Rhoswen ►
She felt sick. Nausea was a whirlpool in her gut swimming round and round and round with the vigour of a drunkard left to drown. She knew anger: it was an old friend with wrinkles around its sick black smile, but this was something transcendental, something alien and unearthly. It possessed her neurons and took hostage of her synapses, reconfiguring and remastering her veins from flesh into magma. Basalt rolled and slipped on her tongue to fill her mouth with all that had been left unsaid, building a tower of liquid anticipation that tore into the air like a viper set among mice.
From the moment she had set foot through that mountain pass Rhoswen had choked on her own silence. Perhaps it was shock, perhaps it was for Sabine - who gave a fuck? Upon the night their daughter was born Seraphina had cast light on the violation her man had performed (a dance of blood and rock and blade) and from then, nothing would ever be the same. It wasn't just about the two of them anymore, for now their responsibilities ran into Sabine - their little bird - and not a day passed when Rhoswen did not question Raum's reasoning. Had he considered their child when he had slunk to the canyon under her God's sun and left Bexley for dead; had he not thought of the consequences? Of the savage, pitiless debts they would owe under the law of the Solterran court? It made her skin hiss and steam above the heat of her caustic blood.
So lost in her musing, she shivered when the familiar touch of Raum's lips brushed against her skin. Could he feel the heat, ultra-violet and cancerous, rolling from her in waves? Rhoswen inhaled slowly, glancing over her shoulder once more at her daughter, and loosely straightened her mask. It was too easy to lose herself in the maddening high of her handmade rage, it was not yet time; the zenith of this moment would come and she would be ready. "We can rest soon, there is a copse not far from here." Her voice is grit and satin and grit again; an amalgamation of subtle power and wild abandon. "We need to talk."
Such a fool she had been to lose sight of what she knew: she knew she was Solterran, she knew Solis was her truth, she knew her blood was made of sunlight and twenty-four carat gold. There was nothing to see in the rivers of Denoctian moonlight, nothing but a lifetime of questions left unanswered by a goddess who couldn't bear to love the phoenix in her crow's nest. And Raum had stolen this knowing from her like the thief that he was; a grey grim reaper to ransack and plunder her heart until the life had been sucked from every chamber. Their love was a cruelty: a mistake made by the sun and the moon, and after every mistake there comes the aftermath. Sent away from the only place Rhoswen knew to be home, she had rocked between guilt and fury, unable to decide whether it was her fault or his. Of course, the answer was both, but you see - Rhoswen had paid for her sins: in the darkness with the shadows molesting her flesh with their dirty dirty hands; left to rot in the past's invisible chains, entombed within her memories and her regret. What, then, had Raum lost?
In a way, the dragon and it's arrogant blue flame had been the red woman's salvation: though her anger for Reich lived on, Rhoswen knew it had set events into motion that would have otherwise remained stone still. Now it was time for Raum to pay.
"I never asked you about Bexley," she began, slow as a snake, "because it hurt too fucking much," there was pain behind her eyes, melting with her violence, "I trusted you Raum, I let you into my court, my new world, and you crushed it all like that canyon crushed her." The pain faded beneath the saturation of her bitterness, her voice thickening into blinding white lava, "why?"
From the moment she had set foot through that mountain pass Rhoswen had choked on her own silence. Perhaps it was shock, perhaps it was for Sabine - who gave a fuck? Upon the night their daughter was born Seraphina had cast light on the violation her man had performed (a dance of blood and rock and blade) and from then, nothing would ever be the same. It wasn't just about the two of them anymore, for now their responsibilities ran into Sabine - their little bird - and not a day passed when Rhoswen did not question Raum's reasoning. Had he considered their child when he had slunk to the canyon under her God's sun and left Bexley for dead; had he not thought of the consequences? Of the savage, pitiless debts they would owe under the law of the Solterran court? It made her skin hiss and steam above the heat of her caustic blood.
So lost in her musing, she shivered when the familiar touch of Raum's lips brushed against her skin. Could he feel the heat, ultra-violet and cancerous, rolling from her in waves? Rhoswen inhaled slowly, glancing over her shoulder once more at her daughter, and loosely straightened her mask. It was too easy to lose herself in the maddening high of her handmade rage, it was not yet time; the zenith of this moment would come and she would be ready. "We can rest soon, there is a copse not far from here." Her voice is grit and satin and grit again; an amalgamation of subtle power and wild abandon. "We need to talk."
Such a fool she had been to lose sight of what she knew: she knew she was Solterran, she knew Solis was her truth, she knew her blood was made of sunlight and twenty-four carat gold. There was nothing to see in the rivers of Denoctian moonlight, nothing but a lifetime of questions left unanswered by a goddess who couldn't bear to love the phoenix in her crow's nest. And Raum had stolen this knowing from her like the thief that he was; a grey grim reaper to ransack and plunder her heart until the life had been sucked from every chamber. Their love was a cruelty: a mistake made by the sun and the moon, and after every mistake there comes the aftermath. Sent away from the only place Rhoswen knew to be home, she had rocked between guilt and fury, unable to decide whether it was her fault or his. Of course, the answer was both, but you see - Rhoswen had paid for her sins: in the darkness with the shadows molesting her flesh with their dirty dirty hands; left to rot in the past's invisible chains, entombed within her memories and her regret. What, then, had Raum lost?
In a way, the dragon and it's arrogant blue flame had been the red woman's salvation: though her anger for Reich lived on, Rhoswen knew it had set events into motion that would have otherwise remained stone still. Now it was time for Raum to pay.
"I never asked you about Bexley," she began, slow as a snake, "because it hurt too fucking much," there was pain behind her eyes, melting with her violence, "I trusted you Raum, I let you into my court, my new world, and you crushed it all like that canyon crushed her." The pain faded beneath the saturation of her bitterness, her voice thickening into blinding white lava, "why?"
