[AW] for everything a reason | relic hunt

[Seraphina]

See the empty haunt here, it eats you -

She has been hunting so long that she is no longer sure of what she hopes to find.

Raum? He is closer to her at home, in the sands. Surely, it could not be so hard to sneak into those sandstone halls – she is sure that she knows him better than he does – and slit his throat unceremoniously. He doesn’t deserve ceremony. She wants him to die in the most horrible, inconsequential, unloved way possible. (She wants him to die like she did, to hurt like she has; and she knows that he never will.)

Tempus? She has met him twice, and twice she has been rejected by him. She is no longer sure what she wants from god. When she was younger, the answer was easy. Now, without a crown, without any ambition beyond a dead body, she does not know. (If he can turn back time, perhaps he can take her back – back to the Steppe, back to her dead body, and maybe he can leave her dead, with her honor intact, while she still has something to live for. Now she has nothing.)

The relic? She is not sure if it would do her any good. She has magic of her own, now, even if her magic is cruel, and she doubts that the relic can do anything to make her more magical. Better to break the thing, so it couldn’t fall into the grasp of someone who would misuse it. Hiding wasn’t permanent enough. Was it cruel or foolish to reject the gift of a god?

(What was the worst thing they could do to her – kill her?)

Now she stands with her hooves carving sharp half-moons into the pale sand, salt-thick sea air dragging tangles of her white hair (unkempt and spilled from its braids) out across the shore, towards the sea. The sun settles, languid, on her spine. The sea is near her, but the foam does not bubble up high enough to reach her just yet; in a moment or two, or if an especially powerful wave rolls into shore, it will. But, for now, she is untouched and solitary, a ghost standing stock-still along the shore.

Ereshkigal is gone somewhere – likely to hunt. Seraphina knows that she prefers corpses, but she has claws enough to use when the opportunity does not present itself. She does not feel the vulture’s presence, even at the furthest edges of her mind, and, for the moment, she takes some comfort in the solitude.

Salt tongues lap her hooves. She draws back, turning her multicolored gaze along the shore, and lets it settle at the point where sand meets rocky crag. In the afternoon sun, the stone, simple and rugged as it is, glitters as though tiny diamonds are incased in the violet-brown, pocked surface. The ocean is deep and blue, even a few feet out from shore, as though the bottom drops off abruptly; it is nevertheless exceptionally calm and quiet, a lull to disguise a metaphorical tempest. This place makes her skin crawl.

She draws forward, across the sand. It is wet and clumpy, unlike the slick dunes of the Mors, and, though she had spent many an hour along the shore of the Terminus when she was still a soldier, Seraphina still can’t decide if she likes the texture. It does not take so many strides for her to step up onto slick, uneven rock, but, if she cares about falling, it does not show on her face, nor the unhindered draw of her steps; she stands on the edge of the rock face, staring out to sea, and she wonders if she will find god.

(She wonders if they will ignore her now that she is no longer a sovereign – no longer someone’s chosen, if she ever was at all. She supposes that it does not matter now; she is no longer queen. What does it matter if Solis wanted her?)

She wonders if there is any point to searching for the relic. Tempus had found the searchers, the first time she’d met him; less of prey than the hunter itself. Would he find them again? (If she looks over her shoulder, she can almost imagine him appearing from amongst the trees, too-old eyes in a too-young face, the trunks bending to accommodate his presence; she can almost imagine him coming to stand alongside her, with a stare that sees through her and pities her or finds her wanting, and she can never tell which.) If he did, would he come with another riddle, another question – and leave her without an answer, left to wonder?

She probably couldn’t understand, even if he told her.

Nevertheless – she has a list of questions. Why did you return and why are you doing this and, more selfishly, will this ever be over? (And, most selfishly of all, will I ever be happy? But she thinks that she already knows the answer, because she isn’t a child anymore, and she knows better than to believe in happy endings – at best, she can hope for a few happy moments, enough to make the pain worthwhile.) Even if she can’t find Raum, or the relic, she is somehow desperate to find him, and she doesn’t know why.

(She has always gone crying to god when she is lonely.)

Seraphina breathes deep of the sea. Stares out across the glittering expanse of the horizon.

Perhaps the relic is lost to the tides, buried deep on the ocean floor. Perhaps it would be better if it were – she is tired of troubles, and discontent with gods. Perhaps it doesn’t matter one way or another; she couldn’t take it last time, and she doubts that she will be able to succeed, even if she finds it, this time. Perhaps she should stop longing for some form of approval that she knows she will never receive; perhaps she should stop longing for some sense of importance. (She ruled a nation, once. She knows that she should not feel so insignificant, but her “death” feels like it was swept aside like sand – but perhaps it is cruel to long for recognition in such difficult times.)

But she has little time for longing, or for speculation. She stares down at the rippling surface, and perhaps she sighs.

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open || one more island thread?

"Speech!" || "Ereshkigal!"

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