☼ s e r a p h i n a ☼
made on the sixth day to rest on the seventh
and now we just try to survive
They toil in the dark and the grime, and, despite the combined efforts of all of the Regimes, they seem no closer to freedom – Seraphina doesn’t often wish for divine gifts, but, in that moment, she wishes that she were something a little bit more than mere mortal, if only to be capable of more than desperately heaving at the stones. This is a test, something at the back of her mind screams. What use is faith is it’s never tested? But her faith has been tested time and time again, and she’s never been told why; no excuses, no answers, no blessings, no curses. Nothing. She’s always believed in the gods, and she’s never blamed them for mortal affairs, but now they’ve become involved in a conflict that was well within control, and now they’ve (or Tempus) trapped them in a collapsed cavern in what she can only assume is some long-winded effort to force them to cooperate.
Her heart constricts inside of her chest, because she believed in them - she believed in them, and she trusted them, and she followed them, and she worshipped them, and she needed them, but it seemed that they’d never needed her…or wanted her, perhaps. When she needed them, they were silent. When her people needed them, they turned a blind eye. And now, for the sake of some heartbroken queen or a rash king or a change that they refused to explain, they’d revealed themselves. If it were explicable – if it were justified – why didn’t they explain it?
Her eyes sting. She had forgotten the way that they itch after tears, especially with dust clinging to her fur like a second skin.
More than tears drips down her skin, now; she is coated in streams of sweat that streak metallic down her sides. Her motions are mechanical and driven, desperate to counteract the swirl of white-hot rage and painful rejection that seems to be determined to overtake every ounce of self-control that she has left. She doesn’t feel like herself. She doesn’t feel like anyone recognizable at all – she feels all animal, all feral, torn and loose at the seams. Everything inside of her wants to spill out, to overflow, and she doesn’t know how to hold it all in.
It is nothing at all – or too much, all at once. There is no middle ground.
All at once, off to the side of the grove, the trees begin to change; they shudder and shrink, collapsing in upon themselves, towards the ground. It takes her a moment to realize that she is witnessing the magic of time – it takes her a moment to realize that it is flowing in reverse, growing them back into saplings. Seraphina looks at the small sprigs of green and the expanse of forest beyond them, then to the others gathered. “It seems that he has decided to free us.” And what was the point of all of this? Was there ever a point, with the divine? Her eyes turn to stare intently at Bexley and Eik. “We should return to the other Solterrans – I’m sure that they wish to know what occurred.” With that, she strides forward, eager to escape the claustrophobic, painful space. (If she runs from it, perhaps she can run from her, too, from the pit that’s opened up in her stomach and the vast tangle of somethingness that wants to eat her up.) But first…
She pauses at the base of Tempus’s statue, and she looks up into those cold, cold eyes – they are dark now, and lifeless. She remembers them bright.
“I don’t…understand,” She says, slowly, staring up and into those empty circles of carved stone with blurred vision and eyes ablaze; and then she casts her eyes away and turns towards the trees. She does not look back.
When she finds her way back through the woods to the people of Solterra, coated in a thick layer of grime that nearly obscures the lines of glittering golden warpaint that have come dripping down her cheeks, she will make no efforts to disguise what occurred in the meeting with Tempus, and she will prepare to linger at Veneror until she can find answers. She can’t keep it from them, even if she wanted to – trying to hide the presence of divinity would only do more harm to them in the long run, however painful and dangerous their presence seems to be – perhaps especially to the Regimes – in the moment.
She has no secrets to keep.
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tags | <3
notes | aaaaand, sera out. it's been fun, guys <3
made on the sixth day to rest on the seventh
and now we just try to survive
They toil in the dark and the grime, and, despite the combined efforts of all of the Regimes, they seem no closer to freedom – Seraphina doesn’t often wish for divine gifts, but, in that moment, she wishes that she were something a little bit more than mere mortal, if only to be capable of more than desperately heaving at the stones. This is a test, something at the back of her mind screams. What use is faith is it’s never tested? But her faith has been tested time and time again, and she’s never been told why; no excuses, no answers, no blessings, no curses. Nothing. She’s always believed in the gods, and she’s never blamed them for mortal affairs, but now they’ve become involved in a conflict that was well within control, and now they’ve (or Tempus) trapped them in a collapsed cavern in what she can only assume is some long-winded effort to force them to cooperate.
Her heart constricts inside of her chest, because she believed in them - she believed in them, and she trusted them, and she followed them, and she worshipped them, and she needed them, but it seemed that they’d never needed her…or wanted her, perhaps. When she needed them, they were silent. When her people needed them, they turned a blind eye. And now, for the sake of some heartbroken queen or a rash king or a change that they refused to explain, they’d revealed themselves. If it were explicable – if it were justified – why didn’t they explain it?
Her eyes sting. She had forgotten the way that they itch after tears, especially with dust clinging to her fur like a second skin.
More than tears drips down her skin, now; she is coated in streams of sweat that streak metallic down her sides. Her motions are mechanical and driven, desperate to counteract the swirl of white-hot rage and painful rejection that seems to be determined to overtake every ounce of self-control that she has left. She doesn’t feel like herself. She doesn’t feel like anyone recognizable at all – she feels all animal, all feral, torn and loose at the seams. Everything inside of her wants to spill out, to overflow, and she doesn’t know how to hold it all in.
It is nothing at all – or too much, all at once. There is no middle ground.
All at once, off to the side of the grove, the trees begin to change; they shudder and shrink, collapsing in upon themselves, towards the ground. It takes her a moment to realize that she is witnessing the magic of time – it takes her a moment to realize that it is flowing in reverse, growing them back into saplings. Seraphina looks at the small sprigs of green and the expanse of forest beyond them, then to the others gathered. “It seems that he has decided to free us.” And what was the point of all of this? Was there ever a point, with the divine? Her eyes turn to stare intently at Bexley and Eik. “We should return to the other Solterrans – I’m sure that they wish to know what occurred.” With that, she strides forward, eager to escape the claustrophobic, painful space. (If she runs from it, perhaps she can run from her, too, from the pit that’s opened up in her stomach and the vast tangle of somethingness that wants to eat her up.) But first…
She pauses at the base of Tempus’s statue, and she looks up into those cold, cold eyes – they are dark now, and lifeless. She remembers them bright.
“I don’t…understand,” She says, slowly, staring up and into those empty circles of carved stone with blurred vision and eyes ablaze; and then she casts her eyes away and turns towards the trees. She does not look back.
When she finds her way back through the woods to the people of Solterra, coated in a thick layer of grime that nearly obscures the lines of glittering golden warpaint that have come dripping down her cheeks, she will make no efforts to disguise what occurred in the meeting with Tempus, and she will prepare to linger at Veneror until she can find answers. She can’t keep it from them, even if she wanted to – trying to hide the presence of divinity would only do more harm to them in the long run, however painful and dangerous their presence seems to be – perhaps especially to the Regimes – in the moment.
She has no secrets to keep.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
tags | <3
notes | aaaaand, sera out. it's been fun, guys <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
