☼ s e r a p h i n a ☼
THE SNAKE WILL ALWAYS BITE BACK
Eik and Bexley are tethers, barely keeping her hooves grounded to the rubble-strewn soil; she can feel the press of Eik’s warm skin against her throat just as she can feel her Regent waver, and she is reminded for a moment of her in the cave, crushed beneath a stream of stone, with a pang and a fresh flush of outrage. Ashes fall like snow on her coat, on snowy lashes; they cling to the tear stains on her cheeks, and there is something feral about the sight of it. Bexley Briar follows her to the collapsed doorway, and, when she turns to look at her, she glows - she burns. Solterra’s Golden Girl, their wildfire regent, now ablaze, but her light is a comfort. Seraphina follows her gaze to the statue of Solis, then back down to Bexley, who offers a nervous smile. What had she thought, after the Davke attack? That Avdotya was flame and she was only smoke-?
Her lips curl up, and she smiles - not full or broad, and certainly not bright. There is something dark there, something wicked and rabid. She had contained herself for so long, kept a tempest caged up in-between her ribs by convincing herself that it was not there. She had played the regal queen, the diplomat, the passive warrior-queen who would quietly deflect insult after insult with a carefully-clamped tongue. But Seraphina is not Solterran steel, nor some quiet noblewoman brought up from infancy to wear a crown on her head. No, no, no. She is a girl who clenched a knife between her blood-soaked teeth and cut her way to survival, and it is the survivalist who claws her way to the surface, the girl who chose between killing and being killed, rampant. The gleam in her eyes is something lethal.
“Yes,” She agrees, “Yes, he is.” They are surrounded by the blessed, working their magics and summoning their companions; Dawn in their quiet, thoughtful, tactical ways, and Night with a strange joviality, though she is not ungrateful for it. (For a moment, her mismatched eyes dart across the Night King. It feels as though it was a lifetime ago when she met him, when neither of them wore a crown on their heads. There’s something strangely familiar to him, something that reminds her of someone else – but she can’t think of who. Perhaps it’s in the eyes.) Cyrene’s strange, bright smile and attempt at lightheartedness is met with her own, something bitter and gnarled by comparison, though there is some warmth in her gaze for the girl.
Florentine approaches, then, and, even from a distance, the cut from her knife sends waves of warmth through her tensed frame; her words to Isorath go unacknowledged by the silver, who returns her focus to the stones, sweat and dust matting her coat. Collaboration is a cold comfort – it seems to her the gods love to string them along, but the mortals are always left to toil in the dirt.
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tags | <3
notes | eeeexactly 500 words. anyhow. promised second post.
THE SNAKE WILL ALWAYS BITE BACK
Eik and Bexley are tethers, barely keeping her hooves grounded to the rubble-strewn soil; she can feel the press of Eik’s warm skin against her throat just as she can feel her Regent waver, and she is reminded for a moment of her in the cave, crushed beneath a stream of stone, with a pang and a fresh flush of outrage. Ashes fall like snow on her coat, on snowy lashes; they cling to the tear stains on her cheeks, and there is something feral about the sight of it. Bexley Briar follows her to the collapsed doorway, and, when she turns to look at her, she glows - she burns. Solterra’s Golden Girl, their wildfire regent, now ablaze, but her light is a comfort. Seraphina follows her gaze to the statue of Solis, then back down to Bexley, who offers a nervous smile. What had she thought, after the Davke attack? That Avdotya was flame and she was only smoke-?
Her lips curl up, and she smiles - not full or broad, and certainly not bright. There is something dark there, something wicked and rabid. She had contained herself for so long, kept a tempest caged up in-between her ribs by convincing herself that it was not there. She had played the regal queen, the diplomat, the passive warrior-queen who would quietly deflect insult after insult with a carefully-clamped tongue. But Seraphina is not Solterran steel, nor some quiet noblewoman brought up from infancy to wear a crown on her head. No, no, no. She is a girl who clenched a knife between her blood-soaked teeth and cut her way to survival, and it is the survivalist who claws her way to the surface, the girl who chose between killing and being killed, rampant. The gleam in her eyes is something lethal.
“Yes,” She agrees, “Yes, he is.” They are surrounded by the blessed, working their magics and summoning their companions; Dawn in their quiet, thoughtful, tactical ways, and Night with a strange joviality, though she is not ungrateful for it. (For a moment, her mismatched eyes dart across the Night King. It feels as though it was a lifetime ago when she met him, when neither of them wore a crown on their heads. There’s something strangely familiar to him, something that reminds her of someone else – but she can’t think of who. Perhaps it’s in the eyes.) Cyrene’s strange, bright smile and attempt at lightheartedness is met with her own, something bitter and gnarled by comparison, though there is some warmth in her gaze for the girl.
Florentine approaches, then, and, even from a distance, the cut from her knife sends waves of warmth through her tensed frame; her words to Isorath go unacknowledged by the silver, who returns her focus to the stones, sweat and dust matting her coat. Collaboration is a cold comfort – it seems to her the gods love to string them along, but the mortals are always left to toil in the dirt.
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tags | <3
notes | eeeexactly 500 words. anyhow. promised second post.
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
