#c. freyja

[roseblcod]

shortly after arrival within the spindles of the vale, the wildflower of highgarden watches the wolf-mother of the north from within the crowded great hall. ╱ @freyjad

there are stories of wolves and girls, of that she knows. serana has been warned in many ways by many men of the things that beasts do to girls in the dark, each narrative strained as if to omit man’s place in the dark woods, accrediting violence only to four-legged creatures. occasionally (and far too often in serana’s opinion), there could even be found a tale of a maiden who fights back, baring cleverness like teeth.

but rarely, if ever, have there been stories of women who are wolves. 

how fortuitous, than, that the queen in the north lives at a time adjacent to serana’s own.

she watches from afar, vigilant as a rose among the bramble. there are acres of men between them; princes and sons of great lineage that span the seven kingdoms like so many fields of gold. some too are kings, carried through the hall on the cloaks of their retinue. they mean little to her. serana has met enough kings to know they are rarely more than common men with bent necks. 

it is a queen for whom she hunts. 

it has always been in her nature to move at first opportunity, having not the countenance to wait, not the capacity to stutter; and so it takes very little time at all for serana to cross the great hall after observing freyja from afar: only enough to remind herself of what must be done. her trek is quick and sure, and though her heart thumps, she persists. her own father had once called this an indomitable spirit before he had decided it a nuisance.

“queen freyja,” her head inclines as she arrives at the wide wooden bench, a movement of proper respect. “having arrived for the first time in the vale, i must say i find the climate to be a middle-ground between your own home and mine.” a place wedged between eternal winter and deathless spring. “and so i am compelled to believe that perhaps,” her eyes find the wolf’s. she looks for similarities between them. her mouth is so unafraid it lifts at the corners, ribbons wrapped around the winking greeting. “it is here we are meant to meet, you and i.”

[tidelure]

AT THE SKIRT OF THE LIGHTHOUSE IN THE DARK OF THE NIGHT, MARUKA REJOINS WITH THE SEA.  ╱ feat. @purslanes

in the distance sits a car, engine still running and the lights left on. in the dark, the yellow glow from the front window stares as one great unblinking eye, condensation from the interior heat fogging up the glass until it looks on the border of tears. maruka has kept it that way for the sake of sanctuary, a warm place to return to after her dive. so all that will occur is, in some distant way, tied to her own finger ⸺ violence always is.

her folly is that she forgets that every eye has its equivalent half, and that in creating one she had necessitated the joining of another. it's her mistake not to assess the lighthouse, with its eternal blaze, as the auxiliary light. the secondary eye. she strips her clothes on the beach and leaves them on the rocks, stepping past the waves in only the secondary skin of a slip dress. it will bite her out there, the cold: the freeze of a rhode island near-winter as real as a set of gnashing teeth. she does not mind. she never has. maruka slips under the water, mouth open: salt on salt, teeth on teeth. a homecoming. under the moonlight, her wet hair glows so black it is blue, her body so white against the dark it turns pearlescent.

across the way, the light of her car momentarily shudders ⸺ blinks, then returns to itself ⸺ as if someone is squinting with one eye, looking through a spyglass.

as if someone is trying to get a better look.