BY THE PRICKING OF MY THUMBS
something wicked this way comes--
He seemed to be crumbling, she thought, as she looked him over – falling to pieces in front of her, and she was not sure that there was anything she could do to stop him from unraveling. (She wondered what would be left behind if he collapsed completely; his pale frame, illuminated in the candlelight, seemed already something like a ghost, and, as he seems to slip out of her grasp entirely and she is left with little more of the impression of him, she almost expects to see the wall right through him.) If she remembered her life better, like she had when she was younger, she thought that she might know what he felt like, being lost in something that had disappeared long ago. (She might have, once, but that was little more than a haze, a creeping darkness, a memory that disappeared as soon as she managed to focus her gaze on it.) She stood, frozen, unsure of the words, unsure if speaking would just make it worse-
But her words seemed to snap him free of his trance, and he settled, slowly. Sometimes, she had learned, it was just a matter of calling them back to the present. His expression shifts as he seems to regain control of himself; she focuses on his eyes, waits for that snap of awareness. When he spoke, it was with a stammer that made some, small part of her twist into a knot. (That, she thought, did not happen very often – whatever plagued the warrior left a scar that even she could feel.) Seraphina had never been good at things like this. She had been built and bred for war, forged like a knife in a blacksmith’s hands; she was carved for a single purpose, and that was not love or kindness or sympathy. She watched him carefully for what felt to her like a very long time, but was probably only seconds in reality, then offered a soft, “I understand.” Well, she did in a sense, anyways. Her memories were largely muddled because of Viceroy’s intervention, but she supposed that there were probably some of them that she’d blocked out herself, much as she disliked the notion that she couldn’t handle what had happened to her.
She shook those thoughts off, though, because the conversation had turned to his homeland. “I see,” She said, but added, “I’m not sure I can imagine that.” This was partially because Seraphina was not very imaginative and partially because she had spent her entire life within the confines of the Day Court. She could imagine the storytelling, though, to some extent – soldiers told stories often, in her experience. Anything to make noise as they walked towards what could well be oblivion, anything to keep the silence at bay. When he spoke of it, she noticed the smile that darted across his features. A fond, fond expression; not cold or forced, like some smiles she’d seen in the past. She wondered about his home, for a moment, and why he’d left when it seemed quite obvious that he cared for it deeply.
And, then, why his past provoked such a painful reaction.
His next words caught Seraphina off guard. He didn’t want to keep her? So he was leaving – that was probably for the best, she thought, eyeing her stack of paperwork. But, then, what he said next…
His words gave the mare pause; she stared him down blankly, her eyes widening fractionally in the closest display she had to shock. In all of her years (though she hadn’t many), Seraphina had never heard anyone…offer to support her, or be there for her, or help her. Those words, then, provoked some kind of feeling, but she didn’t know what it was – if someone were to ask her to name it, she was sure that she would fail to describe it. (Around her neck, her collar prickled.) When she found it in her to respond, which, again, likely didn’t take as long as she imagined, she swallowed, and offered a soft, distinctly genuine, “Thank you, Eik.”
With their conversation complete, she returned herself to her paperwork – if she buried herself deep enough, she was sure that she could ignore whatever strange, burning sensation was left to linger in the very back of her mind.
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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
