Chapter Text
“Hail,” Dena said, pinching a small white ball between her fingers.
Yasha hadn’t noticed it in the heat of battle, her senses filled by the white heat that overtook her in combat. Hardly anything beyond enemies or danger went noted when Yasha killed.
And killed she did.
Luko, sitting off to the side and cleaning his blade, gave a low whistle.
“All them bodies yours?” Blood dripped into the grass where his rag forced it off of his sword.
Yasha glanced around at the varied corpses littering the ground. Mostly human. Some halfings. The bodies were piled atop each other around her, where they’d tried and failed to turn her into what they were now.
Something cracked against her brow, and Yasha whirled, only to hear Luko give a hearty chuckle.
“Woah there Orphan Maker!” Dena clapped a hand on her shoulder and grinned with all her blackened teeth.
“The fightin’ has come to an end. S’only the hail.”
Yasha found a clear spot of grass and stared at it– breathed– trying to calm her heart and clear her head of the chaotic energy pulsing through her.
“Come on,” Luko grunted, hefting himself up. He nodded toward a clearing in the middle of the houses where the rest of the tribe was chucking valuables into a pile. “Let’s get to gatherin’.”
Inside the houses were nothing special. A few gold hidden under a mattress, simple jewelry, silver plates and forks. Yasha caught her reflection in the glass of a cabinet filled with table ware and hesitated.
Her face was coated in dark blood and grime, streaked through with paths where sweat had made its way down her face. She looked like-
“Orphan Maker!” A booming voice called from the outside. She knew it well, and that it would only call once and did not like to wait.
Outside, a woman navigated her way across the pile of bodies, rippling with muscle and clad in long pelts. A ray of sun pierced through the hailing sky and illuminated her alabaster hair from behind, giving her already frightening visage an otherworldly look.
Her steel gray eyes lingered on the carnage then pinned on Yasha. She stared intently for a long moment, then straightened.
“You have talent.”
For the first time since the raid had ended, Yasha looked over the rest of the village. There were a few bodies strewn everywhere, but here where she’d been... there was more corpse covered ground then not. They were ankle deep in villagers.
“Th-Thank you.”
The corner of the Sky Spire’s mouth twisted bitterly. “Mild mannered for such a killer.”
Yasha didn’t know what to say to that. The Sky Spire held her gaze for ages, even after Yasha’d looked away.
The matriarch’s eyes finally slid past her, scanning the area, but found her gaze again.
“You’ll sit by the fire tonight. We drink to you.”
Her heart stuttered, slightly. “Yes. Of course.”
The Sky Spire left again, making her way through the bodies, and Yasha thought back to what she’d said.
You have talent.