[AW] we'll be nothing but dust

[Seraphina]

I'M READY FOR THE FIGHT & FATE

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Autumn wind trailed against her sides, running its fingers through her silver coat; it was cold comfort, the recession of sands and choking heat that rubbed her mouth dry, leaving her hollowed out under the abrasion of sand and sky. In the starlight, she was a ghost, a flickering apparition outlined by the metallic glow of starlight, something temporal and faint, save for her voice. She continued to sing, ebbing and flowing with the rise and fall of the melody, her lips tracing the outlines of meaningless phrases. (Maybe they meant something somewhere, but, certainly, little more than nothing to her.) Seraphina allowed herself to exist in the allure of the moment, in the flicker of the fireflies against her skin and the low murmur of the wind, the soft grass against her legs and the sensation of starlight, so foreign and uncertain to the woman of stark, cold daylight that she wasn’t sure that it was much of a comfort at all. She lingered, nevertheless, uncertain. The Emissary had duties, and, as a woman who had never had anything but duty, she valued them more than anything - but there were moments when she was sure that they choked her simply because she didn’t know how to live any other way. (That was too much sentiment for her. She shoved it aside, buried it deep. Without Viceroy, she told herself, she was already beginning to forget what really mattered.) The song rose and fell, and she wasn’t sure that she felt anything as it did, even though she felt like she should.

The sound of wings from behind her caused the mare to whirl, breaking out of melody; her eyes fell on a snow-white stallion, save for patches of golden scales – a pair of antlers sprouted from his skull, his tail was draconian, and wings, like those of a bat, spanned from his shoulderblades. An elegant creature, certainly, and a relative oddity even among the oft-fantastical equines of Novus. (He reminded her of Viceroy, in a way; she wasn’t sure if they were quite the same sort of creature, but he was closer to her enigmatic teacher than anyone she’d ever seen.) Her ears flicked forward to catch his words, and she seemed to consider them for a moment. “Another land,” She said, and there was her voice, not the one she put on while singing – deep and dusky with the low, drawled lull of the Day Court thick as honey on her lips, “though not one that I know much of. It was taught to me by my mentor.” If Viceroy had told her of his home, she recalled what he had said in little more than fragments, though she imagined that he hadn’t said much of anything at all. He loathed the land that supposedly loathed him, a hatred that consumed everything he ever seemed to say or do – Viceroy was a pitiful creature, in a way. For all he spoke to her of learning to feel nothing, she was sure from his viciousness that he felt far too much.

Her odd eyes found the pale lilac of the scaled horse’s, and she added a soft, “And who might you be?” A scholarly type, from his line of inquiry…his vocalizations were foreign to her, however, and she couldn’t quite place his scent. She kept her watchful gaze trained on his every move, just in case there was any hostility to him – she’d sensed nothing from his demeanor or tone, but Seraphina was hyperaware at best, honed and raised in the trappings of warfare and violence. (Solterra was hardly known for breeding trust.)

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@Isorath - ft. a bit of a time skip for relevance, as per request <3