All Twelve Shall Fall

ARIE ASTREA

She was not born into legend-she carved herself into it.

Before the scars that mapped her like a battlefield, she was simply who refused to bow.

Steel found her hands long before comfort ever did, and war became the only language she spoke fluently.

They did not train her. They stripped her down and rebuilt her into a weapon that could not disobey.

Her name became a warning whispered in the dark. Villages did not pray for her protection yet they prayed she would pass them by.

Where she walked, mercy withered. Where she fought, nothing recognizable remained.

They called her many things. A shield, blade, and a monster.

What drove her was colder than vengeance and deeper than rage.

It was hunger! A hunger that never fades, never softens.

A need to prove that the world that tried to break her had only succeeded in making something far worse.

And now, she no longer fought to survive.
She fought because she had forgotten how to stop.

She fought because she understood something most did not!

That survival was not given and survival was taken.

And she would take it, again and again, from anyone who dared stand in her path.