[P] a long day's walk

[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.

 

Ah the desert is endless and parched. It is an eternal hell full of dust and dry, sparse foliage. To be here is to suffer and endure.
 
But Raum has endured so many things and upon him it has become an art.
 
Mors is an old friend to this Denoctian man, but a friend he wished not to ever see again. Now it laughs as it tracks its new king. It marks him out in sand and sun. It withholds from him water and food. Yet Raum has learnt all the desert’s tricks... He knows where water lies, where food can be found. He still knows the way to the cave in which he and Acton attacked Bexley Briar. Does Acton now haunt it? Is he trapped within that crumbled cave, forced to remember the time when he was still brave and true? One day Raum might go, just to see: to call his brother’s name in the dark and see what thing might slip through from beyond the veil.
 
Raum knows so many things of Solterra. He has learned the secrets of the land and its people for he was once a spy, watching all the Day Court had to offer yet now he is its hateful king. And what he still does not know, he will soon find out.
 
Upon the rippling horizon, a mirage of heat and light, a figure emerges. It is everything the once-Crow is not. For Toulouse, as Raum would come to know him, is fair skinned and glitters like a nugget of gold lost upon the horizon. The mirage makes his emerald scarves ripple in ethereal dance. This creature of the horizon is exotic and beautiful where Raum is coarse and dangerous.
 
In many ways one might regard Raum and Toulouse similar… for both are forged of metal that gleams and both adorned in scarves. But one is the metal of sun and the other the metal of the midnight moon. One has a scarf of earth and the other a scarf of water. Raum counts all the ways in which they are different, of course.
 
Yes, the stranger is elegant and sleek with his long limbs and bestowed grace. Once, as a child, Raum might have mocked this man for his abundant riches. The orphan would have tracked him until his attention drifted and then from his torso, undetected, stripped away his most valuable adornments. As a man now grown, Raum does not care for such material things – now he is made to steal lives. Look a little closer at Raum and you will see that blood is his dress and violence his only language.
 
A new decree is soon to come into force and it is this that has Raum’s course changing. No longer does he head for the Oasis, instead he moves for that stranger glittering gold upon the horizon.
 
The desert no longer laughs, no longer does the breeze drift playfully by. All falls still for the desert does not trust its Crow king and it watches him hunt down the stranger of gold and silk.
 
The Ghost moves before the mirage, which is now a man forged of that rippling gold. Slowly he turns his blue gaze upon the stranger and regards him silently. One might dare to believe Raum cared for this encounter, if not for the chill upon that stare. Oh Raum’s eyes are waters freezing. They are ice made cold and wicked.
 
His skull tilts, corvid and dangerous. “What brings you out into the desert?” The king asks, for business within the desert is being restricted and the actions of the people studied, like animals within cages.
 
There is only one thing Raum wonders and it is this:
 
Does this stranger need a cage too?

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@Toulouse - sorry it took so long <3