Seraphina pours out from the dim light. The shadows peel back to reveal her form like lips from the silver-white glow of teeth. Everything about Seraphina is a rictus to him. But Raum does not smile back.
 
He drinks her in. And she is electricity that sparks every inch of his being. He is the live wire ready and waiting. He drowns her in the blue of his gaze – for it is water to the electricity of their encounter. He would drown this whole steppe, if he could.
 
Fury is savage within him, it is a flame that licks the silver of his skin and turns it bright as a torch. Raum is a wildfire with frostfire burning inside his silver skin. He waits for Day’s Queen to make her first strike.
 
She does not disappoint as her words reach him across the bare expanse between them. No longer is she a rictus to him, for now Raum’s lips are twisted too. Does he know what power means, Seraphina asks.
 
Of course.
 
Why else was Raum here? In his heart there is no desire for the ascension of Day. No, the only thing within his heart are its desires for ashes and ruination. His smile is a beautiful thing (if one dared to look upon it with a mind full of devastation, of course), for only then can you appreciate its chaotic beauty.
 
“I know what it means, Seraphina.” The Crow purrs, leonine. “But maybe you do not? How long have you left your kingdom idling? You are more a ghost than I right now. Does your Court even remember you? If so, do not distress, because, should I win, they will be begging for your return.”
 
And then the battle begins. The silver queen is in motion, all her power is within her. There is no magic she wields, no companion to emerge from the gloaming. No, she is plain, but oh she is powerful. Raum had not leant himself to battle prowess so he needs to be tactful this night, his might is incomparable to hers.
 
Sera launches and Raum spins. The Steppe, held fast in autumnal hands, is dying and thirsty for the coming rains. Seraphina rears up and aims high, for his face, his throat. To be clubbed by a hoof in either place is a dangerous thing.
 
So, like a flag caught in a changing wind, he spins away from her headlong advance. His hind limbs kick up dirt and dust beneath them. A cloud plumes up into the air and he hopes it may throw her aim off. Raum twists and hopes to land his haunches in the path of her flailing forelimbs. His hindquarters are thick with muscle and fat and would serve as a better place to be struck. The damage would surely be worse if it struck his face, his throat… But, regrettably, Raum is not quite fast enough and indeed Seraphina strikes down upon him.  A hoof catches his loin and is heavy with her weight, its edges worn by stone and sand. It cuts him like a rusty blade and blood runs true.
 
Seraphina aimed for blood, she aimed to bruise, and yes she has earned both. His left loin is warm with its trauma and it aches to move, but move he does. Better a wound there, he thinks, than the delicate structures of his neck or the critical parts of his face.
 
The Day queen has not retreated, so the Crow completes his spin, throwing his weight upon his haunches as he bites through the pain in his loin. He kicks out with both hind limbs, firm and strong His hooves reach out with the marked precision of a Crow finding its prey upon a vast meadow’s face. He is light, he is nimble and he knows he is not as strong as she. But, a carefully placed blow could be enough to shatter a limb. So he aims for one of her forelimbs, below the knee, where muscle is absent, tendons vulnerably exposed and the most weight is innately carried.
 
His kick is fast like lightning, seizing the moment he has her close enough - too close and his hind limb cannot get enough extension to unleash its full force, too far away and all power is lost with its extension.
 
Then, facing away from her as he is for his attack, Raum shoots forward, aiming to put space between them, to keep himself moving as he watches for her next attack.

---

@Seraphina <3 you too boo

 


Oh Seraphina, do not mistake Raum for fragile. A man untrained for war does not make him fragile – most certainly not when he is in the height of his prime (as Raum is). There is nothing delicate or so easily frangible about Raum, for frailty and fragility would not have helped him fight Isra the Night Queen (blood for blood and magic for magic – they had been an equal pair that night).  Fragile would also not have allowed him to pin a fellow Crow by the throat or stab a once-god to near death...
 
Raum is taller that Seraphina. He is muscled and lean, fine, yes, but not fragile. But Raum has the hot, agile blood of an Arabian and the speed of a thoroughbred surging through his heart. As a gift of both, Raum is so frighteningly fast. It is how he has spent his 7 years gathering ghosts – fast enough to kill each one with his dagger and escape with his life. No one unable to fight could ever acquire such achievements.
 
It is electric joy, sick and bright, that slips through him as his blue eyes watch blood begin to weep from the wound upon Seraphina’s forelimb. With such a move, might she be slower now? She may likely tip to her other forelimb… favour that and not the other. From the distance between them, Raum studies Sera, he looks for how she instinctively guards – he will aim for the body part she leans upon most. That is what Raum was trained to do: a methodical takedown. He also never aimed to rush his murders and so, when Seraphina does not move, he too settles back.
 
Raum stops moving as she speaks, his skull tilts like a Crow and he rests the hind limb on his injured side. It is a chance to rest the aching muscle of his back, the one that took her landing blow. It might have been a risky place to be struck, but his back is strong and muscle heals better than bone and tendon. A strike to his face might have blinded him, affected his breathing, his ability to think clearly – so many things… Yes, this, oh this, is easier.
 
He smiles at her words and, for all his beauty, his smile is a monstrous thing. It is a rictus splitting his face; it is poison in the air. “Are you so sure of that?” Raum’s voice is silk in the dusty air their battle has made. “A kingdom with an absent queen lends itself to low morale. If I win, at least they would have a present king.” He would have laughed if he knew how she labeled him a tyrant. Yes, he will be a tyrant, he will rule with an iron fist and seek only chaos and destruction. Raum fights now for no reason other than chaos, to hurt the world as much as it hurt him. “I will enjoy turning your Court to ashes and dust.”
 
His gaze is silver punishment and it does not lift from Seraphina. Always Raum is the one to strike first, his anger peaked before any other. But not this day, this day he settles back and waits as Seraphina waits for him. They stand as two titans set for war, two storms rolling into one another. He wants to see her move, he wants to see how she limps, how she uses herself with her injury. Raum is a learner after all.
 
“Ladies first, your Majesty.” And in defiance (since the space between them is plenty and his electric eyes watch her all the while), Raum lowers into a mocking bow.
 
((ah, he is a Grade A –insert chosen swearword here. But I am rather grateful for your nothing post, I have been super sick so it has given me a reprieve :) . We can kick off again <3))

---

@Seraphina - aaand everybody catch your breath xDD (In my case literally since this epic flu took out my lungs)

 



Why are you doing this?
 
Her question echoes in the quiet. It resonates above the sounds of their harsh breathing and it reaches him like ice.  But Raum is already as cold and heartless as the dead and her words inspire nothing within him. Instead, he watches impassive and remain so, even when she charges.
 
He had been waiting for her, after all.
 
Raum’s nape arches in, though his eyes remain unyielding (concealing emotion, concealing his every thought), he readies himself for battle once again. He becomes a boxer upon his feet, the fleet footed Arabian blood keeping him light and ready. Nimble and spry, even as he tires with their battle. Their brief respite was over and Seraphina’s challenger is ready. He wears her words as barbs in his skin.
 
The Day Queen’s fury is a palpable thing. It scents the air and all begins to tremble. Across the pocked ground she charges, a silver bullet from a gun. And then, oh then, she trips! Seraphina stumbles forward, tumbling, and for a moment, for the tiniest sliver of a second, the Ghost believes her. But Seraphina is up fast, it is a wonder she stays upright, even with her planned feint. His momentary surprise is gone.
 
Raum’s opponent is low, low and his instinct is to get higher for her attack could only come from below. And, such as she is, Raum feared her offence might aim for the lowest parts of his body. Indeed, Sera lunges close, kicking out at his forelimb, but Raum, already alert, leaps laterally in a spook. It was a bid to clear his lower limbs from her attack. The air whistles by his cannon bone as her hoof strikes past – blessedly clear.
 
Yet Raum offers her no moment of respite. As Sera leaps backward, still facing him, still recovering from her low attack, the Crow seeks to take advantage of her lower positioning. Lunging forwards, gritting his teeth through the ache of his bruised back muscles. He could not keep the position long, but at least his hind limbs were uninjured and strong enough to propel him forward. Raum aims to keep pace with her, he rears up and surges after her as his forelimbs strike the air, bringing one down hard, aimed directly for Seraphina’s head (as she rises from her attack, he hopes). That forelimb punches down hard and, as it goes it changes, swift with magic. No longer is his forelimb that of a horse, rather, it is the broad arm and clawed paw of a grizzly bear.
 
Raum’s power is weak, tied into his emotions and short lived. But it is enough to change one limb into any living animal, it is enough that when his ire is riled, it changes to compliment his mood. A grizzly’s paw was designed for exactly the frontal attack he delivers and Raum swipes like a bear upon his hind limbs. He drives his bodyweight forward, into his rearing, slashing attack. His long, black claws beg for flesh and blood and bone.
 
When the Crow lands, his attack complete, his forelimb is no longer a bear’s but the slender limb of a horse once more. Fleeting is his magic at this level and weary it makes him. He staggers back, using his magic last had been a bid to keep his energy up to the end. But now, his attacks done, his defence complete, the stallion staggers back weary. His heart ricochets within his chest and his breath is heavy, heavy.
 
Upon his skull his ears lie, fine as spilled flutes and as sharp as broken glass. “A good fight.” He utters, those electric blue eyes glistening. “Thank you.” But there is no gratitude in him.

---

@Seraphina <3 Thank you for a fun fight :)