Creatures Of Fate

Playing With Fire

Ra'venna's life has taken on a strange sort of routine in the last week she's been here. She wakes up just as morning cracks the night and then bathes and dresses herself. She slips into Helio's room while he slumbers and sits in one of the armchairs with her back to the Judge of the Gods. It doesn't take him long after he opens his eyes to become aware of Ra'venna's presence. Helio grumbles about her presence. For the most part she ignores him. After the servants help him dress he tends to whatever his parents deem important. Ra'venna looms at his side through it all like a phantom.

The first couple days were dedicated to grooming the Prince to perfection. His eyebrows were plucked-she took sadistic pleasure in this-his nails trimmed and filed, and his was clipped, despite the recent styling it suffered. The Royal Stylist-or whatever his title may be flipped through ever tunic, shirt, and jacket in closet making sure each one of them covered the offensive black mark on his chest. His exact words were that "tattoos are the thing of savages". Ra'venna flaunted her Nether, weaving the purple magic between her fingers like a thread. Helio could barely contain his laughter.

Over the next few days, Helio is given piles of correspondences from nobles of all ranks in every corner of the Empire of the Suns. Ra'venna perches herself on the edge of his bed, watching as he opens and reads each and every one. He pens out a response; his writing is loopy and elegant. When he's done he tucks the letter into an envelope and then presses his family crest into the fresh wax. He performs all of these acts with cold detachment. Like Ra'venna, he needs to distance himself if he is too keep his sanity.

Ra'venna finds herself seated in the armchair with Justune's demanding gaze soaring over her head. Helio is standing before the propped mirror as two servants turn up the cuffs of his tunic and flatten his collar. He is quieter than usual. Yesterday, a servant informed them him that his parents will be expecting him at breakfast. It was phrased as a gentle request, but they both know it isn't optional.

She peers through the tip of her hood at Lightning Dragon as he lifts the overstuffed, velvet pillow. On it rests the single object that embodies Helio's rank, his crown. Ra'venna once overheard a merchant in a tavern say that Fauns take a feather for every life taken. She doubts it is anything other than a malicious rumor meant to make portray them as savages. She wonders if Dragons are the same-taking one gem for every life stolen or maybe one for every thousand or ten thousand. The thoughts sickens her in a way words can't quantify.

What would her parents think of her surrounded by this opulence all for revenge? She doesn't need to wonder. She knows they would be appalled by her actions, by the monster she's been become. Poor Votia, she was to young to comprehend the world's horror. Her childhood innocence was her death. Votia would be horrified by who she is now.

"Ra'venna," Helio's words cut through her dark thoughts. She tilts her eyes upwards without moving her head. "Ready to go?" Her scoff is reply enough. As if anyone could be ready to endure breakfast with the tyrants that murdered their family and destroyed their land. Regardless, she uncrosses her legs and gets up; her cloak swallows her like a shadow.

Helio has come to understand Ra'venna by the slight twitches in her face that reveal her deepest thoughts and the way her eyes become distant when she retreats into herself. He knows that before Ra'venna leaves, she will not only kill Terdar and his parents, but him for making her suffer through all of this.

The truly terrifying part is that he's content with that.

Helio enters the light bathed dining hall with his cape soaring behind him and Ra'venna at his heels. One breath is enough to capture the aroma of the foods scattered across the table. His parents are seated at each head of the long table. Terdar occupies the chair closest to his mother left's side.