I MOURNED SOMETHING ALL DAY LONG but it was nothing. I was nothing. / all day just was.☼
It is hot in Solterra, even in the winter, and Seraphina feels hot in a way that is nearly scalding. Nearly burning.
Sweat streaks thick, dark lines down her throat and her sides, clotting in her fur. Even for a seasoned warrior, it is not so easy to carry two children in the desert heat, and, as she moves slowly, almost laboriously, through the labyrinthian expanse of the canyons, she can’t help but finally feel resigned to her situation. Her life is always forfeit, always in someone else’s grasp. Now she knows that it will never really be her own. She kept hoping that it might, but-
When she gives birth to these god-children, however they come out, she will live for them. She can’t resent them for this. They are helpless, and besides, they did not choose this situation anymore than she did. Regardless - she wonders if she can love them. Would it be like an animal in a trap attempting to love a snare? She surely- she surely shouldn’t be thinking of this like that, but she is frightened, and she is loathsome, and she-
She is tired. She is tired of thinking too deeply. So she presses on through the canyons, shadows covering her silver form, which seems to her bulbous and hulking and reprehensible, even distinctly ugly; and though she has never been particularly beautiful, she has at least been capable. Now, she is not even that. If it weren’t for her magic, if it weren’t for the sword at her hip- she would be just as helpless as any other fool woman wandering the desert while pregnant. Perhaps it is foolish to remain out here, rather than going to find shelter in the court; but she could not stand the stares. She could not stand the admission that she has grown weak. It makes her feel nauseous.
There is the sound of hooves on sandstone from one of the passages at her side, and then-
Her neck arches; a curve of white-lined silver against the red-orange of the canyon walls. Her mismatched eyes drift to land on the other figure, honing, sharply, on his ember-glow eyes. Seraphina recognizes him, though it has been some time - years, she is sure - since she saw him last. She wishes that she didn’t. In her current state, she would far rather encounter a stranger than someone she knows.
(How much of it is pure shame? How much is her inexplicable situation? How much - is a feeling of who she should be? She knows that she shouldn’t be allowed any happiness, any kindness, and most creatures - most observers - would surely think that motherhood is a kindness. A virtue. She can’t have that. How much of it is performance, a self-flagellation? She doesn’t know anymore, and is it really worth considering?)
(She mustn’t think too deeply.)
Her voice quells in her throat. “Helios,” she says, softly. Another burning thing.
@Helios|| excited to thread w/ you again <3 || olena kalytiak davis, "mutilated versions of my personality write poems treat me with irony and condescension" Sera||Eresh
mother, tell your children / not to do what I have done / don't spend your life in sin and misery / in the house of the rising sun
❦
I
think I used to like the desert.
Think, because I am always unsure, now, of what—precisely—I had liked in my youth. Since I could walk I had nursed to maturity an unfortunate habit of dropping my favour like a hot coal. I could like something one day and disapprove of it the next, my opinions forming and breaking apart again like waves against a seashore.
My mother had thought me serene. My tutors had thought me meek. Yet close on the heels of those traits invariably came the fickleness of a prey animal. Could a lamb truly love a lion? Did she not only claim to love him, so he would spare her? When he died, she would step tragically over his body and proclaim her love to his weeping brother before his body was even cold.
You cannot feel love when you are constantly afraid of being eaten.
Ishak, Ruth's red-haired assassin, reminds me of the desert.
Though my family is desert-bred, heirs to sand and rolling dune, neither of us looks like we belong to where we claim to rule. Pilate looks like a museum piece. I look like a marble cast given life, a statue in Medusa's garden. Miriam's hair is as red as war, and as soft as roses in summer. Corradh is a jungle animal, Delilah is devilish in a city-slick way, and Ruth—
Ruth is the bedrock before it ever erodes down to desert.
I did not mean to run into my sister's assassin (turned guard). I did not mean to run into anyone, when I had stepped into this dim, empty hallway to collapse raggedly against a tapestried wall and cough until my lungs ached with soreness. There is something warm dripping down my lips and it is not wine nor is it the memory of Vercingtorix's skin.
It is blood, and when I see this, and when I turn towards a lone chandelier and see Ishak seeing this, I stiffen. I had forgotten to take my cloak when I had left the armoury so there is nothing for me to draw against, nothing for me to feign interest in. There is only Ishak and me and the gaping absence of Ruth.
My cheeks are flushed. My eyes are swirling pools and I catch glimpses of red hair, red paint, red. I wish to turn away, to leave, to find another empty hall to collapse against and bleed into—I do not wish to have an audience while I do it. Not, especially not, when it has been less of an hour since Vercingtorix melted back into the throng of guests and already I am frantic to find him again, to find him and to demand from him when next he is going to visit.
So I do not turn. So I resolve, darkly, to use Ruth's Ishak to keep myself from descending into a vortex of madness. (Is that not what she uses him for? I do not know. I do not know either him or her enough, in this moment, under this sallow lighting, to come to any more enlightening conclusions.)
I force my mouth into a hollow smile, and prop myself stiffly against the tapestried wall. Blood coats my wing. I see it and tuck it smoothly behind me, my lips clean, my chin clean, my shadow under the chandelier a stronger impression of me than the one printed in flesh.
"Ishak," I say, wincing when it is punctuated with a cough. My eyes are dark and cold. Goading for him to say something about this.
inspire others, inspire yourself. music of the soul.
A low humming tune left his lips, his white ears twitching around with every noise that came into range. It wasn't like he felt unsafe, exactly. But finding a place like this when all he was used to during the time he had been in Solterra was the vast amount of sand was more than a little offputting for him.
Once he deemed it safe enough, Brenn slowly stepped closer to the bright blue waters and reached his head down to offer himself some refreshment. It was slightly awkward, with how long his legs were but he eventually managed - even if he had to spread his front legs further than he was used to. His growth spurt had come a little later, making him not as comfortable in his own body as one of his age should. He only hoped it wasn't too unsightly - though, it would not be the first time he had been mistaken for a youngling by others, he understood but that didn't mean he liked it. He supposed his joyful energy might give that impression to people after all.
Raising his head once again, he found a spot more in the shade - a little away from the strong sun, which was only dimmed slightly by the winter that ran over all of Novus. It was definitely more comfortable to travel through Solterra now, with the occasional cold breeze wafting through the lands, though he wasn't planning on exploring the entire desert - that would be a death sentence, after all.
Hearing a noise behind him, his body tensed minutely, his blue eyes looking around for any sign of danger. Dread only grew in his stomach as he did not immediately see where the noise had come from. From what he had seen when he arrived at the Oasis, he was alone. Maybe someone else was here after all. Maybe he should call out?..
widows, ghosts and loves sit and sing in the dark, arched marrow of me
A
unicorn, as made as she is, does not understand that it is sculpted as stone is carved. She does not know that her horn is nothing more than an altar to gods living in the forests of her organs and the steeples of her spinal cord. Her eyes do not know that they do not see the world as others do, that there is something fragile in the movement of her sinew over her bones.
She does not know that she is other.
She only knows that she is and that she is not alone.
And she is and is not alone as she streaks through the forests upon her legs that are inches longer than they were a moment ago. Her atoms are immortal, and holy, and profane, and they are feral as they clamour and clash in the shape of her. The pillar of her horn turns to weed reaching for the dappled rays of winter sunlight between the trees around which they weave.
Each moment, each second, each echoing bird cry reverberating in the hollow places of her fusing joints, she becomes fleeter. What race fawns had begun is being ended by the sleek and elegant sighthounds. Her bell-chime laugh turns smoky as a wildfire. Her stride turns to thunder instead of fox.
“We’ll have to be faster if we want to catch him.” The unicorn laughs in her new-smoke voice as she squints against the sunlight. Ahead the stag leaps over a fallen pine and the crack of his legs over the dying branches opens the jaws of some slumbering thing in her body. Her limbs stretch out until her belly is brushing against the low saplings just barely surviving above the inches of snow. The shadow she casts turns long as an owl’s wings as she leaps over the fallen pine.
And she is too lost in the thrill, that feral thrill, to notice the fungi and flowers blooming between the rotting pinecones. They follow the line of her shadow and taper off as the point of her horn tapers off into the dappled golden-light.
A unicorn, as made as she is, loses herself to the hunt and calls it nothing more than breathing.
But the walls stay, the roof remains strong and immovable, and we can only pray that if these rooms have memories, they are not ours.
I ought to marvel more at the rich lavishness of the Ieshan estate, but wherever my eyes glance Adonai's words echo. You see that tower? They say that a cursed prince lives in it. Do you believe that? That is what the firstborn son had said against a backdrop of blue bush daisy and sprawling, high-boughed trees. I might answer differently now, having seen the tower, wrought with an opulent eye. Everything is luxurious; splendid; full to tasteful bursting. Around me swirls the organized chaos of the festivities: visitors and servants, art and drink. The colors accent one another; a tapestry is woven not only of thread, but gleaming metallic string. Everywhere I look is glittering crystal and ornate details.
Yet the simple fact remains that a prison, regardless of how grand, remains a prison to those enraptured there. The ostentatious nature of the estate is one I cannot grow accustomed to; beneath the roof of this single household rests more wealth than I had witnessed in the whole of Oresziah. The only building we had that might rival the lavish corridors and high-ceiling rooms of the Ieshan's estate was, perhaps, our church; and that only compared due to the artisans who slaved for years upon the stained glass windows at each wall. Even that, however, was a building erected with island stones and timber, and had no room for gold or anything aside from flickering lamplight and hardwood pews.
I should not remain so transfixed, I know; I had been there long enough the evening is beginning to die down and smolder. There are fewer guests, and less activity to hide my presence behind. I begin to wander deeper into the estate, in the tower of imprisoned princes. The light is dimmer the deeper I go; and the aura of wealth only extends. I wonder what secrets lay behind the Ieshan doors; on one hand, I would like to know. And on the other, I have an itching feeling the truth is not so far beneath the surface. Eventually, I find myself on a balcony overlooking the distant sea. Heavy foliage in stucco pots adorns the marble railing; some of the planted trees bear luscious, blushing fruit. The air smells sweet, and dry, and despite the cold of winter it feels as if I am in a dream.
I know, however, that my journey through the house did not go unnoticed. I am not alone and ask, into the dark, "May I help you?"
The hero is strangely close to those who died young. Lasting
doesn’t contain him. Being is his ascent: he moves on.
It is late; the night is quiet. And I am drunk.
I lingered, perhaps, too long at the party. I lingered so long the other patrons left, and I became a shadow of the Ieshan estate. My mind remains a whirlwind of those interactions; whether that be with Adonai, Pilate, or Elena. Each name holds a different flavor and, tired and alone, I no longer wish to dwell upon each one. Solterra is no longer gold; even with the flickering torches that line the street, and the silent sentinels at the walls, everything has been bled of colour by the moon. My breath fogs the air with winter's chill. The same chill assaults me.
Perhaps it is the late-night silence, or my drunkenness, or any other number of factors that creates within me a certain, painful nostalgia. As much as I invest myself in Novus, it is not home. I expect to round a corner and come face-to-face with the same bakery I had known my entire life, or the blacksmith just down the block. I expect to see the same faces I had known forever, whose complicated secrets were ingrained within my own. I cannot help but think of Adonai's feather-touch, the lightness of it, the smell of sandstone and something sickly sweet, like rotting fruit. His sickness, I know.
Right now, that does not seem to matter. Right now, I cannot discern whether I am happy or sad, elated or dejected. The street is long, and empty, and I am swaying. It was foolish of me not to make sleeping arrangements, but I think if I can make it out of the Solterran city I could summon Damascus to take me elsewhere, to take me to--
Safety? The word seems obscure; as unrealistic as a dream.
I continue to walk and am surprised to discover I do not know where I am going. My mind is blurring, and my body is burning. More than anything, I would like to lay down and sleep. But--I must leave the city. I must find lodging, or, or--
I have never been lost in my life. But all around me, nothing is recognizable. I clear my throat at nothing but darkness, and crane my head to look up at the sky. If nothing else, I think, at least the stars are beautiful here.
She was trying to build her strength. Carefully this time. When she was in Elysium she had asked Kodarki to train her, and to no fault of his, it had gone… poorly. She had pushed herself too hard, and ultimately it had nearly been her demise. This time she went slowly. Once or twice a week she came down from the mountains for the day, using the time to either gather herbs for the infirmary in the temple or to wander Novus a little. She still requested someone take her up and down the mountain each time, wary of the steep cliffs and crumbling paths. She was careful to judge her health on the days she went down, fearful of not being able to get back up, even with the help of one of the monks.
She would always be exhausted the next morning and would spend the day resting or doing simple tasks within the infirmary. While there would be no fixing her state of being, slowly she began to feel strength build up in her shoulders, and hindquarters, just enough that she stumbled less coming up the steep trails to the temple, though she still heaved for air by the time they had gotten halfway up. Luvena had arisen early that morning, having made arrangements with one of the acolytes to take her as far as the foothills. She intended to head for the Amare Creek, wanting to gather some of the herbs and plants that thrived in its damp banks. The temple’s biggest downfall about mountain life was the lack of plants that could survive the harsh conditions. Among her list was willow and nettle, and a few other assorted plants if she could manage to bring them back. She came up along the Rapax river, staying a fair distance from the crumbling banks, knowing that with the way the currents rampaged, any hoofbeat could fall on sinking earth, sending her toppling into the cold winter currents.
Nevertheless, she followed the water, until it began to calm, turning from white water rapids to a soft burble until she came to the shallow sections of the creek, where the water moved so slowly that a thick layer of ice covered the surface. It wasn’t the best season to gather herbs of course, but it was possible. This time of year the willow bark was brittle and thus easy to crack off the trees with a sharp kick to the trunk. As soon as she reached one Picoro was content to clamber off her back into the canopy. The mountains did not appeal to the small tree-dwelling creature.
She turned, as she heard the snow crunch behind her. Squinting against the sun’s glare, she could see a familiar figure approaching. She had met the woman once before. A fleeting moment she could hardly remember, her first day in the dusk court. Overwhelmed by stone structures she had never seen before, so unlike the woven willow palace, she had grown up in. Israfel.
—
«
those who escape hell
however
never talk about
it
and nothing much
bothers them
after
that. »
I
cannot help but think if a boy were to be born with snakes writhing at his head and neck, he’d have been sentenced to death in Oresziah. The attending midwife would have wrenched him from the grasp of the mother and taken him to the black cliffs. There, he’d be left out to die.
I cannot help but think if a man looks like a monster, undeniably that is what they will become.
There are few occasions where I have ever felt the need to insert myself into family affairs. I would not count this situation as one such case, either--it is simply a matter of intrigue, of understanding one’s enemy. I am curious, and it is with Adonai’s soft touch still fresh in my mind that I seek out his brother. The party is entering its final stages. Lovers wrap themselves into corners; the dancers who remain are intoxicated and stumbling. Even the lights seem dimmer, and I recognise the inconvenience of ordering a drink so close to the end of the night.
Nevertheless, I find myself at Pilate’s open bar. “I’ll take the gold cocktail, please.” At a nearer proximity, even I can admit the Ieshan’s second prince seems otherworldly. It is the snakes, I believe; the way they dance and intertwine, and fixate upon me with polished, dark eyes. It is the scales, too, and the hard carving of his features. Perhaps all the Ieshans are secretly made of polished marble, are wrought of angles and lines and perfect symmetry.
This does not intimidate me, as it might intimidate some. In those so beautifully wrought, there is always an essence of fragility, of… unbrokenness. I smile a languid smile. It is the grin I have learned from lions and wolves, and generals of war. “It is quite a party,” I compliment, graciously. I wait for him to serve me a drink.
Even this, I think, has room for contemplation. For now, he is my servant. He has put himself in that position, as host. I wait a moment, taking a small drink. Then, I ask: “Was your mother really a witch?” Yes, I think. She must have been.
Or else she would have shorn those snakes from his brow the moment he was born.
the only heaven i'll be sent to is when i'm alone with you
Time and time again, Israfel found herself returning to this spot. Golden hooves scraped at the edge of the cliff, mixing with snow, ice, and stone as she stared out towards the crashing waves far, far down below. Once, she would have thrown herself off of the edge just to see how close she could get to splatting against the stones sticking up from the ocean down below, tempting and toying with death. Diving from the edge to test the might and strength of her gilded wings had once been an event of pride for her, but now…
Now?
Israfel was tired.
Staring down into the churning water as it crashed against the rocky crags down below left her with little joy in her heart. She had seen these sights, had dove from the edge time and time again since arriving to Novus and had done so before, in Helovia, prior to her death. Monotony was slowly killing her, and she was growing listless. The realization was a terrifying one.
For too long she had felt shackled and chained to Terrastella. For too long she felt as though she couldn’t leave, because who would keep this land safe? Who would watch over it while she was gone? What would Marisol think? Oh, but she loved this land, there was never any doubt of that…
But did this land love her? Would it miss her when she was gone? Would she be mourned and grieved like Florentine had been? Like Asterion? Would a memorial vigil be done up in her memory? Doubt was a bitter taste on her tongue and Israfel detested the taste of it, anxiety cloying and clawing up her pale breast, talons digging into her throat as they crawled upwards, demanding and stealing everything she thought she knew. Nothing really made sense anymore, and the Sun Daughter hated it.
So, because she was a creature of habit, Israfel had returned to this spot, hooves dug into the stone and ice and snow, watching the churning water down below with a blank stare of empty vermillion… And not for the first time she pondered what it would be like to throw herself from the edge one last time, to see how long it would take for her to reach the bottom, and then…
Then…
The wind blew, brushing the hair from her face to reveal vermilion eyes glittering with unshed tears, and the maiden of ivory and gold mourned for a death not yet arrived. Somewhere, far away from Novus and watching two identical boys enjoy warmer weather, a Phoenix did the same.
« maybe i'm sick of sleeping longer nights with lesser feelings »
—
M
y curling signature inks the end of many invitations, yet I recall only three of them at any given time.
The first, to Pilate's Warden of Delumine. The second, to the famed dancer of the Benevolent. The third—to a man I know neither title nor allegiance yet only a name. My eyes slit in momentary discouragement; the possibility of him showing is low, anyway. Abbadon might not have even found him. It was a difficult mission from the start and I had refrained from going to the owlery to check.
Nonetheless, all three are my guests. I will go out of my way to show them every princely courtesy, if they do me the honour of showing.
I pull my father's cloak tighter around my throat when I am jostled by a girl giggling into the ear of her companion. I smile down at her, and she blushes her apology. In the chaos of the first rush of guests, I have lost Miriam, and after searching in vain for a head of brightly braided red, I have ended up, somehow, near the oaken doors of the dining hall. My tongue presses to the ridge of my mouth. Pilate is just past those doors mixing up an entire catalog of drinks. I have resolved to stay as far from his orbit tonight as I can manage.
The party began an hour ago yet so far I have escorted no one, and therefore, my facade is still hours from being bulletproofed. To speak civilly with him, I must be accompanied. By Miriam, by Ruth, by—
A pegasus clad all in black slides past me and my smile is a white, white gleam.
By the Warden himself. His appearance is a stroke of fate.
He moves slow enough for me to lengthen my strides and join easily into step besides him, my breath keeping even and slow. Before leaving my rooms I had shot down a vial of bitter medicine the new Terrastellan doctor had left for me, and so far, it is holding. I am barely coughing; the shadows beneath my eyes are nearly in remission.
I keep smoothly besides him for a few steps yet I don't think Andras has noticed me. The hall is crowded, and I am not particularly striking when I am not trying to be. I wonder where he is headed. If it is Pilate he seeks, then he is moving farther from him the longer he strides.
This fails to concern me. My good humour remains well intact.
"Andras. I am pleased to see you," I say at last, raising my voice to be heard over the crowd. My words carry, bright and warm.
