[AW] for everything a reason | relic hunt

[Seraphina]

for every ending a new beginning --

There is a sound behind her, the soft brush of hooves against grainy white sand, then stone. She does not turn, at first; she does not even incline her head to observe whoever has come to join her from the corner of her eye. After all, there are plenty of passers-by and creatures alike on this island, and most of them do not seem to be hostile; if there were a monster barreling through, Ereshkigal should not be far. (She suspects that the vulture is watching, patient as a devil, from somewhere within the trees, hunting for something that is not just bones and meat.) When the steps grow louder, loud enough for her to be sure that the source is approaching, she turns her head a fraction – just enough to see who is coming out of the corner of her eye, though not enough to face them. When her gaze lands on a familiar figure, her eyes widen, and she drags her tongue along the ridges of her teeth, a sudden and foreign uncertainty finding a home in her chest.

Ipomoea, and a little bird at his side. She had prepared herself to see him, or to be seen by him, when she had left for Delumine; but then the volcano had erupted, and she’d been forced to err from her plan to meet with Somnus and his court about the matter of Raum. Fear – she feels it every time she encounters someone who sees her and knows her for who she is – clenches up in her stomach, tangles itself into a knot. She barely knows him, beyond that she can trust his good intentions as much as she can any of the leaders of the other courts.

(Of course, it is always Solterra for evil, Solterra for terror. She hopes, when this is over, that their sister court remember who suffered the most from Raum’s reign; she hopes that they remember which land raised Raum, who nurtured his taste for suffering and blood. Even if his homeland escapes the brunt of his cruelty, she hopes that it cannot escape his reputation.)

When he comes to stand alongside her, Seraphina sucks in a long, reluctant breath, steeling herself. Even so far from Delumine, he smells like flowers – delicate, graceful boy. (When she thinks about it, he can’t be any younger than her, but they have always felt so different in age; of course, she does not know him well. Of course, Delumine’s citizens are all known for their wisdom. But he feels young and unburdened, even on this strange island, full of gods and magic and murderer-kings, even though she knows she is fully grown.) But he does not say anything that she might have anticipated – instead, he remarks on the sea. Asks her if she fancies a swim. She tilts her head to look at him, odd eyes trailing his face, and she realizes that he hasn’t looked at her to recognize her, yet. She exhales, forces a long breath from between her lips, and collects herself to speak.

“It is,” she says, her voice soft and rough from disuse, “but I’ve never been much of a swimmer.” She tried to learn, once, after the last relic hunt, and she’d learned enough to keep her head above water; sometimes, in her nightmares, she still thought that she was drowning, though that felt like her most mundane fear nowadays. Even if she were, she does not think that she would want to swim in the sea while it is like that – when she crossed the bridge, she saw great coiling monsters, with claws and tendrils and too many eyes. She is no water-horse; even with her magic, and even with Ereshkigal at her side, she knows that she is helpless in the sea. (But what does it matter? If she still cared too deeply for her life, Seraphina would not have come to this island, with its precarious bridge and its strange magic, in the first place. There are more important things than living.) She looks up at him, then, training her multicolored stare on his cheek, and she wonders when he will lift his head to see who he is speaking to. (Or perhaps he would recognize her voice, first.) At any rate, she has looked up from the sea, she is watching him – hooded, shadowed, but not enough to hide the metallic glimmer of her scar, much as she wishes she could. It shames her; might as well be an open wound, still dripping tears of blood and pus.

“Are you well, Ipomoea?” Still soft – ever so soft. She’s almost forgotten how small talk sounds, in the time that has passed since her battle with Raum; whenever she speaks with others, they speak of war and violence, of hunting. Anything less than copper-tang tastes strange on her tongue. (She is not sure if she is captive or obsessed, or if there is a difference. But, then, Seraphina has always been a creature of extremes, and she has always been driven by one consuming thing or another, and she has never been good at letting them go.)

But – she does wonder. It is small talk, but her inquiry is genuine. She wonders how far the horrors she has experienced in Solterra have expanded, if, like terrible, branching little roots, they have come to infect the entire continent. (The whole world, as far as she knows it.) She wonders if he has been impacted by what happened in Dawn; she heard stories of a monster, a murderer, some blood-spilling thing. In fact, when she went to Delumine, she hoped that she could help them hunt it.

And now she is here, massaged by a soft wash of sea and salt-filled breeze. She’ll have to apologize for her absence later, but the island and the volcano seemed urgent at the time. Now, she isn’t sure what to think; she can’t shake the feeling that it would have been better to remain on the mainland, like a fly who has realized that they are caught in a spider’s web a moment too late.

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@Ipomoea || ah, I adore him ;~;

"Speech!" || "Ereshkigal!"

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