☼ fia the crownless ☼
and a thousand times I've seen this road
a thousand times
Just less than a week ago (she thought – but it was difficult to tell exactly how long had elapsed since her humiliating defeat on the Steppe), Seraphina would have cringed at the notion of turning to the Black Market for aid.
She was a soldier, or a guard, at heart, and then she was a ruler; it was her job to create the very rules that the Black Market so often violated. Unfortunately, one of the things that she had learned recently was that her lofty aspirations and ideologies meant very little in the face of a world that did not often like to play by the rules that she tried to create. She had been a Queen, only days ago, but now, if Raum knew that she was alive, she suspected that he would be quick to declare her some sort of enemy of the state; from what little she had learned from passing travelers and desert contacts, he had already made it clear that dissent would be as good as a death sentence under his Regime, and she would – certainly – dissent. Public disobedience was out of the question, which left her with tactics that were a bit more secretive, a bit more underhanded…
She is not Seraphina now.
“Fia” stands on the high ridges of the canyon, hood pulled over her dark features, and waits.
(Who was the ghost now?)
It does not take too long for her contact – a black market thief who’d been recommended to her, a certain Roshan - to arrive. Though there is some considerable distance between them, she takes note of what she can; the mottled brown of his coat, his wings, his tight braids, his light – but warlike – stature, the strange little winged creature that accompanied him.
While he walks, she follows him along the ridge, allowing her magic to lift her just an inch or two off the sand-swept stone to guise the click of her hoof-steps. Occasionally, she makes a sound – disturbs a stone or lets the wind buffet the great golden swath of fabric that accompanies her armor – and provokes his stare, but she is always quick enough to edge out of sight before he can spot her. In spite of the heat, which is dizzying even as the sun begins to set and remains that way until it has almost drifted out of sight altogether, she feels more comfortable on the winding canyon walls than she has ever felt in the maze-like streets of the capitol, though both are familiar enough to be all but etched into her. If she were less accustomed to the precarious slopes, or less capable of catching herself with the push and pull of her mind, she might have been nervous, walking the ridges. She isn’t.
When darkness has all but fallen, bringing with it the characteristic chill of autumn, she ceases her prowling and goes on ahead of him; he is near enough to the entrance of the cave to which she is guiding him for her to assume that he can find his way. She finds a little slope back to the canyon floor, and she winds forward through the wriggling passages until she reaches the cave which she has designated her temporary base of affairs. It isn’t much, for now, but, shielded from most prying eyes, it will do for the moment.
She draws out Alshamtueur and sparks a fire in the back of the cave, and she waits.
She hears him before she sees him, hears the press of hoof to stone; she lingers on the other side of the flame, patiently watchful. He draws inside, a self-satisfied grin on his lips and a confident raise to his chin. (She wonders if it is real or manufactured.)
“That was one hell of an invitation. Where’s the party?”
She walks around the fire, the shadows cast from her hood all but obscuring her scarred face; her scarf billows about her frame, although there is no wind, and continues to snake even as she moves to a halt a few feet in front of him. Her eyes drift to the meager supplies she has managed to gather in her short time in the desert; a small hoard of dates (drying), medicinal herbs and other, useful plants, bandages, a waterskin or two, plenty of paper and ink, arrows…it certainly helps that Isra is around somewhere, and Isra can make something from anything, but arrangements are far from spectacular.
She is losing her grasp on what Seraphina would have said to that remark, but she is starting to piece together Fia – a woman who is much like Seraphina, but a woman who is no politician, who does not carry so much shed blood like a lead weight on her shoulder. Dryly humorous. Charismatic. The leader of a rebellion designed to overthrow a fledgling dictator.
And hooded, most often. Obscured.
“What,” she all but drawls, “this doesn’t look like a party to you?” There is a hint of a smile – if a grim one - on her charcoal lips, barely visible under the golden expanse of her hood.
“I’ll save you an invitation for something fancier if we can pull this off. For now, I need your help.” Her voice comes out smooth and easy and shockingly casual, and she doesn’t bother with pleasantries like she might have under different circumstances; best to cut straight to the point, particularly when conducting business. “The name’s Fia. I need you to help me get into the capitol…and to steal some priceless tomes out from under the nose of our new King.” There is more than a hint of distaste in her voice – the ghost of a snarl – at the mention of Raum, and she makes no effort to hide it.
After all, if this hawk, this Roshan is at all fond of their new leader, he is not the help that she needs.
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tags | @Roshan
notes | this was fun
and a thousand times I've seen this road
a thousand times
Just less than a week ago (she thought – but it was difficult to tell exactly how long had elapsed since her humiliating defeat on the Steppe), Seraphina would have cringed at the notion of turning to the Black Market for aid.
She was a soldier, or a guard, at heart, and then she was a ruler; it was her job to create the very rules that the Black Market so often violated. Unfortunately, one of the things that she had learned recently was that her lofty aspirations and ideologies meant very little in the face of a world that did not often like to play by the rules that she tried to create. She had been a Queen, only days ago, but now, if Raum knew that she was alive, she suspected that he would be quick to declare her some sort of enemy of the state; from what little she had learned from passing travelers and desert contacts, he had already made it clear that dissent would be as good as a death sentence under his Regime, and she would – certainly – dissent. Public disobedience was out of the question, which left her with tactics that were a bit more secretive, a bit more underhanded…
She is not Seraphina now.
“Fia” stands on the high ridges of the canyon, hood pulled over her dark features, and waits.
(Who was the ghost now?)
It does not take too long for her contact – a black market thief who’d been recommended to her, a certain Roshan - to arrive. Though there is some considerable distance between them, she takes note of what she can; the mottled brown of his coat, his wings, his tight braids, his light – but warlike – stature, the strange little winged creature that accompanied him.
While he walks, she follows him along the ridge, allowing her magic to lift her just an inch or two off the sand-swept stone to guise the click of her hoof-steps. Occasionally, she makes a sound – disturbs a stone or lets the wind buffet the great golden swath of fabric that accompanies her armor – and provokes his stare, but she is always quick enough to edge out of sight before he can spot her. In spite of the heat, which is dizzying even as the sun begins to set and remains that way until it has almost drifted out of sight altogether, she feels more comfortable on the winding canyon walls than she has ever felt in the maze-like streets of the capitol, though both are familiar enough to be all but etched into her. If she were less accustomed to the precarious slopes, or less capable of catching herself with the push and pull of her mind, she might have been nervous, walking the ridges. She isn’t.
When darkness has all but fallen, bringing with it the characteristic chill of autumn, she ceases her prowling and goes on ahead of him; he is near enough to the entrance of the cave to which she is guiding him for her to assume that he can find his way. She finds a little slope back to the canyon floor, and she winds forward through the wriggling passages until she reaches the cave which she has designated her temporary base of affairs. It isn’t much, for now, but, shielded from most prying eyes, it will do for the moment.
She draws out Alshamtueur and sparks a fire in the back of the cave, and she waits.
She hears him before she sees him, hears the press of hoof to stone; she lingers on the other side of the flame, patiently watchful. He draws inside, a self-satisfied grin on his lips and a confident raise to his chin. (She wonders if it is real or manufactured.)
“That was one hell of an invitation. Where’s the party?”
She walks around the fire, the shadows cast from her hood all but obscuring her scarred face; her scarf billows about her frame, although there is no wind, and continues to snake even as she moves to a halt a few feet in front of him. Her eyes drift to the meager supplies she has managed to gather in her short time in the desert; a small hoard of dates (drying), medicinal herbs and other, useful plants, bandages, a waterskin or two, plenty of paper and ink, arrows…it certainly helps that Isra is around somewhere, and Isra can make something from anything, but arrangements are far from spectacular.
She is losing her grasp on what Seraphina would have said to that remark, but she is starting to piece together Fia – a woman who is much like Seraphina, but a woman who is no politician, who does not carry so much shed blood like a lead weight on her shoulder. Dryly humorous. Charismatic. The leader of a rebellion designed to overthrow a fledgling dictator.
And hooded, most often. Obscured.
“What,” she all but drawls, “this doesn’t look like a party to you?” There is a hint of a smile – if a grim one - on her charcoal lips, barely visible under the golden expanse of her hood.
“I’ll save you an invitation for something fancier if we can pull this off. For now, I need your help.” Her voice comes out smooth and easy and shockingly casual, and she doesn’t bother with pleasantries like she might have under different circumstances; best to cut straight to the point, particularly when conducting business. “The name’s Fia. I need you to help me get into the capitol…and to steal some priceless tomes out from under the nose of our new King.” There is more than a hint of distaste in her voice – the ghost of a snarl – at the mention of Raum, and she makes no effort to hide it.
After all, if this hawk, this Roshan is at all fond of their new leader, he is not the help that she needs.
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tags | @
notes | this was fun
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
