What's the Plan, Stan?

Rakia stood a little apart from the rest, her gaze focused on the treacherous terrain before them. Her skin prickled with unease, not at Talyssa's words, but rather the biting cold that gnawed at her bones. The dew-speckled expanse of deceptive scrubland stretched before her like a blanket of obsidian glass, seeming to swallow the sharp midday light within its icy grasp.

Talyssa's words floated back to her over the icy silence, a serpentine whisper on the wind. Rakia watched as Talyssa pointed out the spots where the ground was more likely to give away beneath them, her voice a stark contrast against the eerie stillness of the scrubland. Oh? But of course, there was a greater point to this. A lesson of strategy and planning. Rakia was intimately familiar with such. Her entire life had revolved around planning. Not always her own plan- but a plan that applied to her. Even her being here now, gaining insight of the new world. It was all part of the plan.

"Rakia Perreau"