[P] of gods and monsters

[Antiope]

Antiope

In the end we cannot hide there
are other worlds than these

The throne room is not a wholly unfamiliar place to Antiope. She has stood here many times before, at the behest of Isra, to help aid her in welcoming guests or hearing out a citizen if they needed assistance. But to be the one standing here, front and center, alone, strange and desolate.

She glances up at the high vaulted ceilings, with skylights the color of a dusky summer evening—illuminate mauve. The domed glass is divided into sections by iron, in a faux stained glass look. High collunades support the ceiling, running the length of the room on either side. The architecture of the castle consists of dark stone with gothic influences, pops of gold and deeper shades of night.

The doors to the room yawn open like the mouth of a great beast, and out of the darkness comes a small party of three equines. Antiope had been told she would be expecting guests, and her sharp sapphire eyes take them in their entire walk to the base of the throne.

The shadows cling to their skin as easily as the light lies inside her veins, but upon their foreheads glow the shapes of a crescent moon. They walk like soldiers, that is familiar enough a trait she can see it in anyone no matter the measure. But everything else about them is strange and unknown.

Antiope watches them bow before her and is struck at once by the novelty of it. She’s still not used to the formalities. Being queen of a jungle kingdom did not align the same with her sovereignship of Denocte, in any way. But she listens as the front one rises and begins to speak.

A vow, he says. To Caligo and to the sovereigns of the court. She had vowed something to the gods, once. Not these gods, the ones of Novus, but the ones of a land far away and long thrown into disarray. That vow had done nothing to protect the things Antiope had cared about.

“Tenebrae,” his name releases from her tongue like something heavy and viscous, like honey or molasses. “Thank you, for your felicitations,” she is looking at his eyes like the moon and his shadows like armor when she speaks again, “Tell me what it is that the Night Order do?”

“What is this vow that you speak of?” As if she cannot believe there is truly someone standing here before her who has vowed themselves to the demi-god of night. They would be one of the first she has spoken to who faithfully follows Caligo. It is not a subject she willingly chooses.

"Speaking."

@Tenebrae c:

∞