Why does this feel so familiar and yet strange at the same time? This loneliness that is sweeping across her and elevating the beat of her heart. Anxiety is swimming through her mind as her reptilian eyes peer nervously across the kingdom. For the last few years she has relied on him - only him - and has pressed herself into his warm body when the nights were cool. He wants her to venture out, however, and to create a life for herself because she has always been too afraid to. Eight provided her a sanctuary, a home, that she can always feel secure in so why does she still feel so alone and afraid?
A trembling breath is drawn in as she takes a slow, hesitant step forward. The sunlight dapples across her body giving a sheen to her onyx scales when she moves. Voices in the distance reach her but she doesn't find the source. From afar Shiya observes the crowds that have gathered inside the Valley's formidable walls of mountains. There are families here. There is love and devotion and power. It tries to draw her into its midst but she is too meek and too quiet. She only knows what Eight has twisted into her mind: compassion, laughter, companionship. Shiya lacks the passion of a warrior that both her parents possessed (she barely knew her mother and never met father). Vulgaris, too, was strong and he fueled her, but even his name has dissipated with the use of Pazuzu and Eight's magic.
Her mind is nearly a blank slate. She hasn't lived enough to figure herself out or change. What hurt and pain had weighed her down once has evaporated, leaving her knowing only the present: Eight and the Valley and Meadow.
Was having her mind cleared a curse or a blessing?
Unaware of what has transpired in the deep corridors of her thoughts has left Shiya to know joy in a far greater emphasis than most others. Despite the anxiety that is swallowing her now as an outsider, her heart knows only happiness.
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