[P] o sinnerman;

[Acton]

Acton these violent delights have violent ends There is a wicked sort of pleasure he takes in coming to Veneror Peak for something profane.  It is not that he doesn’t appreciate Calligo; he loves her for everything she is, just as he loves Reichenbach and the Night Court for taking him in, for making him belong. But she will always be a foreign god. It was not she who had freed him from his cell as a colt; it was not she who had led him here. It was him. Him alone. He would worship with the others, but Acton said no prayers at night. Not to any gods, at least. But he could still appreciate the gravity of the place, the sense of something weighty, even as the air thinned and the slopes grew unsteady with scree and he cursed himself for not being in the shape he ought to be. Crow life had made him lazy over the last year; it was easy to get complacent, when you didn’t have to be so careful. Maybe it was a good thing he had to be very careful, today.  But there was no disguising his irreverent grin, his raven-dark hair that fell thick and wild along his neck, the flash of his eyes from behind the black mask he was born wearing. Luckily the peak was, for the moment, abandoned; high noon, it seemed, was not a preferred time to submit to the gods. Acton settled near a grove of aspens to wait, listening to the wind rattle the leaves, dry as bones this late in summer.  He could not say how much time had passed before he heard another coming slowly up the trail. The buckskin straightened, shaking leaves form his mane, poised, kinetic, ready to perform whatever role was needed.  None was. It was a quicksilver figure that came up the trail, a ghost on a spirit-peak, and Acton’s grin turned sly as he stepped from the slender trunks. “Your piousness has always been a source of inspiration, brother,” he said – too loudly, too carelessly, even if only the trees were listening.  Hopefully the gods ignored him as much as he did them.  @Raum

[Raum]

It was ironic that the world was turning to the fire and smoke of autumn when Raum was meeting the Crow’s very own wild fire. Acton was as changeable as the season and just as deadly.
 
Orange turns all leaves brittle and dry, and as his quicksilver body pours up the mountainside his feet whisper over wasted leaf litter. Raum keeps to shadow and crags in the rocks. His approach is as near silent as the dried leaves could manage and they herald his arrival with little more than a sigh and a rustle. It was a sound barely there, but Raum knew his brother would be listening.
 
The cold bite of the mountain wind lays its teeth upon the Crow’s neck and chases a shiver down his silver spine. The absence of his crystal blue scarf is a pertinent reminder of who this Crow now is: A Day Court civilian.
 
The heat and dust of Solis’ home turns his silver skin to rust and ruin. The heat is a smother, the dust abrasive, and as his eyes find the orange upon Acton’s skin, his smile is derisive. Never have the two brothers looked so similar. “He should have sent you.” Raum comments of Reichenbach.
 
He passes the Crow’s magician, the petals of his black rose the only thing swaying as they pass like ships. “Your messenger crow was a little too… loud. I knew before opening that the message was from you.” He lays the wilting rose in the writhing shadow of Calligo’s altar. His lips murmur a prayer, each word a mystery, each request a secret.
 
When his murmurs fall to silence, the Crow finally turns back to his brother. The blue of endless seas meets the fierce orange of Acton’s skin. “You are never afraid to make a spectacle.” He observes, those blue eyes passing, liquid smooth, up to his brother’s eyes hidden behind their permanent mask.
 
His eyes were not the only veiled thing between Denocte’s Ghost and her Magician. Acton’s words hang, still unanswered, their true meaning concealed. “You will be sorry for your lack of piousness when you find yourself kneeling for judgement before them.” If there was a hint of humour in Raum’s words, it is gone in the blink of an eye before the Ghost draws their topic of conversation on.
 
“Any news of Denocte, brother?”



@Acton yasss!!!
 

[Acton]

Acton these violent delights have violent ends The idea of their Ghost living in a court of sand and sun where the heat leaned on you and there were few shadows to speak of was as perversely pleasing to Acton as the idea of a clandestine meeting on the gods’ mountain. There was no world where Raum could be comfortable in Day, and it wasn’t that the buckskin enjoyed the idea of his discomfort – But he found it funny nonetheless. He does nothing to hide that amusement, his smile sharp as Raum’s conspicuously missing dagger as his brother-in-arms drew near. “You smell awful,” he said companionably, “and you don’t look much better.” He punctuated the statement by dragging his livewire gaze over the silver’s body, which looked rather like he’d been buried in a tomb along with a couple of pharaohs. How did one acquire so much dust in so little time?   Acton made no move to step out of the way of the quicksilver man as he moved past, and turned his head to watch as Raum stepped to the night-goddess’s altar, snorting at the comment about the crow. “Next time I’ll send a buzzard,” he answered, “if you think it would fit Solis better.” He has to force himself into silence for the duration of Raum’s prayer, though he can’t resist the urge to sigh. His lips are quick to quirk back into that dangerous smile as the other Crow turned back to him, and he doesn’t flinch before the weight of that drowned-sea gaze. It is not difficult to remember that Raum is a year older – it’s surprising, in fact, how few years lie between them. The Ghost had always struck Acton as a wizened ancient in a younger man’s body, and Acton, for his part, was as volatile as a boy clamoring for his first battle. He ran his tongue across his teeth and answered, “I expect that is why old King Crow elected not to send me.” The vision danced, tantalizing, across his imagination: Acton blowing the whole of Solis to the ground, smoke billowing, the castle groaning like thunder as it collapsed. It wasn’t as though they didn’t deserve it. The buckskin flicked an ear at being dragged back to the present, his gaze turning stormy at the silver man’s words. “I kneel before no one,” he said, and his voice was uncharacteristically hard. Luckily they were not here to debate theology. At Raum’s question Acton shifted his weight, stretching out his neck and rolling his shoulders, casting a lazy eye around them to ensure they were still alone. It was as though the moment before had never happened. “Oh, only the usual,” he answered, “except all the women are weeping in the streets with you gone. It’s all sackcloth and ashes.” He grinned at the lie; no female (and half the males) in Denocte could seem to see past Reichenbach, and Acton had no idea of Raum’s preferences, anyway – such a good Ghost he was. But he could not resist goading him. “But you’re the one in the viper-pit. So let’s hear of the snakes.” @Raum

[Raum]

 
You smell awful, and you don’t look much better.
 
Through the red, red dust clinging to his silver lips, Raum’s smile is as sharp as a bloody knife. The smile is gone in the blink of an eye, little more than a glint of steel beneath the sun.
 
The Crow’s gaze is the tide washing in from the sea, sweeping from Calligo’s altar back to Denocte’s Magician. Here, Raum can not only feel the touch of Acton’s sparking gaze, but see the scrutinizing trail it makes across his silver skin. He does not ask what his brother Crow sees there, he does not care.
 
Where Raum’s gaze is the deep and restless sea, Acton is the immovable rock within its depths. “No.” The Ghost agrees, studying the brazen orange of Acton’s skin – there was never any hiding this flamboyant magician. He was unstable fire; the spark that would set a forest blazing and they would be lucky to ever put it out. “No,” Raum repeats, “You would be chained up in the desert awaiting your fate as fodder for the desert scavengers.”
 
With every word he had poured silver-slick toward Acton. Where Acton lures with his bright, bright colour, so Raum slips into darkness, unseen, unheard. He is impassive silver, a mirage upon the eyes. The Ghost’s murders are silent, swift affairs. But Acton… he impresses and confounds with every life he takes. The Magician leaves his every witness to even question whether a murder had ever taken place. Surely it was not intentional? Just a terrible, unfortunate accident… Are the whispers Raum would hear spectators wonder.
 
“Then again,” The silver Crow murmurs as he reaches Acton, his voice lowering to a whisper that holds itself in the small space between them. “You are the only one with enough balls to murder in front of an audience and play it off as unfortunate magic...” Raum pauses, thoughtful, considering, his lips curling into a smile as sharp as the knife it had once been. Blood dust falls like a cloud from his silver-scythe lips, “Do you think you could fool Maxence with your murderous magic?” His smile is the dagger he misses from about his throat. It is a promise of danger, but only that. The quicksilver assassin is, for now, just a shadow of what he should be. The Ghost is gelded with the loss of his scarf and his knife.
 
“I trust you are keeping my effects safe?” Those blue eyes glitter, the sparking of the sun upon the crest of a tsunami. He would trust only the Magician to safely magic away his most prized possessions.
 
Raum’s gaze turns impassive as his fellow Crow speaks of sackcloth and ashes, of girls weeping in the streets with the loss of Denocte’s Ghost. “I am sure you mistake tears of sadness with tears of joy. At least with my loss there are now fewer dead bodies to litter the cobbled streets.” The assassin’s smile and as hard as granite as he murmurs gently, “Maybe you should console them more, Reich cannot comfort them all.”
 
As hot and red as the desert he left, Raum finally steps away from his Crow brother. His thoughts return to Solterra, “Maxence has recently tried to steal a youth from the Dawn Court. It seems he seeks no alliances beyond Rannveig in Dusk…” He pours like liquid towards the edge of the cliff, each step as silent as a ghost – the moon frames him so. His eyes drift north, north towards the desert, north towards that too hot sun and its viperous brood of serpents with their weapons of teeth and poison.


@Acton it has been an age. i am so sorry my lovely <3 <3
 

[Acton]

Acton these violent delights have violent ends His laugh is a deep rumble where one might expect the harsh cry of a crow. “Not for long, I wouldn’t be,” he answered, although his ears laid back at the thought of it, set out in the sun to shrivel and bleach and die. There was nothing he hated more than being confined. But there was nothing he loved more than the feeling after a grand escape, and those were only possible when you were trapped. The silver ghost drew nearer, Acton’s banked-fire gaze burning on him all the while. When he spoke it was as though he had followed the path of the buckskin’s thoughts – and for Raum, it almost seemed possible. His ears remained back at those mercury-smooth words, and he fought the shiver that threatened to raise hair in a line down his back. He did not turn his head, but his eyes followed his brother, and the look in them was hard. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said through a grin to match the look in his eyes. “They’re just so risky, my stage shows. A wonder Reich still lets me perform.” There were only so many times accidents like those could happen. It was a dangerous game he played, there between lies and truths. It was a dangerous game they all played, and that is why they did it. His mirth returned at the next question, and he peeled away from Raum with a toss of his head. “Indeed. You’re lucky blue isn’t my color. Though Lav was very interested in your blade.” He raised a brow at the Ghost, his expression remaining as the talk turned to women. This coaxed another laugh out of him. “Maybe he once could. But now he’s got himself a girl, I hear.” Strange, to see their gypsy king so restrained; Acton thought at once of both the last time he saw Reichenbach – there beneath an impassive moon, watching Maxence take flight – and of the golden girl he’d followed to the Solterran border, a girl with a viper’s tongue. There was that fire again, hot in his blood, licking his bones, burning his gaze with something like worry when he looked back at Raum. Only with Acton, worry manifested as anger. He followed the silver stallion to the cliffside, thinking only once what it might be like to leap. Or to push. They each held their appeal. “Maxence is a fool.” His hate was a clear thing, real enough to bite down on, to taste between his teeth. “But he isn’t stupid. He knows, Raum. Somehow he knows there is a Crow in his court. He came to threaten Reich with the knowledge.” His words were low and quick, a furious stream, but as they poured out his expression eased. His eyes were only for his brother. “You’ll have to be more careful than usual.” The words hung between them. Acton would never say please, would never disgrace either of them by voicing his concern. He had full confidence in the skills of all the Crows. But it was there in the fire of his gaze. But fire never lingered long on one thing. Again his thoughts turned to that snake-tongued girl, her derisive laughter, and his grin vanished, swallowed up by the night. “Have you met a girl, there, all gold with blue eyes? She wears a necklace, and is friends with Reich.” He couldn’t guess what Raum might think of such a question, but Acton needed power over her, even if it was only a name. @Raum

[Raum]

 

“A wonder indeed.” Raum muses from where he stands upon the edge of the mountain. The drop below and its bed of jagged rocks beckon him down, down, down to a violent end. His eyes, unperturbed by his perilous place upon the mountainside and the devilish push and pull of the wind, gaze out towards Denocte, framed by the sun, Calligo’s shadows banished by the height of day. When would this assassin ever feel those cool shadows of his homeland upon his skin again?
 
With a sigh Crow turns from the mountain’s edge, his gaze becoming hard where only moments before it had been the ragged softness of a wound. “Have any of your tricks gone correctly lately Acton?” Raum asks like silk, the mockery is so subtle upon his tongue that one might almost not feel the barbs beneath it. “Careful, or Denocte may begin to think you an incompetent Magician, as well as a murderous one.” The smile is back, wicked sharp and a steel mask for the rawness of Raum’s homesick heart.
 
His brother’s talk of home, of their Crows, their family is as healing as it is bruising. “Lavinia knows better than to take my knife.” But even as he said it he knows how sly the girl can be. “Just… if she does take it, remind her that I will know when I get it back. I know how many deaths it has seen, no matter how well she may believe she has cleaned it after.” The blade could gleam like a mirror, barred of scars and scratched but its master would still know of any new blood it has shed. It would sing for him as loudly and plainly as a comet falling from the sky.
 
“You hear, you don’t know?” The silver Crow chides quietly. “You are slacking on your spying skills, Acton. Have I been gone that long?” It is a mockery of the Magician, but Raum at least expected him to know not hear whether his King had entangled himself in the affairs of a girl.
 
“It is the Dusk Court’s Emissary.” Raum informs, his eyes as sharp as ice as he takes in the hot glow of Acton’s skin. “I would have preferred a Denoctean. Keep an eye on them. That relationship has the potential to drag us all into shit. I would have been surprised - had I not known it was Reichenbach. He has about as much control over his heart as a rabbit does a fox.” His lips tip into a smile, affectionate, amused, despite the ramifications of his words. Raum had grown up with their King of Thieves, he knew Reich’s nature, he knew the kindness there, the waywardness of his gypsy nature.
 
For all Raum’s mockery, for all his jest, it seems the romance of his king was not the most important information Acton had picked up. The Ghost’s spine falls rigid, his nape arching as the quicksilver Crow falls as still as a statue. He drinks in the warning, blue eyes glittering. “Maxence is wise. He has not spoken any of his concerns to the rest of the Day Court – that I might have heard anyway…” The words are a murmur, deep and dark and as dangerous as a knife from the black. “Maybe I have not kept pace with Torstein enough… He found Rhoswen, Freya, Mila and I here a few months ago… He was suspicious, even then.”
 
There is no space for fear within this Denocte assassin. No shadowed corner that he allows for it to find and fester and grow. He is mercury pouring across the rough mountain shrine as he scans the area. They were still alone.
 
“Bexley.” She was the only girl of gold, with her blue eyes and a necklace about her slender throat. “What do you want with her? She is close to both Maxence and Reich, I know you favour risks, but even I had thought you wiser than that.”


@Acton <3 FUN
 

[Acton]

Acton these violent delights have violent ends He is not, for once, interested in talking of himself or his tricks. Acton could not quite tell if the silver man was trying to goad him; they fought so rarely, and for good reason. It was never a pretty thing when one of the Crows took offence with another, and age did not necessarily mean wisdom in such matters. When something happened between any of them it was always ugly, and with Acton it could be ugliest of all. For that reason he let the words, the tone roll off of him and spill into the empty air. It was a tougher path to take when talk turned back to their king; this time he did bristle, and his dark-tipped ears laid back. Only for a moment, but the moment was enough. For Acton – from his sources – to hear was to know. It was the importance of the information that the buckskin had disregarded. Clearly, the Ghost did not feel the same way. “Do you suggest, brother, that Reichenbach would be so foolish as to let his feelings for a girl threaten us all?” His words were slick as obsidian, and his gaze as dark. “I trust him more than that.” Maybe that made Acton the fool, to believe that nothing could turn Reich’s head away from his kingdom (and his Crows), even if his heart was the one tugging him. Their thief-king’s loves had never lasted before, his wild heart wanting too much – Acton saw no reason to believe this case would be any different. He wasn’t sure why Raum’s apparent inability to see things that way felt like a personal slight, and even that smile – a rare and honest thing on the lips of their Ghost, unlike Acton’s thousands of disposable grins – didn’t chase the feeling away. . Talk of Maxence, however, did the trick. It always did – the name alone of the pegasus could jar Acton from any black thoughts, send him sliding into some terrible amalgamation of hate and pleasure and guilt. His hate (founded on shaky ground) was a drug and he always wanted more, more, more. He saw the way that Raum fell still and tried to quell the awful joy that stirred in him, the one hungry for the idea of danger. Where Raum was a statue the buckskin was all movement, pacing in the semi-darkness, ears never still, his hair an extension of his wildness. For all of that, he only had this to say: “First Rostislav, and then delivering threats at our doorstep in the dead of night. To keep waiting is an insult.” If it were up to Acton they would already be at Solterra’s gates. It is a good thing that it isn’t. Bexley, the Ghost named the girl, and Acton’s head tilted his direction with a crow’s dark interest. The name fit her; it began like a punch and ended like a grin. He snorted, stopping short of rolling his eyes at Raum’s implication. “I only want to know what she wants. I caught her leaving Denocte for Day. You don’t think it’s strange, that she’s close to them both?” He rolled his shoulders in a shrug and then yawned, suddenly all bored nonchalance, and when his gaze found the Ghost’s again he was back to himself. As much as that meant anything. “If I stay much longer the gods might tire of me,” he said with a grin and a flick of his tail. “Next time we meet, let’s do it somewhere that requires less climbing.” And then he turned to go without so much as a goodbye or be safe. Acton didn’t believe in either of those things. @Raum closing here, if it's alright with you? <3

[Raum]

 


 Do you suggest, brother, that Reichenbach would be so foolish as to let his feelings for a girl threaten us all? I trust him more than that. 
 
It was clear, after those words, just how caustic the Solterran desert had made him. Raum’s gaze shuttered, his ears falling against his skull, where each movement would normally feel as easy as liquid, now he was just sand and sun and friction.
 
He sighed, feeling the distrust his words so openly exposed. He clearly did not hide it well enough. Silver lips, craving moonlight not sun, pulled into a grimace, his teeth clenched tight. “I think love can make anyone do foolish things.” 
 
It cannot be trusted.
 
I, cannot be trusted
 
The last thought is a knife in his gut and he is no longer sure he speaks of Reichenbach, but himself.
 
Acton’s talk of Bexley is a welcome, if troubling distraction. He thinks of the girl with a vipers tongue and vibrant curls. “I do.” He agrees, as he watches the clouds press in upon the mountain. Their descent would be shrouded, harder and yet more concealed.
 
 “Keep an eye on her visits to Denocte brother and I too will keep an eye on her in Solterra.” He turns from Acton his lips bearing a phantom of a smile at Acton’s parting words. “Indeed, it is a wonder the gods have not chosen to smite you yet. Kerah.”
 
And with that Raum turns his silver skin disappearing into the silver clouds pouring down the mountainside.


@Acton FIN - I could not help myself with the Kerah xDD