Fulmination

Chapter One

Comments are appreciated my dudes... I'm kinda unsure about this one aha

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Will had seen him plenty of times before: snarling and lashing out mindlessly at everything in his path, whirling a pitch-black sword in an almost hypnotic dance, slashing and destroying and screaming in rage. He'd faced that rage himself: the cold, black eyes, the whips of seething black, the starkness of his pale skin. As a healer, Will could tell there was something wrong about him, or maybe 'wrong' wasn't the right word, but he didn't know what would be. The first time he'd seen The Wraith was years and years and years ago, billowing into existence over his sister's cold body to scream and tear at his hair and grieve. He'd known, even then, when they were barely eight years old, that he should be afraid of him.

None of that had prepared Will to see him this close, though; thoughtfully pacing around the chair Will was tied to, fingers dragging a line over his skin and the tattered remains of his suit from his left shoulder, across his back, following the line of Will's freckles from one shoulder to the next and then drifting lazily across his collarbones until he could start the process over again. The Wraith made several rounds before he stopped behind Will, hand splayed between his shoulder blades. His touch sent a chill up Will's spine.

"Lumine, is it?" His voice was not what Will would have expected (cold, unfeeling, maybe even gravelly). It was quiet and thoughtful with an underlying accent, echoing his deliberate movement in every way. Somehow, now that he'd heard it, Will couldn't imagine it any other way.

"That's the most popular title I'm known by," Will answered, and The Wraith's hand dropped away from his skin.

There was something unsettling about having no proof that he was standing there except for the knowledge that he had been before. Will couldn't even detect the sound of The Wraith's breaths. Several long moments passed, to the point where Will assumed that he must have left, and then, "But you have a life outside of this one?"

Will started despite himself and tightened his grip on the armrests at the thought of his friends and family back home and The Wraith finding them, "What is it to you?"

The Wraith chuckled, and it wasn't a low, chilling sound like his father's, but something much more soft and human that caught Will off guard. If he didn't know him for who he really was, Will might have been tempted to like him. "I'm just making conversation, Lumine."

"I don't believe that."

Another long, dragging silence. Will wondered if The Wraith was trying to unsettle him, or if he was simply thinking. His next statement, or rather, the tone of his voice, made Will decide on the latter.

"I don't."

It was so quiet that Will thought he might have imagined it. "What?"

There was a low noise, almost like the sound of wind wailing through the bows of a tree, and The Wraith materialized in front of him one bit at a time: first his mouth, permanently bent into a frown, then his eyes barely a moment afterward, pitch black like a demon's and framed with thick, long eyelashes. It took Will a second to realize that they were not hanging in the air alone, but that the rest of him was just barely there, slowly solidifying into something tangible, starting at his feet and working its way up.

"Too much effort to walk around the chair another time?" Will asked drily, and The Wraith's lips pulled themselves upward at the corners. His eyes crinkled at the edges when he smiled and it would have been charming if they weren't the color of tar.

"It's more fun this way."

Will blew out a huffing breath, "I'll bet," he answered, eyes fastened on the black, swirling lines that fled across The Wraith's skin. He hadn't ever noticed them before this; The Wraith's suit usually hid them and when he'd caught traces of them dancing over his cheeks, he'd mistaken them for the deadly shadow whips that he used when fighting. But now The Wraith was clad in only a pair of low-slung sweatpants (another thing that had completely caught Will off guard–- it was too casual, too comfortable) and Will could clearly see the markings. They were like tattoos that had been brought to life and they never seemed to sit still.