[center][h1][color=D3D3D3][b]Dominika Kovač Pignatelli[/b][/color][/h1][/center]
[hr] 

Dominika awoke at Veradis Castle. The nightmare faded slowly behind the heavy walls. Left behind was a melancholy feeling, a bitter tasting drink laced with anxiety.

Kasper, the Scion of Shadows, had saved her. He had cut down several of her assailants to rescue her. His templar Zacharie had spirited her away in the seconds of silence that followed. She was grateful. She wasn't a fighter like some of the others. She had grown up on the docks. She could stand up for herself. She knew how to shout. She knew how to curse. She knew how throw a punch.  But she didn't like hurting people. She hadn't killed anyone. Not yet. Instead, she had maimed. Remembering she was filled with nausea. The sound of bones crumbling, pulverizing between  layers of unforgiving metal. The screaming that followed, maddened curses and weeping eyes full of endless pain. The scene of horror she had created played again and again in her mind like an infernal violin string being plucked asunder.

Guilt tugged at her heart. She had been forced to act. She had no choice but to defend herself. She had been attacked. She had been in grave danger. All the same, she felt mostly ashamed. She had been violent. She had been cruel. She had not intended to be. She had not wanted to be. She had maimed. She had maimed unthinkingly and unhesitatingly. She had sundered a limb with her powers. Was that really what Incepta wanted? 

She wasn't so sure. 

Maybe it was right that she had lost her powers. She had earned the pain she felt, the sickening lurch that overwhelmed her as her powers were torn from her. The weakness that had sent her reeling to the floor. Whatever the affliction was, it had merely lessened. It surprised her. How empty she felt. It was a dull, throbbing pain, that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere at once. It had to have been much worse for the other Scions, enmeshed in their powers as they were, bound together by long years. She could remember months earlier, before she had become a Scion, it was not so long ago. To feel so different now, so foreign from that version startled her. And frightened her.

Surrounded by the finery of the castle, Dom did not feel terribly cheered. Fine places held no great comfort for her. She felt apart, out of place, and even more disconnected from the other Scions. Her shoulder hurt, but it was no great wound, merely an ugly bruise that would fade soon enough. In happier times she would have marveled at some of the metal work adoring the castle, but the her thoughts remained scattered.

She had felt as if she was still dreaming, watching someone else from afar as a medical team attended to her. Her joys were easy to number. She was alive. Ionna was alright. She held no doubts about her templar. She carried no volcanic anger like the the Scion of Fire. Ionna was brave. She had acted well. She had fought honorably. And she had been heroic. She had tried to rescue Nadine. That was all that mattered. To strike another for acting so selfishly seemed cruel and Dom could not approve.

"Your Holiness, you have a moderate bruise on your shoulder, I have applied an ace bandage that should speed up your recovery," the medic treating her said, returning her from the storm that crashed over her thoughts. She managed a quick, sincere thank you, before requesting a moment alone.

She saw herself as a brittle metal. Full of cracks following a heavy blow against a stronger object. She had wanted to run. She had wanted to do anything but fight. Wiping away unbidden tears, Dom took a slow, deep breath. She knew little of battle magic. She was inexperienced as a Scion. Her hands were shaped by the tools she had used to build ships. Her heart belonged to the ocean, to the distant horizon. And her mind was full of ideas. She knew metal. She knew her tools. 

Metal could be melted down. Metal could be reforged. Metal could be tempered. She had to be strong. She had to become stronger. Tears could wait. They had to.

[hr]

Dressed in clean clothes. Dom followed a servant through the winding corridors of the castle. Afraid of getting lost, she had asked for help in finding the Snuggery. A hot shower had offered only short relief, but at least the blood had washed off, it hadn't helped much that it wasn't hers. She did not bother with makeup, she'd had to reach back, to the shipbuilder she had once been. She thought only of the great project, the work they were engaged in for the Goddess. Steps had to taken. Dom would have preferred to remain in the quarters she had been provided. She longed to forget, to let images from the ambush fade. She wanted to retreat to her workshop, to bury herself in one of her personal projects. However, her feelings were not important. Her fears didn't matter. She had a duty. And she had a purpose.

Such lofty ambitions did not change the redness visible around her eyes. She couldn't help it. To cry in private seemed an acceptable response. Dom hoped that Nadine was alright. She liked the Marchioness, she had been so kind. It was impossible not to worry. To feel sorrow for the newly injured and dead. She did not need to wonder long what her predecessors would have done. She knew they would have fought. Mikhail Vadim and Maxwell Alderman, they were soldiers, commanders, and masters of war. It would have been nice to speak to them, they would have known what to do, she thought, trailing the servant as she politely recited the storied history of the castle.

In desperation she almost asked the kindly servant for advice, before the woman stopped abruptly and gestured towards a set of double doors, wrought from oak in a manner that spoke to Dom of the delicate ouch of a master woodworker. With a low curtsy, the servant vanished in a swish of her ornate dress, and Dom found herself standing alone.

Raising her hand, Dom knocked gently, before stepping uncertainly inside of the room as the doors opened for her, catching the tail end of Justinian's comment as she .

[color=D3D3D3]"Perhaps...we can be four? I would welcome some company on this night,"[/color] Dom said with a smile only somewhat contrived. The other Scions might have answers. They shared her grim experiences in the ballroom. Even the poor child princess.