[AW] that old illusion that it's safe;

[Asterion]

It is just before dawn and the world is all silver.
 
There is dew on the grass and fog rising up from all the hollows in the fields, and the first thin rays of sunlight shine down on the fog and turn it to glass or to starlight. Far away, carried clear on the crisp autumn air, Asterion can hear the sighing, singing call of the sea. He laughs into the silent, silver morning, and stretches on the grass that wets his hocks and knees with cool kisses, and makes to answer its summons.
 
Surely, comes the voice, textured as the outside of a shell in his mind, you aren’t thinking of simply walking? Before the last words fade the flap of wings follows, and Cirrus swoops like a phantom from the fog, another pale ghost in a morning of them. The bay stallion lifts his star-marked brow to her, and then he grins. “Alright, then. A race.”
 
The gull replies with a satisfied caw and a flap of wings that stirs the stallion’s dark hair from his face, and then she is gone, and the regent follows her across the misty morning and down to the sea.
 
 
In the end they agree to call it a tie. It was hard to say, in the fog, which of them reached the shoreline first, but they are each happily and thoroughly exhausted when they do. Cirrus stands on rock dark and wet with fog, and Asterion stands beside her, catching his breath with air that tastes of mist and brine.
 
The sea is only now becoming clear before them, like a mirror unfogging. At first the only thing visible is the little waves that run up to the beach, washing the rocks and shells with their foam; then come the breakers as the sun begins to burn off the mist. It is cool, but the bay does not shiver; his muscles are all warm and wanting from the heedless run to the shore. Blessedly, his mind is empty of gods and courts and problems – it is full of the day, of the shine of sunlight on the water, of the other sea-birds that Cirrus watches so indignantly.
 
Until he spots a dark shadow out beyond the place where the shelf of sand drops off. “Cirrus, he says, and she looks around with dark eyes gleaming. “Do you see – is that a dolphin, you think?” The big gull peers, and they are both still until a dark head breaks the surface and is gone again in the space of a heartbeat.
 
Maybe, says the gull, but she sounds doubtful, almost wary. Asterion tilts his head, feeling a shiver start to wend its way through him as he thinks of recent whispers – of horses that live in the sea, and eat flesh, and come up on the sands to dance beneath the full moon, wanton and wild.
 
Suddenly the day, the shroud of fog, is as eerie as it is lovely.
 
“Have you seen them?” he asks his companion, voice gone soft and wondering. For a moment Cirrus says nothing, then she clacks her beak at him, and the eye she turns on him is bright and keen.
 
Yes, she says, and her tone is like a warning. And you should hope not to – especially this time of year.
 
Asterion nods, chastised by her knowing look, but oh! In his heart he wonders and he wants.




open to any!

if you'll be my star*
 

[Marisol]

i opened my mouth and the night poured in-

The cool black night looms overhead. It has already lingered far longer than it should. 

Autumn is coming, oppressively cold, and with it comes longer nights and shorter days and dawns that bristle aggressively instead of coming in soft tides, their washes of pink and violet and silver-glazed stars sharper than ever. Marisol accepts it as numbly as she accepts almost everything else. What use is there in pushing back? Besides, something about the change is almost a comfort. Now she has a real excuse to hide away from the outer world - doesn’t have to justify slinking away early from festivals held to celebrate the solstice in perfect weather. Doesn’t have to push herself outside the Dusk Court walls for foolish flights of festivity.

The hoarfrost lining the grass, the biting early-morning wind, the omnipresent wash of darkness, it is a portal to Marisol’s real self: nothing but teeth and wings and polished metal.

It is in this lingering, purple-blush darkness that Mari emerges onto the cliffs above the Terminus Sea. Rarely does she bother to make her way out of Terrastella, infatuated as she is by her home Court, but the nagging, uncomfortable loudness and awe that’s flooded it post-summit meeting is enough to push her far, far away. The silence that follows her now, as she slinks a winding path over the stone, is a comfort. It lets her wings hang loosely rather than be crushed to her sides; it turns her gray eyes down from the sultry sky; it lets her walk in loops rather than her usually militaristic straight lines, exuding a kind of relaxedness that is all too uncommon on the dark face of the Commander.

Surprisingly enough, the sight of another figure isn’t quite enough to shake it. Perhaps because it is a figure she knows.

Asterion, she calls out against the wind, voice gravelly but unexpectedly warm. Salt freckles her dark feathers.  The spray of the ocean flecks her skin with water. Mischief, if one can even really call it that, coming from Marisol, glimmers like starshine in those dark, molten eyes. She watches him. The purple gloaming on his skin, the silver in his hair, the bird perched at his shoulder - and all of it together, the calm consciousness with which he stands, makes her heart move almost unsteadily in her chest.

Still she steps forward. Forward and forward, until they’re nearly shoulder to shoulder, the warmth of his skin almost close enough to touch hers. She peers down into the ocean as if that closeness doesn’t matter at all.

Good morning.

@asterion

[Asterion]

The sound of his name comes to him on the wind, ragged and wishful as a memory. Almost he misses it altogether over the slow sounds of the silver morning, but he and Cirrus both turn their heads, and his dark mouth shapes a grin at the sight of Marisol coming through the fog.

(Though there is a part of him unwilling to turn his back on the open waves, not wanting to miss that dark shape, that something out there beyond the breakers.)

“Commander,” he greets her, and his dark eyes are brighter than any sea-wet smooth stone that gleams on the beach. He does not move as she approaches, save his dark hair tousled by the wind, and the gull perched nearby only ruffles her feathers and tucks her head contentedly down.

Marisol is close enough to scent even over the tang of the sea, then, and Asterion closes his eyes for a moment, unable to help but give in to his whimsy and wishing – to inhale the taste of clouds on her skin, clinging to her wings like dew; currents as out of reach to him as those in the open ocean. Never mind that it is so similar to the fog that cocoons them both.

To fly – oh, it would open a new world to explore.

But perhaps that would only make it more difficult to stay in this one. The bay needs no more things to tempt him from keeping his feet firmly on the ground.

He welcomes the warmth of her, the near-brush of her wings folded dark against her sides. Good morning, she says, and brief and bright as a falling star he grins.

“It is, isn’t it?” If he were ever to build a castle, he thinks, he would put it only here, and it would exist only on a morning like this, a world of glass and salt and secrets. A world where anything might come rising up out of the sea like a fairy-tale myth.

It would be natural, maybe, to ask her about their god then – the summit and all that followed is still a heavy press against his heart, a shadow that swallows the idle moments of his mind. But Asterion does not wish to, and for once he allows himself to be stubborn.

So instead he tilts his muzzle out to sea as a gust of wind comes up, misting him with water that tastes of salt, that perhaps came from places he could never imagine and would never see. “Have you ever seen them, in your flying? Are there truly horses that live in the sea?”

He shifts, in his boyish dreaming, and his dark shoulder brushes against her own – but Asterion is looking out to the open water, imagining worlds beneath the waves.




@Marisol

if you'll be my star*
 

[Marisol]

i opened my mouth and the night poured in-

In the fog they are nothing but silhouettes, and isn’t that something to be thankful for?

Through the cold grayness she can’t see all the starshine on his skin, can’t see the true depths of those onyx-dark eyes; as much as it might separate them, it lends Marisol a kind of strength, to know that something lies between them even if she almost wishes it did not. Were she given the opportunity, she thinks, she would burn it to dust. Let their distance dissipate. If she had the opportunity - 

Well. She doesn’t. So what’s the use of holding onto it.

She glances at Cirrus with curious eyes, subtle as her gaze might be. It’s the first time she’s seen them together and something in her heart aches to think of someone ever being that close to her. The idea is so foreign it’s almost absurd. The closest most people get to the Commander is in the heat of a  brawl, instances marked by silver scars and patches of missing hair, from hitting the dirt, from bite-and kick. And this, she thinks, is not the kind of closeness most people are looking for.

At his question, Mari simply shrugs. Her gray gaze cuts sideways, meets his with something like curiosity, maybe even disbelief, but like every expression that crosses the Commander’s face it is muted and locked, merely a ghost-glass reflection of the real thing. She wonders what could’ve happened to make him ask - if his curiosity stems from fear or from reverence. I have not seen them, she admits, and peers a little further down the cliff, as if she’s looking for one alongside him now. But that does not mean they do not exist.

She wants to say that she has not seen the gods, but they exist - that she has not seen love, but it exists - that there is much of the world they have left to discover, an almost disgruntling percentage of it, but there is no doubt that all that strange and lovely unknown still exists. But it is a thought too heavy to make it past the salt in her throat.

Heavy-eyed, Marisol blinks against the breeze.

@asterion

[Asterion]

Asterion has spent his life believing in things that he has never seen.

In adventure, in horizons that wait for him, concealing monsters he might slay and maidens he might rescue. In a family that welcomes him whole-hearted, that does not abandon him as his father did or push him away as his twin did, despite how they were born with matching heartbeats, how they grew in the safety of their mother with their limbs tangled together, dreaming the same dreams.

Ironically that belief had never extended to the gods. He’d never thought of them during his slow and gentle colthood; his mother had taught him of the stars and of the tides but never a whisper of what might have made them both. In Ravos the gods had walked beside him, had been present for advice or rebuke, but they had seemed little more than men.

But here, oh, here –

He is too old, he thinks, to learn now how to be devout.

It is a shame, would be even if the gods weren’t awake and walking, because he thinks that Marisol could be the one to teach him to worship. She is steady as the cliffside with her brave heart of stone, and he has wondered if Vespera gave her that strength. That if he loved their goddess, too, then he and the Commander might be closer yet than the hairs-breadth between them.

But when he thinks of the gods of Novus now, he thinks only of the stones tumbling shut, sealing the meeting place into a tomb. Perhaps it is no wonder that he would rather search for myths that did not try to disguise their danger.

He nods at her response, feeling just a little chastised – like he is a boy, begging for stories. Cirrus clacks her beak at him, and he doesn’t need their telepathic connection to know she is saying See, see, not everyone is so foolish as you to go looking for monsters when there are plenty around already.

Asterion flicks his tail at her, and turns away to study Marisol.

“I forget how young you are,” he says, and his voice is teasing but soft. “Sometimes I think that you’ve seen everything.” It is that hard look in her eyes, that kept-apart, that he imagines is part of why she is so accomplished, so controlled –

but he wonders what kind of wall it is. If it is glass to be shattered or stone to stand forever or simply a veil of mist that someone might walk through, if they had a care to.

He draws in a slow breath, then, like a sigh in reverse, and looks back to the shimmering sea.

“How fare your cadets? Cirrus tells me she’s seen them on patrol, and they look a fine bunch.” His voice is still easy enough, still moonlight on water, but he would much rather speak of stories than responsibilities.




@Marisol

if you'll be my star*
 

[Marisol]

i opened my mouth and the night poured in-

Ha, she scoffs. Hardly. For once the humor in her voice is dialed to its full capacity. It rings against her throat like a bell rings through the air, a strange kind of grating that feels, sounds, wrong coming from the Commander, dependably stoic. Her tone rasps disbelievingly, growing more incredulous every second she thinks it over, the idea of seeing everything when, in fact - 

My world is a knife-point, Marisol says absently, and the heartbreak of the situation is that it’s true.

Knife-point, spearhead, half-drawn sword: it’s all the same blade and a delicate sill to be balancing on, never more than a wrong step from cleaving her own chest in two like a moth pulled in half at the wings, like a cow’s head in the abattoir. And what a damned knife point to be standing on. Every minute she feels it pricking at her throat like a fist closes around a struggling bird, insistent and quietly unlivable. What a knife-point, so silver and bloody - only ever scraping the surface of the world, rusted by the rain and the salt-spray and Mari’s silent Weeping-Madonna tears shed like dew sheds from fresh grass. What a knife-point, forever iscariotic.

 The cloud-scent on her skin only bothers lingering, she thinks, to cloy the smell of crushed open iron underneath it.  Her wings will never carry her high enough to escape the cistern mud of her heart.

Mari’s voice is strangled when she manages to use it again. Fine as in acceptable, she answers dully. Not as in impressive. Perhaps a harsh judgement to be passing when this year’s Halcyon crop has displaced most other Terrastellan warriors in the rankings, but when the Commander watches them all she sees is her own failures repeated like a broken record, roaring from the loudspeaker, emblazoned in the dirt, flashing like an alarm light in every misplaced step, every misaimed attack, every stupid mistake that her cadets make. When she watches them she sees her old self, close-shaved and viciously wild, and she hates them for it.

And herself.

But they have time. As do you. Not old yet, Asterion. She grins a little, and the cloud-light catches on her teeth. Vicious again. Not old yet - there is life left to be lived, she thinks, not only for Asterion but for her. And as promising as it is, it is also a hard pill to swallow. What else is there? What dreams has she already vacated, a ghost in the night? How many paths has she just recently turned off from, agitatedly unaware, always so young and so stupid - 

Not old yet, she says. Slow down.

@asterion

[Asterion]

Asterion does not try to hide his smile, not at the sound of humor from her, however unwillingly-pulled – it makes him think of his own laugh, rare enough as to nearly rust inside him between uses.

Their world at the moment is like a snow-globe, closed in by fog and waves, each sound muffled and the edges all hidden away. It feels as safe as the night they had walked the city streets together, two shadows whose color was only reflected in glimpses from silver puddles of rain. As much as he dreams of adventure, he is grateful for these little-moments, where his world is small and secret and manageable. But –

My world is a knife-point, and Asterion almost sighs. Ah, will they ever escape their violence? It is her task, her job, as much as diplomacy has somehow become his, but he would leave behind all trappings of war, if he could. Even words.

He and the gull both shift their heads toward her then, a strange twinning of movement, and she makes a soft, catlike sound in her throat as he speaks. Lucky thing you’re steady, then, and ours is a land of healers.” His voice is like the granite cliffs, dark with water, cushioned by fog, and then his smile turns wry and he looks away again – but before he does he presses his shoulder to hers, brief as a wave but long enough to be intentional. “My world is a meeting-room.” It isn’t true, not entirely, but in the make-believe feeling of the morning it is easier to joke, to try to wash that look once more out of her eyes.

But it does not work; her words are just as low when she speaks again. The bay stallion is not entirely surprised; when, he thinks, have I ever been able to help the women in my life? It is no different than golden Talia, his twin, or the meager support he’s been able to give Florentine.

Cirrus, though, never had any patience for his self-pity, and he forgets his thoughts are no longer his own; with a clack of beak she half-shuffles, half-flies to his withers, where she nips good-naturedly at his ear. Asterion shakes his head, suitably contrite.

“You’re just harder to impress than some of us. Another reason you’re well-suited to your role.” He stretches beneath the gull’s scant weight, letting the wet sand gather gray and grainy against his ankles. Already his muscles are growing sore from his headlong race to the sea-shore; it will be a far slower trip back.

As it ever does, his name spoken by another draws his attention back. He wonders if he will ever stop being a little surprised to hear it, as though it belongs to an older brother, or is a title he’s only just earned.

“Not old yet,” he repeats, and that secret little slip of grin finds its way back to his mouth. His dark eyes flick back to her, and there is a pinpoint in each, bright as a star. “So what are two young, handsome horses like ourselves to do with a whole wide day before us?”




@Marisol  the most adorable children. feel free to wrap or continue!

if you'll be my star*
 

[Marisol]

i opened my mouth and the night poured in-

Marisol has to wonder, in this moment, if Asterion ever gets tired of picking up other people’s messes.

In just a few moments, he’s swept away her self-pity and dredged up something like pride with that harder to impress comment - she’s seen him calm the storm-raging anger of their people and lead at Florentine’s right hand - she’s seen him stifle his own heart, as she stifles hers, in the name of duty - all these mortal messes seem beneath him and his moon-dark eyes, and yet he is adamant and stubborn, noble, even, in his constant efforts to clean them up. 

For all Marisol’s love of duty, the patriotism engrained in her bones as deeply as marrow, she knows she has never been, will never be, half as good a person as he is. (It hurts her, though she’d never admit it.) She simply doesn’t have the capacity for it. Her own heart is wild enough, feral enough, teeth-and blood enough to make life difficult even without the responsibility of someone else’s love and life. Her cadets make their own mistakes and fight their own battles - never in her life has she bothered to clean up after them, and she’s not sure she could manage it even if she tried.

Yet it comes so naturally to him. The goodness, and the love of goodness. She envies him with a kind of greenness too bright for real words. Goodness, easy? In Marisol’s mouth, her chest, her stumbling heart, it is only a kind of growing pain.

But all this - and even the soft blackness in her heart - falls away as she watches his smile.

Mari answers, half-grinning back, Vespera only knows, hm?

She nods at Cirrus, brow raised with a knowing kind of humor. Beyond them, the whole world lays open and effortless, glowing, verdant, beautiful: it is as unknowable as it is exciting, and the breeze that ruffles Mari's short hair matches the thrill of adrenaline in her chest exactly. 

Marisol arces easily toward it with nothing more than a beckoning brow-raise tossed over her shoulder at Asterion.

@asterion

[Asterion]

Ah, but his goodness is his weakness. Over and over Asterion bares his heart, unable to keep secret even something so dear; over and over again he trusts too quickly, too fully, and finds himself surprised when his trust is betrayed.

He is only a fool, only a dreamer, only a boy who can never remember his lessons. And someday it will cost him more than he can pay.

But not today, oh, not today. This silver morning he ducks his head at her response, wearing the other half of Marisol’s smile. The mist is burning off the sea, the breeze is clearing it away – it will be a day for the record books, here at the cusp of autumn, all bright splendor.

Cirrus meets that dark-faced nod with the closest thing to a grin a gull can manage, and thrusts herself off from Asterion’s withers, stirring his hair with the wind of her wing-beats. She’s away ahead of them, then, a bright v in the thinning fog of the day, sunlight glinting off her wings like a ship’s sails.

Vespera only knows, he thinks in echo – if even she does.

And then he’s away after them, a few steps behind but catching up fast in the wet sand and windswept spray, chasing shadows and light and the promise of a newborn day.  



@Marisol  <3

if you'll be my star*