☼ S E R A P H I N A ☼
the tiny bird stuck in my cabin is flying into the mirror.
what does she know that i don’t—a wing and its reflection swell in the frame.
The second-to-last time, she thinks, that she was here, she traded a collar for a sword.
Ereshkigal is not with her, for once. Most of the time, the demon follows her like her own shadow, as ever-present and looming as the sun or the stars in the sky. This morning, when she left Solterra to make the trek to Veneror before the sun had even begun to rise, Ereshkigal had flown off in the opposite direction, no doubt to pester some poor wanderer or to hunt out some corpse for breakfast. She is grateful for the silence and the solitude. She doesn’t think that she could have made the trek up the mountain if Ereshkigal were with her.
Now, she stands at the mountaintop. It is mid-afternoon and the sun is as high as it will go in the cloudless, robin’s-egg blue sky, but the cold, this high up, is enough to border on painful. She had to walk through patch upon patch of ice and snow to reach the shrines, and, in the places where the path grew narrow and rugged, the slickness was enough to be nauseating. Seraphina did not fear dying, not really, but she did fear falling.
There was still ice and snow on the flat expanse that held the shrines, but she stood far from the edges, in the center of them all; the statues were still half-cracked in places from when the gods came out of them like cicadas crawled out of their skins in early summer. She could still remember seeing Solis for the first time, but somehow the memories felt like they belonged to someone else, now. Some other girl, some other queen, some other Seraphina. She can’t remember what she felt when she experienced them, now.
(It has grown so very, very difficult for her to remember how anything felt before Raum. It has always been difficult to piece together how anything felt before Viceroy, but she didn’t feel like she was losing anything for her inability to remember that – there was so little of it anyways. Now, she knew that she was forgetting things that she loved, people that she should love but didn’t remember how to, didn’t even remember what it felt like. The absence wasn’t only absence. It was gaping, gaping loss, and she didn’t remember how to fill it.)
It is Solis whose gaze she seeks out, his spiderweb-cracked pupils of molten gold. Her breath fogs in the cold air as she draws towards him, an unlit candle hovering in the air at her side, and, for some time, she just stands in front of the statue, trying to gather her courage. (She failed him, just as she failed Solterra – but what right does he have to judge her? He did nothing to save them from Raum, or from Zolin. But that is no excuse, and it isn’t Solis who matters besides. Her people put their faith in her, and she failed them. It is them that she wishes she could apologize to, not him, but there is nothing she can ever say – nothing she can ever do - to atone for that. The only one she can apologize to is her god, who must have trusted her too.) She opens her mouth and manages to say, “I-“ but nothing else will come out. She hopes that he understands what she wants to say anyways, even if she doesn’t understand it herself.
She does not know how she feels about his Orestes, yet. She hopes that he is better because he was chosen, unlike her; perhaps the blessing of the sun god will aid him on his way. (He never chose her. She never knew what to make of that, or what it meant. If she had stepped forward again, if she had so much as tried to take her crown back – she wonders if he would have chosen her, then. She doubts it. She doesn’t deserve it, and she is sure that he knows it as well as she does.)
The cold air twines through her mane and tail, runs its fingers through her coat. She wishes that she knew what to say. She wishes she knew how to dress the wounds so that they would begin to heal. She wishes that she could turn back time, or that she would wake up to find that this was all some horrible dream, or-
She dips her head to the altar and places the candle at Solis’s golden hooves, and she lights it. The little flame sparks to light, flickering defiantly in the frigid air, and, in its dancing, burning wake, a thin trail of smoke drifts out on the wind.
tags | nope
notes | mmm, just been feeling like writing one lately, I guess?
"speech"
the tiny bird stuck in my cabin is flying into the mirror.
what does she know that i don’t—a wing and its reflection swell in the frame.
The second-to-last time, she thinks, that she was here, she traded a collar for a sword.
Ereshkigal is not with her, for once. Most of the time, the demon follows her like her own shadow, as ever-present and looming as the sun or the stars in the sky. This morning, when she left Solterra to make the trek to Veneror before the sun had even begun to rise, Ereshkigal had flown off in the opposite direction, no doubt to pester some poor wanderer or to hunt out some corpse for breakfast. She is grateful for the silence and the solitude. She doesn’t think that she could have made the trek up the mountain if Ereshkigal were with her.
Now, she stands at the mountaintop. It is mid-afternoon and the sun is as high as it will go in the cloudless, robin’s-egg blue sky, but the cold, this high up, is enough to border on painful. She had to walk through patch upon patch of ice and snow to reach the shrines, and, in the places where the path grew narrow and rugged, the slickness was enough to be nauseating. Seraphina did not fear dying, not really, but she did fear falling.
There was still ice and snow on the flat expanse that held the shrines, but she stood far from the edges, in the center of them all; the statues were still half-cracked in places from when the gods came out of them like cicadas crawled out of their skins in early summer. She could still remember seeing Solis for the first time, but somehow the memories felt like they belonged to someone else, now. Some other girl, some other queen, some other Seraphina. She can’t remember what she felt when she experienced them, now.
(It has grown so very, very difficult for her to remember how anything felt before Raum. It has always been difficult to piece together how anything felt before Viceroy, but she didn’t feel like she was losing anything for her inability to remember that – there was so little of it anyways. Now, she knew that she was forgetting things that she loved, people that she should love but didn’t remember how to, didn’t even remember what it felt like. The absence wasn’t only absence. It was gaping, gaping loss, and she didn’t remember how to fill it.)
It is Solis whose gaze she seeks out, his spiderweb-cracked pupils of molten gold. Her breath fogs in the cold air as she draws towards him, an unlit candle hovering in the air at her side, and, for some time, she just stands in front of the statue, trying to gather her courage. (She failed him, just as she failed Solterra – but what right does he have to judge her? He did nothing to save them from Raum, or from Zolin. But that is no excuse, and it isn’t Solis who matters besides. Her people put their faith in her, and she failed them. It is them that she wishes she could apologize to, not him, but there is nothing she can ever say – nothing she can ever do - to atone for that. The only one she can apologize to is her god, who must have trusted her too.) She opens her mouth and manages to say, “I-“ but nothing else will come out. She hopes that he understands what she wants to say anyways, even if she doesn’t understand it herself.
She does not know how she feels about his Orestes, yet. She hopes that he is better because he was chosen, unlike her; perhaps the blessing of the sun god will aid him on his way. (He never chose her. She never knew what to make of that, or what it meant. If she had stepped forward again, if she had so much as tried to take her crown back – she wonders if he would have chosen her, then. She doubts it. She doesn’t deserve it, and she is sure that he knows it as well as she does.)
The cold air twines through her mane and tail, runs its fingers through her coat. She wishes that she knew what to say. She wishes she knew how to dress the wounds so that they would begin to heal. She wishes that she could turn back time, or that she would wake up to find that this was all some horrible dream, or-
She dips her head to the altar and places the candle at Solis’s golden hooves, and she lights it. The little flame sparks to light, flickering defiantly in the frigid air, and, in its dancing, burning wake, a thin trail of smoke drifts out on the wind.
tags | nope
notes | mmm, just been feeling like writing one lately, I guess?
"speech"
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
