person left in her life has been taken. I...
It was an unusually frigid and miserable morning that day. Not that it seemed to concern any of the forest's birds or insects. They were as busy as any other day, chirping and buzzing their obnoxious spring serenades. In all honesty, it was hard to tell which had woken her up first: The cold or the noise. Regardless, there was little to be done about the latter so in the end Kirsha simply tightened her cape around herself and hid her nose in the nook of her arm. The subsequent urge to scratch away at the back of her neck, despite the coarse wool, was of course left ignored.
It was only when the implications of the gnawing cold had finally slipped into her sleep-muddled mind that it felt as if a sobering bucket of icy water had suddenly hit her square in the face. Her eyelids wide-flew open and she sat up, spooking a few curious magpies, as her glazed over eyes began searching her surroundings for the familiar shape of a little girl, only a little taller than she was at the hip. The young woman could still feel the dent from her little sister's body beside her, in the pile of foliage they'd managed to pull together the night before. Damitri herself, however, was nowhere to be seen.
"Damitri!" no reply. "Damitri!" she shouted again, this time louder, not as careful. Still, no little rascal embarrassingly shouting back from somewhere in the bushes that she just needed to relieve herself. With the beginning of a sinking feeling in her gut, Kirsha flew onto her feet and began searching in earnest. "DAMITRI!? WHERE ARE YOU?" She kept crying out repeatedly, while sifting through prickly pines and shrubbery. With each time her voice grew increasingly loud and desperate until she started feeling nauseous.
Shakily, one of her frantic steps landed in a puddle and for a moment her eyes lit up. THE RIVER.She may have gone to the river to get a drink. The closest one was...West! Yes, a little further west!.. Kirsha remembered they passed it yesterday, right before finding themselves a little hiding spot off the side of the road and calling it a day. The little one would have remembered too and with the thick foliage dampening the noise she could easily be outside of hearing range.
She ran. As fast as her cold, shaky legs could carry her.
At the river, the elder sister cried for the younger one yet again...and yet again only silence and an increasingly foul feeling in her gut for company. Eventually she did spot something though. A set of small, child sized tracks at the bank of the river. They were already somewhat faded and stepped over by a mixture of hoofprints and bigger footprint, but she could guess the direction they went.
They ended at the reeds in the water further down the river. Kirshas breath hitched. The river was neither violent nor deep enough to carry away a child her sister's size, but the further she'd followed the mixture of tracks the more apparent it had became something had gone very horribly wrong.
Some part of her gut told her to stay silent. Hide. But she kept screaming. Now, more than ever. Intermixed with increasing sobs, weeping in terror akin to a mother having lost her child.
She would later come to wonder, but perhaps that's why, amidst the all-consuming panic, one of her mother's enchantments had slipped in between her shaky lips. Archaic words, hardly above a whisper, in a language long dead, mixed with hicks and sobs. Not at all soft and graceful as her mother had once taught her, but still she felt a sort of calm set over her as something in the water began tugging at her legs. while the chant continued she threaded further out into the icy water, one step after another, about two thirds the way in and then down. Soon past a fallen log, they'd just yesterday used as a bridge and then even further past that. She felt the tugging getting stronger. That it was the influence of the spell growing rather than the stream she could only pray. Until suddenly she felt her leg bump into something and it let go of her. Leaver her almost feeling...empty.
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She slowly reached down to pick up a small silvery object, wedged between a couple rocks. Wet fingers slipped over the muddied patterns carved into the handle as she brought it closer to her face. There was no mistaking it. She was holding Damitri's dagger. The one she herself had gifted her on her last birthday.
Her whole body took to tremble. Every fiber, in every muscle taut like a bowstring. She couldn't breathe. Her throat felt impossibly tight. All she could hear was her own pulse.
Then, something different. Rustling in the reeds behind her... Her grip around the dagger shifted.
