☼ 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
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
I'M IN A ROOM MADE OUT OF MIRRORSand there's no way to escape the violence of a girl against herself.☼please tag Sera! contact is encouraged, short of violence
