The sad broken cobblestone streets of the sad, broken and set-upon town she now inhabited passed beneath her sneaker-clad feet. Every sense was on wide alert and everybody was now a possible enemy combatant. She was a kid, she'd never asked for this, but already she was adapting and learning to thrive, a testament to the rare creature she was.
Her ash blonde hair glistened beneath the rising sun as it began to peak in the sky, streaming down to the streets between the old architecture of the buildings. The small village was like a snapshot out of a history book. It had modern commodities plastered into the ancient architecture, but one look at the place and you knew that it was as if time had been forgotten.
It was as she was cutting through the village market square that something amiss set off the danger sense that she seemed to have been blessed with. Her eyes darted around, and set upon a curvy female diagonal across the corner. Her first look revealed nothing amiss, but a second look revealed the silhouette of a tattered pair of wings in shadow on the ground.
Bile rose in her throat as she pulled the hood over her hair and attempted to keep her pace down, so as not to give her terror away. It was to no avail. The black-haired woman began making a languidly paced beeline directly for her, so Ladonna took off at a run and began navigating through the alleyways between buildings, making a beeline for the cliffs.
Ladonna had made it to the edge of the grassy area that covered the cliffs before talon-like fingernails dug into her shoulder and her hood was pulled down. Roughly turned around to face the creature that had been following her, she came face to face with a member of the Holy Host, fallen to disgrace and embracing dark oblivion and Lucifer's cause.
"I'm innocent." Her voice was pleading as she was shoved onto her stomach on the ground, the woman's heels digging into the soft grass as she pulled down the neckline of her shirt and pushed her hair out of the way.
"There is no such thing as innocence." The creature known simply as Hannah slit her own wrist using a fingernail and held the wound over the back of Ladonna's neck. The moment that blood of a divine or demonic nature touched her skin, the mark was revealed. An intricate mass of runes and dead languages, it signified her as the Key.
"I've never hurt anybody. I didn't want any of this, I didn't ask for it. I just want to be left alone and live my life. I'm a baby, a child." Her eyes were wide and frenzied like a trapped animal's.
Hannah rolled her eyes as her luscious blood red lips curved on her unblemished pale alabaster face, the rich raven locks accentuating her ice blue eyes. "You are a tool, child. A Key to allow my master his free reign again. Tributes will be paid to your demise and all manner of terrible creature will worship your name. Ladonna, the one who freed us. Ladonna, the one who allowed the Dark to walk amongst us again." Her voice slithered over Ladonna's skin like a snake through the grass of Eden itself. "And my name will be lauded as the one who ushered in the Age of Death."
Closing her eyes, Ladonna focused all of her willpower into not screaming as Hannah turned her over onto her back and transformed her forearm into what appeared to be the hooked talons of a bird of prey. Flexing the clawed appendage before bringing it down in a swoop aimed straight for Ladonna's heart, she truly believed this to be the end.
Holding her hands out in front of her, she didn't whimper or scream...but she did feel a heat, a warm, soft power building inside of her. At the moment where Hannah would have eviscerated her and ripped out her heart, ending everything there and now, a powerful light exploded from her hands. In it's wake, nothing was left of Hannah but ash that covered the grass and coated Ladonna. Coming up to her knees, hands shaking in front of her, the young girl let loose a barrage of tears, her shoulders and small body shaking from the force of them.
After five minutes allotted to allow herself a deluge of tears, Ladonna pulled herself together and brushed the ash off of herself. Taking a moment to ensure that everything in her backpack was undamaged she once again pulled the hood over herself, obscuring identifiable traits and traversed her way back to town.
Managing to hitch a ride with a merchant on his donkey cart, Ladonna stayed quiet and withdrawn. All she had to do was make it to the next town over and from there she would be able to access some form of more pleasurable and efficient transportation.
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