Raymond. and at his feet they'll cast their golden crowns
when the man comes around
Satisfaction was not the word of the hour as the red stallion left the Steppes behind him. His righteous fury smoldered black and ugly like a brand upon his chest, its thirst unquenched and its need for retribution unfulfilled. Reichenbach had refused to answer for his reticence in the face of injustice.
His silence was as deafening as the silence hanging over the court itself.
But if he had truly fled, taking the tyranny of dragons and terror on the wing with him, then silence too could be a perfectly serviceable answer.
Raymond had reached the scar of dragonbreath blighting the pass through the Arma mountains. However many times he passed through the desolation, the sight sickened him - not because he was particularly fond of nature, for as with anything else in reality the natural world could be friend or foe and often both at once, but because of what the scar represented and the senseless harm it had caused in the name of shock and awe. That blight represented the things against which he had maneuvered for his entire life. Perhaps now that the silence was accompanied by an exit, the land could heal. The people could heal.
He did not regret his decision to leave Terrastella. Was it traitorous to be honest about one's allegiance? Was it traitorous to defend the defenseless? Raymond looked up, eyeing the looming silhouette of the Raven Gates in the gathering shadow of dusk, and imagined a world in which he could tear them down as easily as they had been used to imprison the people of Denocte. Freedom would never - could never - suffer such an edifice to endure.
The dim rustle of wings disturbed the nighttime stillness and a familiar raven landed at his feet, beak gaping with exhausted breaths. Around its twiggy leg was fastened a scrap - literally a scrap - of parchment, all that remained of the note he had sent to Calliope. He frowned and freed the laboring creature of its burden. In his own writing, Calliope's rage roared back at him from the parchment: "yr obdt svt"; it stung more than he would have liked.
"Thank you, my friend," he said, then gingerly offered his tail to the bird. It climbed up, allowing him to transfer it to the slope of his back where it settled into a puddle of inky feathers to rest.
With the opening of the gates had come the revelation of everything that the regime had done to its own lands. The burning of the mountain, the taint of a dragon that was supposed to guard the people, not play part in a campaign to strike fear in those that called the court their home and keep them from leaving. She had foolishly attempted to leave once or twice, though the gates had not moved for her. She would have risked life and limb for it, braved the rage of a dragon. Should it have struck her down, her blood would have been on the regime's hands.
Now... the regime was gone. They had departed silently, and the Champion of Wisdom felt a weight lift off of her shoulders. The gates were open, the dragon was gone, as were those that had imprisoned their own people for the sake of hiding away.
She had not expected to see such carnage in Arma, however. Bones littered the ground, ash strewn about. Though there were small green sproutlings poking up through the ground.. it was destruction that never should have happened in the first place. The Denoctians were free of their worries now, but who would lead them? Her own thoughts mulled... and she knew she would throw her own proverbial cards in to the pool. She had been in Denocte since the beginning, had seen changing positions, and missed the way it once was. Safe, welcoming, open. Being part of the court for years afforded her the experience to watch.
Shaking her head, she made her way through ash, kicking it up slightly, before her eyes fell on to a tall and lean figure, a stranger that caused her wings to flutter slightly, ears flicking forward. "Hello," she called out softly, blinking slate eyes as she stepped up toward him. "A new face is nice to see around here... a relief, even." Sadness colored her words, but there was a strength to her as she stood before the other.
And I heard, as it were, the noise of thunder
One of the four beasts saying,
'Come and see.' and I saw.
***
Raymond recognized Araxes - not the way one would mark the face of an acquaintance, but in the way one recognizes parts of the shepherd dog in a wolf, or the bird in a theropod dinosaur. He could tell at a glance that he'd seen the mare before, but only in a poetic sense, and it took no great scientist to guess where.
The memory of a brief exchange, a lost boy in search of a home and a purpose within walls to which neither of them belonged, crossed his mind.
He turned his head to face the spotted mare, loath for the time being to disturb the raven sitting limply just behind his withers by actually moving, and took in her feathered ear-crests, her spotted skin, the melancholy lilt of her voice. Certainly there was no mystery to her sadness when the pair of them stood amongst the withered husks of decades of forest growth and the disintegrated remains of animals whose only crime had been existing. Certainly there was no mystery to sadness in the shadow of a gate that had until recently played the dual role of shield and jailor.
"I think I've seen your face before," Raymond replied thoughtfully, "but you weren't the one wearing it."
A son, perhaps, or a nephew. He wondered if Cynix had indeed chosen to remain in Dusk court among friendlier company, or if he'd made good on his dream to go roving. But that was a concern for another day and happier tidings, for there were greater shadows cast here than the one of passing recognition.
***
Raymond
And at his feet they'll cast their golden crowns
When the man comes around.
In her state of mind, Araxes had missed the lump of black on the stallion's back, and her ears flicked slightly, wings fluttering as she recognized a raven, tired and resting. She studied it a moment, wondering if it needed help, but her attention was grabbed by the man in red again, and she shifted her gaze from the avian to the stallion's face again, blinking a little out of surprise, lashes fluttering before her lips spread in to a small smile. Sad, but there regardless. Her face but on someone else.. there was an explanation for that.
Instead of looking bewildered, she merely laughed, a soft sound that lifted a bit of weight from her shoulders, though everything still pressed on her heart, a heavy burden. "It must have been one of my children then," she finally said. It was good to know they were out there, doing well. "Did they have wings? Or horns?" It would be an easy way to differentiate that way, but the words died off her lips a moment as she turned her head to gaze amid destruction.
It pained her to know her regime had done such a thing, had acted before discussing it with everyone. It pained her more than she would ever admit, being kept in the dark when she was supposed to be part of a council that they should have spoken to.
"It's a shame you visit now, amid all of this needless death and decay." Her attention shifted, and a small hoof gently pressed in to ash near a small sprout. "Though life is coming back, slowly, this land will wear the scars of poor decisions." She hushed herself a moment, frowning, before blinking and shaking her head. "I am Araxes, the Champion of Wisdom of Denocte. Granted, I don't feel so wise lately."
"Wings," Raymond, replied, and he knew with no elaboration from her that she would know exactly the child of which he spoke.
But he had no real interest in Cynix's fate for the time being. If he was not here, then he wasn't likely in danger, and therefore not really the red stallion's problem. He was no babysitter and had no intentions of becoming so in the foreseeable future.
Araxes, too, seemed content to continue, moving on even before he had as she introduced herself alongside the ashes of a corrupt and broken regime. "It was the needless death and decay that brought me here," Raymond replied. His voice was layered with the depth of that statement: old growth forests bloated with their own deadfall at the height of a dry summer, the rumbling of keystones within a leaking dam. Time is corrosive and rot is insidious. Once a crown rusts, nothing can fully restore it again, and Reichenbach had been shedding oxidation like dander.
If he were to guess - and it didn't particularly matter, so he felt no harm in guessing - he would have said that she'd spent Cynix's roving time locked away behind the gates. What had she done in that time? Had she known the poisonous silence spreading in her own kingdom?
To judge her would be premature. "I am Raymond." His expression remained inscrutable as the mare introduced herself, and upon his back the raven had finally begun to stir from his brief rest. It fluffed its feathers contentedly before investigating the short bristles of Raymond's mane with curious pecks.
"This land will forget what happened here someday; we should not." Time levels all. Only stories lived beyond the paltry lives of horses, and eventually the blight upon the Arma Mountains would be buried beneath lush vegetation and the footsteps of the animals that would call it home. It would be arrogant to assume anything they did today would mean a thing to the earth mother, given time to heal, but folly for the sake of mortal hearts to let their children's children forget as nature did.
Raymond. and at his feet they'll cast their golden crowns
when the man comes around
Wings... Cynix then. It was good to know he was doing well, wherever he was. Grown and fled the proverbial nest, Araxes felt the empty pang in her chest, but also the pride that curled in that space, pressing through her veins and wrapping her heart snug and warm. Positive thoughts in this dark time, at least.
Flicking an ear, her wings ruffled before pressing in against her skull again as she drew in a soft breath. "Raymond... I am glad to have this meeting with you. Perhaps there is hope for the Night Court after all, if there are faces coming around." Whether to poke at the destruction and ash left behind, or to perhaps settle in the ranks that were opened once more. They needed a leader now, and her heart belonged to her people, she knew her choice. Whether she was chosen or not was up to the deities.
"No, we should not." The words were low, and her gaze seemed to grow distant a moment, eyeing the far away trees that were untouched by the death that had come down from the sky. The threat that had lingered and even posed a risk to the people it was supposed to protect. "Let it remain a lesson to those that follow blindly."
She herself had attempted to garner the attention of the regime, had demanded it as the Champion of Wisdom, and still they had wholly ignored her, had buried themselves away. As if they could hide from their shame.
A frown crossed the champion's lips, her wings ruffling up behind her ears, a posture of slight anger. "They were wrong. Even a champion could not summon them from where they had wedged themselves in to their holes after they had closed off the gates. They did wrong, and then hid away, as if they could shed their guilt." Her teeth grit, and she felt her muscles stiffen a moment, her chest aching as if she were standing and listening to the regime. A clear as crystal declaration 'the gates are closed' to a stunned crowd that they had rebuffed and ran from.
Raymond's eye drifted to the raven now contentedly curious upon his back, to the shredded scrap of parchment it had borne now half-buried in ash at his feet. The flight of the Night Court regime had done little to assuage the stirring in his breast that hard times were upon them. Exactly what those hard times were, he supposed only the gods knew, and they were unlikely to share with 'mere' mortals.
He sighed pensively. "I wish I had time for hope." Harsh, but he continued. "I know what I can do, and I'll do that. Duty is a far more enduring idea than hope."
If Raymond had ever needed proof of the corrupting influence of power, he now had to look no further than the gates looming high overhead, hazy with airborne ash. From the time he'd spent learning what he could about the courts and their deities, he'd thought Night was meant to be the kingdom of rebellion, the land apart, a place of powerful innovative energy that resisted tradition in favor of inner strength. Had he not followed Calliope to the clutches of Terrastella, the red stallion would surely have ended up here. But through complacency and arrogance the regime had fallen prey to the rot that claims all mediocre leaders.
One cannot attack one's own people and remain in power. One cannot entrap one's own people and remain in power. Beat a dog too savagely, and soon that dog will bite back. Thus passed Reichenbach and his aides.
The raven issued a raucous kraaak that echoed off the open gate, and with a ruffle of its inky feathers it took wing at last back to the rookery.
"Bold of you to assume they felt any guilt," he replied. He was firmly of the opinion that the chiefest of their mistakes had been believing their own hype. "Their successor will do well to remember their mistake. I must be going; I imagine we'll meet again, Araxes."
With a formal nod and a trembling of his shoulders that dislodged the stray feathers his raven messenger had left, the red stallion turned and continued in silence through the gates, deeper into Denocte.
Raymond. and at his feet they'll cast their golden crowns
when the man comes around
The Night Court had hope, in some vague sense of the word. With the corruption peeled off, snipped at the bud, there was time to heal and overcome what should have never happened. The speckled mare merely nodded to his words, for the first time in a long time not even affected by the harshness of words. She had grown callouses over her emotions, enough to protect herself but not block them off entirely, merely.. grown, in general. If anyone told her a few years ago how she was now, she would have been spooked. Now, she simply... was.
Small wings fluttered at the vocal raven, turning her slate eyes to watch it depart in the air. Ash clung to her coat, dusting her grey rather than white, covering the blanketing of spots, and she only exhaled as she turned her head back to the gates. They would remain open, and she would fight tooth and nail to reinstate what once had been. Before it had come down to the harm of her people.
"Despite what I've endured, I'd like to think that maybe somewhere deep down they had guilt. Though the chances are likely they didn't, sadly enough." No. They had instead smiled and walked away, and screaming for them had done the champions no good. Had done none of their people any good. A regime that turned its back on its people was a regime lost.
"Yes, I imagine we will, Raymond." Her lips spread in to a soft smile, and she watched as he wandered in to the gates, his redness becoming smaller and smaller, until he was a mere speck that disappeared as she herself turned away and began to walk in to the depths of the mountain, to assess the exact extent of the damage.
