Seraphina #2
She looked like something whispered around campfires.
Her skin was impossibly pale, almost luminous beneath the morning light, making the intricate tattoos climbing across her body seem even darker by contrast. Tiny violet flowers blossomed over her hands, curled around her wrists, climbed gracefully along her arms, and disappeared beneath the high neckline of her black dress before blooming again along the elegant curve of her throat.
Between the flowers rested hundreds of tiny stars, delicate enough to resemble freckles until you looked closer.
It was as though someone had planted an entire midnight garden beneath her skin.
Her hair cascaded down her back in impossible waves of midnight blue so dark it almost appeared black, until sunlight caught it and revealed deep sapphire beneath the surface.
The final few inches melted into crimson, the colour of drying blood where the strands brushed against her waist and then there were her eyes, not blue, not grey, not quite purple.
They were violet. The kind of impossible shade painters spend lifetimes trying to recreate. They reminded me of pressed flowers forgotten inside old books.
Beautiful.
Ancient.
Dangerous.
She looked like Snow White had wandered into a cemetery and decided she preferred the company there.
Eerie.
Regal.
Completely unafraid.
The ravens didn't fear her. Which, in my experience, was usually an excellent character reference.
She smiled, warmly.
Too warm.
The sort of smile that somehow made you feel simultaneously welcomed...and evaluated. As though she'd already counted every bone in your body and decided exactly where each one belonged.
"Seraphina?" she asked.
Her voice was smooth and melodic, carrying through the fountain's rushing water like velvet pulled across broken glass.
"Persephone?"
She tilted her head, studying me openly before one corner of her mouth curved higher.
"You're considerably less homicidal than your forum post suggested."
I laughed.
"I left my bleach at home," I admitted. "Thought I'd try blending into civilized society for the afternoon."
"Excellent decision."
Her smile widened until even the ravens seemed amused.
"I brought enough raw meat for them."
She gestured between us.
"But not nearly enough bleach for two."
"I can always stop by a supermarket."
"See?" she said with complete sincerity.
"We're already solving problems together."
I had known her for approximately thirty-seven seconds. I was fairly certain I'd just made my first real friend.
The next three hours disappeared so quietly that I barely noticed time passing. I don't usually lose time around people.
People are exhausting. They require eye contact and emotional participation and little noises of agreement at appropriate intervals.
They ask questions they don't care about simply because silence terrifies them.
Most conversations are nothing more than two people politely waiting for their turn to speak.
Persephone... wasn't like that.
Conversation with her didn't feel like work. It felt like wandering through an old cemetery where every gravestone had something fascinating written on it. We drifted from gallery to gallery, neither of us feeling the need to rush.
Every building in Hollow City was another monument to excess.
Marble staircases curved beneath enormous chandeliers, sculptures worth millions occupied empty corners simply because someone wealthy enough had decided emptiness needed decorating, and paintings stretched across white walls beneath careful lighting that made every brushstroke feel sacred.
We criticized them shamelessly.
"Too optimistic," Persephone declared in front of an enormous landscape.
"It needs at least one dead crow."
She nodded thoughtfully.
"Or fog."
"Definitely fog."
By the third gallery we were inventing tragic backstories for statues. The marble woman holding flowers? Obviously poisoned her husband. The bronze soldier? Definitely cried whenever he saw butterflies. The naked Greek god? Tax evasion.
We laughed until strangers started giving us uncomfortable looks.
Good. Art should make people uncomfortable. If they're comfortable, they're probably standing in front of furniture instead.
Eventually we escaped the galleries altogether and wandered through the botanical district where every flower bed looked professionally choreographed. Even nature had rules in Hollow City.
Persephone stopped beside a wrought-iron railing overlooking one of the ornamental lakes.
"If you had to become a flower," she asked suddenly, "which one would you choose?"
I didn't even have to think.
"Foxglove."
She smiled immediately.
"Poisonous, beautiful and frequently misunderstood."
I looked sideways at her.
"Exactly."
She leaned against the railing.
"My turn."
"Violets."
I blinked.
"Really?"
She held up one tattooed arm where tiny violet blossoms climbed over pale skin like they'd rooted themselves beneath her veins.
"I've always liked things that survive in shade."
That answer made entirely too much sense.
"What about birds?" she asked.
"Ravens."
She laughed softly.
"I knew it."
"Everyone assumes it's because they're intelligent."
"Aren't they?"
"That's the boring answer."
She folded her arms, genuinely interested.
"So, what's the real one?"
I watched three ravens circling above one of the cathedral spires.
"They're honest."
She stayed quiet.
"They don't pretend to be doves," I continued. "They don't sing pretty songs hoping everyone applauds. They don't apologize for eating carrion. They wait. They watch. They survive. The world tells them they're ugly and they continue existing anyway."
Persephone stared at me for several long seconds before throwing her head back and laughing. Not politely. Not quietly. She laughed with her entire body. Two businessmen walking past looked horrified. I considered that an excellent sign.
"I knew we'd be friends," she said, wiping a tear from beneath one violet eye.
"How?"
"You answered like someone who's accidentally buried a body before."
"I've only buried pets."
"So far."
"So far," I agreed.
By late afternoon she insisted I come home with her.
"I have something to show you."
"You sound like every horror movie villain."
"I know."
"Perfect."