Rhoswen feels him, hears him - his breath falling into the night like cascading smoke. It seemed as though her presence alone could summon him from the underworld of darkness from whence he came; Lucifer chasing her through the shadows. A demon she craved, insidiously. And then he appeared, spilling forth - his coat gleaming like a knife threatening to draw her blood, the waterfall behind his eyes churning and roaring; Rhos struggled to suppress a shudder from racing down her spine. But she does not fear him, or his ghoulish lore. Neither pause, and so onward into the night they glide; a sea of flames.
It feels natural to beside this tall bewitching man again, as though, after all this time they had spent not a single moment apart. Two roots from the same tree, gnarled and intrinsically entwined. They had shared a childhood, after all; countless afternoons she had pulled him (laughing, spinning, breathless) into shards and swathes of daylight - showing him the beauty of the sun and all that it gifted to the world: carpets of flowers, the warmth of a forest clearing doused in aurulent rays, a daffodil gifted to his bedchamber at the break of dawn. Raum, nevertheless, had coaxed her into the moon's silver hymn; leading her farther, deeper, into the dark until there was no choice but to slip her hand into his so that he might guide her safely home. Rhoswen remembers, of course she remembers, the coolness of his skin; even at that tender age she had sensed something akin to magic running through his blood.
The roughness of his voice dislocates the fragmented memories, bringing Rhoswen tumbling into the present. He speaks of Maxence, his death, and the girl takes her first sweeping glance at Raum. "Of course I knew." Solterra's daughter looks away, searching for something within herself that she might recognise as sorrow, or anguish; she finds nothing but the familiar roiling magma convulsing deep within the marrow of her bones. Rhoswen is fire, Rhoswen is charring steel. Her king was dead, and she couldn't bring herself to care. "No doubt Denocte knows, too, courtesy of your honourable self." A barb, soft and dangerous; what did he expect?
Then - I have missed you.
Silence. A gaping void. Though her pace still did not slow, the summer wolf stiffens involuntarily. Of all the words she expected to spill from Raum's lips, she could never have predicted those. Rhoswen's mind races, falling over itself as they crossed the border into a place she did not know, did not understand. Then, reluctantly, she asks herself: did I miss you? A dull pang hammers the empty hallways in her chest, daring her to let him in closer. Rhoswen raises her gaze to the star-scattered sky, ashen eyes flashing with a nebulousness even she cannot define. Her voice, thoughtful, slow and not at all unkind, carries in the stifling shadow, "It seems I have a habit of leaving you."
It feels natural to beside this tall bewitching man again, as though, after all this time they had spent not a single moment apart. Two roots from the same tree, gnarled and intrinsically entwined. They had shared a childhood, after all; countless afternoons she had pulled him (laughing, spinning, breathless) into shards and swathes of daylight - showing him the beauty of the sun and all that it gifted to the world: carpets of flowers, the warmth of a forest clearing doused in aurulent rays, a daffodil gifted to his bedchamber at the break of dawn. Raum, nevertheless, had coaxed her into the moon's silver hymn; leading her farther, deeper, into the dark until there was no choice but to slip her hand into his so that he might guide her safely home. Rhoswen remembers, of course she remembers, the coolness of his skin; even at that tender age she had sensed something akin to magic running through his blood.
The roughness of his voice dislocates the fragmented memories, bringing Rhoswen tumbling into the present. He speaks of Maxence, his death, and the girl takes her first sweeping glance at Raum. "Of course I knew." Solterra's daughter looks away, searching for something within herself that she might recognise as sorrow, or anguish; she finds nothing but the familiar roiling magma convulsing deep within the marrow of her bones. Rhoswen is fire, Rhoswen is charring steel. Her king was dead, and she couldn't bring herself to care. "No doubt Denocte knows, too, courtesy of your honourable self." A barb, soft and dangerous; what did he expect?
Then - I have missed you.
Silence. A gaping void. Though her pace still did not slow, the summer wolf stiffens involuntarily. Of all the words she expected to spill from Raum's lips, she could never have predicted those. Rhoswen's mind races, falling over itself as they crossed the border into a place she did not know, did not understand. Then, reluctantly, she asks herself: did I miss you? A dull pang hammers the empty hallways in her chest, daring her to let him in closer. Rhoswen raises her gaze to the star-scattered sky, ashen eyes flashing with a nebulousness even she cannot define. Her voice, thoughtful, slow and not at all unkind, carries in the stifling shadow, "It seems I have a habit of leaving you."
@Raum <3
