Sanya is — young. She formed that way, falling into step next to Intie and then getting scooped up into their arms on that emotionally fraught grocery trip, small and wide-eyed and fragile and young. A “not-eight year old”, Artemy has said a few times, him and Gecko and Sweeney. Kisca’s always rolled its eyes (around and around and round and round and round in its porcelain skull) at the topic, because it doesn’t particularly care how old any of them are. They’re here, they exist — how long they’ve been existing is kind of irrelevant when they’re stuck in a time loop.
She’s never felt younger than she does now, though, watching the man in black armor and Desolate not-quite-Darkness advance on her. She’s crying; Dark, fat drops of ink roll slowly down her cheeks, almost viscous, and fall onto her hands where they’re clenched in the shirt of her sweater-dress.
Her heart is pounding; she can feel her heart beating in her chest, and the idea that this man is going to kill her when she’s only been alive — really alive — for perhaps a few hours is terrifying.
But Sanya was born of fear, created from it wholesale. Terror drumming a tattoo in her head is nothing new, nothing out of the ordinary. She closes her eyes, breathes, and listens to the humming snap of a bladed weapon igniting.