THE STORMS WE CHASE ARE LEADING US
AND LOVE IS ALL WE'LL EVER TRUST -
She comes when evening tolls — each strike of the clock ringing long and slow. The sky weeps in Vespera's watercolors; wisps murmur midsummer and noon, when the rest of the world still slumbers in winter. She cannot help but marvel at those skies, and the contradiction of the cold that holds her and the defiant sunset above. Where winter's kiss touches the earth, grey and white follows in a thick blanket of snow and frost. The ice that coats each surface glimmers and reflects the colors in the sky. Like a mirror of crystalline glass that steals her breath away.
On this night, the city's heart sings to her. The pyres that flicker under the setting sun reach towards the stars; the fray of dancers that celebrate the end of winter's hold, and with it, the coming of spring. A desire burns in her — a flame of brightest blue that kindles, a twin to the gems of her eyes. Confined in the capitol, she stands at the edge of the shadow's reach as the sun slips and slips and slips. Her gaze is captured by the dancing reflections and embers that float in the frigid air. The drums are fingers beating against her skin, in tune with the rhythm of her wild heart. For her gypsy soul yearns to be free; to let loose under the colorful sky and not cease until dawn breaks on a far away horizon.
But she does not dance.. not yet. Not without him.
The memories of him are her only saving grace; a beacon of warmth that brings with it a comfort that swells in her chest, and a sharp pang that strikes in her gut. She never forgot the fireflies that swirled around them in golden pixie dust, or the gauze of daydreams that flirted with the deep mahogany of his skin. And oh, she could never forget his eyes. The depths of them a sweet calm that stops her heart with want. The shining star tattooed behind her ear still tingles with the imprint of his kiss, and his voice forming her name is a memory that she follows. Through the streets, her hoofbeats build and build, forever searching the crowds for her twilight prince.
Yet, upon her return, the stormsinger did not find him first. Her mouth tastes of ash and dust, and suddenly, she stops. Hesitating. What will he think of her? She cannot soon forget that the last time they spoke.. she ran. Another festival, much like the one she revels in now, but with lower stakes than this. Aislinn had been a coward for her bleeding heart; a wicked, broken thing that had not yet properly healed. He was a testament of that; for he alone sewed the strings of her heart back together, whether he knew it to be so or not. Where she was a hurricane made woman, he was the calm to her untamed storm.
So why had she not found him? After so many moons apart?
She is Calligo's night sky beneath the setting sun. Where once, galaxies swam in the blue of her eyes, are now painted along the curves of her frame. In deep violet and dusty rose and ivory there are stars that swirl down the length of her spine and across the ink of her coat. But she does not feel like those stars, as beautiful and full of havoc and chaos and dreams. She desires to.. to wish, and to live in a faerie tale with him and her. But this is not a children's story, and she is a warrior who's knuckles have tasted blood and who's heart sings a different song. So she stands, and waits, with a heaviness like a world that sits upon the back of her wings. Her hooves are frosted still, and the breath that fills her lungs is filled with glass.
Her lips cannot help but form his name, over and over again, as she silently calls into the crowds that pulse around her.
Asterion. I'm home.
@asterion
time for all of the feelings omg ♡ "Aislinn speech."
He stands painted in the colors of dusk above him, soft cornflower blues deepening to the color of an evening sky over a field downy with snow, subdued corals that sweep to rich magenta like the sunset reflected on the sea. Heliotrope paints wind in dashes and lines up his legs, curve in whorls on his shoulders and cheeks, and kiss his neck in constellations that remind him of Aislinn’s tattoo. As the brush had touched him there, he’d thought of the kiss he’d pressed upon her.
He had shivered under the paintbrushes of the children who had decorated him so, and only half because the paint had been cold and the bristles ticklish. No; it was the act itself that made his blood run quick in his veins and his nerves hum alive, alive, alive.
He had pledged himself, he belonged, he was home.
Now he stands, still wearing a helpless smile on his dark lips, his head still fuzzy-sweet with nerves and hope and wine. The yearlings had laughed at him, looking half-shocked the whole process, but their laughter had been kind. The didn’t know that he’d never belonged before, or that he’d never thought he would.
Asterion is grateful and a kind of slow-happy he’s never felt before, but oh! There is one more thing he wants. One thing he longs for, a yearning, burning wish that has nothing to do with wine or paint or lanterns.
Surely he is dreaming, then, when laughter draws his gaze and he sees a sea of horses in all the colors of the sky. They part like a river around a still figure, and there –
Aislinn.
The bay does not pause to think; already his feet carry him toward her and his eyes are dark and depthless as they drink her in from the snip on her nose to her wing-tips the color of clouds. But it’s her eyes he comes back to, blue as the paint on his skin; the color he dreams in.
He ignores the world around him, trusting other festival-goers to avoid him. There is only one thing he cares for, and she –
She had fled, the last time he saw her.
They are close, now; his lips have parted to speak, to press a kiss to her cheek, but he stops quiet as a shadow just before her. He couldn’t bear it if he was the reason for her sorrow or her fear, and Asterion is not the bold and laughing Reichenbach, so quick to touch, so easy to pull others into his orbit. He is not wild, laughing night, bright with bonfires and sweet with smoke; he is the soft touch of evening, the whisper-kiss of the wind, the careful light of the first stars to shine.
But his smile does not falter, and his eyes do not leave hers. “I missed you,” he confesses first, and then hesitates long enough to feel the birds-wings beating of his heart. “Will you join me? The night is too lovely to waste.” It’s an echo of what she’d said on a summer evening that still felt like a dream, and he searches her face for the things he’d felt then (the things he still felt now): wonder, and wanting, and hope.
THE STORMS WE CHASE ARE LEADING US
AND LOVE IS ALL WE'LL EVER TRUST -
Under the setting sun, the stormsinger is a painted statue in a river of revelry. Her lips form his name, over and over, as Vespera graces their heavens in watery pinks and gold. The colors shine and reflect off of the ice that coats the capitol city as if the city itself was made of crystalline glass. But it is her heart that glimmers and waits — a fluttering, caged bird in her chest. Just as fragile as the icicles that fall on stone ledges, and as frail as a baby bird in one's hands. The stormsinger is vulnerable, but rightfully so. She wishes with each breath that falls; the thunder in her building higher still until her nerves nearly burst.
She does not yet realize that her wishes will come true.
His voice finds her in the pulse of music, sweeter than milk and honey. A calm wind that cools the chaos of her storm. But it is his smile that melts her fragile heart. And she cannot help but smile in return; so so softly, as she turns and her blue orbs fall upon his handsome face.
I missed you.
Her orbs immediately find the galaxies of his own; blue fires meeting the abyss of deep space. He is just as she remembered; with kisses of dusk woven in the silver shocks of his mane, and the shimmer of Vespera's colors flirting with the curves of mahogany skin. But now, those twilight dreams are accentuated by the twirls of paint along his body. Like her, he has been pledged. A girl of storms and starry skies, and a boy of day dreams and setting suns.
Her breath is no longer glass shards piercing the thin veil of her lungs, but of crisp night air. And for the first time in many moons, she feels like she can truly breathe again. For the whisper of his name is no longer hidden in the curve of her mouth — but spoken with a weight of longing that rises with the blush hidden in the dark of her cheeks. Her first true breath is the murmur of his name made tangible on her lips. "Asterion."
Can he see the whorls of longing and hope in the bright blue of her eyes? Can he see the soft curve of her lips that tilt ever higher with each beat of her heart? Can he see how her knees wobble and shake at his words? She is melting. Hopelessly, wondrously melting under the deep chocolate of his gaze. A gaze that pierces the crowds that part around her and find her in the midst of reverie. The breeze of her relief is a wash of warmth that chases away the cold that curls along the painted curves of her skin. And just like those golden fireflies that danced with them under Calligo's stars, her goddess brushes her coat in a gauze of stardust that shimmers as bright as her happiness.
Before, she was Cinderella with a broken heart — running away, leaving nothing but phantom glass slippers in her wake. No note, not even a whisper on the wind. She had been a ghost in the wake of her emotions. Her cowardice from that night has haunted her ever since, just like the darkness that grows within the cage of her ribs. But now, the nebula of her heart collapses and shines brighter than a burning star. She cannot — will not — leave him. Not again, not ever.
Will you join me? This night is too lovely to waste.
Asterion's words are a testament to that summer night they had met, and her heart swells at the memory. Forget me not. For she has finally found him — her twilight prince. He did not forget. He did not forget. And her heart flutters, flutters, flutters. Wild and free and no longer bound in her ribs, but jumping into her throat with butterflies. The shiver that trails down her spine chases away the claw of darkness inside her; because now, her own bliss overtakes the demon. Aislinn's smile is bright, and together they are the compliments of twilight and nightfall eternal. Her words are cinnamon and sugar on her lips, and the whispers of a night dancing with fireflies until the first rays of daylight broke. "Always."
Suddenly, she pulls him into the crowd; her wing outstretched to accompany them both in the surge of festival goers and music and embers flying skywards. She laughs, a raspy, musical sound that shakes free from her lips like a child's innocent bliss. The courtyard opens around them, and the drums beat against her heart, her lungs, her skin, until she spins. Her hooves are so so light; lighter than the air that vibrates around her. The heat of the bonfires burns, but she is dancing, and he is with her, as she pulls him closer into the center of the crowd.
She does not hesitate as her lips graze his cheek like an unspoken promise. It is only him and her, and their faerie tale. "I missed you too."
And for the second time, she prays that their night will never end, and the sun will never rise.
He no longer feels the cold, as soon as her lips shape his name.
She is resplendent, a creature fashioned out of dreamstuff. Upon the vanishing of his own magic when he arrived on these shores, Asterion assumed that Novus was devoid of such strangeness, such beauty, but looking at her now – oh, he believes.
It takes him a moment, then, to even notice the paint across her skin, dark cousin to his own. He is surprised at the gladness it gives him, the fierce sweetness of belonging – he had expected regret, expected worry, when finally he made his pledge. Not this…peace.
Always. His lips curve into a grin; his heart soars. Aislinn pulls him into her wake and the world parts for them, for her, for her stardust and silver and sureness. He is blind to them, blind to the bonfires and blind to the music, caught only in the blue of her gaze, in the burning trail her whisper-kiss leaves across his cheek. He wants to capture her mouth, seize it with his own; instead he settles for pressing a kiss again to the constellation along her neck, his guiding stars.
It is not enough – but it is also more than he remembers.
“There’s something different about you,” he murmurs, voice soft with wonder, and pulls back enough to run his gaze over her like a hand. Then his lips turn up in a boyish smile and he laughs. “Other than the paint, I mean, though that is lovely too.” And oh, it is; galaxies on her skin, stars across her hide, all the colors of midnight traced upon her.
But there is something else, something he can’t place. Some new spark in her stormstruck eyes, some energy that hums just beneath her painted skin.
Asterion knows only that this is the girl he would battle monsters for. He does not know Calligo has blessed her with the abilities to battle her own.
Maybe it should frighten him, that he does not know her at all.
That he is head over heels for a hurricane, and there is no hope for him. That he is a man overboard, lost in the oceans of her eyes and the electricity of her skin. His whole life has been spent alongside the sea, but he has never until now considered how easy, how sweet it might be to drown.
“Oh, Aislinn,” he says, her name like a prayer, a plea. Asterion keeps no gods, but for her he is devout. “I was afraid…”
He cannot finish; he cannot name his fears – that he had done something wrong, that he would never see her again. That she truly had been a dream, a girl conjured by a boy who longed for the stars.
THE STORMS WE CHASE ARE LEADING US
AND LOVE IS ALL WE'LL EVER TRUST -
She is Calligo's night blessed magic and her prince's twilight girl; full of daydreams and hope and wishes made on falling stars. Together, they stand amidst the crowds of dancers and revelry that pulses at their sides. Music drums wildly along her skin, twining into her mane and singing to the untamed part of her she holds dear. But suddenly, they stop, entwined and so so close. She can feel the air above her dark skin vibrate with their proximity, and her eyes catch his lips, his face, his eyes. Aislinn only stares, with a longing that she cannot name. All she ever wanted stands before her now, and Asterion is here with her at last.
There's something different about you.
Yes. For the storm that has been at the heart of her has been coaxed awake with gentle, tender hands. She is a hurricane, a roar of thunder, a sword of lightning like shining starlight in a violet sky. She is a Child of the Night and Calligo's daughter, as stardust hugs the dark of her skin like a silver lover. And she is the calm after the storm, and its sweet, cool caress that kisses sea-ravaged skin in the aftermath of chaos. So much about her has changed, but also, nothing has changed at all. The storm of her had always been there, had always been a part of her. Slumbering, waiting. And now her power is awake, and beautiful, and wicked, and she cannot help but feel her newfound magic course through her veins and quake deep in her bones.
Yes, there is something different. But she is still her. And she can only smile; a soft, knowing smile that curls her lips in an unspoken promise. She simply did not know what to say, let alone breathe life to this new truth of her. His laughter is a musical sound that she clings to; that wonder, that happiness, that reverie. And she realizes then how much is loves to hear that sound.. and would do anything to hear it again.
Oh, Aislinn.. I was afraid..
Her heart swells and nearly bursts. His lips forming her name is like soft hands cradling a paper bird; fragile and careful and full of hope. She looks away, tearing her blue gaze to the stones that sway beneath her. Shame is a fickle thing that floods her and sends shivers down the length of her spine, coiling the muscles bunched under her skin. Aislinn did not want to leave.. she did not desire to depart in a flurry of frost and shadow when the snow first began to fall. She simply had to go.. and now, Asterion stands before her. And her absence has wrought fear into her twilight prince, and she is the sole cause of it.
She shakes under the falling snow, but not from the cold. "I'm so sorry, I—" Her breath catches, stopping short as unsaid words fall from her lips. A nameless emotion wraps around her heart and cradles it close, with hands sewn in colors of dusty rose and lavender and blue. The same colors that are painted across Asterion's mahogany skin, and shot through his mane in silver.
Even now, she still begs to Calligo that he is not a dream. That he is blessedly, wonderfully real, and not a whim that will disappear when the sun rises. And that emotion that holds the baby bird of her heart suddenly has a name.
She is Cinderella then, defiant in her own story as she leans forward. Her lips steal his own for a heartbeat, in a desperate need to prove that her prince is real. And oh, as her eyes flutter close, and blush rises beneath the dark of her skin, she realizes:
Yes. He is. Wonderfully and fantastically real, and not crafted from faerie tales but right here in front of her. And maybe now, just maybe, he can understand exactly what he means to her. How he has been forever tattooed into her heart, her soul, her being.
And the night falls away and it is only him and her under a sea of waking stars, as she pulls away and looks up at him with silver lining her eyes.
@asterion I can't omg ♡ this post was inspired by this song! I CAN'T HANDLE THEM OKAY -faints- "Aislinn speech."
He watches her smile spread across her dark lips like it is art. For him it is: a thing of beauty, with a touch of mystery – something he can’t fully understand, not yet, but would gladly give his life to studying. Asterion would be a scholar of that smile, of the touch of starshine in her eyes.
The twilight bay does not expect her apology and he sorrows at the hitch of her lips, the tremble like a river-eddy beneath her skin.
“Sorry?” he asks, and for a moment his brow creases, his dark gaze searching hers. “But you did nothing wrong –”
He does not get the chance to say anything else, for that is when she kisses him, and all the thoughts run out of his head like sea-foam.
There is only the press of her lips against his, the heat from her nearness, the static livewires of his nerves. Before he can react, before he can claim a deeper kiss, she withdraws. All he can do then is laugh a soft little laugh, less in humor than in happiness. In wonder.
Then he grins, and almost shyly ducks his head, glancing at her through a forelock tangled with sea-salt and dusted with silver paint.
“Well,” he says, and breathes another laugh when he finds he can’t quite gather his thoughts. Suddenly the night, already remarkable, seems to hold nothing but promise. Like every fire was lit for them, every star is shining for them. He had thought it would close things off, to belong – but oh, how his universe has opened.
And then his belly rumbles, audible to him even over the music, the laughter, the cacophony of the festival. In his nervousness, in his worry (and in his drinking, to settle such things) Asterion had forgotten to eat. His smile turns wry, and he lifts a brow at her, steady even as his heart is still catching its breath. “I’m starving,” he admits, as though it is a weakness. “Help me find something?”
THE STORMS WE CHASE ARE LEADING US
AND LOVE IS ALL WE'LL EVER TRUST -
Their kiss unravels her, and it is their ending and beginning. A newborn star born from collapse in the galaxy that expands around them from that one touch. She is undone in this moment, and suddenly, she doesn't care as her heart soars. Just like the wonderland of the night they had met, Aislinn's heart is flying, with no hope of ever coming back down to the ground. Not that she would ever want to come back; not when it meant that they were not in their own kingdom in the clouds.
As she pulls away, she cannot help but feel the familiar prick of tears in her eyes. But they are not of sorrow, or pain, but of a joy that releases a drop of silver from the blue of her orbs like a falling star. That one, single tear is just another in the star-map that has been painted upon her skin. But this tear, this shooting star that falls, is all of her wishes bound into one tangible thing. She is glad for it, more than she can hope to put into words. So instead, the stormsinger sends a prayer heavensward. To her goddess that slowly claims the colorful sky in her blanket of shadows and smoke.
It is because of Calligo that she had met him, and now, Aislinn cannot bear the idea of parting with him.
She blinks upwards to meet his face, with a hurricane swirling in her gut from both relief and giddiness. His words are incredibly light, and she holds onto his smile, burning it into her memory. Oh, what she would do to keep that smile tucked safe and sound. What she would do to see it, over and over again. And Asterion's laughter. Together, she giggles, the waves of nervousness bubbling in her throat and replaced with the gold of happiness.
What she would give to live in the moment for eternity, then. To stay here with the man at her side and never return to reality on the ground.
I'm starving. Help me find something?
Her answering laughter is a musical sound that mimicked the drums and bells of Denocte. Carefree and wild and blissfully untamed. She is a spirit that is made free by the wind and unchained by the worries of a world that threatens to fall. On this night, there is no heaviness, no shackles, no shadows. He is her star, and she the woman who gladly cradles it's beauty in the galaxy around them. She can only smile, forever living in this moment, as she meets the dark of his eyes with the blue fires of her own.
Her cowardice is a long forgotten dream; her guilt drowning in the far reaches of her memory.
"Of course," she sighs, her grin broadening. Can her smile grow any wider? Any brighter? She can merely test the boundaries of her bliss, as her wing tucks him close and she surges into the crowd with a bout of laughter on her lips. "Come," she says, chasing the trails of woodsmoke and sugar and cinnamon on the night air, "show me the City of Dreams, Asterion. I'm sure we'll find something."
Her wink is both mischievous and lovely and everything apart of her that has made her the dreamer she was made to be.
@asterion ♡ -dies- precious cinnamon rolls
this post is pooey, I'm sorry dearie D: "Aislinn speech."
It is she who is the star, brilliant and fearless and burning, and Asterion the sky that steadies it and shows off its shine – or maybe he is a moon, slim and silver, helpless to avoid its orbit. She is a galleon, brave and bold with its billowing sails, and he the calm carrying sea.
Or maybe they are only themselves, and they are together, and nothing else matters at all.
He is enchanted by her laughter. Asterion has never heard a sound as sweet and wild, a mountain stream that bounds over the rocks, that gives life to everything around it. Her laughter, her happiness, is sustaining. He thinks (and perhaps it is the drink, fuzzy and bright as starlight in his mind and his veins) that maybe he doesn’t need food after all – he could live forever on her smile, the timbre of it in her voice.
Come, she says, but there is no need: he is already following her, swept up in the silver of her wake. He knows, somewhere below conscious thought, that he would follow her anywhere – he knew it from the first, when he saw her dancing with the fireflies.
He is a dreamer, after all, and she the dream.
If he could he would capture her wink, keep it to treasure; instead he presses a quick kiss to her cheek, blows a length of starlit hair from her temple.
“I’ve already found all I want,” he says softly, in her ear, and then he’s laughing, dancing off ahead of her with a clatter of hooves on stone. Heart full, eyes shining like moonlight on the sea, the night all potential ahead of him.
@Aislinn <3333 good place to wrap? I just read her broken-wing thread D:
THE STORMS WE CHASE ARE LEADING US
AND LOVE IS ALL WE'LL EVER TRUST -
Oh, how very wrong she was.
For the City of Dreams is all but the kingdom of their faerie tale, with their castle of pearl and a wondrous dreamland that sprawls around them in firelight and music and sugar spun into stars. This night is their undoing, their beginning, their everything and nothing all at once. How could she not possibly see that the universe has been laid at her feet? He stands before her now, kissed by the twilight that falls and painted in the hues of sunsets. And she, the star that is ensnared in his galaxy, with a star map upon her skin and moons in her eyes.
This is their dream. This is her dream. Her hope. Her wishes made. All that matters to her stands at her side. And she wants nothing else but this. This moment. Forever and always. Just like the imprint of his kiss on her cheek; an invisible tattoo that is stained into the midnight of her skin.
I've already found what I want.
His lips tickle her ear, and her laugh joins with his in a song that only they can hear. Before she realizes it, his hooves dance along the crystalline stones at their feet. Beckoning her, with his smile and the twinkle in his eyes that shine brighter than Calligo's stars above. And she surges forward, prancing and disappearing into the crowds, her laughter so so light as she follows him.
For wherever he goes, she will be there. Always.
@asterion ♡ anddd that's a wrap c: -flails- "Aislinn speech."
