[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 smiles like a blade and he feels it like a caress across his cheek. Fight harder. He might whisper to her. Aim for the throat. But he does not say anything, not when she is talking like a girl not used to chains, to a parched throat. He studies her, as if she might be his world, as if she is but one spark that could ignite the whole of Novus with a word.
 
Raum feels her anger and it is sharp and violent and so very proud. Behind her bright, bright eyes his blood is shed, only droplets, barely payment for the Blood Sea he is making of his fallen victims. Each of their deaths is a river of red running into a sea bright as the rubies she longs to shed. He knows the last river to bleed into the Sea would be his, of course, but it would not be at this girl’s doing.
 
Her words are a torrent, petrol pouring upon the tile of his throne room. He would give her a match to see what sacrifice she would make for her people. “Then I wait to see what killing weapon your people will become. But for now all I see is a court divided, full of those who only care of themselves. They do not care for their dead queen, they do not care for a new king, they do not care for the suffering of their compatriots…. You are a self-centered race, I wait for the day when you manage to unite into one weapon, where your people actually care enough for one another.  For now, you can all hunger and thirst with your backs to the king, or join me and each other and drink and eat until your ribs are not splinters in your sides.”
 
“I am already succeeding and you are proof.” His eyes run like a stick along her ribs that jut like roots from beneath the thin desert skin. She is the tree gasping for water. “What has brought you here? Hunger? Thirst?” A corvid gaze has his head tilting, has his lips setting hard as a beak. He would be a scavenger to her carcass, the creature there to peck, peck, peck, picking away until her bones are bleached and alone, the rest of her gone.
 
“You have a loud voice, a bright spirit, but I have yet to hear any words of value from you. Come on,” He murmurs, baiting her, chiding her, mocking her. His voice is little more than a whisper, yet it echoes like thunder between them, it sparks like lightning and the word rends itself beneath its force. “The only one here misjudging their importance, is you.”
 
He turns from her, stepping into Solis’ ray of light, he stands for a moment the black hole opening its jaws wide, ready to swallow the sun. He looks up, “You misjudge your gods too – where is he, Elif? Where is his righteous anger descending to forge you all into something better?” He moves in the light, smooth as spilled ink. He spills up the steps and to the Solterran throne. At the top of the chancel steps he turns to regard her like a god from the heights of his heavens. “You are alone. Now come, beg for your people.”

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@Elif