It is in between the lemon-light of flickering torches that Sereia steps. There is feral salt in her blood and in her skin. Within her she feels the lick of the sea pressing up against her bones. Like a puppeteer the ocean has her walking as waves rolling endlessly toward the shore. Sereia feels endless this night.
The girl watches how her shadow ripples and splashes up the buildings she passes. The cobbles of the street are still warm with the day’s sun. Their heat is a balm upon her aching feet. She is a creature of the ocean, her body used to its cradle of blue. SHe has spent too long out of its embrace, yet she will not relent. Every moment is a joy upon the land and so the kelpie carefully tips her gaze away from where her shadow undulates as the black sea beneath the moon. She numbs herself to the wash of salt across her bones, her soul, her skin.
In the distance is the roar of the fights. A season of battles is being hosted by Solterra. Sereia was lured in at first. Arriving at the walls of the colosseum lupine and keen. Hunger stirred in her belly and she moved, beautiful and dangerous, up along the stairs and halls until she emerged out into the sweltering sun and the roar of the crowd at their vicious spectacle.
Even upon the uppermost ribs of the arena she could smell the warriors’ blood. It was sprayed across the sand, it trickled from open wounds, running down the contours of their bodies. It was metallic and bright, sweet and enticing. A shiver slipped, wicked and thrilled, through her body. But oh, the violence. Her kelpie stirred then, it unwound itself, the chains she bound it in clinking along her ribs. She shuddered as if with the roar of the colosseum.
Sereia had arrived like a wolf, but she fled as a doe. Light and nimble, the stones sang with the rhythm of her feet. Even now, with hours passed and sunset long gone, her kelpie still seeks to turn her lupine, leonine, aquiline, anything to taste the blood that decorates the arena and its warriors. The adrenaline, the fight, the violence, they all still cry to her across the citadel.
Yet she sinks into the cobbled streets. They are vibrant, alive, Solterra still feeling the festival highs. Children play, a boy falls as she passes. He cries as the road bites into his knees. They bloom pretty petal red. Still her famished kelpie has not fallen into slumber, still it will not be bowed. Not now, not when hunger brings the black shadow of death looming over Sereia’s too-thin form. A kelpie needs meat, no matter how much Sereia resists herself, detests herself.
She is still staring at the boy and his wet blood as she skitters wide-eyed aside. She does not hear, does not see the door open until she collides with another body. In surprise, her grip slips upon the chains, they slide like oil through her fingers and her kelpie rises. It slips into her veins, her muscles, it commands her bones. Slowly he gaze tips up through midnight black, bled through with gold. He is the midnight sun, she is the midnight sea. Her too-wide smile grows as the air feels warm with the pulse of blood and the heat of vitality.
It is a kelpie who watches Raziel through golden, famished eyes. Her gaze is teeth across his cheek, lips parting over his pulse- The boy screams at last, his pain registering. Seriea rouses, tortured and chastened. Her grip is slick upon herself, yet she shudders and breath and staggers back. Apologies pour like the salted sea from her lips. Corals and seashells chime in her hair and she tips her chin down until her hair hides the monstrosity of her too-wide smile. “I am sorry-” She breathes, adding to the litany of apologies that had gone before it. But now her gaze is fixed upon the weeping gold that falls like tears from his body. “Is your blood… gold?” the kelpie asks in wonderment as her gaze tips up, up, up through darkness and firelight until it meets the bruised amethyst of his gaze and the tears that trickle golden from his eyes. No, not just his blood but his tears too. Sereia may be filled with saltwater but he contains the ichor of the gods.
She thinks of the tale of Apollo whipped until he bled his blood slick and gold across the floor. The sea-girl takes a breath and wonders aloud, “are you god-born?”
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