hunted

a starter for @serxssa,

Serissa was changed following all those lost years, but how could Vivianne blame her? Who wasn't changed, especially the former Sovereign herself? But no matter the changes that had befallen either of them their relationship had been built on a foundation of sisterhood and grown through trust and love. She would stand by the nephilim so long as she could, reminding her of that with memories or words. With a soft, slightly sad smile Vivianne put down the photo and hopped up to sit on the desk. She patted the side once to invite Serissa. Hopefully Abel wouldn't mind.

It wasn't something she wanted to talk about. At least, she didn't think so. Though, perhaps all it took was being asked. Looking down at the photograph of the two of them; everything seemed so much simpler. Even if, neither nephilim nor former sovereign had ever known the ease of simplicity. Looks were always deceitful, and in that moment, Serissa wished she deceived as well as she breathed. "I don't wanna' sound totally cunty," queue the cunty comment, "but Azrael left by choice." And though she'd spent years without knowing the truth of her bloodline, she'd also spent each one of those standing by as her best friend suffered just the same. "I don't.. -- you know what I mean." Did she? It felt like a weight slipping from her shoulders to dig deeper into her ribs and though she approaches the desk, Serissa knows she can't sit still long enough to join Vivianne. Instead, she picks, fingernails digging at grooves in the wood, knuckles tapping nervous energy away by the second. "I keep telling myself that it doesn't matter, he wasn't around and when he was, it wasn't enough for him to stick around... -- And I still have Pa, so it's just... It's whatever, right?" Whatever, that someone she'd sought after for so long had looked her in the face, openly claimed her as his daughter, and still... turned his back and left her with every memory of the years that'd passed during the end. "I always thought knowing would help me feel less alone."

Time: Daytime Location: Outide the Dahlia House Characters: @serxssa & @howlinglucas Notes: Exes say hello after the apocalypse

Mistakes were plenty, when rules were all she'd ever known. Don't go here - don't go there, never leave the house on your own - be careful nobody follows you. An overstimulation that kept the nephilim from overstepping in the early years of life among the Dahlia coven. It could only last so long and by the time she'd taken each boundary in stride, she'd successfully figured out how to sneak beyond the Dahlia and into the world. One in the same that led her to Lucas. Her window rattles, once - twice and though, initially, she's bolted upright in the cushioned chair she'd sunken into, it takes only a moment before the presence beyond her window is noted with familiarity. '

where. her house who. @serxssa

Time: Everything ended Location: The Dahlia House Characters: @serxssa & @seeingvivianne Notes: <3

The rustling in the room she moved past struck her roughly in the chest, even still, with time rewound and the war that destroyed her psyche technically being non-existent, it's impossible to ignore the reflex that brings the crackle of electricity to her fingertips. It illuminates the shadow that shifts with the opening door and even though the figure that comes into view is familiar, it takes a moment to retract her power. Is it paranoia? Or the habitual state of being on guard that sends Serissa into the past - the future? Her memory.

"You don't want to know." It's not mean spirited by any means, but it is a blunt statement followed by a grim look. She sits there being looked over time and time again it feels like. Every day is going out to the field, fighting off what feels like one of those monsters of the week, coming back, getting patched back up, and then going back. Rinse, repeat, it was tiring and yet Blair couldn't say she didn't like feeling like she was actually doing something. "When you're out there, it doesn't feel like it's going to end."

Avery had a crush on Serissa and because she was one of the few that had captured his attention, gained his adoration even as she had never relented on her scathing remarks of his company and personality, his devotion grew in magnitude and he dreamt of one day ruling the Inferno with her as his queen. Python would always be their God but there was a certain place in hell reserved for him as the Asphodel watcher. In order to achieve such a dream, he had to introduce her to the power, beauty and glory that New Dis could offer. "This place is unlike any that you've heard of. Those that never saw its light could never understand it's beauty. The city is called New Dis and I would like you to experience for yourself instead of listening to all the petty voices who don't know or understand."

It feels like some awful parallel to the world she knows. A world that she has constantly been told is too dangerous for someone like her. Hunted to the death by the Blessed, for blood - for a vessel. It's everything she's been told versus the world as she could see for herself. And still, with Avery's hand in her own, she finds uncertainty in it all. "I'm so tired of people telling me what I should see..." It's murmured beneath her breath, almost to herself, but she's close enough to him now that she knows it can't go unnoticed. Despite the fact that there are aspects of everything laid before her that feel off, look off - she doesn't blind herself from the beauty of it. It's there, within the spindles of iron and creatures she's never seen before. How did she decide what was a lie, and what might have been a very real aspect of a world better than the one they knew? She knew what an existence feeling like an outcast was like, it was all she'd ever really known. Neither part of the Dahlia nor obscured from it's welcoming family structure. Serissa was only ever loved for being present - not for who, and what she was. "How did you find this place? What brought you here?" What took you from us? She bit her tongue, despite stepping through this new world, towing Avery along with her as if she already knew the way. "What's your future here?"

Azrael did not have time for this. He needed to find Uriel, to force his brother to devise a plan that would find their siblings freed. That would see them within Necromanteoin and with a blade to Leviathan's throat. He did not have time to console this nephilim, nor to give her the information that she had been searching for. To put at ease all the what ifs, and anything else that seemed to slip across her mind that related to him. "Where Michael is, is of no concern to you," he stated with a quality that dared her to argue with him. His gaze had narrowed upon her, watched as she rattled off more questions to him. "The fallen? They chose their placement in this world, they chose to defy orders that would have seen you protected. You and every other human that is now on this battlefield." Azrael would rather gouge his own eyes from his skull than to fight alongside his fallen brethren. "Then remain within the medic tent, and leave the fighting to the warriors."

"No concern of mine?" The half-blood snaps, no longer feeling the same sheepish, uncertain air of nerves surrounding her as she looked upon one of the blessed. "This concerns all of us. This started with you. You and your siblings and at the beginning of the end, you are all we can find?" Perhaps she's out of line - there are many things she doesn't know, and will never claim to be an expert in - but she does know that Leviathan was not always without defeat. "Chose? What choice does any of us have in this? Look around you!" A rough gesture to the damage that surrounded them lingered without apology. "What choice should any of you have over our lives?" Undoubtedly, she asks the wrong person - the wrong seraphim. He is here, after all. His choice, far different from his fallen brethren. "No. - no, I can't stay there." It didn't feel right, and even now she's angrier than ever

Vivianne wanted to reach her hands and heal as many of these people as she could but there were many talented healers in their midst. Moreover, she had hardly any energy left after supplying their borders with as much of her magic as she could. Even her fellow Dahlia witches were all either drained or recovering for their next post. The Dahlia Sovereign simply made herself useful by bringing the patients water as her magic recovered, Serissa at her heels. They walked away from yet another patient as the nephilim spoke. She waited until they were out of ear's reach before she replied.

No matter how much she trusted Vivianne to tell her the truth, Serissa didn't feel as though she was right. There and then. However mortal she might have been, the Nephilim held power that so many didn't. How could she rightly stand by and settle upon the idea that her presence was doing enough - that the dwindling hope she felt was all she could offer. "It's not enough though." A statement, not a question. Because it wouldn't be - she couldn't rightly believe that it was enough. The daughter of war. The fourth horseman. The pale horse. He was half of her. Everything she did - everywhere she went, the seraphim Azrael, the angel of war would forever be ingrained within who she was. And with war at their doorstep, did that level her with a certain amount of responsibility? "Maybe not," she pauses, and truly, she doesn't know what else to say but before interruption finds them, her mind spills over. "I've been searching for his identity for years, Viv. Now that I know..-- Maybe finding out now was meant to happen." She'd never believed in coincidences, but.. "What if I'm supposed to do more? Be more."

@serxssa location: Rome's Ruins notes: if u don't kill chrysaor with ur innocent character, then ur a little bitch

How many aspects of war could feel anything close to familiar? It felt, after so many days, as if she knew this world better than the last. One that didn't split in two and unleash hellish creatures upon those unaware of what truly existed beyond them. Gone, was Serissa's flaky attempt at helping within the medic tent - a venture destroyed by one disaster after another, a father that she never knew, and war upon her in a way that she'd never believed possible. Something else shifted, however, the ground shifted beneath her, not quite quaking in their approach. The sound of metal being dragged across the earth-carving discomfort across her in the form of gooseflesh. Serissa hadn't known enough of the halfbloods, hadn't stepped too far into the space they occupied - one that might have felt more like home to her, but still, she knew his face.

Serissa was one of his favorites in the Dahlia coven, although he'd never admit it even at the risk of death. She had a certain intelligence and fire that went above the average and he'd be lying if he said the curves of her silhouette had nothing to do with his crush either. His mind had been focused on following out the Asphodel's missive, proudly casting the spell that helped to reanimate the dead as the Asphodel had done last year. His disguise was still kept in the Dahlia coven but he didn't expect it to last through all the madness that the War was sure to bring. He'd have to say goodbye to Serissa once again and he wasn't ready and so he tried to seduce her to the dark side in the land of dreams.

Looking for you. It catches her off guard slightly, the momentary hesitation she plays out however, remains entirely within her head. Hand in hand, she steps towards him despite knowing that she feels nothing but fury over Avery and his position among them. Watcher, as one that leaves in the dead of night, with nothing close to a goodbye, there's sentimentality somewhere within her chest that she still doesn't know how to voice in a world that looks unlike anything she'd ever seen. This subjugated world in which nothing was off limits - everything within arms reach. "What is this place?" She asks, almost hazed in the light of all that surpasses her vision. "This can't be..." The place that so many discussed in hushed voices and ire. Her brow furrows, and she knows that dreams could so rarely be trusted, but how long had it been since Avery had passed through them? Thoughts that she'll no longer remember when she wakes. "Whatever this is, it's all a lie, isn't it? All of this, everything happening. Nothing is as we're told," a sentiment that her father used to tell her, over and over. That the words of those around her could never truly be trusted - not beyond the Dahlia. She blinks, once - twice, and wonders how she could have questioned Avery before. He was to be trusted - her hand tightened around his. "Show me."