A new chapter for All the little lost! Snippet below, full text at the link here and enjoy!
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Her name was Illyana. She was eighteen sidereal years old. Here in Acheron, there were no reliable external means of timekeeping. Beyond the occasional glimpses of Evenfall’s corpse-light there were no stars to see, making calculating astronomical movement tricky. The station had always used sidereal time, so they had kept it. That, at least, was something consistent in their very inconsistent home.
Her companions were Dmytro and Ihor. They were as old as she was. At eighteen, all members of the Pack had to participate in at least one hunt. Sometimes they were granted special dispensation to deploy earlier. It either marked you as a prodigy or someone less able to control their instincts. The training required for neophytes was severe – not as severe as what the first born had experienced at the hands of the Old Ones, but every hunter and huntress needed, above all, to be able to control themselves and heed orders when called for.
Kostiantyn was their instructor and mentor. He was firm, but understanding. He gave them more slack than others, but that was not weakness or infirmity in command. Illyana was grateful for that. He’d allowed them to come this far and indulged her need to bring the Old One down, even after she’d been injured.
Right now, she and her fellow neophytes were following their leader’s direction, moving silently through the cairn, conserving their suits’ power by running with cloaks disabled – and making a test of their stealthiness without it. So far, they had passed. Illyana knew her companions were spoiling for a fight. She could feel the pounding urges just like them, a drumbeat that started at her very core and spread to through her entire body, making it feel as if her blood were on fire and the only thing that could quench it was blood.
Kostiantyn was watching them and her most of all. She’d come the closest to the human prey. She’d fought it, wounded it, killed one of its own pack. She was the most likely to break ranks, and she was trying very hard to live up to the standards set for her and all neophytes. You can be more. Father’s words. Six hundred years later, they still held sway and always would. If the day ever came that they didn’t, then they would no longer be what they were.
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