He wishes as he stares at a blank expanse of eggshell-colored paper that he possessed any of Fiona’s talent with a pen. Asterion is no artist; he remembers how painstaking it had been to teach himself letters, the early wobbles of each line. 

To turn such scratches into something beautiful feels well beyond him. 

But he knows that tonight is not for perfection. It is for the fire crackling merrily in the grate, eating up cedar and pine and casting thick color and thicker shadows on the crowded hall. It is for the hum of laughter and the clatter of glasses, for cheeks warmed from wine and winter. At such events the king is always happy, but always a little uncomfortable. Never do simple pleasures seem to stay that way. 

Try again, comes Cirrus’ voice, and he glances up to find her nipping her bright beak at the discarded quill. He has already attempted to draw her twice, and she has laughed, loud and rough, at each; now he huffs a breath at her and leans away from the table. “After a drink.” The big gull flicks a wing at him, but it is close enough to very well that he grins as he turns away. 

For a moment his gaze drifts along those gathered, and his grin is as warm as the tapestried room. All is not well in Novus - but in here, tonight, it is close. 

As he walks to a table groaning beneath the weight of casks of wine and mead a pair of pale wings catches his eye; at first he thinks Theodosia, or perhaps Israfel - but when his dark eyes regard the rest of her he finds a stranger. And yet she looks familiar, though her face is so striking he ought to have recognized it, snared in his memory the way such things were. 

He finds he has drifted nearer; it would be strange, now, to suddenly turn away. So he tells himself when he closes the distance between them entirely until he is standing just over her shoulder, near enough to smell the unmistakably Terrastellan scent of her, woods and sea-wind and sweet strange smoke. 

Do I know you? his eyes ask when they move to hers, but it is her paper he nods to, the last little bit of that grin still caught in the corner of his mouth. “What is that?”

and hardly ever what we dream

@Juniper

A tapestry of dreams and silk is woven upon her skin, but the disaster of color and hodgepodge of imagination upon the paper is nothing compared to the tapestries upon the walls. Still, she hums and smiles and grins, a barbarian, a priestess enjoying all that Vespera has to offer.

Before her is the sea - a bluish green blob that's turned a horrid shade of brown and black at the bottom where the failed artist put eyes and tentacles reaching up. To the right, a great tree stretches roots into the water and branches towards the sky, the sky that is painted in what seems to be an attempt at a sunset on her ocean-front property. Oh, but it is as imperfect as any who is unused to these fine tools in their hands.

There is a man at her shoulder who smells of the salt and the sea and the smoke from the fires, but he smells of the earth and something else that pulls green eyes over to him. They laugh as all Pegasus' eyes should, as all whose tethers are cut from land should, as all who have tasted freedom and know they will never be anchored again should. She grins and leans close, leans near, brushing cheek to cheek to whisper in his ear: “Art," and giggle with such delight that the stars lean in closer to take in just a hint of the ethereal girl.

How she is a goddess on land! Silk strands of hair is woven with and spiraling up over her neck until she is a looping path of hair and mystery. Her amethyst cloak is precariously tipped over to one shoulder, bunched as a scarf about the base of her neck so that it will not be lost. She seems a scattered mess that only the swamps can breed, she seems untethered that only the skies see.

“Call me Jun," she chirps, pulling back after a brief peck on his cheek. Without seeming to mind herself or anything of personal space, the unearthly girl splatters paint on the page once more before nodding, completely unaware of the splatters of red and blue and seafoam green that speckle her breast and shoulders and cheeks as freckles and trophies of her conquest. “It's almost perfect, wouldn't you say?" There's no pleading in her eyes, nothing to say she has any doubt that what she's created is anything but a masterpiece. Juniper was not raised on the art of painting unless it is to paint another's skin with kisses and gentle touches. She'd do that now, but she is still learning how town-folk behave.

Ah, and there in those green, green, laughing green eyes she seems to say you will soon, in answer to the questions his ask. Barely a breath passes between them that she oes not catch, and at last that leonine, barbaric, wild grin back in place now that her tongue no longer sticks out in concentration.

She vibrates with the music, with the laughing fires, with the crackling steps on the ground and sloshing drinks to accompany the cicadas and crickets chirping just outside their merry rings. This is her element, this revelry and love and gaiety that is in the bones of her people, these people, as it is in her very soul. For a moment in time, Juniper has found where she belongs again.

@Asterion | "speaks" | notes: coming in hot with little miss not even drunk but high on life

 

Asterion has no idea what waits for him tonight, the way his heart will soar and dip and sing like a swallow before the evening is done. For now there is only laughter, only the buzz of good drink in his veins and the warmth of a good fire on his cheeks, making every speck of starlight shine.

For now there is only the girl before him, and her imaginative painting.

He turns his gaze back upon it to study it more closely, impressed at the boldness of the colors, the drama of the scene unfolding therein. And as soon as her answer - and more than that her laugh, a giggle so near her breath stirs the soft hairs of his ear - reaches him, he is hers completely, irrevocably charmed.

The king laughs, too, when she plants a kiss upon his cheek, and he tilts his head toward her, an ear still cocked at her painting.

“Such art as I’ve never seen the like of, Jun,” he agrees, and finds himself watching the color speckle her skin instead of the brush-strokes she puts on the paper. She reminds him, he decides, of Florentine - how at ease she is, how joyful, how easy it is to imagine her grinning or winking or laughing again, and how glad he would be to see it.

“It’s very close,” he answers solemnly, as though he is a great master of the arts, well-studied through all the halls of Novus. “Have you seen such a creature as he?” he asks, and gestures to the sea-creature with its frightening, multi-sized eyes and reaching tentacles. “I shall have to keep a better eye on the coast, if so.” And again he regards the paper, grinning at the sheer energy of it and the paint-freckled woman who created it - and finds that for the first time tonight, he feels like painting, too.

and hardly ever what we dream

@Juniper ok I don't think it's possible for her to be any cuter

Dazzled and absolutely charmed, she grins from ear to ear under his praise and apparent wisdom. This man of starlight, this man of smoky dreams, this man of swamp-tree stalks and scattered starlight does not seem to mind her closeness. Only his head tilts and turns toward her painting when lips press against velveteen cheek. Soft hairs tickle her dark mouth and Juniper forces back the twitch of her lips before she retreats.

A moment of silence passes before he speaks again, and it has her twirling quickly back to move just in front of the image. Narrow are her eyes, drawn are the brows, and her nose moves dangerously close to the wet surface as she scrutinizes her own work. Finally, "I should hope not," Juniper states, looking into the swirling figure, following lines up the cliffs of great tentacles devouring the land. "I have never seen the ocean, to be honest, and monsters so rarely live in my swamps." There is a fondness in the way she speaks of those terrifying places that have been unexplored for so many years. Only the Ilati and few kelpies are rumored to brave it, yet she stands before him as in love with the whole of that wild tangle of land as she is with anything (anyone) else.

The wildness is as much on her skin as it is in the brush so dappled with color. "Should we look for it, you and I? I think the night could be a retched time, but Time never does wait for anyone in the end. Only we can choose, I suppose." For a moment the priestess is silent, lost in thought again.

All too soon Juniper shakes her head, swooping hair lifting from arched neck before settling in once more. "No, no that won't do tonight. I have to finish the painting, and you don't have a hint of proof you've done one! Have you - painted before that is? Would you join me? I'll let you give our tentacled friend a name if you'd like." Such childish wonder still rings in her voice, content and joy from the mundane, from the little things in life, seeps from her very soul. Juniper was born for these moments, for these little joys that bring a smile to her face.

She cannot help but answer him grin for grin, breathless with the splendor of his lips when they curl up, lost in the twinkle of Asterion's dark and mysterious eyes. While she wants to paint, wants to let everything that was pent up in the city out, she wishes to draw a laugh from him more, to see him smile again and again and again. Juniper wonders just what it would take as she looks up from beneath dark lashes, a coy glance given with a creeping smile once more.

@Asterion | "speaks" | notes: ah ah ah, an oldy but a goody?