Better The Devil You Know (Zoya Nazyalensky)

Eight

The Panthertine of Ketterdam wishes to be back in her lair, sipping kvas on her decadent chaise longue besides the constantly roaring fire. After being denied even the basest commodities for so much of her childhood, the teen was steadily accruing a taste for the finer things in life; the trappings that came with wealth (however illegally obtained.) And the bare-boned carriage was certainly not a luxury by any stretch. Quite frankly, it didn't appear as though it could withstand a round of passionate lovemaking (if one were so inclined), let alone a horde of flesh stripping volcra. Vieder was not the only one ill-furnished with their assigned ferry.

"What do you mean the tracks aren't completed?!" the Zemeni boy screeches, sounding almost indistinguishable from the monsters Ileska knows were hot in pursuit.

"There are gaps, but I solved the problem through paving boards - with which the carriage [an optimistic description] will slide into place over." The conductor wears a face of monumentally gained patience, slowly descending into well warranted umbrage. While Fahey's concerns are valid, the volume and pitch of his complaints are a rag to a bull when it comes to the sensitive hearing of their non-human predators.

Inej shares a look with the youth, rather aghast at, well, her lack of aghast. Although, if the fables are anything to go by, the Panther has withstood a solo venture through the shadowed vastness once already. Only the saints knew how. The Suli wants to reach out a hand and feel human warmth within in it, on her terms only, just for the sheer comfort of a safe presence. Yet, this is Ileska Vieder: blood-soaked terror of the barrel and intransigent shirker of emotional displays. The aptitude of the situation could be best demonstrated by the true assumption that it would be easier to get a hug from Dirtyhands himself.

The abstract temperament of the gang boss is incorporeal and ever flowing through Inej's grasping fingers. One minute smiles would adorn her face as though bestowed by aphrodite; all gentle teasing and light embraces. But, that was a rarity, a few meagre days out of the sum hundreds spent together. Alas, more oft than not, the young woman retched at human tangency, rearing like a disturbed stallion upon uncalled for liaisons. Storms draped themselves over a veneer so severe it was as though cast by a sculptor, one of those ancient busts to be viewed but never touched. Today is no different. Their gentle ribbing of previous seems to have been scrubbed from memory with diamond sharp clarity.

But, they did not see the battle waging within that youthful intellect. A dissonance of explosive chaos, each pervading memory a cannonball on her conscience. Fleeting screams of that desperate night fleeing the borders of her home. Black spectres grasping out skeletal stubs towards her, beckoning closer perishful embrace.

"Come little one. We can change the world you and I." Velvet disguised as voice, trickling into unhearing ears, blocked by their owners fear of following intoxication.

Safety. Understanding. Power. "I can show you them all little fighter. Don't resist what you know needs to be done. Do you really think the ozkazatsya and renegade grisha you seek will ever understand you, let alone want to? You are too special for that life." Crooning words that made sense, oh they made so much sense to a young chit who was alone and afraid. Yet- wrong, wrong, wrong. Don't listen to him!"

Cardinal flooding the ground in a stampede of defeat, soaking her boots in a visceral reminder of what she'd done. Oh, saints what she had done! Flesh wrought limp and flaxen upon once hallowed ground, fingers pointing accusingly at her stricken facade. I didn't mean to. I'm sorry. Sorry meant nothing, not for what she'd committed - foul act!

"Ileska"

You'll always be alone little cat. Adrift on this river of mortality that cannot touch us.