☼ S E R A P H I N A ☼
I MOUTH her name to a god / whose language I don't speak.
I make metaphor for the empty / she is becoming - a trench opening / from the outside in, the inside of a fist, / decay-dark socket in the head / of a bleached cow skull --
The days pass by her like the dunes on the Mors. She knows that they change from day to day, shift in shape with each passing wind; she knows that the dunes that she sees each morning are not the same that she will see the next, but, if you asked her how they differ, she could not answer. If you ask her how the days differ, she could not tell you. She is sure that they do, but they blend together like smeared watercolors. Sometimes they feel horrifyingly real. (Sometimes, when she finds herself staring at the shards of some broken thing, and she knows that she has lost control of her magic again; sometimes, when Alshamtueur is slick with someone’s blood.) Most of the time, they don’t feel real at all. Most of the time, although she knows that it is, nothing does.
She leaves no tracks when she passes across the sands like a shadow cast by the dark overhang of clouds, no disturbance to mark her passage. She moves like a ghost; she moves like something dead. She passes through the world without touching it, white hair unbound and floating behind her just as she floats several centimeters off the ground. Ereshkigal circles up high, high in the sky above her head, a mere speck of black against the clouds. They are rare, in the heart of the Mors, but not so rare where it borders the sea, and she is moving towards the ocean. She cannot say why.
(Sometimes the siren-song of hungry, black waves calls to her at night, when she wakes and sees the moon and cannot believe again that she is alive. She isn’t sure if it is a challenge or a threat. She isn’t sure which she hopes for – she does not know what she wants to find.)
Golden dunes give way to bleached beach-sand. She picks her way across dark, mottled rock, run slick with the tides, and she does not pause in her wandering until she finds the corpse of a ship, run horribly against a crop of jagged rocks. Ereshkigal comes spiraling down, dark wings extended and talons outstretched, and she lands on a jutting, jagged board, craning her neck to peer down into the waterlogged body of the ship.
Seraphina has a feeling that she is searching for corpses. She hopes that she does not find any, but, when she looks at the damage on the ship, she cannot help but feel a cruel certainty that the demon will.
Ereshkigal makes a sound of annoyance, then springs back up into the air; Seraphina is not sure if it is a relief or not. (She has to bury plenty of corpses, in the desert – she has buried plenty of corpses, out in the desert or in the city or in the canyons or by the oasis. Lost travelers. Fools who fought a sandwyrm, or a terror, or a simple rattlesnake, or a pack of jackals. Poor souls caught by slavers or Davke. Solterrans, caught up in the reign of- but that doesn’t matter now.) If there is no body, at least she does not have to bury whoever crashed on the rocks. A watery grave would take them.
That is when she notices the hoofprints, leading away from the wreckage. A survivor – though, perhaps, not for long. The Mors are cruel to strangers and friends alike, and she cannot imagine anyone walking away from that wholly unscathed.
Without further contemplation, she follows the tracks out into the sands. She can feel Ereshkigal rolling her eyes, but she disregards her entirely.
(She would rather she become cruel, or apathetic; she cannot understand her need to help, much like she cannot understand her need to repent.)
It does not take her long to catch up with the stranger. She approaches him silently, still suspended above the sands, her white mane and tail trailing behind her like they are suspended in water; her mismatched eyes run his frame. He is taller than her by some measure, with a sizeable pair of antlers and a leonine tail, and his build is suggestive of a warrior. He is a stark contrast to the sands, all earthy tones and sharp white stripes. She hovers behind him; she cannot see his face.
He isn’t leaking blood onto the sand. That, at least, is to his benefit. (The scent of it is as good as a beacon, in the Mors.)
“Did you wash up with that shipwreck?” Seraphina asks.
(What she means is: are you unharmed? Do you need help?)
tags | @Galileo
notes |did you ask for some emo I love him, and I'm excited for this thread! <3
poem | jamaal may, "Yes I know She's Dying"
"speech"
I MOUTH her name to a god / whose language I don't speak.
I make metaphor for the empty / she is becoming - a trench opening / from the outside in, the inside of a fist, / decay-dark socket in the head / of a bleached cow skull --
The days pass by her like the dunes on the Mors. She knows that they change from day to day, shift in shape with each passing wind; she knows that the dunes that she sees each morning are not the same that she will see the next, but, if you asked her how they differ, she could not answer. If you ask her how the days differ, she could not tell you. She is sure that they do, but they blend together like smeared watercolors. Sometimes they feel horrifyingly real. (Sometimes, when she finds herself staring at the shards of some broken thing, and she knows that she has lost control of her magic again; sometimes, when Alshamtueur is slick with someone’s blood.) Most of the time, they don’t feel real at all. Most of the time, although she knows that it is, nothing does.
She leaves no tracks when she passes across the sands like a shadow cast by the dark overhang of clouds, no disturbance to mark her passage. She moves like a ghost; she moves like something dead. She passes through the world without touching it, white hair unbound and floating behind her just as she floats several centimeters off the ground. Ereshkigal circles up high, high in the sky above her head, a mere speck of black against the clouds. They are rare, in the heart of the Mors, but not so rare where it borders the sea, and she is moving towards the ocean. She cannot say why.
(Sometimes the siren-song of hungry, black waves calls to her at night, when she wakes and sees the moon and cannot believe again that she is alive. She isn’t sure if it is a challenge or a threat. She isn’t sure which she hopes for – she does not know what she wants to find.)
Golden dunes give way to bleached beach-sand. She picks her way across dark, mottled rock, run slick with the tides, and she does not pause in her wandering until she finds the corpse of a ship, run horribly against a crop of jagged rocks. Ereshkigal comes spiraling down, dark wings extended and talons outstretched, and she lands on a jutting, jagged board, craning her neck to peer down into the waterlogged body of the ship.
Seraphina has a feeling that she is searching for corpses. She hopes that she does not find any, but, when she looks at the damage on the ship, she cannot help but feel a cruel certainty that the demon will.
Ereshkigal makes a sound of annoyance, then springs back up into the air; Seraphina is not sure if it is a relief or not. (She has to bury plenty of corpses, in the desert – she has buried plenty of corpses, out in the desert or in the city or in the canyons or by the oasis. Lost travelers. Fools who fought a sandwyrm, or a terror, or a simple rattlesnake, or a pack of jackals. Poor souls caught by slavers or Davke. Solterrans, caught up in the reign of- but that doesn’t matter now.) If there is no body, at least she does not have to bury whoever crashed on the rocks. A watery grave would take them.
That is when she notices the hoofprints, leading away from the wreckage. A survivor – though, perhaps, not for long. The Mors are cruel to strangers and friends alike, and she cannot imagine anyone walking away from that wholly unscathed.
Without further contemplation, she follows the tracks out into the sands. She can feel Ereshkigal rolling her eyes, but she disregards her entirely.
(She would rather she become cruel, or apathetic; she cannot understand her need to help, much like she cannot understand her need to repent.)
It does not take her long to catch up with the stranger. She approaches him silently, still suspended above the sands, her white mane and tail trailing behind her like they are suspended in water; her mismatched eyes run his frame. He is taller than her by some measure, with a sizeable pair of antlers and a leonine tail, and his build is suggestive of a warrior. He is a stark contrast to the sands, all earthy tones and sharp white stripes. She hovers behind him; she cannot see his face.
He isn’t leaking blood onto the sand. That, at least, is to his benefit. (The scent of it is as good as a beacon, in the Mors.)
“Did you wash up with that shipwreck?” Seraphina asks.
(What she means is: are you unharmed? Do you need help?)
tags | @Galileo
notes |
poem | jamaal may, "Yes I know She's Dying"
"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
