☼ s e r a p h i n a ☼
have you ever burned grief but found yourself
unable to brush the ashes off your skin?
Oh, her eyes.
When Rhoswen turns to look at her, it is with such a persistent, creeping grief – like vines swallowing up a building – that Seraphina feels her chest constrict. Those stormcloud grey eyes hold her captive, but Seraphina does want to struggle against them; she holds that stare carefully, like it might break in her grasp if she so much as breathes. Her gaze is a rolling ocean, breaking over her back, a tide pulling her under. But there is not just grief within those eyes; there is firm conviction that feels like a promise and both reassures and terrifies her.
And then she looks away.
Seraphina inhales sharply. For a moment, she sees a flare of sadness in those stormy eyes, but it is gone as quickly as it appeared, and she is left with a quiet, subtle smile that Seraphina struggles to return with a ghostly curve of her charcoal lips. "I am going to head south; it is time to end what once began." The words hang in the air between them, almost unbearably heavy, and Seraphina almost asks what she intends to end, but she doesn’t. Rhoswen draws away from her, towards the rising sun, casting her gaze to the horizon.
She can almost mistake those amber sparks for little flickers of dawn, at first. The sun burns behind Rhoswen, casting her pale roan in a darkness that ripples and flickers around the edges; she is staring into the sun, towards their god. Solis, watch over her, she finds herself thinking, to fill the space left behind by a thundering cacophony of questions that won’t make it off her tongue. But then - then - Seraphina sees that amber light drawing a line down the curve of the red woman’s spine, growing higher and higher by the second, more vibrant and more violent - does it hurt, she wants to ask, does it burn you too, but she doesn’t.
For a moment, she is more like the sun than the rising dawn, more glorious and luminous than that great, distant body of fire; for a moment, she is the sun, white-hot and radiant, pulsing with a violence that is as glorious as it is horrifying. She looks warlike – and magnificent – in a way that makes a great shudder of tension run the length of Seraphina’s spine. She tries to hold the image in her mind, to preserve Rhoswen, to burn her burning image into the back of her eyes – this wielder of the sun god’s fire, her friend.
And then the flames are gone, reduced to a smudge of ash. Rhoswen draws back towards her, and she finds those eyes again, for a moment. "I hope you find peace with yourself, Sera; you are greater than you know." Her lips brush her cheek, and, for a moment, Seraphina is suspended. There are words caught up in her mouth, but they won’t pass her lips. She recognizes that those sound like parting words, and she is not ready to say her goodbyes, but she struggles for them anyways; for something poetic or final, or something beautiful, or something that will keep her from slipping into the woods, still smelling of smoke. Rhoswen has disappeared before she so much as opens her mouth, and she is only left with the pale, flickering image of her, surrounded by flames, and a swarm of unsaid words that rustle and buzz in the back of her mouth.
“Rhoswen,” Seraphina says, her name like a plea, but her voice is far too late to reach her; she is gone among the trees, like a slip of setting sun.
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tags | @Rhoswen
notes | <3
have you ever burned grief but found yourself
unable to brush the ashes off your skin?
Oh, her eyes.
When Rhoswen turns to look at her, it is with such a persistent, creeping grief – like vines swallowing up a building – that Seraphina feels her chest constrict. Those stormcloud grey eyes hold her captive, but Seraphina does want to struggle against them; she holds that stare carefully, like it might break in her grasp if she so much as breathes. Her gaze is a rolling ocean, breaking over her back, a tide pulling her under. But there is not just grief within those eyes; there is firm conviction that feels like a promise and both reassures and terrifies her.
And then she looks away.
Seraphina inhales sharply. For a moment, she sees a flare of sadness in those stormy eyes, but it is gone as quickly as it appeared, and she is left with a quiet, subtle smile that Seraphina struggles to return with a ghostly curve of her charcoal lips. "I am going to head south; it is time to end what once began." The words hang in the air between them, almost unbearably heavy, and Seraphina almost asks what she intends to end, but she doesn’t. Rhoswen draws away from her, towards the rising sun, casting her gaze to the horizon.
She can almost mistake those amber sparks for little flickers of dawn, at first. The sun burns behind Rhoswen, casting her pale roan in a darkness that ripples and flickers around the edges; she is staring into the sun, towards their god. Solis, watch over her, she finds herself thinking, to fill the space left behind by a thundering cacophony of questions that won’t make it off her tongue. But then - then - Seraphina sees that amber light drawing a line down the curve of the red woman’s spine, growing higher and higher by the second, more vibrant and more violent - does it hurt, she wants to ask, does it burn you too, but she doesn’t.
For a moment, she is more like the sun than the rising dawn, more glorious and luminous than that great, distant body of fire; for a moment, she is the sun, white-hot and radiant, pulsing with a violence that is as glorious as it is horrifying. She looks warlike – and magnificent – in a way that makes a great shudder of tension run the length of Seraphina’s spine. She tries to hold the image in her mind, to preserve Rhoswen, to burn her burning image into the back of her eyes – this wielder of the sun god’s fire, her friend.
And then the flames are gone, reduced to a smudge of ash. Rhoswen draws back towards her, and she finds those eyes again, for a moment. "I hope you find peace with yourself, Sera; you are greater than you know." Her lips brush her cheek, and, for a moment, Seraphina is suspended. There are words caught up in her mouth, but they won’t pass her lips. She recognizes that those sound like parting words, and she is not ready to say her goodbyes, but she struggles for them anyways; for something poetic or final, or something beautiful, or something that will keep her from slipping into the woods, still smelling of smoke. Rhoswen has disappeared before she so much as opens her mouth, and she is only left with the pale, flickering image of her, surrounded by flames, and a swarm of unsaid words that rustle and buzz in the back of her mouth.
“Rhoswen,” Seraphina says, her name like a plea, but her voice is far too late to reach her; she is gone among the trees, like a slip of setting sun.
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tags | @Rhoswen
notes | <3
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
