With time, sweltering heat and endless, red-gold sand gave way to fields of soft, sweet green - a departure from the ordinary that the mare did not deem unwelcome. Solterra was home, but much of her youth had been spent in perpetual motion, chasing wars that would never be won; she imagined that she would never completely shake the wanderlust, an almost implacable (but nevertheless fundamental) desire for distant horizons. If not the horizons, motion. Seraphina did not know how much time she’d spent in the library lately, a far cry from the battlegrounds, flipping through papers that she’d occasionally caught glimpses of in passing but was never allowed to touch. A steady emphasis on devouring everything that she put in front of her managed to stave her desire to return to the dunes of the Mors while she avoided further irritating the injuries she had sustained in the battle with the teryr; she had deemed herself able to join the procession to the Dusk Court, though it was perhaps more out of a sense of duty than most anything else. In spite of her numerous injuries, – significant bruising on her limbs and torso, a mess of gashes (thankfully, covered) that ran the length of her spin, and a gouge in her forehead obscured by bandages wrapped awkwardly about her ears – her movements were fluid, and her expression belied no pain. She was indistinct and distant, perhaps a bit otherworldly; less of flesh and blood and more of ice or carved stone. In the past, the Dusk Court had been an ally, or, at the very least, not an enemy, but it wouldn’t do to appear weak in front of them, if she hoped to be taken seriously in her new role. Seraphina was already unaccustomed to acting the diplomat, and, ominous-looking as her injuries might be, she’d be damned if she passed up the chance for practice.
If by “practice,” one could mean very real diplomatic encounters, anyways.
She arrived in the Dusk Court long moments after her fellows, hampered by her wounds; nonetheless, as she breezed in to take her place at Maxence’s side, mismatched eyes examining the Dusk Courtiers that had already arrived in much the manner of a scientist about to dissect a particularly intriguing specimen, she was composed. The unicorn – she’d seen him before, once, at the ocean. The gauzy little cream-colored girl, with her pretty wings and flowers wreathed in her mane and tail – Seraphina parsed that she met the description of the Emissary, Florentine. (Was it presumptuous to make assumptions?) Then, finally, the woman that could only be the Lady of the Dusk Court herself, Rannveig – her coat plastered with a sea of stars and a wolf pelt astride her back. She was already speaking when Seraphina arrived, a faint smile drawn across her lips. This was a dance, she realized, as she looked her over, eyes cool as ice even as she felt a knot twist in her stomach. She’d never been an especially good dancer; this role was words and histories, perceptions and facades, and she had grown with little more than a knife in her hand to guide her way. (How do you learn to swim, Seraphina? The words in her head come out in Viceroy’s voice. You kick to the surface or you drown.)
For now, she could simply wait.
@Maxence @Avdotya @Morozko @
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
