[P] Still, like dust, I rise

[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.

 


He knew she would awake more splendid and righteous than she was before. No girl could drown in hate the way she did and not rise renewed and altered.
 
Bones, bleached and broken, begin to change. They glow and blossom, flourishing as if they had waited an eternity for now. Flowers. Yes, Isra is surely awakening. The girl of seasalt rises through slumber, pulled up and up by her wayward magic. It pulls her along, a train to which she is tethered and she has no chance to alter its path, to stop its relentless momentum. It is wild and it is rising, bursting forth and Isra is no dam to hold it back.
 
Magic ripples from her as a wave and Raum knows the taste of it. It is salt upon his tongue, it is a wave billowing in off the sea. It rises and it swells and it lays sea-salt upon his tongue. Isra lays devastation within his bones and the bones of the altar. But Raum was not made to be destroyed by the sea, he was not made to be strangled by flowers. He is the stone around which it will twist, dark and black and unbreakable.
 
Bones turn to viperous, slithering ivy and tangling roots, flowers begin to hum, bright and beautiful and utterly wrong. Ah, the Night queen makes the cave sing with its wildness. And through it all the Crow drinks it in.
 
The boy beside him steps back, his obedient gaze slipping to the fractured altar and its wild bed of meadow flowers and sprawling vines.  “She can alter, beyond your perception, everything you see here.” Raum says to Abel, the loyal boy ever his shadow. “Take nothing for granted.” After he speaks, he keeps his gaze a moment longer upon the orphan. Through his electric eyes Raum looks for weakness, for Abel’s stare to blanch, for his torso to tremble (with fear, with guilt, with regret – and each would be a death sentence).
 
Slow your heart, Abel, hold fast your fear.
 
There is a heavy beat of Raum’s heart, a heavy thundering that worries and tastes of apprehension. Acton’s spark, so freshly snuffed out, still echoes its smoke in Raum’s soul. To kill another, so soon, would be tragic indeed.
 
So, he watches a moment longer, then returns his gaze to Isra and her wide, hateful eyes. Her spiral horn twists in wonder – nothing about her is as it should be. Isra is everything normal, changed. “Welcome, Isra,” The Crow murmurs to his once-queen, his voice rising like a song above the rumbling of her magic.

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@Isra @Abel