MAYBE THERE ARE NO BEGINNINGS.
maybe nothing is an elegy, in the way rain from indoors is neither a beginning nor an end.
“You there!”
A voice cuts through the stark silence of the forest, and it is only Ereshkigal’s continued presence on her shoulder and her well-tested nerves that keep Seraphina from jumping at the sound. A glance tells her that she has been found by one of the women from the beach, the crude, patchwork woman with mismatched eyes of brown and blue. She watches her, but she does not approach her, noting the aggressive stance of the woman. Instead, she waits for her to come to stand in front of her.
"You're from the meeting at the shore; the one with the weird vulture.” Ereshkigal, on her shoulder, ruffles her feathers and lets out a loud, heckling laugh, then turns her beady, bloody red stare on the woman unblinkingly.
When she speaks, her voice is a deep, melodious growl. “Demon, my darling –” she corrects, tilting her head. “I’m a demon.” If there is any offense obvious in her tone, it is offset by the near-hysterical (but largely silenced) giggles that wrack her frame, which suggest that she finds the implication that she is a mere weird vulture more amusing than anything.
(Mortals and their silly little assumptions.)
The woman’s next words come out as an order. "State your name and purpose for being here.”
Her voice cracks like an order, and it makes the silver’s lips curl in displeasure. She is no queen, now, but she still dislikes having her authority questioned – much less by someone who is neither Solterran nor on her own land. She turns, slowly, her dark head tilting, and stares the woman down with her mismatched eyes; her body straightens, superior height emphasized by the straightness of her neck and the raise of her chin, and at the furthest reaches of her white hair, strands begin to tremble with the pressure of her magic, building up inside of her chest. There is still no wind, but the very tips begin to stir, as though disturbed by some slight breeze.
She is tired of this place, with its gods and its monsters, and nearing the end of her patience; her temper, once so placid, threatens to flare, to come spilling out with raw force enough to shatter the forest silence, to clutch and tear like many jaws and pounding hooves, to author the fate of this scene – but she soothes it. Tucks it beneath her, somewhere deep and dark, and she lets it seethe and weep like an open wound.
“And what gives you the right to demand anything of me?” Her voice is low, though not overtly threatening; merely a suggestion to back off and stop asking questions.
Before their conversation can continue, however, a familiar, ruby-red figure appears from the trees, accompanied by a tiger; the beast is powerful, but Seraphina hardly reacts to her presence, beyond a fleeting glance. Moira Tonnerre, Seraphina thinks. She has only met the Night Court’s Emissary once, but she knows that she is better-acquainted with Bexley and Eik, and she suspects that she will remember her from the first time they met, so many seasons ago. Seraphina regards her with a more impassive stare, as she greets the other woman. (As she suspected, the strange woman is Denoctian, and it leaves a sour taste in her mouth that she tries to bite back. She reminds her, resentfully, of Aislinn, with her temper and her presumptuous behavior. When, she wondered, would they learn that the other courts were not theirs to control?)
(Well. Now Raum controls hers. Isra has aided her, but she can’t help but think, if the Night Court had only done their duty and killed him immediately, because she would have-)
But there is no time for that now. “Yelling scares the birds away,” Moira says, soft and sweet as ever, and nudges the cheek of the other woman. “It is good to see you, Morr.”
And then that bright-eyed gaze is on her. "Please, there’s no need to wear a hood when even the world sweats.”
Seraphina summons the more diplomatic part of her nature, the queen who lies buried in that flower-strewn field. “Lady Moira,” she says, with a dip of her head, her voice softening, “I believe you’ll find there’s a reason why I’m wearing a hood, on this island.” She can’t afford recognition. Not now, not by so many people. If there are rumors that she still lives, so be it, but there can never be enough to confirm it.
She stares at the firebird with her jewel-bright eyes, burning with something that is almost feverish – not a woman but a predator, and not a queen but perhaps a revenant.
@Morrighan @
"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
