home is behind the world ahead
there are many paths to tread
The sand was warm underhoof, soaking up the heat of the sun like a sponge soaks up the ocean water.
Only there is no water to be found here. Only mile after mile after mile of desert, ever shifting, ever changing. The dunes remade themselves in the blink of an eye out here in the Mors, rolling like waves that crash and rage against the shores. Had Toulouse known what had happened just southwest of here, he might have understood the desert’s rage. But he, like the rest of the nation, was oblivious to the stranger that stood on their doorstep, the change that had come knocking in the night.
A breeze catches the ends of his scarves, sending the spinning all around him. The breeze is refreshing; he stops to drink it in hungrily, eyes closing with a sigh.
“Does it ever end?”
The question comes unbidden to his lips, taking him by surprise. His green eyes open to glare out at the expanse of desert left before him, a frown tugging at the corners of his mouth.
In actuality, he had only been walking a few hours; a quick trip to the Oasis to escape the capitol and refresh his mind had been on the agenda. But with every step he took, he regretted his decision more and more. It was supposed to be fall; but the seasons seemed to have no grip on this corner of Novus.
Force of habit has him steadying the pair of horns about his head, rearranging his hair so they fall just perfectly to cover the base. He knows it’s pointless: the horns have never fallen from his brow before, why should they now? But it’s a force of habit, and it gives him a small semblance of peace.
As the breeze dies down again, disappearing back to whence it came, Toulouse opens his eyes. ’One step at a time,’ he tells himself, willing his legs to move again.
Soon, he would be at the Oasis, and he would receive his well-deserved respite.
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.
Ah the desert is endless and parched. It is an eternal hell full of dust and dry, sparse foliage. To be here is to suffer and endure.
But Raum has endured so many things and upon him it has become an art.
Mors is an old friend to this Denoctian man, but a friend he wished not to ever see again. Now it laughs as it tracks its new king. It marks him out in sand and sun. It withholds from him water and food. Yet Raum has learnt all the desert’s tricks... He knows where water lies, where food can be found. He still knows the way to the cave in which he and Acton attacked Bexley Briar. Does Acton now haunt it? Is he trapped within that crumbled cave, forced to remember the time when he was still brave and true? One day Raum might go, just to see: to call his brother’s name in the dark and see what thing might slip through from beyond the veil.
Raum knows so many things of Solterra. He has learned the secrets of the land and its people for he was once a spy, watching all the Day Court had to offer yet now he is its hateful king. And what he still does not know, he will soon find out.
Upon the rippling horizon, a mirage of heat and light, a figure emerges. It is everything the once-Crow is not. For Toulouse, as Raum would come to know him, is fair skinned and glitters like a nugget of gold lost upon the horizon. The mirage makes his emerald scarves ripple in ethereal dance. This creature of the horizon is exotic and beautiful where Raum is coarse and dangerous.
In many ways one might regard Raum and Toulouse similar… for both are forged of metal that gleams and both adorned in scarves. But one is the metal of sun and the other the metal of the midnight moon. One has a scarf of earth and the other a scarf of water. Raum counts all the ways in which they are different, of course.
Yes, the stranger is elegant and sleek with his long limbs and bestowed grace. Once, as a child, Raum might have mocked this man for his abundant riches. The orphan would have tracked him until his attention drifted and then from his torso, undetected, stripped away his most valuable adornments. As a man now grown, Raum does not care for such material things – now he is made to steal lives. Look a little closer at Raum and you will see that blood is his dress and violence his only language.
A new decree is soon to come into force and it is this that has Raum’s course changing. No longer does he head for the Oasis, instead he moves for that stranger glittering gold upon the horizon.
The desert no longer laughs, no longer does the breeze drift playfully by. All falls still for the desert does not trust its Crow king and it watches him hunt down the stranger of gold and silk.
The Ghost moves before the mirage, which is now a man forged of that rippling gold. Slowly he turns his blue gaze upon the stranger and regards him silently. One might dare to believe Raum cared for this encounter, if not for the chill upon that stare. Oh Raum’s eyes are waters freezing. They are ice made cold and wicked.
His skull tilts, corvid and dangerous. “What brings you out into the desert?” The king asks, for business within the desert is being restricted and the actions of the people studied, like animals within cages.
There is only one thing Raum wonders and it is this:
home is behind the world ahead
there are many paths to tread
A bird drifts overhead in lazy flight, its circle carving an arc across the sky. He keeps one eye trained on it as he walks, wondering what it sees from so high up. Does it see him as a black spot, a wolf walking through the sand? Can it see the horns balanced upon his brow, the scarves billowing against his sides?
Or does it see only a meal, and is waiting for a time to strike?
Toulouse would pay good money to have access to a vulture’s view, all the better to scout out potential targets. But the bird is up there, and he is down here, and it’s all he can do to keep himself from drowning in the desert.
Movement catches his eye, and he turns towards it by instinct. He watches as the silver man alters his course, his own stride stalled. ’This ought to be interesting.’ The Solterran King was unmistakable, with his silver skin and the scarf that blows like blue smoke. He was not a popular man, or so Toulouse had gathered from the meeting he had called - his presence alone might be enough to send others scattering.
But Toulouse was not like others, and silver was only second to gold.
A smile eased on his lips, like a kid caught in a place he didn’t belong.
”What brings you out into the desert?” the king asks, but its his eyes that he seems to be speaking with. Toulouse tilts his head so that the rings decorating his horns glint in the sunlight.
“I thought kings preferred castles to sandpits,” he mused aloud, voice little more than a murmur. “You never know what might happen, so far from home.”
He meets the king’s eyes, holding his gaze for the span of a heartbeat. Overhead the vulture is circling them now, as if preparing for one of them to drop dead.
Toulouse drops his gaze, gesturing towards the Oasis that hovered like a mirage in the distance. “I was going for a bath, I have sand clinging to all the wrong places,” he smiles his boyish smile, all charm and innocence.
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.
The sun scolds, fierce and bright. Already Raum’s tongue was dry, his skin slick with sweat from the heat of it. His coat gleams, the sunlight sliding along its newly claimed king, it makes him a weapon here. Raum is a moonlight blade, a dagger ready to plunge into the heart of Solterra.
The stranger smiles, a thing of boyish charm and wily ways. The king studies the curve of those lips, the matching glimmer of emerald eyes. One Raum would have made this stranger a target and plucked from his person whatever valuables he carried. Never would the stranger know, until he went to consult his money and found it lost. Away the boy Raum would slip, nothing more than a wraith in the night, the whispers of Ghost upon his heels.
But where were Denocte’s shadows now? All eyes that see him here mark him as Denoctian, a creature forged of moonlight and horror. Raum never cares to correct them.
All of this stranger glitters and Raum’s gaze trails along the ornate horns that rise elegant and fierce from the man’s skull. “I have a castle too.” Raum says, without pride, without a care. Slowly he returns his electric gaze to Toulouse, lighting every inch of the man with sparks. “Yet the sandpit is where children hide their toys.”
But oh, then the stranger dares speak more. Raum blinks, slowly, his eyes turning black as pitch. It is a raven’s gaze that watches the stranger now. Oh time draws itself out, it stretches aching an tense. The desert breeze falls still and only the sun dares continue. All else falls to stillness, the desert’s breath is held and it trembles along its edges, mirages quaking with fright.
For how long does Raum not speak, but watches, watches, watches. The black of that gaze is a swallowing chasm, it is a cloth that binds eyes and lips. It steals breath from its victims very lungs and clenches tight.
Still Raum says nothing – until, “Indeed you do not. So tell me, is that why you are here? To see what happens far away from home? Men have had their eyes taken in Solterra for less.
A vulture’s shadow passes over them, an omen of death, a beast hungry and waiting. It watches the King and his companion, its eyes are bright and hungry, beady and ready. Over and over it circles, as if the very mention of eyes has brought it here, as if eyes were its diet – and why might that be?
Raum does not look to the hunting bird, but stays his gaze upon Toulouse, following it as the boy looks to the Oasis.
I was going for a bath, I have sand clinging to all the wrong places,.
“You will have a job.” Raum hums like hornets taking flight, “The Oasis is restricted. Loyalty to the crown is the only way you get in there. So let me ask you again, friend, what brings you to Solterra?”
home is behind the world ahead
there are many paths to tread
The two stallions stand there, neither flinching, neither yielding, one wrought from silver and one forged of gold. The sun slants down on them, catching the fine hairs of their pelts so that they dance with light like tongues of fire licking across their spines. It’s as if they’re a matching set; one wickedly sharp, made to harm; the other subtle and gleaming, made for show. But here in the desert, they both look deadly.
The heat of the sun, reflecting off the sands of the desert, is nearly suffocating. The oasis tempts him from a distance, promising shade and water and rest - but Toulouse doesn’t dare to move. There’s a tension he can see in Raum’s body, a serpentine coil to his neck. This one is made to strike, he thinks to himself, like a silver viper, swift and true. But did Raum see the same in him? Did he see the curve to his neck, the curl of his lips? Did he know that he, too, was dealing with a viper?
He almost smiles at the thought, but he catches himself in time.
He lets his eyes speak for him. My toys are secrets, they say, and I’ll find your’s soon enough. But his mouth stays as silent as the desert around them, despite the promise his eyes are screaming.
A line of sweat crests his flank, tracing a dark line through his golden coat. Overhead the vulture is circling, and its shadow passes over them momentarily. He can almost feel the wind from his wings, his mind conjuring false breezes to cool himself - but the shadow is replaced by the sun again, and he’s left feeling no less hot than before. Still, he waits.
Finally, Raum breaks the silence.
“Loyalty?” he says absent mindedly, his long tail flicking against the sand. “Why, loyalty is my middle name.”
He isn’t afraid to meet the king’s eyes, reveling in the peril and fury he finds reflected there. A smile splits the corners of his mouth, sly and subtle. “I live here, your grace.” A fact he still loathes, for the sun and sand is nearly enough to drive him mad, but one he’s far more willing to embrace now that a new silver specter sits the throne. Now that things were finally becoming interesting in this sand pit of heat... he could make himself quite at home in the Court.
“You wouldn’t want your loyal citizen to die of thirst, would you?” And again his eyes are filling in the blanks for him. You could use someone like me.
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.
Oh yes, Raum is dealing with a serpent. Toullouse is gilded and gold, he is beautiful and dangerous. A peril Raum sees and recognizes.
A smile curls along the gilded man’s lips. It is like smoke unfurling lazily, tempting its way across a mouth made for speaking dangerous things. His tongue – is it forked? Like a viper’s?- speaks of loyalty. Raum stares, cold and hard and utterly wicked. Catastrophe simmers in the corners of his gaze, it catches the light of the Solterran sun and burns like wildfires. Raum’s fire is silver and wild, it eats all that it touches, a frost fire with a thirst, a hunger, so insatiable and savage.
Silence meets the golden man’s claims of loyalty. There is nothing the king says, but oh his eyes are watching. He studies each line of the other man’s face. He documents the way his smile tips, the way charm might be poison upon his handsome lips.
Ah! Suddenly there is truth and now Raum’s interest is more piqued. Now he shifts, just the smallest part, a flower bending in the breeze, a tectonic plate shifting unknown and unfelt. Another shift might be lethal. “You live here…” The Ghost king repeats, playing the words, the circumstance, over and over in his mind. His tongue feels the weight of such words and, like a god, he lays them out for judgment before himself. “Then why is it I have not seen you before this?” He turns electric eyes upon the emerald gaze of this new compatriot.
Then there is a question so many have asked of him recently. They thirst. They all thirst. “Is it just water you thirst for?” And his voice is a serpent’s scales slipping through the grasses. It whispers coarse and yet silken. The sun scolds them both. Raum feels it’s ire bright and keen and vengeful. But where is now your god? He might croon to it lightly. Where is Solis who charmed and laughed and left their Court when a monster took to its throne.
The Crow waits for Toulouse’s answer. He waits for it as if it might hold the gilded man’s fate – and maybe it does. Oh, what will you say Toulouse? The king’s silver lips twitch for there are already bones bleached dry. “Those loyal to me never thirst.” Raum concludes at last. “So what will you drink?”
home is behind the world ahead
there are many paths to tread
He knows this game they’re playing. It’s one he played often growing up, albeit with a different opponent. They had tested each other with words and wit, playing the whetstone and the knife in equal parts until they were as honed and balanced as matching swords. Only then had they taken their game outside of their own circle, playing it against other souls, unwitting souls.
This game was one of his childhood, his upbringing; it was ingrained in the very fibers of his being. He would not falter, no matter how cold the king’s gaze became.
Toulouse could see the violence in Raum’s, the poorly concealed threat hiding in his blue eyes. One wrong move, one poorly placed move - and he might just find a dagger buried in his throat. It was an exciting prospect, a challenge he was determined to rise to meet. Just like he had every time before.
For a moment he was silent, as if mulling over his next words. They fit together like puzzle pieces in his mind, creeping onto his tongue, begging to be released. But which variation would he choose to tell today?
“It’s a talent of mine,” he says, his voice little more than a whisper. There’s a promise at the end of it, unspoken yet unmistakable. If Raum was listening closely enough, he would catch the horned man’s proposal. He could be a weapon for him; all he had to do was ask. My fangs, my venom, can be your’s.
He studies Raum’s face, studies the way it moves and reacts, hunting for the barest of tensions. The silver king is good, he’ll give him that; only his eyes flash and move, the rest of him as still as the desert on a windless day.
But he’s not good enough. Every shifted leg, every twitch of his silver lips, and Toulouse could crow for joy if he didn’t strange the sound before it ever reached his throat.
He steps closer, and his eyes laugh even when his mouth refuses. There are no ears to hear out here, only their’s and the vulture’s as it circles them overhead, and yet Toulouse lowers his voice anyway until its dangerously quiet.
“I’ll drink whatever you offer me, your grace.” He’s dancing with the devil he knows, but how else do you get anywhere in life when the gods are silent and offer you nothing? ”Just show me the cup.”
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.
He steps forward, all gilded grace and elegant beauty. Raum watches, his silver eyes darkening with their shared proximity.
Oh Toulouse says he will take any cup the Solterran King might offer him. There is nothing upon the Ghost’s face to betray his thoughts. No, that gaze remains a blade, held tight to the man’s throat, his pulse a vibrating song that trembles the air in excitement.
Raum can taste it upon her air, salt and electricity, set to electrify his nerves and scold his flesh. It is there in Toulouse’s gleaming eyes. Oh they laugh. Oh they relish this moment and drink in the king and his barren desert as if they were a feast upon which he could indulge.
“Then drink.” The king says at last, when the silence between them stretched and tightened until it began to fray. Until even the sands seem to keen with their unmaking.
“You will know when the time comes. Do not refuse the cup.” Then Raum is turning and within his eyes is gunpowder and flames. Within his soul is hope dying. The sun watches him go, it scolds the earth, it twists the sands to black. It vows to bleach this invader king to bones. But for all its threats, Raum moves like night, silver as a mirage. This is his desert now and the sun will do well to merely watch.
When he is a few strides from the newcomer, the Solterran pauses, turning that electric blue gaze back upon Toulouse. He lets it dance, frighteningly bright, paralyzingly electric.
“For now, drink what you wish. They will see you are fed. Let me know if you see anyone stealing food or water.”
Then, with that, Raum leaves, the desert swallowing him up as its horizon trembles and twists in the mid-winter heat.
@Toulouse - thank you for the thread my lovely. I felt it fitting to stop it there since this precedes everything going on rn! <3
home is behind the world ahead
there are many paths to tread
”Then drink.” His lips curl in response, a smile as hard and bright as the sands of the desert sliding into place. Oh, Toulouse has every intention to do just that, to summon what water he can from this barren court and bleed them all dry. Everything in life could be his, so long as he was bold enough to take it.
Bold like the silver king before him, a king who betrayed his court and paid for another crown with blood.
The king is turning away, and Toulouse almost allows himself to relax.
Almost. The temptation is there - his blood is singing its own glory, his heart beating hard and fast as if it’s just survived death. And maybe he has, for is that not what Raum is? Death masquerading as a king, a man who takes only what he wants and leaves others to die. With a word he could execute anyone he wanted, and few would rise against him. But Toulouse finds only relief in knowing that, a strange sense of calm that belies the tension lingering in the air.
And as long as he knows, he’ll never be caught in the unknown.
I know you, his eyes say to Raum’s retreating back, you’re like me.
Raum turns back then, and for the briefest of moments he wonders if the king could read his thoughts. But it’s only another warning, and Toulouse dips his head in response. “I will indeed,” he says, as answer to it all.
And then he watches the king disappear like a mirage into the desert. And with the vulture still circling overhead, the golden man sets his sights back on the Oasis, a new card to play hidden up his sleeve.
![[Image: x341oLX.png]](https://i.imgur.com/x341oLX.png)
