☼ s e r a p h i n a ☼
someone left you for a reason
change your name, change your face
At his words, she tilts her head, her eyes narrowing a hair in something akin to interest. Terrible as it was, she was not so sure that she had expected a moral code from this man, much less such a complex argument; her telekinesis winds itself around her, almost unconsciously, and she can feel the pressure of its pull on her skin like the tension that comes when a lightning strike is about to hit the ground. She listens. Considers. Then : “I don’t mean all of them,” said simply, as though it should be obvious, “but I do mean his advisors, his most beloved followers, the people who have come from other lands to join his cause, like flies to a corpse…” And she has seen them come from other places; she would be willing to bet that most of his advisors, in fact, and his supporters, as she has seen them, are not Solterran. (They had nothing to lose from attempting to reduce the desert kingdom to dust and ash; what they did not expect, Seraphina thought, was that Raum had no intention to stop with Solterra.) “Not the desperate, of course, though I have little empathy for those who hope to profit from this. But unfortunately, a lesson that you learn as a soldier is that…” A slow sigh forces itself out of her lips, harsh exhalation of breath, and she fixes her gaze on his own. And it is a bitter, hard-won expression that twists itself across her lips, a look of rare pain in her mismatched eyes. “…on the battlefield, the distinction doesn’t matter.”
If she had only ever killed evil men, Seraphina might be a different creature – and, had she always been convinced that she was right, even if they had not all been evil men, even better. But that is not the kind of life that Seraphina has lived, and she is unwilling to lie to herself. She has killed good men, men with far more to lose than her. (Just a life; little else.) Men have died because of her actions, because of her inaction, because of her failure…
There is a part of him that is looking past him, a gaze that drifts past the rolling dunes and capitol walls until it finds its way into the palace, and it sits in the rafters and stares at Raum. It keeps track of his every sin, and it smiles, and it marks each one down as hers to bear, too. Seraphina wants to be punished for this, more than she already has been.
(She is not even dead to account for her dead. She should be buried with them. Living-dead thing, Fia -)
He yields to her comment of Raum’s behavior, and then…something in him changes. His words are some mixture of painful sincerity and that pleasant subterfuge that makes her skin itch – it is too like the nobles in court for her to feel comfortable. She watches him warily. The most dangerous manipulators, she knows, are those who can use something genuine to get their way. “Your kin?” Seraphina parrots, but allows him to continue speaking; she has the feeling that he is leading up to something, but she does not know what. Not yet.
But she is willing to listen.
When he comments on his familial allegiance, her brow arches. A house divided, apparently. Seraphina was hardly accustomed to the idea of familial loyalty, save for what she’d seen among the nobles, and many of them were content to stab each other in the back for a chance at more power and influence, and, in certain situations, the throne. She had no family of her own; she had barely known her mother, and she didn’t even know the name of her father. She knew that her roots were Solterran, but, disregarding that, she was utterly detached – from any ancestry, any branches. He speaks of them with a genuine…something. Love? Devotion? She doesn’t know if he feels something so tender for them at all; she thinks that it feels like the wrong word. Still, an observation crosses her lips. “It seems that your allegiance still lies with them.” There is no judgement in her tone, but neither is there trust, absolution-
And then he says Davke.
Her reaction is miniscule, at best. Her eyes narrow fractionally, but – is she really surprised? He is different from Avdotya and Jahin, but there is something to him that feels exactly like them. (Or, at least, like Avdotya.) She observes him thoughtfully, but she lets a silence drag out between them, for a moment, to test his reaction.
“Davke, hmm?” Her tone is neutral, impassive; it does not reveal her thoughts, one way or another, if she has them. “And why, Anatoly, should I take you at your word?” She has met enough of them to know that there is more than one type of Davke, and not all of them are as much of snakes as Avdotya; Jahin, for one, was a trusted friend, though she doesn’t doubt that his allegiance only remained with her because of the debt he thought that he owed her for his freedom. But Avdotya…
She was friend enough, and advisor too. The one thing that she learned from the viper was that her people would always - always - choose their own before Solterra.
(But, even if his motivations were ultimately to help the Davke, so long as she kept an eye on him, he could be an asset. If he came to her, instead of his people or Raum, he clearly held misgivings about the Blood King and their alliance with him – though he could always be a spy, a notion that gives her momentary pause. However…
She knew that this rebellion would require whoever it could take, and she knew that this meant compromising her morals on more than one occasion. A snake was a snake, but it could be coaxed to bite someone else – so long as you kept your ankles from its teeth.)
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tags | @Anatoly
notes | thirty years later...
someone left you for a reason
change your name, change your face
At his words, she tilts her head, her eyes narrowing a hair in something akin to interest. Terrible as it was, she was not so sure that she had expected a moral code from this man, much less such a complex argument; her telekinesis winds itself around her, almost unconsciously, and she can feel the pressure of its pull on her skin like the tension that comes when a lightning strike is about to hit the ground. She listens. Considers. Then : “I don’t mean all of them,” said simply, as though it should be obvious, “but I do mean his advisors, his most beloved followers, the people who have come from other lands to join his cause, like flies to a corpse…” And she has seen them come from other places; she would be willing to bet that most of his advisors, in fact, and his supporters, as she has seen them, are not Solterran. (They had nothing to lose from attempting to reduce the desert kingdom to dust and ash; what they did not expect, Seraphina thought, was that Raum had no intention to stop with Solterra.) “Not the desperate, of course, though I have little empathy for those who hope to profit from this. But unfortunately, a lesson that you learn as a soldier is that…” A slow sigh forces itself out of her lips, harsh exhalation of breath, and she fixes her gaze on his own. And it is a bitter, hard-won expression that twists itself across her lips, a look of rare pain in her mismatched eyes. “…on the battlefield, the distinction doesn’t matter.”
If she had only ever killed evil men, Seraphina might be a different creature – and, had she always been convinced that she was right, even if they had not all been evil men, even better. But that is not the kind of life that Seraphina has lived, and she is unwilling to lie to herself. She has killed good men, men with far more to lose than her. (Just a life; little else.) Men have died because of her actions, because of her inaction, because of her failure…
There is a part of him that is looking past him, a gaze that drifts past the rolling dunes and capitol walls until it finds its way into the palace, and it sits in the rafters and stares at Raum. It keeps track of his every sin, and it smiles, and it marks each one down as hers to bear, too. Seraphina wants to be punished for this, more than she already has been.
(She is not even dead to account for her dead. She should be buried with them. Living-dead thing, Fia -)
He yields to her comment of Raum’s behavior, and then…something in him changes. His words are some mixture of painful sincerity and that pleasant subterfuge that makes her skin itch – it is too like the nobles in court for her to feel comfortable. She watches him warily. The most dangerous manipulators, she knows, are those who can use something genuine to get their way. “Your kin?” Seraphina parrots, but allows him to continue speaking; she has the feeling that he is leading up to something, but she does not know what. Not yet.
But she is willing to listen.
When he comments on his familial allegiance, her brow arches. A house divided, apparently. Seraphina was hardly accustomed to the idea of familial loyalty, save for what she’d seen among the nobles, and many of them were content to stab each other in the back for a chance at more power and influence, and, in certain situations, the throne. She had no family of her own; she had barely known her mother, and she didn’t even know the name of her father. She knew that her roots were Solterran, but, disregarding that, she was utterly detached – from any ancestry, any branches. He speaks of them with a genuine…something. Love? Devotion? She doesn’t know if he feels something so tender for them at all; she thinks that it feels like the wrong word. Still, an observation crosses her lips. “It seems that your allegiance still lies with them.” There is no judgement in her tone, but neither is there trust, absolution-
And then he says Davke.
Her reaction is miniscule, at best. Her eyes narrow fractionally, but – is she really surprised? He is different from Avdotya and Jahin, but there is something to him that feels exactly like them. (Or, at least, like Avdotya.) She observes him thoughtfully, but she lets a silence drag out between them, for a moment, to test his reaction.
“Davke, hmm?” Her tone is neutral, impassive; it does not reveal her thoughts, one way or another, if she has them. “And why, Anatoly, should I take you at your word?” She has met enough of them to know that there is more than one type of Davke, and not all of them are as much of snakes as Avdotya; Jahin, for one, was a trusted friend, though she doesn’t doubt that his allegiance only remained with her because of the debt he thought that he owed her for his freedom. But Avdotya…
She was friend enough, and advisor too. The one thing that she learned from the viper was that her people would always - always - choose their own before Solterra.
(But, even if his motivations were ultimately to help the Davke, so long as she kept an eye on him, he could be an asset. If he came to her, instead of his people or Raum, he clearly held misgivings about the Blood King and their alliance with him – though he could always be a spy, a notion that gives her momentary pause. However…
She knew that this rebellion would require whoever it could take, and she knew that this meant compromising her morals on more than one occasion. A snake was a snake, but it could be coaxed to bite someone else – so long as you kept your ankles from its teeth.)
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tags | @Anatoly
notes | thirty years later...
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
