an apostate / FLAYED of their faith

“maybe we exist to bleed / aybe we exist to burn.”     — oh, but darling, who can say which?

[sunisamai-blog]

prediluvian‌:

Like fine art, propaganda plastered on rice paper and ink; a constructed face is just some reflection of what you want to see. Your want gently guided by the author’s knowing brush, gliding intent down your spine. And he’s had practice: translating fever-white skin into something light-soaked and fragile, careful reinterpretation of sickness as grace. Vanishing personhood coaxes you out of hard thought, like all that colourless sky scattered blue by the prisms in your eyes.

But the blade-flatness in her gaze is an affront to his narrative, the lean of her clavicle puncturing the cling of all this whiskey-salted breath, the razor eyes around them. It unravels the script he had yet to grasp, displaces the dread of hunger lurking his belly and startles an open smile, one that blooms untrammeled before it settles into amusement.

“I don’t think they check. And nevertheless, we seem comparable in age.” Eyes finding her wrist, her palm hiding calluses behind the white of a glass. The slope of her arm all lean muscle and tightly ravelled strength. They say soldiering takes two years of life for every two seasons spent fighting.

His head tilts in wordless question, in measured dissection of an unknown whole, before he seats himself, fingers curling on the burnished wood counter. “I think you cannot be much older than I.”

The smile emerges on his face and it half startles her, something organic in a face that seems like it could be blown away at any section, an expression that looks crafted, looks painted on. He looks even younger then, concealing gossamer silk blown away for a burning youthful gaze that settles into something sharp. Something carved into it’s place from the world around them.

But a smile graces her lips even as leans back and beckons the bartender over, watching as he watches her. She knows that he wouldn’t be old enough to knight, still a squire, even if the weight of the world and a sureness in this place seem to trick her. He’s not untouched by this world, but children loose their innocence when they pass their first decade (unless that child is her).

She nods her head to the seat next to her, watching him sit with a delicate grace. She asks for another whiskey before letting him order his own drink. Who is she to deny him (other than an officer of the law), when he seems so at home in this place?

“What are you, twenty years old?” 

What is she - six? How long has she been aware of the world, how much experience has she truly gone through? Who is to say that this boy is not older than her in every way but one? 

[prediluvians-blog]

closed to; sunisa location; the sapphire time; flashback (cancer 997?)

Summer swelters into night, sweat lining chilled cabinets from behind the bar counter, beading the throat of each iced drink. Saturn emerges from some darkened corridor, a shawl that is more woolen blanket wrapped around his shoulders. A weak constitution, he contemplates, smile tinged in deprecation.

Above his sternum hunger begins as an incision; some otherworldly poison that runs in current to the beat of his heart- unfurls with each pulse of blood, spreads to every porous nerve.

He should go home. Slide shut the doors that lead to his quarters and swathe himself in winter blankets. Cocoon himself like a thing waiting metamorphosis. By the time the moon has waxed and the week is past, this bitter cold will have abated. This hunger will have waned. Already, it’s more bearable than it was yestereve.

Still.

A little longer. His gaze draws again to the steady hum of sound from the lounge. How unreasonable, that at his weakest he should least desire rest. Company will do him no good. But he can humour himself.

Criminals and tycoons mingle in the opulent expanse of the Sapphire’s main lounge. Out of the corner of an eye Saturn spots an elaborate haori-himo- then the colours of some Tsuki branch family, exhibited openly in this den of thieves. Pockets of irregularity materialize from time to time; the shoal of thieves and businessmen interrupted by outsiders wearing faltering steps and darting eyes. Irresolution is a weakness, and a tell. A cloaked and harried figure with hands clutching some unmarked correspondence, a noble with uneasy gait, knuckles whitened and arms folded over his chest- a dark-haired soldier, spine unbent and fingers elegantly tapered around a glass. Somehow, something different.

“It’s a good night for drinking.” The curve of his mouth could be a half-smile, could be a jest. “They say it’s better luck to drink with company.”

[sunisamai-blog]

The Sapphire is home to her for the night, the best for a time while she serves in the Valley, the solider’s barracks too iron too rust for her tonight. No, tonight is for whiskey and for sin. She comes here and she watches and knows that she could arrest half the patrons. Remembers that eradication of evil is why she serves, remembers that she might serve evil itself. 

It’s an exercise in restraint, perhaps, to sit and watch as money slips from bloody finger to sinful hand. To recognise both those hands as her own. To turn away and try to drink instead. 

She’s not always this morose, but something about the cold in the air and the false smiles around her make her reluctant to create her own. 

Then she turns at the sound of a voice, the sight of his face something she might recognize, immediately dismissed as not a threat. But then a second look, and that dial shifts, before settling, settling too firmly, and that sets off warning bells of their own. She cannot place him, but his face touches at a memory - and event, at the Sapphire, something lingering like smoke in a dream.

She always remembers her dreams.

So she doesn’t send him away immediately, this starved ghostly person, fabric wrapped around his shoulders like an elderly woman. Sunisa just shrugs and asks “Are you even old enough to drink?”

[sunisamai-blog]

stormbrinqer‌:

DISAPPOINTMENT COURSES THROUGH Naiya’s veins. And gods, angels and devils alike — they are not meant to be disappointed, for they say disappointed gods are cruel. Perhaps they are. Perhaps she too, would be a cruel god in the wake of disappointment. Yet for Sunisa, the softened edges of her features remained unchanged, and she allows only a brief squeeze of the woman’s shoulder before the Jovian lets go, letting her hand fall back to her side. A sign of respect.

Sunisa has yet to turn her down, but the politeness in her tone is impossible to miss. Naiya is not foolish enough to not know what it means. She — this woman, this bright shining star — is here before her, and yet, she is a distance away that not even the angel of Jupiter can reach. Give in to me, Naiya wants to tell her, wants to coax her to fall into her arms as a lover would. How much clearer must she be, to show this brilliant mortal woman that there is adoration in her eyes? One that should not belong to an angel when she sees a mortal, and yet; for Sunisa it is there in her eyes. How desperately she wants to cross that threshold sometimes, to stop this game they play at and simply reach for her. No more boundaries.

And yet, her desires have not yet made her foolish. The harder she pushes, she knows, the faster this woman will pull away from her. There must be a balance — as all things in this world. So she stops, stands a distance away, and studies Sunisa. She marvels at this light right here in the middle of their battle camp, but all she does is give Sunisa a nod of her head. “I’m glad,” she responds, and now she allows a small smile to toy on her lips. “Tsuki would not be pleased if their best knight is wounded on our watch.” And I would not want to see you hurt. “Come, walk with me, if you will,” and she says it as an offer, not an order. “There is no more need to brandish your knife. We are done here, and we can now return to peace once more.” 

She says it with such conviction, with so little care of what her wreckage had done, and if it is this that hurts Sunisa, Naiya does not notice.

Something flickers in Naiya’s eyes at her initial refusal, something iron in the squeeze of her shoulder, something possessive in how she doesn’t move away. If she knew it were disappointment, perhaps she would turn from the poison in the sweetness, perhaps she would wonder why the god was disappointment that the human could stand for themself. But she doesn’t know, she only sees the edge of dark clouds and ignores it, only acknowledges the brightness in the storm’s eyes. 

She’s tempted to respond ‘only Tsuki?’, but Sunisa can hear the undercurrent, can hear what wasn’t said, and knows that it would be a pointless question. That knowledge warms her, and she cannot help the small smile that touches the edge of her lips, even as she tries to maintain her professional demeanor. This is what she had thought the gods were, angels that cared for the humanity they claimed to have dominion over. She remembers what it was like to be blind, but in love.

We can return to peace, and the smile drops from her face and she tries to hide it by straightening, by placing professionalism back onto her shoulders. Return to it, through fire and death, chasing after rumours and nothing more. Return to it, claimed in blood and bone. Return to it, but she knows that it will never last, that they’ll go charging off again to secure total order and the cycle will endlessly repeat. She remembers now what it was like to die, to see the truth.

She nearly refuses the offer, based on that, nearly rejects the company of the cause of destruction. But Sunisa knows that she is also in the same position, also kills on orders, and whilst her posture is professional, she cannot deny that she would loathe to leave Naiya’s company right now. 

“If it would please you,” she responds to the offer, of course, is what is left unsaid. It was an offer, not an order, but Sunisa guesses that actual offers rarely fall from Naiya’s lips, and so everything she asks sounds like a demand. But herein lies half the problem - Sunisa cannot deny a heavenly order, but she can much less deny a request, and if she continues to follow Naiya, she will have little left of herself. But she cannot deny such a simple ask, not now.

[sunisamai-blog]

camillepaol‌:

She shifted from side to side as she watched her old friend. She remembered how the soldier treated her when she was stationed in Paol. The way she went out of her way to talk to her. The way she could wander over to Sunisa if she felt alone in her big palace. It made her feel a bit guilty for all of this, the lying and the pulling away, but she didn’t want Sunisa’s view of her to change. 

Perhaps Camille should’ve planned out an elaborate backstory for her disguise, but once again she hadn’t planned out her leave from Kova. Yesterday she was merely walking the halls of the fortress and seeking out her brother, and today she found herself far away from that place and her the one person she missed most. At Sunisa’s words Camille nodded. “Kova is a big place. Easy to get lost when every direction looks the same.” Maybe Camille would be better at navigating if she spent more time around snow, but since she grew up in the land of eternal Summer, the substance threw her off. Her eyes lit up when she saw the blanket in her old friend’s hands. She had already made a mental note to pack heavier coats next time she travels to this land, but for now the blanket would come in handy.

“Thank you.” She says softly, gripping the warm fabric before wrapping it around her frame. Her fingers were still frozen, but the blanket was already helping her body relax a bit. She watched the girl closely, looking for signs of change in her. It felt like forever since she truly got to look at her friend. So much time has passed that it felt like everyone around her had changed drastically. She assumed people would think the same of her as well, especially if they looked behind her facade.  

She pursed her lips. She longed to get rid of the magic and reveal herself to Sunisa, but she would never allow herself to do that. Even if Sunisa was kind to her in her home, it would not mean she’d get to see through her disguise. Camille knew the price of magic, and she knew she’d face it if anyone besides Marius knew of her past time. So instead, she thought of a name to fit her new character. She couldn’t claim her name as Camille without red flags being waved. She couldn’t use her bird’s name, Nerine, because she felt that was common knowledge as well. Instead, she dug through memories of old associates. She could go as the name of one of her old playmates, or her mother’s maiden name. Both were good options, but she felt like she needed to pick something new to match the person she was supposed to be portraying. She finally settled on a name she liked and she smiled as she turned to Sunisa.

“I’m Elain. What do I call the soldier standing before me?”

The warning sirens dimmed in her brain with the urgent way that the younger girl took the blanket, wrapping it around herself. This woman felt like there could be nothing she was hiding, totally naive and open to the bitterness of the cold - which made the lies that Sunisa heard even more potent. But there was nothing for it now, other than to keep open a wary eye as they set off.

“I’m Sunisa. You alright to head off now?”

///

It took a while to get to the docks, stilted conversation from both sides. She couldn’t fault Elain from not revealing everything, especially not to her, especially when she was equally unforthcoming. But still, there was an easiness to the air that she couldn’t place, a familiarity in how they fell into step together. The walk took nearly twice as long as anticipated, Sunisa slowing her pace to match Elain, taking more frequent rests to drink and breath. But still, the pace felt familiar, and so it took a lot to not rush ahead, to not leave this problem behind.

Eventually, the docks came into view, and she tried to hide a sigh of relief. Whilst she could have walked much further, had done in the past, but still, to do anything in Kova is taxing. The time to figure out the mystery was running out, so she slowed again and asked a question.

“What were you doing in Kova in the first place, if your family is in Paol?”

[lordearthistory]

Joan of Arc Holding Banner by Robert Hillingford // “Perfect Places” by Lorde

[sunisamai-blog]

camillepaol‌:

When the person she spoke to turned around, Camille froze. She didn’t expect to be face to face with Sunisa of all people. She had been somewhat avoiding the girl for a while. Sunisa was always nice to her, always looking out for her, and it caused a pit of guilt to settle in her stomach. How would the soldier feel to know Camille was using magic that didn’t belong to her? How would the soldier react when her current magic faded and the disguise revealed a girl she cared for underneath? She couldn’t imagine the betrayal and horror in Sunisa’s eyes at her little hobby.

But, there were bigger things to worry about. She had left her bags behind because she knew it would slow her down as well as give her away. Her bags, after all, were pretty identifiable. A soft pink with a cursive “C” sketched onto them, anyone would know who those bags belonged to. Sadly, though, her bags contained her clothes. Instead of travelling in elegance, she was wandering around in the least extravagant thing she could find— a velvet black cloak. Pretty, but it didn’t offer her nearly as much protection against the elements as she would’ve wanted. She was practically frozen to the touch as she conversed with the soldier.

“Two to three hours?” She frowned. When she left she had thought the docks were closer. Camille’s trips to Kova weren’t ever spent in the outside, aside from being escorted to the fortress, so she had underestimated the vast landscape of the nation. Perhaps she should’ve just asked the queen for safe passage back.

“I’m headed to Paol. My family is there.” She nodded, knowing it was true. Her home, her sister, they were all waiting for her back in her country. If only she could get there.

They weren’t headed in the same direction, so a portion of the burden lifted from her shoulders. She couldn’t offer her services entirely, wouldn’t have to spend a while at sea with that itch in her shoulders, but perhaps just to the docks would be okay. Perhaps it would be long enough to figure out the mystery, to solve the reason why everything felt so wrong and right at the same time.

“Yes, though you’ve been coming from the north west, so perhaps you’ve spent some time walking in the wrong direction? You won’t have to backtrack entirely, though.” Her cloak was too fine to be without servants, too impractical to be from Kova, but perhaps she was running? Running towards Paol, not knowing about the world, but determined to get someplace. The part about her family seemed to ring true, and despite the wrongness, Sunisa couldn’t detect the slightest threat from the woman, no hostile intentions. So she forced her hackles to lower and pulled a blanket from her pack. “Here,” she said, before throwing the thick woolen cloth to the other. “I can guide you the rest of the way, if you need.”

She wouldn’t demand payment, not when she was headed the same way as well, but if this runaway lost her blanket or cost her too much time, perhaps she would reconsider. (She already knew she wouldn’t. She couldn’t turn down the woman with pleading eyes and gentle features, couldn’t hurt someone when she didn’t have to. One good wouldn’t make up for the wrongs, but perhaps it would be a step in the right direction. Perhaps she owed it to the world.)

[sunisamai-blog]

seraphimslayer‌:

“Welcome back to the land of the living, Mai,” he drawls, but the quip lacks some of its punch, gentled by the soft intonation of a man stricken with the weak-bellied disease of concern. 

How horridly uncharacteristic of him. 

“Miss us, did you?” he asks, eyebrows raised. 

She looks like a proper warrior: bed-ridden, yes, but eyes alight with a steely, stubborn will to survive; body taut, alert, even in its incapacitation; voice softer than usual, perhaps, but still imbued with a knight’s grit. 

She’ll lead armies one day, he’s sure of it—if she stays alive long enough to do so, that is. 

“I didn’t realize you were so keen on jumping in front of arrows,” he scoffs, voice equal parts accusation and admonishment. His eyes remain trained on hers as he grabs a canteen of water and holds it, tentatively, to her lips. “Not your brightest idea, admittedly.”

His voice calls from the side of her bed, and she twists to look at him, before gasping out as the motion pulled at her stomach. She swears under her breath and straightens, tries to ignore the way the world flashes white around her and sweat starts to bead at her forehead. The pain drowns most things out, but still, there’s an undercurrent to his voice that echoes strangely in this clean room.

They’re both made for dirt, for blood and muck and steel, not for empty tents that smell too clean, not for lying in bed, unable to move. Perhaps that’s what colours his voice, this discomfort from where they normally stand - side by side in carnage. Perhaps. 

(If it isn’t, well, she drowns it in the other things that she can’t bear to accept, not yet, not yet)

The smirk twitches at the corner of her lip as he teases, but the question crosses her mind - would she miss him? If she were to lose contact, if he were to die - would she miss him? Another question, and another answer, and she buries that one deep as well. Buries it, even as she pushes herself up into a sitting position, as she turns to face him more fully.

She can’t hold his eyes, not as the reprimand hits her. She looks down to where her hands are balled in pain, before glancing up in surprise as he offers her the water. One hand moves to take it, but exhaustion wraps its way around her and it’s all she can do to sip as he offers it. But she drinks it gratefully, suddenly aware of her chapped lips and the empty ache of her stomach, before leaning back into the cushions.

“No, I guess I should have just let that arrow hit you in the spine instead.” Her voice comes out hoarse, gritty from her dry throat even as she softens the bite to her tone. She’s so weak, and perhaps she should have let him get hit instead, nothing but another body on her conscious. Can’t even drink from a canteen, and she swears under her breath as her wound throbs. 

But she refuses to sleep anymore, so she shakes her head in frustration and looks back over to him. “How long have I been out?”

[stormbrinqer-blog]

date: whenever this happened. location: ruins of a paol village. status: flashback thread; closed to @sunisamai.

NAIYA DOES NOT REVEL in the wreckage. She does not grin at bloodstained hands as the war general does, nor does she wear the bones of her victims as her trophy.

Yet, there is no regret in her eyes, head held high as she makes her entrance into their camp.

 The Silver Army. Those loyal to the Silver Millennium, those who would fight in Selene’s name. Those who have helped her and Ilo bring wreckage upon this little Paolish village. Idly, she wonders what they think of her, of Ilo, of these battles they fight in the name of the empire. She sees them as she walks on, their hands smeared with blood and their armours coated in grime. Some of them wear victory on their faces, some look exhausted down to their bones, some faces are lit in a mixture of awe and fear. It’s fascinating, these mortals and their emotions — their very existence driven by the fact they feel. 

Naiya almost smiles.

How marvelous, yet how terrifying it is to be mortal. To know that their lives could be forfeit against the blade of a sword, to know that they are vulnerable in battle, yet fight all the same despite the fear. There is so much they have to lose, and still — they fight on. All in the name of the Silver Millennium.

In the distance, she sees her. Sunisa. She who fights in the name of the angels, who believes that they are her gods, her saviours. Naiya wonders what it is like to be her, to love the gods so absolutely. But most of all, as she watches the knight in her shining armour, she wonders if that love will last, and she cannot help but hope it does.

Perhaps it is for selfish reasons that she wishes for it, prays for it — if angels pray — but after all, is the world not a better place because of people like Sunisa?

Now, she smiles. How could one not, when they see a bright, beautiful light? Sunisa is akin to hope, to radiance, and Naiya finally smiles.

“Sunisa,” she calls out, her hand clasped on the woman’s shoulder as way of greeting. Something softens in her, and her voice like a gentle caress, she breathes out, “Are you hurt?”

Let me take care of you.

[sunisamai-blog]

There is no glory to be found in this. Only condemnation and the screams of the dying that accompany her thoughts. But what is good and right is determined by the gods, and they walk amongst them. Walk, and sometimes something more, faces human but with something more. They have created the heaven of her home and so she bends the knee.

So she follows into the village once Naiya and Ilo have laid waste, a smaller company of the Silver Army, herself amongst the ranks. Small, because their lives are not in great peril, not with War and Judgement in their presence. Her sword is unstained, today, but still she sits outside her tent and cleans it, wipes it clean of the dirt and grime and the sin she can see folded into the metal.

She sharpens the edge, running the whetstone along the blade, loses herself partly into the task, the other half trapped in screaming at the purpose of sharpness. Peace, Selene had named it, had presented it to her, and perhaps she should have realised then. She ruminates on the name, on the blade, when her name is called and she realises she has long stopped moving.

Sunisa wipes the blade a final time and slides it back into the sheath on her hip, stands and watches as Naiya comes close.

(Naiya, the blaze of a burning star, visible to the eye, an authority settled on her shoulders that she cannot help but turn towards, to follow like a sunflower to the sun. Naiya, and the name tastes bittersweet on her tongue, tastes of nectar and poison, and she cannot bear to accept or reject, so she lets it sit.)

Steps are taken, helpless, focused, before Sunisa can stop them, drawn towards the hurricane. Her name sounds like a blessing, the hand on her shoulder like an anointing, like security, like a cage, so she lets it stay as the hint of a smile blooms on her lips, as she pushes down panic, as she maintains a steely resolve. 

“Naiya.” The name slips out, half reverent, half longing, all repressed religious ecstasy, and she cannot help but melt at the way Naiya softens - for her. An angel, brought to kindness, a planet, gazing upon her, and suddenly Sunisa is aware of every break in her, every fracture and vulnerability.

The question is given, layered, as everything is with Jupiter’s child, and one answer wins over the other. “I’m not hurt, thank you.” A solider’s authority, a wholeness of body, and perhaps she can pretend that means a wholeness of spirit as well. I do not need taking care of, is the answer she means, but she does not move aware, does not look away, and perhaps a question can be another answer, as she asks, “Are you?”

[sunisamai-blog]

zoyaridzel‌:

Crescents bloom on Sunisa’s palms, and for a second, Zoya finds herself curled on the floor of her first apartment, scabs piled thick under her nails and three years younger. Here and in a bedroom choked by the reek of mildewed rice, wounds reopened at her back, surrounded by sake bottles. Here and back in the apartment and slashed by jeers at a whipping post. Buried by ash in her village, scorned in fire. Here, and pressed to walls so thin an urchin’s breath could dissolve them, mouth fixated on “sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so so sorry, I’m so sorry,” until the phrase sheds all meaning, molts into a blackbird in her mouth. She wrenches her hand from the flames and brushes Sunisa’s. The world unforms, undoes, refocuses. The Sapphire. Away from danger. Here she is. Here they are.

“Sunisa—” Zoya mutters, but the other has already stood. Always a breath past connection, a footstep out of reach. To want. To fight. Such fruitless and tiresome endeavors on the body, with no hard gains and causes too slim to pursue. Why get up if the soldier leaves? What reason is there to chase after her? Better for Sunisa to pull out now than let shadows mar their tomfoolery, than risk a stint without armor, than admit mortality. 

“Right, fuck off, then,” Zoya says, just as Sunisa says “I’m sorry for your loss.” The phrase is customary. Disciplined and polite. Perhaps this is what soldiers are required to say, or maybe Sunisa just pities her. Still, there’s a tightness in the other’s jaw that seems almost real, a tremor to her breath that wounds her. All this show for a pair of potential insurgents — scum under the toe of the Court’s boot. All this pain for a criminal she barely knows. Zoya shifts her gaze to the other’s hands and re-contextualizes the half-moons embedded in them — guilt, not anger. A stupid, too-soft creature after all.

An odd sensation unfurls through the smugger’s chest. Beetroot soup in the dead of winter, warm, spreading through the ice of her veins and reddening her cheeks. “So godsdamned noble,” she murmurs, sliding herself off the bed, sheets crinkling as she meets the floor, her hand raised to tuck Sunisa’s hair behind her ear. A drop of blood falls from the other’s palm, and Zoya looks down towards it. Hesitates. She takes the hand gently, turns it over, not quite sure what to do with it. But she holds it delicately as a baby bird in hers, because she’s been here too. 

“I used to think it would help, you know,” Zoya says. “Hating myself for what I was forced to do. Replaying every terrible thing I had to do to survive so I could define myself by it.” She searches for Sunisa’s gaze but it’s fixed elsewhere, unable to rise. Saturn and her village. The tens of girls who’d died to her cowardice in his fire. “I think it’s right to mourn every person you’ve ki— hurt. Necessary, even, to reflect. But the logic of inflicting pain on yourself because you’ve caused pain is a flawed one. It’s not an atonement or repentance, it doesn’t help anyone. Besides, if everything else is out to hurt you, why add one more?” She smiles, a crooked thing, before settling into impassivity again. “For what it’s worth, what might have happened to my parents isn’t your fault. None of this is. You can’t blame a game piece for the hand that plays it, yeah? And that’s all we are. Pieces. Little things to be toyed with by fates and gods. Bodies. Gentle casualties of war.”

There’s a hand brushing the back of hers, the whisper of her name, but there’s too much, too much guilt heaping soot into her lungs, too much frustration ringing in her bones. There’s an echo in her brain (it’s been sounding for five and more years) calling flee - flee - flee

(To flee from your problems, to ride into the sunset with nothing but the stars and the cry of the land, to shake off responsibility, it cries out to the marrow of her. But responsibility is a yoke around her shoulders, and she will pull the future into fruition. But what type of fruit will bear? )

Sunisa doesn’t hear the insult, doesn’t hear so doesn’t feel pain slid down her back, doesn’t hear a cry for and a fear of abandonment, doesn’t hear and so doesn’t recognise that equal ache.

Doesn’t hear, because she’s too busy trying to remember what words to speak, too busy trying to formulate a language to express the flutter in her ribs and the stone in her stomach, too busy and so her brain short circuits and spews what it thinks is the correct answer, a phrase so distant she scrambles after it, trying to scoop the syllables back into the smear of red she has for a mouth, but it’s flown into the world and she can’t move her muscles and Zoya is standing infront of her, hand so close to cheek.

The words fit there, and she lets them find a home in the something in Zoya’s eyes, in the tender touch as her hair is tucked behind her ear. There’s an equal longing to push the hand away and to rest her head against it, but it’s a push and pull that she’s used to, her body torn in two directions, so she stays where she is and watches as Zoya takes her hand.

Like an outsider in her own body, grounding herself in the center of opposite desires, she watches Zoya curl her fingers open, blood smearing across the center.

(Her own blood this time, not dripping down the hilt of a sword, her own.)

(There’s no pleasure to be found in this)

She wonders at Zoya’s gentle touch, at the way she feels delicate, wonders at the histories that lie across Zoya’s skin, wonders at the memories haunting her eyes. She watches and wonders and marvels and slowly settles back into her skin, the guilt slinking back into its cage.

(Why does Zoya, someone who doesn’t even know her, someone who knows how cruel the world can be, why does she hold a executioner, a solider, a puppet, with such a tender touch? Why is it not hate, or anger, or passivity, or tiredness, why do they not fill her hands instead? Sunisa stands still only because the two extremes battle under her skin, and she cannot bear to succumb to either.)

Sunisa nods at the words, and the wisdom they hold, and she lets her shoulders relax, lets the guilt hide behind her spine again.

“Pieces.” She mutters, vinegar sounding and refusal coated, but she lifts her eyes from her hands to Zoya’s eyes, meets them with an ocean’s calm in her own. “Can our bodies ever be gentle?” There’s no crook in her mouth as she speaks, more a child’s desperation, more an urgent plea to know that her body was not only formed to be for killing. Something unspoken in the tone, some cry - Can I?

[sunisamai-blog]

whiteknightendymion‌:

A laugh escaped Endymion’s lips, but words fell into silence when he felt Sunisa’s hand intrude in his space. Before she could come into contact with glowing skin, Endymion’s arm was quick to shoot up as a defense for the oncoming hit. His hand was flat during the block, quickly torquing his body in an attempt to land a kick into Sunisa’s side. 

Endymion’s movements were quick and precise, strength honed and controlled so as to make sure no real damage was going to be done on his sparring partner. Already within the first few seconds of their fight, he was impressed with how much Sunisa’s skill had improved. Truly, she was a warrior who belonged among the soldiers of Silver Millennium.

The first few seconds were equal, her already warmed up, him getting used to the pace. She spun and punched and kicked, weaving through the variety of forms she knew. But she was tired from the long practise she’d already had, from the little sleep she’d been suffering, so for one attack she thought she was an opening and didn’t recognise the feint, so she pushed in to deliver the blow, but Endymion suddenly wasn’t there anymore, and his hands were wrapped around hers and he used the leverage of her arm to force her to her knees in a blindingly quick movement.

[camillepaol]

DATE: Aries, 998 A.I LOCATION: Somewhere in Kova— A few hours from the bone fortress AVAILABILITY: open to anyone that could be in Kova

Camille had chosen her escape carefully. She had considered asking Victor to appeal to the queen, but she feared what would happen if the queen denied her safe passage back to her homeland. The thought of being in the presence of such powerful beings as Jove and Persia pushed her to back a more drastic and risky decision— to venture out on her own wearing the face of another.

She had brought her vials of magic with her on the journey in order to ward off sympathetic stares from her brother, but now it appears the little vials would serve a bigger purpose. She had only really used a little magic at a time— a splash near her eyes to make them sparkle, a douse on her hair to make it shine, some magic on body to give it that sun kissed look she had been lacking recently. Nothing too extreme in order to not draw suspicion. She had never attempted to become someone else with the magic, but she knew her best way out of here would be to do that. 

She had taken one of her vials out and held it in her hand. Closing her eyes, she started to rub the magic onto her body, envisioning who she wanted to be. Her hands weave through her hair, making light waves turn into a dark straight appearance. Her fingers run along her skin, changing it from the bronze glow it was to something a bit duller. Her eyes turn from a brilliant hazel to a dark brown. She stared at herself in the mirror when she was done, and she gasped. She couldn’t recognize the face she was seeing before her. The girl looked nothing like the princess had, and it took a moment for the shock to fade before she laced up her cloak and set forth back to her land.

She had been travelling for a few hours now. The cold had hit her the moment she was out of the castle, but as hours went on she found herself chilled to the bone. Shivering and practically frozen to the touch, she had sought out some place to rest. She was about to collapse right where she stood when she spotted a figure not too far away from her, and she set out again despite the ache in her bones.

“Would you happen to know how far away we are to the docks? I’m afraid i’m due to catch a boat, but I seem to be a bit lost” Not totally a lie. She didn’t have a boat prepared, but when she shows up as the Paol princess she would assume someone would offer her a spot. 

[sunisamai-blog]

She’d been escorted into Kova, temporarily, chasing the dissenters across the border and throughout the frozen wastelands, watching as villages burnt and people left bleeding on the streets. But she had refused to go all the way into Kova, refused to go into the Bone Fortress, especially with the rest of the army still at the border, chasing skirmishes. 

But by now it made more sense to travel home by ship, around the edges of the country and into the south, where she could get back into the Crystal Palace sooner. So she’d set off, heading alone because she was eager to leave, trusting in her sword to keep people clear. The cold chilled her to her bones, but it was a familiar ache after having spent weeks in the cold mud, and it was easy to dismiss in the layers that she had wrapped around herself.

Unfortunately, it seemed as though not everyone was as fortunate to have those layers of cloth, and the young woman approaching looked like she was about to turn freeze in place. Sunisa kept her hand on the hilt of sword as the other lady approached, barely relaxing at the question

The voice was .. off, some part of her brain tingling in a cry of unease, and she eyed the empty wasteland around them, even as she responded. “We’re two to three hours away, to the south east. Though there are docks on the rivers more inland.”

Sunisa was tempted to offer her own company, for a woman with such a fine and useless cloak and such a delicate figure shouldn’t be travelling with such little preparation. But that unease, that itch at the back of her spine refused to leave, so she asked, “Where are you planning to get to?”

[kinmokujin-a]

“do i still taste of war? can you still feel the battles on my skin stitched across my back am i still rebuilding bone by fragile bone?”

— what does forgiveness taste like? (r.n.)

[sunisamai-blog]

zoyaridzel‌:

Two bodies, inches apart. Zoya could reach out, trace the curve of Sunisa’s shoulders, pull her down by her shirt collar and close their distance with chapped lips. Graceless; indelicate as any of her other human interactions, but close enough to hear the current of the other’s bloodstream. The pace of her. Swimming. Here, the rhythm of Sunisa’s heartbeat. The clang of steel against steel in breath’s stead. For eyes, a stallion’s instead of a young woman’s, always in half-memory of some distant battlefield. Bodies. Always, another body. A vulture in circle of corpses, burying her dead. 

They’d done this before. Her and Sunisa, often enough that it had almost become expectation. Bruising. Primitive. Carnal as viscera and bone. It wasn’t tender, what they had; more an act of survival between animals, ever since they’d fucked on the floor of a shelter in subzero Kova; since adrenaline was all that’d kept them from freezing into carcasses all those years ago. Two bodies, splinters clefting their backs. Victim to the elements. Barely alive. She couldn’t help but wonder, sometimes: what would’ve happened if they’d been alone? If either had been too proud? If they hadn’t held each other? She flicked her gaze to Sunisa, warm and safe on her hotel bed, and almost exhaled a sigh of relief. Too attached, her heart chided. So the blighted organ was still there. Protect yourself, little wolf. Protect, protect.

Defenseless. 

Fuck. 

“Must be nice,” Zoya murmured, “to hold something close enough to believe it’s worth fighting for. To clutch a flame of your own and one passed down by someone who loves you.” She glanced towards the other, but Sunisa’s gaze was fixed on the ceiling, far enough that Zoya could run her own over the tightness in the soldier’s eyes, her clutched jaw, her sucked-thin lips. Yet, there was a smoothness to her expressions, a brightness that swam beneath her skin. A glow even the Moon Thief couldn’t steal, couldn’t imitate. A shield of energy that proved Sunisa was loved.

But why, why do you ask? The words cut even though she understood their intentions. “I was drunk.” “I was bored.” “I was curious.” All easy answers and all half-true, but there was an…integrity to their share of information now. A sort of honor code. Fuck if she knew. Zoya swallowed, turning her cheek towards the nightstand and away from the other. Tried to muster up courage. Instead, managed, “I don’t know.”

In all her years, Zoya had never heard of a story where the hero and the villain ended up happily together. The soldier and the smuggler. The criminal and the criminal-catcher. So why ask questions? Why try to close any gaps in her knowledge, to pretend they were close, to pretend they could ever be close? Because for now, Sunisa didn’t know. She swallowed, crossing her arms over her chest. “I guess I…just wondered. Never had much parental influence in my life, never knew them, actually. We never met. I don’t know where they went, probably killed by military forces like most of my village before for insurgen-” she caught herself, tucked her gaze away. Swallowed. “Sorry. Not much fun to talk about on a night off. Are you tired yet?”

She can’t tear her eyes away from the ceiling. Can’t meet Zoya’s eyes, even if she knows every inch of her skin. Perhaps this is the problem - she can imagine the look in her eyes, can imagine what she’ll see in the parting of lips she kissed, can imagine the tighteness of a body in not-pleasure. Sunisa wants it to stay imagination, and so cannot tear her eyes away from tracing lines and threads, cannot bear to see imagination become reality. 

(Doesn’t know what to do if it might be worse than imagined)

Zoya’s gaze feels like burning on her skin, and she can feel it cross the length of her as Zoya speaks. Must be nice, she says, and Sunisa’s heart accepts rejects it. Belief, a thing that she had long since lost. Why did you serve, and words jam up in her throat, a pressure to reveal why she serves now, a pressure she can’t let because she doesn’t know the answer.

“Must be nice -” She repeats, muttered, the desperate need to say something causes the words to escape her. She only hopes that Zoya can’t hear the longing in it, can’t hear a reflection of the way that she said it - heartsick and dreaming.

The gaze cools, shifts focus, and her muscles slowly release as Zoya answers her question. Answers unsatisfactorily, but everything in this is hidden and shuttered, the beginning steps of a dance that neither are sure they want to join. Someone would have to bow first, would have to answer with more than trailing sentences and hidden words. But for all the time they had seen each other, it was merely glimpses in a passing world, and neither wanted to be pinned down.

But there, a tear in the steel wall built between them, a slowing down to meet, a bow and a step to unheard music. Zoya replies, in more detail, and Sunisa is left even more uncertain of what her own actions should be.

Probably killed by military forces - and a sucker punch hits her gut, her muscles lock and she refuses to move, refuses to say anything as Zoya trails off. Thoughts race and her hand clenches, digging crescent moons into her palms, the world dancing with white spots as she refuses to breathe.

Killed - military - parents - never knew - killed - killed - killed

It feels like her ribs crack and she can’t breathe, so she swings her legs over the side of the bed and sits up, stands up, freezes, steps forwards, turns toward Zoya, freezes.

“I’m sorry for your loss,” slips out from her mouth, as she looks over Zoya, as she remembers the scars that cross her back, as she remembers the blood that has washed her hands.

She can barely hear the question as it’s asked, but she tries for a reassuring smile. Feels it twist and drop with the pounding in her head. She finds herself stepping forwards instead, a hand outstretched, then hesitating. (These hands have taken so many lives, have taken so many parents, so many children. She can’t touch what she’s sacrificed.)

Her hand drops to her side and she averts her gaze. “I’m sorry,” she whispers again.

[sunisamai-blog]

seraphimslayer‌:

It happens slowly and all at once: the girl, the arrow, the blood. He’s usually much more watchful of his fellow knight, tethered to her by bonds forged on battlegrounds time and again. In each battle they’ve fought together, he’s always devoted at least a small portion of his attentions to her safety, always watched her from the corner of his eye, intervening when necessary and leaving her to her own devices when not. 

But Chaos is particularly ravenous today, particularly grueling in his demands, and Asif’s psyche is weary from his possessor’s coup d'état, his attentions too fixed on Chaos’s will to be spared for Sunisa’s benefit.

And perhaps that’s why he doesn’t see her: the pale-skinned girl with eyes as green as her father’s were—right up until Asif gutted him bloody, and those green eyes, so like his daughter’s, had fluttered shut with lifelessness. 

And perhaps that’s why Asif, always so observant, doesn’t notice that Sunisa looks distracted, anxious—eyes wide with worry and cheeks gaunt with alarm.

Blinded by Chaos’s bloodlust and deafened by Chaos’s commands, Asif doesn’t realize what’s happening until it’s too late to do much about it. “Fuck,” he snarls, stumbling one, two, three paces backwards as Sunisa collides against him, his arms snaking instinctively around the taper of her waist, accommodating her slight weight without much effort. He looks to the green-eyed girl with eyes full of black, black, black wrath, and perhaps he ought to kill her where she stands, strike her down with a well-placed dagger and a flick of his wrist, but Sunisa requires his attentions now, undivided, and so he lets the girl run. 

Taking a knee, he eases Sunisa to the dewy-grassed ground with great care and tugs her against the lean wall of his chest, her head lolling against the crook of his neck. “Stupid girl,” he hisses into her ear, exasperated. Quickly, so as not to perpetuate her torture, he grabs the arrow protruding from Sunisa’s abdomen and wrenches it free from her stomach, his hands flying to the gaping wound, trying in vain to stem the bleeding. “Didn’t see that one coming?” he growls to Chaos, scathing. There’s no response, and Asif suspects that’s because Chaos, like a starved dog now fed, has retreated to his den, dormant until bloodlust stirs once more. “Sunisa,” he says firmly, one bloodied hand grabbing the whole of her jaw and giving a small shake, seeking any responsive sign of life. “Sunisa,” he implores again, voice calm, steely. “Look at me. Speak.”

She can barely feel it, a numb pain in her stomach that’s doing something to her breathing, but she can barely feel it. 

Shock settles into her limbs but she clenches her teeth in the mockery of a smile as he admonishes her. “I’m fine, Ali, I’m fine. I can - “

She goes to push off him, goes to stand up, but he’s got a grip around her shoulders and she thinks he barely feels her touch. But she’s pushing so hard? All of her strength gets thrown, the pain ache in the back of her skull, but it can’t be that bad, can it?

Then he has a grip on the arrow and he pulls.

She faints. 

///

She wakes.

Wakes to white cloth walls and a white bandage on her abdomen, wakes to her own labored breathing and searing pain that sent black spots dancing across her vision. (Wakes and wishes she could go back to sleep. Wakes and wonders at herself)

Wakes and looks for the man she tried to save.

“Asif?”

The name tumbles from her lips and she bites down, wonders if sacrifice breeds enough familiarity to call him on a first name basis, wonders why it was his name that came first to her tongue.

[lifeinpoetry]

“God, God, what do I do / after all this survival?”

— Traci Brimhall, from “Vive, Vive,” published in The Missouri Review

[sunisamai-blog]

jasperoro‌:

The knock on the door made Jasper uncross his legs and fluidly make his way to the door. “Hello, Sunisa,” he said, voice gilded and smooth, “You’ve got a good sense of time.” He stepped to the side to allow her inside, before closing the door behind her.

“It’s almost done; you’re just a titch early.” He went to wash his hands before poking at the lamb again. “It’ll be nice and hot.”

Lolling his head to the side, he stared Sunisa down with sharp eyes. “Wine?” He didn’t wait for an answer and grabbed two glasses; poured the deep aubergine-coloured wine from the decanter sitting on the counter breathing. Lifting the glass in a smooth motion, Jasper held it out to Sunisa — expecting her to take it without much more prompting.

She entered and hung up her coat, quiet as she took in the new surroundings. it was as opulent as she was expecting, the way he dressed reflected in the decoration, gold and silver bearing down on her. Still tasteful, as he way, never overbearing, but noticeable. She could tell that she was on his land now.

As Jasper went to grab wine, the edge of a sarcastic smile titled the corner of her mouth. It reminded her, in some strange way, of the power plays between Ilo and Naiya, subtle things to leverage their own position. 

It didn’t bother her, the way he expected her to just comply with what he wishes. She wasn’t here to wrest power or to make overt displays of self-control. It would be easier to just humor him, to gratify his desperate need to feel dominant. 

It would be easier, yes, but it would do for Jasper to be reminded that the universe didn’t revolve around him all the time. So she accepted with a smile and looked at the wine in the glass. “I don’t much like wine, did you know? Though I’m sure you have great taste.” A tidbit, offered in a teasing hand. She carried the glass to the table and set it down, before stepping away to admire the decor. “Wine is just a bit too soft for me. Do you know what I do like?”

[jasperoro-blog]

→ EVENING → JASPER’S HOME; TSUKI → CUSP OF AQUARIUS AND PISCES, 998 A.L. → @sunisamai

Jasper checked the lamb shanks that were simmering in the wine-broth. The rosemary, thyme, garlic, and other ingredients that were sunk into the broth perfumed the kitchen of his home with a mouthwatering smell. He didn’t cook more than basics often, but it wasn’t because he didn’t know how to do so. There simply was no occasion for it. It wasn’t like Jasper would have to put much more than a balanced meal on the table for Saturn to be forever thankful for it.

I could give Saturn a potato with some cream and butter and he’d be thankful, Jasper’s thoughts said, making him laugh low under his breath.

But the lamb was nearly done, and Sunisa was likely to be arriving soon. Jasper sat down to wait for her to come to the door — there was little else he could do but wait at the moment.

[sunisamai-blog]

The invitation had come and whilst neither the sender nor the contents surprised her, the location did. Their past meetings had all been at her parent’s house, in the past, on in the fancy restaurants where Jasper seemed to seamlessly blend in.

His house, now that was something new.

So she didn’t know what to expect, didn’t have a set of rules to follow or a uniform to wear, didn’t have an mask to place on. They had been civil since she’d gotten back, a sudden letter in her room from someone she hadn’t really met since she was a child. Since his parents arrived at her place once in a while over a few years, talking behind closed doors, leaving the two of them to feel the tension.

She no longer looked at him so warily, didn’t mind his conversation, trusted his judgement on good food and tired of having to present the ‘good’ solider’ to the world. 

But this was new, so she set off with some time to spare, and knocked on the door.