There's blood everywhere.
Blood all over her face, all over her dress, a mess of half-dried and still-wet crimson. Pieces of cut flesh tangled in her black hair. A sword she stole from some guard that slips from her hand with a shaky, ominous clang. There's a personβ no, no, not a person anymore, a bodyβ laying splayed out in front of her, his wounds still sputtering out more red all over polished floors. One of many in that room.
Kallian's already sitting limply on the floor before she could notice it. She could hear Soris faintly calling her name in the midst of all the deafening white noise, but her brown eyes are trained on Nelaros' body on the floor.
They were supposed to get married. She hadn't bothered to get to know him β figured it changes nothing regardless of who she marries as long as she gives birth to two or three, and then she could live out the rest of her sorry life a rat amongst other rats. Ignored that tug in her heart when he saidβ what was it, he said, he'd spend his life learning to make her happy.
There's a trail of bodies left behind where Kallian marched past since she got out of captivity, trying to swallow the bile rising in her throat every time she cuts another down, and still nothing feels worse than this. Her head feels queasy with the stench of blood.
She holds Nelaros' limp hand in both of her own, shaky, pressing her dry cracked lips to his cold knuckles, to the stained wedding ring on his finger. She's not sure if there's tears on her face or not. She's far from dying in a pool of her own blood in some fancy estate, and yet it feels like she is anyway. It's an unsightly scene for a wedding β a bloodstained bride, her once white dress in tatters with her unfortunate groom, a union realized in death far before it could in life.
"Kallian," Soris repeats lightly, and Kallian swears she could have torn into him with her sword. "There's no time. We have to go." Leave Nelaros here.
Kallian's wide eyes are devoid of hope. "They'll kill us, Soris. There's nothing we can do."
"We can't just sit here and wait to be killed!"
Kallian bites back the I can sitting in her throat.
βββ massacre, march 04, 2026.