[Worship] godless

[Seraphina]

☼ s e r a p h i n a ☼

half gods are worshiped in wine and flowers
real gods require blood

It has been a week since the Davke had come.

A week since everything she had built had gone up in smoke. A week since she had been reminded in the most vicious and ugly manner imaginable exactly who she was and what she stood against.

A week since, again, she had been forced to ask herself why and found no answer.

As always, Seraphina had put out the fires. As always, she had hunted down the stragglers. As always, she had met bloodlust with blood – as always, she’d collected the bodies. She wondered how long the sandstone roads would stink of burning flesh and smoke. She wondered how long it would take to rebuild, if they could ever rebuild at all. She wondered how long the Davke would be kept at bay, if this vengeance was as fickle and foolish and self-righteous as their motivations – if all the blood she had watched her nation shed was enough to fill their stomachs. She did not care if they were done or not; she merely cared for how long she’d have to devise them into graves they’d dig themselves.

She wants to ache. She wants to ache, to rage, to scream - but her lips can only find the same, tired words, and her chest feels like it is caving in to nothing.

And now she meanders up familiar, worn stone paths under a canopy of patched starlight, content enough in the court’s stability to travel outside of it. There is something that she must do.

In her charcoal lips, she clutches a golden emblem melded into the shape of the sun. It was once situated above her throne; the emblem was, supposedly, a relic from the time of Queen Sol, forged by her blacksmith-lover to proclaim her allegiance to Solis. The edges are slightly rough, chipped by the carving knife she’d used to pry it free from the ancient wood that only miraculously survived the flames. Alongside it, a candle, and an accompanying match. As she reaches the peak, the heavens open above her head, pelting the silver with a cold dusting of rain and wind that knocks her hair from its braids and leaves it streaming rivulets down the sides of her neck. Perhaps, she thinks, it is only right that she does this now, the furthest she can ever be from her god’s light. In the darkness and the haze, she finds herself consumed, another monochromatic smudge against a desolate landscape of mottled stone.

As she takes her final steps up to the shrines, she drinks in the sight of them – beautiful and ancient and untouched by time. As she passes each of them, she pauses, offering a small dip of her head in acknowledgement; no prayers, though. She realizes that, during the Davke attack, during the slaughter, no prayer passed her lips – no prayer even came to mind, not even the soft mantra that she’d repeated through all her years of war. Perhaps, even then, she had known. Perhaps, even before she heard the whispers, even before she saw the Davke come, a halo of gold illuminating the swirl of dust set up against the horizon, she had known. Perhaps she had always known.

She knows now.

She finds her way to Solis’s shrine last and takes some meager cover underneath it, depositing the candle and the emblem on the cold marble. She lights the match with her mind and lifts the tiny flame to the wick, alighting the candle; it flickers red-orange against her bloodshot eyes and stark features, strangely warm in the cold and the rain. With that done, she casts a long glance at the emblem, and then pushes it forward to the golden hooves of the sun god, polished and glimmering like wildfire against the frail light of the candle. She tries to think of prayers to whisper, but the words won’t come – her throat seems to close up whenever she tries to cede to them, as though even a search for finality is too much of a concession to make. She tells herself that there is no need to speak her mind to the sun god. There is nothing on his sands of which he is unaware.

The candle flickers out with a gust of mountain wind, leaving little more than a trail of smoke as ghostly silver as the mare’s coat and a faint recollection of cinnamon.

So why had she come, if not to seek some light in the darkness, if not to ask for aid as she struggles to rebuild what remains of the kingdom of day? She looks up into the hard, unfeeling eyes of the statue and wonders if she is beginning to resemble it – no, she thinks, as she catches the vicious, proud twitch of his brows and the curl of his lips and remembers that there is nothing, nothing, nothing that would spark her features to rage. Her apathy is alien and wrong, but she can’t seem to untangle herself from it, and, in the wake of the slaughter, she is unwilling to try; if nothing else, it will serve her well in the days to come.

She is not chosen by those eyes.

Sovereigns were supposed to be chosen by their patron gods, were they not? That is what she has always been told – that was what Zolin claimed whenever his orders were rejected, though she cannot believe that he was chosen by Solis, either. Perhaps she’s every bit as much a sham as her predecessor. Maxence was chosen; he’d slain a teryr, after all. (The same teryr, she thinks, that would have left her dead without his interference – if she ever needed a sign that this crown was not her own, it was that.) Avdotya was fire and rage and ambition, and just as culpable in the creature’s death as Maxence; was it really, then, a shock that the sun god’s favor would go to her, a woman that could take power and vengeance by her own volition, rather than the silver, who’d only ever come into possession of it by chance? She is the Queen of the Day Court, now, but she’d never been the Queen of the Sun. She wants to be angry, or jealous; she wants to be bitter. She wishes she could ask if all of those years of prayer, of screaming, of begging weren’t enough – she wants to say that she tried. She knows that none of those things matter to the sun god. She understands. Nor does she blame the slaughter on him; that belonged to nothing but her own incompetence, her own foolishness. Nevertheless, she knows who he aided that day.

She has spent all her years worshipping a god who demands fire, and all she has ever had to offer is smoke.

Seraphina is not interested in begging for scraps of favor; she is not interested in begging for anything at all. She is done with begging, done with searching for answers, done with searching for some compensation for a past that is nothing but smoke and ashes – if she cannot be volatile and furious as flame (and, when she probes at the space inside of her, darker and darker and deeper and deeper by the day, she knows that she will never have fire), she will be as enduring and creeping as winter ice. She knows what she is; she’ll sooner break than bend.

She takes a deep breath, then exhales white. Her eyes remain on the statue. “The Day Court remains your domain. Its people still look to you for light, beyond the smoke.” One last thing lingers on her tongue, mingled with the taste of blood that she cannot seem to wash out. Seraphina does not hesitate. She is done with hesitation. She is done with being a belonging; she is done with the gods-damned collar around her neck. She will see her people restored – she will see her predecessors’ mistakes fixed – regardless of what it may cost her.

She whispers her final words in quiet defiance – the steady, certain voice of one who’d been crushed beneath the weight of one too many sets of hooves. “But I am no longer yours.”

@

@Aislinn - <3

[Aislinn]

SWITCH THE LIGHT OFF, WELCOME THE NIGHT WHAT’S THE PROBLEM, NOT GONNA MAKE IT RIGHT BITE THE BULLET THEN PULL THE TRIGGER HOLD TIGHT IT’S A FEELING, YOU KNOW A week had passed since her spirits had slowly begun to flutter and rise; embers of faith born from the rumors of Solterra’s inner destruction. She had heard the whisperings, the murmurs, from the shadows that gathered in the dark within her castle’s walls. Veteris was alive with secrets brimming from those shadows; theories and stories spoken with flickers of firelight. One week since their enemies to the north had been ruined from within. The once-mighty Davke — believed to be smothered to ashes by Zolin — was now slithering across the sands of Day in havoc. Their snakes breathing poison and fire and chaos in their wake.. and led by no one other than the viper queen. Avdotya. Her heart and mind were at war. When were they not? She herself had stood opposite of the Viper not days before Solterra fell. Avdotya slipped then, revealing a kernel of her power to her as her own tempest swirled in answer to her pent rage. The earth had answered the queen’s call, bending and rising and breathing at her will. Aislinn had traveled into her borders for information, and she had not left unwanting. This.. this could turn the tides and tip the precious scales of their Court’s tension at last. How long until Calligo’s kingdom — her kingdom — was no longer safe from the Davke’s wrath? The thoughts that ravaged her were fruitless; hell bent and bloody, all parched earth and the smoke of battlefields made to ruin. Her eyes had been on the stars for weeks — watching, waiting, yearning. On this night, when the moon had begun to rise, she had slipped from the open expanse of her windows. Falling like an ash-ridden star from her tower, willing the wind to catch her. And oh, how Calligo’s stars and shadows and wood smoke held her then. She had flown. Her wings had snapped open, each feather and plume tasting of salt and the brine of a sea that sang it’s lullabies to her still. She nearly cried out into the music that thrummed against the cities walls, pulsing and dancing across her skin in tantalizing fingers. Aislinn was free; no longer chained to the ground in shackles of moonstone and crimson-stained snow. She was wild and untamed, and every ounce of the storm that she would not allow to be snuffed out by a Warden’s teeth. And as she soared above the City of Starlight, she could have sworn that the star-spotted sky rolled in thunder and clouds of purplish bruises in answer to her silent cries. The stormsinger was home. She did not falter from the skies in which she swam in pearlescent stars. Only until the lonely mountain at their continent’s center rose like a stone spear towards the heavens did she slow, spiraling until her hooves graced the smooth marble of the temple’s floor. The coins wrapped around her throat are the only sound besides the beating of her heart, and the whispers of her goddess that stretch towards her from the dark like penumbra hands. Many times she has been here, alone and with company, amidst both friend and foe. But Aislinn is not ever truly alone, especially here, especially now. Her goddess has never been as close to her as she was now, as she steps into the tender heart of the citadel. The cave mouth yawns open for her, all swirling pillars and ancient stone carved from the peak of their world’s highest point. Aislinn could almost taste the stars in their closeness, brush them with phantom finger tips as they tugged at her hair. But her gaze falls on the statues that circle in a half moon, bathed in the silver of night fall. Blue orbs do not linger on the three gods of the other three kingdoms, and they do not touch the carved stone of Tempus himself. Instead, as if following a silver thread wrapped around her heart, her soul, she is drawn forevermore to the darkest of the statues gathered here. A rising form that rears in shadows and pin-pricks of opal like stars. Pearly eyes that ghost and find her, piercing the stormsinger from where she stands. Never had she felt more bare — naked and open under Calligo’s gaze. In a breath, Aislinn shears a strand of ombré locks with the tendrils of her mind. Wrapping it tightly, binding it, before she places the shining locks of ivory and ink at her goddess’ stone feet. Her crown dips, generously as lashes fall upon her cheeks, her eyes hidden in the curtain of unbound hair. "Your grace and passion and wildness has never been more welcome," she whispers, "and I am but a stormsinger who will continue to ask for your guidance in the times to come. " She hesitates, sucking in a long breath. The words tasting of ash on her tongue as she grinds out, ”There is a darkness that grows.. and it is not born of your stars and smoke but—" Cut short, Aislinn’s head whips around, an ear cocked. Hoofbeats. Soft and clicking across the steps on the mountain’s side. Clouds mar the skies, swallowing the temple in darkness as she creeps to the edges of the citadel. Hiding; ever cautious of the source of such noise. The glimmer of her eyes spark as she takes in the charcoal woman, and the shining gold held in her lips, amazed that even in the shadows, light still finds the metal here. As if brighter than any.. no. A sun. Gold that shines brighter than the Sun itself. She is only the memory of night and storms, a ghost hidden in the shadows of the curtained moon, as she watches the woman meet Solis’ statue head on. The Day Court remains your domain. Its people still look to you for light, beyond the smoke. Disgust turns her stomach, a stone falling in the empty pit as her lips crack into a soundless snarl. Her heart roars, thundering, blood and bones singing in their mutual hatred for the sun god’s people. His queen. Or is it queens? Her wings curl closer, hugging her sides. The memory of Torstein’s teeth ripping open her midnight flesh, and Maxence’s call to steal one of her own all too real. Their brutality, their lack of morals, all born from the sun drops of Solis’ disdain for his half-sister. Their immortal struggles brought to the mortal plane by the pawns that play on the check board of their divine games. Aislinn only watches as the woman’s candle is snuffed out by Calligo’s shadows. The side of her lips curls at the very thought of it. But I am no longer yours. The clouds stealing Calligo’s starlight shift; their touches of silver falling to find their stormsinger. "Strong words for a scorned queen." Aislinn melts from the darkness, slithers of shadows cradling her close as she steps into the filters of moonbeams. Sprinkles of stardust cling to her skin, her hair, but their luster does not meet her eyes. Her gaze only burns — twin flames that meet fire and ice. Gold and blue. If she had been any other queen, any other woman, from any other kingdom, Aislinn might have commented on the allure of such eyes. Their strange and mesmerizing glimmer in her goddess’ dark. But no — smoke and dust clouded her nostrils, drowning her lungs at the stench. She had heard the stories. Aislinn knew enough from their intelligence and records to recognize the woman before her. She’d be failing as Reichenbach’s Champion if she had not. Stepping forth from the shadows that dance around her, moonbeams drink in the ink of her as she circles the statues of Novus’ gods. Only when she stands curled behind Calligo’s rearing stone does she stop. Not once does her gaze break, nor blink. If anything, her brow quirks as a muscle in her lip twitches. Wary. Cautious. As she should be.. after her what her Warden had done. She curls the expanse of her wings close. "I can say I’m surprised you’d dare travel outside of your borders," she says bluntly, flatly, "but yet here you stand." Her brow furrows as stray strands of silver tangle across her eyes, unblinking blue fires that simmer with each word. "I know who you are." Questions and spilled blood and bones snapped war on the battlefield of her soul. Calligo damn her if she would ask her for her allegiance, to be their ally. How could she possibly keep Denocte safe from the viper’s reach? This woman was their enemy — her enemy — and yet, who was truly the Queen of Solterra now? The woman before her had watched as her kingdom crumbled. And Aislinn could only remember the spark of amusement that still glowed like an ember hidden in her ribs. Stars, if only she knew. RUNNING UNDER LIGHTS OFF IN THE SKY NOTHING MATTERS WHEN YOU’RE IN THE FIGHT HOLD YOUR FIRE MAYBE WE CAN MAKE IT ALL RIGHT @Seraphina <33 i’m sorry for the wait ;_; P.S. I’m so sorry for the book holy fudge muffin 1,487 words for worship thread claiming purposes! "Aislinn speech."

SPACEGUESSWHO +

[Seraphina]

☼ s e r a p h i n a ☼

half gods are worshiped in wine and flowers
real gods require blood

The rustle of motion. Strong words for a scorned queen.

She remembers the pressure of hooves slamming her down in muddy terrain, the sensation of her delicate, youthful bones cracking beneath the weight of some far larger and far older man; you were only a child; she remembers the whirl of magic reverberating like a hurricane of shadow, the visions, the screaming, the taste of blood, darkness creeping, creeping, creeping; she remembers Viceroy rummaging through her head, ripping out what he disliked and twisting what remained – she remembers the excruciating pain, the way her legs tore out from under her against her will and left her crumpled, how tears and screams were greeted with even more pain and more violence until she ran out of tears to shed and learned that her screams were worthless; she remembers lying in the mud days after a battle, her skin caking brown and red, tongue swollen and mouth dry and unable to breathe through her shredded lungs and clogged nostrils; she remembers wishing that she was dead, that the dark hovering at the edges of her vision would just take her once and for all; she remembers breaking time and time again and being cobbled back together hastily and haphazardly so that she could break again in a week. She isn’t sure that the mage’s quick fixes ever quite healed right, but her body has not collapsed in on her yet, so she counts herself lucky.

Why, then, would she ever break now? What choice had she but strong words, steeled features, necessary brutality? Sobbing and begging never got you anything. Sobbing and begging hadn’t ever saved her, and sobbing and begging hadn’t saved her people while the Davke ripped them limb from limb. Maybe she was scorned. Maybe she was beaten down, brought to her knees by Avdotya’s onslaught, maybe the god she had invested all of her faith in had thrown her on the wayside like she was nothing at all, but she was not done yet.

She wonders, then, if the rest of Novus thinks she has broken in the wake of the siege. All the better for her if they did – underestimation could be a powerful tool.

She would not break again.

And so she watches the woman as she melts from the shadows, gaze coldly impassive as she locks her stare with eyes burning as brilliant blue as the summer sky. She knows her – she knows her lithe frame, the string of stars tossed down the side of her neck, the rich bay of her coat. Aislinn. The Stormsinger – Denocte’s Champion of Battle. As she moves, her eyes never leaving Seraphina’s, she burns. Seraphina has been met with enough contempt to know it when she sees it, though it is laced with a rare wariness; a caution. To her words, she offers no response. The Stormsinger’s stance makes the silver unsure of whether or not her words are intended to provoke her, but, in any case, she will not be rising to the occasion. If she had been standing in the shadows long enough to hear her words, then she has nothing to justify to her, and if she was so quick to accept that the Queen of Solterra was scorned by the God of the Sun, perhaps she already knew.

“I can say I’m surprised you’d dare travel outside of your borders, but here you stand.”

No response to that, either – she simply watches her through bloodshot, empty eyes, expression unreadable. Seraphina knew her advisor, and she had taken account of her numbers. The Davke might have taken what they would of her city, but far more people still resided in the Day Court, and now she would not be caught unaware. Precautions had been taken, and plans were being made. Seraphina might have been fooled, but she was no fool, and she would not be so easily ravaged again.

Of course, she had not left the Capitol lightly - each step she took away from the city burned her. Once she slipped beyond the sight of her homeland’s familiar sands, however, she felt untouched, as though a weight had been lifted from her shoulders. She had moved with naught but purpose towards her goal. If she was ever to move forward, ever to rebuild her court, ever to defend what remained of her people, she needed to have purpose, and, to have purpose, she needed to make her peace with her god. Was disavowing him really making her peace? Even now, she isn’t sure - something has been flickering inside of her since the attack, like ashes provoked slowly into embers. No flame – no compromise of her integrity, her resolute cold. She can’t deny, however, that in the wake of the emptiness that has spent so many years swallowing her whole in the blank spaces between her ribs, something is growing. (She is not sure if she wants it to reach fruitition.)

I know who you are.

As though she couldn’t tell. At that, however, the silver speaks. “And I know who you are, Stormsinger.” Her words roll off her tongue smoothly; calm, cool – even cordial. Seraphina is nothing if not tactful, and, though her stance is far from welcoming, she avoids outright hostility, retaining a semblance of statuesque restrain. “What would you have of me?” If the woman had approached her, she reasons, she must have some purpose, be it good or ill. She would hear her out, for now; she can practically visualize the questions brewing on her tongue, amidst the resentment. In the wake of such violence, who could blame her?

The Davke were violence and rage, and they were wild as the desert wind; they would not be satisfied with destroying Solterra. With the Capitol in pieces, it seemed reasonable enough that Denocte would bear the blunt of their next attack – they were Solis’s true children, or so they claimed, and they would be all to happy to sink their hungry fangs into the realms of Calligo.

@

@Aislinn - <3

[Aislinn]

SWITCH THE LIGHT OFF, WELCOME THE NIGHT WHAT’S THE PROBLEM, NOT GONNA MAKE IT RIGHT BITE THE BULLET THEN PULL THE TRIGGER HOLD TIGHT IT’S A FEELING, YOU KNOW In the darkness that gathers, her orbs find the dust of stars that shine brighter than strikes of lightning; the very same lightning, that not so long ago showered down upon Solterra’s Warden. The very same lightning that sizzled across earth and snow, blood and sweat, igniting her veins with a burning that could not be quenched. The very same lightning that she adored, for the wildness and beauty of something untamed, that created the opening in which Torstein took. It was then that the opening in her defenses ripped a hole in her armor, her rage. Still, her wing still aches where the bones had snapped under thundering hooves — still, the stars in her vision then spark across her eyes as she looks upon Calligo’s night sky, peaking through the pillars of the mountain citadel. Even now, she hears his voice. Unwanted and dripping in poison. It’s not safe to be alone with me. In the shadows and filtered starlight, Aislinn’s lips curl in a soundless snarl at the memory. She would not be so naïve this time. Not while the Solterran queen stands only a few paces from her. Aislinn can only wonder — wonder if this woman before her thought of her as weak. Weak from her arrogance, her broken body, and the feud that had been clashed in a world made colorless by snow.. all except for her blood. Splashed and contrasted in an ugly crimson against the white. But now.. now she was strong, and every ounce the guardian she had been trained from nothing to be. Like hell would she be anything or than the warrior she had been born to be. She would not break. Not again. Not by Solterran hands. Not by anyone. And I know who you are, Stormsinger. The queen’s calmness was irritating, only serving to rouse the storm inside her with a burning for violence. Where Aislinn is a barely contained beast hiding behind a mask of starlight and ebony skin, Seraphina is all regality. Restrained even, where the stormsinger’s seams begin to unravel with her hatred for any under Solis’ thumb. Most of all.. their queen. Their Sovereign. A muscle twitches violently in her upper lip, her gaze unblinking as she swallows. Angry waves crash in her blood and bones, beating against her insides with a swirl of hurricanes amidst an open sea. But with an inhale, the waters calm, just enough to satiate their broiling rage. Her fury that knows no bounds. All she needed was the right push, should this meeting turn sour. What would you have if me? What did she want? Vengeance. Revenge. Her Warden’s head on a silver platter. But what did she truly want? The safety of her people, of all Calligo’s own. Every night-born and star blessed child to be saved from the unpredictability of the Davke. And yet, not even the Day Court’s Queen was safe from those who called Solterra their own. A question burns in her mind. How long would they be safe until the Viper’s hunger for blood for no longer quenched by Solterra alone? How long until they breached into Denocte? And what would she do to stop it? Ask this queen — if she was still a queen — to be allies? To share in a common enemy? Aislinn didn’t know. She only knows the darkness of Calligo’s shadows that curl around her in their silence, the clouds drowning the starlight from the temple. She finds a comfort in the dark of nightfall, where her goddess’ fingers dance across her in answers to each unspoken question. Aislinn can only decipher them for her own. In this moment, swallowed in darkness, her orbs nearly glow brightest blue, finding her answer. She pins Seraphina and her mismatched gaze of gold and blue — the sand and sea. Her disgust is hidden in the dark, only noticeable with the clip of her words as they drip from her lips. "I would like many things from you. Where would you like me to begin?" She steps forward, uncurling herself from behind the Night goddess’ rearing statue. Aislinn stops just shy of the silver, cracking her neck. "First things first" — her right wing hooks, aiming for Seraphina’s cheek — "that is for your Warden breaking my fucking wing." With a huff, she grunts, retreating and swiveling her muscles of her wing. The very same one, that not so long ago, had been damaged and broken. Bleeding and shredded, all torn feathers and dripped blood on snow. Not anymore. The stormsinger raises her chin, fires in her eyes glowing blue embers in the moonlight that streams into the temple, illuminating them. "Now let’s talk." RUNNING UNDER LIGHTS OFF IN THE SKY NOTHING MATTERS WHEN YOU’RE IN THE FIGHT HOLD YOUR FIRE MAYBE WE CAN MAKE IT ALL RIGHT @Seraphina <33 -screaming- "Aislinn speech."

SPACEGUESSWHO +

[Seraphina]

☼ s e r a p h i n a ☼

half gods are worshiped in wine and flowers
real gods require blood

She can feel the tension brewing in the air around them like veins of electricity; it crawls beneath her skin like a sea of ants, like a storm rolling in on the distant horizon. The storm, however, is already upon her. Rain dribbles down her slick skin, and lightning herself stands in front of her. “I would like many things from you. Where would you like me to begin?” She can’t see the Stormsinger well; the darkness of her coat blends into the shadows. She doesn’t have to see her, however, to hear the ugly, black loathing in her tone. As the Stormsinger draws forward, she has to resist the urge to draw back – the woman is planning something, she knows, and the bitter fury in her voice tells the silver that it’s nothing good.

The warrior woman cracks her neck, advancing ever closer. “First thing’s first-“

There is no time to move.

Her wing resounds against the silver’s cheek with a violent, nauseating crack that is more the result of the small fractures that likely line every bone in her body than the strength contained in the Stormsinger’s assault.

“-that is for your warden breaking my fucking wing.”

Seraphina does not shift. She does not wince, or flinch, though her head snaps to the side with the force of the blow. As she looks back at the Stormsinger, however, her expression has shifted; if there was anything welcoming within it before, there is nothing at all left behind. Her eyes are impassive and dead, like river-rocks or marbles or little chips of ice. There is no anger or injury or humiliation in her statuesque features. Her lips do not curve. Her muscles do not tighten. Seraphina stares the Stormsinger down with empty, bloodshot eyes, refusing her the satisfaction of any reaction, refusing her anything at all.

In the very depths of her being, Seraphina can feel a quiet, white-hot flicker of outrage and indignity; it is the same that she feels when she thinks of the Davke or the Crows or her own god. They know, she thinks, that there is nothing she can do to retaliate. They know that they have forced her back against the wall, chained her up, collared her and constricted her to quiet, passive compliance. She bears offence and injury after offence and injury, watches her people die, sheds blood for crimes that were never her own, and all that she can do is let them hit her, let them kick her, let them hurt her and think that it is better that she is hurt than any more of her people. All she can do is sit still and act pleasant and take it, because otherwise she risks bringing more violence down on the heads of those that she is sworn to protect.

All that she can do now is refuse to play along.

The Stormsinger holds herself high, chin raised and tone imposing. “Now let’s talk.” Then she did want something from the silver. Well, she won’t be quick to give it to her, if she is willing to give anything at all – she won’t let her control the conversation. Cornered as she is by forces outside of her control, Seraphina refuses to let herself be rendered passive. Did this woman think that she had the right to treat her so, as though she is something broken and discarded, all for her advisor’s betrayal and the betrayal of the sun god above? As though there will never be consequence, as though there is no fight left within her? There was more to being forsaken, she thinks, than that.

If the sun god and his chosen one could not bring the silver queen to her knees, what hope had anyone else?

She straightens, then, raising her chin; her cheek is already swelling, and she makes no move to hide it. Seraphina watches her in frigid silence, muscles tensed in preparation – she stands in the path of a storm, and all it would take was one wrong move to bring her fury crashing down upon her head, electric and burning. “Not unless you intend to explain yourself.” Her voice remains eerily cold, impassive; any anger she feels is buried so deep within her as to be unrecognizable. “What occurred with my Warden?” If, she thinks, she can call Torstein that at all; he treads on paper-thin ice, whether he knows it or not, for his irreverent disregard for her people’s suffering. Where had he been while her kingdom had burned? Certainly not enforcing the law that should have been his job.

Snakes, she thinks, the lot of them.

There would be time for that when she is off this peak, however, and away from the Stormsinger’s searing, mocking blue eyes that seem to her no less unpleasant than the impassive eyes of the god she once worshipped, laughing down at her from above.



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tags | @Aislinn
notes | aislinn now has the dubious honor of actually making sera angry, even though sera's not showing it. ignore all of her projection.

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[Aislinn]

SWITCH THE LIGHT OFF, WELCOME THE NIGHT WHAT’S THE PROBLEM, NOT GONNA MAKE IT RIGHT BITE THE BULLET THEN PULL THE TRIGGER HOLD TIGHT IT’S A FEELING, YOU KNOW In the darkness, the only warmth of her is her eyes, as they burn wicked blue fires with insatiable rage. Her face violent twists, savoring the satisfying crack of her wing connecting with the silver’s cheek. The healed, delicate, avian bones reverberate at the impact, but they hold steady. There are no more daggers of white-hot flame, nor winces with each slight movement. She is power, she is fury, she is a storm begging to be unleashed. And if she could not release her wrath on her attacker, then.. then this woman — his queen — would have to be enough. For now. There is no reaction from the silver; only an emptiness, a lethal silence save for the residual crack of her wing connecting to smooth bone. Her ears do not catch a sound, her eyes do not catch a wince. Nothing. Nothing at all. The queen’s quiet, however brutally calm, is anything but. Aislinn’s rage ignites from the lack of something, anything, as she steps back to relieve herself of the woman’s stench of sun-soaked sand and ash. The woman’s eyes though.. her eyes say it all. And the stormsinger’s grin curves wildly, crudely in answer. Not unless you intend to explain yourself. In any other moment, Aislinn might have admired how the woman’s chin rose despite the swelling of her skin, despite that she stands in the midst of a stormsinger’s wavering self-control. She might have even commented on her strength, her resilience. Tonight, with her, however, would not fall under those circumstances. She was hungry; starving for blood that tasted of the sun’s reek. The object of her rage was gone, but his pretty little queen was here, trapped in the citadel with Calligo’s Champion. This was her game now, and oh.. The silver was going to lose. What occurred with my Warden? She had expected fire and flames, but instead, only ice dripped off of her tongue. "You don’t know." A statement, not a question. An cold, flat laugh looses from her throat. "You don’t have an idea. You’re Sovereign, are you not?" Her muscles tremble with the tempest that crashes in her blood and bones; the taste of electricity dancing across her skin. How could she not know? Did her Court run rampant whenever they pleased? Did Torstein — it’s not safe, it’s not safe, it’s not safe.. She snarls, more to herself, to silence the record player of her memory. The clouds have all but swallowed the stars as they shift, and Aislinn wraps herself within those shadows. Sighing, she calms the waters of her storm until she is no longer shaking. Her voice nearly croaks as she spits: "Retribution. Revenge. Vengeance. It is the same story only with different names." Her crown tilts, surveying the Sun Queen with a smirk plastered plainly across her face. Annoyed, and biting back every ounce of raw anger that surges just beneath her dark skin. "Which version would you like to hear?" RUNNING UNDER LIGHTS OFF IN THE SKY NOTHING MATTERS WHEN YOU’RE IN THE FIGHT HOLD YOUR FIRE MAYBE WE CAN MAKE IT ALL RIGHT @Seraphina <3 literally took me a MONTH to reply.. please forgive me ;___; "Aislinn speech."

SPACEGUESSWHO +

[Seraphina]

☼ s e r a p h i n a ☼

half gods are worshiped in wine and flowers
real gods require blood

She watches her and that taunting smirk – she tries to keep herself impassive and cold, even though she knows that some part of her is breaking apart and the Stormsinger knows it, like a shark out for blood. What does the woman standing in front of her know of Solterra, really? She lives in a nation where she is beloved, where the king she serves is beloved; what does she know of what it means to be despised, to be surrounded by those who wish for your destruction? She should know. The Stormsinger is not wrong. She should know; she should have stopped the Davke; she should have done something, somehow. Her mind keeps ticking back to the months that came before the attack, to the time when she could have done something. Perhaps she is a failure. To her nation, to her people, to everything she is meant to stand for. She is no prodigal daughter, after all. No noble blood runs through her veins, and no people really call her their own. Solterra would rather forget that she existed than stare at her crown every day and be reminded of what they had done to their own children. They didn’t want her as queen. There were people in the capitol that didn’t even want her alive, to say nothing of the Davke.

Perhaps, she thinks, she is a failure.

Fine, she is a failure. If her training taught her anything, it was that failure was inevitable – now began the process of dragging herself back up. For now, that meant tolerating Denocte’s Reagent. Fine. She wouldn’t fight her; let her sink her teeth in and take what she wanted, if that would cool her temper. Her eyes linger on the scrap of metal sprawling across her forehead, and, for a moment, disgust is palpable in her icy stare, before apathy washes into it once more. Another woman with another filthy fucking crown.

She goes on in scorn – although her fury is less palpable, Seraphina senses it twitching beneath her skin. There is a part of her that wants to see if she can unravel it, to coerce her into snapping. Gods know that it would be easier than being forced to stand back and take it. She listens to her words with a slightly quirked brow, her eyes narrowing. Was she meant to be intimidated by her tone? By her words? By the way she strolled in and out of her goddess’s shadows, illuminated only by the occasional crack of lightning in the distant sky? Seraphina has looked far more frightening creatures in the eye than a pretty crowned woman with a grudge – it was all she could do to avoid rolling her eyes at the posturing.

“They all sound the same to me,” She says, finally, “and I don’t think that I want to hear any of them.” Retribution. Revenge. Vengeance. Who does she sound like? (Seraphina wonders if she knows – knows that there is a viper lurking in the desert that likes to think of the same things.) Well, she doesn’t care much for retribution and vengeance and revenge; they all sounded very pretty and noble, full of high ideals, until you looked a bit closer and realized that all of those lofty excuses and pretty words meant nothing at all. What does she care to hear her stories? What does she care to hear her motivations, or her injuries? There are certainly more unbiased parties to refer to – it isn’t as though everyone in Denocte was so aggressive. No, the Stormsinger can’t tell her anything that she can’t find out through other means – though, for approaching her in the first place and demanding that they speak, she must have something that she wants from her.

The faintest of dark, dark smiles curls at the corners of her lips, and she turns.

“Enjoy the company of your goddess, Stormsinger.” There is something oddly cordial to her tone, abnormally and pleasantly amicable – especially for the circumstances. She casts one long stare at Solis’s statue, over her shoulder, and looks towards those eyes.

They don’t look back.

She is gone, then, down the mountainside and towards her desert home, away from constricting darkness and lightning – she has a city to rebuild.



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tags | @
notes | finishing this.

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