☼ S E R A P H I N A ☼
in the end, the World takes everything.
Somewhere else, I am alive still, saying.
She is not a ghost.
Though she moves like a shadow on the sands – though she moves like a specter, a quiet and solitary expanse of grey, white hair swirling about her like ectoplasm, like gossamer, though she looks at the length of her face in the water and finds it sallow and dark-eyed, worn weary with shadows suggestive of far too many sleepless nights, though she moves awkwardly in her own skin, in her own limbs, in her own body, where she her movements were always so swift and measured before, though the silver of her coat gleams like a dull knife, though her hooves are still apt to suspend her measures above the ground – she is not a ghost. Worst and most fundamental: what ghost could swell with life? She is never sure if this is meant to be blessing or condemnation, the answer to someone else’s prayer (certainly not her own) or a kind of violent and jarring laughter that means you aren’t dead yet, however much you might like to be.
For years she is sure that has found herself thinking this is not happening, this cannot happen, this can’t be right - and now she believes it, or else that her life has contorted like an image in a misshapen mirror into some divine joke. Some nightmare. Sometimes she still thinks that she might wake up and find herself elsewhere, in a different place and a different time; sometimes she thinks that she will surely wake up one morning and be the Seraphina-who-was, not the Seraphina-who-is.
She never does, of course. She never does. And now that would just be running – and half of the horror of this thing that she still refuses to put words to, in spite of the swell of her sides, is that she cannot escape it, like every other burden pressed down on her shoulders. She cannot run from it. She has responsibilities, of course (which are not the same as love, which is sickening knowledge enough), and obligations. All, she knows, that she can do is – grit her jaw and force herself to persist, and do her best to do right.
It won’t be enough, of course. (It will have to be.)
It is Ereshkigal, strictly speaking, who sees the stallion first. Seraphina sees a sudden splash of dust, though she does not look up quickly enough to see him collide with the ground. The vulture, however, is in the air when the winged stallion descends towards the Oasis, and Seraphina can hear the echo of her laughter in her head like someone is dragging their nails inside of her ears; the sound is distinctly sadistic.
If she were close enough to make out her features, she thinks that she would certainly be dragging her tongue along her teeth hungrily.
“Did he fall?”
“Somewhat.” A low cackle. “His own fault.”
Though she stood opposite him on the bank of the oasis, she moves towards him quickly; she is hovering in an instant, nearly without thinking, and, rather than walking the bank to reach his side, she simply moves over the water. He is a mass of ungainly wings and bent-buckled legs, sides heaving, eyes closed. She thought that she saw him twitch, before she reached him. At least his heavy breathing tells her that he is still alive.
She did not have to go to him, but she would not leave him here like this – not in the danger of the Mors, though the oasis is one of the kinder parts of the desert. Not when his bones might be broken, for all that she can tell.
If she were still herself, she is sure that she would know what to say. She used to greet newcomers constantly as a guard, or a soldier, or an emissary, or a queen; even as a rebel. Now she is none of those things and almost nothing at all, and she has fallen out of practice at it. She bites her tongue, hesitates, fumbles over something some basic inquiry that should be utterly simple.
Seraphina still doesn’t know how to be – tender. Or kind. She barely even knows how to express concern in any way that feels genuine, not forced and clumsy. When her voice comes out, it is not quite any of those things; she only succeeds at soft. “Are you alright?”
He doesn’t much look it.
tags | @Mauna
notes | <3
quote | cynthia cruz, "letters to emily"
"speech" || "ereshkigal"
in the end, the World takes everything.
Somewhere else, I am alive still, saying.
She is not a ghost.
Though she moves like a shadow on the sands – though she moves like a specter, a quiet and solitary expanse of grey, white hair swirling about her like ectoplasm, like gossamer, though she looks at the length of her face in the water and finds it sallow and dark-eyed, worn weary with shadows suggestive of far too many sleepless nights, though she moves awkwardly in her own skin, in her own limbs, in her own body, where she her movements were always so swift and measured before, though the silver of her coat gleams like a dull knife, though her hooves are still apt to suspend her measures above the ground – she is not a ghost. Worst and most fundamental: what ghost could swell with life? She is never sure if this is meant to be blessing or condemnation, the answer to someone else’s prayer (certainly not her own) or a kind of violent and jarring laughter that means you aren’t dead yet, however much you might like to be.
For years she is sure that has found herself thinking this is not happening, this cannot happen, this can’t be right - and now she believes it, or else that her life has contorted like an image in a misshapen mirror into some divine joke. Some nightmare. Sometimes she still thinks that she might wake up and find herself elsewhere, in a different place and a different time; sometimes she thinks that she will surely wake up one morning and be the Seraphina-who-was, not the Seraphina-who-is.
She never does, of course. She never does. And now that would just be running – and half of the horror of this thing that she still refuses to put words to, in spite of the swell of her sides, is that she cannot escape it, like every other burden pressed down on her shoulders. She cannot run from it. She has responsibilities, of course (which are not the same as love, which is sickening knowledge enough), and obligations. All, she knows, that she can do is – grit her jaw and force herself to persist, and do her best to do right.
It won’t be enough, of course. (It will have to be.)
It is Ereshkigal, strictly speaking, who sees the stallion first. Seraphina sees a sudden splash of dust, though she does not look up quickly enough to see him collide with the ground. The vulture, however, is in the air when the winged stallion descends towards the Oasis, and Seraphina can hear the echo of her laughter in her head like someone is dragging their nails inside of her ears; the sound is distinctly sadistic.
If she were close enough to make out her features, she thinks that she would certainly be dragging her tongue along her teeth hungrily.
“Did he fall?”
“Somewhat.” A low cackle. “His own fault.”
Though she stood opposite him on the bank of the oasis, she moves towards him quickly; she is hovering in an instant, nearly without thinking, and, rather than walking the bank to reach his side, she simply moves over the water. He is a mass of ungainly wings and bent-buckled legs, sides heaving, eyes closed. She thought that she saw him twitch, before she reached him. At least his heavy breathing tells her that he is still alive.
She did not have to go to him, but she would not leave him here like this – not in the danger of the Mors, though the oasis is one of the kinder parts of the desert. Not when his bones might be broken, for all that she can tell.
If she were still herself, she is sure that she would know what to say. She used to greet newcomers constantly as a guard, or a soldier, or an emissary, or a queen; even as a rebel. Now she is none of those things and almost nothing at all, and she has fallen out of practice at it. She bites her tongue, hesitates, fumbles over something some basic inquiry that should be utterly simple.
Seraphina still doesn’t know how to be – tender. Or kind. She barely even knows how to express concern in any way that feels genuine, not forced and clumsy. When her voice comes out, it is not quite any of those things; she only succeeds at soft. “Are you alright?”
He doesn’t much look it.
tags | @
notes | <3
quote | cynthia cruz, "letters to emily"
"speech" || "ereshkigal"
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
