Chapter Text
China Sorrows sat back on the high winged chair, legs curled under her voluminous dress as dark a blue as her black-lashed eyes were pale. In her slight hands a small, hide covered book rested - it was purple, and the leather in which it was bound came from a magical creature that had been hunted to extinction a mere five years before, by China herself.
Like old friends awaiting an anecdote, the many bookshelves in the large room were arranged in a loose semi circle around her. Each ledge groaned under the weight under the many books that she’d started to collect, all on the language of magic. China’s Surge had been and gone decades past, but she still retained books suited to students of all abilities and branches of Adept and Elemental magic.
Every so often, the silence would be broken by China turning a page or a set of shelves gently arranging themselves, or an impossibly intricate symbol gently flaring up before fading away. After an hour of so of China reading, one such symbol flashed red and let an angry blipping noise, alerting her to the time.
If someone hadn’t known China better they would have sworn that the slight exhale of breath she let out as she closed the book and replaced it on the nearest bookshelf was a sigh, but anyone who would dare to voice such a thought was long dead, or else her brother.
Elegantly straightening her legs into a less cat like pose, China stood and swept out of the room, giving not a backwards glance to the shelves as their straightened out once more into rows behind her. It was time for morn’s prayers.
In a bare room to the end of the east wing of China’s family mansion her relatives and guests were all gathered, prostrating themselves and praying fervently to the mural in front of them decorated with elaborate motifs symbolising the void and portals the Faceless Ones had been banished through to, millennia ago. China had painted them herself.
She took her place amongst some of her more ardent admirers and her third cousin, ignoring the hush that came from everyone in the room holding their breath as they both noticed China in the room and tried not to let the person next to them realise that they had stopped their devout mumblings. Sometimes China hated her prayers; they were undignified, unbecoming, and in her opinion useless to the cause of allowing her beloved Dark Gods to walk the earth once more. These half-hearted believers would be nothing more than worms under her gods’ feet when the time came for their re-ascension, and only true believers like herself would be welcome in the new world.
Maybe an hour or so later, when China’s slender legs were beginning to burn and she could feel the tens upon tens of stares through the back of her head like hot pokers, irritating her and giving surface to a headache she’d felt incubating for over a week, prayer time was over.
If China’s thoughts had had a face, it would be scowling heavily and possibly tutting. Of course, she would never display such expressions outwardly - but she had to express her irritation at pointless prayers that took up valuable time learning about the language of symbols somehow, she reasoned. At least now she and a few of the younger guests were scheduled to go riding. China loved riding. It was fast, and powerful, and required her steed to do the physical legwork instead of her. Of course, it required a change of clothes out of her large skirts and into something more practical, though in China’s case no less stylish. Not waiting to speak to the love-struck guests or family members who were milling around one of the mansion’s many sweeping staircases, China walked up a floor and went to get changed.