✧・❉・✧

For Sasha Baranova, the Fjerdan cold had always represented freedom, dawn and happiness.

And she was certainly not feeling any of that while the druskelle charged behind her, arrows and bullets hitting the stone she was hiding behind.

The heavily pregnant woman gritted her teeth as a bullet grazed her shoulder, leaving the smell of burning flesh in its wake. The snow landscape, which had once promised safety to Sasha, now only shined wickedly with death firing at her.

But Sasha had never backed down. And she was certainly not going to give up without saving the life of her child first.

In a burst of colour, the Fjerdan landscape she loved so much turned into the battleground for her, the people who had once loved her, protected her, laughed with her turned into enemies, the doors which had always been open and inviting suddenly all shut in her face, but that was to be expected.

She was Grisha, and Grisha were the dreaded witches that stole their babies in the middle of the night.

Witchcraft she didn't know about, but she would certainly rain hell on them until her dying breath.

The ship is near, Sasha, you can do this.

Up ahead, a ship full of Grisha refugees stood, the captain of the ship gesturing wildly for her to quickly climb on. Taking a deep breath, she put a hand on her large belly and ran.

And her head was just disappearing over the deck of the ship when life turned slow. And Sasha felt too much at once before she stopped feeling at all, that one echoing sound of a bullet ringing and echoing into her ears until her brain memorised the symphony and continued to play it long after it had disappeared.

Dimly, she was aware of the ship's captain screaming wildly for Healers to come, a huddle of bodies surrounding her, the ship's captain, the only man she'd ever loved, cradling her head gently and begging her to stay awake for him, for their unborn child.

And Sasha wanted to tell him of a time which had their little child playing with them under Ravka's sun, their little cottage and the farms behind it, the beautiful child with his golden hair and her blue eyes, not electric like Sasha's but full of childlike innocence.

In a corner, a small redheaded Shu boy sat with a pouch of jurda, but they had a strange sheen to them. The Healers pressed a small amount into Sasha's mouth, just enough for her to sustain her child for a minute more.

And just as Sasha felt herself slipping, she heard the loud, singular wail of a baby, and her husband whispered the name, her name, and she finally let go, with the name of her baby on the last dregs of her consciousness, exactly the way her husband had spoken it.

A mellow whisper and a tear-heavy voice. "Valeriya."

✧・❉・✧