[AW] teeth of many martyrs;

[Seraphina]

MAYBE THERE ARE NO BEGINNINGS.
maybe nothing is an elegy, in the way rain from indoors is neither a beginning nor an end.

At first, she thinks that it is a trick of the light.

The morning is foggy, after all, but the sun has risen; she was still on the beach when dawn broke. It must be nearing the afternoon, by now, but she can’t tell for the fog. She hadn’t seen it, when she’d walked into the woods soon after waking on the shoreline. (She doubted that it is any safer on the beach than in the forest, but it is clearer, and she is accustomed to sand, so she is sure that she is more difficult to trick on the shoreline.) The forest is silent, save for the snap of her hooves against fallen branches and pine needles, and, with the fog so thick and pale, likely reflecting the sunlight, it feels otherworldly. Anything more than ten or fifteen feet away from her is obscured, taking the form of a dark, light-slashed silhouette, rather than an actual being. The air is almost painfully still, and it is thick from the humidity; sweat beads on her skin and drips dark trails down her silver flanks, collects under the hood of her scarf, mats in her hair. The rich greens and deep browns of the trees are reduced to murky charcoal in the fog, desaturating them until they are as grey as she is; they stand, eerily still and silent, and no part of them seems to be exempt from the fog, which must extend above the canopy.

So, at first, when Seraphina sees a strange shape, half-obscured by the trunk of the great tree, though something in the all-too familiar shape of the silhouette gives her a moment’s pause, she dismisses it as a trick of the light. It is gone when she moves closer, and, if she hears a branch snap and the rustle of movement when it disappears, like something is passing through the leaves…

It could be anywhere. The air is thick enough to muffle sound and confuse its direction.

Ereshkigal’s talons dig into her armor, and she can feel the press of them against her shoulder. She does not send her away to scout, this time; the vulture is a comforting, if not necessarily warm, presence, and another set of eyes. Seraphina almost wishes that she were speaking, because, something about that silhouette…

A branch snaps under the weight of her hoof, and she nearly flinches, then chides herself inwardly. She’s being ridiculous.

But then comes the feeling of eyes.

They bear into her back, making her skin crawl; she tells herself that it is just her paranoia. Gods know, she’s gotten paranoid. So sure that the world is out to hurt her, so sure that it is a twisty, untrustworthy thing, that it will betray her the moment that it is given the chance. Even if there is something out there with her, it could easily be another horse, or one of those wildcats. Even birds could seem far larger than they were in such a disorienting and all-encompassing silence, in such an unnatural place.

But, in spite of her insistence, Seraphina looks back over her shoulder and freezes.

There is that silhouette again, distinctly equine – she can just make out the shape of wings on its back, tucked in neatly at its side. Long, matted hair drips from the side of its neck, trailing the ground. But it is those horns that give Seraphina pause, unnatural and draconian; they curve out and inward, to sharp points, as though something spherical could rest between them. (And it did, sometimes, with magic.) She doesn’t move. For a moment, she can’t move.

It can’t be him, she tells herself, staring at that shadow. It stares back. It can’t be him because he is dead – she watched him die. She watched him burn alive.

(There is a pain in the back of her skull, dull and throbbing, that reminds her of what he cut from her. She can imagine his eyes on the shadow – gold, then black mirrors, too dark to reflect light.)

The shadow turns, and then it is gone again, disappearing into the fog. For a moment, Seraphina simply stands, choking on her tongue; her legs tremble, and then they straighten. She forces herself to look in the other direction, and then to walk, even though her limbs feel liquid. She does not believe in ghosts, but she is in the realm of the god of time – who is to say he couldn’t have pulled him back from another time and put him in the woods?

(She forces herself to think. More realistically, it’s some kind of mimic. Each snapped branch makes her wonder if it is following her; some kind of creature from the woods, taking the form of something that it doesn’t want to see. Or maybe it is merely another horse who happens to look like him from a distance, who happens to share his features. Or she could be mistaken. It could be some strange deer, or-)

Ereshkigal forces her from her thoughts. “Do you think that it’s following us?” For once, she is grateful for the vulture’s obvious desire to irritate her; it breaks the silence.

“No,” she responds sharply. She doesn’t feel those eyes on her back anymore, but she can hear branches snapping in the distance, as though something is approaching – but keeping its distance.

She has the distinct feeling that she is being toyed with.

“Let’s keep going,” she says, instead of responding, with a shake of her head; Ereshkigal gives a sharp, verbal laugh, but she doesn’t stop her, and is even charitable enough to pretend not to notice when the silver mare quickens her strides.

As she descends further into the woods, however, Seraphina can’t shake the feeling that the fog is growing thicker; it should have subsided with time, but, instead, her visibility continues to decrease, until she can only see five or six feet around her. She keeps walking. If she keeps walking – and pretends that nothing is off – it might ignore her.

But she can’t shake the feeling of eyes.

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@ || another open, just because...island. || "orbit," victoria chang; title is from "in the pines" by alice notley

"Speech!" || "Ereshkigal!"

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