Cold water brushed amicably against the mare’s hooves as she stared down at her reflection in the oasis, mismatched eyes narrowed in scrutiny; beside of her, a heap of makeshift, rough cloth bandages soaked in the shallows. Throbbing bruises covered her torso and legs, and a lacework of scratches coated most of her back. They were still raw, though no longer volatile red and apparently free of infection. She’d found the deep, gnarled gash that ran across her more concerning, though it seemed to be healing up just as well. (Seraphina imagined that there was a good chance that it would leave her with a nasty scar. She was also disinclined to care.) They still bled, occasionally, and she dared not expose them to the heat of the desert - she’d been unable to resume her normal patrols in the days that had followed the teryr hunt, and, though it had most definitely sped up the healing process, Seraphina was growing stir-crazy, and quickly. Sleeping off the nausea and injuries felt like a waste of time, even if she realistically knew that she’d be little more than a liability if she was at anything but her peak condition whilst wandering the wilds of Solterra, but she couldn’t shake the sense of aimlessness that had been following her for months. It was biting at her heels, now, like some hungry beast – but soon, soon things would return to normal, or as normal as they could be without Viceroy. The teryr had been slaughtered, the victor decided. They had a new sovereign.
What could only be described as a scream from the direction of the court proper sent a small shiver of anticipation down her spine. Maxence, by the sound of things; he was summoning the court. The bandages were pulled from their resting-place by her telekinesis, wrapped swiftly – but with the sort of practiced expertise that assumed she had done the same thing many times before – around her wounds. Seraphina left the cool waters and shade behind her and moved back into the stifling heat of the desert, her movements laborious and jerking. (She loathed it.) It was only her knowledge of the dunes that brought her to the court with any sort of punctuality at all. A spray of golden sand clung to her hooves and sides, and the bandages still dripped thin trails of water down her sides; like trails of smoke against smooth silver. It was indistinguishable from the sweat beading on her coat, once she finally arrived in the Central Hall.
In spite of the prickling soreness that ran all across her body whenever she moved, no pain was obvious in the mare’s steely movements as she took her place among the others – her gaze was, as ever, cold as ice. In fact, if it weren’t for her tension and slight limp, one might be fooled into thinking that she wasn’t in any sort of pain at all. Her eyes crept across those that had already arrived. Maxence, with his massive wings and painted coat; Leviathan, likely just as sore as she and coated in a new layer of scars; the warrior girl, Eden; Inkheart, radiating perhaps even more broken pride than physical agony; Avdotya, quiet as ever; the golden girl, Bexley, who’d surprised Seraphina with her vigor in combat; a stallion that she did not recognize at all – white, and small, compact, though muscular enough to suggest a warrior; Torstein, bearing fronds of aloe; another stallion that she did not recognize – silver and beautiful, practically ornamental in his delicacy; and, equally ethereal, a beautiful roan woman that she was fairly sure she’d never seen before. Seraphina kept to the edges of the crowd, moving in where the crowd would accommodate her. No need to impose. For now, she would simply listen.
anyways <3333
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
