The spaces between the walls resonate with silence. It is dark; not black against pale in that grim sort of way but dark nonetheless. Comfortably so.
The just-enough light given is carried into the hallways, rooms, and staircases through sheer glass windows, some of which the sizes span ceiling to floor. Other variations include small and round panes that frame their giver: the Moon. The stars help too, dancing decorations that exist around the centerpiece ornament. Their light seems to reflect off of the ground beneath them and shine onto the white rock so that it too appears in a twinkle.
On this particular dark, exactly eleven fifty-nine night in the palace, there is a stir. A scurry of feet, bare and a pair, rush down a carpeted hallway in the left wing. Their pitter-patter echoes behind them, disrupting the still air that had otherwise settled throughout the castle. Along with the frenzied footsteps, the rustle of fabric flapping with the gust of momentum and two lungs pushing hurried breaths can be heard. It’s not enough to wake any of its residents, but it’s just enough to turn the head of an already awake one from his gaze out the largest parlour window to the two hefty doors that open up into the Gallery: a young man clad in dark cloaks that blend him very well into the ambiance.The pair of feet draw nearer in sound as they approach the grand entrance. They stop, and then a clumsy fumbling can be heard coming from just behind the barrier of wood. Silence.
A minute later, the reverberating creak of oldfangled doorknobs being twisted can be heard. The heavyset doors scrape the dusty floor as they’re pulled open a crack - carefully now as if a sudden consideration for quiet is being taken into account - and through it a small barefooted figure squeezes in. Shining, dilated eyes survey the room frantically, peering through the dark, moonlit room the way an alarmed owlet might inspect its surroundings. They settle on the body by the window and make contact with the eyes attached. Silent exchange.
“You’ve seen…?”, says the panting voice in a whispery gasp. The question is met with a solemn nod, and then a shift of his attention to what lay beyond the window once more.
A moment is taken to catch breath, and then the mousey intruder scampers over to the looming pane of glass to stand beside the much taller windowgazer. The world outside is just shadows and silhouettes and shades of dark blue; the silence outside mirrors the silence in the castle. There are dwellings and other buildings around to make up a city, but it’s late enough that there are no lights left on in any of them and the few lanterns scattered here and there have gone to rest as well. They ignore all of this presently.
Their stares are focused on a wide empty field in the middle of the city, where architecture borders the outskirts of an imaginary boundary. Usually, it is idle and empty. Tonight, something is different.
A vast, fog-like mass of dark smoke is forming over the land. Slowly, very slowly, it’s beginning to spread like a seeping smog over the confined area.
“What...what do we do?”
There is no answer at first. Yet another quiet response instead that compels the shorter one to look up and check for a gesture of any sort. There is none. He is just still: still staring out the window at the strange occurrence and still unresponsive.
Then finally, the tall boy turns his head and angles it downward to once more meet the other’s large, liquified eyes. Just as slow as the fog he'd just been staring at, a smile materializes on his otherwise soft and expressionless face. His eyes are obscured by shadows.
With a voice not above a whisper he says: “What we always do, Ravenboy," There is a pause that an anxious silence fills before he speaks again. "We light the welcome."
The sound of this is exhilarating.
