☼ 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
“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.”
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tags | @Renwick
notes | <3
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.”
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tags | @
notes | <3
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
