[P] of circles and fangs and hate;

[Raum]

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.

 

His eyes are on her moonlight smile. They are on her horn that splits the sky like a sea.
 
The queen smiles as if she has victory, as if her words mean anything at all. The Crow watches her and watches. If Isra ever dared to believe it was a gaze that gave her any high regard, oh she would be wrong. But few would ever think such a thing anyway. To be held in his gaze, that blue of electricity that jumps like ants and whose touch is lightning upon the skin, is surely uneasy. Does it set spines to crawling, like hair that rises with the silent static of a building storm-strike.
 
“You say that as if they did not choose before.” He sings like a lion – but it is no song. It is a purr that rattles the earth and slides like a serpent through the grasses – all silk and silent danger. “Starvation drives everyone to desperation, Isra and you cannot be in all places, turning stones into apples. An orphan longs to belong, and no amount of apples will ever assuage that desire.”
 
And it is a truth that resonates deep. It is a truth that saw him abandoned with a letter tied about his slender, young throat. “To become a Crow is also a choice.” He whispers to her like gravel, the words as fragile as cobwebs that drift and sway upon her torso.
 
She smiles for the both of them. The unicorn makes names for his every move. But, despite she has known violence, despite she knows how her blood sounds as it trickles from her, Isra has not known Raum. The Ghost has not yet struck like a serpent might. Her smile is so wrongly founded, but he does not offer his own to gloat at her ignorance. He has no care for being the best, the right, the victorious.
 
To Denocte’s Ghost, to strike like a serpent, is to bring a fallen god to the brink of his death, a dagger piercing his ribs. Oh Isra, for now he is just a cat, bathing in beneath the glow of the sun. A solitary ear listening to the sound of a mouse’s breath and considering all the ways it could still those fragile lungs.
 
Isra, the brave, brave queen steps toward him until nothing but cobwebs and nightmares can breathe between them. Still her horn splits the light, still her smile is as bright as pearls. Her magic dances again and beneath his feet is slick, slick glass and upon her lips like petals and poison is a threat as sweet as sugar.
 
Obedient Raum does not move, but feels the cold of his still-metal dagger. Only the glass beneath his hooves is colder still.  The Night Queen laughs and he knows now why his goddess appointed her. It is a wise and clever goddess that uses these two as her instruments upon the earth: the victim and the murderer.
 
Her skin is hot beside his. It sings with the rush of her blood, the trembling of her nerves. But Raum is cool, the balm to her worry. His heart is a steady beat, a gentle, lulling rhythm – and when is it ever more than this? When does it ever run like a staccato drum?
 
The lamb trembles and he regards her like a crow from its branch and not a murderer stood skin, to skin with his queen. “Then turn them to daisies.” Raum says more softly than the caw of a crow. His offer is an intimate thing, spoken in the small spaces between them. He does not fear her magic, not when his weapons are so much more than knifes and scarfs…
 
This Crow’s weapons are claws and fangs, horns and spikes.

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@Isra