See the dead on the cover of a magazine
See my smile, it was born from amphetamines
She moved like a shadow down the sand covered streets, silent and prowling like a feline. In the aftermath of the Davke attack many of the sandstone buildings still bore their scars; dark, wild burns that thrashed over their pale exteriors. The citizens who remained… some were empty, hollow things. Others had changed irrevocably, twisted and gnarled and no longer recognizable as the person they were before. Teiran had long since washed herself of the blood of war, but still it lingered, clinging to darkened corners and long alleyways. One could almost hear the screams of the dying faintly on the breeze, but maybe that was just the sound of it whistling through the cracks left behind in their psyche.See my smile, it was born from amphetamines
These dusty roads were the same unforgiving ones of her childhood, if not more bleak for the recent events. She remembered so little of it, just broken mirror fragments that cut through her in the dark of night. Over the years since Zolin’s murder so much had changed and yet so much remained the same. One thing was certain, and it was that Teiran would stand by the court whatever came to pass. She would help it rebuild, help to do whatever was required of her. So many underestimated her, and yet here she stood with more death on her hands than perhaps half the court could claim. More static in her thoughts, more demons clawing their way free of her skin.
At length she found herself moving through the halls of the court, hooves tapping rhythmically on the floors—a staccato that echoed and echoed its loneliness off the walls and down the empty lengths around her. The sight of the burned library forced Teiran to pause in her excursion. She stood outside its heavy, smoke stained doors, sage green eyes moving over what she could see through them as they hung partially open. Of course she had known that Seraphina had burned it, and a pang flashed through her at the loss of what had been stored within. It was an odd feeling, of missing something that had never really been hers though she had immersed herself more than once among the scrolls and books.
There would be more, one day. History would continue to be kept and tales would be written and one day it would be rebuilt and filled to the brim she was sure. Still, Teiran knew her days of wandering in and finding something to read, to occupy her time, were gone for now. The small woman was about to turn away and start back on her rounds when the sound of approaching steps had her turning her head. A well-known shape drifted toward her as if carried by the heavy summer winds, the sun glinting off the distinct collar at her neck. “Seraphina,” she said—familiarity an undercurrent to her otherwise invariable tone—as her sovereign approached.
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