For all his love of stories and dreaming of heroes, for all his worship of bravery and boldness, Asterion almost turns away when he is near enough to see the mask.

It is a fearsome thing as any he has seen in this strange country, and the wind makes a symphony of it. It moans and murmurs, clatters and whistles, and the bay stallion is startled into a pause. But he is both curious and polite to a fault, and it would not do to turn around now.

So he stands at the edge of the stranger’s space, trying to disguise his wary fascination by splitting his gaze between the roaming bison and the man-or-myth that sways beside him in the gathering night. The man reflects the stars the way a slow river did – in whorls of light that shimmer and glow. Asterion’s own twilight pattern was a weak comparison to this painted creature, and at first (as his mind scrambles for other stories, other explanations) the bay wonders if there had been some festival he’d missed.

Just as he is beginning to relax again the stranger speaks, and Asterion straightens at the unfamiliar words, the voice all gravel and dust. Oh, those teeth – he wants to shudder but does not.

Hadn’t he just been thinking how tame, how idle this country was?

Hadn’t he wanted a discovery made, here beneath the waiting stars?

Asterion is no coward, and this is only an old man who wore his own music. The bison were not afraid; neither would he be.

He relaxes then, and dips his head respectfully, not yet knowing the gesture can’t be seen.

Almost he misses what the stranger says then, for he hadn’t been expecting words in his tongue. His dark muzzle turns sharply toward the man (priest, his mind says) and his darker eyes study each line of bone and stripe of paint.

And then he cocks his head, turning back to face the giant creatures. In a way they are like the stranger – both of them make him think of remnants, things that don’t fit in this world of silks and stone towers. “You’re right,” he says then, and the soft of his voice just sounds like another bell on the breeze, or a whisper through bone. And then: "You don’t count yourself free?”

He himself was bound by meetings, by duties he’d been given, not requested; by loyalties of blood and circumstance. But surely this man, this mystic, was bound by no one?

When the old stallion shifts nearer, Asterion does not move away. He bends his muzzle nearer, softly inhaling all those strange scents that no more overpower him than the perfumes he’s run across in the capitol. Around them the night-insects begin their music.

The question draws his attention up, where the settling dusk makes a worthy roof for such a man as the one beside him. Almost he asks what the stallion wants to know – but instead he blows out a slow breath, and counts what stars have made their debut.

“It looks like you,” he begins after a pause, and watches a nightjar cut through the fabric of the evening. “Thick with color as the sun goes away. There is a band of clouds in the north, streaks of violet and rose – I think it will grow cooler, tomorrow. Perhaps rain. There are some stars emerging, a particularly bright set overhead, shaped like an arrow. But I do not know the constellations here.” A pause then, as the breeze lifts once more and sets the man to his strange song. Asterion’s gaze drops back to him, and he wonders if he can feel the press of it from beneath his strange mask. “Do you know them? Their stories?”  




@Turhan  hope you don't mind 'em long!

if you'll be my star*