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.
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
Raum enters the White Scarab with little fanfare. His skin is black as pitch and how the shadows reach for him, swallowing him up until there is nothing to betray where he stands.
The house is alive, the sound of laughter and merriment, of wealth aplenty wafts to him carried upon a breeze of liquor and perfume. Raum studies everything and nothing. This is a scene he has seen before, where men and women charm and patrons throw too much money upon tables and watch it disappear in a moment of bad luck.
Why is the Blood King here? Why is a creature who does not drink, nor gamble, come to a place of excess and indulgence? As he stands in the dark, in the shadows of everything, he listens and watches. He hears utterances of Solterra, of a monster there. He hears worry and love for a queen they have not seen in too, too long. He hears rumours and truths aplenty and as each spills like golden thread from the lips of those rumour and gossip mills, Raum remembers each of their faces.
Yet this day he is not here to merely listen. Neither is he here as the Scarab VIP, though his name is upon the list, though they welcome him with hospitality and not a shred of care for how he is ruining a corner of their world. He listens, when he comes as a VIP to the voices of those who recognize him, he listens as they carry their witness out into the streets and wonders how fast it would get to their Queen that Solterra’s Blood King was spotted, safe, within Denocte’s borders.
Slowly he turns in the darkness and weaves like a serpent through tables upon tables. He reaches the back, where rooms lie along lavish halls. In one room a girl waits for him, her soul as bloodstained as his. He knows her door and knocks, still dressed in black, still utterly unidentifiable as himself. She will not recognize him when she answers, but he does not think that will matter much for in his grasp is a letter and a crimson rose, only just beginning to wilt.
@
![[Image: x341oLX.png]](https://i.imgur.com/x341oLX.png)
You're one microscopic cog
in his catastrophic plan
in his catastrophic plan
