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◢◢ n a m e : xxxkatya volkov
◢◢ a l i a s: xxkatxxcommander volkovxxthe executioner
◢◢ a g e : xxxtwenty-six
◢◢ g r i s h a : xxxheartrender
◢◢ r o l e : xxxsecond commander of the ravkan army
◢◢ b i r t h p l a c e : xxxravka
◢◢ a l l e g i a n c e : xxxravka
◢◢ r a c e : xxxsulixxxnomadic tribe in northwestern ravka
◢◢ s e x u a l i t y : xxxbisexual
◢◢ t h o u g h txxc o l o u r : xxx#B8A876
◢◢ d i a l o g u exxc o l o u r : xxx#7686B8
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━now i'm the only sour cherry on your fruit stand, right?
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S t a r l i g h t xxx emanated from two pale irises set in Suli-brown skin, its colour hovering between blue and green, shifting into grey and gold. She was flame and snow, her eyes like veins of murky frost against the tan canvas of her face, flecked with beads of darker brown where the sun had danced along in the warmer months. The freckles decorated every inch from the bridge of her upturned nose to the slope of her cheeks, a blemish that offered the illusion of innocence.
S u n k i s s e d xxx hair spilled in waves down her back, hovering at the edge of her twenty-second vertebrae. Wayward strands slipped free from the vicious braids she constructed to tame her mane and caressed the fullness of her cheeks. She shoved them aside with her forearm and shoulder, her hands remaining wrapped around her sword and shield. She had threatened to sever her locks countless times before but sentimentality stilled her hand. Some days she would remember her mother's soft hands and the bristle brush she smoothed through her daughter's thick hair.
S c a r l e t xxx and ebony were her companions, the colours bleeding through every kefta, tunic and stocking she wore. No other hue had enveloped her skin since the Order of the Living and the Dead claimed her as their own. Dresses were barely an echo; they were garments woven for girls softer than she.
S t e e l xxx was as much a part of her as bone and flesh. It accompanied her every night and dawn, its hiss like the murmurs of a lover. Rather than jewels, she wore leather - leather gloves, belts, garters, pants and boots. Each harboured a weapon. She hung them from her body like ornamentations, a device for death never too far from her reach.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━i'm the violence in the pouring rain, i'm a hurricane
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R u t h l e s s xxx and unforgiving, the Second Commander of the Ravkan Army is the malevolent shadow to the light and charm of First General Kir Egorov, or so it may seem. The name Katya is rarely regarded as a single entity, its syllables typically accompanied by a sleuth of titles and the hard consonant of her last name. Her peers call her the Executioner and only partly in jest, though she encompasses the name and all its meanings. She is the sword wielded in General Egorov's hand, the executioner of his will and ingenious strategy and quite literally, the executioner of Ravka's enemies.
M o r a l xxx righteousness and a deep respect of authority form the foundations of her actions. Her love for Ravka is perhaps unexpected for one torn from her family by its authorities and was indeed a ruse in those earlier years. However, the final battle in the Shadow Fold and the blazing light of the Sun Summoner that vanquished its beasts when Katya was certain of her death changed her irrevocably. She has dedicated not only her life to protecting Ravka and the king chosen by the Sun Summoner, but her entire body and soul. She knows no love beyond her loyalty to her liege and army, and no mother beyond Ravka.
R a z o r xxx tongued and temperamental, Katya's strengths do not lie in diplomacy or even arguably, simple human decency. Katya does not concern herself with social niceties, preferring brute honesty to polite amicability. No appears to be her favourite word and there is likely only one man she would not use it on, and even that has its limits. She has an absolute disregard for small pleasantries and any attempt at such will be met with disdain.
F o r xxx all her faults - including impulsive, mistrustful, domineering, crass, violent, and borderline demonic tendencies - there is no more loyal soldier or friend. Her protection ends only with her death, and Katya is much too stubborn to die.
▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━this night ain't for the faint of heart
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Cats xxx Heights xxx Kir Egorov xxx Eating xxx Her own company xxx Somewhat friendly sparring xxx Large, open spaces xxx Climbing trees xxx Hills xxx Ravka xxx Circuses and other creative performers xxx Flowers xxx Structure and organisation xxx Chefs xxx Sankta Alina the Sun Summoner xxx Zoya Nazyalensky xxx Being unencumbered by clothing
◢◢ d i s l i k e s
Criminals and individuals with no respect for the sanctity of Ravka and its laws xxx Laziness xxx Being made to teach xxx Books xxx Idealists xxx Maps xxx People xxx Kids xxx Old people xxx People who talk too much xxx Slow walkers xxx Napping on duty xxx Impractical clothing xxx Romantics
▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━this night ain't for the faint of heart
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C o m b a t xxx is Katya's greatest strength. A gifted heartrender and trained combatant of the Ravkan army, Katya possesses skill in close combat and weapons expertise.
G y m n a s t i c s xxx was Katya's first love, specifically, aerial gymnastics. Her love of heights and gift of balance yields suspended combat in her favour. The Ravkan Army's absence of tightropes has meant she's had to improvise with trees and rooftops, the latter which her foot once fell through. She blamed the architect.
S u r v i v a l xxx is her strength. Katya is resourceful and has a high tolerance for pain and discomfort. As a part of her training, she was deprived of food, shelter, directions and human company - although the last seemed more like a gift than a thing to be overcome - and has developed the skills to survive in the wild.
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P e o p l e xxx do not like Katya and Katya does not like them. Their mutual dislike ensures most allow her a wide birth, a fact that she is most contented with. Katya appears to either enjoy making people uncomfortable with her icy, prodding stare, or fails to realise the unease she evokes. Her arrival is the best way to end a conversation.
T e a c h i n g xxx or even simply communicating is not a strength of Katya's. Being a Ravkan commander, she oversees the training of many soldiers, although overseeing might be too passive of a word to describe her aggressive beating of her students. Katya is of the belief most people can have skill yelled into them.
D i s t a n c e xxx combat is her greatest weakness as heartrenders cannot affect a body it cannot see. She has a dislike for archery and archers, preferring close combat to stealth and guerrilla tactics that take her by surprise.
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B e i n g xxx responsible for the deaths of her comrades is a crippling thought she does everything she can to avoid. She feels a duty to those fighting beside her and would do everything in her power to ensure their protection. Alas, soldiers must always be sacrificed and it happened frequently prior to the dissolution of the Unsea, a fact which she is still learning to accept.
L e a v i n g xxx the Ravkan Army is one of her greatest fears. She plans to serve King Nikolai and his successors till her dying breath, and the thought of old age or her own failure failure forcing her to leave terrifies her. She would sooner die in battle with her honour than to die quietly without.
D a r k n e s s xxx frightens her, though she will never admit it. She remembers the lure of the Darkling and how she almost succumbed to it, just as she remembers the pools of writhing darkness that permeated the Shadow Fold, and the screams of her friends as they were bled of their souls. She keeps a lamp burning by her bedside through the night.
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H e a r t r e n d e r s xxx are notoriously arrogant and cruel, a fact which Katya can attest to. Although there are fragments of kindness in some, when the fundamental definition of a heartrender's gift is the ability to harm the human body, one cannot expect its vessel to be much different.
K a t y a xxx was raised by Grisha soldiers and has spent the vast majority of her life as one herself. She has had sixteen years to harness her gift. Although more powerful heartrenders certainly exist and some are those lower than her in rank, Katya is amongst the best.
▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━this night ain't for the faint of heart
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K a t y a xxx was born in the raging cacophony of circus music, the undercurrents of laughter nearly drowning her first cry. Yet her mother's voice rose over them, its honeyed melody soothing the brightness of the midmorning light bleeding through the tent. "Pure," her mother had whispered. "Pure and perfect," and from those words came her name. Katya. Purest one.
F e a r xxx knew no place in Katya's life. She recalled Uncle Igor's big bellied laughter, how it would rise from his broad chest at the sight of her waddling towards him. He'd snatch his flaming torches from her reach, tossing them in the air and swallowing its breath as she stared and laughed. Heights were to her as flames were to Igor. Somewhere between the tightrope and a plummet to death was incomparable joy. She imagined wings stretching from her back and freedom as the tendrils of wind that snaked around her. Her brother used to say how appropriate her nickname was. Kat's a cat, he'd tell everyone. Half as agile and ten times less charming. Roman had irritated her to no end. She missed him every day.
T h e xxx concerns of Ravka and the Unsea had seemed far away. After all, Katya lived where children dreams of visiting, and so dreamed of nowhere else. News of the army's desperation as more and more of its soldiers were lost to the beasts writhing in the Shadow Fold was a passing murmur from customers that reached their travelling troupe. Katya gave them little thought. In hindsight, she wished she had. She wished she had thought of the implications the growing Unsea would present, had spared some concern for the villages swallowed whole by its reach.
M o r e xxx than anything, she wished she had treasured the pure and unbreakable joy those early years had granted her. She wished she had allowed Roman to have the last of their mother's raspberry tarts. She wished she had one more evening swaddled on her father's lap, his voice low as he read to her. She wished for one more day. Just one more.
I t xxx had been her fault. Though she was proud to serve Ravka, she could not help but wonder what would have happened if she had not insisted on attending the Midsummer Solstice in the capital. She had never been to Os Alta, and perhaps pity or exasperation had finally made her parents concede.
H e r xxx mother had screamed. She had gotten on her knees and begged. "She's barely ten. Please. She's just a child." So are they all, the soldier holding Katya had said. So were we, once. Roman had stayed home with the flu. Katya would never be more grateful. The compulsory screenings tested children for Grisha gifts and who did were drafted into the army. The Suli were rarely tested, their travels too cumbersome to track. They had not expected a patrol to be operating on Midsummer's Eve.
K a t y a xxx had bitten the soldier's hand when their carriage had stopped momentarily. She'd been crammed in with dozens of wailing children, but she'd remained silent and still. She took the opportunity when the door slid open, leaping into the dark as the soldier doubled over in pain. She barely made it to the trees before she was yanked back, kicking and screaming all the way to the Palace.
L i t t l e xxx was known about the testing process for young Grisha, but it was less a screening than it was a forced awakening. Though the gifts were known to emerge naturally, the Ravkan army were short on time and soldiers. The fastest way to trigger a Grisha's powers was to make them feel as if their lives were in danger.
K a t y a xxx learned fear that day and the many days that followed. The Order of the Living and the Dead were as terrifying as their name implied and her teachers, heartrenders, were amongst the most. She convinced herself it was a game. The most difficult challenge the circus had to offer. She often wondered if heartrenders were simply born with a moral defect or if they were made that way. In the first days, she'd sat with the others. The squallers, healers, the durasts, but she soon learned the divides were embedded, as much a part of the Grisha Order as the pillars were to the ceiling.
S h e xxx learned not to want. She ate, she trained. She grew, she trained. Time passed and the yearning in her heart for another life, her old life, dissipated into the fleeting moments she had when she was not too tired to care, which wasn't very often. She fought in the Shadow Fold the day it fell.
K i n g xxx Nikolai put an end to the drafting of Grisha. He was even known to allow those who had been taken as children to leave service. Katya felt she had forgotten that girl. Had lost some part of herself between the blood that flowed hot and thick from the belly of the first man she'd killed. He had been a fellow Grisha. A servant of the Darkling obeying his orders, as she should have been, as she had, until the last moments. She'd almost been too late, and dreamed often of their roles reversed.
K a t y a xxx could not reconcile the girl she had been with the girl she was. Rage and violence seemed to permeate every atom of her being, and she thought perhaps this was what she'd always been supposed to be. She could not fathom the thought of meeting her family again and witnessing their disappointment, assuming they were still alive, and so she didn't.