Cyrene
she spun herself a crown of gold,
thrones of bones and citadels.
—
The night sky was a dazzling miasma of diamond stars and velvet clouds. How quickly the heavens forgot. How cruel for the sky to be beautiful, when the earth weeps scarlet with the blood of a thousand.
Cyrene turned away from the light of the moon as she drew her black cloak tighter over her autumn curls. She couldn't risk being recognized tonight, not when she was attempting an act akin to treason.
Silently, she crept through the ransacked streets of Solterra like a shadow. Every inch of her body was as tense as a tightly drawn bow, her senses as sharp as knives despite the fatigue that clung to her bones like dew. She paused for a moment to stare into a pool of glassy liquid. Blood or water, she couldn’t tell — though the latter seemed far more likely. Her reflection stared back at her with hollow eyes, and mutely Cyrene studied her bedraggled self like an artist might study his paintings.
Amber eyes that had once danced with the flames of joviality were now sunken and dull with exhaustion. Patches of dried and flaking blood covered her skin like snow, and the planes of her face were too sharp to be considered elfin and delicate anymore. A fallen angel. Her wings are now as bent and broken as her heart, she thought, bitterly poetic as she stepped over the puddle without a second glance back.
Her loyalty to Dusk, her abidance of the newly-forged alliance, had cut into the Emissary’s flesh like iron shackles. It bound her limbs tighter and tighter, a constrictor that whispered to her which lives she should see as worthless, and which lives deserved to rot in the sand like animals left for slaughter.
She couldn't agree with it. No — before she was Florentine’s emissary, before she was even Cyrene, she was a healer of Pelion. It was in her blood, ingrained into her very bones. And Cyrene Ioannou would rather be labeled a traitor than turn her back on a life that could’ve been saved. This had been the only way, operating under the cover of night. Sneaking from the infirmary's tents like a thief to tend to the ones she had been ordered to ignore, to leave for dead, in the light of day.
The sudden sound of hoofbeats rang through the arid air like thunder, and Cyrene dived with uncanny speed towards the shadow of a crumbling pillar. Her heart thudded in her chest as she dared not breathe until the Solterran guards' footfalls melted into the night. That was too close.
Before she could stand, however, a low groaning drew her wary gaze towards a crumpled figure hidden amongst the rubble. A Davke soldier. The hilt of a sword stuck out from his side, buried so deeply in him she wasn’t sure how he was still alive.
“Perhaps the Davke have magic of their own,” she muttered, as she made her way carefully towards him. It had been like this the whole night — a Davke with a mortal wound, lying in the shadows as they waited for death to claim them at last. They were too weak to startle, too disoriented to attack, when she'd appear before them and yank them back to the land of the living. "Try to keep still — this will hurt a bit."
She was so focused on extracting the blade from the man’s flesh as carefully as she could, that she didn’t hear him approach at all. Not when she wrapped the last of her bandages gingerly around the soldier's bloody chest. Not when she moved him, panting from the effort, from sharp rock to soft sands. Not when she lifted herself to her hooves, nearly toppling back down again from a sudden wave of nausea.
Not until she steadied herself and turned.
"Who—" Her hood fell from her eyes as she stumbled back in shock, only to be met with golden eyes as bright as the sun. Those eyes. A hundred days and nights, they had lingered always at the edges of her memory; she had never forgotten him, not even for a second.
“Velorca?” Her voice was barely a whisper, her expression unreadable. Something was wrong. Why was he here? And— “You’re hurt.”
@Velorca | "speaks" | notes: if it tagged you again, i'm sorry! O: wanted to change the table c'x
she spun herself a crown of gold,
thrones of bones and citadels.
—
The night sky was a dazzling miasma of diamond stars and velvet clouds. How quickly the heavens forgot. How cruel for the sky to be beautiful, when the earth weeps scarlet with the blood of a thousand.
Cyrene turned away from the light of the moon as she drew her black cloak tighter over her autumn curls. She couldn't risk being recognized tonight, not when she was attempting an act akin to treason.
Silently, she crept through the ransacked streets of Solterra like a shadow. Every inch of her body was as tense as a tightly drawn bow, her senses as sharp as knives despite the fatigue that clung to her bones like dew. She paused for a moment to stare into a pool of glassy liquid. Blood or water, she couldn’t tell — though the latter seemed far more likely. Her reflection stared back at her with hollow eyes, and mutely Cyrene studied her bedraggled self like an artist might study his paintings.
Amber eyes that had once danced with the flames of joviality were now sunken and dull with exhaustion. Patches of dried and flaking blood covered her skin like snow, and the planes of her face were too sharp to be considered elfin and delicate anymore. A fallen angel. Her wings are now as bent and broken as her heart, she thought, bitterly poetic as she stepped over the puddle without a second glance back.
Her loyalty to Dusk, her abidance of the newly-forged alliance, had cut into the Emissary’s flesh like iron shackles. It bound her limbs tighter and tighter, a constrictor that whispered to her which lives she should see as worthless, and which lives deserved to rot in the sand like animals left for slaughter.
She couldn't agree with it. No — before she was Florentine’s emissary, before she was even Cyrene, she was a healer of Pelion. It was in her blood, ingrained into her very bones. And Cyrene Ioannou would rather be labeled a traitor than turn her back on a life that could’ve been saved. This had been the only way, operating under the cover of night. Sneaking from the infirmary's tents like a thief to tend to the ones she had been ordered to ignore, to leave for dead, in the light of day.
The sudden sound of hoofbeats rang through the arid air like thunder, and Cyrene dived with uncanny speed towards the shadow of a crumbling pillar. Her heart thudded in her chest as she dared not breathe until the Solterran guards' footfalls melted into the night. That was too close.
Before she could stand, however, a low groaning drew her wary gaze towards a crumpled figure hidden amongst the rubble. A Davke soldier. The hilt of a sword stuck out from his side, buried so deeply in him she wasn’t sure how he was still alive.
“Perhaps the Davke have magic of their own,” she muttered, as she made her way carefully towards him. It had been like this the whole night — a Davke with a mortal wound, lying in the shadows as they waited for death to claim them at last. They were too weak to startle, too disoriented to attack, when she'd appear before them and yank them back to the land of the living. "Try to keep still — this will hurt a bit."
She was so focused on extracting the blade from the man’s flesh as carefully as she could, that she didn’t hear him approach at all. Not when she wrapped the last of her bandages gingerly around the soldier's bloody chest. Not when she moved him, panting from the effort, from sharp rock to soft sands. Not when she lifted herself to her hooves, nearly toppling back down again from a sudden wave of nausea.
Not until she steadied herself and turned.
"Who—" Her hood fell from her eyes as she stumbled back in shock, only to be met with golden eyes as bright as the sun. Those eyes. A hundred days and nights, they had lingered always at the edges of her memory; she had never forgotten him, not even for a second.
“Velorca?” Her voice was barely a whisper, her expression unreadable. Something was wrong. Why was he here? And— “You’re hurt.”
@Velorca | "speaks" | notes: if it tagged you again, i'm sorry! O: wanted to change the table c'x
