☼ s e r a p h i n a ☼
the truth is, I think we all want to be held after we let go
I think we all want to be saved
She is met with rage, not sympathy. Seraphina prefers it; pity would only sting her already-wounded pride, and, though she feels herself falling to pieces, - feels it, like she is spiraling downhill slowly or falling off a cliff, watching the ground come rushing up to meet her, knows that she is seconds away from the crash and knows that she is unable to stop it – she is unwilling to suffer it until she has – fixed – this. She is always fixing, picking things up, forcing them back together. She is always-
The only way that she can stave it off – the parts of her that are frayed at the edges, threatening to tear themselves off her skin – is by looking elsewhere. Her eyes are on – consequence. Her thoughts are – calculations. Counting the dead. Counting losses. Counting days. Imagined days. She doesn’t know how long it is – what day was it when she fought Raum? She knows that it is fall. She knows that it is – dark. She stumbles for logistics, for plans; if she does not give herself the moment to breathe, she won’t give herself the moment to – collapse.
(Because she has lost too much, and she is sure that she is nothing. She does not fail to notice how her name registers nothing, nothing, nothing - at least for a moment, and then it is swallowed up by Raum. She does not console herself with the thought that she will be mourned in Solterra, because she won’t be. She won’t – delude – herself with the thoughts that the sun court will care about her death. She is a gaping expanse. She has been consumed, stolen, eaten alive. She is an afterthought; she is still smoke. All of her struggles have amounted to nothing, nothing, nothing - everything that she has worked to create is nothing. She is tired of fixing. She is tired.)
The Night Queen. Of course - she struggles to bite back her bitterness as she glances again at that beautiful dragon and that swirling magic, at the way that the world warps and twists to her will. She wonders if she knows how beloved she must be by her goddess to have been given such power, to have been gifted such a title, to have been chosen. (Solis’s words come back to her, his reassurance that he is always - always! - watching. Her god left her to bleed out in a field. Her god left her for the crows.)
Isra promises vengeance – she promises blood for blood, rage for rage. She knows, instinctively, as she watches the landscape, that she will take it. She knows that the Night Queen can bring Raum to his knees with a magic like this, that she can strike him to dust as little more than an afterthought. Her anger swirls in the air between them, a maelstrom, but she lingers just outside of its edges, still swirling. She should feel something at those words, anything. She should feel something.
But she is not comforted by her words, nor soothed by her rage; there is nothing but a quiet bitterness that comes creeping in from this promise of war and blood. Seraphina was raised in violence. Her life has been one long stretch of violence, with a few quiet moments in-between – she isn’t moved to any particular inspiration, save for a sort of resignation, by the thought of more of it. He will not succeed, but what is success? Any chaos he creates – a win. Any destruction. Any loss of faith, of love, of trust, of mercy, of kindness, of self - all a win.
Those things are always the first to go, in a war. If that is what he wants, she thinks, when she stares into those leonine blue eyes, those stormy seas, he might have already succeeded.
(Perhaps it is better for the fledgling Queen of Denocte this way. You cannot last long in this world soft; Seraphina knows that better than most.)
(But she wishes it were otherwise.)
It is not the end that worries me, she wants to tell her. I know that tyrants always meet a bloody end. She knows that Raum’s downfall is inevitable, but the cost…
They are her people. She is not sure that Raum is fool enough to use his newfound power for war against the other courts in the immediate future; she thinks that he will be momentarily content to hold his new power and influence over the sun kingdom like a noose, to sate his thirst for violence and vengeance on the Solterrans. Isra has her vengeance to win. Seraphina has a nation’s worth of people to lose.
And here she is again; defining her motivations by negative space.
She should be furious, she knows. She should be furious enough to rip the world to shreds, furious enough to burn and burn and burn until nothing but ashes remain; but there is nothing left to burn, and she is still too busy counting her losses, struggling to figure out what place she has in this world where she is no longer a citizen of her court, where she is no longer a queen, or an emissary, or even a shoulder, where she is nothing but a woman who should be dead. What is her duty? She knows that it ends with blood. She can taste it on the tip of her tongue already, burning a copper brand into her mouth, into her words, into every little piece of her that she shows to the world. Her bleeding has been staunched by Isra’s gold-lined kisses, but she is still blood-coated, and, as she looks at the tempest of a woman who walks beside of her and sees war, war, war in her gaze, she wonders if she will drown in it, like she does in her dreams.
(The court is on fire. The Terminus laps red against the docks. And the eyes, following her everywhere – she is never out of sight. She is never alone. She always carries those ghosts like a funeral shroud.)
She is full of puzzle pieces that are still trying to figure out how they fit together. Her heart does not normally come barreling out of her chest, but now it is in her throat, and her collar is burning around it. It itches around the edges, – how long has it been since the band of silver has itched? – and, in spite of the cool autumn air swirling around her, it feels as hot as the sun, searing like an iron brand into her flesh. (But the fire is some internal force.)
She wants to take it off.
She wants to take it off.
For a moment, her mind lingers on the clasp, but she does not shake it off. She is being foolish again; the collar will never leave her throat. (But it is choking her.) She tries to summon forth something, to let that flame burning holes in her stomach come dribbling out of her mouth in volcanic streams, but her oration, as always, fails her when she needs it. She tells herself to think, but she isn’t listening. She chains herself to the idea of Veneror, to the distant goal of regicide, and she tells herself that is all that matters. As long as she gets there…
As long as she sees this through to the end. (But it is never over, and she can never breathe. The collar tugs tight around her throat, and she feels like she is choking, though she knows that it is no tighter than usual.)
She does not have any grand words to offer in response, so, instead, she grapples for a question. “What has he done to you?”
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tags | @Isra
notes | the angst continues to intensify
the truth is, I think we all want to be held after we let go
I think we all want to be saved
She is met with rage, not sympathy. Seraphina prefers it; pity would only sting her already-wounded pride, and, though she feels herself falling to pieces, - feels it, like she is spiraling downhill slowly or falling off a cliff, watching the ground come rushing up to meet her, knows that she is seconds away from the crash and knows that she is unable to stop it – she is unwilling to suffer it until she has – fixed – this. She is always fixing, picking things up, forcing them back together. She is always-
The only way that she can stave it off – the parts of her that are frayed at the edges, threatening to tear themselves off her skin – is by looking elsewhere. Her eyes are on – consequence. Her thoughts are – calculations. Counting the dead. Counting losses. Counting days. Imagined days. She doesn’t know how long it is – what day was it when she fought Raum? She knows that it is fall. She knows that it is – dark. She stumbles for logistics, for plans; if she does not give herself the moment to breathe, she won’t give herself the moment to – collapse.
(Because she has lost too much, and she is sure that she is nothing. She does not fail to notice how her name registers nothing, nothing, nothing - at least for a moment, and then it is swallowed up by Raum. She does not console herself with the thought that she will be mourned in Solterra, because she won’t be. She won’t – delude – herself with the thoughts that the sun court will care about her death. She is a gaping expanse. She has been consumed, stolen, eaten alive. She is an afterthought; she is still smoke. All of her struggles have amounted to nothing, nothing, nothing - everything that she has worked to create is nothing. She is tired of fixing. She is tired.)
The Night Queen. Of course - she struggles to bite back her bitterness as she glances again at that beautiful dragon and that swirling magic, at the way that the world warps and twists to her will. She wonders if she knows how beloved she must be by her goddess to have been given such power, to have been gifted such a title, to have been chosen. (Solis’s words come back to her, his reassurance that he is always - always! - watching. Her god left her to bleed out in a field. Her god left her for the crows.)
Isra promises vengeance – she promises blood for blood, rage for rage. She knows, instinctively, as she watches the landscape, that she will take it. She knows that the Night Queen can bring Raum to his knees with a magic like this, that she can strike him to dust as little more than an afterthought. Her anger swirls in the air between them, a maelstrom, but she lingers just outside of its edges, still swirling. She should feel something at those words, anything. She should feel something.
But she is not comforted by her words, nor soothed by her rage; there is nothing but a quiet bitterness that comes creeping in from this promise of war and blood. Seraphina was raised in violence. Her life has been one long stretch of violence, with a few quiet moments in-between – she isn’t moved to any particular inspiration, save for a sort of resignation, by the thought of more of it. He will not succeed, but what is success? Any chaos he creates – a win. Any destruction. Any loss of faith, of love, of trust, of mercy, of kindness, of self - all a win.
Those things are always the first to go, in a war. If that is what he wants, she thinks, when she stares into those leonine blue eyes, those stormy seas, he might have already succeeded.
(Perhaps it is better for the fledgling Queen of Denocte this way. You cannot last long in this world soft; Seraphina knows that better than most.)
(But she wishes it were otherwise.)
It is not the end that worries me, she wants to tell her. I know that tyrants always meet a bloody end. She knows that Raum’s downfall is inevitable, but the cost…
They are her people. She is not sure that Raum is fool enough to use his newfound power for war against the other courts in the immediate future; she thinks that he will be momentarily content to hold his new power and influence over the sun kingdom like a noose, to sate his thirst for violence and vengeance on the Solterrans. Isra has her vengeance to win. Seraphina has a nation’s worth of people to lose.
And here she is again; defining her motivations by negative space.
She should be furious, she knows. She should be furious enough to rip the world to shreds, furious enough to burn and burn and burn until nothing but ashes remain; but there is nothing left to burn, and she is still too busy counting her losses, struggling to figure out what place she has in this world where she is no longer a citizen of her court, where she is no longer a queen, or an emissary, or even a shoulder, where she is nothing but a woman who should be dead. What is her duty? She knows that it ends with blood. She can taste it on the tip of her tongue already, burning a copper brand into her mouth, into her words, into every little piece of her that she shows to the world. Her bleeding has been staunched by Isra’s gold-lined kisses, but she is still blood-coated, and, as she looks at the tempest of a woman who walks beside of her and sees war, war, war in her gaze, she wonders if she will drown in it, like she does in her dreams.
(The court is on fire. The Terminus laps red against the docks. And the eyes, following her everywhere – she is never out of sight. She is never alone. She always carries those ghosts like a funeral shroud.)
She is full of puzzle pieces that are still trying to figure out how they fit together. Her heart does not normally come barreling out of her chest, but now it is in her throat, and her collar is burning around it. It itches around the edges, – how long has it been since the band of silver has itched? – and, in spite of the cool autumn air swirling around her, it feels as hot as the sun, searing like an iron brand into her flesh. (But the fire is some internal force.)
She wants to take it off.
She wants to take it off.
For a moment, her mind lingers on the clasp, but she does not shake it off. She is being foolish again; the collar will never leave her throat. (But it is choking her.) She tries to summon forth something, to let that flame burning holes in her stomach come dribbling out of her mouth in volcanic streams, but her oration, as always, fails her when she needs it. She tells herself to think, but she isn’t listening. She chains herself to the idea of Veneror, to the distant goal of regicide, and she tells herself that is all that matters. As long as she gets there…
As long as she sees this through to the end. (But it is never over, and she can never breathe. The collar tugs tight around her throat, and she feels like she is choking, though she knows that it is no tighter than usual.)
She does not have any grand words to offer in response, so, instead, she grapples for a question. “What has he done to you?”
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tags | @Isra
notes | the angst continues to intensify
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
