They’ve taken so much from her already - she counts it down, writes it in hated slashes across her soul, tallies everything, remembers it all. With a finger dragged through ash and blood her signature blooms bright and edged in vengeance, the looping scrawl of a harsh delicacy that spells the name given, the name chosen, and the name both lost and forsaken —



By the fifth vial of blood taken, Amma’s voice rasps through her throat, dragged over shards of bone as she tries to reign in that quaking violence of self-preservation to keep her wrath in check. She feels the needle beneath her skin, in the crook of her arm that trembles over the cushion of a slight medical cart rolled in with her sudden guardians stationed at either wall, both equipped with powers she does not know. Still, she could feel them there by the lazily churning scarlet whorls that slither beneath her bed and clamor over her ankles, focusing more so on the one that had been broken and now was set with a simple brace strapped painfully tight against her sensitive skin. It was a peculiar situation when she had been sedated and taken from the Trial’s conclusion, her bones had already begun to mend, a medical anomaly that had her wounds setting incorrectly, which introduced the necessity of breaking her ankle once again for a healer to mend marrow, tendons, and tissue to grant her mobility.

“Why the blood draw?” A simple inquiry, her usual cadence dragged into exhaustion, psychological detriment weighing heavy on her spirit.

“Torres requested we run a panel,” her assigned nurse had been quiet and calm, her presence one typically accustomed to patients like Amma, to her she saw a young woman battered and worn, whereas many others saw a spy or a furious creature that had attempted to defy their orders since she had woken up from her sedation. Reproach alighted blue eyes framed heavily in lashes, lids surrendered over the breadth of her stare, a sort of melancholic unveiling that took her intense features and softened them into something delicate- something not quite there. She takes one more, the needle sliding out from her vein a surreal sensation that she feels down to her bones, and lets loose a shuddered breath as the nurse presses gauze to her skin and seals it with medical tape.

“There,” she stepped back, her guardians stepped in close, a whispering trepidation that coiled through the room with a spool of crimson poised over the embellished skin of her arm, linked to the scars that crossed over one another, carefully betwixt the bodies of snakes that wreathed her arms with skull laden birds in flight. “I would advise more rest, you have a therapy session scheduled later this evening, though I will reschedule them for tomorrow if you’re too tired.”

Her brow lowered, just how many more did she have to participate in to be released? It was the same inquiries over and over, questions about her mental state, questions about what happened in the simulation, questions that probed too deep into a mind chained and bound- there were so many things she could not remember. Many things she did not want to remember.

“I’d like to go outside,” Amma uttered, a restless kindling of silver banked within her stare. “You don’t need permission for that, do you?” A quiet challenge, her nurse quietly disposed of needles and plastic and gathered the vials carefully with a whistling sigh.

“...It’d be my professional medical opinion that you are allowed fresh air. Just don’t make me regret it, Ms. Cahors.” She made to wheel her medical cart out from her room, holding the door ajar to retrieve a duffel bag just outside.

“Your house representative, Ms. Clarke, retrieved some things from your room.”

Left alone, Amma carefully rummaged through what Ryan had deemed appropriate through her earlier request after she had been denied passage on the ferry. Blouses in various shades of grey and black; a couple of her sweaters of cable knit stitching; and another that was cropped to fit slightly above her navel; cut-offs, and fitted leggings; all things afforded to comfort along with a pack of her clove cigarettes tucked carefully into an adjacent pocket and a lighter to accompany it. Amma dressed carefully, every muscle taut and protesting against her movements whilst she changed, fresh bandages fitted where proper, her anxious habits traded for shredding them without her rings to adorn her fingers. She felt exposed by the scar defiling her body, the peak of the ruined flesh and moth bisected by it revealed through the drape of the pullover as it settled over her lithesome shoulders and scooped low at her front. She threaded her arachnid gestures through her mass of hair, settling the strands into a high-strung tail that displayed the lines of her neck and the unique name scrawled at her throat in black ink.

Once long nails traced over the letting, the phantom sensation of a burn coiling through the ‘I’, her index finger edging out over an ‘M’ before she stilled, settling her palm against the pulse hammering away at her throat. Amma inhales, sharp and whistling over the pout of her lip, at least the simulation hadn’t shown her them.

She knows she would not be alive if it had.



There’s a slight commotion elsewhere whilst Amma is escorted outside, the entrance to the infirmary is temporarily warded off and it’s down another series of hallways that they take around to the gardens. Such a term is lost in the reality that it’s a few trees scattered to the edges of intersecting walkways that conjoin the myriad of medical wings through an outdoor option where patients are permitted to linger. It’s quiet, save for a few students flitting to the shade, their whispers growing hushed when they notice her. The discarding of the standard uniform is taken to well enough, by the observation she proffers with a cant of her head, raking eyes up and down until she dismisses them with a flicked wrist and settles at a stone bench given to the shadow of a dogwood tree. Her guards station themselves far enough but she is kept within their line of sight, the familiarity of such an entourage not lost upon her as she plucks a stick of clove from her pack and nestles the filter against her pout, striking her lighter with a flourish and palms the flame close to her. Embers reflect in her eyes, the hypnotizing twirl of fire warming against her scars, the igniting of the cherry, and that tantalizing spice wafting up upon her visage as she inhales sharp and heavy and exhales upon a plume of vanilla and sweet herbs.

The conclusion of her continuation to attend P.R.C.U is anti-climatic at best, she’s already requested an audience with Torres upon her return to the island, amended with her request for what personal clothing she had. Returning to those damned pyramids out amongst the sea unsettles her, but at least there she knows her purpose, at least there she can resume her preparations for joining The Foundation Force under the appellation of Tiamat. Amma recalls the first time she slid into latex and lace, delicate latches of silver, gossamer finery slid over hips and bisected through the gaping slivers that plunged low and teased at the most intricate of tattoos that curled over her midriff- the shawl that had been granted, handed over by them, a face that–

Her recollections are interrupted in such a delicate manner that Amma’s motions are stilled carefully, the telltale sensation of being watched beyond the station of her guards coiling through her bones and pinging down her spine in whispers of awareness. There, in a breathing sigh of her name –

Tiamat.

A caress against her mind, a shuddering claim that slides betwixt her ears and buzzes away at her lobe, it crawls through every sheered nerve ending and sires through her blood. Her name - her name - that breezes through her soul.

Amma.

She feels it against her back first, a sudden weight that slides up yonder her sweater, pulling away at the thread of her clothes before it crests over her shoulder. A triangle head, a slightly upturned snout, black scales rippling through dappled sunlight, a hiss that slides against the shell of her pierced ear as a viper bunches against the curve of her clavicle.

Ammar –

“Don’t,” she breathes, head tilted up, the sudden presence of a secondary serpent coiling and sliding against the juncture of her throat, forked tongue against her flesh as a trilling sound rises against the sensitive plans of her body. The dogwood sways above, a perpetual shade of darkness rising to her stare as a third snake settles across her lap, bunched over her thighs, causing her to still even her rising chest that crumbles away at the breath that stutters from her swollen mouth. Eyes of red, eyes of blue liken to her own, eyes of steelish azure, eyes of vermillion, eyes of the sky that shatter again and again, and then the soft flutterings of skull-faced moths that hover just yonder her rigid figure. Wings of ashen black and red, with smudges of demented yellow, twittering birds constructed of frail bone that perch above her crown, lost among skeletal branches that pierce the heavens.

Twisted shadows malformed in the distance, the decaying brown hue of bone smudged in black as a myriad of hellish hounds leap forward, tooth and claw poised to tear her very throat out as the serpents hiss and agitate themselves against the hideous scar rent over her heart and cinch tight around her limbs, curved fangs against her breast, a piercing flare of pain that tears through her skin, shorn to the bone – and there, she sees it, the siring of a reaper that looms over her very soul, a threaded line of scarlet stricken to her chest, invading through her being – it tugs, her spine curved inward, wound so tight she can hear and feel her bones breaking –

And then, nothing.

It stops so suddenly Amma falls to her knees, fallen away from the stone bench rigid against her spine tense with pain. Her two guards snap to attention, shuffling forward to assist where she lifts her trembling palm, brows plunged low over her glare as she commands:

“Don’t, I’m fine. Stay away from me.” A hiss writhes against her mind, her captors exchanging glances and inching closer, situating themselves at an immediate distance as Amma struggles to retain her composure, her breath heaved from her ribs that ache – everything ached. She deigns to remain sitting on the grass, comforted at the moment by the sensations against the scars laden through her gestures, nails sunk deep into the dirt, anchoring her to reality. She cannot, however, ignore the telltale awareness that she is still being watched, from beyond somewhere in the trees above where a buzzing continues to ebb and flow.

Be it in the distance yonder, or perhaps still in her mind, a screech so terrible and so haunting explodes through her waking world, a roar that demanded nothing but death and hungered for it - like nothing she has ever heard before.

She felt her before she saw her.

Her sphere of influence and perception is magnified, from every rustle and prick of grass impaled and torn by her nails, every scar of her usually graceful gestures pulsating with the vice she maintained to the earth below. It was anchoring her to this reality, as shadows oozed and spread through the fringes of her vision, her glare burdened by shapes of devilish creatures and profiles of malice that clicked and hummed with cruel grins wreathed in jagged bone. Awareness sires through her limbs as electric impulses of red dance through her pores, flashes of power gilded to every flicker of muscle as Amma lanced her gaze from the proffered hand she witnessed in her most recent nightmares, often beheld of blood and a broken heart, and ticked every passing glance through her lashes bidden on high in the first dawning touches of apprehension not befitting to her usual disposition. She cannot help with the way her eyes flicker, brightening just so in recognition, framed in glistening silver as she pins that intensity upon her shoulders- shoulders she had maimed, shoulders she had touched and broken and made bleed. The manifestation of her chaotic maladies that had impaled through imposing musculature and rent apart flesh and nearly bone. The hand before her was now bathed in red sorrow, the illusion of crimson pooling over the delicate motion hoisted above her crown where she was helpless against the rightful vengeance that would see to her demise.

Amma’s entire body goes rigid, a slight tension that corded through her lithesome shoulders that curled inward, pressing herself flush against the stone bench that ground against her aching back. Her lashes pan down low with a sliver of teeth edged onto the pout of her lip, liken to a feral animal retreating in on itself, her guards take one step, recognizing the signals almost immediately until she speaks.

“I’m fine.” She claims once more, louder enough for them to hear, and shifts her body enough to reach back, palm braced against stone, the entire length of her arm at such a disadvantage as she attempts to lift herself- the prideful of the fallen given here, as she rejoins on a whisper.

“I don’t need help. I don’t need anyone.”

Katja took in a deep, shaky breath as she could feel that horribly beautiful power of Amma. Her shoulders, despite supposedly being treated for any pain, started intensely throbbing as she was reminded of the painful sensation of being touched by that crimson lightning. Her hand twitched slightly as all of it came back to her. Though it only lasted for a split second, to Katja it felt like she was experiencing that night in the tent all over again: The confusion, the anger, the confrontation, the pain and the promise. All of it played out in front of her again.

Seeing Amma on the ground in that almost bestial pose of hers almost made Katja wish she would lash out at her again. At least then it would be over. All the pain, all the doubt, all the sorrow. The loneliness. Scattered with the wind as she was turned into dust by that incredible malicious energy.

But then she heard Amma utter those words. Words that echoed her very own when Harper and Rory had offered their help to her right before the Trials. Words that she now deeply regretted as she now understood how they must have felt when she told them off, much like Amma was doing to her right now. Despite everything, it pained Katja to see the pale girl like this. It was only a little over a week ago when they had both enjoyed their time on the beach. Where she could still embrace Amma and, despite the other’s rejections of the concept, treat her as a friend. She wanted that back. She would do anything to have that back.

But Katja knew that, if it were even possible, that would take time. She knew that she couldn’t force things through. One glance at her current state was enough argument against that course of action.

So instead she swallowed and spoke with trembling hands.

“I know.” Katja uttered meekly as she took a step back and slowly pulled her hand away after the rejection, needing no reminder of what would happen if she insisted on helping Amma. “Just felt like I should offer you the option regardless.” Her voice grew softer as her confidence seemed to wane by the second until finally only a barely audible whisper escaped from under her breath.

“To show that I care.”

“Hah! That’s laughable,” a bitterly seeded trill spooled from her lips, slithering through her gritted teeth as her arm strained to withhold her weight, every nerve wailing in pain, every muscle locked tight and taut and incredibly worn. She could feel the trio of serpents still clamored over her skin, writhing and coiling, bunched and feathering those forked tongues at the horrid scar she suddenly felt obligated to conceal. Her fingers clutched at the slope of her sweater, the sin of vanity wrought through her being as she laughed.

“I forget, teammates and all that. Blackjack is drenched in it.”

Though she hesitated, for just a second, her opposite gesture relinquished its hold at her breast and clung to the stone bench, hoisting herself up as best she was physically able. She shook her head once, twice, a terrible buzzing lancing through her lobe, stricken upon her thoughts and woes, and clung to every quivering muscle that refused to obey.

“Dammit!” Her legs gave out and slid out from beneath her, one arm spread aloft where her fingers clutched and dragged against the stone, and the other spearing her nails into the dirt where grass gave way to her self-inflicted wrath and pity. Amma cursed, head canted down low where a hardly interceptable nod followed, her critical gaze aglow in frigid blue oblique through her sweeping lashes and fringe of black hair.

Katja ignored the jibe towards Blackjack. Amma had made herself very clear about her feelings towards the team, so it didn’t come as a surprise to Katja to hear the derision in her voice. Instead, she looked on in subdued silence at Amma as she tried to hoist herself back up on the stone bench. Seeing her fail, Katja had to repress her instinctual urges to rush in to catch the other girl before she hit the ground. An urge betrayed by the flaring of her nostrils and a slight twitch of the tall girl’s fingers.

She wanted to look away, to spare at least some of the pride of the injured girl. But right as Katja was about to shift her gaze, she caught the blue eyed stare of Amma. Those eyes that had mocked her so cruelly mere days ago. Those very same eyes that had, if only for a fraction of a second, shown remorse at the harm she had done to her. Now however, there was a different look in those eyes, one that Katja couldn’t quite place. And with it came a barely noticeable nod of acquiescence.

The first step Katja took towards the downed girl was clearly a hesitant one, as she wasn’t quite sure she interpreted Amma’s nod correctly. With no reprisal forthcoming, the second step became more confident, while the third was a full on stride that was enough for her to cover whatever distance had been between the two girls. Squatting down, Katja put one arm under Amma’s legs while using her other arm to support the girl’s back. She locked eyes for just a moment, as if to ask whether the raven haired girl was ready. As no objections were uttered, Katja perceived this as her go signal.

“One, two…” The large South African said before she easily rose back to her full height, the slim shape of Amma in her arms. Katja didn’t activate her powers for the task, as the effort didn’t require it and she was afraid that she might accidentally injure Amma more by a reflexive action due to being exposed again to the pale girl’s HZEs.

“You still okay Am-” Katja interrupted herself as she looked down at Amma cradled in her arms, an embarrassed blush wasting no time to appear on the blonde’s cheeks. Looking away, Katja hastily, but gently, put Amma down on the stone bench before taking another step back to create some respective distance between the two again.

She can’t help it, she doesn’t want to, but Amma is reminded of another instance when someone picked her up in such a similar fashion- a time so distanced from now, another world, another girl that took kindness and melded it into something more, and a boy that just wanted to show her what fun actually was. There was no comparison to be had, the two vastly different, but she was human; of limited means perhaps; a multifaceted creature of cruelty and malice, but a human nonetheless that clasped her palm briefly over Katja’s shoulder- and promptly took it away.

It lasts for maybe a second, a small glimpse into the soul within, but Amma is uncertain if what she feels is what many would compare to the emotion of guilt.

“Always am.” She utters, the bench utterly frigid against her gestures, she could not explain why she felt so entirely weak, her body spent and drained, all the rest she had accrued in the last few days did little to assuage the exhaustion of her mortal frailties. HZEs were restored instantly, the world once more at her beck and call and ebb and flow, so why did she feel so frail? Amma lifted one scarred palm up to her inspection, fingers splayed and arched as she slowly curled each nail against her scars, tacking to each line smothered with the whorls of heart and fate. She lifted such up to the filtered dapples of sunlight through the dogwood tree, attempting to decipher why her body felt weighted, liken to a stone within a pit of darkness.

Her penetrating glare falls upon Katja once more, finding it within herself to inquire, a mutter of gratitude failing to find itself betwixt them.

“Why are you even here?”

Katja cast her eyes down the moment she felt Amma’s piercing stare at her, like a schoolgirl caught by their teacher doing something they shouldn’t. The brief flush in her cheeks almost immediately disappeared, as the sense of embarrassment evaporated in an instant. Being replaced by anxiety, a feeling she had grown very accustomed to over these last few days.

“I came here because I…” She paused once, clicking her tongue in frustration as she couldn’t seem to utter the last few words. “Because I…”She said a second time, softer than before. “I…” Katja said meekly now, before finally clearing her throat and trying again after taking a deep breath to regain her composure. When next she spoke, it was with more volume and confidence, as was more befitting of her. “Because I need help.”

She nodded over in the direction of the infirmary, obstructed by well maintained brushes, trees and flowerbeds, but looming in the distance all the same. “I wanted to schedule an appointment, or maybe have a walk-in therapy session if that were possible. I’ve never really gone to any of the therapists here, even if it was mandatory. They’re not really sending people after you if you don’t go, and I always found that the gym was a better place to deal with my issues than by talking to someone.”

“But this time, that just didn’t seem to help.” She looked up, her ice blue eyes meeting the cerulean of Amma’s gaze. A melancholic smile curled up her lips as she continued. “So I figured I’d try this out for once. See if they can help me deal with whatever it is I’m struggling with. To deal with the loneliness.” Katja lowered herself down to sit on her haunches, a shaky breath ushering in a short pause.
“To deal with the pain.”

It was then, with her focus being on the word pain, that Katja noticed that the pulsing in her shoulders was gone for the first time since she laid her eyes on Amma. She reached out with one hand to the one that Amma had only briefly grasped. But apparently, that gesture had been enough to soothe the hurting feeling. She clutched her shoulder firmly, whether for confirmation or as a sign of appreciation she did not know, but clutch it she did. And as she did, she imagined that some of the cloudiness in her eyes dissipated, as she could have sworn that her picture of Amma became clearer in front of her.

“They just ask a lot of questions,” she states, a matter of fact, unleashing her gaze and casting them heavenward, a breeze teasing through the branches above and the longest strands of black curled against her nape and spine. “Loneliness and pain go hand in hand, side by side. I think.”

Pain was an eternal friend, pain was familiar, pain made one aware of life and gave meaning to it- to existence. The agony of the living could hardly be spared for the woe of the dead, and if her desire of life to live everything to the fullest capacity, to be as unforgiving and sown deep with that ambition, meant to be burned by agony for eternity- then so be it. Loneliness, however, was more of the unknown, for she did not understand the discrepancy of its meaning and defilement, betwixt those who wanted to be alone and those who could not harbor that monochromatic shade of personal ailment.

“Sometimes,” Amma breathed a sigh, unable to still the confession that whisked away in a whisper. “It is better to be alone.”

Katja cast her eyes down as she let Amma’s words sink in. She had to admit that there was a grain of truth in them. Afterall, she wouldn’t have felt this sense of betrayal if she had just stuck on her own and never signed up with Orcinus to begin with. She balled her fists at the thought of being so easily sacrificed, but mostly because she realized that she was not blameless in this respect either. If her now former allegiance came to light Katja was sure that all in Blackjack would be hurt the same way Katja was hurt now. If she had continued being alone, none of this would have been a concern.

“Perhaps you are right.” Katja said as she wrapped her arms around her legs before resting her chin on her knees. She remained quiet for a moment, staring out to nowhere in particular as Katja seemed lost in thought. “Perhaps,” She admitted softly, almost inaudible to all but her. “It is better to be alone.”

Yet as those words left her lips, Katja could feel the small girl she had once been scream out in rejection of this line of thinking. She was reminded of how dark the world seemed when she had been alone, shunned and persecuted by a world that didn’t understand her, or any of her kind. And then she recalled how happy she became when first entering PRCU, being accepted for who she was rather than being judged for what she was. How overjoyed she was when someone called her a friend for the first time. And how grateful she was to know that she had them in her corner.

“On the other hand,” Her eyes flicked back up towards Amma, the sadness from earlier giving way to a more uplifting gaze. “Sometimes it helps to be able to air your heart to someone who truly listens.” An embarrassed half smile cautiously curled up on her lips as her eyes remained locked on Amma, making sure that the implication would be obvious to the other girl.

“Because sometimes, it’s nice to know that someone has your back, no matter what.”

In that moment, she is reminded of Haven, those eyes of moss and bark that had sparked in defiance to her truth, that had refused to to submit to her glare and refused to believe that the world was as hopeless and lost as Amma knew it to be. Her lips curled into a delicate smile there, a sort of spun mirth that was suspended in disbelief at the toils of friendship given here, to the same words that had been spoken in stubborn whispers:

Don’t you want someone to have your back?

Haven and Aurora had refused to leave her behind but did one such act of kindness and understanding equate to the forgiveness of life undone and cruel and forsaken? Did that allow her heart to yawn forth on the hinges of yearning and want of kinship, despite all she had done, despite all that she had yet to do? Amma’s expression hardened with a glacier mask of porcelain donned over the dejected glimpse of her inner thoughts, the creature suspended betwixt a cage of bone uncoiling from rest and reared forth the crown of blood and hate that she clung to all the more.

“No matter what. Does that account for what I did to you? Does that account for what I did to-” Her voice drops away, face contorted at the lapse of sound that came out in a wince, the buzzing betwixt her ears returning tenfold.

“Where does the line of Teammates truly end, where does it begin, tell me, Katja. How far does it really go? How much can it withstand?”

“No matter what, to me, means no matter what.” Katja said with a shrug before glancing over at the shoulder Amma had touched earlier. “Fights happen, and with some of us the effects are just more violent than with others.” She gently rubbed a hand over the same spot before forming her hand into a fist and giving two knocks on the wound. “That doesn’t mean we can’t move past that.” A smile formed on her lips, the first one since before the trials. Katja just uttered the words she herself needed to hear the most. If the people in Blackjack were truly her friends, which she thought they were, they would eventually find it in their hearts to forgive her for breaking their trust.

“Afterall,” She said softly, almost in a mumbling way. “That’s what friends are for.”

Katja looked up from her shoulder to meet Amma’s harsh stare with a soft gaze of her own before she clearly proclaimed. “Not Teammates. Friends.”

Katja quickly raised both of her hands before Amma could interject, ushering her to pause any sort of retort with a calming gesture.

“I know what you think about friends. Trust me, I am very well aware of your stance on that.” Her lips curved into a rueful grin before continuing. “And I am by no means trying to force you to accept all of us, or even just one of us, as your buddies or mates. Not at all.” Katja shook her head wildly from side to side before pausing and taking a deep, shaky breath.

“I’m just saying that, even if you don’t like to think of others as friends, I would like to be the next best thing to you. Just like with Rory, Haven or Harper, I will do whatever I can to help you through whatever hardships you may face. But only if you let me.” Katja bites down on her lower lip as she finally averts her eyes from those fierce orbs of Amma’s. Still seated on the ground, her shoulders slumped slightly as only a weak muttering escaped her lips, for she realized she might have pushed too far again like last time. “And, more importantly, only if you’d want me to.”

Amma scoffs: “Is there some kind of script you guys pull that from? Haven said something similar before -”

“Well, before.”

It was such a strange feeling, fleeting and barely there, but peculiar all the same: how Katja was able to express herself, how Haven was able to convey her defiance in the face of the damned, how Aurora’s emotions were so easily and carelessly illustrated with that hopeless desperation of life and love. How even individuals like Lorcán were able to glimpse beyond the beast and find the girl within that yearned to love and be loved in return. Amma’s gaze fell away, lashes swept low liken to a moth’s wing upon her cheeks that fanned and narrowed, thoughts unbound. She barely discussed the Trials endured, even with her therapist, unable to speak aloud of The Beloved she encountered, the likeness of happiness and the witness of those delicate arms embraced and linked to broad shoulders, the lips of bitten red and blossoms of a rose that swelled with the euphoric grin and bliss and completion known by the heart to be whole. She could not acknowledge the needles that had penetrated beneath her skin over and over, the numerous injections she had been forced to live through, the last decade rent asunder through her being to break her again and again.

“You are far too forgiving, Katja.” Wisdom flitted to her voice, clinging to her whispers, something aged and lost. “I asked for someone to kill me, and he refused, for all that I have yet to do. For all that I am meant for, the role I have to play.” Slowly, her head cants to one side, rolling her neck with a cascade of black spilling over her shoulder. The intensity of her stare pierced deep, shattering through the glacier barriers that had once brimmed with life, hope, and affection that she had broken.

“If I asked you to kill me, as my friend, would you? That’s what friends are for, right? To help those in need.”

“That’s what you just said.”

Katja’s expression noticeably changed as Amma spoke. Her brow furrowed slightly as her eyes narrowed, her smile waned while her shoulders stiffened and her back straightened. The reply caught her off guard. She had expected the scoff, perhaps even a lashing out like last time. What she didn’t expect was this question Amma queried at the end.

Running a hand through her long blonde locks, Katja remained quiet for a moment as she mulled over her answer. She took one more deep breath before finally looking back up again, meeting that fierce gaze with a determined one of her own. “It depends, I guess.”

“I would try to talk you out of it at first, because that is what friends are for too. For giving you their advice, even if you don’t want it.” Katja replied with a smirk, a melancholic sight more than a reassuring one, which disappeared again as soon as it came. Her voice, for the first time today, seemed unshakable and resolute. Her entire being radiated a serious determination. As if she was resolved to go through with whatever she was going to answer, no matter what. So, with her eyes locked to the cerulean gaze of Amma, Katja replied with full, unwavering sincerity. “But, if that doesn’t work, if you are truly adamant about it, then I guess dying by the caring hand of a friend is the way I would want to go too.”

“So, if you really wanted me to, then yes. Yes, I would." A smile, a thing of sorrow, formed on her lips as she kept looking into Amma’s eyes. “And, if that day eventually comes, I would expect my friends to do the same for me.”

“I just-”

I can’t stop it.

Remember the rewards given.
The lives you took.
The lives you take.

Her lashes fluttered closed on a trembling sigh, something akin to relief spreading thin through her body, a release of tension subtly dispelling from her shoulders. Many faces flit on through her mind, names branded there, similar to the one branded onto her neck. Amma slowly palms the pulse at her throat gone quiet and still, her nail scraping slowly over the ‘I’ - and ‘M’ and then pauses, looping through the rest of the raised ink until her tracing stills across to her nape where she clasps her fingers to roll her neck. Her stare begins anew with the sudden silence, opening to lock with Katja’s determination.

“Then I guess this makes us friends.”

Hearing Amma utter those words, Katja felt her entire body relax, punctuated with one long, drawn out breath. The tension that she had felt all this time seemed to dissipate entirely, melting away like snow in the sun. The expression in her eyes, locked with those of Amma, remained determined. Yet there was a hint of softness now in them, a sense of joy radiating through her gaze. One that was also mirrored by her smile which noticeably grew broader, almost running from ear to ear. Despite the promise made, one with severe implications, Katja’s entire demeanor seemed to have shifted, the fog which had covered her eyes ever since the Trials, ever since that night in the tent, seemed to be lifting away. For a brief moment the sun pierced the clouds of Katja’s mind.

“I guess we are…” The tall girl said as she stood back up to her full height, towering over all those currently going about their day in the garden. After taking a moment to stretch herself out, Katja took a small step towards Amma, eyes still locked on those of the other girl. “And you have no idea how much you saying that means to me.”

“I’m gonna be honest, I would really like to give you an embrace right now, Am.” She defaulted back to Am without even realizing. Signifying the return of confidence within her when dealing with the Raven haired girl. “But I guess that would be pushing it?” Katja said with a grin as she looked down at Amma, rubbing the back of her neck in a slightly embarrassed fashion.

“Don’t push your luck, Katja.” She rejoined on a soft laugh, accompanied by a shake of her head, disbelief coloring her mutterings, the easy acceptance and joy that she exemplified by the mutual agreement despite the severity of their drawn promise. Amma carefully rises to her feet, her guards moving in close, though without as much concern by the trudging of their steps with a loose smile softening her often intense features.

“I’ll see you around, friend.” Amma steps around her, arms crossed and gaze dropped and as she moves to be escorted out from the gardens, she pauses long enough to brush her hand over Katja’s shoulder, a soft and delicate clasp that illustrates the closest to an apology that Amma can give her before she leaves. The buzzing follows her, as do the shadows and the soft hissing that she now feels upon every prick of her spine, the weight of a serpent unseen coiling over her shoulders.