She is a god's sullen song, born to a wraith of fire and a ghost of moonlight, made to dance and sing, made to perform and smile, made to plead and beg and yell. She is an unrelenting force, a summer squall passing fast and hard on doorsteps, moving quicker and quicker with the beating of her heart. Tiger steps cannot keep up, not when there is a desperation, a need, a yearning to see that which calls to her.

Like the stars kiss the moon, so too do Moira Tonnerre's lips long to be pressed against another so intimately, so sweetly, and forever too far away. The atoms between them put too much space in the middle; only when electrons disappear and she can sink into his skin would she be content. Now, there is a monster roaring in her belly, there is a fire blazing in her blood, and she wonders, at last, if this is why her father risked his title, risked his family, risked his life for with her mother. Did they feel like this, or was it something lesser? Did she bend for him, to be a part of the Tonnerre clan no matter how shunned, because she knew that together they could withstand the shattering and remolding of worlds?

Moira thinks she might understand love better.

And so she rushes from her court, she rushes down cobbled, glittering streets; through celebrations and many cries that say Raum is dead, Raum is dead; not even those yells can stay her hand and pause her on her journey. Through the night, for she is a creature of darkness now - a flame in the dark, a pillar of burning fire to turn to when all the Stallions who Swallow the Light devour all from the skies from dawn to dusk - does she move from. Over the lands of Night and into the palms of Dusk she goes, quicker, quicker.

Phoenix heart pounds so fiercely she wonders if it will burst, but no, how could she ever fall when she knows he waits? Somewhere in the castle that looms much more quickly than it should have (how long has it been? A night? A day? Three? The Tonnerre girl cannot tell you if she's slept or where she's been, only that she knows where she must go) is a man of starlight that holds her heart. Does it flicker and warble and crackle like a merry flame, she wonders, or does it sigh at him and smile? Her chest feels tight for a moment, exhaustion almost tugs the corners of gold in black eyes down but is brushed away, pushed into the recesses of her mind as Asterion fills her world once more.

She'd left him there, upon that island, to return to Denocte when Raum was not found and she chose not to fight. There were other places she had to be, other things she must do. So the Pegasus left with promises on their lips, in their eyes, and so ready for the dream to be shattered, dashed upon the rocks of reality once more.

The Emissary wishes she'd have stayed. She tells herself that this could be a diplomatic visit - to ensure the hospital was properly stocked, to ensure that Dusk is recovering from the rippling news of Raum's death, to make sure of so many things. These are all lies, though, and she cannot hide the truth from herself.

Moira Tonnerre misses the boy-king of starlight and sorrow like she misses her missing cousin: fiercely, dearly, painfully and every minute they are apart. So she rushes into his court, into the streets he's walked and can almost imagine him running through them to greet her to. At last the girl stumbles, fatigue weighing limbs down. Moira does not realize she's stopped on the edge of a square, a bench beneath her and a kind soul throwing a blanket over her. she slips, feverish, in and out of dreams. Did it rain on her way here? She'd hardly felt a thing, and how funny it was that a healer might get sick, might not care for herself so she could care for others. At last, ethereal eyes close, their otherness hidden as she succumbs to the hands of a gentle repose.

There he stands before her, smiling in starlight, glistening like the sea. Asterion. In her sleep she calls for him, begs him to come quick, brows furrow when he turns away again and again.