☼ fia the crownless ☼
forget the horror here
it's future rust & it's future dust
“How odd. No one has ever said that to me.”
There is something off in his tone, punctuated as it is by a ghost of a laugh, and she furrows her brow at him for a fraction of his second, considering. She doesn’t push; it seems wrong to press someone who is practically a stranger. (When she thinks of it, however, she wonders if she has ever heard those words spoken to her, either.) “I believe that it is my first time ever saying them, so I suppose it’s a first for the both of us.” As Solterra’s Queen, it had been more of an implication than anything. She’d hoped that her subjects would always assume that their leader would protect them, to the best of her abilities. (Failure stings again because she hadn’t, and it is a throbbing pain in the back of her chest like an unstitched wound; she brushes it aside.)
Well. Seraphina was also…much less…
outgoing than Fia. Open than Fia.
And, for the moment, she is Fia.
“By our blades, then.”
“By our blades,” she repeats, with a sincere nod, and then those blades are put away, an arc of silver in the moonlight. She is quick to turn on her heel and examine the shrubbery, and he is quick enough to follow; she keeps her eyes trained on the plant life, looking for a certain something in particular, and his gaze, barely noticed by her, lingers on the cerulean pool stretched out in front of them. She is by the shoreline, eyes narrowed in concentration as she attempts to pick the plant life apart in the perpetual darkness of the night, when he steps past her.
“Wait. I suppose my wound should be cleaned, yes?” It certainly should be cleaned, but, giving her companion a rudimentary glance, she has a feeling that it is the appeal of cool water that attracts him more than the dangers of an unclean scrape.
“Yes,” she says, with a raise of her eyebrows. “Yes, it does.” She watches him for a moment, as he dips into the water, great lengths of black hair pooling on the surface around him; Seraphina hadn’t registered quite how much of it he had, but now that it is loosened, neat braids coming unbound as they soaked, it occurs to her that his hair is almost copious in length. (She wonders, momentarily, why he keeps it so long – she remembers her shorn hair, when she still served under Viceroy, and supposes that assassins (and spies) have less use for direct combat.) She shakes those thoughts off, however, and set to examining the plant life growing along the shoreline.
They are in the Oasis, which is quite lucky; most of the plant life in Solterra grew on its verdant shoreline. She is on the lookout for bright yellow flowers. Aspilia doesn’t grow anywhere else in Solterra, but it staunches bleeding more efficiently than any other plant in the arid region. His wound isn’t especially deep or severe, but it is clean, - perhaps from a sharp blade, from her rudimentary observations – and clean wounds don’t scab easily. The damned thing would probably be bleeding for ages. (She wonders, momentarily, how he’d gotten it, but she decides against asking.)
A flash of yellow near her hooves catches her attention. The faintest hint of a grin tugs at her lips, and, without so much as bending, she breaks off a part of the plant with her mind – flowers, stem, and leaves. She can work with that. His wound isn’t really bad enough to warrant such elaborate treatment, but, now that she’d breached the subject, she thinks that it is a matter of pride.
She steps back, victorious, to notice that her feathered companion has left the oasis to wander back onto the shoreline, dripping wet in spite of the flourish of what she could only assume is his telekinesis wiping some of the water off his coat and hair. (The part of her that meticulously organizes her own thick white hair into neat braids every morning – shortening her carpus-length locks to the simplistic style she usually wears – is mildly offended by the way his own braids have fallen in the water, by the way his hair is crimping. Perhaps it is just because so much obvious effort had been put into its neatness when he arrived.) “So, how do you Solterrans heal wounds in the desert?” She can hear the amusement in his voice, though her only response to it is a faint quirk of her eyebrow; instead, she notes the way that his gaze flits momentarily – but purposefully – over the metallic scar wrapped across her face.
“Not with gold, if that’s what you’re asking,” she responds, with something that is almost akin to amusement, albeit of a cynical sort. “That is the result of one of many near-death experiences. When I was a soldier, healing mages tended to my wounds, so I do not have many scars, but, in this particular case, the woman who found me is a mage of…a different sort. I almost bled out, and I suppose she has a flair for the artistic; she decided to seal up my wounds like this. Denoctians always seem to have quite inventive spirits.” Many of her court dislike the Night Kingdom, but there isn’t even a hint of reproach in her tone; if anything, it holds a subtle admiration. “Now, Solterrans heal wounds in the desert by using whatever they can find. Which is not much, most of the time.”
She returns to his side with her plant, pausing by the surface of the Oasis. As she begins to speak, the golden expanse of her scarf unwinds from about her shoulders and sides, coming to lay flat on the ground; she hardly seems to notice. “This is Aspilia. You can take it orally, for some conditions…” She gestures at the plant, placing it on the scarf. “…but we use it most frequently to stop bleeding. It works particularly well when ground and combined with water.” Her sword is drawn, again, from her sheath, and it sets to work crushing the delicate plant against the fabric of the scarf. She seems quite focused on the plant – so focused, in fact, that she entirely misses her magic threading itself through her companion’s dark hair, tidying his unkempt braids and straightening the faint waves that the water had created in his otherwise silky-straight locks. While a bizarre sensation, it probably isn’t unpleasant, if one can disregard the strangeness of the situation; a bit like having a comb taken through it, or someone’s fingers. For her part, Seraphina is entirely unaware of the gesture, her gaze trained on her sword. “It only grows in the Oasis, however. It won’t do you much good elsewhere; it’s always smart to carry supplies when you travel.” With the plant crushed to a fine powder, she dips her blade into the water to wash off the dust, and then, rather carefully, dips in the scarf, sides pulled up into something of a makeshift bag in the fabric so that the powder doesn’t disperse. She turns back to Caine, eyes his shoulder, and takes a step or two towards him.
She dabs the paste onto the scratch with the scarf, then dips it back in the water; when she pulls it out, she wrings it, and then, with the slightest hint of a flourish, wraps the great expanse of golden fabric across her companion’s shoulders, tying it neatly – and tightly, in spite of its size – in place so that it covers the wound. “We also always keep something around to act as a bandage, if needed, and scarves do more than keep away the heat. I’m sure that you’ve noticed how easy it is to find yourself covered in grit in Solterra; if you don’t want an open cut to end up infected, it’s best to keep it covered.” There is the faintest hint of amusement in her mismatched stare; this is altogether too elaborate for such a minor wound, though she has seen rather nasty infections grow out of untreated wounds in the desert landscape. “We can bandage it properly later; for the moment, that will do.”
(Later. Although her feathered companion perhaps hasn’t realized it, she has every intention of showing him where the makeshift rebellion is stationed; it only seems reasonable, under the circumstances, that he should know where he could find her. She can’t always hunt him down in the back alleys of the capitol with an arrow, now can she?)
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tags | @Caine
notes | I had a rather hilarious time writing this post.
forget the horror here
it's future rust & it's future dust
“How odd. No one has ever said that to me.”
There is something off in his tone, punctuated as it is by a ghost of a laugh, and she furrows her brow at him for a fraction of his second, considering. She doesn’t push; it seems wrong to press someone who is practically a stranger. (When she thinks of it, however, she wonders if she has ever heard those words spoken to her, either.) “I believe that it is my first time ever saying them, so I suppose it’s a first for the both of us.” As Solterra’s Queen, it had been more of an implication than anything. She’d hoped that her subjects would always assume that their leader would protect them, to the best of her abilities. (Failure stings again because she hadn’t, and it is a throbbing pain in the back of her chest like an unstitched wound; she brushes it aside.)
Well. Seraphina was also…much less…
outgoing than Fia. Open than Fia.
And, for the moment, she is Fia.
“By our blades, then.”
“By our blades,” she repeats, with a sincere nod, and then those blades are put away, an arc of silver in the moonlight. She is quick to turn on her heel and examine the shrubbery, and he is quick enough to follow; she keeps her eyes trained on the plant life, looking for a certain something in particular, and his gaze, barely noticed by her, lingers on the cerulean pool stretched out in front of them. She is by the shoreline, eyes narrowed in concentration as she attempts to pick the plant life apart in the perpetual darkness of the night, when he steps past her.
“Wait. I suppose my wound should be cleaned, yes?” It certainly should be cleaned, but, giving her companion a rudimentary glance, she has a feeling that it is the appeal of cool water that attracts him more than the dangers of an unclean scrape.
“Yes,” she says, with a raise of her eyebrows. “Yes, it does.” She watches him for a moment, as he dips into the water, great lengths of black hair pooling on the surface around him; Seraphina hadn’t registered quite how much of it he had, but now that it is loosened, neat braids coming unbound as they soaked, it occurs to her that his hair is almost copious in length. (She wonders, momentarily, why he keeps it so long – she remembers her shorn hair, when she still served under Viceroy, and supposes that assassins (and spies) have less use for direct combat.) She shakes those thoughts off, however, and set to examining the plant life growing along the shoreline.
They are in the Oasis, which is quite lucky; most of the plant life in Solterra grew on its verdant shoreline. She is on the lookout for bright yellow flowers. Aspilia doesn’t grow anywhere else in Solterra, but it staunches bleeding more efficiently than any other plant in the arid region. His wound isn’t especially deep or severe, but it is clean, - perhaps from a sharp blade, from her rudimentary observations – and clean wounds don’t scab easily. The damned thing would probably be bleeding for ages. (She wonders, momentarily, how he’d gotten it, but she decides against asking.)
A flash of yellow near her hooves catches her attention. The faintest hint of a grin tugs at her lips, and, without so much as bending, she breaks off a part of the plant with her mind – flowers, stem, and leaves. She can work with that. His wound isn’t really bad enough to warrant such elaborate treatment, but, now that she’d breached the subject, she thinks that it is a matter of pride.
She steps back, victorious, to notice that her feathered companion has left the oasis to wander back onto the shoreline, dripping wet in spite of the flourish of what she could only assume is his telekinesis wiping some of the water off his coat and hair. (The part of her that meticulously organizes her own thick white hair into neat braids every morning – shortening her carpus-length locks to the simplistic style she usually wears – is mildly offended by the way his own braids have fallen in the water, by the way his hair is crimping. Perhaps it is just because so much obvious effort had been put into its neatness when he arrived.) “So, how do you Solterrans heal wounds in the desert?” She can hear the amusement in his voice, though her only response to it is a faint quirk of her eyebrow; instead, she notes the way that his gaze flits momentarily – but purposefully – over the metallic scar wrapped across her face.
“Not with gold, if that’s what you’re asking,” she responds, with something that is almost akin to amusement, albeit of a cynical sort. “That is the result of one of many near-death experiences. When I was a soldier, healing mages tended to my wounds, so I do not have many scars, but, in this particular case, the woman who found me is a mage of…a different sort. I almost bled out, and I suppose she has a flair for the artistic; she decided to seal up my wounds like this. Denoctians always seem to have quite inventive spirits.” Many of her court dislike the Night Kingdom, but there isn’t even a hint of reproach in her tone; if anything, it holds a subtle admiration. “Now, Solterrans heal wounds in the desert by using whatever they can find. Which is not much, most of the time.”
She returns to his side with her plant, pausing by the surface of the Oasis. As she begins to speak, the golden expanse of her scarf unwinds from about her shoulders and sides, coming to lay flat on the ground; she hardly seems to notice. “This is Aspilia. You can take it orally, for some conditions…” She gestures at the plant, placing it on the scarf. “…but we use it most frequently to stop bleeding. It works particularly well when ground and combined with water.” Her sword is drawn, again, from her sheath, and it sets to work crushing the delicate plant against the fabric of the scarf. She seems quite focused on the plant – so focused, in fact, that she entirely misses her magic threading itself through her companion’s dark hair, tidying his unkempt braids and straightening the faint waves that the water had created in his otherwise silky-straight locks. While a bizarre sensation, it probably isn’t unpleasant, if one can disregard the strangeness of the situation; a bit like having a comb taken through it, or someone’s fingers. For her part, Seraphina is entirely unaware of the gesture, her gaze trained on her sword. “It only grows in the Oasis, however. It won’t do you much good elsewhere; it’s always smart to carry supplies when you travel.” With the plant crushed to a fine powder, she dips her blade into the water to wash off the dust, and then, rather carefully, dips in the scarf, sides pulled up into something of a makeshift bag in the fabric so that the powder doesn’t disperse. She turns back to Caine, eyes his shoulder, and takes a step or two towards him.
She dabs the paste onto the scratch with the scarf, then dips it back in the water; when she pulls it out, she wrings it, and then, with the slightest hint of a flourish, wraps the great expanse of golden fabric across her companion’s shoulders, tying it neatly – and tightly, in spite of its size – in place so that it covers the wound. “We also always keep something around to act as a bandage, if needed, and scarves do more than keep away the heat. I’m sure that you’ve noticed how easy it is to find yourself covered in grit in Solterra; if you don’t want an open cut to end up infected, it’s best to keep it covered.” There is the faintest hint of amusement in her mismatched stare; this is altogether too elaborate for such a minor wound, though she has seen rather nasty infections grow out of untreated wounds in the desert landscape. “We can bandage it properly later; for the moment, that will do.”
(Later. Although her feathered companion perhaps hasn’t realized it, she has every intention of showing him where the makeshift rebellion is stationed; it only seems reasonable, under the circumstances, that he should know where he could find her. She can’t always hunt him down in the back alleys of the capitol with an arrow, now can she?)
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tags | @Caine
notes | I had a rather hilarious time writing this post.
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
