[P] a long day's walk

[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.

 

Oh yes, Raum is dealing with a serpent. Toullouse is gilded and gold, he is beautiful and dangerous. A peril Raum sees and recognizes.
 
A smile curls along the gilded man’s lips. It is like smoke unfurling lazily, tempting its way across a mouth made for speaking dangerous things. His tongue – is it forked? Like a viper’s?- speaks of loyalty. Raum stares, cold and hard and utterly wicked. Catastrophe simmers in the corners of his gaze, it catches the light of the Solterran sun and burns like wildfires. Raum’s fire is silver and wild, it eats all that it touches, a frost fire with a thirst, a hunger, so insatiable and savage.
 
Silence meets the golden man’s claims of loyalty. There is nothing the king says, but oh his eyes are watching. He studies each line of the other man’s face. He documents the way his smile tips, the way charm might be poison upon his handsome lips.
 
Ah! Suddenly there is truth and now Raum’s interest is more piqued. Now he shifts, just the smallest part, a flower bending in the breeze, a tectonic plate shifting unknown and unfelt. Another shift might be lethal. “You live here…” The Ghost king repeats, playing the words, the circumstance, over and over in his mind. His tongue feels the weight of such words and, like a god, he lays them out for judgment before himself. “Then why is it I have not seen you before this?” He turns electric eyes upon the emerald gaze of this new compatriot.
 
Then there is a question so many have asked of him recently. They thirst. They all thirst. “Is it just water you thirst for?” And his voice is a serpent’s scales slipping through the grasses. It whispers coarse and yet silken. The sun scolds them both. Raum feels it’s ire bright and keen and vengeful. But where is now your god? He might croon to it lightly. Where is Solis who charmed and laughed and left their Court when a monster took to its throne.
 
The Crow waits for Toulouse’s answer. He waits for it as if it might hold the gilded man’s fate – and maybe it does. Oh, what will you say Toulouse? The king’s silver lips twitch for there are already bones bleached dry. “Those loyal to me never thirst.” Raum concludes at last. “So what will you drink?”

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@Toulouse