☼ S E R A P H I N A ☼
be an outcast / qualified to live among your dead
Strong women rarely do, Florentine says, and Seraphina wonders if she would call Ereshkigal strong. She certainly, she thinks, wouldn’t say it in such a complimentary tone – she is sadistic and devouring, ruthless and violent. Ereshkigal claims a brutal fairness, a certain equality to her actions, but she is wicked to the bone, no matter how she insists otherwise.
Flornetine speaks, then, of evictions – and the unpleasant potentional of spending the night outdoors in Terrastella’s biting winter chill. She doesn’t really want to think about it.
“I’m not sure,” she says, with a half-shrug of her shoulders, “but I don’t think I’d mind spending the night outside.” She has her armor, at least, and the thick cloth of her scarf; and she spends most nights alone in the desert, beneath the moon and stars. She can brave the cold for a single night if she has to - the change of scenery might even be an improvement.
(She will have to return to the desert, soon, and everything that the desert has come to mean to her. It is most everything and everyone that she loves; it is a chain around her neck; it is her perpetual guilt, as physical and unforgettable a reminder of her failings as the gold scar painted across her cheek; it is the only home that she has ever known; it is utterly unrecognizable. Oh, she longs for it. She always longs for it. Whenever she is not there, she feels the longing like a knife lodged in her chest. She loathes it, too. She never wants to see it again. She loathes it so desperately that she’d almost like to set fire to the dunes herself and burn them until there was nothing left, no part of it to ever see again.
She never would, of course. But sometimes she looks at the ridges of dunes, like the gentle curve of a spine, and sometimes she imagines them with a lick of flame coursing their length.)
She follows Florentine to the cottage, which is in a state of disrepair; the windows are grimy, the building has nearly been overtaken by creeping vines, and the paint has faded. Seraphina can only imagine the creatures that have taken up residence inside. Florentine turns to her, smiling almost-worriedly, and she asks if she meant what she said about spiders. She does not respond verbally, but she does dip her head in agreement, just as the golden woman presses open the creaky, old door.
There are, certainly, cobwebs. Cobwebs and dust, signs of decay. I think we have a lot of evictions ahead of us, Florentine says; she is simply glad that the only residents are insects and spiders and possibly a few mice.
She gives her a choice between a duster and a mop. Seraphina does not give her answer much consideration.
“I’ll take the duster,” she says, primarily because she doesn’t want to imagine the horrible splash of water if she lost control of her magic while trying to mop. She very nearly asks what rubber gloves are, but she decides against it – Florentine knows about so many things that she doesn’t, from all her time spent world-hopping, and she isn’t even sure she’d understand the gloves in question if she asked about them.
She wraps her mind around the handle of the duster, and she begins to work at the cobwebs and the rafters, sending terrified spiders scattering this way and that.
tags | @Florentine
notes | <3
"speech"
be an outcast / qualified to live among your dead
Strong women rarely do, Florentine says, and Seraphina wonders if she would call Ereshkigal strong. She certainly, she thinks, wouldn’t say it in such a complimentary tone – she is sadistic and devouring, ruthless and violent. Ereshkigal claims a brutal fairness, a certain equality to her actions, but she is wicked to the bone, no matter how she insists otherwise.
Flornetine speaks, then, of evictions – and the unpleasant potentional of spending the night outdoors in Terrastella’s biting winter chill. She doesn’t really want to think about it.
“I’m not sure,” she says, with a half-shrug of her shoulders, “but I don’t think I’d mind spending the night outside.” She has her armor, at least, and the thick cloth of her scarf; and she spends most nights alone in the desert, beneath the moon and stars. She can brave the cold for a single night if she has to - the change of scenery might even be an improvement.
(She will have to return to the desert, soon, and everything that the desert has come to mean to her. It is most everything and everyone that she loves; it is a chain around her neck; it is her perpetual guilt, as physical and unforgettable a reminder of her failings as the gold scar painted across her cheek; it is the only home that she has ever known; it is utterly unrecognizable. Oh, she longs for it. She always longs for it. Whenever she is not there, she feels the longing like a knife lodged in her chest. She loathes it, too. She never wants to see it again. She loathes it so desperately that she’d almost like to set fire to the dunes herself and burn them until there was nothing left, no part of it to ever see again.
She never would, of course. But sometimes she looks at the ridges of dunes, like the gentle curve of a spine, and sometimes she imagines them with a lick of flame coursing their length.)
She follows Florentine to the cottage, which is in a state of disrepair; the windows are grimy, the building has nearly been overtaken by creeping vines, and the paint has faded. Seraphina can only imagine the creatures that have taken up residence inside. Florentine turns to her, smiling almost-worriedly, and she asks if she meant what she said about spiders. She does not respond verbally, but she does dip her head in agreement, just as the golden woman presses open the creaky, old door.
There are, certainly, cobwebs. Cobwebs and dust, signs of decay. I think we have a lot of evictions ahead of us, Florentine says; she is simply glad that the only residents are insects and spiders and possibly a few mice.
She gives her a choice between a duster and a mop. Seraphina does not give her answer much consideration.
“I’ll take the duster,” she says, primarily because she doesn’t want to imagine the horrible splash of water if she lost control of her magic while trying to mop. She very nearly asks what rubber gloves are, but she decides against it – Florentine knows about so many things that she doesn’t, from all her time spent world-hopping, and she isn’t even sure she’d understand the gloves in question if she asked about them.
She wraps her mind around the handle of the duster, and she begins to work at the cobwebs and the rafters, sending terrified spiders scattering this way and that.
tags | @
notes | <3
"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
