BY THE PRICKING OF MY THUMBS
something wicked this way comes--
The conversation presses forward with a pleasantry that she finds deeply unpleasant; she holds her features in stiff neutrality and swallows down her every instinct to chase him from the canyon before he could feed her lies about his purpose. Perhaps, she thinks, she is being too suspicious, too paranoid…but there is something in his smile that makes her lips curl. It’s manufactured, she decides, manufactured as a weapon – a smile can be sharp as a knife, if you wield it in the right direction. She forces herself to focus on the conversation, though every part of her remains quietly tense. Denocte’s long memory? Their war with Solterra was far from forgotten by the desert kingdom’s people, either; she still bore the scars all across her body, knotted like snakes beneath the sleek silver of her coat, scars that had grown with her, stretched and distorted into mere memories of the wounds they grew over. “Yes. I have spent my entire life among the Day Court.” Small talk, she supposes – not the question she might have expected, but she remains unaccustomed to simple pleasantries. She replies with a question in kind, perhaps a bit more invasive. “A foreigner, you say? How did you find yourself in Novus?” Foreigners were hardly an abnormality among Denocte; the Night Kingdom was known for its amalgamation of citizens. This particular foreigner, she decides, has to be something special if he’s delivering messages for the kingdom, and she suspects that it will do her well to discover a bit more about him.
His next words startle her, but she doesn’t allow any evidence of the surprise to cross her features. “…I’ll let Rhoswen know.” So the girl was directly connected to Reichenbach? Interesting. She couldn’t be the spy that they sought if they made their relation to her so obvious, but, whatever her relationship to the Night King was, Seraphina suspects it could be useful…or a burden. She decides that she’ll have to find some time to speak with Rhoswen to figure out which is the case. The girl seems loyal, on all accounts, a daughter of Solis as much as herself, but she knew how crafty Caligo’s children could be – if she retains her ties to the Night Kingdom, her loyalties might be split in the face of rising hostilities. (And, she imagines, in times of hostility, split loyalties would be the last thing the Solterrans needed.) “She has quite a flair for such matters, I imagine.” Spoken simply enough. “Shall I escort you back to the border, then? The Elatus can be like a maze for the unfamiliar, or so I’ve heard.” Defensiveness disguised as a polite gesture; she’s sure that her motives are transparent, but she still thinks that she’s becoming better at this.
@Acton - <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
