Post by Nina Rivers on Apr 29, 2021 23:55:39 GMT -5
NINA RIVERS
Hark now, hear the sailors cry,
Smell the sea, and feel the sky,
Smell the sea, and feel the sky,
It hadn't been her intention to find them.
In fact, she hadn't even considered the possibility until a few hours ago. In her mind, her old friends, who she'd miraculously managed to run into, years after she left Menagerie behind, had vanished without a trace after that bloody night. It was still a little hard to believe, even after all that time.
She'd known, in passing, that Alina had somehow formed a group of refugees from Kerch into a little tribe in the Ground District, of course. Alina hadn't kept that a secret from the news, after all.
And she'd always known her to be a little aggressive in her problem-solving, ever since she was a guard on the island.
But she was hardly able to connect the dots when she heard the raid on the Kerch Kozaks had ended in so much bloodshed and destruction. Alina's power on full display hadn't shocked her; that was the least surprising thing, honestly. It was the willingness to kill so many people all at once. People Nina knew- Granado, among them. That had been a sobering thing to hear.
She didn't blame Alina entirely, though.
The Council was a shitshow.
She recognized that the moment the orders were given to have Haven students run in to arrest a terrorist threat.
What were they thinking?
While some of her peers and classmates rushed off to play hero, she tried to talk them out of it. And when that failed, she marched down to the headmaster's office to put in her official statement of withdrawal.
Her license was the reason she left Menagerie.
The reason she attended Shade Academy. The reason she transferred to Haven. It was a means to an end, and one she was willing to sacrifice time and effort towards attaining. With a proper Huntsman's License, she would be able to garner connections. Funding. Military grants and teams of Huntsman escorts on her expeditions.
It would have made her dreams much easier. Much more achievable.
But in the end, she had accepted that like most things, she would have to do everything herself. It was much more dangerous, and a hell of a lot riskier than she'd prefer, especially since she hadn't really learned much about fighting at Haven. Hell, she remembered the night Sinopia had to save her from Grimm not once, but twice in the same night. Alina too. She wasn't cut out for combat. And between Haven and Shade, it was obvious that the Academies weren't useful in that regard.
Nothing lost.
She'd probably burned the hell out of some bridges, though- she doubted the Council would be willing to spare Huntsmen for her work, and they would certainly not offer her any funding to invest in her research.
Which just made them a bunch of short-sighted, arrogant, fools. She wouldn't feel sorry for them when someone with less to lose than Alina retaliated against their lofty station personally. She only felt bad for the students who let themselves believe they were doing the right thing, listening to a bunch of fat cat humans who only viewed them as numbers on a spreadsheet.
She knelt down to the forest floor.
Disturbed leaves.
Unnatural, especially for this season and this deep into the wilderness. A few meters ahead, a footprint in the mud.
Fresh; maybe a few hours old.
Broken branches and tarnished moss on the trees built a path through the forest for her, which she cautiously followed, determined to find them.
At the same time, as she passed, she took care to cover her tracks, and theirs.
The last thing she wanted was for anyone to follow her. Not that she thought that was a strong possibility- it took too much manpower and resources to go hunting for ghosts in Grimm territory. The few that were strong and insane enough to attempt it had other responsibilities, different priorities.
And they were Council wardogs anyways- tight leash. Barked when they were ordered to, but not until.
But she didn't have that problem.
After dropping out of the Academy, she had made a bit of a name for herself in some scientific circles. Nothing big, but she was able to publish her findings on the Dust Ward Killer, along with a few hypotheses about the method of parasitic infection that had allowed for that event to take place.
Her current goal was to track down a rare Grimm that had been spotted a few times in some of the outlying villages. Her investigation had led her to the sprawling, supposedly unoccupied, swathe of woods where she believed it may have built a lair for itself.
It was a dangerous solo venture, but she didn't have a choice.
Luckily, though, that search had brought her to the trail she was now pursuing.
A scrap of white cloth. Small, hardly worth notice, if it hadn't been so far out in the middle of nowhere. Could be a wandering Huntsman, maybe. Or a bandit tribe. But she remembered the Kozaks' distinctive cloaks. It was worth a shot at least.
And a shot, she received.
"Don't move! We've got you outnumbered, and backup's on the-" It was pure luck that she stopped moving when she heard movement a few meters ahead- otherwise, she'd have been taking a warning shot to the face, which definitely would have stung.
"I surrender! Are you guys with the Kozaks? I'm a friend. Here, I'm setting my weapon down."
She took the time to slowly lowered her trident to the ground in front of her, nudging it forward with her feet as she rose back up to standing, her hands in the air.
Surprisingly, there was a grin forming on her face, despite the stressful and tense circumstances surrounding her very willing cooperation with the patrol group. At least until she recognized, almost immediately, that grinning in this situation was likely to be perceived as a threat. Her face sunk back into an alert neutrality, though she was still pretty pleased with herself for finding them. And frankly, she wasn't that frightened anyways.
She'd faced down Geists and other nasty surprises before. A few guns trained on her wasn't going to spook her too easily.
But now she was pretty sure she'd be able to check up on Sinopia and Alina. And that was well worth the risks.
Let your soul and spirit fly,
Into the mystic.
Into the mystic.
1064 words | 1064 total words
♥