☼ s e r a p h i n a ☼
YOU CAN BE A THRESHING SLEDGE
new and sharp with many teeth
There is nothing in her eyes.
Seraphina knows – knows – what it means to have nothing behind the eyes. She spent years hollowed out, the gory aftermath of brutal violence; she spent years carved out of ice. And, as she stares at Bexley, stares into those sky-blue eyes, she finds that they are hollow. This isn’t Bexley Briar, she thinks. This can’t be Bexley Briar. She saw her once, almost dead, crushed, bloody, but alive, but the creature in front of her, rusting where the sand hits her frame, is not Bexley Briar. It is a shadow wearing her face, some cruel mockery, or- or- or-
or a woman consumed by grief, a woman with her hear torn, red and throbbing, out of the safety of her ribs. She watches her, and she wonders why she ever wished for things like love at all, if this is what love does. (And, oh, her heart is bleeding too – she stares out across the rolling dunes of the Mors, and they seem to her ugly and twisted, a blank empty space full of danger, where they should be beloved, where they should be home, but he has taken that from her, too. He has taken every piece of her – stolen her bit by bit – and she is not sure if she can ever look at her world the same way again.)
Raum, she says, and Bexley turns; weak as she is, twisting a knife as she is, she cannot find it in her to try to stop her; when she turns, abruptly, she turns with a look on her face that Seraphina barely recognizes, but it burns her. (It almost, almost, almost - gives her pause.) There is further distance between them, now, and, in the back of her mind, she thinks that if this were one of the novels in the library (as far from her reach as anything, now; she wonders if the book she pressed flowers, the only ones she’d ever received, into is still on the shelf) there would be some horrible metaphor here.
I’m sorry, she says, and, for the first time in her life, Seraphina sees Bexley Briar cry.
In a terrible way, it is almost a relief to see her tears; they are some sort of emotion, rather than that horrible, gaping blankness. She wonders if she should reach out and touch her, try to comfort her somehow, but she can’t, and any consoling words she might have said die on her lips because, well, look at how her last attempt at empathy went. “Don’t,” Bexley says, and it feels like a warning sign, “say that.” So she doesn’t. She doesn’t say anything.
That light magic of hers, bright-burning and radiant, begins to pour from her eyes, her lips, her nostrils; a tumble of brilliant gold dripping like a waterfall onto the sand. She doesn’t seem to notice it until it hits the ground with a harsh hiss, and, then, jerks. “Don’t say that,” she says, again, the light flickering out instantaneously. “Instead…” and there is a tremble to her voice, a waver to those tear-filled eyes, “Kill him. Or I will.”
Kill him, she says, and Seraphina’s magic begins to twist and writhe, a hissing serpent of fury beneath her gunmetal skin. The air between them seems to hum; chunks of stone on the wayside of the canyon tremble free of the sand they’ve buried themselves in and lift into the air, bobbing loosely as they hover all around them. Grains of sand, torn up from their release, follow them, catching in the light like little flecks of gold. Her mane pulls itself from her tight braids and flows like water, suspended in the air behind her neck, and the loose gold of her scarf unwinds from her neck, coiling around her body like a serpent without actually touching her skin. Her hooves are no longer on the ground; she hangs suspended in the air in front of Bexley Briar, her stare burning hotter than the desert sun. The golden scar on her cheek puckers around the edges, where there is still skin, and weeps a few bloody tears that roll down her face and towards the space around her throat where her collar once was, a patch of rash-worn skin and thin fur that was slowly, ever so slowly, beginning to grow back. Kill him echoes in the recesses of her mind like a holy mantra, kill him kill him kill him, and she is suddenly aware of Alshamtueur at her hip, sizzling like newborn flame even though she has not spoken its name. Kill him, and she sees him - him, that monster, that monster who terrorizes her citizens, who took her kingdom and wields it like a weapon of war, who stole everything that she had fought and bled for from her and left her for dead, who made Bexley Briar cry - she sees him burning. The look, then, that curls across her charcoal lips is not kind, and it is not apathetic; it is something feral, a distorted mask that belongs to some vengeful fury, not any seraphic creature. Kill him, and she wants him to die painfully, even though she has never wished for such a twisted thing before; kill him, and she wants to lift Alshamtueur’s flames to his flank and set him ablaze, to watch him twist and writhe in the flames like a proper Solterran king as the fire choked the breath from his lungs, to send him off to the sun god in the most brutal and excruciating way that she can imagine - kill him, or I will, and send his black, twisted soul to a god who will offer him no pity in death. Her head tilts like a hunting mantis, the gesture somehow as unnatural as it is predatory, and, finally, she speaks.
“I will,” she says, “and I won’t be kind about it.” She watches Bexley, those eyes gleaming unnaturally under the desert sun, and adds, “Are you going to help?”
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tags | @Bexley
notes | well, this got a little morbid, huh
YOU CAN BE A THRESHING SLEDGE
new and sharp with many teeth
There is nothing in her eyes.
Seraphina knows – knows – what it means to have nothing behind the eyes. She spent years hollowed out, the gory aftermath of brutal violence; she spent years carved out of ice. And, as she stares at Bexley, stares into those sky-blue eyes, she finds that they are hollow. This isn’t Bexley Briar, she thinks. This can’t be Bexley Briar. She saw her once, almost dead, crushed, bloody, but alive, but the creature in front of her, rusting where the sand hits her frame, is not Bexley Briar. It is a shadow wearing her face, some cruel mockery, or- or- or-
or a woman consumed by grief, a woman with her hear torn, red and throbbing, out of the safety of her ribs. She watches her, and she wonders why she ever wished for things like love at all, if this is what love does. (And, oh, her heart is bleeding too – she stares out across the rolling dunes of the Mors, and they seem to her ugly and twisted, a blank empty space full of danger, where they should be beloved, where they should be home, but he has taken that from her, too. He has taken every piece of her – stolen her bit by bit – and she is not sure if she can ever look at her world the same way again.)
Raum, she says, and Bexley turns; weak as she is, twisting a knife as she is, she cannot find it in her to try to stop her; when she turns, abruptly, she turns with a look on her face that Seraphina barely recognizes, but it burns her. (It almost, almost, almost - gives her pause.) There is further distance between them, now, and, in the back of her mind, she thinks that if this were one of the novels in the library (as far from her reach as anything, now; she wonders if the book she pressed flowers, the only ones she’d ever received, into is still on the shelf) there would be some horrible metaphor here.
I’m sorry, she says, and, for the first time in her life, Seraphina sees Bexley Briar cry.
In a terrible way, it is almost a relief to see her tears; they are some sort of emotion, rather than that horrible, gaping blankness. She wonders if she should reach out and touch her, try to comfort her somehow, but she can’t, and any consoling words she might have said die on her lips because, well, look at how her last attempt at empathy went. “Don’t,” Bexley says, and it feels like a warning sign, “say that.” So she doesn’t. She doesn’t say anything.
That light magic of hers, bright-burning and radiant, begins to pour from her eyes, her lips, her nostrils; a tumble of brilliant gold dripping like a waterfall onto the sand. She doesn’t seem to notice it until it hits the ground with a harsh hiss, and, then, jerks. “Don’t say that,” she says, again, the light flickering out instantaneously. “Instead…” and there is a tremble to her voice, a waver to those tear-filled eyes, “Kill him. Or I will.”
Kill him, she says, and Seraphina’s magic begins to twist and writhe, a hissing serpent of fury beneath her gunmetal skin. The air between them seems to hum; chunks of stone on the wayside of the canyon tremble free of the sand they’ve buried themselves in and lift into the air, bobbing loosely as they hover all around them. Grains of sand, torn up from their release, follow them, catching in the light like little flecks of gold. Her mane pulls itself from her tight braids and flows like water, suspended in the air behind her neck, and the loose gold of her scarf unwinds from her neck, coiling around her body like a serpent without actually touching her skin. Her hooves are no longer on the ground; she hangs suspended in the air in front of Bexley Briar, her stare burning hotter than the desert sun. The golden scar on her cheek puckers around the edges, where there is still skin, and weeps a few bloody tears that roll down her face and towards the space around her throat where her collar once was, a patch of rash-worn skin and thin fur that was slowly, ever so slowly, beginning to grow back. Kill him echoes in the recesses of her mind like a holy mantra, kill him kill him kill him, and she is suddenly aware of Alshamtueur at her hip, sizzling like newborn flame even though she has not spoken its name. Kill him, and she sees him - him, that monster, that monster who terrorizes her citizens, who took her kingdom and wields it like a weapon of war, who stole everything that she had fought and bled for from her and left her for dead, who made Bexley Briar cry - she sees him burning. The look, then, that curls across her charcoal lips is not kind, and it is not apathetic; it is something feral, a distorted mask that belongs to some vengeful fury, not any seraphic creature. Kill him, and she wants him to die painfully, even though she has never wished for such a twisted thing before; kill him, and she wants to lift Alshamtueur’s flames to his flank and set him ablaze, to watch him twist and writhe in the flames like a proper Solterran king as the fire choked the breath from his lungs, to send him off to the sun god in the most brutal and excruciating way that she can imagine - kill him, or I will, and send his black, twisted soul to a god who will offer him no pity in death. Her head tilts like a hunting mantis, the gesture somehow as unnatural as it is predatory, and, finally, she speaks.
“I will,” she says, “and I won’t be kind about it.” She watches Bexley, those eyes gleaming unnaturally under the desert sun, and adds, “Are you going to help?”
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tags | @
notes | well, this got a little morbid, huh
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
