Tonight, the world is black. It is cast-iron cold, bitter and silent for all but the winds that carry on in the distance – or were they the howling of a beast, uncertain – residence for the unsettling air that rises and falls like the breaths of god. The shadow the mountains fall; valleys deepen their rut, the earth swallows everything into a vat of darkness that proceeds on – on – on into nothing. The world is succumbed to a moonless sky. It is hapless, forbidden, and all around is the magnetism that a monster may like, that electricity that runs along your spine and prickles your skin with a hundred bites, that sends tremors through your bones and makes you think that maybe – just maybe, the ground is alive beneath you. And it is hungry.
It is a nightmarescape made of jeering teeth, clawing needles, the ripples beneath your feet that you feel just faintly in your gut. As the sun drowns beneath the rising backdrop, it drags all niceties with it – all fragrance of violets, lavender, flesh and leather. What rises is a curious nothing that burns in your nose. You wait.
Silence so thick you can hear your heartbeat. Is it yours?
You hope so.
Because if it's not, you can see the possibilities are endless in this fresh new hell – there is nothing for miles but quivering brush, flat land that offers no shade or mercy. The shadows that pass over head are ambiguous, and large, you think, so large that you may not care to discover their nature of being. There is nothing here that speaks to you of humbleness or anything pleasant, even if the night breeze against your flesh is a kind touch compared to the scorching daylight you witnessed before. There are other things, things you haven't seen, things you aren't prepared for.
And how the want starts in you like thunder that rolls beneath the veil of your flesh and rises, unbidden, behind your teeth. The terror is nameless and deep, and it welcomes you as if you have always belonged. As the desert night grins at you, you grin widely back at it. And your mouth is not a boy's – it is not flush with promise, sweetness, and grins full of sunshine. It is full of treachery, a forked-tongued thirst, fanged and possessed with all the wrath of a stunted god. Something in you moves, and you move with it.
As Erasmus approached the deep split in the vast plate of desert sand, he watched the starlight unfurl from behind the web of shadows, each star a pin drop that burns brightly with every birth. They dot one by one, then by threes, then by hundreds, until the night is full of galaxic current, heady and deep as any sea. He thinks he may drown if he dotes on it too long, and returns his gaze to the canyon. Something in its dismal reaches calls out to him, and he finds comfort in its peril. It winds down, down, and he is unsure if the depth ever truly ends – but he suspects that he can see the ridge of a bone-white rib jutted from one of its shelves, and he is intrigued.
But he isn't here to spectate the wonders of a geographical beauty. He is here for answers, and to follow the distant pulsings of a war drum that has echoed since he left the gates of the Night Court. For Raum, Raum, Raum, the wanted poster slips past in his mind, tattered edges fluttering wildly in the breeze, its illustration depicting one monstrous deviation of equine flesh - quicksilver and studded blue - and he struggles to find a deep-seated hatred for a villain as so many have done before. What had he done, after all, but threatened a queen, and taken the throne of another? Such ambitions he could only admire, this not-prince of the wilds. All was fair in war.
He wondered what that sovereign would think if she knew the things he had been required to do, even as a babe, and those things that he had done that were not required. Those simple pleasures that trespassed beyond morality. He regretted nothing. Would she still pity him then, this boy who found satisfaction in war? Would she have turned him away from the courts? After all, he posed no threat. He did not care for a throne or a crown, (or does he?) not for her blood or the delectable sound that rang in his ears, when a bone is snapped and crumbled to pieces. After all, she had a dragon. There was no resident disposition, even entangled in his pride, that spirited him with the gall (and stupidity) to wave a challenge in the shadow of a dragon.
He supposed he liked her, if only slightly, and the way she turns the floor beneath her to gold, and to obsidian, and to turquoise, and to rubies, like there was a wealth in her that could never be touched. The way her shadows danced behind the valiance in her eyes, grinning and laughing at her every softness with a promise that they would bubble to the surface if she ever forgot. The way, when she allowed those shadows to rise, the air around her seemed tight and wicked, and the walls seemed to breathe with a life that extended beyond herself. Or did they hum? Did they tremble?
Consumed in his thoughts, he hadn't realized that he was treading the paths that led through the canyon. Some were thin, almost too thin, some seemed to lead too far and steep, and some seemed to end abruptly. It was like a maze of trails with no discernible outcome, winding roads that twisted and turned and tangled and disappeared into the dark. The red rock was paled in the starlight, and all seemed to blend in ways that only the sliver of shadows revealed each edge. If some poor sod had tried to run through by fear or pure recklessness, one could only imagine how quickly he would be met with an end. This in mind, Erasmus chose his steps wisely – slipping from time to time, on a skittering rock that ricocheted forever down the crevice, and catching his breath as his sight pulsed after the swallowing dark.
It is a nightmarescape made of jeering teeth, clawing needles, the ripples beneath your feet that you feel just faintly in your gut. As the sun drowns beneath the rising backdrop, it drags all niceties with it – all fragrance of violets, lavender, flesh and leather. What rises is a curious nothing that burns in your nose. You wait.
Silence so thick you can hear your heartbeat. Is it yours?
You hope so.
Because if it's not, you can see the possibilities are endless in this fresh new hell – there is nothing for miles but quivering brush, flat land that offers no shade or mercy. The shadows that pass over head are ambiguous, and large, you think, so large that you may not care to discover their nature of being. There is nothing here that speaks to you of humbleness or anything pleasant, even if the night breeze against your flesh is a kind touch compared to the scorching daylight you witnessed before. There are other things, things you haven't seen, things you aren't prepared for.
And how the want starts in you like thunder that rolls beneath the veil of your flesh and rises, unbidden, behind your teeth. The terror is nameless and deep, and it welcomes you as if you have always belonged. As the desert night grins at you, you grin widely back at it. And your mouth is not a boy's – it is not flush with promise, sweetness, and grins full of sunshine. It is full of treachery, a forked-tongued thirst, fanged and possessed with all the wrath of a stunted god. Something in you moves, and you move with it.
As Erasmus approached the deep split in the vast plate of desert sand, he watched the starlight unfurl from behind the web of shadows, each star a pin drop that burns brightly with every birth. They dot one by one, then by threes, then by hundreds, until the night is full of galaxic current, heady and deep as any sea. He thinks he may drown if he dotes on it too long, and returns his gaze to the canyon. Something in its dismal reaches calls out to him, and he finds comfort in its peril. It winds down, down, and he is unsure if the depth ever truly ends – but he suspects that he can see the ridge of a bone-white rib jutted from one of its shelves, and he is intrigued.
But he isn't here to spectate the wonders of a geographical beauty. He is here for answers, and to follow the distant pulsings of a war drum that has echoed since he left the gates of the Night Court. For Raum, Raum, Raum, the wanted poster slips past in his mind, tattered edges fluttering wildly in the breeze, its illustration depicting one monstrous deviation of equine flesh - quicksilver and studded blue - and he struggles to find a deep-seated hatred for a villain as so many have done before. What had he done, after all, but threatened a queen, and taken the throne of another? Such ambitions he could only admire, this not-prince of the wilds. All was fair in war.
He wondered what that sovereign would think if she knew the things he had been required to do, even as a babe, and those things that he had done that were not required. Those simple pleasures that trespassed beyond morality. He regretted nothing. Would she still pity him then, this boy who found satisfaction in war? Would she have turned him away from the courts? After all, he posed no threat. He did not care for a throne or a crown, (or does he?) not for her blood or the delectable sound that rang in his ears, when a bone is snapped and crumbled to pieces. After all, she had a dragon. There was no resident disposition, even entangled in his pride, that spirited him with the gall (and stupidity) to wave a challenge in the shadow of a dragon.
He supposed he liked her, if only slightly, and the way she turns the floor beneath her to gold, and to obsidian, and to turquoise, and to rubies, like there was a wealth in her that could never be touched. The way her shadows danced behind the valiance in her eyes, grinning and laughing at her every softness with a promise that they would bubble to the surface if she ever forgot. The way, when she allowed those shadows to rise, the air around her seemed tight and wicked, and the walls seemed to breathe with a life that extended beyond herself. Or did they hum? Did they tremble?
Consumed in his thoughts, he hadn't realized that he was treading the paths that led through the canyon. Some were thin, almost too thin, some seemed to lead too far and steep, and some seemed to end abruptly. It was like a maze of trails with no discernible outcome, winding roads that twisted and turned and tangled and disappeared into the dark. The red rock was paled in the starlight, and all seemed to blend in ways that only the sliver of shadows revealed each edge. If some poor sod had tried to run through by fear or pure recklessness, one could only imagine how quickly he would be met with an end. This in mind, Erasmus chose his steps wisely – slipping from time to time, on a skittering rock that ricocheted forever down the crevice, and catching his breath as his sight pulsed after the swallowing dark.
