try try your whole life to be righteous and to be good wind up on your own floor, choking on blood
It’s quiet in the caves.
Seraphina can’t remember the last time she was down here – sometime in her youth, she knows. The soldiers would sneak through them to get past enemy lines. They aren’t safe, and, as she descends deeper and deeper into the musty darkness, she knows that they aren’t really familiar anymore, either. That doesn’t keep her from walking, however, loosing sleek strands of her snow-white hair and tying them around stalagmites to keep her way. A lantern dangles in the air at her side, rosy, cinnamon-scented flame sending odd shadows dancing along the cavern walls. There are torches lining the walls, long unlit; now that the caverns have become the hunting ground of thieves and outcasts, most of the passages remain dark and unwelcoming. She pushes forward, hair tumbling down her neck; she had not bothered to braid it.
She isn’t entirely sure what possessed her to descend into the ominous, labyrinthian darkness of the Abigo Caves. She knows well how dangerous they are, and, though she possesses reasonable trust in her own navigational skills, she knows that her kingdom is in no position to have the life of its sovereign at risk, particularly for a foolish venture. However, as she stared out at the Mors earlier that morning, steeling herself to travel to Veneror again, – for ceremony, not faith – she realized that she couldn’t bring herself to cross Novus under the weight of a sky she no longer wanted to see, her every move watched by the oppressive eyes of gods in which she had lost her belief. And so, she had returned to these familiar, spiraling pathways; with each step she takes, Seraphina sinks further and further away from the world above, as though she’s sinking beneath the ink-black water in the maze, some unseen monster prowling at her heels. It’s quiet, save for the gentle rhythm of her own breath and the clap of her hooves against the stones. Quiet, like the Mors at night, far away from the bustle of the capitol city. If you ran far enough into the desert, she’d learned, you could eventually reach expanses of sand where nothing could be seen from horizon to horizon but rising dunes, like waves, and endlessly blue sky. Once, they had been something of a comfort, a lapse from the relentless tension that inevitably came with navigating the capitol city. Now, whenever she stepped into the desert, she could think of nothing but the Davke watching, waiting like serpents in the sand. She knows that it was never safe, but, for a time, it had felt that way.
The path spills out into a large cavern enclosed around an underground lake, likely fed by a river she cannot see but thinks that she can hear. To her surprise, the cavern is open to the sky; at some point in her travels, she must have risen up towards the surface again. Starlight is spangled across the dark, mirror-like surface of the lake; it is as though all of the constellations have been plucked from the sky and flung across the water, as though there is no difference between the space above and the space below. She steps out into the starlight tentatively, lantern flickering at her side. It’s strangely beautiful and entirely unexpected, she has to admit – she had never seen water in the caves before, though she has occasionally heard tales of lakes large enough to be called seas and rivers far more magnificent and untainted than anything that could be found above the surface. As she paces tentatively down the stony, slick bank of the lake, she snuffs the flame of her lantern; she came prepared with plenty of matches, and the candle has more than enough wax left to burn, but she has no need for it under the cover of starlight. The water laps at her hooves, and she bends to drink, scattering the stars in waves of glittering ripples; it’s pleasantly cool and fresh against her lips. She draws back, then, and edges back towards the cavern walls, peering off into the bluish darkness in search of the next path. The silence is no longer a comfort under the open sky, but, although it would have been her solution in the past, she can’t find it in her to sing. Whenever she tries to remember the words, she finds herself thinking of what to do all over again; glassy eyes and bloody bodies are never out of her mind for long. She wants so desperately for her next move to be as clear as the mirror-like surface of the lake, but she knows that she can no longer look to the sky for guidance.
She paces forward along the water’s edge with little more than a rudimentary glance up.
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
03-24-2018, 02:51 PM - This post was last modified: 03-24-2018, 07:58 PM by Seraphina
There's no good in these caves. Life thrives even in the most dark of places, and Abigo is not exception. Once upon a time, skirmishes had been fought in these cave networks, opposed to the scorching and mountainous battlefields of the World above. Going in alone had been near suicide, and those that braved the deep roads had to contend with the knowledge death might come from the shadows. There was no training for that, it was all down to instinct and reflexes. Who was quicker, meaner, more agile.
He'd used the Cave Network in his tenure in the Night Army, he and the Knights had used it initially to get behind the Sun King's lines. He remembered the metallic taste in the air, old blood, the smell of dead flesh. The bodies slung up against the cave walls because no one had the time, nor energy to give them their proper rites. Even now, after what seemed like a life time, he can still smell it. All the flowers and perfumes from fair maids could rid his memory of that particular scent.
The press of his lantern against his shoulder is a comfort, as well as the bags around his barrel. Filled with supplies for this particular ranging, in truth, it's filled with wine and other sweet treats. There are no more lit torches along his way, and he dared not change that. Soldiers using the Caves had long been abandoned, and now it's a hive for Vagabonds and Thieves whom toe the line, trade in secret and chance their luck between the Realms. He's chased more than his fair share back into these pits, he's caught a hell of a lot more before they've slipped into the darkness' embrace. Lashed their legs together and dragged them screaming back toward the Capital for punishment.
Locks of chocolate and smoke draped in messy waves across his neck, down they spiraled, further and further until they caressed his knees. Clutched in the ombre strands are flowers, amaryllis flowers twined against moonflowers, delicate and sweet smelling. The same pale flowers also wrap the locks of his tail around themselves, embedded luxuriously in the curly strands like a jealous lover. Though, he can no longer smell their sweet notes, instead he can smell rushing water, fresh and revitalizing against the damp smell of rock. White painted ears tipped forward in interest, nostrils flared to drink in the freshness.
He'd come this way only once before in his ranging, the Lake is Calligo's mirror. A safe haven for those that need to take a moment and to breath. Or hide out a storm. One or the other. It's a greater place as any to spend the night. The World would keep turning, but it would not miss him much and he the same. The lantern is left propped against some rock, wick extinguished and he steadily moved toward the water. He has no need to be afraid of this darkness, the midnight canvas of the sky illuminated with hundreds of Calligo's diamonds. It was the sky he was born into, and one day, it will be the sky he runs in when his soul ascended to meet with his Goddess. Or so the priests liked to say.
But before he can reveal himself to the cool waters, his moonstone eyes instead caught the familiar glint of silver. Instead, he retreated, as silent as he could be against stone and brush. Obscured by one of the boulders, he peered, cautiously, curiously at the mare. A hawk watching something of interest, a wolf in the grass. She's all bonfire smoke and the fog over the sea after a storm, that mist which reached out and ensnared all when it rolled down the mountainside. Silver veins of ore and silver tresses of the molten metal. Renwick would of called her spellbinding, would of vocalized it at least, but the silver which had caught his eye called to him again. Caused whatever part of him would of spurred him to speak up to wilt.
She was beautiful, but she was cursed. A cursed thing he had seen once before, like a serpent uncoiling and poison in the veins blooming on a canvas of paled skin. The memories surfaced and frothed over his chalice. No longer can he smell fresh water, damp rocks or the cloying scent of something carried by the silent winds. All he can smell is the heat, blood on sand, the acrid dryness of the desert air. He'd seen those twisted metal collars on twisted little things once. He'd been no more than a boy himself, really. A boy battle born and battle bred, trained for warfare.
But he'd been green, ever so green to the reality. He hadn't been a wolf then, he hadn't earned his armor or his title.
Instead of the compliment he had envisioned saying to her, and imagined her deflecting with all the grace of a storm and a mare who knew better. All he uttered was a, "You were one of them." Hooves clacked against the stone as he finally revealed himself, closer and closer to the water while those moonstone eyes of his refused to leave. "One of the child soldiers." He'd never imagined he'd see one alive. Grown up of all things. He'd imagined they'd all died, mindless, crippled in the heat as the vultures and sun took care of the rest. If they hadn't been given a merciful death at the hands of someone who gave a damn.
But there one is. All grown up, mountain mist and ocean fog, silver ore and molten metal. With the collar still clasped around her throat.
try try your whole life to be righteous and to be good wind up on your own floor, choking on blood
One moment, she is alone.
The next, she hears the clatter of hooves against stone and whirls to face a man – electricity dances down her frame, volatile and tense as drawn strings in a bow. He brings with him the soft, sweet scent of flowers that she, bred and raised in desert realms, cannot recognize; she can only imagine it is the result of the unfamiliar, dainty things tangled into the soft cream waves of his mane. She would have to be far more a fool, however, to let the sweetness of the flowers distract her from the obvious danger he presents. Even if he hadn’t managed to creep up on her, he has the build of a warrior; far from bulky, but well-muscled and deft, with a hint of precision akin to a sharpened knife. Certainly a handsome creature, though such considerations barely cross her mind. His color puts her in mind of deep forests, on the rare occasions that she has seen them; rich and deep and strangely warm, like the bark of some great tree that happened to be splashed carelessly with dashes of foamy cream. It is his milky silver eyes that garner her attention, however, and she is quick to meet them with her own as she attempts to discern his motivations. There is nothing in his posture that threatens, but something in the words that he spoke when he drew forth from the shadows - “You were one of them” - puts her on edge. One of what? What had she ever been that she was not now, standing emblazoned by wild starlight? What had she ever been that she did not wear like the scars that twisted and writhed beneath the sleek quicksilver of her coat?
His words, then, make her throat close up, suddenly dry and parched as it would always be after a long day spent in desert heat. “One of the child soldiers.” He knows, she realizes. He knows what she was - what she is. He knows what the collar curled round her neck like a noose signifies in all its battered glory, why it wraps round her throat rather than resting further down, more comfortably; he knows why it is so scratched and beaten, in such a state of discontent disrepair. He knows what it means. She does not know if he knows why it is there, but he knows what it means, and he knows what she is. Seraphina has grown accustomed to being recognized as Solterra’s icy queen, an enigmatic silver wisp as difficult to comprehend as a storm at sea. She has never become accustomed to being recognized as what she was.
All at once, the smell of smoke rises up inside of her, chokes her – she takes a hesitant step back, the lantern jerking awkwardly at her side as she grapples with her telekinesis. In the back of her mouth, she tastes blood, and, as she tries to push it down, it only rises. For a moment, she feels the brutal snap of her bones as they are crushed beneath the weight of the horde; like a distant echo, she hears herself scream as cold steel slices open her sides, feels her limbs falter beneath her as a sword plunges straight through her; she remembers the violent chills that wracked her frame and the indescribable ache of the sword stuck inside of her, the waves of throbbing pain, the comforting brush of darkness at the edges of her vision; she thinks sometimes that it would have been a mercy to die all those times over, but she always continued kicking, and they always dragged her out of the muck of upturned terrain, always patched her up with spells that burned and threw her to the hungry jaws that lined the battlefield all over again. She remembers looking down at the empty eyes of the dead and aching. She remembers crying the first time that she managed to kill – and the next, and the next, and the next. Eventually, the tears wouldn’t come anymore. Eventually, nothing would come at all, and, somewhere deep inside of her, she knew that she was losing something that she wasn’t sure she could ever have back. She used to try to say prayers for the fallen, when she wandered the battlefields when the fighting was done, to leave what wildflowers she could pluck from the muck tangled on their bloodied frames. She knew that they would never have a funeral. She wondered, sometimes, if they were remembered – if they were loved. She wondered lots of things, before Viceroy took away the wondering, too.
But she is not there. She is in a cave, staring blankly at a man of pinesmoke and flowers, her eyes glassy and cold as the dead.
Seraphina stiffens, then, struggling to look impassive; the expression that paints her features, however, is not so cold as she would like it to be, not so cold as she needs. She takes a deep, rattling breath, and finds it in her to speak. “Yes,” For all her effort to stabilize it, her voice comes out trembling. Damnit. She knows that she can’t look vulnerable, can’t look as though she’s weighted down - not now of all times, not with wolves and snakes ready to snap like hunter’s traps on her heels wherever she looks. “Yes, I was.” Her gaze settles on him again; it has taken her a moment to place the scent of Denocte behind the flowers, but she recognizes it now, and curses herself for her faltering all over again. He can’t be much older than she is, and he’s built for war – she had never anticipated encountering someone from the other side of the war with the Night Kingdom, but she suspects that was what stands in front of her, like some passing ghost. (But far more solid than the ghostly shades of silver that cloaked her – intact, but shocked.) “You…were a soldier?” She wonders, then, if he met someone like her, or something like her. She doesn’t know what to make of the look on his face.
She gets the feeling that he doesn’t know what to make of her, either.
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
It's more emotion than he ever saw, from those little things, he noted. With their collars wrapped tight around those little necks of theirs, and those dead, dead eyes. Colder than winter's breath. How they'd not even uttered a shriek, as they poured like serpents over sand dunes, erupted from the sand like great sand wyrms his mother had once told him about from distant lands one evening when there was a storm howling off of the coast.
Tales had even reached him, when they had managed to secure a piece of that ill begotten land to rest their heads upon, when the Raven's had managed to find them. How they'd rather choked on their own blood, drowned in it after biting their own tongues and swallowed them for good measure. Taught to kill themselves instead of confessing, what kind of monster trained children that death was the only option? Stole a chance at a future from them? It took a toll on them all too, every day the soldiers became less, and children became more common place. The fire stopped glowing in their eyes, all that spirit sucked out of them as they maneuvered over twisted frames, wet with blood and coarse with the sand stuck to it. No more did they anticipate the fight, but dreaded it instead. They muttered among themselves and wondered if the 'morrow brought more misery to their hooves, more blood splashed upon them that they didn't want.What strategy could you possibly employ against that? It was warfare of another kind. None they had been prepared to wade through.
Renwick remembered the day he had thrown down his spear, left it to be consumed by the sand and made brittle by the arid wind. By that time he'd seen his fair share of the fighting. Gained his fair share of scars and stories to tell around the fire. He couldn't shed tears for the mares and stallion's who crossed swords with him, who traded spears and gnashing teeth with him. But he'd cried that night, for the first time in a long time, they'd found him. It had been a little past the moon at her peak, when Zolin's child soldiers had found them. Poured into their camp and caused chaos from the moment they were spotted. It had ended with him in the sand, desperately scrambling to save the babe who had tried to slice his throat open moments before, before it turned the blade on itself. He remembered tearing at his own cloak, how he'd wrapped it tight around the child as it thrashed and choked, how he'd screamed for a healer for the first time in a long time. The rich green of his cloak had muddied to that dark brown it always did, when blood dyed it. But there had been no healers there with him that night, and all he could do was lay there, until their breathing had become ragged and slow. Then went silent.
He'd marched home after that, declared that he had done his duty to his Sovereign and the Realm. War changed you, good or for ill, and it had left a wound within him which he'd buried deep beneath everything else that was good. Everything that would ease the pang. Now it'd been brought to the surface again, and remembering it was like picking at an old scab. It was strange, to be stood there opposite a piece of his history. The opposite side of the battlefield. He's warm where she is cold. Pine forests and the dunes of the desert. He wondered what kind of scars laid beneath her skin, the ones that others couldn't see. Did her thoughts wander in the late hours, when the candles threatened to burn out and the halls were silent?
What did she make of him? This Knight of Flowers and Shadows. A sworn enemy from long before this current strife.
There is a coldness in her that isn't so glacial as he remembered seeing. It is cold, yes, cold enough that it would sting if he touched it, bite into skin and leave it raw, if it so wanted — but it will not make him brittle boned and shatter him with her next exhale. Her rattled breath is proof enough of that. But then again, he's reminded she has survived the War, and he is not a foolish man. She's dangerous, she has escaped the wolves and the den of serpents that created her. She's dangerous even if she's as lovely as his poetic words painted her to be. Oh Calligo, it's a whirlwind of something he never thought he'd ever have to wade through.
You…were a soldier?
but her voice, it trembled. Like it's foundations were built on quicksand.
"...I was." The Knight exhaled, letting go of a breath he hadn't known he'd been holding. He dared to tread closer, mindful of the distance as he inched closer toward the water. Yet, he doesn't treat her as a broken thing, to handle with care, she has survived this far and no doubt wears it like armor. He cannot help but respect that, despite the sadness her appearance brought him. To handle her like glass, a bird with a broken wing would be dishonorable. Disastrous. So his steps are strong and sure, one after another, rather than the hesitant and cautious steps of a naive man. "I didn't see out the War though, killing younglings wasn't what I signed up for. None of us signed up for that." He admitted softly, a note of regret striking the chords like a blacksmith's hammer in a forge.
"Why do you still wear it?" He cannot keep the question to himself, it had burned in the back of his throat and threatened to scald him if he did not say it. Silver orbs dipped to the beaten and weathered collar at her throat, in emphasis. Thoughtfully.
try try your whole life to be righteous and to be good wind up on your own floor, choking on blood
Charcoal ears twitch forward to catch his response. “…I was.” She feels like she’s facing an anomaly, some passing ghost, a face that she never expected to see again – but they had all become faceless to her, somewhere during all of that bloodshed. He’s moving closer to the water’s edge and to her, and, this time, she stands her ground. Seraphina is not afraid of him, though she imagines that he would be a challenge to take down in a fight. In a fight. Try as she might, she can’t stop herself from thinking of any passing stranger as a threat, though she imagines it is healthy in a land so bloodthirsty as her desert kingdom. She watches those moonstone eyes, uncertain, expression unreadable.
When he speaks next, his voice is mangled with something she recognizes as regret. “I didn’t see out the War though, killing younglings wasn’t what I signed up for. None of us signed up for that.”
His words provoke a stiff exhale. She knew that, too, of course. They weren’t just fed to the war because Zolin was running out of soldiers; the children also proved a massive psychological toll on the enemy. Their very presence was as effective a weapon as the violence they provided, with their empty, broken eyes and their empty relentlessness. She wonders, then, if she is looking at a man to whom war meant something. How jarring to see little things with knives clutched between their teeth cascading over the dunes in a flood of gangling limbs, intent on bloodshed for no reason but that they must. Fighting a child like that, she imagined, would be terrible. Fighting any child at all would be terrible – a useless loss of a life that could have meant something. “Oh.” And then, with surprisingly genuine sympathy, she adds, “I…I’m sorry.” She’s not sure if she’s apologizing for the experience or her own presence, her own culpability. Seraphina has killed many times. She’s never liked it, although she has a difficult time liking much of anything. She’s never been forced to kill children before. She wants to tell him that they would have considered it a mercy, if they weren’t all gone by then, but she’s not sure that those words are true. She might have wished she were dead time and time again during the war, but she’d never actually died, and now…now she’s something else entirely. Now she is a queen; now she is the ruler, not the powerless pawn. She still isn’t sure if it is a good thing, and she knows that the crown fits awkwardly on her head. She’s not sure if she’ll ever be able to get past what the war did to her, either, if she’ll ever be able to truly understand the reality that all of those around her seem to be living. However, she cannot deny that the Davke attack has loosed something inside of her that laid buried for what felt like lifetimes.
Some small part of her, deep down, buried beneath walls and walls and walls continues kicking. She doesn’t have fire, and she doesn’t think she ever will, but maybe that little flicker is enough.
He has another question. “Why do you still wear it?” A pointed glance at her collar. She follows his eyes.
Seraphina blinks at him with something akin to confusion, as though she’s never considered the proposition before. “I can’t.” Her voice is flat, momentarily, the answer stated as though it should be abundantly obvious. It isn’t, though. Of course it isn’t, and of course he doesn’t understand why she wears it – why would anyone wear the horrors they have seen around their neck if they could take them off? She inclines her head slightly, then, white waves falling in her eyes. (Should have put it in braids, she thinks; when loose, the length is a hassle.) “Do you know how they trained us?” A genuine question, but one she already suspects that she knows the answer to. Viceroy liked to keep his methods secret. In any case, she doesn’t actually wait for his response. If he doesn’t know, she’ll save him the unpleasant details. “The collar is…fundamental to our…conditioning. I can’t take it off.” The simple act of removing it would not be difficult – it is only held together by clamps. All she would have to do is unclamp it, and it would fall off her throat all on its own. This simple removal, however, is precisely the reason why the collars were manufactured. They were uncomfortable and shameful, tools that became associated with the pain of repetitive beatings and psychological manipulation; whenever they were brought through the city, they knew that others turned their eyes away whenever they caught a glimpse of the silver sliver around their throats. They wanted absolute obedience from their soldiers, and the collar ensured it, tested it. It would be so easy to take it off.
If their training was complete, they never would.
She pauses for a moment. Then, hesitantly: “…but sometimes I think there might be more to it than that.” Now, more than anything, the collar is a symbol, an insult to the system that created her worn in the place of a crown. I am not one of you, and I never will be – and you’d best be sure that I won’t forget your crimes for a moment. She doesn’t like attaching sentiment to her noose, but she’s hardly ignorant of what it has come to mean among her people, although few of them brave mentioning it to her. Seraphina does not want to be like Zolin, and she wants all of Novus to know that she will never become him.
Being an ugly symbol of what he wrought, then, suits her comfortably.
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
Renwick had always expected a hundred different things, when he packed for his ranging trips. Thieves, travelers, the damned and the fortunate. There were a hundred different paths this trip could of taken him, but none of them in his wildest imaginings would of lead him to this moment. There is something profound about this chance encounter, he wouldn't be surprised if it was the divine will of something higher than made sure the Knight met the Silver Queen. He cannot say, if it is a good thing. Not yet. Later perhaps, maybe after the conversation has flowed between these two remnants, or maybe when he's safely back in the confines of four walls, wrapped in blankets with the crackle of the fire in his ears.
For now, he's focused on the mare in front of him, who is every ounce the warrior he is. Who would not hesitate to lunge at him if he so much as stepped over the fragile line between them. A challenge it would be, but he hoped, some small part of him, that it would not come to that. That he would not have to trade blows with this wraith of silver and smoke. A cream colored hoof touched the water, and it's not the relief he had expected to feel, when he had first spied the starry lake.
There's something strangely cathartic in this. There is a chance here at understanding, if War and the games of Sovereign's were ever to be understood. Some weren't. He doubted he would ever understand using children as warriors, other than to rob the future from them, and rob the enemy of their sanity. Renwick had seen the effects they'd had one the rest of the mares and stallions who had also marched on Rhen's orders, rose to the occasion for glory and duty. How many eyes, scattered across Denocte, no longer burned with the same ferocity they once did? All those fires, so bright, so hopeful, so ambitious. Extinguished.
It's uncomfortable, to hear the mare apologize for her own fate, a fate she had no choice in, just like all the others who had winked out of existence at the behest of the power hungry and cruel. Jarring to hear the sympathy which poured over that simple word that held so much weight. She is not the one that should be apologizing, but then again, the ones who should be are dead. You can't pry apologies from the dead, and he's sure their ghosts would of refused, stubborn and terrible even in death. "You do not have to apologize." Silence lingered, if only for a moment, before a strained smile appeared on his maw. "It is Zolin's fault, it is his enabler's fault." He stated, venom laced around every syllable. Oh the smile might have been there, however fickle and weak, but his eyes remained cold. There is not a hint of warmth to be found there.
I can’t.
A cream dipped ear flicked back at the answer. Confusion is met by confusion, his smile replaced by a thin line and a quirked bow. Why wouldn't she of taken it off? He only knew himself, what he would of done in that position as he is now. He would of wrenched the damned thing from his neck, chucked the blasted thing into the fires and watched it melt. He does not know the meaning behind such a collar, the deep rooted necessity embedded within, set forth by the cruel. Momentarily, he is distracted by the waves of molten silver which fell and curled when she inclined her head, there are few things he's ever found so lovely. It is a small reprieve from the reality that is them. Their winding, weaving paths that have crossed. In that moment between each breath, each grain in the sand. He can forget the sum of what she is. What he is.
Do you know how they trained us?
"No." The moment ended with a harsher reality. He does not know how they turned children into killers. How they conditioned them to fight with such cold determination. He understood then, as she elaborated, why she had never tried to remove it. Why it hung there, grim and smug, after those responsible had tasted death. It hit him like a punch in the gut, a wash of freezing water to the unprepared senses, a cruel taste of steel in the dead of night. "We had heard rumors...well...the soldiers guessed really...but...we never found out."There was no one to ask, no one with the answers, and the ones who had them chose death. Nausea is a familiar thing. He's sparred with it before, too much ale, too much over indulgence, too many dead little eyes. Too many bad memories from the war which chased him in dreams. The one time he'd boarded a ship in the port thinking it was a good idea, when the storms had blown in off the terminus sea.
Renwick wanted to know the truth, more than the guess work, the idle musings of downtrodden soldiers looking for answers to justify what they saw. But he is not the one who lived through it, not the one who experienced what it was like to be unmade and reforged like that. He does not want to tread where it might still be opened wounds for her, even if he's never been one to hold back questions before. Though those kind of questions had never been anything like this.
…but sometimes I think there might be more to it than that.
"How so?" He latched onto that instead, the hesitant little add on. Moved on from the questioning look which swirled in his misty colored eyes, turning them into a storm at sea, channeled the curiosity of his prior wandering into that instead. His hoof removed itself from the water's edge, the lake abandoned in favor of this creature who has captivated him so, for good or for ill.
try try your whole life to be righteous and to be good wind up on your own floor, choking on blood
“You do not have to apologize.”
He’s smiling, now, but it isn’t really a smile – smiles, as she understands them, are meant to be warm. His expression is frigid cold and loathing, though his thinly-veiled hatred doesn’t seem to be directed at her; it doesn’t take long for her to realize where his anger truly lies. “It is Zolin’s fault, it is his enabler’s fault.” She catches the emphasis on enabler, and, for a moment, she is reminded of snow-white wings and cold, cold golden eyes. She was Viceroy’s experiment, the first test subject for most of his brutal tactics; his apprentice, or so he claimed, though she desired to resemble him even less than Zolin. The Child King, after all, was a fool. Careless. Viceroy was neither of those things, and it was precisely that which made him so dangerous – and so repulsive. Zolin was raised in the lap of luxury. He never learned to care. The system that made him was more to blame than he.
Viceroy had no excuses.
Those memories don’t linger; she pushes them aside. If only it were that simple. If only it were that simple, but it seems that the blame for all of Zolin’s choices now lay bare at her feet. The Child King is dead, but someone must be held accountable for his sins, and it seems that she is tasked to reckon with them. Tell the Davke it isn’t her fault. Tell her people. Tell every other kingdom in Novus. Maybe they don’t blame her, but they certainly seem to expect her to pay his crimes.
She doesn’t want the accountability, but, with the ground slipping out from beneath her hooves like sand through an hourglass, Seraphina needs some semblance of control. If it’s her fault, – if it’s all her fault – she could have done something differently. She can do something differently. All the movements of the world spiraling wildly around her are not quite out of her grasp.
They don’t linger on that for long, however. Her confusion is met with his own, and she considers his expression, briefly, as he confirms what she already knows. “We had heard rumors…well…the soldiers guessed really…but…we never found out.” She sees the warped curiosity in his features. If he wanted to know, she would tell him, but she’s not sure that anyone is ever really prepared to know what an ugly reality she had to offer. How they changed them. How Viceroy reached into her mind and ripped out anything that he found inside of her that went against his training, any dissidence, any emotion. How he warped their memories, took away any identification they had with their lives before the war – starting with their names. How they were beaten down and prepared, fed chemical cocktails to grow more susceptible to their suggestions, how undeserved and unconditional loyalty and the nobility of their purpose was beat into them each and every day; sometimes she wonders why they bothered. “…it’s kinder, not knowing.” There was no un-knowing certain horrors once they passed your mind, and she’s not about to offer hers to this perfect stranger; she gets the feeling that he’s seen enough without knowing the truth of the child soldiers. It made them no easier to stomach.
She would see them lost to the sands, in time. No use in wasting time lingering on the past; she needed, now of all times to push forward.
He doesn’t linger on his questions, though. Instead, his focus seems to be drawn to her hesitant afterthought. “How so?” Seraphina doesn’t know exactly what to tell him. She doesn’t know his name, or he hers – for all she knows, he’s a passing outlaw who was only once a soldier and thinks the same of her. Seraphina – or, rather, her nation - isn’t exactly on good terms with Denocte, at the moment, either, and he certainly smells of the realm of moon and stars. She’s sure that he would understand, with her name, but she’s not sure how he’ll react to her, to what she is. She’s not just a nameless soldier, another body to the war effort. Not anymore.
When she finds a suitable response, it comes out reluctantly. “…We have not been properly introduced, have we?” It isn’t an answer, but she isn’t exactly avoiding the question; she suspects, after all, that her rationale will become clear as the surface of the starlit lake at their side as soon as she gives him her name, and with that clarity, she knows that whatever comfortable tension they have settled into will disappear like dust in the wind. Names hold a weight, she knows. If they did not, Viceroy would never have bothered to steal them from his soldiers. Hers holds a particular weight, even though it is not truly her own – hers is a symbol of the nation she leads, of her people, of her agenda, of her crown. It is more than a part of what isjust Seraphina anymore, although sometimes she wishes it weren’t. Normalcy was the price for her newfound power and status.
She settles. Simple. Blunt. Make the cut clean and quick. She raises her eyes to meet his and steels herself for his reaction, whatever it might be. It wouldn’t be the first time that the revelation of her identity led to a fight. “My name is Seraphina.”
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
The worst monsters were those who had no excuses. No other reason to be cruel and wicked because they could be, born blackened and rotten to the core. Given power and allowed it to fester, spread it deep into the ground around them and watched it consume. Zolin was a product of greed and over indulgence, he'd been given more yes' in his life than nos. But he had a choice, or so Renwick believed, a duty to protect his citizens — when they had come for their foals, to finally say enough. There should of been a chord within him that was struck with the force of a spear through the heart. Yet he hadn't, all that pride had made him blind, left a hole where that something should of been.
It had never sat right, made his skin itch and his blood boil.
When he'd trudged home after the War, Rhen had left the Knights alone. They had limped home with their dead in tow. They buried there dead with words that didn't bring them any comfort, stood in the cold and wet, their cloaks stuck to their bandaged and bruised skin. They'd rebuilt. Slowly the ranks had filled out again, with faces who looked nothing like their predecessors. Sometimes, it was hard to believe that he was Lord Commander, not when Alester had been there before. All his spitfire energy and righteous fury.
…it’s kinder, not knowing.
"Perhaps so." Renwick agreed, thoughtfully, slowly. As much as he wanted to put those ghosts to bed, give answers to the questions they'd all had. It had been enough of a surprise, or rather a shock, to have even stepped into this chance encounter. Tempus' hourglass and timeways were at work here, weaved ever so specifically to allow him and her to meet in a lake in abigo caves, of all places. "A story for another place." Another time, if there was another time after this, where their threads would happen across one another. He would ask.
Perhaps.
…We have not been properly introduced, have we?
That was not the answer he'd been expecting. A question asked with a question, asking for a name no less. Though he supposed that they had spent enough time in each other's company, they have weathered the first of what could of been an otherwise bloody scene. Two warriors on the opposite side of the board once again stepping onto it's surface. If there was any time to test the waters with names, it was now. But names were power, a piece of yourself given to the other, if he decided to reply. Many went through life never knowing the mares or stallions they stood beside, only a face which they were familiar with. A name gave someone an entry way. It's why they used ravens and spies, wasn't it, to learn the names of their enemies.
My name is Seraphina.
Seraphina. It's a tidal wave of icy water doused on his frame. The name sank in like a knife through supple flesh. Or the reality of whom the name belonged, at least. In front of him stands the very Sovereign of the Day Court. He's sure his stiffness is visible, the rod which had replaced his back makes him stand like he used to. Like a solider on the front lines. Stiff, alert. Surprise pants his face like the splotches of cream on his ears, the star on his face and his withers. Flecked carelessly across handsome lines before they shifted to something that might help mask it. He's not sure it worked.
A child soldier, the Queen of Solterra. There's something poetic in that, he thought. Something good in it. Zolin and his monsters had made them to slaughter soldiers from Calligo's lands, who threatened their pride and dressed it up as a nessecity.
Now one ruled, sat upon the throne Zolin had once sat his gluttonous frame on, while he and his enablers were ash in the wind. He's supposed to treat her like the enemy, he supposed, in some far off part of his mind. He's not deaf and blind to the current happenings between Denocte and Solterra. They're treading the thin line and he will be called to action, or they will try and call him to action. Maybe even ask for his opinion, if he's oh so very lucky.
But he cannot see her as the enemy, as he stood there, unmoving with his eyes transfixed upon her the way a wolf might.
If she had introduced herself sooner, before they had shared words, if he hadn't seen the collar. There might have been a different outcome, or maybe there wouldn't have been. He cannot see her as a Queen, even though she fits the image of one. Long haired, fair of face and beautiful, and oh so very deadly. A warrior. The kind of Monarch Solterra deserved, at the very least. Not some pompous oaf with more gold than sense.
He hadn't come here with the intention to be a threat either. There will be no aggression from him this night.
So, he exhaled again, forced the steel from his bones in a breathless laugh. Allowed the irony to ignite his blood in a different way. The Knight hoped that she also saw the irony of it, the way fate had decided to write the pages in it's ancient tome. "Renwick, Commander of the Brotherhood." His frame dipped low into a bow, one leg tucked beneath his barrel while his hair flowed in messy waves over his neck, suspended inches from the ground with their flowers clung fast to the ombre stands.
"So now that we know one another's names, who we are, must we draw swords? call each other by our titles?" He asked, his tone settled into something akin to amusement laced between the questioning note, his head tipped to the side so he could glance across her smoke colored features. "I didn't imagine I would meet the Queen of Solterra on this ranging. A few stray criminals and thieves, maybe. I would rather not fight her, if I can help it." He admitted with a hint of a smile pressed against the corner of his lips.
try try your whole life to be righteous and to be good wind up on your own floor, choking on blood
His expression is thoughtful. “Perhaps so.” He doesn’t know what he asks, she tells herself – not really. Perhaps, she thinks, he looks for understanding, for some kind of resolution. She doesn’t think that he can find it in the truth of what happened, though she might well be wrong. Seraphina finds that she is often wrong, when she tries to anticipate the reactions of others. “A story for another place.” Another place? It was rare enough to encounter a stranger and meet them again, even rarer if they were from another realm. Another place. “Maybe so.” She isn’t opposed to the idea, though the first thought that comes to her mind is that she hopes – hopes – that this other place is not on the battlefield, caught amidst a war that she does not wish to fight. If he ever gets to ask his question, and she is ever willing to answer it, Seraphina can only hope that it is under more pleasant circumstances than those.
He’s shocked at her admission, and rightfully so; there are certainly more stray child soldiers in Novus than Solterran Queens, and a lake in the Abigo Caves seems a strange place to find royalty, anyways. She’s sure that his shock is also because of what she is. Seraphina is well aware that her background should have sealed her fate much younger. If she lived this long, this is never what she was meant to become, but here she stands, Queen of the Day Court in spite of it all. She sees him stiffen, tension lining his frame, and tenses in turn. When he attempts (and fails) to hide it, she relaxes slightly; it seems a good enough sign that he wishes her no ill will, or so she would like to believe.
He stares at her, unmoving and statuesque, for what feels like a long time. She’s been wondering what he’s thinking for their entire encounter, and this is no different. Seraphina wants to hope that she hasn’t just declared herself an enemy, in his eyes – she doesn’t want a fight. He exhales. Shifts. “Renwick, Commander of the Brotherhood.” He bows.
She shouldn’t be unaccustomed to it, but she is – most of Solterra knows by now that she finds the formality of Solterran courts unsettling, every reminder of its decadent monarchy a slap to her face. On him, it is different. Perhaps it is because the gesture feels genuine; as she looks him over, he puts her in mind of what little she remembers of her mother, of stories of brave knights and grand adventures that quite pleased Amelie, who was utterly charming, if rather vapid. (Well, from what little she recalled, in pieces.) And perhaps he was a Knight. Seraphina doesn’t know as much of the realm of Calligo as she would like. For the realm’s outgoing nature, it kept its secrets. However, she has heard something of the Brotherhood. An ancient order of warriors, soldiers at times and entertainment at others…or something like that. For all their efforts to understand their enemy during the recent war, and all those before, Solterra’s violence and isolation had kept it from truly knowing any of the other realms. “A courtly one, aren’t you?” Spoken with a ghost of something akin to amusement. There is no mockery in her tone, however; it’s something more pleasant. “So now that we know one another’s names, who we are, must we draw swords? Call each other by our titles?” He settles, head tilted to eye her. She can hear the soft amusement in his tone, and, though she knows that he’s testing the waters, she knows that he speaks at least in part in jest. His posture is nonthreatening, though . “I didn’t imagine I would meet the Queen of Solterra on this ranging. A few stray criminals and thieves, maybe. I would rather not fight her, if I can help it.”
Her reply comes with a rare hint of dry humor intertwined with her lilting Solterran accent. “I expected much the same – with all the vagabonds and thieves showing up on my borders as of late, I thought it only polite to intrude on them as well. You, however, Commander Renwick, are neither.” And so many other things. It’s strange, she thinks, to find herself standing before a man who just years ago might have killed her, a man who might still bring trouble to her Kingdom, to her people – to her. She has no desire to fight him, though. For all her Solterran blood, Seraphina rarely desires fighting, save for friendly spars enough to keep herself alert. She has more than enough violence on her hands unprompted. (This provokes the thought of the Davke, but it is fleeting; if nothing else, the shock of this conversation has been a distraction that is perhaps healthy, even if it goes against her own, obsessive nature.) However, she thinks, she also has no desire to fight him. In spite of her misgivings about Reichenbach and his Crows, Seraphina has no quarrel with the citizens of Night; it is nothing but the impulsive behavior of their sovereign and the knowledge that bad blood rarely dries quickly that keeps her on edge around citizens of the realm of moon and stars. However, in spite of the strange past that they share, – without ever having met – she doesn’t feel troubled by him. “And please. Seraphina is fine. Consider the Queen of Solterra…somewhere outside of these caves.” A relatively simple admission, tacked on at the end – but not an afterthought. Her title granted her authority, responsibility, an entire personality.
She wanted none of that here.
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
03-26-2018, 09:28 PM - This post was last modified: 03-26-2018, 09:29 PM by Seraphina
"I hope so." He countered with a smile which is far more genuine than the one he'd offered at her apology, it had a sliver of his usual charm in there. But is said a little too quickly, a little too hopeful for it to be a casual thing passed between two. He'd always prided himself on being charming, and in control of his words. Life is a fickle thing, and rarely did it give something good without taking something in return. It's seen to give him something here, however small. It's not so much about the answer he may or may not find, entangled in the path of this warrioress with silver for her hair. He prayed that fate would not take payment in the form of letting their next meeting be over the clash of steel.
Renwick had never relied too heavily on fate, it seemed to weighty a word to excuse the actions of the ill-equipped or just too lucky. But, in her, perhaps it was fate. To see her rise and wear a crown, how heavily it sat upon her forehead, how awkwardly it might have. While his station is not as lordly, at least in responsibility, he had never wanted titles. Glory? Remembrance? Sure, he had not wanted to fade into the history books as some little footnote in a sad tale, or another's expense. He imagined if he wore a crown such as she did, he would not know what to do with himself. Warrior's might have made for good Rulers in history books, but they rarely so detailed what went on beneath their skin. Crowns were heavy, but on those who had seen the bitter grief of War, they sat heavier.
He wanted to ask her how it felt, did it worry the flesh as he imagined it did? Did stepping away from it have the same relief slipping away for untold hours did? Or was it just a constant sensation, present no matter where you went.
Such is their way, there is no ill will from him as he fell onto his Courtly graces. That was one part of being a Knight. The Gods knew he had been swatted enough times as a rugged little colt who had barely donned his squire banners, for forgetting that one must uphold all tenants of their creed. If anything, she is more deserving than most. He respected her, well before he knew she was a Queen. One warrior to another, one survivor of hardship to another. Perhaps two of the few still left who understood the burdens that a soul can carry.
A courtly one, aren’t you?
He can't help the grin which appeared on his features then, whether in response to the comment, or what he detected as amusement in her tone. Both maybe. It's a luminous thing, if not embroidered with wolfish mischief. "One of the first things you learn in the brotherhood, manners. Next to how to hold a sword properly that is. It'd be bad manners to forget them now. My mentor might come back to swat me one last time."
There is a faint line of surprise which ran the length of his spine, when the air remained amiable. He had been testing the waters, he knew where he stood and as much as he liked to guess where the Silver haired Queen stood, he could not truly know. He hoped she found his company at least tolerable, that she had enjoyed his presence — however bitter and painful it might be to have someone of your past suddenly appear.
"There is no harm at playing others at their own games." Renwick agreed, the smile on his face changed to one more of a smirking nature. "Cannot say they are rather good thieves and vagabonds, if they have lead you to their doors, though." The knight added with a ghost of a laugh. "In any case, I hope I'm not a disappointing alternative, to what you had hoped to find here." It certainly is better than what he'd been expecting, he' expected to trudge through the dank and dark caverns, chasing the tell tale trail of recent tracks. Hid in the winding tunnels and listened for any hushed whispers and cautious muttering. To find himself here? It is a blessing, a welcome one, even if it started with tensions high and emotions rattled.
"Seraphina. It suits you, your name, you know." Renwick commented, softly, as she insisted to call her only that. While every ounce of that training of his chafed at casting formality to the wind, he embraced it. What was better than escaping, just for a night? To abandon duties and training, all those lordly airs and responsibilities. Seeing that the time for tension had passed, any battle or fight to be had, had drifted off into the breeze, the Knight retreated for a moment. Back toward where he'd left his bags and his lantern, in order to move them close to the water. Closer to her. Slowly, he lowered himself into the brush and dirt, legs tucked up against his earthy toned barrel, his gaze illuminated in the light of the moon and stars. A silent invitation for her to join him, if she so wished.
"Tonight we'll just be Seraphina and Renwick, then, and do whatever they wish to do. The Queen and Lord Commander can worry about their troubles another day."
