The White Wolves

Assulting

Maya

They had forged me into a blade, now they were ready to sharpen the edge.

It hadn't taken them long, not once they had found the modus operandi for my skin. They would show me at least 200 designs, all the while recording my too revealing heart rate, then when they found me a design that didn't elicit the heightened response from my traitorous cardiac muscle they would begin the process of plunging a needle repeatedly through my skin and embedding the ink forever in my soul. The permanency of each of these movements was painful beyond the superficial sensation of the needles, each slight pigment change pushed me further away from Maya Nelson.

There were four in total, including the memorial pair of wings that resided in ink on my left shoulder and in reality on my back, and the swirling wind that was shaped around my right shoulder and seemed to so far have produced no physical repercussions. Fortunately, due to the new method, the third etching was not anywhere nearly as painful as the second and the position on my body (if it even was mine anymore) was much more surreptitious and easy to conceal, as if someone on an invisible board had pointed out that I may be a little conspicuous with ink covering my body at 16, the left ankle.

A single mass of black, an overly simplified curve that's head met its tail in a sharpened point, filled in solid black. They hadn't wanted to experiment with colour and if I am entirely honest I'm not sure what would have happened if they did, even now. A single drop of water.

It could have been rain or a tear.      

And as for the fourth... a neat little snowflake opposite the water.

Bucky

It took a lot to get the princess to even remotely respond to me, even when I talked about her inventions or the arm she had made me there was just nothing in return. It was worse than talking to a brick wall, with a brick wall you never expected an answer or imagined what they would have said before... She is lost so entirely that she does not even leave her room to head to the lab or to see her brother and while before there seemed some emotion, grief even, now there is nothing.

The effect of this has extended beyond even her mind and those who love her, the whole palace seems to grieve with her. Servants, so adoring of their princess that I am sure they would serve her without payment if it was asked of them, walk through the corridors in silence and hand her food to me instead of taking it to her. They cannot bear to look her in the eyes for fear that they will find them as they truly are, glazed and empty.

There is no laughter in the castle and yet  I sometimes am able to just catch a hint of the country beyond, the gleeful yell of children as they play, their enjoyment just as obvious to me in a tongue I can neither speak nor understand. They do not know what we have done.

They were not there in the hospital. They did not abandon a child and a friend to a fate they can not even predict. They did not have to say goodbye with the knowledge of what humanity is capable of doing to the vulnerable when they thirst for power.

I can see that my own pain is mirrored and magnified in the princess'  greyed eyes, and I know the same question plagues her sleepless nights: what could we have done differently?

Maya

I have been alone for days, and in some ways it is a comforting solitude (even if when I am alone I still fear my memories), I would miss the doctors if it wasn't for the requirements for us spending time together. There was a strange kinship I felt with them, they were here because the people they love most in the world were threatened while I was here to save a group of children I had been locked in a room with for a month, when I was with them was the only time I felt truly safe. Everything about my captivity made me restless, the cell was so cramped that it gave me splitting headaches to even look at the walls so that I spend a good proportion of my time either with my eyes closed or staring aimlessly at my own feet. Pacing is probably my other main passtime, I just feel like I have so much more energy than I used to, I mean I am genuinely walking several miles a day without even leaving my cell and it is maddening, the portions of my food have been increasing too and yet I always find myself devouring every last calorie.