[P] moonflight

[Rhoswen]

Rhoswen ►

The story of her daughter's birth is an unexpected one; a fable of light infused with dark, an amalgamation which - even to the trained eye -was difficult to distinguish; who could determine where one shift of colour began and the other ceased? Some might say, however, that it was expected, had they witnessed the burgeoning lives of the bloodshot hurricane and her moonlit lover; perhaps they would have seen the germination of a spark cast into existence by the touch of his hand against her own as teens and thought to themselves in surety that the unlikely pair would see the tenuous mystery of passion before their sixth year. Rhoswen, herself, had never dared to acknowledge these whispers, these prophecies, until - after minutes, weeks, an eternity - later she found herself within a predicament she had never foreseen - or perhaps, furtively, she had? It mattered not, I suppose, for the consequence was the same: a child was to be brought forth from their confession, and there was nothing to be now said or done to change such a fact.  

The fear of motherhood had been a languid weed furrowed deep within the marrow of her bones, left to bloom in the airless dark, and like creeping poison ivy it had woven it's way skyward, climbing up from the circular tips of her ballet-born feet to the crown of that elegant face made of ruby-glass. Suddenly, then, her throat had been laid bare to its skulking, sinister vines that encircled her jugular tighter and tighter until it was all she could do but choke on the sand in her mouth and the horror in her lungs. She was not ready, she felt only a child still! How long had this girl of forest fires and cyclone longed for independence, for the proud stamp of adulthood? Only, once finally in her grasp, Rhoswen realised that it was not what she had dreamt of: it was long, haunted nights and longer tired days. It was the furrow in her brow, it was the ire on her tongue, it was everything she had seen in her father's eyes. Life, it seemed, had finally lifted its deceptively seductive veil. 

---

Had Rhoswen known of the invasion that had plagued her Capitol just mere days before this arduous journey home, she would never have set foot outside the borders of Denocte. Foolishly, the auburn mare had slipped away in the depth of night - hoping to avoid the escort who had been assigned to accompany her home. Rhos had not wanted company, her head had been to full of thought to spare meaningless words with a nosy envoy. A mistake she had soon come to regret. Moving as she did, with a limp in her step from her aching blood-stained hips through the Canyon at the close of the longest day she had ever known, Rhos still remained blissfully unaware of the impending doom that lurked in every bend, every dark corner. A single thought rang thunderously among the synapses of her mind like a the horn of a freight train, endless and unyielding: water. Her body was wrung dry: parched lips bruised the air with their brittle flesh, her throat a tunnel of torridity. The thirst which tormented her seemed to erase all other pain, all other fatigue. Rhoswen wondered if they would even make it to the Capitol. 

You see, she was not alone. 

Trailing weightlessly in the wake of an auburn shadow, the babe quivered. A child, the child. Premature, and exhausted from the sun, the filly uttered a soundless plea to the Mother she instinctively followed. Rhoswen had not been expecting her so soon; perhaps it was the stress, perhaps it was nothing at all, but upon a series of unfortunate events, at dawn, the red-haired woman had found herself struck by a pain so strong she had crumbled to her knees, mid-journey. Beneath a nameless tree in a nameless land, she had heaved and roiled and sweated her daughter into this world alone. At such point there was no turning back, she was too close to Solterra to turn back to Denocte, and so her only hope had been to make it to the border before nightfall. Exhausted, Rhos had barely studied the frail roseate girl with a ghost's blue-so-blue eyes; the shock was too immense, the instinct to push for their safety too strong. They could not linger out in this realm without protection, unaware that perhaps Solterra was more dangerous in unto itself. The thought of Raum barely crossed her mind - again, blissfully uninformed of his crime against Bexley Briar and the recent revelation of his identity.

It was dusk by the time they reached Elatus Canyon's final bend. The city was an hour's walk still, and Rhoswen was not sure her own legs would carry her that far, let alone the splinter-like limbs of her newborn. The weary mother paused beneath an overhang, watching the shadows grow longer with each passing moment - this was a new fear, one that encompassed not just herself but the angular little figure at her breast. Softly, driven by a small innate warmth within, Rhos blew a wash of hot air over her child's head, in reassurance that everything would be alright, if only, perhaps, to console herself.

@Seraphina sooo have an exhausted postnatal rhos and tinytot sabi!

[Seraphina]

☼ s e r a p h i n a ☼

try try your whole life to be righteous and to be good
wind up on your own floor, choking on blood

Seraphina stalks.

The capitol lies in ashes. Each street that she passes through still smokes; wherever she looks, she finds what remains of ancient buildings, now lost as dust to the wind, and burning bodies. She is sure that she is becoming ashes, too – they cling to her coat like droplets of water, and she has to blink them free of her lashes. For a moment, she was becoming something else, something softer.

Now she is carnivorous.

Blood clings to her lips, and she tastes flesh in her teeth whenever she bites down; she cannot sleep. The moment that she closes her eyes, nightmares come crashing in, Calligo’s last curse upon the living. She cannot get the blood out of her mouth, even when she sleeps, cannot rip the dead, cold eyes from her mind, cannot smell anything but ash and rotting flesh, cannot forget the broken, twisted bodies that pile up on the sides of the streets, the wreckage, the aftermath - like the dead soldiers on the battlefields of her youth, the images hunt her. Now, they come with the stinging reminder that all of those corpses are hers, sent to their graves by her.

She cannot be idle. Every vein in her body hums with need, with necessity – she leads the soldiers to clear out the Davke that remain in the city’s walls. She hunts them herself. She repays what blood they have stolen from her with their own; methodically, viciously, hungrily. It feels like motion, and she cannot let herself stagnate in the smoke.

She turns an alleyway, the charcoal of her coat blending with the clouds of ash that writhe and twist in the desert wind; a young stallion moves in front of her. Davke. She knows. She recognizes him from the assault. Her tongue drags along her lips, and the spear that has remained with her since the attack – a twist of cruel irony – bobs slowly in the air at her side. She will replace it with something more fitting, when she can afford it. Something more restrained - but she has no time for that now, and no resources to waste, and she is nothing restrained now.

And what has she become but something half-feral and man-eating, a physical embodiment of the ash and blood that hangs omnipresent over the capitol? The silver emerges from the smoke in silence, grasping the end of the spear in bloodstained lips; clutching the sharpened tip with her mind, she lunges forward, slipping it under the man’s throat like a makeshift noose, and jerks back with a suddenness and intensity that leaves him choking. He writhes against her skin, and she gives him no time to free himself of her stranglehold. Instead, she lets go of the tip, sending the sharp edge of the spear dancing across the tenderness of his throat. He gasps a wet gasp, eyes rolling back white, and tumbles to the ground in a heap of uncontrollably flailing limbs. She slips away from the body and back into the shadowy embrace of the smoke, with no thought to the dead man – only the hunt that still awaits her.

When she finally slinks out of the city walls and towards the Oasis, the sun has begun to set; darkness encroaches on the horizon. She does not want to leave, but she knows that she will be of no use to her people if she lets herself crumble completely, so she slips away, escaping into the unwelcoming, pale gold of the desert.

--

It is pure chance that brings her to the Elatus Canyon. Perhaps it is the memory of Bexley Briar, bird-bones crushed under rocks and stained bright red; a near-tragedy that seems so miniscule now. Perhaps it is the memory of Acton – the thought of him makes her lips curl. Perhaps it is nothing more than the desire to escape the ruination for a breath, to try and clear the smoke from her lungs.

In any case, she finds herself drawing along its edges in time to hear the familiar clatter of hooves against sandstone; she leans in hiding against the outer walls, fresh, adrenaline-fueled anticipation flooding into her frame. Seraphina does not know what she anticipates, but it is not the sun-kissed, strained frame of Rhoswen, accompanied by a newborn that she can only assume is the child that has been swelling within her for months. She watches them, for a moment.

And then, slowly, she draws forth from the shadows to stand in front of them, each movement still a predatory saunter.

The silver is a banshee.

Her white hair frames her skull in a serpentine mass, writhing and twisting in the night air – her eyes are sunken and bloodshot and dull, every inch of her haunted and venomous and knotting with tension. Slaughter trails behind her like a ghost; the scent of fire and death trails in the wind behind her like a harbinger, howling through the canyon.

She stares her down with red-streaked eyes, lips curling fractionally at the edges. “Rhoswen.” Her voice comes out as a dry rasp, and one silvered brow quirks. “I did not expect you would return.” Much less with the child at your side. Raum was gone. She expected that the red woman would be gone with him – the ruse of their presence had been discovered. Perhaps, Seraphina thought, she still thought Raum’s intentions were unknown. It did not matter; much as she loathed the idea of assisting a traitor, the journey from Denocte had clearly worn down Rhoswen and her the filly – she couldn’t be more than a day old. Why had she come so quickly, unaccompanied? Did she care nothing for her child? For herself? Seraphina knows that she cannot turn them away now, much as she wants to. “We go to the oasis, not the capitol. It is…unsafe.” She turns, then, tilting her head to gesture her off the path that she had set. She has no desire to tell Rhoswen why the capitol is unsafe. She has no desire to tell her anything at all.

For a long moment, she is silent, as though considering – but Seraphina tires of hesitation, and there are answers that she is owed.

“Did you know, Rhoswen?” Her tone is cold and impassive as iron; quiet fury lingers like flickering ashes beneath it, the predecessor of a slow-burning and barely-contained rage that threatens to possess her, against all her will. Of course she knew. How could she not? “And do not think of lying to me. I have had more than enough of that lately.” Seraphina looks back over her shoulder at the shade-touched woman and her child, ears flattening against her skull and eyes flashing with some mix of disappointment and anger, even betrayal - so different from the indifference that she has worn all too often. Seraphina is tired. Seraphina is so, so tired. She feels her throat prickle, and the apathy comes flowing in again, extinguishing the flames that threaten at the back of her chest like cold water; her stare becomes something statuesque and empty, dull-eyed as the dead. She wants to be furious. She wants to be fire, but she can’t; if not because it will never become her, because she needs control.

---

tag || @rhoswen
notes || sera has no chill rn I apologize

@

[Rhoswen]

Rhoswen ►

Perhaps it was the metallic, rancorous redolence of the birthblood, dried like a promise upon the curves of her thighs and hips, that obscured the scent of carnage upon the stifled breeze. Perhaps her awareness had been dulled by labor; her mind but a lowly lit mire of fatigue and distress. Who was to say just why a heavily pregnant woman had undertaken such a pilgrimage alone, if not to expect the trouble she now found herself submerged within. Whatever the answer, whatever the explanation, it did not change the dilemma presented to Rhoswen now. Should they push on, still, across the sinking darkness toward the citadel, or seek a meagre sanctuary within the echoes of Solis' canyon. The filly at her shoulder rested a velveteen muzzle on her skin, eyes the colour of eggshell electric hidden behind drooping lids. Rhoswen swallowed, she had never been ready for this.

Then, something changed. The air moved, parted, flinched. From who? Rhos stiffened into an asphyxiated suspension of fear and vigilance, her arched swanlike neck snaking lower to the ground as she shifted her body in front of the girl. Hormones raged like gunpowder in the oil slick of her blood and she knew, with a blinding and impulsive certainty, that nobody would touch the shaking infant at her flank. Not over her fucking dead body. And so they waited in the gloom with only the emerging incandescence of Calligo's moonlight to illuminate the path - for night fell quickly in the desert, blink too long and there it would be: predatory and wolfish.

A shift in the shadows, a glint of silver, a long rising stride to break the sun. Seraphina. 

Rhoswen breathed, her lungs grasping for the air it had been denied for minutes too long and the steel-wrought muscles wound throughout her entire frame eased, just an inch. It was a fleeting relief. For upon her unhurried appearance Solterra's sovereign carried too the apparent weight of a thousand narratives; it was etched on her skin, in her eyes, through the brilliant white of her hair and in a moment, the blood was drained from Rhoswen's skull. Dread filled her bones and oozed like cooling magma from her pores; she did not need the power of Sight to know an atrocity had besieged Solterra. Her child recoiled from the morbid statue before them, nickering faintly in fear, but Rhoswen did not flinch - she could not; she had no right. Her name sounded like a threat on the lips of their leader - a leader she barely knew in truth, but for the counsels and the meetings, and yet still, a leader that had morphed into something unrecognisable since the last time Rhos had seen her from afar. Rhoswen's mouth is dry as she listens to the words falling like bullets from Seraphina's mouth - the capitol was unsafe. An unusually compliant nod of her fine-china head, before turning to bump her silent foal in the direction of the queen. To say she trusted implicitly Sera would be an untruth, but the alternative of lingering out here alone was nothing short of a death sentence now.

Silently, they walked. The red woman's mind is a labyrinth of possibilities, of nefariousness and horror; what the fuck had Raum done? Guilt sang in her eyes like a siren's lullaby, luring her to a certain end, and there was no escape from the regret rising higher. She had grown complacent, her heart torn between two loves - one for a court, one for a man. 

“Did you know, Rhoswen?”

Storm-battered eyes flickered to Seraphina, watching her with a heavy gaze. The queen spoke of lies and Rhos still does not look away, her teeth biting down upon a weary tongue. Just what had happened here? Her heart beat to a drum that felt for Sera, she had not asked for this, she could never have expected such betrayal. "Yes." An ashen murmur rings at last to break her quiet, and oh - it is the tolling of a bell before the hangman reaches for the rope. Her final confession. There was nothing she could say to right these wrongs, nothing to undo the crimes that had been committed. For once, Rhoswen is hesitant.

"Following the abduction of Rostislav, I was told he was here to gather information; I did not think he would actively bring violence upon the city." Foolish words. It mattered not what she had thought. "I know you may not believe me, but I am sorry, Seraphina. Many times I considered knocking at Maxence's door, and then at yours, but this was a man who held my heart, and I hated him for it."

Rhoswen knew it then: her weakness was garish and brazen, her weakness walked at her side with an unsteady gait, her weakness waited in the shadows of Denocte. Oh, Raum, what have you done.

@Seraphina rhos is so flustered and tired and just GAH! it's a bit all over the place but i'm excited too ehe

[Seraphina]

☼ s e r a p h i n a ☼

try try your whole life to be righteous and to be good
wind up on your own floor, choking on blood

Yes.

With that admission, she looks away, although her ears twitch back to catch Rhoswen’s explanations. Seraphina does not even want to look at her, nor the child at her side. (She caught the horror on the filly’s features with a prickle of unease – how can she set her nation at ease if she is becoming the sort of creature that frightens children? No, she tells herself. It would be futile to try to put them at ease.) The child is Raum’s. She knows that, now, and, while she cannot blame her for her parentage, the sight of her sends a fresh flush of betrayal – and oceanic, rolling anger – running up her spine. Solterra was a court of snakes, and she was fool enough to think that she could grasp them in her hands. They had known that Raum was suspicious, but she had done nothing, and it had nearly cost her another life. She’s not sure if her fury is meant for Rhoswen, or even Avdotya; she clings desperately to the idea that one different decision could have changed the turmoil that had unfolded across the lands that were her responsibility, if only she had made it.

She quells her every instinct towards venom and listens, regardless.

Seraphina wonders if she can believe any of the words that come out of her mouth. She wonders what reason she has to believe her – any hospitality that the desert nation has offered Rhoswen seems to her to have been spat back in its face. I did not think- Familiar words and equally familiar sentiments. She looks back over her shoulder, then, expression unreadable in its storm. “…I see.” She has always thought of herself as someone contemplative, prepared, methodical – but she, too, did not think. She had seen Avdotya’s eyes. She knew her history. She knew of Raum, too, in whispers – Torstein had told her of some connection to Denocte. Now they both suffered the consequences of misplaced certainty.

Seraphina is tired. Seraphina is so very tired. She feels her muscles heave as they continue their slow trek towards the Oasis, her eyes returning to the horizon. Rhoswen’s next words make her stomach knot – apologies meant nothing for blood spilt, and love meant even less. When did the heart’s stirrings become an excuse for slaughter?

“I would suggest you save your apologies for Bexley Briar.” She knows those words will hurt Rhoswen – she knows, and perhaps that is why she says them. She can see the guilt engraved across the red woman’s features; she can taste it in the air like blood in water, and she twists the knife. She wonders what her new Reagent would think. Surely she knew, too, that the scars that marred her beautiful face and the hours she’d spent flickering like a candle between life and death were, at least in part, the fault of one girl’s foolish, fickle heart. “It was she that Raum and Acton sliced open and left to rot in a collapsed cavern, not I.” In her mind’s eye, she can still see the golden girl, battered and broken beneath the weight of stone, her blood-red face dappled with dusty, mocking sunlight. She remembers her dull blue eyes, and the gravelly rasp of her voice as she asked the silver to free her. Consequence. For her hesitation, she’s drunk her fill – as her eyes linger on the hazy, moon-silver line of the horizon, she wonders how Rhoswen is swallowing hers, though she does not cast a look back over her shoulder to find out.

She offers her little time to mull her words before continuing. “It seems your people are often troubled by their hearts. They send spies into my court, and they attempt to murder one of my citizens. Terrastella invites them to their festival, and their king hypnotizes their queen and then has the nerve to use his crows to attack one of their citizens and leave him for dead.” Your people. Seraphina wonders if she has heard these accusations before – she wonders if the woman following behind her, once accepted as suntouched as any other, was ever even Solterran. Denocte bred volatile, violent love; it remains wildly incomprehensible to the young queen. “Your brother oversteps his bounds, and I am not in a position for leniency.” She has a war at her borders and a war at her throat; in every dark corner of the sandstone walls of the capitol, snakes lie in wait to strike her down. To ignore the injury that Night had done her people was to appear weak – to confront it was to bring more violence down on the head of a nation that had suffered enough. She thought that her mentor’s death would free her. She thought that she would find her freedom in foreign nations, and then with the crown on her head, but she still lies in chains; the world around her spirals wild, utterly uncontrollable, and she finds herself blindsided wherever she looks, whatever she does. She looks at the red woman behind her and her child – innocent and exhausted, a helpless little thing – and thinks to herself that Rhoswen never probably intended them any ill will. If she had, she would not have come back like this. Perhaps her intentions were even good, to protect the Solterrans and the people that she regarded as family, but Seraphina had no time or patience or understanding for half-loyalties.

Good intentions weren’t always enough.

---

tag || @rhoswen
notes || sera still has -chill

@

[Rhoswen]

Rhoswen ►

Twenty-four hours ago, a lifetime ago, the candles of Denocte had crackled in her peripheral earshot - hymns and fireside tales humming gently just out of sight as she had rested with her brother in the cool spring eve. Twenty-four hours ago she had been entombed, still, within an ignorance she'd chosen to embrace in hope that the worst of her fears would shrivel, crack and disintegrate like burnt parchment. As they walk Rhoswen asked herself over and over again why? Ever since that first wretched day in that wretched ballroom of gold this unease had been present, lingering always in the back of her mind so as to hold her ever accountable for her passivity. Back then, under Maxence's astringent rule, Raum's very life might have been at stake had she revealed his surreptitious truth - and despite her anger, her bitterness, something rooted deep into the woodwork of her heart refused to sentence him to such a fate. After the Commander had met his own demise, whilst his emissary took up an unlikely dominion, the circumstances changed - but so had everything, by then. 

“I would suggest you save your apologies for Bexley Briar.”

Red, burning red blood ran cold. "Bex..." Rhos faltered in her already precarious step to shoot a look that was painted with shock at the warrior-queen, her lips parting in a silent prayer that fell on deaf ears and uncaring eyes. Solis, no, not Bexley. "Is she going to be okay?" Her avian limbs moved on only to keep pace with Seraphina, though her mind was quite suddenly numb with a cyclonic gale of emotion: fear, guilt, horror and finally rage. As the sovereign spoke of Acton and Raum and their violation against a girl she had called a friend, Rhoswen found her skin set alight with a sensation she had not felt in a long time: raw, virginal fury. How could he have done this? She had trusted Raum; Raum and those fucking blue eyes of deceit. She had forsaken her court for that Ghost, allowed him to dwell in their midst for longer she had originally agreed, and this is how he repaid her? More to the point, this is how she had repaid a nation that had - with all intents and purposes - welcomed her with open arms. Rhoswen was a hurricane, a vortex of emotion that careered and thundered in silent destruction. She had let this happen -- but on the bible of every God, she would never let it happen again. 

Seraphina did not quell her tongue, nor her cold impatience, and Rhoswen could only look out across the dull horizon as she listened - still bolstered by the emotion flooding the planes of her body. Your people. The phrase lived on into the night and hung like a noose around her throat, oh so inescapable, and this time it is by her own design. For the Solterran queen is not wrong: Denocte is chaos and violence and guile. Denocte is the wolf at her heels, slavering to ensnare her heart still in its caliginous jaws, and it seems she had not run fast enough. All her life it had haunted every waking moment and every hallowed dream: the abstract feeling that she did not belong in that den of gypsy and shadow, and she had bent the universe back to break free from Calligo's shackles and surge forth into the arms of Solis. But as she walked, her feet sinking and rising against endless, endless sand, Rhoswen knew a sure truth: you may relinquish your blood, but your blood will never relinquish you. She shook her head, confusion clouding her gaze and exhaustion weighing heavier than ever. She had always been so sure of her allegiance to Solis, until now - until Seraphina had lain the ugliness of her betrayal bare. Rhoswen would not summon the cheek to utter the words she had declared for so long - they are not my people - not tonight, not now. 

"I never imagined it would come to this, but my history with Denocte blinded me. You are right, and I have been a fool," the auburn girl murmurs, her voice cracked and dry, "no longer." She glanced at her queen, steadily now, "Surely Night have not attacked the city, too?" Confusion laces her words, recalling Sera's reluctance to guide them home. What possible reason would Reich have to besiege Solterra, truly? And why keep it from her?

@Seraphina crappy crappy ending i'm sorry but i ran out of time <3 

[Seraphina]

☼ s e r a p h i n a ☼

try try your whole life to be righteous and to be good
wind up on your own floor, choking on blood

She meets Rhoswen’s gaze steadily, and she finds no pleasure in the fear and uncertainly and guilt engraved across her features. If you knew it was wrong, why did you do it? She couldn’t have thought that this would end well, could she? They had intelligence. Be it by their will or his, Raum’s identity would have been revealed sooner or later, and they all would have had to suffer for it. Now…now, Seraphina doesn’t know what to do. She won’t turn Rhoswen away tonight, when she’s in such obvious need, but she isn’t sure if she can trust her to remain in Solterra. She doesn’t even know if Rhoswen will want to stay, accompanied by the child of a Crow. Even if she were to leave, how much could Seraphina be expected to forgive? She had sheltered a spy from another nation, and that spy had nearly killed one of her citizens; legally, she would likely be considered complicit, and Seraphina did not make exceptions to her laws. That, she thought, would probably mean leaving Rhoswen’s fate to Bexley, and she doesn’t know how the golden girl will react to any of this; the attack has changed her. Scars always do.

At the frantic quiver in her voice, Seraphina considers her words. After a moment’s contemplation, she makes no attempt to hide Bexley’s condition; rather, she speaks, with what is perhaps a hint of pride. “She is scarred, but she is recovering. It seems that she is stronger than they anticipated.” When throws her head back over her shoulder to regard Rhoswen, she catches the glimpse of something that has become utterly familiar to the silver over the past few weeks – raw, vehement, uncontrolled fury. Rhoswen is angry. Rhoswen is betrayed. Seraphina regards her, for a moment, before her eyes return to the horizon, finding the distant silhouette of the Oasis. Rhoswen is the sister of the Night King, and the beloved – presumably – of one of his Crows. She can only imagine that she is close to the others. If nothing else, her rage is productive, and it tells her more of her allegiance than apologies and explanations ever will.

She takes no pleasure in her next admittance, either; something about it stings, despite Rhoswen’s resolve. Perhaps it is just the familiarity of the circumstances – how many times has she told herself it will not happen again in the days since the attack? Those words are a cold comfort when you would rather it never have happened at all.

At her question, then, Seraphina takes a breath, and she summons her own resolve. “…you are not the only one who has been foolish.” A stark admission; her expression darkens, and she looks away, her lips curling into a tight line. All at once, her eyes seem to stare off, past the bushy tops of distant palm trees at which they are directed and towards some indistinct object on the horizon, or perhaps the sky. “It was not Denocte, no – it was Avdotya and her Davke. They razed most all of the capitol, leaving a trail of fire and death in their wake, and they had no mercy…not for children or elders, not for the sick…not for those who were not warriors. They wanted their revenge, and they took it out on anyone they could find, regardless of whether or not they were compliant in the attack against their people.” In spite of her ruthlessness, in spite of the blood that she knows splatters her hooves from her time as a soldier, the thought of all of the dead in the capitol makes her stomach turn – the meaningless, ugly brutality of it all repulses her. She is no saint. Half of the time, she wouldn’t even call herself “good;” her only motivation, after all, is making the most pragmatic choices for her people. That hasn’t changed. Her pragmatism and violence, she tells herself, is a product of necessity. Not anger, not hunger, not rage. There must be a difference. Every day, as she reckons with all of the dead and leads her patrols out on the streets to kill even more, she tells herself that there has to be a difference.

She swallows those thoughts down and tells herself to focus on the swaying palm leaves in the distance, on the steady clap of her hooves against the sand. “Bodies pile up in the streets, and what remains of the Day Court is still clearing the city of the Davke that still remain. The rest have disappeared back into the desert, and I…do not know what they intend for us now.” She doesn’t know. She doesn’t know, and she doesn’t have answers – she’s not even sure if there are answers.

---

tag || @rhoswen
notes || sorry for the wait on this <3

@

[Rhoswen]

Rhoswen ►

Had fatigue ever claimed her so, before? Every step forward was an endless ache, the silent undulating swell of her feverish angst rang on and on; for the weariness was not confined simply to her body, but also to her heart. The weight of it all felt quite suddenly at a point of both relief and climatic disaster: the lies, the responsibility, the fear; a trifecta of whips to flay her hide from the break of dawn till the fall of night. Her bones hummed to an ancient feuding tune that she had hoped, upon an itching whim, that she would never hear again. A song of her failure, the lyrics so sorely familiar; unworthy of Calligo, unworthy now too of Solis. Why then had she kept her silence? She could almost see the question written in bloodied ink across Seraphina's drawn features. In truth, Rhoswen had no answer. Time waited for man nor woman, and the perceived threat from Raum's presence began to fade; he had been expected to return without violence nor complication, but here she was now, hearing the news of her friend's suffering at the hands of the ghost himself. Her anger burned on, lit by gasoline and betrayal. She should have known better.

"The will of Bexley Briar is stronger than half of Denocte combined," Rhos murmured dryly, relieved at least to hear she would live - albeit scarred. She could not say she was looking forward to that conversation, if Bex would even entertain it in the first place. Would Rhoswen even be allowed to return to Solterra? Uncertainty clouded every thought, and as her tumultuous gaze fell back upon her valiant little child Rhos could not help but wonder what the future held for them both, now.

 “…you are not the only one who has been foolish.”

Dark eyes flashed back toward the tall silver queen, tempered by the furrow of her roseate brow. If Denocte had indeed besieged the Capitol, the blame could never be lain at Seraphina's feet: she had been nothing but diplomatic since her ascension, practically bloody celestial in comparison to the brash actions of Maxence, so what exactly was she speaking of? As they drew close to the oasis at last, Solis' sovereign poured nightmarish words into the long desert shadows. Rhoswen stared too at the horizon, unable to watch Seraphina's lips in fear that it may bring true the tale she was unleashing. Except, it was no tale: it was the barbaric nature of truth. The Davke! Once nothing more than a mother's threat at bedtime, the horde of Avdotya's savage blood had quite suddenly been brought to life in one fell swoop.

By the time Seraphina's last words were spent they had reached the oasis, and Rhoswen could barely feel her hooves for the shock and fatigue. A brief, numb silence reigned as the sanguine mare paused to nudge her shivering babe into the shelter of the palms and foliage so that at last the little one could rest, watching subduedly as her filly settled. "Senseless," she whispered, still studying her pale daughter as though she still could not believe her to be real, before turning and edging back slightly to face Seraphina. The stars glittered in mocking glee at the sand-soaked women; were where the Gods now? "Their actions are senseless... Avdotya must have known that those guilty of the crimes against her people had been slaughtered already, or are hiding like snakes in the shadows." Rhoswen shook her head, astounded still. "You are no fool," Rhos' expression was sombre, "not many could withstand such an attack; they had the element of surprise and still the city stands. They will never have that advantage again."

Her mind is a wheel of guilt, horror, anger - on and on; she had to help, had to do something. A thought came, but she was uncertain of how her sovereign would respond, especially with the knowledge of recent crime fresh still. Rhoswen held it, for now. Sighing, the auburn-haired girl leant down to quench her long-lived thirst from the cool still water before straightening once more into the night. She faced Sera now, studying her truly for the first time; a queen had never looked so weary. "Heavy is the head that wears the crown - I shouldn't think a phrase has ever been so relevant," Rhos mused quietly, casting an unusually soft glance. She wanted to say it was going to be okay, she wanted to offer any reassurance, but after everything that had happened, who knew if anything would ever be okay again.


@Seraphina

[Seraphina]

☼ s e r a p h i n a ☼

try try your whole life to be righteous and to be good
wind up on your own floor, choking on blood

They walk. Rarely, the silver queen spares a look over her shoulder at the exhausted mare and resilient child behind her; her mismatched eyes linger longer on the fragile little creature who isn’t really fragile at all. She wants to be angry at her, but, when she reaches inside of herself for some shred of resolve to use for a lighter, she finds nothing at all. Seraphina is drained, trembling, beaten down by an exhaust she didn’t know was possible. In spite of her stiff, quick steps, she is sure that she feels no stronger than Rhoswen, no less broken and betrayed.

She speaks of Bexley, though her voice is barely audible. “That it is,” Seraphina agrees, a hint of some strange pride lingering as an afterthought in her tone. Bexley Briar, after all, had no need to hide in the shadows like the Crows that had left her for dead. Bexley Briar hid from nothing at all – every struggle that came her way she faced head-on, with a ferocity and a flame that put all of Solis’s celestial fire to shame.

They reach the oasis as she recounts the attack.

Rhoswen speaks of the senselessness of the Davke, and Seraphina can offer little more than a soft, knowing, “You’re right.” Hungry dogs, however, don’t care who they sink their teeth into so long as they can get a meal. “But they wanted blood for blood, and they were not satisfied until they had their fill…regardless of who had to bleed to quench their thirst.” She thinks of the dead children, some barely older than the tiny, delicate creature at Rhoswen’s side; she thinks of them crushed to a pulp, barely recognizable, eyes bulbous and glassy. She finds it in her to look at Rhoswen, and she isn’t sure what to make of what she sees in her expression. Rhoswen isn’t wrong; if the Davke came for her people again, she would be prepared. “No, they will not.” But she was still a fool, if a fool that learned. If she could even keep her position in the wake of such unforgivable violence, Seraphina would make sure that this never happened again. Even after their assault, the Day Court still had superior numbers to the Davke, and now they were prepared and outraged – attacking again so quickly would likely be nothing short of suicidal.

“Heavy is the head that wears the crown – I shouldn’t think a phrase has ever been so relevant.”

“So they say.” She casts her eyes downward again because she can’t bear what she finds in Rhoswen’s, peering down at her reflection in the moon-struck water. “I don’t…know what I expected it to be like, to try and…change Solterra. I never expected it to be simple, but I...never anticipated feeling so utterly out of control.” Her voice is quiet and stark, and, for once, her eloquent tongue seems to stumble over itself as she grasp for the right words to say. She feels weak, then, and childish, and she suddenly remembers that she is barely a year into adulthood – she had felt so prepared, and she had been so, so wrong, and she hadn’t even been the one to pay for it.

“It isn’t safe for you in Solterra,” She says, suddenly, and looks out at the little girl sheltered among the palm leaves. A war is no place for a child. Didn’t she tell herself that she would protect her nation’s children, so that they might be sheltered like she had never been? You couldn’t save them. She finds it in her to look back at Rhoswen, then, expression unreadable. “Not now. We do not know what the Davke plan – they could return to raze the rest of us tomorrow.” The ugly, nauseating truth of the statement sinks in only after it is out of her mouth, and, for a moment, she is silent. “I’m not sure if you even wish to stay in the Day Court, and I cannot tell you with any certainty how you will be treated if you do…much less with the child at your side.” Much less considering who her father is, she means, but she does not say it. She wants to hope that her people could put aside their hatred for the Night Kingdom to care for a girl who may well be raised among them, but, with tensions burning like wildfires out of her control, she is no longer sure that is possible. “For now, it does not matter. You must return to Denocte; I cannot protect you or your daughter. You will be far safer with them.” And she loathes it. She loathes her failure, her weakness, her loss of control, her own insignificance and incompetence. She had one job. It was not simple, but it was not impossible, either. She had one job, and she hadn’t done it. (In the back of her mind, the screams still haunt her, a violent chorus that seems all but omnipresent.) She had one job, and she had failed in the most devastatingly brutal manner she could ever have imagined, and that failure lingers on her shoulders like some cackling wraith, whispering in her ears.

You couldn’t save them.

---

tag || @rhoswen
notes || <3

@

[Rhoswen]

Rhoswen ►

The desert's transition from hot to cold come the fall of night never failed to surprise Rhoswen. As a native of Denocte's mountainous terrain she felt herself still forever fascinated by the magic of this aureate gold ocean and the perennial power it wielded. How many stories had unfolded upon this ancient sand? How many lives taken and given by Solis' eye? What had this kingdom seen with that impassive gilded stare? How many more souls would fall beneath this endless sky, never to rise again? - perhaps the most pertinent question of all. The bloodsilver woman might have shivered, if not for the heat simmering still in her ribcage from the fear and the rage and the fight of it all. Seraphina speaks of blood and extinguishing thirst, and Rhoswen cannot stop the tide of disgust from flooding into her heart. Madness, Avdotya, madness. From behind tall Night walls Rhoswen had seen the consequence of war; she had seen her youngest brother crumble within from the decay that had set about his mind - vines of insanity left to thrive in the chasm opened by violence and death. She wondered how many Solterran children had died by Davke hands, how many had seen the unthinkable? Rhoswen could not help but glance back at her sleeping daughter, feeling an unfamiliar rush of concern for another living creature. What did her future hold - a Solterran? A Denoctian? Perhaps, neither.

"I don’t…know what I expected it to be like, to try and…change Solterra. I never expected it to be simple, but I...never anticipated feeling so utterly out of control.”

Her attention was hooked back to the desert Sovereign as she spoke once more, and she all but flinched at the silver's tone so marred by grit and uncertainty. Then, it felt quite suddenly as though Rhoswen had moved her gaze from one child to another, for Seraphina's age had never been laid so bare, and Rhos was reminded just how young the queen was. Younger than her, certainly. The memory of this fact only seemed to strengthen the already insufferable guilt strapped like barbed wire and brick over her dainty, porcelain shoulders - she had betrayed not only her court, her people, but a girl that had endured so much already. But guilt served no-one but itself. Guilt would not undo actions spent, nor heal the skin and trust broken by lies and deceit and brutality. "My father used to tell me that control was an illusion, and that we cannot truly change anything - only shape it. It is not how we we fall that matters, but how we get back up again." Her voice was soft, thoughtful; memories of Iscariot were always tender, always consoling. The truth was that Seraphina, - child-soldier, emissary, queen - had done more for Solterra over the course of her life than any citizen Rhoswen had ever met. 

The queen's next words caught Rhoswen off-guard, but her surprise lasted but a moment. Though the red-haired women had had no time to consider the near-future since bumping into Seraphina, her statements resonated. If it had been Rhoswen, alone and unencumbered by a newborn creature to nurse and raise, there would have been no question but to challenge Sera's decision - but, she was not. There was the girl, nameless still, lying only feet from the women with but milky dreams to consider. Would they ever be able to return to Solterra? Would she ever be forgiven - by the court, by herself? Such visceral questions were too much for her tired, tired mind, and she turned back to Seraphina with a fatigue that was written into every line of her ruby-glass face. "You are right," voice cracking, heart sinking, "I..." she is speechless, utterly broken by her mistakes and her foolish beating love for that godforsaken crow. Even if Day Court found it within themselves to forgive her, and the child, did Rhoswen feel it within herself that she deserved to return to Solis' kingdom? "I do not know what to think anymore," she sighed, shaking a weary head. "It's all such a mess."

@Seraphina <3

[Seraphina]

☼ s e r a p h i n a ☼

try try your whole life to be righteous and to be good
wind up on your own floor, choking on blood

She has told herself in the time that has passed since the attack that Avdotya has not won. Her kingdom is not truly in shambles. They will be fine, they will survive this, one lost battle did not mean the end of the war…but as she stands in front of Rhoswen, something inside of her breaking, she has never felt with such certainty that she has lost, and she has paid for it. She has survived, but so, so many are dead. She has survived, but, if she was beginning to fix Solterra, all of her plans have crumbled to dust. She has survived, but she feels sure that some part of her has been lost to the flames, and, even if she goes digging through the ashes, she isn’t sure that she will ever want it back again. She has failed her kingdom, her people, herself – and now she faces a woman who has betrayed her court, all but on her knees.

"My father used to tell me that control was an illusion, and that we cannot truly change anything - only shape it. It is not how we we fall that matters, but how we get back up again."

She looks up, then, her odd gaze slowly sweeping towards Rhoswen’s – she stares into those stormy, uncertain grey eyes as though she is looking for some sort of an answer, but, of course, there is nothing to be found there. They are both lost. “He sounds like a wise man,” Seraphina says, finally, softly, rolling the words around in her mind; standing up, eh? She hasn’t had much time to think about that, yet. Half of the time, it seems that she isn’t even sure that she’s survived the attack at all – half of the time she feels more like some passing ghost, helpless and condemned to wander the sands as they burn out of control. (They are still putting out fires. Everywhere, she smells smoke.) “I just…wish that I knew what getting up meant, right now.” And she doesn’t. Seraphina has always felt certain; she has never had room for doubt, one way or another. Now…she told herself that she would never hesitate again during the heat of the attack, but it feels that all she has done since the attack is hesitate, hesitate, hesitate. She has always known her purpose, her place, her path. Now, wherever she looks, she seems to find a tangle of thorns in the place of a well-worn road.

She thought that she had seen Rhoswen broken earlier, when the truth of Raum had come up; she had been wrong. It is only now that she sees the woman truly crumble, uncertain, speechless, guilty – she wishes that she did not understand her pain so well as she does. She hesitates, for a moment, thinking over her response; she could tell her never to return. She should tell her never to return. It would be what her predecessors would do, she thinks, and it would be what Viceroy would have done, if not killed her and taken the child. However, she is not her predecessors, and she is not Viceroy. She doesn’t know who she is, but she knows that she can’t tell her that she is exiled from the court; not now. “You don’t have to know, right now,” She tries to sound soothing, but she is not sure what comfort she has to offer her now, when the world seems all but ashes all around her. She looks at the little girl – has Rhoswen even named her yet? – and tries to quell the throbbing pain in the depths of her breast; she tries to take comfort in knowing that she can save that one, spirit her away from the clutches of the monsters lurking like sharks among the dunes. “You just need to focus on your health, and your child’s. What you do when things are calmer…can wait for the calm.” She doesn’t know if things will ever even be calm again, and she knows that it is obvious in her tone.

If she has more to stay, it is interrupted by the clink of metal and a soft crashing from the brush; Seraphina whirls, teeth baring as she prepares to lock them around the throat of some encroaching Davke soldier, but, instead, she finds herself eyeing a Solterran guard. Tall, muscular, and covered from head to hoof in steel armor, she blinks at the silver, dropping into a bow. “My lady. It had been some time since you left, so we were sent to search for you.” Seraphina straightens, the aggression in her posture relaxing, though she remains statuesque and stiff.

All at once, girl is gone, and iron-wrought queen stands in her place. “Teague.” She greets the woman by name – the cream-colored mare is one of her personal guards, and well-trusted. For a moment, her gaze drifts back to Rhoswen and her child, then settles on Teague. If she remembers correctly, the older mare is a mother herself; she can think of no one better to send as a guide. “You have arrived at an…opportune time. Escort Rhoswen and her daughter to the border of the Arma Mountains, and remain with her until a Denoctian arrives to escort her to the Night Court.” Teague inclines her head at her, brow furrowing in confusion, and then looks down at the child and her exhausted mother; she nods, slowly, her expression clearing.

“Of course, m’lady,” She dips her head. “As you wish.”

“Travel safely,” Seraphina says, returning her gaze to Rhoswen – any vulnerability has disappeared, replaced with the impassive cold that one would be forgiven for assuming is permanently etched into her features. Her words are genuine, but there is no warmth to be found in her tone.“I will send a message to Reichenbach, to make sure that he knows that you are coming.” With that, the silver is gone, offering little more than a glance over her shoulder to the sleeping filly as she disappears, soon nothing more than a dark silhouette against the hazy light of the moon.

---

tag || @rhoswen
notes || sera out! this was fun - we'll definitely have to have them meet again soon <3

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