Show me your fangs, show me your claws
Break all my bones, break all my laws
***
Break all my bones, break all my laws
***
Once upon a time, Raymond had crossed great swaths of forest turned to ash by dragonsfire and passed beneath the somber and watchful gaze of the sentinels perched atop the Raven Gates. He had walked these streets when nary a soul dared darken the cobbled walkways with their shadows - nary a soul, save one. She was dark, fearful, but she refused to hide despite her terror.
And once upon a time, he had walked with her through the desolate waste beyond the gates and helped her lay those lost souls to rest, in silence as Death intends. And he had watched her take up the mantle of the tyrants who fled the judgment of the masses, and had offered what support he thought he could with the understanding that his heart and his allegiance would forever pull him elsewhere.
And then, after a whirlwind of bloodshed and revelations, they had done exactly that.
The red ranger now walked the streets toward the night court privately impressed by the changes that time (and, yes, Isra) had wrought. Every corner was alive with activity: he passed largely unnoticed, for he walked with silent purpose as though he belonged as certainly as they did and each of them was invested in their own preoccupations. The court buzzed with frenetic preparations. A festival, perhaps, loomed on the horizon.
Raymond entered the Court proper with a cool glance at the guards, meeting the delayed recognition in their eyes with a half-smile and a salutatory flick of his bladed tail. The familiar crushing itch of walls closing in around him bubbled through his skin like a swarm of biting flies. As always the moment he subjected himself to Novus' concept of civilization, he found himself reminded of all the reasons he had avoided these very things throughout his life. He craved the open skies and fresh breeze and a hundred miles of uninterrupted wilderness to run. He needed predators to outrun and enemies to bring low. Domesticity felt like poison.
But he also needed an audience with the Night Queen, to account for if not answer for his transgressions, and to secure the safety of perhaps the only thing left for him in this forsaken realm.
So here he was.
And once upon a time, he had walked with her through the desolate waste beyond the gates and helped her lay those lost souls to rest, in silence as Death intends. And he had watched her take up the mantle of the tyrants who fled the judgment of the masses, and had offered what support he thought he could with the understanding that his heart and his allegiance would forever pull him elsewhere.
And then, after a whirlwind of bloodshed and revelations, they had done exactly that.
The red ranger now walked the streets toward the night court privately impressed by the changes that time (and, yes, Isra) had wrought. Every corner was alive with activity: he passed largely unnoticed, for he walked with silent purpose as though he belonged as certainly as they did and each of them was invested in their own preoccupations. The court buzzed with frenetic preparations. A festival, perhaps, loomed on the horizon.
Raymond entered the Court proper with a cool glance at the guards, meeting the delayed recognition in their eyes with a half-smile and a salutatory flick of his bladed tail. The familiar crushing itch of walls closing in around him bubbled through his skin like a swarm of biting flies. As always the moment he subjected himself to Novus' concept of civilization, he found himself reminded of all the reasons he had avoided these very things throughout his life. He craved the open skies and fresh breeze and a hundred miles of uninterrupted wilderness to run. He needed predators to outrun and enemies to bring low. Domesticity felt like poison.
But he also needed an audience with the Night Queen, to account for if not answer for his transgressions, and to secure the safety of perhaps the only thing left for him in this forsaken realm.
So here he was.
***
Raymond
Show me your darkest heart, your darkest heart
So that I may rest in peace.
Raymond
Show me your darkest heart, your darkest heart
So that I may rest in peace.
@Isra | set just before the fall festival, sorry it's garbage
aut viam inveniam aut faciam
