broken and numb

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A scream echoed in the valley of someone who’d just experienced death. It was quick and abrupt, ending as suddenly as it began. No carving was left behind on skin, no evidence of the rocks or death- only the memory of it. A memory that forced the air from her lungs and her body to be wrought with pain and grief. Her eyes took a moment to adjust, but she no longer saw the ravine nor felt the crushing weight of death. Frozen winds whipped against her face cold enough to sting, yet she shivered from the confusion instead of the frostbitten air. She no longer felt solid ground beneath her, it was soft and white instead. 
 
The sky was an unbroken slate of gray, distant and unforgiving. At first she sat beneath that empty sky in an attempt to process while her body trembled. She sobbed, but felt the composure slowly returning to her. Legs refused to move, her head stayed firm to the ground all while forcing herself to process what had just happened. An exhaled breath could be seen through the chill air in which her thoughts formed the only word she could comprehend in the moment. Impossible. Had she somehow… survived? Or was this the afterlife? Nothing around her looked familiar, even the air felt foreign and thin. But she was here, breathing. She felt the wind biting at her, the snow beneath her. She heard the wind and saw the world. Did pain exist on the other side? Grief, worry, or doubt? It did, it felt unbearably harsh and unfair. 
 
Serana decided to lay there awhile longer, feeling small, forgotten, and beaten by the outcome. Somehow, in her mind, it felt right to just lay there in a broken state and forget everything existed. It was easier than confronting it all. Just let me be, she said to the world.

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She had found the Cove, upon further surveying the surroundings from the heights Empyrean offered. And, after inspecting it, her own doubts set in. Perhaps the territory had been further than she remembered—but, could that be possible? Hydra found that her mind felt sharper as of late… though still there were no answers!

Hydra knew that she must set out to find them. Who else? She had lived a full life, she felt—and while there was much more of it to live, how could she do so in peace without knowing? And so she pressed ahead, until she came across a wintry terrain. She lingered at its edges, sniffing the snow and noting not many had passed through as of late.

Stepping underfoot the cliffs, she paused long enough to test her weight against the waters edge, but the ice did not so much as groan. The wind that came then brought news—there was another present. Hydra did not find it difficult to find them, once her eyes traced the perimeter of this new land. Stark black against white—like herself. Hydra chuffed to alert them of her presence, but made no further moves then.

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