[AW] BONE-SAW.

[Asterion]

Asterion in sunshine and in shadow* He wonders, idly, where they might be headed. The destination matters little to him; wherever they wind up, wherever he bids her goodnight, he will have been grateful for their walk. Even when she says something disquieting  - trouble stirs, words that might wrap around his mind when finally he beds down for the night – he cannot be afraid, not beside her. Asterion is so grateful for his friends, for the strength of the people who call the Dusk Court home. They steady him when he would drift, pulled by a tide of his own fretful thoughts. He wonders, now, if this was why he had spent so many years wandering – when he was tied to nothing, he worried for nothing. It was easy to be careless, and easy to be brave. Overhead the torchlight flickers, and ragged clouds veil the moon. For a heartbeat, two, everything is dark and hushed, and her heat beside him is reassuring. And then the light re-emerges, and he glances to see the moonlight catch in her eye and illuminate the briefest of smiles. Of course he catches it; it is the kind of smile he excels in, himself. Like the moon from behind a cloud. Sometimes I think that is a skill better wasted. “I’m reassured to hear it,” he says, and colors his tone with humor. “Bloodthirstiness is better suited to other courts.” Why is this, too, easier in the dark? When her voice drops, his head does too, bending toward her, an ear flicking inward. The name of the god makes his skin want to prickle, to shiver, though he does not know why. Asterion does not believe in the gods; how can he, when the ones he’d known walked beside him, when he saw them change the land, perform miracles, give gifts? And yet – “You invoke them like no one else I’ve met here,” he says, and there is no judgment in the soft syllables, only curiosity. “Will you tell me what they are to you?” @Marisol