ALL OF THIS WAS WRITTEN IN THE STARS
Don’t think for a moment that you are the one holding the pen. Don’t think for a moment that the skies aren’t already laughing.
Ereshkigal flies low to the ground, a splash of pale feathers against the darkening landscape.
Though they are far from the island, the sky looks as though it is on fire. Seraphina does not often risk a glance back over her shoulder, but, when she does, she is met by red-orange stained clouds, as though the sun has melted and spilled out across the sky. Great spires of black smoke, so thick that they almost look solid from the distance, curl up from the volcano. For a moment, she can see it, cracked open with thin lines of burning lava much like the scars of gold that split her right cheek – but then the mountain is gone, swallowed up behind rolling hills and the distant curve of jagged peaks. All that is left behind is smoke and embers, which float up in the sky like little lanterns; she is glad that it is winter, and the ground is covered in a coat of (dirty, but thick) snow. It has not been so long since Delumine had a fire. It would be devastating if the Dawn Court had to deal with another, particularly so soon after the last.
The clash is distracting. The air holds a chill, and her heavy breaths come out as clouds; Seraphina is glad that she is wearing her armor and her scarf for some protection against the winter breeze, because she has never been fond of the cold. However, at the same time as the cold bites into her exposed skin, she can smell volcanic smoke, and she is aware of black bits of ash falling into the snow, which was already far from pristine. Occasionally, stray embers come trembling down to the ground, but they go out when they connect with the murky off-white.
She is cold, but she is sweating little rivers that darken the silver of her coat to a duskier gunmetal. There is snow on the ground, but the sky is ablaze. And, when the Viride Forest comes into view, she isn’t sure if it is a comfort or a death trap.
The mare at her side is lagging, and she brushes her shoulder against her in something like encouragement. She looks devastated, terrified – and maybe, if Seraphina hadn’t seen her world end once already, or maybe, if she weren’t accustomed to the unforgiving nature of the Mors, she would feel the same way. But anything Seraphina thought when the sky caught fire has burnt up in the back of her mind, replaced by a comforting necessity: to run, and to get the pretty, delicate creature at her side to safety. If she ignores the circumstances entirely, if she ignores why she is in Delumine in the first place, Seraphina can almost imagine that this is something like her duty as a guard, guiding unwary travelers out of sandstorms or away from teryrs.
But one look at the sky reminds her that it is only almost.
“When do we stop?” The other mare’s words come out as a trembling huff, hindered by her heavy breathing (she is no soldier), and Seraphina slows her own pace in response, though she does not stop moving altogether. She inclines her head to look at the woman, “What’s happening?” There is something childish to her inquiry, to her terror – or something like it. A faint, ragged twitch of pity claws at Seraphina’s chest; it becomes harder and harder to feel things the way that she’s learned she should, but she has some sympathy for her confusion, somewhere inside of her. It is almost a relief to feel it.
“I don’t know,” she admits. “I don’t know – where we should go.” She doesn’t know Delumine well, and she doesn’t know how far they’ll have to run to escape the smoke and ash trailing from the volcanic sky. With that, she turns her attention to the question that she can answer. “The volcano off the shore of Denocte and Terrastella…it’s been acting strange for a while. It seems that it’s erupting.” Seraphina soothes herself, somewhat, by assigning no deeper meaning to the situation; she’d heard talk of divine punishment and world-ending when the volcano had begun to trail smoke, and, when the event had begun, she’d been tempted to believe it. But now, with some distance…
Some disasters were simply disasters. Not every terrible thing had greater meaning.
She keeps her eyes trained on the mare, then inquires, with only a hint of concern, “Can you keep going? We should put as much distance between ourselves and the volcano as we can.”
@Llewelyn || this took forever and a day, RIP
"Speech!" || "Ereshkigal!"
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
