Down The River

[satinkira 5943]

Spoiler

 

Please don't metagame.

 

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"She said she was hit on the face, but there were no marks.."

 

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Serwa lay in bed, gazing at the ceiling.

They suspected - they noted anomolies, but did not question her good faith; they assumed that she was simply addled, intoxicated.

She was intoxicated. That was true. But barely anything else was. Or was it? If one lived a lie for enough time, did it become true? Certainly, she'd been living as she advertised to the Paladins for a good while; Hallowcliffe, too, had fallen. The people she lied for were scattered and broken. What point was there in serving a vanished castle?

But this was irrelevant. They would know, and so would she, and she would surely die. That didn't bother her so much; after all, her faith was modelled on death. Her wanting to remain alive, she knew, was selfish, borne of a desire to see the end of the world; to see all that she believed in come to pass.

That, too, was irrelevant.

She turned over. The fact that they'd decided to remain here for now was genuinely catastrophic. She'd hoped for Lurin, perhaps - Vortice, maybe. She had allies, helping hands in all nations save Petra. And she could obviously not write any more letters, and what she wanted to ask people to write was far too dodgy to even consider trying in a nation like Petra.

Unintentionally, the Paladins had screwed her over.

She turned over again, and buried her face in the pillow, screaming silent frustrations.

 

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She approaches the sleeping Aeolus.

She could cut his throat right now. She could end this. She could cut the head off the golden snake that was choking the life out of her home..

But she cannot bear it, because he was kind to her. So she goes downstairs, tears out her eye, and leaves it on the pillow.

Ever the deceiver. But that is her purpose, she reminds herself. It makes her feel content, sparing the life of people who were kind to her. A terrible sin, she knew, sparing Paladins, but someone had to help the kind.

 

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Then, the answer came to her - so simple she blinked, and sat up.

 

. . .I can just leave.

 

It was early morning. The Paladins had gone to conduct their daily duties - Laelia was still asleep. If she left now, they would not return until late in the day, which would give her several hours. Not many people were awake in the general city, either - very few, if anyone, would see her departing. 

She could travel with the river. Maybe jump into it, let it take her where it would. She could put herself in the hands of GOD and leave it all behind; Hallowcliffe, Aeolus, Laelia, Solomon..

Solomon.

He would know. He always did. But in a funny way, she was alright with that. He would understand what it was she did; he would understand that short of running away, she was defining herself, placing herself upon the tip of the sword of her faith. Serwa and all were already part of GOD, this she knew, but few acted like it.

Now she would.

 

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She walks down the mountain, weeping, rubbing at her eyes.

She kneels by the river. She feels around her for a rock, and beats her arms against it - as penance, yes, but to contribute to a tale. To spin a narrative.

To lie.

 

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She slips outside the house, and makes her way down.

She would not beat her arms against the rock. She can feel the early morning sun; rising her hand to it, she lets it play between her fingers and shine into where her eyes once were.

GOD was so beautiful. 

 

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She winces a little at the cold, and then submerges herself in the river.

She cannot breathe. The shock stills her. Her grasp on the riverbed gives way - and she is swept away for a time, coughing, choking, gagging and desperately paddling for air. She eventually grasps the side of the river, and pulls herself to safety, vomiting up riverwater and weeping for her own foolishness..

She stands.

Shivering, she begins walking back up along the riverbed to Petra. She will speak of an armoured rider, she decides - she will speak of him as if he were immutable, as if he is unchangeable.

Rather like GOD.

 

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She submerged herself in the river, and this time there is no resistance. It sweeps her away - bobbing her up above the current, then down below, then up above and down below. And every time, she took a breath of air, and every time she held her breath - because she did not want to die.

Because Serwa, for all her dishonesty, had an innocent wish, a naive desire; to live.

To see how the world was going to end.

 

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