THEY ALL WANT TO KNOW WHAT I'LL DO WHEN I'M 'OUT THERE'
god with me: I'll die, and I'll return; I'll wound, and I'll be wounded; I'll swallow the white throat of fear.
She wonders how she will look at him, when she finds him.
Solterra has a new king. He is not Raum, and that should please her; she is not sure that it does. Perhaps it is the cold, ugly stirrings of something like envy, the trampled embers of her own ambitions sparked to some unpleasant half-life by the idea of someone else wearing the crown that she bled for; of course, she gave it up. Two massacres under her guidance were proof enough that she never should have been trusted with such weighty responsibilities. Two massacres under her guidance were proof that she was not god-chosen, that Solis had never favored her – and the word on the wind was that the sun god himself had plucked this new king, foreign though he may be, from Solterra’s ashes and placed the crown on his head.
But many men claimed to be chosen by god. Many monsters were blessed with magic. The months she had been gone had been, as far as she could discern, quiet. Quiet never tested a ruler; quiet proved nothing.
Seraphina is no queen. She would never be queen again. Still – there is nothing Seraphina cares for like she cares for Solterra, so, citizen or not, queen or otherwise, she would find the Day kingdom’s new ruler, if only to see for herself what made him worthy of the crown.
Which brings her to the winding, labyrinthian streets of the court at night, the scent of incense and spice like a thick perfume, the quiet, crackling flicker of dull braziers – and the sky alight with the moon and a hundred thousand little stars, bright enough to illuminate the court even in the darkest hours of the night. Ereshkigal is above her, a blot of black that swallows up starlight; even from below, Seraphina can make out the bloody red glint of her eyes, so bright that they might as well have been glowing. She still dislikes the demon. She is violent and cruel and unnatural, a mocking and raucous and inescapable presence – but the months have taught Seraphina to trust her, if only because they both share the same ruthless thirst for justice.
It is the vulture who finds him, and Seraphina is quick to follow in her wake – rushing, silver, spectral as a ghost. When she emerges from the darkness, something about her is haunted, or haunting. Her features have not entirely lost that starved gauntness, though she still possesses her warrior’s physique; and her eyes are still starved, like eyes on a corpse. Still. She moves like a living thing. Her hooves dance the cobblestones without touching them, her form suspended centimeters over the ground. She is unarmored; her hair is loose. Only Alshamtueur burns at her side, its soft, rhythmic clink against her hips the only acknowledgement that she is a living thing. It gives a soft sizzle when she sees him, like a quenched flame.
And there he is, bathed golden in the light of a hanging lantern. His eyes are blue as the Oasis on a clear day, and his hair gleams, metallic and pale as platinum; but more striking are those golden tattoos – or, she thinks, scars…but beautiful and deliberate, unlike the one that mars the side of her face, and unlike those pale and ugly things that are hidden from the eyes but cover her skin in knots and ridges when you brush up against her. In all the ways that she is silver, at best gold-painted, he is as golden as the sun, as alike to the fire in Solis’s sky as anyone could hope to be. She is not sure if she loves him or hates him for it.
She regards him, her bright, unnatural chips of eyes unreadable yet gleaming almost feverishly, like mismatched flames in the flickering light of the brazier. Her magic flares about her, not threat but her own essence – her mane drifts as though the fingers of some phantom wind are combing through it, though the night air is almost unnaturally still and dry. (Day by day, it seems to become stronger; she no longer knows where the magic ends and she begins, and, now that she has returned, she wonders how she lived in its absence; it beats with her heart, pumps with her blood, lives alongside her each time she takes a breath.) Ereshkigal perches between her shoulders, and her outstretched wings, as she lands, might as well have belonged to Seraphina. She settles, leaning forward, and for once the demon is solemn, her dark form like that of an adjudicator – like the hellish judge she truly is, when not so trapped in beneath the feathers and talons of a mortal form. Ereshkigal’s gaze knows more than it ever should; her beak has fallen half-open to show the sharp points of her teeth.
“So,” Seraphina says, “you are Orestes.” She tastes his name in her mouth. On her tongue. Against her lips, her teeth – her accent turns it over like a dune, a breath of desert wind. It tastes foreign in her mouth, and she hasn’t quite decided how that she should say it. For now, his name means nothing; for now, it feels as fleeting and intangible as the desert wind. She can only wonder what it will come to mean, with time, in the same way that Zolin or Raum or Sol or Seraphina has come to mean something, with time.
There is no use in considering. She knows nothing of him yet; only that she will come for his head, should he go the way of his predecessor.
Her gaze rests on him a long moment; and then, abruptly, she turns. “Walk with me,” she says, and descends one of the serpentine side streets without so much as another glance over her shoulder; it is not a request.
@Orestes || <3
god with me: I'll die, and I'll return; I'll wound, and I'll be wounded; I'll swallow the white throat of fear.
She wonders how she will look at him, when she finds him.
Solterra has a new king. He is not Raum, and that should please her; she is not sure that it does. Perhaps it is the cold, ugly stirrings of something like envy, the trampled embers of her own ambitions sparked to some unpleasant half-life by the idea of someone else wearing the crown that she bled for; of course, she gave it up. Two massacres under her guidance were proof enough that she never should have been trusted with such weighty responsibilities. Two massacres under her guidance were proof that she was not god-chosen, that Solis had never favored her – and the word on the wind was that the sun god himself had plucked this new king, foreign though he may be, from Solterra’s ashes and placed the crown on his head.
But many men claimed to be chosen by god. Many monsters were blessed with magic. The months she had been gone had been, as far as she could discern, quiet. Quiet never tested a ruler; quiet proved nothing.
Seraphina is no queen. She would never be queen again. Still – there is nothing Seraphina cares for like she cares for Solterra, so, citizen or not, queen or otherwise, she would find the Day kingdom’s new ruler, if only to see for herself what made him worthy of the crown.
Which brings her to the winding, labyrinthian streets of the court at night, the scent of incense and spice like a thick perfume, the quiet, crackling flicker of dull braziers – and the sky alight with the moon and a hundred thousand little stars, bright enough to illuminate the court even in the darkest hours of the night. Ereshkigal is above her, a blot of black that swallows up starlight; even from below, Seraphina can make out the bloody red glint of her eyes, so bright that they might as well have been glowing. She still dislikes the demon. She is violent and cruel and unnatural, a mocking and raucous and inescapable presence – but the months have taught Seraphina to trust her, if only because they both share the same ruthless thirst for justice.
It is the vulture who finds him, and Seraphina is quick to follow in her wake – rushing, silver, spectral as a ghost. When she emerges from the darkness, something about her is haunted, or haunting. Her features have not entirely lost that starved gauntness, though she still possesses her warrior’s physique; and her eyes are still starved, like eyes on a corpse. Still. She moves like a living thing. Her hooves dance the cobblestones without touching them, her form suspended centimeters over the ground. She is unarmored; her hair is loose. Only Alshamtueur burns at her side, its soft, rhythmic clink against her hips the only acknowledgement that she is a living thing. It gives a soft sizzle when she sees him, like a quenched flame.
And there he is, bathed golden in the light of a hanging lantern. His eyes are blue as the Oasis on a clear day, and his hair gleams, metallic and pale as platinum; but more striking are those golden tattoos – or, she thinks, scars…but beautiful and deliberate, unlike the one that mars the side of her face, and unlike those pale and ugly things that are hidden from the eyes but cover her skin in knots and ridges when you brush up against her. In all the ways that she is silver, at best gold-painted, he is as golden as the sun, as alike to the fire in Solis’s sky as anyone could hope to be. She is not sure if she loves him or hates him for it.
She regards him, her bright, unnatural chips of eyes unreadable yet gleaming almost feverishly, like mismatched flames in the flickering light of the brazier. Her magic flares about her, not threat but her own essence – her mane drifts as though the fingers of some phantom wind are combing through it, though the night air is almost unnaturally still and dry. (Day by day, it seems to become stronger; she no longer knows where the magic ends and she begins, and, now that she has returned, she wonders how she lived in its absence; it beats with her heart, pumps with her blood, lives alongside her each time she takes a breath.) Ereshkigal perches between her shoulders, and her outstretched wings, as she lands, might as well have belonged to Seraphina. She settles, leaning forward, and for once the demon is solemn, her dark form like that of an adjudicator – like the hellish judge she truly is, when not so trapped in beneath the feathers and talons of a mortal form. Ereshkigal’s gaze knows more than it ever should; her beak has fallen half-open to show the sharp points of her teeth.
“So,” Seraphina says, “you are Orestes.” She tastes his name in her mouth. On her tongue. Against her lips, her teeth – her accent turns it over like a dune, a breath of desert wind. It tastes foreign in her mouth, and she hasn’t quite decided how that she should say it. For now, his name means nothing; for now, it feels as fleeting and intangible as the desert wind. She can only wonder what it will come to mean, with time, in the same way that Zolin or Raum or Sol or Seraphina has come to mean something, with time.
There is no use in considering. She knows nothing of him yet; only that she will come for his head, should he go the way of his predecessor.
Her gaze rests on him a long moment; and then, abruptly, she turns. “Walk with me,” she says, and descends one of the serpentine side streets without so much as another glance over her shoulder; it is not a request.
@Orestes || <3
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
