![[Image: rhosheader.jpg]](https://image.ibb.co/ikNXOm/rhosheader.jpg)
Rhoswen ►
She did not want to admit that his presence drew together the loose strands of her fear, tying them tightly around hands that had seen moonlit reverie and death beyond. She did not want to feel cooler at his caress, nor sense the magma of her blood slow into a rhythm that did not beat with dread; but the truth was that Raum accomplished all these things and more with heavy words and a steadying press. She was a house on fire burning from the inside out and only this Corvus man could put it out.
"Come to Denocte with me."
It was Raum's prayer to break the summer solstice, a call so ancient and perennial she felt as though it might as well have been tattooed across the pores of her skin - an inescapable chant to slather at her heels no matter where she should run. Rhoswen could have snarled and barked with wolfish vehemence at her lover's imperative, but she was weary of the fight, and wearier still of the distance roaring between them. She had always found it difficult to love, especially when her paramour's allegiance was pledged to the enemy of her kingdom, and as such she had never showered Raum in endearments nor affection. Iscariot's daughter was hard and hot and aloof; it did not come naturally to care. Of them both the crow had always been more open, more tender, but the truth of it all did not lie in words, it was weighted in the events of months past.
You see, the bloodsilver girl had silently given everything to Raum. In the heat of the day she had chosen the shadow, at the break of dawn she had stepped away from the horizon, and before Maxence's suspicion she had faithfully, bitterly, kept Raum's secret. Everything she had done had been in his name, and the child was all but proof of her love for the wrong man.
Rhoswen leaned away from his embrace, but refrained from curling back a sharp barb at his request. From the moment she had recognised the signs of her condition she had been expecting those very words to fall from his mouth, and of course, then, she was prepared. "I can't..." she replied, her voice tempered by strength and weakness, "My home is here, in the sun and the sand." Even as the syllables entered the air Rhoswen felt them bend and splinter beneath the fear of Solterra's wrath. If they were to unearth Raum's truth, and thus her betrayal, what would become of her child? Sanguine curls bounced as the mare lifted her chin in reactive defiance, "if you leave without making a ruckus, it will be fine. Nobody should ever need to know." Rhos barely believed herself; all it would take was one Solterran envoy to spot Raum on Denoctian turf to put two and two together.
"People have eyes, it isn't easy to hide a stomach as wide as this you know," astringent mirth laces her voice, stormborne eyes catching the crow's gaze, but it vanishes as quickly as it had come, "we were foolish. We should have been more careful, whether I tell them you are the father or not they will already have made their own assumptions." Rhoswen sighed, the dread seeping back into her bloodstream - though not before throwing a musing quip back to Raum at the mention of her brother, "a girl can hope."
"Reich is the least of our problems, Raum. You have to promise me you will leave Solterra without getting into any trouble."
"Come to Denocte with me."
It was Raum's prayer to break the summer solstice, a call so ancient and perennial she felt as though it might as well have been tattooed across the pores of her skin - an inescapable chant to slather at her heels no matter where she should run. Rhoswen could have snarled and barked with wolfish vehemence at her lover's imperative, but she was weary of the fight, and wearier still of the distance roaring between them. She had always found it difficult to love, especially when her paramour's allegiance was pledged to the enemy of her kingdom, and as such she had never showered Raum in endearments nor affection. Iscariot's daughter was hard and hot and aloof; it did not come naturally to care. Of them both the crow had always been more open, more tender, but the truth of it all did not lie in words, it was weighted in the events of months past.
You see, the bloodsilver girl had silently given everything to Raum. In the heat of the day she had chosen the shadow, at the break of dawn she had stepped away from the horizon, and before Maxence's suspicion she had faithfully, bitterly, kept Raum's secret. Everything she had done had been in his name, and the child was all but proof of her love for the wrong man.
Rhoswen leaned away from his embrace, but refrained from curling back a sharp barb at his request. From the moment she had recognised the signs of her condition she had been expecting those very words to fall from his mouth, and of course, then, she was prepared. "I can't..." she replied, her voice tempered by strength and weakness, "My home is here, in the sun and the sand." Even as the syllables entered the air Rhoswen felt them bend and splinter beneath the fear of Solterra's wrath. If they were to unearth Raum's truth, and thus her betrayal, what would become of her child? Sanguine curls bounced as the mare lifted her chin in reactive defiance, "if you leave without making a ruckus, it will be fine. Nobody should ever need to know." Rhos barely believed herself; all it would take was one Solterran envoy to spot Raum on Denoctian turf to put two and two together.
"People have eyes, it isn't easy to hide a stomach as wide as this you know," astringent mirth laces her voice, stormborne eyes catching the crow's gaze, but it vanishes as quickly as it had come, "we were foolish. We should have been more careful, whether I tell them you are the father or not they will already have made their own assumptions." Rhoswen sighed, the dread seeping back into her bloodstream - though not before throwing a musing quip back to Raum at the mention of her brother, "a girl can hope."
"Reich is the least of our problems, Raum. You have to promise me you will leave Solterra without getting into any trouble."
@Raum a promise he can't keep xD
