i can't save the world if i'm not happy anymore.

The dark yawned open before her, silver light spilling in as far as it could reach into the deep and unending black. The cavern led deep underground, she knew. Down. And down. And down. Down where the dark would be complete, where the weight of the earth would press in, where there was no sky, no sound, no warmth. She stood entirely still at the mouth of that cavern, on two very original legs as dull, fire-blue eyes remained fixated on the dark. There was only the sound of her rich blue cloak rustling around her calves as a cold breeze swept through her, as if sucked into the underground tunnels. And.. there was the sound of blood roaring in her ears. The incessant, relentless calls of the dark that was rising like a tidal wave. But perhaps worst of all was the silence that lay beneath. Crushing, thick, cold silence. A void where someone else had been, where there had been someone to hear her. She’d crushed that. Dreams of gloved hands on her bare skin chased her from sleep. The terror of it, the blood that coated her, the taste of it on her teeth. She’d lurched from the place she had found to sleep: a decrepit little ruin where the wolf could curl up and rest. That she-wolf ran. She had ran and ran and ran until her legs might have given out. Even as she stood now, her very original legs trembled. Was it in the wake of her nightly terrors, or was it standing face to face with one of her greatest fears? It didn’t matter though, did it? She was still running, she couldn’t stop. She couldn’t fight herself, couldn’t go to war with what was her own twisted soul and survive it. She couldn’t pick up all the broken shards, what was left of her. Gods, she had killed her Master, ripped his chest open and devoured his very heart - was that not enough for her? No, of course it wasn’t. Monster. Murderer. Pathetic. Coward. Still she woke in fear, in agony, holding her breath until she could stumble far enough and empty her stomach. Until she could just run and keep on running, because she couldn’t stay still. She had to move. Now she stood alone. Alone. She had forced this on herself. Alone in her mind, heart, and soul, and she had done this. Maybe it was his pain that hurt the worst. The year of Alistair’s life wasted on this vile thing he thought he could save. She couldn’t be saved. She never would be. She had wounded her husb-.. Ex-husband.. So deeply.. It was only a matter of time before her mother saw it too. Her father. Did they already? Did Vervain see that her lost daughter was not worthy of being a daughter at all, that she was a killer, a weapon, a body of flesh to be used and shaped broken? Did Devrum see that his daughter in all but blood was not as strong as he was, that she could not live with what she was, that she had been broken too early, too young, to even understand what it meant not to be broken? Seven years old the first time she took a life, and lost count soon after. Tortured and brutalized since before then. Thirteen the first time her own body was taken from her. The brutality, the torment, the fear, the bloodlust and hate and love so desperate that she couldn’t breathe with the betrayal… it hadn’t stopped. Not until perhaps only a couple of months ago. She had been too late to be saved from whatever she had turned herself into to survive. Ashetta stood still for a moment longer, gaze distant and cold as she stared with a face devoid of… anything at all. Underground, absolute darkness… Cold earth, murky black, no stars, no air, no way out, never a way out. She waited for the fear to hit; waited for her body to shriek to find a way to run away from this, to get away from the underground, but … nothing. Maybe it’d be a mercy to lose herself down there, to fade away and become the dark herself. To become nothing at all. Ashe unclasped her cloak from the hollow of her throat. Let it flutter to the ground around her feet. Eyes still upon the dark, her hands worked and freed herself from the rest of the extra weight she wore: the the satchel, the scabbard on her back with Reckoning, the belt of pouches and various knives. It all dropped down on her cloak. Her gaze never left that tunnel that lead down, and down, and down… and she took a step forward, leaving her cloak and belongings behind her. She didn’t need them where she was going. Kalt ashetta it's live or die my way.

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