BY THE PRICKING OF MY THUMBS
something wicked this way comes--
Seraphina does not spend as much time prowling the borders of Solterra as she used to.
In the past, the Emissary would spend much of her time haunting the vast deserts of the Mors or the maze-like walls of the Elatus Canyon. The fort that housed the Day Court was a prison in her childhood, and she relished each moment that she spent free of it, away from all the terrors that lurked within. (Before she was thrown into war, that was – then it became a rare moment of solace. All the blood that Zolin robbed of his people was nothing compared to the horrors of the battlefield.) Patrolling the sands became her routine; even as everything she knew fell out of her life, tumbled like water from open hands, Seraphina could rely on her duties to bolster her. Even when no Day Court remained, just prior to the arrival of Maxence, she’d kept up her patrols, confident in her uncertainty and bound to what she knew.
(The unknown, she’d discovered, is terrifying.)
She soaks in the familiar, blinding heat, relishes the sensation of sweat dripping down her coat in trails of molten silver; though she is settling into her new position, she still relishes the sensation of movement, the way that the sand skids softly beneath her dark hooves. To some, the scalding heat of the day would be brutal, but, to the desert-born mare, it comes as a comfort.
Seraphina trails the canyon walls in silence, each turn familiar as the lay of her own skin; sometimes she finds herself longing for distant horizons, to find something that she feels like she is missing, (and emptiness that is palpable and real - a void that she’s sure can be seen through her skin) but, at the end of the day, she knows that Solterra is the only home she will ever be welcomed back to. The sands will always call her back.
The sound of motion in the distance.
She pauses, ears flicking upright to catch the noise – she waits for a moment, unsure if it was anything at all, but the sound comes again. This time, she distinguishes it as the unmistakable sound of hooves against weathered stone.
Seraphina moves towards the sound without thinking. She winds down narrow halls for what feels like a long time - prolonged by her own anticipation, no doubt. It was just as likely she’d encounter a stranger as one of her own, but in a land as volatile as Solterra, she was unwilling to chance letting her guard down.
Turning a corner, she finds herself gazing at a buckskin stallion. Though his coat is a patchwork of radiant desert hues, she smelled the lush darkness of Denocte on his skin; she stands stiff and rigid by nature, but her muscles tense beneath her as she gives him a thorough once-over. He is slightly shorter than Seraphina but possesses a similar build – he could probably hold his own in a fight, as saccharine a smile as he was giving her now.
(She thinks that it looks plasticine, manufactured. There is no warmth in his smile.)
She eyes the stallion coolly, her eyes – one of fire and one of ice – lingering steadily on his own. “And just what,” Seraphina questions, her voice a low drawl, “brings a citizen of Denocte to Solterra?”
Her words ring out, quietly authoritative, against the canyon walls.
@Acton - sorry for the wait! <3
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
