Antiope
oh Lord, tell me you love me
am I Lilith or am I Eve?
oh Lord, tell me you love me
am I Lilith or am I Eve?
Is she still burning? And if she is, are the things she’s done good enough to make that kind of difference or not? Antiope cannot help but think that any of the good, any of the change toward peace she has made can never cancel out the things she has done in her past.
How can she ever make up for all of the blood she has spilled? Forgetting the gods that she has killed, but the others like her who had been pressed into battle, into war.
Antiope watches as Ipomoea seeps magic, bleeds it. As leaves and blooms sprout up before her very eyes, finding homes in long-born cracks in the stone. They settle in as though they have been there for years. And as hard as she tries, the woman cannot imagine anything as beautiful—anything as poetic and poignant—to ever come from her own magic.
Her magic was only made to make her stronger, to make her deadlier. In the end, her magic was only made to kill.
“I have burned for so long, Ipomoea,” there is an endlessness to the way that Antiope speaks. A liking to something more than the things they are talking about here, “I think, perhaps, I am tired of burning.” Little does she know what is coming for her. How it will consume her. How she will burn, and burn, and burn.
I think, perhaps, I am tired.
She has always said that she does not sleep. And when she does sleep, she does not dream.
Will she always be empty?
“For the first time in my life I do not know what is right; if I am right,” Antiope looks out over the darkness, and the storm looming in the distance, and finds that now she cannot look at the man next to her. Her skin trembles with something unspoken, something larger than she can possibly hope to be.
Life had been simpler before Rezar. Not easier, necessarily, and certainly not happier, but everything had been black and white. Antiope had had her duties, her place in the world, and no reason to question it. Now, since him—since love—she questions everything, “I hoped I could stand here and forget, maybe forgive.”
There is some small part of her that wonders what would have happened had she turned to her gods, forgiven them, asked them to give her another chance. How can she not wonder? How can she not wish to know what is happening in Aetherian after all these years. But standing here, in this place, won’t tell her if what she did is right.
“Now I see that if I wish to learn what it is to worship, it will not be in any temple,” Antiope grasps the handle of her axe, as its light slowly dims and blinks out of existence. She moves toward the entryway, her magic breathing in the breeze, consuming it.
When the Denoctian sovereign turns back toward Ipomoea it is with half a smile and eyes full of ichor. Like a dare, or a promise. A promise of something better, a different future. Then she begins her descent of the stone steps, into the dark.
"Speaking."
How can she ever make up for all of the blood she has spilled? Forgetting the gods that she has killed, but the others like her who had been pressed into battle, into war.
Antiope watches as Ipomoea seeps magic, bleeds it. As leaves and blooms sprout up before her very eyes, finding homes in long-born cracks in the stone. They settle in as though they have been there for years. And as hard as she tries, the woman cannot imagine anything as beautiful—anything as poetic and poignant—to ever come from her own magic.
Her magic was only made to make her stronger, to make her deadlier. In the end, her magic was only made to kill.
“I have burned for so long, Ipomoea,” there is an endlessness to the way that Antiope speaks. A liking to something more than the things they are talking about here, “I think, perhaps, I am tired of burning.” Little does she know what is coming for her. How it will consume her. How she will burn, and burn, and burn.
I think, perhaps, I am tired.
She has always said that she does not sleep. And when she does sleep, she does not dream.
Will she always be empty?
“For the first time in my life I do not know what is right; if I am right,” Antiope looks out over the darkness, and the storm looming in the distance, and finds that now she cannot look at the man next to her. Her skin trembles with something unspoken, something larger than she can possibly hope to be.
Life had been simpler before Rezar. Not easier, necessarily, and certainly not happier, but everything had been black and white. Antiope had had her duties, her place in the world, and no reason to question it. Now, since him—since love—she questions everything, “I hoped I could stand here and forget, maybe forgive.”
There is some small part of her that wonders what would have happened had she turned to her gods, forgiven them, asked them to give her another chance. How can she not wonder? How can she not wish to know what is happening in Aetherian after all these years. But standing here, in this place, won’t tell her if what she did is right.
“Now I see that if I wish to learn what it is to worship, it will not be in any temple,” Antiope grasps the handle of her axe, as its light slowly dims and blinks out of existence. She moves toward the entryway, her magic breathing in the breeze, consuming it.
When the Denoctian sovereign turns back toward Ipomoea it is with half a smile and eyes full of ichor. Like a dare, or a promise. A promise of something better, a different future. Then she begins her descent of the stone steps, into the dark.
a war is calling
the tides are turned
the tides are turned