BUT THE CRUDE PARTS COME HOLY, THEY SAY, WHEN IT'S HEWN FROM A JAGGED, A DIFFICULT QUALITY OF LIFE, AND OF DEATH, AND THE SONG SUFFUSED --
—listen. I believe it; what else are we for? if not finding a use. And a music for this. And everything’s grief.
He follows her without resistance. She is not sure if that will be a blessing or curse for him, in the end.
It unsettles her. He cannot be much older than she was when she took the throne, not by a passing look at him – but he is heavy. Wears his own kind of collar. She can see it in his blue-eyed stare. It unsettles her that he follows, and that she, she thinks, would have followed too. (Hadn’t she always been following, all her life – if not the king, if not the Viceroy, in his footsteps?) It unsettles her that he is young, and that he is burdened, and that he follows.
(She cannot help thinking -- this crown will break whatever part of you that you have left.)
They are moving, and Ereshkigal is springing from her shoulders, flying low enough to hear the sound of her wings between them; they are almost too broad for the space provided in the alleyway. There is silence, at first. She doesn’t know how long it lasts, and she doesn’t care to break it.
Then - And you are Seraphina. It feels strange to be recognized again, least of all by her own name. She doesn’t bother to confirm his statement, not with so much as a dip of her head; he is too certain to need it, and, besides, he is right. She takes his recognition as a final sign that there is no more escaping from herself, no more time to play dead. She isn’t sure if it is gratifying, a kind of sadistic, shameful ecstasy, or crushing. When she was Fia, she was free in a way that she had never been free as Seraphina. Fia wore no collars. She did not have to watch her every word, though she still measured the consequences of her every action.
Freedom was weightlessness. She did not have to carry the burden of every single sin she’d grown; she could forget about the collar, and the war, and Zolin, and Viceroy, and the Davke, and Avdotya, and Denocte, but never-
Never Raum. But at least she could delude herself into thinking that she was someone else, to shove the blame off her shoulders until perhaps she could deal with it. Now that she was back, she was not so sure that she ever could. Fia was awake every night, mulling over plans and papers and the lives she’d sent out to be lost in the war against Raum, but Fia was not awake every night in a cold sweat, smell of flowers in her mouth, asking herself why she was still alive – why the fates, or the gods, or pure chance had been so cruel. She didn’t want to be. Not really. Not anymore. For a time, she had thought that she could-
But there was nothing more or less to her than Seraphina. Seraphina collared. Seraphina shackled. Seraphina scarred. She had never been meant to save. She had never even been meant to live.
Perhaps that was the cruelest part of persisting. It was always meant to be beyond her means.
He asks her – what he can do for her. What can he do for her? Nothing, she nearly says, because she will never belong to a king again, not as servant or as burden, but she swallows the words as soon as they begin to form in her mouth, considering. There is no reason to be cruel. (There is nothing that he can do. Not for her. But perhaps for this kingdom, and that is more important besides.) In her time as queen, Seraphina never imagined that she would meet her successor. (Raum’s, she thinks, then – not hers. But she is the only one alive to take the blame or carry the burden. But -
She can never allow herself to forget history, or strike it from the records. She can never delegitimize him either, call him anything short than a true sovereign of the Sun kingdom. Much as she hates to. Much as their name is tainted enough. Much as there was nothing but Night – impenetrable, all-consuming Night – to him at all.)
She always assumed that the crown would be taken from her corpse. She supposes, in a way, that it was. She is not sure that she has been alive since Raum struck her down. She is not sure that she is alive now, gliding just a stride ahead of Orestes, her hooves not so much as brushing against the sandstone. Each step seems to make her more ghostly, the white tendrils of her hair flowing around her washed-grey form as though she moves while suspended in water. She never assumed that she would see Solterra under another Sovereign. She is not sure that she ever wanted to, either. A part of her is almost repulsed by the idea. The half that is still ambitious.
Still. She had her trial. She failed it, too, on every level – it would be cruel to so much as try to suck Solterra any drier, and for what? Some imagined, better future. It would never come. She had-
She’d only ever failed.
What can I do for you? She hates the question almost as much as she hates that question the Sun God asked her so many moons ago, that question that still rings in her head and keeps her up at night. Punctuated by screams. Punctuated by stone faces, stone eyes. Punctuated by the feeling of strangulation, like that collar is still pulled tight around her throat, and if she doesn’t wake up – and she is sure, one day, that she will not wake up – and touch the span of her throat, it will choke her to death.
But any irrational displeasure that she feels at his inquiry doesn’t make it to her eyes. It stays closed up tight in her chest, clutched somewhere beside of her heart, that space where she has learned to put aside all those little things that she knows cannot be allowed to find their way out. The only thing that Seraphina has ever been good at is hiding her anger – Fia did not hide it, but Seraphina does, and she does it well. If she hadn’t, it would have swallowed her years ago. If she hadn’t, she would have been dead long before now. (And maybe she would have been better for it, or more noble, or stronger. That is another thing that she will never forgive herself for.) It’s never been much use, anyways. She always hoped that she could rule with a kinder touch. Perhaps it was that little part of her that always longed for – a kinder touch, a more romantic ending, where words could put an end to things – that caught Maxence’s eye in the first place.
(He’d been wrong about both of them. She could laugh, and it would come out bitter and twisted and wrong, full of all of that hate that she has packaged away. A traitor for a Regent. A failure for an Emissary.)
They are – right near where she wants them to start. Her pace wanes, but does not stop.
“I simply wish to know what kind of man you are,” Seraphina says, slowly, her gaze drifting across the narrow alleyways – out into the streets as they emerge. “Tell me, Orestes. What do you see, when you look at this place?”
If she is looking for any answer in particular, it does not show on her face. Not in her eyes – though they turn, ever so slowly, to stare at him.
@Orestes || <3
—listen. I believe it; what else are we for? if not finding a use. And a music for this. And everything’s grief.
He follows her without resistance. She is not sure if that will be a blessing or curse for him, in the end.
It unsettles her. He cannot be much older than she was when she took the throne, not by a passing look at him – but he is heavy. Wears his own kind of collar. She can see it in his blue-eyed stare. It unsettles her that he follows, and that she, she thinks, would have followed too. (Hadn’t she always been following, all her life – if not the king, if not the Viceroy, in his footsteps?) It unsettles her that he is young, and that he is burdened, and that he follows.
(She cannot help thinking -- this crown will break whatever part of you that you have left.)
They are moving, and Ereshkigal is springing from her shoulders, flying low enough to hear the sound of her wings between them; they are almost too broad for the space provided in the alleyway. There is silence, at first. She doesn’t know how long it lasts, and she doesn’t care to break it.
Then - And you are Seraphina. It feels strange to be recognized again, least of all by her own name. She doesn’t bother to confirm his statement, not with so much as a dip of her head; he is too certain to need it, and, besides, he is right. She takes his recognition as a final sign that there is no more escaping from herself, no more time to play dead. She isn’t sure if it is gratifying, a kind of sadistic, shameful ecstasy, or crushing. When she was Fia, she was free in a way that she had never been free as Seraphina. Fia wore no collars. She did not have to watch her every word, though she still measured the consequences of her every action.
Freedom was weightlessness. She did not have to carry the burden of every single sin she’d grown; she could forget about the collar, and the war, and Zolin, and Viceroy, and the Davke, and Avdotya, and Denocte, but never-
Never Raum. But at least she could delude herself into thinking that she was someone else, to shove the blame off her shoulders until perhaps she could deal with it. Now that she was back, she was not so sure that she ever could. Fia was awake every night, mulling over plans and papers and the lives she’d sent out to be lost in the war against Raum, but Fia was not awake every night in a cold sweat, smell of flowers in her mouth, asking herself why she was still alive – why the fates, or the gods, or pure chance had been so cruel. She didn’t want to be. Not really. Not anymore. For a time, she had thought that she could-
But there was nothing more or less to her than Seraphina. Seraphina collared. Seraphina shackled. Seraphina scarred. She had never been meant to save. She had never even been meant to live.
Perhaps that was the cruelest part of persisting. It was always meant to be beyond her means.
He asks her – what he can do for her. What can he do for her? Nothing, she nearly says, because she will never belong to a king again, not as servant or as burden, but she swallows the words as soon as they begin to form in her mouth, considering. There is no reason to be cruel. (There is nothing that he can do. Not for her. But perhaps for this kingdom, and that is more important besides.) In her time as queen, Seraphina never imagined that she would meet her successor. (Raum’s, she thinks, then – not hers. But she is the only one alive to take the blame or carry the burden. But -
She can never allow herself to forget history, or strike it from the records. She can never delegitimize him either, call him anything short than a true sovereign of the Sun kingdom. Much as she hates to. Much as their name is tainted enough. Much as there was nothing but Night – impenetrable, all-consuming Night – to him at all.)
She always assumed that the crown would be taken from her corpse. She supposes, in a way, that it was. She is not sure that she has been alive since Raum struck her down. She is not sure that she is alive now, gliding just a stride ahead of Orestes, her hooves not so much as brushing against the sandstone. Each step seems to make her more ghostly, the white tendrils of her hair flowing around her washed-grey form as though she moves while suspended in water. She never assumed that she would see Solterra under another Sovereign. She is not sure that she ever wanted to, either. A part of her is almost repulsed by the idea. The half that is still ambitious.
Still. She had her trial. She failed it, too, on every level – it would be cruel to so much as try to suck Solterra any drier, and for what? Some imagined, better future. It would never come. She had-
She’d only ever failed.
What can I do for you? She hates the question almost as much as she hates that question the Sun God asked her so many moons ago, that question that still rings in her head and keeps her up at night. Punctuated by screams. Punctuated by stone faces, stone eyes. Punctuated by the feeling of strangulation, like that collar is still pulled tight around her throat, and if she doesn’t wake up – and she is sure, one day, that she will not wake up – and touch the span of her throat, it will choke her to death.
But any irrational displeasure that she feels at his inquiry doesn’t make it to her eyes. It stays closed up tight in her chest, clutched somewhere beside of her heart, that space where she has learned to put aside all those little things that she knows cannot be allowed to find their way out. The only thing that Seraphina has ever been good at is hiding her anger – Fia did not hide it, but Seraphina does, and she does it well. If she hadn’t, it would have swallowed her years ago. If she hadn’t, she would have been dead long before now. (And maybe she would have been better for it, or more noble, or stronger. That is another thing that she will never forgive herself for.) It’s never been much use, anyways. She always hoped that she could rule with a kinder touch. Perhaps it was that little part of her that always longed for – a kinder touch, a more romantic ending, where words could put an end to things – that caught Maxence’s eye in the first place.
(He’d been wrong about both of them. She could laugh, and it would come out bitter and twisted and wrong, full of all of that hate that she has packaged away. A traitor for a Regent. A failure for an Emissary.)
They are – right near where she wants them to start. Her pace wanes, but does not stop.
“I simply wish to know what kind of man you are,” Seraphina says, slowly, her gaze drifting across the narrow alleyways – out into the streets as they emerge. “Tell me, Orestes. What do you see, when you look at this place?”
If she is looking for any answer in particular, it does not show on her face. Not in her eyes – though they turn, ever so slowly, to stare at him.
@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
