Act I — Part I
People called him Raven.
Regulus hadn’t earned that title through anything he did on purpose; when he asked about it once, the only answer he got was “just your habits”. By now, Regulus adapted to the fact and surrendered to it. It even seemed quite fitting. Ravens like him would follow wolves to scavenge from their kills, benefiting from their hunting prowess without doing anything themselves. They picked at the dead, feasting on their decomposing bodies and leaving nothing but bones and blood behind. Ravens like Regulus were especially peculiar because they didn’t have a pattern. He had two others of his species with him, and they were all so different from each other that being accomplices was practically inevitable.
They revelled in being alone in company.
“I’m goin’ for a smoke,” Raven number one, Evan, said. Evan was the least ravenous of the three, if Regulus had to choose. He had a job as a photographer, always searching for muses and never finding one. He would then always end up taking photos of Raven number two, Barty. One might even dare to assume that, at this point, Barty was Evan’s muse, but Regulus had no say nor interest in such matters.
On the imaginary scale that Regulus now apparently illustrated in his mind, Barty was only a little below him on the ranking. They had rather similar upbringings, they discovered. For Regulus, it was his mother with her sickly sweet attitude and the honey dripping from her lips whenever she spoke. For Barty, it was his father. Regulus didn’t know too much about him, but he was apparently a politician fighting against all things that Barty stood for. Being in a state like theirs was presumably incurable, and Regulus was all right with that. It meant he had a comfort zone and wouldn’t need to step out of it. It meant he wouldn’t have to do anything out of emotional obligation, because he had none.
“’M coming with you,” Regulus mumbled, grabbing his jacket. Barty was left behind in the living room, as he didn’t even look up from his phone to utter a word.
Silently, they went out onto Evan’s balcony. Even though he hadn’t found the perfect muse yet, Evan wasn’t a poor sod. His apartment was on the Upper East Side, and right now, in the dark, everyone seemed to live a little more than they did during the day. Regulus wondered what that was like as he watched the people on the streets below, like a crow in its nest.
Evan handed him his lighter, and the momentary warmth that spread over his ice-cold skin made him flinch a little bit—being warm wasn’t something he would get used to in this lifetime. As he took the first drag of his cigarette, watching as the smoke wandered off into the night, he turned back to Evan, who was staring at one of the streetlights below them.
“Do you ever wish you were like that?” he asked. Regulus gave him a questioning look.
“Like what?”
Evan took another drag from his cigarette, and it almost looked as if he burnt himself, with the words on his tongue mixing with the nicotine. “Like light.”
Regulus shrugged defencelessly, a small smile hiding in the corner of his lips. “I am a stranger to it. How could I tell if I’d want to be something I am yet to know?”
Evan smiled. “Credo te rectum esse.”
“Scio.”
There was a pause in their conversation, which wasn’t quiet due to the traffic of the city that always gave Regulus throbbing headaches. Nothing was ever quiet here. “My sister is getting married,” Evan sighed after a minute or two.
Regulus looked at him again and asked, “You have a sister?”
“Pandora,” Evan nodded. “My twin sister, actually. She’s a little odd, but who am I to judge?” He grinned, looking back at the streetlight.
Weddings were a strange thing to Regulus—it seemed so… unnatural. Only humans would get married, and Regulus didn’t understand it. What good could a marriage bring other than ties that couldn’t be broken? And if it didn’t work out, people couldn’t just split up and go their separate ways—they would have to get divorced or have the marriage annulled. Useless. Marriage used to be a strategic tool for forming alliances, but now it was a grip too tight to fit around Regulus’ arm. “Well, congratulations,” he mused nonetheless.
“I don’t think I’m going.”
“Cur?”
Evan glanced up and shrugged lazily with one shoulder. “We haven’t talked in years. I don’t even know her fiancé,” he paused. “Or her kid.”
Regulus snorted, amused. “You’re an uncle?”
“Technically.”
“Well, that’s hard to believe,” Regulus murmured, more to himself than to Evan, but standing right next to one another, he still heard.
“Why’s that, Raven?”
“I don’t know. You speak of light as if it’s something you don’t know, as if it never graced your skin, as if you couldn’t recognise its touch in the places where only darkness has been. But, apparently so, you have a family, so why speak of light as a stranger when it’s at the tip of your tongue and within reach of your hand?”
Evan just stared at him for a moment before a slow smile played on his lips. “Who said that?”
“Who said what?”
“You speak of light as if it’s something you don’t know,” he quoted.
Regulus shrugged. “I don’t know.”
Evan let his cigarette fall to the ground, pressing the tip of his shoe on it to put the light out. Regulus did the same. “Then you said it,” he smiled before turning around and walking back into his flat.