Sacrificial Purpose
Several months ago:

The stench of burning human flesh carried far, as did spilt blood. Where once a community stood, gates barred to the hostile world around it, as villagers stood guard, bartered, farmed, fashioned tools and took care of young and livestock, alike, now laid a place of desolation. Timber crackled, blackening against the consuming flames. Stone broken. former pets either dead or running free.

No cries of protest now. No lamentations from captives, for there were none left alive to take. From slaughtering brutality, to the haunting silence of fateful aftermath, transformation could be a painful thing to behold.

Dismounting from infernal steed, booted feet stepped reeds underfoot, treading them into the surrounding dust and soil. From a pouch wound tightly to waist, finger wrapped around a wooden figurine, removing it to hold aloft, out in front of its owner. Arm held out straight, moving in a slow, deliberate arc, until the wooden tool in hand began to communicate its familiar vibrating hum.

There... Two bodies. One laying upon the other; protective pose frozen in death.

Rolling one cadaver away from the other with a nudging push of foot, Cassandra lowered to one knee, spreading the fingers of free hand to sense with open palm for what was suspected within the still-warm corpse. Something moved beneath the stretched skin of swollen abdomen and the bloodied warrior halted in her search. A moment of... Something firing in her mind, like a child coming across her favourite doll cast in the gutter.

"MURDERER...!"

It did not take the cry to alert her to approaching danger. Other sounds had already done that for her. But upon its announcement, the blonde whirled, dropping her figurine from hands to make for an impulsive grab of axe from waist. The man's choice of scythe forcing a roll into the dust, seeing opponent's blade bite into where she had been crouching, only seconds before. But the device was large and its wielder untrained. Several more swipes of it coming close to spilling her intestines on the ground, before metal CLANGED in contact, forcing them to tussle in a momentary stalemate. The scythe brought with it the advantage of size and was twisted in wrists; he did not have to bring it all the way, just to get in a lethal stab.

"Why?" He accused in growl. "We would have given shelter... Food! You're as foreign to this place as I..."

One heel of boot stamped painfully down on his foot, but there was no shout of pain: Any distraction, no small, was enough to make another grab for what would save her life. Protruding from his ribs was now buried the exoskeletal fang of a predator most knew better than to try and hunt. For Cassandra, its value had not been in meat, but for what the removal of the trophy would give her.

The venom's paralytic effects were immediate. The beasts were renowned for taking prey alive, dragging the helpless back into their burrows. Here, it enabled her to watch as her would-be killer collapsed to the ground, no longer able to raise even the slightest token of resistance.

"Because someone else gave me something better," she answered in disdainful reply. "Not just a way to survive... Not even just purpose. Something you'd understand: A chance at revenge."

With that, throat was slit, guaranteeing none would live to survive this refuge. Only then did a sense of peace descend over Cassandra. Peace and vindication. Dwell long enough in a realm such as this and even the most innocent, the purest of souls, would succumb to... Temptations? Perhaps. But without realising it, one's own aura would shift, fluctuate, adapt. Suffuse with something other. The environment was harsh for a reason.

And in murder came beauty.

Closing eyes in an almost meditative expression, Cassandra relaxed from braced posture, returning to the side of pregnant corpse. A mother unable to give birth. The infant too young to survive in such contaminated surroundings. With the retrieval of wooden figurine, though, life could still blossom. With a forceful plunging of the sharpened base into bloated abdomen, penetrating womb, killing a life-to-be, one could almost describe it as a mercy kill.

A kill with purpose.

Stepping back from the murderously sacrificial act, Cassandra watched as the likeness carved into wood literally began to drain life-giving crimson from the body of dead mother and unborn child, soaking itself in scarlet essence. A thin haze of red starting to colour the air closest around it, until one could no longer see the result. Only when the mist cleared could the reasons behind it be perceived by mortal eyes.

"Daughter... You've done so well."

Far from hallowed reverence, the blonde expressed an impish smile in response. This was her saviour. The flame-haired teacher who had given salvation when none seemed possible. The one who had given her strength when all else had failed.

"Come," spoke Atia in greeting, "let mother give you a kiss in thanks."

Now:

In the man-made sewers of Chicago, that same statuette was transferred thoughtfully from hand into its designated holder upon a makeshift shrine decorated with candles. It had not worked in some time... Even in the other world, Atia's communications had come to an abrupt halt. No ritual succeeded in its summons and no symbols struck a bargain.

Cassandra had no awareness of Atia's fall, at the united hand of Slayer and fellow Bride's subterfuge. She could not have known the dimensional game of chess afoot, at Elfleda's temporary fall and retaking from Atia's usurping of her position as Corruptress.

But, like all great battles, it had consequences. Most agents of darkness had their own little projects. Cassandra was one of Atia's own, being groomed for a higher purpose. Even now, veering between thoughts of being forsaken and something unknown having interrupted their communions, the blonde still functioned as a legacy. One who had taken matters into her own hands to arrive where she was now.

Over by one corner, a telephone directory laid open, a couple of newspaper articles torn out and placed by its pages. Contact details circled in ink. There was work to be done and, staring into the eyes of that wooden likeness, Cassandra aimed to finish it as resolutely as she had put an end to that erstwhile safe commune of human lives and labour.

Where before she had enforced Atia's will upon villages, towns and makeshift kingdoms, now there was a harvest to be collected in Chicago, Illinois.

And with what she had stolen, even the law of man would fail to stop her.

[OOC: Written by E, with thanks to Stargazer for deciding the words of a previous character.]