[P] climbing every rib inside us;

[Theodosia]

let our eyes show the
fire in our hearts tonight

Beneath them, the dirt floor is packed solid from many lifetimes of hooves beating a drumbeat across it -- how many times has it tasted blood, she wonders, how often does sweat and salt mix into it as the cadets train? It has become almost a second home to her, as familiar as the barracks where she lays her head at night.

As she watches her companion, she wonders -- how did a nation of healers become so hardened into warriors, that even their dreamer of a king would begin to pick up weapons?

Her smile is something dark and fierce when she draws a spear from the rack, something as cold as the winter winds that have already started to sweep over Terrastella, aching with the knowledge that none of them would ever be the same in the wake of Vespera’s betrayal.

“I usually prefer daggers, or arrows,” and she thinks of the sleek wooden handles of the arrows she has fletched with her own feathers, the curving steel of the dagger she keeps tucked against her leg, and she knows it will not be long before she has reason to use them.

“I’m assuming you’re smart enough to know you stab people with the pointed end first.”

credits

@Asterion