SOMETIMES YOU CAN GET AWAY COMPLETELY
but [they] / will tell about the howling / and the loss☼
As a child, Seraphina had conceived of god as something like a watercolor painting. That is to say – the blurred lines of the landscape, and everything in-between.
One thing that she can say about the children is that they have forced her to pay more care to herself than she has in years, now. (When she considers that it has been years - not weeks, or months, or days, but years - it leaves a rotting taste in her mouth. She tries not to think of it too often or too much.) More often than not, when she walks, she has begun to find her hooves on solid ground, though the telekinesis is still apt to buoy her up if she does not pay enough attention. There is a faint, metallic sheen to her coat that nearly reminds of the reason why she was known as the silver queen, once, a lifetime ago – and the white mass of her mane is more often forced into the neat braids she wore in her youth, unallowed the wild freedom that her lack of care had allowed since-
If she closes her eyes and takes a deep breath, she can nearly finish the thought without trembling. Since Raum.
She returned to the desert, although she did not want to, because of the cold. She is not accustomed to it, and she doubts that it was good for any of the three of them – so she swallowed down her apprehension, and her quietly-brewing anger, and she returned to the sun god’s domain, although the walk back was miserable and mostly nauseating. It was only when she’d crossed the border and stepped into the Elatus Canyon that she discovered that returning was not as awful as the prickling anticipation that preceded it.
She does not know what she expected. Something awful, certainly; the sands stained red, or statues littered at odd angles throughout the canyon, or the Oasis circled by guards again, determined to kill the citizens by dehydration or starvation or submission. Of course, the sands were plain gold, as usual, and the only stone in the canyons composed the walls, and, when she arrives at the Oasis, slick with midday sweat, there is no one else present on the shoreline at all.
She feels – mercilessly dehydrated. It isn’t an awful sensation, exactly. (If she had to pick a word for it, she might call it familiar, though not quite like this.) Ereshkigal perches on the frond of one of the palm trees, something small and bloody and wholly dead (she hopes) caught in one of her talons; the tree bends, slightly, beneath her weight as she begins to eat.
She has learned to ignore the horrible crunching sound that accompanies her shark-teeth on bones; Ereshkigal claims to like them best.
She finds herself standing at the water’s edge, charcoal hooves half-buried in a fine layer of sand. The water is perfect blue, like a cloudless sky, and as clear as a mirror. If she looks carefully – and she doesn’t – she can see the faint swell of her sides reflected back up at her, and the tired sharpness of her eyes.
She faces her reflection, dips her head to the water, and drinks.
@Bexley || we're #suffering, ladies! though less than usual, I think. || june jordan, "you came with shells" // title from "have never been a lonely god," paige ackerson-kiely
Sera || Eresh
but [they] / will tell about the howling / and the loss☼
As a child, Seraphina had conceived of god as something like a watercolor painting. That is to say – the blurred lines of the landscape, and everything in-between.
One thing that she can say about the children is that they have forced her to pay more care to herself than she has in years, now. (When she considers that it has been years - not weeks, or months, or days, but years - it leaves a rotting taste in her mouth. She tries not to think of it too often or too much.) More often than not, when she walks, she has begun to find her hooves on solid ground, though the telekinesis is still apt to buoy her up if she does not pay enough attention. There is a faint, metallic sheen to her coat that nearly reminds of the reason why she was known as the silver queen, once, a lifetime ago – and the white mass of her mane is more often forced into the neat braids she wore in her youth, unallowed the wild freedom that her lack of care had allowed since-
If she closes her eyes and takes a deep breath, she can nearly finish the thought without trembling. Since Raum.
She returned to the desert, although she did not want to, because of the cold. She is not accustomed to it, and she doubts that it was good for any of the three of them – so she swallowed down her apprehension, and her quietly-brewing anger, and she returned to the sun god’s domain, although the walk back was miserable and mostly nauseating. It was only when she’d crossed the border and stepped into the Elatus Canyon that she discovered that returning was not as awful as the prickling anticipation that preceded it.
She does not know what she expected. Something awful, certainly; the sands stained red, or statues littered at odd angles throughout the canyon, or the Oasis circled by guards again, determined to kill the citizens by dehydration or starvation or submission. Of course, the sands were plain gold, as usual, and the only stone in the canyons composed the walls, and, when she arrives at the Oasis, slick with midday sweat, there is no one else present on the shoreline at all.
She feels – mercilessly dehydrated. It isn’t an awful sensation, exactly. (If she had to pick a word for it, she might call it familiar, though not quite like this.) Ereshkigal perches on the frond of one of the palm trees, something small and bloody and wholly dead (she hopes) caught in one of her talons; the tree bends, slightly, beneath her weight as she begins to eat.
She has learned to ignore the horrible crunching sound that accompanies her shark-teeth on bones; Ereshkigal claims to like them best.
She finds herself standing at the water’s edge, charcoal hooves half-buried in a fine layer of sand. The water is perfect blue, like a cloudless sky, and as clear as a mirror. If she looks carefully – and she doesn’t – she can see the faint swell of her sides reflected back up at her, and the tired sharpness of her eyes.
She faces her reflection, dips her head to the water, and drinks.
@
Sera || Eresh
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
