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FORTY ONE. numb! ｡･:*:･ﾟ✧｡･:*:･ﾟ
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Memories assault her senses. Fragments of an image of a young girl and a young boy running through dunes of dull golden sand, giggling and grinning when the other falls. Now older, training together underneath the light of the moon whilst their parents slumber away, unknowing that the reason why their children are so exhausted during the day is that they spar throughout the night. Older again, eyes darkened, the boy leaning down to hug her: he's taller now, just when she'd thought she'd beat him in height. He holds her tight, she doesn't cry, not until he's gone, and though she waits for moons, watching the constellations glitter, feeling the seasons change, he doesn't return.
And she runs.
She runs until her feet bleed and her eyes burn from all the tears she's shed. She runs until her ribs ache, until they pierce her heart and crimson spills across the ground before her. She runs until she can't feel anything anymore. She runs until she's thrown in a cell. Even when she escapes, it's still all she does, until a man in glinting silver armor and a voice like a tumble of waterfalls in an emerald forest asks her to stand still.
Frozen there, hiding behind the wall of the ruined cantina, listening to her actually not dead brother's voice, all Zoya wants to do is run—run until her bones shatter into piles of ivory and dust, until her legs give out and all that's left is the blood pumping in her veins, spilling from her eyes and mouth until she doesn't have to fight anymore.
"Be smart, Zoya," Ayaan calls. More tears pool on her cheeks, just as Din steps forward towards her, his hands raising as if to calm her.
