[P] tangled up in blue;

[Asterion]

Asterion in sunshine and in shadow* There’s something missing in him, some was-there-but-now-isn’t, but so far Asterion hasn’t noticed. There are other things on his mind: the ache in his muscles, the fuzziness in his head like his brain became a beehive somewhere between Ravos and here. Perhaps the rift had done it, the magic made him mad - but he doesn’t feel mad. Just sleepy and strange and lonely. He’d like more than anything to sleep, but there’s a summer storm coming. It’s building on the horizon, an ominous green, and the air where he stands is still and humid as a held breath. There are no birds singing, but there is a droning of drowsy summer insects, and a blackbird darts across the still grass and vanishes into a distant treeline. He ought to find shelter, too. There seems to be few enough options, and he finds himself jealous for the bird’s ability to fly - nevertheless he follows it, loping with a nervous whicker toward the trees. Scant enough cover it was - only a narrow band of oaks, their leaves beginning to shiver in the stirring wind. But it was better than waiting it out in a bare field. In Ravos, the storms could be fearsome, feral things, biting wind and lashing rain and thunder like a moan. He hopes this one is only a summer thunderstorm, all noise and no teeth, but still the boy shivers with nerves and his dark eyes are wary. Even so there is a part of him that wonders in awe at the way the rain, when it comes, sweeps across the plain and the grasses all bend before the wind like waves. The canopy he stands beneath is thick enough that at first he only hears the rain on the leaves, a sound like silver between the rumbles of thunder. Eventually raindrops do reach him, but after the sticky heat of the afternoon they feel good against his skin. There should be a stirring there, a recognition in his blood of the water that once was his, but there is nothing. He is just beginning to realize it when there comes another distraction - the sound of movement through the brush, barely heard above the storm - and he turns to find a mare there, heavy with the scent of flowers, honey-golden and very, very wet. Asterion can’t help the little grin that makes its way across his lips, the way his brow lifts as he takes the sight of her in. “Not quite quick enough?”  @Florentine

[Florentine]

florentine
The summer storm came prowling in with moody black eyes and a voice of roaring thunder. Lightning sparked like flashing teeth, its bite a fierce thing snapping above the brave, yet trembling, cliffs.


Florentine stood and watched the storm roll in pushing the angry waves ahead of it. Chaos reigned as the storm surge crashed and churned against the rugged cliffs, breakers splitting into hissing, bubbling foam.


Sea spray crawled up the cliff face, but when it could not reach the girl of meadows and flowers, it sent a howling wind to harry her. Oh and reach her it did, swirling about her slender torso, picking at her flowers. Petals stole away upon that wild, wild wind and Flora watched them spiral down, down to the hungry seas below.


Only when she saw the wall of unforgiving rain did the girl turn to run. What fun it was to be chased by dusk, but this storm, oh this would catch her in its wet, wet grasp. Dusk was an ever faster, ever more subtle and superior predator. But the storm was the one that made her heart run harder with adrenaline, that made her body tremble with fear and joy.


She ran and she ran and the storm rolled closer and closer. It was with a heavy breath, with a squeal of mingled glee and shock, that the girl realized the storm was upon her. Rain fell, thick and wet, from the roiling clouds. Thick, thick rains soaked all they touched and broad was their reach.


The flower girl reaches Sussuro Fields as the rains continue their tumble, she is the only one out here, the only creature foolish enough to race the storm, to let it catch her, even as her laughter is drowned by its angry snarl.


Florentine is gazelle-fast as she slips through the long, long grasses. There is no sound out here when the storm pauses for breath. There is no sound but the chorus of a million droplets falling around her. It was an orchestra of pitter-patters, of drip-drops. The grasses rippled and rolled like the sea she left behind her, but these grasses are not angry, they are graceful and joyous as the girl slips by.


The shelter of the trees calls to her, and she would have stayed out – just to dance, just to relish in the storm that rages as free and wild as her soul yearns to be – were it not for the shadow she sees lurking. There is a glint of an eye, like starlight in this deep, deep thunderous dark. The girl thinks of the Night King, but there is no jasmine or smoke here, just scents she cannot place, so strange, so unfamiliar.


Curious as ever, the twilight girl slips into the shelter of the trees where the roar of rain is hushed. Just the leaves rustle and thick, thick droplets of rain fall upon her sodden skin. Florentine tosses her dripping mane from her eyes and surveys this new curious boy. Her smile is broad, delighted. “Of course not,” the girl breathes, still breathless, still full of laughter, “Where would be the fun if I was quick enough?”

 

[Asterion]

Asterion in sunshine and in shadow* Everything is rain-slick and thick with the scent of storm, but even over it there’s something else, warm and floral and almost familiar. Her color makes him think of his twin, but even rain-damp she is not the rich molten gold of Talia but something softer, sun on clouds. Her smile only highlights their differences; he’d never seen a smile like that on the girl he’d grown up with. It’s the kind of smile impossible not to echo, and suddenly the storm does not seem so fearsome. In that moment, with the trill of laughter beneath her words, Asterion goes from feeling lost to feeling like an adventurer. Then a stronger breeze gusts through, rattling the leaves and sending a shower of drops down on them both, and after starting at the sudden cold the bay shakes himself like a dog and laughs. “Well said,” he answers her, and lets his gaze skirt from the flowers in her hair to the ornate weapon she wore. It reminds him that they are strangers, that he knows nothing, nothing at all of this world. The smile softens, then, on his dark lips, and his even darker gaze slips back out to the field. They’re in the thick of it, now; the branches are creaking and swaying above them and the world is a sheet of silver. Lightning flattens the world for less than a heartbeat and once again Asterion shivers, fighting to suppress the instinctual, primeval fear that whispers of danger. Nothing smells of magic – not the metallic deep-dark taste of Velius (something unnamable, something vital like blood or seawater) or the bitterblue of No or the bright valiant taste of the fire-wielders. But that is not enough for Asterion to trust this storm, even if his companion seemed utterly unconcerned. “I take it, then, the storms here aren’t dangerous? Beyond the usual, I mean.” When he glances back at her there’s a soft concern in his gaze, less for her answer and more for what she might think of him – perhaps here it is unheard of, for something darker to lurk in the heart of a storm. Perhaps here there is no feral magic, no rift waiting to split a world apart. He doesn’t know what it means, that he would both be relieved and sorry to hear it were so. @Florentine

[Florentine]

florentine
There is an indignant noise that rips itself from Florentine’s lips as the wind shakes the leaves, showering thick, cold droplets upon them. The twilight girl is already soaked, already cold, and yet this is sudden spattering is worse.

The twilight girl stomps a foot, throwing her head skyward as she surveys the dark, shadowy canopy with disdain. It is only when another rogue droplet lands upon her brow, snagging in her hair and trickling devilishly into the corner of her eye, that the girl realizes the error of her ways.

With a huff she returns her gaze to the stranger, no longer daring to challenge the thick canopy above, and roughly wipes the corner of her eye on a golden knee. Her smile, when at last her eye is dry, grows at his comment. “It is a good philosophy to live by.” Florentine chirps, quite pleased with herself for it was not every day that one would positively comment upon her chosen philosophies on life.

Her smile does not falter. Nor do her eyes go dark with judgment or questioning when he asks after the nature of Novus’ storms. She simply nods and her gaze drifts out across the wild, angry sky with its howling wind and terrible lightning. “No, they are just storms here.” The twilight girl pauses, her mind upon a lightning plane, with its lightning that struck the earth and never left. In its wake would stand a jagged piece of metal pointing up, up towards the sky from which it came.

“Magic is sleepy here.” Florentine laments, her words echoing his own feelings of relief and regret. “It’s slow.” A twinge, a pain within her chest makes her swallow a breath, and then another. This girl of time and adventures, yearns for her dagger, for the power it no longer has.

“I was born into a world where lands changed at will, where magic reigned….” She turns her gaze back to him, her amethyst eyes fierce with memory, “The storms were terrible there.”

And she thinks of underground temples, glass seas and metal forests with their clockwork animals.  She thinks of wild snarling beasts, once horses, now and forever not. “I would not have let them chase me,” And it is quite unclear to what the girl refers.

@Asterion

[Asterion]

Asterion in sunshine and in shadow* The storm has done this, at least: no more does the day feel like a monster’s mouth, the wet press of heat. No; the still heavy warmth has been broken, ripped apart by wind and scattered by rain. The breeze that reaches for them in their laughable shelter among the trees is cool, a damp cloth to the fever-day that had come before, and the clouds roll on and on. The sunset would likely be remarkable; Asterion wonders what might come after it. Perhaps, whatever it was, he would not be watching it alone. That’s enough to draw the smile back like it was summoned, and her words do more to reassure him. He nods, eyes on her and the droplets than run like rivulets down her neck and turn the honey there darker gold. Asterion, familiar with what it was to daydream, does not miss the way her gaze goes faraway. He does not doubt it is no longer this tame-enough sea of grasses she’s looking on; there’s another tempest in her eyes, and he wonders at it. He’s even more sure when she continues, the tone of her voice echoing the small strange pang in his heart to hear things were less…wild. His head has ever been full of starstuff and stories; it is not a stretch to guess that hers might be, too. Indeed, as she speaks of her birthplace he forgets the storm before him in favor of her words, trying and failing to imagine such a tumultuous place. It sounded like the kind of place the unicorn would go, if she had been given a choice. The thought makes him sigh, the sound soft as sea-foam. He feels suddenly less, suddenly small. It’s then that her lament truly hits him: There is something missing. His water-magic, that subtle stirring, the pull of internal tides. “Oh,” he says, drawing in a deep, shuddering breath and closing his eyes. When he opens them again she is watching him, and so he only offers a little roll of his dark shoulders and a half-sheepish look by way of explanation. “Your world sounds….very wild.” He cannot quite keep the note of longing out of his voice; such a silly, boyish thing, to be standing in a storm of one new world and yet be hungry for another. “How did you come to be in this one? And how long have you been here?” A brief pause, only the sound of rain on leaves (gentling now, the storm moving on) before he adds, “and if you don’t mind the onslaught of questions, where is it this is?” @Florentine

[Florentine]

florentine
She watches the way his laches lower, the way he sighs and shudders, his ‘Oh’ only the softest utterance. Florentine barely hears it above the rustle of the trees, the flickering light, bold and wild before suddenly they are left in thriving dark. It is in the silence between lightning and rumbling roar of thunder that she sees the absence of magic.

She steps towards him, magnetic, curious, eyes so wide, so wide. “You know of the absence of magic…” Eagerness ripples through her soft, soft voice for magic, weak but wild, clings to his skin. Oh she thinks she can smell feral magic there a wayward stream running. Yet his is like none she has ever known and her head tilts, feline curious. 

Eyes glitter-gleam in the sky’s flashing light, even as they stand in the shadows within this emerald temple of trees and vaulted branches. The flower girl is close, close, smelling him, smelling his air, feeling the prickle of wild magic teeth upon her skin. She takes a breath, deep and shuddering, as if she can pull those final tendrils from his skin and lay them within the col metal of her dagger. But she is not so selfish, no matter how her wayward heart yearns. 

“You had magic once.” She leaves the words between them as she turns from him, to the darkening meadow, so wildly swaying. “I miss mine. Your magic reminds me of someone I used to know…” Twilight muses as she listens to the drip, drip, drip of falling water.

He talks on and now its not only his magic that pulls her back through worlds and stars but his words too. Memories pour like waterfalls through her mind, catching behind her eyes like glittering lights. “It was wild.” And a smile broad and keen curls its way along her lips. “So wild.”

How did you come to be in this one? And how long have you been here? More questions roll from his tongue, bolder now, more curious. But he has already set the girl upon the wings of memory and she is so high, her laugh is cloud soft. “I cut my way here.” The dagger lifts upon its delicate chain and for a moment, for the blink of an eye, sorrow reigns true upon the dusk girl’s face, “I was a time traveller.” Whimsical words for a whimsical title and it seems almost ludicrous here, in the place of slumbering magic.

“I don’t know how long I have been here. Time has already begun to mean nothing to me –“ Florentine pauses brows furrowing as that sorrow needles at her heart now, “Maybe if I never leave here, I will learn to measure it again.”

Eyes turn back to him, suddenly ancient suddenly so old, so knowing. “You are in Novus and I am Florentine.”

@Asterion
 

[Asterion]

Asterion in sunshine and in shadow* The truth of her question catches him by surprise. It isn’t the fact of one being asked; he knows the movement must have seemed strange. But to know, to guess – Asterion laughs, a breathy, brief sound borne more of startlement than anything.     “Yes,” he says, but it takes him a moment to meet her earnest gaze. It’s shameful, that it should have taken him so long to notice; his gods would be displeased, but they usually were with him, anyway. She, he knows, would not have made it a step before knowing. But his magic had always been insubstantial: the stuff of mist and foam, not storms and crashing waves.   Over the scent of the rain, of the acrid lightning, of the damp loamy earth and swaying grasses and whispering, shivering trees, he can smell her. And again he feels it, that strange tug, that familiarity he cannot place. He wants to brush his nose along her neck, wants to bury it in her flower-strewn mane and discover the source of that draw, secret and low beneath the heady scent of flowers.   He has no idea that she wants much the same.   Her words make his heart stutter and his blood quicken, even as she pulls away and he finds he misses the warmth of her. The last of those words snag him and it’s his turn to watch as she looks away, searching the lines of her face as though they might resolve into someone he knows.   “Who?” he says, over-eager, unable to help the question as it escapes. “Who does it remind you of?” His heart is a trapped thing in his chest, and reason tells him it is not his twin, golden Talia, or the unicorn. That it could not be. But he can suppress the hope that rises in him then any more than he could help the question.   His heart does not slow to see the glint in her eyes, the smile that curves her lips. It is not the meadow, rain-lashed and dim, that she is seeing now; he wants badly to know where she is instead.   There are so many worlds out there.   I cut my way here, she professes, and his dark, wondering eyes slip at once to the dagger. Even in the darkness it finds a sliver of light; it gleams, throwing some ghostlight-reflection onto her face. That sorrow – Asterion does not realize that that expression is a twin to his own, that it shapes their face the same way.   There is no disbelief in him, when she names what she is, what she’s done. He can see the truth of it before him, and Asterion has always been an adept believer.   So it is wonder, not doubt, that has him stepping alongside her, has his gaze lingering on hers, as though he can read her features like a map to places he’s never been.   He wishes he had something to say, to offer her. What a terrible loss hers must have been; what a terrible discovery. He had always tried to deny the truth of his own magic; its absence, now, is nothing too terrible.   Or maybe it’s just that he’s too near his father, with his talent for walking away. The moon, for him, is always brighter over the next hill.   Her eyes meet his and the storm-strewn sky makes the amethyst into something dark and shadowed. Suddenly her eyes are a well he might fall into, but he cannot tell what might be at the bottom – starlight or the stillness at the bottom of the sea.   “Florentine,” he repeats softly, trying the name, wondering why it makes him think of sunlight on snow. “And do you wish to leave Novus?”    For the first time, he wonders if he is trapped here, in this land of slow, sleeping magic, this place where the storms are only storms.  @Florentine

[Florentine]

florentine
 
He was not the only one who missed the absence of his magic. Florentine was the girl who roamed for days before she decided to enlist her magic blade to take her back to Rift. It was only then she felt the absence of her magic. Unlike this boy of stars and water, her magic had not lingered.
 
Jealousy twists her stomach for just a moment. It loosens as keenness becomes her and she smiles, lilac eyes blaze with yearning. “What magic did you have? Where did you come from?” She asks him with eager words that rush upon one another – too hasty, too hasty.
 
“I miss my magic.” Florentine sighs as they part and the cold seeps in, bringing a shiver with it. The lines of his face fascinate her, the way his body is at ease, even when his magic was shed as readily as a cloak. “Do you not miss yours?” It is a small question, asked by an even smaller voice. Flora is so suddenly young, so suddenly shyly curious. Womanhood is still a strange fit upon her skin, despite her heart has begun to know the weight of love.
 
Who does it remind you of?
 
“My father.” She breathes without a moment’s hesitancy. With a frown between her brows but a smile upon her lips the girl chirps lightly, “He is the most angsty creature… I did not know there were so many things to worry about in the world. But, apparently there are.”
 
His next question strips any light from her body and the girl falls still and silent. Contemplation turns her body to stone, her eyes lit only by the encroaching storm. “I do and I don’t with to leave here.” Florentine answers openly, honestly. “I yearn for my magic, for the freedom it gives me to roam. But I do not know that I can so easily leave here and never return…”
 
She becomes more animated, only as her eyes drift to his as she drinks him in, all water and wild, wild magic. “My father has a water ability – of sorts. He can control ice.” Then, with a frown, she muses lightly, “Nearly gave me frostbite once.”
 
The words fade, along with the rains, as the storm begins to drift by. Angry clouds ease and their shadowed cathedral of trees grows ever brighter. “Will you give me your name? Or else I should have to make one for you? I have done it before, you know... the results have been very mixed. It is a bit of a risk to let me pick.”
 
Florentine steps forward into the cool, damp meadow, “C’mon, Water Boy.” 

@Asterion
 

[Asterion]

Asterion in sunshine and in shadow* They’re like children with their asking, mouths shaped with wondering and manes glistening with rain like dew. Her questions tumble forward but Asterion is not perturbed; he may not put voice to all of his but oh, there are so many things he wonders. His head is full of what ifs and whys and it has always been so, since he was a slender foal on golden sand. It was Talia who had answers, who acted instead of wondering. She was like the unicorn, in that way; they would always leave him behind.  But this golden girl, smelling of flowers and sodden with rain - he thinks he might understand her, in a way. Theirs is not cold steel or hard gold. It makes him wonder (always he is wondering) if perhaps it is not such a bad thing, to be softer, to be sturdy.  “It was water-magic,” he says, and it’s almost a sigh. “I came from a place called Ravos, but there was a rift of magic — ” it’s hard to know how much more he might have said, if he’d been allowed to continue. But she gives voice to other things and it makes a soft smile grow on his dark muzzle, even as her question turns in him.  Yes - yes. Of course he missed his magic. But should he not miss it more? Asterion feels a tug of longing, but he doesn’t know whether it’s for the magic itself or for the fact of missing it. He is not his father - he does not have enough experience to distinguish between guilt and loss.  Or maybe it is simply both.  “I never felt like it quite belonged to me,” he admits, and there are a thousand reasons why. He’d wanted something different, something more - not something reminiscent of the ocean he grew up alongside, safe and known. He’d wanted storms, not showers. And now he had nothing. This time he knows it’s sorrow that settles like a stone, somewhere deep within him.  My father she says, and he watches transfixed to see the shape her face takes. Her eyes and her mouth say different things but they both read love. It is his turn, now, to feel something like jealousy, even as she talks of his angst. Even the way she says is (his father has always been a was, to him) stirs something low and sad in him. When the topic moves on again, a smooth stone skipping on a lake, the ripples of that sadness linger and grow.  And again they mirror each other, as she falls still again. He can’t help but nod at her words - yearning and roam feature frequently in the vocabulary of his own heart - but he also understands the feeling of being grounded, of something calling you to stay.  A late-storm raindrop rolls down his nose as she returns to talking of her father, but he doesn’t shake it off. He is too busy searching his memory, for hadn’t Aridela spoken of ice? Hadn’t it been strange, to her, that a man so red could be so cold? The star-painted mare had never said much of him, had deftly defied Asterion’s begging of tales until he’d given up the asking. And still she talks with present tense, as though he’s out there somewhere, as though they might be reunited.  “I never knew mine,” he says softly, as though to give the words too much weight might make them shatter. Then even the small pieces he did have might vanish. “He left before I was born. My mother only said he was red, and rarely laughed. But I didn’t get my magic from her.” For too long of a moment he lets his thoughts roll and build and begin to shape a new question, the most important question -  but then he shakes his head, forcing it away. His hopeful heart couldn’t stand the answer to it, even before it was fully formed.  The clouds have worn themselves ragged; the birds are returning to the meadow, singing despite the way the grasses dripped and sighed. He no longer felt like they were in a secret dark place of their own; the spell was breaking, though thunder still sounded low in the distance.  The boy laughs at her question, and lips at her hair, as though he’s known her far longer. It’s a special gift of his, to begin to chase away the sorry thoughts with glad ones - it’s not a thing he inherited from his father.  “I think I’d like to let you pick,” he says, as he steps out after her, the dew a cool kiss against his dark legs. “But my name is Asterion.”  @Florentine

[Florentine]

florentine
If the raindrop trickling down Asterion’s nose did not draw his attention, it most certainly caught Florentine’s. It rolls down, past his eyes, chased by the flower girl’s ardent amethyst gaze. Upon the curve of his nostril it clings fervently. It is some remnant of her parting youth that has her wishing to blow upon the raindrop and watch it depart from the warmth of his skin. It is burgeoning adulthood that stops the breath from passing her pursed and poised lips.
 
The Dusk girl would have been disappointed, she may even have been embarrassed, were she not distracted by his comment. It ensnares her and she breathes the name, Ravos softly into the spaces between them. It plays along the sharp blade of her dagger, and sings with metal and mystery. “I have heard of Ravos before.” The girl’s eyes gleam, twilight-bright, for the world of Ravos that long ago succumbed to the thrall of night.
 
“My mother lived there for sometime… until she followed a lion into that rift.” Florentine’s thoughts trail off, for how interwoven are their lives already? Together they walk out into the open meadow, beneath the clouds that still churn, despite the winds that thin them. From between their black, blue sky begins to gleam and she looks to each speck of ocean blue and thinks of the worlds, the eternity of existences, that bruise against them.
 
“I have seen so many places,” The time-traveller begins, her eyes still up cast, her petals tumbling down, down her slender nape. “And seen so many worlds… yet, here you are speaking of one I happen know in an eternity of them.” Slender limbs step forwards, Flora’s feet light as they beg to dance through rain-sweet grasses. “I think fate has laid a snare for us and we are well and truly trapped.”
 
Even the truth of those words is underestimated until he speaks of his red father with his water-borne power and oh how the girl’s eyes begin to glimmer. “Then let me tell you about mine, and it might be enough for us both.” There is a wondering in those words, a wondering that has her gaze trailing the lines of his face like curious fingertips. Florentine searches him - his face, his body, his eyes - as intrigue whispers in her ears and her soul begins to stir.
 
“His name is Gabriel.” The flower girl begins as she looks to this astral boy, “A great name, for a great man – not that he ever sees himself so.” Her voice drops to a whisper, for the impact of her next words would be so that she could cry them from Verenor’s Peak and cleave the world in two:
 
“He was red too.”
 
Florentine wonders if he feels the world begin to tremble like she does.
 
She turns from her brother, her soul oddly knowing, though her heart and mind and body have yet to recognize the boy beside her.
 
The tug of his lips upon her flower-snarled hair pulls a laugh from her lips. It multiplies until she laughs with him, her own teeth nipping as the smooth muscle of his neck. “I should have liked a brother, you know.” The flower girl muses as she leads him through the storm-wet grasses. “I think a celestial name like Asterion, like Gabriel, would have fitted him quite well.”
 
With that she turns them North towards their citadel, “Will you stay with me in Dusk, Asterion?” And if he thought there was a question there, he was so gravely mistaken.

@Asterion eeeeeeee