[AW] hangin next to you [meeting]

[Asterion]

Asterion in sunshine and in shadow* Somewhere there is the caw of a raven, low-throated and low, and it pulls Asterion from his dreaming. He is not sorry for the disruption. Since his fateful meeting with Flora his sleep has been fitful, pieces of things instead of the grand adventures he’d once had in slumber. Tonight (or this morning, rather, for the sun was rising and turning the frost to fire on the cool grass) he’d been dreaming of lions that turned to unicorns but did not stop their charging, and of mazes, and of rifts that waited like hungry mouths to swallow him whole, to carry him away. Maybe they were less dreams and more memories, and maybe that is why he pauses with relief as his heart stops its careening. The dusk-marked bay had been well impressed by the grand structure of Terrastella. He’d never seen anything like it – nothing closer than sandcastles as a boy – but despite his half-sister’s (and another wonder, that, in a land full of them) protests, he couldn’t bring himself to sleep in them. The only thing of stone he’d seen before was the maze in Ravos, and that had not been a trustworthy structure. Before his eye can find it, the raven is gone. But Asterion is awake enough that he will not fall to slumber again, and he rises and shakes himself and then falls still, ears lifting, when there comes a call. For a moment he thinks it is her, but even still bleary from sleep he knows Calliope is not here. Nevertheless, it is clear the voice is a leader’s, and the bay blinks and finally recalls what Florentine has told him of his new home. The Dusk Court. Rannveig. He answers the summons. It’s chilly enough that the rising sun feels good on his side, chilly enough that mist rises off the low, cool places as he passes them. He isn’t quite sure where he’s going; he’s grateful when his dark eyes find another stallion moving toward the keep. Asterion maintains a polite distance between them, his hooves too loud on the stones in the peace of the morning. The dreamer is tongue-tied, unsure what to say. He’s still too new, head still swimming with too many discoveries – of family, of magic (or lack thereof), of a the existence of a world like this one with its kings and courts and castles. With dark eyes curious, deer-like, he follows the rose grey’s example and nods to the pair before stepping away from the entry, away from the first stallion, to an empty stretch where he hopes Florentine will soon join him. He struggles mightily not to yawn, and doesn’t even think of the weeds-tangled state of his hair. Asterion always possesses the guileless look of a dreamer, but at the moment he bears the disheveled looks of one who’s been sleeping a hundred years. eeeh so many words and so little said xD nevertheless, asterion reporting for duty