Ashkana, Lady of the Wastes, walks in two worlds.

There is the real one, where she heads an army ten thousand strong. She is clad in gleaming silver armor. She carries a greatsword on her back.

Her eyes are clear and hard. Her gait is steady. These impossibly brave men and women… Her Vermin, her love.

To have come this far and gained nothing. To have spilled so much blood. To have lost so many.

To press on despite it all. They are her strength.

She deludes herself with a conviction that it is bottomless. That she is unyielding. Long ago, she swore she would never display a glimmer of doubt, nor a sliver of weakness.

Stolen story; please report.

Ahead the path unfurls, shadows given substance, new lands twisting into wretched existence. We will walk forever.

And then there is the true one. The one inside her. The one she created. She wishes she was alone.

Hobbling. She is naked and emaciated, her flesh charred and flayed. She is blind—she has gouged out her own eyes. Yalda’blood weeps from scarred pits.

A storm of invisible knives surrounds her. Slashing, slitting, slicing, stabbing. “It never stops!”

Ashkana shrieks into the mired void. Formless desolation need not be witnessed—this stillborn world of hers.

With a skeletal hand, she clutches at her gutted belly to keep her entrails from spilling out. She waits for it to heal, worms of flesh, stitching back together. Her body is a wound.

So many, so many, so many. The fallen, the dead, the damned. They are weeping, praying, wailing, screaming.

Ashkana smiles. She is glad that she is blind. The relief is euphoric no matter how meager. Please. I’m so tired. Do not make me bear all these memories forever. Set me free.