Fire & Water
Valya stood on the cliffside, the ocean gentle down below. The most quiet day in the water for the next few years, or so the computers had predicted. There was no proper way to validate that, they had long since lost the ability to understand the neural nets' results. But standing here, she could believe them.
The ocean was too deep, too wide, for them to dare send any drones in. Scientific resources were sparse enough to focus on land, not the water so far away from the First City. Satellites helped, but could only provide so much information. What was down there, they did not know, could not predict.
And that was where she came in. The recent dose of superserum surging through her veins, an increased amount meant to lift her even higher. A muscle she felt the need to stretch, to use, so that she could make that power her own. Truly understand her own capabilities. Somehow, this felt right.
She closed her eyes, bringing her focus inwards, then outwards. There was no fire here, nothing much for her to really feel. A few animals hidden in nests nearby, some birds. She could sense all of their presence by the blood running within them, the heat that defined their life force.
Deeper. Fish, scattered here and there. Cold, but still with life within. She sensed a school here and there as she brought her focus deeper, further away from her, feeling the cold around her. Slowly she began to feel it, the presence below. Something was there, something drawing her in.
Deeper and deeper she went, reaching out farther than she ever would have imagined she could do. She began to feel the itch of volcanic activity, far beneath her feet. And on her way there, that is where she found it. Cold blood, but blood nonetheless. Some creature. Large. She needed more.
Her focus spread. And that is when she truly felt it. Them. So many, so massive. Consuming entire schools of fish with a single breath, dwarving even the Ursa Majors that she had fought oh so many times. She felt them. And they felt her. She smiled. The true kings of Ymir weren't on the surface, walking within their reach. Their true domain was far away from the sun's grasp.
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