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.
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
He stands upon a sand dune, azure eyes watching the sea upon the horizon. It is a serpent whose scales glisten and roll. It rears back, a cobra whose hood spreads wide, wide and wider still. It will return, that cobra, striking hard, throwing corals to bite with wicked force upon the soft skin of the sea bed. It is a monster rearing there, so small upon the horizon and yet so large, so terrible, so deadly.
Over drying sand, littered with dead fish and crabs whose shells grow hard with salt, Raum’s gaze pulls back. It runs in before the sea, electric blue that drowns all who fall within his stare. Those eyes trail over the new queen, a silent creature that watches the serpent sea. Beside her, Araxes, frantic and desperate, then, Jezanna. All he knew, for he has watched them all in silence, ever the spy to whom the darkness clings like a skin.
Yet there is Acton too. He is a spark of colour upon a bleak beach littered with the entrails of the sea. Silver fish, the ones still alive, flop pitifully, their gills straining, but oh the sea is long, long gone. Salvation is gone and deliverance rears upon the horizon.
Raum has seen enough. The sands whisper as he descends, a wraith that precedes the coming of death. His dagger chimes, a cry against the salty air that would rust them all too soon. “And it was a wonder you did not drown. But maybe this will be the day for us all.”
His gaze shifts to the shadows, to the cloud strewn sky where darkness lurks in the black of the storm’s thick belly. He wonders of his goddess, whether she took his offering, whether this is her vengeance being dealt at last.
Graphite lips pull into a line, bleak as a winter’s morn. His skull tilts to settle a static gaze upon the newly crowned queen. His eyes betray nothing, though they press sharp as a dagger against her skin. She was of the sea, supposedly, but he wanted to know how deep that sea went, how dark the waters were that flowed within her veins.
“What,” Raum asks of her, his voice the quiet sigh of a dagger pulling from its sheath, “will you have us do?”
And he wonders if this is a time for stories and if so, what it took to cut a horn from a unicorn’s head.
@Acton @Araxes @Isra @Jezanna
![[Image: x341oLX.png]](https://i.imgur.com/x341oLX.png)
You're one microscopic cog
in his catastrophic plan
in his catastrophic plan
