MAYBE THERE ARE NO BEGINNINGS. maybe nothing is an elegy, in the way rain from indoors is neither a beginning nor an end.
At first, she thinks that it is a trick of the light.
The morning is foggy, after all, but the sun has risen; she was still on the beach when dawn broke. It must be nearing the afternoon, by now, but she can’t tell for the fog. She hadn’t seen it, when she’d walked into the woods soon after waking on the shoreline. (She doubted that it is any safer on the beach than in the forest, but it is clearer, and she is accustomed to sand, so she is sure that she is more difficult to trick on the shoreline.) The forest is silent, save for the snap of her hooves against fallen branches and pine needles, and, with the fog so thick and pale, likely reflecting the sunlight, it feels otherworldly. Anything more than ten or fifteen feet away from her is obscured, taking the form of a dark, light-slashed silhouette, rather than an actual being. The air is almost painfully still, and it is thick from the humidity; sweat beads on her skin and drips dark trails down her silver flanks, collects under the hood of her scarf, mats in her hair. The rich greens and deep browns of the trees are reduced to murky charcoal in the fog, desaturating them until they are as grey as she is; they stand, eerily still and silent, and no part of them seems to be exempt from the fog, which must extend above the canopy.
So, at first, when Seraphina sees a strange shape, half-obscured by the trunk of the great tree, though something in the all-too familiar shape of the silhouette gives her a moment’s pause, she dismisses it as a trick of the light. It is gone when she moves closer, and, if she hears a branch snap and the rustle of movement when it disappears, like something is passing through the leaves…
It could be anywhere. The air is thick enough to muffle sound and confuse its direction.
Ereshkigal’s talons dig into her armor, and she can feel the press of them against her shoulder. She does not send her away to scout, this time; the vulture is a comforting, if not necessarily warm, presence, and another set of eyes. Seraphina almost wishes that she were speaking, because, something about that silhouette…
A branch snaps under the weight of her hoof, and she nearly flinches, then chides herself inwardly. She’s being ridiculous.
But then comes the feeling of eyes.
They bear into her back, making her skin crawl; she tells herself that it is just her paranoia. Gods know, she’s gotten paranoid. So sure that the world is out to hurt her, so sure that it is a twisty, untrustworthy thing, that it will betray her the moment that it is given the chance. Even if there is something out there with her, it could easily be another horse, or one of those wildcats. Even birds could seem far larger than they were in such a disorienting and all-encompassing silence, in such an unnatural place.
But, in spite of her insistence, Seraphina looks back over her shoulder and freezes.
There is that silhouette again, distinctly equine – she can just make out the shape of wings on its back, tucked in neatly at its side. Long, matted hair drips from the side of its neck, trailing the ground. But it is those horns that give Seraphina pause, unnatural and draconian; they curve out and inward, to sharp points, as though something spherical could rest between them. (And it did, sometimes, with magic.) She doesn’t move. For a moment, she can’t move.
It can’t be him, she tells herself, staring at that shadow. It stares back. It can’t be him because he is dead – she watched him die. She watched him burn alive.
(There is a pain in the back of her skull, dull and throbbing, that reminds her of what he cut from her. She can imagine his eyes on the shadow – gold, then black mirrors, too dark to reflect light.)
The shadow turns, and then it is gone again, disappearing into the fog. For a moment, Seraphina simply stands, choking on her tongue; her legs tremble, and then they straighten. She forces herself to look in the other direction, and then to walk, even though her limbs feel liquid. She does not believe in ghosts, but she is in the realm of the god of time – who is to say he couldn’t have pulled him back from another time and put him in the woods?
(She forces herself to think. More realistically, it’s some kind of mimic. Each snapped branch makes her wonder if it is following her; some kind of creature from the woods, taking the form of something that it doesn’t want to see. Or maybe it is merely another horse who happens to look like him from a distance, who happens to share his features. Or she could be mistaken. It could be some strange deer, or-)
Ereshkigal forces her from her thoughts. “Do you think that it’s following us?” For once, she is grateful for the vulture’s obvious desire to irritate her; it breaks the silence. “No,” she responds sharply. She doesn’t feel those eyes on her back anymore, but she can hear branches snapping in the distance, as though something is approaching – but keeping its distance.
She has the distinct feeling that she is being toyed with. “Let’s keep going,” she says, instead of responding, with a shake of her head; Ereshkigal gives a sharp, verbal laugh, but she doesn’t stop her, and is even charitable enough to pretend not to notice when the silver mare quickens her strides.
As she descends further into the woods, however, Seraphina can’t shake the feeling that the fog is growing thicker; it should have subsided with time, but, instead, her visibility continues to decrease, until she can only see five or six feet around her. She keeps walking. If she keeps walking – and pretends that nothing is off – it might ignore her.
But she can’t shake the feeling of eyes.
@ || another open, just because...island. || "orbit," victoria chang; title is from "in the pines" by alice notley "Speech!" || "Ereshkigal!"
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
When Morrighan awoke, for a moment, it was as if the island had been swallowed by fog. She had fallen asleep within the edges of the forest (alone, despite the Dusk Court King's warning) but she could barely make out the shapes of the trees. The air was thick with humidity as well and, when she stood, she was covered in sweat. Disgusting.
Now that she was standing, she could see slightly more details. The sun was up since she could see the light filtering through the fog. The faint sound of the waves crashing could be heard in the distance towards the shoreline, so at least that would be a marker of the exit. Morrighan almost headed that way when she heard a sound much closer by along with a slow moving shadow. Her ears perked forward and for now, she stayed perfectly still.
The mare squinted her eyes, trying to make out the exact shape of the shadow. It seemed… equine? Although, this damn fog was so thick, she could barely even make out her own feet. Speaking of which, perhaps her magic could actually help her out here. She focused and let her hooves heat up, careful not to spark a flame since it would give off her location. Waving a hoof in the air, the fog slowly dissipated enough to give her a slightly better view. It was not effective enough to fully clear it, but it was enough to show her for a moment that there was someone ahead. It seemed to be wearing something, which hid many of its features.
Then Morrighan thought back to the big meeting at the statue and the mysterious hooded woman with the vulture. Could it be her? If it was, Morr was sure as hell not going to let her get away without answering some questions. There was something seriously off about her.
The grullo mare stepped forward, being cautious not to step on too many branches to make her existence known. She wanted to be stealthy at first to see what this other woman was up to. This island, which quickly pissed her off, was already full of too many secrets. For all she knew, this woman was behind some of them or knew much more than she did overall.
But as she followed, it only made Morr confused. The woman looked back at something and almost seemed afraid. She was not looking in Morr's direction, so it didn't seem to be from her footsteps, but from something else. At least in Morr's eyes, there was nothing else here in the forest with them. What was going on?
The faint voice of the vulture could be heard- something about following them. Did the bird know she was here? If they did, it didn't matter since the woman had replied with "No". Suddenly, her pace quickened and so Morrighan did the same. She would not lose sight of this mare now.
Of course, in speeding up, she took one misstep and cracked a small branch. It did not make an extremely loud sound, but she'd be surprised if they hadn't heard it at all. At this point, Morrighan was feeling a bit bored of following them anyway since nothing else was happening. Now seemed a good time as any to confront the woman and she made sure to keep her guard up in case her or the vulture fought back.
"You there!" she shouted, making her way through the fog to get closer. Just her luck, it was thickening rather than dissipating.
"You're from the meeting at the shore; the one with the weird vulture," she stated, not bothering to beat around the bush. Morrighan was standing in front of the woman now, finally being able to see her and the bird more clearly. The fog rolled around them, almost as if it was trying to swallow them whole instead.
She decided to cut right to the chase. "State your name and purpose for being here," she demanded, her hooves growing hot again with trails of smoke curling up from her feet. The fire churned inside her, begging to be let out and touch the other woman's flesh, but she forced it back. Not yet. Considering how scared the woman was earlier, Morr was hoping she could intimidate the woman easily and would not be afraid to use some force if she had to.
My lady carries love within her eyes; all that she looks on is made pleasanter;
’There’s yelling ahead,’ the tiger whispers into spinning mind, words trailing pale vapors where they bounce and rickochet. Death-bright eyes sing of hunger, of a primal urge to stalk that which waits in the mist, to follow and pounce and devour that which stops in the jungle.
But these trees are not the fronds of her home despite the humidity, their needles claw at her skin as she would others.
And the pegasus that stalks beside her is just as still, just as predatory, having learned the art of survival and killing and thriving long ago when but a cub in her own horrid home. Away from the jungles, she was just as unused to the humidity that brings moisture to her skin. Inward and outward it flows, hers or natures, the phoenix does not know. All she knows is the mist. The mist and the bodies that move within it.
Snapping branches tug her, pull ears toward their breaking spines, demand caution and curiosity to intermingle in a hedonistic mixture that has the Regent of Night walking and walking.
Do boughs break in her passing? Or is she silent like the padded footfalls of her beloved that is a shadow in the dark?
Neerja goes on ahead, hunting the three bodies ahead just to the side. If they look, would they see burning eyes full of fire, full of hunger? She doesn’t know. All she knows is the sound of a voice from the past and the body of a hooded thing with a bird upon their back. Honeyed gaze swallows the scene, gulps hungrily at the life before her. Too long has she secluded herself, thinking and planning and learning once more. Denocte did not wilt with her neglect, for Isra returns. But she missed mortality, missed vitality, and all that the creatures who walk and sing and sigh and die have to offer.
So dark feet press stains into the foliage, leave doe-trails behind her, and all the while she goes forward. Only the future is left, even as Time pulls and pulls worlds and ages together into a medley of here and now and before and after.
They stop, the five of them. Neerja, hidden in shadow upon shadow upon shadow. And Moira, coming from the side between the two with wings tucked tight and head held high and mouth curved in a soft, disarming fashion. "Yelling scares the birds away,” she hums to Morrighan softly. "It is good to see you, Morr.” A smile for a familiar face from home, an incline of her head.
’She should be minced meat,’ Neerja mutters in their minds.
Pursed lips hide laughter while red body turns towards that of the future, of the now, of the past. "Please, there’s no need to wear a hood when even the world sweats.”
MAYBE THERE ARE NO BEGINNINGS. maybe nothing is an elegy, in the way rain from indoors is neither a beginning nor an end.
“You there!”
A voice cuts through the stark silence of the forest, and it is only Ereshkigal’s continued presence on her shoulder and her well-tested nerves that keep Seraphina from jumping at the sound. A glance tells her that she has been found by one of the women from the beach, the crude, patchwork woman with mismatched eyes of brown and blue. She watches her, but she does not approach her, noting the aggressive stance of the woman. Instead, she waits for her to come to stand in front of her. "You're from the meeting at the shore; the one with the weird vulture.” Ereshkigal, on her shoulder, ruffles her feathers and lets out a loud, heckling laugh, then turns her beady, bloody red stare on the woman unblinkingly.
When she speaks, her voice is a deep, melodious growl. “Demon, my darling –” she corrects, tilting her head. “I’m a demon.” If there is any offense obvious in her tone, it is offset by the near-hysterical (but largely silenced) giggles that wrack her frame, which suggest that she finds the implication that she is a mere weird vulture more amusing than anything.
(Mortals and their silly little assumptions.)
The woman’s next words come out as an order. "State your name and purpose for being here.”
Her voice cracks like an order, and it makes the silver’s lips curl in displeasure. She is no queen, now, but she still dislikes having her authority questioned – much less by someone who is neither Solterran nor on her own land. She turns, slowly, her dark head tilting, and stares the woman down with her mismatched eyes; her body straightens, superior height emphasized by the straightness of her neck and the raise of her chin, and at the furthest reaches of her white hair, strands begin to tremble with the pressure of her magic, building up inside of her chest. There is still no wind, but the very tips begin to stir, as though disturbed by some slight breeze.
She is tired of this place, with its gods and its monsters, and nearing the end of her patience; her temper, once so placid, threatens to flare, to come spilling out with raw force enough to shatter the forest silence, to clutch and tear like many jaws and pounding hooves, to author the fate of this scene – but she soothes it. Tucks it beneath her, somewhere deep and dark, and she lets it seethe and weep like an open wound. “And what gives you the right to demand anything of me?” Her voice is low, though not overtly threatening; merely a suggestion to back off and stop asking questions.
Before their conversation can continue, however, a familiar, ruby-red figure appears from the trees, accompanied by a tiger; the beast is powerful, but Seraphina hardly reacts to her presence, beyond a fleeting glance. Moira Tonnerre, Seraphina thinks. She has only met the Night Court’s Emissary once, but she knows that she is better-acquainted with Bexley and Eik, and she suspects that she will remember her from the first time they met, so many seasons ago. Seraphina regards her with a more impassive stare, as she greets the other woman. (As she suspected, the strange woman is Denoctian, and it leaves a sour taste in her mouth that she tries to bite back. She reminds her, resentfully, of Aislinn, with her temper and her presumptuous behavior. When, she wondered, would they learn that the other courts were not theirs to control?)
(Well. Now Raum controls hers. Isra has aided her, but she can’t help but think, if the Night Court had only done their duty and killed him immediately, because she would have-)
But there is no time for that now. “Yelling scares the birds away,” Moira says, soft and sweet as ever, and nudges the cheek of the other woman. “It is good to see you, Morr.”
And then that bright-eyed gaze is on her. "Please, there’s no need to wear a hood when even the world sweats.”
Seraphina summons the more diplomatic part of her nature, the queen who lies buried in that flower-strewn field. “Lady Moira,” she says, with a dip of her head, her voice softening, “I believe you’ll find there’s a reason why I’m wearing a hood, on this island.” She can’t afford recognition. Not now, not by so many people. If there are rumors that she still lives, so be it, but there can never be enough to confirm it.
She stares at the firebird with her jewel-bright eyes, burning with something that is almost feverish – not a woman but a predator, and not a queen but perhaps a revenant.
@Morrighan @Moira|| sera is #irritated || "orbit," victoria chang; title is from "in the pines" by alice notley "Speech!" || "Ereshkigal!"
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
Almost immediately, Morrighan's demands were met with laughter. Not by the mare, but by the strange companion on her shoulder. The creature corrected her by saying she was a demon, but that was hardly the point. It was still a weird vulture looking thing and she couldn't possibly fathom why anyone would want to befriend it. If it provided some kind of useful protection, maybe, but quite frankly it was gross looking.
It seemed the hooded mare did not appreciate the tone, but Morrighan could care less. She watched her stare her down and straighten her body as if to size her up. Well, two could play that game. She willed her fire to ignite at her feet and, although the flames were not nearly as large as they once used to be, they appeared long enough to make a point.
Of course, after the hooded woman spoke, Morrighan wished she could set the whole place ablaze. The nerve this bitch had! Oh how badly she wanted to -
They were cut off by the appearance of another, only she recognized this one. It was Moira, the Night Court Emissary that she knew somewhat. The two had shared a conversation by the lake one day and she remembered the strength the woman showed when Isra had gone missing. Thankfully Isra was fine now, but she had showed true courage in her absence. Now, though, Moira's arrival did nothing more than to piss Morrighan off more. Especially since she told her not to yell.
"I don't give a shit about the birds," the grullo mare muttered in Moira's direction. She was about to complain about how she was interrupting an interrogation when the hooded woman regarded Moira. Morrighan blinked in disbelief.
"Wait a minute, you two know each other?" she asked the pair, her head turning from one to the other and her frustration only bubbling more. The hooded woman (whatever her name was, she would certainly need to get it out of her at this point) claimed there was a reason she had to wear the hood. Her eyes narrowed at the both of them; they knew something.
"Alright, that's it, I want answers. Who the hell are you, why are you slinking around in a hood and how do you two know each other?" Morrighan spat, her nostrils flaring. All of this was bullshit and she demanded to know why. "I have no patience to fuck around here and I don't appreciate anyone with secrets."
If there was a way for her to communicate with Moira privately, she'd tell her all about the meeting and why this was important. She glared at both women, watching their expressions closely. Now they both seemed to be hiding something and she didn't care at this point how she'd get the answers, but she'd get them one way or another.
My lady carries love within her eyes; all that she looks on is made pleasanter;
Tensions mount with the blood pressure of her companion, anger tinging the air and atmosphere about them. The Emissary can feel it, can feel it just like the pulsating beat of her heart, the thundering jungle-song of her soul, the endless darkness that has become her home. And oh, how it stares back at her from the eyes of many, how it challenges her like the rising tides in a man of stardust and storms.
Brows quirk up when smoky voice is heard, when the flash of silver inside a hood is like a blast from the past. Lips follow suit, and the red girl’s head dips down in recognition.
Her heart swells at last, a new song bursting forth of hope and happiness. How unfair it was for the woman she’d met so long ago to have been dead! But perhaps she is hiding for a reason. Perhaps it is the same reason that Asterion, her sea-studded king, is also on the island. With that realization of this, golden eyes flit ot the grounds.
From the shadows, the tigress feels resounding joy crowing from her phoenix, her strange cub coming alive like she had not been in so long. Months had passed in a fit of depression, but now? Now she glows, the air vibrates about her with the energy she holds back. A dam that blocks a torrent of pressure, day by day it’s being chipped at, and soon it will fall down, down, down.
Soon, nothing will stop the woman in red from finding all she wishes.
"I’ve found many things on this island - trees have eyes and lovers spew lies.” Words fall as water, as silk, drip from her tongue as a sonnet, a poem. They are midnight smoke as Moira Tonnerre has always been, remnants of a life almost lived, a dream almost born but dying before ever drawing breath. Knowing eyes, wise eyes too old for her youthful face, drape easily over the cackling companion and old almost friend.
Once, they might have been close. How the Tonnerre’s heart aches!
"Morrighan,” she intones with only a minute amount of force entering in. Dark hair swishes in her face, bangs falling to cover golden eyes encased in black. When the wind blows it away, there is only stones and warnings and flames. "People may wear clothes if they wish - one day I’ll don a gown of glass and light. Would you take issue with this? Patience is a virtue, and you’d do well to remember that in times of anger.”
The phoenix is not a mother, but her court is her priority - Seraphina or no - and the way they present themselves in the world is a reflection of the court as a whole. Tempers flaring and demands being made only put poison in another’s mouth when they think of Denocte, and she does not wish them all to think so ill of their little jewel of the sea. "Need we stick our nose in everyone’s problems? What claim do you or I have on this island to demand the identity of every ghost that walks?” Brows raise higher, head tilts, and a threatening roar comes from the trees behind the duo. ”I hope you’ve both been well on this strange land that juts from our oceans, unknown and unseen for how long?”
HOW ELSE CAN I EXPLAIN THE TIME MY BODY FROZE ITSELF UNTIL MORNING? I could die without knowing what is tender now, priming itself for night.
Denoctians. So presumptuous - always assuming that the world owed them something. (And she knows – she knows, in the cruelest and most intimate ways – that it owes no one anything at all.)
When the painted mare summons flames to dance at her feet, Seraphina arches her brows at her, clearly unimpressed by her still-feeble show of magic. Enough to make a point, but likely all that she could summon. (Why did Caligo always give her blessings to her most volatile subjects? She would never understand the whims of the gods.)
Rhoswen and her fire magic cross her mind, unbidden – they leave a sour taste in her mouth, bitter and cold as iron. Her patience wanes to a crescent. She has to find Raum, and she doesn’t have much time to do it. Certainly none to spare on “I’d advise against threatening strangers,” she advises, her voice glacial; if she needed to, Seraphina knows that she could put an arrow through her skull with nothing but the barest twitch of her thoughts.
Perhaps, she thinks, she should learn to save her threats for occasions where she knows that she is more deadly than her opponent.
Moira somewhat soothes her flaring temper, though the other mare’s insistent demands sour her otherwise friendly reception. She speaks poetry, as usual, and Seraphina might have admired her for it, had she more space in her heart for such sweet things nowadays; now, her words just seem like an enviable softness. Nevertheless, she has to appreciate how graceful she is, even as she rounds on the other mare and chastises her gently for her sharp tongue.
But grace, Seraphina knows, is not necessarily equivalent to authority. If Reichenbach, Isorath, and Aislinn managed to keep Denocte in check (or strove to) by force, what ailed the new regime was an abundance of tenderness. Perhaps Isra is crueler now than she had been when Raum kidnapped her and killed Acton, and perhaps she is crueler for what she had seen in Solterra – she seems it. And Moira…from what little she knows of the Emissary, she seems to be more inclined to healing, some noble lady. She wonders if she can kill.
Leadership is a willingness to be bloody – to cover yourself in it. She used to think that you could lead kindly, and she knows better now. Look at where it got her.
She looks at the painted woman, her heterochromatic eyes glinting in an empty, cold way – like polished stones in the place of eyes. The hood falls back and rests on her shoulder in a pile of thick gold; her white hair, half-loose from its braids, falls back in tangles and wild coils. She stares at them through red-rimmed, bloodshot eyes, her features dark and sallow from lack of sleep and near-starvation, a matter of principle and necessity. (Why should she eat while her people starve? Enough to survive – enough to kill him, because that was all living was for, now – but nothing more.) That horrible, horrible scar glints in the dull, strange fog-filled light, utterly inescapable. It might as well have swallowed her face. Brighter than the feverish gleam of her eyes, brighter than the ghostly, indistinct white glow of the fog, illuminated by an invisible sun, brighter than the pale row of her teeth when she spoke. Her head tilts, and the gesture is somehow unnatural, like a praying mantis might eye a fly. Perhaps it is because of the eyes, or the scar, or the way that the gesture is somehow too stiff, like she moves on strings rather than of her own accord. Ereshkigal still hangs over her shoulder, beak pulled into a toothy, unnatural grin.
She feels sick. She feels unlike herself, and she wants to pull the hood back up and hide beneath it, but- “I wear this hood to hide my face,” Seraphina says, flatly, “and I met Lady Moira at a party, a long time ago now.” Lifetimes, perhaps. That answer, she knows, tells her nothing at all. “Does it mean nothing to you that your emissary and your queen know me and consider me no threat at all? My matters are delicate - if I told my secrets to every stranger I encountered, people would die for it. You’ve given me no reason to trust you.” Her people would die for it, at least, if he came for them; she struck a careful balance, walked on a fragile string. She could kill him, if he came for her. She tells herself that she could kill him, that all she needs is her mind…
And yet.
Moira speaks of the island. She turns her attention to the bright red form of the phoenix, her stare still impassive and dull and exhausted, and she speaks, though she seems only somewhat more animated. “I saw something like it once, before, I think, you were of this land…when the courts had fallen into disarray, and none had a sovereign.” She thinks of that time – when the world was so much simpler, and she was so much stronger – and aches. “But this island is…kinder. In the maze, every traveler was alone, save for what they encountered on the way.” And there are no monsters of ink come to tear her apart or throw her into a river. “…but I feel that there is something here that has yet to reveal itself. Tempus has not been found yet, and neither has his relic…and he is fond of dangerous tests.” Perhaps she just assumes the worst, but she cannot deny the tension she feels all over this place, like a storm that is about to break or a crack of lightning about to hit the ground. “Take care of yourself here. This island plays tricks.” She might as well be one of them – a dead woman back to life, as much as the dead could be. (Which, she thinks, is not so much at all.)
@Morrighan @Moira|| still irritated, I see || "mother-of-pearl," callie siskel "Speech!" || "Ereshkigal!"
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
The tension was so strong, you could cut it with a knife, but Morrighan didn't care. If anything, Moira's attempts at calming her down only made her more furious. How could she be patient when this woman in the hood has been bothering her ever since her arrival on the island? These were not the times to be patient and accepting of everyone 'just because'. The way she bowed to this woman too only set her off more.
"I think I have a right to be suspicious during times of war when those we thought we could trust can turn on us in an instant," she snapped, her nostrils flaring. Her thoughts went to the story Moira told her of Raum and also of the man named Abel, apparently a former Denoctian, and who they captured recently. "This woman was at the meeting at the shore when the statue appeared with Tempus' message. She knows more than she's letting on and I think you do too. I saw how you bowed to her. She's someone important and I feel I have a right to know why, for the sake of my safety and Denocte's. Or are you turning against us too, Moira Tonnerre?"
Morrighan didn't care anymore if she was accusing her own Emissary. She hated secrets and lies; it was time that she got some answers. She would do anything that was necessary to get what she wanted. If she had to fight tooth and nail, so be it. Both of them would be smart not to let that happen and just talk already.
The hooded woman snapped at her, advising her not to threaten strangers. Morr just scoffed, not phased at all by the ice in her tone or the glare in her eyes. "I've looked on as Raum's minions trespassed onto our lands and nearly burned the entire market down. Some of our people died. I will threaten you until I'm given proof that I no longer need to," she snapped right back, side-eyeing Moira to see if she would finally say anything useful.
The woman then let down her hood to reveal her face. Morrighan's expression lightened slightly at the sight of the scars, reminding her of her own. However, the woman's face meant nothing to Morr. If she had known what the former Day Court sovereign looked like, then perhaps, but she had not been here long enough to be very involved in Novus politics. To make matters worse, the gray mare claimed to know Moira and Isra well enough and they did not consider her a threat. The grullo mare's eyes narrowed again.
"That just means all three of you are hiding something and you hate your face. So, no, that's not enough for me," she spat, taking a step closer. "And you've given me no reason to trust you - what's your point?"
The women started to change the subject and babbled on about the island, which just made her look on in shock. Are you fucking kidding me? To hell with the island. It was a mysterious piece of land, sure, but it was not nearly as important right now. The way the gray woman spoke also pissed her off, it reminded her of the 'advice' she gave at the meeting and the way the bay stallion whispered to her. They both had an air of importance to them and she was sick of it.
"This is what I mean," she shouted, interrupting them and turning back to Moira. "This was how she was at the meeting, all ominous and shit. Can someone please start explaining themselves before I set this whole goddamn island on fire?" Unfortunately, it was an empty threat, but perhaps with the right kind of kindling…
My lady carries love within her eyes; all that she looks on is made pleasanter;
It is a warzone between the women, her soft words seem only to provide fuel for the fire that burns in Morrighan's soul. It is not enough that Neerja stands with a snarl upon her lips, it is not enough that the Emissary steps between the two. Vitriol still flies. Nothing stops even when she steps between them.
Ears flatten marginally, eyes narrow as she moves closer to Morr, husky voice getting softer, monotonous syllables cool as they come out so only the piebald woman may hear. Others need not meddle in the affairs of her court either. "You overstep your bounds, Morrighan. My loyalties lie with our Court and our Queen. Our people are mine to protect and I will protect you with my life and that of my companion's if I must. When our court burned, we hunted through the night and I saw the children starving and burned and scalded and I did not sleep for days on end until all my bandages were gone." How long had she searched for more wrappings after that? How many times did the blisters on her hands break open? How many did she watch walk away, forever changed, and wishing she could do more? The phoenix was not taught to grow attached, yet how could she not care for those who gave so much for the splendor of their court, the beauty of their markets?
Harsher now, it is a louder snarl slipping from ebony lips, a hiss upon the air that even Seraphina could hear if she listened close enough. "When our queen was stolen, you stepped forward to aid our court and I thank you for that, but you need know to whom you speak. Thank you for your candor and nerve, thank you for your fire and temper, but temper it and learn to trust in those who would place their trust in you."
Insults, she could handle. Dirty looks were fine. But when her loyalties were questioned, when those she cared for on this island are threatened, the phoenix cannot turn a blind eye. "Set it on fire and I will watch you burn along with it, Morrighan. We do not need another martyr, we do not need an inquisitor who would kill because she cannot hold her temper. Know that only the dead can kill the dead - that which we seek, I assume, is that which she will find and destroy. If you try to stop her, I will stop you at any cost. Your words could be treasonous, be careful of your next choice in them," it is a warning as much as a demand, frigidity known to the Tonnerres' with all of the rules and judgements and reservations and cruelties frosting over every syllable. A growl rumbles from Neerja's chest in confirmation, only the echoing of the blaze reflected in their pale blue depths.
At last the Emissary turns to Seraphina once more, no longer friend, but a woman knowing the value of another. Red crown dips marginally once more as she says "Our homes have been ravaged for too long and if she can end it then I will let her keep her secrets." Only after a pause does she ruminate upon the words the Seer speaks, wondering if they are from a dream or something worse. And at last, "A time when all is in disarray," tilting to the side, the woman's mouth at last dips down in a frown, "how interesting."
With that, she looks between the two, deciding which to give her attention to once more. Settling on the ghost, golden eyes glint, hard are the words that part the fogs for but a moment as though the world cannot hold back the claws Moira shows at last. "I wish you good hunting, dear ghost. If ever you need herbs, poultices, bandages for those who cannot find them, send word and I will help where I may."
