IF ANY RING REMAINS, OF RUBBLE & CONSEQUENCE
my salt heart agape, an oh to construct the shape of the whole just before -
Ereshkigal’s words strike a storm among the crowd; uneasy whispers and anxious fidgeting. Seraphina glares at the bird from under her hood, and she blinks back at her innocently. She never knows, with the demon, if her unnerving behavior is genuinely unintentional – the result of dissonant values and a serially blunt nature – or entirely intentional. Regardless of whether she meant to or not, she has disturbed people, and Seraphina considers speaking, but she wonders if, with her skeletal, hooded appearance and wary words of caution, she won’t simply upset them more.
Asterion speaks, in the silence that follows. “Whatever this is, do not explore alone. Stay together, and watch out for one another.” He sounds far more regal than she remembers – like he could be a genuine figure of authority. She notices, after a moment, that the waves, too, have gone silent, and risks a haphazard glance over her shoulder; the waves have died down in the ocean, leaving it still. She is not sure if it should be soothing or eerie, but the silence seems to provide some comfort to the crowd.
She wonders if Asterion quieted the waves; if so, he is a far more powerful mage than she thought.
Even his simple, well-meaning advice is taken poorly by some people in the crowd, and that is enough to spur Seraphina to speak again.“Don’t move in large enough groups to attract too much attention, certainly,” Seraphina says evenly, her mismatched eyes lingering on each figure in the crowd individually, “but don’t underestimate what dangers you might face on this island. The gods are more powerful than any of us alone – and, even together, I doubt that we could outmatch them with brute force. Your wits and your tongue are your most powerful weapons. This island will try to trick you, and, if it’s anything like the maze, there are creatures within it that are waiting to devour you or rip you apart if you stumble.” Her voice is cool and unwavering, nearly emotionless but sure as a notched arrow. “You’ve been bold enough to come here. If you fear it, a place like this will hurt you, or do far worse, and you should take your leave while you have the option – but you mustn’t be fearless, either. Respect the landscape, don’t trust anything that seems unnaturally serene or welcoming, and make sure that the risks you take are measured.” For all her warnings, and for all that Ereshkigal has spoken of doom, Seraphina is strangely, serenely calm, her lips drawn into a firm line. Perhaps it is because she has seen things as strange as this before and lived through them. Perhaps it is because she is a living-dead thing, caught somewhere between this realm and the void; she needs to live, to kill Raum, but she does not know if she would care if she died.
She is burning. She is apathetic. She is caught somewhere between so many things – she wishes that she could untangle herself.
“I don’t understand why they’re so concerned,” Ereshkigal chirps, but thankfully keeps her comments inside of Seraphina’s head. “Dying isn’t such a terrible thing, as long as you haven’t been bad.” Her laughter resounds around the inside of her mind, like the echo nails on a chalkboard.
Seraphina doesn’t dignify her comment with a response.
Asterion turns to her, and, subtly, he whispers into her ear, after fixing Ereshkigal with a wary look – it makes her snicker. “If Raum is here then we have an opportunity – to find him and to kill him.”
She looks at him thoughtfully, for a fraction of a second, and she wonders if this man – who just suggested an execution – is the same one she met so many months ago, at a festival with a broken heart-
“Exactly.”
She eyes the crowd warily, from behind the cover of her hood. Her voice is hushed, little more than a murmur. “We’ll discuss it – but not here. There are too many eyes and ears.”
If she’d meant to say anything else, she was interrupted by the appearance of a young, petite mare who introduces herself as Cally. Seraphina watches her quietly. “So, what's exactly going on here . . . as mentioned before, I'm not from around here - at all - but even I can tell that there's something very serious afoot, and you sir, ma'am, seem to be fairly in the know how of just what it is.” She seems less impulsive than the others, or more knowledgeable about the danger – Seraphina inclines her head at her contemplatively, then speaks.
"It’s hard to discern exactly what is going on,” she admits, somewhat reluctantly, “but, the last time something similar occurred, the god of time, Tempus, had sent his relic out in the world for mortals to find. It was a test to see who was worthy of his favor.” And she certainly hadn’t been.
And then a unicorn comes from the bridge.
She hasn’t seen her since (something she would rather forget; the taste of blood in her mouth, the press of metal against her skin, and those white flowers growing up around her, ready to swallow her body up), but she knows her immediately.
She doesn’t feel like a savior, now – when she steps off the bridge, she feels like fury.
She catches Seraphina’s gaze when she passes, and her smile is all teeth; it is a feral, savage thing, and it promises spilt blood.
“Isra,” comes her quiet greeting, her eyes shifting to examine the unicorn and the dragon who rose from the sea behind her. Dragon queen, maybe that’s what they’d call her now – and it is still Seraphina’s impulse to shy away from her, though she stands her ground, because Isra contains such volumes of power that she might call her god-like, with a magic that twisted reality itself to her will and a beast that was growing unfathomably large and powerful. (But she knows that the gods can take magic as easily as they can give it, and she knows that they dislike insubordination; she still recalls what Solis did to Bexley Briar.) When she regards the unicorn’s words, it is with a healthy dose of skepticism - the way that Seraphina sees it, the island was likely a puzzle, not a battlefield.
(Though she suspects it might become one. Places of power always did.)
“If there is anything dangerous on this island,” Isra says, with a hint of something like anger – not unexpected, under the circumstances – lingering in her tone, “it is not us who should be afraid.”
She turns the statue to green copper, touches it with the sea; and then Fable comes, shedding saltwater like a second skin.
Seraphina wishes that she could believe her. If she were younger, or more naïve, or if she had any place for grandiose statements left in her heart, she might have. Seraphina-on-the-edge-of-adulthood, a girl who’d only just taken her throne, would certainly have believed that, even with the memory of the ink monster vivid in the back of her mind. Certainly, she’d made many grand promises, then – certainly, she’d thought that she could change the world, that nothing was unconquerable-
But now she knew better. And, besides, she is not Isra.
If her words will calm the crowd, however, Seraphina will not say anything to distract from them. Another woman, painted in a patchwork of browns and whites, speaks up bluntly; Seraphina watches her, for a moment, then looks at the statue again. If she were still the silver queen, she might have said something more. She has already said her piece, however, and she is no queen; there is no reason why anyone should listen to her. (Hasn’t she already proven herself the fool, time and time again?)
She draws back, away from the statue – but she remains. She listens.
@Asterion @Callynite @Isra specifically, for speech || me? write a short post? with sera?
"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
