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Delia Vyaseva had learned early on that fear was a very dangerous thing. She'd seen that very fear in her parents eyes when they sent her to bed after they found out what she was, whispering to each other in quiet voices as she pretended to be asleep about what they were going to do about the witch, the grisha that was sleeping in what was once their daughters bed. Thankfully, the answer to that was to buy her passage to a place that would shelter her from others not so...attached to the ideal of blood being thicker than hatred which would end with her head possibly mounted on some wall.

Fear was dangerous because humanity feared those who were different like herself, they feared what they couldn't control, couldn't understand and from that fear rage blossomed and took its place, demanding destruction, demanding those who were seemingly gifted by the saints were in fact cursed and wrong and should be snuffed out like dying embers on a burning pyre, never to be anything more than a withering spark in shrouding darkness as they were hunted and slaughtered for something they couldn't control or hope to change.

But Delia had wanted to be more than that, more than another witch, another grisha who'd join the masses of death that continued to mount with every passing day. She wanted her name, her legacy to be in the heart of the ivory and bloody pillars of history. She wanted to be more than a body, more than a human because she simply wasn't. She wanted to make saints and sinners alike bow at her feet, she wanted to made the rain destructive and call in salvation and for no one to be able to stop her unless they'd risk facing her terrible wrath...but the truth of the matter was Delia was always too soft-hearted to be anything other than a laughing stock.

She'd been born with weak limbs that hung from her lanky frame like bones, skin that bruised too easily and eyes that watered whenever she'd feel even the slightest bit of emotion...and she supposed that it was only some damning fate that made her so called 'tide-maker' abilities so pathetic. She could barely even made a puddle move, never mind control the tides, and it was only a matter of time before such things were noticed by others who were cruel and so obviously better than her in every way.

And it was then that Delia learned that fear wasn't the only dangerous thing, it was also loneliness.

Because it was then that she learned that girls like her, meek looking and unassuming and plain and nothing short of powerless were never to be more than a simple figure in someone else's story, nothing more than a background character that would always be in the shadows. Never speaking out or taking risks or being more than well, a simple face in an never-ending crowd of humanity with the coppery taste of her own mortality heavy on her tongue, songs and screams and shouts carved into the walls of her throat that no one had ever heard but that didn't mean that they weren't there and each mounting volume of horror itching and scratching and begging to be released.

And yet...Genya Safin looked at Delia like she was worth something to look at, and that was simply all it took for her to unravel at the seams, a simple, almost shy glance from a girl who's hair was kissed by fire and who's blue eyes of welcoming ice wrapped her in an embrace to hold her prisoner in a cage she'd never want to leave of her own violation...and wasn't it strange that that absolution, the secret devotion hidden by a tentative friendship that only grew with shared adoration...would become the cause of both of their ruination.

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"I AM THE SHAPE YOU MADE ME. FILTH TEACHES FILTH."

(The moodboard is done by the incredible and talented MessrsMoony1960, please go check them out because their stories are absolutely spectacular! Thankyou my beloved! <3)