[i][center][color=lightpink]Amaya was seven years old, fear like ice in her veins, stopping her heart, as she threw her soaking, freezing body into her mother’s embrace. She wasn’t crying. It felt like she should’ve been crying. All she knew was terror and desperation and [b]ice[/b]. But she couldn’t breathe deep enough. Her lungs spasmed from the shock and cold, and her voice was locked away. What would’ve been tear tracks lining her face were instead crystals of ice and salt, so cold they seemed to pierce her skin. She tried to bury herself in her mother’s arms, thoughtless to how she soaked through the fine fabric of her coat. All that mattered was her [b]mother[/b] — alive, and warm, and all the love that Amaya had ever known in her short life. Ice crawled along her skin like a virus. It froze her wet hair into dark icicles, made her clothing a cast around her tiny body. Her mother whispered to her as she huddled close. Amaya couldn’t hear what she was saying. There was only the music of her voice, soft and familiar.[/color] [color=f7a8b2]There was only – The pond. Amaya was ripped from her mother’s arms, [/color] [img]https://i.imgur.com/1w4QHG9.png[/img] [color=f7a8b2]into the water. She didn’t feel the impact. She’d never left the water at all — she’d always been there, floating. She was the moon suspended in the sky, dark and clear. She was the heart of a fresh snowflake, a matrix of crystals born from her body and crawling [/color][/center] [color=f7a8b2]out [center]o[color=2e2c2c]....[/color]u[color=2e2c2c]....[/color]t[/center] [right]o[color=2e2c2c]........[/color]u[color=2e2c2c]........[/color]t[/right] [/color] [center][color=f4a3ac]in all directions as if to touch every corner of the water. It cocooned her. It filled her. And all she could do was turn it to [/color][color=e99198]ice around her. Amaya knew she was going to die here, in this pond. Even when she was numb and frantic and still so [b]young[/b], she knew. It was impossibly deep. Amaya had known this pond her entire life – the circumference, when it would freeze each year, the way the willow tree on its shore cast wisping shadows across its surface. But she’d never known how [b]deep[/b] it was. Or how easily its icy surface could shatter. Her garments, heavy with their drink, pulled Amaya deeper into the pond, down, [color=2e2c2c].[/color] [sub]down,[/sub] [color=2e2c2c]. .[/color] [sub][sub]down.[/sub][/sub] [color=2e2c2c]. . .[/color] Some part of her, the part that was no longer a child but [/color][color=e58489]frozen all the same, knew what would come next: a flurry of hands and shouts as her body was wrenched from the water — frigid air stabbing into her lungs like welcome knives — the warmth of her mother’s arms. But when Amaya looked up, it wasn’t the guards or attendants, or even her mother that she saw beyond the water. It was her father. The stark canvas of his face, all silver and rippling [/color][color=db797e]shadow, glared down at her like the moon itself. The pond’s surface shattered like glass as King Jericho reached down and grabbed Amaya by the throat. Thick, calloused fingers squeezed, and suddenly it didn’t matter if she was surrounded by water or ice or air, because she’d never breathe again. He was fury. He was frost. He was all the hate Amaya had ever known in her short life. Suddenly desperate to survive, Amaya opened her mouth and screamed beneath the water. A flurry of bubbles escaped her as she flailed. Little hands clawed uselessly at her[/color] [color=d56e71]father. Tears escaped her only to mix with the pond, unseen. She kicked and scratched, but Jericho was too much — he’d always been too much for her to ever stand against. Amaya thrashed with clumsy limbs. Her vision tunnelled. Midnight creeped around the edges of her world until all that was left was her father’s rage. The grip around her throat tightened as she fought, nails digging into the soft flesh. Then the hand [b]pulled[/b]. Forced through the surface of the water, Amaya was a woman again. Frigid air stabbed into her skin like wicked knives. Her limbs, heavy with ice, tried to find some purchase, a way to steady herself as she dangled from the iron grip around her throat. She scratched and writhed, eyes squeezed shut against cruel reality, like she could hold off inevitability if she simply refused to see it. Some part of her, the part that was still a child but fighting all the same, knew what would come next: her final, desperate gasps – her body growing limp – the embrace of the water below. All that had ever mattered was Jericho and his [/color][color=de777a]will. And he had decided long ago that Amaya was [b]nothing[/b]. But when Amaya opened her eyes, it wasn’t her father that she saw. It was Sir Abel. Not as she’d seen him all her life, a quiet specter haunting her as she’d moved through the palace. No, this was Abel as she’d last seen him – visceral and alive and [b]dying[/b]. His face was a bloody, half-formed mask of sundered flesh and flashing bone. The skin had been ripped away starting from his cheekbones, revealing thin, flayed layers of fat and muscle. His eyes – his [b]eyes[/b], filled with so much [/color][color=d96c6e]hate and rage they froze Amaya’s blood – were crimson with burst blood vessels. The bottom lid of one of them had been completely ripped away with the rest of his skin, revealing the curve of his eyeball in its socket. Tattered cords of muscle and pulsing veins draped down his face until there was nothing but stark, stained bone, dripping with blood. Amaya watched him gnash his yellow teeth, the naked muscles of his jaw flexing, the flash of a bloody tongue in the space that should’ve been covered by his cheek. Blood poured down his neck, shredded flaps of skin hanging over his saturated armor. Behind him lay a body, collapsed in the snow. It was turned away from her – but Amaya knew that slender hand, covered in blood. She knew that hair, silver and shining like the moon. Terror wrapped itself around Amaya’s lungs and tightened. She tried to scream, but there was no air in her lungs. There was only the sound of her stuttering [/color][color=d96e70]heart. It begged, no, no, no, no, [b]no[/b] because Amaya couldn’t lose her, she [b]couldn’t[/b] – Sir Abel’s nails cut into the skin of Amaya’s neck with how tightly he gripped her. She barely registered the pain. It was hard to notice [b]anything[/b] beyond the fear and ice. Desperation forced her to move, though. Her hands clawed at his wrist as she tried to kick, but it was no use. The ice in her blood was turning to lead as her vision faded in and out. All the while Sir Abel watched her with bloody, accusing eyes. Her pulse slowed. Her fingers slipped away from his arm to fall limply to her sides. And when she finally slipped away, Sir Abel’s skin under her nails, her mother’s blood in her veins, her father’s hate dictating the story of her life… She wondered how much [b]Amaya[/b] there’d ever been at all. The water welcomed her back with a crushing [/color][color=d56566]embrace. It wrapped around her body, filling her lungs as her lips parted. But it wasn’t the frigid pond that she’d fallen into… salt met her tongue and drifted over her skin to hide the tracks of her tears. A gentle current drifted through her hair, lifting it away from her face. The frost that had clung to her so stubbornly had no choice but to melt. When Amaya finally opened her eyes, ice met the green sea. There was no coldness, no fight, just… patience. Sadness. A vastness and depth that would swallow Amaya up, if she let it. The water offered itself to her, if only she was brave enough to welcome it. For the first time in her life, Amaya felt weightless. Held by the water, she let herself float. And when she looked up she saw the [/color][color=d15e5e]moon suspended in the sky, dark and clear. Its gentle light whispered to her as the ocean pressed warmth back into her skin. There was no ice in her veins. No fear. She closed her eyes and melted into the water’s embrace. She did not feel brave. Or strong. Or Wise. But perhaps, just for this moment, that wasn’t required of her. She could simply [b]be[/b]. Her garments, heavy with their drink, pulled Amaya deeper into the ocean, down, [color=2e2c2c].[/color] [sub]down,[/sub] [color=2e2c2c]. .[/color] [sub][sub]down.[/sub][/sub] [color=2e2c2c]. . .[/color][/color] [/center][/i] [center][img]https://i.imgur.com/g6xsDP2.png[/img][/center][hr][sub][color=d15e5e]Location:[/color] The Royal Cabin[/sub][hr][hr] Reality trickled back to Amaya, drop by drop. A familiar cologne wrapped around her like an embrace, even as she winced against the pain and exhaustion that still seeped through her like melted snow. And when her eyes finally fluttered open and her vision focused enough for her to realize who she was seeing… Ice met the sea. She breathed out a single word. [color=d15e5e]“Flynn…”[/color] It was the first time she’d ever called him by his name. [hr] [sub][color=d15e5e]Interactions:[/color] Flynn Astaros [@The Muse][/sub]