Asterion It is lovely, here, the air heavy with the heady smell of blossoms and colored with drifting laughter, and Asterion should feel at peace. But there are memories of other festivals nipping at his heels, and their teeth are sharp. In the music he recalls the last time he was in Delumine, when the world was hazy with scents of woodsmoke and cider, and Asterion stood with Reichenbach beside him, watching Aislinn flee. In the quiet chatter of passerby, flowers wound in their hair, he thinks only of the Winter’s End festival, of exploring with the gypsy girl at his side – how happy he had been, as Florentine’s heart and trust were rent and Lysander was beaten. He had not wanted to come to this one, but Flora had coaxed him as his sister, and commanded him as his queen. Now he stands at the edge of the festivities as afternoon slips to golden evening. He wears a ribbon of wildflowers, courtesy of Cyrene, but they do not look as at home as the blooms that Florentine wears. The glimpses he gets of Calliope, or Flora, or Raymond should do more to comfort him, but it is still worry that whispers against his spine along with the breeze. It is a bittersweet comfort that there is no sign of Aislinn, or of any from Denocte. Each time he is caught by the scent of drifting smoke, he thinks only of the burning pass, and of hard words spoken softly against a lullaby sea. Asterion hopes they are happy, tucked behind their gate, separated by ashes of things that once grew. By chance alone he catches sight of the grey woman, a void of color in a meadow bursting with it – save her eyes, brilliant in the evening light. She, too, is set a little apart (though he knows there are those watching her, surely as there are those watching his own queen). He only hesitates a moment before moving toward her, and he wonders, as he nears, what demons dog her here. The Day Court leader has far more reason for the guarded expression she wears than him. He stops before he draws too near, more from respect than caution; there is little about him that could be considered a threat. He is only a drifter, a dreamer, a boy of stars and sea. “You look the way I feel,” he says softly, but there is a hint of a smile in his voice and in his eyes, too, as they linger on her. Asterion dips his head toward the Day queen, respectful as a knight. “I am Asterion, of the Dusk Court, and I am glad to finally meet you, Seraphina.” @ |
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my blood will fill the ditch // my blood will bury the mountain // but for now it sits still in my mouth // just waiting on the tip of my tongue Seraphina feels lost.
In a metaphorical sense, more than a literal one – festivals and parties have always been foreign to the warrior woman. She knows basic etiquette, of course, but that does not make her comfortable. She prefers isolation, and the open, clear sky, not a throng of moving bodies and a haze of smoke. This is – even with all of the music and art, the beauty, the open sky, the lush meadows – suffocating. She is wrong here, but she is always wrong in Delumine (a dash of sandpaper against rolling silk); this is a different kind of wrong. Everywhere she looks, she notices absence. She cannot say that the void of jasmine and woodsmoke and glittering, clinking coins is entirely unwelcome – it is not as though her own relationship with Denocte is pleasant, in spite of a correspondence she has been keeping. However, the closing of the gates looms ominous above her head, particularly when she thinks of the words of young Cynix…that it was somehow her fault, or at least the fault of her nation. (And the actions of her nation were as good as her own.) She wonders if others blame her people for it, too, in spite of her talks with Isorath; she wonders if she only imagines the eyes that seem to follow her in the crowd. It would not require any strong stretch of the imagination to say that she has become paranoid; used to being watched, like something up on public display. It was bound to happen eventually, she’s told herself time and time again, but she still misses the comfort of being anonymous, just another face in a bubbling, frothing crowd; she has missed wearing her own name and being unrecognizable, rather than resorting to (often useless) disguises and aliases for a moment of peace. She is not in disguise tonight, however, and it is no surprise when a foreign dignitary approaches her – she recognizes him as the Dusk Court’s Reagent, the brother of Florentine. He is star-struck bay, a bit older than she but younger in every way but physical, in spite of the weight that seems to rest, uncomfortable and disconcerting, across his pretty features. She dips her head to him in greeting. “It is a pleasure to meet you as well, Asterion,” Seraphina greets, her tone as coolly pleasant as ever. She considers his opening remark for a moment, then adds, “And I suspect that I do look…misplaced. I have never felt comfortable at celebrations.” Pleasant as this one is, with its wildflower crowns, she can never quite seem to shake the rotting taste of Zolin from her mouth. (He is always there, just over her shoulder, but gone when she blinks. Perfume again, in his absence – the soft scent of the lilies that rest gentle as laurels on her forehead, a crown that she had never expected to wear.) “But what troubles you, Asterion? You seem to have much on your mind.” She sees no harm in asking – perhaps he needs someone to ask, and Seraphina is never one to turn down information besides. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- tags | @Asterion notes | this took forever, but, anyhow - excite! <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
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my blood will fill the ditch // my blood will bury the mountain // but for now it sits still in my mouth // just waiting on the tip of my tongue She notes the curve of his lips. “Thank you,” She says, with a hint of dry humor that makes it clear that his – rather lighthearted - intentions were noticed, though she adds, a bit more seriously, “A crown is an insulting thing to wear, in Solterra – but this is not Solterra, and I didn’t want to reject a gift.” Uncomfortable as it makes her. Lilies are just lilies, and flowers are little more than a mockery of the gilded crowns that Solterran royalty used to wear, a child’s temporal plaything by comparison to the weight of a nation.
Seraphina knows Florentine and Cyrene, and, from her few observations of Asterion, he seems to fit in with them quite comfortably. They both possess a softness that strikes her as strange; something gentle that she wouldn’t quite call malleable. A sort of stubborn kindness, perhaps, if a naïve one. But, then, she reminds herself that not everyone is so guarded as she – not everyone had grown up clutching a knife to their breast, and, even among those that did, some still escaped with a love for the world that met them with such cruelty. It was a resilience that she did not understand. What she possesses is devotion, and she wonders, sometimes, if it is really the same thing. She watches his expression carefully as he offers her an answer; the curl of his lips is not so gentle or so soft, then, and there is a hint of something painful in it that makes her wonder what he is remembering. At his admission, she offers, “I am…aware of what occurred at the Festival that Dusk hosted during the Solstice.” Seraphina still feels a bit awkward for her absence; although she was swamped with work after Maxence’s death, diplomatically, she has a feeling that it was something of a blunder. (Well, her people had attended in her absence, at least – and Avdotya.) “Has there been more than one occasion?” She doesn’t know of any other parties that have gone poorly for Terrastella, but she knows that Florentine and Asterion are both from another land, and, as far as she’s concerned, this is as good a time as ever to learn more. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- tags | @Asterion notes | short and sweet <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
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if this is redemption // why do I bother at all // there's nothing to mention // and nothing has changed // still I'd rather be working at something than praying for the rain If Seraphina notices his social misstep, she gives no sign of it; rather, she is quick to offer a hint of a nod. “In Solterra,” She says, simply, “they are as dangerous as they are ridiculous. Our previous monarch was…tyrannical, and he had a taste for the grandiose. Better to avoid the association.” She is disinclined to speak any further of Zolin without prompt – Solterra’s history is an ugly thing, and she doesn’t know how much he already knows of it besides. Instead, she lets the conversation flow on, listening attentively as he admits that the other party garnered emotional distress, not physical.
“I’m afraid that I don’t understand,” She admits, in the mechanical, detached tone that she resorts to when she’s not entirely sure what to do with a situation – better to shut down and resort to what she does know. She has the distinct impression that she should be empathetic, but she isn’t, and she doesn’t know how to be. She can only eye him with surgical intensity, like a frog on a dissecting table. He’s hurt. She knows that much. What she doesn’t know is why, or how, or what to say to make him hurt less, if that’s even what she’s meant to be doing. She does know that she dislikes his tone, the self-deprecating, defeated atmosphere of it all. Perhaps he is a different breed than his sister and her Emissary, or perhaps he has been so deeply wounded that he can’t stop the bleeding; either way, his words lament the world. It is a cruel place, and a painful one. She knows that. “However…nothing is inevitable, Asterion – our choices build the world we live in. Acceptance is dangerous.” She doesn’t know what he’s talking about; even if she did, chances were that she wouldn’t understand it. However, she does know that she dislikes his tone. He says, then, eyes flitting to the lilies encircling her forehead, that his homeland doesn’t have politics - just living - and goes on to admit that he wishes he were a bit more controlled, a bit more like her. Seraphina stiffens abruptly, standing erect and strange, and, when she speaks again, her voice is considerably softer and her tone distinctly strange; there is a hint of an edge to it. “I am what I must be, Asterion. To have anything, you must lose something else.” She stares at him through cold, eerie eyes. “Regardless of the land you hail from, I suspect there was no dearth of broken hearts or violent men. The stakes might have changed, but not the game - and you can’t always win, no matter how you play.” Kind or cruel, cruel or kind; it matters little, she thinks, when failure is inevitable. Better to learn to cope with what you were than to strive against it. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- tags | @Asterion 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
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if this is redemption // why do I bother at all // there's nothing to mention // and nothing has changed // still I'd rather be working at something than praying for the rain He’s joking, or so he claims, about curses, and he says that it isn’t his place to discuss the specifics besides. “Of course,” She says, easily. “I would not expect you to do so.” His life – and his interactions with those that share it – are hardly her business or her concern, in spite of her vested interest in knowing the other Regimes well enough to use her knowledge to her advantage. Besides, she hasn’t the heart to help him; she knows little of emotional pain, and even less of the love or inadequacy that she is woefully unaware plague him.
It is not his wounds that cause her to draw back; gods know that she’s seen enough of those without flinching. Perhaps it is just the implication that he would ever wish for the cold that she possesses like an iron shield that frustrates her – he is delicate, and he hasn’t realized that is a gift. She doesn’t miss the way that his gaze lingers momentarily on the collar around her throat, because the look that he gives it is far from unusual. (Had she known what thoughts ran through his mind, she might have laughed a bitter laugh or smiled a crooked smile. Foreigners, she might have thought, in that tired, bemused way, always so quick to step into our land and assume that it will yield to them – always so quick to assume that they can save us, or that we wish for their salvation.) Her composure, her quiet voice, her steel-clad gaze, everything that she is – in the right light, it will always look like a tragedy. Her ears twitch, very slightly, at his comment. It’s complimentary, but…but he’s wrong. They never beat back the Davke. The Davke simply took from them what they willed and disappeared. (Had they learned nothing from their own “extermination,” she wondered? Nothing done well is ever done by half-measures.) And she is no emblem of strength; she is uncertain and young and oh-so passive, with none of the vengeful bite that her nation wears so well. However, some part of her is also vaguely aware that he is projecting, and so she stays quiet until he decides to take his leave. She has the distinct impression that she insulted him – not unusual. “Take care, Asterion. I hope that this festival treats you better than those you have encountered in the past,” Seraphina says, rather than anything else; she leaves him to his own conclusions. Sometimes, she wonders why Maxence ever thought she was suited for diplomacy. She watches him disappear into the crowd, then takes her own leave; a sleek silver shade passing wordlessly through the throng of bodies. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- tags | @Asterion notes | aaaand, sera out. fun times <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 |
