[AW] City of Stone

[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.

 

Somewhere Raum’s scarf is flying, swirling and rippling, furling and unfurling as it floats by, little more than a sigh. It is caught by the hoof of a horse immortalised in a writing rear. Its limbs strike forward, even as it arches and twists away. Its head is swung back its eyes blown as wide as the Halloween moon. The scarf ripples like a victory flag.
 
But Raum’s walk is no victor’s walk. He moves sluggish and silent. He trails his monster. The beast that roars its ire all through the still-struck streets. Down the connection with his beast Raum feels ire as hot as a still glowing poker. It brands the Solterran King as more a monster than the creature that turns to stone all who look into its gaze. Though when does Raum ever flinch? Not when Legion cries like a dog fighting for its freedom, not when the basilisk’s tail switches and shatters a tortured statue into dust. He does not flinch when an orphan boy cowers from his shadow and presses himself tightly against the stone limbs of is parents.
 
He does not flinch at anything. He does not feel. This is the end, he knows. This is the end he has brought about. This is the point at which he feels nothing when he gazes at stone death and feels nothing for the orphans it makes.
 
All is quiet in Legion’s wake. Dust swirls lazily, beautifully. Raum watches as it catches in the sunlight, how it rises like smoke – prayers for the faithful ascending to their god’s supplicant ears. Where was his faith? Love is a broken thing. Raum is a desert, his love parched and ruined.
 
It is dying. It is dying. He knows Rhoswen is nothing but ash and shattered bone – for the bones are always left after the fire. Always. He might go to find her, he might, he might.
 
He doesn’t.
 
Seraphina arrives and she is moonlight barred. He might never have noticed, until now, how the shade of their silver skin is so similar. They were both made more for moonlight that the blaze of the Day Court sun. He might have noticed all these things if it were not for the mere sight of her alive.
 
Oh he stares. He drinks her in like an omen, like salvation. He remembers her twitching and broken upon the Steppe. He remembers her blood gathering outside of her. More and more and more. She twitched like a dead thing and gasped and gurgled and, she should be dead.
 
And maybe she has died. For she stands like a woman who has known death and returns like its Bringer. She stands, no longer the night than a blade. She is more finely sharpened than the daggers at his limbs. She is more perfectly made for destruction than any instrument he has ever known.
 
If she looks for shock, for any ounce that he is taken aback by her presence, then she will be disappointed. They are all disappointed, always. For this king is a man who watched death come reaping at his hands and does not blink nor twitch at its horror. He does not reveal a secret nor any twist of emotion. He is… blank, always.
 
So maybe Seraphina will see victory in the way he smiles, small and grim and full of despair. Maybe she will feel a frisson of delight in the way he laughs, soft and rich with frustration. His laughter is a beautiful thing, warm and soft though seldom heard. His eyes are closed, his throat open and exposed. He opens himself like a man offers his wrist for manacles.
 
Is this bliss or something darker? Something broken?
 
His eyes open and with his head still upturned he drinks in the sky and a dragon and a Night Queen.
 
Yes.
 
Yes.
 
Yes.
 
He watches her land, lowering his skull with her. All around him is dust and silence and a jolt of fear that quickens his heart. It is not his own fear, it is the despair of a monster seeking freedom. It is Legion beholding a dragon and demon and wondering if he might ever be free from his incarceration to a king whose monstrous nature was greater than his.
 
Freedom the basilisk was offered. Freedom after this and now he turns his skull upon Raum who sees him turn and looks away from that magic gaze so filled with desperation. Their bond begs, the tendrils of it ripple and strain and beg, beg, beg for freedom. But already Legion is wondering his master’s definition of freedom. Was it life, or was it death?
 
There was no love between Raum and his familiar. No joy in their binding. Maybe they were the only ones in the whole of Novus who were bound with convenience and demand, not fate or consent. Theirs was a bargain a means to an end. An exchange for freedom.
 
Unsettled by his master’s lack of empathy and answer the basilisk turns back to face the dragon and roars, bitter and broken, fearful. But Raum is moving, he is stepping around his basilisk to stand before the beast. He surveys the dragon and his Queen and Seraphina and the demon that perches upon her shoulders as a prisoner surveys his noose and finds only comfort in its silent-still hanging.
 
Raum.
 
Raum.
 
They name him.
 
Are you ready? Eik asks him.
 
Ready for death. Raum knows. He need not ask anything. Why do they think he invited them here? His ire is a wild thing that has since been freed. Desperation was a pit of writhing snakes that have all been plucked free. There is nothing. He apologized to Sabine for all that he had done and for all that he is yet to do and this is it, the last of him.
 
He is sorry Sabine.
 
He is sorry.
 
The dragon is ascending, it is rising into the sky to circle as monsters do. It circles the sky as the leviathan circles the deep. Its call is mournful whalesong. But its song is not for Raum or the desperate beast he keeps within the shackles of his plan.
 
Though Raum tastes the cold damp of death stinging his throat like rust, he can breathe enough to tell the monster, “run.” But his command, his final moment of goodness, comes as Isra hisses, I know your death. The basilisk cries and Raum has underestimated the instincts of a beast. Their bond was strong, but it is not love nor loyalty and the basilisk does not flee as commanded, not when the queen readies her bow and Legion tastes too the horrid taste of death.
 
Oh Legion, Raum thinks but does not speak, this is the fear that your prey watches you with. This is the clasp of death.
 
And with the same instinct with which the Solterran’s flee into Isra’s jungle, The basilisk throws himself toward the queen with a cry more anguish that hate or ire. In the jungle another voice rises and oh, what horror meets the fearful basilisk?
 
And Raum is left to turn his gaze upon Eik and Seraphina. They are a triad of ivory and moonlight, three points of gleaming light. “I am.” Raum murmurs to them in answer at last.
 
Are you Eik?
 
Are you Seraphina?
 
All around him bodies stand and writhe in statue form, their skin the silver of stone. He thinks he feels their eyes upon him. The monolith audience is great for this.
 
His dagger lifts from its holster and strikes the sand with a dull thunk. Raum stands, unguarded, unafraid – unlike the beast that lunges wild with fight and desperate for an unfettered life.
 
“Come,” He murmurs, soft as silk, warm as whiskey, “Do it.” And he lowers himself onto his knees and looks into the dirt and wonders how much blood is mingled here with the grains of sand.
 
He pauses, waiting, waiting, waiting. “DO IT!” He roars at them, suddenly his voice ripping through the Court, echoing and echoing and echoing off the statues that stand in immortalized fear of their king. Slowly he lowers his head as if to sleep. His brow rests upon the ground and his eyes close as he quietly begins to laugh: A sound so warm and sweet and lovely and violent and wicked and so very wrong.

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@Eik @Isra @Seraphina @Ipomoea @Bastogne