TELL THAT ITS SCULPTOR WELL THOSE PASSIONS READ
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things, / The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;☼
This place is ugly.
Seraphina eyes the veneer of well-polished cobblestone stretched out before her on the street, her lips pulled into a firm grimace. There is some part of her that is repulsed enough to wish she could turn back; there is another part of her that tells herself that the bone which composes each mottled, off-white cobblestone is no different than the spinal column that made up the bridge to the city, but that does very little to console the discomfort stirring in her stomach as she makes her way through the abandoned city, ears pinned flat against her skull. Her white hair falls behind her, so long now that it nearly drags the ground, and, though she is unarmored, Alshamtueur clinks rhythmically at her hip with each step she takes deeper and deeper into the labyrinthian mass of the city, towards the heart of the place.
It is the only sound, now, and somehow that is worse than the weeping walls and strange, slithering, unseen things that she heard in the shops at the outskirts of the city. No city should be so silent, dead or alive. It feels unpleasantly still, and the silence seems to be less of a kind that comes from serenity or loneliness than it does the silence before a great predator strikes and sinks its teeth into you. Seraphina is not afraid of it, exactly. She spends her days among the Mors, which are as merciless and bestial as any magical labyrinth, and she has seen far worse than this; it simply leaves her with a lingering sense of unease, one that reminds her distinctly as her time as a soldier.
At the very least Ereshkigal has made herself useful. She swoops between buildings and down alleyways, a second set of eyes in the looming expanse of the labyrinth; but she has grown strangely silent as they descended into the bony maze, but for the occasional deranged laugh. There is something that she knows about this place, but Seraphina knows better than to ask her about it. She won’t answer – she’ll simply mock her for the question.
She knows that she should go home.
She has two children to care for, and she is no longer a queen – she no longer has any obligation to go searching for monsters unless they find her themselves. Still, since she saw the horrible, half-miraculous rise of this place, she has felt some strange obligation to keep an eye on it.
It feels, sometimes, like it is growing. She doesn’t want to think of what that means; and it is the closest that any of them had been to the gods in years, and, gods know, she deserves some kind of an answer from Solis for what he did to her.
She gives a shake of her silvered head, and, eyes narrowed, she turns a corner that bleeds into another street; and she finds herself standing at the road which leads to the great castle in the heart of this place. (The walls of it seem to pulsate and crawl when she looks at them directly, but she is sure that it is not moving.) Grinding her teeth, she moves forward down the road, which seems to her to grow shorter and longer at complete random; she does not know how long it takes her to reach the entry to the courtyard, but it feels both too short and too long at once. She does not allow herself to think too much of it. She knows that is what this sort of magic wants her to do, and she knows that understanding it isn’t what matters.
There is a gate in front of her – immensely tall and ornate, and made of metal or something horribly metallic. If she wants to reach the castle, she knows that she must go through them; but there is a lock in their center. She narrows her eyes at them, considering, and finally rattles at them with her telekinesis, sure that she is strong enough to break them down if need be-
-but the gates let out a terrible, scream, the scream of a living voice, the scream of a child or an old woman or a dead man she barely recognizes.
She draws back a step, swallowing down a shudder. Between her ears, Ereshkigal howls with laughter.
The lock is dribbling a thick substance. She doesn’t want to think that it looks like blood, or smells like blood – but it does.
@Morrighan || !!! || "ozymandius," percy shelley
Sera || Eresh
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things, / The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;☼
This place is ugly.
Seraphina eyes the veneer of well-polished cobblestone stretched out before her on the street, her lips pulled into a firm grimace. There is some part of her that is repulsed enough to wish she could turn back; there is another part of her that tells herself that the bone which composes each mottled, off-white cobblestone is no different than the spinal column that made up the bridge to the city, but that does very little to console the discomfort stirring in her stomach as she makes her way through the abandoned city, ears pinned flat against her skull. Her white hair falls behind her, so long now that it nearly drags the ground, and, though she is unarmored, Alshamtueur clinks rhythmically at her hip with each step she takes deeper and deeper into the labyrinthian mass of the city, towards the heart of the place.
It is the only sound, now, and somehow that is worse than the weeping walls and strange, slithering, unseen things that she heard in the shops at the outskirts of the city. No city should be so silent, dead or alive. It feels unpleasantly still, and the silence seems to be less of a kind that comes from serenity or loneliness than it does the silence before a great predator strikes and sinks its teeth into you. Seraphina is not afraid of it, exactly. She spends her days among the Mors, which are as merciless and bestial as any magical labyrinth, and she has seen far worse than this; it simply leaves her with a lingering sense of unease, one that reminds her distinctly as her time as a soldier.
At the very least Ereshkigal has made herself useful. She swoops between buildings and down alleyways, a second set of eyes in the looming expanse of the labyrinth; but she has grown strangely silent as they descended into the bony maze, but for the occasional deranged laugh. There is something that she knows about this place, but Seraphina knows better than to ask her about it. She won’t answer – she’ll simply mock her for the question.
She knows that she should go home.
She has two children to care for, and she is no longer a queen – she no longer has any obligation to go searching for monsters unless they find her themselves. Still, since she saw the horrible, half-miraculous rise of this place, she has felt some strange obligation to keep an eye on it.
It feels, sometimes, like it is growing. She doesn’t want to think of what that means; and it is the closest that any of them had been to the gods in years, and, gods know, she deserves some kind of an answer from Solis for what he did to her.
She gives a shake of her silvered head, and, eyes narrowed, she turns a corner that bleeds into another street; and she finds herself standing at the road which leads to the great castle in the heart of this place. (The walls of it seem to pulsate and crawl when she looks at them directly, but she is sure that it is not moving.) Grinding her teeth, she moves forward down the road, which seems to her to grow shorter and longer at complete random; she does not know how long it takes her to reach the entry to the courtyard, but it feels both too short and too long at once. She does not allow herself to think too much of it. She knows that is what this sort of magic wants her to do, and she knows that understanding it isn’t what matters.
There is a gate in front of her – immensely tall and ornate, and made of metal or something horribly metallic. If she wants to reach the castle, she knows that she must go through them; but there is a lock in their center. She narrows her eyes at them, considering, and finally rattles at them with her telekinesis, sure that she is strong enough to break them down if need be-
-but the gates let out a terrible, scream, the scream of a living voice, the scream of a child or an old woman or a dead man she barely recognizes.
She draws back a step, swallowing down a shudder. Between her ears, Ereshkigal howls with laughter.
The lock is dribbling a thick substance. She doesn’t want to think that it looks like blood, or smells like blood – but it does.
@Morrighan || !!! || "ozymandius," percy shelley
Sera || Eresh
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
