[AW] dancin' to jailhouse rock

[Seraphina]

S E R A P H I N A

in the absence of everything
ABSTAIN FROM FEAR

--

Sleek as silver.


She moves down to the dungeon with a soft, possibly nervous sway to her steps, tail lashing behind her like a cat about to pounce; in reality, it slashes away flies, eager to linger on her sweat-stained hide. Seraphina has spent the entire morning out in the heat, but she somehow feels like she would be more comfortable burning in the scalding sun than she feels wandering down into the dark, cool depths of the dungeons, set to face her worst nightmare. It’s not Rostislav, – the old drunk might be a warrior, but so is she, and she’s met worse-tempered foes – but, rather, what he represents. A diplomatic crisis, a premonition of conflict, a rash decision that she should have prevented; that she might have prevented, or, at the very least, tried to prevent, had she known beforehand. Had she…

She reasons that it’s because he hadn’t mentioned that he was leaving, but what did they care? What did they care enough to capture the Warden of another Court? He hadn’t been privy to any secrets; this was a power play, a way to figuratively puff out their chest. Seraphina doesn’t know how it will work out in the end, but she can only hope to minimize the damage, and minimizing the damage means getting the Warden out quickly…and hoping that he’s treated with some sense of decency while he’s here.

Seraphina is ruthless at the core, but she’s not foolish – it’s not efficient to quarrel over Rostislav, and all she cares for is efficiency. (It’s hardly the supposed injustice of the situation that bothers her. Wrong and right are empty, personal words, and it’s never been her job to be personal. Rational, distant, detached, alien: that is who she is supposed to be.)

She brushes by the strange dog first, and, a bit offhandedly tosses a dead snake through the bars. The creature is awake, though still apparently woozy, kept sealed in one of the upper cells; she’d snuck it bits of whatever she could capture in the desert for days, if only because she knows how dear bonded creatures are to their soulmates. (The pain of losing one is something that she would never wish on anyone; a fractured soul is agonized, senseless, useless.)

She hadn’t the words to speak to Rostislav, and therefore hadn’t met with him yet – as she made her way further into the quiet darkness, she felt tension ball up in her throat, but swallowed it down vehemently. Perhaps it is a stroke of fortune that another is already at his cell when she arrives, a monochromatic man that she recognizes as one of the warriors. (It was Eik, wasn’t it? She saw him at the gathering.) She eyes Rostislav evenly as she leans up against one of the cool dungeon walls, though her gaze fluctuates between the scarred man and the Warrior at his side. (She thinks to tell him that he should not be down here, but she heard his question – she won’t do anything to compromise the situation yet, nothing to violate his trust or make him think that they are hiding things.) “Your…companion,” She says, after a moment’s eerie silence, “She’s recovering.” What should she tell him? That she’s sorry he’s down here? (Not for the reason he’d hope.) That she’s as surprised to see him here as he is? (True, but not something she should say aloud.) So she waits in silence, gaze cold as winter ice.

@

@Rostislav @Eik as promised <3