[P] ' ' you're all that glitters, all that's gold *

[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 had never been to Terrastella. Raum had never needed to, except, maybe, when he watched the then Dusk queen and her brother. They had been involved in relationships with Night members and neither proved to be a strong or worthy coupling.
 
Yet now the Crow comes, no longer as Denocte’s Ghost, but a Ghost nonetheless. Slowly he weaves through the underbrush of the Dusk Court’s lands. With each step his skin changes, dark to match his mood, bright to echo the sun or mottled to seamlessly fade into his surroundings.
 
Solterra’s dust still clings to him, but its heat is now just a phantom’s touch. It no longer burns him, no longer turns his skin slick with sweat. Here the air is cool, here the air is clearer and even the dank of the swamp is not enough to make his skin crawl. Ah, Solterra was changing him again and how the idea makes him wish to flay his skin and raze the sun court to the ground!
 
His teeth are pressed tight together, his nostrils flaring to drink the air - the air that hums with vibrant life and insects flying over stagnant waters. Raum wanders beneath vines and over fallen, damp, decaying trunks. He moves until a shadow passes over him and then he falls as still as a panther. Tinea swallows him, as if it knows a spy, as if it welcomes him. The swamp was made to hide the Ilati, it knows how to reach with its shadows and consume travellers into nothingness.
 
Raum watches the snow girl land, he studies the curve of her horns that reach up and back. His eyes slide down the long khol lines that frame her face, the only part of her that night can touch. When will he think of anything but night?
 
The Ghost needs to be someone different then, and his skin changes from silver to the richest chestnut, his eyes to the deepest green. No longer does he cut the air with his silver-blade skin and drown all he sees with his blue eyes. Instead, he is the verdant green of the forest, the deepest brown of fertile soil.
 
Slowly he steps from the underbrush and out into the clearing in which she stands. Light shafts between them and he steps through it nothing like the traitorous king he is. Sunlight bathes him bright, bright, bright as if it wants Juniper to know just who moves before her. Water bubbles as an alligator slides into the nearby pool and the swamp begins to laugh.
 
“Hello.” Raum utters, his voice as soft, as potently quiet, as deepest, darkest night. There is only the chink of his dagger against its brace and the rustle of bushes, as Legion settles down to listen, breaking the silence that hangs between them. Oh how Tinea holds her breath and welcomes a monster into its midst.

---

@Juniper