Sigyn

25 | she/her | grisha healer

Bio . Details . Skeleton . 

responsibility  weighs  heavily  upon  the  shoulder,  even  as  the  gates  lift  in  prompt  execution,  exposing  the  sprawling  estate  to  sticky - fingered,  vengeful  crows  ─  for  a  brief  moment,  the  inferni  wishes  to  feign  illness,  unable  to  undertake  running  point  on  such  an  important  rescue  mission,  unwilling  to  see  the  disappointment  and  fear  set  into  the  features  of  their  companions  when  control  would  eventually  slip  from  their  grasp.  but  hadn’t  she  yearned  for  a  chance  to  prove  her  worth  to  the  dregs  ?  and  hadn’t  she  trained,  extensively,  obsessively,  until  there  was  no  flame  that  flickered  without  her  permission,  no  fire  that  died  without  first  being  told  to  smother  ?  doubt  would  serve  her  poorly  in  the  task  ahead,  so  she  buries  it  down,  dragging  up  the  memories  of  her  assassinated  mother  and  brother,  and  the  shadow  summoner,  who  suffered  just  so  she  could  run  like  a  coward.  (  not  anymore.  )  there  is  a  feral  decisiveness  to  each  step  that  she  takes,  an  energy  in  the  air  that  thrums  with  the  amplified  effects  of  her  gifts,  further  pushed  by  the  winds  that  are  channeled  through  the  squaller  that  marches  with  the  infiltrating  group,  and  everything  melts  before  her.

it  is  addictive  and  she  might  have  been  consumed  by  the  very  same  inferno  that  she  feeds  had  it  not  been  for  the  healer  that  calls  her  back  at  each  turn,  correcting  pathways  and  directing  focus  ─  even  if  saran  was  controlling  the  fire,  it  was  sigyn  that  piloted  her  actions.  ghosts  peer  through  the  furs  that  distinctively  mark  their  targets  as  drüskelle  and  a  flare  of  anger  burns  through  her  chest,  spewing  from  the  fires  that  lick  at  the  floors  to  eat  at  the  man  that  stands  in  their  way,  melting  leather  and  fabric  and  metal  into  his  skin.  (  her  gaze  draws  shut  at  his  screams,  remembering  the  laughter  of  eira  von  der  leyen’s  scientists  as  she  battled  against  the  chains  that  had  bound  her.  )

❝  huh  …  ?  ❞  the  flames  pull  her  in  a  different  direction,  hungry  for  the  wooden  structures  and  fur - clad  bodies  that  await  around  the  corner,  but  she  turns  from  the  feeling,  glistening  features  blinking  at  sigyn  before  the  instruction  begins  to  make  sense.  ❝  there  are  others  there  …  the  laboratories  …  grisha.  ❞  she  feels  her  inferni  siblings,  the  flex  of  their  jurda - infused  control  brushing  against  her  own,  eager  to  turn  the  flames  against  her  group  ─  if  they  went  further  down  there,  they  would  meet  with  the  drugged  grisha,  obedient  to  the  fjerdan  tyrant.  they  would  die.  ❝  you’re  right.  the  summoners  first  …  ❞  feet  turn  sharply  away  from  the  hallway  to  continue  straight  ahead,  the  compulsion  fading  as  they  went  further  in  and  then  down,  lit  lanterns  dimming  as  the  cold  underground  gradually  overtakes  their  senses.  ❝  is  this  right  ?  i  could  make  the  lanterns  brighter  but  i  don’t  want  them  to  know  we’re  this  close.  ❞

Sigyn had to turn it off. She had to bury it deep beneath the purpose and responsibility that was demanded of her today; that visceral fear she carried, insidious and swelling within the marrow of her bones, for the wild nature of saran's flames. Fjerdan gaze, hard with frost and hatred, search past the columns of the infirni's summoning for the distorted faces of drüskelle aflame beyond; suffocating as oxygen pulls first to fuel her inferno before their own lungs, as flesh blisters and peels from bone at it's flickering caress. Her own scars recall the sensations of burning alive as eyes linger, the nerves repaired beneath them twitching, writhing just below the surface as they had they day they'd been forever etched into her skin.  Porcelain canine flashes from underneath the upward curl of her lip   —  deciding in the very same moment that there was nothing to fear at all. That watching them all burn was, instead, a gift to be cherished. For the courage she'd mustered, the faith she held in Kaz's plan, and in no small part for the trust she extended to the woman at her side. Laughter rises bright above cacophonous violence, a dissonant harmony cutting sharp through the air amidst smoke and screaming. Her tone drops suddenly to speak then, her words a malicious hissing as they wrap around the intonation of her mother tongue, ( if it were the last words they would hear, she wanted them to know it was one of their own, a Fjerdan drüsje that celebrated their demise, ) "og nå er det MIN tur å se deg BRENNE, drüskelle!"

the pulse of blood in ears, the thrum of the air, expectation that curls and coils into every limb and every breath. this was where they lived, where they thrived, where they found purpose, where expectation came easy as rain off the shore and the one thing jesper knew that he could always deliver.

still, the energy builds and builds and has yet to dissapate, nowhere to channel, stored into muscle and finger twitches, so jesper walks holes into the floor, carving the tunnels ever deeper with each pass, everyone else too focused for jesper to find it worth disturbing them.

a longer pass, further through the corridor, fingers dancing on the walls and a vague check up with everyone, past the last and then past sigyn. he doesn’t want to deal with tension taut aggravation, doesn’t want to be thing that snaps the wire, edges lashing out involuntarily. but she doesn’t, an empty breath, fingers wrapped around strands of hair, and jesper slows, stops, tries desperately to cast a rein on his own amped up emotions.

‘ mhm. ‘ he nods, mouth clamped shut and fingers dancing across his revolvers, before the dam spills and he rocks up onto his toes, then onto his heels, to step closer or move further or - . ‘ always, darling, you know me. been prepped since the bird’s started talking this morning, but, no, what about you, love? what can you fortell? ‘

sigyn's eyes flicker from their face to fingers, drawn to the movement of them as they play patterns atop the revovlers. Jesper always had more energy than she thought was reasonable for any one living body to contain, with his perpetual motion and incessant speaking. tonight, though, she finds that she can relate the necessity of it, her own hands working  restlessly through her hair; finding peace in the small bit of pressure it releases, in the distraction it provides as impatience stretches long into uncertainty over what lay ahead.

So he moves through the tunnels, for if he stops, the impatience will fester into something ugly, something dangerous. And that is something none of the Dregs can afford.

Ah, but there — someone else is here. For a single moment his whole body pauses. The quiet stretches, and then he moves, a quick pace with near silent steps. The trail of noise guides him, growing in volume through twists and turns. There are many shadows in these tunnels, and he uses every single one, until the unmistakable thud of a body falling ushers him forward.

The glint of steel finally enters his gaze as the clattering sound dies, and in the next moment, his eyes draw to Sigyn pulling herself to her feet. He pauses, waiting, watching.

Only when she turns to him that he takes a step toward her.

“Hello.” His voice is rough, unused after so many hours, and he clears his throat. At her pout, he raises a brow. “I didn’t witness the fall, so unfortunately there isn’t much ammunition to use for teasing.”

His gaze falls to the knife again. “It’s more concern for your well-being that I feel in this moment.” He steps forward again, plucking the knife from the ground in one fluid motion. He weighs the weapon in his hand, scanning the blade, rubbing his thumb along crackled leather. “How long has this been in your possession?”

"No? Well, that is fortunate for me, it wasn't very graceful at all. It was the shoes, you see," she explains unnecessarily, peering downward at the undone laces with disappointment, as if they had childishly chosen to trip her. The bright side was that now it would a detail that she'd be sure to double check before their assault on the estate; a lesson learned during this practice of hers, aftercall ( though not quite what she'd intended. ) While she avoided teasing from Yuriy, she doubted she'd encounter equal kindness from the drüskelle should she stumble during the heist.

Yuriy leans and retrieves her knife from the ground, and her eyes follow, curiosity flickering bright behind their layers of ice.  Her face tilts as he inspects the blade, admiring the immediate familiarly he seemed to have with it. "Truly? Well, that's very nice of you to say. I'm concerned as well," she replies, her voice transparent with honesty as she decides to share with the assassin, "I have never done something like this before. At least, not right in the middle of things." Her function was always kept secured on the sidelines, behind a layer of protection, set loose only when there was critical need for her abilities. Which meant, to her, that Kaz expected there would be that critical need of her within the group. "So, I thought I would get acquainted with that old thing, just in case."  

Sigyn could hardly keep track of them anymore. Which pulse of the dozens surrounding them belongs to the dregs she'd entered with, to the summoners now fleeing with them? And which belong to the remaining drüskelle and henrik's grisha? She could only hope that those that faded into silence weren't any they would mourn come sunrise, but there was no time to spare to double back and confirm that all crows were accounted for. 

Relentless in their pursuit, Henrik's soldiers attempt to fracture the group, forcing their escape route to change, to separate and dangerously toil through the winding hallways of the estate. Peripheral explosions crumble foundation and stairways, chandeliers and debris falling along their course from above; Sigyn couldn't be sure if it was an attempt for cover from the others, or if their adversaries have chosen to sacrifice the building to ensure they don't leave the manor alive.

All she knew was that when she turns around to see who remains with her, fearing the thought of being caught isolated, she could only see Valdis.

The gates to the Von der Leyen property lift, and the six crows directed by Kaz to breach the estate begin their role in his masterful scheme: to find and rescue the summoners under Henrik's control. Sigyn follows closely behind Saran as they make their way into the manor, the infirni taking point as the inferno she conjures helps to fend off the drüskelle's attempt to halt their infiltration. They all work in synch, a chaotic harmony of destruction and driven purpose that inspires a smile to cut across her face as they press inward; a grim satisfaction in knowing the soldiers set ablaze and screaming around them, the hearts going still as they're crushed within their own chests, are all at the whims of a patchwork group of drüsje dregs  ━━  it was a taste of divine justice, she felt, that so many of them die today at the hands of those they hunted.

The handle of it feels awkward in her hand. The leather bindings were dry and cracking with age, causing the grip to bite abrasively into her palm with even the slightest motion. The weight felt off as well; one end heavier than the other, forcing her wrist to turn outward in order to maintain any illusion of control  ( which, to be fair, was non-existent to begin with. ) As for the blade itself...  that probably should be sharpened at some point too, right? Another task to add to the list; one more thing to cross off before Kaz gave the signal for the crows to take to the streets of the barrel and descend upon Henrik's manor, executing the bastard’s scheme for revenge.

Sigyn carved out a small corner of privacy down one of the ratway's quieter tunnels to practice. It was easy enough to find solitude, as the hours before their assault were quickly expiring most of the dregs were busy preparing for their assigned tasks. While there was no expectation for Sigyn to use the old knife to thin the drüskelle's numbers, she found that it was a comfort of sort to familiarize herself with it anyway, just in case her group fractured and she needed to defend herself.

"Oops ━━ !!" the shuffling sound of a disastrous misstep was chased away by a heavy thunk! as she collides with the ground. Neglected steel falls from her grip, skidding a distance from her, the sound of it echoing sharply down the length of the tunnel. Sigyn grumbles with frustration as she maneuvers herself back up to her feet, brushes herself off, and glances about to find where the knife had ended up.

"Ah, there you are," she scolds, stepping towards where it lay. It was then that her intuition finally picks up on the rhythm of a heartbeat, one that had managed to approach entirely unnoticed before now. Outside of the Wraith, there was only one person she knew capable of that. Sigyn turns to look over her shoulder, her lips curving upwards in greeting to the assassin, "Yuriy, hello." 

𝐒𝐇𝐀𝐃𝐎𝐖𝐒  𝐑𝐈𝐒𝐄  𝐖𝐇𝐄𝐑𝐄  𝐀𝐍𝐆𝐄𝐋𝐒  𝐅𝐀𝐋𝐋.      and  there  were  steps  to  dying  a  martyr.      one:      do  not  scream.      he  knew  it  would  end  like  this      (  long  before  it  began  )  ;      lived  a  thousand  lives,      died  a  thousand  deaths.      he  imagined  it  would  be  as  painful  as  coming  home.      two:      do  not  say  goodbye.      there  has  been  nothing  left  to  bury  for  a  long  time  now.      flesh  and  blood  are  simple  sacrifices.      three:      do  not  let  go.      made  of  ash  he  was  meant  for  martyrdom,      and  to  ash  he  would  return.      four:      burn.

he  burns  now,      set  alight  by  henrik’s  inferni  and  reduced  to  cinders,      sinews  sewn  back  together  by  a  healer  poisoned  by  parem.      even  on  the  brink  of  death,       he  is  a  slumbering  sea,      all  dark  water,      leviathan  lurking  underneath,      lids  heavy  despite  the  ache  that  extorts  his  conscious  state.      he  has  lost  sense  of        seconds      /      minutes      /      hours      /      days.      restrained  for  his  rebellion,      torment  has  made  a  crown  of  raven  curls  hang  limp,      lifeless.      beads  of  perspiration  drip  from  cranium  cast  low,      cascade  into  a  sweat  carved  puddle  with  a  maddening  plop.      stray  strands  prick  at  molten  gold  pools  and  surrounding  timbres  scold  him  for  sinning.

howls  of  panic  stir  the  pack.      attention  shifts  from  his  affliction  to  a  sheering  titian  gleam,      illuminating  the  vault  in  a  swift  series  of  heated  flashes.      he  is  cold  like  the  moontide,      like  a  timeless  winter  taking  shape  within  him,      and  each  flare  warms  skin  chilled  by  encroaching  expiration.      rope  turned  to  kindling,      flames  have  caused  his  bindings  to  char  and  smoulder.      and  the  drüskelle  have  averted  their  gaze,      distrait  by  distant  shouts  now  in  close  proximity.      a  snap  of  his  wrists,      hands  are  drawn  apart  to  summon  cutting  shadow.      he  calls  forth  the  shade,      a  thin  line  sharpened  by  pitched  whetstone,      and  flings  forth  fabricated  blade,      severing  heads  from  shoulders.      mouths  agape  but  inaudible,      there  is  a  moment  where  bodies  remain  suspended,      a  brief  pause  post  the  killing  blow  where  physiques  must  come  to  their  demise.

headless  corpses  crumple  whilst  barred  metal  is  blown  through.      there  are  three  of  them      —      two  of  them  he  may  recall  on  better  days,      where  his  mind  hasn’t  settled  in  the  dusk  of  his  synapse.      the  last  is  fjerdan      —      there  is  no  mistaking  the  ashen  blonde  tresses,      the  glacial  ice  of  her  eyes.      these  are  traits  he’s  leered  upon  for  all  his  captive  years.      and  he  scowls,      brows  knitting  inward,      blood  seeping  from  sinistral  nostril  as  his  vision  ebbs  toward  the  gloam.

One, two, three, four, five.. six? Through layers of masonry and plaster, above the cacophony of violence and combat erupting through the surrounding hallways, Sigyn senses the beating hearts of those awaiting them beyond the chamber's barrier. She shares aloud the count to her comrades as a knot tightens in her own chest with the realization that the three of them would be dangerously outnumbered past the threshold. But there was little time to waste in strategizing, speed and force would have to carry them just long enough until the others caught up; a point seemingly shared by those at her side as they forged ahead without word. 

The fortification of steel bars blow inward, and Sigyn backs off behind the two best suited for the anticipated onslaught of drüskelle, preparing herself for the frantic triage that would no doubt follow. However, it was in that very same stretch of time, the span of a held breath awaiting assault, she feels as the six heartbeats within reduce, abruptly, to just one. 

Sigyn steps forward, past where metal bars clang against the ground, skidding across stone into silence. Past the macabre perimeter of twitching, headless corpses, until she stands before the chair supporting the single crumpled form that still possess a pulse  ━━  though how the shadow summoner manages even that, she had no idea. Her senses reel from the damage his body endures, how razor thin the thread keeping him tethered to life was ( reminding her distantly of the night she'd repaired Kaz Brekker's own severed thread on the cobbled streets of the barrel. )

Like the near-invisible whorls of a fingerprint pressed into a pane of glass, she could see the influence of other healers' work and the extensive network of repairs that left no part of the man untouched. The question in her mind, 'what have they done to you?' becomes: 'what haven't they done to you?' and it reads on her face in the flash of seething anger, before her focus snaps her back to the task at hand. Answers were best left to be gathered beneath the safety of the ratway, should they succeed  ━━  should they survive.  

"We are here to help," she announces finally, meeting the molten gaze of eyes with the frosted determination in her own, wary words covering the instinctual hesitation to approach one who'd just felled five of Henrik's soldiers in the time it took for her to blink. "You are no longer Henrik's prisoner. But.. we will need our heads in place, and you will need me, to see that through."

Sigyn moves to close the distance between them, ignoring the scowl. Her palms drift upwards and reach to rest atop his shoulders, where the focal point of her power gathers, releasing throughout him in a surging flood  ━━  prioritizing the most traumatic of injuries, resorting vital function and drawing from herself to ensure he might have enough of a reserve to aid them in their escape. The work was imperfect, but so were the circumstances, and time to linger here still was running short.  

Come nightfall, Kaz's plan to infiltrate Henrik's estate would be set in motion; everyone had their roles assigned and detailed, what was necessary of them to accomplish if the other groups had any chance at success themselves. A precariously balanced house of cards, as most of the bastard's schemes seemed to be ━━ finely tuned and providing little room for error, a display of trust in each of those who called themselves crow. 

In what few hours remain of daylight, the ratways are a quiet bustle of activity and preparation. While Sigyn's role was a predictable one ( keep dregs alive and in fighting condition ), she hadn't expected to be part of what Kaz had called the 'main combat force'. And so she sits atop one of the tables strewn about the tunnels, her legs dangling over the end, passively alternating back and forth. Her bones were scattered on the tabletop at her side, and into them she looks, trying to derive any last minute warnings from the shapes they formed; as excited as she was to turn the tides on Henrik and his drüskelle, even she couldn't outright deny the anxiety that came with the task ahead. 

@igodgracious​

Sigyn has been curious about the differences between her abilities and those of a heartrender from the moment she learned what one was, what they were capable of. The part of her that holds white-knuckled onto the anger and hatred nurtured over the course her life wonders if she hadn't been meant for it herself, that nature had somehow made a mistake when she was given powers to mend instead of to destroy. There were times, countless over the years, that she would have given anything to be able to extended her powers into the chests of those who stood above her and squeeze until blood dribbled from their mouths and they dropped dead to the ground.

Which was why when Kaz revealed her role in the assault he was planning against Henrik and mentioned that Yana would be joining her in the group to storm the estate, Sigyn made it a special point to seek her out within of the ratway.

She finds the heartrender at one of the tables haphazardly strewn about one of the ratways primary arteries, illuminated by candle light and not particularly looking as if company were welcome. Deciding that wasn't necessarily her problem to be concerned with, Sigyn approaches, inviting herself to slink into the chair next to Yana, bright blue eyes peering upwards to the other’s, "did you hear yet? That we are going to be together at Henrik's, very exciting. I've heard stories about you, you know  ━━  quite the body count behind you. So, it sounds like this job will suit you well. Are you looking forward to it?"

Wine isn’t strong enough. It’s blood I want.

he goes to defend his honour, before scoffing and realising ‘ you’ve got a point there. but that’s only because i know you’d be more mad if i didn’t. ‘ he watches as she fiddles with the packet, before coming to a decision and taking some. should he take one? normally, he doesn’t need it, more than enough energy that ricochets him from the walls till he falls asleep, calmer now but more vibrant and with a bigger energy pool now that he uses his power regularly. do normal people feel like this constantly?

but she stands and he holds back a sigh, ready to watch the jurda and sigyn walk away from him, his presence apparently untolerable for her for more than a bite of a conversation. he’ll get up soon, take a breather, but her finger pokes into his forehead and his gaze snaps up, eyes wide with surprise.

cooling nerves, a tension at the back of his skull he wasn’t even aware of, softening and easing washed over him, and he cannot help the choked sigh of relief, before he rolls his head and cracks about seven different things in his neck. ‘ of course, of course of course. the jerky is more than yours, but you really didn’t have to do that. i was talking more of the fact that neither of us are gonna be able to sleep anyway for the rest of the night, things to do, you know. ‘

his head drops back gently onto the wall to look up at her, wry smile still on his face. ‘ thanks. you must really be in a giving mood to heal even lil old me. ‘

Jesper wasn't wrong on that point, and her acknowledgement of it emerges as an exasperated huff. For as desperate as she was for a moment of rest after surviving the night, with their numbers already threatened by the slat's fire and the violence that erupted into the streets afterwards, her normal reluctance to tend to every single dreg that dragged themselves to her for relief had to be put aside. They needed as many alive and whole as possible, for as bad as tonight had been, there was a collective knowing that it was all so very far from over.

The jurda settles into her system quickly, dashing across interwoven networks of nerves, bright and electric to the tips of her fingers, webbing across every inch of her skin ━━ he'd gotten a hold of a impressive batch, that much she was sure of. The blanket of exhaustion lifts entirely from her shoulders, replaced instead with a jittering vibrancy, a momentum born of thin air to go. do stuff. walk around. heal things. find people. maybe gather supplies and organize by size and color everything they had. anything at all, as long as she was moving around. 

She reaches first back into his lap for the jerky, which somehow manages to be softer than the bread had been as she bites into it. "Well, certainly not anymore. Here," she offers the packet and it's remaining blossoms back to him, "staying up all night sounds a lot less daunting once it kicks in."

Sigyn wondered how much kruge information about the locations of  the ratway's scattered entrances could command, should the wrong person learn of them. Between the numbers of stadwatch and drüskelle roaming the winding alleyways since the night the slat went up in flames, it was no surprise that crows would be tasked to perch about the barrel in observation, keen eyes marking and tracking those would would smoke them out from their hiding, so that they might scamper into the open streets to be picked off like rodents by Henrik's soldiers. 

While Sigyn had no complaints about the job itself, the company assigned with her was one she would have proffered exchanged. Misha ━━ even without her bones, something about the name lingers foul against her tongue, as if it didn't quite belong there. She was unable to put her finger on the reason, and the bones were little help, as the various other influences of chaos these days shaped their patterns instead. With the losses to their number, and the more immediate threat of Henrik hovering over their necks like an executioner's axe, for now at least Sigyn has decided to pause her judgement of the seafarer. 

Sigyn gestures to the captain, just beyond where they stand along the alley where merchants peddle their wares down it's length. Two drüskelle, disguised as stadwatch, speak with a woman across her table of spices and tableware for sale. They'd been there awhile, and now point as if in confirmation in the direction of the closest of the ratway's access points. "What you do think?" Sigyn asks, too far to have heard anything of their conversation.

Most days, Fides can’t look at her without thinking of the bones. He shudders to recall those leaden moments before they’d landed, divining a hole clear through him, by the look in her eyes. By the way they’d closed off to him the very same moment like the sealing of a door. Though used to closing doors, it’s jarring to land on the wrong side of this one, here, among the lot of them. What’s one more, is what Fides tries to tell himself. It’s what he still fails to hold comfort in as he looks at her now.

He’d never asked what the bones had told her that evening. The forsaken showman in him already knows.

Sigyn takes the blanket, and he laces his fingers together over his knees where he crouches, filthy painted face sporting an air of mild pleasure, however thankless her acceptance was. Chalks it up to progress, however slow.

Granted, the stabbing hypothesis is detailed far too vividly for his liking, by the grimace that pulls across his face. “Hm?” Stabbed? Is his single syllable balk. How unimaginative, he seems to suggest, as he poses another method, ripe food for thought: taking a loop of an invisible line ‘round his throat and dropping his head toward his shoulder. When the pantomime draws taught, he pulls a dreadful face.

“Free of charge,” Fides affirms. I live to entertain. Miraculously, he settles down into a more thoughtful repose in the following moments. The words he finds for her next, he takes great pains to thumb through his ledgers for. The grate against his throat on the way out, constrained by hesitance:

“You’re not hurt?” He’s not sure what he’d do if she were, that she couldn’t right better herself, but checks regardless. Going through the motions of camaraderie, even if the substance has yet to follow.

The ice in her eyes watch critically as Fides paints the image of his own hanging. Her head tilts to one side, and for a fleeting moment they glimmer with amusement. She'd never actually seen someone hang, but her healer's mind and it's familiarity with the body filled in the things that he couldn't portray with his hands and artistry; if the neck didn't outright snap, how the rope would instead crush into the trachea, interrupt the flow of blood to the brain. The lips would turn blue first, eyes snapped open wide, limbs twitching uselessly like a fish caught at the end of a hook.  

Maybe they did agree on something, after all. Hanging was a much more interesting end to one as expressive as Fides. Though, whatever fatal card he was dealt, Sigyn had the feeling he would manage to still go out with a flourish. For as much as she didn't trust the pantomimist, there was value in his consistency.  "I'd prefer to pay for the real thing, anyway. I'll save my kruge for that day."

Her legs fold beneath her now, settling back into the small space she'd carved for herself, wondering idly at the back of her head if his little show hadn't met it's goal, after all ━━ the air felt lighter, her own nerves disarmed. Nothing she would openly admit.

The first thing to hit Manu was the quiet. Unmoving. He hadn’t realized the spasm before Sigyn took it away, hand finally resting. Still. Somehow, he knew when she finished, when she made him whole again. The doubt resting in him before gone. There was no mistaking how her blessing worked, how the urge to scratch his skin out of his bones gave way to the soothing absence. Her blessing felt so completely opposed to his own, Manu fought the need to stare. To look and find and undo her lines until he could understand how it felt for her too. This ability to conquer, mend, create, rebuild. Sigyn was so alive, she could actually give a little bit of life back to him. Manu could never do that. Could never understand how it sat in her shoulders, filled her throat.

How does it feel?, he wanted to ask. Words almost leaving his mouth as he watched her, concentration molding her face, hands covering his own. But he bit them back, swallowed them dry. This was intimate. Belonged only to her. And Manu had no right to ask, to know. So he took a deep breath, smiled at her with the same ferocity he spoke when her head shook and she dealt with his gratitude as if it was a rather strange thing. “Well, you should know I mean it, anyway,” he chuckled, the otherwise unknown shyness making him uncomfortable. 

Until her answer came to him and that feeling was overwhelmed.

It broke something in him. This honesty that few offered in Ketterdam. This strength taught by survival that so many in the Barrel needed to have. With her words, Manu realized he had been innocent. A life as a smuggler had never offered him this kind of pain and rage. This was forged differently, molded him in many different ways. And the fact he never expected it to happen only testified to how gullible he had been. To think that he already knew enough. That could only belong to the Wanderer and to the True Sea. A past so distant, it felt unreal.

For here he was, filled with anger to the point of suffocation, face turned to Sigyn, her eyelids almost closed as she touched his shoulder. And here he was, realizing he had only started to understand this world when he brought that ship down. Sank it into oblivion. Only to finally see the lesson in his own cruelty today, when drüskelle had come and his mind couldn’t form any other word than drüsje, drüsje, drüsje, drüsje. He wanted to spit that out, get rid of that poison, turn that hate on them. But all he could do was relax against her, take aanother deep breath as he raised his tattooed hand to her hair, smoothing the blonde-white strands, so much like his own.

"We’re going to make them burn instead,” a promise said quietly, cheek pressed against the top of her head as his other hand sought hers in the small space between them. Burn. Like Fjerda did to their kind. As drüskelle planned to do with them. Only that could bring him peace again. “You have my word,” for whatever that was worth for her. These murderous promises and vengeance. Even though, in many ways, Fjerda had already won. Even though, tonight, with her warmth close to him, Manu wanted to believe they didn’t. Not when they still found a way out. Not when they held each other at last.

Touch was a luxury in the barrel. At least, the kind that wouldn't sting at impact was, welting the skin into bright red mounds to turn blue and green with the following morning  ━━  and that's if you were lucky, as it was just as likely to find a knife between your ribs should you take a wrong turn at the wrong time, a corpse gone cold and forgotten as the sun gleams over the horizon, from behind gabled rooftops and crumbling masonry. That variety of touch was in abundance in ketterdam, the supply overflowing. The rest, however, was a commodity; a thing of measurable value, weighed heavy in kruge and favors. 

Sigyn had seen it bought, sold, and gambled; had experienced first hand the vast market for it beneath her own contract with a detached acceptance  ━━  this was just how things were for those whose lives belonged to another, after all. The worst of it though, was when it was taken, a trial she remembers vividly. Weeks isolated at a time, the reason never mattered ( a job failed, tongue too sharp with unwanted commentary ), scampering about her little room with nothing but her thoughts and stretching hours of emptiness ahead of her. She recalled how desperation for any contact at all coiled tight around her throat; a brush of an elbow in passing, the press of a crowd navigating through the alleys. Anything, however cold or accidental, until it was her own nails digging into the sides of her arms that snapped her from the looping nightmare of seclusion. 

She knows well it's value, and now with her freedom purchased and held by no one but herself, it is given and sought with with careful, and measured hesitancy. Nothing for free, nothing without good reason, nothing outside of her explicit control. 

Manu was one of those good things, his presence one she'd come to seek, finding there in eyes as touched by Fjerdan ice as hers were a quiet understanding, a peace whose details needed no defining. Always she would remember the way he'd made the water dance and spiral above her off the graveyard's coast, how it glimmered against the moonless night sky as if the stars themselves had condensed into little droplets and sprinkled down playfully against her face. 

Yet still, when his hand came to smooth the frayed strands of her hair, tangled in braids and matted with ash, there was a moment of tension, melting in the very next breath as she felt ten-years old again, comforted by family. A sigh releases the remaining reservation, and she relaxes, eyes closing against the warmth of him. 

His promise curls her lips into a smile, the images a perfect lullaby  ━━    silver and black glowing bright as crackling flames consumes them, the twisting of their faces, heat-strangled screaming in their mother tongue. Her fingers would curl into his as they did now while they watched. The same smile. The same ferocity in his voice. It may never be enough to fix what was broken this night, and all that had been crushed and taken from them in their pasts, but it was certainly a good place to start.

She breathes out slowly, trying to make each exhale twice as long as her inhales. It’s an immediate, visceral relief to have Sigyn healing her, itching as it does. “Thought it might be a little problematic,” she admits about the wound, some of her customary cheer returning to her words, even if she’s still held up by the wall more than her own two legs. 

“I had a corecloth coat in my room. But everything was aflame by the time I got there, so I had to fight barehanded. Choked a drüskelle out, then stole his gun to deal with some of the others. That went well,” she snorts. “With the last one, my number was up, though. He got luckier than I was. Shot me in the stomach and in the arm, then I had to run for it.” Hobbling was more like it. She hadn’t been in much of a state for running, or for anything else except just surviving. 

“How’d it go for you? You make it out in one piece?” 

"I'm surprised you made it all the way, bleeding like that.  It was no short trip from the slat to here," her words tangle with the relief she felt that Valdis had survived at all; but then again Sigyn could only be so surprised, the woman had always had a way of beating the odds. This was far from the first time she'd come limping back from dismal odds, and if she were one to bet, she would put good kruge on more to follow. 

Sigyn listens to her recount the night, her hands busy with the final repairs, smoothing over layers of muscle and skin, willing the tissue there to settle without so much as a scar.  "They won't catch us by surprise again," she says, certain of the statement, hands drifting away from her stomach, their work finished. "There. You should still rest and take it easy, but you'll live to see their luck run dry next time."

She moves to press her own back against the wall before sliding downwards against it until seated at Valdis' side, her head tipping back to look up at her at the question. Sigyn still bore the scars of the drüskelle's pyre, she'd been just a child with little mastery over her powers then, it was all she could to do stay alive, let alone prevent a perpetual reminder of it from carving itself into her skin. And so while she didn't burn, didn't bleed this night as others had, the paralyzing fear that had gripped her when the slat caught fire was one that had left her insides hollow; an echo chamber for the reverberating memories come back to life and bursting through the doors of the only sanctuary she'd ever had.