☼ s e r a p h i n a ☼
when the fires are consuming you and your sacred stars won't be guiding you In all her feverish dreams, she hears a voice. “Kaerth-sihl ehl louctet fienccia nomar de.” Viceroy is a skin that she can never quite shed – wherever she looks, she finds him staring back at her, laughing hungrily, laughing hungrily, laughing hungrily. She sees him, sometimes. In her dreams. He has too many sharp, sharp teeth, and he’s always smiling. All smiles. All teeth. She twitches in the darkness. He is standing in front of her, in the ashes, the snow-white of his coat streaked violent red with blood. Flames wreath his skull. His golden eyes catch on them, gleaming like chips of metal. He bends his head. She can feel his breath against her forelock, ticklish and hot – it burns her skin. She wants him to leave, and she wants to run, but she can’t move. She lies there, weak and crumbling, and he gloats over her, scalding. She wants to feel something as he stands there. She wants to say something. To condemn him. To defend herself. Anything. Anything at all. There aren’t any words, though, and she’s too tired to speak. She’s too tired of anything. She wants to ask him why he didn’t just let her die on the battlefield. That was her only purpose – another body to be processed up and fed to the war machine. And yet, she evades death time and time again, and so many die in her place. She wants to scream at him, for making her into this and then leaving her to live with it. She’s bitter and angry and tired, but she’s not bitter or angry enough to move, and, even now, she can’t condemn him. Even now, she knows that it doesn’t matter. Even now… A persistent, loud tapping. He is gone. The world blurs in and out of focus as she struggles to her feet, half-stumbling in the shadows; she limps to the window, gritting her jaw to try and focus on anything but her throbbing headache. She opens the window, and the nauseating scent of ash and burning flesh wafts in anew. Fires still burn in the city below – they have been working for hours to try and put them out, but it seems that the god of ash and flame has not finished having his way with them yet. She’d go out and join them, soon. Soon. The hawk offers her a letter, and she takes it, ushering the bird inside. The smell of perfume makes her stomach turn with disgust. Solterrans had perfume, once, too. Such vanities might as well have burnt the city to the ground themselves. The letter is only two words - Thank you. Signed by the king of stars and smoke himself. She does not think too much about them; she does not have the energy. She remembers Reichenbach, his charming smile and his pleasant voice. She hadn’t known what to think of him, all those months ago. Now, his name serves as nothing but a sting. He can get away with attempting murder, and you suffer for every sin your nation has ever committed. She shoves the letter aside and cages the hawk, and she stumbles back to her resting place. She slips back into darkness. Viceroy follows. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- tags | @Reichenbach notes | angsty dream sequences are my fav. anyways, a bit of a reveal on how sera thinks about reich, I guess?  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 |
