He tries not to remember the last time he’d walked these halls, the corridors down to the infirmary that seemed to echo and sigh no matter how busy they were. When he had been here to see Aislinn (a lifetime ago, he feels; so much has changed) the rooms had been empty save for her - now they were too full, occupied by horses from Denocte and Terrastella both. Almost it looked like there had been a war. 

The subject of his visit is not hard to find. Even asleep (as he finds her), even among horses of a hundred colors, even ill, she is luminous - pale as a morning-glory, the curves of her belying the strength he knows she carries.

Asterion had heard how she’d collapsed in the markets; he thinks back to how he’d last seen her in Dusk, covered in blood and mud both, working ceaselessly to save their people. 

He does not know if Vespera has seen - if she has watched any of what her court has suffered (or indeed, if she had been the cause of any of it). But the king had seen. 

“Oh, Theodosia, I am so sorry." His voice is soft, gentle as sea-foam, too low to carry to those around them. He watches the rise and fall of her chest, the flutter of her lashes pale as frost on her cheek. “Thank you for everything you gave.” 

She had not deserved this - none of them had. And he feels sorrow and anger both warring in him like rival tides, and wonders what is still to come. 



@Theodosia 

if you'll be my star*
 

 

He watches another battle being fought behind her eyelids, watches her lashes flutter and her skin twitch. For a moment Asterion wonders if he ought to wake her, but he pushes down the impulse. It is not for him to try and save her from what might be passing through her sleeping mind; besides, he knows the warrior needs her rest.

It feels strange to keep his gaze on her like this, like a breach of the relationship between them, and eventually Asterion turns away. His gaze wanders the room, all the other wounded and sick, and he wonders how long, and how much more, and how high the cost will be in the end. Not to mention the scars that would inevitably follow such a thing.

Her gasp pulls him from his thoughts, and the bay stallion turns at once, his heartbeat skipping into a faster, fearful thing. But it eases at once when she speaks, and though there is still a furrow in his brow the look in his eyes is only relief.

“Asterion is fine,” he says, wry and not quite smiling, though he imagines this is not the last time she will call him sir. “How do you feel?”






@Theodosia 

if you'll be my star*
 

 

The king is relieved when the healer bustles forward; having idle hands has always made him uncomfortable, but never more so than when he knows there is work to be done, but doesn’t trust himself to do it. He watches with both interest and concern creasing his star-marked brow as the healer completes her check. When the palomino mare straightens he nods, thanks her, and tries not to wonder if she had been the same mare to take care of Aislinn that rain-drenched night more than a year ago.

As the healer leaves his gaze returns to Theo, and a smile twitches at the corner of his dark mouth when she corrects herself before at last naming him. Somehow even when she says his name and not a title it still feels like a version of himself he doesn’t know.

He might have cautioned her not to stand, but he knows too many mares - Marisol, Flora, Moira, Calliope - who would only laugh at him or worse for his worrying. And so Asterion only steps back, giving her room, noting how the muscles and tendons of her legs and wings work. Strange, how much he has learned of the limits of a body in the last few months - but he is thankful that Theo is not gravely injured as well as sick.

“Under the circumstances, okay isn’t bad,” he says wryly, and that smile still lingers. He, too, wants to sigh in relief when she stretches her wings; the memory of Flora’s and Moria’s and Aislinn’s, all mangled and broken and torn, clings to him more surely than his shadow. What Marisol had told him about flying begins to make more sense.

His smile disappears like a retreating wave when she asks what happened, and he shrugs one lean shoulder, his dark gaze still on her. “I only know what Marisol told me and what the nurses have said,” he says. “You were walking with the Commander when you collapsed - luckily not far from here. She helped bring you in, but you lost consciousness soon after. Pneumonia, they said, and exhaustion.”

For a moment he considers her still, and there is something like pride that lives with the worry in his eyes. And then he shakes his head like he might at any of his friends when they took on too much. “It’s a wonder it didn’t happen sooner, as hard as you were working. We all owe you thanks. I trust I don’t have to set the Commander after you to make sure you follow the healer’s orders?” Here his smile returns, a boyish grin, the kind normally kept back by the weight of his responsibilities. “I wish I could say there won’t be more work waiting when you’re well.” There is more he wants to say, another question that waits just behind his teeth - but it can hold until she is at least a few more moments out of unconsciousness.






@Theodosia congrats he has possibly spoken more here than in any other single post xD

if you'll be my star*
 

 

He had doused her with information, more than he was usually coaxed to speak even in a meeting, even with Florentine (perhaps especially with his sister, who so often had words enough for the both of them). And so her brief faltering is no surprise, and Asterion still stands patiently, letting her absorb the information as his dark-eyed gaze wanders the room.

It is what she says next, the conviction clear in her voice, that has him startled and turning. The bay’s ears prick forward, and he catches just the briefest arc of lightning before her wings. It might only have been a spark from friction -

but Asterion has known Calliope too long to know nothing of lightning-magic.

“Oh,” it is his turn to say, and though his brows rise there is a glint in the depths of his gaze, as though he has half a mind to ask if he could join her. “I am not sure, as sovereign of her court, that I can condone that…” He trails off, voice gone soft again, but the smile he wears is boyishly curved. There is an ache beneath it, too, one he knows will live with him until Terrastella no longer bears the scars of the previous year, but the king is heartened by her fire.

It is what finally gives him the push to ask the question that’s been waiting just behind his teeth. Clearly her sickness would slow Theodosia down no more than the flooding had. “If you might put off your vengeance for a while, I wanted to ask you something.” He pauses for a beat, holding the lavender of her eyes, and for a moment they are not a bruised king and a bedridden warrior in a hospital far from home. “We have been absent a Champion of Battle - but this is not a time to be without. We need courage, and strength, and duty. Theodosia - would you act as Dusk’s champion?”




@Theodosia

if you'll be my star*
 

 

He is not sure why her smile makes him feel both pride and profound sadness, the way it is almost like a vow. Even now, even after being driven from their home with the dead still decaying in the mud or swept out to sea in the raging floods - even after the disastrous betrayal of the Summit - he is not ready to declare war on Terrastella’s patron god. He has always lacked Calliope’s conviction; it seems he lacks Theodosia’s, too.

But he will not caution her against it, not when she has given as much or more than any of them. And it is not only the lightning arcing between her stormcloud-pale wings that keeps him from doing so.

Though he still wears a smile when she bows there is nothing boyish about it, now; it is serious, knowing with the weight of what he asks. Not so long ago, he could only have guessed at what such duty felt like, a cloak with pockets full of stones; now he knows better. They are not children playing at knights. Asterion accepts her words in silence, and then dips his own muzzle in acknowledgement.

“Then on behalf of Terrastella I thank you. When you are well, you will spar Israfel - and when we are home I will announce it to the court.” The bay tilts his head a little, then, and something almost rakish enters his expression. “Do work on getting well,” he says, already knowing she will press to be back in service as soon as she is able; so many of his court are alike in that way.

And then he is turning to leave, though he hesitates for a moment and reaches out on impulse to touch his muzzle to her shoulder, brief as the brush of a butterfly. He is prepared for the spark that jumps from her skin to his nose, and when he leaves it is with a grin.



@Theodosia yay!

if you'll be my star*