Chapter Text
Screams
Cries for help
Parents yelling for their children
Dad?
“Run! You must run!” Dominus yelled to his daughter as he sprinted off to help his son.
She scrambled for her sword and its sheath. She found it and strapped it across her back and chest. She quickly packed a satchel of food and water and slung that across her shoulder. Dominus looked back over his shoulder, his face full of pain and worry. She met his eyes, her own brimming with tears.
I love you . He mouthed, his daughter saying it back although he couldn’t hear her.
She took off in a sprint, dodging the fallen Ardoni of her clan. Their beautiful red markings, lost forever.
Her breath hitched as she held her tears, and ran. She didn’t know exactly where she was going, but Dominus had made sure that she and Ingressus knew roughly where another group of Voltaris were. And that one was deeper in the Barrier Mountains.
She glanced over her shoulder and saw the angular markings of the Champion. He used the Primes against her clan without care and swung his sword, taking down her friends. Her view was interrupted by an Ardoni of the Kaltaris clan. She swung her pack to the ground and unsheathed her sword.
She deflected their first attack with ease. They attacked again, only to be parried and swung at. She sliced their belly, a thin layer of skin keeping them together. With their distraction at their fatal wound, she kicked them and stabbed them through the throat. Their markings immediately darkened and their Protisium and Supporium Songs materialised beside them. She scooped them up and put them into her satchel.
She sprinted further into the mountains, no pursuers behind her. She was quite sure that the camp of Voltaris she needed to find wasn’t too much further, maybe a day or two on foot.
She took a few deep breaths and continued running, only stopping to drink water.
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Cold
So so cold
And tired
So so tired…
She leaned against a tree, panting. She’d barely stopped to rest, only running and doing her best to cover up her tracks. She needed to sleep.
The hills around her lowered into a dip, a perfect hiding spot for Voltaris. The other clans would have assumed that this would be a terrible spot as the ground was high all around them, but with that assumption they would be wrong.
She carefully picked her way down the hill towards a flatter part. There were actual doors. She was surprised that this group of Voltaris had actually settled down, unlike her. Her group with her father had always been on the move. They rarely stayed more than a week in one spot, usually because of attacks that were after her father’s head.
Her father… she wiped away tears. And Ingressus… she couldn’t bear the thought of them dying. She hoped that they had escaped.
She stumbled forward. The hill was steep, and a misstep could mean death.
Her feet finally met flat snow, a doorway in sight. A young female Ardoni trudged up the hill that went further down, grumbling to her brother. The young Ardoni saw her, and caught her just before everything went black.
Ingressus?
He had to have survived.
Dad?
He had to have survived too, right?