[P] r.i.p. to my youth;

[Acton]

Acton these violent delights have violent ends   When those eyes closed, extinguishing that burning blue, Acton thought he might have succeeded (even as Raum’s silver turned to shadow-black, even as he melted further into the dark of the cave). He blew out a breath, felt something like guilt simmering beneath the adrenaline-burn of his skin. He was about ready to agree with Raum, for he knew in his soot-black heart that the silver stallion was right. He was softer. He was softer and he didn’t know if it was wrong or not, no matter how strange it felt. The buckskin even opened his mouth to say so, and leaned forward - but then Raum’s eyes flickered open again. Acton had always wondered (less like a scholar, and more like a little brother who enjoyed pushing buttons) what would happen if he ever succeeding in goading Raum too far. On some level he had considered it impossible; the Ghost had always been unflappable, too cool and distant to be barbed by Acton’s joking. And why should they ever reach the edge? They loved one another. There were a hundred bodies dead between them. They were brothers. So when that cold, curved claw pressed against his throat, for a heartbeat Acton did not believe it. But it was hard to argue with a knife to your throat - harder still when it was one wielded by Denote’s Ghost. Especially when it wasn’t really a knife at all, but a literal extension of Raum himself. At first he was nothing but wide eyes, caught off-guard for one of the first times in his life. What an awful feeling that was - worse than anger, worse than pain. He swallowed and it felt sharp against the bob of his throat. After that he was only ears, listening and still as Raum spoke. In the cold arms of the cave his voice was like velvet, wrapping around him, an embrace. Acton could still feel the warmth of the summer night as his back; what breeze could reach him twined his tail as though trying to tug him away. Acton did not like the idea of running - but he minded it less than the idea of dying. And there was no reason written in the empty blue of his brother’s eyes. There was, too, the memory of Isra and her terrible wrath; how much greater must Raum’s be? It had been burning for so long. Slowly, slowly, Denocte’s erstwhile magician drew a breath. “All this time,” he said, and felt that claw prick against the soft skin of his throat, a vampire kiss. He could feel the blood beading, slick and warm and coppery in the dank of the cave, and thought Isra and I will have matching necklaces. “All this time and I thought I was the mad one.” And then Acton set the cave alight. Or rather, he filled it with the illusion of an explosion, all the smoke and smell and black choking feel of it, blinding eyes and choking throats. Ricocheting off the walls was a terrible roar, not so different from the sound in a canyon-cave in a desert long ago. Thick, foul-smelling smoke curled between them so that Acton could not see the white tip of his nose. Lucky thing he didn’t need to. From that first shattering noise he was already wheeling, back and away, expecting Raum to falter for a moment and no more. He nearly failed; one small miscalculation and he was scraping his shoulder and his ribs against the side of the cave, leaving skin and hair and blood on the stone like an offering. Billowing black spilled out from the mouth of it behind him, rising into the air, and there was a part of him that gloried in it for oh! it didn’t look like an illusion at all. But Raum would know that just as well as he, and so there was no time to watch his work. There was only time to run, and so Acton did, knowing the devil might be on his heels, and even if he wasn’t tonight he always, always, would be until one or the other of them was dead. And for once there was no burning in his veins, no bright joy that came from living in its purest form. There was only sorrow like an empty hole in his chest, and the strain of his heart and lungs and sinews as he ran like a rabbit from the man who’d known him best. @Raum