[P] in the end there will be dust;

[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.

 


She comes in from the desert, with the winds still licking at her heels. She turns the shadows of his throne room to sunlight and warmth. Yet she is more. Her skin is the red of fire, it licks at the walls, blowing heat with every stride she takes toward his throne. Her wings sit tight to her sides and they are the dark of shadows, the shadows that already creep forward to touch the parts of her that do not burn red.
 
As Rhoswen is sand-fire, so too is this girl. She is angular and slim, her ribs a contour of bone along her sides, her hips pointed and stark. Raum has walked to the songs of rumbling stomachs, heard the pleas of those begging for food, saw the ones who resist, fighting through the barricades renouncing their loyalty to Solterra. As he drinks in this hawk-girl, he wonders if she too is here to renounce her loyalty.
 
She advances, slim and fast. Her black legs shift through swirling shadow and she is everything he is not. Raum is the silver of the moon, the pool of mercury beautiful and dangerous. He waits for her to stop, she has nothing, a whip once strapped to her side is now kept by the guard at the door. He watches the girl with eyes as sharp as her own, he wonders if this strip of girl will strike the king. He wonder too if he would do anything if she did…
 
Raum’s blue eyes slip idly from the guard and the whip he holds, ready to use it against the girl if needed. What would it feel like, to have your own weapon used against you? Raum didn’t know, Acton never got his strike in…
 
If you are only trying to kill us, then you should do it more quickly.
 
Her words are cutting they are the cry of a hawk circling before the kill. Yet she is just a hawk before the lion that is Raum. Languidly he watches her stalk forward, he watches her fury blaze and her words aim for him like daggers. They land as needles, laying small pricks along the silver of his skin. They fall away to nothing and the king is so greatly unmoved.
 
He regards this warrior-girl, with her band about her throat, her neck long and lean, her hair shaved short. She is tribal and wild.
 
“Now why would I want to do that?” He asks in a murmur, soft as silk and dangerous as rope in the hands of a hangman. Raum stirs, sitting up, rising like a lion awoken by her clarion call. “He moves toward her, his footsteps almost silent. He advances and advances until he stands close enough to taste the hunger upon her breath. He is silver to her red, the cool to douse the heat of her. She is not the only bird with eyes bright and keen, his Crow head tilts and he turns as black as the night she so despises of him, his eyes turn dark as a raven’s. “But what if I want to break the spirit of the people? What then, Elif?” Her name falls, full of knowing, full of every piece of information he knows of her. “May I continue to do it slowly? A will does not always break at the first time of asking…”

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@Elif