Epilogues - Nadzieja
For anyone who might be interested, here's a quick something I wrote regarding Nadzieja's state of mind after the game.
She doesn’t move an inch as she wakes up, through long practice. The rhythm of her breathing doesn’t even change.
In the streets, it’s one more edge, one more thing that can potentially stand between you and danger, if no one around you can figure out your change in consciousness.
Sometimes it’s not enough by itself, of course. But it isn’t a habit that her body or mind has quite relaxed away from, not even in ten years.
After all, no matter how much Wake might mean safety to her, there’s still a part that knows he also means danger as well.
At this range, he could do anything he likes to her, and there’s absolutely nothing, nothing at all she could do to change that fact.
Not that that’s the reason she’s awake now. Nor even a sudden fear about the children next door, something which has awoken her more times than she can count over the last nine years.
She killed someone today.
It hadn’t felt at all like she’d imagined it might.
She’s spent so long thinking about killing the members of the Council, dreaming of it, craving it on a deep and fundamental level as the only kind of retributive justice that she could envisage for their violation of the city, of her sister (of her), yet still so utterly scared to even raise a finger lest it be broken off that…
But she’d killed someone today.
Maybe someone even on the order of the Council.
And it’d been… easy. A simple rearrangement of energies and a woman had died.
Not that she’d been alone in taking her down, of course. But she’d never imagined that anyone of that stature could be killed that easily, even after everything else.
She wasn’t sure what she felt about that, wasn’t sure what she should feel about that, didn’t feel much of anything about that at all.
As she slipped out of bed, Wake stirred beside her, but slipped back under with a calming touch of her hand. She quietly padded over to the window, overlooking what had once been Funland.
She didn’t think that she regretted killing Velucide. She’d violated her sister, siphoning from her in some kind of scheme without so much as a by your leave. If she’d been left alive, she’d have doubtless just tried to do it again.
Worse, other people - Sethry’s name bobbing in her mind, unsolicited - might have thought she had a point, tried to help her in her next attempt. And…
Well, she was aware that Sethry wasn’t much of a father, especially when it came to his other daughter.
Not to mention the fact that she’d proven to have a talent for burrowing into people’s minds, worms-worms-worming her way into their will, bending it to her own. Wake had just been there, would have undoubtedly been her target if she’d known of his presence…
She’d like to think that it was just a desire for him to never experience a violation on that level, be helpless even in his own mind the way that she…
And that was definitely a factor. It was. She thought that she might even love him, and she’d certainly never wish that on him. Was almost grateful for the gut level anger she felt at anyone doing that to him.
But she also couldn’t deny the bone level terror at the thought of someone twisting him around so he’d be a threat to her.
There’d be absolutely nothing she could do.
And in the moment, removing that threat, removing all of those threats, had seemed like the only thing she could do.
But she’d actually killed someone. Just like that.
In the pale moonlight, Nadzieja looked out over her protectorate and wondered who or what, exactly, the tears falling down her face were for.
She doesn’t move an inch as she wakes up, through long practice. The rhythm of her breathing doesn’t even change.
In the streets, it’s one more edge, one more thing that can potentially stand between you and danger, if no one around you can figure out your change in consciousness.
Sometimes it’s not enough by itself, of course. But it isn’t a habit that her body or mind has quite relaxed away from, not even in ten years.
After all, no matter how much Wake might mean safety to her, there’s still a part that knows he also means danger as well.
At this range, he could do anything he likes to her, and there’s absolutely nothing, nothing at all she could do to change that fact.
Not that that’s the reason she’s awake now. Nor even a sudden fear about the children next door, something which has awoken her more times than she can count over the last nine years.
She killed someone today.
It hadn’t felt at all like she’d imagined it might.
She’s spent so long thinking about killing the members of the Council, dreaming of it, craving it on a deep and fundamental level as the only kind of retributive justice that she could envisage for their violation of the city, of her sister (of her), yet still so utterly scared to even raise a finger lest it be broken off that…
But she’d killed someone today.
Maybe someone even on the order of the Council.
And it’d been… easy. A simple rearrangement of energies and a woman had died.
Not that she’d been alone in taking her down, of course. But she’d never imagined that anyone of that stature could be killed that easily, even after everything else.
She wasn’t sure what she felt about that, wasn’t sure what she should feel about that, didn’t feel much of anything about that at all.
As she slipped out of bed, Wake stirred beside her, but slipped back under with a calming touch of her hand. She quietly padded over to the window, overlooking what had once been Funland.
She didn’t think that she regretted killing Velucide. She’d violated her sister, siphoning from her in some kind of scheme without so much as a by your leave. If she’d been left alive, she’d have doubtless just tried to do it again.
Worse, other people - Sethry’s name bobbing in her mind, unsolicited - might have thought she had a point, tried to help her in her next attempt. And…
Well, she was aware that Sethry wasn’t much of a father, especially when it came to his other daughter.
Not to mention the fact that she’d proven to have a talent for burrowing into people’s minds, worms-worms-worming her way into their will, bending it to her own. Wake had just been there, would have undoubtedly been her target if she’d known of his presence…
She’d like to think that it was just a desire for him to never experience a violation on that level, be helpless even in his own mind the way that she…
And that was definitely a factor. It was. She thought that she might even love him, and she’d certainly never wish that on him. Was almost grateful for the gut level anger she felt at anyone doing that to him.
But she also couldn’t deny the bone level terror at the thought of someone twisting him around so he’d be a threat to her.
There’d be absolutely nothing she could do.
And in the moment, removing that threat, removing all of those threats, had seemed like the only thing she could do.
But she’d actually killed someone. Just like that.
In the pale moonlight, Nadzieja looked out over her protectorate and wondered who or what, exactly, the tears falling down her face were for.