little pilgrim
the Indian's axed your scalp.
the Indian's axed your scalp.
Your queen is buried in the Steppe. Good luck finding her grave to offer her respect.
If Elif had paused to think, this might have struck her as strange - the idea that this silver man, this black-souled Ghost, would have taken the time to bury Seraphina’s body.
But Elif has never taken the time for wisdom, only followed the barest breeze that ruffles through the tips of her feathers. And she is too angry to think as she takes off from the capitol, a few galloping strides where her hooves hammer the cobblestones like she wishes they could hammer him and then a flare of her wings, a few hard beats, and her shadow shrinking below her.
Once the girl is flying she thinks of nothing at all. She and the wind only urge each other on in turn, and the sun beats down on her back and her shoulders, and the whole world is simple and still.
She might fly forever, one day, if she can make that feeling last. But today, in the weak light of a winter evening, she sweeps low as she reaches the flat expanse of the Steppe. From the air, the strange magic is unmissable, and Elif can’t tell if the tight fist of her heart is from excitement or grief. The wildflowers shine up like shattered glass, casting a prism of light that she has to blink against as she lands. And, like a fool (like someone who has had little experience with magic) she lands in their midst, and cries out when the petals cut her limbs, little bites of blood.
The hawk tells herself it may be the only offering she can make to Seraphina. If it were only grasslands, she might have tried to burn the whole thing - swift wind, a struck spark, and the entire Steppe would become a pyre. Not even Solis could ignore the incense of that flame.
But these blossoms would not burn. She knows it even before she touches one, carefully, brushing her lips against it in the barest of tastes. It smells nothing of the blooms she has known, which sometimes seized the desert in a crimson or yellow superbloom, turning the horizon to a canvas. Instead it smells sharp, almost metallic, a tang that recalls that burning golden pool.
Magic has not lost its magnetic draw - but Elif can’t help but wonder what it is, what it could possibly mean, against a monster.
As she finally stands still - as still as she gets, skin still trembling, eyes wide, the breeze still pulling at her woefully short hair - and begins to hear the music the glass flowers make, Elif tells herself that there are worse tombs than one so beautiful, and so strange.
But she is only more determined to see Raum buried in one.
@Random Events
***STAFF EDIT
@elif has rolled a 2! She has been awarded +50 signos for interacting with the flowers.
