[P] the dead cry out in the moon-glow;

[Raymond]

***

Raymond never minded silence. It was conversation that deviated from his overall norm, however readily and enthusiastically he seemed to dive into such things. The bare fact of reality is that one's own self is a very boring conversation partner, and it was relatively recent in the red stallion's life that he figured out that not vanishing could also be an acceptable option when faced with the concept of society.

Working in dutiful silence toward a common goal, however pointless the exercise seemed to him personally, proved to be a comfort. Consider it penance for the spark of fear in her eyes at their first meeting: if she wished to lay her dead to rest, then the gesture cost him nothing and earned him...

a name, it seemed.

The night concealed the ghost of a smile tugging at his soot-grey lips. It was a satisfied, victorious thing, perhaps best left hidden among such company, but satisfaction was a welcome thing to a land so long bereft of it. Taking the conclusion of her own efforts as a signal, Raymond called the pit he'd excavated sufficient and dragged the badger's remains into it with a pall-bearer's deference. It seemed small, surrounded by the earth it had called home in a way that it had never foreseen and would never appreciate, but beneath the earth it might rest now as it had in life.

Some superstitious folk see to the burial of their dead to appease the spirits, lest such forests as these teem with the souls of countless restless dead. Raymond believed in such restlessness only insofar as it manifested in the ancestral fire of a creature fighting to succeed or survive, but he appreciated the sentiment. It was kind and gentle and romantic, as he imagined Isra might have been in the absence of her private horrors.

Did all your range find an end? she asked, and Raymond's head tipped thoughtfully her way. His eyes were distant and pensive in the moonlight, but this time when he smiled it was for her to see, and it was full of something not quite spilling over into sadness.

Wistfulness, perhaps.

Regret, perhaps.

"I came too late," he replied wryly around that strange and dissatisfied smile. The thought of the regime escaping without so much as a stripe to mark the shame of their misrule filled his mouth with the taste of bitter bile, a scab ripe for the scratching. Here were abusers who had gone free, yet more proof of the fallibility of justice both mortal and divine. "I have to live with that. But while rage is good for a lot of things, it doesn't comport well with moving on."

There is a time to scream and a time to weep. One day, perhaps his rage against the delinquent king might be sated upon the lifeblood of another equally deserving, but the burning brand of justice unquenched would likely remain patiently in hand for the rest of his life. It was the least of his worries and the least of his challenges.

"They might be gone, but Denocte is not. Denocte is more important now."

***

Raymond
And at his feet they'll cast their golden crowns
When the man comes around.

@Isra