Acton There was blood in the air and for once Acton did not welcome it. Oh, how familiar was the spark beneath his skin, like a storm on the horizon. The buckskin felt electric, kinetic; for the first time in a long time even his magic couldn’t sit still, and his markings shifted like a magician’s trick. To look at him was to look at a black mask with molten eyes, a smile that could hardly be called a smile at all. But there was no one looking as he made his way out of the city, the smoke of midnight bonfires still on his skin. He was a dampened flame as he walked, half-hidden beneath a clouded sky. The City of Stars had no such light tonight, and that was well enough, for Acton was back on Crow business. He had not yet untangled his barbed-wire thoughts after hearing about Raum’s latest sin. Acton could not decide if he was surprised, could not decide if he was angry, could not decide if he was disappointed or sickly proud or most of all afraid. The territory of thoughts was never one he walked well; that was always a strength of the Ghost. But surely, surely, his brother had not truly meant to kill Isra. (And if he had? Oh, Acton can not yet consider it.) As he walked in the silent darkness, his memory carried him away, another meeting with his brother-Crow on a mountain. That day on the peak had been the beginning of this long and twisting story, when Raum was a spy in the Sun God’s court and Acton was always starving for trouble. The buckskin never thought he would be the one to finally have his fill of blood. Despite the tang of pine, the thick sweet summer-smell of the mountain as he climbed, the taste on his tongue was only bitter. His eyes sparked at every movement, his ears shifted for each sound, but even so some dark part of his heart was eager to see his quicksilver brother again. And when the hillside turned to brambles and stones, when a copse of birch trees pale as dead faces in the night signaled he was nearing the cave (always a cave, he and his brother’s business) there was no denying the wolf’s-joy that lived in him, too. So it was he stepped into what had once been a stronghold, a hideaway, a home. He did not see Raum, but he did not need to, to know he wasn’t alone; he knew what it felt like, to be watched by the Ghost. “Has your hatred finally outweighed your sense, brother?” he asked - and how strange it felt, for he sounded more like Raum in that moment than himself. “Or is there something you’re not telling me?” Acton was not the praying sort, and oh, that was well - for he did not know what he would pray for, in that moment. Blameless hands, or bloody ones. @Raum let's get ready to rumbbbbbbllllllle |
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Out of the night that covers me, Black as the Pit from pole to pole, I thank whatever gods may be For my unconquerable soul. He can still taste her. Blood upon his lips, deep within the cuts from sharp, sharp fangs. But those fangs are long gone, for now Raum stands as equid as he has ever been. There is no part of him that is a weapon now. His daggers are daisies, long ago fallen to rot upon the earth. His abdomen is scratched from wild, metal flowers. Ah this Crow is silver, spattered with red. He is the worst the earth has to offer. Within the dark, he waits, as still as the night that hangs around him. The cave in which he stands is cold and clammy as death, but oh he does not care, not even when the mid summer breeze, chilled by the night, comes crying past its opening. Raum knows that Acton will come, for he knows his brother well, for they are bound by more than blood he has come to know. A corvid spirit lingers between them and oh it is something binding, something tethering. Yet lately the bond that ties has been fraying and who was the Crow with the beak full of rope threads? The mountain is a corpse about its Ghost – not even it dares its heart to beat with a monster such as Raum so close. It has long ago fallen silent of dragon cries, and lost any colour or life that once made it beautiful. Is it any wonder, then, that this is where Raum hides? Now this mountain keeps his secret close - it is as silent as the grave and serious with its pale eyes that watch Acton ascend. Acton is the stranger here. He is a spark of orange upon a mountain of barren silver and greys. Shadows flare like crow wings and are gone in the blink of an eye. They crawl like serpents and vanish as eyes settle upon them. In silence they stalk Acton up the mountainous trail, rocks skipping and tumbling away beneath his feet. Acton is the only sound here. And a solitary ear twists atop the Ghost’s skull as his brother presses close, close, closer. Then, Acton is there, framed by silver light and adorned in shadows in the mouth of their cave. But not even the darkness can hide the bright of the Magician, the scars that glow bright and bold. Raum wonders what Isra’s scars will be, deep and bright and beautiful, or jagged, ugly and lurid. But oh, if he even cared one way or another – wouldn’t that be a blessing? He says nothing to his brother. Acton was always speak first, and will until his dying breath, of that Raum is sure. Raum is ever the silent one, content to watch, to hiss only the smallest goodbye, if that, in a dying man’s ear. But Acton is not dying and still Raum does not care to spare him a word. And ah, there it comes! Acton’s speech flares like a spark in the dead of night. It illuminates shadows, and the smoke that is Raum’s soul, there for a moment, enough to believe it existed, before it vanishes into nothingness. No words come in reply to his brother’s first question, but the darkness of the cave shifts – fingers trailing idly along the wall as Raum steps forward. “When have you ever questioned my motives before, brother?” he asks at last, slow and soft as silk. Those words are a noose tightening, dread filling like a blade released from its scabbard. Raum steps out from that shrouding dark. He is mercury pouring forward, poisonous and lethal, to glitter in the liminal light of the cave. He sets blue eyes upon Acton and they are enough to drown the fire of his brother’s coat, enough to turn all to ash and smoke. “There is always reason behind hatred. Why do you think I did this, Acton?” And oh those words are no less harsh. They do not rise in ire or frustration. They dare his fellow Crow, they lay a gauntlet at his feet and throughout it all Raum is a statue, silver and still as ice. Who dares to judge his actions? Who dares… “Blood has been spilled and it was just and right.” @Acton I am rumbling! Can you feel it?!  ![[Image: x341oLX.png]](https://i.imgur.com/x341oLX.png) You're one microscopic cog
in his catastrophic plan
Out of the night that covers me, Black as the Pit from pole to pole, I thank whatever gods may be For my unconquerable soul. “Has she not?” The question arrives like death, cold and fetid upon the walls around which it echoes. While that voice of death is soft, Raum’s gaze is the weapon that delivers it. His eyes are the sting of electricity, the flood of water in lungs. The Crow makes no move, not when he stands beneath the liquid light of the moon as it tumbles in the cave’s open mouth. He stands as an instrument of death might – quiet, ready, awaiting use. An ear twists atop Acton’s skull, bright like a spark. “And when have things ever needed to make sense to you?” Raum asks his brother – the Magician who was always more reckless. A corvid tilt of his head, a glimmer of black pearl eyes, and Raum observes softly, “She has made you soft.” And there is no praise in those words. Neither are the designed to punish. Oh no, Raum sees a weakness where there never was before. “Are you abandoning the Crows?” Raum asks again with a voice like lead and satin. Soft as gossamer in its tone, as resounding as a death knell with its words. Was this it? The moment the Crows fell apart, the moment the murder was done. Calligo chose her. Still Raum does not move. Still he does not flinch. Even as his mind recalls the way his goddess peeled herself from her statue to stand before him as flesh and bone, he does not stir. Except to blink and it is a slow, slow blink – night passing to light and back again. “I do not have to agree with all that my goddess does.” And oh there is something so dangerous here. A darkness, a terrifying lack of fear that has Raum standing fast beneath the chance of his goddess’ wrath. His heart is a steady drum beat – he does not fear Calligo, not any more. Love, yes, but not fear. If the Night Goddess set herself upon his punishment, it would be met with impassivity for, as Raum watches his brother (and his weaknesses), he knows there is little left for him here. To lose Acton, is to be left with nothing. And still Raum does not flinch, nor his heart twinge. “Have you come here for Isra’s sake, or mine?” A quicksilver gaze settles like poison upon the fellow Crow. There is no ignorance in that poison gaze, he knows why Acton is here but what he does not know is where his brother’s alliances lean. @Acton I am rumbling! Can you feel it?! You're one microscopic cog
in his catastrophic plan
Out of the night that covers me, Black as the Pit from pole to pole, I thank whatever gods may be For my unconquerable soul. She was not the one who crumbled Denocte. Those words rattle through the cave and Denocte crumbles a little more as rocks skitter from the rough-hewn walls. Raum does not deny those words. In one thing Acton is right. “No.” He agrees with a voice as ragged as those rattling rocks. “Denocte was crippled long before Isra came to the throne.” Those blue eyes flare, a spark, a droplet falling in the darkness. “But she is soft. She makes our home a fantasy.” And it is no compliment. Even as the word soft falls from his tongue, he counts all the ways that she is not. All the blood that still drips from his torso, the way his skin is ragged and broken by her sharp, sharp magic. But as such thoughts fill his mind, a rage like vipers twisting and riled, tangles in his gut. It turns his blood to electricity, his skin to the blackest of night. Gone is the silver of him, black are the shadows that crawl across his skin. Oh his ire is pitch, is it coal ready to burn with flames bright and hungry. Heretic adds to his list of sins and inside, somewhere, in that pious heart of his something flinches. It cuts and it bleeds and it heals, not with clotted blood and fresh laid skin. No, it heals with steel and claws and teeth. His eye close, for a beat too long, a moment more that betrays his hurt. Inside, somewhere, a nerve still flares and feels, raw and ragged. But when those eyes open… Oh. It is a terrible thing. The blue is gone, for there is light in that. His eyes are nothingness. They are a void and they fix empty and wide upon Acton. More echoes of words stalk about them like ghosts of the dead. But Raum is no longer wracked with grief (if he ever was). In silence, wearing the meaning of Acton’s final words like a shroud, he sets those swallowing eyes upon his friends twisted smile. And then he moves. A wing flares from his side, ill-formed and ragged. It is a mockery of the Crow who bears it – it is his soul – wrongly made, bitty and tatty. But it is well formed in the claw upon its tip. That wing reaches to press upon his brother’s throat, its claw to hook about the tender skin of his throat. He pushes forward, for in this cave of theirs, there are many places to corral one’s prey. Raum is close, close close to that gunpower smile. He does not need to lower those abyss eyes to know how it curls, how it hides the toss of his brother’s head and the rapid beat of his heart. “Is this it then, brother?” Raum breathes as soft as death, and gentle as a feather. It is familiar to be here, so close, so intimate with his friend. That tattered wing presses tighter yet as something slips loose, a monster, a fire, a chaos raging within the dark silence of the Ghost’s body. “You put her before your brother. I warned you against Bexley Briar. Your feathers have been shedding for some time. Your last has just fallen, Acton.” And then Raum smiles. @Acton You're one microscopic cog
in his catastrophic plan
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