[P] Rise like lions after slumber

[Raymond]

Raymond.
and at his feet they'll cast their golden crowns
when the man comes around


The raven knew not the contents of the note strapped to its delicate leg, but in its way it knew the gravity contained therein. It flew dutifully and with singular purpose, button-black eyes scanning the ground as it scrolled by below. The beach was a pale, tenuous, ribbon separating land from the wild seas, but it pointed the way toward its target.

It sought another of night-blackness, lightning-struck and vicious as a captive storm, and as the tiny shapes of horses popped up across the landscape it flew lower and more swiftly, squawking irritably each time the face that drew near was the wrong one.

Then it reached the cliffs, and its search bore fruit.

Indeed she was a storm, tall and sleek and streaked with electric white, and her bright blue eyes struck fear in the raven's heart. Insistence overpowering exhaustion, the blackbird buzzed the mare's ear and landed on the cliffside next to her, presenting its bound leg with haughty expectation.

In a hurried scrawl, the note read:

Calliope

You were right about the dragon but we can't fight it. I will do what I can. Protect Flora, see you soon.

Reward the bird handsomely.

Yr obt svt,
Raymond

@Calliope

[Calliope]

The last bright pieces of the day are just sinking below the horizon when the raven finds her. Calliope is lost in thoughts of war, justice and a god that made mountains tremble simple because they could. Despite the quiet solitude of the moment she feels like a storm is raging in her skin, hurricane winds rattling all her bones and demanding that she do something.

There are some things only a unicorn might do, only a lion, only a woman who breathes deep in battle and swims on like a shark through bloody waters.

Novus is land of payments withstanding, sins to be accounted for. Betrayal and suffering run rampant here. Everyday she is reminded that Novus seems a little less civilized as the months start to pass quicker than she expected.

It feels like the last quiet moment she might ever have. The whale bones and Raymond seem so very far away here, swept away by the rage and swaying scales of her soul. But then the bird caws, breaking her reverie and Calliope shakes her horn and forgets all about solitude and peace.

Black unicorns are not made for peace, for cliff-sides that look holy as the sun turns purple and pink and darkens.

And when the letter falls, shook loose by the breeze Calliope could burn for the words bore upon that paper. She feels as if she could explode with lightning and wipe clean that red man across the sea.

Had she pen, or the inclination to write as she had once in a human skin perhaps she would have put the thoughts raging like a tempest in her heart to the immortal, unending power of written word. Betrayal. The word thunders in her, boils her blood and she rears for the sheer power of her anger. Below her hooves the raven caws, smart enough to stay clear of the wild unicorn.

Once they made promises, once he understood the need for justice that drove her. Calliope is made to put things right, settle the score, balance out the scales and it feels as if Raymond has stolen her soul from her.

Calliope does not know how to be left behind and so she lowers her horn to that thin paper and slices words from it like skin from bone. The only part she leaves is where he signed, Yr obt svt. The wind blows the tatters of the letter off the cliff to be drowned in the sea. Only that one part is left, the sins of Raymond.

She uses that strange telekinesis of this place to roll the the piece of paper up and bid the Raven to take it. “Take it back to him and I will free you when I come.” There is rage enough in her voice to send the raven flying fast from the unicorn on the cliffs.

The bird dips past the horizon and Calliope turns and makes her way down the cliffs. It feels like a fire gathers in every imprint her hooves make in the places where stone gives away to sand and soil.   

BUT THE BEAUTY OF HER FORM BRINGS VIOLENCE
A LONG AND LOVELY FALL NO WILL OR FIRE CAN OPPOSE

@Raymond