Such life! Such beauty! It seemed that the hopelessness of the world had suddenly disappeared and no matter what happened, everything would be alright. Such emotions stirred that she had not felt in years. Clarity seemed to spring forth in her mind, even though the sting in her eyes. She opened them again, and once again blasted her optic nerves with the glorious sky.

As she repeatedly burned her eyes, addicted to the loss of desperation, her tattered ears started picking up on a sound that had previously been static. The laugh. Still beautiful, still from a voice more skilled than hers would ever be. But as reality stabilized she could tell there was something different about the laugh. Instead of returning her eyes to her beautiful sky, she angled her head towards the laugh.

Amidst the ruins she had loved so much was a golden figure with black framing her. The features were all a blur until she saw a flash of white gleam out from the middle of the face. Trying too hard to focus, she did not react when the figure leapt at her and slammed her head into the ground. Over and over again, flashes of lightning and fire in her eyes erupting in almost the same pattern as the last stars she saw. She shrieked, shrill and stuttered each time her skull hit the ground, ears flying around her occasionally getting twisted in a painful angle and once one was caught between her and the ground, crunching with a bruising certainty.

As she pleaded without words for an end to the torture, she felt a seemingly familiar feeling. There was a face against hers, lips pressed against her open, screaming mouth. Her nonexistent reflexes tried to shut her mouth, but she was too late. Something clamped into her tongue – no, it clamped through. Her torturer pulled away and laughed again as her mouth was filled with spurts of blood, her tongue hurting so much she wanted to remove it. She tried to scream, but instead of the normal sound of her voice, it was now mottled with varying tones.
“My sacrificial lamb, it is now time for you to serve your purpose, for your purpose is to die for my wants.” The sensual voice was there again, deep with life and ebbing with death as each word twisted to the next. If not for the pain, she could have fallen into it again.

The pain! Her ears had been wrenched upon, and as one arm was raised in hopes of saving it, it was caught. Whether teeth, claws or a knife was tearing through skin and muscle, she did not know. First on her outer arm it was torn from wrist to elbow, then her arm was pulled and rolled away from her body, nearly causing the joint to lock, and the same was done to her inner arm, from elbow to wrist. She sobbed, tear ducts overflowing with salt and blood, but her mouth even more full. Trying to breath, she choked on it and hacked, blood spewing down her face.

“Look.” The voice commanded, no longer beautiful but forceful, like the voice of death, like the voice of Jade Dawn fating her to nothingness. “Look” Fearfully, she opened her eyes slightly, expectantly towards the voice. “LOOK. The last you will see is the name of who you die for.” She could not turn her eyes away from the blur of a face, but her own forearm was forced into her view. Beneath the streams of blood were dark, deep gashes:

ESTELLA

She shrieked her hollow cry, and her arm was shoved into her face and the other taken and treated the same. Estella. This must be the cursed name of this creature.

As Estella moved her way down her body, etching her name upon her sternum, on her legs, on her back, shredding the robes as she went, Neoma lay there, motionless aside from the shudders and twitches as Estella flayed nerves.

At least she was given the opportunity to die at one of the only places she remembered. She had loved this place. It was precious to her.
Precious. That was the meaning of the name someone had called her once -- Yakira. She had loved this person.

Yakira. She would not die a traveler, as the name Erditine had suggested.

It was if she was not really there, as if she was not in control of anything. Through ringing ears, she heard Estella say what seemed like static to her. She opened her eyes to gaze up at her tormentor, her killer. A paw descended upon her neck, and she felt each individual claw sink into her throat. Harder the pressed, making her gasp and inhale blood, but unable to fully cough. It was not the lack of air that was making her existence seem to disappear or the serpents of pain and dizziness wrap around her head. Blood was soaking through everything. All of her fur was damp and pinked by it, the ground was warm. Her lifeforce was drowning the ground.
Through one slanted eye, she saw blood begin to spurt up at Estella. Something pink obscured the glow of her teeth – was she licking the blood off her face? Her own arm was forced in front of her face, the name obscured through the clots and streams.
“This is the name that will carry you to death.”
She forced her eyes closed and choked more as the grasp on her neck sharpened, but let go. Uncontrollably her eyes filled and she flung herself forward to drain the blood from her mouth. Raising her blurred eyes, she was wordless and frozen.

Estella had raised her arms and let forth a deafening screech, baring her fangs, claws out. Two identical creatures, shining as if with an inner light, one blindingly white, one brazen. Each was longer than either rabbit, and from them billowed what seemed to be massive wings, if she could focus long enough. Between the rabbit and the ethereal creatures there seemed to be a battle of sharp movements she could not discern. The light was blinding her.
Pain ripped through her back, but it was unlike the torture of Estella. It seemed to be coming from her skeleton and radiating out. She writhed, feeling as if the earth was crumbling under her. All sounds seemed to echo with a metallic feel, and she felt her eyes roll into her head just before she saw a sea of some unknown, slithering force stream out from the forests around the Mills and engulf Estella.

But next Yakira knew, she was running. Her limbs moved with an involuntary force like a machine. Clotted blood was globbing off her every wound, and it seemed the more conscious she was, the harder it was to run, the more her vision faded, and the more every open wound on her body cried out. The Mills were nowhere in sight, the forest had completely changed and the sun was gone from the sky. But a mansion was slowly growing out of the haze, and she continued, mutilated arms raised, crying out with her mottled voice begging for wordless mercy.