☼ S E R A P H I N A ☼
Somebody please tell her I’ll love her more when it’s dark.
More when it’s sundown & I am drowning in the wind. Always in some war where my father reminds me there are no roads for violent girls. No places in heaven to end up.
If you asked her what she expected, Seraphina would not know the answer. She is not thinking, not really. It is too dark and too late at night, and she never feels exactly like herself when she is out of Solterra. She opens the window because it feels right, like something out of a song. (But she is not something out of a song, and neither is he.) She doesn’t expect him to come in through the window, not really. She knows he’s asking seriously. He’s drunk enough for it. But-
There is the clatter of his hooves, again, against stone. The air wafting through the open window is cold; she bites down a shiver. I cannot reveal myself to you yet, he says, the cadence of his voice suddenly stripped of all the confidence it had possessed only a moment before, and you will likely see me as a mass of darkness. She stares down the window warily, taking one step back, and then another, until she has given him the space he needs to climb through to the other side. Her telekinesis fidgets, ghost-touch reaching to finger the place where her collar used to be as the situation begins to sink in. It is too late at night. She’s been up too late-
“I understand,” she says, but of course she doesn’t, and the needle’s-edge of frustration in her voice is enough to make it evident. Still. She will respect his wishes, no matter how incomprehensible they might seem (because surely it would be easier – and safer - if she knew who her informants in Raum’s court were), and she won’t press too hard, even though she wants to. He isn’t too drunk to run if she does, though she can still smell the alcohol on the wind, paces away.
The shadows slither - she doesn’t know how else to describe their movement but like a swarm of writhing snakes – through the window, and they seem to suck the low light from the candle out of the room in their wake; she has moved towards the light, where they cannot quite encroach, but the room is dusky enough around the corners for the shadows to effectively swallow everything they touch up whole. The display should have been terrifying, but she simply stands stock-still, expression strangely subdued. The shadows seem to cling tight to his frame, but not tight enough to make out much of the shape of him, beyond a faint suggestion of wings. She wonders how he holds them together – is it magic, or something else entirely?
He breaks a vase. She blinks at the shattered, painted fragments of it mutely, almost dully, her mind in tangles; the sharp edges of the broken glass catch in the candle light. She’ll have to clean them up later. Someone could get hurt.
He asks her, in a roundabout way, if the vase was hers. She shakes her head silently, her eyes dancing his shadow-cloaked frame and struggling to decide where to rest. She doesn’t want to look at him, not knowing how to make heads or tails of the darkness that swallows him up wherever he stands; but her warrior’s training won’t allow her to leave a stranger unexamined, least of all one as ambiguous as this Verona. Least of all one who is, in spite of her best efforts to put space between them, standing so close. He seems to notice and jerks back, moving towards the edges of the room.
His shadows stretch out. Threaten to choke the candle. Her eyes never leave him as he walks the wall, then as he all but collapses onto the makeshift heap of cushion and blanket that comprises the bed. She doesn’t move. The candle is not so far behind her, where she stands. She knows how quick those shadows could choke it out if he came just a bit closer, and she knows that her telekinesis will do her no good if she cannot see. Seraphina is, in every intimate way, a creature of sun and light. In some regards, that is a terrible thing. The sun scalds and burns just as easily as it illuminates.
The darkness creeps too close. She is still asking herself what she is doing, and those phantom-touches of her telekinesis – they press against her throat, where the collar should be, and press the still-unfamiliar skin, as though the threat will snap her back to a proper state of awareness.
He has made himself altogether too comfortable, she decides, fidgeting. You must be curious about who I am. But I will not tell you. Curiosity is too simple a word, she decides, with another little prick of anger. His voice quiets. Instead, let us play a game. I will tell you a story, and after, you may guess once who you think I am. Her eyes narrow, caught somewhere between bewilderment and exasperation. A guessing game. Her frustration rears its angry head, the part of her that is always reminding her that she is running out of time, that she is running out of time, that they are running out of time – that every second spared might spare a life. She has no time for games, no time to be tugged along by riddles and stories.
Her lip threatens to curl, but she bites it down, reminding herself that he is intoxicated.
He shifts. She hears it before she sees it, in that mass of shadows, the faint sift of sheets. And if you guess right, Carrissima… That word again; she still doesn’t know what it means. Only that he is drawing closer, and she is not drawing back.
(A flash of lightning, bright enough to choke out his shadows. She can see his eyes in that roiling mass of void. She is not prepared to recognize them – bright chips of molten quicksilver, such a particular shade.)
Seraphina sucks in a low, rattling breath through her teeth, and, staring him down directly, pieces together a question. She licks her lips. Her voice is still soft – so soft. “Am I supposed to start guessing?”
tags | @Caine
notes | insert discord eyes emoji
"speech"
Somebody please tell her I’ll love her more when it’s dark.
More when it’s sundown & I am drowning in the wind. Always in some war where my father reminds me there are no roads for violent girls. No places in heaven to end up.
If you asked her what she expected, Seraphina would not know the answer. She is not thinking, not really. It is too dark and too late at night, and she never feels exactly like herself when she is out of Solterra. She opens the window because it feels right, like something out of a song. (But she is not something out of a song, and neither is he.) She doesn’t expect him to come in through the window, not really. She knows he’s asking seriously. He’s drunk enough for it. But-
There is the clatter of his hooves, again, against stone. The air wafting through the open window is cold; she bites down a shiver. I cannot reveal myself to you yet, he says, the cadence of his voice suddenly stripped of all the confidence it had possessed only a moment before, and you will likely see me as a mass of darkness. She stares down the window warily, taking one step back, and then another, until she has given him the space he needs to climb through to the other side. Her telekinesis fidgets, ghost-touch reaching to finger the place where her collar used to be as the situation begins to sink in. It is too late at night. She’s been up too late-
“I understand,” she says, but of course she doesn’t, and the needle’s-edge of frustration in her voice is enough to make it evident. Still. She will respect his wishes, no matter how incomprehensible they might seem (because surely it would be easier – and safer - if she knew who her informants in Raum’s court were), and she won’t press too hard, even though she wants to. He isn’t too drunk to run if she does, though she can still smell the alcohol on the wind, paces away.
The shadows slither - she doesn’t know how else to describe their movement but like a swarm of writhing snakes – through the window, and they seem to suck the low light from the candle out of the room in their wake; she has moved towards the light, where they cannot quite encroach, but the room is dusky enough around the corners for the shadows to effectively swallow everything they touch up whole. The display should have been terrifying, but she simply stands stock-still, expression strangely subdued. The shadows seem to cling tight to his frame, but not tight enough to make out much of the shape of him, beyond a faint suggestion of wings. She wonders how he holds them together – is it magic, or something else entirely?
He breaks a vase. She blinks at the shattered, painted fragments of it mutely, almost dully, her mind in tangles; the sharp edges of the broken glass catch in the candle light. She’ll have to clean them up later. Someone could get hurt.
He asks her, in a roundabout way, if the vase was hers. She shakes her head silently, her eyes dancing his shadow-cloaked frame and struggling to decide where to rest. She doesn’t want to look at him, not knowing how to make heads or tails of the darkness that swallows him up wherever he stands; but her warrior’s training won’t allow her to leave a stranger unexamined, least of all one as ambiguous as this Verona. Least of all one who is, in spite of her best efforts to put space between them, standing so close. He seems to notice and jerks back, moving towards the edges of the room.
His shadows stretch out. Threaten to choke the candle. Her eyes never leave him as he walks the wall, then as he all but collapses onto the makeshift heap of cushion and blanket that comprises the bed. She doesn’t move. The candle is not so far behind her, where she stands. She knows how quick those shadows could choke it out if he came just a bit closer, and she knows that her telekinesis will do her no good if she cannot see. Seraphina is, in every intimate way, a creature of sun and light. In some regards, that is a terrible thing. The sun scalds and burns just as easily as it illuminates.
The darkness creeps too close. She is still asking herself what she is doing, and those phantom-touches of her telekinesis – they press against her throat, where the collar should be, and press the still-unfamiliar skin, as though the threat will snap her back to a proper state of awareness.
He has made himself altogether too comfortable, she decides, fidgeting. You must be curious about who I am. But I will not tell you. Curiosity is too simple a word, she decides, with another little prick of anger. His voice quiets. Instead, let us play a game. I will tell you a story, and after, you may guess once who you think I am. Her eyes narrow, caught somewhere between bewilderment and exasperation. A guessing game. Her frustration rears its angry head, the part of her that is always reminding her that she is running out of time, that she is running out of time, that they are running out of time – that every second spared might spare a life. She has no time for games, no time to be tugged along by riddles and stories.
Her lip threatens to curl, but she bites it down, reminding herself that he is intoxicated.
He shifts. She hears it before she sees it, in that mass of shadows, the faint sift of sheets. And if you guess right, Carrissima… That word again; she still doesn’t know what it means. Only that he is drawing closer, and she is not drawing back.
(A flash of lightning, bright enough to choke out his shadows. She can see his eyes in that roiling mass of void. She is not prepared to recognize them – bright chips of molten quicksilver, such a particular shade.)
Seraphina sucks in a low, rattling breath through her teeth, and, staring him down directly, pieces together a question. She licks her lips. Her voice is still soft – so soft. “Am I supposed to start guessing?”
tags | @Caine
notes | insert discord eyes emoji
"speech"
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
