Rhoswen ►
Afore the great circle, Rhoswen stood drenched in silence and, strangely, it suited her. For a creature so incandescent this isolation, cool and bleached, sat well behind her avian silhouette, for against it she burned like a pyre. The autumn wind whipped her hair into a cardinal cyclone worthy of Medusa's name and her eyes, carved from dragonsmoke, strangled the mountain as slowly they etched higher. To the peak her gaze climbed, battling high winds and thin air, and a thought began to form like smoke in her mind. Were the Gods watching her now? Her heart did not flinch at the notion, if anything it steeled itself an inch more as her chin lifted against the breeze as if to match their divinity with a scarlet punch: fuck you, Calligo. I hope you're listening. She had come to the summit later than most. The regime's meeting had adjourned several days ago, and many had already scuttled back to their nests of gold, red, purple or blue; but Rhoswen had been patient -- unusually so. She had not wanted to wait in the clamour, breathing in their panic; nor had she felt inclined to mingle among the masses that had gathered around the stage Tempus had set. So instead she had dwelled in Dawn, alone and alive, postponing her leave from Delumine until the very last moment. She was never going back.
So much had changed in her bloodred world. She was a mother, a woman, a traitor, a lover, a fighter: what skin would she adorn next? Where would it end? She knew where she hoped it would. She knew it like the back of her hand, for all the times she had wandered it in her dreams. Its scents, its sounds - they haunted her like ghostships passing her by, drifting further away with every aching moment. Solterra. Did it miss her too? Did it turn skyward to honour her absence, staring into the eyes of a sun stood sentinel for every day she did not pace its halls. At such a thought, she smiled: it was a rare, splitting thing to see Rhoswen smile these days; it cracked her marble skull in two to match the chasm in her heart. Of course the desert did not miss her; what was she but another body to litter its ancient sands? Rhos did not shrink from its magnitude, nor its brutality: she was born from the fire, and the fire was born in she. Spring and summer were behind her now, committed to the very darkest recesses of her mind where she refused to venture. There was no uncertainty - no fear of unbelonging left to be found. What was left then? What was the sister of Thieves made of now? She'll tell you if you come a little closer.
@Seraphina
So much had changed in her bloodred world. She was a mother, a woman, a traitor, a lover, a fighter: what skin would she adorn next? Where would it end? She knew where she hoped it would. She knew it like the back of her hand, for all the times she had wandered it in her dreams. Its scents, its sounds - they haunted her like ghostships passing her by, drifting further away with every aching moment. Solterra. Did it miss her too? Did it turn skyward to honour her absence, staring into the eyes of a sun stood sentinel for every day she did not pace its halls. At such a thought, she smiled: it was a rare, splitting thing to see Rhoswen smile these days; it cracked her marble skull in two to match the chasm in her heart. Of course the desert did not miss her; what was she but another body to litter its ancient sands? Rhos did not shrink from its magnitude, nor its brutality: she was born from the fire, and the fire was born in she. Spring and summer were behind her now, committed to the very darkest recesses of her mind where she refused to venture. There was no uncertainty - no fear of unbelonging left to be found. What was left then? What was the sister of Thieves made of now? She'll tell you if you come a little closer.
Fire.
@
