☼ s e r a p h i n a ☼
and my spirit, with its loss, knows this; though small against the black, small against the formless rocks,
hell must break before I am lost
[TW: gore]
In the desert, a moment was the difference between life and death.
One wrong move and a Teryr snatched you out of the sky; one wrong move and a Sandwyrm came snapping out of the sands and dragged you beneath the surface. Jackals. Davke. Things that squirmed and swallowed, things with teeth - so many teeth. The one thing that it embedded within you was a constant, consuming sense of danger, a sort of razor-wire tension. Seraphina was always tense, always watchful. It was the only reason why, in spite of her numerous brushes with death, it had yet to close its stony jaws around her.
That did not mean that she was always quick enough.
She saw the attack coming before it hit her, but she did not have time to get out of the way; her reflexive shifting managed to save her right eye, but those massive, tearing claws still dug into the side of her face with the sickening crunch of breaking bones. They all but carved open her silver flesh, dragging down her cheek and along her throat, tearing out great gouges of flesh – and hit the collar with an ear-piercing screech, carving small divots into the rough, bent metal. She stood, for a moment, and, abruptly, swayed on her feet.
And then she fell.
There was no room to speak – there was barely room to hear Raum’s final words. They rang through her mind as though she was hearing them through water, and, though they managed to register as some sort of smug taunt that would normally have sparked her annoyance, now…now they were nauseating. She fell onto her side, blood pooling around her skull and throat; her skin hung off her cheek in ribbons, occasionally displacing small clumps of pink flesh. She couldn’t feel the broken bones; she could barely feel her face, for the overwhelming pain of it all. She twitched, barely, her breath coming out in shallow gasps and sweat pooling on her brow; red dribbled from her lips and nostrils. Her right eye was closed, shielded from the thick stain of blood that swirled around it, but her left remained open, glassy, staring up at the sky, the thin crescent of silver moon, a mockery - white haze. Her gaze blinked in focused. She knew, within reason, that she had lost. That hadn’t been out of the range of possibility. She’d known that she could die, too. She knew that she was – dying, she’d been dying before. But no, not now, she couldn’t fail like this, not now, not to him-
Day would survive. Day would always survive, they would fight back, he wouldn’t win-
“I might fall, Raum.”
But she sees those children, playing on the docks. She sees Eik, Bexley, O, Teiran, Rhoswen, Sabine, Mathias, El Toro, and so many others, and she sees them bloodied, broken, burnt alive – and it was her fault, her failure. She was bleeding out, and she was wandering the streets of the capitol as a ghost, some sort of apparition…she could see her citizens, her people, her nation, structures built up and burnt down, a hundred year’s history reduced to ashes, to smoke. Her pride in her nation’s persistence reassures her that this will not be the end, and yet…
How much can they be expected to lose to persist?
Her legs twitch. She struggles. She is desperate to move, to catch him, to kill him - even if she does not live, she has to catch him, she can’t let him -
Her head lifts a few centimeters off the ground, and then it falls back down. She still struggles. Her limbs kick weakly, her sides heave – but she can’t move. She can only feel the press of hot, oozing liquid spilling out around her, clumping in her fur, in the dirt…
Solis. Solis please, no, no, no. I don’t need to live, but I can’t let him – he can’t-
I can’t fail them again. Solis? Solis? Solis, please. Please, can you hear me?
But there is no sun – only the moon, heavy and taunting in the night sky, laughing. She has to get up. She has to get up; she can’t fail them again. Ashes catch in her throat, and smoke. She is not sure if the blood she smells is her own or some distant, haunting memory. A girl is caught beneath a burning pillar, and she can’t pull her out, but maybe she’s already dead, her eyes are like glass marbles, she-
-drives a spear through a Davke boy’s ribs, runs through the palace halls, desperate to get to the battlements, desperate; and then she is in the trenches, ground down into the mud, pressed against the bloody corpse of some younger boy who didn’t survive the battle, his collar wrenched off his throat by magic in a gesture that was somehow poetic; and then she’s staring into the eyes of the first man she ever killed, watching little rivulets of blood drip down his chest, drip out of the hole she just drove into him, and where had all her prayers and all of her trying ever gotten her? Soldier-pet of a tyrannical madman. Failed Emissary. Failed Queen. Never quite enough. Always two steps behind, hamstringed, never quite loved, title given form, but she’d kept fighting-
It was too much – too much. Too heavy. It was all so heavy, and she was drowning in it, drowning in the red and the sand and the sea, in a swarm of flailing limbs and ash and choking smoke. It was cold. She felt like she was frozen – freezing over. The landscape around her might as well be white, covered in endless sheets of snow and ice, and she couldn’t get away from them, they were swallowing her, they would eat her alive-
Please.
Please. Did it mean anything? Did it mean anything at all?
Somewhere she’d realized just how fragile things were, but she’d forgotten, and now whatever good she had done would be swallowed up, rendered useless - rendered to nothing. Could she fight a sandstorm? Could she hold back the tides? But she couldn’t call it pointless. She had to believe that the struggling, the hurt, the standing-up-all-over-again had – had meant something.
I might fall…
Somewhere she is on the banks of the sea, her lungs full of foam and salt. Somewhere she is wandering those dunes, sweat-slick and alive. Somewhere, she is in the capitol, staring into that fountain in the city square. Somewhere, she walks the Canyon walls, pulls herbs from the rocky crags. She is so far from home, and there is so much blood. Where is that familiar warmth? Where is the sun?
Please. Please, I don’t- I can’t- I have to-
The sweetest death is one for one’s people – it is the most honorable way to fall. But there is something cold and hard in her stomach, a searing shame. Her death solves nothing. Her failure renders the sentiment useless. If only she could move, if only she could follow him, how long has it been, how long does she have-
Her mind cycles through images. Sun. Sand. Sweat. Sea. Those flowers growing alongside the oasis. Her advisors, gutted and bleeding out on the marble floors of the palace. Desert wind, dry and searing. Stinging. Emaciated citizens, stalking the back alleys like ghosts, coughing, plagued. The kiss of the ocean against her sides. Dead eyes of her regiment, of the children she grew up with. No perfect image – a shattered mirror. She had to – fix this, she couldn’t see her people fall to another madman, couldn’t watch her nation fall apart all over again, but she-
There was so much blood, and she couldn’t get away from it, she couldn’t run, and how many people were dead because of her? How many people were going to die because of her? How could she ever make the difference? How could she ever fix what was already done?
Please. Solis, please, I…
It’s cold and wrong, and she is dying, and there is no one here – just the moon.
She wonders if it is okay to be selfish in her prayers. Just for a moment.
Please. I don’t want to be alone. Don’t leave me alone.
----------------------------------------------------------
tags | @Raum @sid, @inkbone, @Sparrow, @nestle, @aimless
notes | she's not actually dying, lmao.
and my spirit, with its loss, knows this; though small against the black, small against the formless rocks,
hell must break before I am lost
[TW: gore]
In the desert, a moment was the difference between life and death.
One wrong move and a Teryr snatched you out of the sky; one wrong move and a Sandwyrm came snapping out of the sands and dragged you beneath the surface. Jackals. Davke. Things that squirmed and swallowed, things with teeth - so many teeth. The one thing that it embedded within you was a constant, consuming sense of danger, a sort of razor-wire tension. Seraphina was always tense, always watchful. It was the only reason why, in spite of her numerous brushes with death, it had yet to close its stony jaws around her.
That did not mean that she was always quick enough.
She saw the attack coming before it hit her, but she did not have time to get out of the way; her reflexive shifting managed to save her right eye, but those massive, tearing claws still dug into the side of her face with the sickening crunch of breaking bones. They all but carved open her silver flesh, dragging down her cheek and along her throat, tearing out great gouges of flesh – and hit the collar with an ear-piercing screech, carving small divots into the rough, bent metal. She stood, for a moment, and, abruptly, swayed on her feet.
And then she fell.
There was no room to speak – there was barely room to hear Raum’s final words. They rang through her mind as though she was hearing them through water, and, though they managed to register as some sort of smug taunt that would normally have sparked her annoyance, now…now they were nauseating. She fell onto her side, blood pooling around her skull and throat; her skin hung off her cheek in ribbons, occasionally displacing small clumps of pink flesh. She couldn’t feel the broken bones; she could barely feel her face, for the overwhelming pain of it all. She twitched, barely, her breath coming out in shallow gasps and sweat pooling on her brow; red dribbled from her lips and nostrils. Her right eye was closed, shielded from the thick stain of blood that swirled around it, but her left remained open, glassy, staring up at the sky, the thin crescent of silver moon, a mockery - white haze. Her gaze blinked in focused. She knew, within reason, that she had lost. That hadn’t been out of the range of possibility. She’d known that she could die, too. She knew that she was – dying, she’d been dying before. But no, not now, she couldn’t fail like this, not now, not to him-
Day would survive. Day would always survive, they would fight back, he wouldn’t win-
“I might fall, Raum.”
But she sees those children, playing on the docks. She sees Eik, Bexley, O, Teiran, Rhoswen, Sabine, Mathias, El Toro, and so many others, and she sees them bloodied, broken, burnt alive – and it was her fault, her failure. She was bleeding out, and she was wandering the streets of the capitol as a ghost, some sort of apparition…she could see her citizens, her people, her nation, structures built up and burnt down, a hundred year’s history reduced to ashes, to smoke. Her pride in her nation’s persistence reassures her that this will not be the end, and yet…
How much can they be expected to lose to persist?
Her legs twitch. She struggles. She is desperate to move, to catch him, to kill him - even if she does not live, she has to catch him, she can’t let him -
Her head lifts a few centimeters off the ground, and then it falls back down. She still struggles. Her limbs kick weakly, her sides heave – but she can’t move. She can only feel the press of hot, oozing liquid spilling out around her, clumping in her fur, in the dirt…
Solis. Solis please, no, no, no. I don’t need to live, but I can’t let him – he can’t-
I can’t fail them again. Solis? Solis? Solis, please. Please, can you hear me?
But there is no sun – only the moon, heavy and taunting in the night sky, laughing. She has to get up. She has to get up; she can’t fail them again. Ashes catch in her throat, and smoke. She is not sure if the blood she smells is her own or some distant, haunting memory. A girl is caught beneath a burning pillar, and she can’t pull her out, but maybe she’s already dead, her eyes are like glass marbles, she-
-drives a spear through a Davke boy’s ribs, runs through the palace halls, desperate to get to the battlements, desperate; and then she is in the trenches, ground down into the mud, pressed against the bloody corpse of some younger boy who didn’t survive the battle, his collar wrenched off his throat by magic in a gesture that was somehow poetic; and then she’s staring into the eyes of the first man she ever killed, watching little rivulets of blood drip down his chest, drip out of the hole she just drove into him, and where had all her prayers and all of her trying ever gotten her? Soldier-pet of a tyrannical madman. Failed Emissary. Failed Queen. Never quite enough. Always two steps behind, hamstringed, never quite loved, title given form, but she’d kept fighting-
It was too much – too much. Too heavy. It was all so heavy, and she was drowning in it, drowning in the red and the sand and the sea, in a swarm of flailing limbs and ash and choking smoke. It was cold. She felt like she was frozen – freezing over. The landscape around her might as well be white, covered in endless sheets of snow and ice, and she couldn’t get away from them, they were swallowing her, they would eat her alive-
Please.
Please. Did it mean anything? Did it mean anything at all?
Somewhere she’d realized just how fragile things were, but she’d forgotten, and now whatever good she had done would be swallowed up, rendered useless - rendered to nothing. Could she fight a sandstorm? Could she hold back the tides? But she couldn’t call it pointless. She had to believe that the struggling, the hurt, the standing-up-all-over-again had – had meant something.
I might fall…
Somewhere she is on the banks of the sea, her lungs full of foam and salt. Somewhere she is wandering those dunes, sweat-slick and alive. Somewhere, she is in the capitol, staring into that fountain in the city square. Somewhere, she walks the Canyon walls, pulls herbs from the rocky crags. She is so far from home, and there is so much blood. Where is that familiar warmth? Where is the sun?
Please. Please, I don’t- I can’t- I have to-
The sweetest death is one for one’s people – it is the most honorable way to fall. But there is something cold and hard in her stomach, a searing shame. Her death solves nothing. Her failure renders the sentiment useless. If only she could move, if only she could follow him, how long has it been, how long does she have-
Her mind cycles through images. Sun. Sand. Sweat. Sea. Those flowers growing alongside the oasis. Her advisors, gutted and bleeding out on the marble floors of the palace. Desert wind, dry and searing. Stinging. Emaciated citizens, stalking the back alleys like ghosts, coughing, plagued. The kiss of the ocean against her sides. Dead eyes of her regiment, of the children she grew up with. No perfect image – a shattered mirror. She had to – fix this, she couldn’t see her people fall to another madman, couldn’t watch her nation fall apart all over again, but she-
There was so much blood, and she couldn’t get away from it, she couldn’t run, and how many people were dead because of her? How many people were going to die because of her? How could she ever make the difference? How could she ever fix what was already done?
Please. Solis, please, I…
It’s cold and wrong, and she is dying, and there is no one here – just the moon.
She wonders if it is okay to be selfish in her prayers. Just for a moment.
Please. I don’t want to be alone. Don’t leave me alone.
----------------------------------------------------------
tags | @Raum @sid, @inkbone, @Sparrow, @nestle, @
notes | she's not actually dying, lmao.
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
