☼ s e r a p h i n a ☼
try try your whole life to be righteous and to be good
wind up on your own floor, choking on blood
One moment, she is alone.
The next, she hears the clatter of hooves against stone and whirls to face a man – electricity dances down her frame, volatile and tense as drawn strings in a bow. He brings with him the soft, sweet scent of flowers that she, bred and raised in desert realms, cannot recognize; she can only imagine it is the result of the unfamiliar, dainty things tangled into the soft cream waves of his mane. She would have to be far more a fool, however, to let the sweetness of the flowers distract her from the obvious danger he presents. Even if he hadn’t managed to creep up on her, he has the build of a warrior; far from bulky, but well-muscled and deft, with a hint of precision akin to a sharpened knife. Certainly a handsome creature, though such considerations barely cross her mind. His color puts her in mind of deep forests, on the rare occasions that she has seen them; rich and deep and strangely warm, like the bark of some great tree that happened to be splashed carelessly with dashes of foamy cream. It is his milky silver eyes that garner her attention, however, and she is quick to meet them with her own as she attempts to discern his motivations. There is nothing in his posture that threatens, but something in the words that he spoke when he drew forth from the shadows - “You were one of them” - puts her on edge. One of what? What had she ever been that she was not now, standing emblazoned by wild starlight? What had she ever been that she did not wear like the scars that twisted and writhed beneath the sleek quicksilver of her coat?
His words, then, make her throat close up, suddenly dry and parched as it would always be after a long day spent in desert heat. “One of the child soldiers.” He knows, she realizes. He knows what she was - what she is. He knows what the collar curled round her neck like a noose signifies in all its battered glory, why it wraps round her throat rather than resting further down, more comfortably; he knows why it is so scratched and beaten, in such a state of discontent disrepair. He knows what it means. She does not know if he knows why it is there, but he knows what it means, and he knows what she is. Seraphina has grown accustomed to being recognized as Solterra’s icy queen, an enigmatic silver wisp as difficult to comprehend as a storm at sea. She has never become accustomed to being recognized as what she was.
All at once, the smell of smoke rises up inside of her, chokes her – she takes a hesitant step back, the lantern jerking awkwardly at her side as she grapples with her telekinesis. In the back of her mouth, she tastes blood, and, as she tries to push it down, it only rises. For a moment, she feels the brutal snap of her bones as they are crushed beneath the weight of the horde; like a distant echo, she hears herself scream as cold steel slices open her sides, feels her limbs falter beneath her as a sword plunges straight through her; she remembers the violent chills that wracked her frame and the indescribable ache of the sword stuck inside of her, the waves of throbbing pain, the comforting brush of darkness at the edges of her vision; she thinks sometimes that it would have been a mercy to die all those times over, but she always continued kicking, and they always dragged her out of the muck of upturned terrain, always patched her up with spells that burned and threw her to the hungry jaws that lined the battlefield all over again. She remembers looking down at the empty eyes of the dead and aching. She remembers crying the first time that she managed to kill – and the next, and the next, and the next. Eventually, the tears wouldn’t come anymore. Eventually, nothing would come at all, and, somewhere deep inside of her, she knew that she was losing something that she wasn’t sure she could ever have back. She used to try to say prayers for the fallen, when she wandered the battlefields when the fighting was done, to leave what wildflowers she could pluck from the muck tangled on their bloodied frames. She knew that they would never have a funeral. She wondered, sometimes, if they were remembered – if they were loved. She wondered lots of things, before Viceroy took away the wondering, too.
But she is not there. She is in a cave, staring blankly at a man of pinesmoke and flowers, her eyes glassy and cold as the dead.
Seraphina stiffens, then, struggling to look impassive; the expression that paints her features, however, is not so cold as she would like it to be, not so cold as she needs. She takes a deep, rattling breath, and finds it in her to speak. “Yes,” For all her effort to stabilize it, her voice comes out trembling. Damnit. She knows that she can’t look vulnerable, can’t look as though she’s weighted down - not now of all times, not with wolves and snakes ready to snap like hunter’s traps on her heels wherever she looks. “Yes, I was.” Her gaze settles on him again; it has taken her a moment to place the scent of Denocte behind the flowers, but she recognizes it now, and curses herself for her faltering all over again. He can’t be much older than she is, and he’s built for war – she had never anticipated encountering someone from the other side of the war with the Night Kingdom, but she suspects that was what stands in front of her, like some passing ghost. (But far more solid than the ghostly shades of silver that cloaked her – intact, but shocked.) “You…were a soldier?” She wonders, then, if he met someone like her, or something like her. She doesn’t know what to make of the look on his face.
She gets the feeling that he doesn’t know what to make of her, either.
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tags | @Renwick
notes | hello sudden muse
try try your whole life to be righteous and to be good
wind up on your own floor, choking on blood
One moment, she is alone.
The next, she hears the clatter of hooves against stone and whirls to face a man – electricity dances down her frame, volatile and tense as drawn strings in a bow. He brings with him the soft, sweet scent of flowers that she, bred and raised in desert realms, cannot recognize; she can only imagine it is the result of the unfamiliar, dainty things tangled into the soft cream waves of his mane. She would have to be far more a fool, however, to let the sweetness of the flowers distract her from the obvious danger he presents. Even if he hadn’t managed to creep up on her, he has the build of a warrior; far from bulky, but well-muscled and deft, with a hint of precision akin to a sharpened knife. Certainly a handsome creature, though such considerations barely cross her mind. His color puts her in mind of deep forests, on the rare occasions that she has seen them; rich and deep and strangely warm, like the bark of some great tree that happened to be splashed carelessly with dashes of foamy cream. It is his milky silver eyes that garner her attention, however, and she is quick to meet them with her own as she attempts to discern his motivations. There is nothing in his posture that threatens, but something in the words that he spoke when he drew forth from the shadows - “You were one of them” - puts her on edge. One of what? What had she ever been that she was not now, standing emblazoned by wild starlight? What had she ever been that she did not wear like the scars that twisted and writhed beneath the sleek quicksilver of her coat?
His words, then, make her throat close up, suddenly dry and parched as it would always be after a long day spent in desert heat. “One of the child soldiers.” He knows, she realizes. He knows what she was - what she is. He knows what the collar curled round her neck like a noose signifies in all its battered glory, why it wraps round her throat rather than resting further down, more comfortably; he knows why it is so scratched and beaten, in such a state of discontent disrepair. He knows what it means. She does not know if he knows why it is there, but he knows what it means, and he knows what she is. Seraphina has grown accustomed to being recognized as Solterra’s icy queen, an enigmatic silver wisp as difficult to comprehend as a storm at sea. She has never become accustomed to being recognized as what she was.
All at once, the smell of smoke rises up inside of her, chokes her – she takes a hesitant step back, the lantern jerking awkwardly at her side as she grapples with her telekinesis. In the back of her mouth, she tastes blood, and, as she tries to push it down, it only rises. For a moment, she feels the brutal snap of her bones as they are crushed beneath the weight of the horde; like a distant echo, she hears herself scream as cold steel slices open her sides, feels her limbs falter beneath her as a sword plunges straight through her; she remembers the violent chills that wracked her frame and the indescribable ache of the sword stuck inside of her, the waves of throbbing pain, the comforting brush of darkness at the edges of her vision; she thinks sometimes that it would have been a mercy to die all those times over, but she always continued kicking, and they always dragged her out of the muck of upturned terrain, always patched her up with spells that burned and threw her to the hungry jaws that lined the battlefield all over again. She remembers looking down at the empty eyes of the dead and aching. She remembers crying the first time that she managed to kill – and the next, and the next, and the next. Eventually, the tears wouldn’t come anymore. Eventually, nothing would come at all, and, somewhere deep inside of her, she knew that she was losing something that she wasn’t sure she could ever have back. She used to try to say prayers for the fallen, when she wandered the battlefields when the fighting was done, to leave what wildflowers she could pluck from the muck tangled on their bloodied frames. She knew that they would never have a funeral. She wondered, sometimes, if they were remembered – if they were loved. She wondered lots of things, before Viceroy took away the wondering, too.
But she is not there. She is in a cave, staring blankly at a man of pinesmoke and flowers, her eyes glassy and cold as the dead.
Seraphina stiffens, then, struggling to look impassive; the expression that paints her features, however, is not so cold as she would like it to be, not so cold as she needs. She takes a deep, rattling breath, and finds it in her to speak. “Yes,” For all her effort to stabilize it, her voice comes out trembling. Damnit. She knows that she can’t look vulnerable, can’t look as though she’s weighted down - not now of all times, not with wolves and snakes ready to snap like hunter’s traps on her heels wherever she looks. “Yes, I was.” Her gaze settles on him again; it has taken her a moment to place the scent of Denocte behind the flowers, but she recognizes it now, and curses herself for her faltering all over again. He can’t be much older than she is, and he’s built for war – she had never anticipated encountering someone from the other side of the war with the Night Kingdom, but she suspects that was what stands in front of her, like some passing ghost. (But far more solid than the ghostly shades of silver that cloaked her – intact, but shocked.) “You…were a soldier?” She wonders, then, if he met someone like her, or something like her. She doesn’t know what to make of the look on his face.
She gets the feeling that he doesn’t know what to make of her, either.
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tags | @
notes | hello sudden muse
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
