AT NIGHT I PINE FOR SLEEP THE WAY HUNGER HOWLS A PLEA FROM ITS OWN PIT
a prayer roiling somewhere dark & hollow
She knew, the moment she saw the ivy, that he was here.
When she hears whispers of the relic again, her reaction is mostly apathetic, with a dull hint of concern for misuse - Tempus seems to favor the clever, but cleverness tells her little about moral character. She is hunting blackbirds; she doesn’t have a nation to claim the relic for, anymore, and she doesn’t want to think of the moral consequences of having a relic that allowed her to alter time for herself. What would she be obligated to do with it? What would she have to fix? And what problems would fixing - saving - create?
Of course she would change the past, if she could. That is precisely why, she thinks, she should never be allowed to.
But Tempus is another matter entirely.
She doesn’t care for his relic, nor for his favor; she is not sure that she cares for the favor of anyone anymore, least of all the gods. She only wants answers - answers to the questions she so nearly asked Solis when she met him. Why did the gods return now, of all times? Why had they disappeared again? What did he mean when he said that things were changing? Surely he didn’t mean the disasters alone; she’d been told that the horrors in Dusk, at the very least, were a test, and Dawn’s fires seemed to have been something similar. (She was not so sure about Solis, and she knew nearly nothing about what had happened in Denocte. All that she could say was that the sun god’s aid did not seem to be so conditional.)
The timing is strange. She knows that there must be a reason for it – that there must be a reason for it -
She hopes that there is a reason for it.
She stands on the shore, her hooves digging holes into the sea-clumped sand, and she stares into the darkness of the pine forest stretching out towards the center of the island. Her hood has half-fallen, and her white hair is pulling out of its braids. Absentmindedly, her telekinesis begins to rake through the white mess, forcing loose strands back into place and tightening bits that were falling apart, sometimes a bit too tight, but she doesn’t much feel it.
She needs to wash her hair, she thinks. It’s white and gets dirty too easily, and it smells like salt and the strange concoction of things that mean sea - fish and water and murky sand. She needs to wash her hair, and she needs to sleep, and she needs to eat more and drink more, because, when she takes off her armor, her ribs protrude a bit too much and her face is getting sallow in a way that is more disturbing than anything, and her eyes always seem to have little veins of red running currents through them – they always seem to be carrying bags, little dark curves, but she always seems to be carrying something, so that’s nothing new. She hasn’t slept well in what she thinks has been years, but it’s gotten worse lately. She can’t find it in herself to eat more when people are starving, even though she knows that she could; same way with water. The constant clench of needing isn’t really anything new, anyways – she’s a desert thing, and they have shortages all the time. But she should wash off. Viceroy shaved her hair off when she was a girl because it was too long for fighting and too dirty, and he couldn’t stand dirty white. Maybe cold water will clear her head and wake her up a bit; she keeps dreaming about the gods, and the maze, and the monster, and Raum, Raum, Raum, sometimes accompanied by a black-winged figure with a knife.
But there’s no cold, clear water nearby, just the sea, and the last thing she needs is more grit on her coat. She blinks in the midday sunlight, grimacing at the crowds of people on the shore, and reminds herself that it’s good for her anonymity - if she wants to hunt them down, they can’t know she’s here. (But she can’t shake the feeling that it’s unsafe, especially with this many people around, especially with children around, and she wants to tell them to run, but she doesn’t have any authority anymore, and Tempus might take poorly to her driving off his prospects besides.)
She winds her scarf around her face again instead, and, keeping her head low, she slinks like a prowling cat through the edges of the crowd, towards the woods. Ereshkigal leaps off of her shoulders and up, climbing high enough to fly just above the treetops. A few of the strange island birds leap up in her wake and flank her, but she snarls at them, flashing her massive, jagged talons and slashing at the air – they let out sharp squawks of their own and return to the trees, and, even from a distance, Seraphina can see her puff up in pleasure. She rolls her eyes.
Seraphina brushes shoulders with strangers, a ghostly flank or shoulder against a flank or shoulder (that seems intent to remind her that she is no ghost); she is gone too quickly to garner much attention, and she is quick to disappear into the darkness of the woods, unhappy as she is with the prospect. Once she is in the cover of the shade, with the foliage to shield her from prying eyes and Ereshkigal keeping a careful eye on the forest from above, she pulls her scarf down and allows her hair – which is already beginning to disentangle again, thanks to her makeshift hood – to fall free in parts, clinging to the sweaty curve of her neck and forehead.
She has found god once before, in a place much like this: just as strange and just as deadly. Surely, surely she can find him again, and surely she can get the answers she needs from him this time.
She lets herself cling to surely, to her wavering notion of her own resolve and capability, and disappears into the brush.
@ || aaaand the kids are both in for this round
"Speech!" || "Ereshkigal!"
STAFF EDIT***
@Seraphinahas rolled a 3! She has been awarded +125 signos.
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
