MESSALINA
So many words pressed hesitant yet imploring at her tongue—meeting the flower-wreathed Emissary in the court of Night had set Messalina’s mind awhirl in a scattering of jumbled thoughts. She found herself wanting to ask him things she normally uttered only as vapid pleasantries; spoken more so for the sake of appearances, than in any earnest appreciation for their answers. And she might have asked them—she would have asked them—if a voice as deep and sonorous as rippling silk had not drawn Messalina’s startled gaze to its source.
A shadow-clad figure drew itself away from the ornate doorframe and strode silently, resplendently, across the gallery’s plush carpeting. It took the girl a moment to convince herself that it was really him.
The Night King.
But of course. It is only proper to greet the King before departing his kingdom, is it not? she mused, quick to school her features back into placidity as Reichenbach’s rugged frame drew near. Yet as he did so, as the gypsy coins upon his broad chest clinked ever louder, a growing unease dragged its cold, bony fingers across the ridge of Messalina’s spine.
The last king she had bowed to had responded by demanding her head served to him on a silver platter. After Mother’s abominable betrayal, the people’s rage had to be appeased—and with the Enchantress herself having vanished in a plume of silver smoke, all blame had shifted to hang savagely upon her ivory daughter’s slender neck. Barely, just barely, had that guiltless daughter escaped from their bloodthirsty blades.
Appropriately, then, did a lingering apprehension around royalty plague her tenuous heart.
Even when Mother is no longer beside me—I am still a marionette with her strings attached.
It was Ipomoea’s steady presence by her side that lulled her trembling nerves to rest; slowly, softly, a pleasant smile settled across her lips as Messalina inclined into an elegant bow towards Denocte’s dark-eyed Sovereign."Your majesty,” she murmured, ivory eyelashes grazing the tops of her cheeks as she lowered in solemn deference. Silken braids rustled gently across taut shoulders as she rose again, and cerulean eyes flickered momentarily to the painted boy at her side. Wordlessly, Messalina observed the interaction between her Emissary and Denocte’s famed King of Thieves.
From the way they addressed each other, they seemed already acquainted. Quietly, she noted the king’s brief yet hushed interaction with Ipomoea, their faces turned away from hers—political matters, perhaps? A name—Ixion—was the one word she gleaned from the murmurs. Was that the artist’s name? She had never heard of it. No one in Algernon had ever thought it worth their while to tell the cold-eyed dancer of such things, and so Messalina had resorted to gathering scraps of foreign knowledge from ancient scrolls and eavesdropped conversations. Only upon arriving at Delumine’s emerald shores, had she realized just how little she truly knew.
She was brought back to the present with a start, when the Night King’s rumbling, earthen voice plucked her swiftly from her memories.
“Hello there.”
Onyx and cerise gazes—one delicate as spring blossoms, while another as smooth as the night sky—fell upon her at once, and Messalina hesitated for the lightest of seconds as she grasped at what to say."I am honored to meet you, King Reichenbach,” she spoke. Pleasantries had never failed her before. "I am Messalina, from the Dawn Court.”
As an afterthought, she softly added:"Though I did not know much of Ixion, it is only fitting for him to have hailed from the Night Court.”
The words slipped carefully yet eloquently from her mouth. They were formal, conservative; she knew of nothing else.
Yet even in the presence of Denocte’s charming Sovereign, her attention returned always to the crimson painted Emissary. It was becoming almost instinctive, something that just happened. Messalina was not a girl that let things just happen like that, so much out of her conscious control.
Though with Ipomoea, she had stopped fighting it the moment he'd whispered those words to her, the winds of the Veneror rustling the flowers atop his crown: “I can be just Ipomoea, to you.”
Just Ipomoea. If only, if only.
A shadow-clad figure drew itself away from the ornate doorframe and strode silently, resplendently, across the gallery’s plush carpeting. It took the girl a moment to convince herself that it was really him.
The Night King.
But of course. It is only proper to greet the King before departing his kingdom, is it not? she mused, quick to school her features back into placidity as Reichenbach’s rugged frame drew near. Yet as he did so, as the gypsy coins upon his broad chest clinked ever louder, a growing unease dragged its cold, bony fingers across the ridge of Messalina’s spine.
The last king she had bowed to had responded by demanding her head served to him on a silver platter. After Mother’s abominable betrayal, the people’s rage had to be appeased—and with the Enchantress herself having vanished in a plume of silver smoke, all blame had shifted to hang savagely upon her ivory daughter’s slender neck. Barely, just barely, had that guiltless daughter escaped from their bloodthirsty blades.
Appropriately, then, did a lingering apprehension around royalty plague her tenuous heart.
Even when Mother is no longer beside me—I am still a marionette with her strings attached.
It was Ipomoea’s steady presence by her side that lulled her trembling nerves to rest; slowly, softly, a pleasant smile settled across her lips as Messalina inclined into an elegant bow towards Denocte’s dark-eyed Sovereign.
From the way they addressed each other, they seemed already acquainted. Quietly, she noted the king’s brief yet hushed interaction with Ipomoea, their faces turned away from hers—political matters, perhaps? A name—Ixion—was the one word she gleaned from the murmurs. Was that the artist’s name? She had never heard of it. No one in Algernon had ever thought it worth their while to tell the cold-eyed dancer of such things, and so Messalina had resorted to gathering scraps of foreign knowledge from ancient scrolls and eavesdropped conversations. Only upon arriving at Delumine’s emerald shores, had she realized just how little she truly knew.
She was brought back to the present with a start, when the Night King’s rumbling, earthen voice plucked her swiftly from her memories.
“Hello there.”
Onyx and cerise gazes—one delicate as spring blossoms, while another as smooth as the night sky—fell upon her at once, and Messalina hesitated for the lightest of seconds as she grasped at what to say.
As an afterthought, she softly added:
The words slipped carefully yet eloquently from her mouth. They were formal, conservative; she knew of nothing else.
Yet even in the presence of Denocte’s charming Sovereign, her attention returned always to the crimson painted Emissary. It was becoming almost instinctive, something that just happened. Messalina was not a girl that let things just happen like that, so much out of her conscious control.
Though with Ipomoea, she had stopped fighting it the moment he'd whispered those words to her, the winds of the Veneror rustling the flowers atop his crown: “I can be just Ipomoea, to you.”
Just Ipomoea. If only, if only.
eyes so blue,
I drown.
I drown.
@Ipomoea @Reichenbach
love all of them <3
love all of them <3
