[SWE] The Festival of Lights

One minute, Ashe was standing at Kalt and his daughter’s side, glancing between them and to Vervain and the still unconscious Remi .. and then like a mighty wave of billowing blackness, each and every lantern at the festival winked out all at once. Her breath left her, her eyes darting about her as she felt that little hand leave hers - swept up by her father. With a ring of steel into the suddenly silent and dark festival, Reckoning came free from its scabbard at her back, and she settled back into a defensive stance. She tried to see better, could hardly see her mother crouched on the ground beside Remi, and.. Gods, right beside, her, and she couldn’t see Kalt or his daughter. Her heart started to race, and it was instinct that had her eyes locked on the bonfire, on.. On a single lantern still lit, hands pressed into the sides in the same colors smeared over Ashe’s face and shoulder and chest. Then all the lanterns relit, all at once, just like when they had gone out. And the sight that stood before Kalt, before her at his side…    For a second, the assassin thought she’d been plunged into another one of her night terrors.. But she only recognized a few of those empty, dead faces that stood around them, but they were not hers - not her kills. Her heart was racing in her chest as her eyes drifted from one lifeless body to the next, to.. Harkon? Her breath halted, but the senior assassin that had once trained her  wasn’t looking at her, he was looking at Kalt, at the little girl in his arms. Her eyes moved on, and then the entire world halted.    It was the dark, cruel, harshly shaped mask of Master that she set her gaze upon.    ”No,” she breathed, her eyes going wide. She couldn’t take her eyes from him, from the familiar form of him and the gloves on his hands and those dark eyes she could hardly make out from within that mask. That fucking mask that haunted her every breath, awake or asleep. All the horrors of what her life had been could be traced back to him, no matter who they had gone through. She didn’t look to her mother, to anyone else - not as she stood face to face with that masked demon. She didn’t realize she was shaking until her sword began to waver in her grip.    Her eyes flashed to Kalt for only a second as he stepped in front of her and spoke in a tone she barely could hear, and her eyes narrowed. What the fuck was he talking about? Master had certainly taken his fair share of flesh from the Assassin in Blue - whatever he wanted, demanding and taking and ordering - a fact that Silver Wing knew quite well. Nausea threatened to overwhelm her as she turned her gaze back to the ghost of her worst nightmares. Their worst nightmares. Everything she had done, that Kalt had done, everything done to them.. All rooted under that mask. ”I killed you once,” she growled at a near whisper from just behind Kalt, and the savagery in her tone was enough to mask its tremble. ”I’ll do it again.”    Ashe shifted, and a massive black wolf moved forward from behind the other assassin. Master wasn’t looking at her, he was looking at the little girl in Kalt’s arms, but her golden eyes were wide with wild energy. Her pelt bristled and her ears were pinned forward, lip curled back to bare sharp teeth in a snarl. Lightning was rapidly crackling to life in her jet black pelt, lighting around her paws, emulating her erratic heart. Fire from lanterns and bonfires alike were leaning towards the she-wolf in the immediate area, sparks and embers drifting towards her.    She could taste the blood on her teeth, running hot and thick down her throat, could feel the toughened muscle of a heart in her jaws. A low growl was rumbling deep in her chest as she stepped out , uncaring that neither Master or Harkon were looking at her, that none of the endless sea of bodies were her kills, she didn’t fucking care that this wasn’t meant for her. The wolf could taste the vivid memory of that blood and flesh, could feel that chest ripping open beneath her paws and the sizzle of lightning as it aided her. Her growl increased in volume, and the muscles of her hindquarters coiled - ready to lunge for that masked demon. Ashe