☼ s e r a p h i n a ☼
throw the ashes to the wind
sun sinking like a stone
At nightfall, they burn candles and incense in the markets – it is a business strategy as much as it is a matter of illumination, though the moon is swollen and brilliant in the darkness of the cloudless sky above.
Seraphina wanders the maze-like streets aimlessly, though she moves with the confidence of someone with some pressing directive. Sand scatters beneath her hooves, and her lungs catch on the dry air and heavy perfume, but she is as grateful for the renewed heat as she is for the bustle of activity it has brought with it. Now that they are no longer confined indoors, and now that they have had more than enough time to recover from the Davke attack, – more than a year ago, now – the market is beginning to bloom again. (She remembers pacing through it as a child, keeping close to Viceroy’s heels. The slave auctions were the worst, and she is quick to push the memory of them out of mind.) This is…different. This is smoke and silk and gleaming jewels, fineries imported from foreign shores, well-crafted weapons and gleaming armor, wine and candy and rare, sweet pastries, flowers…charms and idols. Pretty things, surrounded by the trappings for war. It’s dazzling, and she is simply a shadow against the brightness; unless you knew her, you would never think her the queen of Solterra.
She ducks off the street and finds herself in a shadowed alleyway. As her eyes readjust to the candlelit darkness, she realizes that she has stepped into small, simple shrine; various offerings were strewn about it, strangely pretty things for the worn, warlike harshness of the desert, but things that she thinks that the god would like nevertheless. (She recalls him glancing at his reflection in the metallic sheen of his own hide with a hint of something that is almost - almost - akin to amusement, but Seraphina is not an easily amused creature, if she is one that can be amused at all.) She quickly realizes, too, that she is not alone. Down the alley, in front of the shrine, stands a stranger. He cannot be too much taller than she, and she can barely make out his features in the hazy darkness, but she notes that he is in possession of a pair of gigantic wings; if he spread them, she imagines that the alley would not be wide enough to accommodate their bulk. She exhales the heavy scent of perfume and breathes in his, and she does not recognize where he hails – the desert sand and sweat and the salt of the terminus sea are there, certainly, and the thick incense of the market, but, beneath it all, she finds something…unfamiliar. A traveler, perhaps, or a passing stranger. She turns to leave him to his business, but then he speaks, but not to her, and her ears flick towards him to catch the hushed murmur of his voice, barely audible over the distant hum of the marketplace they have just left behind.
Solis.
She eyes his dark silhouette, illuminated by a halo of golden candlelight, for a moment longer, and then she steps forward.
“…do you seek the god, traveler?” Her voice – low and lilting and thickly accented like the rolling dunes of the desert she calls home - emerges from flickering candlelight and shadow a fraction of a second before she does, the dull, dark silver of her coat mimicking the darkness; as she steps into the light, it gleams as though she is made of the metal wrapped around her throat. She watches him with dark, quiet eyes that take in each and every detail of his muscular frame and massive wings with a certain wariness, in spite of the certainty in her long strides and the vaguely commanding air of her raised chin. And what if he does seek her god? It is not as though she can call Solis – he does not bend to her command, or the command of any other, and he comes and goes with the rise and the fall of the sun. Now that the snow has been dealt with, gods (very literally) only know what he will do; perhaps he will return to his perch on high for another hundred years, and she will never see him again. (Either way, she will manage, but she wonders how she would tolerate his prolonged abandonment if he left his people to their own devices again. She remembers how that went – she remembers it like the sear of flame against her hips, the weight of metal around her throat, the taste of ash on her lips.)
But she does not think of Solis, now; her mind loops around itself like a snake and finds its attention again on this strange ghost in the night who whispers the name of her people’s god.
----------------------------------------------------------
tags | @Blyse
notes | holy sudden rambling muse batman
throw the ashes to the wind
sun sinking like a stone
At nightfall, they burn candles and incense in the markets – it is a business strategy as much as it is a matter of illumination, though the moon is swollen and brilliant in the darkness of the cloudless sky above.
Seraphina wanders the maze-like streets aimlessly, though she moves with the confidence of someone with some pressing directive. Sand scatters beneath her hooves, and her lungs catch on the dry air and heavy perfume, but she is as grateful for the renewed heat as she is for the bustle of activity it has brought with it. Now that they are no longer confined indoors, and now that they have had more than enough time to recover from the Davke attack, – more than a year ago, now – the market is beginning to bloom again. (She remembers pacing through it as a child, keeping close to Viceroy’s heels. The slave auctions were the worst, and she is quick to push the memory of them out of mind.) This is…different. This is smoke and silk and gleaming jewels, fineries imported from foreign shores, well-crafted weapons and gleaming armor, wine and candy and rare, sweet pastries, flowers…charms and idols. Pretty things, surrounded by the trappings for war. It’s dazzling, and she is simply a shadow against the brightness; unless you knew her, you would never think her the queen of Solterra.
She ducks off the street and finds herself in a shadowed alleyway. As her eyes readjust to the candlelit darkness, she realizes that she has stepped into small, simple shrine; various offerings were strewn about it, strangely pretty things for the worn, warlike harshness of the desert, but things that she thinks that the god would like nevertheless. (She recalls him glancing at his reflection in the metallic sheen of his own hide with a hint of something that is almost - almost - akin to amusement, but Seraphina is not an easily amused creature, if she is one that can be amused at all.) She quickly realizes, too, that she is not alone. Down the alley, in front of the shrine, stands a stranger. He cannot be too much taller than she, and she can barely make out his features in the hazy darkness, but she notes that he is in possession of a pair of gigantic wings; if he spread them, she imagines that the alley would not be wide enough to accommodate their bulk. She exhales the heavy scent of perfume and breathes in his, and she does not recognize where he hails – the desert sand and sweat and the salt of the terminus sea are there, certainly, and the thick incense of the market, but, beneath it all, she finds something…unfamiliar. A traveler, perhaps, or a passing stranger. She turns to leave him to his business, but then he speaks, but not to her, and her ears flick towards him to catch the hushed murmur of his voice, barely audible over the distant hum of the marketplace they have just left behind.
Solis.
She eyes his dark silhouette, illuminated by a halo of golden candlelight, for a moment longer, and then she steps forward.
“…do you seek the god, traveler?” Her voice – low and lilting and thickly accented like the rolling dunes of the desert she calls home - emerges from flickering candlelight and shadow a fraction of a second before she does, the dull, dark silver of her coat mimicking the darkness; as she steps into the light, it gleams as though she is made of the metal wrapped around her throat. She watches him with dark, quiet eyes that take in each and every detail of his muscular frame and massive wings with a certain wariness, in spite of the certainty in her long strides and the vaguely commanding air of her raised chin. And what if he does seek her god? It is not as though she can call Solis – he does not bend to her command, or the command of any other, and he comes and goes with the rise and the fall of the sun. Now that the snow has been dealt with, gods (very literally) only know what he will do; perhaps he will return to his perch on high for another hundred years, and she will never see him again. (Either way, she will manage, but she wonders how she would tolerate his prolonged abandonment if he left his people to their own devices again. She remembers how that went – she remembers it like the sear of flame against her hips, the weight of metal around her throat, the taste of ash on her lips.)
But she does not think of Solis, now; her mind loops around itself like a snake and finds its attention again on this strange ghost in the night who whispers the name of her people’s god.
----------------------------------------------------------
tags | @Blyse
notes | holy sudden rambling muse batman
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
