[AW] Better a monster than an arrogant god.

[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.

 


“Did you think I wouldn’t find out?” Raum murmurs, his breath, warm and rich with whiskey as it pours like amber across Caine’s cheek. Shadows crawl, they clink like the chains that hang tight about the black’s canon bones. There is no noise in this place, no noise but the fading hum of Raum’s words and the coarse hiss of their breaths.
 
inhale.
 
 
exhale.
 
 
inhale.
 
Slowly Raum’s gaze moves over every inch of the stallion’s face, beside them a letter lies. It is bloodstained and littered in mud. The words are drowning in crimson that still glows wet and fresh.
 
“I have eyes, Caine.” The King continues, still close, his voice still little more than a murmur. The darkness breathes where they do not. It swells voluminous and clings to the damp of the small, fetid cell.
 
“More eyes than you could ever know. You are a fool to forget the might of the Crows. Once a Crow, always a Crow.” And the darkness breathes wings upon his spine. The glow ink bright and blue stained. His skull tilts, corvid and wicked. His eyes, usually blue, are black, black, black. Against the silver of him they are dark chasms reaching out to swallow down all that Caine is. Oh, Raum will destroy him, every piece, every tick of his heart and throb of his blood. Every piece of him will know the wrath of a Ghost.
 
It is cool here, in the darkness of Solterra’s bowels. But Raum does not feel the darkness, nor its cold. His is already scarred, already burnt beyond recognition, beyond feeling. Night is nothing to him, Day is the ruins he dances in and ash is in his mouth and tar is in his blood. Raum’s bones are bleached and his teeth full of sand and grit.
 
Slowly he blinks, slowly his eyes wander from Caine’s face to his wings, pierced and weighted down, down by iron. Down upon the cold damp stone they hang. Once, Raum might have wondered if it hurt, the feathers around the chains stripped, the bone driven through with an iron ring… but now he simply looks and does not care to know. There is no need – there is no pain that he can feel. His empathy is as ghostly as his title: Ghost. They haunt him, but how can one haunt what is now numb and does not feel?
 
But Raum is not completely numb. And that is why Caine stands before him, incarcerated, convicted, sentenced. “Fia.” He says softly, like a caress of a blade, of a mallet. “The leader of the Rebellion,” The King concludes. “You played a fool’s game and lost.”
 
And then a door is opening and torchlight shatters the dank silver darkness of their cell. Raum leans back, and the damp smell rises, cloying in their lungs. A guard moves slowly into the room. “It is time.” And a nod is all that is given as the guard reaches for the prisoner, to drag him out of the darkness and into the blinding light of above.
 
The small cell resounds with chinking metal. Was it death, rising up from Purgatory to seize them? Raum is a shadow in Caine’s wake, he is the moonshadow that Caine missed in his night within the cell. Did he look to the moon and think of a mad king? A Dictator King? A Savage King? A Ghost King? A Blood King? So many names! Raum is so many things, but now he is but a shadow. He is darkness breathing, a smothering black with eyes that know.
 
The guard moves before them, a procession of three, but then more guards join, filtering into the parade as they weave through the citadel halls. The grand doors spill open from the atrium and crowds are gathered here to watch, to mourn, to gloat, to enjoy, to fear, to embrace, to breed hatred.
 
How long is the walk to the central square? How many jibes are thrown, to Caine and to the king? How many grope for them in anger and spit and condemn them with tongues of wicked fire and eyes as hard as blades. They crave death, this crowd but is it Caine’s or is it Raum’s that will slake their thirst? The king is not a vain man, but this time he knows the crowd is baying for him. His blood is precious now, it burns like poison in his veins. Yet he does not flinch at their ire nor their joy. He does not move from their threats.
 
El Rey is waiting and light glints along the sharpened blade. The guards move to lead Caine to the central spot, to a platform black as obsidian. “Caine!” Raum says, loud enough for the crowd to hear. “You have committed a crime against Solterra’s king. You have worked against the Court you call home. You have endangered lives.” He speaks, with a voice like lead, with eyes like electricity. They vow, to kill ,to burn, to ruin all that Caine is.
 
Slowly he moves to the shackled man, careful to avoid the tethers that hold his wings down. “You could have endangered my daughter.” Raum murmurs now, for Caine’s ears alone. “You are lucky I will not take your life, your eyes, your tongue or your listening ears.” Slowly, slowly Raum studies him before turning away. “The punishment I have deemed for this convict is to have his wings removed!”
 
He gives a nod to the looming presence of El Rey before he steps away, off the platform, down into the crowd that screams in raucous disarray. They are animals here, grief-stricken, enraged, excited. They claw at the king as he passes, he sidesteps them and does not slow. As he walks he waits, for the dull thunk of metal upon Obsidian and the twin thuds of feathers and bones.

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**IMPORTANT NOTE:** anyone is welcome to respond in this thread as if their character is in the crowd and have reactions and feelings to what is occurring, but please note that this is specifically a thread for El Rey and Caine and they will reply to each other but may or may not include your char in it according to their own discretion.** 
  
@el rey @Caine