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.
There is no grand procession as Raum arrives at Solterra’s citadel gates. There is no welcome to greet him or congratulate his victory. But how could there ever be, when he wears the blood of their beloved queen upon his chest?
There is no break of stride, not as the great gates are pulled open in silence, the only noise the sound of grating, heavy wood upon stone. The new Solterran king does not flinch at the citizens who bare there teeth and spit upon the floor. Ah, the memory of his betrayal is still strong. No Denocte dog has ever taken the crown here, least of all a Crow.
Behind him Legion follows. Still he is savage, a dog fighting it’s leash but following as it thirsts and begs for sustenance. Poison drips along their bond as Legion dreams of fangs upon Raum’s skin, of his torso exploding into stone as his great herd of raven elks once did.
Not even such violent thoughts from his monster, is enough to make Raum blanch. Though maybe something twists within him. Maybe something dies a little more, turning cold as ice.
Legion’s tail twitches and patrons scatter before it, dust swirls beneath the sun, forming a cloud that plumes and reaches for the unwavering sun. Raum’s skin is moonlight silver, bright as a dagger beneath the glare of the Solterran daylight. Sweat blooms and glistens across his skin and his body begs to limp, to expose the punishing blow Seraphina laid upon his back. Yet he does not let it. Oh how Raum forces one foot before the next, as though he were liquid, smoothly pouring, like a river, through Solterra’s narrow, dusty streets.
The steps to Solterra’s citadel keep are high and many. Raum ascends and Legion follows, with wings and feet gouging into stone that keens into the hot air. Steps were not made for monsters such as he:
Cities and citadels were not made to contain me, but fall at my bidding. Legion hisses to Raum in promise as he returns to fraying their connection, like a beak upon a rope.
“One day you shall be free.” Raum says simply, softly, as if Legion’s freedom did not equal his own demise. As if a thousand terrible deeds did not lie between then and now.
In silence the Ghost stands before Solterra, before the grand doors of its Keep, at the pinnacle of its great stone stairs.
“Solterra.” Raum greets, without love, his eyes as black as pitch – drenched in shadow and deep as a bottomless chasm. “Your queen is dead. Seraphina fell before me in Bellum Steppe. I left her broken.” And his skin bears the grizzly testament of his victory. He had indeed left the former queen broken. In his mind she still lies, twitching and gasping, her blood still warm in his mouth, upon his skin.
“I am your new king now.” And he is a horror, dressed in blood and dust, adorned with wicked eyes.
Raum pauses then, trailing his (freshly changed) blue, blue eyes over all those gathered. If he were anyone else, he might care what they think when they look up to behold their silver king. But Raum does not and he never has. At his side his beast caws a serpent’s cry that trembles both earth and sky. Legion’s skull tilts, his bloodied blindfold tilting too as he listens to the crowd. His beak is jagged and sharp, his fangs sharper still and a monstrous sight he is.
“A new monarchy is born this day and you will kneel before it or face the punishments borne of treason.” Raum voice is ringing steel and yet it is as soft as the silk of his scard – that same silk that binds Legion’s eyes and once twisted tight around Rhoswen’s throat. Solterra’s king’s gaze is a thing of ice and vengeance and it threatens to douse the whole of Solterra. “Many of you may have heard rumours from Denocte. Ask them now, for after this night you shall ask me no more. Solterra is made for better things. She sets her sights now on things that lie beyond these walls and they will be realized.”
Raum’s skull tilts then, twisting, corvid and bright, as he gazes to the citadel gates and beyond, on, on to where the other courts lie. “The tide is turning and it will make Solterra powerful.”
--: Your lovely overlord has arrived. Isn’t he great? Heh –hides under a cushion-
I SEE YOUR RED DOOR, I WANT TO PAINT IT BLACK no colors anymore i want them to turn black
Teiran is not a creature that breathes with a heart that beats when she walks the streets of Solterra. She is a thing not a who. Not a who that feels the cutting sting of pain or anger, fear or loss. She is a predator made of steel, a soldier born of tormet and poisons and magic binding everything inside her to loyalty. Teiran is a creation, made for war. Made for spilling blood and taking life and protecting the things she is told to protect and nothing more.
So when a mercury man with a beast on his heels enters her court she knows it, oh she knows it like she knows which alleyways the snakes on the blackmarket favor and which direction the winds will shift the sands before they do. He comes to claim Solterra and she knows, she can feel it in the air. It touches her with electricity, dancing up and down her skin like a charge. Teiran goes, and her sage green eyes are sharper than a blade and colder than the metal collar high about her neck. She goes and she sees him climbing the steps of the citadel and something inside her says that this is wrong, wrong, wrong because he is silver but he is not the right kind of silver.
He is not a silver that bears carving stripes and eyes like the sky above and the sand below.
She stands at the bottom and looks upon this man and his beast and she knows, oh she knows, that her court is in danger. And he speaks and his words fall from his lips like the blood staining his chest. ’Your queen is dead,’ and the image of Seraphina blinks in and out of Teiran’s line of sight, standing just off to the side, brave and strong and proud, but when Teiran looks at her she is gone. Again and again and again. Seraphina, who bore the same mark as she. Seraphina, who, for all of Solterra’s faults, believed.
Seraphina.
Teiran feels something inside her tremble. The rumble of a lion, louder and louder. It cries, it sings, it bares its teeth and roars. Teiran does not move. She stands and looks upon the man who calls himself a king, their king and everything inside her fights for purchase on the rolling dunes of the Mors, on the crumbling, pitched walls of Elatus, on the green banks of Vitae. Everything inside her screams, but she stands still as a statue—rigid as stone, beneath the glaring eye of the sun and the freezing eyes of blue.
When she opens her mouth, there are no screams. There is no fighting, no clawing, no roaring. When she opens her mouth, there is only the steel of her eyes and the light on the collar she wears and a promise. A promise to the court of sun and sand. “How will you make Solterra powerful,” and if there is an inflection of in ways that she has not already there is no indication of it in the way she stands or the flicker of her eyes. She doesn’t think of queens and orphaned children and monsters in the skin of men. She thinks of a people that have been battered again, again, again, and wonders how long it will take before the sands have buried him, too.
When Raum arrives, he is dressed as one of his daggers: sharp silver, dark blood, gleaming and narrow and treacherous.
But he is not alone.
Abel does not tremble to see the monster that dogs the man’s steps (less loyal than he, from the looks of it). But there is an infinitesimal narrowing of his eyes, a flaring of his nostrils, a quick flick of one dark ear. Something in him drops, like a stone skipping from one ledge to the next down and down into a black pit.
There is something like relief when he turns his gaze away from the man and the basilisk to instead watch the crowd. Raum gathers them up like a wave, like a handful of sand, hot and hateful. But not all - Abel sees shock, sees bright rage, sees grief. And he sees, too, faces that speak of interest, and detachment, and even pleasure. Oh, it is full of serpents, this city that has been broken to rubble again and again but still has pieces sharp enough to scour the world.
As Raum speaks the boy is moving, winding his way slowly through the thickening throng, whispering in ears and slipping money into a few palms. It is only when the beast cries out that Abel freezes, as surely as if he had met its stare instead of only heard his voice; he lifts his head sharply and his eyes are like empty wells as he listens then. He is too far back to smell the blood but oh, he remembers the scent of it, bitter and metallic, and how hot it felt at first.
One sharp-tongued mare speaks out, the bleak gleam of her collar evident across the crowd, and Abel cuts his glance to her as a shout sounds from behind them both.
“The queen is dead,” rises the high, clear voice of a girl - a yearling filly Abel paid with sun-warmed copper coins only a few minutes before. “Long live the king!” Around her, others - young and reckless, or bitter remnants from Solterra’s tarnished Houses, take up the cry too.
“Long live the king,” Abel answers softly, his voice less than a whisper well lost amid the sound now of the crowd. But it is not Raum he is watching but the monster at his side, and Seraphina is not the queen he thinks of.
Typically he wanted nothing to do with these kinds of things, but rumors had a way of traveling along the breeze, and Roshan was curious. Nothing could stay hidden for long, not in this place. Roshan approached the conglomeration of equines gathered at the sand-swept citadel, mahogany eyes glittering with intent as he peered over their heads. He did not get close. He would have been a fool if he had. Instead he lingered behind the others, watching, waiting, and learning, leaning casually against a pillar of sandstone and mortar.
A flash of sweat-soaked silver, the twist of a blinded serpent that fought against its restraints. It reminded him of the slavers and how they would parade their precious strumpets through town, as though overcompensating for the size of their man-bits. Raum’s arrogance swept over them before the usurper even uttered a word, and immediately the young thief disliked him. ’King.’ More like another shit-stain joining in this fucked country.
One among many, majesty.
Still, the stallion remained. Bandit was a steady, comfortable weight upon his brow, the ferret-dragon watching the scene unfold with notable apprehension. Roshan knew that his bonded was feeling; fear, uncertainty, anxiety… Bandit did not like this ‘Raum’, and neither did he.
Raum spoke of Seraphina and how he had defeated her, leaving her dead and broken at the Steppe. An alabaster ear flicked forward, a look of genuine concern flickering across the thief’s face before it was gone. Interesting. There wasn’t a particularly strong sting at the loss. Roshan had never personally known Seraphina, but she had cared for the people of Solterra. She had fought for the plebians and peasants like himself, even though it had meant very little. Roshan did not need her help. He was living now just as he had been living then, but something of this ‘Raum’ felt off. Clearly he was a little unhinged, but this reminded him of the tales of Zolin, the boy-king.
He wondered if Raum would throw a temper tantrum when someone inevitably came for his stolen crown. To steal what has already been stolen… Something sung in the thief’s blood at the aspect, something right. For a moment he thought of himself standing where Raum stood; strong, powerful, a ruler of men and women and King of a nation. It felt right. Oh, did the thought feel right, as though it was his right...
Fuck that.
The topic quickly went on. Almost too quickly, as though Raum was purposefully steering the topic away from Seraphina. Support his tyranny or be accused of treason? Yeah, right. The usurper brought up Denocte, and the painted thief immediately lost interest in the conversation. At least Seraphina had been straight and to the point. Listening to the way Raum spoke, Roshan was pretty confident that he liked to hear the sound of his own voice. There was no way he wanted to stick around and see the people squabble and ask their little questions. So long as their new ‘King’ left the black markets alone, he wouldn’t have a problem.
With a flick of his tri-braided tail, Roshan was gone. He needed to find Vendetta.
Where in the fuck was he? Rufio wasn’t sure, as he walked from the golden deserts deeper into the Day Court. A scowl crossed his face, and his red and black tail flicked agitatedly against him, as if to chase away invisible flies. Sand stung at this eyes, creeping into his every crevice with an annoying sort of bristling, and Rufio hated it here immediately. He longed for the sea and the wash of water on the golden sand. For the green, and for the brightly colored birds who sang and mimicked everything they heard. For a moment, he might have even longed for the lost boys – lost to time once more – but then, that moment passes.
Heat beats down on the stallion, and he grumbles as he shifts his weight, golden adornments jingling as a teasing wind hints at playfulness. The breeze seems only to spite him though, as he licks his parched lips and marches onward, hooves clattering on the stone which seemed to trail from sand. Here, the land became more refined… a city of sorts… a capital. Though he did not know that he was in the Day Court, Rufio had the sense to know that he was growing closer to civilization. So he stood a little straighter, and his silver eyes focused a little harder on what might lurk around the next bend.
The city seems abandoned as he walks through the sandstone buildings, cobbled streets empty as the straggling kingdom made their way toward Raum. Rufio had no notion of what was going on, and what had happened before his arrival… but as he grew nearer to the voices in the distance, he began to hear whispers. Rounding a final corner, the red and black stallion paused to watch a gathering crowd, to listen to the growing murmurs with mild interest.
It seemed that a new king was rising on this place. His tired eyes fall on Raum, more curious at the beast by his side than the stallion’s own bloodstained frame. Raum himself is rather unremarkable, and there is a hint of weariness to him as he addresses the crowd with brimstone in his voice and hatred in his eyes. Flicking a slender dark ear toward him, Rufio simply listens. He does not pledge fealty, and frankly, he doesn’t really give a shit about the politics in this place. If anything, the stallion was an outsider with no desire to stick around for long. He had a home, even if Neverland had been folded up in the time warp. He intended to find his way back, and to be left alone.
So he simply stands there, wondering what might come next, drawn toward the drama with a hint of curiosity in his breast. And Rufio waits.
Saphrax had not heard of what had happened down in the steppes. He hadn’t heard that Denocte’s reject had challenged the sovereign of his very home, not that he really felt like this place was home anyhow. In fact, he didn’t care what happened to Solterra. It was a strange thing, really, that Saphrax had this very nonchalant attitude. Solterra had not been welcoming to him. They had not greeted him with open arms and made him feel welcome. They watched him with distrust in their eyes, as if Saprhax could really be anything dangerous. He wasn’t here to be dangerous. All the man wanted was for someone to think him sexy. But people did not like how happy he tended to be, how he seemed to focus on the exterior appearance of himself an others. And so, Saphrax ignored most of them. He survived here, but cared not what the rest of them thought.
However, as he heard the call of another announcing his kingship, there was a sense of curiosity that seemed to pull at him. Who was this individual? Surely not someone as sexy as himself. There was only room for one sexy, half-phoenix and that was him.
Steps took him closer towards the steps up to Solterra’s grand citadel. He sees the other and his bonded and he can’t help the way his lips curl into a disgusted sneer. Couldn’t he at least wash up before coming? If he even thought about getting blood on his court, there was going to be some words spoken. He didn’t look like the sort who would appreciate Saphrax anyway, so he had already decided he simply wouldn’t bother with the new leadership either.
However, despite his uncaring attitude towards the new king, he fluffs up his feathers and turns his head to preen them as he waits. He sees the others gathered and knows that more will inevitably come. If this was going to be a big meeting, at least he would look pretty standing here.
The murmurs filled the streets, every darkened alley and shaded corner of her domain. They brushed across her skin, filtering through the air and into her awaiting, ever listening ears. Their silver queen had fallen to a silver monster wth a beast slavering at his heels. He was gathering at the steps to the citadel, calling upon this court to come stand before him. Soon, the roads she walked were empty, only the sound of her steps beating against the sand that covered them. Only the sound of her skirt whuspering across the ground, the lighter steps of Azrail as he followed along behind her, a shadow of death.
Vendetta found the crowd gathered, buzzing, and she did not join them. She looked out from the shadows of a sandstone wall, listening to the mercury man calling from atop the steps. Her ruby eyes glittered as they looked over the creature at his side, eyes bound by a scarf, and she knew the reason but wondered why. Perhaps he had not enough control over he beast to stop it from turning whoever it wished to stone. ”A threat?” Azrail says, keenly aware of the thoughts of his bondmate, knowing what she sees through thoughts passed across their bond. “A promise,” she responds instead.
Truthfully, she had no interest in a madman who wished to parade himself as a king, and what she saw in the blue of his eyes did not scare her in the least. What he thought was no doubt a threatening display only made her roll her shoulders and turn away. You did not make people fear you with blatant intimidation tactics and bloody badges. Anyone could make a mess when they kill. “Come, Azrail, I’ve got daggers to polish,” Vendetta said without looking back. The stag turned to follow, faithfully. Needless to say, she was not impressed.
She is afraid and it is the feeling she hates most in all the world - the way it clings to the insides of her veins like ice, the way it makes her shiver and forget the things that all wild things know. Her fear makes her helpless, skittish as hare, green eyes round and watchful and body still save for the trembling.
It wasn’t supposed to be like this. It was over, they had won - Solis himself had stepped down from his mountain and helped them beat back the winter, and even if had been a little anticlimactic, even if a part of her wondered whether their god had been the one to bring the elk in the first place, it had been fixed.
And now a stranger stands before them, silver streaked with red like a statue desecrated, and says I am your king. He says Your queen is dead and Elif finds she is not frozen, not tharn with fear and shock - for she cries out in grief. At least she is not the only one; she does not want to be marked by those cold and dead eyes (nor the eyes of his beast, mercifully hidden).
A breeze rushes against her feathers, trying to soothe or perhaps goad her away, but Elif could not fly in this moment for a hundred reasons. Even the whip coiled at her hip like an obedient snake is forgotten, for what in this moment could a girl with a whip do? She is nothing, nothing, nothing at all - a single grain of sand in a dying desert of them.
Solis will save us all, she thinks, but there is already doubt gnawing at her heart. (Doubt? how? She had seen him with her own eyes -
and had he truly done anything? anything but talk?)
As children some of the younger ones had taken turns playing at Zolin and the slaves, Zolin and the child-soldiers, Zolin and the Davke. They had loved to play each part - the boy-king and the savage woman who drove a dagger into his heart. It had been a foolish game but a game nevertheless.
And as Elif stands there and the cry goes up in small pockets around the crowd - long live the king - she feels like she is in a new version of that silly game. But it does not feel like playing at all.
“Do not be afraid to bare your teeth -”
03-06-2019, 01:11 PM
Played by
Muirgen [PM] Posts: 114 — Threads: 16 Signos: 0
He would not have known except for the commotion. There are whispers and cries so he pushes forward, following the crowd to its edge. A sharp inhale.
Liquid silver and blood and some hell-borne beast at his heels. Arrogant arrogant arrogant. The serpentine cockerel looks ready to pounce on the silver man or any bystander and it takes everything in El Toro’s being - his greater judgement included - not to step back. He follows quickly through the throng of bodies, keeping pace as the bloodied stallion makes his way to the Keep, and stops. Toro’s ears slip forward, anxiously, he is tight with anticipation because something does not quite feel right and for what little he knows of this land, it has started to feel like a home.
”Your queen is dead. Seraphina fell before me in Bellum Steppe. I left her broken.”
He thinks to the woman of the sands that fought at his side, for all his biting words and venom, of the woman who battled the sandwyrm, who charged the creatures of winter and famine. He had only respect for those that held their own in battle.
And she had not. Not this time.
He is a little sad for it; the loss of any good warrior is an unfortunate one and he thinks that he may have liked to challenge her, if only once. The opportunity is gone. Forever.
The cockerel caws and something in Toro’s blood shocks cold. It is no natural thing. The words of the silver one - a new silver - drip venom and nothing good, nothing sounds good. He cannot name a comforting quality of this man or his speech. Much of the crowd cannot either. A woman asks a question.
Long live the king!
El Toro’s pale mouth twitches at the cries, growing now, but he stands stock-still and silent. For once, he only wants to listen.
It will stop your breath, how cruel I can be. But you understand, don’t you?
N
ews travels fast in Solterra.
It travels faster still for Veer and Najjad who fly in lazy looping circles over the crowd. It's chaos and gore and Veer's blood-lust trembles in heart and tells him to dive and dive quickly. Veer trembles with the effort to takes to restrain himself. The gryphon and the noble fly closely together, wings almost brushing over and over again. They fly and they never have to look at each other for their bond is full of wealth with nothing of poison in it.
Najjad loops lower to look a the beast that's part cockerel and part hideous. The latter he adds cruelly in the silent bond between them. Veer laughs and he's happy that for now the noise of the crowd swallows the sound.
He's not ready to join the crowd yet. There are still things to learn from high above: like the smear of blood on white skin and the wrap of blue fabric around the eyes of the beast. All these things should worry him, should make him do anything but smile bright as the moon. It was getting boring in Solterra and he can't help but rejoice in the battle-ready thrill that's electrifying every inch of him.
Najjad however can feel a shiver of worry in him. He recognizes the basilisk as one hybrid monster recognizes another. Every rumble of fury that the beast makes echoes in him, and his own beak clenches hard enough to sting. His talons kneed the air and the gryphon wishes it was eyeballs between his claws instead of wind. Do not land in the crowd, Najjad warns.
I wasn't planning on it. Veer scolds. When has he ever joined a crowd in which he was not the center of attention? The idea alone is appalling.
When the monster caws, Najjad answers and both of them start to descend like dark stars falling.
They land on the roof of the keep. Veer spreads out his wings wide, like a black cloud and he wishes that the sun would shift just enough that his shadow might swallow up the crowd below. Hie eyes pick out Elif and deep inside him something like caution starts to eat away at him.
The girl is not the ghost's to take.
“Well,” Veer lets his voice carry out like a golden bugle call, he smiles and looks down with laughter sparking in his eyes like a storm. He doesn't care about the dead queen and he's too brazen to walk away like others have already. Maybe there should be fear in him, but there isn't. “Kneeling might be a problem” He dips a wing in a a mockery of a bow but his knees do not bend, they are steel and unforgiving.
At his side Najjad digs at the stone and leans over the edge. His wings seem as golden as Veer's seem black. And together they make a better sight than the pale, bloody stallion and his horrendous beast.
![[Image: x341oLX.png]](https://i.imgur.com/x341oLX.png)
