[AW] luminous

[Seraphina]

S E R A P H I N A

in the absence of everything
ABSTAIN FROM FEAR

--

Seraphina had risen with the sun that morning.

As she passed through the gaping halls of the sandstone fortress, she felt as though she could taste ash on her tongue – like a vulture, feasting on the dead, circling in wait to replace what was lost to the Solterrans. With nothing but the first, faint rays of dawn to guide her steps, the world felt disquietingly still and silent; the bustle of court life, something she had so slowly grown accustomed to, had felt like an aberration at first, but the capitol now seemed far worse for its absence. For a moment, she was a solitary figure, a shadow of silver cast against the dull brown-orange of the sandstone walls. She traced hallways and rooms that had now grown familiar. Seraphina only paused to linger in the library, throwing her eyes along the lines of shelves that had become her daily haunts in her time as Emissary. Deep, deep, deep beneath her skin, – so deep she barely noticed it – she felt something twist as she left, a quiet recognition that things were not the same as they once were, though she knew that they had not been for some time. Yet when she drew close to the windows, she saw the same desert that had always greeted her sprawled out far as the eye could see, a seemingly-endless ocean of golden waves that was reborn in its own image with each passing day. Solterra never changed, not really, and very little could be done to alter its landscape for more than the moment. (But with Maxence’s presumed death, she had remembered again that they existed in the moment. Somehow, she had let herself forget just how quickly the world could be turned on its head again.) She passed down to the lower levels of the fortress in perfect quiet, save for the rhythmic clack of her hooves against the stone floor and the slow rise and fall of her own breath.

Today she would shed her skin.

She did not expect the process to be easy - she expected to rake herself off in handfuls to discover what was truly beneath her polished, cool exterior. Her duty had always been to her country, and that had not changed. However, in the past, she had always been a cog in a far greater machine, subject to the push and pull of higher powers; now she swept the tide, though she was not so fool as to imagine she had all that much control over the way it would ebb and flow. (In fact, she was sure that she was more apt to possess its consequence.) A part of her was terrified. Another part felt nothing at all, even as she passed the threshold of the fortress and stepped into the hazy light of the courtyard. She would remain there for a time in solitary, silent consideration, still searching for the words that she had lost at Maxence’s funeral – she would have to find them quickly. Now she lingered in the realm of open hostility. The possibility of death had been imposed upon her as a child, but this sense of failure was a completely different stake; she had changed. She was changing again. And now she lingered on the precipice of something dark and vast, about to step onto a tightrope from which she could not return. (Sometimes she thought that she was far too young to take up the mantle of Sovereign, too uncertain, too cold, too, too, too-) Seraphina had not chosen the rank of Emissary, though she had not fought it, either. This crown was solely her volition, however, with a pinch of circumstance. Perhaps it was the first real choice that she had ever made in her life.

And now she stands in the center of the courtyard, the first, piercing rays of day heat pricking sweat from her skin; she raises her head to look up at the sky, and, for a moment, she remembers that blinding light, that sun that kept her from seeing the light, that light which obscured -

She prays to Solis, and, for a moment, she thinks that she finds the words, even if they are only in her mind.

Then, gathering all of her certainty, she draws to the blowing horn in the middle of the courtyard and breathes into it; the haunting, howling melody echoes across the capitol, across the deserts, to the very edges of Solterra.

She draws back. She waits.

@

Sera's formally stepping up. <3 Laws, the census, & a few other things will be posted up in the next few days! Day Court members are very strongly encouraged to attend, particularly if they're ranked! also, I know that I've already tossed up a reply in the thread w/ the dusk kids, but that's primarily in the interest of keeping that thread/related plots moving. and because I wanted this to be post 100 because I have a flair for drama.

@Avdotya first, please!