'Come, come my friend, for I trust only you on this journey to Night.' Katre'el whispered in the night to Dalmatia once she'd heard her old friend had returned. The woman she'd found, however, was a far cry from that which she remembered. Still fearless, still fierce, in those respects Dalmatia was the same... Although, in many other respects, her girlhood friend had disappeared. In her shoes stands a woman of sinew and bone, wrought with tension and unease. There are worries creasing the magpie's eyes and ghosts that sit upon her slender shoulders. Years passed, Katre'el should not have expected time to be kind to the warrior. Time often never was. Still, she implored this of the ex-Vicarious, and Dalmatia could no more deny Katre'el than she could her dear heart. Once, it would have been much less of a thought-over decision. Now, there is a pensive crease to her brow, a thoughtful tilt of her lips that turn them ever downward, further than the almost constant frown of before.
"Fine," the warrior agrees.
Together they set off for Denocte, and on the road just outside of the city itself Dalmatia left Katre'el to tend to her business. Now, she's found herself by a reflection pool, or rather a lake to which would drown her if she so much as stepped foot in it. Once, she would have charged in, reckless with youth, and laughed as her Flight followed suit. They would have shed their armor like snake skins, submerging themselves in the coolness of summer, enjoying nothing less than the laughter of friends and the bonds forged by more than silver and gold, but by trust and countless battles side by side.
They were hers to protect.
They were hers.
Now, she is nothing to them. Marisol freed her, yes, but she does not ask why Dalmatia was imprisoned in the first place. She learned long ago that the woman would fall into a silence so pure and so deep that only time would draw her out of it again. No amount of plying or prying could break her shell, her armored exterior.
The woman who stares back is not wholly unpleasant, and it is the only woman, the only being that the soldier knows she can rely upon. Petty words of others mean nothing. Offers of friendship, of freedom, all of it crumbles, falls through her fingers like sand, when put to the test. Bitterness is a poison in her heart, and its hold is strong, stronger than it ever should have grown to be. But stronger than that, sharper, more urgent, is the demand for the Truth, the need for Vengeance, the thirst for Revenge.
Cicero would pay.
Everyone who took away her childhood, her Flight, her Halcyon, would dream in colors of fear and sweat when they looked into Dalmatia's eyes. She hopes they would never know peace again. Long ago, she learned to stop hoping.
Beware: I am fearless, and therefore, powerful.
@Warset | I hope this goes well c': I'm looking forward to writing with you again my friend!
