[P] miles away from home

[Seraphina]

I'M READY FOR THE FIGHT & FATE

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There was a quiet authority in her, anymore – for all of her undeniable coldness, something in her bright chips of eyes burnt like flickering embers. Seraphina hadn’t thought violence capable of phasing her; she had seen more than enough of it as a girl, after all, but somehow she felt like she had been distant from the violence she committed. Every time she had sunk her teeth into the flesh of an enemy soldier, she had felt like someone who was not herself. (She paced, the soft, rhythmic clack of her hooves resounding against the sandstone floor of the throne room.) The violence she committed was not hers to bear, or so she would like to think. She hadn’t had a choice in the matter, or so she would like to think. (Some part of her disagrees, and she asks it sometimes what it would rather she have done.) Dirty and bloodstained as she might be, it was never from a fight she had chosen…or a fight she could have prevented.

This was something different, she thought, eyeing the sunlight as it refracted off the jagged teeth of the windows. This was on her head, and the blood – she couldn’t peel it off like a second skin. There was no stepping away anymore, no running from what she was and what she had done. It wasn’t for his nation this time – it was for yours. The weight of it all stung more than she ever expected, even though she hadn’t asked for this, or wanted this, or – or maybe she had, the moment that she had chosen to step up in her predecessor’s place.

She had wanted something, then, illuminated by stained glass with a viper at her side. She couldn’t remember what it was.

A guard clattered up to the center of the room to stand before the stairs that lead up to the scorched, gnarled throne; she didn’t use it, and she never had. The Sovereign of Delumine …and his Reagent have arrived, my lady. She pretended not to notice the pause. The visit was unexpected, and she felt a bit uncomfortable for her lack of preparation – that said, the city had been in far worse shape when she’d greeted Isorath and…far, far worse than that with Cyrene and Florentine. She had been in far worse shape, eyes red-rimmed and wild, hair tangled in greasy mats behind her. She was normal now, or something like it, but sleep still evaded her; whenever she closed her eyes, she smelled burning flesh and heard the distant echo of screaming. She thought that was over, too, until it wasn’t.

But she had foreign dignitaries to greet.

She clattered down the stairs and swept through the hall, pausing only when she reached the great iron doors to the hall; she paused, took a deep breath, and pulled them open.
She fixed the two men standing outside with a swift glance; rudimentary inspections. Ipomoea, wreathed with flowers, painted and delicate, seemed to her as his reputation had implied – respectable for the honey, void of the sting. (Nevertheless, she thought there was a quiet confidence to him.) Dawn’s king, on the other hand…athletic, with a clever gleam in his eyes. She wouldn’t particularly want to get on the wrong side of that horn, and those wings…likely easy enough to break, but trouble on a battlefield…not that she anticipated any such trouble with Dawn. (Old habits, she supposed, though she knew that they had flared in the wake of the Davke attack.) Both were coated in a thick mat of sweat, but that was so natural in the desert heat as to be entirely disregarded in her observations.

She offered a dip of her head, her eyes flitting between them to meet each of their gazes in turn. “Welcome to Solterra - it is a pleasure to finally meet you both.” Her voice was cool and collected, the thick accent of her native lands meandering along each careful syllable as she stepped aside, gesturing them into the throne room. “Might I inquire as to the purpose of your visit?” She suspects it is to pay their respects, or something like it, but a smaller, more troubled part of her wonders if Solterra had in some way offended Delumine – it wouldn’t be the first time she has been surprised by the discretions committed by her citizens.


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tags | @Ipomoea @Somnus
notes | <3

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