☼ s e r a p h i n a ☼
the moral of the story is // i will gut you if i need to // i will carve my way out //with only my teeth
Bexley speaks of her family without reluctance; in all honesty, Seraphina wasn’t sure how she’d respond. Horrible, she says, but not to her. The granddaughter of gods. (It suits her, Seraphina thinks.) And her brother, dead – her, escaping a rebellion. That golden chain around her neck. Seraphina’s eyes flicker to it, and linger, then flicker back up to Bexley’s face. A moment of watery blue eyes, then a snap, and she was composed again and making light of the situation. Two cousins – two cousins, but she answered the question properly the first time. She wonders if she ever would have left – if she ever intended to leave – if that sudden rebellion hadn’t knocked her out of whatever life she was living before.
But that was how those things went, wasn’t it? Seraphina remembers the capitol the day before and after Zolin’s death – one day, all marble, all heat, all embers. The next, ashes stoked to fire, fire, fire everywhere. Zolin wasn’t even a functional monarch; his land wasn’t beautiful, much less all green, and he hadn’t a hint of divinity on his side. He was horrible, bloated, and monstrous, an amalgam of years upon years of corruption, violence, and passivity. Even in those horrible, horrible conditions, rebellion had seemed unthinkable. Maybe it was simply her programming – to be passive and simply take everything that was thrown at her – that made her think that the land was so stagnant and change was so impossible, but she had been blindsided. They had been hopeless and angry for so long, but a single flicker of hope (in the form, she thinks bitterly, of Avdotya) was enough to incite them to the violence that could have set them free so long ago. There were more people suffering than people satiated; they had the advantage of numbers.
Solterra was flame. She wonders, sometimes, why it took it so long to ignite.
“What I wanted does not matter – I only care about the truth. And…it’s easier to swallow,” She says, still in that strangely soft tone, “than you might expect.” She doesn’t know if Bexley knows about the rebellion; she doesn’t know if she’s asked anyone about the history of the land she inhabits, or if she spent any time in the now-scorched library to pour over the accounts of the rules of the previous sovereigns. What’s harder to swallow, she thinks, is the implication that Bexley’s family was horrible, as she said, and probably horrible in the same sort of way that Solterra’s nobility was horrible – but she loved them. They were her family, and they loved her, and they were family. Seraphina didn’t have much in the way of family, and she didn’t particularly understand love; most emotions were foreign, but for a dull ache, and that one might have been the most incomprehensible of them all. What’s harder to swallow is that all of those who she’s thought got what they deserved for the suffering that they caused had families, too, and loved ones, too, and they left behind little golden girls – chained, but with a different kind of collar – to stumble over their passing.
But she doesn’t linger, and she doesn’t force Bexley to linger – on this topic, that so clearly hurts – or in this place, either. Tomorrow would be an adjustment for the both of them. “Thank you,” She says, with a dip of her head. “Meet me here when the sun rises, and we’ll go over your duties.” With that, she brushes past her, towards the great double doors at the end of the room, and she disappears out into the halls.
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tags | @Bexley
notes | woof, rambly reply. anyways, sera out. <3
the moral of the story is // i will gut you if i need to // i will carve my way out //with only my teeth
Bexley speaks of her family without reluctance; in all honesty, Seraphina wasn’t sure how she’d respond. Horrible, she says, but not to her. The granddaughter of gods. (It suits her, Seraphina thinks.) And her brother, dead – her, escaping a rebellion. That golden chain around her neck. Seraphina’s eyes flicker to it, and linger, then flicker back up to Bexley’s face. A moment of watery blue eyes, then a snap, and she was composed again and making light of the situation. Two cousins – two cousins, but she answered the question properly the first time. She wonders if she ever would have left – if she ever intended to leave – if that sudden rebellion hadn’t knocked her out of whatever life she was living before.
But that was how those things went, wasn’t it? Seraphina remembers the capitol the day before and after Zolin’s death – one day, all marble, all heat, all embers. The next, ashes stoked to fire, fire, fire everywhere. Zolin wasn’t even a functional monarch; his land wasn’t beautiful, much less all green, and he hadn’t a hint of divinity on his side. He was horrible, bloated, and monstrous, an amalgam of years upon years of corruption, violence, and passivity. Even in those horrible, horrible conditions, rebellion had seemed unthinkable. Maybe it was simply her programming – to be passive and simply take everything that was thrown at her – that made her think that the land was so stagnant and change was so impossible, but she had been blindsided. They had been hopeless and angry for so long, but a single flicker of hope (in the form, she thinks bitterly, of Avdotya) was enough to incite them to the violence that could have set them free so long ago. There were more people suffering than people satiated; they had the advantage of numbers.
Solterra was flame. She wonders, sometimes, why it took it so long to ignite.
“What I wanted does not matter – I only care about the truth. And…it’s easier to swallow,” She says, still in that strangely soft tone, “than you might expect.” She doesn’t know if Bexley knows about the rebellion; she doesn’t know if she’s asked anyone about the history of the land she inhabits, or if she spent any time in the now-scorched library to pour over the accounts of the rules of the previous sovereigns. What’s harder to swallow, she thinks, is the implication that Bexley’s family was horrible, as she said, and probably horrible in the same sort of way that Solterra’s nobility was horrible – but she loved them. They were her family, and they loved her, and they were family. Seraphina didn’t have much in the way of family, and she didn’t particularly understand love; most emotions were foreign, but for a dull ache, and that one might have been the most incomprehensible of them all. What’s harder to swallow is that all of those who she’s thought got what they deserved for the suffering that they caused had families, too, and loved ones, too, and they left behind little golden girls – chained, but with a different kind of collar – to stumble over their passing.
But she doesn’t linger, and she doesn’t force Bexley to linger – on this topic, that so clearly hurts – or in this place, either. Tomorrow would be an adjustment for the both of them. “Thank you,” She says, with a dip of her head. “Meet me here when the sun rises, and we’ll go over your duties.” With that, she brushes past her, towards the great double doors at the end of the room, and she disappears out into the halls.
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tags | @
notes | woof, rambly reply. anyways, sera out. <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
